By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain by Joe Hill Page B

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    â€œDrowned,” she decided.
    She wished she had a yellow rose to throw into the water.
    Gail went on but had hardly trudged three paces when she heard a sound from across the lake, a long, mournful lowing, like a foghorn, but also not like one.
    She stopped for another look.
    The mist smelt of rotting smelt.
    The foghorn did not sound again.
    An enormous gray boulder rose out of the shallows here, rising right up onto the sand. Some net was snarled around it. After a moment of hesitation, Gail grabbed the net and climbed to the top.
    It was a really large boulder, higher than her head. It was curious she had never noticed it before, but then, things looked different in the mist.
    Gail stood on the boulder, which was high but also long, sloping away to her right, and curling in a crescent out into the water on her left. It was a low ridge of stone marking the line between land and water.
    She peered out into the cool, blowing smoke, looking for the rescue ship that had to be out there somewhere, trolling for survivors of the wreck. Maybe it wasn’t too late for the little boy. She lifted her kaleidoscope to her eye, counting on its special powers to penetrate the mist and show her where the schooner had gone down.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” said someone behind her.
    Gail looked over her shoulder. It was Joel and Ben Quarrel, both of them barefoot. Ben Quarrel looked just like a little version of his older brother. Both of them were dark-haired and dark-eyed and had surly, almost petulant faces. She liked them both, though. Ben would sometimes spontaneously pretend he was on fire, and throw himself down and roll around screaming and someone would have to put him out. He needed to be put out about once an hour. Joel liked dares, but he would never dare anyone to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. He had dared Gail to let a spider crawl on her face, a daddy longlegs, and then when she wouldn’t, he did it. He stuck his tongue out and let the daddy longlegs crawl right over it. She was afraid he would eat it, but he didn’t. Joel didn’t say much and he didn’t boast, even when he had done something amazing, like get five skips on a stone.
    She assumed they would be married someday. Gail had asked Joel if he thought he’d like that, and he had shrugged and said it suited him fine. That was in June, though, and they hadn’t talked about their engagement since. Sometimes she thought he had forgotten.
    â€œWhat happened to your eye?” she asked.
    Joel touched his left eye, which was surrounded by a painful looking red-and-brown mottling. “I was playing Daredevils of the Sky and fell out of my bunk bed.” He nodded toward the lake. “What’s out there?”
    â€œThere’s a ship sank. They’re looking for survivors now.”
    Joel took off his shoes and put them up on the rock. Then he grabbed the netting tangled on the boulder, climbed to the top, and stood next to her, staring out into the mist.
    â€œWhat was the name?” he asked.
    â€œThe name of what?”
    â€œThe ship that sank.”
    â€œThe Mary Celeste .”
    â€œHow far out?”
    â€œA half a mile,” Gail said, and lifted her kaleidoscope to her eye for another look around.
    Through the lens, the dim water was shattered, again and again, into a hundred scales of ruby and chrome.
    â€œHow do you know?” Joel asked after a bit.
    She shrugged. “I found some things that washed up.”
    â€œCan I see?” Ben Quarrel asked. He was having trouble climbing the net to the top of the boulder. He kept getting halfway, then jumping back down.
    She turned to face him and took the soft green glass out of her pocket.
    â€œThis is an emerald,” she said. She took out the tin cowboy. “This is a tin cowboy. The boy this belonged to probably drowned.”
    â€œThat’s my tin cowboy,” Ben said. “I left it yesterday.”
    â€œIt