The slope down to the river is steep, and dry dirt slides over the rocky earth beneath. I grab hold of the large trunk of a cypress to catch my balance.
The boy with the curls is sitting beside a cooler in its own inner tube. He reaches over to a large speaker and starts up the music, something with thudding bass and a guy singing about hoes.
“I’m telling you, man, she’s buried out here somewhere. They’re going to find her,” the curly-haired boy says.
“Everyone knows her boyfriend did it.”
“She was cheating on him,” the boy in the ballcap says. “That’s what that new podcast said.”
“My dad told me that. He used to be friends with Ben Sherman. And, honestly, I get it,” the stocky kid in the water says.
“You get it?”
“Yeah, bro, you’ve seen her picture in that trophy case. She was fucking hot. If I had a piece of ass like that, and she cheated on me? I’d cut her head off.”
An eruption of laughter. The kind of dark humor that feels safe in a private group chat, where the goal is to shock each other, push the line, get a reaction. That’s what teenage boys do. Still, it doesn’t sit well with me. I push off from the tree and march toward them.
“Fuck!”
The word cracks the air before I even register that it came from me. There is a throbbing pain in my foot, and I lift it to see a black drywall screw lodged into the thin sole of my slipper. I peel the shoe off slowly. As the screw backs out, I feel its spiraling ridges tugging at my skin. In the moonlight, I can see blood trickling down the arch of my foot. I look back to the boys, who are quiet now, staring straight at me, and I imagine how I must look to them, a figure in the trees, face drained of color, cardigan rustling in the breeze like a white robe. The ghost of Isabelle Whitmore back from the grave to make them shit their pants. I twist the screw out of my slipper, put it in the pocket of my cardigan, and place my slipper back on my foot.
I’m careful not to put too much weight on it as I continue toward them. The ground changes closer to the water, and I feel the mud begin to suck the slippers away from my feet. “Hey, y’all can’t be down here,” I call out over the music.
When I clear the trees, the curly-haired kid turns to ask his buddies, still in the water, “Who the fuck is that?”
“I’m the property manager,” I call to them again, still making my way over. “I’m—” I hesitate. “I’m staying there.” I stop and gesture back up the bank, toward the model home.
“Oh, you’re Olivia’s mom, right?” The boy in the ball cap replies, pulling himself onto a limestone rock in one swift motion up and out of the water.
“That’s me.” I give them all a little wave.
“Oh, yeah. Cool to meet you,” the boy with the curls says. He sees me eyeing the beer in the cooler and shuts it.
“Listen, you boys know you shouldn’t be drinking, you need to chuck that, clean all this mess up, and move along.”
“What’s going on?” The husky boy has migrated over to the same rock the kid in the ball cap just pulled himself onto.
Curly turns to break the bad news to him. “Party’s over, Teddy. We got to bounce.” Then he moves to the speaker, still in its float pulled up on the bank, and cuts off the music.
“That’s some bullshit.” Teddy hoists himself from the water, using a knee as leverage, his wet T-shirt suctioning to his belly. “You can’t own the river, man.” He turns the music back on. And then twists the volume knob all the way up, obnoxiously.
“I know there’s new owners.” I reach down to the speaker to kill the music myself. “But this is still private property. Someone has already purchased this lot.”
“Lady, my dad paid three hundred bucks for this speaker. Hands off.” Teddy bends down, cutting it right back on. He’s a stubborn kid, and a sturdy one, that’s for sure. Once he’s gathered himself, he’s a full head taller than me. He’s close enough now that the water dripping off him is splashing onto the tops of my feet.
“This is one of them fancy waterproof speakers, right?” I ask. Bending over to turn it back off.
“Yeah,” Teddy confirms, hitting the power button back on.
“Well then…” I say. Faster than Teddy can react, I grab the plastic speaker by the handle and toss it out into the middle of the river. “Better go fetch it.”
Teddy spins around just in time to watch it splash and start to float away. “What the fuck, lady? Are you fucking serious?” He runs his hands through his buzzed hair, sending water misting off it.
“Listen, I don’t care how big you are, none of you are old enough to be drinking.” I gesture to the cooler. “Chuck the beer.” I point to the roll-off dumpster up the bank in the driveway of the unfinished home.
Teddy spins around back to me. “Why? So you can go and dig it out?”
The words sting worse than the pain pulsing through my foot. I wonder if he heard that from his parents or if he heard it from Olivia.