Page 121 of Middle of the Night

Only it’s no longer there.

I yank my hand out of the water and stare at it, flexing my fingers in the pale light.

Billy is gone.

But suddenly Henry is there, alert to my presence, struggling to stay afloat. I sweep him into my arms, checking for signs of injury.

“Are you hurt?”

Henry, too shocked to speak, can only shake his head.

“You’re fine,” I reassure him. “We’re both fine.”

I duck under the water again, this time to maneuver myself through the space between his bound arms. When I emerge again, he’s on my back, his arms secured around my neck. Once we’re in that safe but awkward position, I swim to the water’s edge, not stopping until I’ve dragged both of us onto dry land.

As I go about untying Henry’s wrists, I look to shadowy nooks around the falls, hoping for a glimpse of Billy.

I don’t see him, of course, because I couldn’t see him when I wasbeing rescued. I simply felt his hand in mine and knew it was him. It’s only now, waiting for further rescue, that doubt creeps in.

I thought I’d seen Billy’s ghost before and was proven wrong. Now might not be any different. It’s more likely that it had simply been a way of coping with what I assumed would be my death. That kind of thing happens, I know. People claiming to see relatives long passed welcoming them to the afterlife right before they’re yanked back to the land of the living.

Just as I’m starting to lean toward hallucination, Henry says, “Mr. Marsh, did that boy help you, too?”

My heart hiccups in my chest. “What boy?”

“The one who pulled me out of the water.”

While it’s possible that both of us experienced similar near-death hallucinations, it’s also doubtful. Especially when there’s still no explanation for how I was able to find Henry in the vast, dark water of the lake.

Because of that, I choose to believe there was another force at work. A benevolent hand that guided me out of the depths and to Henry’s side.

“Yes,” I say. “He did. But he’s not just any boy. He’s my friend. His name is Billy.”

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

11:55 p.m.

Fat, wet snowflakes hit the windows as Ethan waits for midnight. He stretches out half asleep on the couch, barely watching the hordes of revelers whooping it up in Times Square. On the coffee table in front of him is a half-finished beer, a half-drunk root beer, and a half-eaten pizza.

I sure know how to party, he thinks with a lazy smile.

In his defense, it’s been a busy day. Ethan’s parents came up from Florida for Christmas, heading back only that morning. That afternoon, he visited Vance Wallace, finding him blessedly lucid, which isn’t always the case. Then that evening, Ragesh and his husband came over for dinner, leaving early when the snow started to fall.

If the forecast is correct, there’ll be almost a foot on the ground by morning. Ethan makes a mental note to brew extra coffee tomorrow so he can pass it out as everyone on Hemlock Circle gathers to clear their driveways. The cul-de-sac always seems to take on a party atmosphere when it snows. A far cry from the somberness that descended over the neighborhood once the truth about Billy’s death was revealed.

It was chaos there for a little bit, as reporters swarmed thecul-de-sac like wasps. Ethan had so many people sneaking into his yard that he had to take down the trail cam because it kept pinging from dawn to dusk.

The attention, thankfully, didn’t last long once people realized there was nothing sensational about what had really happened. In unsavory areas of the internet that Ethan no longer bothers to venture, people even expressed disappointment that the truth was so mundane, so boringly human.

There were no villains in this story.

Nor were there heroes.

Just a neighborhood of flawed people, some more than others.

So the media moved on. Hemlock Circle did, too. It’s amazing to Ethan how much the neighborhood has changed in eighteen months, with new faces moving in now that most of the old ones have departed. Vance Wallace was the first to go. With Ethan’s help, he put his house on the market and used the proceeds to pay for an assisted-living facility. Thanks to the skyrocketing housing market, he’ll be taken care of for the rest of his life.

Fritz and Alice Van de Veer were next, followed, dishearteningly, by the Chens. Russ claimed it was because they needed more space after his second child was born. A girl. He and Jennifer named her Hannah. That may be true, but Ethan suspects he had something to do with the move. Once it became clear Ethan wasn’t going anywhere, Russ decided to do it instead.

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