Chapter 13: Read the Brim

The ballroom was so quiet that I could hear the swans melting.

"That's absurd," said the woman in yellow. "I was there. I know what happened to me."

"You said she was nine," Gran said. "Vinnie was seven that summer. She turned eight in October."

The woman looked at the cap, then at the door, then at the cap.

"I'm very tall for nine," she said, for the second time that night.

The man at the bar put down his drink.

"Sweetheart," Austin said. "Your name begins with a D."

"It's a nickname for a nickname."

Austin's mother had not moved.

She held the empty storage box against her chest with both arms.

"You answered my post," she said slowly. "You said you had the pond story, and I put up the reward. Two thousand dollars."

"You paid me by check," said the woman in yellow, and then shut her mouth.

Gran tapped her cane twice on the parquet, and the room turned back to her.

"I'll tell it once," she said.

She did not look at me while she did.

"In July of 2004, the camp called me at nine at night. A boy had gone under at the pond, and a little girl had pulled him up the bank by his collar."

"She blew the lifeguard's whistle until he came," Gran said. "The counselor told me it was the redhead from Cabin Six."

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