Chapter Thirteen - A camp’s teetering
The night was very dark, almost foreboding in it’s unlit grip. A solitary figure sits on a wooden chair, a lit smoke dancing in the darkness like a firefly. Every now and then the light stopped and was still for a second, then was on the mover again.
Mandy was the one who was sitting there, her face was a mask of great emotions. What she had seen this night, was haunting her as she had a smoke. In the darkness, it seemed to help to sit there, but only to elevate it.
She had just gone to see Miss Ashfield, but she was gone to the hospital to check on Tabitha’s condition, their meeting would be tomorrow sometime after breakfast. She was sort of glad of it, as this had turned out to be such a long day. She just wanted to have this smoke, and then go off to try and get some sleep for herself... even though she was sure that she would probably not get very much.
She could still hear some of the police that were still on Pawa’s property milling around in front of the administration building and were walking around. She just stayed right where she was and tried to ignore it all, all the while she was fighting to settle herself down.
Mandy heard the heavy sounds of boots coming from between the two buildings, on the way to the smoking area. There was someone from the darkness heading her way. She squinted through the dimness to see who it was. By what she could slightly make out through the darkness, it was one of the Officers who was coming over.
“ I thought I would find you here, Miss Mandy Thayer...” Said a voice from the figure, a voice that Mandy recognized.
The figure got closer, and the young councilor could see that it was the Officer that had helped both CC and her when she was attacked that one summer years ago. The woman had not changed one bit in all of this time.
“ Officer Dana Livingstone?” She called out, shocked to see the Policewoman after so long.
“ It’s me...” The officer smirked.
“ How did you know I was here?” Asked the long haired young councilor, her shock growing mor apparent.
Officer Dana giggled, as she was now close enough to gaze at the younger woman’s face clearly.
“ With a list of all of the employees we have to help out with this investigation...I saw your name leaped off of the page right at me...” She explained.
“ And you remembered me?” Mandy was surprised.
“ Lets just say that it is hard not to have remembered you... even after all of this time.” Chuckled the Officer.
Mandy nodded and regarded the woman with a smile that was broad. It was a pleasant thing to know that, regardless of just how they had to have met the first time. Officer Livingstone saw the reaction and smirked
“ I have read the statement you already have given to the officer in charge here, and was glad to be sent over to talk with you more.” Said the tall blonde woman, giggling just a little. “ It’s been many years since we saw one another.... hasn’t it?”
Mandy nodded, as she knew it had been more than just a few years now since seeing the Officer Dana, and she felt herself being able to relax a little. Dana walked over to just near the petite young woman and took a seat next to her on one of the deck chairs.
“ I was just thinking about that right now. It must be five years, by my count it has been...” The woman said.
“ Feels way longer...” Commented Mandy, her mind still processing the fact that the woman was actually there.
Officer Dana seemed to start fidgeting a little in her seat, her very expressive eyes locked right on to Mandy’s dark orbs. Mandy looked back with a tired stare of her own, her eyes showing just how overwhelmed she was.
“ I... uh... before I start here... I seemed to have heard about CC passing away awhile back... That must have been so hard.” She said, her voice showing that the woman knew of the loss incurred by the young woman.
Mandy nodded and tried to smile a little grin. Even after all of these years since that fateful day, losing CC still was hard on her. She swallowed hard, as it brought up her recent break-up as well.
“ Yes... “ Was all she could say.
“ Cancer?”
“ Leukemia.” Choked out Mandy, just saying it even now... very hard.
The officer seemed to pause for a moment, regarding Mandy with a long look.
“ I lost my own mother to Breast Cancer many years ago already...” Officer Livingstone said softly, her eyes flashing a sense of understanding to the smaller person sitting beside her. “ It has been almost eight... no... Nine years now for me since she passed away. It sometimes feels like it happened only yesterday.... other times it starts to feel like it just happened a few moments ago.”
The long dark haired girl understood just what the policewoman said all to well. She looked at Officer Dana and gave a little nod.
“ I think it feels that way for a very long time, and it seems like it will be like that always.” Mandy said, her eyes glossing over with sadness.
“ Yes... Yes it does.” Nodded the woman in blue, hearing the wisdom the younger lady had in this.
“ Unfortunately that is a reality.” Added in Mandy
The officer shifted in her seat, reacting to seeing the girl’s eyes falling dark with the emotions her words had brought up.
“ Getting back to this task at hand....” The woman in blue said, seemingly hesitant to do it. It was clear that the Officer was there not for a simple social call.“ I hate to be doing this to you, but I need to ask you a few more questions of what you seen when you found the young girl.”
“ You have more questions for me?” Said the younger gal, with a sigh.
“ Unfortunately I do have a few more questions to ask of you.” Answered back the Officer.
Mandy rubbed her sweat dampened brow and looked at the woman through eyes that seemed to be almost blanked by everything.
“ I guess that you have to, don’t you?” She said, her voice having no inflection in it. “ Sort of what you do, eh?
“ I’ll admit, it is not one of favorite things I have to do in this job...” She frowned, giving Mandy a sigh to accent her own words. “... but it is how we conduct things to solve crimes... and one of those things is to go over the information you give us many times over to get that whole picture.”
Mandy was not wanting to revisit what she had seen tonight, the image of the near lifeless form of Tabitha cradled in her lap was still way to clear in her head. It was so very hard having to relive it all over again, but she knew she had to do it to help the Police to have any chance of finding the twisted person who had did this to the young girl. Propping her courage up once more, she looked at the officer.
“ I promise you... I will try to be as gentle as I can when asking these questions....” Added in the officer. “ Are you up to that?”
Mandy locked her eyes on to the officer, and she hung there as her mind whirled. After a few moments more of silence while looking up at the moon hanging overhead, the young councilor agreed to go over whatever had to with a nod.
“ What do you need to know then...” She softly asked.
Officer Livingstone flipped open her small notebook and began to question the young councilor as gently as she could, inside finding herself shocked at just how detailed the petite framed woman could be. She wrote everything down quickly, trying to make this as emotionally painless as she could possibly do.
******
Cabin nine seemed so quiet, as Mandy stepped through the door and into the entrance area. She paused to make sure she was walking as lightly as she could make herself. She could hear the sounds of deep snoring echoing from every part of the cabin’s interior, even from the entrance area. She stopped to listen to it all for a second, and found the sounds to be a calming sort of effect for her.
Taking a few steps further in, the young councilor could see a single soft light on just outside the shared bedroom she stayed in, left on probably by Olivia who had stayed back to look after the girls.
She made her way, noting that the time of nearly a quarter to four. She frowned as her mind saw the time, knowing that she had only two hours of sleep coming to her. She could only hope that she would pass out once in bed and sleep soundly for a hundred and twenty minutes and hope that would be enough... that was the only way she would be able to drag herself through the next day.
Nearing the door to her room and she was surprised to find a unknown tall and nearly too thin woman sitting in a shadow spot nearby on a old stool they had set there for their ‘walk’ duties. Startled with finding some unknown person sitting there, Mandy took a small step back, as the woman stood up.
“ You must be Mandy, there?” The woman asked, her voice painted with a heavy north east United States accent.
“ Yeah...” Nodded Mandy, feeling a little silly at her hesitancy as the voice of the woman was friendly. “ Who are you?”
The way too thin looking woman gave a small chuckle, shifting her stance, so she could see the younger lady in the light better.
“ I’m Irene Carter... I am usually one of the councilors with Cabin five up the hill a-ways...” The woman answered back in her unusual accent, giving a big smile that was so warm. “I was here keepin’ and eye out on yer campers fer ya... Olivia had to suddenly step out fer awhile here, an’ I was assigned to be here.”
Mandy understood why the lady was here and nodded. That was the rules when a lone councilor had to leave for a moment.
“ Did she say when will she be back?”
“ She did not say to me just what it was she left fer or nuthin’...” Irene said, shrugging her gangly looking shoulders. “ She just told me to come ‘n’ watch the girls until either you or she finally got back. She left with one of those policemen that are around... and that girl who’s the secretary for the Camp’s boss about twenty minutes ago.” She shrugged and yawned as she continued to speak. “ Seemed like it was somethin’ important...”
With everything has been happening tonight and the turmoil it was throwing Pawa into, she already had surmised that as one of the senior councilors here at Pawa, Olivia was probably needed to oversee things until Miss Ashfield came back from the hospital.
“ I’m back now... so just get back to your cabin and get whatever sleep that is left to actually get.” Suggested Mandy.
“ Gittin’ some sleep? That sounds like a good idea... I feel like I can sleep fer a week an’ more...” Said the woman with a small cracked smile, her accent getting heavier by the moment from the lateness of the night.
“ I hear you on that one...” Nodded the smaller of the two. “ Starting to feel like that myself.”
The shockingly thin woman broke a smile as she looked at Mandy with such a extremely tired look while she passed the small woman and headed for the door. By that single look that was on Irene’s face, it was clear that the whole camp would not probably be getting any real sleep this night.
It was like a feeling that hung over the camp...It was clear that the things that had happened here this night, was already impacting everyone from Campers, Councilors to any one of the administration support staff and would also reach to the kitchen help as well. No one was going to go untouched by what had happened on this steamy night. This thing had changed the feeling of the sleepy summer camp... more than ever before.
Mandy sighed and just stood there for a moment, her mind feeling the effects of being so muddled ,that it almost was too tired to tell the rest of her to get to bed. She could not help herself as she give herself a weak giggle int her chest, as this strange reality hit her exhausted funny bone.
“ I’m actually feeling too tired to go to bed...” Mandy mused with herself, finding that more than ridiculous.. but laughing at it anyways. She shook her head and giggled a second time. “... that is just so sad on so many levels....”
She sighed, as she looked around the stillness of the cabin again. The girl knew that she could not go straight to bed, her job as councilor was not done and it was overriding her complete heavy feeling of exhaustion. The young councilor knew she had to force herself to first take a check on each of her charges before tucking herself in. One last bed check before turning in herself for a brief sleep.
Behind each curtained door she checked, everyone was safely tucked into their beds and sound asleep, and Mandy felt thankful of that. Even both of the constantly battling twins were sound asleep like peaceful angels.. belying what they were like when awake, remembering how they were.
All was calm and quiet in the cabin, secured in the grip of a long hot night... it was a small feeling of satisfaction for just that. Mandy was grateful for that, after what she had seen on this night.
With her last councilor duties done, Mandy smiled and decided that it was now her turn to get some of sleep herself. She had been worried earlier that she would not be able to get any rest even if she tried, but the complete weariness she was feeling reaching throughout her entire body, made her know that was not going to be a problem at all. Sleep was the only thing her mind could tell her to do now.
She got into her room and striped down as fast as she could have done, enjoying the sensations of getting off her sweat and grim caked clothes. She hoped that she would have time for a shower in the morning, but right now all she wanted was the couple of hours of sleep that was coming to her.
The young woman heavily crawled into the small bed, feeling every part of her body was already was anticipating just where it was she was going. Her whole body felt like it was becoming heavier by the second, and the bed was feeling so damn inviting.
Sighing, Mandy covered herself up and layed there for a moment in the near pitch blackness of the room, the silence that was there was such a relief for her weariness. Her body in reaction to finally being horizontal , almost felt like it was literally sinking in to the comfort of the mattress. She quickly dropped off to sleep the very second she had allowed herself to close her eyes.