My Three Cousins

Chapter Thirty-One

After a moment more of coaxing from Joan, Ruth pulled herself in a crawling position, still weakened from the shocks she had received.  "Is Helen alive?"  She asked, distracted by her upset and panic.

Joan and I exchanged glances, already knowing the answer.  Before either one of us could break it to Ruth, she yelled across the water to me, "go check. Check on Helen!"  Her voice came out strangled and as much as I wanted to tell her we needed to hurry there was a part of me that knew that if I didn't go to Helen she wouldn't be able to continue on.

I turned and ran toward Helen, dropping to my knees by her body.  My throat was constricting and tears were coming to my eyes.  I hated being this close to her when I knew it was too late.  I leaned down and listened to her chest.  For a moment I hoped to be wrong but she was eerily silent.  I put my hand to her neck as if checking her pulse and felt nothing.  I sat up and turned back to look at Joan and Ruth.  When my eyes met Joan's I know they confirmed everything she had been fearing but her only reaction was to give a very small shake of her head.

I took a deep breath feeling bad about what I had to do but preparing to do it anyway.  "She has a pulse," I lied, "but its faint."  I added hoping this would stop me from having to admit to lying later.

My words seemed to physically strengthen Ruth and she sat straighter, taking a deep breath.  "Can you carry her?"  She asked.

"Carry her?"  I was repulsed and upset by the idea, the last thing I wanted to do was bring Helen's body to her sisters.  I also didn't want Ruth to see I had been lying until she had gotten rid of the electric man for good.

"Please just bring her a little closer, it will help."  Ruth said, still sounding weak.

My heart was pounding so hard that I felt like I couldn't breathe.  I bent down and wrapped my arms gently around Helen's body like she was a sleeping toddler.  I tried to pick her up and found her surprisingly light.  I got to my feet, still holding her, and carried her to the spot directly across the pond from Ruth, not wanting to come any closer in case she'd notice that Helen was gone.  When I had leaned down to touch Helen, she had still felt warm but in my arms, I started to feel how unnaturally cold she was.  As I was bringing Helen over, Joan was helping Ruth to the water's edge.

I sat Helen down, noticing a piece of hair had fallen over her face.  I reached down to move it, thinking about the time Helen had spent teaching me how to braid hair when we were kids and the gentle way she had touched and complimented my braid when we arrived this summer.  As I got close to her I whispered, "sorry" quiet enough that Ruth and Joan couldn't hear.  I was sorry. I was sorry that I had spent so much of my last summer with her mistrusting her and mad at her. I was sorry I hadn't seen she was hurting too all these years.  Most of all I was sorry that my mom pulled me away and I didn't get back fast enough to help her.  I was sorry my absence and my weakness were being taken out on my friendly, funny, bubbly cousin who was so full of life just earlier today and never would be again.  Across the water Joan asked, "ready?"

"I think so," Ruth said, but between their words I heard something else.

Now that I had my head close to Helen and the water's surface, I heard a humming sound.  It was faint but definitely there, seeming to come from the water itself.  It crackled and vibrated in a way that felt familiar but also that I couldn't quite understand.  Electricity.

I went to yell stop just as Ruth shoved her hands into the water to enhance its properties.  For a moment, it seemed like I had yelled just in time, she tilted her head up slightly to look at me with a confused look frozen on her face, but then the look of confused turned to one of pain and she began to convulse.  Her eyes rolled back in her head and her body shook violently.  Unlike like the last bolt, though, this one held on to her, keeping her attached to the water.

Joan stared at her sister, not sure what was going on.  She hadn't heard the humming and she couldn't seem to make sense of why her sister's power would suddenly cause her to shake like this.  I took advantage of that confusion to run around to Joan and grab her.  She tried to pull away from me, "don't touch her.  The water is electrified."  My words seemed to register.

Joan began to look around for some other way to free Ruth from the water's grasp but just as she did this the electric man jumped from the water and the electricity left the pond.  Ruth slumped over in a way that made my heart sink, but we didn't have time to focus on her.  

The electric man's face was almost melting off of him.  One of his arms was entirely gone below the elbow and his clothes hung in rags around his electric blue body.  "What did you do to me?"  He screamed with agony pouring from his voice.  He lifted the missing arm like he wanted to shoot lightning from it and stumbled backward.  As he continued to take stock of the missing parts of his body and take large steps backward, away from the water I heard another noise getting closer.

Just as it became clear that the sound was an engine, I saw an old silver Buick pull into the yard. It moved at a dangerous speed and was aimed right at the man.  Lennox rammed him with their car and there was a loud thud followed by a sizzle.  The half-dissolved man fell down, unconscious.