CHAPTER SEVEN
They slept in. The sun was inching towards its noonday position when Michaela squinted out the kitchen window. Trisha appeared behind her.
‘Can’t you keep the noise down?’ she asked Michaela, standing in the doorway her hair falling over her eyes. She groaned. ‘Feel like death warmed up. How much did we have last night anyway? I feel like I drank five large Russians under the table.’
Michaela would have been amused at that if she weren’t so busy agreeing with it. ‘That’s hardly politically correct,’ she said. ‘Got any Tylenol?’
‘No,’ said Trisha, lowering herself onto a kitchen chair. ‘All symptoms, no cure on this end of things.’ She pushed her hair back. ‘Bloody hell, who turned the sun on high?’
Michaela laughed and immediately put a hand to her head. She headed toward the bathroom and sifted through the cabinet in there. Jackpot. Untwisting the lid she palmed two tablets and chewed them, grimacing at the bitter taste. She plonked the bottle in front of Trisha.
‘Water,’ demanded Trisha. ‘They’ll just stick to my tongue otherwise.’ She groaned. ‘Who’s the brilliant idea was it to drink so much anyway?’
Michaela brought her a glass of water and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Yours, I believe.’
‘Huh. Water. You’re an angel after all.’ She swallowed two tablets, looked at the bottle of Tylenol, then took an extra one. She peered up at Michaela through the thick tangle of curls that had fallen back over her face. ‘So tell me why we didn’t sleep together last night?’
Michaela gaped at her, then burst into laughter. ‘God loves a trier,’ she said, shaking her head. She bent down over Trisha at the table and whispered in her ear. ‘You might be bargaining for more than you would get in that area.’
Trisha raised an eyebrow and looked Michaela up and down. ‘Baby, I don’t think so,’ she said.
Michaela laughed again. ‘I’m going to cook up a fry up. My mother swore by it as a cure for a hangover.’ She ignored the sound of Trisha groaning. ‘Then we’re going for a walk. See if Sherlock and her loyal sidekick Watson can do a bit of detecting.’
Trisha banged her head against the table and groaned again. ‘I thought I’d dreamed that,’ she said. ‘Do we have to? I’d rather just lie around here today.’ She propped her head in her hands.
Michaela broke the eggs into a pan. ‘Yes, we have to. Or at least, I have to. I want to check it out. I want to see if there’s anything there, you know, where it went bang.’
‘How are we even supposed to find the spot again anyway?’ Trisha said, drooping even lower over the table.
‘I think I can find it,’ Michaela replied, undaunted. She scrambled the eggs and tipped them onto plates alongside crispy rashers of bacon. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘Wrap your laughing gear around this.’
It took another hour to get a protesting Trisha into her boots and out the door. But the Tylenol was working and it was a beautiful day outside, the sunlight over the lake the color of their scrambled eggs. Michaela grabbed Trisha’s arm as they began their walk around the lake.
‘What’s that?’ she whispered.
Trisha looked upwards where Michaela was pointing. ‘It’s a goddamned squirrel,’ she said. ‘What, you want a guided nature walk, now?’
‘Hey,’ said Michaela, giving Trisha a light punch on the arm. ‘I’ve never seen one before so cut me some slack.’
‘You’re joking? Never seen a squirrel before? Come on, they’re everywhere, those things.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Not in New Zealand, they’re not.’ She looked out over the lake. ‘How long does it take to walk around it?’ she asked.
Trisha gave up on being grouchy. ‘The lake?’ she asked. ‘About an hour and a half at a guess. I’ve never trekked all the way around but it’s not that big, really, more like an overgrown pond.’ She looked around. ‘Where do you think your ghost ball or whatever went down?’
‘Not just mine,’ Michaela said, flipping a stone over the lake’s surface. ‘You were there too, remember.’
Trisha picked up a stone and sent it bouncing over the water. She grinned at Michaela. ‘Beat ya.’ She shrugged. ‘Yeah, I remember; it was pretty bloody freaky. What I don’t get though, is why we’re going trekking all over the place looking for it, if it was just some gas fart?’
The little beach petered out and Michaela scrambled up the bank. She reached out a hand and hauled the other woman up. ‘I just want to see. There was something about it that didn’t seem right.’ She frowned and shrugged. ‘Besides, it’s something to do, right?’
‘Yeah, so is having an afternoon nap.’
Michaela poked her in the ribs. ‘Come on, admit it, you’re enjoying yourself just a little bit?’
Thirty minutes later they reached the spot where Michaela thought the light had disappeared. Michaela stopped and took a water bottle from the little backpack she was carrying. She took a swig and chucked it to Trisha.
‘So you reckon it was here?’ asked Trisha, wiping her mouth.
Michaela looked around. ‘Yeah.’ She pointed at a tree. ‘See how that one looks like it’s pointing out over the lake? I marked it in my mind last night. I’m pretty sure it’s the one.’
Trisha handed the water back. ‘So Sherlock, what are we looking for?’ Michaela was already scouting around, examining the ground. ‘Residue, I guess.
You look up and I’ll look down.’
‘Residue. All righty then. You look up and I’ll look down,’ she said. ‘You’re taller than me.’
They hunted around, working backward from the lake’s edge. Michaela tried to remember exactly what had happened last night. They’d been peering through the trees and the light had gone dipping and swaying over the lake. Then it had drifted off to the left, leaving the lake, and bobbing up near the trees, especially that one, the pointing tree she’d noticed. So, somewhere around here, there should be some sign of it. Michaela blinked. Or not, of course. Not if it was a marsh light.
‘Trisha,’ she said. ‘You’ve been here at the lake before, haven’t you? You ever have seen anything like that light before?’
Trisha looked up from the ground. ‘Never,’ she said.
‘Hmm.’ Michaela thought about it. ‘I should have looked it up before we left, but I’m pretty sure ghost lights only show up in marshy areas. That’s where the gas is that makes them.’
Trisha stretched and stuck her hands on her hips. ‘So how would we see one over the lake then?’ Not that I know anything about the lake either. For all I know, it could have gas deposits anywhere. How do you know about this stuff anyway?’
Michaela was still looking upwards at the tree trunks and branches. She shrugged. ‘I don’t. Not really. I’ve just always been interested in weird stuff like that. Bit of a hobby, I guess.’
Trisha pulled a face. ‘God, you are Sherlock.’
Michaela nodded. ‘Yeah. And I’ve just found something. Trisha! Take a look at this.’ She reached out a finger and pointed at one of the trees. ‘Trisha, look at this!’.