The truth about Sammy.

• Author: Woody, Marshall
• Position: Literary Scene - Short story

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

MY UNCLE MITCH broke through the ice where it was thinnest. We could hear the tell-tale "cuff" "cuff" in the clark as both boots went into the sump marsh. My eldest cousin, Court, held up a hand chapped bare with cold warning us to be careful. It was largely unheeded by my uncle and me. There was a sucking sound as my uncle extricated his boots from the swampy reservoir. We pressed on.

The wind howled through the trees. We were surrounded by forest. Further down were large houses and, beyond them, lie the bay. I could smell its sweetness in the freezing evening air.

I had been the first to spot her body from the toad and I wax the first to stumble back upon it. An unflagging fascination drew me to the pasty blueing of her cheeks and forehead: lifeless horror had overcome her features in her last moments. I had never seen her before. Her face was one a young girl would remember. Even in hideous rigor it looked kind. "Here." I called, pointing.

My uncle Mitch had already seen her and covered the last few feet between us, flashing the light on her and drawing it quickly away with a breath. The gleaming tops of his wet brown shoes lingered a moment, then faded as our eyes adjusted. Court retched but didn't throw up. He couldn't look at her.

I saw the twirls of their breath in the moonlight. Court ironically had taken a position in front of me, as though he meant to act as a lee between the body and me. I could see her beyond his slender forearm, as again my uncle's light shined on her face.

For a moment no one said a word.

Her kind features (I fixated, envisioning her bending down to smile at me) bore death absurdly in the beam. One hand protruded from the piling snow, with the wrist tumed toward the head as though she were about to flip a stray hair from her eye. The rest of her was as dull and lifeless as the bloated seals that sometimes washed up on the beach. The sight of her elicited deep embarrassment in me as I blanched at the idea of meeting death in such an ordinary and unflattering pose.

"Take your cousin to her house," Uncle Mitch muttered, clearing his throat and turning to Court. "Go on. Go home. Make sure you call the cops."

Court's awkward, bony arm reached for mine. He secured my triceps just below the shoulder-cut of my heavy coat and prodded me away from the body.

I shielded my eyes as Court asked my uncle if he was coming.

"I'm staying here, with the body," Uncle Mitch said. "Go on home, Samantha."

"Damned idiot," Court said. My cousin was long-legged, his strides steady. I had a bit of a time keeping up. He picked me up and put me down beside him when we hit snowdrifts on the ridge up toward our neighborhood. If he had been a bit older he could have driven me in the car. It would have been a lot less creepy. My numb nose ran and my fingers were frozen stiff, due to my stubborn prejudice against gloves.

The fields looked ghoulish in the dark. They did not look like the same fields in which I often picked strawberries and had once sold lemonade for 10 cents a glass, mostly to Court and a few friends.

When we reached the Berkemeyers' lawn, Court slowed down. The farther we had come from the sump marshes the heavier the snow seemed to get. There was less ice, but greater effort involved in pulling one leg up and putting it in front of the other.

Through the windows of the Berkemeyers' I could see the flashing light of a television. Court glanced at the house for a quick moment and pulled me forward, through their backyard; he didn't like the Berkemeyers much. Mr. Berkemeyer yelled at us every time he caught us cutting through their yard to the fields. That was nearly every day in the summers. A human...