The wheels of the burgundy minivan barely stopped turning when the side door slid open and the gangly preteen girl jumped out and sprinted for the cabin. Her mother chuckled as the ginger-haired girl in the peach sundress disappeared around the corner of the rustic building, her long red ponytail swishing behind her. "I wish I had that much energy these days," muttered the woman as she shook her head. "Or long, skinny legs again."
By the time Colleen O'Brien made her way around the front of the vehicle to the open side door, her former passenger returned on a dead run. "Mom, Mom," puffed the out of breath girl. "There really is a lake back there, and it's sooo beautiful."
"I told you, Rylee," said her mother in her 'I told you so' tone of voice. "Now help me with these bags of groceries."
"But Mom…the lake."
"It will only take a few minutes. The lake will still be there when you're done helping me. And besides, we're the first to arrive. Your cousins won't be here for at least another couple of hours. They didn't have a mother who could take off all day Friday for this long weekend."
"Then why can't you come out to watch me?"
"I have to get lunch ready. First things first."
"Oh, all right," the girl said as she took the paper bag. She picked that one because of the ears of corn sticking out of the top. They were her favorite thing her Uncle Jake grilled at these family cookouts.
As she stepped from stone to stone on the pathway, Rylee marveled at the towering pine trees on either side as they dwarfed the wooden building. The cabin itself was nowhere near as rustic as she gathered from her mother's stories. A fresh coat of whitewash hid much of the years of neglect since Rylee's grandfather last occupied the place.
The girl stood on the rickety front porch, leaning on an equally rickety railing, and glared back at her mother stumbling up the path while trying to carry three more bags. "Come on, come on," the impatient preteen muttered.
"What are you waiting for?" called out Colleen. "Just open the door before I drop these."
"I don't have the key," said the exasperated girl stressing each word.
"The door isn't locked. Your grandfather didn't believe in them."
Hoping animals hadn't taken advantage of the old man's hospitality, Rylee turned the knob and pulled the creaking door open. "Wow," she said as she peeked into the building.
The front room appeared huge as the sun streaked through the windows to illuminate the open space. Everywhere she looked was either wood paneling or glass except for the huge stone fireplace. She giggled at the sight of the two small fish mounted and hung over the mantle.
White sheets covered the few pieces of furniture scattered about the room. Rylee expected a dusty ghost to jump out at her at any time.
"Follow me," said Colleen as she led the young girl through a woolen blanket that acted as a door. Down a narrow hallway they went, passing four door openings with draped blankets, two on each side. At the end they pushed another blanket aside and entered the kitchen. There they deposited the paper bags.
"Thank you, dear," said Colleen. "While I put this away, why don't you bring down our travel bags? You can put mine into the first bedroom next to the fireplace. That was your grandfather's old room."
"Where should I put mine?"
"Out in the front room. You and your cousins will be sleeping out there." Her daughter's jaw dropped. "Don't worry, Rylee. It will be like camping."
"Do you mean Shane will be there too?"
"Your cousin isn't that bad, is he?"
"He's so much…older. He's like fourteen and brags about it all the time. Last year he became a teenager and made me want to stay in elementary school forever."
Her mother smiled. "Just hang with Annie and Kiera. You're all eleven, aren't you?"
Rylee rolled her eyes, knowing her mother would never understand. Colleen was the youngest of her siblings after all. The girl then stomped out of the kitchen.
With her daughter out of the way, Colleen pulled the well-worn sheet of paper from the secured hiding location of her bra. Unfolding the note, she read the Last Wishes of Seamus O'Brien for the fiftieth time. It explained the old man's lessons he subjected his granddaughters to, much like what he had first done to his own daughters years before. The reveal, though shocking, revealed why she and her two sisters had wild escapades growing up and became mothers so young. Her father's posthumous plan organized this special reunion weekend before the girls became teens and detailed how to activate their repressed memories. All of this to ensure his progeny had a healthy and enjoyable attitude to sex. If all went as planned, it would cement the family together.
Colleen checked her assigned tasks once again. She did not know what they would actually do, but she trusted her father and his epic plan. With its contents firmly committed in her brain, Colleen refolded the paper and returned it to its hiding place.
With a smile, she dreamed about a perfect long weekend.
Rylee wasn't thrilled with tasks when she could be enjoying the lake. The girl stomped out of the kitchen, back through the hallway out of the building, down the stepping stone path to the minivan, and then back again.
By the time Rylee reached the bedroom, her ankles hurt from all the stomping. Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea after all.
Once inside the room, she tossed her mother's bag onto the single bed. Landing on the two-inch high mattress with a thud, it barely bounced. Sitting down next to the bag, Rylee found the bed as hard as a rock and lumpy at the same time. Maybe it was going to be better to sleep on the hardwood floor after all.
Glancing around the sparsely furnished room, her gaze fixated on a strange gray plastic object on the dresser. Retrieving it, she turned it over and over in her hands. One side had a white plastic face she could almost see through, while the opposite side featured two cylinders each topped with a glassy button about the size of a penny. "I bet I have to look through these lenses," she said to herself. When she held the cylinders up to her eyes she saw…the backside of the white face. "Well, this is fucking stupid," she muttered. Quickly she lowered the object and scanned the room to see if her mother overheard her. She wasn't supposed to use adult words, not yet at least, and never in front of others. But occasionally the F word slipped out.
Sensing she was alone, her investigation resumed. On the top, Rylee noticed a lever near the white side. When she slid the lever down and released it, the lever sprung back to its original position. She did again with the same results.
After the novelty wore off, she carried the object into the kitchen. "Mom, do you know what this is?"
Never missing a beat chopping the carrots in front of her, Colleen said, "Oh, that's your grandfather's old stereoscopic picture viewer. Where did you find it?"
"On the dresser in your room. What's it supposed to do?"
Colleen put down the knife she was using and took the gray object. She held it up to her eyes and put her finger on the lever. "You hold it like this, look through here, and push the lever when you want to look at the next picture."
Rylee frowned at her mother. "Duh. I did that. It wasn't very interesting."
Colleen started to laugh. "Of course not. You have to find one of the disks to put in it."
"Like a DVD?"
Her mother shook her head. "No, it's a little white cardboard disk with miniature pictures around the rim. They go in this slit at the top."
"Where would they be?"
Colleen chuckled at the question. "I don't know. Maybe, you could go looking for them. It would keep you busy until your cousins get here."
Rylee's shoulders drooped. This sounded like more work and less lake time. "OK, I guess." She plodded back to the bedroom.
After rooting around the dresser drawers from bottom to top, Rylee became discouraged. When she was about give up, she felt something at the back of the bottommost drawer. Stuck in the joint between the back and the left panels, she found a stuck disk like her mother described. Excitedly, she slid the newly-found item into the thin slit next to the lever.
"Here goes nothing," she said.
Looking through the glassy lenses again, she saw a picture of a little blonde girl, maybe 4 or 5, in a red swimsuit standing on a dock with her hand raised just above her shoulder level. While it was a nice picture, it was different than she expected. The hand appeared closer than the rest of the girl, almost like it was reaching toward Rylee. Tied to the dock, a speedboat seemed farther away. The picture wasn't flat like she expected.
Yet, if she closed one eye, the hand retreated and the boat flattened itself to the dock. The same happened if she closed the other eye instead. But with both eyes opened, the girl had a depth to her.
After blinking a few times, Rylee pushed the lever. The picture was the same girl, on the same dock, with the same boat. Only something changed. The hand moved sideways.
She tried to find a way to go back to the first picture, but the lever only moved the disk in one direction. Each time she clicked, the disk rotated and the hand moved again. On the seventh click, the hand jerked back to its original position.
Rylee clicked and counted. Yes, at the seventh click, the hand went back. The experiment was repeatable. (Science was her best subject in school.) After about five rotations, she decided to press the lever as quickly as she could. Coupling this with blinking made it look like the girl was waving. She tried clicking even faster. And then…
A panel on the bottom of the object fell into her lap, startling Rylee. "Oh fuck, I broke it." Turning the object upside down, she discovered a switch in the previously hidden compartment. Curious, she flipped the switch, and the object started to whirl.
Looking through the eye ports, she discovered the whirl spun the disk, stopping it for a moment as the pictures progressed much faster than she could move the lever. Now the blonde girl truly appeared to wave.
Rylee felt her eyes growing tired, yet unable to end her experiment. She also had a memory pop up, one of having done this before, a long time ago. And she could hear a voice from the past. "Keep watching, little Rylee. Keep watching."
"See the girl waving to you, little angel." She heard the raspy voice repeat the phrase over and over as she felt his hot breath on her bare neck. "Keep watching." Now she could feel his scruffy beard scrape against her soft cheek.
Rylee had seen the girl waving at her many times. She liked to visit the cabin just to see the beautiful girl.
"Hold on a second, little angel," said the voice. "Let's change pictures." Deftly, the man popped the disk out and replaced it with a next, using only one hand. The other occupied the inside of her exposed thigh. He then lifted the viewer to the girl's eyes and flipped the switch.
That same blonde girl stood on the same dock. Instead of waving, she grabbed her shirt by the neckline. On successive frames, she pulled it down to expose her nipples on her rather flat chest. Not at all like Mommy when she was nursing. Rylee mimicked the girl, pulling up her shirt to expose her tiny pink markings. "Good girl, little angel."
This game of monkey see, monkey do continued as the disks showed the blonde roll her shirt up by her neck, massage her chest, and pinch her nipples. The little girl did her best to keep up with her model, duplicating each and every movement. The voice encouraged her at each step. His little angel complied.
"No more pictures today," said the raspy voice. Rylee giggled, knowing what was coming next. She pulled her white shirt all the way over her head. "That's right, little angel. No need to wear clothes here at the lake. And now that I can see your bare belly, you know what that makes me do."
Rylee knew. Raspberries all over the tummy. That made her baby fat jiggle. Then the shaggy beard tickling her soft skin. More raspberries. And finally, his wet sloppy tongue on her tiny pink points.
She giggled and giggled until she heard another voice. "Enough for today, Dad."
"All right, Collie," said the raspy voice. He gave Rylee a big sloppy kiss on her lips. "Goodbye my little angel. I'll see you soon."
"Bye bye."
Rylee awoke with a start at the sound of her mother's voice. "Annie and Shane just got here," the woman said from the door opening. "You might want to do something."
The girl stared at her mother for a second, and then looked down. She sat on the bed topless, her peach sundress off her shoulders and gathered in her lap. She looked at her tiny breasts, if you could call them that. Barely a blip on her hardly developed mounds most days. However, her nipples had been sticking up like when she had been out in the freezing snow.
Then there were her panties. They were not just a little wet, but soaked. She couldn't go out this way.
After pulling up the sundress into place and tugging off the panties, she headed for the main room. As she reached the blanket, she heard voices again. With her pathway blocked, Rylee scanned the room for another choice, settling for her mother's bag.
She barely had time to stuff her underwear into the improvised hiding place when the blanket shifted. "Annie," called out Rylee to her favorite cousin.
The raven-haired girl responded with "Ryleeee" before racing to the girl on the floor. The two hugged like long lost lovers.
"Don't be so childish," said the next voice, that condescending tone of the pimply-faced Shane. While he shared hair color with his sister, Rylee could think of nothing else her two cousins had in common. She decided not to even greet him.
However, with the arrival of Uncle Jake and Aunt Moira, there were now three adults there. That should be enough old people for plenty of swimming in the lake.
This was shaping up to be a long, enjoyable weekend.
