Amy looked up, then behind her. She felt that someone-or something-was following her. "That's crazy", she chided herself. Then she felt an awful chill settle on her shoulders. She was at the beach now. What was she doing here? She was on a dare. First, Amy had to sneak out of her cabin, alone and go through the woods with out a light-there were hardly any trails. Then she was to walk down to the beach without getting caught. That would be the hardest, there were counselors patrolling everywhere, but thankfully she knew the exact paths. Finally, she had to see if the rumor was true. The rumor that the ghost of a dead teen who had drowned in the bay really DID come back to walk on the beach near which he had drowned. It was said that he would stay there eternally, until someone naive enough came and took his place.


Amy sat down on the sand, near where the waves lapped up on the shore. The wind licked her face, taking away the fear. She stood up, feeling more confident. That confidence soon drained away as she turned to go back to her cabin. She let out a small shriek of terror. There, sitting on the rocks, was a boy about her age-sixteen. He was watching her closely. "I was wondering when you would notice." He said bitterly. To Amy, he looked just like anyone else who had just come out of a lake, wet. He also looked a little transparent. "My name's Connor. And I know your name's Amy." Amy looked shocked. "How.... how did you know?" She stammered. Connor looked away. "It's better I didn't tell you." He grumbled. "Now. I need you to do me a, er, a small favor. I need you to take my place." Amy looked shocked, and fearful. Very fearful. "I won't." She said, surprising the both of them.


"You see that boat over there?" He pointed to a small green canoe, with "Kichi" painted on both sides in black. "Get in it." Amy looked from Connor, to the canoe and back again. "I don't think that's a very good idea." She said slowly, backing away. "I should be back at the cabin." She gasped as Connor's eyes turned red, from the cool blue that they were. He rose into the air. "You will do as I say." He said, darkly yet surprisingly calmly. "You will get into the boat!" Amy felt herself freeze, and turn towards the boat. "No, no!" She screamed. "Please, no!" She tried to resist, but her feet were carrying her. She sat in the middle of the canoe. "Pick up the paddle." Amy struggled, but picked it up. What was going on? Her eye opened wide as she realized what he was doing-He was controlling her mentally! "Paddle." He said, and she paddled away from the safety of the island. He followed her, sitting in the stern of the boat. "Why are you doing this?" She cried as the canoe stopped in the middle of nowhere. Connor's eyes narrowed. "I must complete the circle. Now. Jump." Amy struggled, but the boat tipped, pushed by ghostly hands. She slipped into the cold water, her heavy sweater and shoes pulling her down. She could feel the water crush the air out of her lungs as she slipped into that unwelcoming, unfeeling and ever-nearing darkness called death.
------Two weeks later------
Amy had watched as the divers pulled her body out of Georgian Bay. She had watched as the coroners declared her death a 'suicide'. Now she was at her funeral. Her own funeral. "I should still be alive." She muttered bitterly. There were tears, whys and how’s. She strode outside, not noticing that she was going through the doors instead of opening them. Her so-called friends weren't even in there. They were still at camp. They didn't give a dang about her. She went back to the beach, it was almost like the night she had died. Connor was there.

Amy glared at him. "Why did you do that? Even though I'm dead" the words hit her with a pang. "You're still here! I thought you moved on!" Connor glared back. "I thought it would work. I thought that if someone died the same way as me, I'd be free to leave and move on." He looked thoughtful. "They never found my body. Maybe that's why. I was murdered, than tossed into the lake. A ‘Matthew Heinz’ murdered me. He wanted to get back at my father, so he killed me." Amy looked away, shocked. "I.. I didn't know." "Well, now you do. Help me move on, and you can move on." Connor said, still staring at-or through-Amy. Amy sighed. "I guess you have no choice. I have no choice. OK." She said reluctantly.

Finally, after several days of arguing, they settled on a letter. "We can't exactly write," Amy said sadly, she had loved to write. "But we can shift the sand." So, that night, they wrote 'Body in the bay by where Amy Jordan’s' was," with an arrow.


That morning, there was a small cluster of kids around the message while they were waiting for their sailing lesson. The instructor snuck up on them. "What is this?" She asked, getting into the middle of the circle. Upon seeing the letters in the sand, she blanched and turned to the students. "Report to the mess hall immediately!" The students turned slowly and walked up the beach towards the mess hall, muttering amongst themselves.

The instructor, Adrienne, was already on her radio with the other counselors. Within minutes, all the youth were in the mess hall and accounted for. Sending the kids back to their cabins, the counselors decided to hold a conference. "I think it's real. We should call the police. By law, we could be charged for with-holding evidence." Said the head counselor. There were nods of agreement, and sad shakes of the head. "I think it is just a prank, in light of what happened to Amy. A sick prank, but a prank nonetheless." Taking a vote, it was decided. 9-2, to call in the police.


A team consisting of about five divers, three Subtenants and a Constable arrived soon after. They hauled all of their equipment out onto a tarp that had been placed on the sand. Amy walked over, making several people shudder with cold as she passed through them. Examining the different items, she shook her head. "Give me a reason why this would work?" She asked Connor, pointing at a sound radar. Connor shook his head. "I got nada clue. Maybe they won't use it."

It just so happened that they did. They used almost all their equipment, and the divers used a grid. They set it up so it went out in all ways, a mile out from where Amy was found. Whilst the officers were interrogating and investigating on land, the divers decided to go a bit more North, in the direction the arrow was pointing.

They soon found Connor's body, just about half a kilometer from the site where they had found Amy's. Placing a marking buoy on the surface, the divers surfaced. Dragging themselves out of the water, they boated themselves back to shore, than gathered the needed witnesses in order to bring the body back. Connor drifted slowly out, watching the procedure. Amy stood with him, both going to the autotopsy room a few hours later.

--------Another two weeks later-------


'Boy killed by local businessman Mathew Heinz! A second body found in Georgian Bay!", the headliners read. Inside, the article went something like this.
The body of a young man, Connor Xander, age 16, was found in Georgian Bay on Monday, the tenth of August. The autotopsy showed over fifty stab wounds, pointing to the owner of Kempenfelt Kelly, a local marine life tourist attraction. At a recent hearing on Thursday Heinz pleaded 'Guilty', but said, "It was in the heat of an argument". When later asked for a comment, he supplied none.


Connor looked from the newspaper that was lying on an empty table in the deserted mess hall to Amy and back again. "So I guess this is justice, eh?" He asked. Amy nodded. "This is it... Soon the shake will be over, and people will get over it." She gave a small smile. "Only we really knew what happened." She had forgiven Connor, thinking that if she was in the same position, she would have done the same thing.

Amy's head perked up from where it was hanging, reading the paper's front page. "I guess the rumor was true then. Well not completely, but..." Connor looked towards Amy quizzically. "What rumor?" Amy blushed. "The one that said that you drowned, and you came back every night waiting for someone to take your place." She looked away, and Connor sniggered. "Good Lord Amy! You really believed that?!" Amy blushed even redder. "Yes." Then she realized how bright it was getting.

Looking up at the same time, they realized that some thing bright, a portal, was opening up in front of them. Amy's eyes widened, and Connor's mouth dropped open. "Is this that white light that we're supposed to go into?" He asked quietly, voice nothing more than a faint whisper. Amy nodded silently, slipping her hand into Connor's. Together they walked into the light, the welcoming arms of heaven.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Although I have used certain areas/names, it does not mean that events in this story actually took place. Any similarities of any kind are completely incidental.