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ABBY: We good?
ASHFORD: Yes, Miss Ryder, I believe that will be all.
She nods and exits, shutting the door behind her with a click.
SARA: So I was right. About Vanessa.
ASHFORD: It would seem so. Whatever she was, it was not your friend. Miss Donoghue, if you’d like to take a break...
SARA: No. I want to keep going. I want to get this over with.
ASHFORD: If you’re sure.
13
WE WALK THROUGHa thick mass of trees. They crowd each other and the road, and the morning light barely filters down to dapple the ground. Something feels off about the forest. False and thin. It takes me a few minutes of walking to realize that the morning has brought no burst of birdsong, no movement among the trees. As if every breathing thing has been snuffed out, or fled.
Water glints between the trees up ahead, silvery and sharp. An iron gate blocks our way.
“Whose turn?” Anthony asks.
“Does it matter?” Mel replies. She steps forward, rummaging in her pocket, and shoves her key into the lock. “Gate number three,” she says in a game-show-host voice. “Step right in, ladies and gentlefolk.”
We step through the gate and past a thick stand of the evergreens. They thin so suddenly it makes me lurch. Only a few feet in front of us the road stops. Or rather, it vanishes—disappearing beneath the impossibly smooth surface of the water, which stretches as far as I can see in every direction. A fewscattered trees stand here and there; the water must not be very deep, then, but it’s impossible to be sure. The light hits it and reflects everything—sky and trees and the six of us standing at its edge—a perfect mirror.
“That can’t be right,” Anthony says. He gives me a bewildered look. “It can’t just end. How can we keep going?”
A flutter of panic passes from Anthony to the others, like a ripple in the air. If we tip over into it now, I don’t know if we can recover. I don’t have time to think or consider or debate; someone needs to act, now, while we still can. So I step forward, into the water.
My feet sink ankle deep, and the surface of the road is waiting for me. When I slide my foot back I can feel the short slope, dipping below the surface of the reflective water, but after that initial drop it feels level. I take another sloshing step. The water laps against my ankles, cool but not cold, its mirrored surface opaque. I can’t even see my own feet, or anything below the surface, even where my shadow blocks the sun.
“The road’s still here,” I say, trying not to soundtoorelieved.
Jeremy sits down at the edge of the water and starts pulling his shoes off. I raise an eyebrow. “What? I don’t want to walk the rest of the way in wet shoes,” he says. “Besides, it’ll be easier to feel where the road is with bare feet. Unless you want to accidentally step off the edge, and find out what happens when you break the rules.”
I shudder, a feeling like guilt and grief snaking through me. “Good idea,” I say, regretting my soggy hiking boots already. Isplash back to dry land and join the others in stripping to my bare feet, rolling my wet jeans up to mid-calf.
We set out in pairs—instinct by now, to stay within arm’s reach of each other. I find myself glancing behind us, checking for the tide of shadow that took Miranda. But there is only the forest behind us, and the trees scattered here and there in the water, spikes of dark green against the silver blue. In the distance—it’s hard to be certain exactly how far—the air fills with a pale mist, obscuring the horizon and any sense of how far we have to go. Instead of making the water seem smaller, it makes it feel as if it stretches for an eternity.
We inch along, taking tentative steps, feeling for solid ground before we move forward. Once my foot lands on nothing, just deep water, and only Anthony’s grip on my elbow, hauling me back, saves me from pitching forward into the unnaturally still water.
After that, we take shifts at the front. It’s safer to follow along behind, in the footsteps of the two in front. For a long time, we are silent—yet every noise we make seems amplified, echoing off the lake. The slosh of the water, every inhale and exhale. The road isn’t wide here, and Anthony’s shoulder bumps against mine from time to time.
“I know why you did it,” he says quietly. In the silence, it’s like a shout, but while Trina’s shoulders stiffen, and Kyle stumbles a step, no one turns around. Jeremy, up at the front with Mel, probably doesn’t hear—and he’s the one most likely to argue. I keep my eyes fixed on the back of Mel’s wild curls, the curve of her neck.
“Why do you think I did it?” I ask.
“I mean that I get why you thought that Vanessa might be... I don’t know. Bad,” he says. “I noticed it, too. I should have said something. I was trying to keep track to make sure everyone had a partner, and that’s when I realized that she didn’t, at the first gate. But I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want us turning on each other. Not when...” He looks uncomfortable.
“When I’m the one weknowwas alone in the dark,” I say. Or rather, not alone—which was worse.
“I was alone, too,” Anthony points out. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that if Vanessa was—compromised, somehow—that I could be, too?”
“Or me. Or all of us,” I say, refusing to consider it. Becca might have been the brightest star in our constellation, but Anthony was the most constant.
“I don’t know if you did the right thing. But Ithinkyou did,” Anthony says. “And I’ve got your back.” He smiles crookedly at me as we wade through the water.
“Thanks,” I say, my heart giving a double beat. “That means a lot to me.”
