Chapter 41

It happens so quickly Idon't realize it until it's done. The splash is immediately swallowed up in silence. Everything is wrong. Every instinct in my body tells me to rush to the edge of the boat, to throw a line, to shout Man overboard, to start the safety protocol I've known by heart since I was six.

But I somehow don't move.

The moonlight hazes down through a light mist that's begun to settle over the lake, my arms look almost iridescent rising up before me, and I listen. Below, Chase and Mila are silent. I look back to the house, my eyes instinctively going straight to the attic window, and I see the silhouette of a head in profile, bent down. Reading. Emily. Maybe with her tarot cards. I see a shadow pass behind her, and frost creeps over my skin.

After Miss Palindrome's murder, the blue lady disappeared along with the others, but they weren't gone. The woman on the stairs always gave me a chill when I had to get something from the cellar, and sometimes I stumbled on the steps. The crushed man bounced around between the living room and garden. He might have been a groundskeeper once—I feel the breeze of his approval when I tend to the roses. Or he might be the one who kills them. I like to think it's the former. No one who hates flowers haunts a garden.

The backward girl is a drifter, sometimes lying in the grass in the warm sunshine, sometimes fluttering a breeze through an open door. And the blue lady is everywhere, but especially the attic. I sometimes feel they're hiding from me. Like they think that since I can't see them anymore, I don't know they're there. Like I can't feel when they draw close to inspect me curiously or allow themselves to treat me like their pet again. I'm pretty sure that's how they've always seen me. Their quaint, living pet.

The problem is that the living and the dead aren't meant to mix.

The problem is that I think the line has begun to blur.

The problem is that I have spent so long in the world of the dead that I am about to lose one of the living and it is entirely my fault.

Oh god, what if that was their plan from the beginning?

What have I done?

Suddenly a sound splits the air and I'm jolted back into the present.

Chelsea. She's standing on the dock, shouting.

I rush to the edge of the boat and look down, the gravity of the situation finally sinking in. He hasn't resurfaced. Ryan, who is an excellent swimmer, who just today jumped in to rescue Mila, is still underwater, and I don't know how long it's been. He is underwater with the dripping man. And the dripping man doesn't let go. I move clumsily, hyperaware of the amount of alcohol in my bloodstream, the possible concussion, the instructions to sit still and rest tonight. My sweater sticks around my neck, and I stumble on my way to the cabin door. I pound my sneaker down on it repeatedly as I wrestle to get my sweater over my head.

Chase finally yanks the door open. "What?"

I pull the sweater off, gasping. "Ryan went overboard. He's gone under. I don't see him. I need you above to watch the water while I go after him."

"No. You stay on board. I'll go in after him." He scales the ladder in an instant and surveys the water uncertainly. "Where?"

Mila climbs up, looking terrified. "I can barely swim."

"Good." I kick my sneakers off. "I need you to stay aboard. Both of you. If you see me in distress, throw me a safety line."

Chase shakes his head. "I'm going in."

At that moment, there is a distant splash, and all three of us turn our heads.

"Was that him?" Mila asks.

"Shit. No." I climb over the edge of the boat and scan the water by the dock, at the figure cutting through the water toward us. "That was Chelsea."

"Chelsea can't swim," Chase says, rising panic in his voice.

"She can," I say. "She just doesn't." The terrible feeling in my gut is beginning to spread throughout my body like frost. There's no time to explain. Or decide. "Chase, if you start to feel cold, get out. It's not worth it. You take that side. I'll take this area. He went in over here." I point to the general area where Ryan hit the water. My heart continues to race faster and faster. What if we can't rescue him? I pushed him. I did it. This isn't happening. It can't. It can't happen. "Mila, keep your eyes on Chelsea."

I dive into the water without wasting another second. We've wasted too many. No. Organization is vital to rescue. What if we both searched the same spot? What if we both looked for Ryan, but no one looked out for Chelsea, and we lost both of them? The black water surrounds me, and my thoughts overcrowd my mind.

He's down here. One of us will drown tonight.

How did this happen? I swim down as far as I can and spiral my way up in attempt to cover as much area as possible, but I hit nothing. When my head breaks the surface, I have to tread water for a moment to regain my balance. The world is tilting back and forth, sliding in and out of focus. Not now. I'm not going to lose it now.

I see Chase surface and we make eye contact. "Anything?" I shout.

"No. Going a little deeper."

His face is calm, but I hear the panic in his voice. He has no idea what we're up against. He gulps in a lungful of air and dives back down. I glance back up to the house. Emily hasn't moved. I can hear Chelsea still swimming toward us. I fill my lungs and plunge back into the darkness. It's harder this time. I feel out of air almost immediately, my heart drumming a death sentence, my head aching, the Tylenol wearing off, the wine swirling around, driving me up when I mean to swim down. I try again, and again I become disoriented and quickly propel myself straight up to the surface. My eyes sting with tears, and I scream and punch the water.

"What's going on?" Mila shouts.

"Nothing. Just, nothing. Is your eye on Chelsea?" I can't help snapping at her. This isn't a time for being nice.

"I was looking for Ryan." She falters.

My blood runs cold. "Stop looking. Where is she now?" I swing my head around, but I don't see her. Then I hear a splash about fifty yards away, no voice. I immediately begin to swim toward it, slowed by tears and shivering and my body beginning to shut down from panic.

I collide with Chelsea before I see her. She grabs onto my neck and the weight pulls me under, water flooding into my nostrils, intense pain filling my head. I can't breathe. I'm a fish out of water. No. The other. I kick away from her and grasp for the surface, pulling, pulling up. "Stop. Chelsea. Stop swimming. Just stop. Let go. Trust me."

She spits out a mouthful of water, coughs. "I'm drowning."

"Just relax, and I'll get you to the boat."

"I can't."

"You can." It takes everything in me to mask my own panic. But I do, long enough for her to roll onto her stomach in a dead man's float, her head turned to the side, shivering. I grasp her carefully and begin to sidestroke slowly toward the boat.

"Someone fell off the boat. They went straight under and didn't come back up. It was like something grabbed them or something," she says.

"I know. Chase is getting them."

"Who was it?"

"Ryan."

She starts crying, and I feel the last part of my heart that was intact rip in two. "Chase is taking care of it," I say.

"There was something in the water. Something grabbed him."

"It's a lake," I say. "Nothing grabbed him." But it did. He did. Stop. Protect.

"Then how did he disappear like that? People don't just sink."

I don't answer. Instead, I focus my strength on closing the distance between us and the boat. When I reach it, Mila helps pull Chelsea up onto the deck, but she doesn't look at either of us. Her face looks completely drained of blood and her eyes are wide open, fixed on the water. Her hair is wild and messed up, her shirt thrown on backward. She looks like a figure from a horror movie, like someone who just stepped through a mirror in a haunted house or something. As soon as Chelsea is safely on board, Mila turns from us as if in a trance and leans over the side of the boat, watching. I try to help Chelsea sit down, but she drapes herself next to Mila, shaking hard, shuddering breaths, blinking tears down her face.

"We have to do something," Chelsea says.

I stand behind her, afraid to do or say anything. It's been minutes. There is nothing else to do. Chase resurfaces yet again, takes another determined breath, and goes back under. Mila inhales sharply, as if each dive is another stab of a needle. That's what it's beginning to feel like. My eyes go back to the house. Emily is still in the window, her head down. She doesn't know.

I turn to Chelsea. "You're right, you know. People don't just sink. He probably swam away to freak us all out."

She looks at me with contempt. "He wouldn't do that. He's not cruel."

I look at her. I love her. I really do. "Of course he isn't."

Chase reappears. He floats on the surface for a moment, a shadow in the water. Then he slowly makes his way to us and silently climbs the ladder, dripping water on the already-soaked deck. Mila continues to stare at the water, and Chelsea covers her face with her hands, but I look at Chase.

"I can't do it anymore," he whispers. "I'm exhausted." I want to cry. Those words are everything.

"He probably swam for shore," I say in an even voice. "People aren't stones. They're filled with air."

"Not when they drown." Chelsea looks at me. "I saw him fall."

A shiver runs down my spine. "So, what did happen?"

She shakes her head. "It was far away. He fell in and never came back up. I told you, it was like something pulled him down."

Chase glances at me. "Where were you when it happened?"

"I got tired waiting for the wind. I closed my eyes for just a second. At least it felt like just a second. Then I heard the splash and…" I shrug. "I got you right away."

He nods. "But you definitely saw where he went in?"

"I saw the splash." I steal a look at Chelsea. She's pacing back and forth, biting her nails.

"It's my fault. I should have stayed with you." She points at me. "You never would have gone out on the boat. I never would have tried to swim to the boat and then panicked, and you never would have had to rescue me, and you might have rescued him."

"It's not your fault," I say, a little sharper than I mean to.

"It is." Chelsea sits, her knees bouncing rapidly.

"I was the one who brought out the sangria," Mila says. "I got him drunk. He wouldn't have fallen without me. He would have been able to swim."

"I'm sure he did swim," I say.

"No." Mila shakes her head. "I'm bad luck. I wanted to see the stars. I'm the whole reason we're out here on the boat." She finally turns and looks at us, and there's an odd expression on her face. "I'm cursed. I'm a siren. People follow me to their doom."

"No one is doomed." I eye Chase carefully. "I really think Ryan is fine."

He looks between me and the radio. "Well, you didn't seem to think so a few minutes ago. We should call for help right now. We should have done that first."

"I know." I close my eyes. "Just wait. Let me think."

"Where's Emily?" Chelsea looks back at the house. "What are we going to say to her? What are we going to say to her parents?"

"Nothing. We're not going to say anything. Ryan is fine." I retrieve a stack of towels and hand them out. "We got into a fight, he did one of those You'll be sorry things, and he dove in. The more I think about it, the more sure I am that he's doing this to get back at me. At us. Chase, he was fighting with you all night. Chelsea. Don't you think he might have some little passive-aggressive motive to Tom Sawyer you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Tom Sawyer fakes his own death and goes to his funeral to see how much everyone really cares about him. Also just to be an asshole," Chase says. "I guess I could see that? But it's fucked up."

"This day has been fucked up, Chase. Right?" I look to Chelsea first and she nods.

"I can't believe he would do that," she says softly. "I just thought he was the one person who didn't play mind games."

"Everyone plays mind games," Mila says. "We can't help it. It's in our wiring." She looks a little comforted already. The power of a good lie is inestimable.

"We're going to get back and find him waiting for us and laughing so hard," I say. But that won't work. Because they'll know immediately that he's still out here. If he is. Maybe he's not. Maybe he was just messing with me. Maybe there's no dripping man and my entire life has been one big delusion. Everything I've said makes perfect sense. People don't sink. "You know, though… He was honestly upset. About us. Emily. Chelsea. Chase. Even you, Mila. His parents. The last thing he said was that he wanted to be as far away from us as possible." I cringe as the words come out of my mouth.

Chase doesn't buy it for a second either. He knows me too well. "Ryan wasn't going to suddenly take off, no matter how pissed he was."

"But we all heard him," Mila says hesitantly. "When the wind died. Before Chase and I went below. He said he didn't want to be here or at home anymore. We all heard him say it."

"Why does it sound like we're standing here constructing an alibi?" Chelsea glares at us one by one.

"My cousin was in prison for six years," Mila says quietly. "I would basically do anything to avoid going through that. Anything."

Chelsea stares at me. "Kennedy. Don't make me go along with this."

I swallow, my throat tight. "No one is making anyone do anything. He said what he said. He's probably back at the house."

"And if he isn't?" Her voice edges up in pitch.

"Then we can look for him, or wait it out, or call the police," I say. "Unless you think some sort of supernatural being pulled him under. Does anyone believe that?"

Not for one second.

Chase looks at the radio again. "They're going to ask why we didn't call right away."

I meet his gaze evenly. "If that were to happen, which it won't, we'd tell them the truth. He threatened to run away, told me I'd miss him, and swam off." My mouth and throat burn every time I spit out another lie. I may not have taken the time to think it through in the moment, but I knew exactly what would happen when I pushed Ryan into the water. There's no question. Whether Ryan miraculously made it back to the house or not, I'm going to hell for this. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether my life is ruined before that happens or not.

And I already know before we get back to the house, before we face Emily, patiently studying her cards in the attic. I know it in my bones.

No one is ever going to find him.