Page 23 of Summer's Edge

15

I wake up soaking weton the dock.

The moon is still high in the sky, and an unnerving thought flits through my brain like a buzzing fly: I don’t know how I got here. I sit, shivering and disoriented, a prickly, electric sensation humming through my body. I climb to my feet slowly, like in nightmares. The cue is run; you turn to stone. My clothes hang off me, drenched, and I hug myself, self-conscious and terrified. Because I’ve never sleepwalked in my life. So then how did I get here? No one at this house would do this as a prank because they know I’m deathly afraid of entering the water.

It isn’t the lake itself—I love the lake. But I don’t swim in it because I have an irrational fear of sharks. It’s rational to fear sharks if you find yourself face-to-face with one. Maybe even if you swim in water where you might conceivably encounter one. But after watchingJawsas a kid, I’ve been terrified to go in any body of water where I couldimaginea shark. I can dip my foot in for a bit, but if I leave it too long, the image of a shark grabbing me and dragging me under eventually becomes so intense I have to take it out. I can’t even swim in the deep end of pools. I get fixated on the thought of being bumped on one side. Then the other. Then jaws, razor-sharp, folding around me. Like I said, irrational. But no lessreal.

This was no prank. And whoever did it is still here.

I glance back at the house. All of the lights are on, and the house stares at me unnervingly with rows of bright yellow eyes and teeth, a bizarre wooden jack-o’-lantern. My eyes travel from window to window, but I don’t see any movement. Every room is empty, silent, still. The night is eerily quiet. No crickets. No frogs. No hush of wind through the pines. The night of the fire was windless. It saved the woods, the neighboring houses. It didn’t save Emily.

“Guys?” My voice reverberates. “Hello?”

I know they haven’t driven anywhere—Kennedy is strict about drinking and driving—and there’s nothing within walking distance. A few other houses, but no neighbors we know. I turn back to the lake, a chill settling over me. That’s the only other place to go.

The mooring line lies loose in the water. A mix of relief and annoyance washes over me. They’ve taken the boat out, that’s all. There’s a small sailboat not too far away, swimming distance for a skilled swimmer, dead on the water. It could be the Hartfords’ boat,Summer’s Edge. But although the moon is bright, I can’t see anyone on deck. I gaze into the water, imagining the one rogue shark thatwouldbe lurking beneath, a leftover from prehistoric times, waiting, biding his time. For me.

I cup my hand around my mouth. “Kennedy!” My voice is swallowed up by the night. I try again, shouting for Chase, Ryan, Mila. No one answers. A slight breeze lifts my hair from the back of my neck, and I raise my head to gather it into a ponytail. I glance back at the boat just as a stiffer breeze picks up and swings the sail, changing the boat’s direction. Icatch sight of a shadowy figure propped up against the mast. I squint. The figure sways, steps forward, and stills.

“Kennedy?” I try again, louder. It stands in the darkness for a moment, then slowly turns its head toward shore. An odd sensation vibrates through me like electricity, suspending me in silence. My arms float uselessly at my sides; my vocal cords slacken and sink in my throat. My legs are melting into the dock, and my eyes are shadows, spilling into the shadow person’s gaze. Though I cannot see its face, I feel its unspeakable dread as it creeps to the edge of the boat, hovers for a moment as if suspended in time, and plunges into the inky water with the sudden violence of someone who has been pushed or pulled with incredible, almost supernatural force.

I startle out of my trance with one terrifying, heart-stopping thought in my mind: It was too dark to make out a face. But I didn’t see the silhouette of a life jacket.

“Hello?” I call, heart pounding, eyes frantically searching the surface of the water.

No answer. The wind continues to pick up and the boat rocks. There’s some bulkiness on one side, maybe someone asleep on the deck, but no one rises to help. I shout, “Man overboard!” but no one responds. It’s an ambitious swim to the sailboat—I can’t be sure it even is the Hartfords’ boat—and my fear of sharks is no joke. If it gets in my head, it takes over. But someone is in trouble and everyone seems to have vanished. It could be one of my friends out there in the water, and I will not abandon them. Never again. So I make the split-second decision to dive in after the figure that hasn’t resurfaced.

A deep breath.

Don’t think.

Two.

It’s only water.

Three.

Nothing lies beneath.

One last breath, and down into darkness.

The water is bath warm, unseasonable for New York in early summer, and I have to push every thought out of my head to keep moving forward. I repeatman overboardto myself over and over, because if I don’t thinkman, I will thinkshark.Man overboard, man overboard, man, man, man, over, over, over. Light as a feather. Stiff as a board.I glance up at the boat every few breaths, but the distance doesn’t seem to be closing.

Man overboard. Girl overboard. Over, over, board, board. Breathe. Kick. Breathe. Kick. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

As I near the boat, I search for a dark shape bobbing on the surface, and my heart sinks when I don’t see one. No life jacket means they’ve been under for a few minutes, and it may be impossible to find them. Or revive them. I grasp the side of the boat and see the familiar block letters:SUMMER’S EDGE. The water is almost black. And when I look down, fear rushes up and strangles me. Something is under there. Something big. Big enough to tear into me.

My throat closes up and I gulp at the air. My legs are numb from kicking. I can’t see. My heart hammers in my chest. I have to go under, because if I don’t, I’m a murderer for abandoning the person I saw fall in. At the same time, it’s been minutes already, and my chances of finding them are slim. Every moment I spend deliberating makes me more ofa killer, but my fear of submersion eats at me like acid. I have to try. Have to.

I strangle a scream, thrash with my legs, and dive down, grasping in every direction. I have never felt so isolated as I do in this moment. And then the fear clicks in and adrenaline surges through my body. I imagine it like a comic-book transformation, boiling my blood from red to green, altering my DNA. I am not the same Chelsea. I am not a rational thinker. I am prey. I am the hunted. And the only thought I can process isescape.I kick for the surface, lungs bursting, chest on fire, my heart ten times the strength and speed of a human specimen.

I break through the water to the air, and still I do not breathe. My numb, tingling fingers somehow find the ladder at the back of the boat, and I claw my way up and over and collapse onto the deck, sobbing, defeated. Beneath the surface of the lake, a body lies. Someone who walked down the boardwalk of the Hartford Cabin, climbed aboardSummer’s Edge, sailed out on the lake, and plunged into the water while I watched. And as I flailed and panicked, maybe a foot or two, maybe inches, over them, they drew their last breath and died.

“Chelsea.”

I remove my hands from my face, wiping away warm tears with lake water. Kennedy is staring down at me drowsily. Drunkenly? Her starlit eyes are heavy-lidded, and her breath smells sweet, sugary, like white wine and lemon sorbet. What did they do after I went to sleep? An image of tarot Kennedy with the jagged crown flashes through my head.Trust at your peril.

“I had the most messed-up dream,” she says.

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