The wind picks up, finding its way to my neckline. I pull the blanket around me and suddenly it’s clear to me. They’ll get him when he goes fishing.

I don’t know how, but suddenly the thought is so clear to me. So obvious, like it’s happening right in front of me, right now. I see him tying string to a pole, and beyond him, in a lush forest, a tree branch bends. Someone is watching him. But he is turned away. A lock of dirty-blond hair falls in his eyes and he sweeps it behind his ear, unaware.

Somehow, for some reason, I know more than even he does.

“For a few days,” Justin goes on, “Trey wrestled with what he’d seen, wondering if he should go to the police. But one of the boys, it turns out, saw Trey as he was running away. So one day Trey was walking to the river, completely unsuspecting.”

When Justin mentions the river, suddenly I see the kid at the edge of the pier, in his dirty jeans, with his stick fishing pole. That’s the one. Get him. I open my mouth, wanting to scream to him, to tell him to watch out. He doesn’t know they’re behind him. He won’t know until it’s too late. But I can’t find my voice.

Suddenly I can’t breathe. My lungs are going to explode. Almost as if I’m underwater.

Like he was.

He turns. There’s a knife. Someone slashes at him. A red gash opens on his forearm and he drops the pole. Slash again, and he dives out of the way. Into the water. The water is greenish-black from the shade trees above. He surfaces, but the water is too deep, much too deep for him to reach the bottom. He struggles to stay afloat, to find something to grab onto, but in his panic everything falls through his grasp, until the only thing left is the sound of splashing mingling with laughter.

“He can’t go fishing!” I shout, finally getting the air into my lungs. I gasp, again and again and again.

Justin turns to me, his eyes orange with firelight. “You’ve heard this one before?”

I can’t stop shaking. “Please, Justin. Can we just go to bed? I’m tired. Please.”

He studies me. “All right. It’s late anyway. We have to get up early.”

It’s only then I realize Angela and Hugo are both staring at me. Ange says, “You look tired, Ki.” But I know from her expression she means I look a lot worse than tired. I hug myself tight, creeping closer to the fire, but even that doesn’t stop the shivers. Ange whispers to Justin, “You’ll have to tell me the rest later.”

But I know the rest. Somehow, I was there. I saw it all.

And I saw him die.

Chapter Four

I curl up on the shag throw rug in the dark bathroom, which is lit only by moonlight streaming through the window. I press my fists to my eyes until I see fireworks. Down here, I don’t hear the rush of the water. Down here, I almost feel safe.

My dad is a teacher at my high school. He teaches my European History class and about fifteen extracurricular activities, from Driver’s Ed to Debate Club. The parents of freshmen learning how to drive don’t have to worry about a thing, really; besides Justin, my dad is probably the safest person in the state of Maine. I mean, I had to beg and plead with him, nonstop, for three months, just to get him to agree to a weekend camping trip two hours from home. And when he finally agreed, he handed me a copy of Camping for Dummies and quizzed me on each chapter, every Saturday. In fact, should we run out of the twelve days’ worth of food he packed for me before I left, I know how to set a pencil snare so I can catch a rabbit.

Justin is on the swim team at school. When my dad noticed that we were hanging out a lot more in the hallways, he got that worried look in his eye, but he never said anything. And one day I went to Justin’s swim practice to cheer him on from the bleachers, and Justin came up to me between laps to say hi. He was usually very suave, because this was the beginning of our relationship and he was trying to present that really good side of himself that everyone puts forward when relationships are new. But right then, he was nervous. “How are you?” he asked, fidgeting.

“Fine. Are you worried about the meet coming up?” I asked him.

He shook his head, water spraying on my lap.

“Nervous about … um, me being here?” I ventured. Maybe my presence intimidated him and would affect his performance.

“No, that’s not it. I’m fine,” he said. I could tell he was distracted. He kept looking past me, toward the back of the bleachers.

So I stayed for a little while longer, wondering if he was just not interested anymore. Which made my stomach drop, because for weeks I’d thought about him more than I breathed. Then, as he hurried back to the pool, I got up and started to leave. And who did I see at the top of the bleachers, his nose buried in The Establishment of European Hegemony 1415–1715?

“Dad,” I said to him later, “I’m fifteen. I don’t need you following me everywhere I go. And Justin is a good guy.”

He’d had a strange, sad smile on his face. “I know, I know,” he said.

My stomach did cartwheels. Nobody could doubt that Justin was the most upstanding of guys. Good grades, always deflected trouble, made friends easily with everyone. If my dad had a problem with him, then I was positive there was nobody in school he’d approve of. Maybe nobody in the world. “Well, what don’t you like about him?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, and I was glad, because I thought I knew. It was such an embarrassing thing, I really didn’t want to hear him say it. He couldn’t cope with me growing up, I was his little girl, his everything, and no guy would ever be good enough for his “everything.” I guess I couldn’t blame him, but at the same time I imagined myself sitting home, alone, at the age of sixty-two, still not allowed to date.

From then on, I’d often catch him in the hallways outside the pool when I went to watch Justin at swim practice. I’d just see a shadow, a hint of his army-green herringbone blazer, a flash of his scruffy beard in the doorway. It was almost as if I’d drawn a line in the doorway and he’d made the decision not to pass it. But he couldn’t stop himself from checking up on me from afar.

I didn’t mention it to him. I thought I understood. I didn’t realize how wrong I was.

One day, I went to watch Justin practice golf. Justin isn’t a great golfer, but he wants to be one, so he joined the team. That first day, I looked around and around the field and my dad was nowhere to be seen. What about watching Justin golf is so safe? I thought. Or what about watching Justin swim is so dangerous? He thinks I’d be so enamored of Justin in a Speedo I’d jump him?

But suddenly it came to me. My dad wasn’t having trouble coping with me growing up. He didn’t have a problem with Justin at all. What he had a problem with was the thought of me drowning, like she did. Even the thought of a swimming pool. Suddenly it hit me, why I hadn’t been to the beach in ages, why there was no water anywhere near our house, why, when I was invited to pool parties, he always made sure we were busy. It was crazy, but it was true. He was that freaked out by my mom’s death that he couldn’t stand it. But me, on the other hand … I was fine with it. In fact, it didn’t bother me at all.

I decided to confront him. I knew exactly how. “Dad, I’m thinking of taking swimming classes,” I told him casually after our usual mac-and-cheese dinner.

His eyes filled with dread. For a moment he looked like he might choke on his mouthful, but he brought his napkin to his mouth, wiped his graying beard, and cleared his throat thoughtfully. “You’re not a strong swimmer, Ki.”

That was true. I hadn’t been swimming since before mom died. “Well, duh, that’s why I want to take classes,” I said. “Justin said he’d help me practice.”