PROLOGUE

EXHIBIT A

White Lake, Minnesota

Summer Before Last

Autumn Semmel feels Benjy Schneke’s fingertip trace the top of her thigh, along the lower front hem of her boy shorts toward her pussy. It causes her skin to tighten all the way to her nipples and her pussy to unclench like a fist. She opens her eyes. Says “Stop that shit!”

“Why?” Benjy says.

She nods over her shoulder. “Because Megan and Ryan are right there.”

Autumn and Benjy are lying on the White Lake side of the spit of land, mostly roots, that separates White Lake from Lake Garner. Megan Gotchnik and Ryan Crisel are out on Lake Garner, behind them.

Benjy says “So? I’m not touching anything that’s covered.”

“I know what you’re doing. You’re driving me crazy.”

Autumn stands up, stretching down the edges of her bottoms. Looks behind her.

Megan and Ryan are in their canoe, twenty or thirty yards from shore. Megan’s legs are over the sides. Ryan’s going down on her. Because of the way sound carries over the water, Autumn can hear Megan’s panting as if it’s right in front of her. It makes Autumn feel dizzy. She turns back to White Lake.

It’s like going from one season to another. Lake Garner is a broad oval under the east–west sun. White Lake is at the bottom of a jagged canyon that runs north from Lake Garner’s eastern end. The water in White Lake is black, cold, and choppy.

It’s magic. Autumn dives in.

She’s alert to everything instantly. She can’t see, but she can feel her ribcage, her scalp, the tops of her feet. Her arms are slippery against the sides of her breasts, from sunblock or some property of the water. It’s like she’s ghosting through onyx.

When she’s gone a dozen strokes she feels Benjy hit the water behind her. She swims faster, not wanting him to catch up to her and grab her feet. She hates that: it’s too scary. As soon as she surfaces for air she turns around.

She can feel the chill breeze on her face. The chop has eaten up her wake. She can’t see Benjy at all.

A thrill of dread runs up her right leg and into her stomach at the thought of him coming toward her under water, and she kicks out.

It gives her an idea. She swims in the direction of the western shore. If she can’t see Benjy, he can’t see her either. So if she’s not where he thinks she is, he can’t grab her.

It still feels like he’s going to, though. She keeps instinctively jerking her legs up, one at a time.

But as the seconds go by, it becomes more and more obvious that Benjy’s not going to try to scare her. Then that he’s not even in the lake with her, whatever she thought she felt while she was swimming. He’s probably gone into the woods along Lake Garner, to watch Megan and Ryan fucking.

It’s a bad feeling. Abandonment and dickishness, but also something else: although Autumn loves White Lake, she’s not that interested in being in it alone. It’s not that kind of place. There’s something adult about White Lake.

“Benjy!” she yells. “Benjy!” Her wet hair is cold on her head and the back of her neck.

He doesn’t appear.

“Benjy, come on!”

As Autumn starts to breaststroke back toward the south end of the lake, Benjy explodes out of the water in front of her, visible to mid-chest and vomiting a dark rope of blood that slaps her like something from a bucket.

Then he gets yanked back under.

He’s gone. The heat of his blood is gone too. It’s like Autumn imagined the whole thing.

But Autumn knows she didn’t imagine it. That what she’s just seen is something terrible and permanent—and which might be about to happen to her.

She turns and sprint-swims for the rocky beach at the base of the cliff. Full-out crawl, no breathing allowed. Swim or die.

Something punches into her stomach, and snags there with tremendous weight and pain. As it tears free, she gets an instant head rush and can’t feel her hands.

She tries to arch her back to get some air, but she must be turned around or something, because she sucks in water instead.

Then the thing rams into her from behind, clapping shut her rib cage like a book and squirting the life out of her like water from a sponge.

Or at least that’s how it was explained to me.