PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
The tap on Emily’s window startled her. The loud, hard single knock on the darkened glass snapped her attention all the way from her phone messaging.
What was it? Had a bird flown into the window? Or was someone out there?
Feeling creeped out, as if going to look was a bad decision, but not wanting to ignore this sound, she got up from her bed and tiptoed across the room. Cautiously, she opened the curtain.
What was it? Who was out here at this hour?
She gasped as she saw a white hand slam against the glass. Then she let the breath out as she recognized the blurred, pale face beyond.
A familiar, impatient-sounding voice greeted her. “Hey, Em, c’mon, open up!”
She stared through the glass at Sandi, her friend.
Well, her sort-of friend. Tall, dark-haired, and reckless, the opposite of short, blond Emily, sixteen-year-old Sandi was one of those people she was friends with because to resist her felt kind of dangerous. Sandi lived with her mother in a tumbledown cottage on the coastline of Nova Scotia, a twenty-minute drive from the capital city of Halifax and a ten-minute walk from Emily’s house.
Emily opened the window and looked out at her.
“Sandi. What is it? Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Couldn’t be better right now. I got beers.” Grinning, Sandi tapped her rucksack.
“You got beers? What, did you get into your mother’s stash?”
Sandi didn’t look sober, or at any rate, she seemed wilder than usual.
“Yes. She’s out for the night,” Sandi said. “So, come on, let’s take a sail.”
“How? Where?”
Sandi smiled slyly. “We can take your dad’s rowboat and go over to that little island across the water. We can drink there. Nobody will see. It’ll be fun. It’s the weekend. You don’t even have to get up for school tomorrow.”
Emily hesitated, then said, “I don’t know, I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m not really supposed to go down to the beach after dark. And my dad will be totally mad if we take his rowboat.”
“C’mon. I promise, I won’t get you in trouble. We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
With a shiver, Emily knew there was no choice here. She had—sort of—promised to do this a few days ago. She’d said she would join Sandi on a nighttime outing, anyway. But it had felt a lot different in the school cafeteria than it did now, at eight p.m. on this blustery and chilly night. And she hadn’t known it would include taking her dad’s rowboat.
But then, inside Emily, a sense of adventure unfurled. Why not, she thought. They could go out for an hour, drink a beer, and be back before anyone knew.
She slipped on her shoes and grabbed her jacket, zipping the phone into the pocket. Then she threw a leg over the side of the windowsill, straddled it, and climbed out, dropping to the ground.
The wind snatched at her hair. Ahead, in the gloom, she could see the bright shape of the small boat, rocking at the pier.
As they walked down to the water’s edge, Sandi handed her a beer.
“Down it! Come on!” she encouraged.
Feeling as reckless as Sandi, Emily did as she was told. She snapped the can open and tipped it back.
The beer tasted cold and bitter. But Sandi’s admiring laugh warmed her. They climbed into the rocking boat.
“Grab an oar. Look at the moon, how pretty it is. We can’t get lost tonight,” Sandi said. “You can actually see the moonlight on the beach, it looks as bright as snow. We’re gonna sit there and drink these other beers together.”
Emily grabbed an oar and began rowing with all her might. Sandi was right. The island wasn’t far. This would be an adventure.
Only, as they headed across the narrow, turbulent strip of water, Emily found herself getting jumpy all over again. What if they’d been spotted? Wouldn’t a cop or the Coast Guard or something be coming after them? Chasing them in a boat of their own? Underage drinking was a crime.
“What if someone’s following us?” she said. “What if someone saw us leave?” She couldn’t adequately explain the looming sense of unease she felt.
“We’re okay. Nobody saw us.”
She handed Emily another beer, then steered the boat with her oar as Emily tipped the can back. She drank it all down. The beer was bitter, but she was starting to really like the taste.
The moon hung above them, big and white. She could see every detail of the beach now.
And then her heart stopped as she saw someone there. Standing on the sand. A tall, dark, threatening figure.
She almost cried out in fear before her eyes adjusted to this gloomy terrain, and she realized it was just a rock.
Just a big, crooked rock, standing like a sentinel on the beach.
“You’re rowing great!” Sandi cried. “We’re almost there.”
Her head was spinning from the beer. She felt at once reckless and terrified. The sea was rough in this stretch. The boat was plunging now, as they fought through the waves.
It was too rough. Her dad’s boat might capsize or get damaged. She was sure there were rocks on the coast of this island. Abruptly, she decided enough was enough. This was a crazy idea and she wasn’t going to carry on with it.
She took a deep breath, readying herself to say that they’d had enough fun, and that they must turn around and go back. But then Sandi gave a cry of alarm.
“My oar!”
With a gasp as icy water sprayed over her, Emily realized her friend had dropped her oar.
“Can you find it?” Emily cried, feeling panicked, digging her own oar in, desperately trying to slow their progress as the sea tumbled the boat to shore.
“No. It’s gone!” Sandi was laughing manically. “I can’t believe I did that. So clumsy of me. But we’re here now, girl, we’re here.”
But how are we going to get back? Emily wondered. She had her phone with her, but calling the folks would mean unleashing the worst kind of trouble.
Otherwise, they were stranded. They couldn’t row all the way back with just one oar.
“Come on!”
Sandi climbed out into knee-deep water, catching her breath. “Jeez, it’s cold. Let’s drag the boat up so it doesn’t wash away, too. We can sit here a while, drink a bit. Then we can decide what to do.”
This wasn’t fun anymore, Emily thought, climbing out and tugging at the boat, stumbling over rocks while frigid water scoured her ankles. This was scary and wrong. They were stuck here on a chilly night, with one oar and no means of getting home again.
“Let’s find a rock and sit down and get so drunk we don’t care anymore,” Sandi advised.
Perhaps that was the only solution, Emily agreed, with a chill. She stared at Sandi, so lean, so tall, so sure of herself, but looking at the bigger picture, Emily realized her confidence was nothing more than bravado.
She wasn’t just the wild child everyone wanted to be friends with and say yes to. She was misguided and reckless and Emily would have been a much stronger person if she’d given her a firm no.
Now, they were stranded on a cold island that felt creepy and strangely menacing.
Had it really been a rock she’d seen? she wondered again, trying to replay that moment in her mind. It had looked exactly like someone was standing there, waiting.
“I’m going to call my folks,” she said. “They need to bring the motorboat to fetch us. This was a bad idea. We’re going to be in such big trouble.”
“Are you crazy?” Sandi glared at her without a hint of friendliness in her gaze. “If you do that, I’ll never speak to you again.”
“That’s fine,” Emily retaliated.
“Ah, come on.” In a flash, Sandi had changed tack, and was sounding persuasive, her voice a coo. “Drink another beer first. Might as well hide the evidence.” She opened another can.
Emily felt drunker than she had realized she was. And she urgently needed to pee.
“I’ll be back in a minute. Have your beer. And then I’m calling the folks.”
She stumbled away, heading away from the beach and into the forested area of this small island, her bladder painful, her eyes straining to see in the dark.
Behind her, she heard the c***k of a branch and spun around, staring into the gloom.
“Who’s there?”
There was no answer. But she could have sworn she saw a figure moving in the darkness.
“Sandi, is that you?”
She didn’t think it was Sandi. She looked back toward the beach, but she couldn’t see her friend. Just the dark waters of the sea, the moon’s reflection shimmering on the rippling waves.
Then she turned, feeling her way in the dark.
And fell.
Her legs were scythed from under her by the unexpected object in her path. She landed hard on her hands, the twigs ripping at her palms, and cried out in shock and pain.
What had tripped her up?
With shaking hands she activated the light on her phone.
It illuminated the stuff of nightmares. The beam danced over a bluish-white face. Long, tangled hair. Staring, sightless eyes.
Staring down at the corpse she’d fallen over, Emily began to scream, and scream, and scream.
