“She was . . . everything,” I say. “She was such a good mom.”
“She was. And I know she meant a lot to you when we were kids. That’s sort of why I’m calling,” says Charlie, tentative. “Her funeral is on Sunday. I know it’s been a long time, but I think you should be there. Will you come?”
A long time? It’s been twelve years. Twelve years since I’ve made the drive north to the place that was more like home to me than anywhere else has been. Twelve years since I dove, headfirst, into the lake. Twelve years since my life crashed spectacularly off course. Twelve years since I’ve seen Sam.
But there’s only one answer.
“Of course I will.”
2
Summer, Seventeen Years Ago
I don’t think my parents knew when they bought the cottage that two adolescent boys lived in the house next door. Mom and Dad wanted to give me an escape from the city, a break from other kids my age, and the Florek boys, who went unsupervised for long stretches of the afternoons and evenings, were probably as big a surprise to them as they were to me.
A few of the kids in my class had summer homes, but they were all in Muskoka, just a short drive north from the city, where the word cottage didn’t seem quite right for the waterfront mansions that lined the area’s rocky shores. Dad flat-out refused to look in Muskoka. He said if we bought a cottage there, we might as well stay in Toronto for the summer—it was too close to the city and too full of Torontonians. So he and Mom focused their search on rural communities further northeast, which Dad declared too developed or too overpriced, and then further still until finally they settled on Barry’s Bay, a sleepy, working-class village that transformed into a bustling tourist town in the summer, sidewalks bursting with cottagers and European sightseers on their way to camp or hike in Algonquin Provincial Park. “You’ll love it there, kiddo,” he promised. “It’s the real cottage country.”
I would eventually look forward to the four-hour drive from our Tudor in midtown Toronto to the lake, but that first trip spanned an eternity. Entire civilizations rose and fell by the time we passed the “Welcome to Barry’s Bay” sign, Dad and I in the moving truck and Mom following behind in the Lexus. Unlike Mom’s car, the truck had neither a decent sound system nor air-conditioning, and I was stuck listening to the monotonous hum of CBC Radio, the backs of my thighs glued to the vinyl bench and my bangs plastered to my clammy forehead.
Almost all the girls in my seventh-grade class got bangs after Delilah Mason did, though they didn’t suit the rest of us as well. Delilah was the most popular girl in our grade, and I considered myself lucky to be one of her closest friends. Or at least I used to, but that was before the sleepover incident. Her bangs formed a neat red valance over her forehead while mine defied both gravity and styling products, jutting out in odd poufs and angles, making me look every bit the awkward thirteen-year-old I was, rather than the mysterious dark-eyed brunette I wanted to be. My hair was neither straight nor curly and seemed to change its personality based on an unpredictable number of factors, from the day of the week to the weather to the way I slept the night before. Whereas I would do anything I could to make people like me, my hair refused to fall in line.
* * *
WINDING DOWN THE bushland on the western shore of Kamaniskeg Lake, Bare Rock Lane was a narrow dirt road that lived up to its name. The drive Dad turned down was so overgrown that branches scraped the sides of the small truck.
“Smell that, kiddo?” Dad asked, rolling down his window as we bumped along in the truck. Together we inhaled deeply, and the scent of long-fallen pine needles filled my nostrils, earthy and medicinal.
We pulled up to the back door of a modest wood A-frame cabin that was dwarfed by the white and red pines that grew around it. Dad shut off the engine and turned to me, a smile below his graying mustache and eyes crinkling under dark-rimmed glasses, and said, “Welcome to the lake, Persephone.”
The cottage had this incredible smoky-wood smell. Somehow it never faded, even after years of Mom burning her expensive Diptyque candles. Each time I returned, I’d stand at the entrance, breathing it in, just like I did that first day. The main floor was a small open space, covered floor to ceiling in pale planks of knotted wood. Massive windows opened onto an almost obnoxiously stunning view of the lake.
“Wow,” I murmured, spotting a staircase leading from the deck and down a steep hill.
“Not bad, huh?” Dad patted me on the shoulder.
“I’m going to check out the water,” I said, already darting out the side door, which closed behind me with an enthusiastic thwack. I fled down dozens of steps until I reached the dock. It was a humid afternoon, every inch of sky carpeted by thick gray clouds that were mirrored in the still, silver water below. I could barely make out the cottages that dotted the far shore. I wondered if I could swim across it. I sat on the edge of the dock, legs dangling in the water, shocked at how quiet it was, until Mom yelled down for me to help unpack.
We were tired and cranky from moving boxes and fighting off mosquitoes by the time we unloaded the truck. I left Mom and Dad to get the kitchen organized and headed upstairs. There were two bedrooms; my parents forfeited the lakeside one to me, saying that since I spent more time in my room, I’d make better use of the view. I unpacked my clothes, made the bed, and folded a Hudson’s Bay blanket at the end. Dad didn’t think we needed such heavy wool blankets in summer, but Mom insisted on having one for each bed.
“It’s Canadiana,” she explained in a tone that said that should have been obvious.
I arranged a perilously high stack of paperbacks on one nightstand and tacked up a Creature from the Black Lagoon poster above the bed. I had a thing for horror. I watched a ton of scary movies, my parents having long ago given up on censoring them, and hoovered classic R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike books, as well as newer series about hot teens who turned into werewolves during full moons and hot teens who hunted ghosts after cheerleading practice. Back when I still had friends, I’d bring the books to school and read the good bits (as in anything gory or remotely sexy) aloud. At first, I just loved getting a reaction from the girls, loved being the center of attention but with the safety net of someone else’s words as the entertainment. But the more horror I read, the more I grew to love the writing behind the story—how the authors made impossible situations believable. I liked how each book was both predictable and unique, comforting and unexpected. Safe but never boring.
“Pizza for dinner?” Mom stood at the doorway, eyeing the poster but saying nothing.
“They have pizza?” Barry’s Bay hadn’t looked big enough to have delivery. And, it turned out, it wasn’t, so we drove to the takeout-only Pizza Pizza, located in a corner of one of the town’s two grocery stores.
“How many people live here?” I asked Mom. It was seven p.m., and most of the businesses on the main drag looked closed.
“About one thousand two hundred, though I expect it’s probably triple that in the summer with all the cottagers,” she said. With the exception of a crowded restaurant patio, the town was pretty much deserted. “The Tavern must be the place to be on a Saturday night,” she commented, slowing down as we passed.
“It looks like it’s the only place to be,” I replied.
By the time we got back, Dad had the small TV set up. There was no cable, but we had packed our family DVD collection.
“I was thinking The Great Outdoors,” said Dad. “Seems appropriate, don’t you think, kiddo?”
“Hmm . . .” I crouched down to inspect the contents of the cabinet. “The Blair Witch Project would also be appropriate.”