Lily thought Maria would cry when she saw the empty board. Or get angry. Or do something. Instead Maria blinked several times, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply.

Lily tried to talk to her in their room later. She tried to tell her that she was sorry about Brandon. That she understood what he’d meant to Maria. That it was okay if Maria needed to cry, needed to lean on her, needed to open up about what she was feeling. Even if it wasn’t something she wanted to tell anyone else.

Maria didn’t answer. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling through wide-open eyes.

It felt like life would go on exactly this way forever. College and the Kingsley Prize seemed like faraway, abstract things. Lily couldn’t imagine ever living anywhere but here. She might as well spend the rest of her life limping across the gloomy Acheron campus. Shivering in her cold, cramped dorm room.

Fog was pouring off the lake tonight, the way it always did. Lily thought she saw someone else walking on the far side, but it was dark, and she couldn’t be sure. She swung along the path on her crutches, taking care to stay on the opposite end of the lake from where Brandon had fallen.

Lily wasn’t superstitious. She hated to remember what he’d looked like spread out on that stretcher, though. Lying so still.

Tiny waves lapped at the shores of the lake. That was strange. The water was usually still and silent.

The waves sounded musical. Almost like voices.

Then Lily realized the sounds were voices. Babbling the same notes again and again, the sounds echoing and overlapping.

The voices were low, mixed with the murmur of the waves, but Lily could make out rising, falling notes. Then garbled, distorted words.

Join us, the voices said. Three voices, maybe four, all the same.

Join us, they said again. Come for a swim. They giggled, like children.

Lily tried to laugh back. At herself, for hearing things.

She’d never swum in Acheron’s lake. Everyone knew not to go in the water.

Even so, Lily found herself wandering toward the shoreline.

She’d loved swimming. Before her accident, she’d taken her team to the Virginia state finals year after year.

Looking out over the water, she remembered the way it used to feel. The ease of it. The weightlessness. The comforting swish of water closing over her.

Lily rolled her eyes at her own crazy imagination. Here she’d been scoffing at all the random people talking about mysterious humming and faces in the mirror, and now she thought the damn lake was talking to her.

If she wasn’t careful she’d wind up just as crazy at the rest of them.