Maria thought Bob Taylor did it on purpose. There was no need for him to come around the back of the house. She listened patiently to him blathering on about cutting back trees, but he always managed to put her on edge. He’d done so ever since he’d arrived on the island twelve years ago with Ruth and Jill. Annie had told her about their arrival a week before they came, and the thought had even swept through Maria’s mind that they could be friends with the new family.

But then she’d met him and knew it could never be. He had held out a hand to David, barely acknowledging Maria as he talked far too loudly about how pleased they were to be coming to the island. While Ruth slunk behind him, not once did he ask them any questions, for that would have stolen his one-man show. On the surface his words were effusive, but she knew they were hiding something darker. She knew Bob and Ruth had a secret. And just like Maria and David, they had come to Evergreen to hide from it. They had been tiptoeing around this fact for so many years that by now Maria thought that, as much as she disliked Bob, she could probably trust him.

But during the summer weeks that stretched ahead, that trust would be tested to its limits. And by the end of it Maria knew that putting distance between her family and Bob Taylor had become not just a necessity – but a matter of life and death.

PRESENT

Chapter Ten

The last time I saw Annie was the day before we left when I watched her and Mum talking in the garden. I remember her clutching on to Mum’s arms, her mouth forming a perfect circle, shaking her head as if she either couldn’t believe we were going or didn’t agree with it.

When they came into the kitchen Annie’s arms had twitched at her side before she’d reached to hug me. ‘Look after yourself, Stella,’ she said. ‘Look after yourself.’ I’d expected to see tears in her eyes when I pulled back, but they were completely dry.

Like everywhere else on the island, there’s no sign of movement by the lakes, which feel deathly still. Even the water looks like a sheet of ice. Slowly I walk around them towards Annie’s home, the first one in the staggered line of houses.

Annie had always watched over me like I was one of her own. She might as well have been family – she’d become a surrogate aunt to us all – and it seems silly that I feel so apprehensive. But then nothing on the island is the same as it once was.