“You’re smiling,” Sarah teased. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“No,” Lily said. The ranger had been helpful, even if she hadn’t bothered to hide her opinion that Lily’s choice of vehicle and general judgment were questionable. As annoying as that had been, the encounter had left her energized in a way she hadn’t been for so long she’d forgotten the feeling. “No, it was fine.”

“Good. Come on, then, let’s walk down to the lake while we still have the place to ourselves.” Sarah linked her arm through Lily’s and led her down a twisting path through the pines. The lodge soon disappeared behind the dense wall of trees, while ahead, sunlight glinted on the mirror-surface of a lake that extended out of sight in every direction. A narrow strip of beach came into view, and flashes of red and orange, bright patches through the green, proved to be kayaks and canoes stacked on metal racks.

“How big is the lake?” Lily asked.

“Several hundred acres,” Sarah said. “Nathaniel Wingate, a shipping magnate from New York City, owned twelve thousand acres of forestland with something like six lakes all interconnected by navigable streams. He built the lodge as a hunting pavilion for family friends. The heirs eventually deeded almost all the land back to the state as part of the forest preserve.”

“And how much is officially part of the camp?”

“Just shy of five thousand acres, all wilderness preserve under the regulation of the DEC.”

“I had no idea how remote the place would feel.”

“That’s what makes this location perfect as a summer camp. It’s not that far from major highways, but we are in the middle of completely uninhabited land.” Sarah laughed. “I guess that seems a little daunting to a city girl, huh?”

“Funny,” Lily murmured, strolling down to the shore, “it doesn’t.”

Lily had never been much of an outdoors person. She’d grown up in Manhattan and lived there all her life, but it wasn’t hard to appreciate the natural beauty surrounding her. She took in the coffee-colored sand, studded here and there with small stones, that looked nothing like the beaches on Long Island or along the Atlantic where she’d vacationed as a child. Not a cell tower in sight. No rumble of trucks or the ever-present chorus of millions of people filling every street. Being physically cut off from the world as she had known it carried a remarkable sense of relief. Of…freedom.

She dipped a hand in the water. Clean, clear, and…really cold.

“People swim in this?” she called.

“It’s June,” Sarah said. “There’s still snowmelt in the high country feeding these lakes. But it will warm up soon enough.”

Despite the absence of sounds she’d grown used to in the city, it wasn’t really quiet. Stillness was not the same as emptiness. Looking out over the water, Lily picked out half a dozen different kinds of birdsong, the rustle of tree branches overhead, and even the hushed rippling of the lake against the shore. She glanced at Sarah.