“Been ready all summer!” He starts to climb into the tire ring.

“Let me go first. Then you aim for where I land. That way we’re in the same spot and I can grab you if I need to.”

He nods. “Your swing, your rules.”

Rings of ripples spread across the water. Something in the shallows is moving.

I slide my legs into the center of the tire.

“You’re doing it wrong, Hiss,” Andrew says. He’s shaking his head; his mop of sandy hair sways across his brow.

“How, then?”

“You’d have to let me show you. I’d have to go first.”

“Fine, you go.” I slide out of the swing. The ripples on the water have passed the center of the pond—the dark middle where the shallows drop away into Genny’s pit.

Andrew stands in the O of the swing, his toes curled over the edge of the tube, the fish line gripped in his fists. “You have to be standing to get the best jump.” His toenails are too long, and dirty. He leans his narrow shoulders back and kicks his feet forward. The tire swings, brushing the tips of tall reeds.

He pushes it higher—farther out over the rippling water. Closer to the pit.

The branch above is bending and swaying with the momentum. Leaves fall around us, raining into the water. They float along the surface before getting snagged in dams in the forest of reeds.

“Watch me, Hiss!” The swing arcs forward and Andrew releases it. He soars over the water. His gold hair blows back from his face—a mask of rapture. He thrusts his arms forward like Superman.

The water below him is churning, a soup pot beginning to foam.

Just as Andrew reaches his apex and tips toward the dark water, pale hands and sodden arms stretch up from the center of a widening whirlpool. Andrew’s arms clutch at the air, his legs kicking, as he lands in Kyle’s mother’s arms.

Her hands fold over him like reeds in the wind, and they disappear below the surface. The water stills.

I stare at the dark mirror of water. I should have gone first. I should be with them.

The swing arcs back and knocks Andrew’s shoes from my hand. They splash into the shallows. The sound breaks my stupor.

I drop into the water and slither, gliding like a water snake to the center, and I dive.

***

The water at the bottom of the pit is clouded with black silt. Currents race across each other as if a dozen storms rage overhead.

At the center of the swirling curtain of sand is Kyle’s mother. She holds Andrew close, his head pressed against her neck. His eyes roll toward me slowly, his lids half-mast. Bits of algae and torn reed circle them.

As I approach, the woman pulls Andrew closer and turns away from me.