When I look back down, the boy and girl are gone, and water is surging up the sloping lawn like waves washing up on the beach. A little higher each time. The rising flood sweeps away the picnic tables scattered across the grassy slope. It swallows the tallest trees. Foaming and swirling and rising and churning until the great lawn looks like the ocean in a hurricane.

I watch the water coming closer. It covers the lampposts that stand along the edge of the path, but they don’t go out. I see them shining and blinking under the dark water, like strange luminescent jellyfish.

I’m still standing on the steps, and it’s swirling around my ankles now.

I step up onto the porch and back away as seawater starts to creep over the boards. It’s swirling around my calves. Getting higher and higher.

Knees.

Waist.

Chest.

The world is filled with water, and I wonder how long it will take to drown. And if I’ll get it right this time.

I read a magazine article once about how drowning doesn’t look like we think it does. How there’s no screaming or choking or arm-waving. No yelling “help.” Drowning is silent, the article said. Deadly silent. And most of the time, nobody else even notices.

The water is up to my neck now.

I’m worried about the broken wine bottle, the pieces of razor-sharp glass that I know are in the water. And I wonder about the girl in the white nightgown. And the little boy with dark hair. Have they been swept away? Or are they lurking somewhere under the black water, like the shards of the shattered bottle?

Then I have another thought. One that scares me more than any of the others.

Lex.

Lex is still sleeping on top of the picnic table.

And I know the water will cover him up.

Drown him.

Or wash him away.

That the pieces of glass will cut him to shreds.

Or maybe the girl in the white nightgown will drag him under the dark surface, where I can’t get to him.

But when I turn to yell his name, he is standing right behind me.

It startles me, and I take a step back.

His hands are on my shoulders.

“Avril?” I want to warn him about the churning water, and about the broken glass and the girl in white—but I can’t. I’m so cold and wet. Frozen solid. And the rain is still falling. “Avril.” Lex says my name again, and this time he shakes me a little. “Hey! We need to make a run for the cabins. Before the rain starts again.”

I reach out and touch his hair.

Dry.

The porch is dry.

He takes the wine bottle from my hand.

I feel myself trembling. I put my arms around Lex’s neck, and he hugs me tight.