I pause, waiting for what comes next. A dull cramping, a searing pain. I wait, not moving for the span of five full breaths, but there’s nothing but a throbbing in my upper back where I hit the hard edge of the seat.

Carefully, I push to my feet. I step to the starboard side and lean my entire upper body over the side of the boat.

It’s a woman, floating facedown in the water. I can tell from her hair, her slim shoulders and slight build, the designer jeans and thin black sweater. Her arms and legs are spread wide like motionless spider legs, her hands and feet disappearing into the murky water. It’s a stance that’s instantly familiar.

Dead man’s float.

The urge to vomit comes on hard and fast, and sweat breaks out on my skin, even though I’m still freezing. I swallow the sick down and tell myself this is not the first time I’ve seen a dead body. When I was twelve, my grandma dropped dead right next to me, right in the middle of ordering from the Home Shopping Channel. She was a bit of a hoarder, her trailer crammed full with crap she didn’t need and probably couldn’t afford, but the point is, I didn’t panic. I pried the phone out of her hand and called 9-1-1 without producing a tear, even though afterward I cried for days.

But this is different. This time it feels like watching a horror movie, like seeing something forbidden and monstrous. Another faceless, lifeless woman bobbing in the reeds under our dock, only this time... Is it an accident? Or something worse? I watch her hair swirl in a gust of water and it’s like staring into the sun—painful but impossible to look away.

Not here, under Paul’s dock. Not again.

My blood runs hot and I glance up the hill, the world shifting back into focus. Should I flip her over? Drag her into the boat and perform CPR?

Then again, I’m probably not strong enough to lift her out, and it’s too deep under the dock to wade in, not to mention too late. I’m no expert, but it looks like she’s been there a while. The skin that I can see—the tops of her ears, a sliver at the back of her neck—is waxy and luridly white, gleaming like it’s coated in frost.

I decide to leave her be. I can’t help her, and as far as the lake is concerned, this is the end of the line. The currents that live in these waters, powerful undertows and swift updrafts that swirl up muck from the depths, burp everything up here, in the reeds under our dock. Whoever this woman is, she’s not going anywhere.