“You can’t,” Dee tells her sister. “You followed me so now you have to wait. And if you tell about this, I’ll say you’re lying. Now go play by the lake.” Lulu bites her lip and looks like she might cry. She doesn’t, though. She knows Dee is still mad at her, so she does what she is told.

Dee turns to the boy. What is his name again? Her heart is racing. She knows she is risking everything. Lulu is a true tattletale. Doesn’t matter, she tells herself. This is real, it is happening. She will figure out how to silence her sister.

The boy leans in close. Now he is no longer a face but a series of features, giant and individual. His lips are wet and trembling. Dee thinks, Is this French kissing? There are moments, flashes of excitement which make it seem like they are just about to get good at it, but then they both miss the moment and it goes on, mouths pushed against one another, spitty and loose. He tastes faintly of hot dog. Dee thinks maybe it doesn’t get good until you do the other stuff so she puts his hand up her top. Her bathing suit is a little wet and his hand is warm. It’s nice, so she considers that a success. Next, his hand makes its way into the tight confines of her denim shorts. It is too tight, his hand gets stuck there, so she unbuttons them and wriggles them down. They are both still for a moment, aware that they are moving quickly into unfamiliar territory. She giggles because it is so weird to be in her swimsuit in a forest with a boy looking at her.

Dee hears a sound. It is like a spoon tapping an egg, just once. Dee pulls her shorts up, calling, “Lulu?” There is no answer. Dee runs toward the shore. The boy follows her, stumbling on his jeans.

Lulu is lying half in and half out of the lapping waves, submerged to the waist, as if she was trying to dive back onto land. Blood clouds and blooms in the water. Dee is not aware of jumping in, but somehow she is standing, waist deep in the water, beside her sister’s small form. The sound it made was quiet, but her skull must have hit the boulder with great force. It is dented, as if punched by a fist. Dee tries not to look at that part.

She presses her lips to Lulu’s and breathes, in a half-remembered impression of first-aid classes at school. But she thinks it’s too late. Lulu’s skin is changing, even as Dee watches. Her face grows pale and waxy. Threads of blood trickle out of her hair. They look kind of like red birds in flight; the way children draw birds, lines against a white sky.