The Camp

by Nancy Bush

Genres: Horror

Synopsis

The perfect summer suspense thriller, evoking 1980s horror movies set at sleepaway camps but with a fresh twist, from the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Babysitter and The Neighbors.

There are always stories told around the fire at summer camp—tall tales about gruesome murders and unhinged killers, concocted to scare new arrivals and lend an extra jolt of excitement to those hormone-charged nights. At Camp Luft-Shawk, nicknamed Camp Love Shack, there are stories about a creeping fog that brings death with it. But here, they’re not just campfire tales. Here, the stories are real.
 
Twenty years ago, a girl’s body was found on a ledge above the lake, arms crossed over her heart. Some said it was part of a suicide pact, connected to the nearby Haven Commune. Brooke, Rona, and Wendy were among the teenagers at camp that summer, looking for fun and sun, sex and adventure. They’ve never breathed a word about what really happened—or about the night their friendship shattered.
 
Now the camp, renamed Camp Fog Lake, has reopened for a new generation, and many of those who were there on that long-ago night are returning for an alumni weekend. But something is stirring at the lake again. As the fog rolls in, evil comes with it. Those stories were a warning, and they didn’t listen. And the only question is, who will live long enough to regret it?
 

Release date: June 27, 2023

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 432

Reader says this book is...: entertaining story (1) haunting (1) suspenseful (1) unexpected twists (1)

Sample

Then...

Emma Whelan sat on the cold carpet of pine needles around the campfire, narrowing her eyes against the smoke. It was dark outside, no ambient light to push back the deep woods beyond the blood-orange glow off the spitting and grasping flames, rust and maize heat devils dancing toward the sky. Across the campfire, the boys’ faces were up-lit, gallows-like. And beyond them the lake was a black void, a seemingly endless placid surface that stretched to the other end, though Fog Lake was barely half a mile long, both shores along its width in sight of each other.

“Sure you don’t want some?” one of the boys asked, holding up a joint and pointing it in Emma’s direction.

At seventeen Emma was no stranger to weed. She’d done her share of experimenting but she’d never cared for the high. She’d abused alcohol some, too. Got drunk just enough times to regret some of the things she’d said and done, and so her interest in marijuana and booze had fallen off a cliff.

Rona, seated a few spaces over from Emma, jumped up and circled the fire to take the joint, press it between her lips, and inhale deeply. She kept her eyes on the guy who’d offered it up, Donovan, even though he was still looking at Emma. He liked Emma, she knew, but she didn’t care. She was used to male attention. But his interest in her had clearly pissed off Rona, which amused her.

Brooke, on Emma’s right, said, “Joy’s not leaving us overnight by ourselves. She’ll be back.”

“Nah, she’s gone,” another one of the guys answered. That was Lanny. Kind of a douchebag. Kinda funny. Emma wasn’t sure what she thought of him. “The sad sack’s not here. We’ve got the place to ourselves till tomorrow afternoon, so party on, dudes.” Lanny got to his feet and did an impromptu bump and grind with his hips, part sexual, part plain stupid. He wore baggy shorts and a camp T-shirt and made goofy faces. His ears stuck out from beneath a shaggy haircut of brown hair. Everyone laughed and even Emma smiled.

Joy, who was kind of down and mopey, was the midthirty-ish director of the summer camp owned by Mr. and Mrs. Luft-Shawk. The Luft-Shawks had tried to entrench the name “Camp Fog Lake” but everyone still called it Camp Love Shack not only because it sounded like their names, but also because it had the reputation of being a hot, hook-up place. Emma could attest to that last part. She’d spent an exploratory half hour with Donovan behind the mirror, a space about the size of Mom’s broom closet, but in truth her mind had been set on someone else. Donovan and his ilk were just a summer distraction and when he’d tried to jam himself into her standing up, Emma had pushed back as far as the space would allow and let him know that was the end of whatever was between them.

As if realizing her thoughts had touched on him, Donovan, who’d stretched out on the ground after passing the joint, roused himself again and sat up. His longish hair was dark in the shadows but she knew it was brown, streaked blond from weeks in the sun as a lifeguard at the lake. He had a great body, strong arms and chest that showed beneath the unbuttoned white shirt he’d tossed on over a pair of khaki shorts. All the girls wanted to be with him, which was, truthfully, why Emma had considered giving him a whirl behind the mirror. But like Lanny and Owen, Donovan was really just another horny guy looking to get laid. None of them knew the first thing about how to treat a woman. Hell, how to treat another human being. Bring up the word “relationship” and they would run away as if chased by a hive of hornets. Respect, consideration, and basic kindness were foreign concepts as well. All they were good for was quick sex with a hard body, if you were so inclined. She didn’t even like kissing him or his ilk and had gotten a reputation around the camp for “no mouth stuff.” They were all too eager, too slobbery, too much tongue. Took the thrill of a summer fling right out of it.

There was another guy who’d caught her eye. He wasn’t hanging out with any of them around tonight’s campfire and was a bit of a mystery, which was what intrigued her the most. He wasn’t part of the camp as far as she could tell. She was still debating on him. A last hurrah before the rest of her life began. Just thinking about the future made her happy and anxious and determined all at the same time.

She glanced over at Rona and Brooke. They were both regarding Donovan reverently. They knew he’d been with Emma and they wanted a crack at him themselves.

Good luck, girls.

“You know why it’s called Fog Lake, don’t you?” Donovan said. He arched a brow for effect and threw a glance over at Brooke and Rona.

“Let me guess. Uhhhh . . . because of the fog?” Rona smirked at him. She was medium height with short, dark hair that flopped into her eyes in a cute, boyish way and yet she was all curves and knew how to use them. She slid a look Emma’s way as if to say, I’ve got his attention now, bitch.

Emma could feel herself rise to the challenge and reminded herself that this summer was just a pause before the beginning of her real life. Let Rona have him.

“Not just a fog. It’s this dense curtain of—I’m not making this up—water crystals and tiny cells that are part plant and animal in origin,” Donovan said in all seriousness.

Emma squinted her eyes at him. Was he for real?

“Animal?” Brooke questioned, cocking her head. She swept back the curtain of light brown hair that fell across her face. She, too, was medium build; both she and Rona were a bit shorter than Emma. Brooke was seemingly more reticent than Rona, but Emma had caught her assessing her more than once with those green eyes and suspected Emma Whelan had been a very lively topic amongst the “three hottest chicks at camp, after Emma,” according to the boys. Those chicks included Rona, Brooke, and their third friend, Wendy, who was seated one over from Brooke.

Now Wendy, who up till this point had been sitting like a statue, stirred. She was petite with curly brown hair she tried to constantly tame into a ponytail. Her elfin chin quivered slightly and she complained, “You’re just trying to scare us.”

“No shit,” was Lanny’s jovial reply. He grinned and waggled his fingers at her, as if he were throwing a hex on her. Wendy shrank into herself and hid behind Brooke.

“So, the fog is alive?” Emma questioned dryly.

Donovan shrugged. “It’s not regular fog. It’s thicker. And it moves in slowly and creeps across the lake and hangs there. After it recedes, dead bodies have been found. Ask Joy, if you don’t believe me.”

Emma said, “The fog kills people. It’s alive and it kills people. Let me write that down.”

“People die when it comes around,” Owen Paulsen jumped in quickly, shooting a glance toward Donovan. He was shorter and more compact, with longish, dark brown hair and was Donovan’s lieutenant, always ready to defend his friend and maybe catch some of his hero’s hand-offs, where the ladies were concerned.

“So, the fog can think, too,” said Emma. “Very evolutionary of it. If it was just made up of plant crystals, well then, the killing would be more reactionary, like plants, I suppose. But made up of animal crystals . . . that means it can think. If that’s the case, the fog might actually know who it’s killing.”

“Shut up,” said Donovan with admiration.

Lanny groaned. “You sound like a teacher.”

Rona stately flatly, “The bottom line is: stay away from the fog. Fine with me.”

“That’s right. Don’t go out in it,” warned Owen, once again looking to Donovan for support. “When it rolls in, just stay in your cabin and don’t come out.”

Donovan said in a hushed voice, “The last time it crept over Camp Love Shack there was a body left on Suicide Ledge.” He glanced back in the dark to his left, as if throwing a look in the direction of the infamous slab of rock that daredevils used as a means to launch themselves into the lake. That was how people died. By underestimating how far out you needed to leap in order to avoid the lurking boulders in the water just below the surface of the lake far below.

“I heard about that,” said Wendy, poking her head out from behind Brooke like a frightened bird. “She was left on the ledge with her arms crossed over her chest and covered with ashes.”

“A sacrifice,” said Owen.

“That’s a myth,” Rona said with a snort.

“No, it’s not.” This from a boy named Ryan. Emma hadn’t paid much attention to him to date. She thought about that other guy, the one who interested her, but it was probably best to forget him, too.

“The fog is nothing to fuck with.” Donovan’s tone was sharp, bringing the attention back to himself. “But it only comes early in June, so we’ve ducked it this year.”

“Lucky us,” said Emma.

Emma knew she was pushing him but didn’t much care. Donovan was the kind of guy who didn’t like being questioned, but Emma was the kind of girl who couldn’t stand letting guys like Donovan get away with their bullshit, so she just met his gaze blandly.

Rona said, “Well, I’m glad we missed it.”

“June gloom,” said Brooke.

Emma rotated her shoulders as they were growing stiff. “Good story, Donovan, but I think I’m heading to bed.” She stood up and swiped small twigs and branches from the back of her jeans.

“Not just a story. Truth,” insisted Donovan. For all his looks to the contrary, he was no laid-back surfer boy–type.

“They’ve found a body in the lake once, maybe twice,” granted Emma. “But those were probably swimming deaths.”

“And the one on the ledge,” reminded Wendy.

“Don’t leave,” Donovan said to Emma. “Sit down, sit down.” He motioned with his hand patting the air for her to reseat herself on the ground.

“My butt is numb.”

“That’s part of the fun of Camp Love Shack,” insisted Lanny.

They all chorused for her to stay, the girls a little less enthusiastically than the guys. Emma thought about it. Truthfully, if the camp director planned to be away for a while, it was nice to at least be unchaperoned. Sure, she would’ve rather had more sophisticated company, but what the hell.

“You sure you don’t want some?” Donovan squeaked out, holding smoke in his lungs from a big hit, extending the roach toward Emma.

“No, thanks.”

“A beer?” Lanny held one up from the cooler he’d sneaked into camp, waggling the bottle back and forth, trying to entice her.

Emma knew they all looked at her as if she were a pariah. She hadn’t come to make friends, and she’d been standoffish from the start. She had other things coming up in her life. She’d just been putting in her time as a camp counselor this summer before her senior year in high school.

But...

“Okay,” she said, slowly sinking back down, and she could almost hear the unspoken “Finally!” from the group.

“June’s over and I, for one, am enjoying this ‘fogless’ night,” stated Brooke firmly.

“The fog comes when the fog comes—June, July, August, whenever,” said Lanny. His tone was surprisingly serious for him. “None of us are really safe, but that’s what makes Camp Love Shack so cool.”

“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” murmured Wendy.

“Why not? Bring it on,” declared Rona. “Any fog in the forecast?”

Rona was one of those girls who talked big and kind of acted like she was one of the guys. You could never trust which way she would land on any issue. Sometimes she sided with her friends, sometimes she didn’t. Emma had determined right away that she was untrustworthy and always looking for attention.

Emma took a long swallow of the beer. It was nicely cold and fizzed its way down her throat. She’d steered clear of beer since the time she’d drunk a warm one that a friend had pilfered from one of her parents’ parties and hidden under her jacket. That same weekend Emma had gotten sick on orange juice and vodka, which pretty much put paid to her interest in alcohol altogether. That friend had since moved away and now Emma was kind of a lone ranger where girlfriends were concerned.

“The dead girl on the ledge wasn’t a fable,” Donovan assured them.

Rona moved over and wriggled herself between Donovan and Lanny. “Yeah, but the girl on the ledge took her own life. She took some drug and overdosed. Probably didn’t even intend to kill herself. Was trying to make a statement to some guy at that cult place over there.” She waved a hand in the direction of Suicide Ledge and the trail that led all the way from the camp to the commune about a mile further on.

“Haven Commune,” said Ryan.

They all looked at him.

“It’s not a cult,” he tried to assure them.

“How do you all know so much?” Lanny queried. He’d sat back down cross-legged and was poking at the fire with a stick. A cascade of sparks flew upward, scarlet and orange fireflies moving frantically against the dark sky.

“I can read,” said Rona. “Something I could teach you how to do, if I had the inclination to do so, which I don’t.”

The boys all protested loudly at the dig, but grinned like the dorks they were.

Emma pressed Rona, “She died of an overdose?”

“She was from that cult.” She threw a look at Ryan, daring him to argue with her. “They all use drugs and have sex with everybody and chant and pray to the devil.”

Emma laughed out loud. She couldn’t help herself. Ryan immediately protested that he knew people from the commune and they were totally normal. He sounded a little too anxious to convince them to Emma’s ears. Donovan gave Rona a friendly shove and she shoved him back and pretty soon they were tickling and almost wrestling, and Emma decided Rona was going to get what she wanted from him after all. Well, fine. She finished her beer and screwed the bottle base into the dirt and pine needles to keep it from falling over, then lay back and looked up at the stars. The night was deep and clear.

As if reading her mind, Lanny intoned, “The fog rolls in, covers everything in a cold, gray blanket, then recedes, leaving a trail of death in its wake.”

“You asshole,” said Rona on a laugh.

“Shut up,” said Wendy at the same time, sounding like she meant it. Emma turned her head to look at her, but she was still obscured by Brooke.

“Look who’s scared,” sniggered Owen.

Brooke ordered, “Stop it, you guys.”

Which made them double down on their teasing.

Suddenly Donovan was above Emma, his hair falling down on either side of his head, holding himself above her by stiff arms, staring down at her.

“Get off me,” she said conversationally. She really wasn’t in the mood. And where was Rona?

As if answering the question, Rona suddenly leapt to her feet into Emma’s field of vision. She stood in the center of the group, almost in the campfire. “Okay, shut up, shut up. All of you. Time to play Truth or Dare, only it’s just truth, so you morons don’t do something stupid and kill yourselves and leave us to explain why you’re all dead.”

“No dares? Bullshit, I’m not playing,” declared Donovan, but even so he jumped to his feet in one lithe move as well. Owen and Lanny and Ryan were still seated but they all heartily agreed with him.

“You’re all playing,” Rona ordered to their collective groan.

“Fine, then you have to answer with the truth, too,” warned Lanny, pointing at each of the girls individually.

“Absolutely,” Rona agreed with a lift of her shoulder.

“You first,” Donovan told her.

“Fine. Go ahead. Ask me anything.”

“Did you fuck Steve Burckman?” Donovan shot back immediately.

Wendy gasped and Brooke declared, “Donovan!”

“Well?” His gaze was fixed on Rona.

Unlike her friends, she was unperturbed. “Steve Burckman’s an asshole. Let’s get the rules straight here. Whatever the question is, it should be asked of everyone. So, if you want to know who someone slept with, you ask, ‘Who’s the last person you slept with?’ You can’t be so specific—”

“Was Steve Burckman the last person you slept with?” Donovan cut in.

“Shut up, asshole. I never slept with him,” she snapped back.

“We’re not asking that question!” Brooke stated loudly. “I’m not discussing my love life.”

“Like you have one,” sniggered Lanny.

“What’s the point, then?” asked Owen.

“We need a different question. How about, ‘What’s the worst thing you did that really pissed off your parents?’” Brooke suggested.

“We’ll take Brooke’s question,” agreed Rona.

“Too tame,” groaned Lanny. “Ask something else.”

“Nope. That’s the question. Brooke asked it, and it stays. I’ll start.” Rona began walking in a slow circle around the campfire and Emma eased herself up into a cross-legged sitting position, curious.

“I was fourteen. It was the summer before high school and I was with my cousin who’d just turned eighteen and he and I were the only ones awake at this backyard barbeque party at my aunt’s.”

“Uh-oh,” said Owen. “Sounds like a sex thing.”

“We started kissing. No big deal. A little touching. Just a little experimentation.”

“Maybe a little statutory rape,” drawled Donovan.

“It didn’t go near that far.” She glared at Owen as if he’d said it. He raised his hands in all innocence. “But our parents caught us and my cousin got a blistering with a hack paddle, and I got grounded for all of freshman year.” Rona reseated herself by Donovan.

“Your cousin?” squeaked Wendy, which made all the guys laugh and then pretend like they were barfing their guts out at the thought.

“Oh, stop it,” said Brooke tiredly.

“What’d you do?” Owen asked her.

Emma had seen the way Owen looked at Brooke and wondered if Brooke had noticed.

“No. My turn,” Lanny interrupted. “My mama caught me with enough ganja in my room to get the whole town high. She threw me out of the house, and I had to live with my dad and stepmother, the wicked bitch of Laurelton, for half a year before she let me back in.”

“What about you?” Owen asked Brooke again. “You’re the one who wanted this stupid question.”

Emma slid her eyes to Brooke, who lifted a hand to brush back her hair, a move meant to buy time. Brooke then shrugged and said, “I took out my mom’s car when I was fifteen before I had my license. When I drove back home my dad was standing in the picture window, waiting for me. They’d gotten home before I did and man, I was in serious trouble. Couldn’t see my friends. Grounded, like Rona.”

“This is a dumb question,” said Owen, bored.

“What about you?” Donovan asked Emma.

Before she could answer, Ryan demanded the same thing of Wendy.

“Sorry. I don’t have any story,” she answered. “I haven’t done anything to piss my parents off. I’m the good girl.”

“Bullshit, Wendy,” said Rona on a short laugh. “You just haven’t got caught yet.”

“You know something we don’t?” Lanny asked Rona, who just shrugged.

Brooke seemed about to say something but held it back.

Emma looked at Rona, then Brooke, then Wendy. The three of them had all just graduated from Laurelton High together. Emma still had another year of school at River Glen, but felt light-years older.

“Emma?” Donovan turned back to her. All of their faces, ghoulishly lit by the fire, seemed to stare at her with black eyes. A bat swooped over them and then another before they headed north, in the direction of Suicide Ledge. Out of the corner of her eye Emma thought she saw movement in the trees just outside the camp clearing. She glanced quickly that way but there was nothing she could see.

“You’re stalling,” said Lanny.

They were all waiting with bated breath. Emma smiled to herself and thought . . . A bunch of fourth graders . . .

“Actually, the ‘pissed off’ stuff is still coming,” she told them.

“What does that mean?” asked Ryan.

“Shut up.” Donovan’s eyes were on Emma.

“My mom doesn’t know it yet, but I’m getting married soon.”

That caused a moment of surprised silence, then Lanny cried, “Married?”

“Are you pregnant?” asked Owen.

“Yeah . . .” Rona was staring at her like she’d grown a second head.

Emma laughed aloud. “You should see your faces!”

“You’re joking,” accused Brooke.

“This is truth,” Rona reminded.

Emma just shrugged. She wasn’t about to explain herself.

Owen was next and told them he’d stolen some beer out of the neighbor’s garage refrigerator. His parents had been embarrassed and the neighbor had suggested Owen mow their very large backyard for the entire summer, which pretty much sucked. Donovan was questioned about what he’d done and he said he’d taken up with his dad’s girlfriend for a while after they broke up, which hadn’t gone over well with dear, old Dad. Like Lanny, he was shipped off to the other parent for a while. Ryan never got around to saying what he’d gotten in trouble for, other than muttering his dad was a hard-ass and didn’t like anything he did.

The campfire broke up soon afterward with everyone drifting back to their bunks. It was Ryan who slipped up beside Emma, matching his strides to hers as she headed to her cabin. “Are you really getting married?” he asked her somewhat earnestly.

“What’d you do to piss off your parents?” she countered. This was the first time he’d even spoken to her directly.

He glanced back toward the surrounding fir trees. The half moon had been obscured by clouds, but it broke free and shone brightly on the edge of the woods. For a second Emma thought she saw a white hand on the bole of a tree but she blinked and it was gone.

“Got involved with the wrong girl,” he said with a kind of half chuckle.

“And your parents found out?”

“Them and everyone else. Hey, do you think we could hang out some? Summer’s almost over and I don’t want it to be.”

Emma felt differently. She wanted this interminable summer to end. “Sure,” she said, more to ease away to the solitude of her bunk than because she was dying to spend more time with him.

“Tomorrow. Maybe we can go swimming or take a walk, or something.”

“Sure,” said Emma at the door to her cabin.

Ryan smiled in the moonlight. He had nice teeth, she thought.

“Tomorrow,” he repeated and gave her a jaunty salute.

Emma went to her bunk and lay on her back, arms crossed behind her head, staring up at the bunk above her. She had the sense that life was going to begin for her, a new door opening to her future. She thought of fooling around with Donovan behind the mirror and made a face. Probably a dumb move.

Outside her window, she heard, “Psst. Emma . . .”

“Go to bed, Donovan,” she said, bored, and rolled over.

Sometime in the night she woke to a cry outside. She sat up and opened the slats above the screened window. Holy shit. Was that fog, creeping in like a thief, slowly moving inside? It was August. Maybe it hadn’t heard that it wasn’t allowed this late in the summer.

Shivering, she rose from her bed and stared through the window into the night, smothered now in a layer of dark gray. Well, it was here. Feeling a strange inner quailing, she stepped back from the window. Grabbing her flashlight, she headed outside, surprised that the door was already unlocked. The now cooler air feathered against her skin, causing a shiver. She wanted to look inside other cabins and assure herself that everyone was in bed, but if she flashed her light she might scare whoever was there.

Instead, she felt her way through the dark and fog around her cabin. She stopped when she was closest to the lake, hearing scraping, heavy breathing—and maybe crying? She hesitated, realizing she’d heard a piercing shriek, and that’s what had wakened her. Should she turn on her flashlight? Would it even penetrate through this gray curtain? New noises sounded. Was that someone dragging one of the canoes over the scattered stones by the lake?

A few minutes later she heard footsteps and saw a quick burst of illumination from someone’s flashlight. It was several people, trying to stealthily make their way toward the cabins. Emma shrank back, her fingers feeling the rough cedar shakes of her cabin’s wall. She worked her way noiselessly back toward the doorway and sneaked inside ahead of them. She saw a few more quick stabs of light as the group came forward. One of them was crying. A girl.

Wendy.

She was being helped along by Brooke and Rona.

Emma quickly climbed into her bed and stayed stock-still as she heard the faint squeak of cabin doors opening and closing. She shut her eyes. Their collective breathing was stuttered and Rona shushed them. A beam of light swung her way and seemed to pause before passing over her. Had they seen her when she was outside? Or had the fog made her invisible?

When all was quiet Emma opened her eyes again, gazing into the dark. What had they been up to? She decided she would talk to them the next day about it, maybe cut one of them—Wendy, the weakest link—from the herd and find out.

But she never had the chance. The next morning the fog made it hard to see anything and Joy, who’d returned sometime in the night and was apparently affected by the tales of the “sentient” fog as well, kept everyone inside. It took several days for the weather to clear and when it did it also became clear that Ryan wasn’t around. Emma caught up with Wendy, who admitted the three of them had been out, but the fog had swept in so suddenly it had scared them. They’d been down by the lake, sharing a joint, and had just run for cover. She swore they hadn’t seen Ryan at all.

But then when Ryan didn’t appear that day, the three friends had to admit to Joy that they’d been out at the lake, but they hadn’t seen him. Joy reported him missing to the sheriff’s department. The search extended to Haven Commune, but there was still no sign of him. He was just gone.

In the days following, Emma noticed something else. The three “hot chicks” were pretty cool to one another. Though they pretended to still be friends and were totally concerned about Ryan, the Laurelton High girls’ friendship had hit a wall. They seemed to have stopped talking amongst themselves. Was it something to do with Ryan? Somehow Emma didn’t think so. She thought back to what she knew of them and considered she might have an inkling of what caused the rift, but kept it to herself. Rona, sensing Emma’s interest, demanded, “What do you know?” but Emma, as ever, simply ignored her. She just wanted to go home. All summer she’d distanced herself some from the camp shenanigans, and now she was completely over them.

The last days of camp Emma kept her eye on the three “friends.” The consensus about Ryan was he’d just left. Joy apparently knew that this was within Ryan’s MO from his overbearing parents and she was more pissed than worried that he’d used her camp as a jumping-off point. The guys seemed to consider Ryan some kind of hero that he’d bailed. If they noticed Rona, Brooke, and Wendy’s estrangement, they didn’t care. Summer was over. They’d either scored with them or hadn’t. From Emma’s point of view, that’s all the guys had cared about anyway. The last night they tried to get everyone around the campfire again, but no one was interested.

In the middle of that night Emma heard a loud noise. A shout. Her eyes flew open. Outside the window flashlights bobbed white in the darkness, an uncoordinated light show. Deep male voices reached her ears.

She climbed out of her sleeping bag and ran outside, but stopped short. Joy was standing by one of the lodge posts, a black jacket thrown over her sweats and T-shirt—Emma’s sleeping garb as well. When Joy didn’t see her, Emma stayed in the shadows and just listened.

Marlon, the camp handyman, broke from the group of flash-lighted seekers and told Joy in his gravelly voice that Ryan had been found. His body was floating on top of the lake.

But that wasn’t all. A girl from Haven Commune was dead as well. She’d been found lying on the slab at Suicide Ledge, her arms crossed over her breast, ashes strewn over her body.

So, there were ashes, Emma thought, grasping onto a random thought as she inwardly reeled from Ryan’s death.

“They were lovers,” Marlon rasped. “He killed her and killed himself.”

“Oh, my Lord . . . my Lord,” whispered Joy.

Emma pulled her shoulders in.

Suicide Ledge had claimed another.

The next day, Joy closed the camp and it stayed that way for nearly twenty years.

Now...

Emma looked straight ahead at Miss Kacey, her therapist. She understood what Miss Kacey was saying, but she wanted to clap her hands over her ears because Miss Kacey said the same thing over and over again and it was nothing Emma wanted to hear.

“We’ve talked about this, Emma,” Miss Kacey was saying patiently. She was always patient. “Your injury has made it difficult for you to really consider all the possibilities, even hidden dangers, that being a surrogate for your sister might entail. Pregnancy comes with a lot of responsibility.”

“I’m responsible,” said Emma.

“Yes, you are. Very responsible. But you know you don’t have the same problem-solving skills that you did before the accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

“No, it wasn’t,” the therapist agreed, momentarily at a loss to continue.

Emma couldn’t quite remember the attack during her senior year of high school that had l