Page 105 of The Deepest Lake

Eva’s voice brightens. “Better, Scarlett. Now, tell me about the room.”

Scarlett has her hands on her thighs, palms up. Rose can feel her trying—feel her refusing to shut down, if this is what it takes.

“Just a living room.”

“There is no just a living room. Describe, please. Concrete. Specific.”

The air feels thick. Out on the lake, the standing fisherman is long gone. Time drags as Eva extracts the details from her.

Loveseat, harvest gold corduroy cushions, the nineteen-inch television left on, the sound of the dog scrabbling behind the closed kitchen door.

“Not habitual actions, Scarlett,” Eva says. “One time. No montage. No fast-forwarding.”

They’re supposed to know this already. They’re supposed to follow the rules for good writing.

“Are you seated now, in this moment?”

“No.”

“Standing? Reclining?”

Scarlett whispers something that Rose misses. Eva looks pleased.

“If you’re on your knees, that’s important. There’s a rug underneath you? Is it bothering the skin of your knees? You’re wearing shorts? No—a skirt. Are you uncomfortable? We need to see it. We need to feel it.”

Rose recognizes the shift in Scarlett’s resigned voice, the recognition that sometimes the only way out is through. But wasn’t that also why she let Mr. Hanshew do what he did? Because it was easier and quicker to give in than to resist?

Everything matters, Eva tells them, repeating the mantra until Scarlett supplies more satisfactory details. The hair on the back of his knuckles. The way his elbow, red and calloused and hard, dug into the top of Scarlett’s shoulder. The tink-tinktink of his belt buckle, still threaded through the pants down around his ankles.

“Better, Scarlett,” Eva says. She pushes a lock of hair behind her ear and then flexes her fingers, like she’s a midwife poised to catch a slippery baby. “But I want you to go back. You’re doing this too fast, and that last comment was from Scarlett today. I only want to hear about Scarlett then. The moment you go into summary or reflection mode, we’re out of the scene. And this has to be a scene. So let’s rewind again. I have to know exactly what happens next.”

Rose tells herself Scarlett must be fine. She has to be fine.

Was Jules fine? Are any of these young women—the fragile ones, the inexperienced ones, the ones with big hearts and big ambitions and desperate desires to please an authority figure like Eva—really going to be fine?

Rose looks over to Lindsay, who is sitting with lips pressed tight, fingernails tapping out an annoyed rhythm on her desk.

It’s almost over. Later, they’ll all try to pick Scarlett up and put her back together again.

Please be fine, Scarlett.

Because if she’s not, isn’t it their fault too—all of them, just sitting here listening as Scarlett is dragged back into a slowmotion nightmare?

The story Eva likes to tell about herself is that she was and still is a great mother. Self-sacrificing. Wise. Caring. Fiercely attached. But for whatever reason, she can’t seem to stop mothering—perhaps the better word is smothering—vulnerable young women.

It’s painful to watch Eva repeating her toxic formula—but satisfying in one small sense. If Eva ever seemed like a mystery, she isn’t one now. And yet . . . Rose is still missing something. Maybe Eva tried to mother Jules, to control her somehow. And at the same time, Jules got wise to Eva’s invasive teaching and problematic fundraising. But if that all came to a head, then what?

Eva claims she fired Jules. Makes sense. Jules seemed upset on her birthday, just before disappearing. Makes sense.

Then what, Rose asks herself. Then what?

The rest of the group thins out as most head down the stairs to the beach to catch a water taxi.

Rose assumes she’ll be making the walk alone, but then she spots a woman with silver-blond hair and a walking stick, heading for the steps that lead up the road. Wanda?

“Wendy,” the woman introduces herself as they begin to climb.

Wendy.