Page 107 of The Deepest Lake

“Pretty,” Rose says, waiting for Wendy to continue.

“It helps with the writing, attending as often as I have.” Wendy shakes her head. “But the stories you have to hear. Like Scarlett’s. I had a hard time with that one. Aren’t these gorgeous plants. Everything so green.”

Rose murmurs agreement.

“I worry for Scarlett,” Wendy says. “She’s a sensitive girl.”

Rose chooses her next words carefully. “Our whole group’s a little—fragile, I guess you’d say? But I bet some groups are more problematic than others. You would know.”

Rose sees Wendy’s shoulders rise and her chin drop down into her chest.

Rose presses on. “Eva said something about ‘learning from her mistakes,’ after something that happened during the last session. And after seeing some of these workshops—Rachel, and especially Scarlett—I can imagine. But what exactly happened in May?”

“May?” Wendy asks, eyes flitting to the shadows along the trail. “I didn’t say I was here last May.”

“Weren’t you?”

Wendy grunts as she ascends the next stone step.

Rose puts a hand on Wendy’s elbow, like she’s just trying to help her with the climb. But the touch isn’t casual. This is one woman talking to another woman, where no one else can hear.

Rose tries again. “You were here in May. I know you were.”

Wendy allows herself to be helped up the next step. “Eva asked alums not to mention it to new folks. We’re sort of her cheering squad, you know?”

“But Eva admitted it herself, that something went wrong. So, it’s not a secret, right?”

They both know it is.

Rose looks directly at Wendy’s face, but the elderly woman is looking up the remaining stretch of trail, avoiding Rose’s gaze.

“Every time you get at least one unhappy person,” Wendy says. “It’s challenging.”

“And how did you know this person was unhappy?”

“Well, she was looking bad, the morning of her workshop. Thousand-yard stare, and then she did a vanishing act.”

“Vanishing act?”

Now, Rose really is finding it harder to breathe.

Jules would have wanted to audit the workshops. It would have been the only thing that kept her here, even as she started to see past Eva’s façade.

“Not in the morning, when she was workshopped,” Wendy explains. “But that night, I guess. She went missing a little while and then they found her passed out on the beach. I heard she’d been swimming. That spooked Eva a bit, realizing the girl could have drowned. That was the scuttlebutt.”

“She passed out, but she didn’t drown?”

Wendy leans on her walking stick. “No, of course not.”

Rose has to fight the urge to pinch the arm she is steadying. “What was her name?”

“‘Sarah,’ I think. Or, like the desert. Sahara?”

“What did she look like?”

“Skinny as a twig. Pale. Blackish sort of ratty hair. A rock musician. That explains the look, I guess.”

Rose’s breaths are coming more quickly now. For a second, her vision darkens.