I still can’t say which tonight was.

“Welcome one, welcome all, to the night everything changes,” Parker Dean yelled over the bustling crowd, as he tapped his glass and looked around at his fellow lake people. The small talk went still. Harvey Beaumont puffed his cigarette in his neighbor’s faces. The Brooks family clan turned out to the party in this year’s hand-sewn summer linens straight from Center City; Callum Drake, the lake’s local gardener, sported his fine dirt-stained plaid, straight from Goodwill.

All the lake people gathered at Parker’s storied cottage, with a picture-perfect wrap-around porch fit with rocking chairs. Parker Dean was beloved enough to be Penn Lake’s mayor, but one of the few humble enough to never run. His small home was overflowing with people, which wasn’t unusual for the Dean family, who were regular hosts of bonfires and blood drives and baby showers and all things that breathed life into the community. The setting sun splashed onto the water and through the cottage’s windows, making the curtain-lined room streaked with orange and pink, almost like a spill, like the sun had crashed onto the lake.

Parker –– tall, broad and freckled –– looked them all square in the eyes as he spoke. “Tonight is the start of something. A page in the history book of Penn Lake.” When he spoke, everyone listened. He searched for his delicate wife Clara in the room, looking to lock eyes for the remainder of his toast, but her chin was down, looking at her feet. Even though Clara matched the colors of the lake for the event – her platinum blonde hair pulled back into a bun to fit her vibrant green and blue floral sundress – she almost looked like she should’ve been wearing black.

“We are excited to have you here for the first-ever annual Save the Lake Soirée,” Parker announced, and after he received another round of applause, he continued, “We are celebrating the restoration of Penn Lake to its greatness, to the place we were all drawn to in the first place. Clara and I are leading this movement to make the lake as protected as it can be: draining it, returning it to its original basin, and restocking it. Letting it be wild, like it was meant to be.”

Some were surprised by the announcement of Save the Lake, unsure of what sparked such a drive in the Dean family, but no one was surprised that it was them to do it. They were unofficially appointed leaders, representatives of the mountain town, always attendants of community meetings and authors of lake bulletins. Callum Drake, soil fresh underneath his fingernails and muskier than mulch, hollered from the back of the cottage. From years of tending lakeside gardens, he knew how overgrown and unprotected the lake had become, and he couldn’t shake his suspicion that pollution from the Main Line industry was to blame.

Save the Lake was an acknowledgement that it finally needed help, that it needed to be restored before it couldn’t. Grannie Bee, a name fitting for the lake’s adopted grandmother, clapped as loud as she could, for she loved anything for the place she had called home for so long. But the Brooks family all looked at each other with their arms crossed. They all felt the heat of eyes darting to their faces, Mr. Brooks more than the rest.

Harvey, who plucked food off another’s plate, pulled out his cigarette with a groan, turned around and nodded at Mr. Brooks in unusual solidarity, eyebrows furrowed; the only thing the richest and the poorest on the lake agreed on was that saving the lake would hurt them: the Brooks’ finely pruned family empire wanted things their way; the new regulations of wildlife would devastate Harvey’s fishing and hunting livelihood.

Parker went on, “We all came here for an escape, to retreat, and in the midst of our adventure, have found ourselves, our family, and our home. As many of you know, Clara and I unexpectedly lost our daughter Summer this past year,” his voice cracked, and throat choked up. Clara finally looked at him, and it was as if it was just them two together in the room. “And our girl loved this lake. Every second of it.” Parker paused, fighting back the tears that Clara allowed to roll down her cheeks. “So we created Save the Lake for her, for our Summer.” The crowd drew silent, unsure of whether it was a moment to celebrate or grieve. Everyone there knew that the one thing Parker loved more than the lake was his daughter. And now he only had one he could save.

Chester Whitlock, Parker’s best friend, placed a comforting hand on Clara’s shoulder, raised his glass up high, then filled the deafening silence with a shout, “FOR SUMMER,” followed by an eruption from the crowd, “FOR SUMMER!”

Glasses clinked and bottles popped. Parker rushed to Clara to wrap his arm around her shoulder, dry her face with his handkerchief, and grace her cheek with a kiss. Chester turned toward the minibar for a dram. Kids trampled over one another to get to the dessert table first, which was packed with pastries and pies from the town’s only bakery, Rainbow Sweets. The brassy horn of a saxophone filled the home and the rumbling of small talk and big laughs flooded the room, echoing across the lake. People exchanged pleasantries and promises over glasses of wine, excitement for the Save the Lake movement. Whether or not they meant it was a different question.

Harvey left with a huff immediately after Parker’s speech, slamming the front porch door, stripping his gun out of his holster, and heading towards the part of the lake with the most geese, even though it was now dark as night. Inside, the Brooks family refused to eat off the shared trays of appetizers, offering dietary intolerances as the official reason, after they inspected the food for its quality. Callum ventured out the back door onto Parker’s dock, to kick his feet in the water and rest his head on Willa Marsh’s shoulder, one of the lake’s newest topics of conversation, just moving here a couple months prior. Her caramel hair tonight was curled out of control, as restless as she was.

Willa moved her feet in the water, swishing it back and forth, waiting for the perfect moment that she knew would never come. “Callum, can I ask you, were you close with her?” Willa asked, unable to look at him directly, “With Summer.”

“Yeah I was. Everyone was. You couldn’t be on this lake for a day and not meet Summer. We used to swim together.” Callum smiled at Willa, and she wrapped an arm around his back, as if they were old friends – that was the effect Willa had on people. Endearing to men; irritating to the women, who seemed to resent how effortlessly she garnered attention.

“What was she like?”

“Just the kindest person ever.” He took a long breath and put his head in his hands. “She couldn’t hurt a fly, just like her dad. It’s hard to see Parker and not think of her. They were so close, they both just love being around people, being on this lake. But Parker would make this lake a trash can if it meant having his daughter back.”

“Do you think it’s possible to ever truly go back to the way things were around here, before everything, you know, happened?” Willa struggled to find the right words, but Callum understood.

“I do think it could return to something like it was, but it’d probably be different. I don’t think we can ever fully replicate the past, or restore it perfectly. But who knows, maybe it’ll even be better,” he forced a smile. She wasn’t sure if he was talking about the lake anymore.

They heard Harvey hunting in the forest, shots popping out of his gun, screams of joy from inside. As they turned around, a room lit up on the second floor of the Dean cottage, outlining the silhouette of a woman alone – Clara – looking out onto the lake.

Willa traced Clara’s movement in the window. “Was it recent?”

“It was January, before the water even got warm enough to swim. The story they told was that the day she died, the lake was iced over and covered with piles of packed snow. But she was out there, still exploring like she always did, when she fell through. She was 18,” his face started to flush.

“God.”

“Yeah.”

The music swelled inside. Someone laughed louder than the rest. They sat in the cloak of silence that felt so stiff between them, until Callum said, “Nothing like that ever happens here. It’s paradise on the lake and then this tragedy happens and it suddenly feels like just a pile of dirty water. What’s the point?”

“Was no one with her?”

“No, not one single person saw her,” Callum’s fist hit the boardwalk. “Are we kidding? They wouldn’t even let me go out there to rescue her, or even search for her body. How can you let a girl die out here like that?”

It felt hot out on the dock for a cool night. He didn’t say anything else for a moment, and Willa understood she wasn’t supposed to push. But then Callum continued anyway, “The divers found things that didn’t quite…“ he shook his head.

They both looked at Clara through the window, knowing that she couldn’t see them on the dock, covered in a layer of darkness. From the water, they could faintly hear the swankiness of jazz music, blissfully covering up the mixture of emotions felt inside.

“I’m not sure she’ll ever touch this water again,” Callum said.

BANG. Harvey’s gunshot rippled across the water, followed by the honks of geese. The Brooks family was seen loading into a white Corvette to drive back towards their waterfront estate. Willa and Callum still could hear the energy from inside, Chester’s laughter and charisma overpowering the rest, when a back door burst open, amplifying the music, with a rush of people running toward the dock. Chester was faster than the rest, passing the two of them on the dock, stripping off his button-down and nosediving effortlessly into the water. Others bellyflopped, children waited by the rocky shore. But soon enough, Penn Lake was filled with people, the very people who surrounded it.

Parker Dean also ran down from the cottage and onto the dock. When he saw Willa and Callum, Parker threw his arms around them both and said, “It’s happening! We are doing this thing!” As if this were a celebration for the start of something, warped with the deep pang of grief, where you don’t know whether to comfort or cry or continue in laughter. Nothing is ever the same. Sometimes we all like to pretend it is.

Willa turned towards him and locked eyes, “Whatever you need, Parker,” she reached for his hand to stand up.

“Well, actually, now that you mention it, there is one –,” and Parker pushed the two of them into the water with the rest. The crowd of people in the water cheered when the two rose for air. Chester started another chant, “SUM-MER! SUM-MER!”

More of Harvey’s gunshots rang out, and though it was a normal sound from the forest, it sent chills down Parker’s spine, who was the only one left on the dock, so much so that he almost couldn’t focus; everything seemed blurry.

“Parker?” Willa called out from the water, “You okay?”

He found her in the lake, and when they locked eyes, he joined, “SUM-MER!”

The water was glass tonight –– still and perfect. And even though the thing he had loved most was taken from him, Parker loved this moment. The lake would return, the sun would rise on it again, the water would see the snow and the summer and the spring rain, and with each season, it would gradually be restored to itself. For eternity. A little like his daughter – forever wild, adventurous, free.

Parker looked down at the lake and saw his illuminated body staring back at him in the water, brightened by the moon and light pouring out from the cottage. He saw his square shoulders and now frizzy hair from the humidity and the stars dotted behind him. And though the past year had been the darkest he had ever seen, Parker looked down at the precious lake and saw his reflection, and for the first time he could remember in forever, he saw Summer.

So, in a way, this book is my way of giving life to the lake for those who will never get the chance to live it. Everything else is born out of creativity between my wife and me. It is a little legend that was born during a lake-side dinner and has lived in our heads ever since.

My pastor once asked, “How would the characters ever meet the author of their story? The author would have to write themselves in.”

We hope you enjoy what we’ve created as much as we do. We hope you feel like it takes you back to the first moment you arrived on a lake (or mountain or wherever you find life), and marveled at its mystery.

And of course, we hope that the murderer wasn’t the one you had trusted the most.

-AJK