Oh, how easy it would be to lay my head back against the old, tattered headrest and let the river take me. Already the icy water swirled around my knees. The left side of my body was soaked. In a few minutes, I could take a breath, let the water fill my lungs, and the madness would disappear.

So easy.

"He's a killer, Jess. Don't leave him alone. Keep an eye on him, always."

But I'd made a promise.

How long was one beholden to such words, spoken as a child?

I began scrambling for the window crank even before I knew the answer. Promises were for life. That's what it meant to make a promise. I'd done a half-assed job if it so far, and now, what? What the hell was going on in this town I thought I knew so well?

The lower the glass sank, the faster the water poured in. The car canted horribly to one side. My body convulsed with the cold. My muscles shivered and seized in protest.

There. I could fit through that opening.

Water covered my breasts. My hearts fluttered and banged, a panicked little animal living at the center of my universe.

I braced one foot against the center console, twisted my body, and pushed myself out of the window. The current carried me downstream faster than I would ever have imagined. No matter how hard I scrabbled and clawed against the ice, I could gain no purchase. The thin film snapped and broke away under my fingers.

The steady drone of a snow blower reached my ears, and I screamed for help, a feeble, scratching noise that traveled no further than the riverbanks.

The road ran along the western bank. That's where the houses were, where help could be found, but up ahead an ancient silver maple had succumbed to rough conditions and extreme old age and tipped into the water so the top was completely beneath the ice and the roots stuck up like arthritic fingers, pointing at the sky.

With the last of my strength, I struck out for that tree. My plan consisted entirely of getting out of the river before I reached the dam. That drop-off couldn't be more than five hundred yards downstream.

As if to confirm my suspicion, a rusty red and white sign came into view. DAM AHEAD. PORTAGE AROUND. THREE HAVE DIED.

Let's not make it four, I thought, and swam as hard as I could. Bits of ice jabbed my face. Though my skin had turned numb and rubbery-feeling, those shards seemed to be flaying me alive.

"Jess!"

I gasped, took in a mouthful of water and choked. Through my tears I saw a man weaving quickly between the trees near the road.

"Jess, oh God, hold on!"

The fallen maple was in reach now, I wrapped my arms around and held on. The idea had been to use the tree as a way to pull myself out of the water, but now that I was here, holding on was all I could manage.

"Jess! Grab the rope!"

I blinked stupidly and looked back at the man. There was something familiar about his broad shoulders and the way he moved.

"Grab the rope," he shouted again and threw something at me.

A rope, thick as my wrist landed against the tree trunk with a wet splat. If I let go of the tree, I'll be pulled under. I thought the words but couldn't force them out of my throat. My vision narrowed to a slim tunnel with the man standing in the center of it, screaming for me to grab the rope. Then he ran away. I pressed my forehead against the tree trunk and took a shuddering breath. A monumental expenditure of strength allowed me to pull myself six inches closer to the riverbank. The slick mud on the bottom slipped and moved beneath my heavy, sodden boots.

There was splashing to my right. I forced my eyes open and saw the guy, shirtless now, coming toward me with strong, quick strokes.

Something, a branch, maybe? Struck my feet and knocked them out from under me. My hold on the tree slipped. My nails scraped the bark, breaking off and bending backward, and then his left arm wrapped around my waist like a vice.

"Hold on, sis."

My arms refused to obey the command, though I longed to cling to this stranger.

Through squinted eyelids, I watched him pulling us along the length of the rope until I again felt the murky river bottom under my feet, then my legs dragged against the mud, and then I lay on the ground with only my boots in the water. Wracking shivers shook my body with such great force my teeth clacked together painfully.

After a moment, the man's hands were on me, pulling at my coat, my shirt, dragging me upward and into the passengers seat of a car where hot air blasted against my frozen skin, turning ice to fire. A flannel shirt covered my bare skin.

I don't know how long I sat curled in on myself in that seat before I realized the car was moving. Ignoring the pins and needles stabbing every inch of my skin, I pushed myself up and blinked at the driver.

His gaze darted in my direction before returning to the road. Red circles rimmed his tear-filled eyes. "Jesus, Jess. What the hell is going on? I thought I lost you."

Ringing filled my ears, so loud all other sounds died away and I forgot the pain racing through my body. "Jake?"

He swiped away his tears with the back of his hand. "I've never been so damn scared in my whole life."

Shivers shifted into sobs, so my terror and my exhaustion and my confusion were no more than a nest of writhing snakes in my mind, no one of them distinguishable from the others.

My brother's right hand reached for me, and I clung to his arm like a toddler and wept until I felt the earth beneath the truck shift from pavement to gravel. We parked next to my father's Ford. The snow had been scraped from the windshield. Though the body of the truck was spotted with thick patches of rust, all four tires appeared to be brand new. Between the front door of the house and the driver's door of the truck, snow had been packed down in a slick trail.

At last, I released the grip I had on my brother's arm and looked up at the house—weathered gray with old cracked and broken windows, but also obviously lived in. Smoke puffed skyward from the chimney. The flowered curtains my mother had hand-sewn still hung in the windows and behind them the lights glowed in the downstairs room.

"Dad," I couldn't find anything to follow that single syllable.

Jake raised a brow at me.

"Dad's here?"

He laughed, a joyless, scoffing huff. "Where else would he be? He never goes anywhere."

Memories fought one another for center stage in my mind and I looked to the barn. Even from here I could see the horses in their stalls.

"I'm not crazy," I whispered.

Jake patted my thigh. "Of course you are. Everyone in this God-forsaken town is crazy, most especially our family." When he opened the door, the squeak of the hinges sounded like a scream inside my head.