Chapter One

Life is perfect. There is nothing at all in the world that can change that. Nothing at all. It’s the last day of summer, and with a blue sky, mirrored in the water of the lake, lush green trees that sway even in the non-existent breeze and a small old-fashioned blue rowing boat everything seems as it should be. My best friend Sam is smiling, lounging back in the boat, his old aviator sunglasses reflecting the glare from the sun and faded red converse lying discarded next to the empty bowl of pasta salad that we ate for lunch. The boat, practically an antique, has seen its fair share of rowing trips and this time is no different. Just me and Sam escaping the summer heat, alone together.  Even though I’ve only known him for three years, we’re that close that people always refer to us in the plural – Anna and Sam it’s always been and always will be. They all say that you don’t get one without the other. He’s my best friend and I know that I can confide all but one thing in him.

“Pass us another malteaser.” He groans, and I chuck one at his face, knowing that somehow it will end up in his mouth. I’ve overshot and it lands in his sandy hair, catching him by surprise.

“No wonder you’re not on the netball team,” he mutters, plucking the chocolate out of his hair and into his mouth. “- you throw like a girl.”

“Well in case you hadn’t noticed, stupid, I am a girl. Like it or not.” I respond playfully and he looks up, pulling the sunglasses off his head.

“I do like it. It makes teasing you so much easier.” He laughs and I chuck another malteaser at his head, missing completely this time and I hear it land with a splash in the lake. Sam takes advantage of my distraction and lunges for me and I’m at the mercy of my very own Mr Tickle.

“Stop it, stop it!!” I squeal like a little kid, the boat rocking almost dangerously beneath us. He smiles and lets go, looking back at me, hands poised for another bout of the tickling torture. He waits for a moment, those sky blue eyes staring at me for a second, as if deliberating what to say.

“Can’t believe it’s the end of summer already.” He finally complains, a nostalgic look crossing his face. “There’s so many things I wanted to do...”

“Like what?” I question him. “We’ve done loads over the past two and a half months. Glastonbury, camping out at Zac’s, our first proper gig, London... and what about all these days out on the lake...”

“Hey, I never said I didn’t enjoy them.” He protests, giving me a playful shove. “But we could have had so many more days like them.”

“Well go on then...” I begin. “You tell me... It’s the last day of freedom; got anything you have a burning desire to do?”

I study his face at his silent response, not quite sure why a sudden devious smile has surfaced.

“What?” I venture when he doesn’t reply.

“Anything?” He repeats, raising a perfect blonde eyebrow.

“What are you implying?” I ask cautiously.

“Well there is one thing.... and I’ve wanted to do it for ages-“

“So spill it, you loser.” I interrupt him again, throwing my last Malteser at his face. From this short range, it actually hits him.

“I want to go over to the other side of the lake.” He says finally, picking up the chocolate and popping it into his mouth, as if what he had just said wasn’t so much of a big deal to anyone. I stare at him, slightly open mouthed at his revelation. When I finally overcome the shock revelation, I pick up another sweet – a jelly baby this time – and throw it at him again.

“Hey, don’t waste the orange ones!” He complains.

“Sam you know why we can’t do that; our parents would kill us!” I splutter.

The other side of the lake - my parents have always said – is out of bounds. To any of us. Sam’s parents have told him the same. As it seems, every single person in our town has accepted this as fact, and I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone who has been over there, let alone talked about it. Come to think of it though, as far as I can remember, nobody has ever expressed a reason why the distant shores are forbidden – I’d always just taken it as a generally accepted fact.

“So we don’t let them find out.” He says simply. “Think about it Anna: It’s the last day of the summer, before we have to go back to boring old normality. Don’t you want these amazing past few weeks to end with something we’ve never done before? Come on, we can go out with a bang.” His face changes from the scheming expression from earlier to a more genuine half smile that plays about the corners of his mouth as he says this. I look at him for a long moment then sigh exasperatedly. With those perfect blue eyes wide open, and sunglasses pushed back on top of his sun-bleached hair, he’s always been able to win me over like this.

“Just make sure we don’t tell anyone. And that if there’s anything over there that freaks me out...” I trail off my warning tone as he gets up to take the oars, grinning now from ear to ear.

We continue to make the slow journey over there, the rhythmic sounds of the oars like the apprehensive drumbeat before an execution – the calm before the storm. The greenery is different here, less welcoming and it’s eerily silent, even for a forest. The water darkens underneath us and we go from being able to stand up easily on the bottom of the lake to not even being able to see the floor.

“I don’t get why you even want to go over here. I mean, what are you expecting to find, buried treasure or something?” I ask incredulously.

“Curiosity, my dear Anna.” He replies, taking on a mocking Sherlock Holmes impression. “One can never discover the true nature of this world without a little investigation.”

“Huh, curiosity killed the cat.” I murmur under my breath, He gives me a sarcastic look.

“Why do you think we’re not allowed over there anyway?” Sam asks casually, with a slight hint of excitement, as if he’s wanted to have this conversation for a long while. I take a look around at the approaching shore - it’s a foreboding shade of dark grey - and ignore his question, still clocking all the details of the surroundings. Its elegant almost, each tree with its own individual withered shape, each rock on the shoreline carrying the same monotone colourings. I guess that it all could be almost beautiful in its own twisted way. We reach the grey beach and Sam jumps ship impatiently, tugging at my sleeve so that we can pull the boat up. I step out hesitantly and together we drag it behind a rock.

“Exploration time.” He states, turning to look at me. “Or would you prefer to get back into the boat and row back to our crappy little town.” He catches sight of my expression. “Christ Anna, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I just don’t feel like we really should be here. It’s…” The explanation sounds weak, but I say it anyway “I’ve got a bad feeling about this Sam. I really don’t think this is a good idea. It’s creepy. Our parents probably had a good reason for keeping us away and, like it or not, I trust them.”

He turns to look at me, sunglasses pushed back into his tousled movie-star hair.  I’ve always thought he was insanely attractive, but when it comes to it, I’ve never ever had the guts to tell him to his face and mean it: making it the one and only secret I’ve ever kept from him. I see a smile creep onto his lips and he takes my hand in his. I’m putty in-between them.

“Look Anna. I understand if you don’t want to have a look around. But seriously…” He pauses and looks into my eyes. “… Think about it. We never know what we might find over here. Anyway, what’s life without a bit of risk? Let out that inner rebel. I’m gonna be here with you holding your hand. I promise that I’ll look after you if anything goes wrong.” He smiles, knowing from my wordless sigh that I’ve been won over, and we begin to walk into the trees, a feeling of dread building in my stomach.

The forest is dark and gloomy, with moss covering every tree stump, rock or fallen branch. We pick our way through the hard earthy floor, a pair of converse and flip-flops, both trying desperately not to get caked in mud. We fail miserably. For what could be an hour we continue to trudge in a steady line, Sam continually debating the possibilities of what we are going to find. I mostly stay quiet, letting him excitedly talk for the both of us: considering everything we could encounter over here. To be honest, I’m scared. My parents always seemed incredibly wary of this side of the lake, if not scared themselves, and somehow I know that there must be a reasonable excuse for this, a reasonable explanation behind the taboo that is the other side of the lake.

“Anna, stop.” Sam holds his hand out suddenly, and I stumble. In the midst of his talking I hadn’t realised where he had been leading us. We’re standing at the edge of a large clearing, almost completely empty. Almost. The clearing itself doesn’t look in the least bit different from the rest of the forest: dark, dingy and unearthly quiet. But it’s the colossal pit in the centre that really seems to radiate a certain sense of unease. To say that it’s enormous would perhaps be an understatement. Three of our school’s playing fields could easily fit into its diameter. The sheer precipice that lies feet in front of us is comprised of a cold grey rock that stretches down for a few metres. Beyond that however, the pit is completely shrouded in a deep grey mist. It could be a mile deep, but nothing penetrates the still mist beyond a few metres.  There’s no sign of civilisation or life at all. No animals or birds in sight.

“Wow” breathes Sam. “That’s one big pit.”

I’m too scared to say anything. Something about the pit, whether it’s the size, or the colour, completely freaks me out. The more I gaze down into it, the more depressed I begin to feel. It seems to radiate hopelessness, a never ending fissure of sadness. I see Sam next to me pick up a pebble and toss it lazily downwards. It soars through the smoke in a great arc and disappears. We wait together in silence, anticipating the noise of the pebble smashing on the bottom, but the sound never comes.

“Wow” Sam repeats. “That’s one deep pit.”

We laugh awkwardly, but the despair of the pit seems to cut short my happiness. In an attempt to combat this, I pick up another pebble, larger this time and throw it into the smoke. Sam turns and walked off a few paces. I open my mouth ready to call him back, to save me from the chill of the pit, but he’s back before any noise could escape. In his hands, he holds a small, moss-covered boulder, the size of a large cat.

“Let’s see how much noise this baby makes.” He smiles again and heaves the boulder over to the side of the cliff. It rolls through the smoke and we listen again for the noise but once more, silence.

“Well, it’s either so incredibly deep that we can’t even hear an echo, or lined with feathers to muffle the sound.” His attempt at a joke is, as ever, pathetic. We stand staring at the pit for a few more moments, taking in the distant far side, and trying to make out shapes within the mist. Eventually, Sam looks down at his watch.

“I think we should go; it’s been ages and mum’s making Bolognese for tea tonight.” There’s a slight hint of a worried tone to his voice, the Bolognese merely an excuse to get away from the cold. The pit, although it doesn’t seem to affect him as much as me, still appears to have a hold upon him too. We turn to leave and are just about to reach the trees again when a noise comes from behind us. It’s the sound of rocks sliding over one another, as if the minor pebbles that we’d thrown in have caused an avalanche. We turn round, with no idea of what kind of a sight would greet our eyes. There seems to be no visible effect on the pit, apart from the smoke curling upwards where the rocks pierced the carpet of grey. Following the noise of the rock, comes a creaking sound and then, the final noise that chills me to the bone, a sound that haunts my darkest nightmares, a sound that I only have to think about before I break into a sweat; a cold voice, cracked and cruel as if it has not been used since the dawn of time. Laughing.

My legs are rooted to the spot. Movement seems impossible. The voice has caused my whole body to seize up in terror and when I try to get away it feels as though I’m stuck in quicksand.

“Anna.” Sam’s scream penetrates my frozen stature. He turns to me, a look of shock crossing his face. In an instant, the spell breaks and I can tell that we’re thinking exactly the same thing. We begin to run away from the clearing, without even turning back to look for the owner of the voice. I can feel the chill of the pit rising, even though we’re bolting away from it at lightening speed. Its cold fingers grip at my throat and heart, but I resist them, concentrating fully on escaping. Sam’s running beside me, his legs hurdling every fallen tree, every moss covered stump. We reach the boat at the same time and to our relief it’s still in the same position that we left it. As quick as possible, we drag it out onto the lake and jump on, each grabbing an oar, rowing as fast as our arms will allow.

“What… the bloody hell was that?” Sam asks, his voice, usually chilled and relaxed, the most stressed out I have ever heard it.

“I don’t know.” I whinge, clutching my oar so tightly now that the knuckles on my left hand turn white under the strain. We continue rowing at top speed, not even pausing for breath.

The sky, I suddenly notice, is darkening around us. The wind is picking up, rippling the surface of the lake. It’s suddenly very wintery for the middle of August. Once we’re back within sight of the small beach on our side of the lake, Sam stops rowing finally, his breath coming in short sharp pants.

“Anna.” He looks gravely at me and I understand almost immediately what he’s about to say before he says it. “You can’t tell anyone about that. Not even your family. Especially not your family, or mine either. We’ve done something to that pit, something that’s made it have a massive avalanche or something, but if we’ve caused an accident I don’t want anyone to find out, understand?”

“You know I would never tell.” I protest and Sam’s about to interrupt, but I continue speaking, talking over him. “But Sam… there was something freaky about that pit. Call me crazy or whatever, but I definitely heard something back there. Don’t try to convince me I didn’t because I know you heard it too. There was no one in the forest around us, or we would have heard them Sam, wouldn’t we? And the only place I can think of that it could have come from was in the midst of all that mist... in the pit. Believe me; I have such a bad feeling about whoever... or whatever it could have been.”

“I never said I didn’t hear anything.” He protests. “I don’t know what we’ve done over there, but if it’s something bad, I just don’t want it to be traced back to us. So if anyone asks... we’ve been on the lake all day.”

“And we came back early because of the weather, right?” I finish his sentence in the same way I’ve been doing for the past three years. “This isn’t usual weather for August, and we don’t have an umbrella.” The slight hysterical note in my suggestion is a result of the short vocal track that’s replaying in my mind. Despite the far-fetched excuse, I’m still speaking the truth, because now there’s a gale blowing and I can hear the thunder, rumbling off in the distance. It’s also turned freezing cold, a complete contrast to the boiling heat that there was earlier this morning. There’s a storm brewing somewhere, and I know that it will be barely minutes before the rain reaches us.

“Okay, now I think you’re crazy.” He ponders. “But it’s the best I can think of right now...” There’s an awkward silence between the two of us, in which there’s another rumble of thunder, louder this time. The first of the raindrops drops down into the boat between us.

 “Do you think that we’ve like... awoken something? Do you reckon that, whatever was in that pit is evil and is coming to get us?” Everything is so serious until that last sentence, but the slight smile that penetrates Sam’s face makes me laugh and it’s not long before both of us are in hysterics, laughing over our own stupidity. Of course there’s nothing in the pit that’s going to hurt us. It’s just something stupid, like we’ve dislodged a couple of boulders or whatever. And the laughter… it’s got to be a figment of my imagination. I’m almost positive that I’ve imagined it, or that the noise was simply a by-product of the avalanche we caused, a mental over-exaggeration of the sound of falling rocks. But as I relive the harsh tone of it, a shiver ripples down my spine. Despite trying to convince myself that I imagined it, I can’t help but feel unnerved the one unexplainable factor to our escapade. Sam seems to have cheered up, and has dismissed the laughter as part of our overactive imaginations, his expression a little less tense now we’re back on our side of the lake. As we put the boat away in the ramshackle wooden hut by the side of the lake, my mind is somewhere else, back at the pit, wondering what on earth we could have done.

(Find Chapter Two here)