Summary

In Chapter 16, Emma and the girls find the ruins of a farmhouse with an intact root cellar bolted shut nearby. She is about to tell the girls it is time to go when she sees an “x” carved into a tree. The girls explore the ruins while Emma digs up a plastic bag containing a diary. Emma recognizes Vivian’s writing inside.

Fifteen years prior on the way back from the opposite shore of the lake, Vivian jumped from the canoe to prove to Emma that she could swim. She warned Emma not to believe everything she told her. Emma was angry as she asked Vivian why she would lie about something like that when so many people believed she was drowning. Vivian responded that sometimes the only way to win was by lying.

In Chapter 17, in the present, at dinner that...