“Honey...” her mother started, as if to reprimand, then brightened. “Ellie, this is James. James... what was your last name, dear?”

“Honeycutt.”

“Of course,” she said, giggling as if he’d goosed her behind. “Honeycutt. James Honeycutt. James has come to welcome us to the neighborhood. Come here and say hello. He won’t bite, will you James?”

“No mam,” he said, those white teeth shining.

Ellie went to them slowly, lifted a hand and allowed James to shake it.

“James goes to your new high school. He’s the class president, isn’t that something?” her mother said, all but scribbling out wedding announcements in her head while she did so.

“That’s true,” James said humbly, “and as such it’s my job to come meet any new students, show them around, make them feel welcome.”

Ellie nodded. Even she was taken off-guard by the boy’s sincerity and obvious kindness. And he was such a strong, handsome, obviously popular boy; traits she rarely found in combination with generosity of spirit, at least with the boys back home.

“I see,” was all she said in response.

“I gather you have a lot of unpacking to do, but perhaps, when you’re settled, you’d allow me to escort you around our fine town, show you some highlights, introduce you to some of the locals.”

“Oh, well, there is a lot yet to do…”

“That is the most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard of!” her mother interjected, giving Ellie a cunning look. “You two should do exactly that. James, dear, what are your plans today?”

“As it happens,” James said, “I’m quite free. I was going to offer to take Ellie this afternoon, but then I saw how much work there is to be done here… hey, I’d be glad to stay and help move some things around.”

“Nonsense!” her mother said, so loudly Ellie jumped in her skin. “Harry, that’s my husband, will be home from his new job in just a few hours and he and I will get everything in its place. You two kids should go and have fun, really. Ellie, you should take a sweater in case the night gets chilly.”

Night? she thought, hesitating.

“Go on, dear,” her mother said, in a polite yet firm tone that was not to be denied. “Go get your blue sweater. I hung it in your closet with a few dresses so you’d have something to wear until we got settled. Go on, hurry up, James doesn’t have all day.”

“Oh, no hurry at all, it would be my pleasure,” James said silkily, and smiled at her, those blue eyes twinkling like melting ice on a sunny day. “I have a few things I think you’ll be real interested to see.”

“SO,” SHE SAID, warm under the glass of the wide windshield, but not wanting to put her window down for fear of mussing her hair, “how long have you lived in Sabbath?”

“All my life, of course,” he said, steering the massive red car out of the suburban street and onto Lakeview Drive, the town’s one main road that circumnavigated the lake it surrounded. She felt the power of the car beneath her as he sped up, the purr of the engine belying its unleashed force.

“Why ‘of course’,” she said, trying to subtly catch her face in the side mirror to check her lips.

“Oh, I guess I just mean, you know, why live anywhere else? As far as I’m concerned, Sabbath is the most wonderful place on God’s green earth.”

Ellie laughed, not able to help herself. “And how would you know that, James Honeycutt? Have you been everywhere else on earth?”

He turned and smiled at her, as if playing along, but his blue eyes weren’t twinkling like they had been. They looked hard and flat, like dead sky. She made a point to not break eye-contact with him, despite his steely gaze, and she wondered if this boy, no more than a year or two her senior, perhaps had been all over the world. There was knowledge in those eyes.

“Jimmy,” he said, his gaze softening.

“Sorry?”

He looked toward the road once more. “Call me Jimmy. All my pals do.”

Pals, eh?That’d be a first for me, she thought. The boys back home certainly never wanted to be “pals.”

“Thanks,” she said shortly, making sure not to sound impressed. “So, Jimmy, where are we headed on our whirlwind tour of the wondrous, God-given, eighth wonder of the world that is the town of Sabbath?” She laughed a little so he wouldn’t think her bitchy, and he smiled along this time.

“First stop is the lake. It’s the heart and soul of our little town, so it makes sense we introduce you first thing.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to be on my best behavior,” she said, pleased to have a new boy to flirt with.

“That’d be wise,” he responded tonelessly, and her smile vanished.

THE LAKE WAS larger than she’d expected, larger than it looked in the pictures her father had shown when he was selling her on the move. Staring at it through the sun-glazed windshield made it seem somehow unreal, a projection from a different world made entirely of contrasting blues, a canvas of sea and sky.

Jimmy had pulled the car off the paved road a half-mile back, cut onto a broad dirt road leading into a dense cluster of trees. Ellie was on the cusp of being nervous – being trapped with a strange boy in the ever-darkening woods and all – when the dark green canopy abruptly vanished and the tall tunnel of trees gave way to expansive yawn of open air. The dirt road terminated into a gravel-covered parking lot at the edge of the calm surface of Sabbath Lake, after which the surrounding town was named. Jimmy pulled straight to the edge of the gravel so they could stare at the water from the car, the warm apple-skin red leather sticking lightly to the backs of her bare legs.

“You want to get out? Walk around?” he said, fingers dancing on the steering wheel.

“Sure,” she said, opening the door to a light breeze, the air warm but not as dense as it had been in the car.

They walked down a slight grass slope to a skinny stretch of coarse beach. She saw a few folks seated along the edge of the lake, small dots of dark color smudged against the rough sand.

It came then what had been nagging at her since their arrival. It was the calm of the place. There were no boats on the water, despite the docks dotted every few hundred yards. There were no swimmers in the shallows, no laughing kids on the beach. No sunbathers. The people here just seemed to be... watching.

“So, where is everyone?”

Jimmy strolled along the lake’s edge, inches from where the still water lay dormant. She followed, hurried to his side as they walked. “What do you mean?” he said.

“It’s Saturday afternoon. It must be eighty degrees. A perfect day for a swim, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” he agreed, watching his feet.

“So... why isn’t anyone swimming?”

He stopped, his head tilted, as if thinking, then those blue eyes fell on hers. A small smile played on his lips, but he seemed to fight it off. It was a look you had when trying not to laugh at someone. To spare their feelings, perhaps. “Ah,” was all he said, then turned to face the lake.

“Are there no fishermen in Sabbath?” she teased.

When he didn’t answer, she turned to the lake as well. Across the water she saw miniature houses with toy cars in their driveways; tiny people watering lawns or seated on back porches. The lake itself, she noticed, was free of waves, almost solid-looking. As if frozen. The water, although blue, looked black as sodden soot toward the middle, gradually darkening as the bottom fell away beneath.

“It’s not the biggest lake in the world,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what. It’s deep.”