The Surface

By Naima Haviland

Jenny spends every summer at her family's lakehouse in a vacation community that closed its ranks to outsiders generations ago. Here, old school ties and unwritten social codes present a united front as cool and tranquil as the lake, itself. But darkness moves beneath the surface and when Jenny is sexually assaulted on the way home from a midnight party, rescue comes from an unlikely source far more dangerous than her attackers. TRIGGER WARNING.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naima Haviland
• Release date: May 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201846398

Naima Haviland

Naima Haviland writes novels and short stories in which a person is confronted by evil, be it external or internal, supernatural or human. Her subject matter is often dark, but writing and sharing stories uplifts her and brings in the light. She hopes that you, dear reader, will find your creative voice in whatever medium excites you, and be uplifted. It is never too late to start. Or to start again.

Book preview

The Surface

One summer morning , by some mysterious alignment of the stars or something, everyone’s parents left the lake for the weekend. They can't have known what stirred beneath us; or they wouldn’t have all left, surely? After that weekend, I'd watch their faces, looking for clues in a fading smile or a gaze turned inward. But, I could never see beneath the surface.

Most of these rambling wooden cottages had been home to the same families since around the 1930s, passed generation to generation. They stood uphill from the lake under dense tree cover. Each had a wraparound screened-in porch and a long wooden dock to which rowboats and sunfishes were moored, with a top deck sheltering a motor boat or stacks of canoes and kayaks. Ringed by those houses and by thick weeds, the lake was a still, reflective surface we nick-named Lake Placid.

That morning, the last dad had barely pulled out of the last long dirt driveway in the family car when tops popped on cans of beer. Kids sipping their first sudsy slide of a weekend binge went running downhill in their swimsuits and cutoffs to jump in a boat and head out to the first in a series of impromptu house parties.

It was already hot that Friday morning in June. Sunlight shimmered on the surface of Lake Placid in sheets of gold.

That summer marked a transition in our family. Boots would start at Sewanee in the fall, and would go through sorority rush with the foregone conclusion that she’d pledge Zeta, as our mother and grandmother had done. Carrie would start ninth grade at Country Day.

Transitions didn’t end there. Last night Mom and Dad had sat us down and calmly told us they were getting divorced. This morning they’d left in separate cars.

Carrie was already on her second beer by the time Boots got us out into the middle of the lake. Our metal canoe joined a fleet of diverse crafts helmed by our friends. Denny and Stu Waterhouse rowed a kayak. All five of the Channing kids hugged or paddled a sunfish whose sail hung limp in the windless air. Pete, Sherry,