Author’s Note: I remembered to copy-and-paste into WP’s Visual editor this time in order to retain as much of the formatting as possible, but I probably won’t read through this ’til tomorrow morning at the earliest. As usual, feel free to comment both on any weird formatting glitches and on the finer points of craft, storytelling, and so forth.

CHAPTER TWO

Toby

I was thirteen when I first laid eyes on Arthur Winterbourne.

It was July: full summer, even in Connecticut. A sapping heat bowled in oppressive waves from the chipseal roads and a hot wind roiled out from the land to move upon the steely face of Long Island Sound like the spirit of G-d before the creation of the world.

Insofar as such a thing is possible on Long Island Sound in July, the beach lay deserted. Now and then, a disembodied voice would shout down the searing sand, “Not so far out, Jimmy!” or “Allison, watch your sister!” but for the most part the only sounds were wind and waves and the yearning cries of herring gulls.

It was not, in short, the kind of day that gets you moving.

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