Summary

Pages 13 to 35 -- The narrator – whose name we do not know yet -- begins her story in the present moment, confessing that it has been two years since the Burnes family left town, but she still misses Cassie. She reflects briefly on her sense of loss, musing that it is as if Cassie “never existed” (13). This prevents the narrator from spending time swimming or relaxing at the quarry, and she either avoids it completely or goes home soon after arriving.

The novel moves to introduce the main narrative: the story of what happened two years ago, and why Cassie is gone. The narrator launches into her tale by saying she can start at the beginning of her and Cassie’s friendship, at its end, or at the end of the entire story, which she says is “dark” (14). She chooses to begin with the...