She doesn’t laugh, but her shoulders aren’t as braced as before. We keep walking down to the lake in silence.
We stand together to watch, collars pulled up against the biting wind, hands squeezed into pockets or underarms, as the workman turns on the pump. We watch the water erupt out of it, and pool in the asphalted basin. I stand where I was last week, when they put the asphalt down over the mud. I’d watched them, heart in mouth, waiting for a yell of shock that never came.
It takes a long time to begin to fill. Bea and Aiden take Layla home after ten minutes—she’s getting cold. But Evan stands with me and watches the waterline rise. It’s over. Finally, it’s all finished.
Evan’s fingers lace with mine. Still, somehow, they’re warm.
“Should we go home?”
I nod.
Together we walk back up the hill. From now on, I will do everything with love. I will give my heart to Evan completely. I will be the perfect partner, the perfect sister, the perfect aunt. I will seem like the most normal woman alive, be exactly what people expect of me.
I can’t help but turn, and look back down to the lake. At its gleaming surface, reflecting the silver sky. The man has turned the pump off. The water is beginning to still.
No one will find her now.
* * * * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Over the years, The Spite Game has had many titles: Ava, Greyfields, Lakeside Estate, Tough. It has also taken many forms: a short film, a short story, a feature screenplay, a novella. This story was my white whale. It surfaced on long, dark bus rides, in early-morning showers, in the restless hours of sleeplessness. Finally, I can release it out into the world. So many people have helped me over the years to get to this point.
Ten years ago, it was a short story. I was twenty and had worked a casual job at a half-built gated community constructed in the middle of Australian bushland. At the time, I was infatuated with Australian Gothic and Bluebeard, and this seemed like the perfect setting for my own interpretation. The story was my final assignment at university and the first piece of writing that I was actually proud of.
Then it was a short film about a teenage girl toying with the idea of psychopathy. Thank you to Jemimah Widdicombe, Lara Gissing and Mathew Chuang as well as every festival that screened Tough.
Next it was a screenplay. I was twenty-five by then and sure the Australian film industry would be an easy nut to crack. Huge thanks to Joe Osborn for his intelligent insight and to Ian Pringle for her continuous support.
So what do you do when you write a screenplay and have absolutely no idea what to do with it? Thank you eternally to my sister, Amy, my mum, Liz, and my dad, Ruurd, for not only suggesting trying my hand as an author but also being my first readers and my first editors. You gave me the confidence to believe it was even possible to be an author. Thanks for listening to me obsess over this story for so long.
Turns out, thirty thousand words is not technically a novel, but writing the novella of this story cut my teeth as an author. It gave me the passion to start fresh and begin a new project about a missing girl and her replacement.
Thank you forever to MacKenzie Fraser Bub—literary agent, vibrant woman and friend. Thank you to my editor, Kerri Buckley, who really understood this work and helped it to be ten times better. Thank you to Nicole Brebner, Natika Palka and Sue Brockhoff for believing in me as a writer.
Although I had written this story many times, I knew the only approach to facing my white whale was to face the blank page. Thanks to a Varuna fellowship, I was able to finally get this story out of my head right. Amid misty mountain walks and quiet time curled up next to the heater, The Spite Game poured out of me. Thank you so much to Carol Major, who helped me realize that sometimes the scariest things happen in the light. Thank you to brilliant writers Laura Elvery, Catherine Hainstock, Suzanne McCourt and Courtney Collins for all our fireplace chats on storytelling and Peeping Tinas.
Thank you so much to everyone who helped me with those final touches. To my writers group, Rebecca Miller, Claire Stone and Jemma van Loenen. To Phoebe, who, on a long dog walk, helped me remember the wonder and recklessness of traveling overseas alone for the first time. Thank you to Tegan, Isobel and Martina for reading early drafts. To Hans and Lucy Roleff for the German translation and to Genevieve for the French. Thanks to Edwina for letting me borrow your shower story.
Thank you to everyone who has ever bought a copy of one of my books. You are the reason I get to have this job and I am forever grateful.
And of course, thank you to Ryan. For being there through all of it.
ISBN-13: 9781488082146
The Spite Game
Copyright © 2018 by Anna Elizabeth Snoekstra
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
The Spite Game Page 26
