Everyone who was invited to the house knows Walter well, they know him a little, anyway. Some met him in childhood; some met him months ago. And Walter s always been a little off.

But after the hardest year of their lives, nobody was going to turn down Walter s invitation to an astonishingly beautiful house in the woods, overlooking an enormous sylvan lake. It s beautiful, it s opulent, it s private so a week of putting up with Walter s weird little schemes and nicknames in exchange for the vacation of a lifetime? Why not? All of them were at that moment in their lives when they could feel themselves pulling away from their other friends; wouldn t a chance to reconnect be nice?