Back in her room at the hotel, Sydney has trouble falling asleep. She wishes Serena (her older sister by seven years) was there to stroke her hair before she remembers that Serena has changed and would no longer comfort her. Sydney practices a counting exercise and finally falls asleep.

A year before the present-day confrontation building between Victor and Eli, Sydney and Serena go for a picnic on the frozen lake by their house. The warmer March weather causes the ice to crack, sending both of them plunging into the freezing water. They manage to get out of the lake and are brought to the hospital, where both miraculously recover. Though Sydney seems fine, her body temperature is too low and her heart rate too slow. The doctors insist she stay for observation. They want Serena to stay, too, but Serena declares she’s leaving and no one stops her.

Sydney stays for a week. One day, she hears a heated discussion in a hospital room and stops beside a dead body on a stretcher to listen. She leans against the stretcher and touches the body, which starts twitching. Later, she goes to the morgue to see if what happened was real and, after an hour of experimenting, learns she can “raise the dead” (144).