“No, I can come out,” I say, but she’s already making her way back up the path, away from me, pulling Thomas by the hand.

I climb out, grabbing my still moist trousers and shirt, and pull them on. They cling to my skin as I work them over my wet body.

“Sarah,” I call out, hurrying after them. When I reach her, I’m out of breath, my wet hair dripping into my eyes. “I didn’t mean to scare you off.”

I guess I look a fright because she takes a step away from me.

“We’re looking for special plants,” Thomas tells me. He slips his hand from hers and runs down to where my shoes sit by the river.

“Come on now, Master Thomas, we should go,” she calls.

He ignores the summons, so we both follow after him. Sarah hangs back from me, keeping her distance.

“They grow by the river,” he says. “And they look like… Sarah, what do they look like again?”

“They got thin leaves and they’re deep green,” she answers reluctantly, “but we can get them some other time.”

He picks a limp weed and holds it up. “Is this one?”

Sarah comes closer to where Thomas and I stand.

“Almost,” she says. “The leaves should be thinner and less shiny.”

In the basket she holds, she’s already collected all manner of weeds. The only ones I recognize are the dandelions.

“I want to go swimming,” Thomas shouts from the riverbank, already kicking off his shoes.

“No, Master Thomas. It ain’t safe,” she says. “I can’t save you if you start to drown. You got to do that with your daddy.”

“But he never has time to take me swimming. I won’t drown, I promise,” he says, stripping off his shirt.

“I’ll mind him,” I say, as he goes for his trousers.

Thomas grins and plunges into the water.

Sarah watches him wade in, fingering the necklace she wears at her throat. Two half circles carved from wood. “I can’t swim,” she says, quiet. Like it’s a confession. Like she wants to be saying something else.

She takes a few steps upriver and strips some leaves off a bushy plant. Her back is to me so I can stare brazenly. Her coiling hair is piled on top of her head, exposing the back of her neck, and her dress is cinched tight around her waist, accentuating the flare of her hips.

I come up to her and, peering inside her basket, I ask, “So, what are all of these good for then?”

“That’s for fevering,” she says, pointing. “That’s for coughing, that’s for the stomach, that’s for pain.”

“Are any of those what you used for my hand?”

I flatten my palm and hold it between us. The scar is almost gone, but I want her to take my hand in hers and run her fingers over what remains of the mark.

“No,” she says. “That was yarrow.” She doesn’t touch my hand.

“And the dandelion?” I ask. “What’s that one do?”