There’s a story here. Her body trembles with it.

Hush, hush, hushing voices coming from beyond the surface of the river, from the diaphanous elsewhere. Someone is calling her name. A cool hand cups her forehead.

But there’s a story here.

She peers harder at the words scratched into the tree but can’t make them out.

Her own voice in her head: Remember? Mr Chester’s class. CPR. Pinch the nose. Tilt the head. Breathe. Count. Repeat. A manikin lying on the floor in the school gymnasium and everyone is embarrassed because they have to blow into her mouth. No one wants to take a turn after Anouk because they don’t want to catch her germs. Remember? Mr Chester says: I know something you don’t know. Be kind and I’ll tell you a secret. He says: This is the face of a woman who drowned. He tells the story of a river and a woman with no name and a toymaker. Every manikin who has ever been made to teach people. How to breathe. How to save. Everyone knows this face. It’s always been her and it will always be. After the lesson they each receive a pin badge with a red heart on it.

Anouk stares harder at the words etched into the wood. Maybe that’s what has been written there, the name of that manikin.

Someone is calling her, Anouk, gently, but with persistence. Open your eyes, a voice tells her.

The river is breathing for her.

I give you my breath.

Anouk, wake up and see. See how you can breathe.

It’s not the name of the manikin etched in the wood. Anouk runs her fingers along the worn fissures, trying to read them like braille, afraid they’ll disappear. This is the name of the drowned woman, but she can’t make out what it says. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if she can’t read it now, because this is, at last. A story worth telling.

She’s buoyant. She holds on to the tree but it’s slimy with algae, and whatever it is that’s pulling her to the surface is stronger than her. Upwards, pulled, she keeps her eyes on the tree, but as she moves away from it the water darkens, and soon the tree is just a shadow and then it’s gone.

Anouk opens her eyes. Hard to focus. The room is yellow-dark, it must be night. Someone is doing something to her hand. From out of the dark a quiet voice: she’s awake.

There’s something in her mouth, in her throat.

‘We’re going to try again, Okay? We’re going to get this tube out so you can breathe on your own. You’ve been fighting us all day.’

She looks around the room and her eyes hurt. They feel rusty.

‘Your mom’s waiting down the hall. We’ll call her in as soon as this is done. Now. Give us a big cough.’

Anouk coughs and there is a sliding. She wants to swallow so badly but can’t. The endotracheal tube is out and another tube is pressing on her tongue, suctioning. Someone else is wiping her mouth.