She waded into the water, which instantly soaked her gown until it stuck to every part of her like a second skin that would soon be shed. It reached her knees, then her hips, then her chest.

It reached her neck, cooling her skin and washing away the sweat that had beaded under her arms and in the hollow of her throat. Cleansing her.

I’m fixin’ what shoulda never been, she thought. She wanted it to be true. She needed it to be true.

Ludo, still nestled in the crook of her elbow, was already beneath the pond’s surface. He awoke as the cool water hit him, though he instinctively held his breath in his tiny lungs. Lana did as well, just before she sank all the way under, watching bubbles the size of a pinhead escape from her nostrils and rise to the surface.

She, on the other hand, went the opposite direction, sinking deeper.

All at once, her mind cleared. Ludo! she tried to scream, but all that emerged was a garbled scream that was immediately silenced by the water rushing into her mouth and down her throat. While still clutching Ludo in one arm, she tried to pump the other hand at one side as she’d seen Kernan do. Instead of rising gracefully, as buoyant as a wooden plank as he always did, the motion seemed to make things worse, the speed of her descent quickening.

Until her feet hit the bottom.

What have I done?

She shoved off, kicking as hard as she could, but her dressing gown tangled around her legs like tendrils of kelp. Schools of fish darted away, spooked by her furious movements. I’ll have to crawl out. I will crawl out. For my son. For Ludo. To save him. I must save him. There was the strength she’d always had in spades, masked by her own exhaustion and the aura of melancholy that had snuck up on her when she wasn’t looking. It wasn’t gone at all, only lying dormant, ready and waiting the moment she called for it.

Using one hand like a claw and her toes as spears, she dug into the soft pond bed, hauling and pushing and fighting for every inch, until she was certain the sun-painted surface seemed a little bit closer. Her head was spinning now, her lungs starved for air, but she soldiered on for the babe cradled in her arm. Was he still breathing? Was he alive? She wouldn’t waste time stopping to check, her entire focus on freeing him from this watery tomb.

Nothing was working, the underwater slope too steep, the mucky terrain too unstable and slippery. More and more water entered her as her lungs couldn’t hold out any longer—they would attempt to breathe whatever was available. The pain was immense, the sensation horrific. I did this. Me. I failed him, I failed my precious Ludo.

As her vision blurred and fuzzed, darkness closing in, Lana would’ve given anything to hear her son’s wail one last time.