I had not looked again to see where the other boat lay, so hard was I concentrating on keeping my strokes in line with Bart’s behind me, my back and hands become rude mechanicals, my eyes set on a point in the stern of the boat. But when I lifted my eyes to reassure myself there was nought but empty water behind us, I saw to my horror that two boats, not one, followed us and were clearly now in pursuit.

A lantern hung in the prow of the first boat, casting the identity of the rower into black darkness and giving the uncanny effect of an unmanned vessel advancing through the clouds. The breeze slapped the chill of the water against us and I shivered under the thin cover of my shawl. The boat kept coming, that eerie cloud of yellow light obscuring and illuminating all at once. Bart had stopped rowing altogether, and his breath came in short bursts as he rested. “Who the deuce is that?” he whispered to me.

“Cook,” I said, convinced by the surety and the strength with which that boat had followed; a leaden certainty gripped my limbs, such that even had I wished, I could not have lifted the oars again to take another fleeing stroke.

“There!” came a man’s voice across the water from the second boat fast advancing.

Bart stood suddenly, sending our dinghy rocking violently, and I grabbed the gunwales for balance. “Who are you?” he shouted over my head at the approaching lantern. But the wind, which had easily borne the other’s words to us, had as easily carried Bart’s question out to sea.

Now they were closing in behind us, and the moon again shone down, casting what had been shadow into that unearthly brightness; then I saw who sat in each boat.

“Maisie!” Mama cried out. “Maisie!”

Still standing behind me, Bart chuckled and said, “I do believe this is a rescue party for your honor!” Then he called back to them across the water, “She is all right, Mrs. Thomas. Do not fear!” And he sat down again, laughing.

“How ridiculous!” I shoved my oar back into the water, angered by Mama’s melodramatic pursuit. “Leave us be!” I called back, and took a stroke with my oar, spinning the boat round.

“What are you doing, Maisie?” All traces of laughter had fled from his tone.

I turned fiercely round. “Here is our beginning, Bart. Let us take it.”

He whistled slowly but sent out his oars. “Aye. Let us, but I did not mean a future to have begun in flight.”

I looked at the pursuing boat for a moment, then splashed at the water. “I am lost from them.”

“Do not say that,” he replied softly.

“It is the truth.”

“Only a moonlight truth.”

I wrenched round once more. “As were your words?”