“You and your stupid good-luck charms,” she continued, only half talking to me and half talking to the sky at large. “Since when did superstition ever save people lost in a swamp? That’s what I get for coming out here, I guess.”

And, just like that, I knew instinctively that our precious time together in the canoe, all those hours spent floating and daydreaming and murmuring gently to each other, conspiring and laughing, was over. We would never again return to the mystery of the swamp together, never again be intrepid explorers, partners; we would return home and resume being sisters who sniped at each other. The magic had been broken.

“I thought you liked coming out here,” I said.

Elizabeth scoffed. “Like getting devoured by mosquitoes? Like smelling that swampy stench? Like getting lost and hot and sweaty and gross? I’m sorry, you must have me confused with someone else.”

“I guess I have you confused with my sister.”

“There’s your problem,” she mumbled, and out of spite, I deliberately shifted my weight from left to right to rock the boat. Elizabeth threw her hands out and bent her knees, as if she were surfing, and when the canoe began to settle she threw herself at me, pulling me up with her, and it took only a moment before the sudden movements tipped the canoe dangerously to one side, where it overturned and deposited us in the cold, slimy water with a splash.

We both emerged gasping and spitting and blinking the dirty water from our eyes. For a moment, I thought we were in sync and that once the shock passed, we would begin laughing. But Elizabeth was in no mood; her eyes fell on me, and they were quite vindictive. She paddled closer, grabbed my head, and pushed it under the water.

Now I was in the cool quiet, hearing only muffled rippling, and when I opened my stinging eyes I saw a world of murky green, reeds waving below me where the water got so dark I could barely see the bottom, specks of dust and whatever else floating past, sunlight shimmering the warmer, shallow waters just above me; and I was pinned in place by the weight of her hands pressing down on my head, unable to push up fully against them without leverage beneath me, suspended in the fishy green as my lungs started to hurt. I grabbed her wrists and tried to pry her hands away, but she held. My hair floated out in front of my face. I saw a fish with enormous silvery eyes dart past my feet. My lungs ached for air. When I flailed my arms, I heard the faint watery swish of their movement, but it was a calm sound despite my frantic fear. My lungs were burning.

After an eternity of green, the weight of her hands disappeared, and I shot upward, emerging with a crash as I dragged in heavy gasps of air, coughing, squinting through the water blurring my eyes, my hair plastered over my forehead.