“Come on,” said Elizabeth, taking my hand and pulling me to the bank. I let go of her as soon as I could. A deep hurt welled inside me.

As we tried to turn over the canoe, we discovered it had sprung a leak; so much for my quality craftsmanship. It had lasted us almost a full year, at least, but now we watched as it quickly took in water, sinking, and we left it where it was.

We hiked in silence, until Elizabeth offered me a halfhearted apology that I pretended to accept. I didn’t know how to tell her about the burn I felt in my heart, like the burn in my lungs, but lingering.

After half an hour, it became clear that we were hiking the wrong way; we were going deeper into the swamp. Now our roles had reversed: Elizabeth talked quietly, incessantly, about how we were going to find our way out soon, while I walked in moody silence, hanging my head to watch the uneven ground beneath my feet.

I wondered if Mother was getting worried. I wondered if she had noticed we had been gone nearly the whole day. It was summer, so the sun wouldn’t set until later in the evening, but afternoon was already yawning on around us, the slant of the sun reminding me how little of the day yet remained in our grasp. Our feet slushed through the muck with sucking, sticky sounds.

“There. What’s that?” Elizabeth said.

“What?”

“Up ahead.”

We both paused to peer through the long, growing shadows between the trees. In the distance stood a small wooden shack.

“Maybe there’s someone in there who can help us find our way out,” she suggested. I nodded, but I was skeptical, as she must have been too, for the shack was of such shoddy construction that it looked as if it had been there for ages, that it might be abandoned to the wilds. The wood was discolored, water-rotted, and unevenly patched; vines crept along the sides of the little house. But it had a peaked roof and a front door and what looked like a boarded-up window, so we made our way dreamily toward it.

“Hello?” Elizabeth called out as we approached. Flies buzzed around us like static.

“I don’t think anybody lives here,” I whispered. The place exuded negativity, particularly the closed wooden door that concealed the interior of the shack. All of this seemed wrong. Why would someone build a shack way out in the middle of the swamp like this? We had come very far to get here. Surely there was no one who would, or could, live all the way out here in this remote place, deep in the swamp, so far from civilization.

All the thrill of our adventure had gone out of me. My clothes were still wet, and now they were cold, despite the warm humid air, and sticking unpleasantly to my skin, chafing; I was tired and hungry, and I just wanted to go home.