It’s a rowing boat, not six feet long. The forest has very nearly claimed it. Its sides are overgrown with moss and the piece of canvas covering its top is weighed down with leaves and dirt from which grow the grey tendrils of dead weeds. When they slip off this cover, they discover two sculls lying in its bottom, along with a film of rotting water. The smell makes them gag. A bracket of rusted iron is let into each of the boat’s sides, to anchor the sculls. As she helps Charlie push the boat out into the open, Livia’s fingers unearth a carved crest within the moss at its prow. A boar, basking in the circle of a rising moon. She knows it at once. It’s her own crest, her family’s, the ancient emblem of the Naylors.

“My father used to disappear for days at a time. Going fishing. It was his one indulgence.” Livia shivers, is transported back to a distant time. Early childhood. Her father’s hand stroking her hair. “But that was many years ago.”

“Do you think it’ll float? The wood’s half rotten. But it’s tarred from underneath and the canvas kept the rain out.”

“Let’s hope it does. It’s the best chance we have.”

ф

Getting the boat into water proves to be hard work. The bank is too high to just drop it in, and they are forced to drag it back a whole ten yards to find a better point of access. Charlie tests it before they heave Thomas in, moving gingerly from prow to stern as though expecting to fall straight through. But the boat holds; turns gently with the slow, even current, ready to run.