Into the boat, out of the boat. Maude said, “Somewhere inside, I am spring. But I’m never doing this again, except in ash form.”

They all swam, except for Maude, who sat in a folding chair in shallow water and wiggled her old toes. A sandbar upstream created a wide, calm pool, and Jane and Polly could stand waist-deep and tow the children around by their preservers, though Helen could probably swim better than Polly now. They dipped their faces underwater together and opened their eyes to see Sam swim beneath their arms. The others made for a deeper, larger pool twenty yards away, and Polly watched Drake check the depth and take running jumps.

Ned followed Drake once, then twice. Polly waited to see his head again, and when she waited too long, her blood began to pound. But there he was, crawling out of the river downstream, dripping, seeing the look on her face and trotting toward her, telling her everything was fine. “See the day, Polly. It’s beautiful.”

“Where’s Harry?” asked Maude.

“Looking for things,” said Josie.

Cornflower-blue shorts, ripped off a girl with Titian red hair, thought Polly. When Harry returned, shaking his head, Drake disappeared. Eventually Polly worried and followed him around the bend of the island.

She found him sitting near the water, holding a plastic bag with Ariel’s shorts. There was blood at the crotch, and Drake was crying. Polly sat there for a while with him.

“Finding them won’t make a difference,” said Drake.

“Probably not,” said Polly.

When they got back to the others, they tucked the bag into Ned’s dry sack while Maude called for Polly, wondering where on earth she’d hidden the ginger cookies.

Back on the water, Jane and Maude, at the front of the raft, talked about their mirror memories of traveling, being taken to college, being nursed, being advised, being kept safe. They had duplicate memories, too, of a yearly raging fight between Papa and Dee, usually around the time the garden froze, Papa teasing, reminding Dee that she could do nothing about winter—“Dulce and decorum est. You’re short on decorum, my dear”—and Dee saying he was such an ass.

“And the stories,” said Maude. “His stories, testing which was real and which was more terrifying. I’m shocked that none of us were bed wetters.”

But Jane had done it, too, and she told them she’d tried her scary stories on Rita—a fable about dead babies, an Italian story about paintings waking—until Dee found out and worried about Rita’s reaction and told Jane to stop. But Jane had always wondered if Dee had been doing some of the same thing, making the world wake up in a way that was wonderful only if you could bear it.

She had, they agreed.