Are you breathing?

I cradle you in my arms as if you’re an infant, the same way I cradled John when I paddled out into the lake with one arm. I run, and this time I do not stop the whole way, even when my legs burn and my lungs can’t catch up and my head swirls. I keep running, and I’m not thinking about any of these things—all I’m thinking about is the way your arm sways beside me, a pendulum, bumping against my hip, keeping the time.

I will never be able to remember the facts about that journey through the woods—it was endless and took no time at all, through bright light and the strange dim breaking of dawn brought on by the storm. I sense a groan from your tiny frame, and it is like someone has brought down a whip on my back. I find unknown energy and run even faster.

Tom is looking out through your bedroom window, and when I get there, I pass you through the window to him. I follow close behind and think of your stories of sweeping through the forest, riding on the shoulders of Death.

The clouds bear down on us, and lightning flashes. Soon it is raining so hard we can barely see out the window.

“Pearl,” I whisper into your ear. I climb into the bed and hold you on my lap, my face pressed against yours.

“I’m calling a friend who might be able to help,” Tom says, walking quickly out of the room.

I hear a sound that blends in with the gentle swishing of the rain. I hold still. The room is quiet. The sound fades, returns.

It’s you. You are whispering. Each sentence comes out like a sigh, slow and light. You tell the story, but you never open your eyes.

The Far Green Country

I had to do it, Grampy. She came back, and I had to do it for you.

She took me back to the cabin, and I walked down the endless stairs all the way to the bottom, all alone. I went through the door, walked into the water, and put my flashlight on the same ledge. I held my breath and went under, but this time I swam as hard as I could, not wasting any time. Tom’s underwater swimming lessons are what did it, and the lights were shooting past me again, like tiny comets. I reached out and tried to touch them, and they went right through my hands.

I could feel my breath running out, so I swam harder. I pulled on the rock walls, pulled myself through, and there it was far above me, the surface. I kicked and swam and started to black out like I had before, but this time I kicked the way Tom taught me, and I pretended you were waiting for me there above the water.

I made it.

I burst up out of the water, and I didn’t know if I would ever stop gasping for air—I didn’t even care where I was, I was so thirsty for air. But soon I realized I was on my knees in a shallow ocean of warm water, stretching like glass all the way out into an endless sea, all the way to the horizon with no far bank. How had I gotten there? How had I come up through the water into this new place? I thought maybe the passage had led me to the lake and I had swum all the way to the surface, but the cabin was nowhere to be seen.