“But he can,” said Lotti softly. “They all can—Nathan and Mama and Papa. They’re right here watching with us. Can’t you feel them?”

They sat very still, hardly breathing, so that in the workshop the only sound was the puppies’ mewling and the steady beat of rain on the roof, and Ben could feel it, something magic in the air like you get in very old churches, or libraries, or empty houses which people have really loved.

“I have to tell you something,” Ben whispered to Lotti. “It sounds mad, but on the boat, when I drove into that big wave, I thought I heard Nathan speak to me.”

“What did he say?” asked Lotti.

“He said, Steady, lad, you’re doing fine, just as he always used to, and then I felt … I felt his hand on my shoulder. Does that sound mad?”

Lotti smiled.

“Come on,” she said. “I want to show you something.”

Ben followed Lotti through the cabin up onto the rear deck. Ignoring the rain, Lotti climbed up onto the roof, followed by Federico.

“What are you doing?” Ben called up. “You’ll get soaked!”

“Who cares!” she shouted back. “It’s only water! Ben, look around you!”

Ben looked. What was he supposed to see? There was a canal, twice as wide as those at home, poplar trees, a lock—the hotel Frank had written about, square and white with faded gray shutters and bright geraniums at the window …

He began to smile.

“France, Ben!” sang Lotti. “We’re in France!”

He climbed up to join her on the roof. Lotti grabbed his hands, and they began to jump up and down shouting, “We’re in France! We’re in France!” with Federico leaping around them barking, not caring that they were getting soaked because Lotti was right, it was only water, and together they had taken on the world, they had beaten Hubert Netherbury and Constable Skinner and a wild, wild storm.

No one could stop them now. No one!

Two figures appeared on the towpath, a man and a woman, hunched against the rain. Ben and Lotti paid no attention. The figures drew closer. Lotti stopped jumping, then Ben.

The figures stopped and the woman looked up, and it was Clara with a man they didn’t know.

Thunderstruck, soaked, Ben and Lotti stared.

“You mad children!” Clara cried. “Get down from there at once!”

Then she burst into tears again.

Clara had prepared a speech but for a while, as she sat on the berth with Lotti and Ben standing before her and Captain de Beauchesne hovering uncomfortably in the galley near the door to the workshop, all anyone could make out were snatches of sentences as she sobbed.

“I thought you were drowned … I was so frightened … I thought you were dead …”