Jane isn’t certain it’s true, but she knows the worst thing would be to let Timothy stop, to let tiredness and fear overtake him. Timothy shakes his head, a motion she can just see in the dark. A surge of frustration almost brings a sharp reply to her lips until she realizes how stupid she’s been. His legs and arms are shorter than hers. He can’t reach all the places she can; she should have thought of it sooner.

“You can do it.” Her voice cracks, afraid of a lie. “Just stretch as tall as you can.”

The ground shakes again, and Jane tightens her grip. Beneath her nightgown, her sweat feels like ants marching across her skin. Timothy’s shoulders hitch, but otherwise he doesn’t move.

“Hang on!” Jane shouts.

The handholds that let her climb to this point are suddenly nowhere to be found. She can’t figure a way back to him, and now her frustration is at herself. She should have been more careful, paid more attention. Her arms tremble with the strain of holding on. If she doesn’t move soon, she’s going to fall.

“I’m sorry, Timothy. There’s nothing I can do. You have to climb.” Her stomach sinks, heavy with a feeling of failure. She promised to take care of him, and she’s already let him down.

Timothy raises a tear-stained face. The moon is cruel choosing this moment to show itself, needling Jane’s heart with all the planes of fear it reveals.

She remembers the first time she went on holiday to Brighton with her family, and how her mama taught her to swim. At first the memory seems incongruous, but there’s something there, something she can use. She remembers light sparking off the water, and her mother standing waist-deep, holding her arms out and saying, “I’ll stand right here, Jane, all you have to do is swim to me.”

“You promise you won’t move?” The water had been clear, enough that Jane could see the bottom, but still that didn’t ease her fear. It would be so easy to slip beneath the surface and get stuck there where her feet couldn’t touch to push herself back into the air again.

“I promise I won’t move an inch.”

Jane had dutifully kicked and paddled like her mother had shown her, frantically slapping the water, gasping, and feeling like she was going to go under at any moment. The distance had already seemed impossibly far, the water so much colder and deeper than when the lesson began. But she was doing it. Somehow, against all odds, she was almost there, her fingers almost close enough to reach her mother’s outstretched ones. Then her mother had taken a step back, and another, and Jane had had to keep swimming to reach her, furious when her mother finally stopped and gathered her laughing into her arms.