The Giver of Stars(86)

‘It’s time to get out, William,’ she said.

‘Let me just fetch a couple more.’

How do you tell a proud amputee he can be of no help? How do you tell him the mere fact of him being in there is not just a hindrance but likely to put them all at risk? Margery bit back her words and reached for Sophia’s embroidery box, wedging it under her arm and wading outside, where she grabbed a wooden chair from the porch with her other, hauling them up to dry land, grunting with the effort. Then the pile of blankets, ported high above her head. Lord knew how they were going to dry those out. She looked down, feeling the sharp protest again from her womb. The water was now up to her crotch, her long coat swirling around her thighs. Three inches higher in the last ten minutes?

‘We got to go!’ she yelled, as Sophia, her head down, made her way back in. ‘No time.’

Sophia nodded, her face pained. Margery made it out of the water, feeling it drag at her, shifting and insistent. Up on the bank Charley shifted nervously, his reins taut against the pole, signalling his own desire to be far from there. He didn’t like water, never had, and she took a second to soothe him. ‘I know, fella. You’re doing so good.’

Margery placed the last of Sophia’s items on the pile, pulling the tarpaulin over them, and wondering whether she could move any of it further up the hill. Something fluttered deep inside and she was startled until she realized what it was. She stopped and placed her hand upon her belly, feeling it again, flooded with an emotion she couldn’t identify.

‘Margery!’

She spun round to see Sophia clutching at William’s sleeve. There appeared to have been some kind of surge and she was now up to her waist. The water, Margery saw, had turned black. ‘Oh, Lord,’ she murmured. ‘Stay there!’

Sophia and William had stepped down gingerly onto the underwater steps, one hand each gripping the rope, Sophia’s free arm tight around her brother’s waist. The inky water rushed past them, its force sending a strange energy into the air. William’s eyes were down, his knuckles taut as he tried to steer his crutch forward through the swollen river.

Margery half ran, half stumbled down the hill, her eyes on them as they made their way towards her.

‘Keep coming! You can make it!’ she yelled, skidding to a stop at the edge. And then – snap! – the rope gave way, sending both Sophia and William off their feet and flinging them downstream. Sophia shrieked. She was thrown forward, her arms out, disappeared for a moment and then, emerging, managed to grab hold of a bush, her hands closing tight around its branches. Margery ran alongside her, her heart in her throat. She threw herself down on her belly and grabbed hold of Sophia’s wet wrist. Sophia switched her grip to Margery’s other wrist and, after a second, Margery had hauled her up the bank, where she collapsed backwards and Sophia crouched on her muddied hands and knees, her clothes black and sodden, panting with the effort.

‘William!’

Margery turned at Sophia’s voice to see William half submerged, his face screwed up with effort as he tried to haul himself back along the rope. His crutch had disappeared and the water was around his waist.

‘I can’t get through!’ he yelled.

‘Can he swim?’

‘No!’ wailed Sophia.

Margery ran for Charley, her wet clothes dragging at every step. Somewhere she had lost her hat and the water sent her hair cascading over her face, so that she had to keep pushing it back to see.

‘Okay, boy,’ she murmured, unhooking Charley’s reins from the pole. ‘I need you to help me now.’

She pulled him down the bank and to the water where she waded in, her free hand out to the side to steady her, her boots testing the ground for obstacles. He stalled at first, his ears flat back and his eyes white, but at her urging he took a tentative step and then another and, huge ears flicking forward and back at the sound of her voice, he was splashing his way through, beside Margery, pushing against the torrent. William was gasping by the time they reached him, both hands on the rope as he scrabbled for purchase. He grabbed blindly at Margery, his face a mask of panic, and she yelled to be heard above the sound of the water. ‘Just hold him round his neck, William, okay? Wrap your arms around his neck.’

William held on to the mule, his great body pressed against Charley’s, and, groaning with the effort, Margery turned the two of them in the depths of the floodwater, back towards the bank, the mule protesting mutely at every step. The black water was up to her chest now and Charley, frightened, lifted his muzzle and tried to half leap forward. Another surge of water hit them, and as everything rushed around her she felt his legs lift and was filled with sudden terror, as if the ground would surely slip away from them all for good, but just as she thought they, too, would be carried away, she felt her feet touch the ground again, knew Charley’s had done the same, and she felt him take another tentative step forward.

‘You okay, William?’

‘I’m here.’

‘Good boy, Charley. Come on, boy.’

Time slowed. They seemed to move forward in inches. She had no idea what was underneath. A solitary wooden drawer of neatly folded clothing floated by in front of them, followed by another, and then a small dead dog. She noted them only with some distant part of her brain. The black water had become a living, breathing thing. It snatched and pulled at her coat, blocking progress, demanding submission. It was relentless, deafening, and made fear rise, like iron, in her throat. Margery was now blue with cold, her skin pressed against Charley’s chestnut neck, her head bumping against William’s great arms, all consciousness reduced to one thing.