She dreams. It’s the same dream she’s started hundreds of times since she came to the island. In it, she’s alone, standing at the edge of a river, the one she grew up next to but never swam in, never toed into or explored. Dana and Jackie’s realm, where Lupita watched them linger at twilight, spinning tales of hidden treasure and wood trolls as they pulled rocks from the water and held them up to the setting sun. She steps in and feels the icy water chill her heel and toes and grab at her ankle, but before she submerges her second foot, a voice booms from the wood-line, commanding her to stop. In an instant, she’s away from the water, onto the lawn, running for what feels like her life. Here is where the dream has always ended.
But this time, when Lupita takes her first step into the river, the water is warm and there is no voice. She wades in, slowly, despite her fear. The water feels soft against her skin, soothing, and the deeper she goes, the more relaxed she becomes. A warm rain begins to fall and with it she notices the faint smell of roses and lavender.
She can see the big house—its old vines climbing the columns and walls, crossing the lifeless windows. The water begins to creep up the lawn and the rain falls harder. The river rises around her, caresses her neck and face. Lupita feels her feet leave the stony riverbed and soon she is floating. Huge swells surge from upriver and crash onto the lawn, but she is not swept away. Instead, she moves with ease in the current, treads in place as the waves become enormous. She watches them lap against the long porch, past the columns that flank the house, and rise quickly up the steps to the window ledges.
As she watches the water inch past the second floor windows and approach the roofline, she suddenly wants nothing more than to stand on top of the house before it’s swallowed. With all her strength, she swims. The current is with her, and in what feels like only a few seconds, she approaches the chimney, the one she watched smoke curl from in the winter when she was young and wondered if Santa Claus would dive down on Christmas Eve even though the Gosses were in Florida. It mattered a great deal to her that he might make two visits to one family, that Dana could actually be given two sets of presents, have two stockings filled, receive two letters from Santa telling her she’d been a good girl that year. It seemed impossibly unfair.
Lupita grabs at the chimney. The brick feels like sand in her hands, flimsy and fast vanishing. She does her best to hold on and steady her feet, but she slips and wobbles on the slate roof as the water rises above her waist. Before she’s submerged, she hoists herself up and straddles the edges of two of the six chimney pots. They are a tawny ceramic that darkens when wet and beneath her feet they look like drowning flesh. She watches the river invade and overwhelm them and she has no pity. The water rises, pulls her up and off, and soon there is no roof, no house, no trace of what was there. Around her there is nothing but raging water, foam and fury. Unafraid, she drifts.
The chop eventually calms, the rain ceases, and the water becomes crystal clear under a sky now brilliant with stars and a high, bright moon. Beneath her, Lupita sees what appears to be a vast ship taking shape and slowly rising toward the surface. When the deck meets her feet and the schooner is fully atop the water, the wind stirs, the great sails billow, and she feels the vessel begin to move. Quickly, it gains speed and explodes forward, catching air and streaking across the water like the flat stones she watched her father fling into the river when he didn’t think anyone was watching. It was the only time she ever saw him do something that had no purpose but pleasure. And never for very long. Three or four rocks skipped toward the distant bank and then back to work, or home, mumbling imperceptibly as he went, pipe smoke curling behind him.
The ship moves fast toward far away, its sails are full, stretched to bursting. Below, for her, the river spills its secrets—rubies and sapphires, diamonds and emeralds—millions of them, catching the moonlight, glinting beneath the surface like underwater fireworks. Above the prow, Lupita grips the wooden railing with both hands. She has no plan, no destination; there is nothing she wants, not one thing she fears. Her body feels as light as paper.
The river widens. The ship surges forward. Soon there is only open ocean, limitless and welcoming. Waves curl and collapse on all sides, spraying her clothes, tickling her skin. She is a girl again, squinting into the wind and water, and someone is beside her.