Weeks ago, when we had entered the frozen world through an iron gate in the Blackness, we had been buffeted by snow and wind. The Shield had done nothing until the cold had started to hurt me, and then it sprung into action and repelled everything, like an invisible bubble. That same sort of thing happened again. Not all things that are harmful to a person are cut and dry, immediately discernible. The Shield seemed to have its own brain. In fact, according to Farmer, the Giver who had helped me so much in this ordeal, the Shield's brain was my brain.

Just as despair filled my heart, as I choked and sputtered and slapped at the water, a sudden and silent explosion of air shot from me in all directions, pushing the water away until a pocket of emptiness completely surrounded me. I fell a few feet and bounced on the inside bottom of the bubble until I came to a tenuous stop, still wobbling slightly. I looked up, and realized it wasn't a bubble at all. The pocket of air separated the waters at the surface in a perfect circle, so that I looked like I was standing in a glass cup, ten feet tall, floating in the ocean.

The sensation of being surrounded by water, held back by some invisible force, as I bobbed up and down, was nauseating. But it beat choking on salty seawater and dying.

I got down on my knees, floating and bobbing on what looked like a super-strong film of plastic wrap, or some invisible skin of ocean pudding. I crawled along, and the Shield went with me, the pocket of air going wherever I went, the invisible barrier wet but impenetrable.

The light from Miyoko's eyes was just a few feet below me, still moving, or I would've thought her dead for sure. It had to have been a couple of minutes by then. She seemed to be struggling with something. Her head was jerking left and right, not like she was looking for something but instead trying to swim to the surface with a heavy burden. Dad. She had my dad.

I dove for them.

The Shield acted strangely as I descended, kind of alternating between repelling the water and letting me dive into it. Waves of water hit me then were pushed away, almost like I was swimming through soft, wet clay. It was exhausting, pushing and pulling, pushing and pulling myself toward them.

Miyoko seemed to slow, then her movements ceased completely. She was giving up, refusing to leave Dad behind, but also refusing to save herself. Her light grew dim, then winked out.

I screamed, and dove with a burst of effort summoned from the deepest part of my heart. I tore through the remaining distance and grabbed her. Dad was held in her weakening grip. With both arms, I hugged them to me. The Shield expanded to protect all of us, forming what was now a complete bubble, fully encased in the black waters.

Miyoko coughed and spat, gasping for life.

Dad did not move or make a sound.

There wasn't enough water in the ocean to match the heaviness that gripped my heart when I saw him.

He looked for all the world like a dead man.