Chapter 46: Liulang's Refusal

The wave hit the ferry broadside. She was standing in the stern with her hand on the lamp pole and Fish in the water at the bow with one arm over the side when she turned her head and the wall of brown and white water came out of the narrows and filled the sky. It was the color of the lake and the color of the clouds. There were things in it. Reeds. Branches. Half a roof. A racing boat's carved dragon's head, red and gold, turning over and over at the top of it like a toy. She had time to think one thing. She thought: the rope. The ferry was tied to the post. Her rope, round the post, where she'd made it fast at dawn. The post had stood in the shallows at Willow Crossing for three hundred years. It had stood through the great flood.…