Chapter 47: The Debt Paid

She didn't reach the light. She'd known she wouldn't. She'd known it all the way up. The gold blur got bigger and bigger above her, the lamp, her mother's lamp, burning on its pole under the overturned ferry, and the brown water got lighter round her. And her chest burned, and burned, and then it stopped burning. That was worse. Everything went slow and soft, and the gold blur was very close now, an arm's length, less. And she put up her hand to it, and her hand didn't seem to belong to her any more. And she thought, quite calmly: oh. Not far. Then something came down over her. She felt it before she saw it. A soft rough weight, settling over her face and her shoulders and her arms. Wide. Flat. Like a hand, opening. A net. She knew that net. She knew it with her whole body,…