now used this to make her way across the creek. The water was icy and the current ominously strong, although it only came to her knees. Inside the house Sophia’s cherished furniture had toppled over; the smaller items bobbing in the water. Margery found herself momentarily paralyzed: what to save? She grabbed for photographs on the wall, for books and ornaments, wedging them into her coat and reaching out for a side table, which she hauled to the doorway and out onto the grass. Her belly ached, the pain low in her pelvis, and she found herself wincing.
“You can’t save no more,” she yelled at Sophia. “Water’s coming up too fast.”
“That’s everything we own in there.” Sophia’s voice was despairing.
Margery bit her lip. “One more trip, then.”
William was moving around the flooded room, using his arms to support himself on the wall, trying to corral essentials—a pan, a chopping board, two bowls—clasping them in his huge hands. “That rain easing off any?” he said, but his face suggested he already knew the answer.
“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, signaling 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 toward 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 backward 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.