scrambling over the tangle of branches, plank wood, and trees. We’re quick as mice. We’ve done this all our lives.
But we both know enough to understand that a drift pile isn’t a safe place to be. Even when we get to the other end, I can feel the heat from the fire. I hold Fern’s hand, turn and look toward the Arcadia, and lift an arm to shield my eyes. Flames curl and stretch upward from the shanty, burning through the roof and the walls and the deck, skinning the Arcadia down to her bones, stripping her of her beauty. Pieces float on the air. Up, and up, and up they whirl until they fly overhead like a million new stars.
Cooled by the rain, they fall and settle over our skin. Fern yelps when one lands, still warm. I wrap a hand around the neck of her nighty, squat down, and push her into the water, tell her to hold real tight to the tangled branches. There’s too much current here for us to swim to shore. Her teeth chatter, and her face goes pale.
The drift pile is starting to burn. The fire’ll work its way to us soon enough.
“Briny!” The name rips from me. He’s here somewhere. Surely he’s gotten off the boat. He’ll save us.
Won’t he?
“Hold on!” somebody yells, but it’s not Briny’s voice. “Hold on. Don’t move!”
A tank explodes on the Arcadia. Cinders rocket out and fall everywhere. One lands on my foot, and the pain drives right through me. I scream and kick and stick my leg in the water and hang on to Fern.
The drift pile shifts. It’s smoldering in a dozen places now.
“Almost there!” the man’s voice calls out.
A small boat sifts out of the darkness, two rivermen with hoods pulled over their heads straining hard at the oars. “Don’t let go, now. Don’t let go!”
The branches crackle. Logs whine and whistle. The entire drift pile shifts downriver a foot or two. One of the men in the lifeboat warns the other that they’ll get swamped if the drift breaks loose.
They come on anyway, snatch us into the boat, and throw blankets over us and row hard.
“Was there anyone else on the boat? Anybody else?” they want to know.
“My daddy,” I cough out. “Briny. Briny Foss.”
Nothing feels quite so good as the shore when they drop us there and go back to look for Briny. I cuddle Fern close inside my blanket, the picture and Queenie’s cross between us. We shiver and shake and watch the Arcadia burn until finally the drift pile breaks loose and takes what’s left of her with it.
Fern and me stand up and move to the edge of the water and watch as Kingdom Arcadia disappears into the river bit by bit. Finally, it’s gone altogether. There’s not a trace. It’s like it never was.
Against the dawn gray to the east, I watch the men and boats. They search on, and on, and on. They call out, and their lights sweep, and they row.
I think I see somebody standing down shore. A slicker flaps around his knees. He doesn’t move, or call out, or wave at the lights. He just watches the river, where the life we knew has been swallowed away.
Is it Briny?
Cupping my hands around my mouth, I call to him. My voice carries through the morning mist, echoing over and over.
A searcher in one of the boats looks my way.
When I squint down shore again, I can hardly make out the man in the slicker. He turns and walks toward the trees until the dawn shadows cover him over.
Maybe he was never there at all.
I move a few steps closer and yell again and listen.
My voice echoes away, then dies.
“Rill!” When there’s finally an answer, it doesn’t come from downriver. It’s not Briny’s voice.
A jon boat motors up to the sandy bank, and Silas hops out before the Jenny even makes it to a stop. He tugs the line at a run, hurrying toward me until he grabs me in his arms. I cling to him and cry.
“You’re all right! You’re all right!” He breathes into my hair, squeezing me so tight the picture frame and Queenie’s cross push deep into my skin. “Zede and me and Arney was scared half out of our minds when we seen the Arcadia gone.”
“Briny cut us loose last night. I woke up, and she was on the river.” I sob out the rest of the story—Briny on the roof