Riverland by Fran Wilde

Author:Fran Wilde [Wilde, Fran]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781683354826
Google: qoFsDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B07H1FXL1T
Goodreads: 41070150
Publisher: ABRAMS
Published: 2019-04-08T23:00:00+00:00

By the time I reached the shoreline, Mike had whistled so much, her lips were dry and she sounded like she was spitting. No raft came to carry us over the river.

The lighthouse beam swung across the water, slowly. As it moved toward us, it seemed to flicker, then catch. In the predawn light, it looked darker somehow.

“I thought Dishrag would come back,” Mike said. She stared into the shadows downriver. “I hope he’s not in the reeds again.”

“We’ll go the way we did last time.”

Ponies were unreliable. Mike needed to realize that. Especially if she didn’t want to be trapped here.

I tugged at her. “Come on. Step there.”

The light passed over my feet and I jumped on top of it. It tugged and pulled, just as it had before, and the lighthouse’s single glass eye stuck and didn’t move. The beam pulled taut, all the way to the fishbone tower.

We were leaving them here, the crabs and their tunnels. Just as we’d left the Heron. But this time, I didn’t want to leave as badly as I had before.

“We’re coming back,” I promised the empty shore.

The beam beneath my toes felt cool, not warm. It wobbled again. My sister was halfway out over the river. The flicker threw her to her knees. She whimpered, afraid.

“Mike, I’m coming! It’s going to swing a little.” I climbed up on the beam and felt it stutter into motion. Not the smooth arc of before; a feeling of stuck gears. The beam moved slower. In the tower, the lamp flickered. It grew brighter for a moment, then dim.

The water turned darker. I grabbed Mike by the backpack and pulled her along. “Let’s go fast.”

We were climbing up the slowly spinning beam when the lighthouse went dark.

For a moment, all I knew was air and darkness. I still had Mike’s pack in my grip and I hung on.

We fell into the river with a splash.

The moon was a sliver over the lowest sandbar. The river rose and fell around us, the lighthouse drawing farther away as the current pulled us downstream, toward the bridge. “Swim!” I yelled, then coughed, as river water flooded my mouth. I spit it out and looked at Mike. The backpack was floating, and she held on tight. “Kick hard!” There was a small piece of land downstream of the lighthouse on that side. We might make it.

But the river moved fast. My calves began to ache and cramp. Don’t panic. Breathe.

Mike’s fingers slipped off the backpack as it sunk lower.

All I wanted was to hear the beat of the raft’s paddle and a nicker from a washcloth muzzle.

No such luck. The river made a sucking sound as it drew us toward the bridge. The wind shifted and I heard Anassa laughing up there.

“Come this way,” she yelled. “I’ll help you get home. You can get as mad as you want around me, whenever you want. And you’ll never have to worry about falling into dream again.”

I kicked harder. Mike did too.

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