Chapter 16 The Name in the Water
The collapse plunged them into the flood. The icy shock stole Emma’s breath, but one sense overrode all others: Lily’s hand locked in hers. Twenty-two years of regret and a renewed vow fused her grip. Never again.
The current tumbled them. Ghosts flashed behind Emma’s eyes—a Yukon blizzard, glacier ice groaning, a floral-wrapped bundle pushed into her arms. Her mother’s voice: Take care of Lily! Then the awful emptiness.
No. Fire in her frozen brain. Not this time. Her numb fingers clamped down with pure will. Even as a submerged log slammed into her ribs, even as Lily’s body was wrenched by the current, she held on. Their linked hands were the only fixed point.
Emma fought to the surface, gasping. Lily surfaced beside her, coughing, eyes wide. The flood carried them like leaves.
“Hold on!” The roar ripped the words away. Their gripped hands said it all. Emma paddled weakly, trying to steer. A spinning branch struck Lily’s shoulder. Her head dipped below the surface.
Instinct took over. Emma twisted, putting her back between Lily and the next oncoming mass—a tangled knot of roots. The impact drove the air from her. Pain exploded across her shoulders. But Lily was shielded.
On the bank, a figure ran. Frank Howard. A climbing rope coiled over his shoulder. His eyes locked onto Lily’s face as she surfaced. He pointed downstream. “Big tree! Aim for it!”
Emma saw her father. A shockwave of hope shot through her. She followed his pointing arm. About thirty metres ahead, a large fir tree had toppled partially into the river, still anchored by roots.
“The tree!” Emma shouted. “Swim left!”
Together, they kicked against the current. Exhausting work. The cold seeped into their bones. Lily’s lips tinged blue.
Frank reached the fallen tree and secured the rope. Emma and Lily were swept into the turbulent area behind it—twelve metres from Frank, but the water was a churning maelstrom.
Frank threw the rope. It landed short. He hauled and threw again. This time it slapped the water centimetres from Lily’s face, but her fingers were too stiff.
“Lily! Grab it!” Emma urged, her own strength failing. Lily’s eyes fluttered. Consciousness fading.
Frank aimed for Emma and threw.
Emma’s frozen fingers closed around the rope. She had it.
But she couldn’t pull them in. The current was too strong, and her other hand was locked around Lily’s wrist. Lily was limp, eyes closed.
“Dad!” Emma screamed. “PULL!”
Frank braced and hauled. Slowly, Emma and Lily moved toward the bank. Five metres. Three metres.
A waterlogged log drifted sideways in the swirling back-eddies, moving directly toward Emma’s back.
She didn’t see it. Her world narrowed to the rope and Lily’s lifeless form. As she was pulled closer, Lily’s head lolled against her arm. The motion shifted Lily’s body, pulling wet hair away from the nape of her neck.
There, stark against pale skin, was a mark.
A small, distinct, red, crescent-shaped birthmark.
Time stopped. The river’s roar faded. Emma’s heart gave a single, monumental thud.
She knew that mark. She had seen it once, in a tent on a glacier, on the neck of a squalling newborn. Etched into her memory. Her mother’s blue-flowered swaddle. The tiny red crescent. Lily.
A kaleidoscope of moments crashed over her: Lily’s fierce curiosity, her bravery, her laugh, the strange, unplaceable familiarity, the protective love that had terrified her in its intensity.
The nightmare where the baby in the water had a woman’s face.
The way Lily stood in her office and refused to sit down.
The charcoal on her nose by the campfire.
It was her. It had always been her.
The revelation paralyzed her. For one endless second, Emma stared, the rope forgotten in her hand, the world reduced to that small red curve.
The drifting log made contact—a relentless, crushing force against her back, driving her down.
Lily, semi-conscious, sensed the pressure. A final spark flared. She twisted, throwing her body in front of Emma, taking the full grind of the log against her side.
CRUNCH.
Lily’s eyes flew open in silent agony, then went blank. The log pinned her.
Emma’s mind shattered back. The rope tore from her hand. But her left hand still held Lily’s wrist. She kicked to the surface, gasping. Lily’s head was above water, but her body was pinned.
Frank saw it. He didn’t think. He tied off the rope and plunged into the water. He reached Emma, who was frantically trying to lift the log.
“Together!” Frank wedged his shoulder under it. “One… two… THREE!”
They heaved. The log shifted. Emma reached into the murk, found Lily’s jacket, and pulled. Lily’s body slid free, limp.
Frank grabbed Lily, half-swimming, half-dragging them to the bank. They collapsed on muddy ground. Rain fell.
Lily was not breathing.
Frank checked her pulse. Nothing. He bent to her mouth. No breath.
“Emma…” he said, hollow.
Emma was already there. She tilted Lily’s head, pinched her nose, and delivered two breaths. A faint chest rise. Then compressions. One, two, three… After fifteen, two more breaths.
Frank watched, frozen. The professional part of him noted the perfect form. The father part broke apart.
Seconds ticked by. Emma’s arms burned, ached, screamed. She ignored them.
“Emma…” Frank whispered.
She didn’t hear. Her world was the count, the feel of ribs, the blue tint of Lily’s lips. You cannot leave me again. Not now.
She slumped forward. Her compressions weakened. Frank’s hand closed over hers, stilling them.
Emma looked up, eyes swimming.
“She is Lily… our Lily.”
The words fell between them.
Frank heard them. For a moment, they made no sense. Then they detonated in his being.
Our Lily.
The name he had whispered for twenty-two years. The face he had imagined at every age. The hope he had carried until it became a quiet, permanent pain.
He fell to his knees beside his daughter and the girl he thought the river had taken. Twenty-two years of searching crystallized into this moment of cruel reunion. He had found her, only to lose her, all over again.
Emma watched her father break. She had nothing left. She closed her eyes.
But a spark refused to die. The same spark that made her a scientist. That made her hold on in the river. That had made her mother push a swaddled baby into her arms and say take care of her.
No.
Her eyes snapped open. She pushed herself up, crawled back to Lily’s side, and placed her hands on her chest.
“You,” she said, voice low and fierce. “You come back. Do you hear me? Come back to us.”
She began again. Compressions. Breaths. Compressions.
Frank lifted his head, tears streaking mud on his face. He watched his daughter wage war against fate.
One cycle passed. Then two.
On the third, as Emma delivered a breath, she felt it—a faint twitch under her palm. She stopped.
Lily’s body jerked. A weak cough. Brownish water dribbled from her mouth. Her chest rose on its own—shallow, ragged, unmistakable.
Then another breath.
Lily Howard, saved from the river twice in one lifetime, began to breathe.