Free The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman Page A

am.
    “I’ve got an idea,” I say, “why don’t we cross the river and paddle up the Wicomico onto the old Astolat grounds? That way we’ll only be on the open river for a little while and I can see the sunken garden you and Kyle were talking about.” Bea’s face brightens instantly. I’m not sure what pleases her more: the fact that I’ve agreed to go kayaking with her or that I’m willing to trespass on private property.
    W E GO DOWN TO THE BOATHOUSE AND FIND K YLE GIVING AN INTRO LESSON TO THREE couples who have come up from the city to spend a day on the river. Standing with his back to the river he’s inscribing figure eights with a red paddle in the bright air. He makes it look easy—a natural motion like the rise and fall of a dragonfly’s wings. His audience, when they take up their paddles, bats the air clumsily, more like bees drunk on honey. He tells them to keep practicing and wends his way between their darting paddles over to us.
    “Hey, I was afraid you were going to head out before dropping by to say good-bye.” He’s talking to Bea, but he manages to catch my eye and wink. He’s supposed to come over tomorrow night after Bea leaves to make dinner for us.
    “Mom’s finally ready to launch out into the great outdoors,” Bea announces. She looks so proud of me I’m instantly ashamed it’s taken me so long to do this. “Can we have two boats?”
    “Maybe one of the wider models,” I say. The wider kayaks, though slower, are less likely to tip.
    “Sorry, Juno, I’ve promised those to this crew, and frankly,” he lowers his voice, “they need them more than you do.”
    We all look over just in time to see one of the men—snappily attired in lycra shorts and tangerine fleece—spade the dirt at his feet with his paddle.
    “Don’t you have seven of the wider kayaks?” I ask.
    Kyle shakes his head. “I did. One was stolen last week.”
    “Stolen?” Bea sounds incensed. Although happy to break rules that she sees as pointless, my daughter possesses a fine sense of moral outrage against unkindness to others. “Someone broke into the boathouse?”
    Kyle nods. “I knew the lock was flimsy. They took two kayaks, one of the reds—the wider kind—and a yellow. Also two paddles, two aprons, but no life jackets.”
    “Serve them right if they drowned.”
    “Beatrice!”
    “Well, Kyle’s worked hard to get this business going. I bet it was some rich kids from the Heights on a graduation night dare.”
    “Actually it happened last Sunday night—but speaking of businesses to get going, I’d better get this crew in the water before they kill one another on land. You two can tag along if you like.”
    Bea looks at me and I try not to look like I’d feel safer in a crowd. “Actually we thought we’d head across the river and up the Wicomico,” I tell Kyle.
    “Excellent. You’ll love seeing the ruins of the water gardens. Just don’t run into any of those submerged statues.…” Kyle’s attention has drifted back to the tourists and from them to the sky over the hills across the river. Although it’s still sunny, clouds have begun to gather above the highlands, just where the Dutch settlers believed an old goblin summoned thunderstorms to plague sailors. “And keep an eye on the weather,” Kyle says. “We may get a storm late in the day.”
    By the time we’ve got our gear on and boats in the water it’s after ten. The mouth of the Wicomico is a quarter mile south on the west side of the river. Bea sets a diagonal course across the river. “It’ll only take us about fifteen minutes to cross going with the current,” she calls to me, twisting to look at me over her shoulder.
    Not so long
, I tell myself. Although I’ve been practicing in the pool, I’m unprepared for how it feels to be out on the river. Riding low on thewater, I feel as insignificant as the drowning boy in Brueghel’s
Fall of Icarus
. The hills on the opposite shore, which have always looked as worn