Page 118

“My God.”

Kit wasn’t sure who’d spoken. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing. It made no sense. Everything below was chaos. Instead of copses, fields, cottages, there was churning water, nearly black with debris. Treetops protruded, and roofs.

What had been a riverside hamlet was now within the river, almost fully submerged.

Fence posts were spinning in the currents. Branches. A chicken coop. Other bulky shapes he hoped were hay bales but feared were sheep.

“Is that…?” Kemble clamped his arm. “In the water there…”

“Yes.” Muriel answered, and her certainty sent a cold prickle down Kit’s spine. She had excellent eyesight, years of experience identifying small, half-hidden things.

“Where?” asked Deighton. “What?”

“A child,” she said. “By the oak.”

Kit was focused on the tiny form, bobbing and flailing. Kemble was still holding his arm.

“We have to do something.” Butterfield turned to Deighton. All the wheelmen did. They looked lost, overwhelmed, and strangely childlike themselves as they awaited their orders. Deighton stood stock-still, rain streaming down his face. His eyes were vacant.

“Captain?” urged Prescott.

He shook himself. “We’ll ride down at once.”

“No, we won’t.”

Every head snapped toward Muriel.

“That will take too long,” she said. “We’ll go this way.”

“Off a cliff?” Butterfield blanched.

“It’s not quite so steep as that. You’ll have to pick your path carefully. The rocks will be slick, and the earth may crumble. Take small, sideways steps, and try not to lean back. Unless you need to sit and slide. There’s no shame in it. Ready?”

She gave them a rallying look, gaze landing briefly on each of them in turn. Kit found himself nodding, even though his stomach churned like the water below. She didn’t pause to acknowledge his nod, or to solicit Deighton’s response.

She turned, hunching slightly against the wind, and ran parallel to the hillside, away from the sheerest drop.

Kit tensed. The low roar of the river had made a strange silence in his head. He watched, frozen, as she shifted her horizontal motion, angling down, then zigzagging back, then angling down. Half the hillside seemed to cave beneath her feet. She was carried with it for several seconds, during which Kit forgot how to breathe, then she lunged and snatched at a sapling, swinging herself to firmer ground. She skidded, skipped, and didn’t stop. She hadn’t misrepresented herself. She was like a mountain goat.

Kit was not. He’d never plunged over the edge of such a dauntingly perpendicular slope, at least not deliberately. He felt dizzy as he started forward.

The wheelmen didn’t move.

“I can’t.” Butterfield’s voice cracked.

“Sit and slide,” called Kit, as his feet shot out from under him. He slid on his arse over mud and wet grass, found his feet for a few hopping steps, then slid again. Plummeting off a literal cliff could hardly have brought him down to the valley floor faster. This was a kind of plummeting, plummeting by giddy stages. He reached the bottom with shocking rapidity, heart banging out of his chest. Muriel was already wading out through knee-high water.

The next moment his breath exploded, his whole body jolting with a sudden impact. A hand grasped his collar to keep him upright. He made a strangled noise and jerked free. Deighton stood behind him, panting. He might have banged into Kit by accident or aimed for him, so as to break his own momentum.

He met Kit’s eyes without apology. “How do we find the boy?”

It was a reasonable question. Without the bird’s-eye view, Kit had no idea where to start. Acres of water spread before them.

“We follow her,” he said, and waded after Muriel.

“He was by a tree.” Deighton lurched along beside him. “But which? They look the same.”

“Not to Mrs. Pendrake.”