So something had begun, and now she could not stop it. Twin threads ran through her: fear and excitement. She could leave this place today. She could start a new life somewhere else.

I love to swim, and I love being near water.

She had died at age twelve, and by now she was nothing but the memory of love-- nothing, now, but bones.

Once, this whole world had been hidden beneath a shallow sea.

He had never even glimpsed her.

He could hardly imagine anymore what his life would be without the weight of his hidden knowledge. He'd come to think of it as a kind of penance. It was self-destructive, he could see that, but that was the way things were. People smoked, they jumped out of airplanes, they drank too much and got into their cars and drove without seat belts.

I've been accused of trying too hard to rescue people