40
I SCREAM, BUT WATER CHOKES ME.
Though I paddle as hard as I can against the current, the water is a sticky, living thing, playing with me before it will consume me whole. Angus sees the danger, too, and starts swimming up current, using strokes more powerful than mine.
I spend a precious few moments working off my clothes to reduce my drag, shedding the layers I have hidden under for so long. But in so doing, I slide even closer to the edge. Kick, stroke, focus. It’s like climbing a giant bolt of fabric by pulling on the cloth. It unrolls and I get nowhere. I look wildly around for something to grab on to. But there is only the slick rock of the shoreline.
“Sammy!” Andy stands on the shore holding a lariat, which she has anchored to the great fir tree. Oh, thank God she’s alive!
“I’m gonna throw it, and you better catch it! On the count of three!” she yells.
The drop-off inches ever closer, only twenty feet away now.
My arms are so tired, I want to give up. But that would mean fate would collect yet another prize today.
“One!”
Why should fate always have the upper hand? Passing out luck, like mooncakes in autumn, then snatching them right out of your mouth. Well, Fate, I reject you, from your gleaming jaw to your pale underbelly.
“Two!”
From now on, I will make my own luck.
“Three!”
And this time, I will not roll snake eyes.
Andy hurls the rope and it lands a few yards ahead, but quickly starts moving toward me. I catch the rough hemp by the loop.
Angus notices and stops swimming. The current speeds him backward, and as he passes me, he latches on to my waist. I kick with all my might, but he pushes my head underwater. With one quick yank, he wrestles the rope from my hands.
And just like that, fate shows me who’s still in charge.
I lift my head, eyes stinging. Angus flashes me a grin. His cheeks are red with cold except for the scar like a jag of lightning running down his cheek.
Oh, Father. I cannot fight fate. It is too great, and I am so tired.
You’re right, I hear Father say. Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right. Have a pea shoot.
This is not the Paganini, I want to scream.
Right again, he tells me.
Fine, I tell Father, since I still need the last word. I can stop a waterfall with my bare hands. I can sing opera, too. Fly, if I want, all the way to Mars. What I can’t do is catch that damn rope.
Andy screams something. Maybe good-bye? The story she told about Harp Falls rushes back into my memory. If only the prince had seen that he was holding the harp all along, he would not have fallen to his death.
Who am I struggling against now?
Nature? No gun, no rope, no feat of strength will stop this river from taking me.
Angus? He’s more than an arm’s length away—too far, even if I had the strength to fight him for the leash.
Myself. I am the monk. I am the prince. I have struggled with my Snake luck all along, and now, only at the end, do I understand this.
Fate casts its cold shadow over me, daring me to be afraid. In those last seconds before I go over the falls, I listen for the harp, the voice as familiar as the D-flat scale.
Stop struggling and you will find common ground, says Father’s wise and gentle voice.
My arms go limp. As I stop kicking, suddenly my feet graze rock. I can touch the sandy bottom. In a last move, I push off, more out of instinct than any conscious effort. Like a giant bullfrog, I lunge. Angus is pulling the hemp over his body as my hands catch the rope.
Over the falls we go.
Father, I will see you soon.