Darkness.
She was spinning and twisting and falling. Her senses swarmed with the awful, chemical-tasting water. It filled her mouth. It filled her nose and eyes and ears, a grip of pure death. She touched down upon the mucky bottom. The net held her body fast in its tangle. She needed to breathe. To breathe! She was thrashing, clawing, but there was no escaping its grasp. The first bubble of air rose from her mouth. No, she thought, don’t breathe! This simple thing, to open one’s lungs and take in the air: the body demanded it. A second bubble and her throat opened and the water slammed into her. She began to choke. The world was dissolving. No, it was she who was dissolving. Her body felt untethered to her thoughts, a thing apart, no longer hers. Her heart began to slow. A new darkness came upon her. It spread from within. This is what it’s like, she thought. Panic, and pain, and then the letting go. This is what it’s like to die.
Then she was somewhere else.
She was playing a piano. This was strange, because she’d never learned. Yet here she was, playing not just well but expertly, fingers prancing across the keys. There was no sheet music before her; the song came from her head. A sad and beautiful song, full of tenderness and the sweet sorrows of life. Why did it seem entirely new to her but also remembered, like something from a dream? As she played, she began to discern patterns in the notes. Their relationship was not arbitrary; they moved through discernible cycles. Each cycle carried a slight variation of the song’s emotional core, a melodic line that never wholly departed but supported the rest like laundry on a string. How astonishing! She felt as if she were speaking an entirely new language, far more subtle and expressive than ordinary speech, capable of communicating the deepest truths. It made her happy, very happy, and she went on playing, her fingers dexterously moving, her spirit soaring with delight.
The song turned a corner; she could sense its end approaching. The final notes descended. They hung like dust motes in the air, then were gone.
“That was wonderful.”
Peter was standing behind her. Amy leaned the back of her head against his chest.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said.
“I didn’t want to disturb you. I know how much you like to play. Will you play me another?” he asked.
“Would you like that?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Very much.”
“Pull her up!” Peter yelled.
Greer was looking at his watch. “Not yet.”
“Goddamnit, she’s drowning!”
Greer continued looking at his watch with infuriating patience. At last he looked up.
“Now,” he said.
She played for a long while, song after song. The first was light, with a humorous energy; it made her feel as if she were at a gathering of friends, everyone talking and laughing, darkness thickening outside the windows as the party went on and on into the small hours of the night. The next one was more serious. It began with a deep, sonorous chord at the bass end of the keyboard, with a slightly sour tone. A song of regret, of acts that could not be recalled, mistakes that could never be undone.
There were others. One was like looking at a fire. Another like falling snow. A third was horses galloping through tall grass beneath a blue autumn sky. She played and played. There was so much feeling in the world. So much sadness. So much longing. So much joy. Everything had a soul. The petals of flowers. The mice of the field. The clouds and rain and the bare limbs of trees. All these things and many others were in the songs she played. Peter was still behind her. The music was for him, an offering of love. She felt at peace.
They swung the net over the side and lowered it to the deck. Greer drew a knife and began to slash at the filaments.
In the net was the body of a woman.
“Hurry,” Peter said.
Greer hacked away. He was fashioning a hole. “Take her feet.”
Michael and Peter drew Amy free and laid her faceup on the deck. The sun was rising. Her body was limp, with a bluish cast. On her head, a scrim of black hair.
She wasn’t breathing.
Peter dropped to his knees; Michael straddled her at the waist, stacked his palms, and positioned them on Amy’s sternum. Peter slid his left hand beneath her neck, lifting it slightly to open the airway; with his other hand he pinched her nose. He fit his mouth over hers and blew.
“Amy.”
Her fingers stilled, bringing a sudden silence to the room. She lifted her hands above the keyboard, palms flat, fingers extended.
“I need you to do something for me,” Peter said.
She reached over her shoulder, took his left hand, and placed it against her cheek. His skin was cold and smelled of the river, where he liked to spend his days. How wonderful everything was. “Tell me.”
“Don’t leave me, Amy.”
“What makes you think I’m going someplace?”
“It’s not time yet.”
“I don’t understand.”