The only sound that could be heard now was the plop and splash of her oar and the heavy sound of her breathing. “Kayak for your life” was the phrase that kept popping into her head, and Louisa wanted to laugh because it was so stupid, it was such a humiliatingly amateur thing to happen to her, a pathetic version of a high-stakes car chase, and yet here she was, kayaking for her life. Her arms began to ache. She didn’t want to look behind her because she didn’t want to know and also because it was pointless, like when you’re crossing a busy street and you realize that it’s better to just run, run for it, and if they hit you, they hit you, but you should keep your eyes ahead, eyes on the prize, don’t trip.

The velvety water seemed to want to hold her back. Sometimes it felt as if the whole world were conspiring against her. Louisa had inherited this from her father: a suspicion of objects. “They won’t let me click,” he would complain, when his computer’s mouse stopped working, or “The table didn’t want to stay up.” She had thought him paranoid, but now that she was older, she realized that he was right: the whole world was full of enemies, and if you were foolish enough to let them catch you, you deserved everything that came to you.