Chapter 22: The Red Canoe

Tegan's POV

The canoe sat at the end of the dock, where we had left it tied the night before, with frost on its seats.

Gran's paint had held.

TEGAN, in white, with the curl on the last letter and the E thicker than the rest.

We brushed the frost off the seats together and Rowan untied the line in the first gray light.

There was ice at the edge of the water, thin and clear, and it cracked under the hull as we slid her out.

"You sit in front," Rowan said. "I'll steer."

"I steered it when I was nine."

"You steered it into a tree when you were nine."

"That tree moved."

He laughed, and held the canoe steady while I climbed in.

The paddle was Gran's too, with her initials burned into the grip.

We pushed off.

The lake was flat, and the mist lay on it in sheets.

The sun hadn't cleared the pines, but the sky behind them had gone pale pink.

I dipped the blade, and pulled, and the canoe slid forward without a sound.

My arms remembered it before I did.

Behind me, Rowan paddled in long, even strokes, and the water ran off his blade in a thin silver line.

"You're good at this," I said.

"I had a good teacher."

"Gran?"

"She'd have said you."

"I never taught you anything."

"You taught me not to be sure about people," he said. "It's been useful."

I looked back at him over my shoulder.

He was smiling, with his hood down and his hair wet at the temples from the mist.

I loved him, and I was out of the habit of saying it twice in one day.

We went out as far as the island and turned around.

By the time we brought her back to the dock, the sun had come over the pines.

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