Kenna Esters's Arc

Chapter 9 of 13

Kenna walked until the shouting on the beach turned into wind. Her hands still buzzed from the flash. She had broken their eyes and her own way home in the same breath. The film canister pressed against her hip, small and heavy. She sat on a root and listened. Engines coughed in the distance, then faded. The crew was leaving. She had won something, and lost something, and now she needed another way back. She followed the stream inland, hoping it led somewhere with water wide enough to travel. The trees opened. A calm pond spread before her, fed by a slow river. Bright fish darted under a thin film of algae. The water moved east, toward open sea. She knelt at the edge and drank. The current was steady. A current meant a way out. Then she saw it. Half-hidden under vines sat an old rowboat, wood gray and split but whole. Two faded cans rested inside. She tugged the vines away and tested the hull. Dry. She dragged it to the water. It floated. Kenna climbed in, set the film canister between her feet, and pushed off into the slow current.