Towering

there even if it was nothing. Which it probably was.
    Then suddenly, I heard a voice, singing. Still, far away, it sang an old song I’d heard before but couldn’t place. I shoved past a few more trees and saw a clearing. No trees at all. But that was impossible.
    I realized it was the lake. The lake came up farther here. Did I dare step on it? It would be much easier to walk on the smooth lake than to fight through the trees. But parts of it, I knew, weren’t frozen. Near the center was dark, almost black water, reflecting the clouds above. But here, near the shore, it was serene, white, covered in several inches of snow without even a footprint on its surface. It must be safe.
    I took one tentative step, feeling it. Solid. I took another. Then, another. This was easy. I took a few more.
    Then, I heard a thunderclap, and all at once, I was falling down, down into the freezing water.

Rachel
    He fell through the ice! I did not know if this was the boy I dreamed of. What I did know was that, whoever he was, he would die out there in the freezing lake and not be discovered until spring, if at all.
    And I would have witnessed it. Witnessed it and done nothing.
    Something, some unearthly force propelled me forward, told me what I must do. I ran to the bed and seized the rope, my rope of hair, then twined it around one of the pillars in my tower. I knotted it, a good, firm knot such as I had read about in books, a knot that looked like a double number eight. I barely thought, barely breathed as I was doing this. I glanced outside. Was he still out there, floundering in the water? He was. But if I did not move quickly, he would not be. I seized my metal bedstead and dragged it over to the window, I knew not how. I placed one of the legs upon the rope, in case my knot was not true enough. Then, I hung the remaining length of rope out the window. As before, it reached the ground, and then some. Was I insane? I could not slide down a rope! I wove it for him to come up. Yet he could not do so if he was trapped under ice. No time for hesitation. I grabbed the quilt and blanket from my bed, threw them out the window to break my fall (and, perhaps, to warm him when I pulled him out). Then, I grabbed the rope, passed it over my shoulder and under my leg in hopes of slowing my descent a bit, and slid down it to the bottom. It all occurred so quickly I remembered nothing except the feeling of my own hair, sliding through my fingers.
    I was out of the tower, out for the first time in years.
    It happened I did not die. I also did not know how I was going to get back up.
    The boy thrashed still. I saw that he had gotten hold of something, a root, and was attempting to pull himself out. Yet, he was unable. I had to save him. I, or he would freeze to death. I grabbed a branch, then ran to the lake and thrust it toward him.
    “Here. Take this.”
    Shock showed on his white face. “Can you pull me out?” He clung to the root, unwilling to let it go.
    “I do not know. I have to try. If you hold the root, you will not drown, but you may freeze to death.”
    “Get over here.” He pointed to a spot farther away but still close enough for the branch to reach. “Hold that tree.”
    I thought him a bit bossy for a drowning man, but I obeyed, gripping the tree with one hand, the branch with the other. I felt it dip with his weight as he grabbed it. I hoped I had chosen well. If it broke, he would surely . . . I could not think about it.
    “Pull!” he yelled.
    I pulled with all my might, until my fingers ached and felt as if they might break like icicles. He did not budge. Nothing moved. Yet, still, I held the branch while on the other end, I felt him struggle.
    “Pull harder!” he yelled. “Please.”
    I couldn’t. I couldn’t, and yet, I did, with a strength I never knew I possessed, a strength I didn’t possess, a strength nearly mythological. I pulled and jerked until my whole body ached, and yet, it must have been the work of a moment, and then, he was clambering out of the water and onto the shore, shivering and running toward me. I ran away, for the blankets. The blankets to give him.
    I threw him both the blanket and the quilt even though, now that my exertion was over, I realized that I too was freezing.
    I was cold! I was cold because I was out in the world, out for the first time in so many years. I felt the wind on my face, the snow beneath my feet. I smelled evergreen and fresh air. I was outside! I loved it.
    I