The black boat ran north along the edge of the flood with its engine throttled low. Vanya had the tiller. Harold sat amidships with the pack between his knees, and Persephone perched in the bow with her hood up, watching the rooftops slide past in the mist, each with its improvised farm of buckets and tarps.
The water grew shallower as the streets climbed. Cars lay just under the surface, then their roofs broke it, and then the hull whispered over the crown of a road and Vanya cut the engine. Ahead, the avenue rose out of the flood like a shoreline. A convenience store stood at the edge of the dry ground with its glass doors shattered, and beyond it, up the slope, a small grocery with a faded green awning.
Harold tied off. Nobody discussed who went where. Persephone was already over the gunwale.
