Rocking back and forth, back and forth, I felt my body give in to the rolling waves beneath me. At first, I didn’t know that’s what they were, those crests and troughs. Perhaps it was the smell of salt or the rush of water as she pressed herself into the wood of the hull that brought me out of my darkness. I tried to sit upright, wishing to get up to see if Toci was ok, to find out where we were, to see to the rest of the women.

But I fell out of the cot. I was not whole. Or not wholly ...