“It was a mistake to bring you and Jake here, I think,” she said. “Jake has chosen the sea. He is already lost. I chose the beach and was lost a long time ago. I’ll never see the city again.”

Of course, she’d also given up on the beach already, despite living three or four blocks from it – a deep and holy state of being lost if I ever saw one.

“You’re turning your back on us,” she continued, “and heading for the forest, but believe me, my darling, the forest will never call you like the sea. You’ll step into streams and ponds and even rivers, but the only thing you’ll be thinking about is how all that water is running away from you, away from the forest, running just as fast as it can to reach the sea – without you.”

And yet, here you are, Jake, escaped from the sea and far inland. You still monitor the ship-to-ship frequencies, only the ships are empty hulks drifting the streets of Northangle. She’s probably right about you being lost, but it’s an ocean of sad, land-locked, lonely souls you’re sailing.

And here am I, having stepped in lots of rocky streams in the Berkshires and never having given much thought to where the water was going. I had my own business to attend to. And rivers hereabouts flow south to the sea. My course takes me north. Even if I strike the St. Lawrence, or Hudson Bay, or Back’s Fish River, it won’t be the northern seas I’ll be trying to reach. It’ll be drink, and smoke, and talk – in particular any word of a hound, a bay horse, and a turtledove – and a road out of town.