Villads Madsen ran surefooted up the flooded path, a young stream now, as rain beat down on his hooded head. Up the hill, across the farmyard, throwing open the door, “Morten! Morten! The twins are in the pond!”
Freja wouldn't like it if he trampled her clean floor with his muddy boots, and he couldn't help Morten move any faster anyway. Still, Villads hopped up and down on the front mat, unable to stand still and wait.
Morten pounded down the stairs, passed Villads, and sprinted down the path. He stopped once to hammer on a door. “Preben! Get down to the boathouse! Hurry!” And they were running again.
“What happened?” Morten asked, panting, as he yanked open the boathouse door. The other door, the one that opened on the pond, banged in the howling wind. The larger rowboat remained, but the boys had taken the smaller one.
“They were fishing. I heard them. Then the storm hit and the boat went over.”
Morten swore as he pulled on a life jacket; Villads did the same though he, of course, didn't need it. One had to keep up appearances. Preben ran in, nearly falling into the water as he grabbed the door to stop himself. He was Morten's cousin; Villads was Morten's brother-in-law. Both worked closely with Morten on the sprawling Madsen farm. The three men piled into the boat, Morten in the stern while Preben and Villads rowed out of the boathouse and into the raging storm. Morten shouted an explanation to Preben in between calling his sons' names.
Busy as he was in rowing, Villads couldn't dip a hand in the water, but the wild wind splashed enough water in his face to tell him the state of the pond. Worked wood in the water; that would be the capsized boat, slowly sinking. Someone would find it washed up on the shore in the morning. No need to add it to the secrets in the depths of this pond. Clumsy human thrashing; good, the boys were swimming for their lives. Michael was, anyway. Villads rowed faster, left hand harder than right, turning the boat subtly towards the children.
He chuckled, the sound hidden from the other men. What his mother would say if she knew he was rushing to the rescue of these boys! She cared nothing for human life. Of course humans had wiped out whole species when their own species was young, but they had learned better; they had worked to save the species they had harmed. Now that they had been near wiped out by that most unnatural disease, they were an endangered species themselves, so healthy children shouldn't be left to die unnecessarily. And besides, he liked them.
“You idiots!” Morten shouted at the silence inside the roaring wind. “Where are you?”
“Here! Here!” One voice or two? Villads rowed faster.
Morten reached out, lifted a boy by the life vest like a puppy, dropped him in front of Preben, pulled up a second boy. Both alive, then. Villads smiled. The twins huddled together, one coughing. Villads and Preben turned the boat and rowed back to the boathouse. As soon as they'd tied up, Morten jumped to the dock and reached out his hands to receive one boy and then the other, as Preben lifted them up. The other men leapt out as well, to race through the driving rain to their homes while Morten marched his errant sons to the farmhouse.
Once the others were out of sight and he believed himself unobserved, Villads turned back to the pond, needing to take the capsized boat to shore while he still had the storm as cover. He pushed back his hood and felt the large green bruise on his head. Michael had hit him with a cork vest, trying to force it down to his brother. He wasn't strong enough, of course, but Villads was. In all the confusion, Mikkel would not have wondered whose hands pulled his own away from his brother and forced them onto the vest.
Villads dived deep under the wind-whipped waves. He did not come up for some hours.