It had been Matthew's idea to go boating this afternoon. Mother had taken one look at the seventeen year old and had agreed he was responsible enough to lead his younger siblings on such a venture without their father (partly, Sisse suspected, to simply get them out from under her feet for the afternoon). But they had no sooner gotten to the lake and set the rowboat in the water when Matthew spotted a friend and had jogged off to join them, waving away his siblings and telling them not to wait. Henry, feeling quite proud that his older brother had thought him responsible enough (in Sisse's mind Matthew probably hadn't cared a whit about any of thise) to take care of their sister, had assured his sister that he could handle this and had climbed aboard after her with a paddle in his hand.

Remembering her last voyage on the black lake Sisse wasn't precisely thrilled at the idea of this outing in the first place, but home was so stuffy after the freedom of the castle that she hadn't been able to resist joining her brothers for the adventure. A fact that she sorely regretted now.

It had seemed fine until Henry had pushed the boat out into the lake just a little too far. The giant squid's tentacle had accidentally brushed the boat, jostling it enough that Henry had lost a paddle. In his attempt to reach the paddle Henry had leaned a little too far and the other paddle had started to make an escape, so Sisse had hastily tried to catch it. The end result was both Sisse and the paddle ended up in the water. Her scream wrenched through the air as Henry was left paddleless in the middle of the lake with a roughly rocking boat.

Sisse sputtered and cried out, clinging to the paddle with all her might. Her skirts began to weigh her down, tangling as her feet caught in it. Later she'd curse her recent birthday and the lowered hems that she had been so proud of only weeks before. The current, or maybe it was the squid's moving tentacles under the water, moved her further and further away from Henry, away from any hope of being saved. She was going to die in this frigid cold water. A scream escaped Sisse's lips again as a voice reached her. Keep moving. Help. Sisse tried, but with every movement she found herself being pulled back into the lake. "Help!" She screamed, terror fully having absorbed her senses like the icy cold of the water.