Lee and Vi are waiting for me by the dock already, talking. They get up when they hear me coming. "Morning," Lee says. "Hi," I respond. "The boat's all ready and we've got the picnic basket," Vi chirps. "All-right, let's go!" I say.
We hop onto the little inflatable raft that Ben let us borrow, and we ride across the vast lake that was Haven towards the old steeple, and we talk for all of the five minutes that it takes. When we get there, Vi gets off the boat and into the small niche in the bell tower, and onto a flat bit of stone wall that probably was washed up here on what seems to be a big pile of debris in the flood.
I get off next, and then help Lee up, seeing for him, as I always do. Vi ties up the raft while Lee and I set up the food. We all sit down and eat our sandwiches, which are pretty good, courtesy of Ben, and then we decide to go for a swim.
Vi finds a splintered wooden beam-looking thing sticking out of the water. She recons that she can get there and back faster than Lee or I. We both know she's bluffing, she's not a very good swimmer, but Lee and I take her up on the challenge. I count down from three, and on my mark, we all dive into the water and race to Viola's beam and back. I come first by a few seconds, followed by Vi, surprisingly, and then Lee, who seems a little disoriented, which I'm surprised by. Despite his blindness, He's usually pretty good at finding his way around, especially if he's just swimming in a straight line. His noise is just as confused as his body. I know he can see through me, but he seems a little thrown off by something.
"Aw, crap," he realizes. "My blindfold's fallen off." I didn't even realize. I take a look a the scar tissue covering his eye sockets. Jeez. I never knew it was that bad, but I recover quickly and laugh a little. "Wow," I say in-between bursts of laughter, leaning over grabbing at my stomach. "loosing you blindfold really slowed you down that much?" "Shut up," Lee says, laughing a little himself. "I'll go get it," Vi says, "It's just over there," she says, pointing at a small piece of cloth floating in the water.
She dives in, retrieves Lee's blindfold, still stained with some blood around the edges, and comes back.
She's getting better at swimming.
I get an idea. "Hey, guys, why don't we go down and explore the cathedral from inside?" "That sounds cool," Vi says immediately. Lee's not so sure. "I don't know, it sounds a bit risky," Lee says, tying his blindfold back again. "Plus, how would you see for me? I'll stay up here. You guys can go." "oaky, I say, grabbing two pairs of goggles from the basket of stuff we brought and hand one to Vi, "suit yourself."