Undine -

Chapter 17

SOPHIE stared out across the bay where Michael had taught her to swim. Tiny waves lapped at her feet, and for an interminable time she stared across at Bird Island, her eyes taking in the smooth, unruffled water and hazy blue sky. The sun beat down, hot and white and unrelenting, toasting her skin to a light golden brown. She unwound her sarong then folded it neatly on the white shingle.

The mind never forgets, Sophie. It just chooses too....

...then took off the broad rimmed leghorn borrowed from Elizabeth, and lay it next to the sarong...

I refuse to be a coward all my life.

She stepped into the water. The lake absorbed her heat, making her shiver. As her waist slid beneath the surface, Sophie inhaled deeply. 'I can do this,' she murmured positively. 'Because Michael said so.'

At the thought of him, her heart warmed. He would be proud to see her thus, defiant and determined and utterly terrified. Or would he laugh? It would depend, she supposed, upon which Michael she encountered. The one who inspired and encouraged her, or the Michael who scared and baffled her.

'I don't care,' she murmured resolutely, wading deeper. 'I'm doing this for me.'

At last she turned, breast deep, to face towards the shore. She prepared for a dunking, a small one at least. But Michael had given her confidence. Sophie struck out with both arms and launched herself through the water.

The buoyancy she'd experienced with Michael was gone, and Sophie did sink enough to swallow a double mouthful, but after a second her mind reasserted itself, instinct winning over fear and she was floating, striking out across the lake as though she had been swimming all her life. Her strokes were a little hurried and she had to fight the paws of panic that batted at her mind, but the elation was there, the powerful fix of achievement. When at last her feet brushed the stony bottom of the lake, she straightened her body, knelt in the water, then threw back her head and hooted with elation. 'Yes!'

She was totally hooked. She swam a circuit of the bay, even passing daringly close to the treacherous reeds. The water felt good against her skin; slick and cool and friendly. Then she waded back to the shore, settled herself beneath the shade of a weeping willow and promptly fell asleep. When she woke it was almost midday, and the sun had gone from the sky. Sophie trotted to the water's edge to retrieve her hat and sarong. Across the lake a mass of gunmetal cloud boiled, its centre green tinged with edges of pink and purple.

It's going to pour. We'll be lucky if that doesn't bring the rafters down.

She stared stupidly at the shingle where her sarong had lain. Where was the hat? She cast about, scanned the shoreline. A breeze was up. She sighed irritably, but the royal blue silk scarf attached to the leghorn was expensive and she was loathe to leave it to its fate.

'Oh, you're having a laugh!'

There it was, bobbing merrily on the surface of the lake, just beyond the margin of the reeds. Luckily, it floated near the outcrop of rocks to the left of the bay and Sophie scrambled across these hoping she could hook the hat clear of the water. To her chagrin, she found the leghorn just beyond reach and sadly sodden.

'Elizabeth'll kill me,' she murmured. 'But I might save the scarf.' In affirmation, the strip of blue silk attached to the brim fluttered in the breeze.

Sophie eyed the water at her feet, saw that the rocks sloped away gently. She caught the brown shadow of a trout and pulled a face; then stepped into the water.