and short clicks of my tongue. We followed the natural shape of the meadow, similar to the ring at Astley’s. Perhaps one day we’d advance to the stunts the trick riders performed with such ease.
Except, try as I might, I could never entirely shake the shadow of memory from five summers ago. The emptying, rushing air. The cold, hard earth. And the pain—the splintering, twisting pain.
I pushed away the darkness and called above the thundering hooves. “All right, Stella girl. Let us see how far the wind takes us.”
She leaped into a gallop, her front legs reaching hungrily for the earth. My stomach gave that familiar, dizzying lurch, and I gave an unladylike whoop. Oh, I had missed this freedom, this exhilaration. The countryside streaked past us, the bright greens and pinks and yellows of summer painting a blurred landscape at the edges of my vision. I grinned wildly and leaned low beside Stella’s lunging neck as her hooves drove into the wet grass. The wind rushed over me, throwing my skirts behind me and threatening to take my hat with it. I pushed my hat more firmly onto my head and pressed on.
We reached the end of the empty meadow, and I urged Stella around the curve, faster, faster as I closed my eyes, trusting her instincts. I was not a girl on a horse. I was a bird. A swift-winged sparrow alone in the endless expanse of the azure sky. I gripped Stella’s mane in one hand and reached out my other to drift through a cloud as the summer breeze pulled against the sleeve of my habit.
Then I heard something above the steady thump of Stella’s hooves. I pulled her to a stop, and she gave a snort, her hooves pawing the grass as I glanced around. All was quiet, save for the birdsong and breeze.
Likely, it was simply my fears at play. I’d long worried a tenant farmer would come across my little meadow, see me acting the barbarian atop my bareback horse, and spread embarrassing—if true—rumors about me. Or worse, that they would tell Mama and William.
But the meadow was still. My secret was safe. I gently nudged Stella forward again.
A scream pierced the calm summer air.
I froze, my spine stiff as the scream faded into the wind. What on earth?
The cry came again, shrill and panicked, echoing through the trees like a ghostly wail. My head whipped to the left. It came from the lake.
I kicked Stella, and she leaped forward. I gripped her sides with my knees, clinging to her mane as she dodged the trees separating my meadow from the lake. The wind stole my breath, and a suffocating weight grasped at my lungs.
Grass turned to pebbles beneath us, and Stella’s hooves clattered over the loose stones as she broke through the last stand of trees. I yanked her to a halt, too hard. She tossed her head in protest, but I didn’t have time to apologize. My gaze jumped frantically over the familiar scene. Enormous willow trees, their branches reaching out over the water. The shore, edged with trees and rocks. The lake, a vastness of blue-green.
But the lake was not its usual smooth mirror. Ripples spread ten yards from the shore to my left. I gaped. A long branch, thick with summer’s leaves, floated in the water, and a small hand fumbled over the wet bark. A face emerged, a young girl, gasping and choking, before disappearing once again.
I threw myself off Stella’s back, stumbled across the rocky shore, and splashed into the shallow water, kicking up mud in great clouds that rolled through the clear lake. But my focus was on the branch, the hand. The girl hadn’t surfaced again.
I sloshed forward, the skirts of my habit dragging behind me. When the water reached my waist—too slow, too slow!—I dove forward. The icy water enveloped me, and I inhaled a mouthful of bubbles. How was it still so cold in August? I kicked, breaking the surface and pushing myself forward. I was not a particularly good swimmer, and now I wished I’d spent more time in the lake. My boots clung like anchors to my feet, but there was no time to kick them free.
I threw my arms out again and again until my hands knocked into the leafy twigs of the branch. I grabbed the rough bark and pulled myself toward the spot where I’d seen the girl. Merciful heavens, she’d found the surface again, her face pale