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home, did you ever notice? You take them away from the beach
    and you take all the magic away, all the fresh air and the crying birds
    and the cold clear water. When you pick up all this wonderful silk,
    this magical mess, it's just—mud.' She lifted up her two clenched
    hands again and let the brown sand plop into the shallow water.
    Turning her head, she was strangely touched to see him reach out and
    dig his hand into the wet sand as if to see what she meant, his sombre
    expression lightening at the coolness of the water and the sensation
    she had so aptly described. He looked at his handful with something
    akin to fascination, then submerged the handful to clench his fist
    tight, squirting the sand and water.
    Sara swished her hands around, the action like a small child playing
    in mud, then stood wiping her clean wet fingers on her jeans. One leg
    had fallen down and she rolled it up again before it could hit the
    water. Some distance away Beowulf was charging into the water and
    galloping back again, chasing waves and snapping jaws at the foamy
    water. She laughed and pointed him out to Greg.
    'He's having almost as much fun as I am,' she told the silent man at
    her side with a chuckle. 'How silly we must look, playing in the
    water! I'd almost forgotten how much fun it could be. It seems like
    I've forgotten a lot lately, and only just came to my senses before
    plunging forever into a black darkness. Or better than that, I've
    escaped from a dark fortress and found sunlight for the first time in
    years. I've been such a fool! I wish I'd known how special my
    childhood was when I lived it! How wise children are, to enjoy the
    simple things.'
    He hadn't said anything in reply, but merely watched her face
    intently, with a curious urgency. Sara gestured as she talked and
    looked around her, providing him with several different angles to
    observe her by. He watched the lively eyes and the slight tilt to her
    nose, and the smiling lips that were a darker shade of the rose that
    tinted her cheeks. In her eyes there shone a clear and peaceful
    expression, interspersed with amusement and sometimes mischief.
    She felt good as Greg tucked her hand under his arm and directed her
    to walking parallel with the shore, water shooting up and swirling
    around them constantly. 'Our shoes?'
    He looked back briefly. 'They'll be okay. They're past the waterline
    and won't get wet.'
    She commented easily, 'Do you know, you're a total stranger to me? I
    don't even know your last name, and I didn't even know of your
    existence before this morning. Isn't that a funny thought? I've been
    talking to you with an appalling abandonment!'
    The sun hung low over the water, she noticed. Its bottom curve
    nearly touched the horizon. The light was greying to her left and the
    treeline showed almost black. The dark head of the man beside her
    was tall and she looked up at the profile lit with the red of the fading
    light. A quick, neat turn of the head and he was staring down into her
    eyes and the shock of nearness, of his awareness cut through her like
    a knifing wind. 'My last name is Pierson,' he murmured quietly. 'But
    does it really matter?'
    Those eyes, those warm, self-contained, lonely eyes. Sara shook her
    head slightly and his arm tightened on her hand. Is intuition ever
    correct? she wondered, shaken. If so, then I've known this man for
    ever, and everything else has been irrelevant. Their steps slowed.
    'What I'm wondering,' he said thoughtfully, 'is why you look so
    curiously familiar to me.'
    Realisation and sanity hit her like a blow and she jerked away on
    reflex. 'No reason.' It was only a whisper; for some reason she
    couldn't get out anything stronger. I don't know him, he doesn't know
    me. He really doesn't know me. Please, don't let him find out who I
    am. She started to hang back and took a few steps in the other
    direction. 'I'd better go.'
    His hand whipped out. 'No, not yet,' he began. 'I'd like to ...'
    Far ahead, the black