This was the third time I had seen this loch. It was the same grey it had been the last time I saw it, and I hated that it still looked so calm.
I stood at the top of the shingle path with a basket over one arm and Riley beside me, and for a moment I couldn't make my feet move. The wind came off the water in long cold pushes. It smelled of peat and wet stone, and underneath that, something flat and metallic that I knew was only my memory.
Claude had gone under here once. The water had been so cold that his lips went blue before Duncan reached him. Nicole had screamed on the bank until her voice was gone.
I had not been back since.
"Julie?" Riley's voice was soft. "We can wait at the top, if you want."
"No." I made myself take a step. "I need to see it with my own eyes."
"That's the bravest and stupidest thing I've ever heard you say."
"I'm a mother. We're allowed to be both."
She laughed under her breath and linked her arm through mine. Her fingers were trembling.
