Water Steps (14 page)

“Later, Water Girl!” he shouted from above.

Yeah, that's me. Water Girl. Miss Fear herself had actually rescued someone at sea. Well, at cove really. Where Tylo went in, he could've waded back out if he'd been awake.

I'd saved Tylo's life like Mem and Pep had saved mine. A little bit of silkie may have rubbed off on me over the years. But I doubted I could ever give up as much as they did for me. All I had to get rid of was my fear. And I nearly flew home without the weight of it on me. Even went by the beach route to get there.

Happy to know taking that one last water step brought me an ocean's worth of wonderful things. I'd saved my friend Tylo, faced my biggest fear, and found my families there. Not just the truth about Mem and Pep, but my birth family, too. Now I could think about them, pull back wisps of memory with no fear of the bad memories that lurked below. I could just splash and play with them, just like I did back then.

They say most of the world is water, so I guess that little belly flop into the lake opened the rest of the world up for me. And it felt good to wade around in it. Had me excited to see what Mem and Pep might be up to back at our place. Yes, it's ours now. We plan to stay all year, every year. And I'm just fine with that. They talked the Kenricks into selling them the cabin—apparently a broken leg while waterskiing was enough to turn Mrs. Kenrick off lake living. I certainly won't be trying waterskiing anytime soon, but I actually felt pretty good about living on the lake. We'll keep Grandma Bella's house for holidays. And Mem says I might want it for my own family someday.

I'll miss Hillary, but we'll keep in touch by sending each other photos. The first one I sent her is of me waving from the water. She's going to go into orbit over that one. I told her to show it to Bobby Clarkson.

Found Mem and Pep circling the dock. People style. With it just dark, they didn't dare go silkie when people could still see them.

“Skinny dipping,” Pep laughed, taking another lap in his blue moon trunks.

They'd dragged the dock in, so I could get on it from a bridge. I lay down to look into the water over my folded hands.

“Did you fancy our birthday suits?” Mem said, turning on her back. Leave it to a silkie to be able to go that fast on her back, even with her legs.

“Pep's fur is red!”

“I guess it works like a beard. Some fellas with brown hair grow red beards. I guess red silkies can have brown hair.”

“Fancy that.” I sat up and crossed my legs. “So, are fairies really mean?” I teased.

“Next summer, we can take you to Ireland. And you can find out.”

“Yeah, right. You're not even from Ireland.”

“Am too.” Pep straightened up to tread water beneath me. He made it seem as easy as breathing. For him it probably was. “It's your mother who's the Irish-American. We did meet in Ireland like we said. She wanted to see the Mother Sea. Can't say as I blame her. At least we've got salt.”

Mem splashed him good.

So Mem and Aunt Rosien had been born in Lake Champlain, but Pep came from Ireland. They'd just come to the states when they rescued me. Did they swim all the way here? I probably wouldn't know that part of the story for awhile, but from all the things I learned that summer, the one that surprised me the
most was just how little you can really know about people, even when you think you know it all.

I'm not just talking about the fact that I never knew, never even guessed, my parents were silkies. Living, breathing fairy tales that tucked me in at night.

But I'm also talking about myself. I never knew, never would have guessed, I'd ever put my foot in water again, let alone learn how to swim.

We'd live like everybody else during the day, then at night Mem and Pep would patrol the lake for wayward boats or foolish swimmers. Me, I'd be home in bed, dreaming of following them in a sailboat with the moon to guide me—at least that's the dream I'd had for three nights running, each time with Tylo jumping and waving at me from the beach, shouting, “Wait for me!”

And now the morning after having that dream a fourth time, I stood on the beach sporting my first-ina-long-time swimsuit—purple with blue butterflies. Not bad. I walked right into that water so that Mem could give me my first swimming lesson.

She held my head as I leaned back into the water, saying, “You know, in the winter, when the vacationers go home, we can swim silkie pretty much any time we like.”

Pep came to swim round us. “And in a good diving suit, you won't feel the cold at all.”

As I lay there in the water, my arms fanning out, my back wet, my muscles loose, my parents swimming like a net around me, I believed I could float. Knew I would swim. And for the first time since my mom walked me into the water as a wee child, I couldn't wait.

A long time ago at a beach on the St. Croix River, I stepped into a sinkhole and flailed to get back to the surface. Luckily, my mom saw me go under and came to the rescue. It took me quite awhile to get over my fear of water. And I remember coaching myself to not let the fear win. I love to swim now. So I wanted to give Kyna that kind of victory too. And who am I? I'm Alexandria LaFaye. The author of this book and a handful of others. I used to live on Lake Champlain—but I never did catch sight of a silkie. Now I live in Cabot, Arkansas, and teach in the low residency MFA Programs at Hamline and Hollins universities. Let me know what you think of Kyna's story at
www.alafaye.com
.

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Perfect
Natasha Friend
Milkweed Prize for Children's Literature

 

 

The Linden Tree
Ellie Mathews
Milkweed Prize for Children's Literature

 

 

Remember As You Pass Me By
L. King Pérez

 

 

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Jutta Richter
Mildred L. Batchelder Honor Book

 

 

Behind the Bedroom Wall
Laura E. Williams
Milkweed Prize for Children's Literature
Jane Addams Peace Award Honor Book

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