Dear Matty.

Dad is a bit angry about the ashes but I think its OK. I am sad that you have gone away though. But I hope that soon you will come and visit us again and maybe live with us even though I know Daddy is not here anymore. But maybe you can bring him back with you. Because it is really nice to have a grown-up sibling and I really like your muscles and your card-games. Thank you for rescuing me from the lough that time. I am going to have swimming lessons so soon I can be a mermaid for real, I am just joking. I got this address from the fridge.

Love from XXSheannaXX

PS I did’nt ask before but am I ever allowed to call you Matilda sometimes like in the Rohl Darl book or am I not. It is OK if I am not. Also the detective guard came looking for you but he did’nt say what he wanted.

There was someone else here now, at the Not Allowed Pond. A tall silhouette, arms hanging down by their sides, facing the water. Fingers drumming thighs.

‘It’s you,’ Matty said, just loudly enough.

The figure turned around. Unstartled. ‘Do I know you?’

‘We used to come here together. One summer.’

‘I don’t remember.’ The voice was smoother, golden.

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘Hmm.’ A short, what-do-you-know sort of sound, high in his throat. He looked out at the water again. He was less jerky, as though he’d grown into his skin. A little paler than Matty remembered, though perhaps that was just the moonlight. He turned, suddenly. ‘Wanna go for a swim?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Come on, then.’

‘I haven’t got my stuff.’

‘You don’t need any stuff.’ The merest sliver of a grin, maybe. He was more subtle than all those years ago.

‘OK.’

He moved smoothly, as if he was already in the pond, standing and stretching once before walking in. The languid sound of water, shifting.

Matty took everything off, hairs raised up by a tiny breeze. Looked at the urn. Lifted the lid for the first time, shone the torch in.

There. All of him, held in the crook of an arm, grains of different sizes. A gleam of dull white, a little larger.

At the edge of the water, Matty crouched down, wetted two fingers, and dipped them into the urn. Wiped the grains on both cheekbones. Forehead, lips, chest, left shoulder, right shoulder. A long line across the stomach. The patch of eczema was larger than ever, itching.

Nicks was watching from the water.

Mud gathered around the soles of both feet as Matty walked into the skin of the pond. Knees, hips, waist. The silk of it. Shoulders. Clutching the urn close, Matty trod water, chin up. Unable to let it go just yet.

Joe.