‘How are you, Mademoiselle Maia?’ he asked, sympathy in his blue eyes as he helped me aboard.

‘I’m . . . glad I’m here,’ I answered neutrally as I walked to the back of the boat and sat down on the cushioned cream leather bench that curved around the stern. Usually, I would sit with Christian in the passenger seat at the front as we sped across the calm waters on the twenty-minute journey home. But today, I felt a need for privacy. As Christian started the powerful engine, the sun glinted off the windows of the fabulous houses that lined Lake Geneva’s shores. I’d often felt when I made this journey that it was the entrance to an ethereal world disconnected from reality.

The world of Pa Salt.

I noticed the first vague evidence of tears pricking at my eyes as I thought of my father’s pet name, which I’d coined when I was young. He’d always loved sailing and often when he returned to me at our lakeside home, he had smelt of fresh air and of the sea. Somehow, the name had stuck, and as my younger siblings had joined me, they’d called him that too.

As the launch picked up speed, the warm wind streaming through my hair, I thought of the hundreds of previous journeys I’d made to Atlantis, Pa Salt’s fairy-tale castle. Inaccessible by land, due to its position on a private promontory with a crescent of mountainous terrain rising up steeply behind it, the only method of reaching it was by boat. The nearest neighbours were miles away along the lake, so Atlantis was our own private kingdom, set apart from the rest of the world. Everything it contained was magical . . . as if Pa Salt and we – his daughters – had lived there under an enchantment.

Each one of us had been chosen by Pa Salt as a baby, adopted from the four corners of the globe and brought home to live under his protection. And each one of us, as Pa always liked to say, was special, different . . . we were his girls. He’d named us all after The Seven Sisters, his favourite star cluster. Maia being the first and eldest.

When I was young, he’d take me up to his glass-domed observatory perched on top of the house, lift me up with his big, strong hands and have me look through his telescope at the night sky.

‘There it is,’ he’d say as he aligned the lens. ‘Look, Maia, that’s the beautiful shining star you’re named after.’

And I would see. As he explained the legends that were the source of my own and my sisters’ names, I’d hardly listen, but simply enjoy his arms tight around me, fully aware of this rare, special moment when I had him all to myself.

I’d realised eventually that Marina, who I’d presumed as I grew up was my mother – I’d even shortened her name to ‘Ma’ – was a glorified nursemaid, employed by Pa to take care of me because he was away such a lot. But of course, Marina was so much more than that to all of us girls. She was the one who had wiped our tears, berated us for sloppy table manners and steered us calmly through the difficult transition from childhood to womanhood.