But then, she’d built her life around believing in things many said were impossible. Maybe some of those specific things had been wrong, but she stood by the general principle.

“Not just for that,” she said. They were walking across the yard toward the field, to the same fence where they’d talked on the night Madeleine first came to dinner. “I wanted to talk to you about something that happened to me last night. After we…” Kissed until I lost myself. “Uh, parted ways.”

Hæra gave her a quick look, appearing startled. “About something that…happened to you? Afterward?”

This was going to be tough. There was no way for it to sound believable. Madeleine would sound either like she’d imagined the whole thing or was lying.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll warn you—it sounds beyond strange. You might think I’m making it up or that I hallucinated. All I can say is, I swear it happened.”

They reached the fence. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on a rail. Easier to look at the white sheep in the distance than at her companion.

“All right.” Hæra sounded wary. “Tell me.”

Given the go-ahead, Madeleine suddenly had no idea how to proceed. She’d been rehearsing this during the bike ride. Now her carefully planned retelling fled her mind. How was she supposed to begin, again?

She could only do her best. “Like I said, it sounds impossible, and I…I don’t know if I’m ready to tell you all the details yet. But remember how you told me about that creature that lives under the mound? In your field?”

Hæra said nothing, so Madeleine turned to look at her. Hæra’s expression was completely neutral, but her eyes pierced Madeleine like a lance. “The trow.”

“Um, yes, the trow. So I figure, you must know about…um, legends and creatures, and…”

She definitely had no idea how to begin this, much less end it. Can you tell me whether kelpies are real? Have you ever seen one? Would you like to refer me to a good therapist?

“I saw one,” she blurted. “Last night. On the beach. Not a trow, a…I think it was a kelpie.”

Hæra’s eyes widened.

“That’s what they’re called, right? The water horses?” Madeleine waved her hands helplessly, as if they could describe the creature. “It was all by itself on the beach, and I don’t know if Jonathan told you this part, but on the night I fell in the water, I was trying to rescue⁠—”

“A kelpie.”

Madeleine’s words stumbled to a stop, maybe because Hæra’s lip was curling. She looked completely disgusted.