It must have been nearly eleven o’clock, but it was still light. Lowrie said that in Shetland this was called the ‘simmer dim’, the summer dusk. So far north it never really got dark in June and now the shore was all grey and silver. Polly spent her working life analysing folk tales and she could understand how Shetlanders had come to create the trowes, the little people with magical powers. It must be a result of the dramatic seasons and the strange light. It occurred to her that she might write a paper on it. There might be interest from Scandinavian academics.

From the hall behind her came the sound of the band finishing another tune, laughter and the clink of crockery being washed up in the kitchen. On the beach below a couple sat, smoking. Polly could see them only as silhouettes. Then a little girl appeared on the shore, apparently from nowhere. She was dressed in white and the low light caught her and she seemed to shine. The dress was high-waisted and trimmed with lace and she wore white ribbons in her hair. She stretched out her arms to hold the skirt wide and skipped across the sand, dancing to the music in her head. As Polly watched, the girl turned to her and, very serious, curtsied. Polly stood and clapped her hands.

She looked around her to see if there were any other adults watching. She hadn’t noticed the girl in the party earlier, but she must be there with her parents. Perhaps she belonged to the couple sitting below her. But when she turned back to the tideline the girl had vanished and all that was left was a shimmering reflection of the rising moon in the water.

Chapter Two

When the party ended they couldn’t sleep. Caroline and Lowrie had disappeared back to Lowrie’s parents’ house. Polly, Eleanor and their men had booked a holiday cottage called Sletts within walking distance of the Meoness community hall, and now the four of them sat outside it on white wooden chairs and watched the tide ebb. No background noise except the water and their own murmured conversation. The occasional echoing splash of wine being poured into large glasses. Polly felt the dizziness return and thought again that she’d had far too much to drink. She turned back to face her friends and realized they were in the middle of a conversation.

‘Did you see Lowrie’s cousin’s kiddie?’ The envy in Eleanor’s voice was palpable. ‘Little Vaila. Only four weeks old.’

Eleanor was thirty-six and desperate for a baby. There’d been a late miscarriage, and the child would have been a girl. None of them knew what to say. There was a long silence.

‘I saw something really weird when you were all out for a walk this afternoon,’ Eleanor went on, obviously deciding to change the subject. Perhaps she understood that talk of babies embarrassed them. ‘There was a young girl dancing on the beach. She was all in white. A kind of old-fashioned party dress. She seemed a bit young to be on her own, but when I went out to talk to her she’d disappeared. Into thin air.’