Free Water by Peter Dickinson, Robin McKinley

think my
    father and all his people want nothing about this harbour to be part of their lives, not even a
    memory of its existence. And now I can’t stop talking.
    “Your dreams, whatever their cause, are true ones, although there are lands in other parts of the
    sea where the horses and hounds are sunset-red or spotted brown and black and green, and some
    where people have fishes’ tails instead of legs, and speak a language we do not know.” His voice
    did not have the deep, fierce echo of his father’s, and although his accent was strange to Jenny’s
    ears, like his father’s, the son’s voice had a merriness to it, like bubbling water, and the faint
    rattle of his breathing only made it more like, and more charming.
    He told her stories of the sea-lands he had visited till it was time for each of them to go home. “I
    am glad I came,” said Jenny, without thinking; and the sea-prince said at once, “Will you come
    again?”
    “Yes,” she said, still without thinking.
    “Tomorrow?” he said, hopefully.
    She had to think then, if only to consider if she could escape for another afternoon; and she
    thought she could, and she thought not at all about her motivations. “Yes,” she said.
    This time she meant to watch him, but when the wave rose up over the bridge, the light from the
    setting sun upon the shining sleek water blinded her, and she shut her eyes; and when she opened
    them again, he was gone, and there was only a little pool on the bridge to show that anything had
    happened. If there had been anyone there to wonder, it would have seemed very strange, for
    there was no wind to whip a wave up over the bridge’s side like that, and leave a pool on its
    broken surface.
    It was not till she was riding home that she remembered that she did not know his name.
    And she rode back to the bridge the next afternoon at the same time, and by now she was aware
    that she was not thinking about her motivations, but she only noted this and continued not to
    think. And there was someone on the bridge already, waiting for her, and he no longer looked at
    all like his father the king, but only like himself. He stood up at her approach, and walked off the
    bridge to meet her, and all the thoughts she was not thinking briefly overwhelmed her, and she
    stayed in her saddle a moment longer, fearing to climb down out of the safety of her own world
    and into a strange one. But he put his hand on her stirrup and his other hand to her mare’s bridle,
    and Flora dropped her nose and let him do it, which was not her habit with strangers, even the
    ordinary, dry, flat-skinned, clothed sort. And so Jenny stepped down and faced him, and he
    smiled the smile that lit up his ordinary face with gentleness and humour and intelligence.
    “What is your name?” she said.
    “Dreiad,” he replied.
    They met many afternoons after that, and her parents only noticed that she seemed to be growing
    rosy with health again, and were willing to let her mysterious absences go unquestioned. And
    perhaps his parents felt similarly willing to let their son pursue whatever it was that so manifestly
    made him happy.
    Dreiad told Jenny more stories of the lands under the sea, and she told him about her parents’
    farm, and what she could of the lands beyond them, for she had travelled little. She had only
    been to the city where her relatives lived once—it was a two-day journey from the farm—when
    she was still quite small, and her chief memories were of how tall the strange eerie creatures with
    black iron claws for feet, which her parents told her were lampposts, looked to her, taller than
    trees, with the great glowing, flickering globes set on their summits; and how enormous the
    kerbstones were she had to step up and down on from the road. There were no kerbs on country
    lanes.
    At first she had supposed that since Dreiad could breathe air as she did, he was as free of the land
    as she was and only chose to live in the water, and was shy