Free Unknown by Unknown

downtown shopping is dead, and the highways are loaded with mile after mile of malls and shopping centres. I hate it.’
    ‘It’s happening everywhere,’ Katie said, trying to bring a little comfort. ‘You should see Cleveland. Do you suppose we could stop at the garage and check on my car?’
    ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Aunt Grace said very quickly. ‘They close on Saturdays, it’s a religious holiday, and Harry said if I let you within ten miles of that garage he’d have my scalp!’
    ‘Well! He’s a—very arrogant fellow,’ Katie snapped.
    ‘Yes. Indeed he is!’ But the older woman was giggling, and Katie found it impossible not to join in.
    The rest of the day was a leisurely rest. Jon was particularly tractable, especially after Kate dumped him into the swimming pool, and let him exhaust himself until naptime. August had slipped into September, and cool winds were blowing, but the shelter of the trees, and the solar heating, kept the pool a centre of enjoyment.
    On Sunday they all got up early enough to attend a church service at the Central Baptist Church in Erwin. The rest of the day drifted by, filled with the cool fingers of pine-scented breeze from off the mountain behind the house.
    Sunday night was interminably long. She had managed to get Jon to sleep in his new playpen in the corner of her room, but could not settle herself. It was a dark night. The sun had set within a halo of clouds, and the moon was not due to appear until late. A sprinkle of stars distinguished the blow of the sky from the heavy loom of the mountains. She leaned her elbows on the windowsill, cupped her chin in her palms, and dreamed.
    The crickets were particularly loud this evening, and from high on the mountain came the howl that spelled bobcat. There was an aura of—waiting—about the night, but Katie was so deep in dreams that she could not pinpoint the source. She was waiting for the sound of wheels, for the return of that arrogant conceited man! She shrugged off the thought, and went back to her contemplation of the night. Little Katie, she told herself, all alone in the universe.
    There was the brief piping of a nightingale’s song from the orchard, interrupted by the haunting call of a diesel locomotive, hurrying coal-loaded cars from the mines of West Virginia to the power plants of North Carolina.
    Unable to conceal her laughter, and afraid she might wake the baby, she gave thought to something else— anything else—to do. The answer came on the caress of a tiny breeze, penetrating through to her conscience. The swimming pool! It was after eleven o’clock at night. Nothing stirred. The fact that she had no bathing suit with her was hardly a drawback, for there was no one to see.
    She stripped off the little sun-dress she had worn all day, and changed her shoes for rubber clogs. She snatched up two of the huge red towels from her bathroom, and a warm robe, and stole downstairs and out to the edge of the pool. Not even a whisper of a breeze penetrated the guardian trees that surrounded the pool. She stretched up on her toes, shedding her robe, and as she did so the moon made its first appearance over the eastern ridges. Its silver light re-cast her from an ordinary mortal to a poised silver goddess. She tingled in the light, shed her utilitarian briefs, wrapped her toes over the edge of the concrete apron, and dived deep into the warm waiting waters.
    It was like receiving a velvet welcome. Freshly fed from the mountain stream that meandered across the meadow, but constantly warmed by the solar collectors and electrical heaters, it lacked the overpowering sting of chlorination that destroys the enjoyment of most pools. She came up half-way down the pool, and coasted to the end with three or four powerful breast strokes. She shook the water from her hair and face, poised with feet flat against the wall of the pool, took a deep breath, and plunged in an Australian crawl, her legs churning the water like a paddle