Free Lily by Patricia Gaffney

was a natural oddity, its shallow waters divided from the sea by a wide bar of white sand. Tonight it was dark and still and tranquil, in contrast to the surging, whitecapped Channel so close by. Lily and Lowdy undressed beside a line of high black boulders bisecting the narrow beach.
    “You bain’t goin’ in in your shift, surely.”
    Lily glanced across at Lowdy’s sturdy nakedness. She frowned. “You’re not wearing anything at all?”
    “Phaw, sink me if I will! What was ee plannin’ t’ wear tomorrow for shift, an? ‘Twouldn’t ever dry by time. Come, Lily, quit your moolin’ an’ let’s go in.”
    Lily hesitated a few more seconds, considering. She drew off her worn and patched chemise slowly, cautiously, not quite knowing what to expect. She’d never been naked out-of-doors before. But nothing happened: dozens of heads didn’t pop up from the thick woods behind to shout, “Cover yourself!” as she’d half anticipated. And the soft night air on her skin was delicious. Looking down at her own white breasts and belly and thighs, she shivered with an illicit thrill; she’d thought the stealing of apples an exciting sin, but it paled to paltry insignificance next to naked midnight bathing.
    She stepped with great care over smooth stones and soft sand toward the mere’s edge—she’d never been barefoot outdoors, either. Gentle lapping waves wet her toes; she moved farther in warily. “Come in all at onct,” Lowdy advised from fifteen feet out. “Tes warm-like and lovely in no time.”
    “But I can’t swim.”
    “Neither can I; I’m standin’ on my two feet.”
    Emboldened, Lily waded in to her waist, her breath sucked in at the unexpected chill. But in seconds it felt warm and luscious, and she bent her knees and let the water rise to her shoulders. “Oh, it’s wonderful, it’s glorious!” she laughed, splashing her arms. She paddled over to Lowdy, where the water was deeper. The muddy bottom felt cold and squishy between her toes. “Oh, you can float,” she said enviously.
    “Anybody can float.”
    “Not me.” Nevertheless, she lay back and kicked her legs, enjoying the startling chill on her scalp when her head touched the water, and tried to imitate Lowdy’s restful-looking posture on the pool’s surface. She sank.
    “Pull air in your chest and keep still,” Lowdy instructed once Lily had resurfaced and stopped coughing. “Stay calm-like, that’s the knack.”
    After a few more tries, Lily mastered the art of floating on her back. She stared up at the lustrous pearl of the full moon, her arms and legs spread, breathing shallowly, and savored the acquisition of this newest skill, musing that at times like these it was almost possible to categorize her present circumstances as an adventure. If she could see an end to this interlude, this interruption of what she still regarded hopefully as her real life, she might even be able to enjoy it, once in a while. But in truth, she could see no end. Still, she clung to her natural optimism: instead of dwelling on the hopelessness of things, she started a water fight with Lowdy.
    “What was that?”
    Devon paused in the act of drying off his legs with his shirt and listened. “What? I don’t hear anything.” He dragged on his breeches—then stopped again, fingers going still over the buttons. “I hear it now. It sounded like a scream.” He threw his shirt in the sand and strode off in the direction of the sound—a high-pitched, woman’s cry. It came again, and he quickened his pace. Clay stumbled after him, fastening his breeches and shrugging into his wet shirt as he went. The light of the full moon brightened the sandy track edging the pool on the inland side. When he was a dozen feet from a humpbacked line of boulders trailing from the woods to the water and blocking the track, Devon halted. Clay nearly collided into his back
    Lily and Lowdy waded out of the water through the thick sand, heading for their clothes, still