Free The River Wife by Heather Rose

had been without the other, as if the tide of their friendship had been the rhythm of their lives.
    ‘And so it was one day that one fish said to the other, “When we leap above the sea and the golden world flashes bright in our eyes, do you not think it would be wonderful to have more than a moment? To have more than a glimpse of the golden sky?”
    ‘ “I think in those moments I am smaller than I ever realised,” said the other fish. “And if I stayed in that bright light I should become so small I might never know myself again.”
    ‘ “It is golden and the air stings me and I am frightened, but still I long for more,” said the friend.
    ‘ “It is not for us to step beyond our world. It is not the way. We are bound to the sea for a reason,” said the other.
    ‘ “I do not always want to live by the way,” said the friend, “but by what inspires me. What touches my heart and chills my skin, what lifts me up.”
    ‘ “The golden world does not lift you up,” said the other. “You lift yourself to it. It is all your own doing.”
    ‘ “Still I think it is my destiny,” said the friend. “I will spend my swimming thinking on how I can live in the golden world for longer than a moment.”
    ‘The friend travelled far and asked many questions and the other stayed close beside the friend and did not leave, and so it was that they both learned of the shore. The shore was the place that bordered the sea. Each day waves painted the white sand. Each wave that tumbled to the shore returned dizzy with stories of the surrender and rush of sea as it leapt against the land.
    ‘And so it was the friend said to the other, “We must throw ourselves out from a tumbling wave, throw ourselves into the golden air and bathe in the glory of that world, and then the next wave will come and carry us back to the sea again.”
    ‘ “But none return upon the next wave,” said the other. “It is not possible.”
    ‘ “We will,” said the friend. “I know it. The trick is not to leap too far.”
    ‘ “I am afraid,” said the other.
    ‘ “I am also afraid, but the shore will be kind. Nothing so beautiful could be unkind.”
    ‘Day after day as they swam the blue reaches the friend could talk of little else. They began practising their leaping, going closer and closer to the tumbling waves, sharpening their eyes on the golden light as they leapt.
    ‘ “Let us go this very day, for I feel it is my destiny,” said the friend at last. And because they were two, and had been so all their lives, it seemed the destiny of both.
    ‘And so they went together, for truly they had no thought to go alone or ever to leave the other, though their hearts sang different songs.
    ‘ “If we do not return . . . ” said the other.
    ‘ “We will. We will always be together.”
    ‘Closer and closer they were carried and the sea was dark and then lighter until they were between sand and golden sky, carried in a fold of green. Faster and faster they were carried as the sea pulled up and back and began to fall towards the silver sand.
    ‘ “Leap!” said the friend. “Leap to the light!”
    ‘And so they both leapt, higher than they had ever leapt before, and the swirl and tumble of water crashed beneath and they arced their silver bodies up, up, up. Each was transfixed by the shining brightness, the searing pain of beauty that captivated each until their bodies fell and hit the hard crust of wet sand, and there they stopped. Each of them was too far from the other to know that they were not, in fact, far at all. In vain they sucked at the golden light that, now there was time to really look, had about it a distant vivid blueness that might have been the sea after all. And there they lay stilled by the light and shivered alone.
    ‘And then, as one fish watched with its mother-of-pearl eye blind with the golden glare, it felt a soft warmth and the sensation of being gently held and lifted. It glimpsed the fleeting shadow of an