‘Close your eyes,’ she said softly, with more than a hint of suggestive playfulness. ‘And promise me you won’t open them until I’m in the water.’
‘Aye. I swear I’ll no’ open them,’ he said, imagining though that he might renege on this promise.
‘Promise me William!’
‘I swear it.’
‘Very well. The faeries will take you if you break that promise!’
‘If I make a promise tae you, I’ll keep it until the end ay time, Aurora. That I swear on everything I hold dear.’
‘Then close your eyes.’
William did as he was told, and he could hear her slipping out of her clothes. His mind conjured what his eyes were unable to see, and he desperately wished to peek. He almost did, but, ultimately, he did not allow himself to give in to that temptation; to break his promise, even if she did not know that he had, would be to break something inside himself that he never wished to see broken. All of the heroes he read about in his novels, all valued honour and integrity above everything else, and a man of honour and integrity was what he intended to be. He heard a splash and a shriek of glee; Aurora was in the water.
‘You can open your eyes now,’ she called out, laughing as she did.
William’s eyelids parted, allowing a scene of such exquisite splendour to flood his senses that he almost stumbled and fell. Mere metres away from where the rippling water was lapping against the rock walls of the pool, Aurora was floating in an upright position, her arms spread wide. A spray of microscopic droplets glinted in a rainbow dazzle from the sun, and her pale, lithe form was tantalisingly half-visible through the ripples.
Alcohol-emboldened blood gushed through William’s veins; it was throbbing with a keen, simmering heat in his temples and rushing through his ears … and pooling with relentless fury in another part of his anatomy.
‘Get in William, hurry!’ Aurora shouted.
‘Now it’s your turn tae close your eyes!’
‘I’ve seen countless nudes at the lycée, William. I’ll—’
William shook his head and folded his arms across his chest.
‘I had tae dae it, now I must ask the same courtesy ay you!’ he insisted.
With a humble upward curving of her mouth she closed her eyes.
‘Very well, very well. Tell me when I can open them.’
William stripped his clothes off with impatient haste, drew in a deep breath and then sprang into the pool. As he plunged into the water, its frigidity caused him to let out a shout that was half pain, half glee.
‘Oh boyo, it’s freezing in here!’
‘Aye, it is William, it is! But isn’t it gloriously refreshing? This is freedom, this is it! May I open my eyes now?’
‘You may.’
William began to swim in circles, peering down at the dark depths beneath him in an attempt to distract himself from staring, slack-jawed, at the stunning aqua-nymph who was treading water just a few feet from him. Only her head and neck broke the surface, but through the rushing ripples her unclothed form was visible in a wavy blur of temptation; small, firm breasts, a marble-smooth belly, and the enticing curve of slender shoulders were partially obscured, only tantalisingly so, by the movement of the waves and the distortion of light.
‘How deep is this pool, I wonder?’ he asked. ‘D’ you think there’s a kelpie living in here? I cannae see the bottom!’
‘Deep enough,’ she answered with a chuckle. ‘Don’t let the kelpie pull you under!’
‘Oy now, you cannae make japes about such things! What if there really is a kelpie doon there?’
Aurora grinned mischievously.
‘There’s a way to deal with water kelpies. It’s sure to drive them away.’
‘What’s tha’ then?’
‘Watch,’ she said enticingly, ‘and I’ll show you.’
‘Aye, I’m watching, let’s ha’ it then!’
William stared at Aurora, trying to focus on her eyes instead of the swirling image of her naked body, half-revealed, all the while praying that she wouldn’t notice his painfully hard arousal.
‘Watch very carefully now,’ she purred, drawing him in with the seductive lilt of her voice. ‘This is important.’
William swam closer, craning his neck, and Aurora surged suddenly forward and splashed a spray of water into his face.
‘Argh!’ he yelled, laughing as he back-pedalled to escape her splashes. ‘Leave me be, I’m no kelpie!’
‘You wanted to know!’ she shouted, continuing her relentless assault. ‘So I’m showing you!’
Eventually she stopped pursuing him around the pool, and they both stood treading water, panting and laughing with innocent joy, while the waterfall cascaded relentlessly into the pool in the background.
‘All right, all right,’ Aurora said, the untainted enjoyment of fun painted as vividly as a harlequin’s makeup on her beaming face. ‘Come, we must go and see the secret before it’s too late. Helios is drawing his fiery chariot across the sky faster than we realise.’
‘Aye, you just point me in the right direction an’ I’ll follow.’
‘We have to swim under the waterfall, and then there’s a way up behind the curtain of water.’
‘How did you come tae know about this secret spot?’
In her proud smile there was a subtle, self-conscious pride of sorts.
‘I told you, I found it. I have a naturally inquisitive nature; I adore exploring! It’s all part of the joy of freedom … what little I have of that, anyway. Now, enough questions, just do as you’re told and follow me!’
With that she turned around and dived under the water, and William saw her pale form disappearing beneath the froth that churned where water clashed against water. He gulped down a big breath of air and then followed her. Under the water, all he could see was a chaos of furious bubbles, so he swam straight ahead until the froth became less frenetic, and he no longer felt the force of the falling water from above. He surfaced and saw Aurora bobbing in the calm beyond the crashing water, waiting for him.
‘There is a way up,’ he gasped in awe, his gaze falling upon an ancient staircase that had been hewn into the stone face
