Page 75 - The Midnight Library

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Fire

She gasped. e sensations were sudden. e noise and the water. She had

her mouth open and she choked. e tang and sting of salt water.
She tried to touch her feet on the bottom of the pool but she was out of
her depth so she quickly slipped into breaststroke mode.
A swimming pool, but a salt-water one. Outdoor, beside the ocean.
Car ved seemingly out of the rock that jutted out of the coastline. She could

see the actual ocean just beyond. ere was sunshine overhead. e water
was cool, but given the heat of the air above her the cool was welcome.
Once upon a time she had been the best fourteen-year-old female

swimmer in Bedfordshire.
She had won two races in her age categor y at the National Junior
Swimming Championships. Freestyle 400 met res. Freestyle 200 met res. Her
dad had driven her ever y day to the local pool. Sometimes before school as
well as aer. But then – while her brother rocked out on his guitar to

Nir vana – she traded lengths for scales, and taught herself how to play not
just Chopin but classics like ‘Let It Be’ and ‘Rainy Days And Mondays’. She
also began, before e Labyrinths were even a figment of her brother’s

imagination, to compose her own music.
But she hadn’t really gone off swimming, just the pressure around it.
She reached the side of the pool. Stopped and looked around. She could
see a beach at a lower level in the distance, cur ving around in a semi-circle
to welcome the sea lapping on its sand. Beyond the beach, inland, a stretch

of grass. A park, complete with palm trees and distant dog walkers.
Beyond that, houses and low-rise apartment blocks, and traffic sliding by
on a road. She had seen pictures of Byron Bay, and it didn’t look quite like