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Wishing Water
Lissa Turner seems to have everything a girl could ever hope
for: she’s pretty and intelligent, has warm and devoted parents and a
beautiful home in the Lake District. But despite her good fortune, Lissa is not
happy. For her real mother abandoned Lissa while she was still a baby, and her
feelings of confusion and vulnerability have persisted through
As soon as she is old enough she takes up a job
in Carreckwater, a lively village in the heart of Lakeland. She makes many friends
but is wary of close relationships and mistrusts amorous advances even
from the most eligible of admirers. Secretly Lissa wants nothing more than to be
loved and cherished. But her lack of faith in herself launches her into a
disastrous marriage with sinister consequences...
1951
1
Lissa Turner kilted her thin cotton skirts and slid from
the sheep-cropped turf into the icy waters of Allenbeck, squealing with delight
as it foamed against her bare legs. She swivelled her head round to look
up at the boy, still standing on dry land, very nearly over-toppling herself in
the process.
'Come in, it's wonderful.'
She wriggled her toes, the stones grinding and slipping
beneath her feet, and tried another step. Above her head a lapwing climbed
on lazily beating wings, finishing in a dizzying display of joy in the May
sky. Not always so blue in these Lakeland hills, it came as no surprise to
Lissa to find it sun-filled and blue. For today was a special day.
Today she was to see her mother.
All around them grew alder and silver birch, pale slender
stems crowding the edge of the small gushing stream, eager perhaps to cool their
own feet in the exhilarating flow from the rocky depths of the high
mountains. Over the low hump of Gimmer bridge, built a century or more ago
with painstaking care and not a scrap of mortar, as was the way in this part of
Westmorland, she could see right along the rough track to the stile where the
road divided. If she took one twisting path she would come to Broombank,
her home, and where Meg and Tam lived. The other climbed up over Larkrigg
Fell to the place she should live, Larkrigg Hall. The place where her
mother would be preparing a special tea this afternoon for their first meeting
in years. Four years to be exact, not since just after the war when Lissa
had been only seven and too young to understand anything.
But she understood now. In Lissa's pansy eyes was more
knowledge than she admitted to, certainly more than was considered good for
her. Her stomach tightened into a knot of excitement. Lissa meant to
enjoy this day, to wring from it every drop of pleasure she could.
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