Wishing Water Read Online Free PDF Page B

alone in her room, hoping someone would notice she was missing and come and look for her. Yet if they did, she would sulk and say she wasn’t hungry. They asked if she was sickening for something because she ate so little. Except at night when they were both asleep. Then she would secretly raid the larder for cuts of meat and slices of apple pie. It made her feel wickedly decadent.
    ‘You don’t care about me any more,’ she said, sulking furiously. ‘Nobody does. I must be a very unlovable person. No wonder my mother deserted me.’  
    Meg’s look of horror brought a burst of sweet delight into Lissa’s rebellious heart. ‘What a thing to say. Of course I care. I love you dearly, Lissa. And so does Tam.’ The kettle started gently to steam.
    ‘You brought me up. That’s not quite the same thing, is it?’ The tone was cruelly mocking but Lissa didn’t care. She wanted to hurt Meg as she was hurting, deep inside.
    ‘Of course it’s the same. You are very special to us and always will be.’  
    Hot tears pricked her eyelids and Lissa blinked them angrily away. ‘That was only duty. You had no choice. You didn’t even choose me. I was dumped on you.’ With tremulous pleasure she watched the terrible effect of these words dawn on Meg’s face. Instantly the feeling drained away and she was drenched in guilt. She wanted to run to Meg and smooth away the stricken look, to beg her forgiveness and say she hadn’t meant it.
    ‘Oh, Lissa,’ was all Meg said, which made her feel worse than ever. Desperately, she tried to put it right.
    ‘Come for a ride. Not to Brockbarrow wood but somewhere different. I’m bored with everywhere round here.’  
    Meg looked distressed. Tam had got Lissa a lovely little mare, but Meg never let her go too far alone, insisting she was always accompanied. ‘I can’t. Not today, love. Why don’t you ask Tam to go with you?’  
    Lissa pouted. ‘Tam says he has to do all your jobs as well as his own these days. He’s too busy.’  
    ‘It’s a difficult time.’
    The kettle was rattling furiously on the stove and Meg quickly lifted it to pour the scalding water into the teapot. There was so much she wanted to explain, about life, about trust, about love, but she couldn’t seem to find the right words, the right approach to get through to Lissa any more. The huge farm kitchen filled with the comforting aroma of hot tea but when she turned back to the table, loving words of caution on her lips, Lissa was already on her feet, knocking back her chair with a fierce hand.
    ‘Don’t bother. I knew it was a waste of time to talk to you. You aren’t interested in me any more.’ With that she stormed out of the house.
     
    She rode defiantly right along the quarry road, forbidden territory. The triumph she felt at breaking Meg’s strictest rule made her hum with pleasure. It promised to be a beautiful autumn day. The late afternoon sun was shining brilliantly by the time she’d ridden Goldie through Brockbarrow wood and onwards to the tarn. It glittered on the rippled surface wrinkled as an old man’s bald head.
    Lissa reined in the pony and let it take a drink at the water. A picture of herself and Nick, shaking their bottles of liquorice water, came to mind. What a childish thing to do. What innocent babes they had been. As if a stretch of water could answer their wishes. As if wishing could find a mother, or make Meg still love her. There was a tight feeling in her throat but she ignored it. It wasn’t her fault if no one understood or cared for her? Or was it? A bleak thought.
    ‘What will I do when I’m grown up, Goldie? Where will I go? I can’t stay here where I don’t really belong.’ Lissa thought about this for a moment. What would it feel like to be a woman? What was she now? Not a child, surely.
    ‘Perhaps I’m invisible. Perhaps that’s why Meg doesn’t notice me and Kath forgot all about me. I don’t really exist.’
    There was a sharpness to the air,