When he saw me he said nothing, but slowed his pace a little so that I could fall in with it. We let ourselves through the gate and onto the path, then walked to the edge of the cliff and looked out to sea. It was a murky day, the mist hovering over the water, a great, gray-brown mass of sea and sky and mud and sand and rock, with no features to distinguish one from another. A place where someone trying to swim home, in the cold water, with the darkening sky above, could easily get lost, and cold, and tired; a place where disorientation, and numbness, and despair would come quickly, so quickly that the shore might never be reached.Gwydion was still too upset to speak to me. Instead he stared out to sea, narrowing his eyes against the wind. For a while I did the same, standing in silence beside him, hoping that he’d start to talk. When he didn’t, I walked over to the top of the steps cut into the rock and peered at the inscription on the little plaque. I studied the name, Elsa Lindberg, and the dates, 1971–1990, as if they could tell me something I didn’t already know; and then I scanned the words below, wondering what they meant.Gwydion came up behind me.
