I was twelve when the dam broke and the river took back the ground she’d lost.

If you look down the street from the Lucky’s old house —or Old Lucky’s house, depending on how you look at it— you can just see the edge of the lake lapping at South River Road. The street sign’s a bit more literal than it used to be, but other than that the neighborhood hasn’t changed that much.

Mrs. Tash still lives on the corner, stubborn as ever and twice as mean. She’s moved her glaring from the first floor to the second, so now Mom get’s reports of our wrongdoings in a slightly larger radius. Not that we had any wrongdoings, only so much mischief you can get into when there’s four feet of water on the ground.

Besides, most of the trouble came from the fights between the pookas and the kelpie, not the kids, and everyone knew it. Mrs. Tash just didn’t want to admit she could see them too.