They found her in the water, skin like wax, lungs full of water, eyes blank and staring. Her hair tangled in Giancarlo's pole as he pushed his boat along, and he choked when he saw her dragging on it, her fingers skimming just above the surface of the water, the unblinking gaze he took for one heart-stop second to belong to one of the water witches. Foreigners didn't believe in water witches. Foreigners thought they were charming inventions of the opera. Foreigners thought that the canals of Venice didn't take the spirits of those whose bones were given to them, but that's because foreigners lacked common sense.
Giancarlo knew that the water witches, rarely seen, but often heard about, were there. He knew just how to weight a body down so that it wouldn't bob to the surface again. He knew that giving a body to the canals was giving the body's secrets to the spirits of the water and that sometimes the spirits had Other Ideas, and that's why what was dead and lost didn't always stay dead and lost. He knew what water witches did to boat drivers in Venice if they caught them alone and they hadn't said their prayers, and for one heart-stop second -
But she wasn't a water-witch or a vengeful nereid. She was Mrs. James Bridlington, former member of the Ladies' Perambulation Society, and she was quite dead.
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