““Has the water died?’ asks Will. He is only nine. It is painful for him to see this. He understands that there is something very wrong here, though he cannot name it. Something in the old power of this place, and its new injury, troubles him deeply. ‘No, of course not,’ I say, but my certainty is a deceit. As we leave the wood we see an egret, white as a slice of snow, standing stone-still in the exhausted outflow channel, as if its patience might somehow summon back the water’s life.””
