At the crest the fog came off the lake like steam off a pan, and the goats did not like it. Tamsin felt them stop before she saw them stop. The line behind her went tight on its leads, the collars jangling in a ragged chime, and then the front of the line came to a halt against the low stone wall that ran along the top of the road, and the rest bunched up behind it, shoving and blowing through their noses. She turned round and saw the oldest nanny standing with her forelegs braced and her head low, staring out past the wall into a white nothing that moved like breath.
“It is only fog,” Tamsin said. “It is wet air. It will go into your coats and come out again, and you will feel no worse for it.”
Nobody believed her, least of all herself. The fog was thick and grey-white, and beyond it the ground fell away in a long steep slope that she could not see at all. She could only hear. Under the drifting cloud there was the sound of water, far down, a hollow lapping that rose and fell, very slow, like someone breathing in a room where a child was asleep.
