Kelpie

Kelpie is a loch-dwelling water horse, visible only to those who want to see him. Lucy, a fey child with the gift of serendipity, encounters this protean creature while she is on a school journey to Scotland. She also picks up the fragments of a tenuous, organic chain from the lochside, and takes them with her back to England. Next summer, Kelpie appears in the lake near her school, searching for his lost bridle. The subsequent events are those of a gently humorous adventure story, but the tale is suffused with allusions to the symbolism of freedom and captivity: paradoxically, the purpose of the bridle is to liberate Kelpie, and it must be tied on by two people because the creature cannot be mastered by any one. I fond the story fascinating, but complexities of syntax and imagery mist the narrative in obscurity from time to time. The book should, however, appeal to competent readers who have a taste for subtle enchantment.