Shimmer by Jennifer McBride

dark eyes. ‘Anything else, master?’
    â€˜Well, no more chores, at least,’ he replied, meeting her gaze. His blue eyes bored into hers for a long moment, making her restless. She knew his slow human brain was coming up with some idiotic idea. Apprehension snaked through her. All she wanted was to return to her globe. She waited for him to speak.
    Finally he did. ‘Mum will think I spent all day getting those jobs done,’ he said, a wide grin spreading across his face. ‘And now I’ve got the rest of the day to do whatever I want.’
    She raised an eyebrow at him. ‘But surely it is too hot for you to be outside?’
    â€˜It might be too hot here,’ he said, ‘but I know somewhere we can go that’s really cool.’

Getting colder
    Kora wriggled her toes and sighed with pleasure. She was sitting on a flat, grey rock in the shade of a sprawling weeping willow tree, her bare feet dangling into the clear water of a bubbling creek. She wondered how the water gushing down the tiny creek could be so cold when everything else here was so hot.
    She sucked in a long breath and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. She was getting used to the myriad of Earthly smells. At least the damp odour of the rocks and the mouldy leaves that had piled up under the trees was a welcome relief from breathing in the parched air.
    â€˜Why don’t you join me, Kora?’ David’s voice was muffled by the sound of the water cascading around him.
    â€˜No, thank you,’ she replied, gazing across the creek to where he reclined under a little waterfall. The water crashed down onto the top of his head and streamed down his bare chest and shoulders. Kora tipped her head sideways to study him. He certainly had broad shoulders. His arms were tanned a dark, golden brown, but the pale white skin on his chest in the shape of his T-shirt made her smile. Humans were truly strange creatures.
    He had been in the water for nearly an hour now and she could see goose bumps appearing along his arms. She supposed having to chop wood and mend fences without magic would give someone muscles that rippled like David’s did. He pushed his dripping hair back out of his eyes and she saw that the skin on his hands had wrinkled from being in the water too long.
    Abruptly she realised that David was watching her watching him and she dropped her eyes back to the water. ‘How far from Panda Rock are we?’ she asked.
    â€˜Not far,’ he said, waving vaguely off to his left. ‘It’s about a kilometre that way.’
    â€˜You know, I still have not seen the panda-shaped mountain.’
    He pushed himself up out of the creek. ‘We can go see it now if you like,’ he said, picking up his dry T-shirt and pulling it on over his head. ‘We only need to walk a little way.’ He shook his head vigorously like a dog and droplets of water flew in every direction, splattering her.
    She leaned away from the flying droplets and David grinned. ‘We can get a great view of Panda Rock from down there,’ he said, pointing down the hill through the trees. ‘The angle’s just right and you can see the entire outline of the bear.’
    â€˜I would like that.’ She followed David, ducking under branches and weaving between the trees. As they emerged from the shade into the bright sunlight the familiar wall of heat greeted them. Kora immediately channelled a tiny trickle of magic to protect herself. But it seemed only seconds before David’s wet hair and shorts had dried and droplets of sweat were dripping down his face.
    They trudged down to the base of the slope. Kora turned and gazed up at the strangely shaped hill. It looked as though the rocks had tumbled down out of the sky, piling awkwardly up one on top of the other, to form the unlikely shape of a panda.
    â€˜It is beautiful, David.’
    The rocks rounded out from the base to form the panda’s