No Child of Mine [antikvár]

'Hello. And who are you?' The little girl's deep brown eyes stared unblinkingly at Alex Lake; she seemed almost ethereal, Alex was thinking as she stooped down in front of the swing, as though she might have stepped from an Impressionist painting. Her creamy cheeks were smudged with tiny rosettes of colour, and the wiry cloud of dark hair that rose and dipped in whimsical curls made her seem so delicate - and perfect. How old was she, Alex wondered. Three? Four? Definitely closer to three. 'What's your name?' Alex asked with a friendly smile. The child didn't answer, simply continued to stare into Alex's eyes and clutch the chains of the box swing. Her legs were dangling over the tarmac, too short to reach it so she was unable to make herself rock back and forth, and there didn't appear to be anyone close by to push it. There was a hypnotic quality about her that Alex was sure she'd felt even before she'd spotted her. It was what had pulled her attention from the children she was with, her niece and nephew, who were still a few yards away swishing gleefully down the slide into their mother's arms. 'My name's Alexandra,' she told the little girl, 'but most people call me Alex.' The girl blinked and Alex smiled at the slowness of it, and felt strangely moved by the fine blue lines in her lids, and the extravagant curl of her lashes. Her mother, or nanny, must be one of the group of young women sitting on the grass nearby. The instant she spotted a stranger talking to her child she'd no doubt come running.