A word from Demeter Serraffield.


    I am not a lifeguard.


    The sea is deep and stormy and treacherous.


    I was born in that water. I can still feel its hands on me now. I knew nothing but that water, that desperate scrabbling struggle for life against everything. I could not conceive that there was any world apart from the waves, beating and beating against me. It is a miracle that I survived, that I clawed my way out of that water. It is a miracle of my own making, but that makes it no less miraculous.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    I am safe from that sea, standing on the dry land, but I can see the sea before me, dark and churning.


    If I go too deeply into that water, I will drown.


    I am not a lifeguard.


    I cannot swim out after others who I see floundering in the waves.


    But I can wade out.


    I can wade out, as far as I dare, and hold out my hands to help drag you out of the stormy sea.


    This book is my hands. My words are my hands. Hold fast to them. There is a way out of the sea.