"Technically mermaid is not the name of any witch type."

"Technically?"

"Naiads can turn into mermaids and back. I mean, they have scales even when they have legs, but they're called Naiads, not mermaids. ...It suddenly occurs to me that we should double-check that mundane words for mythical critters that match up with people who call themselves something else aren't...slurs." 

"--That is a really excellent thought."

"It seems like it might be a little awkward to find out, especially if your book didn't happen to mention. Anyway, the pools could have underwater tunnels to more elaborate 'indoor' pool structures for all we know."

"Yeah, that's sorta what I meant by lawn? If it's, like, the outdoor area connected to their living space." 

"Yeah. I guess maybe if your lawn was a pool it'd be fine for people to use it for random swimming purposes like I wouldn't mind if people did yoga on our lawn."

"I'm probably going to have to learn to swim all over again, what with the iron bones."

"Huh, is it even possible to be able to swim safely with iron bones? I don't know what kind of overall density change that implies."

"Well, when I was a little kid who couldn't really swim yet, I used to paddle around in a life jacket and water wings. I figure if I wear enough floaty stuff I can get my average density back up to something workable."

"Oh, that makes sense. I'm apparently going to be impaired in diving, specifically, and will have a hard time sinking if I want to, so I guess if I want to scuba at some point I will carry heavy stuff. Or we could hold hands and do incredibly weird synchronized swimming behaviors."

Snort. "I have no idea how that would work but it would be worth finding out if it isn't too awkward. I wouldn't put it as that high a priority, though, I've never been so into swimming that it competes that well with, uh, being a witch."

"Quite."

What does this first pool say?

The first pool has a placard announcing itself as the Eva Townsend Recreational Swimming Pool. It's shaped like a sort of fat, roundish rectangle, with a deep end with metal ladders and a shallow end with plateau steps gradually deepening the pool until it gets halfway through the shallow end, at which point the depth is level until it hits the halfway point of the pool, at which point it starts sloping downwards. 

"Looks like this one is the swimming pool swimming pool. Anybody mind if I try out my floatiness, I haven't actually gotten around to it yet."

"Sounds fine to me. Did you bring a swimsuit out here? I can try to dry you off with wind magic after."

"I have rank two in Witchery, my stuff'll all dry off in a couple seconds." In she jumps.

Emily decides that if May isn't going to give her an excuse to try using her magic as a hairdryer she can make one her own damn self. Swimming is... fraught... but wading ought to be fine. 

Edie sits down by the side of the pool and skims the lower edge of one wing through the water. 

May floats like a pool noodle. It's hard to maneuver with her shoes still on, though, so she levitates out after a little splashing around and sits by Edie, where she dries off.

"It feels different from dipping my fingers in the water, but it's... it's easier to, like, feel the correspondences between wing-fingers and regular fingers and between fingers and toes."

"Huh! What's the dexterity like?"

She raises the wing and flexes it. 

"It...hm. It's easier to, like, wrap the digits around something than to hold them there to pick the thing up, does that make sense? The wing isn't designed to exert force in that way."

"Interesting. Did your parents take your awakening okay?"

"They...took the magic part fine! The, uh, traumatic circumstances surrounding it not so much."