Saturday

Part 7

The car snaked its way easily down a quiet country lane, ancient hedgerows framing its journey as it disappeared from the urban landscape into to something far more wild and mysterious.

Tabytha slowed down, third gear to second, clutch engaged to a neutral stop, as the Volvo coasted into a rarely used lay-by. She had read the text over twenty times, yet now here at last she checked it once again to make sure she was absolutely in the right place. In front of her was the promised clearing, slicing its way crudely through old woodland, yet it was clear nature was now reclaiming its space. The trees were on the march.

She got out of the car, a winters afternoon touched by the blessing of sunshine, and she set off. 100 paces forward it had said and this is what she now did, carefully, slowly, her voice counting out loud as she made her way up the incline. At 57 a loud crack in the wood to her left caused her to jump, yet when she stopped and peered as deep as she could into the depths of the trees, she could see nothing and no further sound was forthcoming.

'Come on,' she whispered to herself, 'come on.'

58, 59, 60 and on she went, fear grasping her every step, cold sweat weighing heavily on her aching limbs, yet she would stop for nothing. It was do or die and there was no turning back now.

One hundred steps arrived and she turned full circle as though challenging anyone, anything, to come out and make itself known, yet the wood kept its council and all was at peace.

Turning now to her right, as she had been instructed to do, she walked thirty slow paces into the wood itself, golden shafts of hallelujah light hitting the trees and the autumnal bed of leaves that were now beneath her gait.

And then, at 30, she stopped, her breathing coming in and out far too quickly, her senses aroused to a dangerous setting way past maximum, the smells of the forest intoxicating her very soul to fly free.

Silence, painful and utter silence, was all that cried out, and she, full of shattered nerves, fretted, moving around on the spot for something to do. Suddenly she became painfully aware of an awful truth that fell upon her with the weight of a heavyweight's blow. The spring of fallen leaves beneath her feet must be hiding her multitude of sins.

It was all too much as she fell to her knees, ripping into the floor beneath as she shouted to the earth to release its dreadful secret.




'Tabytha,' he said, softly, easily, and she, thinking the familiar sound from the earth itself, became even more frantic, ripping her nails back as she tore into the earth. Yet now he had stepped forward to her side, his welcome hands on her shoulders pulling her gently into his chest.

And there they lay, on a leaf curled bed of years in the making, their future of no importance, their past an irrelevance. Their embrace was all.


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