Chapter 3 - The River

Darkness fell, like a smothering blanket over the silent valley. She sat and dipped her toes in the freezing water, recoiling slightly as the wave of cold hit her. Everything was still; there was not even a breeze to stir the branches of the ancient, knarled, oaks hanging over the stream bowed and bent backed. She took out her pad and set it upon her knee, and held a torch to light the page in the fast fading dusk. Her pencil touched the page and moved with swift light strokes curving and twisting in what seemed like a frenzy and yet was so controlled. For an hour she laboured at her work until all natural light had faded and only the torch beam guided her hand. When she had finished, she held the sketch gently, tenderly caressed the image of the man she had depicted. Fred. Her Fred. She remembered the night they'd first met, she knew she'd loved him even then. Even as the tall, strong 14 year old had held the cowering, slight 12 year old girl gently in his arms. She drew her thumb across the image once again, the ghost of a smile flitting across her features, then she lent down a gently kissed it. When she drew back, something had changed. A horrible transformation had come across the sketch. No longer did it show her darling Fred. No. The face was haggard. The body so thin that it was more bone than flesh. The eyes hollow pits unseeing and seeming to see all. Him. All at once a rage came upon her and with a desperate cry of anguish she tossed it into the steam, tears streaming down her face as she watched it float steadily away. Howling with despair she alighted and fled downstream stumbling as she groped blindly in the dark.

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