The Library is cool and calm, clear and bright.

She stops typing for a moment to listen to other, busy fingers on warm keyboards, tapping through the room as they echo her own rhythm.  The only other sound she can hear is the gentle hum of air-conditioning, running to keep their space at a constant temperature.

She turns her face up to the open, natural light coming down from above and smiles, eyes closed in a brief moment of pure joy.  She loves the Library and always has.  It is her place of refuge, her solace, where she can be alone, and yet still together with her people.

She looks around at everyone working within their own silent contemplation, towards that shared purpose of knowledge, and perhaps a little wisdom; whether it’s a written journey through books and journals, or a visual journey through pictures and maps.

Inside the smaller library of her own mind, everything is in a state of flux.  Nothing is truly known or believed, except by degrees.  Sometimes there are brief moments of peace, of temporary understanding, and then another thought re-stirs her cauldron of ideas.  Then she begins the cycle anew, until her library is closed.

Or that cycle is interrupted.

She hears a heavy step and turns to see a disorganised pile of books wavering up the stairs.  If they had been sorted according to size and shape, they would not be so precarious, and their owner would not have to grasp each one with a different finger of his large hands.

He sees her looking, and a large open smile beams over the top of his books.  She quickly turns her gaze back to the laptop, leaning forward towards its warmth and encouraging messages.  Today it says ‘You’re an Idiot.  Study Harder.’

She returns to the notes on her screen and pretends rapt attention, re-reading their final line in a last-ditch attempt to reclaim the train of thought she once had.  It has either stopped completely or run on without her to the next station.

She is aware of his tall imposing frame as it moves towards her and then comes to a standstill next to her.  Even after he has stopped, the warmth of his presence continues towards her and she knows he is either looking at her, or more likely at the desk next to her.

She looks across the desk to her partner-in-research for support, but instead sees her smiling at the man stood next to her.  She gestures that if he wants to take any of the empty desks for working on, it’s okay.

It’s not okay.  It’s definitely not okay.

She is about to assert this herself when a mighty thump makes her start.  She looks over at the books dropped onto the desk next to hers and then up at the man who let them collapse like fallen words.

He moves his well-built body with ease as he manouvres the chair to sit down and has a short mop of shiny black hair that appears to have a mind of its own, especially where it curls around his ears.  He is full of charming smiles that she is sure would work on most women, but will not work on her.

It’s hard for her not to return his smile, open and affable as it is, but loud noises in quiet libraries cannot and will not be condoned.  She glares at him until he whispers ‘Sorry’ and offers her yet another smile, but still she doesn’t smile back.

She glares across the desk at her so-called friend, who smiles encouragement to her and mouths ‘he’s nice’.

All of which he sees.

It’s all very well for you.  You’ve already found someone.  You can be as nice to handsome men as you wish.

She returns her attention to the laptop screen, catching a glimpse of the compatriot smile between her so-called friend and her new next-door neighbour.  She refocuses back on her notes and returns to the start of the paragraph in an attempt to discern where her train has gone, if it was ever there to begin with.

She is studying the poetry of William Blake.  Today’s notes are from consulting many books to enhance her understanding of his complex work, ‘The Tyger’.  She bends her head down to re-read the text, and feels an interrupting warmth come close to her again, this time with a purpose.

She takes a moment to compose her annoyance into a polite smile and then turns to address him.  This time, she is greeted with a different smile, a smaller, more circumspect one.

Trying each one to see which will work.  I know your game.

She raises her eyebrows a little to enquire what he wants.

He whispers ‘may I borrow a pencil please?’

She looks down at the pencil case she has brought with her with two spare pencils inside and offers them to him.  He takes the one nearest to him, turns to leave her alone, then turns back but before he can ask for a rubber and sharpener, she already has them proffered.

He takes them, his fingertips gently brushing the skin of her palm, seeming to linger there and she feels her face begin to redden.  She turns away and hears a whispered ‘thanks’ as she nods a curt reply.

She looks back down at her book, tilting her head to the side so her hair hangs down to cover the flush in her face.  She is relieved when he starts to arrange his books and open them to begin making his own notes.

She turns her attention back to the book, to The Tyger and to Blake’s illustration.  She notes how the branches of the tree separate some parts of the poem, bringing other parts together, changing the meaning for her.

She doesn’t notice for a moment that he is looking at her book too and she turns towards him.  He opens his mouth to speak and she makes a ‘Sshhh’ motion with her lips.  He nods and then points to the spare notepad on her desk.  She relents and passes it to him before returning to the poem.

She is aware of the pencil’s noise as he scratches something on her pad and then offers it back to her.

It reads: ‘Do you know why The Tyger is more well-known than The Lamb?’

She thinks about this.

She remembers her grandmother reciting The Tyger to her but doesn’t remember any recitations of The Lamb.  The Tyger was one of the many poems her grandmother could quote by heart, even after the long years had taken other words and memories from her.

So, either her grandmother didn’t recite it, or her own memory is going now.

She writes ‘No.’

He takes the pad back and she watches him writing, then looks up at his face.

He is so keen and earnest, his brow furrowing slightly just above the bridge of his nose as he concentrates on the words, seemingly unaware of her attention.  She catches herself breathing in his warmth again and wants to lean in closer, but she stops and pulls back to her side of the desk.

What he is writing now?  What does he want to say? 

Is it about William Blake or something just for me?

Of course it’s William Blake he’s interested in.  He must have seen the books when he was coming up the stairs and that’s why he came over to the desk.

That makes the most sense.

He finishes writing and looks up at her, smiling at her slightly flushed attention on him and hands her the notepad.

‘The Lamb was written as part of Songs of Innocence and The Tyger was written as part of Blake’s contrary work Songs of Experience.’

This much she knew.

‘To me, it feels like you can have innocence but once you lose it, it can never come back.  Experience is something you get and keep over time.  It can never be lost, only increased and enhanced.  That’s why The Tyger is remembered more than The Lamb, because Experience speaks to us longer and more deeply than Innocence.’

She nods at his insight.

‘Plus, Tygers are cooler.’

A small laugh is surprised from her then and she looks up at him.  At his unwavering clear blue eyes looking directly into hers.  There is no uncertainty in their gaze, only interest and now a kind of knowing regard.

He smiles as he takes the notepad from her again and she watches him write ‘Cup of Tea?’ before passing it back to her, with a look that says he already knows the answer to his question.

She looks across the long desk at her research partner, who is watching the exchange of written words with interest and passes her the notepad.  She reads it down to the end and smiles, offering her an effusive thumbs-up and the words ‘Go for it’.

She looks back at him for the longest moment, staring into his face for the slightest hint of a veil.  Will his resolve weaken as she makes him wait for the answer he seems so sure of?

It doesn’t.  There is no doubt in him.

Finally, she smiles.

Continued in ‘The Café and James MacPherson’

Following on from The Library & William Blake, the story continues…

The downstairs Library Café is busy for a Saturday lunchtime. Bundled up couples come in from the November cold already staking its claim as the start of winter, to reheat their chilled hands on tea-warmed mugs and lift their energy with sugary treats.

At a table meant for two, three new friends sit in warm companionship of tea and talk, about the focus of their studies, about the progress they have made, and how much further they feel they have to go.

She is trying to take in the things he is saying, but since he moved closer and his leg has been pressing strongly against hers, warm through soft jeans, she can think of little else.  Does he know his leg is touching mine?  Of course he does, but is it because he wants to, or because he has to?

He stands up and she feels the warmth suddenly gone, leaving a disappointed cold patch on her leg.  She looks up the full length of his tall stature, to his eyes as they flash blue at her from beneath darkly tousled hair.

“I’ll be back,” his warm deep voice says and she watches him walk away.

“He likes you,” her friend says.

“And he bought me a cup of tea to prove it.”  She lifts the almost empty cup to her lips. “He bought you one too, does that make us a threesome?”

“He bought you one too, does that make us a threesome?”

“He was just being nice.”

“So, he doesn’t want a threesome, then?”

“Disappointed?”

She laughs, returning the cup to its ill-fitting saucer.

“He clearly wants to talk to you, but I think he’s a little shy.”

“He wasn’t so shy in the library.”

“Neither were you, but then it’s easier to communicate when you don’t have to speak, isn’t it?”

She looks at her friend and says, “Much easier.”

“I think he wants a proper date with you.”

“This wasn’t a proper date?”

“I know it’s been a while for you,” her friend says,“but I don’t think a cup of tea counts as a date.  And not when there are more than two people present.”

“Maybe half a date,” she says.  But her emotions are on alert now.

I can’t go out on a date, I’m wearing the wrong clothes for starters.  Scruffy jeans and a bobbled cardigan with a hole in the sleeve, worn through from polishing up the laptop.  I keep meaning to patch it up, but who’s got the time?

 “I’ve got too much work to do to think about dating.”

“There’s no deadline,” her friend states.  “Apart from the ones you impose on yourself.”

“I have a blog to write.”

“Again, a deadline that you have set.”

She starts to redden a little, as if caught in a lie.  It’s not really a lie.  I do have a lot of work to do.  A lifetime of it in fact.  It doesn’t matter if it’s for my own personal blog. 

“People read my posts and expect to read the next one.”

“Yes,” she agrees.  “But not until you post it.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then it should be.”

She stares down into her cup again, swirling her leftover tea and the dregs left behind.

Her friend puts her own cup down on the table and pushes it away, leaving a circle smear along the surface.

She looks down at the mug that should be with its saucer, even if they don’t fit together.

“I’m not telling you what to do.  It’s up to you.”

“I know.”

“It’s your choice if you want to go back to the big room of books and disappear inside another one.”

“I don’t disappear.”

“Yes you do.  I’ve watched you dive head first into every book and if you like it well enough, you follow it up with your feet.”

“Not every book.”

She looks away and sees him coming back.

He is returning to their table, then to his research upstairs.  She watches as his attention is grabbed by something else.  Or someone else.  Perhaps another girl took his fancy, one that styles her hair, applies make-up and wears clean girly clothes that don’t have holes in them.

She turns back to her friend and decides it is time to dive into another book.  Books are great.  They rarely let you down, and if they do, you can always get another one.  And they never leave you.  Though sometimes they hide under the bed.

She is about to suggest they return to the library, when he comes back to their table and smiles at her.

“Let me ask you something,” he says.  “Is it the poetry that you like, or that William Blake wrote it?”

She thinks about this.

“I liked poetry first, from school and from my granny, who could quote poems at length from memory.  She particularly liked to quote The Tyger.   So I guess my interest in William Blake came a little after.  Or kind of at the same time.”

He nods.  “Then can I interest you in an exhibition on 18^th Century Scottish Poems and their Illustrations?”

He wants me to go to an exhibition with him?  Away from the safety of the library?  That sounds dangerously like a proper date.

He seems to sense her hesitation and says, “It’s here.  The exhibition is just across the way.”  He points to the small Exhibition Area.

As she looks over, he says, “It includes poems by Robert Burns and James MacPherson.”

“I’ve heard of Robert Burns,” she says, “but not the other guy.  I don’t know much about Scottish poems, I’m afraid.”

She turns back to face him, sure that he’ll be put off by her total lack of knowledge.  But he isn’t.  He’s looking at her with the same enthusiasm he had upstairs for William Blake.

“James MacPherson was famous for his tales of Ossian the bard.”

Her friend stands up and says, “Sounds like you’re just the guide to take her round.”

He throws a bashful smile her way and says, “I’m not an expert or anything, but I do know a little of his work.”

“Sounds great.”

Sounds like I’m being shanghaied into this.  She looks back up at him and says, “Well it sounds interesting, but I still have a lot of research to do.”

Her friend says, “Yes, but there’s no deadline.  Take a break.”  Then she leans over to her friend and says in a lower voice, “Take a risk.  He likes you.”

More fool him.  She looks from one to the other and says, “Sounds great.”

His smile beams out at her then, brighter than when he came up the stairs and spotted her sitting at the desk.  He holds out an arm and indicates the way across for her, so she stands to go.

Behind his back, her friend gives her the thumbs-up before heading back towards the library stairs.  She starts to redden a little again and begins to walk over to the poetry exhibition ahead of him.

This won’t take long to walk through to the end.  And my knowledge of this kind of exhibit is a lot slimmer than me, so if he actually wanted to take someone who could discuss and debate Scottish poetry, then he’s got the wrong girl.

It would take me hours of study to reach the level he’s clearly at, or to accomplish anything at all.  Those books he brought over to the desk upstairs were very advanced, much deeper than I could swim in.

I’d drown.

He’s not in her sightline and she slows a little in order to look back, but before she can there is a slight pressure at her back, and knows that his hand is gently there.  She smiles and keeps walking until they come to the start of the small exhibition.

They walk slowly along the glass-fronted exhibit, looking at the poems alongside their later illustrations.  It doesn’t take long to reach the end of the exhibit, where they come upon the poetry of James MacPherson, and a number of illustrations.

He stops in front of the case and bends down to regard the illustration, then looks back at her, clearly waiting for her to join him.  She matches his slightly bent-over stature to look at an 1819 illustration entitled ‘Son of Morni’.

In it, a young warrior has tossed aside his tools of cruel war; his helmet, shield and spear, and fallen to the ground.  His deep sadness is being looked down on by a lightened female presence, someone who could be his guardian angel.

She says, “I don’t know much about the text for this illustration, but in some ways it reminds me of the pen and ink drawings William Blake did for his religious illustrations.  It feels like the same kind of emotion.  Sort of.”

He says nothing for a moment.  She looks at him as he is looking at the drawing, probably wondering where her piece of nonsense came from.

Instead he says, “Interesting.  I never looked at the MacPherson illustrations in that way before.  Historically they came before Blake, and were also published in London, so it’s possible he saw these before he did his own drawings.”

“Or they might have gone to the same school to learn to draw,” she offers.

He nods, “Yes.  They could have gone to the same school, or learned in a similar style, orfrom a similar school of thought.”

He looks at her then, his eyes transforming as the blue submits to its inner dark circle.  “Why should Ossian sing of battles?  For nevermore shall my steel shine in war.”

She stares at him.

Where do his words come from?  Do they live deep within, rising from a passion shared, like they were for her granny, words that would bubble up with the right words to trigger them?  Or the right environment?

“That’s the way poetry should be,” she says, “Out loud, live and in person.  My granny often shared her love of poetry and books, of stories and tales, especially poetry, and of course Shakespeare.”

He straightens and asks her, “What’s the first live Shakespeare you saw?”

“King Lear,” she says, standing up beside him, looking into the gaze fixed firmly on hers.  “I saw it when I was still at school, and I never forgot it.”

“Especially the part where they put Gloucester’s eyes out.”

“Yes, especially that part,” she agrees, experiencing the same gut twist as she felt then.

There was something special about being in the theatre, experiencing it live, as if it really was happening to the man in the chair, being held down and tormented before his eyes were put out, first one and then the other.

 “Years later, I came upon the William Blake painting of King Lear and Cordelia in prison together,” she smiles.  “As if everything was linked.”

He says, “We two alone will sing like birds in a cage.”

She smiles and nods. They are at the end of the exhibition now, but he is not moving towards the exit, and is standing in the way of her doing the same.  She could go round him and make an end of this, but doesn’t.

He’s staring into the glass case and not really seeing what’s there.  As if there’s a debate going on inside his mind.  For the first time in their short acquaintance he seems uncertain, and she tilts her head a little as she regards him with a small smile.

Human after all.

He turns to look at her and sees her smiling at him.  This seems to make up his mind.  He takes a deep breath, and lets it raggedly out.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he says.

“It’s okay,” she says.  “What do you want to do?”

“I want to ask you out on a proper date,” he says.  “A cup of tea hardly counts as a date.”

She smiles and says, “I was thinking the same thing.”

“Really?”

“A cup of tea is more like half a date.”

A laugh is surprised out of him and she laughs a little too.

It’s okay.  You can do it.  I want you to do it.  Truthfully, I’ve wanted you to do it since I saw you coming up the stairs.  Since you dropped your books down beside me.  I just couldn’t admit it until now.

“Would you like to go on a date with me?”

“I’d love to,” she smiles.  “Where would you like to go?”

His eyes widen as if he hadn’t thought that far ahead.  He looks around and sees a ‘Places to Go’ display, “Let’s find something.”

As they walk towards the leaflets of many colours, the one that catches her eye is for the Galleries, and she reaches for it.  He reaches for it too and their fingers touch, but this time she does not pull away from him.

He takes her hand and says, “As this has only been half a date, I could not be so presumptuous as to kiss you.”

Really?  That’s a shame.

“So I’ll do this instead.”

He lifts her hand up towards his mouth.  She knows what’s coming, but can hardly believe it.  Things like this never happen to her.  Well, in her distracted imagination, perhaps, but never in the here and now.

The touch of his lips to her fingers is gentle, but there is strength beneath.  As if he wants to do more, but not here and not now.  A promise of what is to come, perhaps, as he holds her hand in his.

“I’d love to take you to the Gallery today.  You know, once we’ve finished our work upstairs.”

Work?  On a day like today?  Who could possibly think about doing research and analysis on a day like this?

She smiles and says, “I don’t think I could possibly focus on any more work today.”

“No,” he agrees.  “Not now I have something better to look forward to.”

That was just a little bit…

“Too corny?” he asks.

“No,” she smiles.  “Just corny enough.”

“Good,” he says. “Then that just leaves three things for us to do.”

“Three?” she asks.

“Pack up our books.  Get our coats.”

“And?”

“If we’re going on a proper date, you really should tell me your name.”

A smile grows on her face and she says, “Ellie.”

“Ellie,” he says, and a series of tiny sparks go off inside her.

“I’m Sam.”

“Sam,” she repeats with a smile, and they walk together towards the Library stairs.

 

 

 

‘It only takes a single mistake to expose you as an undercover officer,’ my new boss says to me before I drive off.  ‘Don’t let it be mine for sending you on this assignment.’

I nod and agree with him as I wind up the window, cutting him off as he says something else.  I’m on courier pickup and delivery, standard basic mission.  There’s a bit of trouble with my package; it’s a bit big for the little Yaris boot.  When a couple of gentle attempts to shut it fail, I get strong and slam the boot down hard.

I’m on my way to the rendezvous when there’s a detour from my assigned route to collect a flash-drive from the Golden Palace Restaurant.  Don’t be fooled by the name.  It’s not Golden and certainly no Palace.

It’s meant to be a quick stop, but the owner demands I have a drink with him.  I tell him I’m driving.  He laughs and says if I want the flash-drive, I’ll have one.

Or two.

Fifteen minutes later and I’m walking a little sideways from the restaurant.  I tell myself it’s tiredness and not the chilled Pinot I downed to hasten my escape.  I push the flash-drive further down into my jeans pocket and try to walk a bit straighter towards the car.

There’s a massive Range Rover parked next to me, black all over with tinted windows.  It looks like a hungry spider, fat and furtive, waiting for me to get close enough to jab me with its stinger.  It could eat my little car and keep me for dessert.

The black Range Rover is parked so close, I wonder if I’ll be able to get in the driver’s door.  I might have to move everything off the passenger seat and sling it on the back seat, then get in that way.  The boot’s already packed full with my first pickup.

‘Oh for … Why park here when there’s empty spaces everywhere else?’

Those glasses of wine have loosened your grip on the situation.  Get it back.

I had a single glass.

You had two glasses.

Which might have been topped up.

I take a deep breath and set to work sliding between the two vehicles.  I reach my door and pull it open hard, pushing it against the Range Rover as I squeeze inside.  After slamming the door shut, I look across to see if I’ve left a red scuff mark behind.  I can’t see anything in the hard shiny surface; maybe a little one.

‘Shouldn’t have parked so bloody close,’ I say and start up the engine.

I look again for a mark but see only light reflecting off the ice-cool blackness.  It glints with accusing eyes at my bump and scuff, so I speed off towards the exit, determined to escape any retribution coming my way.

Not too fast.  Remember not to draw attention to yourself.

‘Yeah, course.’

I put my foot down a little more and approach the first roundabout at a good speed, taking it with ease.  I’m pleased with my skills, so I push it a little faster towards the next one, gaining speed down the empty black road.

I close in fast on the next roundabout, slowing just before I get there.  I turn the wheel just far enough round and then accelerate out of the corner, gripping the road to balance the momentum.

You’re supposed to be a discreet courier.

‘I’m making up time’ I say.  ‘Couriers do that.’

I accelerate towards the third roundabout.  It’s a big one this time, many lanes, multiple traffic lights and at this time of night, not much in the way of other vehicles.  The lights are red as I approach.

Without slowing down, I decide I’ll make the lights turn green using the power of my mind.  I glare out at them as they resist me, refusing to do my bidding.  I’m aware of another car racing up beside me, also daring the lights.

As we approach the point of no return and I’m about to take my foot off the accelerator, the traffic lights turn green and I glance a smile at the other car as we take off.  I pull away at speed and disappear down the third junction.

No it isn’t.

Yes it is.

Really?

Oh.  Hang on.  This doesn’t look right.

I take my foot off the accelerator and sit up, peering out at the shadowy road and its dark buildings as the car slows.

This is the wrong turn-off.

‘Dammit.’

I hesitate to make a U-turn where the signs are telling me not to.  I’ve already made one mistake tonight, drinking and driving.

Two mistakes, if you count the number of glasses.

And now I’ve made another one.

I hear a cheap burst of static from the radio transmitter and brace myself for the bollocking to follow.

‘You deviated from your route.  What happened?’

I pick up the scuffed plastic receiver and depress the button.

‘It was a mistake.  I took the wrong turn-off.  There’s nowhere here to turn around.  I’ll find somewhere further down the road and – ‘

‘Turn the car around now.’

‘But the sign says not – ‘

‘NOW.’

‘Yes, sir.’

I hit the brakes hard and bring the bright red car to a shuddering stop.  The cargo in the boot thumps into the back of the seat, thank goodness for knockout drugs.  Everything on the passenger seat shoots in the footwell.  I wonder if there are cameras watching as I make my illegal U-turn in the middle of the road, then head back toward the roundabout.

‘No more mistakes.’

‘Sir.’

The radio returns to static.  I can feel my face has turned the same bright red as my car.  I hate making mistakes.  I had this whole journey planned down to the last detail and now this.  Two mistakes in quick succession.  If only I hadn’t been made to stop at that restaurant and then made to drink that wine.

Who made you drink that second glass?

I glower out the front window at a world of old shadow and streetlight.  My grip on the steering wheel is tight and moist, white knuckles highlighting the red-scraped skin on my punching hand.  I make myself relax and unstick it from the steering wheel, stretching out bunched fingers.

I look ahead for the traffic lights, for the roundabout.  I see a Range Rover coming down the other side of the road.  Its large body is sleek and black, just like the one in the restaurant car-park.  With bright and glaring blue headlights.

‘There’s one on every corner,’ I mutter, watching it come closer.  I look down at the number plate, squinting my eyes against the blue-glare.  I want to see if it’s the same one, feeling somehow that it is, even before it’s come close.

Trust your instincts.

The number plate comes into focus and it is the same one.  Has it followed me from the restaurant because the owner wants compensation for the red scuff on his shiny black car?  Do people really hunt you down for things like that?

We pass each other and I try to see if it’s me he is looking at but the tinted windows make it impossible.  I keep my speed steady, fighting the urge to race away.  I watch the Range Rover’s progress in my rear-view mirror and realise I’m almost at the roundabout again.

I come to a slow and cautious stop at the red lights.  I must take the next road over, the actual third junction, but my gaze keeps flicking from the red lights in front of me to the large black Range Rover in my rear-view.

I watch as it moves further down the road and away from me.  I’m sure it will stop and turn back.  Then another vehicle comes up behind me and blocks my view.  As the traffic lights turn green, I’m still trying to see my stalker but there’s only the car behind, so I go.

I keep my attention focussed on the road ahead and over-check my current position, making quite sure, am I sure, I’m on the right dual carriageway and heading for my final rendezvous.

I keep my speed low to make sure I get the job done right this time.  Cars come up behind me, fast and eager to get to where they’re going and then roar past me at high speed, overtaking close enough to feel the backwash.  I’ve had enough of speeding for one night, so I sit back and let them go, unwilling to join their race.

There is a large green sign coming up which indicates a main junction turn-off.  I know that it leads to a garage, a church and a graveyard.  Though it’s not the one I’ll be taking.  I can be sure now that I’m on the right road.

From here, I can take any exit along this route, up to and including the one that leads to my rendezvous.  I know how to navigate all roads that lead off this dual carriageway, where they lead and how to get to my final destination.

Shame you didn’t practise the roundabout a bit better.

I am about to reply when an over-bright glare grabs my attention in the rear-view mirror.  It’s coming up fast behind me, with dazzling round headlights like staring blue-eyes.  It’s coming up so fast it looks like it might just drive over me.

But rather than overtake me at the last second and speed past with great noisy machismo, it lurks behind me.  The undimmed headlights make me squint and I angle the rear-view mirror down.  That doesn’t help.

‘Who’s this idiot?’

Remember your training.

I take a deep breath and focus.  From the angle of the sharp blue headlights it’s a high vehicle, 4×4 probably.  It could be the big black Range Rover from the restaurant, caught up with me at last.  It has the same headlights, but then they all do.

It could be joy-riders; a car full of lads looking for a good time, who have followed me since the restaurant.  Lads who think they can target a girl travelling alone, get her off the main road and do what they like to her.  But if they’d followed me down the wrong turning I took, then that would have been the best place to smash and grab me.

It could be the police out looking for potential drunk drivers, stalking me after my glass of wine.

Two glasses.

Blue-glare headlights used to mean emergency services, but it’s not just them anymore.  They could’ve been alerted by my mistake at the roundabout, but they would’ve stopped me after my illegal U-turn.  The vehicle drops back a little but remains behind me.  Its over-bright headlights invade my car-space, creating sharp shadows on the dashboard, defining me.

I could pull over and see if they follow, then deal with whoever they are.

Joy-riding boys are easily disabled, especially in a drunken group.  But while it remains true that there are many ways to kill a man, or a group of boys, I’d rather not.

I’d never hurt a member of the police force.  Well, not badly.  We’re all brothers, or sisters or whatever, and whether they know it or not, we’re on the same side.  I gave up the life of a daylight police officer to walk this dark and unseen road.

My road, my choice.

But the police wouldn’t see me as a fellow officer anymore, they’d see a woman who’s had a glass or two of wine, and then got behind the wheel of a car.  Combine that with my other mistakes tonight and that’s more than enough reason to pull me over.

A single glass shouldn’t put me over the limit, but that second might.  Then they would have to take me to the station for processing and I might be recognised.  I can’t allow that.  I would have to disable them and their car before making a run for it.

Then there’s my third and least favourite option; the owners of my stolen cargo.  If they catch up with me, then it’s all over.  They’d take me away for interrogation and whatever remains of my short life would be painful and full of questions I’d refuse to answer.

At first.

It wouldn’t just be words, though, and I know how they get results.  Not first-hand, of course, but I’ve seen what happens.  They showed us one of the bodies, a former female undercover who’d been beaten, strangled multiple times, and violated with a variety of objects I don’t want to imagine.

How long would you hold out under such circumstances?

Just thinking of that makes me want to pound the accelerator and get as far away as possible.  But then they’d have a reason to give chase and, in that car, they’d catch me.  And they’d want to kill any police in their way, uniformed or undercover.

Hold your nerve.

It was supposed to be all planned out, so they wouldn’t know who was being kidnapped or where he was being taken, until it was too late and I’d made the rendezvous.  But there was that detour.  Could that have given them enough time to discover his disappearance and track me?

The car is still behind me, waiting for me to do something.  I want to put my foot down and go.  I want to escape.  I slow down a little to see if it will overtake me, but as my speed gets slower it remains the same and the headlights come closer, unblinking eyes in the darkness.  I worry for a moment that it will hit me.

I dare to keep at my slowed speed for a moment or two, but it stays there behind me and I begin to increase my speed back to where it was before.  It keeps pace with me, never lessening the distance between us nor taking the impetus to go past.

I change tack and speed up to put some distance between us, reaching the speed limit and keeping it there for a while.  It speeds up and comes towards me, getting closer and closer, and this time I think it will go around me, but it drops back to its original position and stays there.

‘No getting rid of you, is there?’ I ask the rear-view mirror.  I catch a glimpse of my eyes and look away.  It’s just the adrenaline.  It’s just the bright, bright lights behind me.  Not fear.

Fear is natural, just don’t let it overtake you.

I’ve never been very good at convincing myself of a lie in the face of truth, so I set myself the task of finding a way out of this situation.  At least my cargo is behaving himself in his unconsciousness.  So he should be, after the punch I gave him to knock him out and the shot to make him sleep.

Well, he punched me first.  All they said was I had to get him to the rendezvous alive, they said nothing about undamaged.  They’ll take their time interrogating him for information, so one bruise upfront won’t matter.  Nor will the broken nose.

The turn-off I must take is coming closer.  There’s the turn-off sign coming up.  It’s next.  But my follower is still behind me, watching my every move.

There is another option.

I’ll indicate that I’m taking this exit off the dual carriageway, as in the original plan and then I’ll change my mind at the last moment.  This will flush him out if he really is following me and get rid of him if he isn’t.

There’s a flaw in your logic.

Either he will be forced to take the turn-off and will have to catch me up at the next on-road.  Or he will change his mind too, keep following me and I’ll know it’s me he is after.  Or it will get rid of him if he isn’t and I can turn around at the next junction and head back to make my rendezvous.

What if he’s the distraction?

I engage the indicator and look in the rear-view mirror to watch for his.

After a moment, it comes on.

I keep to the same speed and see the designated marker showing three hundred yards to my exit.  The vehicle behind me keeps to the same distance and speed.  I feel my heart rate begin to quicken and I take a long slow breath to calm it.  It doesn’t work.

As I approach the two-hundred-yard marker I release the accelerator pedal a little and begin to slow down.  The car behind is slowing too, keeping his distance now he thinks he has me.

At the one-hundred-yard marker I suddenly lean forward, knowing he can see me, and pretend this is the wrong exit.  I turn off the indicator signal and increase my speed along the main road.

Moment of truth.

The car behind me does not waver, but carries along down the off-road.  I watch as the large black Range Rover disappears down the exit, away from me.  It does not speed up as if to jump the roundabout and seems to have no intention of catching me at all.

Red wheel trims.  Roundabout streetlights reveal red wheel trims.  It was a different car after all; the one at the restaurant had black wheel trims.  Perhaps it was a police car after all.  Their headquarters is at one of the buildings off this exit.

‘Just eager to get back home for tea and biccies,’ I laugh, a little shaky.  Everything feels lighter now the car is dark once more, and we’re alone.  I let my breath out long and slow as I continue along the dual carriageway.

Your journey’s not over yet.

He could still return to the dual carriageway at the next on-ramp.  I watch all those joining my road, but no Range Rovers with black or red wheel trims.  I’m still on edge when a static blast from the radio crackles it into life, making me jump.

‘You didn’t take your assigned exit.’

I pick up the receiver and press the button down, ‘I thought there was someone following me.’

‘Are they still there?’

‘Negative, they took my exit.’

‘How’s the cargo?’

‘Still unconscious in the boot.  I’ll get off at the next exit and double-back.’

‘Good.  Get to the rendezvous.’

‘Sir.’

I indicate to take the next junction ahead.  After the mistakes I made earlier, I’m pleased to have escaped a confrontation and that I’ve almost completed tonight’s mission.  Before I know it, the exit is counting down and I smile as I put the indicator on.

I leave the dual carriageway and speed down to the bottom of the road, moving to the right-hand side so I can turn around under the dual carriageway and re-join it on the other side.

I am halfway through the black and lightless tunnel, when I see the lorry blocking my path too late.  I hit the brakes hard and fast, hearing them squeal and judder beneath my feet, but it’s not enough.  I brace myself for the inevitable crash.  The airbag explodes in front of me and I take a moment to rest my pounding head on the white bag.

Then hands are yanking at the doors, metal grinding against metal as they heave them out of their way.  They are pinning me to my seat as the seatbelt is cut away, then many hands are pulling me from the vehicle.

This is not Emergency Services.

They would have identified themselves before now.  Asked my name.  Told me what was happening and not to worry.  But I am worried.  The Range Rover that was behind me may have been police officers, but this lot make it clear that they’re not.

No words are spoken as I’m dragged onto the rough tarmac, then dropped.  A couple of them are searching me with rough thoroughness.  One of them thrusts unwanted hands into my jeans pockets and takes it from me; the flash-drive I was detoured to collect.

I look across and see them opening the boot of my car to retrieve their cargo.  I didn’t damage him too much, but they won’t care about that; they’ll only care that he’s alive, though he’ll be stiff from being confined in the boot of a Yaris.

A sharp sting in my neck tells me all I need to know.  They are doing the same as I did to their man a short while ago, but they’re better at it than I was, more efficient, more manpower.

They pick my sagging body up and start to drag me over towards the two large black Range Rovers that have pulled up, blocking the road behind my broken car.  I blink, either I am seeing double again or there are two of them.  No, it looks like three.

I blink again.  There are three; one with red wheel trims, one with black, and one with white.  They were all following me, hunting me tonight, covering all possible exits.  I was never going to escape.

They are dragging me across to the all-black one, the one that was there at the restaurant, waiting in the dark to carry me off and now it will get its chance.  In a place where no-one will see me disappear, not at a public restaurant, not on a public street with cameras.  The number plate is doubling and fuzzy, but I already know what it says.

It says you’re going to be interrogated, tortured and you’re not going to be able to take it.  The numbing injection that’s making you compliant will wear off.  Then the pain will start and it can only end one way; in your death.

All because of your mistakes.

Evan looks out over a sea of black and white striped waving arms.  He grins at them, maniacally encouraging them to wave harder in time with his band’s music so his crowd obliges with willing desire.  Evan starts to sing again, to jump and spin on the stage in time as they sing his words back to him.

He strides forward and takes his stance once more at the front of the stage, leaning with dangerous closeness towards the front row of his girls, smiling as they strain against the metal barrier reaching towards him.

He glances across each of them, watching as their mouths make the words he sings, still surprised by their willingness to submit, even after all these years.  He tries to meet some of what they need from him without losing too much of himself, with no loss of body and soul.

He sings out a little further past them towards the dancing pit and flashes some fist pumps to acknowledge them, nodding as they reciprocate.  Anyone watching his face might be surprised to see a look and smile of real love.

But it is there.

At the centre of the pit, a troupe of women focus on their ring of furious dancing.  They dress in mixtures of soft, sheer and shift fabrics clinging to their dancers’ bodies as they move around in-between each other, making it all but impossible to determine where one dancers’ body starts and another dancers’ body ends.

They spiral from the ground up, spinning from the centre outwards, undulating from the top down and then back up again, creating an energy to build a light around them.  It fills their circle, and now, towards the end of this night, the entire room.

Evan smiles.  Only he can see this.  See them.  They are his.  He has used them to help write his songs, to help build his confidence and craft his on-stage performances.  They are his dancers – something only he has ever known about.

That’s not entirely true, is it?

He falters for a moment.

What was that?

Evan pulls back from the edge of the stage just as Jase starts his solo.  That voice.  It was like…  But that’s not possible.  Evan realises he is already nodding with the guitar rhythm, using his microphone like a mini-guitar and pretending to solo-along.

As he moves across the stage, he is eyeing the room.

A hooded figure is standing next to one of the speakers and for a moment Evan thinks he’s been shocked by the electric microphone.  The figure is stood where she once stood.  Where she once danced.  Where the music is loudest.  Where she had the desire for furious dance.

Before she fell.

Fell?  Is that what you tell yourself?

Evan looks around, the band are all looking at him.  Jase has finished his solo and Evan’s missed the intro to the final verse.  Fortune favours him as the crowd picks up the words, so he thrusts the microphone out towards them, then brings it back to join them in the final moments.

With the song finished he looks back towards the band and their questioning looks.  He says ‘tired’ and they nod agreement.  They bring themselves up for the last song of the night as Evan goes to face the crowd for his final performance.

He walks down to the front of the stage, looking out at expectant faces.  The first couple of notes ring out and his crowd screams in joy.  It’s their favourite song, saved for last.  Evan nods knowing, taking it all in.  He looks for and finds for his dancers.  But he is unable to stop there, unable stop himself from searching for the hooded figure.

It hasn’t moved yet, but now it’s looking directly at the centre of the dancing pit.  Evan stares at the hooded figure.  It seems to be looking at his dancers.  The ones who have always been with him.  But that’s not possible.  Is it?

Only he can see them.  Only him.

He starts singing the words.  Or do the words just sing through him?  Crowd doesn’t really care.  They could sing it without him.  He is just a means to an end for them.  He is only there so they can stand in the dark next to each other and prove what they know.  How well they know.

He watches the hooded figure start to move towards the centre of the room and his voice suddenly stops working.  He bows his head to the room and pushes the microphone towards them.  Crowd sings louder, proving what they know.

Evan lifts his head and watches, helpless to stop the hood’s slow smooth progress.  Evan takes the microphone back and sings with eyes closed, but not really closed, as he watches its deliberate movement through lidded slits.

It takes everything he has to control the sound coming through him, and then the first part of the song is done.  He can leave the middle part to Jase, who will take this slow-moving song and quicken it towards its rocking climax.

He puts the microphone back in its stand and moves in time with the solo, grasping and leaning on it, holding on for fear of falling.  He looks out, lurching towards the crowd at the front of the stage, closer to girls in the front row.

He doesn’t see them now, only the hooded figure as it moves towards the centre of the dance pit, certain now it’s going for his dancers.  He watches almost without breathing as it approaches them close enough to touch.

Evan sees the hood come down and hears her voice for the final time.

You had your chance.

She-hood grins horribly at him and much too wide before sinking her teeth into the first dancer, freezing in a tableau of surprise and agony.  The jolt of pain hits him in the head and only the microphone stand keeps him standing.

He watches as light above his dancers’ head is sucked down and out of her, leaving nothing behind but a spent shell.  She-hood discards the first dancer and bites into the second.  Evan feels the hit in his chest and begins to stagger on stage.

He knows he’s going down.  He fumbles the microphone from its stand.  He drops to his knees on the stage.  To the adoring crowd, it looks like he is going down before them, but his band knows something’s wrong.

The bass player Vic does a dramatic slide across the stage on his knees with a large smile on his face, and rocks out beside their singer.  Evan looks over at him with pain and gratitude on his face, then manages to lift the microphone to his lips.

He rejoins the song with the crowd for as long as he can, then pushes it back out to them for the next part so they will take over.  Just in time for the gut punch of She-hood consuming another of his dancers.

It’s not just the loss of energy being drained from him, but the scream of agony contorting the once beautiful face that no one else but him can see.  Evan looks down at his clenched hands on the grimy stage, not wanting to witness any more.

Jase the lead guitarist takes up his own dramatic kneeling position on the other side of Evan, mirroring Vic’s rock-out manoeuvres.  Only the keyboard player sees looks of concern passing between them and the singers’ slow collapse forward onto the stage.

Evan pulls the microphone back towards him once more.  He manages to put one knee up and lean heavy as he finishes the song, using the climactic ending to scream out his final echoes of frustration and pain.

The lights go dark.

Evan’s head swims with the screams and cheers that normally lift him up but now they sound out the death-screams of his dancers.  He’s having to rely on his two best friends to lift him physically from the stage.  He’s only just upright when the lights come back on.

Evan looks at the crowd, trying to focus on smiles and cheers, but all he can see is the dance pit.  The place where his dancers created circles of desire and light, discarded bodies lying on the ground.  Their energy drained, the force of their beauty gone.

How did he ever let it come this?

Then his own light falls.

The night is dark, illuminated only by a half-moon hanging low under steel-grey clouds.  The tall lithe woman with graceful step walks barefoot on her slow winding path down to the sea.  Her long black hair is loose and free, tugging back from its once lingering warmth.

She lifts the hem of her long blue dress, flowing soft as an elegant wave.  Once the colour of a light summer’s day, it is heavy and weighs her down.  The metal-frayed shoulder straps bite into her bare skin, now stained with the bruised purple of regret.

Her white toes peek out from beneath the dress at the downward steps.  The smallest slivers of moonlight glisten the eroded wooden path she must take, its unfinished light her only guide.

At the bottom she steps carefully onto the sea-jetty, smiling at the welcome touch of smooth sea-worn boards, undulating with the waters’ rhythms.  At the far end of the jetty, reaching into half-lit darkness, a large white and silver yacht dips and sways.

And she knows.  The closer she gets to it, the brighter it will shine.  When she boards the vessel its brilliance will dominate all.  But first she must reach it.  Only then will she be safe from the black and bottomless ocean that taunts her towards its surface.

She keeps the hem of her dress lifted and eyes the centre of her path as it rises and falls.  She glances over at the dark sea, watching as it swells with hundreds of tiny lights dancing across its inky surface. They light up into mini-peaks and the shapes of forgotten faces.

Come in, they seem to say, the water’s fine.

She stops and looks up at the gleaming yacht with a twinge of doubt.  If she gets too close to it and stares for too long, will it blind her to the things she doesn’t want to see?  Or will the harsh light penetrate her skin, seeking the hidden places where her darkest secrets dwell?

Her path to the yacht looks clear.  There is no gate to block her entry, no electrified fence to climb, no security guard to detain her, in fact, nothing whatsoever to stop her from walking the full length of this sea-jetty and going aboard.

Yet her mind is troubled by the thought that, this is too easy.

Nothing is given this easily, unless it’s going to be taken away.

Or you’re walking to your own sacrifice.

She chose to walk the path of sacrifice before she knew what sacrifice was.  She accepted giving everything for those who would never know who she was or what she had done.  To those who know her, either personally or by reputation, her unshakeable faith and belief in the calling was legendary.

Or it used to be.

I used to believe –

That if she were ever in trouble, real trouble, they would come for her.  So when she was taken and held prisoner, a chained captive in a damp subterranean cell, she believed.  She endured endless interrogation, without mercy or relief, and still she kept the faith.

But when her captivity passed one hundred days, her belief began to drip away as did the water down her cell wall.  Each passing day every drop conspired with the rest to channel a stream of fear through her belief.  It confirmed the real truth; she was alone, and the only person who could save her, was herself.

And so finally, she did, but the cost was her faith.

“Don’t you remember?” asks the voice of her reason.  “Why it’s worth sacrificing what most people take for granted?”

I remember.  And I used to believe the sacrifice was worth it.  But this path demands I give up everything; my self, my body … and parts of my soul, with those I love.

“It’s always been that way.  And always will be.”

I know.  But sometimes, it’s too much.

She looks down at the wooden boards, each one lashed to the next as they work together to keep her above the dark water.  With no reprieve from their task until eventually, over time and usage, they fall apart.  Then they’re replaced and discarded with ungrateful ease, their former service forgotten.

She stares into the depths of the black-water and sees nothing but her own face rippling on the surface.  Underneath the sea-jetty, dark waves swell up and push between the wooden boards to wash over her toes.  It’s warm and soothing to her feet, but gone as fast as it came and she shivers, her wet skin chilling in the cool night air.

What if I let go of this path?

What if I embrace the sea’s blank nothingness and choose the warm waters of eternal peace?

“Except it’s not full of nothing, is it?” the voice of her reason answers.  “You know what the sea is full of and how they got there.”

She stares out across the vast expanse of the ocean, unwilling to admit the real truth either to her reason, or to herself.  While the surface of the sea might imitate a gateway to peace and warmth, the faces beneath are anything but.  Their swirling souls, unhappy in their untimely end, create black mist across the surface which is gathering now towards an unnatural point.

At the centre of which and rising up from the ocean’s surface, a large dark man-shape starts moving at speed across the surface of the sea, oozing a grey sleek oil-shadow in its wake.  It spreads ever outwards, giving the ocean a thick, slimy layer of gloom and suffocating every light in its path as it heads for the white and silver yacht.

It reaches the sea-jetty and surges over its wooden lip, swelling up and beyond until its mass merges with the dark and heavy-hung clouds above.  They unite to form a vast bulging storm-cloud, blocking her view of the yacht and its light, sinking her into near darkness.

There are no lights dancing on the ocean, nor stars in the sky.

There is only the half-light of the moon to guide her.

She has never felt so alone as she does right now.

From the base of the darkening storm-cloud, a thick layer of black mist begins to slither over the surface of the sea-jetty.  It creeps across her only path to the yacht, covering each of the wooden boards, one by one.  She watches it draw closer, knowing it intends to reach her, to touch her.

She tries to back away, but her legs refuse to move and she is off balance against the motion of the sea.  She tries to keep from falling, to move her legs, her feet, but they’re fastened to the jetty by a force stronger than her.

The sickening black mist surges towards her inch-by-inch.  It is almost upon her, with nothing to stop it or stand in its way.  She watches in horror as it reaches her, as the cold thin darkness slides over her toes and begins slithering up her feet.

Then a warm sensation washes over her and she is steady once more; no longer battling the sea, but moving in time with its rhythms.  She looks down at the soft touch of the black mist as it swirls around her ankles; this is her connection to the giant living darkness of the sea beneath her.  To the storm-cloud hanging heavy in the sky.

She watches it billowing up and out, darkening into a bulbous weight that looks too dense to stay up for long.  Soon it will be full black.  Soon it will cover the half-moon and take the only light from her sky.

From the darkest depths of the bulging mass, at the furthest end of the sea-jetty, a man emerges into the half-light.  The moon’s fragile glow reveals one side of his tall, powerful physique and a single eye, gleaming at her through the darkness.  She blinks in the diminished light, staring in disbelief.

It cannot be him.

This cannot be the man she has grieved for, longed for.  The man she has whispered to in the darkness of her mind.  In private.

Only ever in private.

“How can you be here?” she finally asks.

Her hands clench into fists, grabbing at the long blue dress that once came from him.  She grips the heavy folds tight, then lets it go, grips it tight, then lets it go, over and over.

“I am here because of you,” he says.

His voice is deep and familiar, like a rough hand sensuously caressing the back of her soft neck, bristling her skin into tiny pin-pricks of pleasure.

“I don’t understand,” she says, aware her breathing has quickened.

“You want me here,” he says.

“I do?”

“Of course.”

She starts to release the dress from her fists and allows her hands to relax, just a little.

They came together over the battlefield.  She pretended to love him, to accept him for all that he was, as a tactical mission ploy, with no regrets in the aftermath.  She stares at his coarse, stubble-bearded face and the blood races through her as it did the first time he touched her.

Smiling he begins to walk towards her along the sea-jetty.  As if by his command, the black mist divides in the centre of his path, in front of his large bare feet.  She watches and waits as he comes towards her, striding in slow-motion, tall and confident as he walks down the long wooden path.

His white linen suit flaps around him in sea breezes, almost transparent, even in the dwindling light of the half-moon.  His strong, muscular body moves beneath the lightweight material and she remembers how he felt to her touch, smiling at the memory as he comes closer and awakening the low-down throb of her desire.

And then she sees it.

Something is wrong.

A small dark circle appears at the centre of his broad chest.  She watches in horror as it grows and spreads thick wetness across the clear white fabric.  The saturating patch moves out from where his heart once beat, spreading too fast, draining the colour from his face and limbs and turning once white linen to dripping blood-red.

He falters mid-stride and stops, looking down at the wetness of his darkening suit.  He seems confused by the sudden loss of his own life-blood, at the thick red drops as they form on his trouser ends and plop onto the wooden boards.

He looks up at her and tries to walk again, struggling to pick his feet up from bloody footprints, too loud in their wet stickiness as he staggers towards her.

She cannot move.

Nor can she stop staring at this blooded man coming with slow, dreadful certainty.  She feels the familiar touch of cold steel in her hand and looks down to see a sharp surgical knife glinting outwards, its handle sticky, blade dripping red.

What did I do?

His eyes search hers for answers.  Finding none, he falls forward, collapsing to his knees on the sea-jetty.  He lands hard on solid wood his death echoing back to her.  She stares in useless terror as the blood continues to drain out of him, spreading over the wooden boards and into the inky black ocean.

She throws her knife down, desperate to be rid of the instrument of his death, but it wedges with firm defiance in the wooden path, taunting her as the weapon she used to kill the man she pretended to love.

I did love him.

She looks down at the lifeless man whose warm body she once caressed with her own and watches him do something he never did the last time; twitch his long-dead muscles and start to move again.  He tries to lift himself up from the sea-jetty, but his own blood prevents it.

She hears a horrid tearing sound as he separates himself from the blood-sticking boards beneath.  He struggles to his knees and begins to crawl towards her, this pale-faced, hollow vessel with blue lips stretched wide in a death-grin of blooded teeth.

In a voice that is no longer deep and familiar, but guttural and inhuman, he speaks again.

“I am here because of you.”

She shivers at hearing this.

“I am here,” he growls, “because you put me here.”

She watches revolting dark blood ooze from his grinning mouth, dribble down his chin and drop onto the sea-jetty.  Still she cannot get away from this white shell of a man, dripping in the clothes of his own blood and now she wants to run.  The smooth dark waves rise up between the boards and lap at her feet, taunting her they can come and go, but she is forced to remain still.

Why can’t I move?

“I can tell you why,” the voice of her reason says.  “Do you want to know?”

“Yes,” she croaks.

The hollowed out man on all-fours stops at her feet and reaches out one white hand towards her.  She watches with cold horror as his icy fingers touch her foot and her entire body shudders with revulsion.

“Do you really want to know?”

“I really want to know,” she says, still trying to pull herself free as she watches him slide the white-cold hand up her foot.  He curls each finger, one by one, around her ankle until his vice-like clamp is solid and unyielding, like an ice-sculpture frozen in place.

“You don’t want to run away.  Not really.  You want him to take you down into the darkness like he did before.  You want him to keep you there.”

He starts to slide off the sea-jetty, to return his bloodless body to the waiting black-water.  He pulls on her ankle with a strong hard jerk and her feet finally come free of the wooden boards.  She sits down hard and stares in horror at the man who always had such a hold on her.  Now he’ll never let her go.

“You want to know what it’s like.  Is it warm, in the darkness?  Is it peaceful?”

He grins at her then and she sees his animal, the beast beneath the surface, the one she ignored so she could believe it was the man she had loved, not the darkness within him.  His grip on her ankle reasserts itself, tightens.  He begins to drag her with slow, inescapable progress towards the slime-covered black-water.

No, I never wanted this … this dark monster.

She flips over onto her belly, wrenching her ankle inside its socket.  Her nerves shriek out, racing up her body to her panicked mind, but she refuses to give her fear a voice.  If she starts to scream now, in this place, at this time.  She shakes her head.  No.  No.

She scrabbles at the wooden boards for help, but they are sea-worn smooth and her fingers grasp at nothing.  The back of her hand brushes cold surgical steel, but it’s gone before she recognises the knife.

Her belly scrapes the jetty’s wooden lip as she is pulled towards the dark-water.  Next it will scrape her chest, then her arms and finally she will be pulled under.  She looks over at the face of her dark lover, grinning up at her from the black-water.  He grabs her other ankle, turns his hands to get a better grip, then pulls her faster through the foul-smelling surface.

She feels the wooden lip coming quicker than she thought and grabs for it.  She finds a good finger hold and seizes it.  She stops short of her head being pulled under, but the rest of her body is now submerged in dark-water up to her neck.

The stench of slime just beneath her chin makes her gag.  She looks up at her knuckles, desperately turning white with the effort of holding on and determines she must not be pulled down through the foul-smelling greyness into the dark sea below.

“You blame yourself for his death.”

Part of her wants the empty depths of the swallowing sea, where there are none to remember her betrayal of this man, of her choice to sacrifice his life for the sake of her calling.  She alone had chosen to target and seduce him, use him and then kill him.

“The simple truth is this,” states the voice of her reason.  “You want to die.”

The darkest part of her wants to be released from this endless fight between who she thinks she is and who she really is; to embrace the final peace of silent oblivion.  Her cold fingertips are already tiring from the effort of gripping the wooden lip, her hands are painfully numb and the rest of her body is being warmed by the ripples of the black-water.

A sudden brilliance of light shines down on her and she closes her eyes, turning to face the source and receive its warm glow.  The storm-cloud blocking the white and silver yacht has slithered back into the black-water where it belongs, freeing its captive to gleam once more.

She feels temporary strength returning to her cold fingers and numb hands and she pulls hard on the lip of the wooden jetty.  Her legs kick out, fighting to dislodge the hands gripping her ankles, the warmth of the waves and the heavy folds of her dress.

She kicks hard, but his ice-cold hold on her is solid and unyielding.  Her finger joints scream in protest as she tries to flex them and look for something new to grab onto, but there is nothing.  She cannot pull herself up, only stay where she is, or sink deeper.

The knife, her only chance, is too far out of reach.  Her legs continue to kick out, but they are tiring now and the warm black-water is caressing her back.  It soothes the ache in her shoulders from holding on so long and her kicks are getting slower.

What’s so wrong with giving up anyway?

Haven’t I done enough for this lifetime?

Isn’t it time for me to let go?

Without waiting for a reply from the voice of her reason, she relaxes her grip for a single second.  As if sensing her moment of weakness, he quickly pulls on both ankles at once and she begins to sink with slow relief into the warm black-water’s embrace.

The strong white hands that were gripping her ankles let go and pull her down by her dress instead.  She looks down at her beautiful dress, once a bright symbol of their love.  Now it is streaked with heavy purple bloodstains from this man she betrayed and killed.

He grabs handfuls of her dress and pulls it deeper, dragging her down with it.  She looks for the man’s face and sees the animal waiting for her.  Then beneath him, the many faces of the others.  The others who died at her hand.  Waiting.  Wanting.

No.  Not like this.  Never like this.

Terror propels her into action and she starts scraping at the shoulder straps of her dress.  She scratches at her skin, turning it red raw and bloody as she works to get her fingertips underneath the tight metal-frayed straps.  They released so easily their first night together, when this creature clawing at her was still a man.

But that man is gone now.  There is only the monster pulling her deeper.  Soon his cold white hands will find her beneath the dress and keep her in the deep dark sea forever.  She pulls harder and is startled as the straps suddenly give way, releasing her from captivity.

Buoyant with new freedom she kicks hard and pushes up towards the ocean’s surface.  She looks back down to see if her monster-lover will rise again, but there is only a dark shape beneath her.  She races to emerge from the black-water and reaches up for the jetty’s edge.

She grabs on with both hands and heaves the top half of her naked body out of the ocean, collapsing onto the wooden boards.  The foulest layer of slime still clings to her skin as her feet dangle over the edge, dripping with the warmth of the black-water.  She rests there, breathing hard, stopping just for a moment, just to regain a little more of her strength.

She takes another breath before preparing to pull the rest of her body out, but a dead white hand reaches up out of the dark sea and grabs her ankle again.  He pulls hard and starts to haul her back down towards him, scraping her thighs on the wooden lip as she is dragged backwards.

“Reach for it,” commands the voice of her reason.

“What?”

“NOW!”

She thrusts a hand across the sea-jetty, not looking but trusting it will be there.  She recognises the cold steel of her knife and grabs hold of it.  Relief turns to pain as she tightens her hand around the razer-sharp blade, slicing into her two smallest fingers.  She can feel the quickening of her heart-beat in every pulse as she watches the blood spurt out of her hand and onto the wooden boards.

Regardless she pulls harder, dislodging the knife from its place in the boards, her almost-severed fingers hanging on by chunks of skin and muscle.  She transfers the knife to her other hand, then turns and allows herself to be pulled back into the dark sea.  The black-water soft against her damaged body becoming warmer the deeper she sinks.

She finally comes face-to-face with the man she killed.  He grips her upper arms and presses tight, almost crushing them into her shoulders.  She feels their bodies moving together with the waves, ebbing and flowing at the will of the tide as it pulls them away from the safe-harbour and out to sea.

How do you fight the tide once it has you?

She looks into the face of the man she loved, but he is not there, only the blank grinning animal she was sent to hunt, capture and betray.  It is a face of pure hatred.  This monster wants revenge.  She can feel them sinking together into the darkest depths of the ocean as they are pulled towards their inevitable fate.

This is it then.

This creature wants to drag her down to the darkest part of the ocean, but it doesn’t just want to kill her.  That would be too easy.  It wants to take its time with her, to take control of the knife she used on him, the man she took from the world above and forced into this realm below.  It wants to slice her up little by little and strip every part of her, as it eats her.

It could start with my fingers; they’re hardly there.

“You have to kill it.”

It’s already dead.  How do you kill something that’s already dead?  Something that hated you so much it survived beyond its own death?

“What’s stronger than hate?”

She looks at the creature then, into the face of its hate and forces herself to remember the man she loved.  The man who showed her deep inside his world, danced with her in the moonlight and gave her his jumper because she was cold.  She smiles and leans in, planting a small kiss on each side of the hideous face.

The monsters face ripples and she sees a battle raging within him, between man and beast.  She sees confusion in the man’s face, just like the day he uncovered her betrayal.  She sees fury in the creature’s face, fighting for control as its claw-hands grip her tighter.

Then it transforms back into the face of the man, the one she grieved for through the long nights, wearing the jumper he gave her, pretending to sleep.  The man she shouldn’t have loved, but did.  The man for whom she beat and tortured other people, even a member of her own team.

Perhaps the monster was always there, inside of him, I just didn’t want to see it.

His grip on her arms loosens and she sees the man looking at her, examining her features as if seeing them for the first time.  They begin to rise to the surface of the ocean together, looking into each other’s eyes.  The coolness of the water barely registers on her skin, but she is grateful for the air that he no longer needs.

His hands slide up her shoulders and she smiles at the gentleness of his rough touch, at the familiarity of his fingers caressing her broken skin.  As his fingertips move gently up her neck and light on her cheeks, a smile begins to form on his face and he closes his eyes, expecting her lover’s kiss.

“Just as you knew he would.”

She takes one last look at his face, drawing in every detail to remember him like this.  The beautiful fullness of his lips she kissed so many times and meant it.  She smiles back at him, but it starts to falter and quiver with fresh grief and is surprised to find herself close to tears.  She places a light kiss on his lips then brings her knife up and cuts deep across his throat.

Blood pours out of his yawning neck as his head falls back in a gruesome gape of surprise.  His eyes open and he looks at her, questioning her betrayal, but she ignores their plea and cuts into his neck again, deeper this time, right back to the place where there is bone.  His head lolls back to reveal dead flesh and release a large cloud of suffocating darkness.

Then his grip on her is gone, and she is free.  The knife falls from her hand and she watches it disappear into the black ocean beneath her along with her twice-dead lover.  Her legs kick out and disturb the bloody water all around her, churning a dark swirl to cover his sinking corpse.

The sea-jetty is so small and far away, but the ocean’s surface is clear across to it; no layer of thick and foul-smelling slime is in the way to choke her as she starts to swim towards the safe-harbour.  Her arms reach forward to draw the water back and at once she is aware of her two fingers hanging loose.  They push and pull with the resistance of the waves and feel as if they may snap off at any moment.

Maybe it would have been better to lose them altogether.

She feels the black-water pressing against her, whispering warmth to coax her back to its depths, forcing her to make slow and sluggish progress through painful strokes, each one a labour to her complaining limbs.

Her long dark hair trails behind her, ripe to be grabbed and pulled back under.  At any moment she expects to feel the cold grip of white fingers on her ankle again, or the sudden stab of a stainless steel knife, before dragging her down to the ocean’s depths one final time, to entwine with her headless lover forever.

Perhaps that would be justice.  For betraying a man in life and in death.  For killing him twice when his defences were down.

“He would have killed you.”

The wooden sea-jetty blurs in front of her as warm tears escape from her eyes at last.

“You defended yourself.”

She doesn’t reply, but keeps kicking with weak legs, pulling with aching arms, through sea-water that feels a degree cooler with every stroke.

“Twice.”

She dips her head under the cold water, washing the grief from her face and the blurriness from her eyes.  She thinks she feels a hand on her leg and the thought sends adrenaline racing through her body.

Is it him?

She reaches a hand down and runs it along the length of her leg.  Both legs.  But there is nothing there.  She looks down into the ocean, afraid of seeing him rise up beneath her, but the water is clear and empty.  She scans it a couple of times, but only sees her legs working beneath to keep her afloat.

It is enough to quieten her fear.

For now.

She kicks harder towards the jetty, new energy surging as she grabs hold of her need to get out of the water and away from him.  She cuts through the cold pure water with strong determined strokes and, before her mind can weary again, she is reaching for the sea-jetty.

Her hands grab the wooden lip and she pulls herself up and out in one easy movement, not stopping until she is safe on land and away from the water’s edge.  She collapses in the middle of the warm wooden boards and turns her head to look out over the smooth surface of the ocean for any movement.  For any sign of her dark lover returning.

Is this a Dream or a Nightmare?

“Exactly.”

She gives up trying to understand and focuses on breathing deep; to slow her racing heart and calm her chaotic mind.  She feels a warm trickle on her belly and looks down at fresh blood pumping out from her injured fingers.

Clear water from the ocean surges up between the wooden boards and creates mini cold waves to break over her.  Its harsh sting slaps her naked shivering skin into hardened goosebumps.  She carefully holds her damaged hand close to her chest and stands up, steadying her legs before she looks back down into the deep water.

The sea is no longer black, it is clear into the depths and she can see his face.  His head is still attached to the carcass beneath it, though she doesn’t care to know by how much.  He looks at her with something like reproach.  You killed me twice, he seems to say, but without the voice to do so.

Instead, she sees his clenched fist rising up, forefinger raised.  It points to his head, to his temple, and she feels her own hand lifting to mirror his.  She points a finger to the place at her temple where she tore a hole and bled for him.  A warm trickle starts there and she touches it to see fresh blood on her fingers.

I have my scars.  The deepest ones came from those I loved.

She shakes the blood off, then carefully cups her mangled hand to her heart.  So many faces are looking up at her from the ocean now, mingling together, silently screaming their last, as they were sacrificed to her calling.  She acknowledges them with a small respectful nod, then turns and walks away to the large white and silver yacht.

The brightening light almost shimmers to white on her pale skin, stark in contrast with the long red streaks of blood running down her naked body, trickling down her stomach and from her temple, flowing warm down the side of her face.

Her long black hair is stuck to her back and shoulders, dripping wet down her skin with cold drops that make her shiver.  Seawater mixed with the blood from her hair and small puddles form on the wooden sea-jetty behind her, like some terrible watercolour reminder of what she has done, but she doesn’t look back.

She winces a little at the yacht’s glaring light and releases her mangled fingers so she can put a hand up to shield her eyes from white blindness.  She steps up and onto the vessel’s wide, firm gangplank; solid and unswerving under her feet, she walks without stopping to the top.

Finally on board, she turns and leans heavily on the nearest silver rail, light and smooth, yet solid enough to help bear the burden.  With her back to the yacht, leaning against it, she breathes in deep.  The yacht’s dazzling silver-light beams out from everywhere, warming her naked body and reminding her she has been liberated from all the dark secrets she tried to keep hidden.

She looks out over the ocean’s vast expanse as it glistens with thousands of tiny moon-tinted lights, dancing out to the horizon and beyond.  The stars are brighter in her sky now; each one takes a turn to gleam with unique light before diminishing and allowing the next star its chance to shine.

Tiredness washes through her and she leans back against the warmth of the silver yacht, like a welcome radiator after the coldest of journeys home.  The brilliant white and silver light is all around her, like a halo for her body, but it isn’t just soothing her weary limbs and tired soul, it’s healing every part of her.

She looks down at her mangled hand, but it doesn’t look so hideous now.  Her fingers are no longer hanging by a thread, they are knitting back onto her hand.  Filaments of silver-light have joined the almost-separated parts together, like an otherworld seamstress working with skilful speed to mend what was broken.

The cut was smooth, as was the blade that made it and she watches the warm, healing silver-light turn her dark, blood-red gaping wounds into healthy pink skin.  She stares at her fingers; they have healed like new, as if it they were never severed.

Her scratched and red-raw shoulder skin is smooth and untouched.  She reaches up to her head, to the place where a small river of blood was flowing before, but the skin is dry and unbroken.  Only her scar remains.

And she knows.  That this is where she is meant to be, this is what she was made to do, and she will not be letting go of that.

At least not yet.

I don’t know where you are.

“I am here with you.”

Was that you?

Or is it just your voice inside my head?

Or something else?

“I am here with you.”

“Are you?”

My words echo down the lonely shadowed hallway.  Its once bright golden walls relished the warm light of the sun so much, they refused to let it go, but now they’re muted and dark, as if a storm is imminent.

There’s no movement in here.  It mirrors the stillness of my body.  I am sat on the carpeted floor with my back to the door of my office.  I stretch up carefully against the solid wood, but there’s no ache, no pain.

Where are you?

“I am here with you.”

“Stop saying that,” I reply.  “You’re not.”

“How do you know?”

“I can’t see you.”

“That does not mean I am not here.”

I can’t feel your presence.  I don’t know where your words are coming from.

How did I come to be here on the floor?

I remember completing my shift of watchroom duties, ready to welcome the changeover period.  I always look forward to your coming, with a cup of tea and a smile.  It’s always the simplest acts of love that make me smile.

Was I making coffee for you?  The air does not smell of it.

And why is it so quiet?

Even on the calmest of days I can hear the gulls crying to Poseidon; bring fish to the surface so our families may live another cycle of the tide.  But not today.  I should be able to hear the wind around our Lighthouse, even if it’s just a whispered sigh, but I can’t.

Nor can I hear the deep tick-tocking of our Grandfather clock.  I look up from the floor at his gilded face, staring down at me from the dark mahogany casing, his clock-hands frozen and metrical voice silent.

He cannot have stopped.  He has never stopped in over a hundred years of faithful winding by our predecessors.  And you would never leave him so neglected.  Just as you promised you would never leave me.

“And so I haven’t.”

“Then where are you?”

“I can show you if you let me.”

“What does that mean?”

“Which part of ‘I can show you if you let me’ is confusing you?”

“All of it.  Now tell me what you mean.”

“Exactly what I just said.  Now shush your mush, close your eyes, and let me lead you.”

I smile.  That sounds more like you.

I close my eyes, breathing in long and slow, then out as I settle myself down.  I feel a strong pull from my heart and, eyes still closed, I follow it to standing.  I pause for a moment with my bare feet on the carpeted floor.

Something is wrong.  I usually enjoy the feel of carpet beneath my toes, but I can’t feel it at all.  I squeeze my toes into the soft pile, recalling a memory of how it used to feel, and a little of that sensation returns.

Something else, too.  I did not creak like a rusted door hinge when I got up from the floor.  I did not have to straighten my spine out like the slow progress of evolutionary man; from hunched-over ape to fully standing human.

It’s been many years since I was able to move without at least some discomfort or stiffness, and now my joints feel as if they are young and new again.  Better, even, because they feel nothing at all.

I keep my eyes closed and begin to walk slowly through our home, finding my way as if I can perceive the walls and furniture around me.  I wonder if blind people develop their senses, so they can detect objects.

Or does the furniture come alive when our eyes close?  Sometimes it just seems to jump in and out of the way, depending on its mood.  Sometimes even when are eyes are open too.

“You always did have the most random thoughts.”

I can hear you smiling when you say that, you know.

“How is that random?” I ask the stale air.  “I was following my train of thought.”

“Final destination, malicious furniture with a penchant for jumping.”

You’re hilarious.

“I know.”

I find my way to the bottom of the stairs, where soft carpet gives way to cool stone, and I stop.  I don’t want to go any further.  I don’t want to go up there and see what’s at the top, but I don’t know why.

I open my eyes and look up the spiral stone staircase.  There is nothing to see except worn steps indented from many years of service, and a smooth-worn handrail of solid wood.

But nothing to hear.

It troubles me greatly that there is nothing to hear.  At the very least there should be a soft whistle of wind as it sneaks in beside the long thin windows.  I put a hand up close to the window’s edge to touch the breeze sneaking in, but there is nothing.

No air dancing on my fingertips, and no seaweed scent of the sea.

I try to look out the thin window, but there is only black.  No reflection of my face pressed against it, and nothing outside.  Just black.  I should be able to see the lighthouse beam as it arcs around.  I wait a little longer for its elegant light to sweep the perimeter, but it’s not there.

And neither are you.

I still don’t know where you are.

“I’m waiting for you.”

That’s creepy.

It sounds like you’re hiding at the top of the stairs with a shovel at the ready, waiting to cave my head in; ‘I’m waiting for you.’

“And how can you be waiting for me?” I ask the stuffy air, “If you’re already here with me?”

“Thank you, Mrs Logic.  You never could take something on faith.  Always had to see the proof of it, before you believed.”

“I believed.”

“Not all the time.”

“My belief grew over time.”

“Once you had proof.  And even then, it was never a certainty.”

“Well excuse me for having doubts.  We can’t all be as certain as you when it comes to matters of the heart.”

“Your heart was never the problem.  Overthinking it was.”

“So I should’ve just stopped thinking, that’s what you’re saying?”

“Stop putting words in my mouth, you know that’s not what I mean.”

I purse my lips and begin stomping up the stairs, bare feet smacking the warm smooth stone.

“Well if you’re going to batter me round the head with a shovel,” I say.  “Here I come.”

“I’m not going to batter you with a shovel,” you say, with a patience for me I have never really understood.  “Despite you pushing my buttons.”

A smile comes to my face as I continue up the steps.  I am enjoying the feel of my legs working in harmony with my body.  I’d forgotten how it feels.

“And as the Art of War guy says, ‘If someone pushes your buttons, change the combination.’”

“That’s not what he said.”

“That’s how I interpret it.”

“You always did have a tenuous grasp on historical accuracy.”

“Maybe I’m coming up these stairs to batter you, Mr Smarty-Pants.”

“That’s Professor Smarty-Pants, if you don’t mind.”

My smile widens as I reach the top, turning the corner to see a fully lit, open watchroom before me.  This part of our Lighthouse is all windows, with far-reaching views of the coast on calm days, or a close-up look at the raging seas that crash against rock and Lighthouse alike on stormier ones, but all I can see is total blackness.  And no reflections.  As if the glass has been covered, inside and out.

For hundreds of years this has been a Lighthouse, guiding Lightships and saving lives from a painful death by drowning, although at the moment there is no light to steer any lost souls to safety.  It is only during the last couple of centuries it has been transformed into –

I stop.  I cannot go any further.  I am staring at your chair.

You are there, but you are not there.

It’s just your body.

“How do you know I’m not there?”

I move towards you without wanting to.  Your skin is so pale, tinged with blue, and I know your body is cold without having to touch it.  I do not want to touch it.  And yet my hands are reaching out to you.  For you.

Except it’s not you.

It’s your body, but it’s not you.

“How do you know?”

You aren’t there to fill that body with life, with love, with your warm smile to greet me as you stand and come towards me, as you put your arms around me and your hot breath awakens my skin.

Besides, your voice is coming from inside my head, not this empty vessel before me.  I come closer and feel the tears start, blurring my vision before I brush them aside.  There is a growing ache in my limbs that wasn’t there before.

I stop beside you and look down.  You were sitting when it happened, with your head laid down upon your arms like a pillow, as if you had travelled to the land of perfect sleep with no return.

“I am here with you.”

I shake my head in reply.  The stiffness is slowing me down now, so I grab the edge of the desk to help me kneel down beside you.  I look closer at your face and see the contours I have traced with my fingers so many times.  Still they draw me to look upon them as if I am seeing you for the first time.

You look so peaceful in your constant sleep, no smiling wrinkles on your face that you always had too few of.  I cannot see your eyes with their lids closed in breathless sleep.  I love your eyes; they would look at me as if I were the greatest miracle to occur on this, or any other planet.

“You were.”

I smile and reach out a hand to touch your face.

“So were you.”

I have barely touched your cold smooth skin, when I am yanked backwards; a fast reversal of the journey I just took.  Watchroom, stone stairs, carpeted hallway floor.  Once more I am aware of the hard wooden door against my back.  Did I move?  Did I see and feel you upstairs in the watchroom?  Was that real?

Is this?

“Am I dreaming?” I ask the air.  It is harder to breathe now; I can feel it lodging heavy on my chest.  “Because if I am, I would really like to wake up.”

“You’re not dreaming.”

“Then what the hell is going on?”

“How much do you remember?”

“About what?  What is it that I’m meant to be remembering?”

I look up at the Grandfather clock, as if the answers will be written on his face, but all he says is ‘It is twenty-five-to-twelve’.  Which is odd, because I’m sure only a few minutes ago he said, ‘It is ten-past-eleven’, yet he is still frozen in time.

I stare up at him, and it finally comes to me.

Time is out of joint.

Something has caused this.

Was it me?

“Why – ”

Is that what happened to you?  Did I batter you with a shovel?  I didn’t see one upstairs.  I know our arguments get heated sometimes, but to do that?

“Why do you always have to – ”

“Did I …?  Could I …?”  But I cannot form the question in my thoughts, let alone speak them.

And then I hear laughter inside my head.  Coming from you.  You are laughing at me.

Not in a creepy ‘I’m coming to haunt you for all eternity because you battered me with a shovel’ kind of way, but the laugh I remember from when you were alive.  A laugh so wild, so free, so deeply musical, I always loved to hear it.

But not in this moment.  In this moment you’re not laughing with me, you’re laughing at me, and right now your laughter is really starting to piss me off.

“When you’ve quite finished,” I say.

Your laughter trails off from wherever you are.  You could be a thousand miles away, or on the other side of this door.  All I know is I can hear it inside my head which, for all I know, has finally lost the plot completely.

“Why do you always have to assume it’s your fault, or it’s a problem with your head?  How could you ever think you were responsible for my death?”

“It was a logical conclusion,” I say.  “Apparently, shovels and head-battering were on my mind, and I thought that maybe …”

“No.  That’s not you.  That was never you.”

Your voice is so warm, even without your breath to carry it on.

“You were never capable of something like that.  It’s absurd.”

I sigh and lean back against the door, feeling the warmth only solid wood can have, but its comfort is hard and unyielding.  It is not malleable as you once were, it cannot grow arms and hold me as you once did.

The tears return, touching my grief, and I let them.

You will never hold me close and surround me with strong arms.  Never stroke my hair and ease my doubtful thoughts into peaceful submission.  Never place a hand at the back of my neck to make me feel safe in this dangerous and unjust world.

“It’s not fair,” I say to the thick cloying air of our house, our home, and your final resting place.  I feel the rage swelling up within me; bitter rage at the universe for giving you to me, and hopeless anger for taking you away again.

“IT’S NOT FAIR!”

I breathe with a greater effort now, as if I’m eating the dense air.  The pain has returned to my joints and to everywhere else too, it seems, worse than before, so any movement I make will hurt deeper.

I feel my emotions grow colder, grow darker, like a heavy storm-cloud blackening before it bursts into uncontrollable rain on the boiling sea.  I allow the swell of emotion to rise up within me, then crash and split apart on the unyielding rocks.

Once it is has lost its force, my rage at the universe subsides as fast as it rose, leaving an empty shell within my chest.  I let go into the grief, my body shaking with the helpless injustice of it.  You were too young, I should have been the one to go first. 

I turn to the side, ignoring my body’s scream at the movement, and pull my knees up to my chest.  I rest my cheek on the smooth wooden door, pressing against its solid shape for comfort.  I stroke the wood with soft wet fingertips and imagine it curving around me, like an early morning duvet cocooning me with its warmth.

If this were my coffin, nothing would get in.

It would hold me forever.

 “It’s not enough,” I say.

“It never is.”

 “Why did you leave me?”

“I’m still here.”

“No, you’re not!  You’re just a voice in my head.  Like you were before we met.  When I thought I was off my nut because I heard your voice inside my head, telling me you would come for me.  How was I meant to know?”

“Because I came for you.”

“I can’t go back,” I say.  “I can’t go back to the way it was before you came.  Now that I’ve known a life with you.  I just can’t.”

The sadness starts to climb up within me again.

“I know.”

“Do you?” I ask, using the heel of my hand to press the fresh tears from my eyes.  “Do you know what it’s like to find your most beloved one dead?  Do you know what it’s like to never touch their warm body again?”

“Yes I do.”

“Then tell me how to deal with this.”

“Look at the clock.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not changing the subject.  Look at the clock.”

“The clock?  Why?”

“When are you simply going to do as I ask?  Look at the clock.”

“I already did.  It said twenty-five-to-twelve.  Which is bonkers because five minutes earlier it said ten-past-eleven – ”

“Can’t you just do what I ask?  Please just look at the clock.”

I look up at the Grandfather clock again.  The minute hand has shifted without sound or movement, and now stands at five-to-midnight.  How is that possible?  The only way a clock-hand could change so much, without sound or movement, is if –

And then it finally dawns on me.

“Oh no.”

Time is dangerously out of joint.

“Finally.  It’s about bloody time.”

The lack of feeling in my body, the suppressed sounds, the suffocating air, the missing light from outside, and windows with no reflection.

“Oh crap.”

The silence has come.

“Exactly.  Now as much as I would like to argue with you, we don’t have time.”

“Crap.”

The silence took you.  Why didn’t it take me too?

“Now, I need you believe me when I tell you that I am here with you.”

“Okay,” I say, daring the minute hand of the clock to move again while I’m watching it.

“No, I really mean it.  Believe Me.”

“Okay.”

The clock didn’t say ten-past-eleven when I first looked at it.  I was wrong.

“You have to feel me with you, only then can I pull you through this.”

“Okay.”

It was eleven-minutes-past-eleven.  Eleven-eleven.  The doorway.

“Stop saying Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Freya!”

That breaks my gaze on the clock hands.

“Sorry.  I’m here.”

“I need you to close your eyes again, and trust me.”

I glance at the clock once more, and then shut my eyes tight.

I have the strangest sensation of being pulled backwards.  Which shouldn’t be possible, because there’s a wooden door behind me.  Except now it’s pliable, surrounding me like I wanted it to.

I can feel the wood grain around me.  No, not around me.  It feels more like it’s moving through me, going inside my body as I am being pulled from the hallway to the study.  Except it isn’t moving through me, of course, I am moving through it. 

Does the door feel me?  Does it feel my heart and body, like I feel its grains and splinters?

And now I have stopped.  Stuck in the middle of its solid wooden mass.

“Stop fighting this.”

“What happened?”

“You tensed up and stopped me from bringing you through.”

“How?”

“We really don’t have time for your questions and random thoughts right now.”

I frown at your voice; it seems to be less inside my head, and more like it’s coming from behind me.

“There’s no need to get snippy.”

I think I hear a heavy sigh, while my head is surrounded by the door.  Does that mean my mouth is full of tiny wooden spikes that move in and out as I speak?  If I opened my eyes, would I see more grains of wood like the ones stuck in my body?  I might not be able to see at all because they are actually inside my eyes.  Best not, then.

“Can you feel my hands?”

I can feel hands touching my back, I hope they’re yours.

“Yes of course they are.  Focus on my hands, and you will come.”

With a single breath I relax, feeling your large strong hands as you pull me through.  I am lying on the floor of our study, looking up at you as you stand over me.

“I can see you,” I say.

“I can see you, too,” you say with a smile.

You are no longer just a voice in my head, but a face in front of me.  You offer me your hands as you once did and I take them, feeling their cool smoothness in my own.

I pause to ready myself for standing up with the effort of my years, but it is neither hard nor painful.  I stand easily and we look at each other for a moment, then you pull me into your arms and it feels like home.

 “I’ve missed you,” I say.  Your arms feel the same around me, but I cannot smell your scent.

“I wasn’t gone that long.”  Your voice is as it once was, though its resonance is muted like all the sounds in this air-soup that has invaded our Lighthouse.

“Long enough,” I say and draw back to look at your face.  It looks as it once did, though you now have a hint of that same cold blueness I saw upstairs.

“What happened to you?” I ask.

You smile at me with gentle forgiveness, as if I haven’t fully understood yet.  It’s a look I’ve come to know well over the years.  You hold me firmly and turn me to look over your shoulder.

I am there, sitting in my desk-chair.

But I am not really there.

It’s just my body.

It looks like I am asleep on the desk, my head resting on folded arms like a pillow, but of course I’m not.  I stagger a little at the sight of my body and you keep me upright, then pull me tight into your arms again.

“I know,” you say into my ear.  “I know what it’s like to find my most beloved one dead.  I know what it’s like to never be able to touch them again.”

I nod against you.

“And you know that we are touching now, but it isn’t real, don’t you?”

I nod again.  I know.  I know what this means for us.

We are dead.  The silence came for us both.  I draw back from you and stand looking into your eyes.  Once I could see clear down into their depths, but now they hold only a surface reflection, a glimpse of what was.

Our presence will remain here only until the clock strikes twelve.  Then we will either move on to our next life, or remain here to become trapped entities, wandering the earth until someone helps us cross-over.

A replacement shift will come and remove our bodies, then take our places in the watchroom.  Time will turn for them as it has stopped for us.

BONG!

You smile at me and take my hand, intertwining your fingers in mine as we have done so many times before, but for the last time.

BONG!

We move back to my body, lying so peaceful and still, sleeping forever as we hear the clock work to complete its twelve strikes.  It is the only passage of time that cannot be quickened.

BONG!

We kneel down beside my body, and I look up into my face.  It is a cool pale blue, with fewer lines than I would’ve expected.

BONG!

I look at you and ask, “How will I find you again?”

You smile and say, “I will come and find you.”

BONG!

I ask, “Will you do something for me?”

Your hand tightens its grip on mine as you say, “Anything.”

BONG!

“Come and find me a little sooner next time.”

“I promise,” you say.  “But you have to promise to believe me when I come for you.”

BONG!

Your free hand reaches out and gently tilts my head up to meet yours.  You plant a soft kiss on my cheek, then pull back to meet my eyes with a smile.

I smile back, “I promise.”

BONG!

I reach for the side of my pale blue cold face, holding tight to your hand so I do not lose you until I have to.  I touch my dead cheek, just long enough to marvel at its smoothness before I hear

BONG!

I feel a rush as we are pulled away, hands entwined.

I follow you into the darkness.

White light into Summerland.

A forest of green, an ocean of blue.

The pink darkness of separation.

I don’t know where you are.

My hand feels different.

Not the left one holding the wine glass, that one’s perfectly normal, though somewhat chilly and wet.  It’s the other one.  It feels vacant.  I transfer the wine glass to it, but it doesn’t fill the emptiness.

It doesn’t always feel that way.

Sometimes when I’m alone in a crowd, I think I feel fingers entwined with mine, but when I look down they’re not there.  When I walk alone I’ll feel someone beside me, but there’s no-one.  It’s just my imagination creating a fantasy.

I look down at the wine I’ve got left and contemplate another drink, but that means spending more time here to drink it.  I’ve taken a long time with each glass.  Not because I run the risk of getting drunk, the bar staff have been well paid to supply me with fake wine all night long.

I just don’t want to be here.

I shouldn’t feel this way at my own exhibition, but I do.

I had to be here, no choice in it one way or the other.  It took all day just to get the order of my photographs right, and even then I felt compelled to remain, walking slowly around the room in endless circles, checking and re-checking.

I begin another circuit of the room, following the sequence of black and white photographs, glancing over the small tints of carefully placed colour in each one.  Churches, graveyards, and the clock faces I have always been drawn to.

Photography is my obsession, it has been since my first throw-away camera.  Sometimes it feels like it is the only thing I want to do.  Other times it feels like a means to an end. 

Of late, my subject matter has expanded to include Lighthouses; towers that do not have a face to document time, but have a flashing light to measure the rhythm of their hours and centuries.

As I walk along to the end of the sequence, I see two women scrutinising my final photograph; a solitary Lighthouse, on its desolate rock, with dark clouds looming.  I turn my back to them, but it doesn’t stop their words from reaching me.

“She does like to shoot tall pointed objects, must be a certain Freudian influence.”

Then they laugh in that way people do when they think they’re being intelligent or witty at an art exhibition.

“Yes, yes,” the other one agrees.  “That would explain their popularity and why they are so ridiculously overpriced.”

This is their semi-literate way of saying I have a penis-fetish.

Bollocks.  Pun intended.  Perhaps next time I should photograph erect office buildings, shining tall and pink in the early morning sun, complete with two hanging bushes at their base.

These people and their opinions used to interest me, then for a while they annoyed me, now they just don’t matter.  I walk away from the women and their words, their theories and criticisms, and let them float there to be flushed away.

I don’t know what I hate more.  The crap they talk, or the fact that I have to be here to listen to it.  Sober.  I never used to be.  Sober, I mean.  I attended my first exhibition on red wine, and made an exhibition of myself instead.

Fortunately for me, I had friends in attendance who thought it was hilarious, and no-one from the press.  Some of them thought it might even add to my ‘artistic mystique’.  But really, how seriously do you take an artist after you’ve seen their knickers?  Exactly.

As I continued to reveal them to the public – the photos, not my knickers – I came to understand that once displayed, these images no longer belonged to me.  They belonged to whoever sees them and feels an emotional connection with them.

So, they belong to those women now.  You see what you want to see.  Perhaps it’s not me who has the penis-fetish, after all.  For me, their meaning is not that complicated; they’re about the passage of time, and the unseen clock-face always hanging over your head, counting down to the end only it knows.

Plus, obviously, penises.

Kidding.

Well, mostly…

I withdraw from the voices swarming around me until they become white noise and I cannot distinguish their words.  I look over at the make-shift bar, watching the clock above their heads.

If the clock hands could speak, they would say it’s almost five to midnight.  And once they strike the hour, I will take my leave.  Until then, I will linger here, hiding in plain sight from these strangers who think they know me.

What I really want is to be alone with my camera, travelling back to Scotland’s far north, where the wind races unchecked round its Lighthouses, and the sea speaks of its own time and place.

I give the clock-face another glance and think to hell with it, I’ve been here long enough, it’s time for me to move on.  I begin to saunter towards the bar as if I’m getting another drink.

I smile at a few of the attendees as I pass by their blurred faces in the crowd.  I don’t linger, or give them a second glance.  Not an opportunity to talk, just smile and nod.  I will put my glass down on the bar, and head for the exit.

“I am here with you.”

I smile at the familiar sound of his voice in my head.  The man who says he is here, but never is.

“I am coming for you.”

Really?  Again?

For all the times I’ve heard him speak, he has never appeared, not even a glimpse.  Sometimes, for fun, I follow my intuition to see if he will appear where I am drawn to, but he never is.  Some beautiful Lighthouses, though.

“I am here.”

“Of course you are,” I mutter, and immediately regret it as the people near me turn at the sound of my voice.  No bother, they’ll think I’m just a bonkers artist who talks to herself.

And they would be right.  On both counts.

I walk over to the table that has transformed into a pretend bar.  The bar staff and I greet each other as the old friends we have become on this endless journey from morning to night, and I get ready to swallow the last of my fake white wine.

“I am here.”

“Not if you’ve got any sense, you’re not,” I speak into the glass just before I drain the last of it.  I put the wineglass down and make for the door, but my way is blocked by a man.  Normally I would just keep my head down and push past, but something makes me look up.

It is your eyes I see first, so open and welcoming, so clear and so deep, with a hint of mischief around the edge that makes me want to smile.  You look into mine as if this is what you came here for.

“It is.”

Well, that’s just spooky.  That voice is so strong and clear inside my mind.  Same voice.  But you’re here, not just a voice in my head.  How can you be speaking to me like this?  Your lips didn’t move did they?

Is that really you? 

“Of course it is.  When I saw the Lighthouses in your work, I knew it was time.”

Yeah, sure.

“You doubted I would come for you.”

A little.  No, that’s not true, I’ve entertained doubts so immense I’ve taken them to Edinburgh Castle just to fit them in.

“That’s funny.”

Almost.

You’re smiling at me as if you really heard me, so once again my doubt begins to knock for attention.

“It’s okay,” you say.  “I will persuade you.  It is always my pleasure to persuade you.”

I want to believe you.  I do.  But I’m starting to feel very aware of the fact that I’m standing here opposite a man I haven’t spoken a word to yet.

“Then let me hold you, and all else will pass us by.”

I stare into your face, and you look at me like you’ve always known me.  You come towards me with your arms already beginning to open and I step into them, meeting you where we come together.

We fit as one.  I breath in to you, and we breathe out together.  Your hand reaches up and gently tilts my head to regard yours.  You plant a soft kiss on my cheek, then pull back and meet me with a smile.

I see visions.

Another lighthouse.  So beautiful.  On an island.  With strong wind and loud seagulls.

“Are they just visions?”

Maybe not.  I think they might be memories.  Or even the future.  I shake a little, but you hold me close.  My face turns in towards your neck.  Your warmth is a smell I didn’t know I was missing until now.  It smells like home.

“I’ve missed you.”  Your voice is soft in my ear as you hold me.  I know your voice.  I’ve heard it so often in my head.  It sounds different now.  It feels different, carried on warm breath.

“I’ve missed you, too,” I whisper back.  And I have.  I just didn’t know it till now.

I feel your arms relax and drop, but before I can miss them too much, you have taken my hand.  Our fingers intertwine naturally, fitting together, and I know this is the answer to the emptiness of my hand.

And now I know where you are.

“Let’s go home.”