the hallow road
I wish to thank my friend oosh for her invaluable proof-reading and advice on this story, and commend her stories to you.
Ahead of us, the trees began to close in, branches hanging low over the water, casting damp shadows on the leaf-strewn ground and causing the temperature to drop discernibly. For the first time, a twinge of doubt entered my mind.
The Hallow Road.
I hadn't used that expression in years.
I was aware of a rustle in the beech trees behind and the air fell chill. It was no darker than it had been a moment before, but it felt as though a shadow had descended over me. A faint dizziness swept through me and I listed to the side, resting heavily on my palm to keep my balance. A sheet of panic iced across my forehead as I felt the first twinges of that long forgotten, much reviled sensation begin to creep through me.
The door handle turned and the door swung open and there, in the frame, as I knew she would, stood Mary Ripley. She was a beautiful woman, just as I remembered her: young and slender, with a fragile, almost childish mien and a glimpse of vulnerability in the cagy restlessness of her eyes. She caught sight of me and started, a girlish whoop rising from her throat.
But still, in my solitude, I could hear her cries in my head, from some distant place, a place I couldn't reach. The more I heard her, remote and untouchable, the more the sense of disconnection grew, and the more my terror took control. I ran round the clearing, lungs seared by the heat and eyes baked and aching. Flames were licking around the scrub beneath the trees, their progress erratic but inevitable as they began to devour the helpless vegetation.
I dreamed of Jane that night. I knew I would. Too many emotions had been stirred and too many memories revived for the most vital of them all to remain latent any longer. I slept a deep and troubled sleep and in the dark of the night she came to me, as shimmeringly beautiful as ever...
A current buzzed through the room and I instantly felt cold. Beside me, Carlee sat up in surprise and felt for my hand. I knew immediately that the woman had recognised me and in that instant I, too, realised who she was. And I was afraid...
I reached my nadir that evening, on the settee, with Carlee's hand on my knee, and I cried. "Help me," I whispered, the first time I had spoken those words in eighteen years. Eighteen years since I had been betrayed by those I loved, since I had dared to express my fears only to find them glossed over...
Above us, framed by trees on either bank, a circlet of sky was visible, matted with clouds, grey and heavy. Suddenly, from the east, it cleared into a fragile blue, almost translucent, delicate beyond words, and the merest sliver of sunshine threaded down, varnishing the river's surface with golds and silvers...
To walk hand in hand with Jane along the Hallow Road, reliving my childhood, breathing the sharp air and delighting in the rain-washed colours and sounds and smells, was something I had dreamed of so many times, a star-bright fantasy leavening the dull uniformity of adulthood. I was elated, excited beyond measure, my feet floating across the leaf-strewn paths and my stomach churning with happiness...
Around me, the clearing appeared confused - too sharp, as though the contrast were too high - and the colours were bleached, raw and mordant. It seemed as though nature were mimicking the unease in my own body, reacting in tune with my distress...
The slam of the front door shattered our nerves and I screamed in alarm. Ripley. It was Ripley - and his shotgun. I looked for somewhere to hide, but instantly the room seemed the smallest space in the world...
Reaching to the fireplace, I grabbed the metal poker and rose, brandishing its sharp point at him. I swung and made to hit him, and he ducked to the right, bellowing with anger...
I thought I was dead. So complete was the void into which I had been despatched that only death seemed immense enough to encapsulate it. I could see nothing, nor hear, nor feel, nor smell nor taste: there was simply nothing, just blackness - forever...
Mary began to scream, a continuous, crippled cry of 'no, no, no,' and the room reverberated with the echo of mourning, the sigh of death; all around was a fateful, eternal howl, and it seemed to begin and end inside each and every one of us...
In the afterglow we lay together, hand in hand. I felt her heat, the tidy rise and fall of her breath, and we watched the shadows of dawn, the creeping dark. We were as one. We had crossed the border...
There was no denying it: the Hallow Road had aged over the last few days. Winter's march, with wind and rain, and bluster and blow, had taken its toll, had eaten away the soul of the Hallow Road...
Together, we watched the stones of the house fire into life as all around us the rain evolved into the rhythm of time, a decadent syncopation, a mewling rubato which clamoured against the beat of our hearts...
She was pure, an untainted spirit, and I felt dirty beside her. Her words hammered into my brain, a knife went through my heart. The will to live deserted me. Understanding finally fought through the fog of confusion: and it was obscene, and I didn't want to acknowledge it...
I drew my arm back and trained the poker on him. Adrenalin firing through my body, I swung hard and crashed it against his shotgun...
"Kill me," I said...
Sunlight bathed my face and a fanning wind whispered against the hairs of my arm and over my chest...
