State of Grace (Resurrection) (4 page)

‘You’re still young. There’s plenty of time for you to meet
someone who’ll rock your world.’ Something past my shoulder caught her eye. ‘Oh, there’s Josie, and she’s brought May.’ She gave me a significant look. ‘We’ll talk later,’ she promised.

I was glad of the change of subject, though Sarah, being Sarah, would find an opportunity to return to it.
I would have to think carefully about whether I wanted to tell her the truth. Eventually I would have to, but maybe not yet.

We reached the gates of the rugby field and I spotted Josie. She was small with shoulder-length
, straight, fair hair and was extremely pretty. Her daughter was enchanting: brown curls pulled up into a high ponytail, huge brown eyes, button nose, dimples – this kid was cute with a capital C. She clearly knew Ben and Sarah, and give them a bright smile, but she was a little shy with me, hiding behind her mother’s legs and corking a thumb firmly in her mouth.

‘Oh, she’s so sweet!’ I exclaimed. ‘And hasn’t she grown!’ I hadn’t seen May since she
was a baby.

Josie smiled indulgently down at her daughter.
‘They do tend to do that,’ she said. ‘Say hello to Auntie Grace.’

May stared at me suspiciously
and refused to speak, snuggling even closer to her mother. ‘Ok, kiddo,’ she said and turned to me. ‘She’ll come round – she isn’t too keen on strangers right now.’

I felt a little guilty at that
comment; perhaps I should have made more of an effort to visit my friends. I opened my mouth to say something but Josie was talking to her daughter. ‘Ready for the big bangs?’

May appeared rather uncertain but she took her mother’s hand, and we all paid our money and went in through the gates, May stealing small glances in my direction. Smiling at her I re-examined my attitude towards children. I had never been very maternal. Perhaps God, or mother nature, had seen fit to not give me that
particular gene, considering the fates were busy getting ready to snip the thread of my life sooner rather than later. It would be unthinkable if I’d a child, knowing that it would be motherless before too long.

I thought carefully about choices whilst we waited for the fireworks to begin. The choice of becoming a mother had been taken away from me. Did I now want what I can’t have simply because I can’t have it? No, I decided
: I still didn’t feel maternal. Don’t get me wrong, baby humans are cute (well, most of them), in the same way that many baby mammals are cute. But it wasn’t for me, although I probably would have done the whole getting married and having kids thing eventually. Just not yet: at twenty-seven I considered myself far too young to settle down. After all, I had thought I had many more years to play with. How wrong can you be?

Music was playing loudly and there was the enticing smell of frying onions in the air.
I looked at my watch and calculated the fireworks weren’t going to start for another ten minutes or so. The queue at one of the burger vans was not too bad, so I made a decision.

‘I won’t be a minute,’ I called and dodged through the crowd, returning with five hotdogs balanced precariously in my hands. They were gratefully received.
There was something peculiarly right about eating hotdogs in the fresh air.

May’s face was a picture as th
e display began, round-eyed as she gazed up at the heavens, only flinching a little at the explosions. I was determined to enjoy myself, too, acutely aware  this might be my last Bonfire Night. I drank in the sparkling, glittering colours in the sky and ‘ooohed’ and ‘aaahed’ along with everyone else.

It was about halfway throug
h the show when I realised something was amiss. The slight ‘otherness’ of my mind didn’t register at first, but, slowly I became aware that the tugging, dizzy sensation I had experienced over two weeks ago was beginning again. Dear God, no! I prayed. Not here, not now. The feeling intensified until the firework display, the sounds of the explosions and the people around me faded. I fought to remain calm as consciousness fled.

I was vaguely aware I was still upright and then I registered that I was upright somewhere else entirely. And I was bare-assed naked. Again. Great! I was sure the dreams I had when safe in my bed over the last couple of weeks had involved a fully-clothed me, so what
was
it with the naked thing?

Hard-
packed dirt was beneath my toes and the air was cold on my skin. I stood perfectly still for a second or two, trying to decide what to do. For a dream or a hallucination, I seemed to be very much in control of myself, very much attuned to my surroundings.

It was night
, and a dark one at that. I could make out the shadowy trunks of trees surrounding me and the earthy fragrance told me I was in a woodland or forest. Something rustled in the undergrowth to my left and I nearly screamed. Get a grip, Grace, I told myself sternly, you’ve been out at night in the woods before. There isn’t anything bigger than a badger out here (except horse, cows and sheep, I amended), and wild animals tended not to like humans very much.

I saw them before I heard them. Flickering lights
in the distance winked in and out of existence as they passed behind, and amongst, the trees. I stood stock still waiting, wondering whether I should run or hide. Running would make noise and any movement might catch their attention, so I decided to stay put and hope I wouldn’t be noticed. I remembered my previous ‘vision’ with consternation: I didn’t want a repeat performance of the violence I had witnessed and almost been subjected to, and I had a feeling whoever it was out there would be mightily intrigued by my undressed state, whatever their intentions. As the lights came closer I could make out the shapes of people: men, I thought, by the way they moved and the shadows they cast on the tree trunks. Their voices reached me, and although I could hear them, I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

I shrank behind a gnarly trunk, the bark rough under my palms, and held my breath as the figures came closer, trying to remain motionless. This may be a dream, a figment of my imagination, but I didn’t want it to turn into a nightmare, and I had the horrible feeling that is exactly what would happen if I was discovered.
One by one they filed past; six of them altogether and I estimated they were no more than twenty feet away. All of them held a flaming torch in one hand and carried a weapon of some kind in the other.

I d
on’t know what alerted them to me, but, with a sudden shout that was far too close for my liking, the last man to pass by my tree turned, thrusting his torch before him. I had time to wonder why he had flames on the end of a stick, before I realised I had been seen. I ran.

I felt, rather than saw, them coming after me. I
dared not look back. I couldn’t see much further than a few yards in front and I needed to concentrate on where I was putting my feet. The last time I was barefoot outside was on a beach in Cancun, and the warm pliable sand was nothing like this forest floor. This ground had teeth! My breath was harsh in my throat and after only a few hundred yards my lungs were labouring and my legs were wooden with fatigue. I was lighter and more agile than them, able to dodge through the trees but this advantage was outweighed by my not having shoes on, and their male power and stamina added to their speed. They were all obviously much fitter than I, and were gaining on me fast, in spite of them having to concentrate on keeping me in sight as I darted between the tall trunks and skirted around the bushy undergrowth.

It was then that I slipped, my legs skidding out from underneath me as I landed hard on my bare rear end.
I shrieked in surprise and dismay and risked a swift glance back at my pursuers, scrambling to my feet as I did so. To my astonishment they had stopped, their torches held up as they strove for a better look at exactly what it was they were chasing. If I hadn’t been so scared I might have thought the looks on their faces were comical: they were petrified. At least, that’s what I hoped their expressions were, though I could think of no reason why they should be scared of little old me. They huddled closer together and in the combined light I could see them more clearly. They were dressed in not much more than rags, each wore a sort of loose bit of fabric that hung from their shoulders, what I thought might be grubby long t-shirts, and trousers that appeared to be tied around their legs from their ankles to their knees by long strips of rope. All had straggly beards and long unkempt hair. They reminded me of the homeless men and women that were forgotten and ignored in cities all over the world.

One man, slightly in front of all the rest, had a shiny metal basin on his head. Must be a helmet, I thought, distractedly: no one in their right mind would wear a basin. That’s when I noticed what they were carrying; one had a pitchfork, a
nother a long pointed stick, and another had a piece of wood which looked suspiciously like a baseball bat, and these were accompanied by two swords and a shovel.

I almost rolled my eyes at the absur
dity of it, but the menace emanating from them appeared just as real to me as the stench. Every one of them needed a long hot soak in a very deep bath.

I stared at the six men and they stared right back at me. I had to s
ay something: the tension was becoming unbearable and I was close to screaming.

‘What do you want?’ I
asked, squeaking out the last word.

At the sound of my voice the man in front jabbed his sword at me a
nd shouted. Despite the fact he was so close I still couldn’t understand what he was saying and I raised my hands, palms up. I wasn’t sure whether I was begging for my life, or trying to show them I wasn’t armed, although they could see that for themselves. No clothes, remember? I didn’t bother trying to cover myself with my hands: it was far too late for that as they had all gotten a good eyeful and they didn’t seem to be interested in my various charms anyway. Their stares were laced with fear and loathing, with a little bit of hatred thrown in for good measure.

‘Please…
’ I did beg this time.

The leader,
if you could call him that, jerked as I spoke, then brought his two hands together and made a sign, nearly singing his hair with the torch as he did so. I could hear the hiss and splutter of the flames, the rancid smell of burning fat stinging my nose and making my eyes water.

To my astonishment they slowly backed away, all the time keeping their odd assortment of weapons pointed my way. When they felt they had put enough distance between me and them, they turned and fled, fading rapidly into the shadows and the darkness beyond.

Stunned, I watched their torches weave through the trees for a few seconds, and then I had a terrible thought. What if it wasn’t little old naked me that had scared them off? What if there was something standing behind me? After all, there is no way on this earth that an unarmed, unclothed, ordinary-looking woman could provoke that kind of reaction from a half dozen armed men (although I meant that is the loosest sense of the term when I thought of the shovel), even though they had been ragged and scrawny. Any one of them would have been able to best me in a fight, unless I happened to get very lucky. The ‘behind me’ theory was gathering speed: it was the only thing that made sense.

I gulped, trembling with fear
and the adrenalin that still squirted through my veins, and slowly turned around, convinced there must be a monster, a fire-breathing dragon, a ghost, or something equally as hideous, and dangerous enough to frighten off the six determined men that had doggedly been chasing me down, reaching for me with ravening teeth and an insatiable hunger.

Nothing.
The wood was dark and still, the noise of the pursuit having scared the small animals into silence. I could no longer see the men’s torches, and although I couldn’t totally quench the fear that they had retreated only to creep back up on me when I wasn’t looking (I hadn’t rationalised the thought behind that idea), my gut feeling was they had gone.

For several long, long seconds I stood rigid, not daring to move, eyes and ears peering through the trees, trying to decipher the shadows and glean some meaning from the night. Eventually I was sure
I was alone and the noises of the forest started up again. An owl twitted off to my left and I listened for the responding call from its mate. Sure enough the male bird answered, and I slowly relaxed.  I was shivering and my teeth began to chatter, though whether from the cold or the sudden relief, I was unsure. Hugging my arms around my chest, I knew I had to move. I was getting even colder now the adrenalin was leaving my system and I needed to find shelter, and fast. Or I needed to wake up – whichever came first. My shivering felt real enough, as did my icy feet, and the prickly leaves and branches underfoot were determined to draw blood from my bare flesh.