Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
Iwas running, the sun warm above me, making me squint in the bright light. There was a field of endless green, the clover thick as a carpet and ankle-deep. I was laughing.
“Keep going!” said the woman with the soft eyes and beautiful smile. Her hair, like mine, was long and brown and wavy. Her eyes were brown, and freckles were scattered across her cheeks. She laughed when I ran away, her image wobbling with my uncertain steps, and clapped when I came back again.
She embraced me. She smelled like lemons and sun-dried linen, and her long hair tickled my face as I fell into her arms. She was love and joy, and she loved me back.
I closed my eyes, safe in her arms. And opened them again to a nightmare.
She was older now, her face leaner with age. Her eyes were the same, but they saw nothing. She lay in the clover, her hair was streaked with red, and there was red on her face, on her body.
Blood. So much blood.
Enough to drown me, to ruin me, to haunt me forever.
A raven called, flushed from a tree by the men who drew closer. The sounds were enormous. I wrested my hand away, pushed my hands over my ears to drown out the noise.
“Come.” A man’s voice, kind but urging. “We have to go.”
“But, Mama—” I pulled my hand away, but he drew me up. His eyes were shadowed and full of devastation, and blood was smeared across his cheek.
“We can’t help her. Not anymore.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, and we were running, his gait uneven and halting, the raven’s shadow on the ground before us, showing the way.