Verity 2.

With only two turns left to bear before the caravan leaves, a storm has rolled in from the north, battering the cottage. If nothing else, it will have thrown off any pursuit and has certainly pacified Veronica on the issue of when she’ll be saved by her parents. I’m avoiding her at the moment – not difficult as she seems positively inert with self-pity. The problem is that its rather boring with no-one to talk to. I wish I had been able to take Anna, uptight maybe, but there’s something about her structure and self-possession that makes talking at least worthwhile – like its reaching something that can process it. So many friends are boring, simpering wrecks of characters – there’s just no challenge in conversing with a human puppy. They brought dogs in from the north a few seasons ago, they became rather fashionable, and some could do tricks, though it was plain to see there was nothing much going on upstairs. Mother brought me one, a big wet, stupid thing that dragged the outdoors in where it had no right to be!

Some of my friends are a bit like that - though they prefer dragging around the indoors, leaving crochet needles and embroidery scattered in their wake. They changed the dogs into pampered, well-groomed creatures and the dogs turned them into fawning bores. Well, I let them have each other, Veronica at least has some spirit to her – she chucked her dog out on the first day. She said it was to observe its adaptation to urban life, as far as I know it managed to carve out a niche stealing from Cork’s refuse piles. But that callous and refreshing disregard for canine life endeared me to her, foolishly leading me to acquire her services as a traveling partner. She really is a good sort if not mentally hardy enough for a journey, I’ll have to arrange for someone to find her when I leave, a tip to the stable hand should it.

I’m lying on the rug by the fire, there not being much to do but think. I remember I had an imaginary friend once, a girl from the stars. I had this book about the stars that fascinated me as a child, gotten from deep within the library of course. A dusty corner far up in the eaves where no-one was allowed to go. The stars aren’t approved by the adults - what with the eternal day in the east and cloudy skies in Cork only the northmen can really see them. This girl came from Ariel, the protector star of earth, she was about six inches tall with bright blue skin and she talked of wide-open sky…

Something is wrong.

A rustling in the garden maybe? Or a creaking of a gate? I tiptoe over the rug to the window, a shutter set about a foot into the wall. Lifting it up slightly I see a bright lantern bobbing in the gloom. Then a freezing sliver of steel glinting orange- I stumble away from the sight. It dawns on me in sudden clarity that I have to run. A little rational piece of mind tells me that it’s probably the city guard or bounty hunters, but its swept away in a much more powerful tide of mortal fear.

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I tear through the cottage, sweeping up the travel sack nicely prepared by the back door and madly dashing through the back garden, bootless and muddy. My bare foot sinks into the brackish pond and I stumble then tumble through the gate onto the moor. Cold grass, cold air, cold fear knifing up under my breastbone. Did they see? Did they hear? I dive behind the first rock outcrop I spot, covering my bright white dress in sticky red mud. Hard breaths rattle through my chest and my freezing fingers grip my shoulders with too much force.

A scream echoes across the grasses. Veronica. I have always thought I might be good in a crisis but now that crisis is here, I can only think of getting away. Veronica doesn’t deserve this, but as I scramble through the moor, tears streaming down my face with the rain, I’m only glad I’m not there with her.

The hills were lit up with lanterns that night. In Cork there is no night or day but staring up at the great black sky, the old word comes to me. There are little clusters of lanterns trickling though the valleys to either side and occasionally the flaring of a housefire before its extinguished by the rain. My feet have turned into useless lumps and my fingers are slowly locking into place, clutching the travel bag. The once white dress now hangs heavy with clods of earth. I try to move into a better position from where I sit wedged in a gap between two rocks. There is only a ragged scrap of rock for cover between me and the east, where I can see the sacking of Littlebrook by the light of the fires. But my bones are rigid and the mud sticky and cold.

I only shrink further into the dark with the sight of lanterns bobbing nearby. The time blends into a brittle and shivering stillness, punctuated by flashes of fear. Then a horseman plunges out of the darkness, lantern swinging and horse screaming. He runs it to a stop then leaps off, landing in the marsh. The horse looks exhausted from what I know of such things, its eyes rolling and flanks shaking. Cursing in some other tongue, he strides straight towards the rock where I hide. I can’t sink any further back, though I make myself smaller in my mind, thinking that my flesh and bone can shrink in on itself to fill the gap in the rocks. Then he begins to relieve himself, sheltered slightly by the stone to the left. I feel oddly embarrassed – you might expect relief at escaping discovery but my mind at that moment would almost rather be found than break such a taboo. I can see the sword, left stuck in the mud near the horse but I have no strength, no life left in my body to leap up. Fortunately, he moves on, almost before my mind musters the capacity to plan a way out.

I sit there for quite some time, long enough that I start to get bored, then long enough that I start to slip in and out of consciousness. What frightens me the most is how quickly my mind has been sapped by the cold and violence. Time doesn’t so much pass as it does flow past me in little congealed lumps of lucidity. I am waiting to die, though not aware of it, when I hear hoofbeats echoing through the earth. My eyelids are numb, stinging slightly, and I open them to a painful slit of brighter sky. Rain still drizzles down from the sky, but it is a gentler sort. Anna’s face, small and pointed, dark hair plastered to her scalp, looks down at me with a kind of pity I have just enough energy to dislike. I summon just enough energy to tumble bonelessly to her feet and look up at her expectantly.