The Girl Who Cried Wolf(30)
I reach towards her and she puts her slender arms around me. We hold onto each other tightly as I cry helplessly on her shoulder, my body wracked with relief as her energy dissolves all the shame. As she strokes my back I hiccup loudly and my tears turn to sudden giggles till we’re both laughing uncontrollably. I open my swollen eyes over her shoulder to see the bright wolf look briefly towards me, bowing its beautiful head before walking away.
***
I must have fallen asleep because I wake up alone. I open my eyes to a sky of magnificent blue. It reminded me of those glorious summer days when everything almost seems to stand still. There are only endless sapphire skies, and the occasional sound of laughter is carried towards you by a gentle wind. I step towards the lake and cup my hands to drink from the cool waters. As I lean forward I catch my refection looking back at me. I have long, dark blonde hair, my natural colour, and my skin is bright and glowing. I have thick eyelashes which frame my eyes, all the greyish traces of illness gone. I’m wearing my green dress and see that I was lovely once more. I feel at peace again within my new existence. I know that Maria is gone, but the memory of our talk and laughter filled me with contentment.
I decide to stop waiting by the lake and want to try and find Ben. I still have a lot of questions for him. As I follow a footpath I walk past a young deer that seems entirely unafraid of me, and communicates a greeting through its soft brown eyes. I reciprocate this exchange and continue down the path, my heart filled with joy at this new world.
As I continue to walk I begin to hear a voice calling my name, a voice that is instantly familiar. I turn my head to listen more closely and am taken by surprise as I see my mother running frantically towards me.
‘Mother?!’ I call out, the comfort of my old life bringing conflicting emotions. For the second time, another person passes straight through me. I turn, and the beautiful valley is gone and I see her running down Elm Tree Lane, screaming my name as I lie motionless on the ground.
***
‘Anna!’ She drops to the gravel beside me and lifts my head onto her lap, brushing my hair and grit from my face. I see her crying, great sobs of fear as she holds onto me. ‘Don’t worry, my angel. The ambulance will be here soon. Oh God, help me, I don’t know what to do.’
She looks desperately up the lane, willing the ambulance to hurry as I remain unconscious and limp in her arms. I have never seen my mother like this before. She strokes my face and tears fall from her beautiful face onto my ashen cheeks.
‘I have loved you since the day you were born, Anna. My strong, wilful girl. I wish I had your strength and had taken you away from him. We could have had a happier life. I am so sorry. Please live and I will make everything right. I promise. I promise.’
The sirens drown out her desolate cries and within moments she is pulled back from me by paramedics, and grasping her trembling hands together she prays for her dying daughter.
‘We have a weak pulse.’ A young man in his twenties places an oxygen mask over my face and I’m hastily lifted onto a stretcher as my mother tells them what’s wrong with me.
‘Do you know her medication? What she has taken today?’
As I am placed in the stretcher she jumps in and finds the pill bottles in my bag. ‘She takes these three times a day and these twice.’ Her hands shake violently as she hands them to the paramedic.
‘And these?’ He shows her the third bottle of my trusted pain killers.
‘They’re low dose multivitamins,’ my mother tells him, and I am stunned at this revelation. ‘She was relying too much on painkillers; they made her worse. I switched them before it got out of hand.’
He raises his eyebrows uncertainly and she looks at him with incredibly steady focus, as though that had been without doubt the right thing to do. I watch the scene play out and I cannot help smiling as I realise no wonder they had stopped taking effect. I feel incredibly confused at seeing her from this new perspective.
The ambulance doors slam shut and the sound makes me jump, bringing me back to the present and the only thing before me is a winding lane I feel compelled to follow.
Chapter Seven:
Beauty and the Beasts
I had not seen my Great Grandmother for almost five years but I knew the figure standing in front of the pretty cottage immediately. She only came clearly into focus as I ran further down the lane, and became flooded with memories of running towards her as young girl.
I stop abruptly as I look properly at her, remembering that for the last few years of her life she had fought bravely with my own nemesis. When I had kissed her cheek for the last time as she lay dying, her skin had been ghostly white and red rings circled her lined eyes. The body of the woman, who had once lifted us high into the air, could not have lifted a feather. She had been skeletal, a shell whose inhabitant had abandoned her long ago.
‘Grandma?’ I ask uncertainly, as the woman before me does not look old at all.
‘Darling, come here!’ She laughs joyfully and I fall into her arms, assured once more it is her. I step back and see she looks about forty, an age I don’t remember knowing her, and she is completely lovely. Bethany’s hair is chestnut like Izzy’s and long past her shoulders. She looks very similar to my mother with cat-like eyes in a heart-shaped face. They light and twinkle with laughter, as I recall they always had, and they look as though someone has taken Lillian’s eyes and turned the dimmer switch up to its brightest.