The Girl Who Cried Wolf(34)
Mr Thomas claps his hands as the church bells ring, indicating we can join our parents now their sermons are over. As we run out, he calls after us, ‘Remember, my little fledglings; the wolf that wins is the one that you feed!’
None of us hear him, and as I look back through my seventeen-year-old eyes, I wonder if perhaps he does look a little stoned.
***
I walk out of the church and sense that I have returned to my present state. I feel a little calmer for the happy reverie, and a bird singing beautifully restores my faith that perhaps I can find some peace here. I desperately miss Michael, and I need to find a way to tell my mother that I’m sorry for being such a terrible daughter, now I knew she had sacrificed her life to give us things she never had. I never would have wanted that. How could she have loved Elm Tree so much? It would have made more sense to me had she hated her beautiful prison.
If I had ever known of her silent anguish I would have told her to leave him. Why did she not run away like she used to when she was twelve? Perhaps it was through fear for our safety if she left us with him, or at his anger if she had tried to take us with her. I sigh sadly and wonder how such things could have happened without us knowing. No wonder Elm Tree was so lifeless, another beautiful shell with no soul.
As I walk by myself down the wandering lanes, I start to recall wisps of memories from my younger years. Turning music up loud so Izzy could not hear him shouting at her, drinking vodka at sixteen when I realised it helped to forget. Had I really buried so much without knowing? I feel a great heaviness surrounding me as I understand there is nothing I can do for her now. And the cold hand of fear grips my heart once more as I remember she is with him still and I have left her behind.
***
The sky darkens in keeping with my mood and the shimmering dark wolf suddenly emerges at my side, beckoning me to follow him to what appears to be a derelict building. He leaves me to tread carefully through the bricks and debris and as I see more similar ruins ahead, I sense that I am walking through the ghost of a town that has been torn apart by war. The buildings that remain have had their insides blown out, leaving shards and shatters of glass beneath my feet.
‘Is anyone here?’ I call out, feeling more destitute than ever.
My voice breaks into a lonely echo and I shiver in the dust and decay. I close my eyes and try to imagine the comfort of home, but all I see is the lie I have lived. My parent’s discord, my mother’s quest to suffer in silence as her two spoiled girls laughed and sang, oblivious. I dispel the dark thoughts and search my soul for a memory of Michael to save me. My heart lifts as I see his face, then disintegrates as the image vanishes and I know that he belongs to another world.
The only angel watching over me now is dark and of despair, and had I encompassed the power to end the anguish, I would have done so now without a moment’s hesitation.
A noise at my feet brings my head reluctantly up from my knees, and I see an emerging black beetle tunnelling upwards from the dust and dry earth. I watch him for a few moments busying around in the decay, and instantly feel a little better that I am not the only one sent to this dire place. I watch, fascinated, as he comes closer to me, making a slow but persistent trail to the stack of rubble I have lain against. I cannot help but think that although he is my only companion, I have never liked bugs and find him rather ugly.
Vibrations pick up between us and I am embarrassed to find that he may have read my mind.
‘I am Hope,’ he tells me and I look at him dubiously.
‘There is hope here?’ I ask him.
‘Of course,’ he replies, scuttling away from me now with more purpose than ever, ‘Where there is life, Anna, there is Hope.’
I feel he may have been laughing at me, yet I cannot help but smile as I realise it is time for me to progress, and I thank the little beetle before turning in the opposite direction. As we move further away from each other and our vibrations begin to weaken, I am certain I feel him whisper, ‘Remember me.’
***
I walk in solitude before noticing a remarkably tall man ahead of me, wearing a white linen suit and a Panama hat.
‘Anna! At last, my goodness, I have been waiting for you!’ I like him immediately and run shyly towards him, falling alongside his meandering pace. ‘Well, what do you think of it here? Like it?’ His British accent is very old-fashioned and although he is no longer made up of dazzling lights, I recognise him as my Guide.
‘No!’ I cry out to him. ‘I do not like what I’ve seen!’
‘Did you not like to see Benji and Maria?’
‘Well, yes. That part was nice.’
‘And your Great Grandmother?’
I turn to face him so he will understand the seriousness of how distraught I am.
‘Yes! Of course I wanted to see her but she showed me terrible things. My mother …’ My voice trails away and he pats my shoulder gently.
‘Anna, did you not need to know why your mother was so sad? Are you not glad that you can see how much she loved you? She sacrificed her happiness so you could grow up in a beautiful house, and have the stability she never had.’
‘I didn’t need any of that! She should have left him and we would have had a proper chance to be happy.’ I cry silently and his strident voice startles me.
‘Anna, you have so much to learn. Come and sit with me.’ A fallen log offers its service.