State of Grace (Resurrection) Read Free

before I could take a step. He focused on my right hip, then looked at my face curiously, searching for an answer, before returning his gaze to my skin. I realized he was looking at my tattoo: an exquisitely painted eagle in flight, about two inches in size. His eyes met mine again and I shuddered at the hunger I saw in them. He didn’t attempt to conceal the violence that emanated from him and I prepared for death.
     
    He said something but I didn’t understand. It was a language I was unfamiliar with. Not that I spoke any more than a smattering of Spanish, the same amount of French, and the only words I knew in Welsh was ‘dim parcio’, to my continuing shame. He moved even closer and, horrified, I read his intention. Sword or no sword, I couldn’t just stand here and let it happen. I could either run or fight.
     
    I chose to run, and whirled away from him, but my foot caught and I fell, sprawling on my front, the trodden, packed earth hard and cold beneath me. I lay deathly still, expecting to feel the hot stab of the sword as it pierced my back, and with eyes scrunched tightly shut and breaths coming in short, panicked gasps, I waited to die. And waited.
     
    The shockingly loud trill of my mobile phone made me jump and I reached for it automatically, face still pressed against the springy grass. It was then I realised I was wearing my jacket and it was grass I was lying on, not bare earth. Cautiously I sat up and twisted around to look behind me. All I could see was the darkness of the mountain slope and above that, the night sky: no huts, no fires, no man with a sword.
     
    My phone sounded obscenely loud, demanding to be answered.
     
    ‘Hello?’
     
    ‘G igi? Gigi? Where are you? Are you alright?’ My mother’s frantic voice brought me almost back to my senses.
     
    ‘I’m fine.’ I was still distracted, searching around for any some idea of what had just happened. There was nothing to see and nothing to hear that was out of the ordinary. I was back on top of the mountain, but for one brief minute my mind appeared to have been somewhere else. I shook my head, still scouring the darkness for movement. Nothing. I drew in a deep breath to steady my nerves and a sharp bolt of pain shot through my head. I gasped and screwed my eyes shut, praying for it to pass.
     
    There was no fooling my mother. She could either tell from my tone of voice that I was far from alright, or else she had heard my reaction to the sudden onset of pain. Or both. N ot much got past her, to my constant dismay when I was smaller. I was a bit dismayed now, to tell the truth.
     
    ‘Where are you?’ she demanded.
     
    ‘Fan Y Big. Didn’t you see my note?’
     
    ‘Yes, but…’
     
    ‘Mum, I’m ok,’ I repeated firmly, the headache receding to a dull ache. I could manage a dull ache.
     
    ‘But anything could have happene d,’ she wailed. My mother was nothing if not persistent.
     
    Withou t thinking I replied quietly, ‘It already has.’
     
    The silenc e on the other end of the phone made me feel guilty. She was trying so hard to be brave for me, and I hated the thought I had caused her any more anguish. She had enough to bear already, and there would inevitably be more to come – for both of us, for all of my family.
     
    I sighed. ‘I’ll be home soon.’
     
    ‘Ok.’ Her voice was full of tears, and feeling like an absolute bitch, I headed back down the mountain. The walk home gave me time to reflect on what had happened. I knew from what I had read and from what I had been told by both my consultant and the Macmillan nurses that I might find myself getting confused or disorientated, but I was pretty sure they hadn’t meant that level of disorientation. The vision, or whatever I was going to call it, had been a little more than forgetting to put my shoes on when I left the house, or being unable to remember my name. The headache was nothing new; I had been having those for quite some time with increasing