Winter (Book one in The Dark Angels Series)

I feel my pain still as fresh and cutting as ever and I press my cheek against the cold marble. I hate to think of her alone in the cold ground. I wish I could hold her. I tell her in a low whisper that I am sorry and make a silent vow that I will find her again, that nothing will separate us, not even death.

Ah yes, death. I know all there is to know about death and even now I despise it still. 

I sit down in the snow and lean back against her headstone. I know what I have to do, there is nothing left in this world for me now but I simply cannot let this go unsaid. It may take a while but that doesn’t matter, I am not in a hurry, I am happy just to be here, knowing she is close by. Caroline, I realise I left without saying goodbye and I never truly thanked you for the kindness you showed me. That's why this is for you. You deserve to know the truth. I hope you can forgive me for what I am about to do.

On the other side of the clearing there is a large stone angel on a pedestal. The artist who created her has expertly captured every fold in her flowing gown with startling detail. The march of the decades has robbed her of one of her arms but the remaining one is cast up towards the sky while her head is tilted towards heaven. Her face has such a perfect expression of mourning that it is almost painful to look at it. She is almost a perfect mirror of my own sorrow, so like me in so many ways.

“It has to be told Lilly,” I say out loud, as though my writing this needs justified, almost as if I am seeking her approval. And would she approve? Would she want the world to know the story of our time together? 

“It has to be told,” I say again but this time with more conviction, “You told me once I could be a writer, well let's see."

I put pen to paper and begin to write and once I start I know I will find it hard to stop.

CHAPTER ONE

“I don’t suppose there’s much point in asking you how you got there, out on the road that is?” His face was so close now I could see the lines around his eyes that told his age. He was older than I had first thought. From across the table the lines had not been so visible but now, as he leaned in towards me with his exasperated stare, I could see them clearly. The intensity of his scrutiny made me feel self conscious, made me wonder again what it was he had seen in me when we first met that had made him shudder, and I lowered my head, thankful for the way my long dark hair fell and shielded me from him.

“Well?” he pushed. I was all to aware that I had not given him an answer and I would have given anything to be able to tell him something, anything, but I just did not know. I had not been able to answer any of his questions and he was loosing patience with me. He probably had a family at home waiting for him. All of this must have been a terrible inconvenience, especially on Christmas Eve.

“I don’t know.” my voice was barely audible, a mere whisper.

“What about your date of birth? Can you tell me how old you are?” 

He had been quizzing me like this since I arrived. One question after another in quick succession as though firing at me like that would jolt my memory. What is your name? Where do you live? Do you stay with family? Do you know what day it is? I tried to think, to summon anything that might be of use but my mind remained blank. I didn’t know who I was, where I lived, how old I was or why I had been walking down the road in the woods through the snow completely naked. 

“Well you don’t look much more than a kid to me, late teens, early twenties perhaps,” he speculated as I stole a glance at him from behind my hair, “Did somebody hurt you?”

That question frightened me and I tried to shrink back into the chair. Perhaps I had suffered a trauma so great out there in the woods that it had wiped my mind completely blank. Could such a thing happen? I felt as though a storm was brewing in my head. All these questions sent my thoughts spinning in a thousand directions yet still I could remember nothing.