The sound of rushing water filled my ears as I made my way slowly down the riverside path. The continual rain over the last few days had made our once gentle, meandering river into a raging torrent that screamed its way past the village. Above the sky was a sea of velvet, laced with ribbons of grey storm clouds that once gathered would bring the threat of storm, but for now, they lay in wisps, dancing between the stars and the glow of the fingernail moon.

Days like this brought back the memories and at the back of my mind I could hear her voice, "Them were good days, ya know". It was a phrase that brought both comfort and sadness, because those had been the last words she had said to me and they also brought back the memories of those days, the good days. Remembering her brought an ache to my heart and a lump to my throat. It had been a day like this when she died, an undecided day.

The sky had been dark, filled with the overpowering threat of rain, yet it would not rain and the air had been heavy, as if even it knew that that day was to be a day of sorrow. I had been busying myself with my garden when they told me. Arriving at my gate with eyes that betrayed their emotions before they spoke. I can remember it as if it were yesterday.

"Can we come in Ms Thomas?" the taller policeman had asked. I'd nodded and led the way into the house, abandoning my tools on the lawn, where they would lie for the coming months, the weeds tying them down to the earth before I came to reclaim them. We sat down in my living room, the tension mounting while I awaited them to say what was clearly troubling them.

"My name is Constable Brown and I'm sorry to say I have some bad news regarding a friend of yours, Laciana Roberts. She was found dead in her home today", as he finished his eyes flickered at mine. I sat numbed in my chair. It was hard to believe that Lacey could be dead and I also knew that with her passing, I was left to clear up after her. Lacey had no relatives that I knew of, and she'd often told me I was her next of kin. I was her family. With some trouble I managed to speak, "How did she die?"

"It appeared to be suicide, but at present we aren't ruling out foul play", he replied. I looked at him, suicide? Lacey? Those two words didn't connect. She had been the most vibrant and life-loving person I knew and even the idea of foul play was wrong. Why would anyone want to kill Lacey? I stared at him in disbelief. Tears beaded on my cheeks. He reached forward and patted my hand, talking in a low comforting voice about support I could seek and other details regarding the body and the incident. All this while, his partner sat shuffling uncomfortably on the seat next to him.

It was only after they left that I really began to cry. Sobs racking my body, blinded by tears and hyperventilating to the point where I fully believed I wouldn't be able to draw breath again. Throughout it all, as I sat gazing out to the grey day that ticked on relentless outside, I couldn't help but picture her. She had been beautiful, but not in a conventional sense, eyes that were an ice blue, piercing, attentive and looked at you as though they could bore through your soul. Her hair had been a tangle of curls, coloured like the autumn leaves that tumbled down the village streets, but to be honest, her beauty came from within. She had a presence that was hard to define, and in all my years on this Earth, I've never met anyone else like her.

Carefully I manoeuvred my way down the slope, my mind still wandering with her ghost. "Them were good days". I had to agree, I remembered them all for the fun we had. I forgot about the despair, the depression we often suffered because in life, it's only the good things that matter. Long vodkas in the summer sun, adults pretending they were royalty under straw brimmed hats. They were good days; they were our days, days of slowly discovered passion formed out of friendship, forbidden love to be relished in.

I left the riverbank as the sky above rumbled. A tide of clouds had rolled in, and the storm was brewing. I still had a long walk ahead of me before I was home, but the streets would provide some shelter. Although I wasn't sure if that was what I wanted, when I came out at night to walk, I came to be with her, and she was here, in the wilderness, dancing with the wind. Not playing in the streets with the ghosts of children gone by.

It used to be something we did daily, take the dogs out at night, walking the river and round the outskirts of the village before returning home for a warming cup of tea and chat in front of the fire. It was a ritual. A ritual I still completed after all these years. It was a lonely habit, once filled with joyous chatter and barking, now it was just myself. Retracing old footsteps, chasing memories like shadows through the night.

As I came onto the stretch by the woodland, my gaze was drawn to the bare trees, their bony arms stretching out, as if wanting to rake their branches along your skin. The woodland had always scared us; even in summer time it looked twisted, contorted as if in someway there was a lurking evil. In winter it was a maze of darkness where danger lurked round every bend. We only ventured there once, a day of dangerous delights. It had been a rush, but one we both agreed we didn't want to repeat. The woods just gave us the creeps.

I remember the days after her death as the worst, the details became clear. Suicide or homicide, she was dead all the same. It was never decided as one or the other. Not enough evidence. They wanted to believe it was suicide. Make it easy, the old lady topped herself, but I knew that could never have been true, and I still couldn't comprehend that someone would have wanted to kill her, dousing her life like a candle after dawn.

As I walked along the path, my feet dipping into the shadows that the trees cast, I felt myself drawn to the woods. My gaze that had been watching the looming storm slipped slowly round to stare fully into the darkness that was our local woodland, and as I viewed the ocean of shadows, interspersed with skeletal stretched forms I found myself coming to a halt. Deep within that gloomy labyrinth was something, something that was calling to me.

Just as I was about to dismiss it, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. My head snapped round, trying to catch what it was. But even though I could sense the continual movement, the to-ing and fro-ing of this thing, I couldn't work out what it was, and instinct told me it wasn't an animal. Against all common sense, I found myself climbing the fence. Ignoring aching joints and the muscles that were threatening to cramp, I made my way over to the other side.

"The other side" seemed truly the most appropriate way to phrase it. It was like leaving reality when you set foot in this woodland. I remember the way it felt when Lacey and I first came here, sneaking through the summer foliage, giggling even though a sense of threat seemed to hang in the air. It had added to the thrill of it all, it had made us feel young again. Now, as I stood on the edge of darkness, my arms wrapped around me, I fought to find the courage to continue.

Lacey had always said there was something supernatural about these woods. Said she felt it in her bones, it made them ache. I didn't always buy into the supernatural. I liked things to be presented with evidence, hocus pocus didn't normally cut it with me. But it always had with Lacey; it was one of the things that had initially drawn me to her. She had been a very spiritual person and I craved that sort of influence in my life. For a long time she filled all the gaps in my soul, she made me feel complete. Her death had left me broken.

It was the start of the rain that sent me scurrying into cover of the forest. It sounded like shattering glass as it pounded off the road and as I glanced back out to civilisation one last time before heading into the woods a crack of lightning captured the village brilliantly. From the church spire to the low buildings of the new community centre, they were all imprinted on my memory, with that in my mind; I stepped into the maw of my own fear.

I don't know what it was about the woods that first frightened me. They'd always just had this feel about them. Something wasn't right; they seemed to exist outwith the normal set of rules. Between Lacey and I, the woods had been something of intrigue. They represented a place where we felt young, childlike perhaps, where the monsters under the bed were real and your own imagination was your biggest threat.

Lacey had lived in the village all her life and I think that is what sparked my fear of the woods, since she had been a child they had scared her. Even when I first moved here, before I met Lacey, I hadn't liked the woods. They looked deformed, dark and foreboding, even in the streaming sunlight of mid summer. Now as I made my way through this mangled mess of wood, I began to think that our fears had not been unfounded.

I hadn't seen that movement since I entered the woods, and there were no signs that anything had been rushing about. Maybe I'd been imagining it, I was in the right frame of mind to see ghosts, and I hadn't been able to focus on this thing, it could have been anything. A deer, but that didn't seem right. The woods were empty, devoid of life, of noise. I'd never been anywhere so quiet before. The noises of twigs cracking under my feet were like gunshots, nothing else in this realm moved.

I could still feel the call of these woods though. I didn't understand, but something wanted me to find it. It was like a murmur in my own head, a silent whisper weaving it's way through the dead branches, willing me to keep going. It worked against common sense, against any sense. I traipsed on regardless of my fear, stumbling through the darkness, tearing my clothes on serrated branches and blind in the pitch black that seemed to bind the trees in a hazardous web, waiting to catch someone unsuspecting in their grasp of bony boughs.

The landscape had been unchanging and unrelenting for about half an hour, each step a fight to gain ground in this warren of unseen, unheard horrors. My imagination had been running riot, I was on edge and running on pure adrenalin. I heard things that weren't there, and saw things out the corner of my eye, things that didn't exist outside my own head. I was glad when I saw the light ahead, in the same instant it made me afraid and relieved, I didn't know what was waiting by the light, but no matter what it was. I'd be happy to get away from myself, away from my own fear that was delighted in this darkness, creating horrors to torment me with, fraying my sanity with a dark caress.

As I drew closer to the light, I found myself walking into a mist that lay in silver tinged tendrils that tied themselves around the trees, as I came nearer, the mist grew thicker and deeper, a growing tide of fog slowly rolling out from whatever source lay beside this light. The light was a dull, flickering glow that seemed to emanate from one point, and as my eyes adjusted and my bearings came back I realised where I was. I was at the spot where Lacey and I first came together, desires unleashed and fantasies lived. I felt a shiver rush down my spine and I stopped on the edge of the clearing, my heart thudding heavily in my chest, my breath drawn and unable to let go.

The clearing was illuminated from a lantern of some description, it glowed and even from where I stood I could see it had intricate designs carved upon the base. The mist seemed to surround the clearing, a circle of protection created from nature; it made sense when I saw what lay in the clearing. At first, my eyes wouldn't let me believe it, but in the end I had to accept it was true, that there she was. Sitting in the centre of the clearing, meditating looking just like I remembered. Eventually, I remembered how to breathe.

Stepping forward into the light, out of the mist, out of the dead, darkness of the wood, I felt light headed. I felt un-real. As I moved towards her, her eyes flashed open and her cool gaze captured me, a smile forming on her lips. "Elsa", she whispered. I gasped, dumbstruck and she smiled sadly at me, "How I have missed you…" she breathed mournfully, her voice barely audible, even in the silence of the clearing. I felt my legs buckle, and I sat down on the moss, facing her, my face a portrait of disbelief.

She reached forward to touch me and I scuttled backwards away from her, she withdrew her hand and her head lowered. She whispered something that I couldn't make out then raised her eyes back to mine. Finally, I managed to speak, "I never thought I'd see you again, I thought I'd lost you". She smiled again, her eyes so sad that I wanted to reach out and hold her, but fear stopped me.

I wanted to cry so much, re-shed all those tears again. This moment was like a gift from God, all I had wished for when she had died was to see her again, to hold her again, to have the chance to say goodbye. It had taken me so long to understand that she'd never be there for me again, at least not in the physical sense and I had mourned so hard. Yet, here she was. Here in the place I had feared the most was my love.

"I am lost, Elsa. Lost between this world and the next", her gaze dropped again, "And every night I have watched you walk like we used to do, and I have mourned for my own life, and I have missed you so much. My love for you has been a sharp pain for every day I have been without you…" her voice trailed off brokenly and I could sense the onslaught of tears and I knew that if she started to cry, I would too.

"What happened Lacey? What happened to you?"

"I don't know", her eyes met mine again, they were filled with tears, "I can't remember how I died, all I know is that I did and I never made it to the other side".

"Were you suicidal?" I blurted out, my body aching to hold hers, to feel her close, touch her and clutch her tight. She shook her head, "I was happy, Elsa. I was so happy in life. I don't know why I died…" this time her voice faded to a whisper, cracked by sobs that silently trembled through her body.

I moved over to her, love overcoming fear and reached for her hand. She slipped it into mine, and hers was cold. So cold it numbed my senses, still, I moved closer and our bodies entwined on the forest floor. As we held each other, whispering messages of love, of lust, of undying adoration, I could sense the cold of her body seeping into mine, I was going numb. But with this numbness, I was happy. Tears froze on my cheeks, silver drops of love.

After what seemed like hours, she pushed me away and she seemed to fade. She smiled, her fingers still interlinked with mine, "I think it's time for me go, I think I can finally leave". I shook my head vehemently, "No". She smiled again, "I still love you Elsa, but I want to leave. I don't want to be trapped here again, stuck with the lovelorn ghosts of times past. I want to move on, but I'll always be with you…"

Tears raced down my cheeks and I grabbed at her one last time, pulling her close and kissing her, she returned the kiss tenderly and even as we kissed, I could feel her fading away from me. Her body seemed to lose touch with reality, I could see through her form and my hand that had held hers slipped away from it and fell to the earth and from outside the clearing, the mist began to swathe in, like the curtains closing after a play and as her image faded to the ether, her whisper rode the wind like an angel's mantra, "I will always love you".

As the mist began to chill me further, I climbed to my feet and glanced around. The light had been doused with her spirit and the lantern was gone. The tears still stung in my eyes, but I felt closure on her death. Life could move on, it always could. She was moving on. Where I did not know, but she would, and in ways, she would always be with me. But no longer did I need to constantly grieve for her. I left the woods no longer scared. I knew now what they represented; a haven for lost souls, forsaken lovers awaiting their true loves to send them onwards.

When I left the woods, the storm had cleared, and on the horizon, dawn was breaking. A mixture of colours washing the sky with light, awaking the birds to rise and sing their morning hymns to gently rouse the world from sleep. I walked home uplifted and at peace. I had been given my deepest desire and it had made an old woman happy, I knew that death may be soon in calling me to the grave, the old bones were getting weak as age took it's toll, but I would go happy that I had been given that last night with Lacey. I had said my goodbyes and helped send her on her way.

When I reached my house that morning, I eased myself into bed as the sun tracked slowly across the sky, the previous night's storm forgotten about as the sun welcomed the first days of spring. I went to sleep clutching her photograph. A picture taken on a day not unlike the one unfolding around me, and in my head I could hear her voice, "Them were the good days, ya know, them were the good days Elsa. Never forget them".

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