Bloody Awful by Georgia Evans

Author:Georgia Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2009-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Mary had been so engrossed in the sheer pleasure of the water, she lost track of time. The moon was low in the sky by the time she stepped out of the pond and realized she hadn’t remembered to bring a towel.

Too late now. She pulled her clothes on over wet skin, tried very hard not to shiver and pretty much failed utterly. There wasn’t much she could do about her hair dripping down her neck, except hope she didn’t meet anyone on the way back. She headed for the woods and the footpath down to the village, but ended up skirting the woods for a good hundred yards before conceding she was lost.

It was a world easier to find your way along cliff paths than among the Surrey woods.

What now? She could hardly wander around until dawn. She looked at the moon reflected in the dark water. The moon had been behind her when she emerged from the woods. A bit of quick thinking about the current position and its path in the sky and she set off at a brisk walk in what she hoped was the right direction. She didn’t find the footpath but she did notice a lane in the distance and headed for it. Reasoning the village was in the valley, she set off downhill and soon the road emerged into farmland.

The village was still a long way off. She decided to stay on the road, rather than try cutting across fields. She walked on, nipping over a hedge when she heard an engine approaching. She might well have been offered a lift, but didn’t fancy explaining why she was strolling the countryside, with dripping wet hair.

She waited until the vehicle passed—a lorry, she thought, and then followed the hedge to find a gate. Climbing over hawthorne hedges wasn’t an experience to repeat if avoidable. She found a stile and she was halfway across when she glanced over her shoulder. In the distance was a dark shape. Some instinct had her off the stile and behind the hedge. She peered over, curious as to who else was wandering the countryside in the middle of the night. In the far distance was a silhouette of a man. Leaping. No, flying! He leaped in the air and soared over the trees until he was out of sight.

Incredible, but no more incredible than Mary Prioux being a Water Sprite. So, she wasn’t the only Other in the neighborhood. Interesting, but best forgotten. She did not want any encounter with a creature who could fly. She stifled the suspicion that anyone out at this hour had to be up to no good. She was, wasn’t she? It was part and parcel of hiding one’s nature in an alien land.

The last wasn’t entirely fair. Yes, she did feel like an outsider, but she and her pupils had been welcomed and offered a home. It was her job to fit in. Somehow. It was being landlocked that felt so confining.

After that she walked faster, until the village came into view.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.