Black Valley Farm by Sheila Bugler

Author:Sheila Bugler [Bugler, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Present

There’s a fat silver moon and the sky is twinkling with the lights of thousands of tiny stars as we race across the wide open fields. We’re holding hands, and running so fast it feels like flying. There’s a wild feeling in my chest, like my heart is getting bigger and soon it’s going to explode and my insides will burst open and all the little bits of me will fly into the sky and I’ll become part of this great big world that is so new to me.

A scream cuts through the dream and suddenly I’m wide awake. And scared. I look around, trying to work out where I am, but I don’t recognise this room. I’ve never seen it before and, outside the window, there’s more screaming. It sounds like someone is dying.

Fluttery fear rests in my stomach and my chest is too tight. Breathing is difficult. Memories of the dream are still with me. I see us, like we were that night, holding hands as we ran towards our future life. The giddy feeling of freedom, mixed with the shock of what I’d done. The loud noise and the burst of orange light. The slow realisation that she wasn’t coming back, followed by the fear of suddenly being alone.

There’s another scream. My heart leaps into my throat before I realise it’s a seagull. The sound reminds me of the time I spent with Jasper. The seagulls would wake me in the morning there too. Screeching on the flat roof of the block of flats next door, demanding to be noticed.

Sure enough, when I pull back the curtains to check, I see two big white birds sitting on top of the building opposite. One of them looks over at me, before opening his mouth and letting out another scream.

‘Stupid bird,’ I mutter, dropping the curtain and walking back to the bed. My head is fuzzy, my arms and legs ache with exhaustion. I barely slept last night, but I know I won’t be able to go back to sleep now. Outside, it’s a bright, sunny day and I decide to get dressed and go to the beach.

Jasper’s flat in Skegness was five minutes from the beach. There, the sea was wild and rough. Here in Hastings, it’s not like that at all. It’s calm and so still it’s more like glass than water. At the edge of the horizon, where the sea meets the start of the sky, there is a row of ships.

Out of nowhere, I start crying. The sea blurs behind the tears that run down my face. I rub them away, angry at myself for being so weak. A breeze rustles along the surface of the water and brushes against my skin.

I close my eyes, listening to the crunching sound the waves make against the shingle as I slowly breathe in and out. Gradually, the chaos inside my head clears. As it does, I realise something so obvious I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to see it.

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