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 I tried to sneak through the graveyard like some comic thief in the night with exadurated tiptoeing movements, stopping every couple of seconds to peer around me to make sure no one was watching. To be honest I felt a complete fool and what made it worse was that I couldnt bring myself to step on the graves, so I made my way extremely carefully taking a very wide birth around each plot and nearly soiling myself every time I even touched the imagined site of a body with my big toe, snatching back my foot as if burnt and shivering at the thought of the rotting corpses below.
My heart was running away with me so I stopped to calm myself and leaned up against a statue taking long, deep drawn out breaths and taking the time to blow my now dripping nose. As I put the sopping tissue back in my pocket I took a good look at the statue I was leaning against. It wasnt my angel, the one from my vision, so I carried on my search for the said angel and kept alert for any movement, which may indicate the real thing in the vicinity.
I picked up the pace, moving quickly from one statue to the next, many of them were so similar but nothing jumped out at me as it were as the beautiful angelic face of my earlier vision. And then as I neared the church itself I saw it. As plain as anything, just sitting there as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the feeling of de ja vu shook through me, this is what I had seen, not just that it was the very statue, but it was the very view, the same angle, light, distance from the church everything as if I had literally had a premonition of me seeing this very same view of the statue in the churchyard.
I stood rooted to the spot, I had had de ja vu before but never this strong and knowing that I had in fact seen this before. I walked over to the statue and took a close look at the angels face. It was uncanny how familiar she looked, how similar to the girl in the garden. I read the name on the grave next to it, it read Lucy Lovett beloved daughter. She had died at just five years of age. I wondered how it had happened, had it been sickness, an accident? Who knows?
Now I had seen the angel statue and it was perfectly apparent that it was real and not a figment of my imagination I concentrated my search of the trees, looking for the dark corner hiding the steps to the tomb. As I did so I waited with baited breath for a glimpse of her, the ghostlike figure I had such an eerie attachment to. I moved away from the statue almost with a wrench at the thought of leaving her, my apprehension of being caught now forgotten, I purposefully hunted through the trees near the church and finally I found it.
Again the feeling that I had been here before at this exact moment seeing this exact view hit me like a shock wave, the very tomb of my vision and now I started to panic again at the thought of having to descend into someones final resting place. A shivery, cold feeling took hold and then I sneezed and as I did so I heard a movement as if my sneezing had disturbed someone!
I whipped my head round to locate the source of the movement and saw her run past the church doorway towards the stone steps of the tomb. She was smaller than I remembered and looked slightly bedraggled in my oversized work shirt and an old pair of grey jogging bottoms held together with one of my belts. Her long, dark hair flying out behind her as she disappeared down the steps.
Wait! I called out and my voice seemed to echo really loudly around the grounds.
I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, leaping over the boundaries of the grave plots, as I still couldnt step on them for some reason. The tree, a willow I now realised, whispered to me as the wind stroked its long green hair like branches. I didnt stop to listen to its haunting message, but just hesitated slightly before stepping quietly down the steps.
On the third step down, a feather, another of those strange silvery white ones. I picked it up and looked at it frowning. She definitely did not have wings, I saw her. Then of course I remembered that night, scooping her up and laying her on my sofa, no wings! I definitely would have noticed or felt wings, so where were they coming from?
I shoved it into my pocket and continued down the very short flight of steps. The darkness smelt like fish and I gagged. Finally I poked my head around the corner and there she was, crouched on the floor shivering, her bare feet, filthy and bleeding with cuts from walking around with no shoes, her slender arms hugging her knees.
She looked absolutely petrified and tried to cower deeper into the shadows.
Its OK! I whispered, Its me, Michael. You were looking for me werent you? She stopped whimpering at the sound of my voice and shuffled towards the light from the moon shining down the steps, closer to me. As her eyes met mine they seemed to blaze with a light of recognition and she held up her arms to me like a child to its mother. I laughed slightly with nervous relief and came over to her scooping her up in my arms again and lifting her up the steps into the moonlight. Again the sight of the full moon seemed to hold her in its awe and she let her face bathe in its coolness for a moment. Then she turned to me smiling and whispered in a soft but hypnotic voice,
Michael? I nodded unsure how to react,
Yes its me. Everythings going to be fine now, I promise. Ill take care of you.
I could see she didnt understand what I was saying but she smiled anyway and snuggled her head into my shoulder as I carried her home. Once again I laid the trembling strange moon goddess onto my sofa fast asleep but this time I didnt close my eyes but kept watch until the first rays of the sun stirred her from her dreams and she woke up, stretched and smiled at me.
Good morning! I whispered, Who are you?
""Each child holds the world in an open hand to mould it into any shape they choose.""
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CHAPTER THREE – Visions And Visitations
CHAPTER FOUR Revelations and raison detre 