The Burial by Courtney Collins Read Free Book Online Page A

she could see herself standing, and then she could see that self growing distant. She turned away from it. She trained her eyes between the wooden slats of the cart and out into the forest, but there again she saw herself, or versions of herself, like children running between trees.
    Into the Woods. The game they played when the moon was full and later, when they had their courage, when the moon was dark. Their house was not far, but not visible, so the forest was all and their own.
    Jessie was a child then, too tall for her age, too wild and too tall, trying to find her father, her sister, her brothers, all of them yelling to her, I’m here, I’m here , then running between the trees. She crouched low, held on to a torch, a new thing of light, and turned it sharply in the dark.
    I’m here! A body would leap and weave between the trees.
    I’m here!
    She would run until she felt her heart exploding.
    One night she ran so far that the sounds of them were lost to her and she felt they were gone, and not just gone but gone forever, and the feeling felt real and she could not hold back her sobbing.
    Where are you?
    Through her tears the trees were doubling and shifting like legged creatures.
    Where are you? Is that you?
    Her father stepped out from behind a tree in the distance. Jessie! he yelled. I’m here.
    She ran to him.
    You’re crying, my love.
    I thought I’d lost you. She grabbed hold of his arm and wiped her eyes with his sleeve.
    Darling , he said, you can’t lose me.
    Her father took her hand and they walked along the broken path until her two brothers and her sister leapt out and said, We’re here! Then they all walked together, all holding hands, taking turns with the torch, their feet never touching the circle of light that was always ahead.

MY MOTHER did not know what world she was in. She was in and out of feverish dreams and of course I tried to reach her. I could not reach out with hands or feet, so I bawled out, Mother, there is life! Don’t die. Not yet! And I willed us as one and I imagined it was us riding together hell-bent up the mountain, disappearing into its shadows. All was dark there and we were protected. But even in my dreaming, where I wanted my mother to feel peace, I could only feel her terror—and soon I realised that this was not my dream at all.
    My mother was dreaming me back.
    In her dream, we were not escaping together into the mountains. She had us in the old woman’s cart, but it was not a horse towing us, it was the old woman herself. The cart was bouncing over rocks and my mother stuffed me inside her shirt and opened the latch with her toes and slid out of the cart and then she sprinted into the dark. When she heard the old woman holler she dropped to the ground and we rolled and we rolled until we hit a log. She crawled into it and she held me and told me to be as quiet as I could.
    She’s gone! the old woman screeched and then the sound of the cart rattled through the forest with the sound of the dog tearing through.
    The dog found us in no time and circled the log. It pushed its snout right in and we could see its teeth and we shrank back and back but there was nowhere to go. The old man grabbed my mother’s hair and pulled us out.
    You can’t escape smelling like that , he said.
    My mother’s dreams did not end there. She was scrambling barefoot up the mountain, pursued not by anything that she could name but by looming shapes that moved steadily and changed direction only when she turned to face them.
    When she woke, she was lying in a room she did not recognise with a heap of knitted blankets piled upon her. She was sweating all over. The sheets were damp and she kicked them from her and when she raised her hands to rub her eyes she saw her nails had been clipped and shaped and cleaned. There was a silver bracelet around her wrist. She tried to pull it off but it was too small for her hand and it pushed up against her