Twelve Days The Beginning - By Jade Reyner Page 0,146

shattered, leaving a hefty dent in the wall. Elise watched mute as the remnants of her beautiful present scattered all over the carpet. Her contact with Vaughn was now gone – just like that. Gone.

The bed dipped as Dale joined her again and Elise retreated back to her safe place, back to the lake and the sun and the sailboat and the ducks and the children and the little boy. She followed the path around the lake with her eyes, it wasn’t a big lake; each side could easily be seen from where she sat on the old wooden bench at the top of the hill. This was her favourite place to sit. It was the best place to take in the view and to fully appreciate the beauty of what lay below and the vista of the water’s edge.

A family were walking around the lake, a Mum, a Dad and a baby in a pushchair. The Dad had stopped by the ducks and was crouching down beside the buggy, taking the baby’s chubby little hand in his and using it to point to the ducks. From where she sat Elise could hear the work “Ducks” being repeated over and over. A father teaching his child. Dale teaching his wife. She watched as the family retreated, heading back to their life, their family, their happiness.

It was nearly over she could tell. The spite and vitriol coming out of Dale’s mouth was crude beyond comprehension but in her world, in her wonderful safe place she heard none of it. She was completely numb, completely lost, sitting on the bench at the top of the hill beside the lake, enjoying the view.

A group of children were running around in the field next to the lake. They had a cheerful red kite, which they were trying to coax to fly, its tail long and adorned with brightly coloured paper. They ran one way then the other, each having a turn, running faster and jumping higher, building up the pace until eventually it launched into the sky and as Elise watched, it sailed high and free, soaring peacefully above the land, dancing on the breeze, quiet and beautiful as calm reigned once again.

She was weightless too as she watched the kite and listened to the chatter. The sound began to retreat getting quieter and quieter until eventually there was no sound at all. The birds had stopped singing, the leaves were no longer rustling in the wind, the ducks were quiet, swimming away. The people had all gone home and stillness had returned.

In the quiet aftermath the only sound she could hear was that of her breathing as it began to resume its calm pace, bringing her back slowly back from her safe place, allowing her to register reality as and when she was able.

And, as she listened very carefully in the almost surreal silence, she thought she could hear the sound of her soul as it was finally and brutally, broken into tiny little pieces.

After a while Elise realised that her arms were painfully dead and she flexed them experimentally to see what Dale’s reaction would be, lying as he was on top of her. He didn’t move so she tried again, this time moving her legs a little - still he didn’t move. His breathing was heavy and regular so she tried to wriggle out slightly from underneath him in order to see his face. His eyes were closed and she realised that he was either asleep or passed out – she hoped that it was the latter as that would give her the precious time that she needed to try to escape.

Tentatively, she pushed against his shoulder and he moved slightly and grunted but he didn’t wake. She continued to wiggle underneath him; bit by bit, until eventually she could sit up. Her legs were still stuck beneath his torso but now that she had some leverage she was able to gently rock him until he rolled onto his side. She remained motionless and held her breath, praying that the movement wouldn’t wake him, and when she was sure that he was still asleep, she gently and painfully moved from the bed.

She was in agony; her face burned where he had slapped her, her legs were sore where he had scratched her with his nails, her arm was still numb where he had leaned on it and her side and ribs made even the tiniest movement excruciating. Moving purely on adrenalin,