Ralph and the Pixie

Deborah did as she was told, stripping off her clothes, and finding to her wonder that she felt warm, as did the light breeze caressing her naked skin. As in a dream, she noticed that she could no longer see her own breath. The woman took her hand and led her to the water’s edge. But there she stopped, frowning. Had she heard something?

‘Do not listen!’ the woman hissed urgently, drawing her into the water. ‘Dawn comes. We must hurry.’ Deborah followed until she was waist deep, then stopped again. She heard a voice that she thought she should know, but like a vague echo of some long-forgotten memory; a slight resemblance to nothing she could put a name to.

Without warning, she found herself surrounded by plunging, dark shapes, splashing water, and she was suddenly being pulled violently in both directions. Cold suddenly seemed to numb her mind, gripping her heart and leaving her gasping. The last thing she remembered clearly was being carried from the lake by Pran, and fainting in his arms.

After a night of murky underwater nightmares, full of cold betrayal, couched in alluring promises disguised as eldritch creatures that were both wild and free, immune to life’s corrupted hopes and unattainable dreams; Deborah reluctantly awoke to the dim interior of the wagon. The top was up, the interior warm and dimly lighted by a small oil lantern which swayed irrhythmically from one of the iron stays which served to hold up the canvas. She lay in a dreamy stupor, wrapped snugly and warm.