Page 20 of The Betrothal

If I could be up at sunrise, that had to be at least ten hours from now. Clothes dry, maybe not the boots, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. I knew, I just knew, I was well over halfway there.

I couldn’t be that far off the route. I could make it. I absolutely knew it.

Chewing on a peanut bar, I realised I was making a mess of someone’s property, so I dug around, the feeling slowly returning to my body.

Finally, I located a notepad and scrawled a small, barely coherent message. And then, I tried to sleep.

The hum of the radio I left on made it into the turbulent dreams I had, forming a sort of announcer to the drama and fears playing out in my head. The fear of being found. The fear of being lost.

Clawing myself from the nightmare, my greatest sense of pride that I could, eventually, identify I was in a dream and almost tear my eyes open, I blinked.

The room was bright, the glow of sunshine from one side disorienting me somewhat, until I realised where I was.

The radio was on because I couldn’t use my phone, from which I used to have the sound of rainfall on all night to soothe my sleep.

The light was bright because it was morning. Not sunrise. Not early. Fully into the morning.

And I was on a sofa, not in bed, under a heavy throw.

The dull throb of the cuts on my knees and palms told me the feeling was entirely returned to my extremities.

But that relief aside, the dawning realisation that it was well past sunrise had me lurching upright.

“Fuck.”

In my eagerness to move, the blanket tangled around my legs and I only managed a graceless slide from the sofa, hands breaking the slow fall but impact on the cuts and bruises now had my eyes stinging.

“Oh, God.”

I threw the blanket off and began to collect my things. The soft warmth of the fabrics renewing a hope. I rolled the throw up, to return it to the sofa, and snatched the hiking maps, appraising the ink bleed to figure out exactly where I might be so I could make it to the bay.

Looking up to check for a clock, I froze.

The large form of a man sat on the farmhouse table, booted feet resting on the bench below him. The sun was at his back, the curtain I’d drawn by the sofa preventing any light on his features, hiding his face in a shadow.

“Shit.” I retreated, eyes flicking to my belongings to the side and the doorway behind him.

“I’d say so.” His voice was gravel, his shape not moving as he spoke. “Care to tell me what the fuck you are doing in my house?”

I grimaced, looking around at the mess of my possessions, then to myself and seeing the goddamned Stitch pyjamas I was clad in.

“There was a snowstorm?” I offered.

Nice, Isabelle.

The shape of a man said nothing and I stepped back once more.

“I was caught in it?”

Why was I saying it like it was a question?

The form cocked its head, just a fraction.

“So you say.” His fingers crinkled the note I scrawled last night before releasing it onto the table.

Swallowing, I reasoned that if this person was a threat, the odds were that he would have been more of a threat to me when I slept. And given that I hadn’t heard him move, only realising his presence when I turned, he had been here before I woke.

I shuddered.