I was still shaken and nervous when I’d washed the mud from my skin and hair in the sink in my room. I changed into dry, warm clothes quickly, and made my way down the stairs to retrieve the clothing I’d abandoned in the side-porch. Martha was still in her room and seemed unaware for the moment that I’d returned. I gathered up the sopping jeans, shirt and jumper I’d stripped off, and put them in the washing machine. The jacket went to dry on a hook in the hallway. As soon as I’d done that, I leaned against a counter in the kitchen and closed my eyes, willing my blood to stop racing through my heart with such speed, willing my flesh to stop quaking for what I’d seen. My head was pounding.
What had I seen? I hardly knew, although the soft whispers within my head told me that whatever it was hadn’t been friendly. I wished I could stop thinking of what had happened to Philomena on the coast path, of the beast who had attacked her, assaulted her with hands and claws. I felt as though I too had been assaulted, even though the creature hadn’t touched me. I felt dirty, invaded.
But the creature, or shadow, or whatever it was hadn’t touched me. In the light of the kitchen, familiar noises of the washing machine churning and birds singing outside, I could barely imagine such darkness so close to normality. Was the creature something which had sprung from my mind? Was I becoming lost to rationality and sense just by reading a book?
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