Wind, by Maggie Wells

We parked the car on the grass verge and climbed over the stile into the woodland. There was nobody else about, since it was a blusterous sort of day, though not cold.

“Come on!” I said to Sarah, “This is one of my favourite walks!”

 “How long is it going to take?”

“Oh, less than an hour, I should think; then we’ll go to the pub for lunch”

We walked along the path through the trees, chatting about this and that. It was the first time I’d seen Sarah for quite a while. After a bit we turned a corner, and there was the little lake spread out beneath us. I thought it was a glorious view.

“What do we do now?” asked Sarah.

“Walk round the lake and then back to the car. It’s not as far as it looks”.

“Oh”. She sounded very unenthusiastic. “The path isn’t too close to the water, is it? It looks deep!”

“It’s perfectly safe: I’ve been round hundreds of times. What’s the problem?”

“I’m scared of deep water”

“Can’t you swim?”

“I’ve never swum a stroke in my life. It terrifies me: it always has done. And then there was my sister …..” her voice faded out.

“Oh yes, I heard about that somewhere. You had a younger sister who died when she was very small, didn’t you?”

“Yes; she fell into a pool and drowned. It was while we were out on a picnic”

“Where was this?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t much older myself at the time; too young to remember the details; and my parents never talked to me about it, ever. They found it much too distressing”

We started out along the shore, with me doing my best to keep between Sarah and the water whenever the path was wide enough to allow this. But we hadn’t gone very far before Sarah said, “Look, I really don’t want to go any further. You might find I’m being silly, but I don’t like this place at all; it unsettles me. And the wind’s really getting up: I think we might be in for a storm”.

“Fair enough, if that’s how you feel. Let’s just walk as far as those benches, then we’ll go back to the car”                                                                 

   There were two wooden seats near the water’s edge, which looked as though they’d been there for ages. I sat down on one of them to retie my shoelaces. Sarah remained standing, gazing out into the water. Then I heard her say, “My God!”

The wind was really howling by this time, making a fearful racket in the treetops. I wouldn’t have heard Sarah at all if she hadn’t started to shout at the top of her voice. But she wasn’t shouting to me: it was as if she’d forgotten I was there.

“My God, it was here it happened! Here! I can see it in my mind, just as it was!”

You! You! You! Said the wind.

“It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t mean to push her in! It was an accident!”

You! You! Said the wind.

“It was mummy and daddy’s fault! They were too far away, and didn’t get back in time to pull her out!”

You! You! You!

“It wasn’t fair to expect me to go in and help her! They know I’m frightened of water!” Sarah collapsed in hysterical tears.

I managed to grab hold of her and led her back through the woods. I helped her into the car without a word, and we sat there for a while until she’d managed to calm down. Then I said, “Look, I really am sorry for bringing you here”

“No”, said Sarah, “You couldn’t possibly have known. I didn’t know myself until we reached that spot, and then it all came back to me. It was my fault for losing self-control like that. I’m sorry. It must have been very embarrassing for you”

There was another silence, then she said, “It was just like I heard voices by the lake there. But it was only the wind, wasn’t it?”