Tom Conoboy
Artwork by Carole Humphreys

There's so far to go and the light's fading fast. A mile through the woods, tripping and falling, tearing your skirt on broken branches. Another mile across the moor, avoiding bogs which suck you ten feet under in a matter of minutes. Another down Denby Drive, with owls in the depths and scavenging rats rustling by the side of the road. You're panting, gasping, crying, you're hurting.

And then, only then, your troubles begin.

Poor girl, all dressed so fine, so far to go. Farther than you'll ever know.

You reach the house where it all began. Where you died, three hundred years ago. You see the spot on which you burned, the earth still charred as though cleared only this morning.

You see a ruin, draped in vines, with blind windows and ragged walls. And only you know the truth, the truth that happened here.

And happens here, year on year, through decades, centuries, every May. On the twelfth day at dusk, with the sun down and cloud high and your heart hammering in your chest.

You awake, with a howl, in a ditch by the wood. "Not again," you whisper, "not again." You're cold and stiff but you have to move, you have to run. Run, to save yourself. Run, to stop your death. Run, through woods and bogs and down the lane. Again, again, just like every year, again.

And when you get there you see a great house. As it was three hundred years ago. Fire in the hearth, hate in the air. And you see yourself. Hunched on the floor, screaming and crying, protecting your face from the brute at your head. Begging for mercy. Begging for peace. But soon you'll be begging for death, real death. Death in the ground with the maggots and worms, far better friends than the eyes of the night.

You rush forward, a knife in your hand, lunging for the beast, for the man who took your life, three hundred years ago today. Year by year you awake on this day and try once more to stop it, to slay before you are slain again.

By now you know the price of failure. You come so close, you reach the door, but as it opens so does your head, cleaved by an axe, and you watch in silence as your body falls lifeless to the floor.

I turn and smile.

"Maybe next year, my sweet?"

Another year, another year. So far to go, so long, so slow. Farther than you'll ever know.