Jane Drew

The sky is dimming even in the mid-afternoon, this late in the year.  Mrs. Parsons pulls on her gloves as the train slows, and finishes wrapping her scarf around her neck just as the train fully stops at the station.  It's cold outside, and once she has her single piece of luggage down from the racks (it was kind of that young man to get it down for her, but really, she could have done it herself), she doesn't want to have to be fumbling around with more things to carry than she absolutely has to be.

She holds the handrail with one hand and her bag with the other as she steps down from the train.

*Jane stumbles slightly as she comes down the stairs. She has obviously tried to hide the signs of her distress. Her hair is in a tidy ponytail, her face clean, and she is dressed well. But those don't hide the slowly healing scratches over her face and arms, or the redness of her eyes from crying.*

Jane Drew dreams, tossing restlessly under the covers of her bed. There's everywhere a smell of the sea, salt, and hawthorne, though everything is muted, as if seen and felt from a great distance, or from under water. Jane floats in her dream, in the cool green darkness behind her eyelids. Suddenly, twigs from out of the darkness scratch at her, stinging across her face and her arms. In the dream, Jane flinches and looks around her in shock. Then there's a voice, a high, cold voice, all around her in the darkness. The voice echoes with an immense sadness, weighing down the air around Jane with its ancient sorrow that is tinged with anger.

"You never wished me to be happy."

Jane tosses in her sleep, brow furrowed in a frown.

"I did! I wanted you to be happy! You seemed so sad..."

"You never wished me to be happy. You wished for yourself and your own gain.

And suddenly Jane wakes properly, and the darkness is gone. The great smell of the sea that had permeated the room is absent again; the room smells almost clinical in comparison.

Only the twigs and leaves remain, scattered across the bedcovers in little piles and patches.

Jane puts a hand up to the stinging on her face. When she pulls it away she can just make out the little patches of dark red on her hand, blood from the multitude of tiny scrapes and scratches on her face. The same shallow scratches can be felt on her arms. Jane gives up on any chance of sleep for the rest of the night, and, after calming herself down by force of will alone, heads to the bathroom to start cleaning the cuts.

Under the sheets on the bed in her room Jane tosses and turns, seeking sleep. When at last she does sleep, she dreams.

* * *

They are there again, the three of them. Will, Bran, and herself, standing on the rocks above a lake surrounded by reeds. The sky is blue above them with the dark blue of the lake below, and the wind is gentle as it flows down the mountainside behind them. Jane is giggling at her attempt to pronounce the name of the lake, and Will is shaking his head in mock exasperation, imitating Bran’s voice, saying that she is clearly too English for her own good. Bran laughs too, then turns to Jane and says, grinning, "They say there’s a monster, you know, at the bottom of the lake." From behind Bran, Will laughs, his lopsided smile brightening his face. Bran laughs with him, "But that is only a story."
Still laughing, Jane steps further out onto the rock, peering down into the depths of the lake. There is no hint of movement in the lake, only the slight ripples pushed by the wind on the surface of the water. Jane’s hair whips about her face as the wind rises suddenly, howling down the mountain behind her. She tries to push her hair out of her eyes and turns around towards Will and Bran, startled. The wind catches her roughly, pushing her back. She hears Will’s distant cry of "Jane! Jane!" as she falls.

The dark water closes around her with no shock of impact, She quite naturally breathes the water, like a fish. It cradles her, pulling her down and whispering to her of rest. Jane can no longer see the surface of the lake, but it doesn’t matter. There are hints of movement around her in the darkness, holding her, comforting her. Jane longs to sink into that embrace, to find sleep, but she is rising again, the light of the surface growing brighter and brighter until she breaks into the open air once more.


Clearing her eyes of water, she finds that she is no longer in a lake, but is floating alone in a sunlit river surrounded by trees and quiet fields. An overwhelming feeling of contentment washes over Jane, who leans back into the water to float on her back. She lets the river carry her, the current gently taking her downstream. Jane passes fields and forests without really seeing them; the birds of this countryside call around her, but she barely notices; a tall tower in the distance catches her attention only when a bright ray of sunlight is reflected into her eyes from the golden arrow affixed to the top; the leaves and branches of trees dapple the sunlight with shades and shadows that fall across her as she passes under them. She drifts in peace in this way for quite a while, letting the water carry her where it will.

After some time, her attention is caught by a change in the sounds of the river. She looks around for the source of the sound. There is a long line of boats traveling more swiftly than she downstream, passing her. She watches them idly as she lies in the water, seeing the people on each of the boats and hearing their indistinct voices. They seem so solemn, these people; she wonders where they are going.

Jane tries to raise a hand to wave at them and get their attention so she can ask what their purpose is, but her hand seems to be trapped under the water. She tugs hard and her hand comes free of the water, wrapped with vines. Oddly, she notices that they are covered in hawthorne leaves. As she tries to untangle the vines from around her hand, others snake out of the water and coil themselves around her wrists and ankles. Jane fights, trying to break free before she becomes too entangled, but more and more of them come. She looks towards the boats, seeking someone to call out to for help. She gasps as a particular boat catches her gaze.

There are people standing on this boat, five people she knows and three she does not. She can hear their voices, muffled by the distance across the water, and knows that they are who she thinks they are; Will, Bran, her brothers, and herself. Not bothering to wonder how this could be possible, she cries out to get their attention. She is losing the fight against the entangling vines from the dark waters, and needs help. Jane cries out again, shouting for help, but the boats continue their way down the river and they do not notice her.

As the voices from those on the boat die away, she continues to struggle against the entangling vines. There are so many, though, and Jane knows she is losing. Other voices come then, from the very water around her. The voices overlap and meld together, sometimes sounding as one, and at other times sounding as if a multitude of people were down in the water speaking up to her as the vines pull her down to them. Particular voices catch at her; a sad, unearthly voice calls to her, "....it was my secret... mine...my only secret....you told.....it was my secret and you took it from me.....but I shall have another secret for my own....a secret....with me in the deeps...."; a panicked, heavily-accented voice that cried out "Roger Toms! Roger Toms! The Lottery is taken!"; and a laugh, a terrible mocking nasal laugh that echoes in her ears as her head slips under the dark waters. She cannot breathe; the waters grow hot around her as she sinks. Panic seizes her, and she screams, "GUMERRY!"

* * *

Jane wakes up suddenly and sits bolt upright in bed, looking frantically at the room around her and breathing hard. She doesn’t know what woke her, and is frightened. She crumples back down onto the pillow, curls up on her side, and sobs.