The Fickle Winds of Autumn

15. The Flickering Orange Glow

Kira's stomach rumbled in angry emptiness. Her rain-soaked robes clung hungrily to her weakened body; the cold hard log she sat on offered no comfort as the constant rain pattered on the trees above. A dim, endless tangle of lost and bewildered forest engulfed her; the bedraggled, miserable rat's tails of her drenched hair hung limply down on her aching, sodden shoulders.

She hugged her knees up to her chest, trying to retain a glimmer of meagre body heat, but at some point in her fleeing panic, she had lost her shawl and now sorely missed its warmth and comfort.

The last few lonely days of trying to survive in the unknown tangle of branches and foliage, wandering aimlessly without hope or direction in the unending forest, had been a wretched and chastening experience.

Even worse, the sharp nagging tones of Sister Amelia Constance rang incessantly through her troubled mind and rebuked her from the slough of her despair:

"The Surrounder has a plan and a place for us all - no matter how disagreeable and how stubbornly we refuse to see it. So stop complaining and start fulfilling His Great Purpose!"

And the damp forest had agreed with Sister Amelia, forcing Kira to snap out of her torpor and learn to take responsibility for her own survival.

It had been a novel and unwelcome experience - as far back as her memory stretched, everything had always been thought out for her: what to eat and when to eat it; what to study and which rooms to be in at certain times; what robes to wear and for which occasion; when to pray; when to light a candle, and when its meagre flame should be extinguished - the convent had fastidiously planned her days out for her down to the last tiny detail - for, as the Sisterhood knew, demons were certain to inhabit and corrupt idle hands or minds of the young novicellae.

When she reflected on it, Kira realised that the Church had consciously mapped out, not just her present days and nights and meals, but the whole of her future life as it stretched away before her.

She did not know if she welcomed this idea.

At the time, she had been enormously frustrated by the petty rules and regulations of the convent, somehow always managing to fall foul of them in one way or another - to the obvious and great displeasure of the attendant nuns - so she could never have believed she might ever feel differently. But now, strangely, deprived of her prison bars, she began to appreciate and perhaps even to miss them.

The regularity, the daily certainty, the company, the warm sweet pikelets for feast-day breakfasts.

Her stomach growled at her again, aggravated by her comforting thoughts of food; the chill wet of the forest roused her once more.

The noise of the rain had stopped and had been replaced by a gentle drip from the high yellow leaves down onto the soft mud.

She would have to push on if she was to have any hope of rescue or survival; she stood and trudged cautiously through the soggy moss and earth, scanning for any signs of danger, or of salvation.

Through the deepening gloom of the tree canopy above, it was apparent that evening was falling. It would be dark again soon. She shuddered at the thought of what that would bring - a huddled loneliness spent cowering in the endless unknowing night.

She should at least look for somewhere less exposed before the darkness brought out its strange sounds and terrors and cold.

The fearful isolation of the vast solitary forest had prevented her from sleeping properly for the last two nights; numbing exhaustion weighed heavily across her body and clouded her head as she slogged on.