I, Xandra, do love a picnic.
So, I am enjoying one, near,
The Pinnacles in Cheddar Gorge,
Somerset, UK.
The sun is shining,
but I have to say that
I don't like the cold wind !!
But, you can't go past this spectacular scenery
without stopping to take in the atmosphere.
So, as I relax back after eating my meal, to read my book,
I muse back on another picnic that happened here many years ago.
What happened on that fateful St Valentine's Day, so long ago ?
People want to know, my school friends want to know.
I didn't understand myself, at the time,
but things are clearer now.
Our school, which was run by a religious order,
had organised for us all to go on a trip,
to take in various significant sites to them, unbeknownst to us.
We were only a small school,
so there may have been only about 40 students.
So, on St Valentine's Day,
we found ourselves having a picnic near The Pinnacles.
The trip had gone from go to woe.
It was not a good time of year to be outdoors.
We were plagued with the fog, the rain and the mud.
At Cheddar Gorge,
a male teacher tried to force me to have sex with him,
at the back of a cave that we all went into,
as I was at the back of the queue of students,
and he was taking advantage of the darkness.
But, I fought him off.
And, at the base of The Pinnacles, the horse that was pulling our carriage,
collapsed and died from a heart attack,
as Julianne had started an argument with me.
One girl said this was a sign, a portent for a tragedy.
We were all on edge.
Walking up to the picnic spot,
we relayed the news about our horse to the others,
then sat down to try to have our picnic,
Tensions escalated,
and Julianne started another argument,
declaring, "I'm going to jump off the cliff and kill myself !"
Our group had been sitting to one side,
so I don't think the others heard what she said.
But, she jumped up and started heading to the track that led up to the cliff above,
with us and our teacher following, to try to stop her.
Once on top, I saw that Julianne was heading along a narrow ledge,
that led around the edge of a deep hole.
I now know that this hole used to be filled with water,
at the head of a waterfall.
All of a sudden, Julianne stopped.
Ahead of her, a huge doorway had opened up in the rock wall.
I glanced to my right, and noticed some unusual shapes,
carved into the rock wall beside me.
Something was coming out of the doorway !
It looked like a human frog.
It had arms and legs and a head like a human,
but it had a frog's skin from head to toe,
It was coming for us, and it wasn't alone !
I was terrified.
I had never seen anything like this in my life !
Julianne turned around, and started to push her way past us on the ledge.
When she came to me, she deliberately pushed me off,
and I fell into the deep hole, hitting my head and falling unconscious.
They must have thought I was dead.
Julianne escaped, to go back down the cliff to the others,
but my group of friends and our lovely teacher, Helena,
were grabbed and taken in through the doorway, it closing behind them,
and they were never to be seen again on the surface of this earth.
My dearest friends and our lovely teacher :(
How I mourned that day.
I was found a few days later, by a search party,
and taken back to the school, where I recovered enough to go home,
but I had severe damage from the head injury.
How then to proceed now, as I sit here at this very spot,
St Valentine's Day fast approaching again ?
I have overcome my head injury, though it is not cured.
I choose to follow my friends and our teacher,
through The Star Gate, into The Mines of Moria,
for that is what they are,
understanding that the carvings that I saw on the rock wall,
are used to open the door,
All you need to know, is the sequence in which to press them,
ie. The Code.
text (c) Katherine Stuart 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment