Restored to Love by Anna Rockwell

this does not mean that I do not feel. I feel what matters.
    Away from the church and the village green, the cemetery is at its darkest. The girl and I wind our way through the picturesque headstones, before climbing a ruined stone wall. The piled stones are hardly a wall at all but the graves in this part of the cemetery are set aside for a reason. The headstones here are much less pleasing to look at and most are crudely fashioned. They exude an air of decay and corruption impossible to miss. The girl feels the underlying menace. ‘Where are you taking me?’ she says, pulling back.
    â€˜Quiet,’ I say, and just like an obedient child she follows me silently, mistakenly trusting, and foolishly taking me at my word when I say she will be safe in my arms. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I reassure the girl when she continues to hesitate. ‘You wanted to go someplace quiet, didn’t you?’
    â€˜Yes … but I’m cold.’
    I pull her closer to me, giving the impression that I mean to warm her, when in fact I am holding tight to my prey. Even in the darkness I know exactly where to go. I walk the increasingly reluctant girl through the haphazard rows into the oldest part of the cemetery, stopping beside a long-forgotten grave. The headstone is small, faded, lost among the weeds and brambles. We can discern no name, only a date: 1743. This, the last evidence of my existence, worn by the elements. I grieve as I always do when I realise they have not buried Anna next to me as she had promised. She is not in this graveyard. I have searched many, many times in vain. I hurt because I do not know what became of my beloved.
    â€˜Whose grave is this?’
    â€˜Does a name matter? She is long dead.’
    â€˜She?’
    â€˜A girl like you – full of wonder and longing.’
    â€˜What became of her?’
    â€˜She died of a broken heart.’
    The girl looks at me, fully believing that such a thing is possible. She too has been hurt. ‘Remember this grave,’ I say and the girl nods. ‘Now we can go.’ Persuading the girl to take me to her home is easy. The house is not far. She opens the door and quietly hovers in the doorway, waiting for me to follow. ‘No, no. You must invite me in.’
    As soon as we enter the house, my lips are on the girl’s mouth. She pushes back against me, her breathing soft then growing hard. Her beautiful eyes again wide with fright, though this time not of me. ‘Shhss,’ she whispers, ‘Mum and Dad are asleep upstairs.’
    It is sweet, is it not, that this child-woman still lives under the protection of her parents. She takes me upstairs, and then leads me along the landing towards her bedroom at the far end. I know the room is hers, for a pink pony is stuck to the door. Sneaking past the girl’s parents is thrilling, and I have to quell an impulse to make love to the girl out on the landing while her parents lie in innocent ignorance. Yet, this girl has more gumption than I have so far given her credit. To risk bringing me into her home at all reflects her determination to break from the nest, or maybe her driving force is lust. Pure, simple lust.
    We sit on the edge of her bed, doing nothing. Shyness wells in the girl once she realises what she has done. Again, I revel in her anxiety, luxuriate in the way her fear accentuates the girl’s ultimate surrender. Helping her dip into the deep well of desire is only fair. I lean close to kiss the girl’s neck, my fingers pressed against her spine, drawing her close. Mustering all her courage, she whispers so quietly into my ear that even I have to strain. ‘I want you to make love to me.’
    My mouth stills against her neck. ‘I know.’
    I slip the strap of her dress off her shoulder; kiss the white line left in her flesh. Girls are not as pale as they once were. The sun has touched even shy girls like this one. Such a shame. I stroke her sides,