Her feet drag with every step, kicking up clouds of dust.  Something is dragging her backwards, backwards, away. But her feet force her forward; forward on this rugged path, laboriously forward to the unknown.

But her heavy steps slow and finally stop.

The narrowing path leads into the shadowy depths of a forest.  Skeletal trees leer at her, their white barren branches jutting as if frozen as if in mid-seizure.  Fear wraps cold, sliming tendrils round her heart.  Nausea sweeps through her gut.  Her body trembles. Her shoulders slump. Heavy, weary.  How long?  How far down this path must she go?  Where will it lead?

A solid, gentle presence at her side. A strong hand brushes across her shoulders and pulls her close. Protective.  Gentle. She leans into the embrace and his tenderness floods her being.  Fear’s tendrils ease their grip. “Don’t leave me,” she whispers, “just don’t leave me, okay?”

They step forward together onto the shadowy path, his arm tightening around her shoulders. It doesn’t matter anymore how long or how painful this path will be.  All that matters is that he is with her.  She can do it if he is with her.

The trees, the path, the arm around her shoulder melts like wax and turns to swirling darkness.

Three threads: one checkered black, one blood red, one earthy brown.  Seemingly separate yet bound tightly together. Brown callused hands tug gently but firmly at each thread, unraveling them, untangling their connections, tracing them back to the source.  Tender, insistent, but unhurried, his fingers work at the knots.

What’s left in his scarred palms seems like tangled mass, more frayed and ugly than before.  His hands melt away and in their wake there a hint of order and beauty—as if the threads have begun to be woven into a dove.

But it is just a flash, perhaps an illusion; a mirage melting away to nothing.

It stretches into nothingness all around her, a vast, dark ocean.  The blackness of the night blinds her, but she knows there is no land, no shelter, no escape.  She can feel the raw energy of the sea seething beneath her, around her, within her; from the depths, the raging tides cause the surface of the water to churn with unease. Dusky gray clouds roil the turbid skies and the wind holds its breath.

She is so small in this immensity; so powerless in the midst of such intensity. Lost. Alone. Overwhelmed. Drowning?  Why isn’t she drowning?  No boat, no land, water surging around her ankles. But wait… she realizes, wait… below her feet is something firm.  Something solid and deeper than even this ocean.  Something stronger than the raging tides. Something steady in the midst of this uncertainty.

The ocean tugs at her feet, rushing around her ankles, almost imperceptibly rising.  Peace seeps into her bare toes.  It spreads upward from the rock, engulfing her heart, warming her fingertips, relaxing her shoulders. Clouds roil in the turbid sky, the waters seethe, the wind holds its breath.

But not for long.  A storm is coming.

She spreads her feet wide, settling her weight onto this firm foundation—invisible, but so very present.

He didn’t leave her after all.