She was small, dark-haired and her eyes were in constant movement, watching everything and everyone around us. Her skin was a dark-brown, like finely polished wood. Later, when she undressed for me, I saw she had no tan lines. She’d never hidden any part of her body from the sun.
She led me away from the crowd, out beyond the edges of the town, out past the fields and back towards the woods.
‘I don’t want to be in the town,’ she said. An explanation that hid more than it revealed. As we walked away, she kept glancing back over her shoulder, watching for something. It was not until we left the last of the buildings and fields behind, and were inside the wood, that she relaxed.
‘Is someone looking for you?’ I asked.
She just laughed and looked back over her shoulder once more. She turned to face me. ‘Everybody is looking for me. You were looking for me.’
‘I found you.’
‘Did you?’ She laughed again and led me to a place at the side of the road. There was a break in the undergrowth. I would not have given it a second glance if I’d been riding through the woods. Beyond the road, behind the undergrowth there was a hidden path.
She tuned a few strides along the path and I saw a knife glint in the sunlight that found its way through the high trees. ‘This path is a secret.’
I nodded, my eyes fixed on the knife. ‘I know about secrets,’ I said. ‘I have too many of my own.’
She stared at me for a while and then put away her knife. She stepped towards me. I could smell something earthy, something wild about her as strong as the smell of wood smoke in her tangled hair. She grinned at me. ‘Come on then. Come with me and tell me all you secrets and I will show you mine.’
So I did… and later she did too.
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