THREE - ISOBEL

I HAD TO STOP TO pee in the snow, a sign I’d been walking for too long. I should have caught up with the owner of the bootprints by now but they had faded away as mine had done, vanishing into the snow and leaving me more lost than ever.

When I start moving again, I’m more miserable than before. My jacket is now soaked through with the snow, as are my gloves and my shoes. My toes are numb and my fingers are burning with the cold, it won’t be long before they’re too frozen for me to feel anything at all.

The snow isn’t my friend anymore. The heavier it falls, the more lost I become. I reach a hill and start to ascend it, hoping I’ll be able to reach some kind of peak. I try to climb a tree near the top, wanting to see if I’ll be able to make out any landmarks in the distance. I fall back to the snow when the branch I’m standing on snaps underneath me. I land with a soft thud and lay on my back, winded and unable to move for a spell, the snow falling directly onto my face, stinging my eyes.

Why did I stop? Why didn’t I keep driving? Mum is next to me, frowning. “You should have stayed at home like we said. You know you can’t make it on your own.”

Dad is next to her. “This is what happens when you try to cope in the big wide world. You fail.”

I force myself to my feet, silencing them by shaking my head vigorously from side to side. “I can do this,” I say, trudging on, my feet plunging into the thick snow. I have to fight to lift my leg with each step, tiring further and doing my best not to cry.

Then I can see the top of the hill. I want to run but I can’t. The trees are thinner up there, it must be the edge of the forest. Was I parked at the top of a hill? I can’t even remember, I can’t remember a time when my teeth weren’t chattering and my ears not burning.

I reach the top and want to scream, it just slopes down again into thicker woodland. I take a single step onto the slope and then I’m sliding.

There’s a layer of mud or something under the snow and it gives me no grip at all. I land on my ass and keep sliding down as the slope gets steeper. I reach out to grab a tree but only get a cut hand for my trouble as the branch whips past me. I see an edge in front of me and try to stop myself but I reach it in under a second and then I’m falling through the air. I scream as I fall and I think I’m about to die but then I land in a thick mound of snow. My scream dies as the air is shoved out of my lungs. I lie there, exhausted, in pain, unable to believe what’s happening.

I only wanted a walk in the woods. Now I’m at the bottom of a cliff, looking up at the sky through the trees, unable to breathe, thinking my parents were right. I can’t cope on my own. I start to cry.

I’m still lying there, trying ineffectually to get up when I hear a noise to my left. I crane my neck and look that way. At first there’s nothing and then in the blink of an eye, he’s there.

I recognise him at once. It’s the man I waved to. I sniff away my tears, trying once again to stand. I don’t want him to see me like this, pathetic, crying, useless. I want him to see an independent woman, capable of looking after herself.

“Get up,” he says and his voice sounds like gravel, like he’s furious at even having to speak.

“I can’t,” I reply. “It’s my leg.”

He scowls, comes over and grabs my hand, pulling me effortlessly to my feet. I begin to fall at once and have to lean on his shoulder to stay upright. He doesn’t move a muscle. “Walk,” he says.

I take a tentative step forwards but immediately my leg gives way and I fall back into the snowdrift, sending plumes of flakes into the air around me like icing sugar. I let out a shriek as I feel his hand on the waistband of my trousers. His thick fingers are inside, brushing my panties as he yanks me to my feet again like I’m a piece of wood, landing me upright and glaring at me.

“I can’t,” I say, anticipating his command to tell me to walk again. “I think I’ve broken my ankle.”

He squats and I wonder what’s making his coat bulge outwards like that. He yanks my trouser leg up, his fingers pressing into my ankle. I let out a cry of pain but it reduces to a dull ache as he lets go. “Not broken,” he says as he stands once again. For a moment we look at each other and something passes between us. I don’t know what it is but my tummy suddenly feels queasy, my heart beating harder, my throat dry. I can’t help but think about his fingers brushing down my panties when he grabbed me. Why am I thinking about that?

He doesn’t say anything. He sidesteps me, grabs me around the waist and, as if I weigh nothing at all, he swings me into the air, draping me over his shoulder like I’m a log he’s just cut down. I dangle there, his hand on my ass, gripping tightly, keeping me in place. Then he starts to walk. “Where are you taking me?” I ask but he doesn’t answer. He just walks in silence, cutting through the snow as if it isn’t even there, striding ever deeper into the forest and away from the cliff edge that was almost my doom.

I should be terrified. Part of me is. But a much bigger part of me is concentrating on the fact that this mountain of a man has his hand right across my ass. If he were to move his finger just an inch lower, he’d feel the one part of me that was still warm, the one part that was getting hotter by the second.