Missing [2]

‘What if there was a place. Once you were inside- Lord knows how you got there- you could find all that is missing. Memories. Trinkets. That old diary you shoved under the brown chair in the drawing room and never heard of again, remember?’

‘That,’ said Tom, ‘would be wonderful.’

‘What if I told you there was such a place. A place you could access only when you are asleep,’ Laura whispered. He scanned her face. Like a rose. Soft, smiling, the gentle shine in her eyes, even in this glorious dusk.

‘Go on,’ he smiled. It was getting so dark.

‘A pathway made of shiny stones, winding through an ethereal landscape. Everything looks so near, yet so far. You can see the pathway in the distance, hovering slightly above the low hills upon which gnarled tree trunks hold up cascades of thick, pink blossom.’ She paused for a moment, and her eyes took on a distant look.

‘Why pink blossom?’

‘I don’t know why it has to be pink blossom. I suppose it could be a violet vale, or a field of poppies. It could be honeysuckle winding up the thick, curled trunk of an ancient tree. Perhaps it was the tree that saw it all to begin with, and it is in the tree that the memories are contained? Or a forest. A forest full of memories. Missing items. Or the MEMORY of missing items?!’ She seized his arm, and he stiffened, but her eyes were shining with possibilities.

Epiphanies.

Forgotten sweet nothings.

She was not his rose, she was a rose garden. Perhaps it was a garden of beautiful but thorny roses. Perhaps the thorns grew thick and monstrous around her, like dragons holding her in her rose tower. He glanced at her in the dark, now. Barely seeing her face. But knowing exactly what it looked like, as her arm reached out to the starry sky above, her voice soft, high, scattered around his thoughts like water, but warm, something to nestle into.