Jot the promot but first five chapters of book wondered what people thought…

Fear of Those

ONE

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Tables, chairs, the window ledge behind the bay window overlooking the west court.

Six. Seven. Eight.

I’ve never been good at this. Hiding. Not my strong suit.

Nine.

We used to play all the time. All of us. All of us turned to the two of us. Now why am I the last one? Alone. My fault. My blame to bear like the world was placed on my shoulders as I tremble, wracking and crumbling beneath the weight.

Ten.

They would find me. They would find me and all of this, all of it, would be over. I just want it to end. The running. The hiding. Find me. Find me. I want to be found. Please?

TWO

One. Two. Three. Four. Five pairs of feet slammed hard into the harsh dirt. Crying with mirth. Yearning for air. Bumbling over stones worn over time and time again, embedded in the earth. They wouldn’t find us here.

I stopped just ary of the group, my lungs screaming for attention. The looks on the others’ faces said more than words could tell. They were coursing us. Like a poacher to his rabbit, a setter to his grouse. We were the prey and there was no stopping the hunter.

Scars. Cuts. Blood.

Always bleeding. Scars that never healed. Deep inside, memories swirled. Billowing and flowing, hanging on by a thread. They claw inside me. I want to scream, louder and louder and louder. They claw harder and harder.

I was there though it all. The blood. The scars. The tears. The lies. The screams. The bullets. The notes. The droning of the undertakers. Now I bury my emotions six feet under.

THREE

One. Two. Three. Four pairs of bloodshot eyes sat round the table that night. His blood was still stippled on my shirt. My brother's cries echoed in my mind. Round and round and round. No one said a word. Each lost to their own thoughts.

We sat tight in each other's company through the night. The levels of whisky in the decanter slowly lowering. Our senses were troubled only with the emptiness that flooded the room, castings its snake like tendrils into the most complex of souls.

A sudden wave of emotion crashed against the anchor that bound my soul to its body.

He’s gone, it whispered. He’s gone and he’s never coming back. It’s your fault. He took the gun but it’s your fault. Your fault. Yours.

My brother’s auburn eyes met mine. Eyes. A portal to the soul. He knows. He’s always known. He grew up with me. He raised me. He knows me.

He knows.

FOUR

One. Two. Three am it read on the old grandfather clock. The reflection in the silver tankard told more than the emptiness would in a lifetime. Three boys sat around me, heads lolling on each others shoulders. Fitful sleep. Sleep disturbed by nightmares that would not fade in the days that followed.

It’s my fault.

Henry went first.

Darling, charismatic, jovial Henry Boldham.

Warning shots turned to pummeling shrapnel exploding like fireworks on the 5th November.

Stripping trees of their bark. Stripping cars of their paint. Stripping a friend of their life.

Charlie had gone second.

My brother, my older brother. His blood flowed fast like the flood that had wrecked the village a month ago.

I had found him.

Face down. Eyes a dying flame. Books still resting under his scared forearm. Peaceful. He seemed so peaceful.

One would have thought he was sleeping. For not the whiff of smoke and the tinny, nauseating, metallic stench of dried blood that carried on the air like a feather.

My Dearest Bird.

I didn’t want to read it. I had put it off for weeks. I didn’t forgive him. Maybe I wanted to. Maybe I didn’t. My mind was at a crossroads with no exit in sight.

The letter was addressed to me.

Rowena Solace.

Solace. Only needed in a time of grief or bereavement.

I didn’t feel needed.

I felt unloved.

FIVE