Free Tales from the Tent by Jess Smith

seconds the unlikely pair were huddled together. He felt instant warmth from the girl’s body and moved closer, slipping an arm round her small
waist.
    Something strange began to happen! The young girl’s frame had a familiar feel to it, and for some reason he knew this feeling. She did not move as he ran his hand over her head and
shoulders. In the dark he could not see her hair but there was no curl to it, in fact the opposite. Long and silky hair cascaded through his quivering fingers. Helen had such hair!
    At his touch she turned round to face him, the smell of her body filling his nostrils. He had never forgotten the smell of rose water. Helen dabbed a little on her breastbone each night. He took
great pleasure from the fragrance when she gently laid his head on her body after a long hard day at the plough.
    He held the girl close, running his hands over her small frame.
    ‘My love! My love!’ he whispered as time took him back to days long buried. They were running together, young, hand in hand, a warm summer breeze gently blowing her hair against his
face. He closed his eyes and felt the silky smoothness. They’d stop every so often, embrace lovingly, and then kiss with all the passion in their youthful being.
    ‘Helen, why did you leave me alone, my love? Oh, how I’ve missed you!’
    He whispered in the young girl’s ear over again, ‘My love, why?’
    Peter had been dreaming. Realising what he’d said and done, he sat up, feelings of guilt and shame rushing through his mind.
    Utterly ashamed he cried out in the cold, darkened room. ‘I’m sorry at what I have done. Oh Lord, what manner o’ man am I? What has become of me? Lassie, please forgive this
auld man, I’m not myself. You stay here, I’ll go into the kitchen and light the fire...’
    In the darkness the girl said nothing. It was silent, for the storm had subsided. A bright moonlight filled the sky, slivers of light shone through the cracked window and lit up her face, but it
wasn’t her he saw lying there, with arms stretched out to him, not the little tinker lass—it was his very own Helen, his beautiful wife had come home.
    All pain left his body as he fell into a deep sleep.
    He returned to his dream, holding tightly the hand of his lost love. As they walked off into the red sunset, he glanced over his shoulder and waved to a young mistletoe-seller, with curly black
hair and a little button nose, skipping off down a heather-lined path, who waved back before disappearing over the brow of the hill.

    Mrs Beckett, concerned for her neighbour, went back to visit early in the New Year. There was no sign of the old man and the house lay cold and empty, as if no one had lived
there for years.
    The few old hens had laid claim to the bedroom. Melting snow soaked floors and furniture. Where had old Peter gone? ‘Did he,’ she wondered, heartbroken, ‘set off in the storm
and, like Helen, become a mystery known only to the glens?’ She would never know.
    The good woman stood in silence, clasped hands and said a little prayer.
    One last look round the house, then she would leave and take the sad news home to her husband.
    Something, though, caught her eye. A notebook, covered in dust, lay half-open on the kitchen table. It was a small diary, Helen’s, dated thirty years ago, the day she disappeared. Mrs
Beckett picked it up, and carefully blew off the dust. It read:
    ‘Today my Peter sleeps long, the fever leaves him weak. Mrs Brown will deliver today. I hope it’s a boy, they need a fine boy to start their family.
    I feel snow in the air.
    There was as strange early morning visitor, still, I felt it best to buy a little, even though Peter knows the whereabouts of a tree laden with berries. Still, she was
     such a small tinker to carry a heavy load.
    She said one day that she’d come back and repay my kindness.
    Sweet child. Bonny curly black hair.’
    Now if the couthy neighbour had dallied just a wee bit longer, and taken herself