STARSHINE , THE SEA AND THE UNICORN.
Chapter Four                                                                                                           Part six




                ..........White marshland of wet, chalk mud and pale reeds that rattled like dry bones in a soft breeze.  Through the marsh ran a great river, slow and wide, its water clouded white like thin milk.  I saw a figure swimming down the centre of the wide river and seeing that the figure was me I then became the swimmer.  I stopped swimming and looked around me, gently treading the warm, fetid water.  My dress and petticoats billow up around my shoulders while my underwear dragged at my body.  The air was moist and heavy to breath.  The sun, though hidden in the bright white of the sky, scorched my face and a hot wind rippled the surface of the milky water.
                    I saw I was the same distance from each far shore.  I had to choose, but the more I tried the more a choice escaped me.  The harder I tried to think the more vacant my head became.  My mind emptied and numbed.  Time slowed and distorted, long minutes stretched by before I moved and when I did it was fear that chose my direction.  My powers of mind and spirit had been paralysed and taken from me, in their place was fear.  Fear filled me, it poured itself into me and weighed me down.  I sensed evil in the water.  I swam towards the marshes.  I swam hard and fast though my fear pulled me down and the water thickened.  The whiteness of the river concealed the evil, I was blind to its whereabouts and in my panic I sensed it to be all around me and beneath me, gaining on me all the time.  I swam with an insane strength in a frenzied attempt to escape it, though I held no belief    that I could.
                    I turned my head quickly to look back and I saw the crocodile in the middle of the river where I had been treading water, before fear had pushed me on.  I was paralysed by its cold, reptilian stare.  I knew the crocodile to be the bearer of my husbands soul.  The crocodile and my husband were one and the same.  Its vast body darkened the water, only its wicked eyes and long nose stood out above the surface and I knew that beneath the water it was grinning as it faced me.  Its stillness was absolute and so was mine.
                     After my panicked swim there was some distance between the crocodile and myself, but I was scared to continue my race for the marshes because if I moved so would the crocodile and as soon as my back was turned, in two flicks of its massive tail I would be its victim, snapped and crushed in its jaws.  Although I could already see my blood spilling and turning the white water pink as I died, fear again chose for me and I did turn and swim for the marshes.  With every stroke my body became heavier and the water thicker, but still I swam with a speed that came from madness.  I dared not look behind me for I knew the crocodile to be swimming slowly at my heels to prolong my agony, to tease my futile desperation and to ridicule my need to survive.
                   Exhausted I reached the marshes.  I clutched a the reeds and slid from the mud.  I scrabbled and I screamed, waiting for my legs to be torn from my body.
                   Time escaped me and without knowing how or why, my body was still whole and my legs were standing on firm ground.  Only then did I look back and see that the crocodile had not moved from its spot in the middle of the river.  Its evil eyes and ugly grin still faced me.  I stared back.  My fear turned to rage and my rage filled my body and made it strong.  I tore off my wet silk and lace and stood naked before the crocodile and when it saw that my naked body was a strong body it sank beneath the white water and when its dark shape disappeared the water cleared and reflected the sun in a cloudless sky.  I looked down and saw that the earth beneath my bare feet was dark brown while the reeds bore leaves of vivid green.............