THE RIVER

THE RIVER   By Tessa Harvey     Blue did not return that night. Elizabth lay fully-clothed on her bed. Her mind felt as though it was disintegrating.     She pulled a grey travel rug over her shoulders, and memories assailed her - bright days when her brother John and wife Leslie brought Amy and Joey to meet her for a picnic beside one of the lakes in the region.     The lake water had sparkled, but was far too cold for swimming. The lake floor was shingle, and not far from shore, dipped steeply down into bronze opaque depths. The grey granite lakeside rocks and tufty grass were warm from the sun. A buzzard soared, as it turned to the high slopes of the surrounding hills, shadow-lit by sun and cloud.     A wide stream burbled towards the lake near a stand of sheltering pines. The kids had met friends and gleefully made a dam to create a pool, sun-dappled, to splash and sail twigboats.     Then she must have dozed, for Elizabeth woke...

THE RIVER  By Tessa Harvey     Amy slipped through the trees. All the adventures she had read or dreamed of were happening!     Waiting for Joey to throw her a Friday gift had been exciting as she swayed in the wind or drowsed in the warm sun in her high oak tree. But I am not a child now, she thought. I am at High School and now I am twelve years old. Rebellion grew within her heart and the young girl exulted in her new-found freedom.     "I can do anything!" she whispered aloud, then quickly hushed, realising she was not alone. Somewhere ahead was the mysterious stranger. "He can tell me about my parents. I will make him," Amy muttered.     Quite how this could be achieved eluded her. But I will find a way, she thought. I can do this, I can do anything. She spun around in the cold, dark night amid the drifting shadows of star-lit trees. The moon was only a whisper, newly-risen.     Leaves crackled. Amy whirled. The grey ghost man...

THE RIVER  By Tessa Harvey     Joe had quietly moved nearer, sensing the importance of this calm oasis in the sudden noisy night. Blue crept close to her brother. They listened for an answer, holding hands. Once more close siblings. But Amy was disturbed, trying to understand what the man dressed in dark clothes had meant. As soon as she had seen him, a memory came to her of her father arguing with him. She had been much younger, had thought the men were friends, but there had been harsh words. Amy had looked up and seen angry faces, the dark-clothed man now scary and her father sad.     People quarelled. Suddenly the girl decided she would go after that man and find out what he had meant. No-one would listen, she thought, slipping her hand from her brother's and moving back into the trees.     But the trained police officers now at the scene were alert and took action.     The policewoman, Mary Davies, turned to Joshua and questioned him as ...