Butterfly Summer

"There's a body in the river.  I think it's Tom," Alwyn said quietly, holding Kathy and Rhiannon tightly and preventing them from leaving him.  They asked the obvious questions, but he did not hear them.  Instead, he let out two deep sighs, and then he spoke again.  "The head is missing."  Very sensibly, he kept his grip on the others until all three were ready to go and look.  They all recognised the jacket, and Rhiannon confirmed that the dagger was the one she had given to Tom.  They were only belongings that might have been stolen, they told themselves, or Tom might have given them away.  Alwyn pulled up the shirt.  The scar under the ribs could not have been given away.  The women slumped to the ground, and Alwyn sat down with them.  They had worked so hard to save their friend, and they thought they had succeeded.  Now, they were faced with this.  Why?  Kathy began to cry, and then so did Rhiannon.  Alwyn let the two women sit there, hugging each other, knowing it was better done now.  The lack of any reasonable answer only added to the sense of emptiness that they all felt.  Alwyn asked himself if he had been right to let the youth go his own way, but he knew that Tom would not have listened to him.  The lad had wanted his independence, which was only natural, unlike the time and manner of his death, which were extremely disturbing.

Rhiannon felt a wave of distress flow through her, but she could not feel more than that.  She had never managed to feel particularly close to Tom.  She had tried in a limited sort of way, but the boy-girl thing had got in the way.  He had been easy to get on with, but there the relationship had faded.  He had been friendly without being a friend; Kathy had been, and still was, enough of a friend to fill that particular compartment.  Now, knowing that Tom must have died very quickly, she had more sympathy for Kathy's sorrow than for the lad's death.  Most importantly, it was another reminder that they should stick together.  She thought she was okay, but then she noticed that she was shivering.  Everything about the corpse - the height and the build - confirmed that it had to be Tom.  She was pleased when Alwyn made them all work together, cutting a hole in the soil halfway up the slope leading to the pine trees.  They buried the body under a layer of rocks and stones so that it could not be disturbed by scavengers.  After forcing herself to struggle with the heaviest rocks she could carry, Rhiannon knew she should let her muscles relax in the water, but she was unable to step into the river.  They crept under the wagon that night, but they did not sleep.