Page 18 of Spellbound
I took a long, hot shower and then shaved, taking my time with that too, because I still didn’t hear anyone stirring around yet, and I wanted to look good for Ben when I saw him. Afterward, I got dressed, found my cane that I’d left by the doorand went downstairs. The sun was shining through the windows after the storms of the evening before, and someone had opened the front door so the fresh morning breeze could come through the screen. I went to stand in the doorway and look out at the beautiful morning.
Now that the sun was out, I could see features of the house I hadn’t noticed the night before in the fog and the darkness. For example, the yard on the left side of the house stretched out about fifty feet before dropping into a small declivity, like a little ravine. We were in the foothills of the mountains, after all, and the terrain was hilly, to say the least. I could hear running water, so I pushed open the screen door and walked over to take a look.
The grass was still damp from a heavy dew, but not too bad if I stayed in the sunny patches. And the sound of running water was getting louder, the closer I got to the edge of the lawn.
At the bottom of the hill was a babbling stream that was splashing over big rocks, running from behind the house all the way down to the road. The night before, it must have been covered in the fog and I hadn’t even noticed it, thinking that the woods came up almost to the house on both sides, but I was wrong.
I think it normally was a pretty shallow stream, but after that near flood we’d had the day before, the water was overflowing its banks, rushing down the mountain behind the house in torrential chaos. Across the stream was a small footbridge going over the little drop-off to the woods beyond. The rustic bridge was maybe fifteen feet long and about six feet wide. Normally, the water was probably six to eight feet below it, but now the water level was probably only a couple of feet or so below it. The style of the bridge didn’t seem to fit the house, but it was picturesque and kind of charming out there near the woods like it was. Someone had hung a large flower box over the rails and blue and yellow flowers were spilling out of it andtrailing over the sides in a riot of color. Since it was still so early, and no one seemed to be around, I decided I’d take a walk down to look at the little stream. To get there, I’d need to cross the bridge and follow a little trail down to the water.
It was totally on a whim, but the birds were singing, and the sun was shining, and the brook was tumbling over the rocks. I thought a walk down to it would be some good exercise for my leg. I started down the grassy knoll and stepped over onto the bridge.
Midway across, I stopped to gaze down at the water and realized just how high the water was. It was running fast and making some surprisingly deep pools in places. I even saw some little fish around the rocks. Like I said, it was pretty but now that I was close to it, I saw it was running much more wildly than it had looked like it was from a distance, and the path down to it was steeper than I’d thought. I decided not to risk another fall.
I turned to start back to the house, hoping someone was up by now and might have made coffee, when suddenly there came a sharp and sudden crack, and without warning, the rough-hewn, wooden boards beneath my feet gave way, and I dropped like a rock. I felt the shock of the icy water on my feet and legs as they dipped into the water, and I acted instinctively, like I had when I fell off that waterfall. I had stopped myself from falling any farther then too, and everyone said it was such a miracle I hadn’t fallen all the way to the bottom. I did the same thing I did on that occasion—I reacted instinctively with the panic shooting through me, and I threw out my hand and yelled,“No! Stop!”
Suddenly I stopped falling and hung there in midair, up to my knees in the ice-cold water, but with my feet not touching the bottom of the stream. I could feel the fast-running, icy water as I hung there, frozen. I watched my cane, which had flown from my hand into the stream, go sailing down it, bouncing off first one big rock and then another. I shut my eyes in disbelief andthought,“Bridge!”and I literally started floating back up to what was left of the footbridge, and I landed gently on the remaining planks.
The second I landed, my eyes flew open, and I lunged and scrambled as best I could for solid ground, but I was unsteady without my cane and wound up sprawled in the grass on my stomach, having literally flown, I thought, the last few feet.
I lay there, trying to catch my breath and heard loud shouting coming from the porch. I looked up to see Ben sprinting toward me over the lawn. He fell down next to me on his knees, turned me carefully over to my back and began running his hands down my leg to see if I’d reinjured it. But I could have told him I was fine. I was perfect. I pulled on his arm to sit up beside him in the grass, still out of breath and shaking all over from my near miss. I threw my arms around his neck.
“I-I’m okay, I think. I didn’t hurt myself again.”
“Thank God,” he said, giving me a huge hug. “I saw you flying through the air and landing on the grass, and I assumed the worst.” He glanced over at the bridge and the gaping, jagged hole in the middle. “Whatthe hellhappened here?”
“The bridge gave way under my feet, and I jumped for the grass. If I’d fallen down on those rocks…it wouldn’t have been good.” I gave a full body shudder at the idea of what that would have done to my poor leg. And other parts of me too.
“But that bridge was perfectly fine last night. I went for a walk before bed and stood on it listening to the creek for a while. What the fuck?”
“My pants and shoes are wet,” I said, laughing a little breathlessly now that it was all over. “Think my grandma would believe a heavy dew? I hate to scare her.”
I thought he’d laugh, but he didn’t even crack a smile and immediately, he stood up and hauled me up to my feet beside him. Even after I was up, he kept his arm around my waist, andI admit I may have leaned on him a little harder than I strictly needed to. I was still shaking pretty badly.
Another shout came from the house. “What are you boys doing down there?”
It was my grandma, and I quickly turned to Ben. “Don’t say I almost fell in the water. We’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Don’t be silly. We have to tell them, Ash. Rosalyn needs to get someone out here to fix this, and we need to put up a warning sign in the meantime.”
I sighed and agreed. Very reluctantly. He kept his arm around my waist, saying, “Lean on me. I think I saw your cane down there in the rocks. I’ll go see if I can find it once I get you to the house, and if I can’t, I’ll find something else for you to use.”
I nodded, just letting him take charge. I was beginning to feel queasy and a little sick.
Ten minutes later, I was sitting at the antique wooden table in the kitchen with my grandma beside me, and I was feeling nauseated, though I was trying to power through it. I had a steaming mug of tea in front of me, though I hated the stuff, and I was sipping mine while my grandma was still chattering excitedly on about the accident and how lucky I was not to have been hurt. Rosalyn was taking breakfast pastries out of the oven and murmuring agreement when she could get a word in edgewise.
“You were just so lucky not to have been hurt, honey,” Gran was saying, leaning over to pat me again. “Imagine those planks giving way like that! Do you think they rotted?”
“They must have,” Rosalyn said. “And I can’t apologize enough. I never go down there much, and I had no idea that bridge was in such poor shape.”
“It wasn’t,” came a voice from the doorway. It was Ben, who had followed us in, and he looked angry and slightly out of breath. He had my cane in his hand.
“What?” Rosalyn said, turning from the stove. “What do you mean?”
Ignoring her question, he glanced over at me instead. “You need to go up and take a hot shower.”
“I already did when I first got up.” I was a little surprised to find my voice was weak and trembly sounding.
“That was before your accident. Go take another one. In case nobody has noticed yet, you’re in shock.”
