ALL IN THE HEAD 1

ISABELLE

The first time I saw her, she was crying while sitting on a wooden bench by the brick work entrance to the local town park. Being as large as it is, the park has five points of entry, the largest of which is that brick work entrance, also known as the Village entrance, as it is the closest the park comes to the town village.

Ten feet to her left stood an old-fashioned streetlamp no taller than twelve feet high. Ten feet to her right was the opening between the brick work, the entrance to the park, a further ten feet past that stood a second old-fashioned streetlamp, this of course being identical to its counterpart. Both lights shone bright in the early evening darkness.

She, the lady sitting on the wooden bench, wore a long dark dress which was so wet it was dripping. A webbed shawl the same colour as her dress draped from her head over her shoulders. Strands of her long black curly hair hung over her eyes and down passed her chin and despite that I was able to see the pale whiteness skin of her face. I have never seen skin that pale before.

Her crying caused her mascara to streak down her cheeks though whatever had made her dress so wet may have been the actual cause for the mascara to streak. Normally I wouldn't just approach a stranger, not like this anyway, there was more than enough reasoning for me to mind my own business and keep on moving but I felt compelled to stop and see if she was alright.

I began to slowly approach her, passing the streetlight nearest to me and furthest away from her. With that light behind me I stopped. She had moved her head to look towards me, kinda as if she were almost looking beyond me and right at this very moment, she had also stopped crying. This freaked me out a little; actually, it freaked me out a whole lot. The way she looked scared me somewhat, leaving me feeling quite uncomfortable.

'Are you alright Miss?' I asked while also considering moving right on and leaving things be.

She began to lift her left arm to hold it out toward me. The palm of her hand faced upwards. I was unsure as to if she wanted to come closer and take her hand or if this odd gesture had some other sort of intention or meaning though before I could find out, a distraction came.

The sound of glass shattering behind me startled me, making me turn. The bulb from the park light I had passed a moment or so earlier had blown. When I turned back towards the bench, the woman was gone. I couldn't have been distracted for much more than five or six seconds. I could not see her anywhere. If I hadn't been ready to make a move away from here as quickly as I could before this moment then I sure had become ready now though as things were, something kept me right where I was for at least a moment or two longer.

I could see something I thought was more than a bit odd. A piece of dark cloth lay on the bench. I could only presume it was a piece of the dress that the woman had been wearing. I approach the bench to take the cloth into my hand for inspection. As I had expected, the piece of cloth was wet. So, if she had simply vanished, or was never there to begin with, then what is with this piece of cloth?

No more hanging around. Time had certainly come to make the journey home and on that journey home I could help but feel uneasy, keeping an eye out all the while for anything else odd that may come my way. Thankfully, I got home safe as safe could be. Finding sleep on this night would not be something that would come easily.

A few days passed and I had almost forgotten about what had happened that night by the park. Shopping in a supermarket brought the whole incident back to me. It wasn't anything I had done that brought it back rather it was something I had seen, or more like someone that I could see.

It was her, the lady from the park entrance bench. I was sure of it. Her hair had changed to a dark brown colour rather than the black I had seen before. Her face was no longer the pale white that I had noticed the first-time round; her cheeks were at this particular moment a rosy, red colour. Things freaked me out a little when she held out her left arm like before with the palm of her hand facing upwards, but I calmed myself a little when I realized that she was testing a perfume, having a tester sprayed onto her wrist by a shop assistant.