The Chronicles of Alice Collingwood - Book 1: Strange Beginnings

Chapter 3: Chance encounters

    Later that day, down by the harbour front, Alice was quietly sitting down on a wooden community bench. She was wearing a black jacket, a white t-shirt, some black jeans, and a pair of converse.

The bench she was sitting down on was surrounded by bushes and plants of various sizes, shapes, and shades of colour; including flowers of different varieties. Although it was indeed a sunny day, the air was not warm, instead it was rather quite chilly, the odd strong breeze rushed across the harbour-front every so often from across the lake - the old unused lighthouse that sat on the edge of the other side of the lake could be seen in the distance from where Alice sat, even if it did look no bigger than a small dime.

She sat there, not moving but still. She was enjoying the peaceful calmness, looking out across the vast, seemingly endless, picturesque lake - it really was a view of pure beauty. She couldn't help but sit and watch the odd sail boat go by, as well as just admire the overall view. It really was stunning.

To the east side of the lake, along the harbour-front, was the boat docks, where the spot where some of the most wonderful, exquisite and expensive yachts and boats were docked - each one was owned by the wealthiest families and residents of the town; the cheaper boats were docked along the west side of the harbour along the smaller docks.

However, the Collingwood's did not own a boat or yacht, though they could very much afford to, they didn't intend to because they simply weren't boat or sea folk and never spent nor did they intend on spending much time on the water.

To the north-west of the harbour, against the rocky shores of the woods was the spot where Mr. Halsey accidentally crashed his family's yacht, almost three years ago.

She often visited this very same bench - it had been here in this very same spot for years, generations even. She came to this spot often - ever since her father first brought her and her older brother, Luke, to watch the boats sail by as children. She loved it. It truly was a great place to just sit in peace and quiet, feeling calm and able to just think, something Alice found to be quite favourable.

As she sat there, she thought about her dad and how the anniversary of his death was fast approaching, she couldn't help but find herself pondering about how much her life had changed over the past two years... she had tragically lost her father which almost destroyed her family and after his funeral, her brother, Luke, had left town and moved to England, to start his own business and have a fresh start at life, unable to deal with the loss of his father - luckily he calls his mother and Alice once a week sometimes even twice, and visits at least once every three or four months, it's was not as though he simply vanished from the face of the earth but Alice and her mother did miss him dearly.

She shook off a sudden overwhelming feeling of sadness and loss that seemed to suddenly wash over and overwhelm her.

She stood up from sitting down on the wooden bench, feeling like she had been here for hours and began to walk off, walking along the harbour front in the direction of Brad's Bar.

She quickly checked her Cell phone for any text messages and phone calls she may have missed due to having her Cell phone on silent while she spent some time here, so that she would not be disturbed in her precious moments of tranquility. There was none at all. She couldn't help be sigh, but it wasn't a horrible, sad sigh, no, it was more of an unexpected sigh of relief, she didn't know why she felt relieved, but she did nonetheless.

She slid the Cell phone back into her jacket pocket as she continued walking, the now calming breeze that came toward her from across the lake, now light and airy.