Another lovely #Writephoto prompt from Sue Vincent. This week it is one of my favourite images, a waterfall…

Fall

Gran left me her cottage at Willow Creek, a place of my childhood.

Stories, legends, surround the 100-foot waterfall and the pool below that Gran forbade us boys to swim in. I never told her that I had.

I settled in the cottage last week, with Gran’s stories in my head.

I made my way to the creek, each step felt like a pilgrimage, a homage to gran. Maybe this time I would catch a glimpse of the young girl who threw herself into the falls, never landing in the pool below.

Gran said the Water King took her midway down the Fall as his own. That on long summer nights she swims in the pool. Reminding myself it was just a legend, I wondered if I would be lucky enough to see her?

At first, it all looked as I remembered. I stood closer to the water’s edge, listening to the Fall thunder down the mossy green cliffs into the mystic pool below. Water surrounded by the most eye-popping cascade of colour.

It seems that everything that wants to grow, grows here. It is mind-blowing.

Why so different now, were my childhood eyes so unseeing?

I could feel my blood rushing through my veins, trying to find a place to pool. I could hear the flowers sing. The falls whispered music of many souls. Clouds murmured as they rolled by. The moment my eyes caught sight of her, time slowed, water droplets held in mid-air surrounding her with a shower of diamonds. She is dancing beneath sunlit rainbows.

The instant she sees me, she steps back and the Fall wraps around her. Her once solid form turns to glass and she is almost hidden. I hear her whisper, “Come back at midnight.”

The hours ticked like lead before I made my way back. Under the full moon, she stood near to the edge of the pool. I stood close to her, wanting to touch. I couldn’t move, the vision held me still. Her hair the colour of sunset, her eyes reminding me of my childhood kaleidoscope. So many colours, shapes beguiled my soul. My life I knew she could take, I would go with her willingly.

Her kiss as light as a summers breeze. Too late, I remembered Gran’s warning. That if I should see this she-devil, I should run as she will turn your heart to glass. I would become as she is.’

I cared nothing for the legend; her kiss became a spell that drew me under. My life as water, beneath the silver bright moon, we dance as one. My heart joins in song with all around me, I have found a new home…

©Anita Dawes