Solitude - TWP prompt

She rose whilst the house slept around her. Despite gentle snores emanating from the two rooms along the hall, she knew there was no peace to be found within those walls. She dressed with awareness, ready to respond in an instant, sure one would wake, need her, or just seek to be around with no particular purpose. She loved her husband, her child, but she was never 'off duty'.

Slipping down the stairs she noticed her shadow, pale in the weak light of dawn. It descended the stairs with hunched back, hands clawed tight about carried shoes, looking over its shoulder like a hunted animal. She made a deliberate effort to stand straight, pausing to slip feet into shoes and release the back door lock, closing it quietly behind her.

Her progress through the rear yard was punctuated by enthusiastic attention from her cats. Two wound about her legs, delighted to have her in their possession, on their territory. She weaved onward, wincing when her tom leapt onto the fence, eyed her with human mischief in his amber gaze and began to caterwaul to the breaking day. 'I'm not feeding you.' she hissed and scurried through the back gate.

It gave onto miles of flat, empty fields. In the summer it was a glory of waving, golden wheat, but in the timorous light of a winter morning the fallow, black earth appeared daunting, featureless and ready to swallow her if she dared step that way. 'I dare' she thought and began to stride across the first field, the moist ground sucking at her shoes, weighing her steps,

Maybe the ground got hungry, she mused, fighting a particularly firm grip on her left foot. Maybe it didn't like being empty; good, fertile ground surely longed to produce. Wasn't that the driving imperative of all living things? The idea of sentient earth freaked her a little, her footsteps a little faster. She drove up the occasional pheasant, flapping, whirring balls of panic, at which she couldn't help but smile.

Breaching a muddy dyke, she reached the oak-lined path to the cliff. The light was stronger now, falling through bare branches, creating abstract art on the roughly trodden path which sloped gradually up. As she stepped onto the way the birds began their glorious greeting to the emerging day. Usually she loved the trills, the whoops and calls, the joyous abandon of birdsong, even if it did only mean 'my tree!', but today she wished they would whisper, or still. She yearned for quiet.

Feeling a little weary, a little sick, she emerged onto the cliffs. The wind whipped up instantly swirling her hair about her face, moulding her trousers against her legs. Up here it was wild, untamed, free to scream over the battered grass and scrub which cowered beneath its onslaught. She braced herself, shoved her hair into a band she scrabbled from her pocket and headed for the edge.

Her habit of standing on the cliff edge terrified both husband and child, but there, with shoes kicked off, toes curled tight into the crumbly chalk and moss, she felt free. For a few moments she was just a being, battered by wind, rain, or snow. Today the world seemed to relent a little as she settled on the edge. The wind died back and for a few blissful moments, the faintest warmth from the sun washed her body.

She wrapped her arms about her belly, looked down and smiled, spoke softly.

“Hey baby. Soon, too soon, you'll belong to everyone. Right now they don't know. It's just you and me, kid and I wanted some solitude, time alone with you, whilst you are just mine. I fought for you, do you know that? I wasn't supposed to be able to do this, but I wanted you so much.'

She looked up, raised her arms, reached for the heat and life of the sun, felt it running through her; through her and into the promise of the baby inside. She knew, though it was only a month gone, without a doubt.

“This is my place. In a few months, we won't be able to get up here. I'll be too tired and fat, but I wanted you to know about this place. I wanted you to know that this is where I came, every day, on my own, and asked the world to let me have you. Earth is a mother, she knows what it is like, and she gave you to me because she knew I'd love and care for you. I will, and so will your dad, and your sister, and everyone else, but for now, for this short while, you are mine. I love you, little one.”