Blooming Women

11. In death you are alive

The woman holding onto her wrist mirrored the change in style nicely as Amber mimicked Cloud's hip movement from the kitchen the day before And added her own, innate, elegant sway, which was very like... well. A tree, really. It made sense, when you thought about it. She didn't have a much of a figure, in fact 'stick thin' described her arms and legs accurately as they protruded from her short dress, but she was as natural and unselfconscious a dancer as Amber had ever seen.

Maybe, come summer, the woods would burn themselves down and the undertakers would have to find an alternative source of top hat income.

'Now we need to pick it up!' Amber twisted automatically to demonstrate a turn and her hand slipped from the restraining fingers so smoothly that she barely noticed she had her freedom.

Run! Run Dear!

Samantha took over and Amber's legs headed off back to the thicket; as Amber was still dancing, her body did a sort of wild, leg-waving spin and she fell heavily, numb hands almost no use in saving herself.

'Is this part of the dance?' She heard Hazel ask vacantly.

Amber curled around her arm and wedged her fingers into her armpit, half moaning from the pain of the fall, half swearing at the iciness against already cold skin.

Get up! Get up!

Amber forced her legs underneath herself and scrambled to her feet, the iced grass biting at her knees, and came to a literally shivering halt.

'Wait. Wait!'

Almost doubled up, she held her less-frozen palm up towards Hazel while Samantha rattled inside her head demanding instant flight.

The expected rush didn't come.

'All right.' Hazel's thin, almost gaunt, face looked at her equably. Her dark dress became a ruddy-brown colour, the shade that had leapt across Amber's vision a couple of hours before, as pre-dawn light settled over them.

Amber straightened, shaking with cold.

'Right. Right. Listen. You don't need me—'

We should go immediately! I believe the garden centre had some weed clearing tools: a small but powerful flamethrower should serve our purpose—

'— me dying to get flowers if you don't want to sleep in winter, and I'll teach you all the dances you want if you let me get to my car.'

'Oh, all right.'

'I can... What?'

'All right.'

Amber circled slightly, getting a better line around Hazel. There was a path by the river and she was going down it like a rocket if Hazel tried anything.

'You're not dying.'

'I'm not? No. No I'm not. I said. I said ages ago.'

'Nobody with death in them can dance with life like you do. You have death in you, but,' Hazel shrugged, thin arms spreading 'it's part of you. I couldn't take anybody who isn't dying – and you said you could get me my offering anyway.'

'That's it? If Baz whatsizface had offered you flowers you'd have let him live?'

Hazel looked thoughtful as the light strengthened around them.

'No,' she paused as if getting something straight in her mind. 'He said Wife-Mary would be glad to see the back of him, and she's always brought flowers, so that must be true.'

Amber's temper rose again; this stupid, stupid stick insect had some truths to learn.

'Well you listen to me—'

Samantha cleared her throat loudly in Amber's head – or at least made a throat-clearing sound; it wasn't as if she had actually breathed in a very long time. Let us not start telling home truths until you are back at your car. You can shout them from the window after we get the engine running and the heater on.

Hazel looked expectantly at her. 'I am listening.'

A plan formed.

'We. We. We're going to get to my car, I'm going to get some better clothes and I'm going to teach you a new dance. OK?'