Arabella

A short story by Jordan Evans-Hill

Act One

The lonely sun faded beneath the distant sea. A sharp wind caught the tang of salt spray and carried the cry of a solitary gull. White waves crashed against black rock. Biting cold rushed amidst the long, straggled grass which covered the wrinkled hill. There, atop the incline where heaven met the earth and ancient rock soared into grey skies, was the church of St Michael.

Nothing more. Nothing less. No sprawling village, nor bustling port. No road of pilgrims, aching for heaven’s touch. Just a small, stone church with a lean-to vicarage, standing alone, as though waiting for its parish to return from across the seas. Those who, on occasion of being lost, might stumble upon this ancient place, might well imagine it a relic of bygone times. Yet it was not yet abandoned to the efficiencies of the modern world. Lonely as St Michael was, within the vicarage the dim gleam of tallow light could be glimpsed, betraying the presence of a soul within the empty tomb.

Reverend David Rookwood snapped his pocket watch to a close and ran an anxious thumb along his collar. In the distance, he heard the clatter of new mechanics whirring from the steeple tower. Then, sure as you like, the long metallic clang of the hour striking. Four o’clock. But a cold, October night. Little wonder the sun was fading fast. Swallowing a lump in his throat, the Reverend unbolted his door and stepped out into the blustering yard.

In his hands were grasped the small, ribbon-tied bouquet which had become something of a tradition. He clutched them, wincing as a thorn cut into his palm, crossing from the yard into the adjacent meadow of long rest. He heard the raging waves, the gull cry, the creak of the willow boughs. Even the thistles seemed to glower at him through accusing eyes. Onwards he trod, until he came to the small, granite stone, rising almost crudely from the raised earth. It was smooth and seemingly new, or rather, less old and weathered than the other graves which clustered the field. Forty years. That was when it had been placed. It could have been yesterday.

Slowly, he sank to his knees, placing the flowers upon the damp grass with one hand. The other he lifted cautiously, sacramentally, as he did every year, and traced the thin engraving which haunted the polished rock.

Arabella

1782 – 1808

Tears ran down his weathered cheeks, cold and baptismal. He brushed them away, quickly. These days the vicar’s face was usually hidden beneath a cloud of stubble and frowns. His clothes were usually dishevelled and crumpled. Holed in several places and worn from his long rambles across the rugged coast. But not today. November was due for birthing, and the most holy of days approached. At least, that is how Reverend David viewed the ancient feast of All Hallows, and its enigmatic eve. Such a blessed day was to be kept holy for this broken, widowed priest. As such, it was one of the few days a year in which he washed and shaved, attired his best blacks. He’d even douse himself with perfume behind his ears. Sandalwood. It had always been her favourite.

As the steeple clock chimed the passing of the hour, he rose. Planted a kiss upon the headstone and turned upon his heel.

It was dark. Or very near to it. Long shadows stretched across his chamber as tallow candles flickered and the fire crackled. Forty years, the vicar thought, as he cut into an old loaf of bread and heated some gruel in an earth pot upon the flames. Could it really be forty years?

It is a curious thing, grief. When we wallow in memory our bodies can’t help but respond. As David prepared his evening meal, he reverted, as he always did, to the long-lost pattern of his old life. Four slices of bread. Two gruel pots. Two saucers to wait upon the painted teapot. Two cushions plumped upon the wooden bench. He whistled too, as he worked, the old tune which had once echoed through the house in unison with hers. She had returned, it seemed, if only in the sharp pictures of his remembrance. Only once did his throat choke, as he ladled his soup into the bowls and turned the bench so her cushion would be nearest the fire. Only once. Otherwise, all was as it had been. But for one absence. One, cruel, glaring absence.

He ate his meal in silence, as he always did these days, listening to the hiss of the flames. The song of angels, that’s what she’d called it. A hymn greater than any in church. The warm choir of the hearth. It fell differently upon his ears now. Quite differently.

He pulled out his pocket watch as he emptied his teacup. Nearly eight. Good. Time was passing quickly, as it usually did on All Hallows Eve. As he longed for it to do. He straightened his collar and nervously checked his hair in the looking glass above the fire. He was old now. It could not be much longer, surely, until his soul journeyed on to find hers. Deep lines cut into his skin, greying hairs and dulled eyes. But he was as smart as vanity allowed, for tonight anyway. And everything had to go perfectly tonight. It had to.

He glanced over to the corner of the room. Her rocking chair. Her prayer book. Even her purple shawl, draped lovingly over the back as she always placed it. Nothing was touched. Nothing was changed. All was as it was. As it had always been. She was not gone. She could never go. Never.

And tonight? Oh, tonight he hoped for that most dangerous of miracles. When else could he hope, except for All Hallows Eve? When else could he dare pray for such as blasphemy as this?

Sweet Arabella, would that she would return.

He trembled, ice clutching at his spine. “Tonight.” He whispered, not daring to call it prayer. “Please. Arabella. Tonight.”

He crossed the room and with a tremulous hand he unbolted the door.

He wished. He dreamt. He pleaded. He begged.

Tonight. She had to. She must.

She was coming.

Act Two

He waited.

Silently he let the hours slip by, like sea wind racing along the dunes. The steeple clock chimed, the fire snapped and drifted into embers. The tallow candle dripped and waned, spilling wax from its iron holder.

Still the Reverend waited. His eyes fixed upon the unbolted latch of his chamber door. His dry lips fumbled as a steady flow of whispered prayers poured out.

“Please, Arabella. Please.”

The clock struck the tenth hour. The fire was low, naught but gleaming cinders and greyed ash. The air was dusty and thick, both hot and cold, as all places of dread must be. The raging seas silenced by the deafening stillness. The pilgrim unchanged, unmoved.

“Please, Arabella. Please.”

Nothing. The clock chimed its last. The candle extinguished in a small puff of blackened smoke. Darkness engulfed the vicar, but for the evil eyes of the last, glinting coals. Nothing.

The vicar sat alone, shivering in the darkness.

Slowly he rose from his chair, with a sinking heart. With reluctant hands he touched the purple shawl which had once draped the neck of his long dead wife. He brought it up to his cheek and touched the lace to his pallid skin. It still bore the faintest trace of her lavender perfume. Not much. But enough.

He caught a sob in his throat. Why had she not come? Was it not the power of All Hallow’s Eve? That the dead can rise and walk again? But he had waited. And waited. And waited.

Nothing.

He returned the shawl to the chair back, a breath of wind touching his hand. His watery eyes followed the breeze to the open window, blackened sky beyond.

With a sigh, he crossed the room and with a last wistful glance at the starlit waves, he heaved the shutters to a close and bolted them.

“Standing in the dark, David? That’s not like you.”

His heart stopped. Colour drained from his lifeless face. That voice. Her voice.

“Arabella?” The chamber was empty. No. This was in his mind. It had to be his mind. He wanted it too much. Ached for it too much.

But then he smelt it. The sweet, sharp tang of lavender. Not faint, like the last vestiges of scent upon the shawl, but powerful and heady, like a blooming garden upon a summer’s day.

“Arabella!” David exclaimed, falling to his knees. “Oh, sweet love. If God ordained that you be here, show yourself to me, please!”

“I never left you, David.”

It was her. Unmistakeably, beautifully her. The voice, so warm, so kind, flushed and merry. Always as though she were on the brink of laughter. As though everything were in jest.

“Where are you? Sweet love? Where are you?”

“You would look upon me?”

His words choked in his wet throat. “Y…yes!”

“Then let me in.”

“By all that is holy, my heart and home are open to you, dear Arabella.”

He felt it. The soft touch upon his shoulder. Slender fingers, gripping him, he could even feel that precious band of gold he had given her so many years ago. He couldn’t help but let out a cry as he looked up at her.

At her.

His darling Arabella. Oh Lord, how beautiful she was. With not a blemish of age or decay. Hazel eyes which gleamed with moonlight, creamy skin almost blue in the darkness, golden hair turned silver by the night. There was no smile upon her sacred lips, for all her voice rang with mirth. But she looked at him. She was here. That was enough for him.

“How I’ve missed you.” The reverend choked, burying his face in her skirts. “My wife.”

“I never left you, David. You know that. Come now, such weeping doesn’t become you.”

“I’m a babe again in your presence. Pray, say you will stay until dawn.”

Arabella took his cheek. She was cold, gentle as a petal, yet biting as ice. “I’ll stay till dawn and ever after, my love. Our lonely souls bound years ago. We are one.”

“You consume me!”

“So be consumed. Be glad of it.”

“You took my heart and broke it, yet I would gladly see it broke again. Haunt me now. Haunt me forever. Let us walk along these empty shores tonight and ever after. Just don’t leave me.”

“Never.”

Lightly she took his hands and helped him to his feet. Then, as easily as it had been all those years ago, when they had been newly weds with nothing but loving dreams before them, she guided him to the bench before the hearth.

He held his breath as he watched her, the way she casually threw some coals upon the embers, the way she sparked a fresh tallow candle and returned it to the vice. She sniffed the teacup he’d laid out for her and gave a little shrug.

“You never were much of a domestic.”

And his heart laughed, even as it pained.

“You care for me even from the grave. Surely, I should wait upon you?”

“A wife’s duty, surely?” Her voice was merry, as Arabella seated herself in her old rocking chair, skirts billowing then settling perfectly around her. The rekindled fire, though still dull, cast its orange glow about the little chamber, yet it did not restore her healthy pallor. Still, she was in darkness, both white and blue, like a hilltop on a winter’s night.

“You do not smile.” The reverend whispered. “What I would give to see your smile again.”

“You gave me your life once.” Arabella mused, hands clasped upon her lap. “I wonder, would you do it again?”

“That day beside the altar, when we gave ourselves to one another.” David sighed. “What golden sun we believed lay ahead of us. And you, with violets in your hair. Who knew we had such little time.”

Arabella was silent.

“You do remember it, don’t you? Our wedding day?”

“Of course. We hid from your mother after the ceremony, do you remember? Behind those velvet drapes in Mr. Allen’s parlour?”

David flushed. “I’ve never forgotten that kiss.”

“And your Uncle Robert drank too much claret and fell into Aunt Hyacinth.”

“My heart was swollen with pride in you, with love. It swells still…”

“And little Johnny Parkins threw a tantrum when he lost his whistle.”

“He’s a man now. A magistrate over in Little Wringley.”

“Yet he has never married. I suppose the spoilt child grew into a difficult man.”

“How did you know that?”

Arabella did not reply, she just looked at him, unflinching. She had said too much. David bit his lip as he continued to eye the dark beauty who sat before him. Such a small comment. He would do anything to ignore it.

“What I would give to replay that day.” David said, at last.

“It was only one day, David. There were many others.”

“Too few. And none so unspoilt.”

“Unspoilt?”

“With no cares in the world, and everything possible.”

“It rained all morning, and your father came to the church with thick mud upon his boots.”

“What was the rain, when I gained you? Oh, Arabella, say the memory is a sweet one to you.”

“Of course it is.”

“Then why do you not smile?”

“You know why.”

Yes. He knew all too well why. For a moment silence fell upon them, and all they could do was watch each other. David drank in the form of his wife, inch by precious inch, as though making a study of some great painting in a manor house.

“Your collar is crumpled.” Arabella chided, nodding at the reverend.

He flushed and tried to smooth it. “I’ve no wife to care for me.” David smiled. “I was never as skilled at starching as you.”

“Yes.” Arabella glanced around the chamber. “This is a lonely place, David.”

“Desolate. Stormy. A church for the wilderness. That’s what you called it when we came here.”

“Then why do you stay?”

“You’re here.”

“It’s a sad life which is governed by the past.”

“Yet all the same. You’re here.”

“Do you ever get tired of it all?”

“Of you? Never.”

“But of the quiet? The emptiness?”

“I’ve you to fill it with.”

“Every day?”

“Every day.” He stood and reached behind her to retrieve her shawl. For just a second his face hovered but an inch from hers. Oh Lord, how he longed to kiss her. To hold her. To press himself against her and be one with her. But he dared not. He could not. He knew the rules.

He pulled the shawl from behind her and laid it upon his wife’s lap.

“You kept this?”

“It still smells of you. Only faintly. Well, perhaps it doesn’t anymore. Perhaps its all in my mind.”

“I was wearing it when…”

“Yes. The day you died. And your prayer book still marked from that same morning.”

She didn’t look at it, but her hands traced the shawl. “You miss me.”

“Every hour.”

“They say time is a great healer.”

“They lie.”

“And that grief fades with memory.”

“I would not surrender a second of my grief, if it came at the cost of forgetting you.”

Arabella looked down at the purple shawl in her hands. There was something strange in her expression. It was as though she admired an article in a shop. As though it were merely a borrowed coat, or a blooming flower. Pleasant to hold, but easy to put back. Without a word, she returned it to him.

“You will stay until dawn?” He asked again through a broken voice, as he returned the relic to its shrine.

“Yes.”

“And may I… may I… touch you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You desire a kiss?”

“I would give heaven and earth to touch your lips to mine.”

Still, she did not smile. She simply nodded in understanding and looked down at her satin shoes.

“Please, Arabella?”

“You cannot touch me, David.”

“But you can touch me.”

“Those are the rules.”

“Then do as you can, and kiss me, for the love of God. I beg you.”

“You know how this works, David. This is not the first time.”

Act Three

Silence followed those words.

“No.” The vicar stammered. “This is not the first time.”

Arabella reached up to David’s lapel, taking it with gentle hands and smoothing it against his chest. His heart leapt as her palm crossed it and she paused for the merest second.

“My poor man.” She whispered, pressing against him and tucking her head under his chin. Her hair was soft against his aged skin, and wafted with the sweet scent of honeysuckle. “What a weight you carry alone.”

“Not alone, my love. Not tonight, anyhow.”

“I’m always with you, David. Always watching.”

“Yet tonight my eyes can perceive you. My body feel you. Oh, it is the holiest of days.”

Arabella looked up at him and with the softest of motions she pressed her hand against his cheek. “Do you remember the first time?”

David let out a bark of weak laughter, a strange sound, long absent from the vicar’s home “It wasn’t my fault, I thought I’d gone mad.”

“You reached for your bible and sang psalms until I left.”

“I was sore afraid. But you returned the next year, and the next.”

“And you stopped fighting.”

“Fighting?”

Arabella paused. “Resisting the gift, offered you by God. He wanted your comfort, nothing more. He doesn’t like to see His children suffer. You gave in. I am glad.”

David knew he could not clutch her to him, but for the yearning in his heart. He tasted blood, suddenly conscious he was biting his lip. “And I was given you. But one night a year only. Yet one night is enough.”

“Enough?”

She uttered the word gently, yet it cut to the bone. Rage, misery and despair, for all her features were settled and unchanged.

“I only meant it was more than the long years of your absence. A thousand years in your shadow would never be enough. Never.”

Arabella nodded, taking her hand from David’s cheek.

“I mean it, Arabella. Not even a thousand years.”

Silence fell upon them again. Cold and awkward, so unlike the old days. Anger swelled in David’s chest. How could he be so clumsy? Once a year he saw his wife, and here he squandered his miracle.

“Walk with me?” Arabella asked him at last, holding out her hand.

He seized it keenly, eagerly, with both of his own.

“Forgive me, please, please, forgive me.” He wailed.

“Done.” Arabella’s reply. “Come David, the night fades quickly. Walk with me.”

Together they stepped out of the little vicarage. The angry night had fallen into stillness. Bright stars looked down from granite skies, as the meadow grasses sang their silent song. Bats danced around the ancient spire while in the distance waves crashed against rock.

“Shall we go to the church?” The vicar asked, longingly. “Stand before the altar as we did on our wedding day?”

“No.”

“Or perhaps the coastal path? You always loved watching the seals upon the shore?”

Arabella turned to him expressionless. “No.”

David swallowed. “The graveyard again? You would spend your night of life among the dead?”

She made no reply but took his hand into hers once more and he was clay again.

They crossed the yard and stepped into the lonely field. David watched his wife as they passed the iron gate, trampling upon fallen leaves. Nothing about her changed, and yet he detected a strange thrill emanating from her. A dark excitement, unnerving, unmistakable.

Warily he tried to distract her, pointing to an old tomb, grandly carved, but covered with brown stains where rogue ivy had so recently been torn away. “You remember this stone, Arabella? The parish are restoring it. Turns out the man was on Captain Cook’s voyage.”

Arabella stared at it blankly. “He was a bad man.”

“He… he died before we were born.”

For the first time he saw a smile trace upon her moonlit face. But oh, how that smile had changed in forty years. How it sharpened her features and hardened her eyes. Like the leer of a wolf as it eyes up the lamb. “He was a bad man.” She repeated, as laughter bubbled up her throat.

Not again, he thought miserably, watching as the strange joy lit up her composed face. Her hand fell from his, and he watched in dismay as she moved between the tombstones, touching each one gently as she passed. She whispered to them, to the heaped, weed-twisted mounds as though they could hear her, as though they were old friends in the marketplace, always with that same tone of delight, a cruel, almost mocking laughter hovering in her throat. So unlike her living days. So unlike Arabella.

“Enough, Arabella, please.” David called weakly, as she threw her head back in laughter near one crusted tomb. “Enough. ENOUGH!”

His scream echoed across the empty graveyard. Unmoving. Silent. She was gone.

His breath stuck in his lungs as his eyes scanned the darkness around him. Her laughter still rang in his ears. “No.” He whispered, reaching a hand into the emptiness, clutching at wind. “Come back.”

Nothing.

A mechanical whirring betrayed the readying of the church bells to strike the hour. He glanced up at the steeple clock. Midnight.

Then it struck. Its great metallic clatter boomed across the desolate hilltop.

A hand seized his shoulder.

“Make it stop!” Arabella whimpered, as the bells pealed with their ancient song.

“Don’t worry, my sweet, it will be over soon enough.”

“Stop it. Please, stop it.” She clutched at his coat.

“A minute only, darling. Then it will be over.”

“I can’t… I can’t… I don’t like it.”

His chest was tight. “You always loved church bells, Arabella. You adored them.”

“They hurt.” She cried, falling into his arms.

He caught her, and as she sobbed, he carefully lifted her into his arms. He was not young, yet her body was weightless, light as a pillow. Weeping, he held her close, and carried her back to the vicarage. She stirred, moaning occasionally, pale and stricken, as she had been so long ago.

As she had upon that night.

It was forty years since that monstrous time. She had been happy then, radiant, beautiful. It was midsummer, he recalled it well enough. Sultry and stifling; the grains wilted in the fields and his clothes stuck to him like seaweed clings to beach rock. She had rushed to him as he concluded evensong, his hands raised to heaven as clouds of incense wafted up to the rafters of the church.

“David!” She had called as she burst into the nave, prompting alarmed looks to be cast her way by the elderly fishwives who formed his congregation. “David! I’m with child!”

He had rushed to her in a heartbeat, storming down the aisle in all his clerical finery. Yet her smile faltered as he neared her. There was sweat on her brow and her cheeks were flushed. Breathless she had clutched at her chest, trying limply to tear at her corset.

The memory seared into him. She had fallen into his arms and he had carried her, as he did now, screaming at the congregants to summon the physician. But there was naught which could have saved her. By the time the doctor arrived, she was dead. Her white, clammy body, cradling her stomach.

He had held her in his arms for hours as he howled like a wolf to the moon. A deep, unburied rage which had not faded in forty years. He looked down, now, at the pale creature in his arms. All the radiance of his mortal wife, yet just as fragile, just as hurt, just as desperate.

He laid her upon the bench by the fire, as the church bells chimed their last. Only then did Arabella stir. Slowly she awakened, as though from a bad dream. She looked at him through wounded eyes, lonely eyes, and in that moment, despite all that had transpired, despite all he knew and better judgement, he knew that he was hers.

“Thank you.” She muttered weakly.

He did not reply, rather he toyed with his cuff and avoided her stare.

“Will you not speak to me?” She whispered.

“What is left to say?” His gruff reply.

“I…” Silently she took his wrist. “I love you.”

Forty years he had waited to hear those words. Longed for them. Ached for them. Morning, noon and night. Yet now they came, they made a mockery of themselves, hollow and unmeaning.

“Will you say nothing?” She pursed her lips.

“Ten years you have come to me.” David wept, beating his tears away with a weak fist.

“Yes.”

“Ten years of waiting. Of devotion to your memory.”

“To me.”

“Yes.” David paused. “Did you think I would not know?”

“David?”

“I knew from the first night. When I chased you away with holy words. Yes. Deep down I have always known.”

“Known what?”

“You are not Arabella.”

Act Four

There was no surprise in Arabella’s eyes. No betrayal of emotion, nor deceit. She simply watched the reverend who, through broken tears, studied the sweet face of his dead wife.

Nothing was said. The truth hovered between them, like an uncertain finch, released from its cage. David regretted the words as soon as they flew from his lips. For ten years they had danced across his silent mind. Now spoken, they could never be unsaid. The veil was torn, the illusion shattered. If truth sets you free, he thought desolately, he should rather be a prisoner.

“Why did you come to me?” He asked eventually, steadying his breath.

Arabella did not reply immediately. She watched him, as though making a study, before choosing her words with care. “I’ve always been with you.” There was no comfort in her voice.

“Who are you? Really?”

She gave no reply.

“And…” His words failed him. “And… where… is my… wife?”

Again, no reply.

“When you came to me first, I knew in an instant you could not be her. I knew. I knew. And yet…”

“Yet?” Arabella repeated gently.

“I wanted to be wrong. I wanted it so badly.”

“You invited me in.” Arabella considered.

“Because I had to see you… her… one more time. I couldn’t… I can’t… live without her.” He paused. “Without you.”

She brushed a hand through his damp hair. “Such a burden you carry. No man should face such trials alone.”

David wept and fell to his knees. He closed his eyes and frantically tried to dwell on happy memories, yet none would come. All he could think of was the dead form of his wife, her spirit slipping from her body, and this radiant creature before him.

He opened his eyes.

Arabella stood over him, staring down, wide-eyed. “Sweet man,” she whispered.

Hot desire swelled within him. He yearned to take those gentle fingers, which still touched his head so softly, so coldly, and touch each tip to his frayed lips. To seize his wife and hold her close, as he had done so many years ago. But he knew he could not. He knew the rules.

“If you deny who I am,” Arabella whispered into his ear, “why bid me to stay?”

“Because I…” He choked.

“You?” Arabella knelt before him, her face an inch from his, her perfume filling his senses.

“I need you!” David hung his head, heavy with shame and yearning. “I can no longer tell you from her. Sweet God, that’s the truth.”

Arabella’s eyes glinted in the moonlight. Delighted. Triumphant. She leant closer and did something she had never done.

She kissed him.

And the vicar burnt. With hot joy and disgust. With ecstasy and shame. With repugnance and desire. Oh, his lips touched hers, her hands grasped his face and for the first time in forty years, his agitated mind was silenced.

It was a moment only, that was it, yet for David it might have been an age. He was breathless when Arabella pulled away. He fell, panting, into her lap.

“Arabella. My Arabella.” He repeated again, and again, and again.

She held him still and cradled him, like a mother to a babe – as Arabella herself might have done to the child that never was. She held him and he wept, clutching at her fading skirts.

The church bells rang out. Dawn was beckoning. The black skies turned grey as pink morning approached.

“No!” David cried out as he saw it. “Don’t leave me now!”

“I must. You know I must.”

“I haven’t the strength to wait another year.”

Arabella soothed his burning brow. “There shan’t be another.”

“What!” The vicar sat upright. “Say it isn’t so!”

“Ten years you were granted. Ten years you took. Besides, if you deny I am your Arabella…”

“Say not these words! I take them back, I deny them for traitorous doubts!”

Arabella bid him be silent and swiftly she rose, crossing the chamber to look out at the emerging sky.

“Please come back.” David begged. “I cannot be without her. Without you. I must see you again.”

Arabella turned to him. There was something strange about her face. It was that of Arabella, and yet it was not. As though the features refused to be still, though they did not move. As though something lurked beneath her pale skin, unseen yet unmissable. “You would bid me return? Given everything you know?”

She terrified him. There was no denying it. Panic swelled inside him where only a moment ago hot lust had risen. Yet for all his fear he had one greater still, that he might never see the face of Arabella again. “I will do anything.” He stammered, weakly.

“Anything?”

David swallowed a dry throat. He knew what he was doing, oh, he knew exactly that. And though every inch of his soul screamed shame upon this moment, his broken heart was louder still. In his mind, he saw nothing but the lifeless corpse of his pregnant wife, the dark promise of this unknowable creature. Sweet damnation, and wanton torture, he was hers. He knew it. As did she. He was hers. “Anything. Just let me see her.”

Arabella smiled, the bright glow of dawn catching upon her pale cheek.

“Come with me.” 

He did not ask where. He did not ask how. Somehow he knew the answer to those questions before they took shape within his mind. The lonely sun rose above the distant sea. A sharp wind caught the tang of salt spray and carried the cry of a solitary gull. White waves crashed against black rock.

He knew what he must do.

The End.