• The night grew cold and frosty as the sun escaped the sky and I sat on the hilltop looking at the scene below. The village twinkled elegantly with the snow giving a clear outline of the few wanderers left in the streets. Christmas carols were being sung by a choir of a near by church merrily setting what should be a perfect scene engulfed by Christmas happiness.
    How I wished I could feel the same as they did. To feel the warmth of excitement for the morning to follow this night, rush through my veins and ridding my heart of the cold it felt. I wished that the smell of the pine forest behind me would reawaken my love for the Christmas holidays. But nothing could. Since the tragedy that had befallen my family.
    As I remembered this I got up and started the long walk home.
    “Rosie! Here girl!” I called into the darkness. I heard her paws patter back to me and found her by my side in seconds. My last companion, a boarder collie who’s been with me for years. I reattached her to the lead and stepped forward into the woods.
    I had spent my childhood years in these very woods with my best friend. She and I would spend hours tormenting the trees by climbing on them and discovering fairies to frolic with. The place glistened with magic on those warm summer days. And when the winter came we would build caves and nests for the fairies to keep them warm while we were away. When darkness fell over us we rushed home red faced and giggling as if a spell had been cast upon us.
    And there up ahead and slightly to the left, that was where she had broken her arm at the age of eleven. I, being only eight at the time, was crying till Jerry, who lived 3 houses away, strolled past on a weekly firewood gathering. If only I had known what to do that day, but I couldn’t help it, I was only eight. Mum had, as usual, fussed around with the bed sheets when she was in the hospital. All Sarah had wanted to do was go and play! And just past that was the ditch that my father, our father, used to tell us stories about. One day it was made by a crater, others a bomb and, his favourite, a dinosaur the size of a skyscraper!
    Depending on the story he told us we would make up our own little games. When it was a bomb we would pretend to be soldiers on the front line in World War Two and cover our faces in mud. We ran around being an air raid squad sending bombs to the enemy lines. When it was a crater, we were aliens sent from the planet Zzorg in hope to find friends from another dimension. We could never quite decide on the dinosaur. I would be a time traveller and she would be a cavewoman.
    Right then a chuckle could not be suppressed at the thought. I hadn’t smiled in over a month. I started feeling warmer on the inside.
    I trudged further on spotting more significant places of my childhood, turning this hunt into a game itself. Like then I pretended she was back with me. Back from the dead. Looking for those lost memories under the floor of snow. I swerved on the track to peer into the depths of the trees and spotting more places.
    There was the place we had hidden our collection of acorns in a silly phase where we thought we were squirrels. Behind that the tree we had climbed pretending to be sloths. The crazy things we used to do.
    My spirit was rising so fast I could not stop it.
    And behind that!... Behind that. That’s where we ran away to. I was sixteen she was eighteen. We stayed there all night weeping. Sarah was leaving for University the next day.
    I stopped in my tracks to remember. It was the most heartfelt moment we had ever shared. It was a realisation that having a sister for a best friend was the hardest thing to handle. I stood and stared, looking at where we had sat for more than twelve hours hoping the pain would subside. But it never did. And now the fact that she was gone forever loomed heavy overhead. I sat down in the same space I had done all those years ago but this time just thinking. Rosie curled herself round me in a comforting gesture and nestled her head neatly and gently on my lap.
    “You’re a good girl,” I whispered to her over the constant hooting of owls in the lightless canopies overhead. It was relaxing. So relaxing. The soft lull of the wind rustling the bare trees told me that the wood around me was empty of any other life. I closed my eyes and thought thoughts I had not contemplated for years. What was left of the moonlight was blocked from view. Slowly I drifted into a string of dreams.
    We were riding our bikes to the top of the hill. We were swimming in the lake on the far east side of the woods. The scene was changing so rapidly I could not stand it. Then it came to a halt. Sarah and I were sitting by the fire in the living room. She was facing me sitting hugging her knees.
    “Lottee, I love you! You’re the best friend I could ever ask for.” She had said smiling. “I never thought sisters could be this close. Just remember when you think I’m gone, I’m not. I will always be with you. If not physically I will be in your heart.”
    A voice was echoing in my ears as the dream faded. Despite myself I knew I was smiling.
    “Charlotte! Thank goodness we’ve found you! Look at you out here on such a cold night. Come on. Up you get.”
    I was twenty one years old and my mum was still as fussy as ever. I opened my eyes and a flood of bright morning sun was shining through the trees. There standing before me was my whole family. Gazing down to see the spectacle I was. Auntie Karen and Uncle Gerard at the back of the pack. Next to them was Jenny, Karen’s sister and Toby her husband. Grandma and Grandpa in front with all the cousins and, beaming down at me with tears of worry and relief in their eyes my mother and father. I looked down to see Rosie also peering at me with what seemed to be love. I stood up and started to walk back embracing everyone as I past.
    There was nothing that could take away the pain still inside, but a weary smile seemed to make all the difference needed. As we all strolled home to bottom of the hill there was a bird that seemed to follow us. A robin. Her favourite bird. She was right. She was always going to be with us.