Edie's Trauma

Edie is 14 years old at this point, and under enormous pressures. She's dealing with the unwanted attentions of a local boy called Alf. There is an encounter between them that some readers will understand as rape,. Others will see it as consensual. And this scene is from two nights later, she's profoundly traumatised by what's happened. This is the first night in which she has finally had a little sleep. It was around midnight when I awoke with a sense of something vast and obscure having fallen into place. With each step my feet sunk into the depthless mud beneath me, and at last I flung out my arms for balance, water arcing from them so that I wouldn