Acheron — Chapter 4
Closing the Circle
Some images stick with you for a lifetime. I see this one before my mind’s eye, as vivid as if I were standing there now.
Mist hung over the black waters of the swift-flowing Acheron. The autumn sun was yet to rise behind the gum trees on the eastern bank. A flight of black cockatoos flapped slowly overhead, then were gone. Somewhere close by, a kookaburra launched into a mad peal of laughter.
A girl stood motionless in the meadow, facing the imminent sunrise. She wore a simple cotton shift. Dark hair tumbled over her shoulders. Her bare feet were planted firmly in the dewy grass, just a little more than shoulders’ width apart.
She held a slender ashen shaft horizontal before her, as long as she was tall. At one end of the shaft a blade, as long as her forearm, described an elegant downward curve to a sharp, notched point.
The upper edge of the sun started to clear the horizon. A point of light pierced the screen of trees, grew too bright to bear.
She raised the shaft above her, straight-armed, arching her spine, opening her chest. Saluted the dawn. Held the pose for a minute, then swiftly she let the blade of the scythe fall towards the ground. Swinging her left leg out wide, opening her hips as if astride an invisible horse, she shifted her balance…
