I grew up here.
My family moved away twice, but each time some circumstance drew us back.
Each time we moved away, I can remember a tragedy would occur:
First time, I remember my grandmother expiring as she read me a bedside story of witches with poisoned brew. Just as they gave the chalice to the doomed lover, she gave a little rasping gasp, and stopped breathing.
Second time, I remember finding my first true love, only for her to disappear after our initial brief liaison.
When we next returned, I waited until I was old enough, and escaped as far as I could to college, only to have my favourite college professor hang himself shortly after lending me some random book of poetry.
On my return from college for the summer break, I found the second love of my life awaiting, to consume my thoughts until graduation.
And so she drew me back once more.
She had also escaped to the city once, only to be drawn back years later after being left destitute by an errant husband.
What is it that draws us back to our place of birth?
Like the silver cord that ties our mortal souls to our bodies, is there an earthly cord that ties us to our place of birth?
But then there is the history of this wretched county.
More murders per square mile in its history than any other place in the country, I was once told.
Who would have guessed from a place of farms and villages dotted by the occasional industrial town?
And so I was pulled back once more.
I was not happy to return. But I was in love.
We were of course married, and I found a job here, making a little more than a meagre existence. We struggled by.
Daily, I walked past the phone box in which a woman was raped and strangled when I was fifteen, to wait at my bus stop to work.
I would pass the entrance to the woods where by early day and in the evening, I would walk our dog.
I remember the two women who had once been buried there to be found later by an over-zealous dog. Poisoned, apparently. The killer never found. Buried with their dogs.
And yet I saw no evidence of this rich and dark history in my every day life.
To me, it was the home I knew. Full of the usual detritus of growing up - friends and romantic entanglements, gained and lost, neighbours about whom we pondered their source of income, but didn't ask too many questions.
Children played in the street, the younger brought up by the older ones as their parents went to work for a meagre subsistence, or drank themselves to oblivion before daytime television.
One night, no more than six months ago, I was out walking our dog amongst the trees in the twilight hours, the smell of nearby woodsmoke lulling me into a demeanour of nostalgic lethargy. I love woodsmoke.
I was awoken from my reverie by my dog's barking. I could see flames through the trees, so I went to investigate, fearing a forest fire.
I came to a clearing, where there were three women, sitting around a fire pit on felled logs, each with a dog beside them. They were staring into flames that flickered glimpses of their faces to me.
One looked up, and I recognised it as one of those past entanglements.
I felt a dart of cold pain run through me like a weakness. But I felt unable to say anything, nor move a muscle.
She seemed to look through me.
Cara was her name, I remembered. That sweet and bitter name.
Cara of the three days.
My first true love.
On day one, I had found her walking through these same woods alone, and had a conversation with her about our respective dogs.
On day two, I had found her there again, and we sat and talked as our dogs tugged at our leads to continue their journeys, but we denied them with our rapt attention on each other that lasted until darkness.
On day three, we met at twilight without our dogs, denying them their familiar walk.
We certainly did not deny each other under the trees by the three logs.
We left with a kiss, lingering into the night.
And when I turned to go, I felt her arms wrap around me, and her lips kiss my neck.
"I love you front and back," she said to me. My soul quivered.
On the fourth day, she was gone. And on the fifth day. And each day afterwards until I left that cursed place for college, the sting of her sweet memory dulling through the years.
"You look just the same," I said, looking into her eyes.
Still she seemed to look through me.
There was a sudden look of fear.
She was focused on something behind me.
I turned to see a shadow masked by the dark backdrop of tree trunks and shrub.
Twilight was fast becoming night time.
"Hello?" I said, the warmth of the fire on my neck.
The shadow moved slightly, and came towards me.
I recognized the shadow - my wife. My second love.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
As she approached, I could see she was shivering despite the warmth of the fire. The dark pits of her eyes became glints, and in those glints I saw fear, and she looked nervously at where the fire was raging behind me.
And then I too felt the cold - the warmth of the fire was gone.
Spinning around, I could see there was nothing but three tree trunks and a pit that perhaps once housed a fire, but was now overgrown with grass and weeds.
***
I heard some years later that they had found some bones in that old wood by the three logs. Another woman and a dog.
By then, my wife and I had drifted apart.
It seemed as though that night had somehow poisoned the lifeblood of our relationship.
I still walk through those woods at night, hoping that maybe, I'll be able to feel the warmth of the fire on my neck once more.
The only thing I ever find is three small patches of clover just in front of each of the three logs.
And the chilled echoes of the fire of that night imagined on my neck.
Cara's lost kiss.