Abigail's Adventures Chapter 2

Chapter Two: The Old Man and The Cat

Early on Saturday morning, Abbey awoke before it was light outside and while the rest of her family were still fast asleep. Tabitha, Abbey's cat, was resting upon the end of her bed. Abbey gently pulled the duvet over her in an attempt not to disturb Tabitha. She slid her legs out of bed onto her cream fluffy rug by her bed, rubbing her bare feet against it, and sat upon the edge of her bed for a moment or so pondering upon what she was going to do today. Undecided, she got out of bed and went over to her bedroom window and opened her curtains. It was still dark outside as it was still early spring, so she was unable to determine exactly how the weather would turn out, but she could see that it was so far a dry day that seemed calm as the branches on the willow tree by her bedroom window appeared to be still. Abbey then opened her bedroom window to try to grasp the temperature outside, so she could decide what she was going to do so early on a Saturday morning. To her delight, it did not seem to be at all cold outside, which she judged by reaching her bare arm out of her window.

Without a moment to waste Abbey put on a knee length blue floral dress with thick black tights, a purple duffle coat and bright yellow wellington boots. She grabbed her multicolored scarf, red beret hat and her over shoulder bag that were all hung over a hook on the back of her bedroom door. As she opened her door to hurry downstairs, she had stirred Tabitha who awoke and followed Abbey downstairs to the kitchen. From an outside perspective, it would seem as though Abbey had awoken on the right side of the bed this morning, as she put in her earphones and danced quietly around the kitchen so as not to wake anyone else up while she made pancakes for her breakfast and fed Tabitha. With no time to waste, Abbey put her pancakes on a napkin and took them out with her as she walked up to the top of the hill in the field at the end of the village while eating her pancakes and drinking her sweet coffee as she walked. When she reached the top of the hill she took off her coat, hat, scarf and boots, lay her coat down upon the grass and lay upon it staring up at the sky which was still dark. But Abbey knew the sun would rise soon, as this was the whole reason she had matched up this hill so early on a Saturday morning. She wanted to watch the sunrise.

Abbey had not been at the top of the hill for any more than fifteen minutes before the sun began to rise, and as it did, she sat up promptly to witness the awe inspiring fiery orange glow amongst the dark blue sky arise peacefully slowly from the horizon until the shade of blue of the sky gradually changed into a bright blue when the sun was in complete view, if one could stare directly at the sun, and there was not even one cloud in amongst the entire sky.

Abbey took her sketch book from her bag and began to sketch the stunning view of the village at sunrise which she was presented by with such awe, intrigue and determination in her eyes, it was as if she was opening a Christmas present from Santa as a young child which she had waited for all the festive season. But suddenly Abbey was interrupted from her artistic creative moment.

An elderly man walked slowly up beside her, walking with a limp aided by a walking stick in his left hand, and he sat down beside her struggling to stop himself from falling on his way down to the grass which was damp with morning dew, a dampness that Abbey had used her coat to protect herself from. Abbey observed how difficult the old man found it to get down to sit upon the grass, that she wondered how he would ever get back up again unaided. Abbey tried not to stare at him as this whole situation seemed quite obscure, and she was afraid to say anything, even if she had any words to say out of her bewildered confusion. After about ten minutes, which had seemed like an eternity due to the awkward silence between two people who were so close together yet complete strangers to each other, the elderly man took his gaze away from the beautiful view of the village below and turned directly to face Abbey who slowly turned to face him, and he began to speak to her. He said, "Abbey, you know why you are here don't you? Never forget as you have always known the truth". Without saying anything at all Abbey turned away from him confused and speechless pondering upon his peculiar statement while looking down upon the village below. After about a minute or so Abbey plucked up the courage to ask this strange old man what he had meant, and more importantly how he knew her name. But when Abbey turned back to face the old man to ask him, to her surprise, he had completely vanished out of sight. Instead, in his place was Tabitha, who neared Abbey, rubbing her head upon Abbey's knees while purring with content. Abbey frantically looked in all directions but there was no sight of this strange old man, even when she stood up turning a complete 360 degrees, there was still no sight of him, even though Abbey had a clear view of the entire village below being at the top of a hill. It was if this man had literally completely vanished into thin air.

Abbey felt completely bewildered and completely out of sorts following such an obscure encounter that had occurred with the old man whom she did not know, yet he seemed to know her, and how he had literally vanished into thin air. She sat for several minutes with Tabitha upon her lap pondering upon what the old man had said while she brought Tabitha closer to her body for comfort, stroking her in a thankful manner for her company. Abbey looked down upon her sketch book, expecting to see her half completed sketch of the beautiful view she had been presented with at sunrise, but when she actually looked at the sketch book she now held in her hands, the whole drawing had been completed, and even more unsettling was at the top of the drawing, in her own hand writing was the strange old man's words, "Abbey, you know why you are here don't you? Never forget as you have always known the truth". Abbey threw her sketch book and pencil upon the grass in utter shock and horror at what she had been presented with upon her page, and in the process, she had knocked Tabitha off her lap causing Tabitha to hiss at her before running off. This was most unlike Tabitha as Abbey and Tabitha were so close as Abbey had spent so much of her time with Tabitha since she had got her as a kitten once Christmas morning. Tabitha was a tiny adorable ball of white fluff wearing a large untidy red bow around her neck, a bow that was far too big for such a little kitten, that it caused her to stumble and fall over as she pawed at Abbey's long chestnut brown hair that wonderful Christmas morning. This memory was one of Abbey's happiest memories that she held close to her heart.

Things had been quite out of the ordinary for Abbey since that obscure eerie foggy day at the riverbank. So, as Abbey headed back home down the hill with her sketch book in both hands, staring wide-eyed and inquisitively at the drawing and those strange words. When she got home she immediately headed upstairs to her bedroom saying nothing to her mother, father and little brother Tom who were sitting at the table in the kitchen eating their breakfast as she came in the back door which led straight into the kitchen. She put the sketch book on top of her wardrobe, intent on taking another look at it later in the day to see if she could in any way decider what the words the old man had said to her had meant.

But in the meantime, she had suddenly become very lethargic as she sat upon the corner of her bed. Everything in her room seemed to have become quite blurred which caused her to squint and blink several times as she tried to steady herself as she felt as though she was swaying far side to side, and the sounds of the rest of her family seemed to be in slow motion and rather echoing quite loudly for the distance they actually where from Abbey's bedroom. Then the last thing Abbey can remember at this point was collapsing back onto her bed, struggling so hard to keep her eyes open as she stared for a moment at her bedroom roof before falling into a deep dreamless sleep.

The wind was howling as fiercely as a wolf and the branches of the willow tree outside of Abbey's bedroom window, scratched her window sounding like the horrid screech of chalk being dragged across a blackboard. This horrid screeching sound awoke Abbey abruptly from her deep slumber. She sat up immediately and got out of bed straight away as she noticed that her bedroom curtains had been closed. This struck Abbey as rather strange as it must not have been any later than 9.30am in the morning when she had fallen asleep. Abbey went straight over to her window where the horrible screeching and howling noise had been coming from and flung open her bedroom curtains. To Abbey's absolute shock it was completely dark outside. How could she have slept so long? She wondered. She went back over to her bed where her handbag was lying, which she opened and rummaged through all her possession in the bag to find her phone as quickly as possible. When she found it, she looked at the screen, which said it was three am in the morning. Abbey had slept for about seventeen hours without even stirring once, and she knew her mum must have come into her bedroom to close her curtains when it became dark, which normally would have awoken Abbey as she was a very light sleeper and often quite an insomniac.

Abbey returned to her bed completely out of sorts, but she always got up early every Sunday morning to go to the local craft fair, so she thought she should try to occupy herself until then. She could possibly even have a look at her puzzling sketch book. But suddenly she realized something she had not noticed when she had first awoken. Where was Tabitha? It was completely out of the ordinary for Tabitha not to be sleeping at the bottom of Abbey's bed as she had done every night since she had come into Abbey's life that wonderful Christmas day, less one night she had spent in the local veterinary surgery about a year ago. Abbey rushed downstairs to look for Tabitha, but to her disarray, Tabitha was not anywhere to be found. Abbey rushed back up the stairs running straight into her parents’ bedroom, awakening both her mother and father to ask them if they had any idea where Tabitha might be. Abbey would never normally dare to awaken anyone in the house in the middle of the night unless it was a complete emergency, but when it came to Tabitha's welfare, it very much was. Tabitha was part of their family and was loved by everyone in the house. Abbey's parents were both quite startled when Abbey had frantically awoken then shouting the words "where is Tabitha?" They sat up in bed to reply to Abbey, and to Abbey's absolute horror, both their reply to her question was, "who is Tabitha?"

To be continued...