A buttressed tower loomed through the mist, its red sandstone walls an extension of the cliff face. Her mouth a round O of terror, she seemed to be trying to lever herself out of the narrow window. Both arms were flailing in a frenzy that battered her hands mercilessly against the rough walls. Her body shuddered and convulsed. From her lips came a peculiar mewing sound. Sixty feet below, as the sea surged and fell back, sharp rocks bared their teeth in anticipation.
In her frenzy to escape she somehow managed to force her body through that slit of an opening onto a narrow ledge. Her face was pressed against the rough stonework of the tower. She had lost her shoes. One stockinged foot scrabbled for purchase on the crumbling sandstone, the other dangled helplessly over the sixty-foot drop to the rocks below.
All her weight was being taken by that one foot on its precarious hold. As we watched, she teetered, the grip of her clutching fingers weakened. For a moment she seemed to recover. Then with a terrible slowness, first one hand, then the other slid away from the wall in the ghastly travesty of a farewell wave. Arching backwards, she toppled down…down…to the waiting rocks below.
To follow in the footsteps of DJ Smith
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