Pagan Ties: In the woods

the figure watched her intently, a small girl with long black hair, wearing a bright yellow summer dress that was starting to turn green, flowing material picking up all the pollen in the air.

This was Annie's favourite place in the world. her grandmothers garden seeming to go on forever, a small plot of cultivated land that held edible plants, a well kept lawn, descending into scrub and weeds. A place of nature loosely kept in check, or at least maintained so that it would not invade the cultured area. It was here that the dragons lived. large, noisy insects that buzzed loudly from plant to plant, going about their business while a fascinated young girl watched. Her gran had told her one day, that they were the children of real dragons millions of years ago when this part of the world was very different. She listened to these stories with fascination, imagining monstrous winged creatures soaring among the clouds, then, if there was still light in the day, weather permitting, she would run out into the garden and look for the insects, imagining them grown huge enough so that she could climb on their back and fly as high as the clouds.

She liked the clouds. They reminded he of so many things, ships, houses, people and sometimes faces that smiled or frowned. Annie preferred the smiley faces to the frowny, white, wispy, fluffy clouds, the grey ones not so much. They reminded her of the tall thin man that sometimes watched her from the shadows of the wood that made up the third part of grannies garden.
The tall man with the grey suit and black hat. she could not see his face but was sure in her heart that he had none. Still, the dragons would protect her, this she knew because her gran told her.

So she played on. chasing dragons and jumping in and out of the tall grass, her progress watched by the figure until it was time to come in. Her gran called her and she ran into the house laughing loudly, slamming the door behind her firmly. Her gran locked it.