This story! I'd lost it for the longest time and now I've found it, I think I want to do something with it.

Update! I'm doing something with it! I'm now writing this in episode form, like I did with Ash's story.

I started this one years ago - years and years ago!

Pictures from Google

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

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They walked away from Katie and her grandad.

Katie tilted her head. “That’s Mr Newman from the other side of the village. I’ve known him since I was little. I didn’t know he’d had a wife, or that she’d died,” she said.

“Yes, she died giving birth to their son and he went on into the next world a few minutes after she came here.”

A bright light flashed before the newly-reunited pair but they didn’t seem to see it. Katie put up her hand to shield her eyes.

“How can they not be blinded by that light?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Harold said. “I’ve noticed it before, it’s like they don’t see it. Watch.”

The pair walked on, their silhouettes enveloped by the light and one more brilliant flash of light and they were gone.

“Is that heaven?” Katie asked.

“It is their heaven, yes,” Harold said.

“Their heaven?” Katie said. “How many heavens are there?”

“As many as leaves in a forest,” he said. “It’s not one size fits all as some would have you believe.”

Katie nodded at the wisdom of the statement.

They stood looking at the trees to see if anyone else came through.

The man from before, the one that had scowled at Katie and Harold, came running back from the direction he’d taken. He no longer had a belligerent air about him. He ran fast and hard, head down, arms pumping the air, aiding his legs in his flight.

Harold took Katie’s arm and turned her around. He encouraged her to walk away as fast as she could.

She tried to turn to see what the man was fleeing from.

“Don’t look at them, Katie!” Harold said in a frantic voice. He pulled her arm, almost jerking her around to face the other way, back to Verdigris. “Don’t look, don’t see them.”

“Grandad, let go,” she said, pulling her arm from his grip. “Stay there. I need to see this, I’m sure of it.”

She sprinted towards the copse, keeping low, half-hidden by the hedge bordering the lane.

Harold couldn’t bear to look, but he couldn’t bear not to look. He dropped close to the ground so that he too was hidden by the hedges and he watched his beloved granddaughter as she made her way closer to the copse.

The man stopped running. He skidded to a halt and looked around in a frantic manner. Eyes wide, arms flailing as he turned. He started to turn back the way he’d come, but skidded on the loose gravel. Katie heard the sound of his boots crunching the small stones and then the skid as he stopped dead again.