I let go of the body when it stops flailing. It floats, a pale thing with slightly knobbly spine breaking the water, the rib cage adding some depth to the image.
I feel like a part of me has been drowned along with him despite not having seen him before this morning. This is a dream, so I suppose it's the dream's way of trying to tell me something. If it weren't a dream, along with the bruises and my loss of weight and unfamiliar sense of fear, I would be advising this woman to run away and forget her abusive relationship. It takes some time for a relationship to get that twisted, though.
I dry myself on the least wet of the blankets and furs, and climb into the Young Andrew's clothes. I have to cinch the rope belt tighter than he did.
Something rustles in the trees but I see nothing, although I stay still for what feels like an age, staring in the right direction.
I really hope there's no-one there. They're going to assume I murdered him. They're going to come up with some punishment even more twisted that the zombie giantess's and, in this case, there really is a dead body involved. But it wasn't murder.
I'm supposed to be finding someone. Who was it? Somebody who needs freeing.
The path Young Andrew carried me on to the pond carries on. It's as good as any other route to take to find out where I'm supposed to be going.
If anyone asks, I haven't seen anyone. I'm looking for... someone.
What happens if they recognise his clothes?
It's just a coincidence. We bought are clothes at the same place.
Do they have clothes shops in this dream?
A squirrel. I'm looking for a squirrel.
There's a village.
Well, a collection of houses, stone and thatch like Young Andrew's, probably no bigger than most people's sheds. Under the gloomy grey sky and no doubt covered in brown mud. I do not like this place.
I feel like I ought to go around but that would mean leaving the path and trying to find my way through... are these fields?
"Hello," a man says and I jump.
I didn't hear him come up to me and I have no idea where he came from. He looks like Young Andrew, just a bit older. That this means he's also quite good looking does nothing for the sick feeling in my stomach.
"Hello," I babble. "I'm looking for a squirrel."
He laughs at me. "Shouldn't you be in the woods, then? Lots of squirrels there."
"It's a particular squirrel," I say. Not that I remember what made this one special.
"If you've been on this path long, you've passed my son's house," the man says.
Shitshitshitshitshit.
"Which would explain why you're wearing his clothes. But where's he?"