Black And Deep Desires, chapter 8

After a gap, caused by various minor disasters, here's the next chapter of Black And Deep Desires.

                     Diana was tired; she fell into a deep sleep. She started to dream.  It was the same dream that she had had before, only this time she had reached the dark mass.  She was at the entrance to the maze. It towered above her, the walls of yew as impenetrable as walls of stone.  Behind her, friendly moonlight played across the fields and decorated the leaves of the trees with silver.  Beyond, the portal of the maze was black with shadow.  The high walls allowed no light to penetrate, and to the right and left the passages led into utter gloom.  She trembled from head to foot with terror, even a goddess of the moon would tremble from fear of what lurked deep within these entrails.  No sacrificial maiden she, yet she quaked.  Diana and Pasiphae.  She knew the way through the labyrinth.  She knew the Yew to be the Death Tree of druidical belief.  Double fatal yew ...

             She woke, frightened. Where had she learnt that churchyard yews were believed to spread a root to the mouth of each corpse?  Yew, tomb of leaden grief.

            Quickly, she put the light on and sat up, reaching for her gown.  Paul had believed that night thoughts, those panicky and depressive visions that come to people lying awake at two o’clock in the morning, were a throwback to a darker, primal time.  Early man had to fear the predators of night, darkness then was a time of real and mortal fear.  She knew, as she clutched the gown around her, that she did not want this dream to continue.