Franco dies.

 Guilt.

The rosary, a string of silvery beads, entwined between fingers, nails,polished, and finely trimmed. She is looking to the light, past the reality of the hard wintery spaces, of the place where she is. Bleak hard mountains form the back drop, a view she cannot see. Glinting hard like white, sharp, stakes, protruding through high difficult ground. She pauses, her sad face a beauty, whittled down by the cold morning that also takes her breath away; as silent inward thoughts struggle to find place, as they bleed upwards from the space freshly reached below. A place where the wound of the news went to settle. That was five minutes ago, and even now the cruelty of the delivery still hangs in the air. His was a truth that was not whispered, as it watched her crumble. Instead It took pride in it's hatred, a malicious sneer, preaching triumphantly across the face. So now unfocused, she looks away from him,down to the dark earth below. Everywhere there is fresh turned sod, each depth waiting to receive,..There will be no escape. She will die here, perhaps many years from now. Like an empty plot, in a beckoning grave. She feels it - the arriving melancholy, which will layer on through the years, as her capture and isolation becomes complete. And as each moment passes she knows only that his darkness will deepen and grow.  MB