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Beyond the Dark Winter

by: M-A

The woman who now called herself Magdalena Simmons awoke to yet another clear blue Arctic day. This was the punishment she had inflicted upon herself. Freedom yes, the south, no. She had gone north, as far north as she could without fall off the edge of the Earth, after that fateful, tragic night on a train platform.

He had let her go on his own terms. She had her freedom, but no money. Despite all she had done to him, he had loved her and let her go. For all the evil she had done, she had to do this. She had to prove him right. Become a pillar of society so that when they caught up with her, and they would, people would know that he hadn't been a fool.

She brushed and styled hair that was now straight with auburn highlights and dressed for the day. With a pang in her heart, she realised how much this new life had come to mean to her. The nine little children in the kindergarten class she taught were so dear to her and almost made her forget that had she not been a fool, she could have had all this, children of her own, and *him*.

A friend of a friend of a friend of an acquaintance had kept tabs on him for her. Let her know that he was safe and alive and in love once more. This made her smile, albeit a little bitterly. It was time he found happiness.

The air outside was frigid as her heart had been that dark, evil winter of her life. But the Arctic snowscape had cleared her soul. She would never forgive herself for she had done. There was no forgiving that. Yet, as she lived each day as a model citizen, as a moral and decent person, the pain she had inflicted upon herself faded to a dull throb she could learn to live with.

She made no special efforts to hide. The people here were rather cut off from the world as were the authorities. No one even imagined that someone who had once borne the name of a murderess lived among them, taught their children, and was invited into their home. Magdalena Simmons was a good woman with a dark past, a bright present, and a most uncertain and terrifying future.

Twice he had saved her life, but it was only the second time around that she realised the fact. Some small part of her hoped that he *would* one day find out. But Magdalena Simmons remembered too well the grey cell walls that had destroyed the woman she had been before. And she would do everything she could to stay out here. In this cold empty barren nothingness that was the Arctic village she now called home.

She faced her local police without fear. No one made any connexion between proper Ms. Magdalena and the evil, curly dark haired vixen on reward posters.

She had once watched her whole life go by, seeing everything she'd ever wanted go away, and believed that she could never get it back.

As Magdalena prepared her classroom for the day, she realised that she had denied herself so much, but that there *were* things she had been able to claim for herself once again. Like her dignity and her self respect. Prison awaited her perhaps, but she knew deep down that she was already serving her time for what she had done to him.

All thoughts of the memory of him were washed away as her charges filed into the classroom for the day. She knew even he would be surprised by how she had changed.

And this is what gave her the strength to live with the guilt.