THE ECHOES OF ELEANOR

Eleanor took a tiny step backward. A few loose pebbles clattered off the edge of the cliff, disappearing into the dark void below.

"Eleanor, NO!" Arthur lunged forward.

He threw his body across the slick, muddy grass, reaching out with his right arm at the exact moment she let herself fall backward into the abyss.

His hand caught her left wrist.

The sudden, violent weight of her falling body snapped his arm straight, pulling his chest hard against the wet, muddy edge of the cliff. The sharp granite edge cut through his shirt, tearing into his ribs, but Arthur held on with every ounce of strength remaining in his battered body.

Eleanor hung suspended in the dark air, three hundred feet above the roaring, violent ocean.

The rain beat mercilessly down on both of them. Arthur lay flat on his stomach in the mud, his boots searching desperately for purchase on the slippery grass, his fingers locked around her pale, cold wrist like an iron clamp.

"Let go, Arthur," Eleanor said, looking up at him from the void. Her face was completely calm now, her voice soft against the howling wind. "Let me go."

"No!" Arthur spat through his teeth, his arms shaking violently with the immense physical strain. "I won't let you die! I won't let another death stain this family!"

"You can't save everyone, Arthur," she murmured. "You couldn't save Julianna. You can't save me. You can only save your children."

With her free hand, Eleanor reached up.

Instead of grabbing his forearm to help him pull her up, she slowly, deliberately began to uncurl Arthur's fingers from her wrist, one by one.

"Eleanor, stop! Don't do this!" Arthur screamed, trying to tighten his grip, but his muscles were burning, exhausted, failing against the slick mix of rainwater and oil on her skin.