Gravestone

Anna lunged as David pulled aside the undergrowth.
“What the hell…” he exclaimed as she fell to her knees clutching a battered grey stone.
“Didn’t you see what it was?”

At the end of the garden, hidden in shadows, relying on the thorny embrace of the briars to keep it upright, they had found a gravestone. Lichens were rapidly burying the inscription in a blue-grey mist.

Buying a tiny cottage in the middle of nowhere had not been his idea but Anna had insisted they needed a fresh start if they were to save their marriage. He watched her brushing the lichen carefully from the inscription as blossom sifted over her dark curls. Her rapt attention and delicacy caught at his heart.

He knelt and wrapped his arms around her, peering over her shoulder.
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a verse. No name.”
David read the words aloud and then gently laid the stone aside, took Anna’s hand and led her back to the house, smiling into her eyes.
As sunlight fell on the stone a thrush landed and pecked at the loose lichen, revealing the words.
‘You found me, who was lost, now find each other.”