CSIM C2 READING PRACTICE: PROFICIENCY GOLD UNIT 09 PAGE 124

The dream came to her again, but this time it was different. Cassie no longer tried to run, allowed herself instead to drift, as though carried by some invisible, intangible force towards Tan’s Hill.

The woman waited, blue dress swirling around her, arms outstretched as if welcoming her. Cassie turned from the Greenway and began to climb the hill. This time she didn’t fight to reach the top. She seemed able, by sheer force of will, to rise easily and effortlessly up the slope. In her head, she could hear a voice calling to her. ‘Cassie! Caa-ssie! 

’For an instant Cassie tried to hurry, felt the resistance return and forced herself to relax, to give in to the strange current drifting her slowly towards her destination. She could see the woman clearly now, though she stood with her back to Cassie, face turned away. Cassie approached, reached out towards her. ‘I’m here.’ The woman turned, outstretched arms ready to embrace, fingers extended as though she couldn’t move from that sport, couldn’t quite reach out far enough to draw Cassie to her. 

‘Cassie …’ The voice was soft, whispering inside her head. Cassie reached out again, longing to touch, to make that last effort to contact, but her feet seemed to be sliding backwards. Looking down, she saw her  body, her legs being extended, stretched, as though something were pulling her down from the hill, but her will to be there kept her hands reaching, her upper body still and untouched. For a moment, Cassie found herself examining this strange phenomenon. Some part of herself knew she was dreaming, wondered which particular cartoon this ridiculous effect was from. Some other part of her mind railed against the distraction it offered, ordered her to look back at this strange woman, reach out thatl ittle bit further,  hold tight. 

A slight gasp made her turn. She stared horrified as the woman,mouth open now in some parody of a scream, hands thrown abruptly above her head, was sucked down, swallowed whole and alive into the hill  itself. 

There were seconds when Cassie could not act; she fell forward as though drawn by the other’s momentum. The, as though someone at the other end of herself, that part where her feet disappeared down the hill, had given a compressing, squashing back into their original form. Cassie hung on, trying to dig her fingers into the grassy slope, but there was no purchase. The dew-dampened grass came away in her hands. Her nails dug into the earth, only to be torn away again by the urgent pulling on her ankles.

Cassie woke with a sudden jolt as though falling from a great height. She lay still, trying not to waken Fergus, then on a sudden impulse, held her hands in front of her face, inspecting them closely. Somehow, she was not surprised to find still-damp mud caked beneath her fingernails.

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