The lady had a brisk stride, ghost-pale legs just visible under the elaborately detailed hem of her stark white gown, which was reminiscent of a 19th-century wedding dress.
She went barefoot (attracting raised eyebrows from the people that saw her) and wore a shawl thrown around her shoulders, which was draped so that the blood-coloured hood just shadowed her tear-streaked face. Her hair appeared to be piled under that hood, crimson fabric with just a few contrasting locks dangling loose as a result of the wind.
The streetlights grew sparse as she travelled further down the path and finally relented to the darkness, vanishing behind a tree. A fox quickly replaced her and scrambled off to some unknown place.

The lady was next glimpsed just outside the church, toes curling over the bench and a pale blue lace handkerchief pressed to her mouth in a futile attempt at muffling her voice. She peered through the stained glass at a man sitting in the front row of the aisle, his gaze intent on two formally dressed people saying wedding vows.
He was trying to look proud and happy but it was difficult as attempted to discreetly hold his hands over his ears and concentrate on his daughter, his forehead glistened with sweat. His miserable expression was a mirror of her own as she tried to stop her voice from climbing into a crescendo.
"Don't you hear it?" He had whispered earlier, as drove to the church. He didn't believe in anything that wasn't proven, he was a lawyer in his youth and didn't like to be swayed by other opinions, so he thought he might have reached that age where he just naturally lost his mind a little, but his wife knew he hadn't gone mad. She knew the myth. He knew the myth, even if he didn't believe it. They all did. He was a machine now, that had served a good life and had loved and been loved and was now about to have its batteries removed.
He looked at his family in that millisecond, love, pride and sadness etched on his face before he gasped, a heart-wrenching, horrible gasp that fought and won against every sound in the room, and then he slumped forward like a ragdoll, both limbs and heart still.
She couldn't bare to watch the crowd's expression turn from confusion to alarm before a man's voice yelled, "Somebody, call an ambulance!"
But the lady knew that it wouldn't be long before they would have another big event in the church that she knew, as usual, was her fault. She walked away with a rock in her throat and a knot in her stomach.