PREFACE

      Greta could still remember that the night that she made the decision to turn her life around, the sea was lashed by a strong and icy wind from the north. She needed to get a grip of her life.

       She had made her mind up: she was going to run away.

      There were only waves in the darkness, looking like white and foamy tongues, trying to break up the calmness of that dark blue expanse of water. They were moving faster and faster as if willing to smack the dark rocks of that stony bay overhanging the water.

      The thick vegetation was scattered on the shore and was fluttering like nymphs with green hair ruffled by a bothersome wind.

      When Greta was a little girl, she used to hide in there so many times. It was in that heaven that she could make a strong and soothing connection with her wilder side. She felt so far away from the rest of the world that was around her, yet the pain was so strong that she could not feel anything else.

      She was probably detached from the rest of the world since she was a child, detached from what people felt it was right… and now, after such a long time, she was more and more convinced that she should have kept her distance from what was around her. Too often if we are too close to someone or too open, that can make us weak and helpless to judge and fight against what causes us harm.

      When she was a little girl, she liked to fantasize, her look was lost in the dark blue colour of the sea: she dreamed of being a princess locked up by a wicked witch. She held on only because she was waiting for her prince to come and rescue her on his white horse.

      It was probably chasing that dream, which had become really exasperating, that had deeply changed her life.

      Now that she was alone again, really alone, she bitterly realised that. Now that she did not even have the strength to put together the pieces of her life, debris that were gathering around her, moments which were lost forever. The shadow that had blocked off the sun was right in front of her.

      The long shadow of a dream.

      “Why man boast of sensibilities superior

      to those apparent in the brute?

      It