Into the light

 She rode in long stirrups that day, they shortened the distance between ground and horse when she opened and closed gates and had to claim her high seat on Poppy’s back.It was mid November but mild enough, the rain that had frequently fallen in the last week had soaked her many times but today it wasn’t raining.She stopped the horse before the last gate onto the hillside. She could hear the horse’s hooves dully splating the water on the surface of the boggy ground. She jumped down and looped the rein around her shoulder, the muddy soil sucked at her feet releasing each boot with a hollow smuck sound.She untied the blue bailing twine from around the post and tried to pull the gate open. She quickly realised the make do job the farmer had done – the gate was little more than metal bars propped against 2 posts. Simple for a grown man to lift and manoeuvre but not the most ideal with a prancing horse whose excitement of an open country ride could be felt in every tug to her shoulder through the straining reins.Huffing and grunting she lifted it aside and brought the horse around it and then dragged it closed and dutifully retied the string.Poppy snorted and found a succulent grass patch to grab her interest, just long enough to allow her rider to remount.They set off together unified as one. Though light contact of the reins and gentle touch of steady knees, they had got to know one another well, the little nuances each of had and they were comfortable in one another’s company.She tried to keep to the set trails as best she could but the deep muddy pools drew her to the sides. There were rushes growing all around on the waterlogged soil and Poppy gingerly stepped her way through them.The path split and she turned Poppy towards the right hand path using her body weight to guide the horse. There was a water filled ditch flowing through the path and Poppy shied, not wanting to cross the unknown space.The woman turned the horse and pushed her towards the crossing again, urging with her voice, reassuring with her tone, firm with her knees. Poppy flinched and kicked back her legs like a child’s tantrum…she did not like it!Trusting the horses’ instinct the woman rode a little further down the path and found a firmer place to cross and join the path she wanted to follow. Poppy crossed beautifully with no fuss and they both rode on towards the hill side.As they emerged towards the hilltop, startled sheep scattered but stopped to stare from a safe distance. Fat tailed, blackface hill sheep with curly horns adorning like well kept tresses.The wind whipped at them both bringing sounds and smells in waves towards them.Little rocky dimples in the ground had been claimed by sheep for generations, rounded over the years as snug safe nests from the winter winds and icy showers that frequent the hillsides.Horse and rider gazed from their high vantage point at the vista before them.Harsh blocks of managed forestry drew the eye, the straight edges and uniform pine green jarring the eyes in their unnatural shapes up and down the slopes. Here and there clumps of willow and silver birch softened the texture of the landscape. She noted some shedding larch, bright in its winter shed of yellow needles.She saw a moving shadow flowing across the opposite hill and saw the buzzards’ flight and she felt a strange exhilaration at being higher than the bird. She felt free and at ease up here, no prying questions, no pitying glances- just the wind and it asked nothing of her.They rode further along the edge of the hill, stepping through dried brown bracken. Drab and bleak at this time of the year, she thought but she knew this was a reflection of how she felt inside and she opened herself to the landscape around her and it seemed to change. Where she had seen dead brown bracken she now saw, close to the ground beneath it, sphagnum moss, like a giant sponge. The colours of the moss varied from pale fresh green right up to vibrant maroon red.She saw the heather with life sustaining green shoots, food in the harsh winter for many creatures that lived in this open wind swept place. On top of the heather, looking like silver fingers clinging to the strong springy stemmed masses were lichen. They clung to the heather like crystals of ice but the soft ruffled edges showed their true nature, a sign of pure air on the landscape she thought.She raised her eyes again as the horse moved forward beneath her and saw the distant snaking line on the hill to her left. How long for pure air she thought. After years of sending men into the dark bowels of the earth in the neighbouring hills to plunder the black seams beneath the soils mantle, now this! Enough that those men are still dying horrible deaths, rasping their last breaths with drowning lungs- not content with that, they rape the earth itself, clawing the skin back, exposing the bare bones in the search of the veins of pure black. The very blood of the land itself spoils of the earth taken by the spoilers of the earth for financial gain.She could faintly hear the shunting of the escalator line dragging the coal and soil across the face of this beautiful wild place. She shuddered and turned the horse away from it.With the promise of a warm stable and a good feed Poppy’s feet picked up the pace, she knew instinctively when they were heading towards home. They cantered over the flat bare hilltop until the bracken began again and being cautious of a miss step into a rabbit hole she reined Poppy in but the horse was in a mischievous mood and took off to the right where the ground was still clear. Laughing at the spirit and joy still in the old horse, the rider let her lead without interference.She slowed quickly as the decent got steeper and steeper, the rider lying back on the horses’ rump, feet pointing forwards in the strained stirrups.Something caught her eye as the rounded the last hillock, she had never noticed it before, she had never come from this angle always haven chosen the gentler route further over the hill.This was where she had tried to get Poppy to cross; yes she was sure the feed trough stood next to the stone wall there.She stopped the horse and gazed in amazement and curiosity.A ring of stones completely round but for one stood apart, why had she not noticed it before? She saw how long the reeds were in this part and wondered how long it had been since it was used, no paths to or from it meant it wasn’t used in a long time.She supposed it to be a ring for clipping sheep or rounding them up but it seemed small for the number of sheep she had seen on the hill.She was curious and turned Poppy towards it to take a closer look but the horse was acting very strangely.It pranced and snorted and backed away, she turned the horse and tried another approach but the same response from the animal…very odd she thought. Here was the horse that stood still while large mining trucks thundered past and yet she wouldn’t pass a few stones on the ground.Instead of it deterring her it only served to increase her curiosity, so she dismounted and tried to lead the horse towards the stones but still the horse would not approach from any side.She had never seen the horse so agitated so she led her some distance away and tied the reins securely to a    stumpy willow, allowing her room to graze. She talked to the horse soothing and calming her with her voice.She turned towards the ring of stones; it took two attempts to find them as they had disappeared from view, covered by the reed bed.She circled round the outside looking for clues to its purpose and finding none returned to check the horse that was cropping the few blades of winter grass.She heard her name being called “ Kiera, Kiera” and her heart stood still.It was not the knowledge of her name that shocked her but the voice, the tone…but it couldn’t be!The last she had seen him was 3 years before, she had searched and searched for him for most of that time, always believing that she would one day find him. No one had seen him go; there was no reason for him to go, no upsets, no arguments nothing that she had knowingly done.The older women said he had fooled her that he had another woman he had returned to. She had never believed that, in the dark of the night he had gone, mysteriously leaving his few positions behind him. That mystery was what drove her on but she had found nothing, she blamed herself and then blamed the world. Then 6 months ago it had changed she blamed no one just accepted the loss and searched inside herself instead, a glimmer of light endured through that dark time and she nurtured it, and opened herself to it.She turned from the horse and once more faced the circle of stones, she stepped back to the open gap in the stones and saw swirling waves of bright, bright foggy air and all the time his voice beckoned her. Within the fog his body was central, stronger, and taller than she had held in her memory of him. She looked to his face, his familiar contours, his eyes which were dancing with delight looked straight at her…into her and he put out his strong graceful hand“Come with me Kiera” he asked.There was no hesitation in her movement’s forwards.She had yearned to be with him again and her years of searching had left little time for friends. She stepped through the gap, her hand touched his and she knew instantly all the pain and the suffering of her whole life were worth that moment of contact with pure joy. The horse had been found wandering the hillside rider less, reins trailing; they never found her body although they searched for weeks. Some said she was murdered and the body hidden in a bog hole but no evidence was ever found. Some told strange tales in the dark of night lubricated by the fine local whisky but no story came close to the truth.