TW: Grief and mourning

Hoofbeats thunder across the dark plains of the sky. The clouds toss, revealing the white of the moon’s eye, rolled back in fright. I crane my head out of the window but my hair is flying wildly about my face and I can see little, only the deepest dark. It’s been waiting for me: banished by the city lights, the votive candles I burn, but gathering here: an army of shadows, massing, ready for the assault. 

Somewhere, in this impenetrable uproar, is our new house; it’s somewhere close, as the car tyres churn on gravel, the engine falters and we come to a resigned halt. As the headlamps blink, blinded by the glare of night, I search for the building I will have to call home from now on.

Mum makes a break from the sanctuary of the car, dashing towards the grey of the front door. She fumbles for the keys, struggling to find the one from the unfamiliar bunch that fits the lock, then gives a small whoop of triumph as the door swings open. I’m still slunk down in my seat when she turns in the doorway. 

“Come on love,” she calls out, “you can’t spend the night in the car.” 

I consider answering, why not? At least here are some familiar things: the old air freshener, still dangling from the mirror; the half-eaten roll of mints and the cds we used to listen to on family outings, driving out for picnics in the woods- relics from another time.

“Lauren, please,” she tries, “don’t make this harder than it already is.” 

As if anything I do will make it any easier, any harder, anything other than what it is: out of control, a slow spiral, down and down that rabbit hole of endless darkness. My finger presses the button and the seatbelt slithers off me: go. I watch my other hand reach to undo the car door, legs stepping out into the frigid air. Then I hear it again, that drumming and Phantom flashes into my mind: my cheek against his, warm breath of hay and the impossible softness of his muzzle, nudging my hands, hoping for one of the mints I always bring him. 

“Phantom?” I whisper into the wind, but I know it can’t be him: he’s miles away, in the stables I left behind when life bucked, sending me face first into the dirt. I’m scanning the sky from side to side when I feel Mum’s arm around my waist, guiding me towards the waiting house.

“The first steps are the hardest love. We’re like babies, learning to walk; but soon we’ll run Lauren, I just know it. You know he would have wanted that.” I see defiance in her eyes and I haven’t the heart to do anything but nod, even though all I want is to flee to the car, gun the motor and career back home to the tree where we scattered Dad’s ashes, barely three months ago. 

“Shall I get the bags out of the boot?” I ask, keen to escape and hide.

“Let’s leave them for now. Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour of our new home: The Aerie.”

“Ok, that’s a bit of an odd name for a cottage.” I peer up at the gable, half expecting an eagle to come swooping down and Mum laughs for the first time. 

“Your imagination Lauren! I’m sure it’s just a quaint name.”

“What’s wrong with Rose Cottage?” I ask, following her into the gloom where she strikes a match and an oil lamp flickers to life. Mum puts on the glass cover and the flame brightens. “Don’t tell me there’s no electricity!” 

“I’m sure it won’t take long to get connected,” Mum seems determined to look on the bright side and I watch her in confused silence as she lights a second lamp for me; this seems to be as close to running away from reality as it’s possible to get. Does Mum really think our grief won’t find us here, just because she’s taken us to the middle of nowhere? She seems to read my mind, handing me the heavy lamp. 

“Trust me love. When I was your age my parents brought me here after my Granny died. There’s something about this place: the wind racing across the heath, the views for miles, and the villagers just as open as the land. It did me good back then; I’m sure it will do the same again for both of us now.”

“But not to live.” I manage to squeak like the old floorboards creaking with age under my feet. “You probably only stayed for a week!”

“Well the whole summer. But listen Lauren, this doesn’t have to be forever. The lease I signed is for three months, if we don’t like it, if you don’t like it,” she emphasises with her hand on my forearm, “then we’ll head back to the big smoke of the city, no questions asked.”

I give a nod, there seems little point in scuppering Mum’s well-laid plans. 

“Come on, let’s explore.” 

The cottage turns out to be small, but not as tiny as I thought it might be. It’s a place of low ceilings and crumbling plasterwork where darkness seems to seep and creep from every pore of the place: up from huge cracks in the floorboards, down from rafters and out from every corner. 

“I thought this could be yours,” says Mum, pushing open a yellow wooden door and letting me go in first. The light from my lamp seems to leap ahead, forcing back the shadows as I turn and take in the pretty bedspread, the pastel colours picked up in the rug and the curtains. I cross to them and open them wide, revealing a window seat full of plump cushions. 

“Did you do all this?” I ask in surprise; I had expected the cottage to be decorated only in cobwebs. 

“It came fully furnished.” Mum says simply. “How lucky is that! Now you get some sleep, that was quite some drive. I’ll be just down the hall if you need me, my room’s next to yours. And in the morning, we’ll explore some more.” She gives me a quick kiss on my hair and then she’s gone. 

I cross to the window seat and sink down, pressing my face against the lead-paned glass, droplets of condensation trickling down my cheek. It feels like the cottage is weeping with me, my new loss mixing with its old woe, one that I know nothing about. Perhaps there is ivy growing on the facade and a tendril has been worked loose by the wind, for I hear a steady beating on the glass. I can’t imagine sleeping, but as the rhythmic sound continues my eyes close and Phantom gallops into my dreams. I fling my arms around his neck, run alongside and then leap till I am on his back and we are off, flying free with the wind. 

When I wake it is to the sun streaming in through the glass, warm on my face. I rub my sleeve across the pane, mopping up the moisture, eager to finally see the view. There are a sprinkling of thatched cottages all along the lane, which I can see snaking past our house and heading off towards the horizon, but otherwise heathland stretches as far as the eye can see; there are gorse bushes buffeted by the wind and a lone bird soars high above.

I can hear the sounds of water running and china being placed on a table and my stomach growls as the welcome smell of toast and coffee filters up from the kitchen below. Despite having slept in a draught, I feel well rested and make my way eagerly down to Mum. 

“Morning love, that wind didn’t keep you up did it?” She asks, tipping toast onto a plate and motioning me to take a seat. 

“Slept like a log. Where did you get all this?” I gesture to the orange juice she’s opening and the bowl of apples on the table. “It looks like there wouldn’t be a shop for miles around.”

“Yes, we are a bit cut off aren’t we. Luckily I brought this with me; I offloaded while you had a bit of a lie in.” I look over at the bags and boxes heaped by the front door and feel a bit guilty about resting while Mum was working hard. 

We breakfast while she talks about trying to find a supermarket or just a local grocery store, when a resounding knock on the door sends us both leaping to our feet. Mum cautiously opens it and a stout woman with ruddy cheeks and mud-caked wellington boots is standing on the doorstep, a basket across her arm. 

“Mrs. Springdale, Betsy Springdale,” she says with a grin which reveals a higgledy-piggledy mix of teeth. “I saw you pull in last night and thought you must be the new tenants when you didn’t come a-knocking to ask for directions. Found your way rather than lost it, I thought to myself; and here you are, all settled in and my breakfast will have to serve for lunch, I see.”

Nestled in the basket she holds out: a loaf of bread, still steaming slightly from within its cloth cocoon, ten speckled eggs with a few feathers tucked about them and a bunch of carrots which look like she’s just dug them up- green tops and crumbling earth still clinging to them. 

“Oh Mrs. Springdale, we couldn’t possibly accept…” Mum starts to remonstrate. 

“Betsy,” she says warmly, “Betsy, my dear. And of course you must. It’s Sunday and our local grocer, Greggs, is closed today. You can’t eat just a few slices of toast on the Sabbath day- not in these parts anyways!”

She bustles into the kitchen after tugging off her boots and leaving them on the doorstep as if this was also quite the norm in these parts- making yourself at home. Placing the basket on the table, she suddenly puts two fingers in her mouth and gives a piercing whistle; I expect to see a dog come bounding in but am even more taken aback to see a skinny boy, about my age, with a jumble of teeth to match his mothers’ peer round the front door. At first I think he might be shy, half-hiding behind the frame, but then I glimpse a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Ent ya coming out then? My Ma can talk the hind legs off a donkey; you best be careful!” 

“Cheeky sod,” says Betsy Springdale, full of affection, “but there’s truth there, perhaps! Off you go child and play; you don’t want to be keeping your Ma and me company when the whole world is a-waiting for you.” 

The boy, bending like a reed round the door frame, doesn’t exactly look like the whole world come knocking, but the thrill of the new seems to reach in and pull me with both hands. 

“Go on Lauren,” says Mum, clearly delighted, “ go out and play. It will do you the world of good!”

I make my way over and with a triumphant “Ha!” he bounds off and is gone. Standing in the entrance, I strain for a glimpse of him- he can’t be far- when I see his back dashing into a stone building I’d recognise anywhere with the top half of the wooden door hooked back and the other swinging wide: a stable. My heart is in my mouth as I stride over. The noise last night, drumming me off to sleep; could there really be a horse right here, waiting for me? All thought of exile, banished to a remote hermitage, alone with grief, seems to take flight; I feel like I could take the reins once more if this would be granted to me. But the stable is musty, bare flagstones with not a wisp of straw in sight; hanging from the wall, the hay net is empty and the water trough dry. From the look and smell of the place, there’s been no horse here for years. 

My eyes adjust to the gloom and I make out Betsy’s son, perched like a bat atop an internal wall. He must see disappointment clouding my face, as he calls out. 

“Been no horse here for many a year. Sad story, if you want to hear it.”

I’ve had more than my fair share of sad stories of late, but still I nod. 

“Long ago, before I was born so we’re talking twelve years easy, the family who lived here had a daughter, same age probably as you are now. Horse mad she was, and she fell in love with a wild ‘un which used to come roaming. Her parents warned her off, that horse wasn’t made to bear a rider; like the spirit of the heath made flesh it was, galloped like the very wind was lifting its hooves.” I listen spellbound, flashes of Phantom streaking through my mind.

“Well the horse didn’t keep away and the girl was drawn like a moth. It was just waiting to happen, I suppose.”

“What?” I hardly dare ask. “What happened to her?”

“Well she tried to ride him, didn’t she. Dead of night it was, parents asleep and even the moon looking the other way. Accident waiting to happen they said later. Well hindsight is a good thing, isn’t it.”

“She didn’t die, did she?” 

“Paralysed. And there was no way she could be cared for in this old cottage.” He gestures to the ramshackled place we’ve just moved into and my heart plummets like a stone. “Parents took her away, heartbroken, and The Aerie’s been like an abandoned nest ever since.”

“The horse?” 

“Never seen again,” he jumps down and heads outside, bolting the stable door before turning to me with a wildness in his eyes that makes me start. “ But them that says it’s a myth, made-up, or a phantom horse in a ghostly tale, them be the ones that know the least of it.” 

He leans in. “I hear that horse, not every night, but when the wind blows fit to burst and the whole heath groans, you’d be mad to say you don’t hear the hooves, galloping, galloping. It’s looking for that girl, I say, waiting to make amends.” 

I want to say a horse can’t make amends, but the words don't form; even as I think them they die on my tongue and I find myself nodding. We turn back to the house and he catches my eye almost shyly. 

“Tom Springdale,” he says, finally introducing himself, “and do you want to know something, Lauren?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “I often think of that girl, and I know what she felt when that horse sought her out.” He leans in further, as if we were conspiring. “Who doesn’t, just the once, want to feel free like the very wind?”

His words come back to me that night as I lie in the windowseat once more and will the tap tapping to start: the horse’s herald; but all is quiet, like the very night has lain down, fast asleep. So much can change in a day: the cottage which had seemed so lonely had sung with the boisterous noise of Betsy, cracking eggs to fry in the skillet and Tom coaxing a fire to burn in the hearth, pungent wood smoke filling the cosy space, flickering lights chasing the darkness into the corners- nearly away. When we’d waved them off, I saw Mum’s flushed face and felt a smile inside even before I felt it on my lips. There’s a sad story behind The Aerie, but although ours isn’t the happiest tale ever told either, perhaps this next chapter might be a brighter one. Thinking this, I fall asleep.

I hear a whinny on the wind, like a summons, and wake with a start. The drumming is there, louder than last night, like hooves pounding right outside. In a few hammering heartbeats I am downstairs, pyjamas flapping in the wind as I fling the door wide. And there he is, just as I knew he would be: the wild one, regarding me with his midnight eyes. In the light of the full moon his black coat glistens. He is muscle, sinew, strength and I long to stroke him, but hardly dare. As if reading my mind, he tosses his head impatiently and paws the ground with a hoof. I can’t believe my eyes as he lowers his neck as if presenting his mane to my trembling hand. And something inside lights up, a fire I hardly knew still burned in me, leaps and flares. I reach for a handful of his mane, I place the other on his back and with a half run I leap. Barely have I gripped his flanks and he’s off, surging forward like the storm that will never abate, never blow itself out. I feel his energy course through me even as I knot my hands tighter into his mane and will my legs to grip like they’ve never gripped before. 

At a gallop we clear the cottage’s low hedge and I feel my heart take flight as he soars and we land as one. Down the lane we race until he whinnies once more and we are off over the stone wall, across the heath, clearing gorse bushes the size of boulders. Tears whip from my eyes, but this time of joy. A house looms and I glance up to see Tom’s face in the window, wild with joy; he flings the casement wide.

“Go, Lauren- go!” He bellows after me. “Race the shadows!” 

And I do. I clear every single one.