I'm almost me again (She's almost you)

Chapter 2

"When autumn scatters his departing gleams,

Warn'd of approaching winter, gather'd, play

The swallow-people; and toss'd wide around,

O'er the calm sky, in convolution swift,

The feather'd eddy floats; rejoicing once,

Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire."

"Where's that from?"

"James Thomson. The Seasons, Autumn."

Lisa watched as Jisoo traced a delicate finger over the swallow tattooed on her wrist in indigo ink. Its wings flared out behind it and forked tail fluttered behind like ribbons. It was small and a deep blue against the thin, tanned skin of Jisoo's inner wrist, staring back at her with beady eyes. She'd always been obsessed with swallows, loved them the way that Lisa loved her.

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The first day was refreshing. She'd set out shortly before noon, heading south out of Inverness and into the wilds of the Scottish Highlands. Green hills thrust up from the surrounding wilderness, rocky juts and crags interrupting the expanse of land stretching out in front of her, and the cold burned deep in Lisa's chest as she stomping along at a brisk pace, trampling grass and yellow buttercups beneath her new boots as she held her flimsy paper map in hands.

She was going south, all the way to England, with nothing but a compass and a piece of paper to guide her. It sounded silly when she dwelled on her decision. Dangerous to go alone. Risks of injuries highly probable with loose stones and roots and hidden blanket bogs, allowing peat to develop in wet hollows, waiting to trip her or swallow her up. But the air was fresh. It smelled green and damp, a thin mist laying low over the ground as a grey sky leeched the life out of its surroundings, and Lisa couldn't help but find it beautiful.

It became less beautiful as dusk set in, casting long shadows over the uneven ground, patches of wet grass causing her to slip as dew gathered and the cold night was ushered in. A narrow beam of yellow light illuminated the way as she followed the A9, across patchwork fields and around thickets of alders and pines.

That first day, Lisa walked for nine hours, the sky pitch black and studded with more stars than she'd ever seen before. Freezing cold and stiff, face numb and belly hollow after nothing but trail mix and a sandwich she'd bought from Asda before leaving Inverness, she walked the road into Carrbridge with overwhelming relief. She could feel painful blisters on her feet, the wetness of blood soaking her frozen toes, her breath hung in the air before her in a white cloud, and her bottom lip had been caught between chattering teeth more than once as she'd tramped across the countryside.

With each step, she'd told herself that she was proving a point. With each step, she wondered more and more if she was proving a point to Jisoo or herself. But as she stopped outside the first lodge she came open, she was filled with relief at the fact that the day had come to a close. A nineteenth-century inn stood on the banks of the River Dulnain, built from brown stone with a grey slate roof, and Lisa stepped into the warm lobby and hoarsely booked a room for herself before she was led upstairs and shown to a small, clean bedroom.

Dumping her backpack on the floor, Lisa felt featherlight, almost as if she was going to float away, relieved of the heavy burden she'd carried for twenty-three miles. Her shoulders ached and she shuffled around the edge of the double bed with its grey tartan headboard and sank down onto the mattress. With trembling fingers, she leant down and unlaced her hiking boots and exhaled sharply as she pulled them off, freeing her feet from the pinching confines of the tanned leather. The toes of her socks were dark with blood, and she let out a hiss of pain as she peeled them off, revealing a mess of blisters and raw skin.