Staying Grounded [BXB]

Breathing Space

SEBASTIAN:

"Oh no," Craig stares at me, aghast. "Oh hell no, are you for real? Absolutely not happening!"

"Just a two-second crawl and you're through." I gesture him forward, the little light angled down to expose a gap in the hedge a short way further along from where the truck's parked up. Honestly, it's a smaller hole than I remember it being, but then, it is tunnelling through a living thing, and that thing has had plenty of time to grow since last I was here. "Trust me."

"Why on earth would I do that?"

Rolling my eyes, I hand the torch over. "Fine. I'll lead."

"This is absurd," he scoffs, but he's at least intrigued enough to hold the beam on me as I sink down to my knees and edge my arms cautiously forward into the tight space. "And you say I'm unpredictable."

Ducking my head into my chest, I forge through. It's decidedly not a painless endeavour. "Nothing to it," I call out as I straighten up on the other side, brushing myself free of leaves, twigs and dirt. "Your turn."

I'm almost convinced I'll hear my truck startup any second, and I'll be the one left here stranded. Instead, there's a long stretch of silence, then the bush rustles. "Better be worth it," I hear him mutter. "Ouch. Ow, shit. Son of a—"

"Need a helping hand?"

"No!" The torch emerges first. I bend to snag it back from him, pressing my lips tight at the look on his face as he breaks free, scrambling to get his feet back under him. He dusts the muck from his jeans and straightens his sweater, inspecting his hands for scrapes. "What is wrong with you, Bas?"

I turn away to illuminate the area ahead of us. We're standing on top of a small bank overlooking a cluster of gnarled old trees, their spindly leafless limbs creating a somewhat creepy atmosphere in the torchlight. I pick out a particularly misshapen tree toward the far edge of the cluster — its trunk hunched over, branches scraping the ground. Perhaps a tiny negative part of me had thought the haggard oak may somehow have gone, and a comforting warmth fills me at the sight of it.

"This way," I say, darting a glance past my shoulder before making a start down the bank. 

Obedient but dubious, Craig follows after. Crossing a narrow dirt track at its base, I guide him into the trees.

Our destination is the hollow beneath the oak's widely drooping boughs. I move in and around the vast trunk to its far side. Here, a huge fallen branch is laid to rest against the knotted roots in such a way as to form a bench, the trunk a solid backrest. Craig steps up beside me, and I motion for him to sit. He doesn't, so I take a seat first, clicking the little LED off and shoving it back into my pocket; there's no need for it now.

"Uncle Kye used to bring me here," I look up at him. "It'd been his thinking place ever since he was young."

Taking in the view, his expression is exactly as I hoped it would be: Awed. He stares, saying nothing, his mouth agape.

Barely six-foot beyond the drape of branches, the land falls away from us, down to a thin stream. Across the stream, it falls further still, much steeper, a bank of packed dirt and rock, patched with tufts of long grass. Stretching out from its base to the horizon is acre upon acre of open fields and untamed meadows. Far off to the distant South, in the dip of gently rolling hills, our little town of Yoverton is marked only by its countless tiny pinpricks of light, a beautiful display of land-bound stars.

It's an entirely different scene during the day, no less stunning for the visible detail, but the night visits are my favourite—especially when the sky is clear, and the moon is close to full, as it is tonight.