This Is Not Forgiveness by Celia Rees Page B

semi-darkness.
    ‘Are we going all the way to the top?’
    ‘It’ll be worth it, you’ll see,’ she replies over her shoulder. ‘There’s a full moon tonight. We won’t need a torch.’
    She points and there’s the moon, hanging huge in the sky like a pale balloon, the seas and mountains showing clearly, puckering the surface. I hadn’t noticed it before. I stand for a moment, gazing at it.
    It’s a struggle to get to the top, but she is right. It is worth it. A few sheep regard us with strange, slotted eyes, then turn back to cropping at the drying grass. She spreads the blanket for us. The sun has nearly gone now. Just a red gleam in the west, contained within a lens of pinkish clouds. The sky above us is darkening to purple, the first of the stars newly visible. The motorway shows way in the distance, a snaking necklace of lights, its roar reduced to a low-grade hum.
    She takes off her sandals and walks about, arms wide, as if she’s about to fly.
    ‘I love it up here,’ she says. ‘I love high places.’ She comes back to me and sits opposite, arms clasped round her bare legs. ‘This place is special, do you know that? I come here as often as I can. Different times of day. Sometimes in the very early morning. I come to watch the sun rising, or in the evening to see it set. I’ve been taking photographs, trying to capture the moment of transition night to day, day to night. I like margins. It’s different depending on the time of day, time of year. It can be weird, spooky here, especially in fog or mist, or when the clouds come down. You see things . . .’
    Her voice tails off. I look around. It seems perfectly normal to me.
    ‘Some people won’t come up here in the daytime, let alone at night. There was a notorious murder. Years ago. A woman was found hanging inside a hollow tree. Some say it was witchcraft. Witches gather here . . .’
    ‘What? Nowadays?’ I laugh, wondering if she is having me on. ‘You’re kidding me!’
    ‘No, I’m not. Look at that.’ She points to a circle where the grass has been blackened by fire. ‘That’s left from Midsummer.’
    ‘You’ll be telling me that there are fairies here next.’
    ‘Of course there are! See that lone thorn?’ She nods towards the top of the hill. ‘That’s a fairy tree. It’s very old because no one dare cut it down.’
    ‘Even now?’
    ‘Even now. They live under the hill. Can’t you feel their presence?’
    She comes crawling towards me across the blanket. I can’t tell if she’s serious or teasing and I don’t care. She’s very near and I can’t decide whether her eyes are brown or green, or a mixture of the two, then she’s kissing me.
    I go to hold her but she’s up and out of my grip. She strips off her dress. She’s not wearing knickers or a bra. I wish I’d known that before. She walks away, to the edge of the hill, then she comes back towards me, stepping lightly on the springing grass, her body silver in the moonlight, the tattoo on her shoulder like a tarnished star.
    ‘Come on. Take yours off, too.’
    I hadn’t been expecting that.
    ‘What, me? Someone might see!’
    ‘Don’t be daft!’
    Her laugh is like silver bells chiming. I look up at her. The night is coming on fast now. She glimmers in the half-light. This place is so quiet, even the sheep have stopped cropping. There’s a mist creeping over the grass, low to the ground and curling round her ankles, like she’s bringing it with her. I move back slightly, flinching away, as though I’m afraid of her, and maybe I am a little bit. She’s a strange one. I’ve never met anyone like her. All that talk about fairies. A little part of me is left wondering if she is quite real.
    ‘You’re not afraid , are you?’
    She interprets my movement, but keeps on coming towards me with the same slow, light, undulating step. She smiles. Even that is disconcerting. Slightly too wide; the eyes too knowing. It is the smile you would give to a