Your grandfather passed, leaving his land to your care. As you clean the place up, going through your grandfather's things, you notice some notes about a mysterious horse that appears to have been living in a pond for years. Could that be the same b...
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The air has long gone stale, your legs are violently compressed by the seat in front of you, and you are ninety-nine percent sure the man beside you is fighting influenza. Not even the cheap airline-provided blanket can bring you comfort as mucus audibly flows back and forth in the man's sinus canal. I better not get sick, you think over and over again even as you exit the plane, quick to grab your things and shimmy up several rows to avoid contact with the walking infection.
The train ride to the little Scottish town is blissfully less strenuous on your immune system, with the window open just a crack to let in the fresh country air. You sit by yourself in a corner, computer open to take care of some issues from work. You pay the screen no mind, though, as your eyes find themselves fixed on the passing landscape.
Your stop is just overgrown enough to be rustic and cute, with vines crawling over the tiny cafe for waiting passengers. The wheels of your suitcase click and clack across the bricks of the platform as you wander over to where the taxi is waiting for you.
The drive to your grandfather's land is smooth but long. Your eyes fall on the meter as it slowly tallies up the bill, biting at your lip and hoping you don't exceed the amount of cash you have in your wallet. The rolling hills become recognizable as your memory sharpens, the familiar scent of dewy flowers and grass so unique to this place you briefly forgot it.
The cloudy sky becomes blocked by the trees as the car enters the forest. At the base, the trees are relatively small and nonconsequential. The valley the road follows becomes steeper as a tiny river cuts through the stones, rolling over the dark rocks at the base. You remember standing in it knee deep, rubber boots keeping the nearly frozen water away from your skin as your grandfather taught you how to tie a worm around a fish hook.
Trees grow larger the further the car drives deeper into the forest. When you are a good few miles away from the town, a house in a clearing where all the trees have been cut down comes into view. The cab rolls to a stop, entering a dirt driveway.
You pay the driver, who seems fine without making any small talk. As you pull your last bag from the car, slamming the hood with a satisfying thunk, he tips his hat at you, saying, "stay safe, lass. Takes a special kind of breed to live out here by yourself."
"Will do." A chill thrums through your bones, as though the man had given you his blessing and now divine intervention will see to it. You watch his car as it disappears back through the forest, leaving the clearing your grandparents had painstakingly created.
Grandda always kept a spare key in the flower pot that hangs from the porch ceiling, though the plants have withered considerably since he is not there to keep it up. Your fingers sift through the drying soil, finding it with little trouble, and jam it roughly into the deadlock. It takes some finagling to get the key in just so, finding the perfect position to tease the bolt to unlock.
The door doesn't creak as you push it open, letting the fresh air blow in to purge the smell of dust. Everything in this house is how you remember it, as though it sat unchanged since the last time you visited as a child all those years ago.
