Chapter 7

Waking refreshed after a surprisingly good night's sleep, all the ridiculous ideas of supernatural beings, fairies and witches had disappeared from Flora's mind. All she could think about now was getting into her cottage and getting her business sorted out.

Today was the day whatever possessions she had retained from her old home, were arriving in a small removal lorry. She wanted to see if the mattress from her old bed would fit on Sybil's bed. Luckily she found it did and she set about making the bed up with the brand new bedding she had bought in readiness.

She threw the windows open for most of the day to get some fresh air through. It didn't feel damp at all which was a good thing. At some point she would go into the nearest town and buy other bits and pieces she found she needed. Now she looked at her furniture in situ, she realised most of it could go in the store room or to the nearest charity shop as she liked the furniture that Sybil had left. It seemed to belong more in this cottage. Her furniture belonged to the three-bedroomed semi in suburbia it had come from. Maybe she could utilise some for her office and even in the shop.

By the end of the day, her mind was spinning. She had given the removal men, some sandwiches and a cuppa to see them home without a rumbly tummy but didn't feel like eating anything herself. She was too– was it excited or was it anxious?

A good brisk walk would do her good and the weather had stayed fine all day. She grabbed her raincoat again, just in case, but the breeze was gentle and the air was fresh as she made for the path she had taken yesterday up onto the moor.

This time when she reached the top of the first hill there was no horseman. Just a vast panorama of moorland as far as the eye could see. She had heard this moor was the largest in Yorkshire and she could well believe it. She saw ups and downs, hollows and hills, all spread out before her. She carried with her, as a townie, an idea of moorland being flat, so the occasional steeply rising hill before her was a revelation.

The moorland fell away over to the right and dipped down into a vale beyond, so she decided to make over that way. it would give her a good long walk and space to think about what she was going to do with the legacy Sybil had left her. She also needed to get to know her surroundings. After all, she would probably be on these moors more often than not. Hopefully, she would have time to stride across them, Bronte-like and not spend all her time chained to the business, as much as she was looking forward to starting it. The sale of her parent's house had given her enough to do the cottage up and to provide a small monthly amount to cushion her against any shortfall in earnings until the shop became established.

She wondered about opening the shop only for weekends and perhaps Thursdays and Fridays and devoting the rest to looking after the wildflower meadow and her online business. She had wanted to call it Natural Healing, which did what it said on the tin – but she was toying with bringing the wildflower aspect into it in some way. These and many other ideas occupied her thoughts as she walked on.

Her mind was feeling particularly fertile at the moment as she not only worked out what decorating/repairing needed to be done at the cottage but also how she could persuade the locals to use her for minor aches and pains, colds and coughs, love potions– The last thought came unbidden to her and made her laugh until she realised how dark it had become in what she thought was a short space of time.

She was only vaguely aware that it was raining but as she came to a halt, she saw the rain start to beat down more heavily. She pulled her hood up and lifted her eyes to see the reason for the sudden darkness. Storm clouds hovered above her, low and threatening. She had been so deep in thought planning her future in Farstone that she hadn't noticed a thing.

She took out her phone to check the time and realised it was almost two hours since she had left her cottage - and she had been walking in one direction, away from it. She turned slowly in a circle to get her bearings and realised with an unpleasant thump of the heart that there was nothing but moorland all around her with no landmark that she could recognise. She didn't realise she had gone this far. She didn't know the moor at all and didn't even know the direction she was going.

There was no network on her phone for the sat nav. She found the compass was working but as she stared at the pointer it started spinning like crazy so she couldn't rely on that either. Did she even know which compass direction the village was? She tried to think of which windows the sun shone in at what time of day, but her brain wouldn't work.

She took a deep breath to calm her thoughts. Perhaps if she just retraced her steps in the direction she had come, she would eventually reach home. To her horror, she had no idea which direction that was. She had turned in circles trying to find signs of habitation or a landmark and was completely disorientated. Now everywhere looked the same. The rain was falling heavily now, battering down on her hood, sounding like a drumbeat in her ears. Staring down at the bracken-covered ground, she tried to identify the sheep track she had used. There were too many of them. Some of them crisscrossing the others. She straightened up and shook her head at her foolishness.

There was one thing - standing here like the proverbial lost sheep wasn't going to help her. Checking her phone again for reception and finding none, she set off in what she hoped was the right direction relying on instinct alone. The clouds were threatening now, heralding a storm. Night was falling anyway, but the low oppressive sky had brought darkness too early.

She was used to and enjoyed Star Walking. The feeling of freedom it gave her being out at night and feeling the cold air on her cheeks. Of being out when others weren't. Yet that was in places she was familiar with and by the light of the stars or the moon. Tonight, no moon or stars were visible and - listening to the first distant rumble of thunder - the only light she could expect to show her the way tonight would be flashes of lightning.

Cursing her stupidity, she set off in her chosen direction with her head down so she didn't trip and occasionally lifted her head to look for signs of habitation. Any lights from a friendly house – in the middle of a forbidding and unfriendly moor... She realised this wasn't going to be likely as she hadn't passed any.

The driving rain forced her head down again. Half an hour later, there was still nothing. Nothing but darkness and desperation now. She could almost be in the bowels of Hell except at least there the flames would be lighting her way and keeping her warm. Her imagination started overtaking her common sense and she could almost see little red imps with forked tails dancing around, laughing at her–

This was no good, she thought, bringing herself up sharp. Carefully planting her feet, she turned her body around in each direction for a sign of civilisation. Nothing. The wind had increased along with the storm and was now howling around her body, making it hard to keep upright.

The thunder had gradually crept nearer until it was almost overhead. Thunder didn't bother her. She quite enjoyed hearing the majesty of nature. Usually at least. What was bothering her was this awful, incessant rainstorm of biblical proportions. There wasn't one inch of her that wasn't soaking wet through. There hadn't even been anything for her to shelter under or against. There was just a vast expanse of rolling moorland as far as she could see, which wasn't actually very far at the moment.

Then the lightning flashed. She stopped moving and watched mesmerised as it lit up the sky and then zig-zagged down towards the ground to whatever had drawn it down. Flora heard herself whimpering as if from a long way away. Thunder didn't bother her but lightning did. Lightning on a wide open moor, looking for something to earth it. She thought of her coat zip, her rings, the gold chain around her neck, and the coins she kept in her pocket just in case.

And then she began to panic, spinning round in a grotesque parody of a folk dance - her arms spread out and her face towards the sky so that the rain forced her eyes shut with its ferocity. She asked whoever was listening, perhaps the perverse weather gods with a strange sense of humour, to help her. Then she gave a strangled laugh and sat down on one of the many sheep tracks, rain flowing along it like a river. She put her head on her knees and cried tears of self-pity. She knew that she alone was to blame.

A crack of thunder echoed around the heathland and simultaneously a spectacular display of light illuminated the night sky. Flora curled up into a tight ball and just looked up in time to see the lightning fork strike the ground on top of a hill to her left. Incredibly, she saw silhouetted there, some sort of a ruin. A barn perhaps, that had fallen into disuse as not even the sheep wanted to come out to this Godforsaken place. She didn't care. It was her first chance of some sort of shelter, so in the sure and certain conviction that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place, she made her stumbling way across to where she'd seen the glowing ruin.