Chapter 8

Holding the exact position in her sight, Flora made for the shelter. In truth, it was mostly intuition as the night was so black that she almost wished for another flash of lightning to light her way. On second thoughts, she didn't want to provide a metal-carrying, moving target for the lightning so, staring fixedly at the point where she hoped she had seen the structure, she tripped and stumbled her way forward.

She was upon it before she realised and got her foot caught in some sort of creeping plant, sending her sprawling across the ground. She raised her head to see, not six inches in front of her, a solid block of stone. Thanking whoever had started looking after her tonight, she pulled herself up and looked around. Shapes and shadows were all she could see. She chanced using her phone torch. There was still no reception and she wondered if a mast had been struck. For good measure she aimed the beam up into the sky, waving it about for a while. Although it was the logical thing to do at this stage, she was strangely reluctant to bring the moors rescue service out in this weather and put them in danger for some idiot woman who should have read the weather signs much better- and kept a weather-eye out as she was walking. She had been so intent on her plans that she had noticed nothing around her.

Bringing the torch beam down to earth, she focused on the ruins and was surprised to see it wasn't a dilapidated shippen but a standing stone, right here in the middle of the moors. Not just one stone but three. Two uprights and a large capstone across the top. She'd seen them before at Stonehenge. Were they called megaliths? No,–dolmens. It seemed strange that the structure was here in the middle of nowhere but she was glad it was. She would shelter underneath from the rain and hopefully, the capstone would deflect any more lightning strikes away from her.

She stepped down onto a smooth pathway heading to the space between the stones. It looked well-worn. Perhaps sheep took their shelter here as well. She was suddenly aware of a looming shape to her left, bending over and standing and then bending again in the howling gale. She flinched, as though under attack, then gave a maniacal laugh when she realised it was an old thorn tree, bending against the prevailing wind. Hawthorn or Blackthorn probably, as they could withstand any conditions.

Training the torch again on the stones, she headed for their shelter. In the torchlight she saw the creeper had made its way up and over the stones, giving them an otherworldly appearance. What seemed to be honeysuckle wound its way up one side, the tendrils reaching up towards the swirling black sky. On the other side, she could see hips from the sweet briar rose curling around the right-hand stone and up over the capstone. She wondered vaguely why the hips were out at this time of year. It was completely incongruous on a wild barren part of the vast moor.

She entered the ancient shelter. Strangely, it went much further back than she first thought. Almost like the start of a tunnel. She hesitated. She didn't want to go any further for some reason. It might be sensible to get further inside the shelter, but something told her not to. Perhaps the stone wasn't as stable there and might collapse? She always listened to her instincts and if she didn't want to step further into the shelter, then she would make do just inside the stones. Anything would be better than this constant, unrelenting deluge.

She settled against the stone on her right. The honeysuckle cushioning her back and the tendrils reaching down over her shoulder. She smiled wryly. Trusting her instincts? What happened to her instincts when she set off earlier for her ‘short walk' on the moors? She always believed that everything happened for a reason, but for the life of her, she couldn't imagine a reason for her predicament tonight.

Sitting there curling herself up against the cold, another half hour passed, at the end of which she had started to shiver and was now shaking violently. She was soaked to the skin and whereas the shelter gave her some relief against the rain, it wasn't drying her. The night would get colder and her lack of movement would contribute to the intense cold she was beginning to feel. If only she knew in which direction she should walk.

She took out her phone for the compass again but it was even worse than before, spinning round wildly – perhaps the stone was affecting it? The rumble of the thunder was still there but some distance away and the lightning was further away too. Thinking of Culhain's story, she worried that she had more chance of dying of hypothermia tonight than of getting struck by lightning. So with more hope than expectation, she edged out again into the rainstorm and tried to see through the water cascading into her eyes.

She blinked and wiped her hand across her eyes and then blinked again. There in the distance - was it a light? Very small and very weak but it was a light even though Flora turned away and then back in case it was an illusion that would disappear. She wiped her eyes again. It was still there. A watery, weak glow but it was the most welcome sight Flora had ever seen. Forcing her now aching limbs to work again, she propelled herself towards the beacon of hope.