Free Shattered by Teri Terry Page B

to the stones, but don’t start counting yet. I have to start in the right place: where some of the stones reach into the circle. We start here so we don’t lose track.
    Close up some of the stones are huge, but not so much as in my memory when they were giants; now, some are even shorter than me. I reach the first one, press my hands against it, then lean into the cold stone: hands extended, face turned so my cheek is against it as well. I close my eyes. Number one.
    All I have been and all I have been through these last years seems to fade away, leaving just Lucy. A little girl with her dad. I open my eyes again. Is it this place, these ancient stones? Thousands of years old, do they do something to time, make seven years seem of no consequence? I feel myself stepping back as I was then, and start running between the stones, tagging each one with my hand and counting as I go.
    It’s getting darker, and colder, and all at once there are fingers of mist wrapping around the stones. The sun vanishes. Lake District weather: blink and it changes . The words are in my mind, unbidden. Who used to say that? Eyes closed again, I lean back against another stone, and feel like I’m sinking into it, getting colder but not caring: reaching back for something else, without knowing what.
    Some sense of disquiet takes hold: this wasn’t always a good place. I push the thought away, wanting to stay Lucy, but she is slipping away.
    How long have I been here? I’m shaking with chill, and the light is starting to fade. I should go back, catch the bus with Madison when the cafe closes at five. I squint at my watch: almost four. I should have enough time to get there by then, but I’m disoriented. Which stone was I up to, and which way is the gate? I don’t know. I peer at the mist, but it holds its secrets: I can’t see beyond a few metres of frozen field. A shiver runs down my back. What if I had followed my first impulse, and kept climbing up, up, up? I shudder to think of being on the top of a ridge and unable to see the way.
    Fine park ranger I’d make.
    I step out across the frozen ground in my best pick of the right direction, hoping the mist will lift. Long after I expect to, I hit fence: no gate. No problem: follow the fence around. I start out, keeping the fence close and in sight, but then walk for so long I know I’ve gone the wrong way. Turn around? No. Keep going, it’s the only way to make sure I don’t end up going back and forth. I reach a gate, but it looks different from the one I came through: ah. I’m on the opposite side, the one with the car park. Now the gate I want is just as far again around the other way.
    Finally I reach it, go through and follow the footpath down. The lights of town start to penetrate the mist; it is lifting as I reach the first houses, so I run full speed up the streets, back to the centre.
    As I round the final corner, the bus is pulling away. I wave; it stops. I step on, breathing hard. Flustered, I have a moment of panic when I can’t find my ID, but it is in my other pocket. I scan in and start down the aisle. A hand waves: Madison. She scoots across so I can sit next to her in the aisle seat.
    ‘Riley? I thought the intake seminar ended hours ago! How was it?’
    The morning seems ages ago. ‘Good, I guess. I’m thinking of Parks. Maybe Education.’
    She looks at me curiously. ‘What happened to you this afternoon?’
    I shrug. ‘Nothing much. I went for a walk.’
    ‘You’re going to catch it when we get back.’
    ‘Why?’
    She shrugs. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. You should have written that in the stupid book when we left; Stella’s probably ticked off cos she hasn’t known where you are every second of the day.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Don’t worry, you didn’t know, did you?’
    Because I didn’t read the rules.
    Stella stands by her desk in the reception area, arms crossed, rigid with tension. Her head turns when we come in, and her eyes fix on me. Something