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Heelstone

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A man and a woman boarded the night train in Doncaster smelling of iron and something burnt and presented to the conductor one-way tickets to Fort William. Odd people rode the night train and the conductors who often shared sips from a fifth of gin in the emptier cars relished customers who were not screaming drunk, strung out, or manic on PCP or otherwise. Both of the passengers were tall and hollow about the eyes, but they were not siblings and neither did they comport themselves like a couple. They sat across from one another in a berth and did not touch and took turns sleeping. When they boarded the train the woman had been carrying a fluorescent hiker's backpack that seemed heavy not in weight but with something else. Now it occupied the empty seat next to the man who made very certain he did not touch it even while he slept, which he did fitfully, snatches of it here and there through the night hours, and otherwise he watched out the window at the featureless black blur.

He woke her up at dawn with a hand on her wrist. She yawned, showing the fillings in her molars (they were not silver) and the jagged sharpness of her canine teeth. His hand on her wrist was vivid with bones and tattooed with old marks and raw red at the knuckles and there was blood under the ragged fingernails.

The conductor from his seat watched them curiously as he appreciated stories he could share with his family over breakfast and with his friends at the pub and once he had casually overheard human smugglers planning a job and had received for his tip to the police a 500 pound reward.

The woman looked out the window at the night pulling away. "Almost there," she said; her voice was hoarse and soft.

"The next station," said the man.

She could not yet be fifty, and he could not yet be forty, but something about them was eerily ageless. He wondered if they were hikers out to climb Ben Nevis, or if they were starting one of the national trails, but if so it was rather curious that they only carried between them one backpack.

"Did you sleep?" she asked him.

"A little."

"I'm going to sleep," she said, "for a week, after this. I'm going to eat my weight in fish and chips and then I'm going to sleep for a week."

He smiled at her weakly but sincerely and she smiled back the same. When she shifted back in her seat and rearranged her fur wrap he saw for the first time in the new daylight the bruising on her face and collar and the raggedness — the bloodiness — of her hands as well, which were missing two manicured nails. The man was bruised too, and when he stretched the sleep out of his long limbs the conductor saw under the sleeves of his coat deep furrowed scratches that might have been put there by teeth or claws. The scar across the man's face which the conductor noticed now for the first time was of a similar origin but very old.

"Have you ever climbed a mountain before," the man asked the woman, and she laughed, and her laugh was like a bark.

"Remus," she said, "this is not a mountain. Don't you realize if we were doing this in Nepal or Tibet we'd have to climb Everest?"

He laughed too but his was smaller, like a huff. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Or if we were in America, after this we would have to go to Death Valley."

"I've wanted to, though."

"Yes, well maybe after all this we — all of us can. Keith can probably find us a cheap flight because you know his Da works at Heathrow and I can get the kids out of school and you can bring Sirius. Rather would be a special vacation."

"I wonder how much is buried there."

She had a way of looking at him like an older sister would. Like she loved him but they had seen different evidence of the world’s worst machinations. "Things are buried everywhere," she said.

"I suppose."

She turned to the window to watch the dawn. The rime of the moon just a night past full. "This happens to us on every inch of earth."

"Not," he said, carefully, like he was worried he might make it untrue, "not to us, anymore."

"I hope. God I really do hope."

When the train slowed they both stood almost gingerly and the woman helped the man get the backpack on and he buckled the straps across his narrow chest and they waited together at the door leaning against the railing. "Almost there," said the man.

"Yes," she said, "almost there."

When the doors opened they nodded goodbye to the conductor and they went out together into the new sunshine split through clouds and moving like the eye of God upon the tarn, as though just born.

Notes:

thank you so much for sticking with this insane behemoth all the way through to to the end. writing this was a labor of love, i'm so glad it exists now, and i'm so thankful for all your support!!
endless thanks be due to montparnasse, midwife/beta/cheerleader of this monstrosity without whom i never could have written this.
if you think there's an element of this story i should tag / warn for, but have missed, please let me know! i am happy to oblige.
here on my tumblr are some reference points / inspiration bits for this series - join me! also, feel free to message me with regard to this story and/or call me out on anything i've gotten wrong.

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