Demeter was walking in her favourite wood. She had left school for the dentist and then found no reason in her sixth form diary to return. All the golden leaves sodden before her like a dismal bridal train. She felt in her duffle pocket and discovered something chipped and round and dared herself to name it before she clambered up to the folly at the top of the lane. Was it red? Was it edible? Her teeth tasted sedimenty and she breathed out on her damp glove. Sometimes she had to juts breathe out to check if she was really here, if she was Demeter or a sort of mirage of a person sprung up out of earth, the rocks she decided dreamily. Mud squelched up over her boots. Rich dark brown stains.
She was at the folly and peeped over the broken wall to stare down at the lake. A few ducks and a clear view to the motorway if she concentrated. Something whirred in her other pocket. Her mobile. A text. Demeter read the dental inquiry from her mother and sent back a legion of kisses.
‘they get everywhere said a voice’ she recognised and there was the woman from the New year walk, once again clad in a huge bear like coat smiling with a mouth that went on and on. Demeter felt she was wandering around the edges of this woman, following her mouth and strangely dizzy as the brown eyes gazed upon her. More mud she felt. And then took a step back and leant against the wall.
‘Last time we met you were with a new friend and this time you are alone, yet here we are meeting again. Demeter. And you can see all the way across today, and the woman pointed across the lake to a place that seemed to form just on the border of what Demeter thought she had seen. A smoky avenue of trees that took your eyes up with them and then seemed to lose them again. Was there a door?
‘I am making a new map today Demeter said the woman and I want you to help me perhaps. ‘
Perhaps? Was this an invitation or a doubt?
‘Old maps are so constricting after all continued her companion who was now equipped with some unusually yellow paper and a soft pencil and was sketching away as she turned her head from this way to that. I make maps once every change of government and then we can all see more clearly where we have to go, you see. ‘
And Demeter did see though what she saw eluded her, but she thought it might have a door and a path and even a dog perhaps. She looked down at her boots and they were no longer muddy and were shining in the bright light which had suddenly arrived from no where. Even her gloves felt warm and Demeter laughed as she pulled out the small marble from her pocket. It was amber now she could see it, amber with a slash of ancient honey. When she held it in this light there was something tiny caught in its centre, shaped as a heart, a very small heart.