The valley was heavy with mist: the kind that swallowed sound and made the world feel like it was unravelling at the edges. Rowena laughed without mirth, pulling her coat tighter, stepping carefully over the uneven ground. Unravelling was the very feeling she’d come here to escape.

 

It had been days since she’d spoken to another soul. Her phone was deep at the bottom of her bag, its sound turned off and its battery waning. This was what she had wanted, wasn’t it? To be away from it all. To let the world forget her, just for a little while.

 

The weight had grown too much in the city. The pressure of expectation, the things left half-spoken, the wounds that had no shape. She had driven North without much of a plan, only half-remembered summers in a Highland cottage, curled up by the fire beneath a scratchy woollen blanket, the hay-sweet scent of lanolin and the whir of the wheel as her grandmother span beside her. Another time, another world, where the only worries had been wet boots and burned bannocks.

 

The walk had been long and wet, the drizzle slowly turning to a steady rain that seeped into her coat and chilled her fingers. The land, for all its beauty, felt unfamiliar in a way that unsettled her: rolling moorland that stretched out endlessly, dotted with heather and slick, dark rock, the wind whistling through the gorse like voices just beyond hearing.

 

With her OS map and stiff new boots, she felt like an intruder, unable to settle into the natural rhythm of the place. Her feet slipped in the mud, her knees jarred, her breath came in sharp, unsatisfying gasps. She didn’t know what she’d imagined - a sense of belonging, a welcome home, but so far the land had only left her feeling a stranger to herself.

 

The rain came on still harder, like someone had flicked a switch in the heavens. Despairing, Rowena glanced across the barren valley for a stone ledge or a copse of trees where she could wait out the downpour. Squinting through the mist, she was surprised to see the angular shapes of a small structure in the distance. Setting herself against sheets of rain, she pressed on toward it, watching a little bothy take form through the drizzle.

 

Half-forgotten by time, the hut stood hunched under a roof of thick moss, its door slightly ajar. Smoke did not curl from the chimney, yet when she stepped inside, warmth met her like an embrace.

 

Woollen blankets lined the walls, thick and soft, their sheep-rich scent still clinging to the air. The floor was strewn with fleeces, half-felted by wayfarers’ feet. Rowena instinctively bent to untie her laces, kicking her sodden boots off by the door and stepping in stocking feet onto the plush carpet.

​

Before her stood a low hearth, with dry wood on the grate and a box of matches beside it. Suddenly aware of the cold in her bones, Rowena unshouldered her pack and knelt before the fireplace, nursing a spark into a warm glow.

​

In the low flickering light, the tiny room felt close, embracing, the way a burrow must feel to the creatures nestled into it, safe from the sharp edges of the world beyond. Rowena exhaled, long and slow, a breath she’d been holding for months. She pressed her back against the blanket-lined wall, the familiar scent speaking to something small and animal in her.

​

There was no sound but the whisper of the wind through the thatch, the distant murmur of water. In the corners of the room, shadow pooled, deep and old, but not unkind. Through lids heavy with sleep, Rowena thought she sensed a presence - not a ghost, but something old, that watched her with patient eyes and did not ask anything of her but rest.

​

Rowena did not know how long she sat there. At some point sleep must have taken her, and carried her soundlessly through the night. All she knew was that when she opened her eyes, the world outside was shifting to dawn, the mist lifting from the valley like breath from a sleeping body. She stood, pressing her fingers to her brow, surprised at the lack of tension there, then set herself to sweeping the ashes from the hearth.

​

She hesitated at the door, half-expecting the bothy to be gone as soon as she turned her back. But it remained, sturdy and silent, the scent of lanolin and moss still thick in the air. A place not to be sought out, but stumbled upon, soft as wool and steady as stone.

​

With one last glance, she stepped out into the morning, her heart quiet for the first time in a long while.