Hill Goddesses by Nicky Peters
Artwork by Alycia Beckett
Today
I saw another tree had fallen on my way up the hill today. Grisette mushrooms pushed through the bark, the flat fans of turkeytail hid in the shadowed cleft on the underside, and when I came near, insects sifted out of sight through the cracks and splinters. The logs were bleached white from the sun like giant’s bones. I hadn’t seen Catherine on the hill all day.
Yesterday
Catherine brought me a cup of tea. We were in her study, the day before. She sat beside me on the sofa, and I put down the book of Celtic myths I had been reading. Her study was warm and scented with pine and vanilla from the well-loved bookshelves and her baking. I met Catherine through an old university contact who heard I was writing a piece on local folk tales. They knew Catherine from their early school days together. The secret ribbons of silver crept through her tawny wisps of hair and the skin on the back of her hands was thin and stretched, though her fingertips were calloused from years gardening.
‘There,’ her tone was warm but thoughtful, the lines around her mouth creasing. ‘What were we talking about, Lily?’
‘You mentioned ghost stories,’ I said, referring to my notes.
She smiled wryly. ‘Oh, all the children growing up here were afraid of one ghost woman or another. We used to tell some awful stories to each other...’
‘What about myths?’ I asked, glancing at the book I had laid down. ‘Any gods or goddesses I should be careful of, on the hill?’
Catherine smiled in that same, strange way. It was a mixture of pleasantness and thought, but the thought was disguised and distant, like she was trying to catch the end strain of a song. She put her teacup to her lips. The cold blue china clinked against her teeth.
‘I’ve always told stories about this village,’ Catherine began. ‘I’ve told people about growing up here, the mine closures, the shops that came and went. There was a pub here, once.’
I nodded. My tea had grown tepid.
‘I’ve been here as long as that hill has, I imagine.’ She laughed, but it was thin and wavering.
‘What stories can you tell me,’ I asked, ‘that you’ve never told before?’
Today
The afternoon sun pressed down on my back, and my calves burned from exposure and the long hike. I had already climbed the hill three times this week and it was starting to show in my slumped posture and sluggish steps. My skin felt cooked from the inside, my tendons ready to snap. I passed from the cover of a tree tunnel onto open dirt track, and a few meters ahead I spotted a flat boulder under the shade of a small, twisted sycamore. I sank down on the rock and put the water bottle to my parched lips. Behind me, fields stretched out like a patchwork quilt, entire generations hidden in the embroidered villages that looked smaller than my thumbnail. A seagull battered the clear sky with a sandpaper cry, a buzzard was eyeing it from even higher above. The day was so vast and clear and bright, it was startling. It was like looking out across the ocean in a dingy and finding only miles of continuous blue. I turned, saw the hill to climb ahead, and laughed.
‘Fuck that,’ I said.
Yesterday
Catherine joined me in the garden after tea. A thin gold film coated everything, clinging to the cracked bark and papery leaves of her yew trees, the exposed roots creating dips and hollows where the shadows still lapped at the dry grey soil.
‘Now, Lily,’ she said, slowly. ‘I think I have a story worth your while.’
As I looked at her, something occurred to me. Her hair was the same colour as that soil, her eyes the shade of the dusk-lit yews. Her voice sounded somewhere between the faintest twisted whistle of a hermit thrush and the muddy brook gurgling its way through the onslaught of April showers. She fit in this place perfectly, as if she had sprouted up in the garden one night, fully formed, ready to tell a story about it. She pointed to the steadily darkening silhouette of the hill.
‘No books will tell you this,’ she said, ‘but I’ve been sure for years that hill has a goddess in it. I’m not religious, mind,’ she frowned, ‘but every time I walk the track, I pick up a small stone from the stream, carry it to the top, and leave it there. Just seems right.’
I smiled warmly at her.
‘I’ll write it down,’ I replied.
Today
I was nearing the top now. It had taken me three hours from the first gravel path. When I got to the B&B last night, I locked myself in my room and spent the night on my laptop, looking for any reference to a goddess myth associated with the nearby hill. I burned through half a jar of coffee, staying awake until four in the morning. I had found nothing. When my alarm woke me at seven, I pulled myself out of bed, washed the midnight grime from my hair, threw on my crumpled clothes and headed out. At twelve in the afternoon, I reached the peak.
I was exposed on all sides to the battering, sea-salted wind. It tugged on my hair, thundered against my eardrums, and coated my lips with a fine salty film. I was suddenly in open air. The seagull and buzzard had fallen behind me, as had the cradling tree tunnels and dusty tracks. Left in their place was a vast, unbroken horizon, blanketing fields of green, grey, and gold gave way to the chill slate-blue sea, which glittered in my eyes and caused me to squint. I could smell woodsmoke, salt and distant vanilla. I looked around for a suitable spot. Seeing a nook in the exposed roots of a blackthorn tree, I walked over and leant down in the shade. There, I carefully placed the small pebble I had picked up at the stream hours ago. As I did, the scents of pine and vanilla drifted up to me.
I walked back down to the village slowly. I hoped to see Catherine again. I looked back to the hill and a smile crept over my lips. Somehow, I doubted I would.
Words by Nicky Peters
Edited by Tillie Holmes
Artwork by Alycia Beckett