hvert

Up and up and up. A walk in the dark, uphill, a climb in a winter night barely chill enough to recall summer night elsewhere. If it were only a touch more brisk she might imagine she were far to the North, in August, but even then it would be lighter, wouldn't it? There would be that suspect glow at the southern horizon even if the Aurora were still flaring green in the northern sky. Still, she is oddly disoriented.

There isn't much light on these hilly streets. The sidewalk is narrow. Tendrils of the ivy on the fence slap and claw against her jacket as she passes. She feels them but cannot see them. The moon is shining through a scrap of cloud and making it shimmer like rhyolite. Off in the trees, something more than wind is moving about, but she cannot see it at all.

Up and up and up, knowing that coming back down will make her knee ache.