All That Is Lost Between Us

For Hannah and Isabelle

I
t was only a memory now. The three of them, walking along the dark, narrow lane. The awkward silence that lingered in their footsteps. The phone buzzing insistently in her pocket. They had been there just a few hours ago, but already it had become a distant recollection of a time when their lives travelled in a neat, straight line. Georgia could see them vividly without needing to close her eyes – hear the tread of their shoes on the deserted road, feel the chilly late-September wind toying with her hair, a contrast to the warmth of her right hand, wrapped within Danny's. They hadn't known that they were sleepwalkers, unaware of what headed towards them, until it was too late. Until all Georgia could see was darkness, before the minutes snuck in and made an unbridgeable gap of time, and it was impossible to go back and change anything.

‘You can take my car,' her mother had volunteered at dinnertime, when Georgia's friend Bethany had called and invited her over. Georgia knew she should have welcomed the offer. She was usually keen to practise driving, so proud of her brand-new licence, and Bethany's house
was
in Ambleside, a few miles away down a steep and winding road. But no, she wanted to walk; she would cut through the woods. She didn't add that she also wanted to drink – Bethany's parents were away again, and Bethany thought there was enough alcohol in the house that a few knock-offs wouldn't be noticed.

Georgia wouldn't drink too much, though, she had decided as she ran upstairs to get ready, because tonight she planned to confess everything to her cousin Sophia. It wasn't so much that she needed to get things off her chest, but rather that she was hoping to close the gap that had opened between the two of them since the summer.

Sophia and Georgia had been best friends since they were babies, but for the first time things were coming between them. It had been fine until Sophia went away on holiday, but by the time she got back Georgia had a secret – one so immense she could hardly believe it was contained inside her, because it also seemed to be out there in the world, waiting for her everywhere she went, adding its own slant on all that she did. So harmless at first, it had become a burden she couldn't carry alone. Her brain was increasingly tuned to this one frequency, a relentless, questioning chatter she couldn't clear. She was hoping it was that which had caused the chasm between her and Sophia, because for the first time in her life she felt she was losing her best mate.

It was only little things that bothered her, but she didn't know if they added up to something bigger. When Bethany had called she had let slip that she had been with Sophia that morning. And yes, Sophia already knew about the party. Georgia was trying not to be possessive, but what had they been doing together, and why hadn't they included her? Sophia had had all afternoon to call and tell her, but she hadn't. Why?

The secret she had been so nervous about sharing suddenly felt like the ace up her sleeve. Instead of finding excuses to stay home, as she had been doing regularly since term started, she had agreed to go. Then she had messaged Sophia.

I need to talk to you.

Her phone buzzed seconds later.
OK.

Georgia had slipped the phone into her pocket once she'd seen the reply. If this didn't get Sophia's attention, then there was definitely something strange going on.

It hadn't taken long for Georgia to get ready – it was too cold for anything except skinny jeans and her beloved parka – and then it was just a matter of getting past her parents without any more probing questions about who was going and what time she would be home. But her father had already gone out, and since Georgia had turned seventeen her mother had slackened the maternal reins a little further. So, she was able to announce her departure and head confidently towards the door, only pausing out of courtesy while her mother added the predictable, ‘Don't forget it's a school night.'

Once outside, Georgia had stopped to breathe in the cool evening air, while she tried to steady her nerves. The family home was on the outskirts of the tiny Lake District village of Fellmere, situated at just the point where the hillside settlements petered out and the untamed countryside took over. Autumn had already visited their front garden, and the plants were mostly bare, bent branches. A mole had kicked up a few mounds of dirt in the grass as he tunnelled his way through, and everything was covered in leaves. Her father's rake stood rusting against the wall.

Eventually, Georgia took a long, deep breath and set off. She regularly turned towards the hills at this time of day, on a late-afternoon run, but this evening, for once, she set her back to them and headed for the woodland path. The rough track was well worn by tourists and Fellmere locals, although at this time of year the increasing rain and first fall of leaves could make the journey slippery. Along the way, a few benches were situated at the finest viewpoints over the valley, where you could look south across Lake Windermere and west towards the Langdales.

‘These are the places that have made poets fall to their knees in wonder,' Georgia's English teacher had said last year, when they made a trek up Haystacks, a popular mountain in the Buttermere Valley, in search of inspiration for an essay project. It had been a sweeping reference to the many fells and mountains and valleys that belonged to the Lake District, and Georgia could already feel that reverence growing within her. Even the best oil paintings and watercolours seemed stifled by their two dimensions when she could stand on a summit and turn a complete circle of glorious panoramas, bear witness to nature's careful brushstrokes in infinite degrees. Not only that, but the scenery was preternatural, apt for more change in moments than millennia, thanks to the continuous interventions of the weather. White clouds could drop deep shadows into the greenest valley, while their darker storm cousins could turn the entire scene grey and violent in seconds. Yet with one quick kiss from a benevolent sun, every colour and surface in the landscape would be repainted with rich golden hues, sending idle photographers scrambling for tripods and timers.

Georgia's love of her surroundings had deepened in the past few years, thanks to fell-running. It was a sport unlike any other – competitive racing through this ever-changing mountainous terrain that might see her scrabbling up grassy banks, balancing along jagged rocky summits, negotiating waterfalls and sliding down scree slopes. It was racing that might take hours – even days, at the most competitive levels – and required her to pack water, sustenance, wet-weather gear, a map, a compass and a whistle. It was an activity that challenged her body and cleared her mind while nature pushed her to her limits and called her as witness to its treasures – from the tiny songbirds and shy red squirrels that hid in the forests, to the vast rocky peaks that shone like steel above verdant valleys shimmering in sunshine.

Georgia trained as often as she could – the school fell-running championships would take place in two days' time, and she was on the verge of breaking records. As a result, she knew the woods intimately, and yet they seemed to change along with her mood. When she was running, it was the lush colours and patterns she noticed most – the emerald moss that crawled and settled over everything from the rocks to the trees; the crowds of ferns with their intricate tips curled into themselves as tightly as the fists of newborn babes. Clusters of bright flowers peeked shyly from arbitrary points along the way, sometimes springing up recklessly on the path so she had to jump over them as she ran. And at the right time of year the bluebells took over their own section of the forest, laying a pretty carpet between the trees that mirrored the spring skies. But on nights like tonight, the woods were an annoyance – one long stepping stone between Georgia and the social life of town. On these occasions there always seemed a root ready to trip her, or a stick poking out from an errant branch, eager to snag her clothes and slow her down.

There were a number of diverging pathways that meandered and re-met at various points, but the main one was hundreds of years old, beginning as stepping stones in the long grass, before it widened as it wound down to the town, eventually joining an ancient horse-and-cart track before meeting the main road. Her parents were fine with her walking this way in daylight but reluctant to let her venture here on her own after dark. When she was younger, her dad had sometimes taken Georgia and her brother Zac on the tracks late in the evening, armed with torches, hoping to spot owls. They had studied the birds' pellets on the woodland floor, and sat for hours listening for the squeaky warbling and hooting calls, but it was a rare treat to spy a tawny owl on the branch of a tree, and one that lasted only seconds, for they took off as soon as the torchlight came near them. Back then, Georgia had thought that grown-ups weren't scared of anything, but now here she was, on the cusp of adulthood, and there was more fear in her than she could ever recall having as a child.

As she reached the corpse stone, her step quickened. Some locals called this part of the track the corpse road, others the spirit road, but whatever you knew it as, there was no way around this ancient section of the path, along which people had once carried their dead for miles to ensure their loved ones would be buried in consecrated ground. The corpse stone was a long flat standing stone that had been there for centuries, where coffins could be rested while aching limbs and numb hearts took a moment to rally for the remainder of their journey. She couldn't walk this stretch without awareness of those other vanished footsteps, their heavy burden in those final acts of love.

The local kids had all heard the rumours connected with this short stretch of track: the strange lights that floated close to the ground, a ghostly hand stroking a cheek or an arm. Some said that the way was lined with the souls of the departed, a drifting, lingering guard of honour on those lonely tracks. It was a rite of passage to leave your friends hiding behind an ancestral oak tree, from whose stout lichen-clothed trunk emerged a mass of taut and twisted fingers that reached for the sky. Alone, you would stand on the track past the corpse stone, switch off your torch and let the darkness claim you, while someone set a stopwatch to see how long it would take you to run screaming towards the safety of the living. Georgia had stayed longer than most, because her stubbornness had nearly outlasted her terror – but she still remembered how her legs had trembled and how loud her heart had drummed in her ears.

After half an hour she was relieved to see the beginning of the bitumen path, which took over from the dirt and began to descend rapidly, leaving the ghosts behind. On a school day she would take the right-hand fork halfway along, and follow it for another few hundred metres, where she would join the short stretch of track that the school had commandeered as part of its team's regular running route. However, tonight she was heading for town, so she continued down the steep path until she met the road. The journey so far was a little over a mile, and Georgia spent the time thinking of
him
. After all that had happened over the past weeks she didn't even want to name him in her mind, as though if she denied him this he would have less substance in her life. But she wasn't fooling herself, and so she was deep in troubled thoughts for most of the way. It was a surprise when she zigzagged between the metal poles that marked the entrance from the main road, and found herself on the outskirts of Ambleside.

Her phone buzzed. Sophia.
Where are you?

Nearly there
, she typed back, quickening her pace. It was only a short walk to cross to the southern side of town. The evening was still light as she passed a few huddles of late shoppers and early drinkers, before heading along the old Vicarage Road that bridged town and country to the west, finally taking a shortcut through a playground and a field to reach the quiet lane where Bethany lived.