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nap.
    Outside the air is fresh in the sunshine but drops several crucial degrees to become chilling once Tilda descends into the mist. Even though the hour is later than her usual run time, there are no other walkers out braving the damp and gloomy conditions along the lakeside footpath. Tilda falls into the rhythm of running, finding solace in the repetition of easy, fluid steps. Footfalls crunching on fallen beechnuts. Step, step breathe. Step, step breathe. Heart strong and steady, lungs working calmly.
    No need to think. No need to feel. No need to remember. Just here and now. Just this. Only this. You are strong. You are strong. Tilda loves to run. Tilda needs to run.
    She takes an unfamiliar route, but follows a clear path. To her left, set back among the marshy side of the lake, she can just make out a small, dilapidated building, so overgrown it is almost entirely hidden by ivy and brambles. The closer the path gets to the water, the denser the fog becomes, so that soon she is running as if within a narrow tunnel through the miasma. Sounds become muffled and distorted. A cawing crow, its voice flattened and stretched, flaps from a low branch, the movement of its wings disturbing the swirling milkiness around it. Some way off, a tractor rumbles across a field, one second sounding close, the next very distant. Tilda can make out the honking of geese upon the water, but visibility is limited to a few yards, so that she can only see the reedy shore and the shallows of the lake’s edge. As she runs on she notices that her eyes are struggling to make sense of the floating landscape around her. Low branches across the path seem to stretch out like so many arms reaching for something unseen. The gritty track beneath her feet appears to rise up and fall away as she strides over it. Among the sounds of birds and the tractor she can discern something new. A noise from the surface of the water, rhythmic and fluid. Splash, swoosh, splash, swoosh.
    Oars. Someone is rowing. In this? Why would they do that? Can’t be for the view. Fishing? Are they fishing?
    The sounds grow a little louder. Stronger. Closer. Tilda stops and peers through the murk toward the body of the lake. Slowly a shape begins to form, as much of the mist as out of it. She squints and tries to refocus her unreliable eyes. At last, she can make out a small boat containing three shadowy figures. The vessel is wooden, low in the water, and of a curiously rustic construction. Two of the people in it are rowing, sitting with their backs to Tilda, pulling toward the shore. The shape and clothing of the third person are indistinct still, yet suggest a woman. Tilda blinks away the droplets of mist clinging to her eyelashes and wipes her face with her hand. Into her watery vision, as she stares harder, come the striking features of the passenger in the boat. Now Tilda can see that this is a young, beautiful woman, her hair concealed beneath twists of leather and some sort of animal skin headdress. Her skin is pale, but the light is too poor, the air too disturbed with mist, for Tilda to make out her eyes or her expression. What becomes clear is that all three in the boat seem to be dressed in some manner of costume, as if decked out for a historical reenactment, or a scene from a movie.
    But why on earth would they do that now? Here? On their own?
    They are so close now Tilda could call out to them easily. She raises her hand to wave, but something stops her. Something causes her scalp to tingle and the breath to catch in her throat. She can hear drums now, coming from farther around the lake. Suddenly the mist parts, clearing in seconds, so that she can see the expanse of water before her and even the far shore. But things are not as they should be. Instead of the low roof of the visitor’s cafe on the north side of the lake, she can see huts, clustered together, and smoke rising from small fires. And horses. And cattle. And strange figures moving about. There