Ruby
It’s October the first time I see the northern lights.
I’m just getting ready for bed when I hear a knock at the door.
Hanna stands there in her customary evening wear of nightgown and overcoat, accessorized with a pair of Wellies.
It’s a still, cold evening, and her breath forms little clouds on the frost-tinged air.
“Are you all right?” I ask, immediately concerned that she may have injured herself again.
I’d found her teetering at the top of a stepladder the other day, trying to change a light bulb.
“You could have asked me to do that,” I said, putting a steadying hand on a lower rung.
She’d looked cross and a little guilty, too, knowing this wasn’t something her son and daughter would have allowed.
“I suppose you’re going to report me to the secret police,” she’d said, sounding cross, although nowadays I’ve come to understand that her grumpiness is just a smokescreen for fear.
“You know me better than that by now, Hanna,” I’d replied. “But you might at least let me hold the ladder if you’re going to insist on doing aerial acrobatics.”
This evening, though, she seems fine. She shakes her head, saying, “Just thought you might like to see this.” She steps back and points toward the heavens.
I gasp. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and although I’ve looked at pictures of the aurora in magazines, nothing comes close to the sight in the Shetland skies tonight.
Broad strands of light shimmer through the darkness as if borne on some celestial wind, obliterating the stars in rivers of lime-green, rose-pink, and gold.
The two of us stand there in awestruck silence, watching the light show as it ebbs and flows.
When it begins to fade, Hanna murmurs, “That was a good one. They call them the Mirrie Dancers here because of how they shimmer as they move through the sky.”
We stand there a while longer, waiting to see if there’ll be a resurgence of the lights, but they continue to evaporate, leaving nothing but a pale green glow on the horizon. The stars reappear, one by one, and we’ve both begun to shiver.
“Thanks for coming to get me. That was stunning,” I say. “Best get indoors and warm up again now.”
Hanna nods, then turns and trudges back across the field to the farmhouse. I watch to make sure she’s safely indoors, before I turn in.
The lights seem to have got into my bloodstream, because I lie in bed feeling wide awake, my mind fizzing with the sight I’ve just witnessed.
Even when I close my eyes, I can still see the streaming colors, shimmering and weaving, like hair blown on the wind.
I recall what Hanna told me about the belief that the lights were a bridge for souls to pass from this world to the next.
For a moment, I wonder whether she’s ever been tempted to try to cross that bridge herself, to see what lies on the other side, joining those she’s lost. Isobel mentioned how depressed she’d been—or how doon apon it, as she’d put it—when I first visited her.
And I’ve thought, on occasion, how easy it might be to walk into the sea and just keep swimming…
But such morbid thoughts are unhealthy. I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to talk about them when I go for my meeting with the psychologist. As I promised my parents, I phoned to make an appointment, only to be told there’s a waiting list of several weeks.
“Sorry,” the receptionist said, her voice kind and calm, accustomed to delivering the bad news.
“We’re down to just the one doctor now, since the other retired a few months back.
It’s a busy time of year, too. I can book you a session in the week before Christmas, though. ”
I sighed. Now that I’d taken the decision to talk to someone, I wanted to get on with it before I could chicken out again.
But I can understand how the shortening days, increasingly filled with rain or fog, must naturally result in more people seeking help.
The darkness of winter looms ahead, and I know I won’t be the only one struggling.
I thanked her and wrote down the date in my diary, relieved I could at least let my parents know I’d done so.
As I drift off to sleep, the images of the Mirrie Dancers fading away at last, just as they had done in real life, I think of what it must have been like for Hanna and Liv, staying on in the hut as another winter approached, the tides of war growing in strength, danger inexorably swirling ever closer…