The wind was high and the clouds were scudding across the deep dark blue, and the landscape all around was shifting light, dark, light, dark – but Bromley Cairn stood out in an unmoving patch of moonlight, the two glass windows reflecting the gleam of the moon. My place, my room, gleaming. Waiting for me. The sight of it was a comfort. I breathed in, and held it. And then breathed out. I was looking at the building, my saving grace, standing alone there in the moonlit plain, when the scudding darkness dropped right on it, and I caught my breath. As the cloud-shadow moved across Bromley Cairn, the top window went as dark as the rest, but the bottom window continued to shine. As I watched, it became clear. My window wasn’t gleaming, it was glowing.

I busily sent my mind into replaying the checks I’d done as I left the room that morning, my fingers turning the lamp off at the wall, pulling the door shut behind me. I felt sure I’d turned it off – I’d been nervous about the electricals. But I had to admit that my mind was a little sketchy on the point. The fact was that I just couldn’t be sure. I stared at the glowing window for some time, and then sighed. I would have to head over now and turn it off.

But there was another light in the night, coming from the opposite direction: the stable. I put my glass back in the kitchen, pulled on a hoodie, slid my phone into the pocket and stepped out again into the chill night air.

The inside of the stable was glowing grey-blue in the cool light from the factory lamp above, and the sound of tinny talkback radio rattled off the corrugated iron walls and out into the night. The soft rasp of my approaching footsteps perfectly matched the background static of the radio, so I knew I wouldn’t have been heard as I stood next to the doorway and peered inside.

Polly was there in her blanket, breathing angrily out of her nose and stamping her feet. Hessel was soothing her. ‘There, there, my Pol.’ He dragged his hand firmly down her neck and she bucked her head into him in acknowledgment and then lifted her forequarters up, her front hooves lifting off the ground, with a little sad whinny. ‘I know, I know, Polly,’ said Hessel, resting his forehead against her side. ‘You’ll be alright,’ he said. ‘I promise.’ And he balled his hand into a fist and I saw his forehead crease.

I backed away into the shadows again. The exchange felt private. I moved quietly away across the yard and through the dark, and as I retreated, the light that spilled from the stable and the tinny radio sound faded in tandem.

The lamplight shone from Bromley – yellow as opposed to the stable’s blue. It flickered once as I headed towards it. I hoped it was just a moth passing over it, not dodgy electricals. It was lucky that I’d woken up to notice it and turn it off, otherwise the room would have been full of insects in the morning, or worse still, I might have burned the whole place down.