The trees, leafless and not, crowd into a canopy over her head as she approaches Belstone Cleave, the gently canting banks of the river—an inky cave of varietal greens, a misted grotto of snapping branches the color of old pennies, all of it sugared with hoarfrost. Ariel’s shoulders rock rhythmically, mimicking a boat in gentle swells. In the silence the river roars, though it’s hardly more than inches deep, tumbling over slimy stones and partially submerged tree roots. The rocks, the tangled limbs of the trees, the plank footbridge, still every surface is furred with rank moss, scattered with leaf: ochre, yellow, taupe, tigered orange. As they cross the river, the mare stretches her neck to snatch at the tender grasses growing along the banks, and halts. Never let a horse eat with a bit in its mouth. Stay in control. Look where you’re going, not at the horse. Sylvia checks the horse’s head, opening the reins to get her attention, looking up—not at Ariel, but at the steep incline before her. Beyond the thick foliage at the water’s edge where she cajoles her errant horse, the landscape opens: a coppice of birch and oak trees braces itself against the side of the towering, heath-covered moor, which rises above a grassy, sloping common scattered with grazing sheep and wild ponies not much smaller than the horse she rides. Where the eastern side of Cawsand Hill meets the tree line, the world is on fire, sunrise chasing the fog back. The coppery crowns of the trees, the clitter-strewn ascent, even the sheep are lit up, red blazing with a shimmery golden heat at the horizon, tonguing the whitening sky, gilding the tatty, twig-matted backs of the oblivious infantile sheep.

Day is breaking, and she can’t wait. Impatient, pulling the reins tighter, Sylvia thumps the horse’s sides, clucking her tongue, urging Ariel into a trot toward the hill. A horse can trot forever, her instructor has said. At the sight of the distant ponies, the mare forgets the tempting grasses and raises her head, lurching forward with her ears alert. Keep your hands down. Sit up straight. Don’t make chicken-feeding noises. Sylvia bounces jerkily up and down, jogging almost out of the saddle with the uneven beat of the horse’s gait and the awkwardness of her bandaged thumb. She’s forgotten her crop. She grabs the reins with her right hand as well, her fists pumping—No!—with the horse’s head, her body tensed and curled over the horse’s neck.