Cheltenham-based writer Christina Hall is a writer who focuses on the magical, mysterious and the relationships that exist between people.
Christina says ‘“The Salisbury Hare” is a local folk tale from Wiltshire, where I am from, which tells of a hare that dances in the moonlight to anyone who is innocent but vulnerable to tricksters or danger. In this short story, I reimagined this tale for the modern day, making the hare a sort of magical stranger. It’s also a little bit queer!’
Ceri stumbled out of the door; the cold air slapped her in the face with a malice that felt personal.
She drunk a sharp inhale of fresh air into her lungs. The cobbled street loomed at her for a moment as she balanced herself. Get a grip, her own voice said. Ceri was unsure if the statement had been internal or external, and was momentarily embarrassed at the thought of someone hearing her chiding herself.
The street was quiet. It didn’t matter.
She had only had two glasses of wine. Maybe three. Why was she so drunk?
I’m not, she willed. If she willed it, it would be. She was just a bit lightheaded. Overtired. Hungry, maybe. She gulped another cold breath of air and felt her flushed skin cool. The bar behind her was still busy and her friends were visible, just about, through the window misted with condensation.
Another round! Come on, Ceri! It’s Friday night. You’ll feel better!
Ceri wanted to go home. Retrospectively, she thought she had wanted to go home from the moment she arrived. Her stomach was knotted and her head ached. Two wines drunk and a shitty week did not make you good company. She was going to go home.
Bracing herself against the cold, she straightened and began to troop down the street. Ceri tried to ignore the wobble in her steps or the way she had pushed her hands into her pockets like anchors. Each step slapped against the ground and seemed to reverberate against the shop shutters and the side alleys she dipped into. In one alley, a floating smell of bin juice made her gag.
She didn’t live far. A ten-minute walk.
Shorter, actually, she thought to herself, swerving suddenly, if you cut through the park. Which she did abruptly: an afterthought.
A strange pirouette brought her into the park’s gardens. The slap of footfalls against cobbles turned into the soft, stumbling crunch of her feet against the pathway. It cut through the grass which was more like mud this time of year, assaulted as it had been by early spring rains.
Except for Ceri’s footfalls, the park was utterly silent. Ceri slowed. It was intended to be a shortcut, but suddenly Ceri couldn’t bring herself to scurry quickly down the path. She pivoted another awkward turn and slumped into a bench that nestled at the side of the park’s linear pathway.
She closed her eyes for a moment and listened. Distantly, she could still hear the sound of the town. A few shouts and laughs from bars spilling onto streets, echoey and warped. She could hear a slight thrum of cars. But mostly she could hear the trees. She breathed deeply. Rustling, rippling. Her chest. The trees. Stomach. Leaves.
Ceri opened her eyes and looked at the branches above her. It was dark, but the moon, high and completely circular in the sky, had washed everything a silvery blue. It was lovely, actually. Ceri looked at the bushes, some evergreen and glossy in the darkness; some a skeletal shape in the distance. Ceri looked at her hands in her lap. They were skeletal too. They were small, boney and the nails she had painted before leaving her flat that evening were already chipped.
‘A man has been following you for a while now, did you know?’
Ceri looked up. Then sideways.
Someone was on the bench with her. A woman. The woman sitting beside Ceri was beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that beautiful felt like entirely the wrong word. Ceri had never been good at articulating herself, so her brain started churning up stupid words like ethereal, luminous, sexy, strange, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. The words made her cringe.
Beyond a litany of embarrassing words, the reaction the beauty itself had on Ceri was immediate and mortifying. She could feel it all through her body: a hot branding across her cheeks, the squeezing of her throat and a sort of blankness that washed over her mind and erased all the bumbling words entirely.
The ability to respond to the stranger was gone. She was acutely aware her mouth was hanging open.
Idiot.
The beautiful stranger did not seem to care. There was a small frown on her face, but Ceri registered it as a concerned one: worry, not judgement. She found herself leaning towards the stranger to catch her words. Honeyed words, musical words. Ceri wanted to drink each one up.
‘He has been following you. He was the one who gave you that last drink in the bar. He spiked it. You won’t be able to prove it, though—no CCTV in that shit hole. You should go to the police though, tomorrow. Get tested.’
Ceri was alarmed at the words but something about this stranger made her feel safe, so safe she did not really register the implications at all. She sat with them. She imagined them on her lap like a pack of cards. She shuffled through them.
Drinks.
Following. You.
Spiked.
Following.
Drinks.
Ceri looked back up at the stranger again. She was incredibly tall—that was clear even seated next to her on the park bench. Her legs were sprawled out in front of them, whereas Ceri had tucked hers together at the ankles. Neatly, out of the way.
The stranger’s hair was long and seemed to glimmer in the moonlight; light brown, but here and there Ceri swore she saw black strands and some red strands. It reminded Ceri more of fur than hair. Like a fox. A cat. A hare. Ceri wanted to touch it.
However, what made Ceri most breathless was the stranger’s eyes. They were entirely amber, luminous even in the darkness. Her pupils were huge but the jewelled orange was still visible. A solar eclipse. A picture frame. A crown.
Amber eyes that were watching her.
‘You should not have walked by yourself, Ceri.’
‘How do you know my name?’ Ceri said, wincing internally at the slight slur that cocooned each syllable. Her words seemed to bump around the park awkwardly while the stranger’s seemed to weave themselves in the air. Ceri squinted; perhaps she would be able to see them.
‘Ceri,’ the stranger said again, and Ceri forgot that it was impossible for this stranger to know her name, ‘Ceri, let me walk you home.’
Ceri nodded and the stranger stood up fluidly. She turned and held out a hand to Ceri. It made Ceri think of a prince and ballrooms. Ceri took it.
She marvelled at the muscles in the stranger’s arms. They pulled Ceri up effortlessly and then tucked her into her, one wrapped around her shoulders so Ceri was safely, warmly leaning against the stranger’s side.
‘Fuck off, will you?’ said her stranger.
Her pupils were huge, but the jewelled orange was still visible. A solar eclipse. A picture frame. A crown.
Ceri was alarmed, but the words were not directed at her. She looked up and in the direction the stranger was looking just in time to see a dark figure scurrying away and a dark, flashing anger shadowed the stranger’s eyes. The pack of cards in her mind shuffled: You. Home. Spiked. Following. Drink.
‘How did you know?’ Ceri whispered. She was scared. Not of her stranger. But she was scared.
The stranger felt it; she pulled Ceri closer to her and sighed.
‘The moonlight.’
Ceri nodded. The moonlight.
They walked for a long time in silence. Ceri let her head drop against the stranger’s shoulder, and the stranger let her fingers caress Ceri’s exposed skin. Ceri had worn a jumper that sat low on her shoulders. Bardot. That’s what her friend had called it. Sexy. Ceri did not feel sexy. She never had. The stranger’s fingers tracing constellations over her collarbone did however make her stomach do strange drops and loops.
‘So what do you do?’ Ceri said stupidly, suddenly conscious of herself and the stranger.
‘I’m a dancer,’ said the stranger, ‘I dance.’
Ceri nodded. That made sense. She imagined the woman dancing in a pool of moonlight, her fur hair spooling out behind her like silk, like threads.
‘Will you dance for me?’ What a stupid question, Ceri.
‘Not a stupid question,’ the stranger replied, although Ceri had been sure she had not said that aloud. ‘I used to dance to start this sort of thing off, but things changed. I will dance for you. Will you dance with me?’
‘I think I’ll throw up if I try and dance.’
The stranger smiled. Her arm unwound itself from Ceri’s shoulder and, for a moment, Ceri mourned the loss of the warmth. However, the sight of the stranger in front of her stopped her.
The path in front of them was slightly larger. The stranger paced out in front and then turned to Ceri. She bowed her head and Ceri once again thought of a prince. The fur hair momentarily hid the stranger’s face as she bowed, like a soft curtain.
Then she began to dance.
Ceri gawped.
Her heart drummed in her chest. The stranger’s long legs were powerful but the way she moved was graceful. She leapt and turned to silent music Ceri swore she could hear, her head spinning as the stranger spun and moved like a bolt of fabric caught in the wind or some sort of wild animal at play. Ceri did not know was style of dance it was. Sometimes it looked like ballet and others Ceri was strangely reminded of the country dancing they had been forced to do it primary school, looping through each other’s hands in old patterns. Ceri had been terrible at it. There was nothing awkward and adolescent in the way the stranger moved, however. It almost seemed unreal. Ancient.
Cards shuffled in Ceri’s head once again. Embarrassing words she was less embarrassed of reemerged: ethereal, luminous, strange, safe, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Ceri stared so hard it took a long time to realise that the stranger had stopped and had finished her dance just an inch in front of Ceri. There was a glow in her amber eyes and she wordlessly rejoined Ceri, slipping an arm back around her shoulder. She was warmer than before. Her chest rose a little harder, as if out of breath.
They walked in silence for a long time; the parkway bled into streets and alleys once again.
‘I used to paint,’ said Ceri, suddenly. Her head was still full of dancing turns washed in moonlight. ‘I really liked it. I wanted to apply to art school. But I was scared, I think. So, I did business instead. I hated it, I think. No. I know. I hated it. I know I hated it.’
The stranger stayed silent. When Ceri shuddered against a sharp blast of cold wind as they turned into a different street, the stranger pulled her still closer to her.
‘I think I am always scared. Not now, though I should be, I suppose. What I mean is, I am scared to do anything. I haven’t been on a date in a year, even though I’ve been asked. I’m scared to quit my job even though I hate it. I’m scared to travel, even though I want to.’
Ceri looked up at the stranger and the woman looked back down with her unblinking, amber eyes. They paused for a moment. Ceri lifted a hand to the stranger’s face and she let her. Ceri traced the sharp cheekbones under her amber eyes, stroked a hand against her hair. It was soft.
‘What’s your name?’
As Ceri asked the question it occurred to her that she should have asked it sooner. How did the stranger know her name again?
‘You are home, Ceri.’
The stranger was not wrong. They had stopped in a street where Ceri’s flat resided. Ceri knew she should question how this woman knew where she lived, her name, how she knew someone had spiked her drink, but as she blinked up at where the stranger towered over her she found she did not need to know. Silhouetted in the moonlight, the stranger looked down at her quietly.
‘You should paint, Ceri. If you want to.’
Ceri nodded.
She stepped out of the stranger’s arms and turned to look at her. She really was incredibly tall. Ceri drank in the sight of her. Amber eyes watched her back, silent, careful. Protective.
‘Thank you for dancing for me.’
Ceri turned and let herself into her flat. When she reached her bedroom on the second floor, she scrambled to the window. The woman was not there. The moonlight bleached the cobbles a silver white. There was no way the woman could have walked so quickly away.
Ceri slept and she dreamt of a hare, dancing in the moonlight. In the morning, she would paint it.