Crimson’s Creative Challenge #67: Twilight at Bicker’s Mill

CCC#67

What remained of Bicker’s Mill still stood, the wooden pillar like a lighthouse in an ocean of reeds and sedge.

Mist was developing as we approached the whitewashed boards, not so much rolling in across the marshes, but rising upwards as if expelled from the ground.

Dor had waded close behind me all the way from the road, grumbling about the wet and the cold and the wisdom of being at the ‘Tween Place’ at twilight. She mumbled, the words becoming formless, an incantation against my foolishness.

‘Hush now,’ I said, taking her hand, and the warmth of me quietened her a little. ‘You know why we’re here.’

The sun settled low, the clouds ink and fire, the low mist a stubborn grey. I lit a smoky fire to warm our hands, to ward off the tremors.

As night crept in, Dor stared across the marsh. ‘There,’ she said.

***

Written for Crimson’s Creative Challenge #67. See here to join in.

Crispina’s talk of Boggarts and Trolls led me to comment about the nature of these between places and the belief that the margins between dry land and water were also margins between this world and others.

Perhaps also part of the reason bog body sacrifices such as Tollund Man (below) were made in Europe through pre-history.

Image result for tollund man
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