So I had been mapping old parish boundaries that summer, long-forgotten lines that once divided communities, drawn across the moors before anyone thought to name them.

The work, it certainly wasn't glamorous. Long days of walking alone through bracken and mist GPS in hand scribbling notes on who

had once owned what but it was peaceful in a way that city life just wasn't out there you could

go hours without hearing anything mechanical just the wind and some stone by the third week reached the northern moors, somewhere between the fringes of Devon and Dartmoor proper.

I was supposed to be tracing an old drover's road, a ghost path that once led cattle to market,

now a little more than a faint track half swallowed by grass.

My tent, it was cheap, a one-man thing that I'd brought mostly out of optimism,

but I figured that I could manage a few nights alone before heading back.

The weather turned the moment that I unpacked, though.

Cloud pressing low, drizzle that never really stopped.

Still, it wasn't totally unpleasant. It was the kind of damp and quiet that makes you feel like

you've slipped slightly out of time. By late afternoon, I found a hollow surrounded by half-collapsed

stone walls and a few stunted hawthorns bent sideways by wind.

It wasn't on the map, but it looked like shelter enough for me, so I set up there.

As I wandered around before dusk, I noticed something curious.

A single upright stone standing near the tree line, maybe four feet high, weathered smooth,

and at its base were the oddest little offerings.

Coins blackened with age, bits of ribbon, even a child's hair clip rusted shut.

I had seen things like that before, especially near circles or old crosses, but

there was nothing like that nearby, just that lone stone leaning slightly toward the valley.

I took a few photos, marked the coordinates, and tried not to think too much about it. I mean, superstition was definitely

not my field. Anyway, the night came down quick and heavy that night. I ate, read for a while by

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