Floating mountain island on upper arm

The fog came down on Tuesday and it has not lifted since, so for four days we have been living on the lid of the world. You cannot see the lower farm from the kitchen window, only the top of the ash tree and a grey light that means the valley is still down there somewhere. Dad says it is only weather. He said the same about the lambing shed roof, and about the morning the cart went through the ice on the tarn.

This morning I took the flock up to the high pasture and the ground was wrong. Stones along the edge had come loose and were rolling off into nothing, and I heard them land a long way below, like coins dropped down a well. The beck that normally runs past the pines had gone quiet. When I followed it up to the rock where it starts, there was no water, only a dry channel cut into the slate, running straight to the edge and over.

The ewes would not go past the wall. They stood under the pines in a tight knot, all facing the peak, and when I looked where they were looking the mist had thinned for a moment. The whole pasture was lifting, very slowly, like a tray being raised off a table, and the river had found its way down the middle of the rock in a thin silver line that did not reach the ground.

I have left the gate open for the sheep and put the lamp in the front window, in case you are coming back the way you went out, over the water. Write when you can. Tell me what the view is like from the other side.