Guitar with tree and mountains on forearm

The bus put me down at the crossroads at Halden Gap at half four, which is the wrong time for anything to be open, so I sat on Dad's guitar case and watched the mountains take the sun off one ridge at a time. You'll laugh, but the sky went the colour of the wood he used to sand, and then the stars came out over the road like someone had pricked them through black paper.

The guitar is fine. The lacquer on the body has a crack the shape of a river, and the tuning pegs stick, but it still sings if you hold a low E long enough. I've been playing it on the verge outside the petrol station for two nights. A lorry driver stopped the first night and asked me to play "the one about the orchard", which doesn't exist, so I made one up and he cried into his tea. I didn't tell him Dad painted the tree on the back of the lid himself, branches climbing up through the mountains, because I didn't want to be the sort of person who explains a song.

Here's the reason I'm writing. The stone wall behind the garage has a name scratched into it, and it's Dad's, dated the year before we left. I think he came this way too, and I think he walked up to the ridge with a guitar on his back. I'm going to do the same tomorrow and find out what he was looking at.

Don't tell Mum yet. I'll ring from the top if there's a signal, and if there isn't, you'll know I found something worth the climb.

Love, Nell