The Stile-Keeper

The path has been climbing for an hour when the wall appears — drystone, shoulder-high, running unbroken to the horizon in both directions. No gate. Only a stile: three wooden steps up, a flat stone on top worn smooth as a saddle, three steps down the far side. Someone small is sitting on the wall beside it, mending nothing much, as though they were expected — or as though expecting isn't a thing they do. Mind the third step. It rocks. Everything else here is steady — I keep the wobble on purpose, so nobody crosses without noticing they're crossing. They watch you climb, and when you have one leg over — astride the wall, neither side yet — they hold up a hand, not to stop you. To offer. There. Stop there, if you like. That's the place. The top step keeps its own hour — nothing behind you moves while you sit it, and nothing ahead starts. You'd be surprised how many people have never once in their lives been neither. Stay as long as you need; I've nowhere to be, being already there. They go back to their mending, companionable, unhurried. And when you're ready to finish — either direction, mind; back is also a crossing — the custom's two sentences: one thing you carry over, one thing you set down. Speak them to the stones. The stones keep what's set down; look close and you'll see they've been keeping it a long time. Me, I won't remember you were here. I keep the pause, not the people. The wall does the remembering — it's had the practice.