This is day 26 of 
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It is a cold night, and I am under dressed. I shiver and pull up the collar of my shirt, but it doesn’t help. My shoes aren’t right either, and they sink into the wet grass, and make a slurping noise as the mud beneath tries to steal them from my feet. It is dark. In the cloudless sky the stars burn like a billion flickering candles and it is enough for me to see my way, although not enough to avoid the cow shit, that splatters up the back of my legs.
The oak tree on the top of the hill, in the field on the other side of the road, always held a special fascination for me. When we were little my uncle would take me and my brother for walks up there, with his two dogs; Bessie and Shep. He would tell us tales about that tree. How in the 'olden days' it had been used as a gallows to hang highwaymen, thieves and robbers. How it had hidden kings, and princess' from those who wanted to kill them and take what was theirs. How it had a secret door to another world, but that only a secret password would open that door, and the clues were written in the patterns in the rough bark. Later, when I was old enough to go out on my own, I would climb the tree. From here I could see forever. Well, at least as far as the Big Town on the other side of the valley. Later, still, it was the place where I had my first sexual experience.
And later still the place where I proposed to her.
I hold the vial upright in my pocket, my finger over the stopper, just to make sure. Don’t spill it, the woman said, as she gave it to me. The liquid was strange, almost luminous green, with things that looked like tiny fireflies within it. What is it? I had asked her. Best you don’t know, dear, she said, a smile that was less than comforting. Just make sure you don’t spill a drop until you reach the special place.
My breath make clouds as I climb upwards. In the winter, when the snow fell thick and heavy I would climb up, dragging the old wooden sledge behind me, pretending I was a steam train puffing up the track to the station.
“Woooo woooo!” I say, now, imitating the sound of a train. From somewhere, perhaps the branches of the tree, there is an answer. An owl. I laugh and call out again, but it will not fooled, a second time.
The mud and cow shit on my trousers is beginning to feel heavy, and I am not sure how I am going to explain the mess to my wife. She is so practical and sensible, she will think I have lost my mind to be doing this. Perhaps, I have. What seemed a good idea two hours ago, now seems so unreal.
At last I reach the top of the hill and I go the tree. I run my hand over the bark, trying to find the secret password, that eluded me for years. It eludes me still. But I find our mark. I trace the shape of the heart with my fingers, and then our initials. Then I wait, my back against the tree, my breathing becoming less laboured as I look up into its branches.
After a while I take the small glass bottle and look at it. The liquid glows in the starlight. The lights within it dance, and appear to be more active. Perhaps it is the agitation from the walk up the hill, or perhaps they somehow know it is time.
I take the stopper out and carefully pour the liquid over the carving I made with her, over twenty years ago.
I feel an energy, or perhaps I imagine it. The liquid follows the lines I carved, all those years ago, and for a moment the heart glows green, and our initials flash like a neon sign. And then there is nothing.
I am about to give up. To go home. To sneak back into the house. To climb into bed, beside my wife, hoping she will not wake. To watch her pale, thin face, to listen to her wheeze and cough and breath.
But then there is a change in the light above me. The stars appear to be moving, to be dancing. And then, as if the tree is some kind of arial, an antenna to the rest of the universe. I feel the energy fill me.
It is painful, but it doesn’t hurt. I stand here my hands on the tree, unable to move as the light fills me.
It has worked.
As I slump to the ground I feel my wife, thirty miles away, jolt awake, full of energy, full of life.
Full of love.