out in the snow

It's freezing outside, as if the whole of England were one big ice chest. Frost lies thick on hedges and heavy on bald country trees. Relentless snow has converted innocent hills, beloved in gentler times by walkers and horse-back riders, into amorphous heaps of endless, featureless whiteness. The horizon bleeds into the distance of the landscape without apology or explanation, the hazy sky a natural extension of the snowy ground.

Bridleways trace ominously through the virgin land, their darkness a memory of a few warmer days last week when melting snow disappeared into the ground. The black mud that flourished briefly is now frozen solid and no danger to shoes and trouser legs.

The sun sits low and is sinking fast; winter solstice is only a few days away. The lazy rays are long, coming as they do from way behind the horizon, and paint the warmth of great photographs into brambles and copses, a warmth that can be seen but not felt. The cold bites.

We got off the train at Guildford a good two hours earlier, certain of our destination but in complete cloudy ignorance of how to get there. Navigating of the downtown maze of high street and labyrinthine shopping center ate precious daylight time but was aided by countless signposts for the bus station. It was in vain; there were no buses on Sundays. Consultation of a large-scale map of the region at the local Waterstone's gave us two options for walking, both away from the main roads and rather straightforward: Long straight segments connected by ninety-degree turns at obvious places. We set out when the sun waned already.

The silence is nearly complete. There are no ramblers or berry pickers. All gatherers of mushrooms and chestnuts have retired to cozy spots around the hearth, warm to the bone, enjoying the fruits of their excursions in the bountiful fall. There are no animals either. Birds have long made the journey to the south. Those hardy creatures that habitually stay are nowhere to be seen. The might have found hollows in tree trunks to keep them out of the elements or protected spaces in barns and under slate roofs. Rodents and small mammals, invariant companions on summer hikes through rural Surrey, are all holed up deep underneath the snow, in caves or burrows that are their only shot at surviving. Wherever we look, we're really the only ones out here.

The last turn, according to the map sketched hastily in our brains, takes us onto a gently sloping footpath that would be a riot on a mountain bike, even in the cold. Gracefully decaying leaves cover treacherous roots most insidiously. To the left and the right, rusty soil banks high, killing the view but also the icy wind. At the foot of the hill, a farm comes into view, horses in woolly trousers standing sullenly on frozen fields. Visibility has dropped to the next hedge.

The path opens into an access road, slippery slush piled in its center and melted snow flooding its tracks. This must be the last part of the walk. And indeed, five minutes later Watts Gallery announces its ongoing refurbishment and a sign indicates the chapel that we've come to see, Watts' mortuary chapel, a gem of Italianate architecture and design that's so over the top inside that it would be criminal not to visit it.

The highlight of afternoon, though, is the tea room at the gallery, open despite the work being done to the adjacent building. It's warm inside, the tea is hot, and the cakes are tasty. Time moves as we rest. The sun completes its short foray into the winter sky, and darkness falls. The fog is drawing closer as well. It will, once we step out into the night, cover our eyes with a eerie veil and conspire with the darkness and the muted sounds of the countryside to turn the walk back into an experience of supreme spookiness.

Paths lose themselves in voids of space and time. Nonexisting creatures make alien sounds, impossible to place or trace. The wind rustles the brittle branches of sleeping trees and builds soundscapes of scariness. Specters hover just out of sight, a few feet away. Working each other into a frenzy of fear and foreboding, we involuntarily start to believe in ghosts and work frantically to fend them off.

Suddenly sounds, coming from behind, quick footsteps, their bearer invisible but approaching fast. Is it the slasher of Surrey or a boar with daggerlike fangs? We see nothing but step aside, behind a doom-laden oak tree, just in case. Abruptly, splashes of neon green pop from the darkness, bopping in the rhythm of a fast-paced run. A jogger, more out of place in this nocturnal ice world than werewolves or gigantic vampire bats, waves by cheerfully. The reality of Guildford, civilization, and the train back to London can't be far.