The Runaway

by Claire Wong

  “He did come round for tea. I made a casserole. He seems to be finding his work very hard at the moment.” Nia reaches to put her cup down on the table, but misses. It falls to the floor and spills its contents over the carpet. She jumps up, apologizes profusely and runs to the kitchen for a cloth to mop up the mess. When she sits back down, Maebh does not seem interested in the spilled tea, but stares at Nia instead.

  “You seem distracted, my dear.”

  “I suppose I am, a little. I don’t know who to worry for more: Rhiannon, wherever she may be; Diana, waiting for news from the police; Tom, having to deliver the news of whatever the police find. He’s still quite junior, isn’t he, in the force? I don’t think he’s had to deal with anything like this before.”

  Nia watches Maebh’s face hopefully, searching for the signs of reassurance. Maebh, however, does not respond this way.

  “The one thing I can always be sure of with you, Nia Evans, is that no matter what happens, you’ll be thinking of everyone but yourself. You were that way as a girl too, I remember, forever giving away your toys and spotting the one child in the room who was unhappy.”

  “How could I possibly think of myself at a time like this?” Nia exclaims indignantly. “There are plenty of other people more affected than me by what’s happened!”

  “And yet you are affected by it. I know that furrowed brow too well. Something else is troubling you, and I shan’t let you fret over Tom or Diana until you tell me what it is.”

  Nia sighs, and searches around in her head for words to explain something she has not yet articulated to herself.

  “It’s… unsettling, I think. Llandymna has always felt like a small, stable community. It’s familiar and predictable, and I like that about this place. Most of us do, I suppose. The summer baking competition is won by the same people every year, the church always has a congregation of about twenty, except for funerals and Christmas, Elsie Jones tells you the same three or four stories about her brother moving to Canada, Diana Griffin is automatically in charge of everything that happens in Llandymna, no matter what it might be, and nobody moves further than fifteen miles away, and even then only if they marry someone from another village. But ever since the day she disappeared, I’ve been speaking to people and they all look… dazed. Like centuries of safety have been overturned. I’m sorry – that sounds much too dramatic. And selfish, too. I suppose I mean that everyone thought we were safe from anything like that out here.”

  Maebh nods, knowing she has made Nia very uncomfortable by insisting she speak all this aloud. She pauses, looks around the room, and then asks, “Didn’t Rhys Powell try to set up a Llandymna history society once?”

  “I think so,” Nia says with surprise at the sudden change in subject.

  “If I recall, Diana argued against it, saying that pride in Llandymna was to be found in meeting its admirable current residents and seeing our community at work, rather than leafing through dusty old archives in a dark room.”

  “That does sound like something she might say.”

  “Then I shall try not to be surprised at how quickly you forget your own history here.”

  “I’m sorry?” Nia is puzzled.

  “You say the people of Llandymna believe they lived a peaceful, respectable existence until two days ago? They said the same thing when Elin Morgan came back over the border after five years living in London, and wherever else she had been. She kicked up a mighty storm, did that one. And she wasn’t the first, either.”

  “She wasn’t?”

  “Gracious, no. I know you young folk think everyone my age used to be terribly boring and wear aprons or top hats in the days of black and white photography, but we had our troubles and scandals too. That history society might have dredged up all sorts, had it ever been allowed to begin. So if it’s their peace and quiet people are worried about, tell them not to fret. Llandymna recovers from its traumas and forgets them faster than you’d think.”

  “What do you mean? You can’t be suggesting we forget about Rhiannon and stop looking for her?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Nia senses an opportunity, draws in a breath, expanding her lungs to give the impression of boldness, and asks the question she has been harbouring.

  “Maebh, do you know why Rhiannon left? Assuming she has left by her own choice, of course.”

  “A nice policeman was over here yesterday afternoon,” Maebh replies, “and he asked me the same question. He was older than our Tom. And I told him that I had known Rhiannon her whole life, and her mother before her, but that I did not know exactly why she might have run away just now. I did suggest he look for her in Dyrys, but I think they had already thought of that and sent a search party out.”

  “But do you suspect something – something not concrete enough to be of any use to the police? I think you knew her better than anyone else, after Elin passed away at least.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps there is something in this old head of mine that would make sense of it all, but when you get to my age it is hard to access it all.”

  “I just wish there was something I could do to help,” Nia sighs.

  Rhiannon

  This morning I picked wildflowers and scattered the petals across the floor of my house. They add colour and a beautiful fragrant scent in place of damp moss and cold stone. I wonder how long it has been since anyone took care of this place. Maybe a century or more, unless another fugitive or woodland-dweller took shelter here after it fell into ruin.

  I’m getting better at starting up my cooking fire now; today it only took a few minutes to get the flames to really take hold and now there’s hot water for me to wash with. I even picked some dandelion leaves and threw them into the first pan of water as a drink. It tasted bitter, but I felt proud of myself for making it nonetheless.

  I begin wondering how to make it as difficult as possible for other people to get to my hideaway, in case a rambler loses the path one day and stumbles across this place. I don’t want to have to run like I did yesterday every time I hear a footfall. It would be far more convenient to be able to hide instead – clumps of overgrown bramble and thickets of dense vegetation form natural barriers that even a dog could not crawl through. If I could surround my house with a tangle of holly and fallen branches, no one would be able to reach me. It would look as though no one had been this way in years, and they would search somewhere else. I would only need one or two small gaps to squeeze through when I go searching for food and firewood.

  I stand up in front of my house and stamp on the embers to put out the last remnants of the fire. If I burned Dyrys to the ground, then I’d be really stuck for somewhere to hide! I pace forward, jumping over the stream where it is narrow enough, and keep going until the house is obscured from view. Next, I look for where the brambles are already growing nearby. This is where I will start my fence. In autumn, I will be able to pick blackberries from it without crossing the boundary.

  I begin to pull one of the branches to stretch out to the right, but cannot get a grip on it without the thorns digging into my palm. I pull down the sleeve of my jacket to cover my hand, and this just about stops the spikes. Next, I drag some fallen branches to extend the tangle further to the side, mounding them up so that they seem to have fallen there naturally. It is hard work, and slow, and as the afternoon passes I find it harder to find suitable wood. I have to search further and further away from my house. But every step is worthwhile, because the thicket grows taller and longer. It will take a long time to complete, but when it’s done I’ll be safe. I wonder if a caterpillar feels this way when it builds a cocoon around itself.

  I pause in my work for some food and a drink, deciding water is preferable to my attempt at dandelion tea. From where I sit, I survey the progress I’ve made on the fence so far. When it’s finished, a large circle of land will be mine, perhaps to farm or hunt in, certainly to hide fro
m others passing this way. I shall have my own territory in which to live.

  In this rest during my lunch, I suddenly wish there was someone here to tell me a story. It’s how I used to spend my evenings, listening to Maebh tell her tales, or reading a book from the school library once I was older. But as there’s no one here, I can tell a story exactly as I want it.

  Once, in the days when forests and mountains still moved and animals spoke to one another, the magician Gwydion went to battle with an army of trees behind him. Their branches became wooden arms so strong they had no need of weapons, and these soldiers were tall enough to see for miles around, so no one could ever sneak up on them. On the day of that battle, there was the cry of men on one side and the creak of timber and the rustle of leaves on the other. Gwydion’s trusted general, the alder tree, led the march, while lithe willows and weather-beaten rowans followed in the ranks, and the solid oaks, most dependable of his soldiers, took up the rear in the march on King Arawn and his army.

  Arawn is king of the Underworld in mythology, and Maebh taught me a saying from an old folktale she learned when she first arrived in Wales: Hir yw’r dydd a hir yw’r nos, a hir yw aros Arawn. It means “Long is the day and long is the night, and long is the waiting of Arawn”. I remember thinking it was one of the most magical and evocative things I had ever heard: wistfulness and perseverance and longing and hardship all rolled into a few beautiful Welsh words.

  Perched in the topmost branches of some of these trees were the forest people – those who had left their mud-and-straw houses to live in the woods. They were dressed in green and carried bows and arrows on their backs. The leaders of the forest people, a young man and woman high up in the branches of an alder, could be recognized by the leafy wreaths that crowned their heads. The young man was the one they called the Boy Who Shone in his childhood.

  Maebh told me a story about him once, when there were just a few of us listening. It seemed to make her much sadder than any other story she had ever told, but no one else I’ve ever asked seems to know it. The legend goes that the young man was so full to the top with goodness, any stone or plant he touched would be bathed in sunlight for hours after. Alongside him was the Sparrow Girl, known for her fierce fighting spirit. Maybe I will rename the Sparrow Girl one day. That is the good thing about telling stories: you can change them as you wish.

  Eventually I go back to work, though it’s not like being at home. There, I would have shaken off the story in order to go back to normal life, landing with a jolt in Aunty Di’s kitchen or a noisy classroom. People tell me I daydream too much, that I get distracted from work too easily, so I have to make myself forget the stories when I am busy running errands for my aunt. But here, there is no one to complain, no one to interrupt with a question or command that will catch me by surprise and make it obvious my mind was a thousand miles away. So I don’t need to snap myself sharply out of the story. Instead I carry on weaving it, even as I weave together this tangle of stems and branches. As I venture further out into the forest to look for more twigs and creepers, I walk with the presence and dignity of the Sparrow Girl. It adds a certain splendour to the work of finding wood. I pull out branches as if selecting the material for arrows, or for the walls of a tree house. Time passes more quickly this way too, and before I have done only half as much as I expected to achieve today, the sky is greying with the first hints of evening.

  A strange cry catches my attention and I look up. In the boughs of a tree not far away sits a hawk. Its talons are hooked around a branch. A mantle of grey feathers is on its shoulders, and its beak curves to a vicious point beneath two gleaming gold eyes. It is looking straight at me.

  I freeze, staring back into those eyes. The cry is repeated. All about me, birds trill alarm calls and take to the air in terror. The same terror strikes me, and I turn and run.

  Through the darkening forest I flee, back to the safety of my house. The shriek still rings in my ears. You’re being ridiculous, I scold myself. Since when are you scared of birds? Some great adjustment to life outdoors, running away from a hawk! It took me by surprise – that must be it. That, and the way it didn’t fly away when it saw me. It had fear in its eyes, as all wild things do, but it did not retreat.

  At least now it is far away. I lie still in the shadows and think of something else. I think of my parents.

  I’ve always thought that my father must have been an adventurous, intrepid sort of man, that somehow I must have rivers and sky in my blood. I picture him climbing mountains, but of course no one can tell me if he was really like that. My mother kept him a secret and never brought him to Llandymna. I imagine she wanted to protect him from the people there. Diana would have disapproved on principle, just because my mother liked him. But sometimes I wish she had dared to leave a clue behind, in case I ever wanted to find him.

  My mother’s name was Elin, a Welsh name meaning light. I think it suited her: I remember her as lively and bright. She brought fun with her wherever she went, according to Maebh. Her sister Diana shares her name with the Roman goddess of the moon. I learned that in our Year 4 project on myths and legends. And like the moon, so serene and quiet, my aunt is dignified and composed. People look to her as a natural leader, though she’s not as constant as they think. She reserves her dark moods for when she’s at home, when the last guest has handed back their tea cup with a so-kind-of-you-to-invite-me and when the door is firmly closed. The rest of Llandymna doesn’t know how she slams things, or how she cleans like a maniac when she’s trying not to think about a painful memory. This year, on the anniversary of Uncle Ed’s death, she completely rearranged most of the furniture in the house. That day, Eira came up to my attic room. She brought a stuffed bear with her, and an owl with button eyes and only one foot. We didn’t say anything about why she was there, but I let her play in the attic for the rest of the day, and I put some music on loudly, so we wouldn’t hear the thuds and creaks of our home’s battlelines being redrawn.

  Those are the women who raised me: one bright and hopeful, dancing around the house to old jazz songs and letting me eat ice cream for breakfast because she forgot to buy cereal again; the other sensible and respectable, making plans and packed lunches for the week ahead.

  Chapter six

  Rhiannon

  No matter where I put my sleeping bag, I cannot avoid those early rays of light bursting in through the open doorway any more than I can escape the deep cold of the hours after midnight. On the fourth day of my new life away from everyone, I wake with the sunrise, curled up tightly and wearing all the clothes I have to try to keep warm. I eat fruit and berries for breakfast, and wash in the cold water of the stream.

  I am feeling bolder today, so I put four flat stones in my pocket and search the walls of my house for footholds to scale it. I feel around with fingers and feet for a place to grip the surface, and hoist myself, a little at a time, up to the top. I perch on the edge of the roof, my legs dangling down into the drop below. When I have edged my way nearer to the place where it is broken, I lay the waterproof fabric of my bag over the top of it, and then place a stone on each corner, wedging them into a nook or crevice so they will not slip. They pull the material taut across the hole and hold it in place. That should keep out most of the Welsh weather. Overhead, clouds are rolling grey and ominous. We’re due rain soon.

  I slide down from the roof, dislodging a couple of stones on the way; it isn’t far to the ground after all. Today, I have resolved, I will put out of my mind all the things I wish I had: a pillow, dry socks, soap, hot chocolate, a mug, painkillers, plasters, a hairbrush, and a thousand other things. Instead I will think about what I can do with what is already here. What can I make? What can I manage without?

  I remember seeing some discarded drinks cans by the path. At the time I thought the litter only an eyesore, but now I think about what I could make from them. The metal would not burn or melt over a fire. If I flattened out one of the ca
ns, I could use it to fry food.

  Then there is the mud that lines the banks of the stream. I know the earth around here is full of clay: every gardener and farmer complains about it when they try to plant something new. Oh, the soil’s no more than clay around here – better for sculpting than planting carrots, they all say. What if they were right? What if I could make pots and bowls from it? I’d need to build my own kiln, but I’m pretty sure that’s just a stone housing for your fire.

  A sudden noise distracts me from my plans. I look up sharply and see the hawk, sitting on the ground not twenty feet away. It starts to move forward and I rise to my feet quickly.

  “That’s close enough!” I say. Even though I know it’s the sudden movement rather than my words that startles the bird into retreating slightly, I’m relieved to see I can tell it to go away. Now that I look at it more closely, I can see something is not quite right. It looks a little dishevelled and scruffy for a bird of prey. One of its wings sits lower than the other, the long feathers trailing on the floor, like when the wind blows your scarf over your shoulder and it drags along behind you on the pavement.

  “You’re hurt, aren’t you?” I say. “That’s why you don’t fly away.”

  The hawk’s eyes dart back and forth, in what looks like agitation.

  “Well, I don’t know what you want from me. I’m not a vet, and I don’t have any food for you. Not unless you like fruit.”

  It tries to move again, and achieves only a pathetic little shuffle. If its wing is broken, it won’t be able to hunt. It will probably starve. Hawks take care of their young, but that’s as far as the altruism goes.

  “No one’s coming to help you,” I say, and the words come out sounding sadder and more sympathetic than I had expected. I find that I don’t like looking at it, so I decide to go and search for those tin cans by the path instead.