by Claire Wong
Nia nods, and spots the cup of tea on the table. “Thank you! That’s just what I needed today. But you mustn’t walk all the way back, Maebh. I’ll see if Simon can drive you home.”
Maebh insists on washing up the mugs before she leaves. Nia goes to the kitchen window, her eye caught by some movement outside.
“Oh, there goes Grace up to the woods again for her research. And her brother’s with her this time. He must be helping her today.”
Maebh joins Nia at the window and sees the siblings walk out to the gate. Adam has a rucksack on his back that looks heavy.
“Hmm,” is all she says.
Dyrys
Callum chooses a large tree near the crossroads and sits behind it. This way, he will be able to hear Adam approaching without being seen. Time seems to pass slowly while he waits. He would normally check his phone, but he has switched it off, remembering that in films the authorities can use a suspect’s phone to track their location. There is nothing much to do. For a while he idly flicks the pocket knife open and closed, but that makes it hard not to think about last night.
He misses his headphones. He listens to music whenever there is somewhere to go, and it means he can avoid moments like this, of being left alone with only his thoughts for company.
As if on cue, the forest suddenly rings with song; not just the birds overhead, but human as well. Loud and cheerful, if not completely tuneful, Adam’s voice goes before him and announces his arrival as he marches down the path.
Nid wy’n gofun bywyd moethus,
Aur y byd na’i berlau mân:
Gofyn wyf am galon hapus,
Calon onest, calon lân!
Callum knows the tune, of course. They used to sing it in school all the time. He tries to peer round as subtly as possible to check that Adam is alone. His sister is with him.
“Hello!” Adam calls. Callum is annoyed that he has been seen already. His careful movements were more obvious than he had hoped.
“You didn’t come alone!” he shouts back from behind the tree.
“That wasn’t what we agreed,” Adam reasons, “but I haven’t brought any police with me.”
Callum decides this will have to do and steps out from his hiding place, onto the path. He could do with a walking stick like the one Rhiannon had if his foot is going to keep hurting like this.
“Hungry?” Adam asks, stopping at the crossroads and setting down a bag on the ground. “We’ve brought you something to eat.”
Callum hobbles forward as Adam opens his rucksack and takes out some sandwiches and a flask of hot coffee.
“You need to see a medic about your foot,” Grace observes as Callum leans his weight against the nearest tree trunk. He ignores her as he unwraps the sandwiches and devours them. Given the circumstances, he hardly cares that cheese and pickle is not his favourite filling.
“Mind if I join the party?” a voice behind them asks. Rhiannon steps out onto the path.
“Hello again,” says Adam. The girl seems less on edge this time, and she actually manages a small smile today. She stops a few paces away from them.
“Oh great, she’s back,” groans Callum. “Seriously, when can I come home? It’s like having the grouchiest neighbour ever, being out here.”
“Whenever you like,” says Adam. “Ifan is out of hospital and expected to make a full recovery eventually.”
“And he’s said he won’t press charges against me?”
“Not yet,” says Grace. “We called in this morning just after they came home, and Ifan was too groggy from the pain relief to say anything very coherent.”
“Well then, I can’t go back yet.”
Adam and Grace look disappointed.
“I thought you said you were only running away to make sure you weren’t wrongly arrested for murder. There’s no chance of that now. The only accusations you’ll face will be ones that are fair.”
“Not necessarily. Someone might say I meant to kill Ifan and failed in the attempt. Ifan might say I started the fight.”
“But there’s a witness who will say that’s not true: Tom Davies, a police officer, who was there the whole time!”
“They’ll say he’s biased against Ifan for punching him and that’s caused him to give false evidence.”
Grace sighs with exasperation. Adam shakes his head.
“Paranoid, isn’t he?” says Rhiannon, who has stayed a safe distance from the rest of the group and only now given any indication that she has been paying attention to the conversation.
“What exactly are you doing here?” Callum snaps crossly. “Hoping I’ll throw up so you can get your breakfast back?”
“Actually,” she says with a smile, turning from Callum to the others present, “I was wondering what the noise was – it frightened Lleu.”
“’Twas I, the woodland bard,” says Adam with an elaborate bow, apparently unashamed to learn that his rendition of Calon Lân has been heard so widely across the woods.
“Who’s Lleu?” asks Callum, looking around for a fifth person.
“A hawk,” she answers.
“As in, a bird? You really have got desperate for company if you’re naming animals. I guess befriending people was never really your strongest skill though. What’s this tree called?”
Rhiannon makes a noise of disgust and turns away from Callum.
Adam continues, “Callum, I don’t think you’ve thought this through. If you stay away until Ifan is fully conscious, what are you going to do? Where will you live? What will you eat?”
“I dunno. But if she can manage it, it can’t be so hard,” he shrugs, pointing to Rhiannon. “Where do you live then?”
“As if I’d tell you!” she snorts.
Callum turns back to the other two. “You try asking her. She doesn’t seem to hate you.”
Rhiannon
They turn towards me. I don’t know why, but I am starting to trust Adam and Grace. They have had the chance to make me go back to Llandymna, and not used it. Callum is right: I don’t hate them. I am intrigued by them, which is what compelled me to interrupt their meeting at the crossroads. Maybe it’s like the song Adam was singing. There’s a line in it that means “only a pure heart can sing”, which I know isn’t strictly true, but how could anyone scheming to hurt others march through the woods belting out traditional songs like that? Not that I will tell them where my house is, if they ask me. That’s too big a secret to share.
“I don’t think that’s the best plan,” says Grace, to my relief.
“All right, Callum,” says Adam. “Tom said he believed that when you said you’d come back, you meant it. So if you want to stay out here a while longer, we won’t stop you. We’ll even bring you food. We can come to the woods each day for Grace’s research and bring some supplies up.”
“Can you get me a tent too? And a gas stove? And a solar powered battery charger for my phone?”
I can’t restrain a laugh at the things he thinks are essentials.
“I don’t know,” Adam frowns. “I think those would be harder to conceal in a bag. And might attract attention. But I can show you how to build a shelter using just materials you’ll find in the woods.”
I suddenly wish Adam had been around and dispensing knowledge when I first left home. I think he would have got on well with Uncle Ed.
“Can it be somewhere not too far from here? I’m not feeling up to a long hike.”
“Sure,” I say, “if you want to make it really easy for a rambler or dog walker to stumble across you.”
“She’s right,” says Adam. “If you’re committing to this plan of hiding for a day or two, you need to go deeper into the woods.”
“Oh, fine then,” Callum says, dragging himself upright again.
“Like to help?” Adam asks me. If I say no, I can leave before Callum is rude to me aga
in, and before Grace can suggest I need to go home. But then I won’t be able to make sure they stay away from my part of the woods. I will feel safer if I know exactly where Callum is and therefore how to avoid him. I agree to go with them.
The path is only wide enough for us to walk two by two, so Grace and I walk side by side ahead of the others. I become conscious that her clothes, though practical for outdoor weather, look far cleaner than mine.
“Listen, Rhiannon, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to talk to you again,” she says. “I passed on your message to Tom Davies. He told me what you meant about them stopping looking for you. I know it’s your birthday the day after tomorrow.”
The point of that message was to get people to leave me alone, so I could enjoy solitude in these woods. That plan does not seem to be going very well.
“So I guess you’re planning to stay out here long term then, right? You don’t share Callum’s eagerness to get back to family, or central heating and a roof over your head for that matter?”
I’m tempted to tell her that I do have a roof over my head, albeit one that I have had to patch up myself, but I don’t want to risk giving her information about where I live.
“I realize that’s your choice, but I just want to be sure you’re safe out here. If you were hurt and needed help, would you know where to go?”
“I’ll just have to make sure I’m not clumsy enough to get myself hurt.”
“But is there someone you could go to, someone you trust? I’m sure you don’t need the help, but please humour me. You know what adults are like: we tend to worry a lot.”
It’s strange. She speaks to me as if I am an adult too.
“Maebh. I suppose I’d get a message to her somehow.”
Grace nods. “Good choice.”
“You know her?”
“We met her on our second day here. She told us a lot about the history of this place.”
Maebh says our history is a part of us; that we build the present out of it without even realizing. But while I know she weaves stories of her childhood into the tales she tells us, I can never fully tell fact from fiction. When I asked her about this once, she said I had missed the point.
“She gave me this for my fourteenth birthday,” I say, pulling the pendant on its chain out from under my jumper.
“That’s a pretty gift.”
“My aunt never liked it. She said it was childish, having little charms instead of proper jewellery.”
“But you could tell a story with them,” says Grace. “Think how many adventures could start with a key, a rose and a book!”
I stop a moment on the path, looking to the left and right. “I think we should go this way,” I say, pointing right. “There’s some flatter ground near the stream. He’ll need to be near water.” I don’t mention it also takes us further away from my home.
“Just as well someone knows where we’re going,” says Adam. It may not quite be a compliment, but it is a welcome change from all Callum’s jokes and jabs at me. I smile to myself when no one else is looking. We take my route, downhill towards the stream.
“This is far enough,” Callum declares aloud, rather than admit that the walk has tired him. Here the trees are a little further apart, and there is bare ground between vegetation.
Adam paces up and down, testing the ground and scanning the area for materials.
“Right then,” he says, “here’s what we’re going to do. Since we don’t have any tools, we’re going to copy a very old style of building.”
“Wattle and daub?” asks Grace.
“The very same!” her brother nods.
“What’s that?” Callum asks.
“It’s how Celts used to build their houses,” Adam explains. “It’s weatherproof, and you can make it just using things you’ll find in the woods. But it’ll be a big task and hard work. So we need to get started now. First off, we need lots of long, bendy branches. Gather any you can find, and bring them back here. Go!”
We get to work collecting all the fallen branches we can find, bringing them back to the spot where Callum’s shelter will be. Meanwhile, Adam takes some sturdier branches and uses Callum’s penknife to sharpen the ends into stakes. Then he drives them into the ground so that they mark out an oblong shape.
“It’s not very big in there, is it?” Callum comments.
“Maybe we’ll come back tomorrow and build you an ensuite, if you’re nice to us!” Adam says. Next he shows us how to weave the longer branches between the stakes to build up the walls.
I find a good branch that seems supple enough to be woven into the wall, and try to dislodge it from the tangled undergrowth of the forest. It feels stuck. I pull all the more determinedly, but to no effect.
“Here,” says Adam, appearing beside me. At first I fear he is going to brush me aside, declaring I am too weak for the task and that he will take over. I could not bear the humiliation of that, or the way Callum would crow with triumph at my failings. To my relief, he says, “Let me help you.”
Adam takes hold of the branch alongside me and we try to pull it free with our combined strength. It shifts a little, but not much. Adam follows the length of the branch to where it is caught up in a mess of other branches and brambles, all bound together with matted ivy tendrils. He asks me if I have anything we could use to slice through this, and I throw Uncle Ed’s knife to him. He cuts through some of these stems close to the ground.
“Let’s see if that has made a difference,” he says, as we try again. This time the branch breaks free almost instantly. It comes loose so surprisingly quickly that I let go and jump back to make sure I keep my balance. Adam does not, and falls to the floor.
He doesn’t seem embarrassed. In fact, he is laughing. The sound rings out between the trees. I’m glad it was he who fell and not me. I don’t mean that maliciously – he seems kind – but I couldn’t have borne that indignity so lightly.
“Nothing broken,” he says, getting to his feet and brushing dead leaves off his clothes, “except this.” He passes the branch to me and I take it to where the house will be, and weave it in between the stakes. The wall is growing higher all the time.
The roof is awkward, but we take two tall stakes with forks at the top and drive them in at opposite ends of the hut. Then we balance another branch as the roof beam in the forks.
“OK,” says Adam, “time to cheat a bit. We’ll use one bit of help from the outside world to fix this roof.”
He takes a roll of twine from the rucksack and explains his plan to bind more branches to the roof beam and then to the top of the wall. By now we are searching further and further away for building materials.
“You said it was going to be weatherproof, right?” says Callum. “I reckon there are a lot of gaps in there at the moment.”
“That’s step two!” Adam announces. “And for this part it’s good that we’re near the stream, because we’re going to need mud.”
He stoops down and picks up a handful from a puddle that has not yet dried up from the rain three nights ago. Callum jumps as Adam hurls it past him so that it lands over the woven wall.
“There’s your insulation,” he says. I copy him, scooping up mud and throwing it so that it sticks to the side of the house. Grace and Callum join in.
“Just picture the face of someone you don’t like,” Adam says with a wink and a mischievous smile.
“You’ll be spoilt for choice,” Callum says to me. I don’t bother replying to this, but I doubt he will be able to guess whose face I am thinking of. I pour all my energy into the task, and it does seem to help. I feel less anxious or angry, and the hut starts to look sturdier.
“That’s a good day’s work,” says Adam eventually. “Well done, everyone.”
As he starts talking Callum through how to build a fire, Grace takes out a bottle of water and pours a little over
her hands to wash them, then offers it around to the rest of us.
“I’m starving,” says Callum. “Did you bring any more sandwiches?”
“No,” says Grace. “We were expecting you to have gone back home by now. And speaking of which, we need to head off soon. It’s getting dark. If we raise any suspicion among your neighbours, you could end up in even more trouble.”
“At least one of us should be able to come back tomorrow with more supplies,” says Adam. “We’ll get you some blankets as well as food.”
“Fine.”
I wish they wouldn’t bring food for Callum. So far everything has been quite easy for him, and I think that’s why he is being so rude and ungrateful. I’m almost surprised he doesn’t put in a specific request for bacon rolls or something else ridiculous like that. Maybe if he were to go twenty-four hours without food or help, he would behave less like he is entitled to everything they give him. But Adam and Grace don’t seem even slightly bothered by how he takes what they are doing for granted.
“Do you have the map with you?” Adam asks his sister. Grace takes it out, and as they frown at it I realize they have no idea how to get back to the main path from here.
“I’ll show you the way,” I offer.
“Thank you. That would be a big help.”
“Now remember what I said on the walk over here,” Adam says to Callum. “Stay warm and drink plenty. Your body will cope with being a bit hungry, but not with dehydration.”
Grace puts the top back on her bottle of water, which is now only half full, and hands it to Callum. We say goodbye to him, and he acts cool about the situation, but clearly he does not look forward to being left alone in the woods. I lead the way, striding back the way we came; behind me, I can hear Adam and Grace following. After a while, I slow down to let them catch up. Now that we are walking level with one another, some kind of conversation is probably necessary. I want to ask why they have come here. I know Grace keeps talking about her research, but I don’t see why she had to carry it out in Dyrys, or why her brother needed to come too. But maybe it is rude to ask. I don’t know: I was never much good at this sort of thing. The silence is waiting for someone to speak, and I haven’t had to bother with this nonsense of civility for ages. Maybe I should express sympathy for Callum, but I doubt I could feign that right now. Eventually it’s Adam who speaks.
