The Runaway

by Claire Wong

  “Nia?” Callum repeats. I can’t guess what she could be doing here, or why is Grace leading her straight towards us. “You don’t think Ifan sent her? To find me?”

  “Hardly,” I say, but this is more to reassure him. I don’t understand what’s happening. My first instinct is to run, in case this is some sort of trap, or a ploy to bring us back to Llandymna. The last conversation we had with Adam and Grace was them trying to convince us to go home. But I trust them, and I want to know what is going on.

  “I’ll find out,” I say to Callum, and I go to meet the runners.

  “What is it?” I ask, as I reach them.

  “It’s Ifan,” Grace says, trying to catch her breath. I wonder how far they have run. “He’s coming to look for Callum. When we left, he was trying to round up others to help him. I think he wants to finish off the fight.”

  Nia stares at me. “It’s really you, Rhiannon? You look so different!”

  “Is Callum still here? Did he leave, like he was planning to?”

  “No,” I say, ignoring Nia’s comments for now, “he waited. He’s back there. You don’t think… Ifan wouldn’t actually kill Callum, would he?”

  “No, but he’s not in his right mind. He thinks Callum got away with injuring him because the police didn’t put enough effort into finding him. Conveniently forgetting, of course, that Ifan himself dropped the charges and so ended the search. But he’s angry and feels he’s been wronged. I think he plans to confront Callum and do whatever it takes to drag an apology or admission of guilt out of him. We need to warn him!”

  The three of us run back to Callum. When we arrive, I quickly stamp on the fire that was starting to take hold.

  “What are you doing?” he protests.

  “There are people out looking for you,” I tell him. “The light would have led them straight here.”

  “Who?” he asks.

  “Ifan, and probably some of his friends.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t make him see that you never meant to insult him,” says Nia.

  Callum frowns in confusion. “You tried to explain to him though. Why would you do that? You don’t owe me anything.”

  She seems surprised at this question. “I know what it’s like to feel frustrated at how people see you, what they think of you. Besides, you and I both stood up to Diana in different ways, but you paid for it much more than I did.”

  Callum looks more ashamed than I have ever seen him.

  “How long till they get here?” I ask.

  “They’ll be in the woods by now,” says Grace, “unless… Adam and your aunt were going to try to stop them, or at least slow them down.”

  “OK,” I say, “Callum and I have both managed to hide from people in this forest before. It’s getting dark, which is to our advantage. If he goes deep enough into the woods, they shouldn’t be able to find him.”

  “Knowing my luck I’ll get lost and circle back around to meet them by mistake,” says Callum.

  “Then I’ll be your guide. I know the way, even at night. I’ve been running around Dyrys for months now, after all.”

  “It’s a good plan,” says Nia. “Eventually they’ll have to give up looking.”

  I turn back to her and Grace, knowing what I must say next. “Thank you for coming to warn us. You understand, though, that the more of us there are, the more likely we are to get caught? An extra voice or set of footprints makes it easier to track us.”

  “You’re right,” says Grace, “but I wish there was something we could do to help.”

  “If you can get back to the village,” says Callum, “you could give the police directions to help them navigate these woods. I assume Tom will have called for some help by now.”

  “But if you can’t,” I add, “if it’s not safe to go back the way you came, for any reason, go to my house and wait until everything’s died down. You remember how to find it, Grace?”

  “I think so. You did hide it very well though.”

  I suddenly regret this. A flag or sign over the mill house would help us all right now. I kick the cooling ashes from the fire to spread them across the ground and reduce the signs of life.

  Llandymna

  “D’you know where they are?” Tom asks as soon as the others are gone. Adam nods grimly as Tom phones the station for back-up.

  “If only Ifan had realized Callum wasn’t trying to start a fight with him,” Adam mutters to himself, reflecting on how far this feud has gone.

  “He did,” a voice rasps. “I told him myself.”

  Maebh holds herself up against the doorframe while Adam rushes over to her. She looks strangely frail tonight, and so much older than she had seemed in her own home. He supports her thin form and ignores the urgent tactical conversation Tom is holding over the phone, so that he can properly hear what this old woman has to say.

  “Adam, you mustn’t let this happen,” she croaks. “Llandymna has been here before, even if no one out there chooses to remember it.”

  Adam finds somewhere for her to sit down. The effort of her petition seems to have drained her of energy, and all the wry knowledge and sparkling wit is gone from her face, so that she is left looking softer and more fragile. It is as if the cynicism of the ages has been washed away and all that remains is a simple, desperate hope.

  “I loved your father, and I wish I could have saved him,” she says. Adam looks at her and sees suddenly another path that their lives might have taken. If Emrys had stayed, he might have married Maebh, and this storyteller would now have a clan of children and grandchildren to care for her, instead of living alone. But then, would Adam and Grace have ever been born? He glances over to Tom, who is still on the phone, and calculates that he has a little more time before they need to act.

  “Can I ask you something, Maebh?” he says. “Why didn’t you leave? After they drove Emrys away, and covered it all up, how could you bear to stay in this place?”

  “I did think of leaving Llandymna. For a time, I didn’t think I could live here any more, when it had caused so much hurt. It felt as if my neighbours had taken everything from me. But you know, I do still love these people, for all their failings. At times it has been more through choice and perseverance than because they made it easy. But our lives tell stories when others look at them, don’t they? And I decided a long time ago that by staying here I could tell these people a better story than by leaving them all behind.”

  Adam shakes his head. “I hope they know, one day, how much you’ve given them all. Tom’s signalling to me – I have to go now. But I promise you I’ll do everything I can to help our runaways.”

  Contented, Maebh sits back in the dim light of the candles and thanks him.

  “He would be so proud of you,” she says, smiling faintly.

  Adam rejoins Tom as he hangs up the phone.

  “Back-up is on the way,” Tom says, “but it will be about half an hour before they get here. I’ve been instructed not to do anything until then, aside from handle the situation here.”

  “In that case, I’ll go after Ifan now,” says Adam. “If we let them go for long, you’ll struggle to track them down again.”

  “You mean to follow them right now? Without waiting for the others?”

  “I’ve already done everything I can here. I’d hoped to stop them setting out at all. But now I need to make sure nobody gets hurt.”

  “Callum may be young, but he isn’t defenceless.”

  “No, but he isn’t the only person in the forest tonight who Ifan might find. Rhiannon, Nia, and my sister are all there too, and might get caught in the crossfire.”

  Adam is resolute, so Tom does not press the matter any further. The policeman watches as this visitor who has become so involved in local affairs leaves the hall, turns down the street leading out of the village, and starts to run
towards the woods.

  Rhiannon

  Parting ways with the others is hard. I don’t think any of us really like the plan I have proposed, but no one can come up with anything better that guarantees our safety.

  There’s so much I could say at this moment. I suppose if I’d imagined today as a story, back in the days when I would dream up such things, we would be suddenly blessed with the ability to speak succinctly yet movingly some words that would express what all our friendships have amounted to, and how much we care for one another’s safety. But Ifan may be getting close even now, so Grace and Nia leave in one direction as Callum and I go in the other. A last glance back puts an odd thought into my head. Nia looks taller. Perhaps I have only seen her beside Ifan before now, at least ever since they were married. We were almost friends when I was a child and she was still at school, long ago. She shouldn’t be able to surprise or confuse me the way she has done today.

  Darkness is gathering as we hurry deeper into the woods, towards my house. I lead the way between the shadowed boughs, followed by Callum. I am used to this fear of being found, this desperate escape, and Callum must be growing familiar with it too. He’d never admit to being scared, even now, but who can say what might happen if Ifan catches any of us?

  “I wish it wasn’t so dark,” Callum says as he stumbles on the uneven ground behind me. I wait for him to get back up again before we carry on walking.

  “You’ll get used to it soon enough,” I say. “Just follow me.”

  I know this way well. I walked here in the dark one night, holding a torch and wishing there were a procession to follow me. Two people don’t quite make a procession. The ground slopes a little, and I hold on to tree branches to stop myself from slipping as we descend.

  “I don’t understand Adam or Grace.”

  I ask him what he means, not stopping this time, barely listening for his answer.

  “All this. The warnings, helping me get food out here, running back and forth trying to make sure I’m not killed by Ifan. Why do they do it? I mean, I’m nothing to do with them.”

  “They’re the sort of people who believe that friends look after each other,” I say to him. He is not silenced by this.

  “You know what Adam said about running away? That it doesn’t really help you in the end.”

  I say nothing; I am wondering whether the left or right path will take us further away faster.

  “I think he was right.”

  Right? But the left path will take us over flatter ground.

  “Rhiannon, are you listening to me?”

  I nod, a pointless action in all this darkness, and lead the way down the left path. Before I can take more than a few steps, he grabs my shoulder to stop me. I spin around to face him.

  “I think Adam was right,” he repeats. There is going to be some implication to this that I won’t like. He persists, “I think we should go back.”

  “Go back where? To my house? Nia and Grace may not even be there, but they will be in danger if we are with them. After everything they’ve done for you –”

  “No, I mean I want to go back to face Ifan. To see if I can put a stop to all this.”

  For some time I am speechless. I can hear his sincerity.

  “Callum, have you lost your mind? He’ll want revenge. He’ll try to fight you. And you know how that went last time.”

  “What’s the alternative? Running away forever?”

  “Not forever! You can go back some other time.”

  “When, exactly? When Ifan has had even more time to dwell on his injuries? After he’s taken out his anger on someone else in Llandymna, who didn’t deserve it but was just there at the wrong time? Or when Ifan is dead, and I’m safe from him? Or when everyone has forgotten me and means me no harm? Or when I’m too old to walk back up the hill, and become a figure of legend alongside Emrys?”

  There is something new in his voice now. I hear no defensive anger, only a kind of resigned honesty. It is strangely refreshing. What’s more, he is right. He could well hide from the village forever. He could go somewhere far away, create a new life, and try to forget everything he left behind here. He could be like Emrys, someone our grandparents’ generation lost because they misunderstood him. None of these things is impossible, but I know Callum does not want that life. I know it would weigh on him forever: all the words he should have said to his family and friends, all those words racing round and round his head every night as he tries to sleep. I think I understand why he has to go back.

  “All right, if you want to face Ifan, I think I can find him.”

  Abandoning the left and right paths, we go a different way.

  We make our way back through the darkness of Dyrys. Twigs and boughs scratch at my face and arms as we try to follow the same route back. There is no light anywhere around us. That reassures me. I know that when we see light up ahead, we will be near our destination.

  After months of avoiding being sighted by anyone from the village, here I am leading a fellow runaway straight towards those very people. If I had the chance, I would go back in time and stop myself from causing so much damage to the people around me. Callum is just like me. He wants to set things right, by facing Ifan and putting an end to the quarrel he once fled. If I cannot make amends for my own mistakes, at least I can help him fix his. All this flits through my mind with startling alacrity as I try to judge the way towards Ifan.

  “You do understand, don’t you?” asks Callum, as he keeps pace alongside me.

  “I wish I didn’t. Then I could tell you to turn back and keep running, and then we’d both be heading away from danger, not into it. But yes, I understand you.”

  We take a few more steps, and then I catch sight of it: a flickering yellow light in the distance. I stop without signalling, so that Callum, realizing too late, bumps into me.

  “What’s that?” he asks, catching sight of the glow. I judge the distance and estimate where the light is coming from.

  “I think they found the remains of the campfire after all.”

  My guess is that Ifan has stumbled across the last embers I tried to stamp out, and that has led him to find Callum’s wattle and daub shelter. They must have stoked the fire again for it to be visible from here.

  “Come on,” I say, “but stay quiet. Let’s find out what they’re up to first.”

  We keep to the cover of the trees, but start to move forward for a better viewpoint. About ten metres away, I stop and duck behind a clump of holly. From here I can see half a dozen men standing around the fire. Ifan is speaking to the others.

  “He was here, and not long ago. He must have run away when he heard us coming. We should be able to find him easily if we split up.”

  “But it’s pitch black out here now,” protests one of the others, who I think I recognize as Simon, who works on Ifan and Nia’s farm. He is right: their eyes will have adjusted to the low firelight, and the woods will seem even darker to them now. We have that advantage, at least, if we need to run again.

  Ifan is not deterred by this. He grabs some of the branches that hold up the roof of Callum’s house, wrenching them free, and dips the end of each one in the fire. Flames jump out of the ashes, revitalized by the movement.

  “Here we go. Torches!” he says. I smile with relief, knowing they are unlikely to work. They will probably either burn up too fast or go out by themselves before long. Fire is a tricky thing, as I have learned while I have been out here. It will not always do what you want it to. I seem to have guessed rightly too: only one of the branches has really caught. Frustrated, Ifan drops the others to the ground.

  “Look, mate, I’m all for you teaching this kid a lesson, but we’re never going to find him like this.”

  “CALLUM!” Ifan roars his name. The sound is angry and desperate all at once. The others look ready to go back home, but Ifan is only enraged m
ore by the disappointment.

  Before I can stop him, Callum is walking past me towards the gang and their furious leader.

  “I’m here, Ifan!” he calls. Ifan turns towards the noise, the burning branch slung over his shoulder like a garden spade.

  “You!”

  “Can’t we put an end to this?” Callum asks as Ifan advances. “I’m sorry about what happened. I didn’t mean it to turn out like it has.”

  “I bet you’re sorry. But you’ll be sorrier when you’ve paid for what you did.”

  “All right,” says Callum. “I won’t run away this time.”

  It looks as if they are about to repeat themselves. I wasn’t around for the first fight between these two, but if one of them ended up in hospital and the other on the run from the police, I can only assume it is not something to revisit. I have no plan, except to interrupt them long enough for us to figure out a better solution. I jump up and run to the clearing so that I am visible in the light cast by the fire.

  “Wait!”

  Ifan looks annoyed at first by this interruption, and then surprised when he sees me. Behind him, I see recognition dawn on the faces of his friends.

  “Rhiannon Morgan. You’re alive, then.”

  I wonder how many of them thought I was dead. A murmur passes round the group, perhaps as they acknowledge they had guessed wrong.

  I know I have to speak quickly, to keep Ifan’s attention away from Callum, but fear takes over and I hesitate. We are outnumbered. I wonder if I might be able to talk some of them round, and convince them to help me stop this fight breaking out. Or would they join in, and all set on Callum together? Would they attack me too? The surprise of seeing me is wearing off, and I think Ifan will turn on Callum soon if I do not think of something fast.

  “Yes, I’m alive. But that’s a story for another day. Ifan, Callum’s apologizing to you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  I don’t really expect this to talk Ifan round. He has never valued words as highly as actions, and a spoken “sorry” probably won’t be enough for him now. But it might be enough to get the others to relent. They can’t all be here just to see how many punches Ifan can land, can they? I feel their eyes on me, and realize this is something I have not missed at all – that sense of everyone staring, sussing you out as they decide how seriously to take you. I decide to try again.