The Runaway

by Claire Wong

  With such a mother, Ifan argues, and no father to speak of, how could anyone be surprised at how Rhiannon has turned out? Nia, who has helped Diana with babysitting ever since she became her niece’s legal guardian ten years ago, looks pained at the way her husband tells the story.

  “But we don’t know for certain what has happened,” says Tom, when Ifan’s clear-cut assessment of the situation has finished unfolding.

  “Well, I expect we’ll know tomorrow, when she’s come back to her nice warm home and a guaranteed hot meal.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “You don’t suppose,” Nia asks, “that she might have gone off to look for her father?”

  “I think it’s one of the options we’ll have to start considering if there’s no sign of her tomorrow.”

  “She’s a good girl really,” Nia says with a sigh, “but things have been very hard for her. She’s been through such a lot for someone so young.”

  “Haven’t we all?” says Callum. Being the member of the group who believes he has ostensibly suffered least in life so far, he is the most defensive on this subject. He kicks absent-mindedly at the chair legs and tries to look solemn.

  Tom considers reminding Callum of how much more tragedy that family has experienced over the last ten years, first with Elin’s death, then the death of Diana’s husband Edwin two years ago, but thinks better of it. With both Callum and Ifan, it is worth choosing your battles wisely. Callum may be young and hotheaded, quick to see accusations at every turn, while Ifan is a little older and requires a certain level of respect from even his closest friends, but the end result is much the same. They do not like to be challenged when they have articulated an opinion. Tom glances at Ifan, and sees with relief that he is still relatively sober. Tonight will not be a night for helping him stagger back to the farm, or intervening in the arguments Ifan likes to search out after too many drinks.

  The barman, having called for closing time ten minutes ago, is now tidying up as noisily as possible.

  “Best drink up,” Tom says.

  Chapter three

  Rhiannon

  I know something is different even before I am fully awake. The sunlight falls warm on my eyelids, and the birds warble somewhere outside. But the surface under my shoulder blades is hard and uncomfortable; my bones ache with each shift and turn. The air is cold, too. I open my eyes and take it all in: the walls of moss and stone, the broken roof overhead, the leaf-strewn floor. So it wasn’t a dream.

  Drowsily, I stand up in this strange new space where every breath tastes of dew and smells of rich earth. The ruins of the old mill look strangely bare in the daylight, my belongings occupying one small corner of the space. Then, as if I’ve done this every morning of my life, I go down to the stream and wash my face in the glittering water.

  Something in the clear morning light and the cool running water makes me hopeful about today. I feel as if here in Dyrys I might have a chance at the life I’ve wanted for so long. I will not be afraid. That’s exactly what they would want, for me to be scared so I would go home and apologize. I shall live wonderfully instead. I shall do whatever I want, with no one to give me orders, and I shall depend on nobody.

  With renewed determination, I look to the pile of twigs that I tried to turn into a campfire last night. This time I won’t be beaten. I discard any bits of wood that feel damp, and pull together some new timber from the forest floor. I pile the thinnest twigs together in the centre, surrounded by bigger branches. Then I hold the lighter in the middle of this pile until the twigs catch light. Quickly, I push the branches over them and watch as the flames lick around the bark, blackening it so that it curls away. The fire starts to take hold, and I stand with my hands on my hips and survey my work, not needing to hide the grin that is spreading over my face.

  I take the little pan down to the stream and dip it into the water, then inspect the contents to make sure no leaves or bugs have been captured along with it. I carry the pan back up to the fire and realize I have nothing to balance it on. I could make some sort of tripod from a few branches, but that would catch fire before long and throw hot water over the flames. I resign myself to holding the pan over the fire until the water boils, and I sit on one of the larger pieces of the broken mill wheel, which lies on its side and has become home to moss and ferns over the years.

  While I wait, swapping the pan from one hand to the other as my arms start to ache, my thoughts drift off again and I see myself as I might one day be: gathering my own food, keeping a look out from high up in the trees, living out here like some kind of Robin Hood figure. I picture travellers getting lost in these woods one day, until I appear out of nowhere to help them find their way, and the look of wonder on their faces will be enough to sustain my confidence that I have made the right choice. And so the stories will filter back to the neighbouring villages and towns, rumours of the girl who lives in the woods. Legends start with a kernel of truth, and mine will begin here.

  I love the feeling of timelessness about this place. It feels as if Dyrys could easily be straight out of my imaginary world. I have my own place that I go to when I’m gazing out of a window or when I can’t sleep for rage at how the day played out with all its ignorant people. When I’m there, I am not Rhiannon any more. I am not in Year 12 and thinking about university, or expected to cook fish fingers for my cousins while Diana goes to another community council meeting so she can tell other people what to do and hope they will reward her by electing her as the next Chair. And, since I get to make the decisions in this world, I choose a version of me whose hair never frizzes after rain, and who dances amazingly and who knows how to speak in a way that makes people take her seriously.

  While I inhabit this other world, I can cope with anything. Who cares what people say behind your back if you can go on adventures whenever you like? When Ellie Williams told everyone I had called her some names that were definitely outside my usual vocabulary, and petitioned the class to stop talking to me as a suitable punishment, I just ignored their silent stares by thinking about the book I was reading that week. It had glorious mountain ranges that needed scaling, and horrifying mysteries to solve along the way. I had no time for their childish concerns. I have lived out epic sagas in the time it takes Ellie Williams to decide what colour nail varnish best matches her shoes.

  The water starts to bubble and boil, at last. As I tear open a packet of couscous and pour the contents in, I can’t help but wonder how they make kettles heat water so fast, compared to this. I have no fork to eat it with, but I remember reading once that in Morocco they eat couscous without cutlery, rolling it together with their hands. I am so hungry this morning, I barely have the patience for my meal to cool down before I start scooping it up. In minutes, I have wolfed down the whole portion. As I swallow the last mouthful, I realize that I only have a couple more of these, and some cereal bars in the pocket of my coat. How long will that last? I have just gone through about a quarter of my food supplies on my second day in Dyrys.

  Stop and think. I remember what I learned from Uncle Ed, and from books at the library. The average human can last three minutes without oxygen, three days without water and three weeks without food. Air and water will be no problem here, so that just leaves food. Of course, if you leave it the full three weeks without eating, you’ll be too weak to go and find yourself anything. But the point is that it should be possible to ration things out and make them last, if I can just get used to ignoring the feeling of being hungry. And I can add to my supplies by foraging in the woods.

  It’s a good time of year for gathering food – there are fruit trees already covered in cherries and damsons around the edge of the village, and later on there will be blackberries on every thorny clump of brambles in these woods. When I was younger, I used to go blackberry picking with Nia Evans on September weekends, and then we would bake a pie together back at the farmhouse. Just remembering the sme
ll of it makes me hungry. I wish I could remember more about which plants are edible so that I don’t poison myself by accident. Uncle Ed had a book on foraging, which is still on the shelves in the hallway, but I haven’t picked it up in years. I don’t imagine Di reads it either. She kept most of Uncle Ed’s things after he died, but they all just sat around the house in boxes, like we were collecting for a museum exhibit on his life. I kept his pocket knife though. I figured no one else was going to need it, and it made sense to keep it somewhere out of Owen and Eira’s reach. They are too young: Eira is in her second year of school and Owen is just learning to put sentences together. I think, out of all the people in Llandymna, they are the ones I will miss. Them and Maebh, of course.

  If Aunty Di were here, she’d make a plan for the day. She would write me a list, and it would say: “Go to that overgrown hedgerow that leads out of the village where you know there will be damsons ready for picking, and then come back here and think about how you are going to fix the roof of this old house before it rains next, and for goodness’ sake remember to boil any water before you drink it, or you’ll get ill and have no one to blame but yourself.” Since she isn’t here, I am free to do whatever I want, whenever I want, so I start to gather more firewood instead. Fallen twigs and branches lie scattered all around, but anything sturdier, like a proper lump of wood, is harder to find. I gather up an armful of what I can see, and the twigs scratch at my skin where I hold them. I take the wood and put it just inside the house by the doorway. Now, if it rains, I will still have a supply of dry wood to make a fire. But I still need to fix that hole in the roof somehow. I need something waterproof, like a tarpaulin, only smaller. Standing in the doorway of the house, my eyes fall on the drawstring bag my sleeping bag was previously rolled up in. I won’t need that any more, and it is probably waterproof.

  I take out Uncle Ed’s pocket knife and flip out the blade, using it to cut through the drawstring and down one seam of the bag, opening it out as a flat piece of material. Now it is wide enough to cover the hole. I just need to find a way to get up to the roof. There is no chair or ladder to stand on here. I may have to climb up the outside of the building somehow. And how will I attach it, without nails or pegs? I need more time to think about this.

  Llandymna

  At nine o’clock exactly, the doorbell rings three times. Maebh opens the door to Diana and her two young children. Diana’s face is taut, all the muscles in it clenched with sharpness and urgency.

  “Thank you so much for doing this, Maebh dear,” she says as she ushers Eira into the house. “I really do appreciate it so much. Now, Eira, you’re going to be good for Maebh, aren’t you? I want to hear nice stories about what a lovely little girl you’ve been. Understand?” She lowers her voice as she turns back to Maebh. “I don’t know how long I’ll be – the police are on their way over to the house now. Owen won’t understand what’s going on, but I don’t want Eira to be upset by any of this. Here, I brought you one of my marmalade cakes to say thank you for being so helpful to us all. It’s still warm – no please, keep the tin it’s in, I have plenty. I’ll telephone to let you know when I can pick her up.”

  Though her tone is bright, all the words come out a little too fast and clipped. Maebh thanks her for the cake and reassures her that they will be fine spending the day together.

  “Will it be our Tom who comes to speak to you, do you think?”

  “Oh no, I shouldn’t think so,” Diana replies. “I’d hope they’d send a proper policeman for a matter like this – one with a bit more experience.”

  Eira asks if she can do some colouring, as she has brought her best pencils with her today, and Diana leaves quickly, with Owen gurgling as he is carried out. Maebh sighs as she closes the front door behind them and feels peace return to her house.

  “Now then, Eira, my lovely, have you had any breakfast yet? How about some toast and jam?”

  Eira is five years old, with fair hair so light that her parents chose to give her a name that means snow. She is everything one might expect a daughter of Diana to be: well behaved, polite, and very articulate, though she has inherited her father’s complexion. She skips ahead of Maebh into the kitchen and clambers up onto the chair where she always sits, while Maebh takes out a jar of raspberry jam and puts a slice of bread into the toaster. Today must be a day of normal, familiar things for Eira. She will have enough uncertainty to deal with when she understands what has happened.

  “Look, here’s the crust of the loaf,” says Maebh. “You don’t like to eat that part, do you? But do you know who does like it?”

  Eira thinks for a moment, and then her face lights up. “Mr Blackbird!”

  “Yes. Shall we take him some breakfast too?”

  They go out into the garden and Maebh tears the slice of bread in two, handing one half to Eira, who carefully and methodically breaks off small pieces and scatters them on the grass.

  “Food for you, Mr Blackbird, and all of your friends,” she sings to a made-up tune as she distributes the bread. When they have finished, they retreat back inside, where the toaster has popped, and so Eira is distracted by eating for a few minutes. By the time she remembers to look up through the window, a pair of blackbirds and a house sparrow have appeared in the garden. Eira squeals with delight and watches them avidly.

  When the birds finally leave, startled by the arrival of a neighbour’s cat, Eira remembers that she had planned to draw pictures with her favourite colouring pencils today.

  “Can we go to the living room now, please?” she asks.

  “Yes, but you’ll have to be patient with poor old Maebh. I can’t walk as quickly as you these days, with my ancient bones!”

  They make their way from the kitchen to the front room of the little house, one bounding ahead full of energy, the other taking it more slowly. It is a small room, sparsely furnished with some comfortable chairs for guests and Maebh’s own chair next to the fireplace. Over the mantelpiece hangs a painting of a boat crossing the Irish sea, with the misty blue form of land just visible on the horizon.

  As she sits herself down on the rug and opens her pencil case, Eira suddenly says, “Rhiannon’s gone, hasn’t she?”

  Maebh sighs. She had known Eira was a clever girl and would figure out the truth before long. “What makes you say that, Eira-wen?”

  “She and Mummy were shouting at each other again yesterday, and then Rhiannon said she was going to run away. And then I heard her slam the door, and she didn’t come home even after bedtime.”

  So, Maebh thinks, Eira has known all along what others only suspected: that Rhiannon has run away. It won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone.

  “Well, today your mummy is talking to some people who are going to help find her. So don’t you worry.”

  “It was very quiet without her. She shouts a lot, mostly at Mummy, but sometimes at other people too. She used to tell me stories though, before she started being cross all the time. I liked that a lot more.” Eira does not look up as she says this, so that she can focus on counting out her pencils.

  “I’m sure you did, my lovely. Tell me, what is your favourite story?”

  “I like the ones with talking animals.”

  “I see, and do you know the story of the white fox who could talk?”

  Eira shakes her head, and Maebh smiles, because this is a story she is about to make up. She asks Eira if she would like to hear it, and of course she says yes.

  With the four age-old words, Maebh begins, “Once upon a time, there was a little white fox cub that lived in a land covered in snow. All the trees and fields and hills were covered in it, and all the lakes and rivers were ice. Can you picture that much snow everywhere? The little fox cub loved to slip and slide around on the ice lakes, and he would spend hours every day playing outside, building snow mice and snow badgers with his brothers and sisters, because in that land the schools could never
open because it was so snowy, so they stayed closed and none of the animals ever had to go to classes.

  “One day, the little fox stayed out playing extra late, and kept on rolling in the snow until he was much further from home than he had ever been before. When it was time to go home, he looked around to see no sign of his family, and realized he was lost.

  “The little fox felt scared to be on his own, and began to cry. But as he was crying, he heard a voice say, ‘Are you all right, little fox?’ He looked up, and what do you think he saw there? A talking fawn, with big kind eyes and a black shiny nose!”

  Eira stops arranging her pencils from red through to violet and her eyes grow wide as Maebh continues.

  “‘I’m lost and can’t find my way home,’ the fox told the fawn sadly.

  “‘I’ll help you find your way back!’ said the fawn. ‘We should go and ask the king of the owls. He flies all over this land and knows where everything is. He can tell you which way to go.’

  “So the little fox and his new friend went to speak to the king of the owls. He lived in a hollow in a tall pine tree on the edge of the forest, the tallest tree you can imagine. And when he heard the sound of a fox and a fawn coming towards his home, he flapped down to a low branch to see them, and all the other owls came and perched nearby too. There were tawny owls and barn owls and eagle owls, all peering down from their branches to see these new visitors.

  “‘Whooooo are you?’ asked the king of the owls, with a frown that was very stern.” Maebh pulls a face that might resemble a gruff owl, and Eira giggles. “The brave little fox was not afraid, though; he explained why he was there, and the owls all looked at him curiously. The king of the owls seemed thoughtful at this, and said, ‘Hmmm, how interesting. I believe we received a message not long ago about a white fox cub just like you. It was delivered by one of our messenger owls, who fly all around the land bringing me news. Fetch me that letter!’