The Runaway Read online

  “A tawny owl flew up to the hollow tree and returned a few moments later with a letter in his beak. The king of the owls read it carefully.

  “‘Well, little fox, this letter appears to be from your family. It seems you are very important to them, and they want you to be safely with them again. They ask that if I see you, I show you which way to go home, and they sent you this.’ The owl held up in his taloned foot a collar as blue as the evening sky. ‘Apparently it will help you get home. I believe it may have magical powers.’

  “And so the owls gave the fox the blue collar and pointed him in the right direction to go home. The little fox thanked them and the fawn for their help and set off.

  “‘Wait for me!’ cried the fawn. ‘I’d like to come with you and help you get back to your family!’ The little fox smiled, because he knew he had made a new friend. They walked and walked together, trudging through the deep snow drifts. Overhead, the moon was bright, and lit their way.

  “‘What do you think the collar does?’ asked the fawn.

  “‘I don’t know,’ replied the fox. ‘It’s from my family, but I’ve never seen it before.’

  “‘Maybe it makes us invisible, so no big scary animals see us. Or maybe it will help you to fly home. Do you think it can make you fly? Try jumping and see what happens!’

  “The fox jumped up into the air, but quickly hit the snowy ground again with a bump.

  “‘Ouch! I don’t think it’s a collar that makes you fly.’

  “They kept on walking, and after a while more snow began to fall. Soon the snow turned into a whirling blizzard, and it became hard to see ahead.

  “‘Have you noticed,’ said the fawn, ‘that it isn’t cold, even in this storm? How strange!’

  “The fawn was right. Even as it grew darker and more snowy, the fox and the fawn felt none of the bitter chill.

  “‘That’s it!’ said the fox. ‘Somehow the magic in the collar must be keeping us warm so that we can keep walking!’

  “At last, the blizzard cleared, and it became easier to see the way ahead. Two tall hills loomed on the horizon, and the little fox recognized them. Those were the two hills he could see from his home. They were nearly there! But between them and their destination, there was a wide rushing river. And over the river was a long narrow bridge. And in front of the bridge stood a wizard dressed all in grey.”

  Maebh picks up her shawl from the arm of the chair and throws it over her head and shoulders like a hooded cloak.

  “‘Hello there, little ones,’ the wizard said. ‘Have you come to cross the river?’

  “‘Yes,’ said the fox, answering honestly because he knew that wizards were kind and clever. ‘What must we do to cross it?’

  “‘This bridge, my friend, is a Fearless Bridge. Only those with no secret worries can cross it. So, for example, if I wished to cross the river, I would first have to tell you that I am terrified of spiders, and a little anxious that I may have left the kettle on when I left the house this morning. Now, see! I can stand on the bridge without a problem. But if I had not told somebody that before stepping on, I would have been thrown into the river.’

  “The little fox and the fawn thought very carefully about this. The fawn spoke first: ‘I’m a bit afraid of bears, and eagles, and things that eat deer, but not of you – ’ he turned to the fox, ‘because you’re my friend!’

  “‘I’m a bit scared of this bridge now,’ said the fox, ‘and also of not seeing my family again. But actually, now that I’ve told you about it, I feel a bit better already.’

  “‘That is the magic of the Fearless Bridge at work,’ said the wizard. ‘Now you are ready to cross it.’

  “The fox and the fawn stepped onto the bridge and, to their relief, it did not throw them into the water. They scampered across and there, on the other side, was the fox’s family, all waiting for him. He had made it back! They were all so happy to see each other again, and they thanked the fawn for helping him come home. And they all played together for the rest of that day and the next, making snow angels in the deep drifts by the little fox’s home.”

  The story ends, and Maebh is about to ask Eira what she thought of it, and which animal she liked best, when the phone rings.

  “Was that Mummy?” asks Eira, when Maebh returns.

  “Yes, my lovely, it was. She says you are allowed to stay and play here for a bit longer.”

  “Oh good. I’m going to draw a picture of a fox for you.”

  Maebh says nothing of the rest of Diana’s news: of the interview with the police officers, or of how even now a search party is setting out to search the surrounding countryside. She shudders at the thought of it all.

  *

  Diana sits opposite the two police officers who occupy her sofa. The room smells of fresh coffee, which she had anticipated would be appreciated today. Owen is sleeping upstairs, affording them some peace to talk. Light streams in through the window, and she smooths out a wrinkle in her navy blue skirt.

  “Can you describe for me the circumstances of Rhiannon’s disappearance, Mrs Griffin?” The officer’s voice cuts through the serenity of the picture Diana has been enjoying. He is a tall, slightly rotund man, with a musical Welsh accent. His colleague is a woman who eyes Diana with detached suspicion.

  “I last saw her yesterday, at quarter past four,” she says. She listens to her voice as she speaks, critiquing herself for any sign of unsteadiness. “She left the house then, and has not come home since.”

  “And did she say where she was going at the time?”

  “She did not. I had assumed she would be at the library, or out for a walk. When I had fed the children, and Rhiannon still hadn’t come home, I tried to call her, but there was no answer. I was unable to go out and look for her myself, as that would have meant leaving Eira and Owen here by themselves, so I asked Tom Davies to look for her.”

  “Ah yes, Constable Davies has told us that he knows you.”

  “Mrs Griffin,” the female officer interrupts, “did you argue with Rhiannon before she disappeared last night?”

  Diana puts her coffee cup down on the table, careful to avoid spilling it, and answers, “Yes.”

  “What about?”

  “Nothing that seems especially important now. I tried to bring up the subject of her behaviour over recent weeks. Rhiannon can be a difficult girl, you see. She is what you might call…” she pauses, to be sure she finds the right word, “strong-willed, and has a fierce temper. Lately, that temper has flared up against people in an ugly manner. I tried to talk to her about the fact that this is not acceptable. She became defensive and, unsurprisingly, angry. She shouted – something insulting, I forget what – and then stormed out of the house.” Diana sips her coffee as she waits for the officer to finish scribbling notes.

  “And has this happened before?”

  She raises a single eyebrow. “Are you asking if the teenage girl I am raising has ever argued with me before? Of course she has! And we have accepted that it works to allow one another some space after these exchanges. I assumed Rhiannon felt that going to her room was not sufficient this time, but that she would come home later.”

  It is the other officer’s turn to interrupt. “Mrs Griffin, would you mind clarifying your relationship to Rhiannon Morgan? You are her legal guardian, I believe?”

  “Yes, and also her aunt. She is my late sister’s daughter, and my husband Edwin and I were named Rhiannon’s guardians in her will. Frankly, I still haven’t got over the shock that Elin thought to make a will, but people do surprise you. And I had been helping her to care for Rhiannon long before that, of course.”

  “But you’ve never formally adopted Rhiannon? I see that she has kept her mother’s surname. You aren’t her parent by law?”

  “No.”

  “Why is that?”

  Diana sighs with irritation.
“I hope these questions are necessary, and not just for your own curiosity. After Eira was born, my husband wanted us to adopt Rhiannon. He said it was important for us to show her that she was just as valued as our own children, that she had the same status in our family. He started proceedings, but then became ill. He passed away shortly after Owen was born, and since then I have had my hands full raising two small children and a teenager, not to mention sitting on the community council and having an active role in Llandymna village life. I simply have not had time to look at it again. And it would hardly make a difference in the day-to-day running of our lives.”

  “I’m very sorry, Mrs Griffin. You seem to have experienced a great deal of loss. Do you think that the very same loss could have caused Rhiannon to feel less stable and secure at home, to prompt her to want to run away?”

  Diana casts an eye around her pristine front room, from the white china coffee cups to the perfectly co-ordinated furnishings. “I can assure you, I have done everything a person might do to ensure the continued stability of Rhiannon’s life. She has stayed at the same school with the same friends, she has always had a good home here and a routine to her days. And when I am not here, taking care of her, I am busy working to improve this village so that it provides better services and facilities for young people like her.”

  The coffee pot is empty, so Diana excuses herself to refill it in the kitchen.

  “Observations, Matthews?” the older officer asks his colleague, keeping his voice low so as not to be heard from the next room.

  “Well, she’s clearly hiding something, sir. No one looks that together after they lose one of their children. And she got very defensive just now.”

  “True, but she strikes me as the kind of woman who would be more outraged at the suggestion that she hasn’t tidied her house enough than if you accused her of a criminal offence,” he replies.

  “Should we be contacting social services, sir? It seems like this girl’s family situation is complicated.”

  “Possibly, but look at the date of birth you wrote down there. She turns eighteen in a few weeks. Not a lot of point putting her into care as and when she turns up. By the time the process was sorted, she’d be an adult.”

  “If she turns up, sir. I’ve read all the guidelines. We’re supposed to consider the worst case scenario. That’s what it says.”

  “It does, Matthews, and we have to entertain that possibility.”

  Matthews is about to put forward her initial hypothesis – that Diana Griffin has locked her niece away, or even murdered her, to preserve her public image – when Diana returns with more coffee and flapjacks.

  “Mrs Griffin, does Rhiannon own a computer?”

  “Yes, she has a laptop for her schoolwork. It’s up in her room.”

  “We will need to take that away with us. There may be something on there that gives us a clue as to where she has gone. What about social media sites? Would you know her account details for those?”

  Diana shakes her head. “Rhiannon refused to join any of those websites, even when all of her class did. She said they were for narcissists to engage in popularity contests. Her words, not mine.”

  Matthews smirks. “Smart girl.”

  “And is there anything about Rhiannon that would make her especially vulnerable?”

  “Aside from the fact that she’s a teenage girl not at home?” Diana retorts.

  “Mrs Griffin, people go missing around the country every day. Most of them turn up safe and unharmed before long. It’s our job to assess the risk level to Rhiannon. Aside from her young age, is there anything else that puts her in danger? Any mental health issues, disability, anyone known to you who might want to harm her?”

  “Goodness no, of course not,” Diana snaps. “Rhiannon is a perfectly normal seventeen-year-old.”

  “Exactly,” Matthews mutters, but Diana seems not to hear this.

  Chapter four

  Rhiannon

  I walk back to the woods triumphantly, in one arm carrying a parcel that consists of my coat wrapped around a heavy collection of damson plums. It didn’t take me long to find the place where they grow in the little lane; the only difficult thing was making sure I was not seen. It is only my second day and I am already gathering my own food. I will be self-sufficient in no time!

  True, there are other aspects of this new life I am looking forward to less. I still do not know how I will fix the roof of my house without nails or string to hold it in place, and the bathroom facilities in the forest are not going to be ideal, but I am sure I can beat these things. And today I will enjoy the first meal I have ever properly worked for, unless you count the times I was told I had to finish my homework before tea. I am too happy to even care that I seem to have lost my phone somewhere; I think I had it earlier today, but it is no longer in my pocket. It was out of battery anyway, so was of no use to me.

  I have come to the clearing where I stopped yesterday. The sky was grey and brooding then, casting criss-cross shadow patterns over the leaf litter, but today it is transformed. The light falls in patches, turned greenish by the leaves that filter it, and makes this place look like a fairy glade. There’s an ethereal feel to the beauty of it all: as if the stillness is merely that of something holding its breath, waiting.

  Waiting for what?

  Maebh used to tell me stories when I went to her house after school, and my favourites were the stories of the Sparrow Girl. She was brave and beautiful, though I never understood why she was named after something as boring as a plain little sparrow. I would have named her for a falcon or a lioness, but when I told Maebh this she said that was how the story went and she wasn’t going to change it just for me. I never could quite tell which of Maebh’s stories were ancient legends from our Welsh past or her Irish heritage, and which were stories she just made up. She told them all with the same reverence for the words, the same glint in her eye as she knew she was coming to the really gripping part where you would find yourself leaning forward, eyes wide as you waited to find out what happened next.

  I can picture the Sparrow Girl standing here, in this illuminated glade. She is a figure of legend and fairy tale, one to be taken seriously, or she might knock you off your feet with a quick whirl of the staff she carries everywhere. She dresses in the colours of the forest and sings when she feels joyful, and it is the most beautiful sound you have ever heard, or at least it is in my head when I imagine it. I have never met any living person I wanted to emulate as much as I want to be like the Sparrow Girl. But it’s hard to walk with grace and dignity into a sixth-form classroom where the only things that seem to matter to people are alcohol and relationships and occasionally exam results.

  I liked the fact that the Sparrow Girl sometimes got angry. Not many heroines in books do, it seems. They are gracious and composed, no matter what happens around them, like Nia Evans who never complains about anything. But one of Maebh’s stories about the Sparrow Girl told how the local villagers chased her best friend out of his home and drove him away. And in that story, she raged against their cruelty, furious at the injustice. I think of her when I remember what happened at the school fundraiser incident. That’s where I got angry like the Sparrow Girl.

  I’d been missing Uncle Ed that day, thinking about how he never did get around to building the treehouse we’d been planning for the garden, and how it would probably never happen now because my aunt would hate the idea of Eira or Owen falling out of a tree. And then I got to thinking about how, if someone met me for the first time now, they would need to know about Uncle Ed and my parents in order to understand me. Sometimes it feels as though I’m defined by all the people I’ve lost, like one of those negative-space pictures, where what’s not there is just as important as what is.

  We were at Llandymna Primary School, where Eira started last autumn, and Diana had been asked to give a speech at the fundraising event, because she’s su
pposedly important on the community council, even though everyone knows she can’t wait to take over as chairwoman as soon as there’s an opportunity. It was meant to be about children who need healthcare supplies in Tanzania, but no one seemed to care about that. The parents were all just very proud of what their own children had achieved, and the headteacher was clearly trying to advertise the school as a seat of moral high ground in the village, and the pupils had no idea where Tanzania was or why they were raising money for it. Then Diana started her speech, and to my disbelief she actually started using Uncle Ed’s illness and death as a reason for why she related so much to this cause! She had hardly cried in the last couple of years, barely mentioned his name in front of Eira or Owen, and here she was talking as if she actually missed him, and using that to make an impression with other people.

  I’d been slowly realizing for a long time just how much hypocrisy there was among the adults of this village, but this was too much. Somebody had to make a stand, to show everyone how far they had strayed from the good intentions they claimed to have. No one else seemed to have even noticed. So I stood up at the back and did just that. It wasn’t the dignified, moving speech that the Sparrow Girl would have given. It was a lot messier and more emotional than that, and ended with a lot more broken glass. Still, I said what was right when no one else would. That has to count for something.

  At least now I’m free of all that. Here, as I walk back towards my new home, I can leave behind everyone else’s double standards and selfish motivations. I have my first collection of foraged fruit, and a bundle of firewood I will add to later. I will fix the broken roof and perfect my house.

  I arrive back at the house and spread out my coat with its harvest of plums on the ground. It must be nearly midday – I can’t be sure, because my phone is missing and I don’t have a watch – and I have been busy, so I reward myself with one of the damsons. Its skin is sharp to taste, but the inside is sweet. I spit away the stone, and then wonder if I should plant it instead, to grow a new fruit tree. I am not sure it would grow though: I think growing trees is quite hard and takes a long time.