Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
Tabitha had been walking back to the cottage for a good fifteen minutes when she heard the sound of someone approaching through the trees. Relieved, she turned around, expecting to see the little boy. Instead, she saw Daphne, trotting in her ungainly manner over the frosted ground towards her. Weren’t St Bernards trained to find people in the snow? Tabitha thought as she reached out to pat her. The dog leant against her legs, panting puffs of foggy breath into the icy air. If anyone could find the boy, Tabitha reasoned, Daphne could.
‘Come on,’ she said, and set off again with Daphne following keenly behind. The dog stopped every now and then to thrust her big nose into a shrub, occasionally putting up the odd partridge and watching in wonder as it flapped its wings and took to the air in clumsy flight. Tabitha called out, but not even the echo of her own voice responded. She was beginning to think that the boy must have gone home and was put out that he hadn’t told her. There were certain codes to games like hide-and-seek, and he hadn’t observed the most fundamental of them.
Shortly, the sun slipped behind a cloud and the wood was plunged into a gloomy half-light. The shadows vanished and a strange mist gathered around the tree trunks, floating above the grass like shrouded spectres. Tabitha wasn’t afraid. There was something magical about the sight, as if a strange enchantment was falling over the wood. As if she had unwittingly stepped onto sanctified ground. She stopped calling, understanding instinctively not to disturb the hush. Daphne stayed close by her side, no longer interested in the smells of rabbit and fox, but sniffing in the air a scent she did not recognise. Then she stopped and refused to go any further. Tabitha stopped also. They stood, the two of them, in the midst of the gathering fog.
This part of the wood was quiet. No birds sang, even the pheasants and crows were silent. There was no flash of hare diving into the undergrowth or deer darting into the thicket. It was as if no living creature dared come to this place. Tabitha stood beside Daphne and put a hand on her back. They remained very still, and alert, for something was about to happen. They both felt it.
Then the boy appeared. He was no longer smiling and playful but concerned. For a child he wore an oddly grown-up expression and Tabitha was reminded of her father and the way his face darkened when he was worried. It had darkened the time she and Zach had been on a big wheel at a fairground and something had gone wrong, leaving them stranded high above the ground. The boy looked like that now, as if he knew that she was in danger.
‘You mustn’t come here,’ he said gravely. ‘It isn’t safe.’
‘Where were you?’ Tabitha asked. ‘I’ve been looking for you for ages.’
‘Here,’ he said. He gave a shrug. ‘I’m always here.’
‘What is this place?’
He gazed at her with big eyes, sad suddenly and old, the eyes of a very old man. ‘You must go.’
‘Shouldn’t you go too? Isn’t your mother worried about you?’
The light faded and with it the boy seemed to fade too, as if he was merging with the trees. ‘Who are you?’ Tabitha asked.
‘Felix,’ he replied.
Then he was gone.