Extract from 'The Witness' - Chapter 29

Five minutes later John and Lila met up in front of the cottage. It had begun to snow again. Billy stood in the doorway watching the flakes drift down.

'Can't find him.' Lila's glance slid anxiously from John to Billy and back again.

John shook his head. 'Me neither.'

'Tried the shed?' asked Billy.

Lila glared. 'I can't find him. That means I've looked. Everywhere. He's vanished. Run off into the trees.'

Falling snow deepened in the gloom of the hollow. The trees seemed to crowd closer.

'Ninian! Ninian! Nin-i-an!' Their voices were muffled. Echo-less.

At Lila's request, Billy headed grudgingly uphill and was swallowed at once by the trees behind the cottage. Lila set off along the track that continued beyond the hollow. John dropped down among the pines below, threading his way between the close-standing trunks, clambering over the brushwood, straining for a glimpse of movement in the murk ahead. He recalled the first morning together, when they'd hidden up by the old shepherd's cottage in the overgrown plantation. The first moment that he'd thought he'd lost Ninian. Only a week past. When he still had Hector. Christ, how he missed him. The softness of his muzzle, sweet grassy smell of his breath, solid reassurance of his slow muscled bulk…

'Nin-i-an! Where are you?'

But his voice was lost at once. Deadened by snowflakes and pine needles and rough absorbent bark.

Where would he have gone? John asked himself. And knew at once the pointlessness of the question. Knew that the only thing certain would be the unpredictability of his choice. Though even choice was too strong a word for Ninian.

The snow was growing heavier. It was only mid-afternoon but the light seemed to be fading. John tripped on something unseen. Steadied himself. Calmed his breathing. This wood was enormous and silent. The lad could be anywhere. Something shifted in the gloom, ahead. A fall of snow from a branch. A figure picking its way stealthily through the trees. Too large for Ninian. A deer perhaps, or a man, or even men… and for a moment it seemed to John that the whole wood had come alive with the flitting shadow of warriors, a silent army of clansmen, wrapped in animal skins against the cold, weapons muffled with rags. As if the present troubles had created a disturbance in the pattern of time, a fissure through which shades were summoned from the past… John shook his head and tried to ignore the feeling of rising panic. He stumbled on, moving ever further downhill. As the snow drifted ceaselessly through the trees, furring branches, clinging to trunks, piling up on the undergrowth. He started to picture Ninian having fallen and knocked himself senseless, or perhaps simply having lain down exhausted at the foot of a tree. One more snowy contour in the forest floor, indistinguishable from all the rest. 'Nin-i-an!' he called. Not wanting to admit that it was hopeless. That he could pass within a few feet of a supine snow-covered body without noticing. That it would take them days to quarter this wood to any real effect…

He had no idea of how long he'd been going, only a vague sense that he must be near the foot of the hill, when he caught the sound of voices. His heart jumped as he imagined it was Billy and Lila coming down to tell him that all was well, they'd found Ninian.

He stopped, orientating himself towards the sound. It came from below him. The voices were not those of adults. High-pitched, childlike, they rose and fell as if in a chant or singing game. He moved on downhill towards a faint lessening of the gloom ahead. Little by little the slope levelled, the wood thinned, the snow-filled sky expanded. Ahead, following the margin of the trees, a tumbledown stone dyke turned ninety degrees to enclose the corner of a field. A sheltered place where huts and tents had sprung up. Wreathed in the smoke of fires lit to ward off the cold. At the very edge of the wood, trees had been roughly felled for fuel and dragged out to the field, smashing down what remained of the dyke as they passed. There in the broken ground, among the stumps and scattered stones, was a circle of children and youths. Almost ghostly in the steadily falling snow.

For a moment John wondered whether they were playing a game. But before he could catch the words that rang out he sensed the hostility of the group towards the single small figure that stood at the centre of the circle.

'Big lugs.'

'Weirdo.'

'Numpty boy.'

Speckled with snow, the figure was sobbing. Shoulders heaving as it rocked back and forth. Contorting its body as if trying to disappear into itself.

'Gonnae stand there greetin' a' day?'

'Dinnae wanna fight?'

A stick sailed through the air and struck the figure on the shoulder.

It gave an anguished wail but didn't move.

'Wee piece o' shite.'

Laughter rippled round the circle.

'Feart tae fight.'

Voices picked up the refrain.

'Piece o' shite. Feart tae fight.'

Hands smacking thighs in time.

The figured lowered its head and squirmed. Cover its ears with its hands. As one of the larger youths stepped forward from the circle.

John strode out from the trees. Heart on fire with schoolyard memories. He opened his mouth and bellowed:

'LEAVE HIM ALONE!'

His rage filled the space between the trees, the snow-filled air, spilled out into the field, summoning curious faces to tent flaps and the entrances of huts.

The youth stopped and watched in silence as John broke into a run, lumbering towards him across the rough ground. The circle dissolved, its members melting away. The youth took a step back. A feebly thrown fir cone caught John on the side of the head. He let out another roar and they turned like starlings.

Ninian remained where he was, unaware that his tormentors had fled. He flapped his hands. Made small gasping sounds. As the snowflakes settled on his bare head and shoulders.

'It's all right, laddie. I'm here, I'm here. It's all right.'

John scooped him up gathered him into his arms. Feeling his own warm tears mingling with the cold melting snow on Ninain's hair as he stood there in the empty corner of the wood. Oblivious to the eyes that looked on from the encampment. Ninian sobbing and shuddering against his chest.