the wood. He’d been here before then? Maybe there was someone he was meeting. She scrambled up the low bank and wove her way through the trees, her eyes on the ground as she followed the vague outline of a path through the darkening woods. The last remnants of fading daylight filtered down through the leaves and her eyes adjusted until she could see the outlines of trees. Even so, she was slapped in the face by wet leaves more times that she could count. Long strands of bramble snagged in her sweater and her trainers sank into the muddy ground until water seeped into her shoes and made her footsteps squelch.
Listening carefully, there was no sight or sound of Tate, but then she hadn’t expected any. If she followed the path, though, that would take her to him and she would see what he was up to. She turned back, looking for the path she had followed, trailing behind her, and seeing none. She shook her head. Of course it was there. She was simply seeing it from a different angle.
Walking back along the path she had just followed, she came to the broad trunk of a tree. Had she passed it on the left, or the right? She searched the ground for the signs of her passing, finding only rotting brown leaves, and moss between the stripped-bare shrubs and clumps of undergrowth.
Returning to the place she’d reached, she tried again, but she wasn’t sure how far she’d gone. Now that she looked, there seemed to be many paths, though none looked especially used or recently travelled. Nor could she find the path she’d walked. She hugged herself against the night-time chill, wishing that she’d brought warmer clothes. The wood suddenly seemed huge and random, with vague pathways going off in all directions only to end in impassable banks of shrubs or muddy hollows where her trainers sank into the leaves with sucking sounds. Childhood stories echoed in her head and she started at noises in the bushes and imagined large creatures shadowing her movements just beyond her field of view.
She stopped. This was ridiculous. She frowned at her shoes and in a moment they were dry. Likewise, the damp left her clothes, leaving her drier if not especially warmer. She calmed herself down and turned slowly around in a circle, looking for things she recognised. There was a gnarled tree trunk that she was sure she’d passed before. She made her way to that and surveyed her position again. There was nothing she recognised. She had no idea which direction she’d come from or where she was. Somewhere among the wretched trees was a clearing with a trunk laid half across it, and if she could find that, she could at least get home.
Walking in ever-widening circles, she looked for something she’d recognise. The trouble was, the paths she followed weren’t circular and they kept leading her in directions she didn’t want to go. Within a few minutes she’d lost sight of the gnarled trunk and she couldn’t find that again either. Right, she thought, a wood can only be so big, so if she kept walking in one direction she would reach the edge of it, and then she could find civilisation and go home. It might take her longer, but at least she wouldn’t be scratched to death, cold and standing in a wet wood.
She picked a direction where the trees appeared to be lighter and set off. She tramped through the brush, her clothes picking up the damp as fast as she could dry them again. She missed her footing jumping over a small stream and ended up half-kneeling in the stream bed. Her temper got worse and the wood went on and on. Was there no end to the trees? After what seemed like half the night, she staggered into a clearing. Her hopes lifted as she thought she recognised something, and then sank when it was the same gnarled trunk she’d left hours ago. There was even the bit of root that she’d scraped the mud off her trainers with, the mud still damp and fresh. All this time she’d been walking in a huge circle. She could have cried. She was tired, frustrated and fed up with sodding trees. Her hands and face were covered in scratches, her knees were bruised and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had anything to eat or drink.
She knew what she’d have to do. There