The Wild Way Home

For my pack:
Lyla, Arlo, Flora,
Andrew.
With love.
xxx
xXx

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name

W.B. Yeats, ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus’

BEFORE …

Early on midsummer’s morning, as the first blackbird sang and as the last white moth fluttered away, a baby was born in a clearing amidst the trees.

The first creature this baby saw was a hart with magnificent antlers. The baby looked at the hart and the hart looked at the baby and for a tiny moment all was still in the endless forest.

So Ma gave thanks to the hart and named her baby Hartboy, because all this happened 6,000 years ago, and it was just how things were done.

From that morning onwards, Hartboy, like all his people, wore a deertooth threaded on his necklet; the deertooth made him safe. Seasons came and went; leaves sprouted and fell; Hartboy learned and grew. With each midsummer Ma carved a fresh line on to Hartboy’s deertooth to mark the passing of his time.

Then one midsummer, when there were twelve lines in all, Hartboy’s deertooth was lost …

AFTER …

HUNT

I hide on the mossy branch of the hazel tree, my legs dangling into nothing. I wait. The wind rustles the leaves; a wood pigeon coos; the forest creaks and cracks like old bones.

A wordless shout. From the direction of Deadman’s Cave. The Hunters are coming.

I squint into the hazy sunlight; I can see a ripple of trembling trees where they carve and smash through the forest. The crack-thump-rip of sticks grows louder as they tear their way closer and closer to my hiding place.

The Hunters hack through the bracken and out into the patch of sunshine, right at the foot of my tree.

It’s them.

Lamont. Beaky. Nero.

I don’t dare breathe.

Lamont stands, hand on hip, and peers into the forest. Beaky circles the tree, jabbing at rabbit holes, prodding the undergrowth with a long, sharp stick. Nero growls, black ears pricked, hackles raised, nose to the ground.

My heart thuds hard and loud.

Nero stops. He sniffs and lifts his nose towards me.

Then Nero turns his head sharply away. He can hear something, something else. Then I hear it too: there’s rustling in the bracken.

Nero looks to Lamont. Lamont lifts a finger to his thin lips. Beaky nods.