March 16th, 1983
In a thin beam of sunlight, the insects zipped backwards and forwards. They shone like fireflies as they raced through the shaft, each one disappearing against the canopy as it left the light. There were so many that Daniel could not make sense of their movements. He tried to keep his eye on one, but it moved so fast, and the other insects were so many that no sooner had he chosen one to watch he would lose it in the confusion of movement. He shifted slightly on his feet. The canopy moved in the breeze. Like searchlights, the shafts of sunlight streaming through gaps in the leaves and branches above danced on the ground. Daniel squinted against the light. The insects mesmerised him. Against a collage of white and yellow light, different shades of greens and browns they formed a cloud. A cloud of constant movements. Daniel wondered what sort of insect they were. What were they doing? What sort of compulsion held them in that shaft of light? What force bound them in that buzzing mass of flitting zigzags? He noticed that the insects were confined in a small volume, as if held in that place by the walls of an invisible box.
A twig napped behind him, and he spun round.
“Hey chump, whatya doing?”
Daniel cocked his head slightly.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Well come on, we’re gonna go play. Mum says we only have a bit till lunch is ready.” Chloe turned and walked up the slight rise back toward the clearing.
Daniel followed her but turned to glance once more at the insects still dancing in the sun.
The clearing where Daniel's parents were sitting on a rug unpacking the picnic was a meadow surrounded on three sides by the forest. On the fourth side, where the meadow sloped steeply down the mountain was a boulder field. Daniel could see at least three boulders the size of cars. He wanted to go and play there after lunch, climb up on some of the bigger boulders.
He walked up to the rug.
“Hey big boy,” said his mother.
Chloe was talking to three other kids.
“Hey Dan, this is Ben and Vince and Charlotte. That’s their mum and dad.” She pointed to a bearded man with glasses and a blonde woman who were sat on another rug a metre or so beyond his own parents. The man waved at him.
“They’re called Garrard too. How weird is that?” said Chole.
“Cool, hey,” Dan said.
“OK kids, you got about ten minutes before we eat. Go play nice,” Daniel’s mother waved them off with a flick of the wrist and returned to rummage in a cooler.
“We’re playing hide and seek,” said Chloe, “You’re counting first.” And with that she ran off towards the tree line followed by the Garrard kids.
“Count to thirty,” she yelled.
Daniel turned to face his parents. His mum was unwrapping sandwiches from foil and placing them on plastic plates. His father was watching the kids run towards the trees. Daniel counted out loud, getting louder the further on he got.
“Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, coming ready or not,” he shouted and turned and ran in the direction of his father’s gaze.
When he hit the tree line it took a moment for his eyes to adjust from the bright sunshine of the meadow to the green shade of the forest. For the first few metres the forest was not too thick. There were some big trees with broad trunks, Daniel didn’t know what sort they were, and some bushes with thick dark leaves. Daniel could see that the forest grew thicker, denser further in. He hoped they hadn’t gone too far. The undergrowth here was minimal. Leaf litter, branches, twigs, a few ferns. Daniel looked around.
Underneath a bush to his right he spotted a pair of trainers. He walked up to the bush and pulled a few branches aside to see into its dark interior.
“Hey, I found you,” he said.
Vince emerged from the bush grinning. He brushed his jeans down.
“Did you see where the others went?” asked Daniel.
Vince nodded his head to the right and Daniel looked over. He saw a flash of blonde hair disappear behind a tree trunk.
Daniel ran round the opposite side of the trunk to surprise whoever it was.
“Boo,” he shouted.
Charlotte giggled, “Nice one dude,” she said, “You got me.”
“Okay, where’s my sister and your brother?” Daniel asked. They both shrugged.
Daniel walked a few steps away from the tree. He spun slowly through a full circle. He walked in a little deeper to the forest. Slowly and carefully, he placed each foot in front of the other. He was looking and listening very carefully, just like his father had taught him when they went looking for deer. He was looking for anything out of place, something that did not belong in the forest, belong to the forest. A colour, a shape, a movement. Daniel had once spotted a doe before his father. It was its movement that he had seen first. Something that moved in a way that wasn’t the gently sway of leaves and ferns in the wind. He had seen it out of the corner of his eye, moving silently between the trees. He had turned and looked closer, then made out the dark tan of its back and the hay-coloured underbelly. “Hey, dad,” he had said, turning to his dad and pointing. But the noise he had made startled the doe and she dashed off, quick and quiet, lost into the forest.
Now, Daniel was looking carefully for his sister, and the other kid. He was also listening. He knew that if the moved from their hiding places he might hear their footsteps, twigs breaking, leaves or branches brushing against them. He might even hear their breathing if he got close to them without seeing them first.
He walked slowly on, turning his head slowly left and right. The soft marine roar of the canopy was all he could hear.
“Hey kids, lunchtime, come and get it.” Daniel's mother shouted from the meadow.
“You too kids, come on.” Another woman’s voice called out. Daniel guessed it was the other Mrs Garrard.
“Come on Ben,” said Charlotte from behind Daniel. “Let’s go man.”
“But he hasn’t found me yet,” said a voice from behind a tree to Daniel's left, about five metres away.
Daniel, Charlotte and Vince looked at the tree as Ben stepped out.
“It’s okay,” said Daniel, “I like looking, we can play again after lunch. If you want?”
“Kids, come on!” yelled Daniel’s father.
Ben, Charlotte and Vince turned to walk back towards the meadow. Daniel watched them go. He could see the brightness of the meadow through the trees.
“Hey Chloe, I’m going, come on out, we can play again after lunch, I’ll look again first,” he called to the forest. But Chloe didn’t come out. Daniel guessed she may have been hiding nearer the meadow, just in the trees and may even have already made her way to the rug and the picnic. He looked round slowly once more, saw nothing but the forest, things that belonged to the forest, and left.
When he got to the meadow, he could see the other kids had already sat down on their rug with their parents. His parents were both drinking from plastic bottles of juice they had packed in the coolers. Chloe wasn’t there. He walked up to his mum, said hi and sank down on to the rug.
“Hey Dan, where’s Chloe?” asked his mum.
“Didn’t find her,” Daniel replied.
“Call her over Jeff,” she said.
“Hey Chloe, Chloooeee,” called Dan’s father. “Hurry up, time for a drink, you want something to eat?”
Jeff and Jennifer looked over to the woods. Daniel grabbed a sandwich from the plate and took a bite.
“Daniel, did you see where she went?” asked Jennifer.
“No mum, I couldn’t see her.”
“I saw where she went,” said Jeff. He was pointing to a bush in the tree line. “I saw her go right behind that bush. I was watching as they all ran off.”
“Yeah, I thought she went behind there too,” said Vince from the other rug.
“Daniel,” said Jennifer, “Go get her will you.”
Daniel trotted over the thirty metres of meadow and turned round to his dad.
“This one?” he shouted.
“Yeah, that one, just right behind it,” his dad called back.
Daniel walked round the bush. It wasn’t big. Maybe two metres high and five metres around. Chloe wasn’t behind it.
“Dad, she’s not here.”
“Yes she is Dan, I watched her go behind it.”
“She isn’t dad, there’s nothing here.”
“You sure?”
“Yes I’m sure, she isn’t here.”
Daniel looked around, there wasn’t enough space inside the bush for his sister to fit. But she certainly wasn’t behind it like his dad said. He turned and looked into the forest. Nothing moved, nothing looked out of place.
“Jeff, go take a look will you?” said Jennifer.
Jeff jogged over to the bush, walked round the back, and saw Daniel.
“See dad, she isn’t here.”
“Yeah, I can see.”
Jeff looked round too. There was nothing. He started calling her name.
“Chloe, Chloe. Come on Chloe where are you?”
The breeze rustled the leaves above them. Sunlight filtered through the canopy. Jeff called again.
“Chloe, Chlooeeee.”
To be continued.....