Where No One Can Follow
Everything seemed much further in the dark, as though the world had grown. Or maybe it was that my steps were shorter, more careful. I kept peering into the trees, afraid of who might appear: the witches maybe, or fairie folk, or the woman with red hair. I told myself I had nothing to fear from them. Then I thought of the hooded men that were said to come here sometimes, to read their strange writing and chant beneath the moon. An owl hooted somewhere in the trees, and I jumped. Everything was different. Nothing had colour any more, or shape; the world was made of grey shadows with no depth, no surface. For a moment, I thought I heard someone singing.
I told myself that I had to bring Joe back. I knew how angry father and mother would be if he left, and how sad. So I went on, and after a time, I began to see shapes; not so tall as the trees but darker and thicker, more solid.
It was the stones. And then I stopped, because something was there, after all; a shape, silent and motionless, right in the centre of the circle.
It wasn’t a man. It was a low shape, crouched close to the ground.
I waited, knowing that I would stand here all night if I had to, because I dare not go on. Not while the thing stood between me and my brother.
Then the dark shape rose, but not like a man. It got onto all fours. It raised its head in the air, as though to pick up the scent of something that was gone, and it let out a mournful sound. A long wail, a lonesome howl.
It was Wolfie.
And I knew then that Joe had gone.
I went over to the dog, braving the stones. I stroked his ears and he turned, once, to lick my hand. Then he lay down again, rested his head on his paws, and whined.
I pulled at his shoulders, his haunches, but he wouldn’t move. And so I went back alone, to the house where only my mother and father slept, now. Where they would grow old, and so would I, and none of us would ever really know where Joe had gone.
They could look for him in the village where Emily lived, or the one after that, or the one after that. My father would go to the town maybe, ask in the marketplace or the church, but I knew he wouldn’t find him. Because a dog chooses its own master, and it stays with him, and follows him to the end; and Wolfie had chosen my brother.
Joe had gone to the circle, and that was where it ended. And I thought again about the fairie, and the witches, and the stones that watched; but most of all, about the woman with red, red hair, whose song could bewitch a man, and make him forget about everything but her. I imagined Joe’s fingers running through her hair, like a deep red river, over and over, while she sang her song and spirited him away, where no one else could follow. And I remembered the way his eyes were; all the while somewhere far away, while he worked or fished or played. Set on his own way, his own path, on something only he could see.