Once I’d elbowed my way through the thick criss-cross of younger branches, the going became a little easier and soon I was threading between tree-trunks, trampling the carpet of ivy beneath. I sniffled pathetically as I walked. I felt like I was a child again and walking away from my parents in the supermarket to purposefully make myself lost, hiccupping slightly through the tears, arms crossed tightly across my pudgy chest. They’d laugh when I was brought back to them, usually by a concerned onlooker or a member of staff trying to be helpful. Perhaps I never wandered far enough to really worry them. Maybe they were never that worried about losing me at all. I always went back with them anyway.
I walked straight through a small thicket of bramble, thorns catching on my clothes and skin.
I used to think all children—at some level—wanted more love than their parents were able to provide. That it was normal to grow up feeling you were loved, but only because someone had to. To be dissatisfied with it. But to accept it anyway. Because what else are you going to do? You’re not able to leave. If there’re no bruises and your belly is full, what’s the harm? So, of course, I always went back.
I had that same sense now of wanting to run, to get lost on purpose.
Only this time, I didn’t secretly want to be found. I had no deep desire for the person I was walking away from to come and hunt me down.
Because it wasn’t just that dull ache, that hunger for something I couldn’t verbalise, that drove me out this time.
It was terror.
I walked deeper into the trees, vision foggy with tears, breath a rasping see-saw, the animal of my body heaving under the weight of me.
CHAPTER 37
A wren trilled in the branches above. A blackbird rustled through the undergrowth below.
Remnants of the mist snaked through the trunks and the grasses, like pale fingers clutching at the air. I pulled my hoodie around me. The light was dimming and I felt cold, but not cold enough to go back. It was time to admit it. I wasn’t a good person. I was barely a person. My neighbour had done a better job of it than me, and I had no idea what the hell she even was.
Maybe it was better if I stopped pretending to be a person at all.
Maybe it was safer if I just left humanity altogether. Let the thing that was my neighbour take the house, take my life, my identity. I’d disappear into the wilderness never to be found, never to be seen again. Pinkie promise!
I hoped that’s what she wanted.
I hoped that was all she wanted.
I trudged on, forcing myself through ferns and fine saplings, cursing my jeans each time they caught on bramble or hawthorn.
I imagined myself slipping out of my clothes and casting them aside. I imagined letting the hair on my legs and my arms grow long. I imagined it spreading over my body, a fine grey pelt. As the light dimmed, I imagined myself crawling along the forest floor, the skin on my knuckles and my knees growing thick and leathery. Instead of words I would grunt and bark and howl. I’d never have to think of the right thing to say again. No more tripping up over my words. No more worrying if I’m saying too much or too little.
I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. Despite the evening cool, I was drenched in sweat. Well, I could sweat and stink as much as I liked now.
What a joy it would be to shrug off all the layers of structures built to reinforce an order I clearly did not fit into. School, jobs, offices, hen parties, football matches, social media, timesheets, spreadsheets, active listening, wellness programmes, disciplinary meetings, sick notes, questionnaires on how often you feel like punching your supervisor right in the teeth, official cautions, red cards, court summons, prisons, block buttons. They were all casts upon splints upon bindings upon a bone that would never straighten.
The further I walked, the darker it got. I couldn’t tell if it was because night had fallen or if the canopy above me was so densely packed no light could make it through. Either way, the forest floor slipped into a silvery half-light. Everything—ivy, boughs, trunks, creeping things—was cast in a monochrome of shadows and the soft light of the unseen moon. I’ve been told I shouldn’t be so black and white, but look, the world is black and white here. Goosebumps prickled where the soft down of my secret fur covered my skin. My chattering teeth felt pointed and broken. My fingers, rubbing my arms, now sported a set of sharp claws. I gazed at them in feverish wonder.
Oh, there I am. That makes sense.
I didn’t know if it was the cold or the lack of sleep or the mind-numbing fear, but my vision started to swim and the world shifted.
Suddenly, I got a sense of others in the forest.
I dropped down behind a rotting tree stump, the chill and dread shaking my limbs.
Fading out of the darkness, I saw figures coming in dribs and drabs into a dim clearing ahead. Their movements were loping and strange. They twitched and sniffed and made guttural grunting sounds.
As they wandered closer to my hiding place, I shuddered with surprise.
I recognised their faces!
I saw Fergus rooting through the undergrowth, tusks protruding from his wide smirking mouth. I saw the teens from the village, screeching from the trees and throwing branches at the others below. I saw Viv, the landlady from the pub, an actual zebra now, with Maggie from the café riding around on her back, pecking at her mane. I saw my old colleagues, squirreling together along the forest floor, tails flicking up and down in some secret code I couldn’t understand. I saw the Grayson girls, their golden arms and cheeks covered in soft white feathers. A crane came down from the canopy wearing my father’s glasses and spread his wings over them. I saw an elegant woman on deer legs, hooves painted a bright pink, long ears flicking back and forth despite her fearless countenance. I saw Rowan, his ears pointed and his eyes red. They were a herd of humans, picking their way through the forest, digging up the earth with their clawed hands, sniffing the air.
The wind shifted and then the woods felt airless. A shadow circled them from the trees on the opposite side of the clearing. It flickered, just in the corner of my eyes, shifting and changing. Watching the human herd.
One of the teens threw a rock at Fergus. He reared up and with one swift move pulled the kid from the branch and thrust him onto the floor. The teenager screeched and clawed, but he was nothing compared to Fergus. Fergus ran his tusk into the kid’s stomach as easy as plunging a spoon into whipped cream. The forest floor erupted into screaming as the rest of the teens descended upon Fergus, tearing at his hair and face. One of them plucked out an eye.
