Journey X – The Temptation

Miranda tells me firmly that we must find me a place with other people that’s safe and comfortable and where they’ll take good care of me. Then I’ll be able to maybe find a new guide and move on. She gets up, looking considerably closer today, purposefully striding about, in the rain too, gathering up our stuff, talking to herself. Meanwhile I’m sitting on a stump half asleep, sipping my coffee. It’s all a little too busy for me. It’s barely light yet and we had a visitation in the night – silent thankfully. They just hung around watching me swearing at them. I got the impression I’d hurt their feelings more than anything. Well, if they will hang around looking spooky all night what do they expect? Miranda said I shouldn’t take the piss. Things are bad enough for them already but I think (I didn’t say this out loud) if they want to get lost they should just go and get on with it, not keep bothering us non-lost types. They’re really beginning to get on my wick, keeping me up all night...

We pass on through more of the same forested, mountains-and-valleys landscape as before. Miranda says it reminds her of the place she grew up, with lots of heather and bracken and little streams. It’s not that I don’t like it. I’m really just beginning to want to get somewhere. I told this to her and she gave me an odd little smile.
Meetings with the lost spirits are getting further and further apart. Miranda tells me they tend to gather in some areas more than others and she seems decidedly livelier here, away from them (‘although there’s always a few loners about’ she says). The countryside’s still pretty wild out here and we have the place to ourselves. Once again my thoughts turn to the proximity of her scantily clad little form. All in all, maybe I prefer it that she’s too small (or far away) to actually have sex with. I like the way we get on and chat and flirt and look after each other and I think maybe sex would spoil it, or anyway, I’d probably mess it up somehow – make a twat of myself. It’s better this way.

Our final encounter with the lost spirits happens on a night of heavy rain – another night of total darkness and we’re camped in a bog. Miranda is convinced this is the right path but is very frank with me – there will be lost spirits again, and they might not be so easily dissuaded. I don’t ask how she knows.
For a few nights now she’s been running off at night like before and I am once again unhappy about it but not so easily fobbed off with her reticence on the subject. I pester her and tell her I’m not going to ‘leave it’. So she gives in and tells me she’s been protecting me, going out and keeping them away. I ask if that was how she got hurt that time before. She goes very quiet.
‘With some of them you have to be prepared to give them something in return’ she says vaguely, not looking at me. ‘There has to be some sort of offering. That’s the way it is.’
I look at her. I don’t know what she means. I don’t think I want to know.
Then suddenly she looks up at me and says brightly ‘We’ll soon be there. It’ll soon be over.’
She turns to go and I catch her arm and hold her back. She looks at my hand, at first wearily, then irritably. I let her go.
‘It’s ok’ she says, and is gone into the darkness.
I never did find out what it was they got up to out there. The thought made me feel sick, especially in the light of what we saw later. I didn’t sleep. I sat and waited for her to come back and we slept together in the morning.

So we come to a place where the valley becomes extremely narrow and steep sided, with ranks of stunted oaks growing out of the sheer sides. The valley floor is narrow and sodden and thick with rushes and reeds. It sees the sun only briefly but floods regularly and we struggle to find a patch of dry ground to pitch the tent on, hoping not to get washed away if there’s a flash flood. Evening comes. We watch the mists come down and wait for frightening things to start happening. There’s nothing more, she tells me, that she can do to hold them off. We sit and wait to see what happens.
‘Will they hurt us?’ I ask quietly, the rain dripping off my hood into my lap. She’s hidden there, in my cape, peering out. She looks so tiny – barely visible.
‘Not necessarily’ she says, like there might be something worse they could do.
‘What then?’ I say. ‘Will they capture us?’
‘Something like that’ she says.
‘Something worse?’
She says nothing. We wait.
‘I could try swearing at them again’ I suggest.
‘Probably worth a try’ she says without much enthusiasm, ‘if it makes you feel better.’
More silence.
‘If I hadn’t lead you astray you’d have been somewhere safe a long time ago’ she says quietly.
‘But you tried. You took me to that hill town place.’
She shakes her head. ‘I was being selfish. I needed somewhere to rest, recover. I wasn’t thinking about you.’
I look down at her. She looks so sad, yet strangely defiant.
‘I really don’t mind you know’ I say, and I want to tell her it was worth it because I love her. It seems a stupid thing to say, while we sit there, peering into the darkness, watching for spirits.
‘I just didn’t want to lose you’ she says ‘and I wasn’t ready to go, maybe. I thought I was.’
‘Do you have to go? Can’t you change your mind?’
She begins to reply but instead says shush and holds her finger up. I stand and listen. There’s a low roaring sound coming from away up the valley. As it gets louder I can feel it in the ground. It’s different from last time, more like a sobbing or a pulsing, like a machine or a heart beating deep in the soil. We stand there together, listening to it growing in volume. It sounds like a flood. It occurs to me it might be a flood. I look about for an escape route but Miranda is not moving. She knows that it’s pointless to run. The sound gradually expands to fill the landscape, coming from all sides, surrounding us and then we see them, figures of all shapes and sizes emerging from the shadows, changing all the time, growing and shrinking, materialising and melting into the darkness all around us. There are so many of them. It is overwhelming. They cluster around us and press their faces into ours – repulsive, terrifying, seductive. A tiny spikey one with a slug for a tongue insists that I am no better than she is, deep down. A bloated giant bawls at me over and over again to listen to him. A wraith wrings her hands and grizzles that there was nothing she could have done. There is so much bitterness and recrimination. It bludgeons, seeps and injects itself into my innards like gas gangrene – the things they’ve been through, what they’ve suffered, and what suffering they’ve inflicted on others. For that is the difference here. The spirits that have collected here have done terrible things. They are not merely victims. These really are the monsters. I look about me, try to tell them what I think of them but the wind takes my words away. A groaning throbbing lament drowns out everything that I might have wanted to say. This heaving mass of the unforgivable before us is past all understanding.

It seems like hours we stand there as they heave and jostle around us. The noise and the stink are terrible. It is the sound of all the agony and the degradation and the abuse they’ve endured and caused and I can feel it entering me, probing, trying to find something in me to latch onto. They want to know if perhaps I could have done those things too, or if I’d have them done to me perhaps? Or would I like to watch? because that can be arranged. It’s intolerable and meaningless. All their stories are long lost. What they did has no explanation any more. They try to explain their actions away nonetheless.
I curl up and keep my eyes shut – try to keep it all out.  
Everybody has it in them they say. Every man has his price. What would I be prepared to do, hmm? If I was desperate enough? Hmm?
Who is to judge them? Who can blame them? After all, it had to be done. Everybody else was doing it. It was legitimate trade. They were just doing their jobs. They did what they did for the purity of the race, to the glory of God, for King and country, for vengeance, for the family’s honour, for the greater good.
And didn’t they deserve it after all, those scum, because they stood in the way of progress, because they were different, because they were weak, because they didn’t matter, because they happened to be there and they were alone and nobody to protect them.
It was the final solution. They were asking for it. They probably enjoyed it.
Wogs, Queers, Bitches, Pakkies, Kikes, Commies...
And on and on and on...
Gradually their jeers and harangues begin to wash over me, to have less and less effect. There’s no connection. It’s just noise.
I look down at Miranda, her hopeless eyes fixed on them and I sit down with her.
We sit and observe them, these horrors, impassively and I pull her toward me. She looks at me and doesn’t understand but realises that she is safe with me. We sit and look at them and they begin to seem small and ridiculous. The wind and the noise die down and just a frustrated grumbling and whining follows. I can sense them milling about, knowing there’s nothing they can do and yet unwilling to give up. Finally, as morning comes the last of them discretely disappear and Miranda and I pack up and move on as quickly as we can. She looks up at me with a new kind of expression, almost like she admires me or something. ‘We need to get you home’ she says.
The path takes us up to the top of the valley by late afternoon and there before us lies a broad rolling landscape of meadows and woodlands and lakes. It looks like heaven. 
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Journey VI – Hive

The night-time glow penetrated the material of the tent, casting my belongings in a dim, slate grey relief. Something had awoken me. I knew it was not morning or anywhere near. I could just make out the length of my sleeping bag and the bulge of my feet at the bottom of it, and the discarded clothes and other objects filling the space between me and the sides of the tent itself – my socks, my waterproofs, my papers and pencils, my sunglasses and my boots, my hat and my shorts. To my left there were the openings into the rucksack, unzipped, spilling open, revealing containers of coffee, matches, chocolate, toiletries and cutlery, first aid kit and yet more underwear.
I sensed a presence outside rather than heard it. I wondered if I should wake Miranda. Presumably she was in there, buried somewhere among my damp and musty belongings but I had no sense of her. As time had gone by I’d learned to recognise her scent and hear her tiny movements – even her breathing, but the moment was horribly still. I knew sometimes she went out alone at night – to get some fresh air she said, or to clear her head but I knew there was something she was not telling me. I wondered if she was looking for something, or hiding from something, or meeting someone. For some reason this last possibility made me angry and depressed. I lay there on my back, looking at the stitching along the ridge, waiting for something to happen, not daring to move.
She always said she could take care of herself, and she’d told me not to ‘be such an old woman’ but I couldn’t help it. Every time I tried to relax and clear my mind, like she’d shown me, my head just got crowded up again with images of her mangled body and her crying alone and lost and cold out there somewhere. It was like she had no idea how small she was now. A couple of times I’d hurt her just by being a bit clumsy and she’d yelled at me and made a terrible fuss, but then she’d go on at me for suggesting that she was in any danger out alone at night with who-knew-what prowling about out there. I don’t know. It was like she just had to do it, to prove something.

After what seemed like hours there was the unmistakable sound of something enormous shifting, turning and getting up, moving off and pushing its way between the trees. Immediately there was more light and more air, as if the thing had been casting a huge shadow. Then other sounds became audible – the normal night time hubbub of insects and small mammals scurrying around in the leaves. Had they been waiting for it to leave so they could go about their business? Soon after that I heard a tiny person pull open a zip, push her way into the interior of the rucksack and close the zip behind her. I waited for her to settle but after a while I could tell she wasn’t able to sleep either. I asked quietly if she was alright but there was no reply. I resolved to ask her about it in the morning but when I did she claimed not to know what I was on about and changed the subject. Sometimes it seemed like she had only two moods – angry or happy, that was all. Luckily for me she seemed happy most of the time.

Summer was taking on the unmistakable tones of autumn as we moved along. The path she led me along had taken an awkward turn up into the mountains again, through a narrow ravine and along the side of another gorge, which felt wrong to me, but I didn’t like to argue. There wouldn’t have been any point anyway. Miranda travelled up on top of my pack or straddling the nape of my neck, still dressed in nothing but my red silk neckerchief, giving instructions, pointing the way.
At other times she went on ahead, leaving the piece of cloth behind and making me promise not to look as she skipped on ahead, leaping from boulder to boulder, or up into the branches of a tree to get a better look at the way ahead. Later on she’d reappear, demurely, peering at me from behind a log and holding her hand out for her ‘sarong’. Usually she was wearing her evil grin when this happened, but a few times, after a particularly long time away (sometimes she didn’t reappear until after dark) I could see she was cut and bruised and in need of some comfort although she would never admit it. Times like that she curled up into my lap or under my fleece and fell asleep there. I had to be careful not to roll over and squash her.

I didn’t really find out how bad things were until one night I was waiting up for her – a totally soot-black night full of movement and smells. I was really worried about her and lit an extra big campfire because I thought it would help guide her home. It was the first heavy snowfall of the season too and the first real winter night. The leaves were almost all gone from the branches and everything looked stark and spare. I sat there with a piece of meat on a stick, worrying and trying to get it to cook evenly, as she’d shown me (She was a proficient hunter of small animals too). Just below, in a heavily wooded dip full of brambles and fallen branches I could tell there was something waiting. I couldn’t tell what but I knew. I tried not to think about it but as time went on I became increasingly aware of a sweet, fungal stink, like something long dead and yet hot and alive, close by. I waited for the shadows to move.
When Miranda suddenly reappeared I shrieked with surprise and she laughed at me but it was not funny. One of her legs was badly mauled, cut down to the tiny violet bones in a couple of places and I made her lie still, shivering and stuttering, wrapped in my scarf as I tried to make her more comfortable. I kept saying ‘I thought they couldn’t hurt you here’ but she just shook her head. Maybe that was just on the boat. She kept saying she was sorry, over and over again, and how she’d make everything alright. I sat up with her all night as she passed in and out of sleep and the creatures, not one but many, waited outside.

‘What’s going on?’ I said when I saw she was awake the next morning. The wind was roaring in the tops of the trees and had thrown off every last leaf, but our camp was settled in the curve of a small corrie, a bowl scooped out of the hillside and the air around us was still. The first sprays of the new day’s rain splattered against us unpredictably, bringing down tiny twigs and flecks of bark that floated in my coffee cup. Miranda huddled down next to the embers and hugged her cup of coffee. She didn’t say anything. She acted at first like she didn’t know what I was talking about but then gave up the subterfuge. She was extremely tired and in a lot of pain.
I knelt down to make it easier for her to tell me without having to shout but she looked away so I got up and bad-temperedly stomped off, ostensibly to find more wood. I heard her tiny voice behind me as I went. She sounded like she was might have been saying sorry but I kept going. More likely she was yelling at me not to be so melodramatic.
When I got back I was briefly panicked because she was not where I’d left her but then I heard her calling to me from inside the tent. It was raining more steadily now so I decided to join her in there.
She looked absolutely wretched, and if anything, even smaller than before. I got the fire going and put some coffee on to brew, then went in and sat with her. She sat on my leg, leaning against my belly, pulling my fleece over herself.
She said ‘I might not be around much longer. You know that don’t you.’
I said I didn’t and what did she mean. I had an idea what she was getting at but I didn’t want to say it.
‘I’m not really a guide’ she said. ‘I did used to be... I’m sorry.’
‘But, you said...’
‘I know. I’m really sorry.’
‘What about what you said about Kev? You said...’
‘I know. Gabriel, I’m sorry. I was there when you set out. I overheard...’

I look at her, not sure what to say.
‘Lie down with me will you?’ she says.
‘I need to keep an eye on the coffee’ I say and moving her gently aside I step out into the now heavy rain. I knew there was something. Now I don’t know what she’s up to at all. Obviously I can’t trust her.
When I go in with our drinks I find she hasn’t moved. She’s just sitting there, focussing on nothing, huddled in my clothes. ‘Here’ I say and put the little beaker down beside her. ‘Careful, it’s hot.’ She nods.
‘I just wanted some company’ she says quietly, after she’s taken a few sips, ‘before I go. I just didn’t want to be alone. I’m sorry. I’ve put you in danger. The next settlement we come to, I promise...’
I take that to mean we could have stopped before now. I don’t know what I think of that. Actually I’m not so sure I wanted to stop anyway, not now I have her around. I tell her so and she smiles a little. ‘Thanks’ she says. ‘You’re sweet.’
‘I mean it.’
‘But you shouldn’t have been alone, not all this time.’
‘I’m used to it. It’s ok. Anyway, I’m not alone.’
‘Still...’ she says and drinks a bit more before lying back down. The rain has passed and a little sunlight illuminates our bed.
‘I’ve never had a woman before, of any kind’ I say. ‘I don’t need anyone else. This is all I ever wanted.’
‘I don’t think so’ she says, and can’t help herself laughing at me. I can see why.
‘But you know what I mean don’t you?’ I say and she nods but is not convinced. She’s older and wiser. Thinking about it now it’s just ridiculous, but at the time...
After we’ve sat there a bit longer she says ‘Shall we get moving? It looks like it’s brightening up a bit’ and so we do, packing up all the equipment, collapsing the tent and extinguishing the fire. She climbs into one of my long red hiking socks and I put her in my hood and we’re off.

Within a few days we come upon our first signs of human habitation for what seems like months – some fields of what were once cabbages and corn – now just severed grey stumps, then an orchard, and then, unexpectedly, the settlement itself, which at first sight seems to be a tall, oddly shaped hill, all peaks and lumps with smoke rising from several places in its summit. As we get closer it looks more and more like one of those massive gothic cathedrals but apparently made of soil and wood. Its steep, terraced sides are overgrown with an unruly embroidery of vegetation interspersed with ramshackle sheds and fences and other, less explicable constructions – masts and scaffolds. Our, by now, broad and well-worn path leads across what appears to be a moat and Miranda says ‘I’ll be in here if you need me. I’m not supposed to be here’ and I hear her burrowing around down in the bowels of my baggage emitting tiny cries of pain, trying to get comfortable. I approach what appears to be a cave at the foot of the hill, pausing a while to take in the people working on the near vertical allotments above. A rampant pumpkin vine swings dangerously over the opening, strung with enormous fruit.
At the gate, two what seem to be guards observe me indifferently as I pass inside, into a tunnel that is almost too low to walk upright in. The heat and the smell are overpowering but not unpleasant – roasted meat, meths and some sort of perfume, like stale after-shave, and it’s very dark. The only light comes from a few feeble and flickering kerosene lamps along the walls. A steady stream of fresh air flows in with me. Gradually, after a few twists and forks in the tunnel I come across more and more of the occupants, sitting in huddles or engaged in some activity – cooking or needlework or perhaps writing, settled among their belongings, looking indifferently at me as I pass or minding their own business. Most seem to be in robes or other loose fitting garments and all seem to be more or less grimy and dishevelled. I’m told later that this area tends to be occupied only by the most ‘useless’ members of the community. A stiff wind whistles past. Moving on, there are more lanterns and the atmosphere lightens too. There is a hot, greasy, smoky gloom about the place and a rich fug of spices and incense and bodily odour. A larger chamber, as big as a small church and apparently carved out of the solid rock is crowded with people in more colourful garb, making jewellery and crockery and food or playing music or games, chatting and smoking and eating. Above us the ceiling is invisible in the smoke and shadows but seems very high indeed. The wind carries the smoke up into the roof.
After a few more bewildering turns in the tunnels, a lot of stair cases and ignoring some low and ill-lit side passages (with yet more desultory residents) we finally come out in a huge chamber, a great dome-shaped space with yet more traders and artisans milling around, some very finely dressed indeed. I wander about among them. Several offer me smoke or drink as I pass but I have no money. I begin to feel that I need somewhere to stop and rest and think. I notice there are small shadowy openings arranged around the perimeter of the chamber and I make for one of them. I sit down and open my pack. I ask if she’s ok in there and she gives me an impatient whisper in return ‘I’m fine. Close the top.’ I look around to see if anyone saw. Some people were looking vaguely in my direction. Should I be worried? I can’t tell. I don’t feel relaxed, that’s for sure.
I find myself something to sit on and think about having a brew. I look about. Nobody seems very interested in me anyway. I look up and see that the ceiling is really extremely high and I realise I can see daylight above, far above, through a tiny opening. That must have been the smoke I saw rising from the summit. Behind me, from the darkness the cool air streams in. It’s like a huge stove, or one of those termite nests you see on the wildlife programmes, with its own air conditioning system. As I sit and marvel at the engineering two heavily armoured figures suddenly blot out my view. I can’t see their faces or understand what they say but the message is clear. I collect up my belongings and follow them.
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Journey I – Landfall

Finally the forest opens out and the path gets rocky. I can see a bit further ahead. Conifers give way to broadleaf and fallen leaves carpet the path. I find a place and sit for a while. Unexpectedly, I find some chocolate in my pocket. I sit and chew, looking through a gap in the trees at another gully and another ridge beyond. I can’t get used to the scale of the landscape here. When I began I was still thinking in Sussex Countryside scale. In England you can’t really cross many ridges before you come to a road, or very probably a service station and an industrial estate. It’s taken a while to fully realize that civilization is not going to be over the next ridge, nor the next, nor the one after that. This gully is full of ferns, some taller than I am, and there’s a stream in the bottom, full of fallen leaves. The rain is less driving here. As I sit, I feel the heavy drops on my hat. I look out under the edge of it up into the branches and several drops land on my face. They taste of resin.
Still, I feel ok, out here alone with just the weather and the terrain to contend with. It feels alright. I couldn’t be with them any more. Kev will have to handle them. He looked like he’d just about had enough of it himself. I guess he can’t choose who he gets to look after but I don’t know why I ended up travelling with them.

We landed on a beautiful stretch of desert shore – a tiny harbour and some mule carts waiting for us. We’d been sailing for I have no idea how long – months certainly, but the weather had been getting steadily better, with the widest bluest skies I have ever seen and high cirrus clouds and then tropic birds circling all around. The air was wonderfully warm and I swear I could smell trees long before I saw land.
There’s something strange about the perspective here. These mountains I’m in now were visible from a long way out, dominating the distance, and as time went on we could see desert hills with palm trees and whitewash, terracotta tile buildings on the sea front. I was in shorts and a vest and up on deck most of the time. Ray and his cronies stayed out of sight. I dreaded them appearing up there, making ‘clever’ remarks.
The guys with the carts were Spanish, which gave me a chance to practice. I’d never been to Spain in life, or anywhere really, but the village was exactly what I expected a Spanish village to look like. We stopped for a few hours and I looked around. There was a nice little bar, and kitchen gardens all around, watered by springs flowing out of the rocks. They gave me some figs, which I didn’t think I’d like, but which tasted wonderful, and a little plate of bread and ham, and some warm red wine. I’d like to have stayed, but everyone was loading up and getting ready to go. Somehow, the hundred or so passengers dispersed without me really noticing, along other paths I suppose. Our group formed a caravan of three covered wagons. I was depressed (I don’t think that’s too strong a word) to see Ray and the others there, Solly smirking superciliously at the scene, Ray still trying to look like he had everything under control, Brenda pointedly avoiding eye contact, Liz apparently not travelling with us. Only Harry showed his real feelings – outraged bewilderment. I noticed he’d grasped the power of non-violent direct action remarkably quickly. He just got in the way of anything he didn’t like. I managed to get into one of the other carts. Kevin, our guide, went round and checked that everything was secure and got into the front cart and Alex, our driver, said something quietly to the animals and we began to move off.
The road was rocky and threw us about a fair bit, but we lounged among the baggage, which was soft enough if you didn’t mind a bit of dust. The canvas was pulled back and we lay back and watched buzzards soaring high above. Later, as the sun came overhead we pulled the canvas over and snoozed in the shade, rocked to sleep by the motion or the cart. I was sharing with an older man called Martin and two ladies, Beth and Celine, who stayed very close and whispered a lot to each other – not in a rude way, I didn’t take it personally, they just didn’t much talk to anyone else. They smiled at us a lot though. I think they were in love. Martin looked out at the landscape but also didn’t seem inclined to share his thoughts. The only thing I heard him say the whole day was ‘I wish my wife could have seen this.’ Alex was singing quietly to himself. It was all very soothing. We spent the night in the carts. We had beans and pork and more wine, and coffee and bread and olives. Alex sang for us with his guitar.
Then we could hear Harry and Ray yelling at each other from their wagon. We hadn’t heard much from them all day since we left the harbour. I don’t know if it was deliberate or not, but as we went on, their wagon fell further and further behind and we enjoyed the peace and quiet without them. Now here they were arguing about something to do with their belongings. When they emerged they were all smiles as far as we were concerned but they didn’t seem to be talking to each other. Ray looked over at me but I wouldn’t look back. I prodded the fire and wished they’d go away. Pretty soon I decided it was time to sleep and headed back to our wagon.
In the morning I discovered that Beth and Celine were to swap places with Harry and Solly. I never found out why but I’m sure it wasn’t Beth and Celine’s idea.
All that day’s journey Harry sat looking sourly at the floor between his legs, still wearing that paunched grey suit while Solly grinned stupidly at the landscape, smoking heavily all the while. Every jolt made Harry look like he might erupt. I tried to ignore them, but it was impossible. Somehow, they occupied the entire space. Martin was perched precariously on some sacks near the back and after our mid morning break I went and sat with Alex up front.
‘Might’ve fucking guessed...’ I heard Harry mumble as I sat down
‘Just leave it’ I heard Solly say quietly but Harry was not put off and he leaned around to look at our backs. ‘I wondered how long it’d be’ he said. ‘Are you very cosy up there, you two?’ We tried to ignore him but it was difficult. Alex started singing but the noises of derision from below became too intrusive and he gave up. Martin got down and walked along a little way behind.

I put up with this for two more days. The road got steeper and more winding and shaded with pines. I also walked along behind a lot of the time but neither Martin nor I wanted to do it all day so we had to put up with sharing the space with Solly and Harry. Kevin tried to get them to not take up so much space but they were surly and uncooperative. That evening there was another fight, and in the morning Ray had taken Solly’s place. Solly was staying out of the way. During that day’s ride Ray tried periodically to engage me in conversation, making crap jokes and then telling us all we had no sense of humour when we didn’t laugh.
On the third night I got all the warm clothes I could find, all the food I could carry and set off up a side path on my own. I was so furious. I mean, if you can’t get away from these arseholes when you die, when can you? Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of come-uppance for people like these, or what’s the point? Shouldn’t Kev be able to do something? This can’t be the first time this sort of thing has happened. But I was also angry with myself. This was not the first time I’d been in this position. Maybe I should have said something. They’re just bullies after all, and mum always said bullies are just cowards and you should just stand up to them. But it’s not true. Bullies are not cowards – they’re dangerous children, and they don’t care what they have to do to get what they want – even when there’s nothing that can be done to get them what they want. They just do whatever they feel like, and I know I’ll never be like that. I’ll never be able to stand up to them because I’ll always care what I have to do.
I’ve thought about all this a lot. I think they’re lost here. There’s nothing here anybody wants to deal with them for. They can’t threaten anybody with anything, or deprive them of anything. Nobody cares here. Nobody’s impressed. All they can do is be irritating, and I think they know that and it makes them mad.

I did feel a bit guilty, leaving Kev to deal with it, and the others seemed nice enough people. I felt sorry for them. I wonder where they are now. I keep expecting them to catch up with me any moment and appear round a corner. It’s getting dark anyway – I don’t know if it’s more rain clouds or dusk. I’ve lost track of time.
When I saw him later on, Kev told me people do tend to get what they deserve here, one way or another. Being here affects people. Very few go back into life a second time the way they were. I hope he’s right. Apparently Harry ran off into the trees soon after I left. Nobody went after him. I asked what was the difference between me going off and Harry. Kev said he never had any doubt I knew where I was going, and he was just making sure I was well equipped. ‘Harry’ he said ‘got lost a long time ago.’

I tramp on down another slope, brushing against the lower branches of the trees, splashing in the puddles. The rain is getting heavier and I can only see the path immediately in front of me through the drips falling off the brim of my hat. I’m surprisingly comfortable though. This cape they gave me is brilliantly designed. It hangs loose around my body, enveloping both me and my pack. The boots are soft leather, and waterproof to my shins and then gaiters come up past the hem so my legs don’t get at all wet. I wish I’d had gear like this when I was alive. Dad used to say there’s no such thing as bad weather – only bad equipment, but we could never afford the good stuff so I was always either cold and damp from the rain seeping in, or the sweat seeping out, depending on the season.
When I need to stop for the night there’s this amazing tent that folds out of a compartment in the backpack without me having to take the pack off, and it’s designed so you just grab these loops and pull it over your head and down around you. It takes about a second. Then you slot these flexible poles in from inside and you can stow your cape and boots in a compartment at the end by your feet. There’s this thick sewn-in ground sheet that inflates. I reckon you could erect it floating in a pond and not get wet. I’ve spent days on end in it, sleeping, reading, looking out at the rain through the transparent panels, waiting for the weather to improve. Somehow it doesn’t get boring.

So I put the tent up again and I’m warm and snug inside and I start to rummage around in the pack to see if there’s any food left. There always seems to be something to eat and some fresh socks. Bizarre. I know I’m not alone. I think there’s a fairy in here doing my laundry and going shopping for me.
Now the rain is easing off. I open the door and look out at the forest.
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