It’s as if he’s trodden in my footsteps, seen what I’ve seen, felt what I’ve felt, as I’ve criss-crossed the moors countless times.
Make no mistake, my darling. I am coming for you. I will take you back.
Where I’m taking you, no one will ever find us. We’ll have all the time in the world for you to grow to love me as much as I love you.
Mum, your heart is the same size as your fist,’ she told me once in delight, and we both made our hands into fists and held them against our chests and bumped them together: hands as hearts.
Here we are, squabbling over tuna fucking sandwiches and there she is – almond-shaped green eyes, snub nose, lopsided grin, the hint of a dimple in her cheek. ‘MISSING’ is stamped over her face in large black letters.
Hello my darling, I’m your real father. I’ve been searching for you ever since you were stolen from me. I love you so much. Daddy
I think about the story I always tell her – of the kind lady who gave her to us. I suppose that must be how she imagines her father – as a kind man who gave her away too, as if she were a gift. Only now he wants her back.
She felt as if she had no bones, like a jellyfish, hooked from the sea. She walked slowly towards them, her ears ringing, but they ignored her. All except for Levi, who stood at the end of the bridge, his hands in his pockets, smiling.
When Autumn was born, it was as if she recognized her, as if she’d always known that it would be her, this little person who had come to live with her and reside permanently in her heart. It was a love unlike any other: fierce and powerful.
Autumn began to run. She felt an icy terror flood through her. He must have been waiting for her. He’d followed her all the way here. To this open, empty place. He knows where I live.
She couldn’t tell how long she’d been searching for her daughter. It was dusk, but it had seemed darker as she ran through the wood, tripping on hooked tree roots, her feet crunching through crisp, curled ash leaves.
There was no sign of her daughter, no sign of a small body crumpled by the railway.
it wasn’t until the train went past that she saw the small body lying in the long grass by the side of the wood.
In the fleeting light she saw the meadow, dotted with stunted hawthorns, their twisted limbs dense with red berries, and then a shape: achingly familiar, child-sized, shockingly still.
Only one small, pale spot on her cheek was visible where her skin, free of blood, gleamed, as polished as bone.
And even then, it might not have been too awful, but his head snapped back and he hit a rock, breaking like a blunt molar from the ground.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us… Save my little girl…