White Trail by Fflur Dafydd Read Free Book Online Page A

new research in osteochondritis dissecans, and some peculiarities of the femoral head in recent cases of dislocation. As usual he bumbled his way through the conversation, half-listening, thinking that Femoral Head sounded like a nice place to go for a picnic. All the time she was talking he could only think of what kind of intellectual, informed input Doged would have offered. Doged, from what he could gather, had been a fierce intellect. Good old reliable Doged. The only unreliable thing he had ever done – so everyone though – was kill himself. Thinking about it now, even tumbling upside down in the air he had looked curiously upright.
    He poured himself a glass of wine and switched on the television to watch the news. Then he wished he hadn’t. A familiar face flashed up on the screen. A body had been found a few miles south – that of a young man in his twenties. It was one of the faces from the network – a face that Cilydd himself had scanned in. He remembered being unnerved by that particular face – the boy had looked troubled. Ffercos son of Poch, flashed the news bulletin. Even the name sounded aggressive, like a pitchfork through the eye. Now he’d been found in a ditch, face down, with bite marks all over his body. It appeared he’d been attacked by some creature; perhaps a wild cat, the reporter speculated. Poch – a man he’d spoken to on several occasions – appeared briefly to read a statement on behalf of the family. It spoke of their relief that their son had been returned to them. But the whole thing made no sense. Ffercos had been missing for years, but the pathologist’s report showed that he had only recently been killed.
    Cilydd turned off the light and sat in the dark. He breathed deeply, and tried to find stillness within himself. The news item had given him perspective. The telephone, he thought, in itself, had no power to harm him. Even a voice at the other end, he reasoned, was just a voice, a tinny little thing with no authority.
    A knock at the window was something else.
    This – accompanied by a white hand on a pane of glass, which retreated into the darkness almost as soon as it had appeared – was something he could not very well ignore. The knock came again, then there was the sound of crunching gravel, as the owner of that hand apparently hurried along to the back of the house with stalking, confident footsteps. Next came an eye, pressed to the glass door – seeking him out in the darkness of the hallway. He stood there suspended, frozen, watching the shimmer of a stranger staring in at him.
    â€˜Is it about Doged?’ he ventured. ‘It’s about Doged, isn’t it?’
    No one spoke. The figure put a hand on the wall, leaning slightly sideways.
    â€˜It might be,’ came the voice. Lighter, more boyish than it had sounded on the phone. Unserious almost. Not a voice to be terrified of, somehow.
    There was nothing for it but to get rid of the pane of glass standing between him and his past. He surprised himself by the steadiness of his hands as he unbolted every single lock, letting the door swing open, revealing a figure standing in the white pool of the security light. The boy in front of him, red haired, standing a little askew, perhaps in shyness, perhaps in mockery of him – had a face which unnerved him. The similarity was uncanny.
    â€˜Aren’t you going to ask me in, then?’ he said, impatiently. ‘Nice picture,’ he then added, looking beyond Cilydd to the portait of himself, Gwelw and Lleuwen mounted on the wall. The resentment flickered at the corners of his all-too-familiar mouth.
    â€˜Are you… are you... you can’t surely be...’ his heart was pounding now, banging out strange rhythms. My heart knows him, he thought – it is him.
    â€˜Is it you who’s been ringing?’ he asked.
    â€˜Can I come in? I can tell you more once