Charles by Con Riley
4
As soon as he left the chapel, Charles heard the sound of a search in the distance—a woman’s voice called out, over and over, her words muffled by the dense woods.
“Where do we need to look?” Charles asked the man who’d burst into the chapel. Or kid, he guessed, now the light wasn’t behind him. He couldn’t have been much older than eighteen—the gap-year student, the headmaster had mentioned, maybe? His accent confirmed that. Australian, Charles decided, tilting his head, listening. “This way?” But now the teacher’s voice seemed to come from another direction. “Or this way?”
“This way, I think.”
Charles headed the way he pointed, running, the student matching his strides.
“Hold it, Finn. Charles. Come back.”
Charles froze at the order. Then he jogged back to Hugo, reluctant while faint shouts tugged at him.
“Before you go, have you got compass apps on your phones?” Hugo rummaged in his jacket pocket, pulling out a handkerchief, and a tube of mints before locating the kind of compass Charles had last seen during orienteering sessions at school. “If not, take this one.”
Charles fished his phone out of his pocket, saw a text from Keir, and ignored it. He thumbed through his apps. “I’ve got one.”
“Me too,” Finn said.
“Good. That means you can split up. Cover more ground.” Hugo cocked his head, listening, and then consulted his compass. “I can hear Ruth in the east. Do you know if she made it as far as the Forest School area with all of the children, or if the child was lost before she got that far?”
Finn looked miserable. “We think he got lost before there.” Apparently it was a day for confessions because he added. “I was meant to follow behind them, but they walked so slowly, and it started to pour down, so I hurried them up. Lost track of who was in front or behind me.” He ran a hand through rain-slick hair. “I get it now. I understand why I was meant to stay behind them, I mean.”
It was a hard lesson Charles still remembered learning.
Hugo pulled out his own phone. “Do you know if Ruth has already called the school to let them know what happened?”
“Yes,” Finn said. “More help is coming. She’s staying with the rest of the children, in case he comes back her way.”
Hugo returned his phone to his pocket and studied his compass. “Okay. The chapel is north. Keep that at your backs while sweeping thirty degrees each.” He showed Charles what he meant. “Here, like this.” He moved to the side, the needle on his compass turning. “You search between these two points. And you search these, Finn. That will cover the ground between here and the Forest School classroom.”
Charles nodded. That made a lot more sense than running into the woods, willy-nilly.
Hugo said, “I’ll direct whoever comes from the school. Get every inch of woods between here and there covered, and then mop up behind you. Stay in your zone unless you hear three long whistles meaning the child’s been located, got it? And make sure to whistle three times if you find him.”
Charles answered on instinct. “Yes, sir.” It seemed right, in that moment. Much more than saying padre or Hugo.
Hugo’s smile flickered as though he agreed. “Who are we looking for?” he asked Finn.
“I’m not sure I heard correctly,” Finn said. “But I think she said it’s a kid called Thor?”
A frown replaced that flicker of a smile. “Tor Trelawney. Dammit,” Hugo said. “He’s had a tough enough time of it lately.” He pivoted towards Charles. “You ready?”
Charles nodded, already backing away, raising a hand in agreement as Hugo shouted after him. “Three whistles if you find him. I’ll be right behind you both, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” Finn said from farther along the tree line, and then was gone, swallowed up by the woods.
Charles looked back one more time, Hugo framed by the arch of the chapel doorway. He wore an expression Charles didn’t know how to interpret until he noticed how Hugo leaned on his stick.
Must be gutting to watch instead of helping.
To stay behind instead of leading.
A pang of empathy chimed, silent but resonating as he saw the man from that perspective.
Charles had felt sidelined from plenty of jobs he wanted, but it sounded as though Hugo’s career might have been snatched from him—his vocation too, perhaps—leaving him on the outskirts.
Charles sketched a salute with his free hand, feeling silly the moment he’d done so until Hugo returned one of his own, standing straighter, and sending a smile with it.
Charles turned to push into the woods, determined to find Tor for him.
* * *
Thirty minutes later,Charles was lost.
Beyond lost.
“Fucking hell, Heppel,” he said to himself, frustrated. “Focus, can’t you?”
But he really couldn’t, not on the compass needle, not when dyslexia made the degree markings around it dance instead of holding steady.
He scanned from left to right, and then stood still, listening before he pushed aside some low-hanging branches. “Tor?” He called out and then listened again, peering through foliage.
No reply came in answer. Nothing, apart from faint shouts in the distance.
Defeated, Charles tramped through thick undergrowth, the ground uneven and steeply sloping, one eye still on his compass, pointless now he’d lost track. Each tree looked like the last, the ground at the base of the slope boggy, clinging to his shoes and pulling on them.
He ended up in a deep hollow, skirting a puddle murky with old leaves, and ducked under more branches. The woods were impenetrable, but turning back felt all wrong while that glimpse he’d had of the children through the headmaster’s window lingered—they’d been tiny, and one of them was lost like Charles was now. Even if running into the woods had started as an adventure for Tor, he must surely be frightened.
Charles pictured Hugo in the chapel doorway, returning his salute, assuming he was competent enough to do this. That belief helped him straighten shoulders he hadn’t known he’d hunched. “Pushing on, then,” he decided, and kept walking while calling out, but still getting no answer.
Ahead, a fallen tree blocked the way, brambles a thick wall around it. “Bollocks,” he muttered. There was no easy way through, so Charles cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted for what felt like the thousandth time already. “Tor? Are you there? Don’t worry. Just shout, so I can find you.”
He listened.
Nothing, again.
But would he answer at the same age if a strange man yelled at him?
No. I’d hide, unless I knew them.
Charles closed his eyes, and maybe that made a difference. He heard more—the breeze through the tree canopy, the faint sound of calling, and a rustling from behind the fallen tree only a few feet away from him.
“Tor? Is that you?” Charles asked, not shouting now, but trying to sound more cheery.
He pushed through undergrowth towards it, thorns snagging his clothing and one spiny blackthorn branch catching his cheek, which stung like blazes.
Charles swiped at where it had scratched him. “I hope it’s you, Tor, because I wanted to tell you what an amazing name you have. I’d love to be a Tor instead of boring old Charles Heppel. Do you love being a Tor?”
“Yes,” a small voice said from behind the fallen tree trunk.
“Well that is brilliant.” Charles picked his way closer, squelching through stagnant water, which came over the top of the shoes he’d polished while full of hope that morning. Now he forgot the disappointment that had followed, focussed on something much more important. “Are you named for the massive rocky hills I saw on the way here from London? The ones on the moors? Those tors are ginormous!”
“Yes. Like those tors.” A tuft of white-blond hair showed above the tree trunk, the child perhaps standing a bit taller.
Good. Acting big and strong will help him feel it.
“Hang on a minute.” Charles made sure to sound confused as he got to the fallen tree trunk. “If you’re a tor, shouldn’t you be massive as well. I wonder why I can’t see you?”
“I will be massive one day.” On the other side of the tree, Tor jumped, his arms outstretched. “Like this.” His little face was half milk-white, half muddy, and he flexed puny biceps. “Massive like my daddy.” His face crumpled. “I want him. I want my daddy.”
“Yes. Okay, Tor. Let’s get you out of here.” Charles reached over the tree trunk, but Tor scuttled back. He was missing one of his wellington boots, his sock soaked and plastered in mud, Charles saw. “It’s okay to come with me,” he promised.
“It is not okay,” Tor said, chin trembling again, but brave, so brave, saying, “You’re a stranger.”
Charles thought fast. “Do you know the padre?”
Tor nodded. “He’s got a poorly face.” He touched a finger to his eye, dragging his eyelid down far more than the reality of the scar Charles had studied. “Like you,” Tor said, “but yours is all bloody.” He took another step back.
“Is it?” Charles touched his cheek again. His fingertips came away red. “Oh, one of those naughty bushes scratched me.”
“Me too.” Tor held up his hands, woeful, on the verge of teary. “I want my daddy now.”
“You’ll see your daddy soon.”
“Will I?” Tor sounded a wretched mix of hopeful and disbelieving.
“Absolutely.” Charles traced a cross where Hugo had drawn one over his heart. “I promise,” he said, which had an immediate effect. Tor raised his arms, and Charles scooped him up, rubbing his back, noticing that Tor still held himself stiffly.
Charles set him down to sit on top of the tree trunk. “Do you know what I need to do now?”
Tor shook his head.
“I need to whistle so the padre can find us.” Or Finn, who might manage the terrain better than a man with a walking stick, or a heavily pregnant teacher. “Cover your ears, okay?”
Tor nodded, and did so.
Charles put his fingers in his mouth and whistled three times.
A bird beat its way through the branches over them, and something close by scurried, but no one answered. Charles whistled three more times, and then listened.
Nothing.
He pulled out his phone to call the school instead.
No service.
“Okay,” he said to Tor, who watched him, shivering, and not only from the damp and coolness of the wood’s shadows, Charles guessed. “Change of plan, Tor. I’m going to shout.” He did, several times, but Charles guessed this hollow and the dense growth didn’t help, because there was still no answer.
“We could make some noise together,” Tor suggested. “Miss Ruth taught us a good song.” He started to sing, off-key, but fluting, lovely in that small-child way Charles would never get sick of. “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine!” He sang with increasing gusto, flushed cheeks so much better than those milk-pale ones. “Hide it under a bushel?” he sang. “No! I’m going to let it shine.”
Charles joined in, Tor smiling as he ad-libbed. “Hide it under Tor’s missing wellie?”
“No!”Tor sang back, smiling.
“Hide it under this big tree trunk?”
“No!”Now Tor covered his mouth and giggled.
“Hide Tor’s light in padre’s jacket pocket?”
“No,” Hugo said from behind them. “There are many useful things in my pocket, but Tor’s light isn’t one of them.” He spoke from so close that Charles lurched in surprise, losing his footing and almost falling until Hugo caught him by one arm. “Good to see you again, Charles. I knew you’d find him,” he said as though he meant it.
Off-balance, Charles swung, landing against a chest he would have slid down if not for the arm Hugo slung around him, holding him steady.
“Oh!” Charles clutched shoulders that felt good and solid. “How did you—?”
“Get here?” Hugo lifted the cane he carried. “This isn’t a permanent feature, I hardly need it these days. Used to hate it, but I might keep it. Turns out it’s handy for beating my way through thickets. Good to see you, Tor,” Hugo said over his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, padre.” Tor’s little face creased. “But Charles Heppel is all bloody.”
Hugo nodded, refocussing on Charles, his eyes narrowing. “That is a nasty scratch.”
Charles felt a light touch to his cheekbone, gentle, and Hugo’s hold on him tightening. “Just missed your eye,” he murmured. Then his hold slackened, Charles almost falling for a second time, only aware when Hugo let go that he must have taken all his weight with one arm, and made it seem like no work. He shook off that fragile feeling and moved back to where Tor sat, watching.
Hugo approached the tree trunk as well. “Miss Ruth is worried about you, Tor. Let’s get you back now.” He reached for Tor, but Tor leant away, wary, his gaze flicking between them. He inched towards Charles.
He’s scared of Hugo’s scar.
Perhaps Hugo realised that at the same time. “You know, walking back is going to be tricky for you with only one wellie boot on, Tor. It’s no problem for me to carry you.”
“Charles Heppel can carry me,” Tor said, jaw clenched in a way Charles recognised from the mirror he’d shaved in front of that morning, determined to grab at any chance of a job that sounded perfect for him. Tor sounded equally certain. “He can carry me because he said I can see my daddy.”
“Did he?”
Why did saying that make Hugo wince?
Like his smiles of earlier, it was there and gone in a moment.
“Well,” Hugo said. “Charles Heppel can definitely help carry you back to school as soon as I let everyone know you’re safe. Better get out of this hollow if we want anyone to hear us.”
They scrambled up together, or Charles did with Tor in his arms. Hugo, on the other hand, appeared to manage the terrain with no trouble until the last few steps, which faltered. He looked strained once they reached the top of the ridge, but he put his fingers to his lips and let out three much more piercing whistles than Charles had managed. He checked his phone too. “That’s better.” He leaned on his stick with one hand, dialling with the other. “Hello? It’s Hugo. We’ve got Tor, safe and sound, and are on our way back to the chapel. Be there in about ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes?” Charles said once the call ended. “But I’ve walked for miles.”
“In a circle, maybe,” Hugo said, but his smile didn’t convey mocking. “That’s easy to do when you can’t see where you’re going.” He struck out, using his stick to shove back brambles. “This way.” He pushed a branch aside. Charles guessed he must have noticed Tor still eyeing his scar, because Hugo let the branch go and stopped Charles with a hand to his chest. “Hold on a moment,” he said, crouching a little to put his face level with Tor’s. “Does this worry you?” He touched where the scar started by his eyelid.
Tor nodded, his grip on Charles tightening.
“Is it worrying you because you don’t like the way it looks?”
Tor thought about that, emotion flickering just like the light through the trees did, and this was the magic Charles had missed since leaving his last job—children making sense of the world was so often surprising. Honest. Humbling.
“I’m worried that it hurts you.”
“It doesn’t,” Hugo promised. “You can touch it, if you want to be sure.”
Crouching must have made Hugo seem less imposing, because Tor reached out. “It’s smooth!” He explored Hugo’s scar with grubby fingers, wiggling to lean closer, and patting it with the empathy the world’s smallest people often had for other’s bumps and bruises. “It doesn’t hurt you?”
“Not anymore.”
“Were you brave?” Tor asked, frowning.
“Not terribly,” Hugo said with a small smile. “It’s okay not to be brave sometimes.” He cupped a hand around Tor’s mud-streaked face, and this time, Tor leaned into it instead of pulling away. Charles shuffled closer to let him. “I know what it’s like to be scared,” Hugo admitted, his voice low, his thumb smudging the mud on Tor’s cheek. “Were you?”
Tor nodded. “I was alone.”
“You weren’t far from the right path,” Hugo promised. “But sometimes being brave means waiting and trusting. Waiting for help instead of getting even more lost, and trusting that we’d find you. You are a very brave boy, Tor Trelawney.”
“I was scared,” Tor said, chin trembling in a way Charles remembered being trained out of before starting prep school. Could he have been much older than Tor then? No. God, he’d been a baby.
Perhaps his hold on Tor reflected that thought, because Tor glanced between Charles and Hugo, his eyes huge and brimming. “Miss Ruth told us to stay in line and follow her, but I didn’t,” he said. “I was naughty. I thought no one would look for me.”
Those tears fell then, and Charles held him closer. Hugo’s other arm came around them both in an embrace with Tor at its centre.
“I went to look for my daddy,” Tor sobbed. “But I didn’t find him. I got lost.”
“And now you are found,” Hugo said, his voice still low and gentle, but full of conviction. “Found and wanted even on your naughtiest day, Tor.”
Charles saw him meet Tor’s eye, watched him nod, and saw Tor mirror his action.
Hugo added to a list that chimed like a bell inside Charles, echoing how he felt so closely that he too could have said them. “Even naughty children are loved, Tor. Loved and cared about forever. Missed and looked for when they go astray, just like a lost lamb is searched for by its shepherd. Finding you mattered, Tor. None of us would have stopped looking until we found you.”
Hugo’s gaze flicked to Charles, that wince of earlier there again, and this time lingering.
“Just like your daddy’s friends in the army will keep searching for him until they find him.”