Without Him

Since I can remember, I always played in the woods behind my grandparents’ house.

We visited once a week every season from the moment I was born till now.

It was a magical place.

It was a land you could create stories and be princesses or knights or witches or rebels in hoods.

It was an escape from the adults and the responsibilities.

It was a safe place. To me anyway.

It wasn’t anymore.

For three years now.

Standing at the edge of the property my grandparents still owned with a large beautiful country house and gardens blossoming around them in the cool early spring, I stared up at the tall silent trees. Like I was waiting for an answer.

I was now seventeen, a young adult. Yet, right now, I wish I was a young naïve spirited child again who could run for hours dressed in silly costumes and imagine sticks were swords and fireflies were magic.

Sadly, that was no longer a reality or a fantasy anymore.

Knowing I shouldn’t step a foot further, I did anyway. It was against family wishes that none of children of the family entered the forest, not after what happened.

But I missed the forest.

Was it the same?

Or was it different?

With a full intake of pine and earthy air, and a shaking exhale of steamed breath, I took my first step into my childhood memories.

My grandparents had three children. My father, and his younger brothers.

My Uncle Dean had two boys and a daughter, my cousins Robby, Tatum and Chrissie.

My Uncle Drew had two daughters and two stepsons, Marie and Jamie, and Steven and Joe.

Then there was me…and Jared.

My little brother.

My best friend that stood no higher than my waist.

A small boy for his age of seven, with pale skin and rose cheeks, and eyes the sparkled like the starry skies out here away from the city lights and pollution.

He loved coming out here.

Robin Hood was his favourite game. He liked to be the Sheriff of Nottingham, because it involved more chasing and attacking and saying to our parents he was defending them from the criminals before they came into the house to steal our mother’s nice rings and pinch coins out of dad’s wallet. He didn’t care if Robin Hood was giving it to the poor, it was still stealing. He thought that the people must be spending too much if they think they should be stealing it from other people. Too much fun those peasant people were having, he thought. It always made us laugh. It was such a wrong thought, but he was young and wilful, so we let him enjoy his fun.

I can still remember his laugh.

His smile.

Even when I walk around the ancient trees and take in the familiar smells of early spring frost and green, I can see him running around having the best time of his life. Around this time of year, we would be playing games such as ghosts wanting to drag your soul to the afterlife, or evil witches coming to get children to have for their dinner, or monsters of the forest.

Somehow, in the back of my mind now, I think that’s what happened.

A ghost took him, and they both vanished.

A witch came and boiled him to stew.

A monster came and dragged him back to his lair.

He didn’t just runaway. He didn’t just disappear.

There was a real monster out here…and it took him.

Three years ago, today, my seven-year-old brother Jared went missing.

He was last seen tell our parents he wanted to see if the winter fairies would be doing a special dance for the spring time that would start the next day. It was a story our grandmother would tell us as we grew up, that the fairies who helped grow her garden had a special dance for the seasons. From night of the last day of the season, until the morning sun rises the next day into the new season, the fairies had a party in the forest.

It seems Jared really wanted to see if that was true.

He had climbed out of bed in the dark of night, the thermometer still in the negatives, slipped out the back door and rushed into the forest to see if he could find the dancing fairies.

I wonder if he actually found them.

Was that how he disappeared?

Did he find the fairies and they took him with them?

I stopped walking too far into the forest, even though I have gone much further than this. It was pushing it, mentally for me and if my mother ever saw me out here she would have an aneurism. God, I missed being out here. It was so much fun. All my cousins were currently back in the house in bed with the rest of the family since it was still so early. Years ago, as soon as we had breakfast and did our chores to help out the family, we would rush out here and play for hours and hours until it was too hot or we were hungry.

No it just stood here.

An open space between the mist and fog and trees.

Empty of people, full of memories, and one big horrible reminder of what we were missing.

The week he went missing, I was out here all the time. We all were. Police, Rescue Teams, media and volunteers. 5000 square kilometres of land, 300 people searching from the early hours of the morning until late at night in the frosty spring.

We found nothing.

For the first year since Jared when missing, I would sit at the back of the garden and watch between the gaps of the trees to see if I ever saw glimpses of him in the shadows.

The second year, I avoided this place entirely.

Now here I was, daring and wishing.

For a clue.

For a sign.

For path.

For a ghost.

Anything.

But all I had left of him was this place.

Turning around, I decided to head back to the house. I stood here long enough, knowing my family would soon wake. Plus the voice in my head telling me that I wasn’t going to get what I wanted out here made me see logic and reason that it was not best to stand out here and wish for something that was sadly impossible.

Even my home in the city there was very little of him because it was too painful of a reminder to my parents that he was gone.

Right now, it was quiet and cool, with frost and dew on the ground, and dead pine covering the ground in a blanket. The trees were dark and hushed. The air still and carrying an echo of snaps from miles away, making my body jolt every time it happened.

I don’t know what I will do when it comes to the summer holidays. It would be warm. The frost gone, and fresh patches of grass and shrubs and flowers breaking through the earth. There would be a breeze that carried the odd scent of apples and cinnamon, which would trick us into thinking that someone was backing in the house.

It would be another year gone without Jared.

Without a clue.

Without a sign.

Without a path.

Without him.