White Trail by Fflur Dafydd

his hands and knees again to the globular dark of the pigsty. Cul-hwch. A name even Goleuddydd couldn’t have conjured up. The pig-run. Pig boy. A detestable name; forever binding the boy to the awful fate of his birth. ‘But where have you... I mean what have you...’ his voice was trembling now, and he realised, too late, that he was about to cry. When it came there was no stopping it. It seemed that it gushed forth from a place that had been holed up for years and years, and there was so much water there; muggy, stagnant, stinking, that he couldn’t stop until it had all come out.
    When he looked up, the boy was looking down at him, consolingly. Suddenly he was the little boy; this man his father.
    â€˜I know this must be terribly difficult for you,’ he said, laying his arm on Cilydd’s shoulder. ‘I’m really very sorry about the phone calls. I hadn’t meant it to start like that. But you see, it’s just something I happened across and I thought...’ He stopped in his tracks and took his arm away, as though it had wandered there on its own and needed to be retrieved.
    â€˜Let’s just say I thought it best that I had something over you.’
    â€˜I didn’t kill Doged,’ Cilydd said. He said it firmly and surprised himself by how much he actually believed it. He hadn’t killed Doged.
    â€˜I’m sure you didn’t. And the person who thinks you did is probably mistaken. But I need your help. And I wasn’t going to take any chances. I suppose it’s possible, isn’t it, that you will help me anyway. Will you, help me?’
    â€˜I’ll help you as much as I can. But you have to tell me where you’ve been. We have to sit down and try to make sense of it all. There’s so much to get through, isn’t there. And I suppose we’ll have to inform the police and...’
    â€˜No,’ said the boy, slightly panicked. ‘Not the police.’
    â€˜But we have to, you’ve been missing for... for years and it’s our duty to...’
    â€˜There’s another duty I’m obliged to fulfil first. Please. You have to help me. Not the police. Not yet.’
    As he looked at the boy, tracing once more the familiar curve of flesh around the mouth and nose, something like calmness enveloped him. He couldn’t fathom it – right now he should have been panicked, stressed, grappling with the phone, dialling emergency numbers. Shaking his son by the shoulders, mopping up the last of his grief with the sleeve of his dressing gown. But he wanted to do none of those things. The boy had convinced him, just by being here, that the best thing to do was nothing. Just keep looking at one another, take every new, surprising moment as it came.
    â€˜OK,’ he said. ‘No police. But you have to tell me what happened to you. You have to understand that this is a shock. I’d given up on you. You do realise that. I thought you were dead. Please just tell me what you know. Who were your abductors? Were they... I hope they were kind to you.’
    â€˜I’ll tell you everything when we get to Arthur’s house,’ the boy said.
    â€˜Arthur? What’s Arthur got to do with this?’
    â€˜He’s got everything to do with it. He’s the one who found me.’
    â€˜Arthur’s never found anybody in his life.’
    The boy smiled. Even the crooked teeth were Goleuddydd’s; a bridge of imperfection across a cavernous mouth.
    â€˜Oh, he doesn’t know it yet.’
    â€˜But... look, Culhwch, I think this is all moving a little too quickly...’
    â€˜Not quickly enough,’ the boy said, looking at his watch. ‘We have to go now. Right now. You said you’d help me. So let’s go.’
    â€˜What do you mean, go? Go where?’
    â€˜To Arthur’s house...’
    â€˜But it’s, it’s past midnight and....’
    â€˜Arthur will be up,