White Trail by Fflur Dafydd Page B

the town square. Parents would come, wanting pictures of their children. The likeness was always easy for me, so I never even had to really concen-trate when I was sketching – but one thing I always did notice was the similarity to the mother in every single child, even the boys. The mother would always be there, dawdling about, doing other things, maybe looking after other children, and it was always the dad – the proud dad – that would be standing over me, watching me do it, looking for himself in there somewhere. And I’d just stare at the mother and stare at the child and would see it all in there – maybe not in an obvious way, but hidden in little pockets of flesh, little mannerisms, little expressions that were the mother’s alone. And if the mother was of a certain ilk – I mean if the mother had presence, and we both know, Cilydd, what presence she had, what a fireball she was – then you could guarantee that it would be in the child, too. A magic touch of flesh, holding all the features together.’
    Arthur was right of course – whatever inexplic-able, potent thing Goleuddydd had had, this boy had it too, and he sat there, emanating it, oozing her iridescence all over the place. His son stared on at sketches of himself as a toddler. Arthur had been inventive in his artistry – it showed the boy engaged in all sorts of infantile activities. Holding a beaker, munching on a banana, things which may or may not have happened, but which were, angle by angle, stroke by stroke, handing fragments of his son’s stolen history back to his father.
    â€˜After you stopped working for the network I began posting these pictures up, attached to your son’s profile. I knew you wouldn’t have liked me doing it, so I didn’t tell you. I remember you saying once that you could never create a likeness of someone who’s never existed. I suppose it posed a challenge to me when you said that – so I defied you. That is how you found us, isn’t it?’
    They both turned to look at Culhwch.
    â€˜It took me a while, you understand, to know that I was a missing person in the first place. But once I knew it, things came together. And if it wasn’t for Arthur’s work I’d never have known that profile was mine. I had no name, no identity. I was nothing. Until those pictures appeared there. And when I was ready to go searching for myself, well, it was easy. Here I was. And there was my mother. And there was every thing I needed. Even down to the addresses and... and the phone numbers.’
    At that point he avoided Cilydd’s gaze. Cilydd recalled the blank profile – the hateful question mark. He hated the implication that he’d given up on his son; that he’d allowed him to become a non-entity, a nothing, as he put it. It was only Arthur who’d been brave enough to give him a face, to illuminate him, to let him pierce through the darkness to arrive back where he belonged.
    It was almost as if Arthur had sketched him into being.

Culhwch
    Culhwch told them he was brought up on a smallholding on the edge of a large forest. From when he was a child his parents had insisted the forest held unknown dangers, he would be swallowed up by it, engulfed by the greenery, they said. He was home schooled – something he never challenged, for his mother told him that this was what happened when you were exceptionally bright – and they lived without a television, a computer, without any form of news from the outside world. It was merely the way of things. Occasionally some other adults would come over for a day out – friends of his parents. Although he never saw them arrive he knew, somehow, that they had come through the forest. They were an odd bunch, too, of all ages, all looking peculiarly pale and gaunt. None of them had children. But they would play with him, and this was compensation enough. Swinging on a rope amidst