A Place Called Here. Cecelia Ahern

driving down tonight.’ Her tone softened. ‘As you know, I don’t sleep,’ she laughed lightly, ‘so I’ll be there early tomorrow. After all our conversations I look forward to finally speaking to you in person. And, Jack,’ she paused, ‘I promise you I’ll do my best to help you. We won’t give up on Donal.’

      Twelve o’clock, Jack played it again.

      At one o’clock, after countless cups of coffee, Jack’s fingers stopped drumming and instead made a fist for his chin to rest on. He had felt the café owner’s gaze on his back as he sat for hours waiting nervously, watching the clock and not giving up his table to a group willing to spend more money than he. Tables filled and emptied around him, his head snapped up every time the bell over the door rang. He didn’t know what Sandy Shortt looked like; all she had said was that he couldn’t miss her. He didn’t know what to expect but each time the bell tinkled, his head and his heart both lifted with hope and then fell as the newcomer’s gaze flitted past him and settled on another.

      At two thirty, the bell rang once more.

      After five and a half hours waiting, it was the sound of the door opening and closing behind Jack.

       9

      For almost two days I’d stayed in the same wooded area, jogging back and forth, trying to recreate my movements and somehow reverse my arrival here. I ran up and down the mountainside, testing different speeds as I struggled to remember how fast I’d been running, what song I’d been listening to, what I’d been thinking of and what area I was in when I first noticed the change in my location. As though any of those things had any part in what happened. I walked up and down, down and up, searching for the point of entry and, more importantly, the point of exit. I wanted to keep busy. I didn’t want to settle like the personal possessions scattered around; I didn’t want to end up like the backless earrings that glinted from the long grass.

      Thinking you’re missing is a bizarre conclusion to arrive at – I’m well aware of that – but it wasn’t a sudden conclusion, believe me. I was hugely confused and frustrated for those first few hours but I knew that something more extraordinary than taking a wrong turn had occurred because, geographically, a mountain couldn’t just rise from the ground in a matter of seconds, trees that had never grown before in Ireland couldn’t all of a sudden sprout from the ground, and the Shannon Estuary couldn’t dry up and disappear. I knew I was somewhere else.

      I did of course contemplate the fact that I was dreaming, that I had fallen and hit my head and was currently in a coma, or that I’d died. I did wonder whether the anomalous nature of the countryside was pointing towards the end of the world and I questioned my knowledge of the geography of West Limerick. I did indeed consider very strongly the fact that I’d lost my mind. This was number one on the list of possibilities.

      But when I sat alone for those days and thought rationally, surrounded by the most beautiful scenery I’d ever seen, I realised that I was most certainly alive, the world had not ended, mass panic hadn’t taken over and I was not just another occupant of a dump yard. I realised that my searching for a way out was clouding my view of where exactly I was. I wasn’t going to hide behind the lie that I could find a way out by running up and down a hill. No deliberate distractions to block out the voice of reason for me. I am a logical person and the most logical explanation out of all of the incredible possibilities was that I was alive and well but missing. Things are as they are, no matter how bizarre.

      Just as it was beginning to get dark on my second day I decided to explore this curious new place by walking deeper through the pine trees. Sticks cracked beneath my trainers, the ground was soft and bouncy, covered with layers of fallen, now decayed leaves, bark, pine cones and velvet-like moss. Mist hovered like wispy cotton wool above my head and stretched to the tips of the trees. The lofty thin trunks extended up like towering wooden pencils that coloured the sky. During the day they tinted the ceiling a clear blue, shading wispy clouds and orange pigment, and now by night the charcoaled tips, burned from the hot sun, darkened the heavens. The sky twinkled with a million stars, all winking at me, sharing between them a secret of the world I could never know.

      I should have been afraid, walking through a mountainside in the dark by myself. Instead I felt safe, surrounded by the songs of birds, engulfed by the scents of sweet moss and pine, and cocooned in a mist that contained a little bit of magic. I had been in many unusual situations before: the dangerous and the plain bizarre. In my line of work I followed all leads, wandered down all paths and never allowed fear to cause me to turn away from a direction that could lead me to finding someone. I wasn’t afraid to upturn every stone that lay in my path or hurl them and my questions around atmospheres with the fragility of glasshouses. When people go missing it’s usually under dark circumstances most people don’t want to know about. Compared to the previous experiences of delving into the underworld, this new project was literally a walk in the park. Yes, my finding my way back into my life had become a project.

      The sound of murmuring voices up ahead stopped me in my tracks. I hadn’t had human contact for days and wasn’t at all sure if these people would be friendly. The flickering light of a campfire cast shadows around the woods, and as I quietly neared, I could see a clearing. The trees fell away to a large circle where five people sat laughing, joking and singing to music. I stood hidden in the shadows of the giant conifers, but like a hesitant moth being drawn to a flame. Irish accents were audible and I questioned my ludicrous assessment of being outside the country and of being outside my life. In those few seconds I questioned everything.

      A branch snapped loudly beneath my foot and it echoed around the forest. The music immediately stopped and the voices quietened.

      ‘Someone’s there,’ a woman whispered loudly.

      All heads turned towards me.

      ‘Hello, there!’ a jovial man called excitedly. ‘Come! Join us! We’re just about to sing “This Little Light of Mine”.’ There was a groan from the group.

      The man jumped up from his seat on a fallen tree trunk and came closer to me with his arms held open in welcome. His head was bald apart from four strands of hair, which hung spaghetti-like in a comb-over style. He had a friendly moon-shaped face and so I stepped into the light and instantly felt the warmth of the fire against my skin.

      ‘It’s a woman,’ the woman’s voice whispered loudly again.

      I wasn’t sure what to say and the man who had approached me looked back to his group now uncertainly.

      ‘Maybe she doesn’t speak English,’ the woman hissed loudly.

      ‘Ah.’ The man turned back to me. ‘Doooo yooooou speeeeeaaaaak Eng-a-lish?’

      There was a grumble from the group, ‘The Oxford English Dictionary wouldn’t understand that, Bernard.’

      I smiled and nodded. The group had quietened and were studying me and I knew what they were all thinking. She’s tall.

      ‘Ah, great.’ His hands clapped together and remained clasped close to his chest. His face broke into an even more welcoming smile. ‘Where are you from?’

      I didn’t know whether to say Earth, Ireland or Leitrim. I went with my gut instincts and, ‘Ireland,’ was all that came out of my mouth, which hadn’t spoken for days.

      ‘Splendid!’ The cheery fellow’s smile was so bright that I couldn’t help but return it. ‘What a coincidence! Please come and join us.’ He excitedly led me towards the group with a hop, skip and a jump.

      ‘My name is Bernard,’ he beamed like the Cheshire cat, ‘and heartiest welcome to the Irish contingency. We’re frightfully outnumbered here,’ he frowned, ‘although it seems that the numbers are rising. Excuse me, where are my manners?’ His cheeks flushed.

      ‘Underneath that sock over there.’

      I turned to look at the source of the smart comment to see an attractive woman in her fifties, tight silver hair, with a lilac