Piers Torday - The Last Wild

Polly touches me on the shoulder. ‘What’s going on, Kester?’ She picks up the bone again, examining it, picking bits of moss and leaves off — then I see her begin to understand. ‘You mean they won’t come because they’re scared?’

I nod. There’s only one thing for it.

Pushing past, I start to march on down the path, further into the wood — and they cry after me, but I don’t look back.

I made a promise to these animals, to lead them.

I have to show them there’s nothing to be scared of.

Alone.

I haven’t gone very far away from the eyes of the wild before I suddenly feel very cold. Rubbing my arms to stay warm, I keep on walking, as the path twists and turns beneath my feet. There is no wind, no other sound apart from my own breathing, faster than it was. It’s pitch black, only the faintest streak of light on the glossy leaves fringing the path.

We don’t have long before the red-eye claims more for their final journey, at the Ring of Trees — I am sure of that. I have to hope this will work. So I begin to listen for any sound, any cries or rustling, but there is only stillness.

*If anyone out there is alive,* I say into the stillness, *then come out. Don’t be scared. I’m the Wildness. I’m going to take you to the city and find you a cure.*

Nothing.

I try again, this time louder. But nothing comes back, not even a whisper. So I say it again, and again, repeating my words over and over, louder and louder — there must be some left. Everywhere we have been, even though we’ve been told all have gone, we’ve always found some still alive.

Even in a graveyard. There must be.

If only I knew how to find them.

All I can hear is my own voice echoing inside my head. All I can see is the deathly darkness all around. If only the pigeons hadn’t brought us here in the first place, if only –

The pigeons . Of course. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.

Their call.

Slowly, trying to copy their sound, I begin to imitate the song the pigeons sang by the river after we lost Sidney. *It is how we let other animals know our deepest feelings,* they said. And that is what I will do. I know I might be out of tune, but I sing the same call, the same list of lost birds, hoping that any sick animals who might still be alive will hear, and come and join our wild.

My voice starts to waver, but I keep singing, humming where I can’t remember the words. And then –

There’s a scuffling sound in the bushes to my left, then another to my right.

I keep on singing, my voice growing shakier and shakier, when there is another rustle from the shadows to the left, closer this time. And then one to my right. Behind me. And in front of me.

I call out to the noises in the shadows of the forest. *Show yourself, whoever you are. We are not afraid.*

Nothing comes in reply.

Slowly I sing again, and the scuffling starts. Quick, breathy noises, moving quickly either side of the track, faster and faster.

*I am Kester Jaynes, and this is my wild,* I say to the scuffle in the shadows. *We are going to the city to find a cure for the virus. If you have something to say, show yourself now.*

And then there is a voice, a voice from the bushes.

A voice that is dry and cold, a voice that gets right under my skin and chills me to the bone.

*I know who you are, Kester Jaynes.*

*Who are you?*

The voice gives a dry laugh. *That does not concern you. But know this — you say you lead animals. You say you speak for animals.*

*I was appointed Wildness—*

*Silence!* Suddenly the voice is on the other side of the path — how did it get there? *You are a human. You will never speak for us.* The voice spits and stings at me with rage from the blackness. *You think you can command all creatures with your voice? You think all animals will love and praise you for what you are doing?* The voice laughs, mocking, echoing around me. *You have never been more wrong about anything in your life.*

I look around frantically in the dark. *Then why not show yourself?*

*We will, Kester Jaynes, when the time is right — have no fear of that.* The voice grows quiet, like wind in the trees. *Yours is not the only wild to survive. There is another. We will come when you least expect it. We will come in plain sight. You have been warned.*

The scuffling around me grows louder and louder. I take a step back, and then — the noise stops.

*Hello?*

But nothing comes. The wood is as silent as it was before.

And then bursting through the undergrowth directly on to the path in front of me … is a ghost.

The ghost of a rabbit bouncing down towards me through the bushes.

A ghost in a graveyard. But ghosts don’t come right up close to you so you can touch their fur, feel their whiskers, hear their heart hammering away. See their red eyes burning. His body is stick thin — but he is alive.

*Was that you?* I say fiercely. *Was that you who spoke to me like that just now, Rabbit?*

He looks alarmed.

*I never said a word,* he assures me in a soft, old voice. Definitely not the voice that just spoke to me. *I came here to complete my final journey. I thought my time was done. And then I heard your call.* He twitches his whiskers. *If you don’t mind very much, I’m a hare — a brown hare.*

*Sorry — I just thought you were — something else. Someone else.* I scratch my head, confused. *But you’re not a bird either.*

*A call of loss is a call of loss,* he says simply.

It works. It actually works.

So I try to forget about the voice in the bushes, and sing the call again. As I do, the hare starts to join me, his voice reedy and thin, and he adds words of his own. More strange new names that I copy and learn to call for myself. He calls:

O hedgehogs, dormice and red squirrels.

Polecats, pine martens and otters.

Pipistrelles, long-eared bats and brown bats …

As our voices rise and fall, out of the bushes rolls … a large mouse covered in sharp spikes, but with bare patches here and there.

She rubs her dry nose and turns her pink eyes towards me.

*Hedgehog,* she says simply. *You called.*

The hare and I look at one another, and we sing some more.

Then a whole family of long, furry white-faced creatures, spilling out in a mess, fighting over each other, the youngest ones nothing but bones and skin, introducing themselves as polecats. They can only just stand, but when they see me standing on the path singing with the hare they start singing the call too, until we must be making enough noise to wake the dead. And we stand there, me and these animals that everyone thought were dead, singing and singing a call for those that still live to find us — and we sing till no more come.

*Ha!* says the General, as they all see me trudging back up the path. *The ghosts of those who sleep were too much for you, were they?*

The stag hangs his head, and even the wolf-cub looks at the ground.

*No, General,* I say. *But what if they are not yet asleep?*

I wave my hand, and up behind me come the hare, polecats and hedgehog — along with some rabbits, pine martens and even a few bats flitting around our heads, some of them so small, but more real than any ghost. If any of them was the creature that spoke to me from the bushes, they don’t speak up.

Polly looks like she can’t believe her eyes.

The wolf-cub bounds up to me. *You are the best waker of the dead in the world, Wildness.*

And slowly the stag lifts his head towards me, and nods. For a moment he stares deeply into my eyes, and I wonder whether to tell him about the voice in the bushes — but then I think better of it.

*There is nothing to fear in these woods. Listen.* I start to sing the pigeons’ call again, and all the new animals in the wild start to sing the same call. My wild rejoin me and the new recruits, and they all start to sing together (although the white pigeon appears to be singing the call backwards). I even hear the General sing for the first time, as he calls out for tawny earwigs, diving beetles and sedge jumpers, great blues and chequered skippers, damselflies and hoverflies.