Eleanor Jones - Footprints in the Sand

“But she doesn’t have anyone else,” he mumbled. “And she’s not crazy, she’s scared.”

“We’re all scared, but we don’t act like her,” Ashley said, an angry edge in her voice.

Billy pulled a face. “You’re just jealous, Ash.”

“Now really, children.”

The plump lady scowled at them, revealing a hidden glimpse of steel.

All four children spoke in unison. “Sorry, Mrs....”

“Evans,” she finished. “Where are your manners? We don’t put up with bickering at Long Meadows.”

“My name is Evans, too,” Bryn chirped, and she smiled again, placing a hand on his head.

“Bryn Evans, I believe,” she said, surveying the four pairs of eyes that stared cautiously back at her. “And you three must be Ashley, Tom and Billy. Now tell me which of you is which.”

That introduction set the tone for life at Long Meadows. Bronwen Evans was not unlike Martha Dibble—strict but fair—yet she had a gentleness about her that Martha lacked, a motherly side that made every child feel cared for. Bryn wished again and again that Elsa could be here. She would like Mrs. Evans.

At Appletree, the children had slept in large rooms with five or six beds, but here they were just two to a room. He was sharing with Tom Bradley, and he was glad about that. Billy Sharpe, with his bright red hair and equally loud character, would have driven him mad. Tom was slightly built and fair, quiet and thoughtful—an easy companion.

On that first night, Bryn lay awake in his narrow bed, listening to his roommate’s rhythmic breathing, his mind full of Elsa. Oh, how he worried about her. Perhaps he could write or email, but he didn’t know where they’d sent her. Why hadn’t he asked? It had all happened so suddenly. One minute Mrs. Dibble was making the announcement; the next they were all ushered off to pack. The social worker told them that these things were best done quickly, with no time for regrets, but Bryn thought they’d definitely gotten that wrong. If they’d been given more time, he could have thought it through, talked to Elsa about it. It wasn’t so bad for him. He was eleven, but she was only eight years old—just a little kid. A frightened little kid no one understood except for him.

The moon rose, filtering through his window and bringing with it the insecurities of the night. He closed his eyes tightly, remembering his father’s firm, deep voice.

“Men don’t cry, lad. Be strong and brave.”

Those words had been hammered into him since birth. In his father’s world, a soldier’s world, men were supposed to be tough and hard. He was a captain in the army—always in charge. No matter what situation arose, his father was there, leading the way. Until he met one situation he couldn’t control.

Bryn’s mother was his father’s only weakness. Sasha Evans—always in a dream, a smile lighting up her elfin features, always with a paintbrush or piece of charcoal in her hand. Bryn’s father met her when he was stationed in Wales. She was trying to make a living as an artist “and doing very badly,” she had admitted to her son, laughing. Bryn remembered her so well—remembered her sweetness and the love that filled their house on the army base. His father instilled his principles into his five-year-old son—to be strong, to take charge, to never show weakness.

They had just moved to a new base on the day that changed Bryn’s life forever. Both his parents had dropped him off at his new school, and his father had waited in the car while his mother took him inside. She had hugged him goodbye and planted a kiss on his cheek—the last kiss she would ever give him.

Bryn buried his face in his pillow as the memories flooded in, raw and painful. He choked back tears as his father’s voice rang out inside his head.

“You have to be brave, lad. Face your problems full on and sort them out.”

But some problems were just too big. Even his brave and stalwart father couldn’t sort out the problems that beset him on that fateful day.

Bryn’s parents had met a truck head-on in a narrow lane. They’d both died on impact.

Bryn opened his eyes and looked out at the moon. The accident was six years ago now, but it felt as if it was yesterday. He sat up, forcing himself back into the present again; the insecurity of moving to a new place must have brought back the memories, he decided, his thoughts turning to Elsa. Tomorrow he’d ask Mrs. Evans if she knew where they’d sent her. Then he’d write her a letter every week, just to let her know she wasn’t alone.

With that idea firmly fixed inside his head, he lay down and pulled his duvet around his chin.

“You okay?” Tom whispered from across the room.

Bryn smiled in the darkness, watching moonlight flit across the ceiling.

“Yes,” he said determinedly, imagining his father’s pride. “I am...now.”

“Night, then.”

“Night, Tom,” he echoed.

Bryn’s plan to find Elsa did not materialize as easily as he’d hoped. After breakfast the next morning, he went off to find Mrs. Evans. She listened patiently to his plea, but then she evaded his request.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she promised.

Hours rolled into days.

“I’m working on it,” she told Bryn.

When weeks had passed, Bryn realized that Mrs. Evans was never going to give him Elsa’s address. His memories of the troubled little girl were all he had left, and Elsa was alone again, facing her demons with no one to help her.

“One day, Elsa,” he whispered to himself. “One day, I’ll come looking for you. I won’t give up until I find you.”

* * *

AT LONG MEADOWS, the children went to school in town, and soon Bryn’s life became a blur—meeting new people, learning new things, writing exams. Years slipped by, happy, fulfilled years. Bryn came to see that there was much more of his mother in him than he’d thought. Animals and painting became his passions, one as important as the other.

He’d explore the woods around Long Meadows, sometimes bringing back injured creatures. Mrs. Evans allowed him to keep the animals in a shed at the far end of the garden. There he would care for them religiously until they either recovered enough to be freed again in the sprawling forest, or died and were buried beneath his favorite tree. Mrs. Evans encouraged him to take out library books and find websites about how to feed and treat wild animals. The local vet, Mike Barber, was always ready to help. “We don’t charge for wild animals,” he would say when Bryn asked how much the treatment cost.

* * *

WHEN BRYN HAD BEEN AT Long Meadows for about a year, his solitary wanderings eventually led him through the woodland and the fields beyond to the coast, where the sea glistened in a silver strip.

He would sit there for hours, watching the seabirds and painting their glorious flight across the changeable sky—sometimes gray, wild and angry, and sometimes so calm and starkly beautiful that it hurt his heart.

When Bronwen Evans first saw his paintings, she stared at them for a while, then she recited some lines from a poem.

A sight so wide it fills the eyes, its vast

horizon meets a sky that stretches to infinity.

That holds my heart. That sets me free.

Timeless echoes in my ears; a haunting melody, ten thousand sea birds cry their tears to a wild and restless sea.

* * *

Bryn listened to the words in awe.

“That’s lovely,” he said. “Do you know any more?”

She pursed her lips, frowning slightly.

“I can’t remember all of it, but let me think...”

For a moment, she furrowed her brow, concentrating, then her face lit up and she looked at him in triumph.

But when it sparkles, shimmering sands,

its transient beauty a promised land, it sings another song to me, of peacefulness and harmony.