THE LOST CHILD

Childhood memories might be deceptive...

It was sunny when we set out for our walk in search of Glenda, a child who went missing from our lives twenty seven years ago. We went out looking for her whenever the mood took us, and that was usually on sunny days like this, with a warm balmy breeze caressing the forest near where we lived, and loads of places to enjoy.

“I wonder if she’s still alive?” murmured Colin, wistfully. He had been Glenda’s special friend until that dreadful day when Glenda had announced she was going to the shop to buy some sweets with her pocket money, and had vanished down the street, never to be seen by anyone but me again. The poor girl was unhappy most of the time, probably because her folks were constantly at each other’s throats.

“I doubt it,” I replied, knowing full well that she wasn’t. But I’d only been twelve at the time and hardly responsible for my actions. Now that I’m thirty-nine and so many years have passed us by I still feel that I can’t have been responsible for what had happened on that bright June day.

“But, Olive, she might be alive, there’s never been a body found,” persisted Colin, and I frowned. Colin and I have been married for twenty years but the same old question arises, do I think that Glenda might still be alive? Then we’d go out ostensibly to search for her, and I always guided him away from where I knew she’d been that last time I saw her.

“Why do we never go that way?” he asked me, pointing down the low lane that led to the old mine. As kids we’d been forbidden to go that way because it was dangerous and anyway an old man who hurt children had a shack that way, and we must never go anywhere near him or we’d suffer. None of us wanted to suffer so none of us went that way, until one day when I was with her Glenda decided to go to the old mine just to see what it was like.

“But we’re not allowed,” I’d said pointedly.

“I don’t see why not,” Glenda had replied. She was always headstrong and liked to make her own mind up about things rather than be told, without a good reason.

“What about the old man?” I asked her, “the one they say hurts children and lives in a broken down old shack?”

Then she said something that shocked me because she gave the old man a name and he’d never had one before.

“You mean old Mr Kinderly?” asked Glenda, “because if that’s who you do man then I’m not scared of him! Because he’s never hurt me, not once, and he has given me sweets when I’ve seen him.”

“You’ve spoken to him?” I asked, shocked.

“Loads of times! And I know the truth about him.”

“What truth?” I was both appalled and curious at the same time like you can be when you know our mind’s walking down paths it’s never allowed itself to be near before.

“The truth that makes folks hate him! But it’s not his fault!”

“What isn’t?”

“The mine he lives close to. It’s an old mine, hundreds of years old and even hundreds of years since anyone ever went down it to find whatever it was they dug out of the mine. I don’t think it was coal, so it was probably a precious metal worth risking your life getting in such a dangerous place as a mine.”

“Oh,” I said, not properly understanding.

And that made me less afraid to go down that path and follow her. And what happened down there is what made me want to avoid going that way ever again.

“Well,” asked Colin, “why don’t we go that way? The old man who was said to hurt children is almost certainly dead and buried by now, so he’s no danger to us.”

“But what if he isn’t?” I persisted.

“Well, we’re not children any more, Olive! We haven’t been children for donkey’s years. Come on, darling, let’s explore that way!”

An old man and two decently strong and still youngish adults, I thought, no contest!”

“You think Glenda came down here?” I asked him, knowing that she had, and with every step I took something inside me made me cringe and make me run away, But I was Olive! I’d run races, even completed a marathon, I was strong! And Colin was no weakling either. He’d even tried wrestling and might still be doing it, but he’d had a scare when he’d knocked another wrestler out and he’d been unconscious for days, in a coma, until he eventually came round and spent the rest of his life jabbering like a two year old. That had put Colin off wrestling for good. Until then it had been a drama to him, two men acting out a play for the entertainment of the crowd, and then it was deadly serious and had consequences. But he was still tough, strong, and he still trained his body in case he went into the wrestling ring again one day.

“Okay, we’ll look down there,” I told him, knowing it was silly to still obey instructions given to children for their own safety, and we two were stronger-than-most adults. “Anyway,” I added, “if we see any cruel old men living in a shack we’re up to defending ourselves, aren’t we?”

Not that it was an old man I was afraid of being accosted by. I knew better than that, and I also remembered when I’d last seen Glenda.

I still sometimes had bad dreams about it, even the best part of thirty years later! But it can’t have really happened, can it? There are no such things as monsters with grotesque heads and skin like green leather, are there? And with eyes like bulbs of fire? Monsters that pick pretty little girls like Glenda up in strong bear-like arms and cart them off? It must all have been imagination created by the endless warnings our parents had forced into our ears, an old man and a mine, hurting children, don’t go anywhere near him or else you’ll end up being tortured to death…

“I don’t like this,” I muttered to Colin, who was almost marching purposefully along the forbidden path.

“Don’t be so daft, darling,” he laughed at me, and I knew he was right.

“I dreamed…” I told him, pausing so that he too had to pause if he was going to hear me, “I dreamed of a creature with green skin and a hideous face…”

“Now you are being silly,” he laughed, “ a child’s dream, that’s all.”

Reluctantly, I took a few more steps, then a few more, until I was walking next to him. But as I forced one foot in front of the other I saw with my mind’s eye that vast creature, the one that had gobbled Glenda up without even spitting out her bones, the one that had lurched out of the shack in the stories, the one from the mine…

“Why, look who it isn’t” came a voice, breaking into my fears because it was nothing like Colin’s voice. “It can’t be, Can it?”

I looked towards where the voice was coming and a woman, about my own age but radiantly beautiful with bright shining eyes, cascading long curls of blonde hair and a voice that sounded as if it was made for laughing, had walked through the door of a small but comfortable looking bungalow.

“I thought you’d come back one day…” she said, “I told mY husband you would…”

“Your husband…” queried Colin.

She laughed at him. “Of course!” she said, and giggled, “he’s a bit older than me and has to move around in a wheel-chair nowadays, but he’s given me the most wonderful life any woman could have! You are Colin, aren’t you? And Olive? My best ever friends until I found my dear sweet Ivan? But you tripped and fell, Olive, and became unconscious for a while, don’t you remember? It was such a kind deed, injuring yourself trying to avoid treading on a frog!”

“Glenda…” I whispered, “is it you, Glenda…? Really you?”

“Of course it is!” giggled the beautiful woman, “And I knew you’d come back this way once you’d got that ugly old frog that you almost kissed when you fell off your mind! A nd look, here comes my handsome prince!

And trundling in an electric wheelchair came an old man, smiling and no doubt handsome despite his age.

“I didn’t go back home when you left,” the woman called Glenda said, “I couldn’t. I was so unhappy at home with all the shouting and stuff, and Ivan changed all that, put a smile on my face and, when I was a few years older and grown up, told me he loved me. And I love him, despite his wrinkles!”

The wheel chair reached them and the old man smiled up at me.

“Yoh look very different from the child who so wonderfully stopped herself from hurting a frog,” he said, “can you keep a secret?”

I had kept one since I was twelve, so I guessed I can keep one a little bit longer.

“We’re the happiest and richest couple in the world,” he said, “rich, because we’ve got each other and, well, we live on the doorstep of an ancient diamond mine that was never thoroughly worked out. Here, you’re my lovely wife’s friends, have a few stones from us to you.”

And he handed me a leather pouch that jingled when I shook it.

“But don’t forget... keep your secret,” he said, and reversed his wheelchair back to the bungalow, past a plaque that read Our shack”.

© Peter Rogerson 08.05.23

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Reviews

[DIVYA]

They certainly ended up with more surprises than they could handle, I feel. And also much richer. I just hope they can keep the secret and not destroy Glenda's beautiful world. This was so imaginative and delightful to read. I'm glad Glenda followed her heart and ran away from that unhappy home. Everyone should. Great story!