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Elin

Parque Nacional, Portugal, October 2021

‘He’s gone.’ Isaac’s eyes roam down the track and then back again. ‘Must be a path between the trees.’

‘Probably shot through with trails, if you know where to look.’ Elin examines the dense patch of forest on the left. ‘Go crashing through that and all we’ll do is draw attention to ourselves. That amount of tree cover, anyone could be out there.’

‘Yeah.’ Isaac relunctantly nods. ‘Doesn’t make sense, though,’ he says as they start back up the path. ‘Their first priority after something like that is digging stuff up, getting shot of it.’

‘I agree, but chances are it’s nothing to do with Kier. They could be up to any—’

She doesn’t get a chance to finish her sentence.

‘One sec.’ Isaac abruptly plunges into a cluster of the trees on their right. Within seconds, he’s swallowed by the woodland. ‘Here,’ he calls, a few moments later. ‘Come and take a look at this.’

Elin follows him in, weaving her way between the trees. She’s only gone a few metres when the forest splinters open to reveal a large clearing. Her skin prickles. ‘What the—’

‘My reaction exactly.’ Isaac slowly exhales. ‘Caught a glimpse of it through the trees.’

Scattered pockets of light are illuminating not only the forest floor, but a large wooden structure shaped like a tepee. It’s vast, hundreds of branches bound together to a centre point at least five metres above her head.

An odd, vertiginous sensation grips her as her eyes follow branches up to the middle. The sheer scale, the precision in the construction – it couldn’t be a starker contrast to the chaos of the natural world around them.

Steadying herself, she moves closer. The floor, soft with decaying leaf litter, gives a little beneath her feet. Elin looks around it, unsettled. She can’t help feeling that there’s something primal about the structure. Ceremonial , she thinks, trying to find the right word.

Shrugging his rucksack from his shoulders, Isaac walks around the perimeter. ‘Some kind of den … an Outward Bound shelter, maybe?’ He slips between a gap in the branches. ‘Look, there’s a fire ring in here.’

Elin follows him in, one of the branches catching on her jacket as she squeezes through the gap. ‘Darker than I thought it would be.’ She turns in a slow circle, taking in the weak slivers of light filtered through the branches, the smoky staleness clinging to the air.

‘You did say Ned mentioned that some weird shit happened out here.’ Isaac’s voice is jokey, but she senses an uneasiness in his features. ‘You know, this part of Portugal … the Celtic culture’s apparently still pretty engrained in some places. Folklore … not just the witchcraft stuff, but other rituals too. Animal sacrifices—’

‘Let’s get back.’ Elin pretends she hasn’t heard him, pushing her way back out.

The structure was making her uncomfortable – that sense of enclosure, of feeling trapped.

It brought back echoes. Echoes of things she desperately didn’t want to remember.