His face is pale and his eyes seem to have been pinned open but he doesn’t say a word as his dad hugs him to his chest and forces his way through the grabbing, soaking branches and stumbles into the clearing. They both have twigs in their hair and water seeping through their clothes and shoes. They are both cold. Both unnerved by the stillness of the forest and the stench of rotting leaves and vegetation that rises from the disturbed leaves of the forest floor. “There,” says McAvoy, pointing with the light from his mobile phone. “Come on, nearly there . . .” McAvoy’s eyes shine with a zeal that verges on mania. He doesn’t seem able to stop himself. Has lost all sense of who and what he is. It would only take a word of rebuke or a cry of unhappiness from Fin and McAvoy would return to himself. He would run from this dark and eerie place and take his son to the kind of place that five-year-old boys are supposed to be at this time on a school night.
