The Path That Wasn't on the Map

The woods smelled different that morning.

I noticed it almost as soon as Moss and I stepped beneath the first of the pines. The warm, dusty smell of summer had gone, replaced by damp earth, old bracken and that deep resinous scent that seems to cling to a pinewood long after the rain has stopped.

Autumn was coming.

Not properly. Not yet.

The sun still had some warmth in it, and I'd regretted putting my jumper on before we'd even reached the trees. But every now and then a cooler breeze found its way between the trunks and brushed across my cheeks, carrying the first little warning that the season was beginning to turn.

Moss didn't seem particularly moved by any of this.

He was several yards ahead of me with his nose to the ground, following something that was apparently far more interesting than the path.

"Moss."

One ear flicked backwards.

That was all I got.

"Good chat."

I adjusted the strap of my backpack and carried on.

The path narrowed as we went deeper into the wood. Scots pines rose on either side of us, their trunks tall and rough, the canopy shifting quietly overhead. Up there, the wind sounded stronger than it felt down where we were walking. It moved through the branches in long, soft rushes, while beneath them everything remained sheltered and still.

A thick layer of fallen pine needles covered the ground.

My boots barely made a sound on them.

Where the needles thinned, the peat underneath was dark and springy, soft enough to give slightly beneath each step but firm enough that I didn't have to think about where I put my feet.

Which, for me, is dangerous.

The moment I stop watching where I'm walking is usually the moment Scotland finds something for me to fall over.

Ahead, Moss disappeared behind a clump of rusty bracken.

I heard a crack.

Then another.

"Moss, if you've found a deer, we're not having it."

Nothing.

I quickened my step, expecting to find him nosing about somewhere in the bracken.

Instead, he was standing perfectly still.

I took another couple of steps before I realised he wasn't moving.

"Moss?"

His head was raised.

His nose twitched.

He wasn't looking along the path.

He was looking into the trees.

I followed his gaze.

At first, I couldn't see anything unusual. Just pine trunks, bracken and patches of heather stretching away into shadow.

Then I noticed it.

A gap.

Not much of one.

Just a thin break through the bracken where the ground seemed slightly flatter. Pine needles covered most of it, and young heather had begun creeping in from both sides, but once I'd seen it, I couldn't quite unsee it.

It looked remarkably like a path.

Moss took a step towards it.

"No."

He stopped.

I slipped my backpack from my shoulder.

"Absolutely not."

I unzipped it and pulled out the map.

Moss sat down.

There is something particularly judgemental about a dog watching you unfold an Ordnance Survey map.

Especially when the map immediately attempts to refold itself.

"Give me a minute."

The breeze caught one corner.

I caught it against my knee.

Moss continued watching.

"I know where we are."

His expression suggested that this was precisely the matter currently under investigation.

I ran my finger along the green markings until I found the path we'd been following.

"There."

Moss looked away.

I chose to take that as agreement.

The map showed the track carrying on through the woods before bending north a little further ahead. There were streams, contour lines and enough tiny symbols to make me question whether I'd ever actually learned to read one of these properly.

But there was no path leading off to the right.

I checked again.

Nothing.

I lowered the map and looked between the trees.

The faint opening was still there.

Now that I knew what I was looking for, it seemed more obvious. The bracken grew differently along it, leaving a narrow strip of darker ground running between the pines. A few old roots crossed it, polished smooth in places where something had once passed over them.

Moss stood up.

"Don't."

He took two steps.

"Moss."

He stopped and looked back at me.

I looked at the map.

Then at him.

Then back at the map.

This was exactly how people ended up being mentioned in mountain rescue Facebook posts.

I folded the map, badly, and shoved it back into my bag.

"We're having a look. That's all."

Moss turned immediately and disappeared between the bracken.

"Apparently we're having a look."

I followed him.

Within a few yards, the main path vanished behind us.

The difference was immediate.

There was no crunch of gravel beneath my boots now. Only pine needles and peat, softening every step. The trees seemed closer together here, their lower branches reaching across the gap as though the wood had spent years trying to close it.

I ducked beneath one and felt pine needles brush across my hair.

"Thanks."

Moss trotted on.

The path, if it was a path, wasn't straight.

It wound between the older trees, sometimes disappearing completely beneath fallen needles before showing itself again a few yards further on. In places I was following Moss more than anything I could actually see.

Then I heard something.

I stopped.

Moss carried on for another few steps before turning back to look at me.

"Wait."

There it was again.

Water.

Not the quiet trickle of one of the little burns we'd crossed earlier. This was deeper. Steadier.

I stood listening, trying to work out where it was coming from.

"There's nothing on the map."

Moss, predictably, didn't seem concerned by this.

He turned and carried on.

The further we went, the louder the water became.

The ground began to slope gently beneath my feet and the air changed with it. It was cooler here, damp enough that I could feel it against my skin. Moss disappeared around a great old pine and I followed, pushing aside a branch that caught at the sleeve of my jumper.

Then the trees opened.

"Oh."

For a moment, that was all I had.

A burn tumbled down through a break in the rocks ahead of us, dropping over dark stone into a clear pool below. It wasn't a huge waterfall. Nothing dramatic enough to have a signpost or a car park or people queuing to photograph it.

It was simply there.

Hidden among the pines.

Water slipped over ledges of black and grey rock, white where it broke against the stone before gathering again in the pool. Ferns grew from cracks along the bank and thick green moss covered anything that had stayed still long enough.

Moss went straight to the edge.

"Easy."

He lowered his head and drank.

I stood a little way behind him, listening.

The sound filled the clearing.

After the quiet of the woods it should have felt loud, but somehow it didn't. It seemed to belong there so completely that everything else became quieter around it.

I slipped my backpack from my shoulders and sat on a flat rock near the bank.

"All right," I said. "You win."

Moss continued drinking.

I reached for my water bottle.

That was when I noticed the stones.

At first I thought they were part of the bank. There were rocks everywhere, after all.

But these were different.

Three or four large stones sat in a line beneath the bracken, too straight to be accidental.

I put my bottle down.

Beyond them was another line.

And another.

I stood.

"Moss?"

He lifted his head, water dripping from his chin.

I stepped through the bracken.

The remains were barely knee-high in places, swallowed by moss and pine needles. But once I was standing among them, there was no mistaking what they had been.

Walls.

Not much was left. A rectangle of stone, a gap where a doorway might once have been, and in one corner the collapsed remains of what looked like an old hearth.

I looked back towards the waterfall.

Someone had lived here.

Or sheltered here.

Maybe a hundred years ago. Maybe more.

They would have heard this water too.

I don't know why that thought stayed with me.

Perhaps because old ruins usually feel empty.

These didn't.

They felt quiet.

As though the woods hadn't forgotten them at all.

I stayed longer than I'd meant to.

That happens sometimes.

You sit down for five minutes, take your boots off the job of carrying you somewhere, and suddenly leaving feels unnecessarily complicated.

I found a slightly squashed sandwich in my backpack and ate it on the rock beside the pool.

Moss appeared the moment I opened it.

"You've just drunk half a waterfall."

He sat in front of me.

"This is cheese."

His eyes moved to the sandwich.

"You're shameless."

I tore off a small corner.

He took it with considerably more dignity than he'd used to obtain it.

For a while, neither of us went anywhere.

The sun had moved above the trees and shafts of light reached through the branches, catching the water as it fell. Every so often the breeze shook loose a few pine needles and they drifted down onto the pool, turning slowly before the current carried them away.

I kept looking at the ruins.

Once you knew they were there, they were impossible not to see.

The low wall beside the water. The doorway facing the trees. The darker stones where the hearth had been.

I tried to imagine a roof above them.

Smoke.

Boots beside a fire.

Wet clothes hanging somewhere to dry.

Someone stepping outside in the morning and hearing exactly the same water I was hearing now.

I wondered who they had been.

There was no way of knowing.

Eventually I packed away the remains of my lunch and stood.

"Come on."

Moss didn't move.

"We do actually have to go home."

He looked towards the water.

"You can't keep it."

That got him up.

I pulled my backpack onto my shoulders and walked back through the ruins towards the path.

Near what I thought had once been the doorway, something caught beneath my boot.

I looked down.

Stone.

Not one of the rough pieces scattered around the walls. This one was flatter, almost completely buried beneath pine needles.

I brushed them aside with my boot.

Then crouched.

There were two of them.

Long, flat stones laid side by side.

A few feet further on, another appeared beneath the moss.

Then another.

I looked through the trees.

Now I could see it.

The path.

Not the faint little trail Moss and I had followed through the bracken.

The old one beneath it.

Flat stones appeared here and there under roots, peat and decades of fallen needles, leading away from the ruined walls and back through the pinewood.

I smiled.

"So that's what you found."

Moss was busy smelling a fern.

I stood and looked once more at the ruins behind me.

There hadn't been a path missing from my map.

There had been a path that belonged to an older one.

We followed it back.

It was easier to see now.

Funny how that happens.

Once you know something is there, you wonder how you ever missed it.

By the time we reached the main track, the afternoon had begun to cool. The sun was still warm where it reached through the trees, but the breeze had changed.

I could feel autumn in it.

I stopped and pulled the map from my backpack one last time.

The paper fought me as I unfolded it.

"Behave."

Moss sat beside me.

I found our path.

Then the bend.

Then the blank patch of green where we'd spent the last hour.

Nothing.

No waterfall.

No ruins.

No path.

Just woodland.

I folded the map again.

This time I didn't mind.

Moss had already started walking.

"Home?"

His tail lifted.

I followed him along the track, pine needles soft beneath my boots.

After a few steps I looked back.

From here, the old path had disappeared again.

Just trees.

Bracken.

Heather.

I could have walked past it a hundred times.

Perhaps other people had.

Perhaps that was why I liked it.

Not everything needs a sign telling you it's there.

Some places are simply waiting for someone to notice.

Moss stopped ahead of me and looked back.

"I'm coming."

He turned and carried on.

I smiled and followed.

After all, he'd found the path.

I was just the idiot with the map.