I still wonder what would have happened if we’d chosen a different destination. Where would I be right now? Maybe it is the fiction writer in me, the lover of faery stories and the fantastic, that makes me regret I never spoke the word hovering on my tongue.
It was Wales after all. Near mid November when the trains ferrying tourists stopped running. When darkness swallows the Snowdonia mountains early in the afternoon, rising from the valleys like a shadowy legion charging to overtake the high places. It is a land where, in legend, anything can happen.
Nights like this one were always preceded by normal days. My good friend and travel partner and I had enjoyed a sunny day on the shores of Wales. A bus had dropped us off in Portmeirion without a hitch. We’d toured the village and set where the Prisoner had been filmed. If you’ve never heard of that TV show, don’t worry about it. If you have, you know just where we were.
Being November, there were perhaps only three other tourists in the village with us. The empty set with houses, the large chess field and fountain were just as eerie as in the series. It was perfect. We finished our languid tour just after lunch and found ourselves waiting at the bus stop for a connection that wasn’t expected for over an hour. What do you do on a sunny afternoon in Wales, both of you in your early 20’s, and on a weekend holiday from University? Decide to walk the 9 miles to Harlech, of course!
There is always that turning point in the story. The part where the reader knows you made a dumb choice and where it dawns on the narrator that something just isn’t quite right. Mine is when we stood on the bridge that crossed the bay towards Harlech. The road over the water stretched off too far to see clearly. It was barely after 2:00 but the shadows were lengthening. What stopped us was the large sign that said “Bridge closed.”
It didn’t say why. Was the bridge out or was it just being worked on? Would we walk half way across only to find an impassible stretch of air? Befuddled, we looked at the bridge and then each other. Now what? Go back to the bus stop and wait or take the road and try to hitchhike the now significantly longer distance to Harlech?
The protagonists never take the safe and simple option. No amount of shouting by the knowledgeable reader can change that fact. We headed out of Portmeirion safely immersed in our ignorance. After all, if you are aware of the hand of fate then it often passes you by.
It was full dark within an hour. The sun does not simply set in Wales in mid fall. It is conquered and buried by the horde of night, the last vestiges of light slain by pointed shadows as they lengthen across the hills. We were caught at 3:30 on a narrow route edging the woods and a drop to fields along the bay. A low stone wall hugged our right as we walked an empty road. No cars so no chances to hitchhike.
We had taken the right hand fork. It had made sense since Harlech was south. Now, I was scanning the fields and woods, thinking of leaving the fragile safety of the path for a place to shelter for the night. Not a single house or a single car in over an hour. It was like we had stepped out of the world and fallen into another place of woods and night, dark paths and cold air. Logically, it seemed like we had as good a chance of being hit if a car ever came along as of getting a ride. How cold would the Wales woods be at night? True night and not the illusionary dusk of 4 o’clock?
Headlamps racked the stone wall ahead of us. We weren’t sure if we should throw ourselves in the path of the bus that appeared or jump out of its way. We tried a desperate combo and the bus shuddered to a halt exuding diesel fumes. The door squeaked a resisted opening and the three of us paused.
The first thing that I noticed as out of place as the driver leaned toward us, cigarette glowing on his lip and right hand on the lever for the door, was that the internal lights emitted a dim red haze as if all the bulbs strained to find enough juice or were fighting a losing battle with the night. The second was that there was no destination on the marque above the windshield. In my gape mouthed pause as I took in our questionable savior, he spoke.
“I’ll take you anywhere you want to go for a pound.”
My mind tumbled with unsought potentials: London, Avalon, Hell? We both replied “Harlech” like well rehearsed school children before some other fancy held sway. It was perhaps the best, or maybe the worst, decision we made that day. He looked out the front window with a smile.
“Harlech, well that is a long way!”
He didn’t say he’d take us. But we stepped aboard anyway, handing over a pound each. Heading down the aisle, I finally saw the only other passenger. A stooped women scurried from one set of seats to another in the back. In the poor light, I couldn’t focus on her and I really didn’t want to. With one hand on the back of a random seat, I sat down and looked resolutely out the window. The bus pulled forward with the scrabbling sounds of the woman in the back.
It was a black ride with few distant lights to cottages. Perhaps forty-five minutes before the bus stopped and the door opened again. The driver nodded with amusement over his serious tone, “Up the hill.”
We stumbled out the door and he was gone before any other offer could be made. Dry mouthed, we headed up the first street lost in the dark. We were halfway up before the first firework stretched into the black heavens. As it exploded, I finally saw where we had been dropped.
A castle sat across the entire hill, its turrets outlined by the rain of red and silver sparks. As further fireworks exploded, higher this time, I could see the beach and rolling waves below. New bonfires punctuated the night as we summited the crest of the hill. We had fallen into Guy Fawkes Night.
Brought up short in a cobblestone courtyard eyes to the exploding false stars, one gent darting across the way stopped to look us over. “Where are you heading?” he asked. We named the bed breakfast listed in the guidebook. He nodded and pointed towards one of the dark openings. “Take that street and then your next left, up the street a bit on the left. And tell her I said ‘hi.’ She’s my auntie.”
We were back on familiar ground. For better or for worse.
You may think this all just a tale or an odd stretch of luck. But I will tell you two things. The first is that it is all true and really happened as written. The second is that as we spread out a map in the safety of dawn’s light one thing became very apparent. There was no right fork in the road. 
