Avilion (Mythago Wood 7) (3 page)

He struggled to remember the title for a moment, and then found it. The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells.

‘And something of my brother Chris’s. Some small thing. I’ll leave it to you. Nothing too heavy. You’ll need to take care. You will take care . . .’

‘I’ll take care.’

Jack went to the room marked on Steven’s sketch map as ‘Chris’s room’ and after a look around found a small box of light, shiny chess pieces. Intrigued by the material from which they had been fashioned, he tucked the box into his belt. His father had carved chess pieces from wood, back in the villa, and had made a board, and it was a game that Christian had loved and at which he had excelled.

Tired now, and hungry, Jack decided that the study was the best place to make his camp for the night, and after eating a small amount of his meagre supplies he curled up gratefully in the corner where the room seemed warmest.

Beyond the Edge

With first light came the sound of his name being called. Jack had been more tired than he’d realised. Those last days on the river had been a test of strength as well as of nerve as he had approached the edge but found himself fighting against the elements; as if the wood were reluctant to allow him home.

His name again. He sat up, rose and went to the shuddering tap, with its hesitant flow of water, and washed his face.

Leaving the house, he made his way to the field, and as he emerged from the wood again so he saw the older boy, Eddie, standing at a distance. He smiled when he saw Jack and held up a bag, then approached, less apprehensive than the day before, but still cautious.

‘What brings you here?’

‘I told my mum about you. She asked a lot of questions. She thought you might want some food and milk.’

Jack was pleased. He accepted the bag. ‘Thank you. Thank your mother.’

‘Just milk and some bread and eggs.’

‘That’s very kind.’

The boy hesitated. He was more smartly dressed than the day before, and when Jack commented on this, Eddie said, ‘You know what today is?’

Jack said that he didn’t.

‘It’s Easter. We always go to church on Easter Sunday. I go early so I can get away and do other things. There’ll be a big party on the green this afternoon. Do you like beer?’

Jack laughed. ‘I’ve heard of it.’

‘There’ll be beer and a hog roast later. But you’ll need money.’

‘Money, alas,’ said Jack, with a smile. ‘Money and I are strangers.’

‘Well.’ The boy was thoughtful. ‘Maybe you could tell some stories. About what it’s like in there?’

‘Maybe.’

‘My mum wrote a small book about the wood. Maybe she’ll interview you. I know she’s interested in you.’

Eddie must have been talkative indeed. ‘I’d like to meet her.’

‘I’ll tell her.’

Distantly, a bell sounded, a single strike followed by several others, and then a cascade of notes that had Jack entranced.

‘Eight o’clock,’ the boy said, glancing at something on his wrist. ‘Fifteen minutes to go. In at eight, out by eight-thirty. No sermon. It’s the only way to do it.’

He grinned, turned, and half ran, half walked towards the distant town, but suddenly glanced back. ‘You look strange. Jack.’ He had hesitated before calling the stranger by his name, as if he felt it impolite. ‘You don’t look right. You need different clothes.’

And then he was gone.

 

How should I look? This is my look. These are my clothes. This is my skin, decorated in the way we decorate our skins in the villa, in the inner home, by the fires, facing the hunt, facing the hunter. This is the way I look. How else should I look?

Jack brooded for a while, seated at the desk in the study, drinking milk and cracking the raw eggs. They were bland compared to what he was used to, but he was glad of them.

There was an apple in the bag as well, a russet, rough-skinned fruit that had a flavour like none he’d ever tasted before.

How should I look?

He decided then to shave his beard. He found a knife in the kitchen and sharpened it, but discovered that it was useless. He had made things worse - the curl of his light beard was now a hacked mess. He severed what he could, trimmed it as best he could, then combed his hair straight back, plastering it to his scalp in the style that Eddie had worn.

Then he thought: why am I doing this? I haven’t come here to look like a prince. I am here to make contact with the world of my father’s childhood, and my grandfather’s life.

The sun was high, though the day was cool, and Jack set off again towards the town, following the iron rails of the old railway track, following his young advisor.

Almost at once he was thrilled by the new perspective.

As he strode away from the edge of Ryhope, he truly felt that he was entering another land. The air smelled different. The sounds were muted and eerie; and yet delicious. A single huge oak stood on a rise to his left, what he would have called a ‘signal’ tree. He sensed history in that solitary growth, in the wide spread of her spring branches. As he topped the rise, so he could see distant hills. There was the glitter of a river, pastures, enclosures, scattered farm buildings. A tamed land, unlike anything he had experienced.

The old tracks curled away between high banks, and he found a small gravel road which seemed to lead towards the sound of distant noise from the town, and the tall grey tower that he could see, and the rise of smoke.

Behind him Ryhope seemed small and distant, and Oak Lodge was invisible.

If he felt disorientated at all, it was a passing dizziness, a moment’s hesitation. The blur of sound was enticing. A stringed instrument was playing. Only when he turned to look back did he hear the melancholy hum of the forest, a deep murmuring that seemed to shift and fade.

The road became firmer. A group of children, with two adults, came past on bicycles. He knew about such vehicles. He hadn’t realised they could move so fast. He saw the frowns on the adults’ faces as they stared at him. The looks were not welcoming.

Soon he was at the town’s entrance. The music was very assertive and rhythmic. The air was heavy with conversation and laughter. The smells of roasting meat were sublime. The grey church tower was stark against the clear blue of the sky. Its bells were silent now.

Jack was hot and he stopped to splash water on his face from a trough at the edge of the town, where water spurted from a carved face. He felt dizzy for a moment, almost as if his head were being twisted on his neck; a sensation of being pulled, pulled back the way he had come.

I’m not having this!

He took a few steps forward. Now he could see the open space where people were gathered. There was a large fire, and a pig hung on a spit above it. Bales of straw were scattered everywhere, and a group of musicians sat in a semicircle, playing jauntily. Again he started to walk, but his legs suddenly felt dead. He stood quite still, astonished at the sudden sense of being locked inside his body. His vision blurred, his head began to make nonsense of the sounds.

Nothing would move. A deep, mournful moan blew through Jack’s consciousness - a summons! He was able to turn, to look back along the road. Ryhope Wood could not be seen, and yet he sensed that it had reached a great hand towards him and was grasping at his heart and liver, squeezing him, tugging at him.

No! I must go further!

One more step and his world exploded. He fell heavily, shaking like a man in a fever, screaming with pain, though the pain was not in his body, just in his mind.

Jack was aware of the disturbance around him. The voices that sounded now were crow voices, taunting, the shrill shriek of the scavenger. Something hard struck his cheek, and he tasted blood. Another blow to his stomach. Laughter. He was being mocked, though the words, the abuse, meant nothing to him in sound, only in intent.

Something stinking landed on his face. Then something wet. Another blow, and then a stone, cracking against his cheek.

The disturbance ended as suddenly as it had started. Gentle hands eased him into a sitting position. A voice was saying, ‘That’s him. The wood haunter. He’s called Jack.’

‘Everything’s all right now.’

A woman’s voice. The clouds were scudding behind the high grey tower. Roast meat and the smell of wine were strong. The music, which had faltered, had started again, and the murmur of voices inhabited his mind, like the droning of bees.

‘Everything’s all right. I’m just going to wash your face.’

Again, cold water, a gentle touch. The cooling sensation calmed Jack’s heart. Slowly he focused on the pale face before him, kindly, a delicately featured woman with ice-blue eyes and fair hair.

‘I told him he looked strange,’ a boy’s voice said.

‘He didn’t know any better. Go and get a shirt and some soap. And here . . .’ She was fumbling in a polished leather bag, ‘Get a good thick pork roll, and a pint. Tell them Julie sent you.’

‘Yes, mum.’

Now a different pair of hands lifted him, strong hands, helping him stand, leading him away from the music, beyond the water trough and to a wall, where he sat. And gradually the world came back into focus. And with it the pain of his bruises.

‘Why was I hit?’ Jack asked quietly.

‘Because of what you are,’ the woman said. ‘I’m so sorry. Not everyone behaves that way.’

A man’s voice: ‘You’ve come a long way, I think.’

Jack nodded. ‘A long journey.’

‘From Europe?’

The words signified something, but not enough for Jack to respond. The woman said, ‘Not from Europe, I think. From somewhere older. More distant.’

Jack sighed, trying to take in the face that regarded him so earnestly. She was trying to smile, but there was a frown on her, indicating a curiosity and an anxiety that made him uncomfortable.

‘It has, yes . . . it has been a long journey. I’ve dreamed of being here. I was warned that I wouldn’t be allowed to leave. But I’ll try again. I’ll keep trying.’

The man’s hand was heavy and reassuring on his shoulder. ‘Don’t judge us by the teenagers. They have nothing better to do. What they called you: forget it. Just words. Just names.’

What they called me? I don’t remember.

Eddie came back. He was a blur of speed, a whirlpool of activity, arriving and skidding to his knees, holding out a fragrant piece of meat in a soft dough. Jack took the food and placed it in his bag. The proffered drink smelled sour and unpleasant. The offered shirt was accepted.

‘It will cover those tattoos,’ Julie said, with a smile. ‘And here. You rather need this.’

It was a piece of wax that smelled like pine. Jack knew what it was, and how to use it.

‘I’m going back.’

‘Be careful.’

He stood shakily, his legs only finding their strength again as he reached the tracks. He didn’t look back, aware that the bells in the grey tower had started to ring again. Aware of anger; and kindness. And that he had found the limit of his adventure.

He had hoped to go so far. He was devastated now to realise that his father had been right. There was too much of the mythago in him to allow him into the world of his human origin.

He reached the Lodge and sat down in the corner of the study, touching the bruise and the cut on his face, staring at the cooked meat, cold now, and feeling like a corpse.

Jack cried for a while, tears of anger and confusion. Then he left the house and went to the same enclosed place where he had called for his grandfather the night before. And staring into the darkness, thinking of Huxley, he called again. It was a moment when he at last broke from his own turmoil, from his own self-doubt.

He went back to the house, ate the meat and drank the milk that Eddie had brought for him that morning and later that afternoon. And he began to rethink his situation.

Huxley’s Shadow

Jack spent a disturbed and restless night. The shock of the day played on his mind, in particular the terrible feeling of being dragged back to the house, a wrenching sensation that seemed to have bruised him more deeply than the physical attack upon him.

When he tried to think about it, huddled in the darkness, he could only explain it by the sense that something was coming alive in him, something that he had always known was there: his mother’s side of him, which afforded him insights and sensations in the deep forest but which had always been suppressed beneath the human part of his existence.

The wind was strong, and the house was noisy. The hanging clothes shifted spectrally; floorboards creaked and doors swung on their rusting hinges. The house seemed unhappy. The moon vanished, and the small light that Jack had enjoyed for the early part of the night faded into a thin starlight.

He tried to sleep, and perhaps had drifted off just briefly when he woke to the sound of voices. They were a distant murmur, a man’s voice and the chatter of a child who was being told to ‘huuish’.

Rising quickly, Jack went to the window that looked out across the garden to where he knew a gate had once marked the exit from the property. A tall hooded shape stood there, featureless but staring at the Lodge. He held two staffs, one in each hand, each as tall as the man himself. Beside him, the pale face of a boy - perhaps a girl - also stared at the building, and suddenly this smaller figure pointed excitedly and directly at Jack and began to babble in a language that Jack didn’t recognise.

The man took both staffs in his right hand and used the left to pull the child to his side, silencing him. Then they turned and walked away, neither into the wood nor away from it.

For the rest of the night, Jack sat by the window, watching the gloom and the waving of branches against the dark and glittering sky, waiting for another visitation; but none came.

He did sleep at last, but woke to the sound of his name again. The call was not the boy’s; it was the woman’s, Julie’s, or so he thought, and when he picked his way to the field he was proved right. It was a brisk day, and the field was damp with dew.