Beneath the Tor (3 page)

Brice had turned his back. Luckily Shell burst out of the house at that moment, sweeping both Hollingberrys into warm, plump hugs and spiriting them into the kitchen.

They sank into the background as we'd opened our first ritual circle and Wolfsbane raised the idea of joining the dancers and drummers on the Tor for the
all-night
vigil.

Brice shook his head. “Sounds like purgatory to me.”

“I'm going, darling.”

Alys had lifted her cup of flying tea. Brice drank from his at the same time. “Okay. If you're sure …”

Shortly after, Shell and Alys had disappeared entirely, and it wasn't until I'd been getting ready to leave for the Tor that Shell had come up to me and asked if I had any painkillers. “It's not for me, it's for Alys.”

“Isn't she feeling well?”

“To be honest, she's having humongous period pains. She gets them every month, poor woman, but she thinks she'll be fine for tonight if she can just get on top of the cramps.” Shell was a buxom woman who dressed with style; she always wore some form of jaunty headwear, even indoors, and a selection of jazzy earrings.

“Esme has a bathroom cabinet chocked with
over-the
-counter stuff. I'll see what I can find.”

“Don't tell her what they're for, will you? Alys is a bit sensitive.”

Alys had been lying
fully-clothed
on the bunk she'd been allocated in the girls' bedroom when I'd shown her the blister packs: Aspro, paracetamol, and ibuprofen caplets. Her face was pale, half hidden by her mussed up hair. She'd been clutching a hot water bottle to her tum. She chose the ibuprofen, saying she didn't like the taste of aspirin and couldn't swallow big tablets.

“Don't let Anag get to you,” I'd said, trying to find the heart of the problem. “I don't know him well, but he's looking like a jerk.”

“Shell says the same.”

“Are you sure you wouldn't rather stay here tonight?”

She'd shaken her head, raising a sports bottle half to her lips. “This will help, it's isotonic. I'll be fine in fifteen minutes, I'm sure I will. Wouldn't miss it.”

Shell had clicked the bedroom door shut behind us. “Alys really wants to go up the Tor. She did from the moment I told her about Wolfsie's workshop.”

“It's going to be manic up on the Tor,” I'd said. “And cold, later on. She'd be best staying put.”

“She's determined, Sabbie. Once Alys has made up her mind, no one can stop her.”

three

the green knight

He sees her first.

He looks away, quick, hoping she hasn't spotted him in the crowd. It's pointless. Morgan le Fay is here to collect him.

Everything turns to water. Everything trembles—knees—fingers—breath.

Like lightning flashing across a dry sky, a migraine strikes at his temple.

She's been away a long time. The years apart have been like an immunity from prosecution, but they have also been a prison cell.

She hasn't changed. Not a day older. Not one grey hair in the mass of raven black, not one wrinkle on her neck. She still wears glitter on her lashes and earrings that tangle in the wild curls. Her cheekbones are just as hungry; her lips just as red. This high summer's day, her shoulders are pearl white above a tight bustier of beech green lace,
blood-red
leather pants
spray-painted
onto her legs. In her hand is the silken leash. She keeps it taut because Selkie, her cat, is an alpha male with a proclivity for trouble.

She's here—of course—because of the useless, beautiful death.

A woman died on the Tor, almost as the sun rose.

She was no more than a child, the way she lay on the grass with one thin leg curled under her like the broken proboscis of a moth. When he'd seen her he'd wanted to wail out his distress, but could not because her legitimate lover, the man she was with, had made the deepest howl of despair he'd ever heard. It filled the space of the Tor; a lamentation that moved under the skin like a parasite.

Then, in the awful, silent moment after the lover's cry, someone had laughed. The sound made him want to vomit. He'd gripped his fists and swung round to confront, but clamped his jaw and stayed still.

The guy who had laughed put his hand across his stupid mouth. This guy, shabby in combat khakis and a green padded lumberjack shirt with a line of grease around the neck. This guy, with the sense of humour of a hyena, brought dishonour to a place of mourning, disrespect to the howling man and the dancing damsel.

An evil thing to do.

Morgan le Fay is standing beside the high wall of the Chalice Well. She does not look his way, not once, but the cat stretches its flexible neck and regards him with sapphire eyes. Selkie's eyes are an extension of Morgan's.

There is a thread. She ties it on the first encounter. It never can be broken. No matter how many passing years. Not breakable. He can still feel it at his solar plexus. The thread is a leash and it pulls his feet towards her, until he's close enough to see the simple ornament round her neck: velvet tied in a knot and the bloodstone hanging in its golden clasp, fairy features carved into the tumbled crystal.

“You remember last time, acolyte?”

He swallows and swallows again. “Am I … am I still your acolyte, then?”

She raises a hand, gestures. “Death of beauty. Death of grace. Death of love!” Her voice rings out, and he glances round.

The muted crowds stream down from the Tor. Amongst them, the guy in green shuffles towards Glastonbury town. The guy who had laughed his disrespect. He walks alone, as if shunned.

He should be shunned.

“Did you hear him?” Stupid question. Morgan hears and sees like cephalopods feel. “He sniggered at the girl lying there …
dying there
… as if the whole thing was some big, hilarious joke.”

There is a look in her eyes. The black centers gleam. “That, acolyte, is the Green Knight.”

“Yes! The Green Knight!” A fable they'd read about. Together, turning the pages of the book. Those old times.

“He has struck the dolorous blow,” says Morgan.

A shaft of light moves in his head. The pain stops him from thinking. His hands are like aspens. He's plugged up with Morgan. He drags a memory through the headache. In ancient times, damsels were struck by a dolorous blow—raped or killed in a fit of lust or temper. “He … didn't
rape
her … did he?”

“That must be the rationale.”

The acolyte can't see properly, his breath comes fast and his stomach is screwed, the way it always was when he and Morgan were together. When he tries to swallow, his throat rasps, painfully arid. He shakes his head to clear it and the migraine clangs. That is the rationale. This man, the Green Knight, is to blame. He's a trickster who offers nothing but his trickster's laugh.

Morgan is following the Green Knight now, keeping behind him, stopping a short way from him as he waits by the bus stop.

“I remember the dolorous blow,” the acolyte whispers at the white of Morgan's shoulder. “When a damsel is struck by such a blow, the land becomes a wasteland.”

“A desert. Barren. Shrivelled.”

“And … doomsday comes upon the land …”

She nods once. “Unless the foe be struck down.”

Swords and shields clash in his head. He wants to do it; beyond question, he must strike the knight down. He bites his lip, feels the taste of iron like a drug. And in his breast, a stirring, as if a trapped bird was fluttering awake and struggling to get out. “I want to come back to you, Morgan.”

“Your initiation will be hard. A journey of pain.”

Initiation. Hard. Painful. Like last time. “What … what should be my weapon?”

“Extemporize, acolyte. Use whatever comes to hand.”

The dolorous blow. Infected with foes. Wasteland. Everything ravaged. Black dots over his vision. The sun hot on his face. Six in the morning but already the solstice sun is too bright. His eyes water. He's dazzled by the sun and the return of Morgan and the drums that still echo inside his aching head.

She can make that happen. When he's with Morgan le Fay, hours are moments. Her needlepoint heels glint in the sun; he's lost in the dazzle. They stride for leagues over the hills and moors of Somerset, never losing sight of the Green Knight.

Finally, the perfect place. Morgan le Fay rests one hand on his back, briefly. The chill of it is like an ice statue. He blinks and there is the weapon.

It's only a stone, kicked into the gutter, but it will do.

He hefts it in his hand.

The Green Knight turns into a quieter road, full of shuttered houses set back from the road. The acolyte looks at the stone. All he hears is the laugh of the Green Knight, grown loud and long in his mind. All sees is the damsel, her legs askew beneath her limp body.

“This is for her.” The stone is loosed from his hand. It bowls in an arc through the air.

The stone strikes true. The knight's knees buckle. He slumps—an almost
slow-motion
descent onto a grassy verge.

“Life from life!” the acolyte screams. He's jumping as he screams, like a child who's bowled a stunning shot. “Death of beauty!”

Then he's running and running through dazzle and drumbeat, his heart rupturing inside his chest.

four

stefan

Bit by bit, everyone
straggled back to Stonedown Farm.

Shell, looking washed out with what she'd been through, arrived around midday. She brought the news we all knew anyway.

“Alys was pronounced dead on arrival. Brice is in pieces. His parents are on their way, and Alys's family. I'm afraid I'm not stopping. I've come to take Brice's car to the hospital.”

“Here,” Ricky passed her a mug. “Lemon balm and spearmint tea.”

Shell left before Anag and Juke turned up. Anag had a silvery cauldron under his arm; Juke was carrying the tripod that came with it.

“It's a Gundestrup replica.” Anagarika's eyes shone with his find, as if a bit of shopping could take the sting out of anything.

Yew pushed his hair from his eyes. His usual plait had unravelled after the night on the Tor and since he'd arrived back from Glastonbury town he'd been brushing his thick hair with a paddle brush. It seemed to bring him solace. He got up from the kitchen table and his hair flowed over his shoulders, full of electricity. He took the cauldron off Anag, weighing it on his open palm. “It's made of resin, you dunce.”

“So?”

“So why get the tripod? You can't put this over a fire.”

“I can do what I like with it, ta very much.”

“My friend”—Freaky always started his little lectures with
my friend
—“the fleshpots of the High Street are for tourists with bulging wallets.”

“Yeah? Well, I live here, as it happens. I'm pally with a lot of the tradespeople in town. I got a discount on this.”

Freaky raised an eyebrow. “I've been in Glastonbury since 1969. I don't recall seeing you around.”

“I'm in digs. Magdalene Street? Taking a good shifty. I fancied having a cauldron and I paid hard cash. Nothing wrong with that.”

“My number one recommendation: if you wanna be a shaman my friend, you'll have to do better than look to replica cauldrons for help.”

“I'm already a shaman. I've done several courses.”

“Okay. Recommendation number two: shamanism is not something you can pick up on a weekend course. It is years of dedication. A lifetime commitment. A calling. Not playing with cutesy High Street tat. Ours is a better street—into the awakened self. A blessing, eh friends?”

“Mostly a blessing,” said Yew. “Sometimes a bane.”

“I don't need your lecture, mate,” said Anagarika. “And it wasn't a weekend course. It was the full, advanced, practitioner training with Francis Gialias. Right here in Glastonbury. Yup; the fees are
eye-watering
but like I've been saying, I got a discount.”

“So, recommendation number three: you can't buy shamanism. No one should charge you for this knowledge. No one.”

“You're being a whacker, Freaky. The fee for this workshop— which, excuse me, you are at—was a hundred pounds per day.”

I knew for a fact Freaky had not paid quarter that amount; he couldn't have found the money. Wolfsbane liked him at the workshops because he had such a long history … he was a Glastonbury icon. Freaky didn't miss a beat. He flicked his dreadlocks, forty years of hair that had never seen shampoo, and came straight back.

“There are certain types of transaction that are fair and reasonable. Like, we're hiring out sleeping space plus use of the kitchen, bathroom, and the big workshop area. There's petrol for the coordinators. And their time, their expertise. That's an exchange of energies, friend. A blessed way of being.”

“Maybe let's leave this subject alone for a bit,” said Juke. He put the tripod in a corner of the room, as if he didn't want to be associated with it any longer. “Talk about something else, huh?”

“Juke's right,” said Ricky. “Someone has just died. We don't want arguments.”

I had to tell them sometime, and this felt like my cue. “Actually, we're all going home. Wolfsbane is postponing the workshop. No one will lose their payment. It'll be directly transferred. We'll have a discussion, when he's ready, to find out when everyone is free.”

Anag counted up the half dozen people in the kitchen. “Where
is
Wolfsbane?”

“He's …” I paused. Wolfsbane had gone into Stefan's side of the house, and he hadn't returned. I didn't want the others to know what they were talking about. “He's journeying,” I lied. “To ask his guardians for strength and comfort for us all.”

“If he's walking between the worlds, then I don't see why we shouldn't.”

“Wolfsbane and I have decided it would be disrespectful to Alys to continue this workshop now.”

“Alys
and
Brice,” said Ricky. He'd been collecting up the empty mugs, and he stood, a cluster of them in his fist. “Even so, we could do something to mark her passing. Something to allow our own grieving to take a positive shape.”

“That's profound, Ricky,” said Yew. He leaned back on a kitchen chair and began to replait his hair, fingers flicking rhythmically at the three locks until a
tawny-shaded
braid snaked down his back. He finished by transferring a rubber band from his wrist to the plait end. “I get what Ricky's saying. It doesn't seem right to leave without doing anything at all. I mean, would Alys have wanted that?”

“Yeah, I'd like to—” Anag broke off and looked away.

“Like to get your money's worth?' sneered Freaky.

“Okay!” I had to raise my voice. Freaky was usually such a mild man; Anag had managed to snip one of his nerves. I hoped they wouldn't both be at the next workshop. “Okay, let's go into the workshop space and settle ourselves. I'll guide you into a visualization.”

I led them into the big room off the kitchen. I was confident it was no longer full of the spiders I'd found when I'd shifted the sixteen budget sacks of dog food and the twenty outers of canned cat food and the three boxes of cat litter into the utility room to join the horse nuts, chicken pellets, and bags of sawdust. I'd pumped each floor cushion to prevent a spray of dust emerging each time someone lay on one and had gone over the ancient carpet with Stefan's hoover, removing, it felt at the time, the last vestiges of the pile.

“Have we all got a power animal that can help us? Some sort of guardian that we can communicate with? An intent, whether or not that might be a
shape-shifting
experience?” They were nodding their heads so I got them to settle and unzipped my drum case.

“Love the painting,” said Ricky, pointing to my bodhran.

“Freaky did it. It's my power animal, Trendle.”

“An otter. Wow. Would you do one for me, Freaky?”

Freaky inclined his head. “It would be my honour, friend. We can speak later, perhaps.”

“Yeah, don't forget to exchange the energies,” said Anag, but he kept his voice down and Freaky chose not to respond.

Ricky leaned towards me. “I don't think I've got a power animal yet, is that okay?”

“Use this as a chance to go searching for one. Look for openings in the land, where one might emerge from a Lower Realm. And be sure to ask them. Don't take anything at face value in the otherworld.”

He flashed me a grateful smile and I started taking the group into a quiet mood. I lifted the drum and began a soft but fast tapping beat. I planned to walk them through a benign and tranquil setting. I didn't want anyone going down into the roots of the World Tree or having encounters with dead souls. I wanted them to leave Stonedown able to drive their cars, at least.

“You are in your safe haven,” I began. “The portal from where you always begin your journeys …”

I'd decided to wing this a little by portraying aloud the images I experienced as I made my own journey. I hardly felt my wrist move as the drum pace and volume crept up.

“Trendle?” I whispered beneath my breath, and my otter came into view.

“I am here, Sabbie.” He already knew. I could tell it in his voice. He knew how I was feeling, and why. He knew more about my spiritual life than I did myself. I followed him into an avenue of oaks, ancient as gods. I described the trees which stood at the top of the avenue, Gog and Magog. I'd seen them earlier as they really were, but here they were in glorious June leaf and filled with oakish inhabitants—beetles, birds, butterflies. I found myself touching the bright green summer leaves. I snapped off a single one.

“Choose one tree in the avenue.” I was beginning to mumble a bit. “Sit beneath it. Be ready to gain its wisdom.”

In my mind's eye, I settled down at the base of Magog,
my back against its roots. The vibration of the drum tingled in my fingers,
my hand, my arm, my heart. The ground was damp under the seat of my jeans. I twirled my oak leaf between finger and thumb. I moved further and further into this place, and my voiced faded away.

They were all on their own now, in their own journeys. And so was I.

At the bole of the oak was a hole, big enough to push a boot into. It was fashioned from the way the surface roots bent and wound together. I leaned against the trunk and dropped into this space. I fell and fell, as if the roots went on forever.

I landed on my back on a soft surface.

Above was a cloudless sky, deep blue, the sun at its zenith. Below me was bare soil, cracked and dusty and almost entirely coated with worms. They were everywhere, moving constantly. I eyeballed a single worm. It was pale for a worm, clean, like it had just had a wash from a storm, yet the surface of the earth was dry as toast. One began to climb my leg. Another started its journey. I plucked them off and took several steps backwards, worms squidging under the sole of my foot.

I picked up my gaze, viewing the horizon. This dry earth and its seethe of worms went on as far as the eye could see. I was at the centre of a massive cropland
ready-ploughed
but not yet sown with seed. It would be no good sowing seed, I couldn't help but think, until the rains came.

I looked down at myself and cried out in horror. The creatures were oozing all over me. A shudder convulsed my shoulders. Earthworms had never bothered me, I loved finding them in my garden soil, but this was worms gone crazy.

“Trendle!”

My otter barked once, and an opening, as clear and amazing as the parting of the Red Sea, spread before me, worms wriggling away in both directions. I was so shaken by their numbers, I broke into a run, tripping and flailing over the ruts in the ploughed soil.

In the distance, at the end of the path, I saw a small hut, surrounded by a wattle fence. It was the only thing rising from the plain. As I drew closer, I saw it was built of rough timber with a reed roof, glassless window, and low doorway. It looked
off-kilter
in this place.

In front of the hut a man was sitting
cross-legged
, tending a fire with a stick. He was crooning to himself.

Under ze world a father does not know his child,
Oh-oh
!
In this country a father cry for his child,
Oh-oh
.
In zees country, under ze dying world.

He sang the words over and over. His accent gargled in his throat. His eyes were filled with sadness, like rock pools under stars, but no tears spilled or fell. He rocked his body, occasionally laying down his poker to hug himself with his arms. When his song came to an end, he lifted his head and trained his gaze on me.

“Can you tell me what the worms signify, please?” I was sure this was the question I should ask.

He didn't intend to answer my question promptly. He took time tending his fire, which was contained in a small ring of
heat-blackened
stones. His skin was black as the stones. His hair was
ash-grey
with age. His wet eyes were reddened in the fire's glow and when he finally spoke, I saw that his teeth—where there were teeth at all—were blackened and slanted.

“Zees the dying world,
oh-oh
!”

“A Lower Realm?”

“
Uh-hum
. Ze void existing in darkness.”

“Can I enquire, sir, for your name?”

Again, he didn't reply. On the fire was a shallow metal bowl, filled with liquid that bubbled and steamed. He gave it a slow stir using the same stick he'd tended the fire with.

“I am lucky,” he said, giving me a sideways glance.

“How, sir?”

“My brew, it need one las' magic. Green leaf. We never see no more round here.”

I looked, with a start of surprise, at the oak leaf in my hand. I reached out. The man took the leaf. His nails were ridged with the work of ages, the cuticles thick with dirt. He let the leaf float onto the surface of the liquid brew. For a moment, it did not move. Then, all at once, it sank as if the concoction swallowed it up. He dipped his stick into the brew again, chanting as he stirred.

Under ze world a father seeks his child,
Oh-oh
!
Mon cherie bring blessings, oh!
Fortune favour ze lucky and ze dead.

The old man lifted off the bowl without protecting his hands. He placed it carefully on the ground, which hissed and cracked from the heat of the bowl. His eyes narrowed. “I see you proper now. You child of pretty lady. You have question?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. I'd left all my questions behind.

The man chuckled in his throat. Beside me, Trendle was holding my silken braid in his mouth. This was the woven cord I used to connect to the otherworld sometimes. The man stepped clean over the fire, took the braid, and dipped it into the bowl of brew until it was saturated. He gestured and I put out my arm, mink brown compared to his black sable. He tied one end of the hot, dripping braid to his wrist, the other to mine.