Enchanted Forests (22 page)

she imagined the vine was making indecent advances, there can

be no doubt of what happened afterward. The signs of her mis-

hap are still there, clearly imprinted in the soft dirt, and she can

feel the grit inside her shoes. "Perhaps you can tell me just how

long it has been since my grandfather died and was buried here?"

Young Marten appears to make a quick mental calculation,

standing there with his hands in his pockets, the afternoon sun-

light bringing out all me colors of autumn in his russet hair.

"Must've been twenty, twenty-one years ago," he finally ven-

tures.

This takes Laurel completely by surprise. "Then why," she de-

mands indignantly, "has the earth on his grave been so recently

disturbed?"

Joss Marten shrugs a burly shoulder, and this time it is easy

for Laurel to identify the expression in his eyes: amusement,

tinged with insolence. "Not just the old man's grave," he says.

"You want to watch where you go, Miss Laurel. They do say the

land around here is unreliable, and you wouldn't be the first

pretty girl to get herself eaten alive."

Dinner is served that night, not in Mrs. Windboume's sitting

room, but in the dusty though still magnificent banquet hall on

the first floor. This is because, as the housekeeper informs Lau-

rel, her grandmother "took a bad turn" during her afternoon nap

and so feels inadequate to rise from her bed.

Determined not to pick up the manners of a rustic, no matter

how long she remains in the country, Laurel has dressed herself

in a shoulder-baring gown of black satin, fastened a cool string

MY SOUL INTO THE BOUGHS      141

of pearls around her neck. So now she dines in solitary splendor,

off cracked china plates weirdly painted with a pattern of

carnivorous-looking flowers and nervous butterflies. The food

tastes gritty and coarse, and the wine is flavored with berries,

leading Laurel to suspect that she is sharing the servants' dinner,

while Mrs. Windboume feasts royally on the floor above. Of

course, she realizes almost at once that the idea is unworthy and

immediately abandons it

Before she retires for the night, Laurel pays a visit to her

grandmother's bedchamber, where Mrs. Windboume—propped

up in bed by numerous pillows and bolsters—receives her in a

dingy nightgown and wrapper. In her decaying linens and laces,

with her white hair unpinned and frizzled around her face, the

old lady already looks like a ghost ... or a madwoman.

And the bedroom, like the sitting room, smells damp and un-

healthy. Laurel wishes she knew her grandmother well enough to

take charge and make some changes in the way the household is

run, but she is afraid to make any suggestions for fear the old

woman will take offense. She does, however, resolve to speak

with Mrs. Windboume's doctor at the first opportunity.

Gingerly taking a seat at the foot of the bed. Laurel listens po-

litely to her grandmother's account of her most recent symptoms:

shortness of breath, a sudden giddy sensation, a dull pain in one

side where the cancer is growing. For just a moment. Laurel ex-

periences a terrifying impression that she cannot breathe either,

that something is squeezing all the air out of her chest. But the

sensation passes quickly, leaving her shaken yet strangely moved

by this unexpected sympathetic reaction to her grandmother's

suffering. Perhaps I am learning to love her after all.

It is not, however, an experience she wants to repeat. To

change the subject, she mentions her visit to the graveyard. "And

I was nearly swallowed alive ... at least, that was how your sta-

bleboy described it. A horrid turn of phrase, and I think he was

positively enjoying my discomfort."

The old woman chuckles indulgently. "You must excuse poor

Joss. Being fatherless and of half-gypsy blood he could hardly be

expected to cultivate a polished manner, though he was raised

right here in the house- He is not, in fact, a stableboy, and his du-

ties more nearly approximate those of ... a gardener and game-

keeper."

Here Laurel decides that she does not want to know what her

grandmother means by "fatherless." So she asks instead about

142                    Teresa Edgerton

the unstable ground down in the graveyard. "He said that the

land was unreliable. What could he possibly mean by that?"

Mrs. Windboume begins to fuss with the mildewed bed linens.

"I believe there are springs and underground streams that are

constantly changing course, under the property- What ancient sci-

entists and philosophers must have meant when they spoke of 'a

radical moisture.' But you needn't worry. Though the ground

does cave in from time to time, no one has actually been killed."

Now Laurel thinks she has learned something interesting about

her grandmother, from that phrase about radical moisture: the

old woman has been reading nasty old books on magic and al-

chemy, and mat would explain some of her more shocking state-

ments.

"I won't worry, then," Laurel answers coolly. "But there is

something else that puzzles me. Why did my grandfather change

his name from Perrin to Windboume?"

Her grandmother sighs and settles back against the pillows.

"Because the house and the land and all the other property be-

longed to me. The Windbourne inheritance always descends in

the female line. And because we could not marry unless he

agreed to take the family name and ... certain obligations ...

and pass them on to his own descendents." The old woman

smiles, faintly malicious, showing the green teeth. "The Perrin

family is nothing. Prosperous yeoman farmers with very little

breeding. But the moment I saw Nicholas—so stout and strong

and virile as he was—I knew he was the one for me. And as my

mother was dying at the time, and my father never could deny

me anything, I eventually got him."

"How very interesting," says Laurel, not sounding interested

at all. But in fact she is interested, though somewhat repulsed.

Because she suddenly realizes that she may be heir to all this

moldering grandeur ... as well as the unwomanly freedom and

independence that seem to be a part of the Windboume inheri-

tance,

In the morning. Laurel cannot remember her dreams, but she

carries a vague, uneasy presentiment through the rest of that day

and me days which follow. She is much occupied during that

time with nursing her grandmother, who has most decidedly

"taken a turn" for the worse.

Mrs. Windboume's pain is heart-wrenching. And there is re-

ally very little that Laurel can do for the dying woman—

certainly not anything that the housekeeper and the other

MY SOUL INTO THE BOUGHS      143

servants could not do as well. But her company seems to be par-

ticularly wanted, so Laurel spends practically every day from

first rising until bedtime at her grandmother's side.

Until one day when the walls of the house begin to feel too

close and confining, the sickly, oppressive atmosphere in her

grandmother's bedchamber becomes unbearable, and Laurel es-

capes for a walk in the fresh air. This time, however, she avoids

the graveyard, and follows a narrow path leading into the heart

of the forest.

The trees are ailing; there is no longer any question about that.

Though it is still early summer, the oaks and the elms have

dropped the last of their leaves, and the fragile skeletons crunch

under her feet as she walks. The birches have shed so much bark,

they look raw and vulnerable. And there is a faint odor of decay

that reminds Laurel of the sickroom.

The bushes to one side of the path rustle and stir, and Joss

Marten appears on the trail about five feet in front of her. Laurel

greets him with a catch of her breath, a faint tingling of

pleasure—after so many days with the invalid, she is irresistibly

drawn to his virile good looks.

But pleasure turns to irritation as he stares at her with dull

hostile eyes and growls, "Still here, are you?"

Laurel tosses her head. "And why shouldn't I be here, Josiah

Marten? I have been invited to stay for as long as I wish."

Joss shrugs a broad shoulder. What he has been doing off by

himself in the forest. Laurel does not like to guess. There are

clods of dirt adhering to his clothes, and fragments of leaves and

moss in his russet hair. He looks as though he has been burrow-

ing under the earth like a rabbit or a badger. 'Thought you might

have sense enough to go before your grandmother dies ... you

won't find much opportunity afterward."

So ... Laurel thinks, her mind beginning to whirl with inter-

esting possibilities ... it would appear that I am the heir. And if

I am, he is probably correct: I daresay everyone expects me to

take charge at once and get the house in order, and that will cer-

tainly be a formidable task. It is a task, however, which appeals

strongly to her passion for organization. Assuming of course,

there is any money left to accomplish all the things that have to

be done, that everything here has gone to rack and ruin simply

because my grandmother is too old and too ill to care anymore,

and not because the family fortunes are decaying along with the

house.

She would like to ask Joss what he knows about this. but of

144

Teresa Edgerton

course it would be improper to discuss her grandmother's fi-

nances with one of the servants. Besides, she does not entirely

care for the way he is looking at her.

But when she turns aside to lake another path, he reaches out

with a big rough hand to stop her. "You don't want to go wan-

dering off into the woods alone. There's snakes in them bushes,

and spiders, too. And the foxes and the weasels run mad in the

hot weather—didn't no one ever tell you that?"

Now Laurel would like to pretend he has not frightened her,

but in fact he has, and she cannot entirely conceal her dismay.

Although she can Just tolerate dogs, cats, and horses, she has an

unreasoning fear of brute creation—the kind of fear that leads

to panics and to cold sweats—instilled by her mother at an

early age, and as for creatures that have too many legs or not

enough ...

She swallows hard, glances back over her shoulder to reassure

herself that there are no rabid foxes or weasels anywhere in

sight. Yet she manages to keep the panic out of her voice when

she speaks. "It is difficult to imagine anything living amidst all

this withering. Why are the trees dying ... or don't you know?"

His hold on her wrist relaxes, his arm drops. "There's a story

the old folks tell, but maybe you don't want to hear it"

Laurel gives a false little laugh. "Of course I do ... though I

certainly don't promise to believe everything you tell me."

Again he gives that annoying shrug, again she detects an am-

biguous expression in his amber eyes. "Well enough, then, since

you insist. In the ancient times, they say, the forest would begin

to fade once every thirty, forty years. Then the priests they had

in those days would take one of the village girls—she had to be

a virgin—and carry her off by force into the woods, where they

had built themselves an altar to their heathen gods. Once they

had her there ..."' He makes a quick expressive gesture with

one hand across his throat. "They do say, also, that the trees and

the beasts and even the earth still remember that time."

Now Laurel is simply furious. He is deliberately trying to

scare me! Suddenly, a great many things begin to make sense.

His questionable antecedents, his being raised right in the house

... he is undoubtedly some bastard of me Windboumes or the

Perrins, and perhaps he is foolish enough to suppose that gives

him some claim to the house and the property? It is clear by

now, anyway, that he resents Laurel and that he is trying to get

rid of her. Perhaps resentful enough to rig up a trap in the grave-

yard, in order to give his wild pagan stories some credibility?

MY SOUL INTO THE BOUGHS      145

Enough to start digging another pit somewhere in the forest and

to almost get himself caught just now in the very act?

"You are despicable," she tells him, between her teeth. "Ut-

terly beneath contempt." And she turns on her heel and leaves

him alone on the forest path.

Much to her relief, he makes no effort to call her back or to

follow after her.

Returning to the house, Laurel discovers that Mrs. Wind-

boume's doctor has finally put in an appearance. He is a wizened

little man in tweeds and a pair of dark spectacles, not particularly

prepossessing, but as he is the first medical man to set foot in-

side the house since her arrival. Laurel takes him into one of the

dim parlors and launches into a detailed account of her grand-

mother's suffering.

Halfway through the conversation, she realizes that he is not a

physician at all—just a country apothecary who dabbles in herbal-

ism on the side. But Mrs. Windboume, he assures Laurel, will not

admit a regular doctor into her bedchamber ... perhaps because

she retains some outdated notions about cupping and bleeding.

"But surely," says Laurel, growing a little desperate, "there is

something you can do to make her more easy. She is in so much

pain! Laudanum perhaps, or even morphine?"

"No," the apothecary answers with a mournful shake of his

head. "Either of these would cloud her mind, and she desires to

stay lucid until the very end, no matter the cost in pain and suf-

fering."

At this Laurel feels a twinge of guilt. At the same time, she is

deeply moved. It is obviously for her sake that Mrs. Windboume

wishes to remain alert and aware, not wishing to waste a single

precious moment of their remaining time together. And I have

been too cold and selfish to return the half of her affection. Yet

if she has been cool and distant in the past, she can at least re-

solve to be warmer and more receptive in the future.

When she goes upstairs to visit her grandmother, a half hour

later. Laurel is still feeling chastened. Because of that, she de-

cides not to mention her encounter with Joss Marten down in the

forest, decides not to speak of anything that might cause her

grandmother the slightest distress.

Laurel comes to herself in the darkness. She cannot see, she

can barely breathe. A great stifling weight is pressing her down,

and her arms and legs have gone as cold and lifeless as clay.

146                    Teresa Edgerton

"/ am sorry," says a gentle voice inside her head. "But the

forest and I were dying. You must understand, you were the heir,

and there was nobody else thai was at all suitable."

With a thrill of horror. Laurel understands that she is under

the ground. There is dirt in her eyes and in her nose and her

mouth: she can hear the dull thud of more clods descending. But

a strange thing happens to Laurel: she does not die, she simply

changes. Her flesh becomes earth, her bones become roots, her

hair grass, her eyes—

Laurel wakes to feel a hard pair of hands dragging her out of

her bed, a strong pair of arms lifting her up. For a moment, all

is darkness and confusion, mixed with the scent of woodsmoke

and autumn leaves, before she begins to comprehend what is

happening.

"How dare you, Josiah Marten. How dare you accost me in

my grandmother's house, my own bedchamber," she rages, strug-

gling in his grip.

But he only laughs and crushes her more painfully against his

chest as he carries her out of the room, down a dim hallway, and

finally to the top of a long pair of stairs. "You was warned. Miss

Laurel, but you was too stubborn to listen. Didn't I tell you that

you had to go away while you still could? Couldn't you see plain

enough, down in the graveyard, that the forest wanted you? But

you, you chose to stay in spite of everything, and that was

enough to satisfy the old woman."

Laurel continues to rage and to struggle, but to no avail. And

she does not really listen to what he says—or rather, the meaning

of his words only penetrate her conscious mind when they finally

reach Ac bottom of the steps and she finds her grandmother

waiting there.

Mrs. Windboume is paler than ever and so unsteady she must

lean against the newel post for support, but she is smiling trium-

phantly.

In that moment, Laurel realizes that her common sense has be-

trayed her. All this time, she has been trying to come up with ra-

tional explanations for the events surrounding her, never stopping

to think that the other people involved might be utterly irrational.

"You are simply insane," gasps Laurel, as Joss lowers her to

the floor. He allows her to stand on her own feet, but he still

keeps a strong grip on both her arms, holding them securely be-

hind her. "Do you really believe that you are dying just because

some trees and bushes and vines are withering away at the same

MY SOUL INTO THE BOUGHS      147

time? It is the cancer ... the cancer is killing you, and you can't

save yourself by sacrificing me."

"I am in full possession of my senses, Laurel dear," the old

woman replies calmly. "And of course the cancer is killing me.

I told you that myself; you never heard it from anyone else."

Laurel lets out her breath in a long sigh, shakes the hair out of

her eyes. 'Then what on earth is this all about? Why have you

sent this man to pull me out of my bed in the middle of the

night, and what was that nonsense he was telling me? Maiden

sacrifices and the forest wanting me, and my having to make a

choice? And why ..." she adds tremulously, because her slight-

est movement causes Joss to tighten his hold, and she can feel

that his fingers are going to leave bruises on the tender inside

flesh of her arms. "... why won't he let me go, if nobody means

me any harm?"

"As to nonsense," her grandmother answers, "I am afraid that

it's all perfectly true. In ancient times, they did shed the blood of

me occasional maiden—until a better way was found. Really, my

dear, you disappoint me. I was sure you would be clever enough

to guess the truth by now. / am not dying because the forest is

ailing, the forest is dying along with me."

Mrs. Windboume smiles, making an obvious display of the

strong green teeth. "And no one means to kill you. Laurel. On

the contrary, I mean to confer on you ... a kind of immortality."

The trees are beginning to revive down in the forest. Trees,

bushes, vines ... where all was weak and flaccid before, a vital

tension has been restored. A pulse of life passes through the

earth, leaving a greening world in its wake.

From her vantage point at Mrs. Windboume's latticed bed-

chamber window, the woman behind the veil can see it all

changing from moment to moment. It is, at the same time, terri-

ble and wonderful to behold.

But when Joss Marten appears down below—unusually neat

and precise in a black suit and a white collar—crosses the gar-

den, and slips out of sight again in the vicinity of the entrance to

die house, she forces herself to turn away from the window. With

a rustle of satin skirts, she glides over to the great four-poster

bed and looks down at the body that is lying there.

Death has turned Laurel's grandmother into a wax figure:

pure, changeless, serene. No sign remains of her recent suffering.

If the signs are to be seen anywhere, they are on Laurel's face

148                  Teresa Edgerton

behind the veil, as if something passed out of the old woman at

the moment of death and into her granddaughter.

There is a light scratching at the half-open door, and in re-

sponse to Laurel's invitation the housekeeper enters. ''Time for

you to go down. The guests have all arrived." Her glance slides

past the corpse lying on the bed but never quite reaches Laurel.

"You wouldn't want to keep them all waiting on such an impor-

tant occasion."

"Yes, I can hear them."

It would be difficult not to. From the rooms on the ground

floor came many sounds: grunting, growling, squeaking, hooting,

the occasional scrape of moving furniture, the thud of something

carelessly knocked over. Yet Laurel takes a few moments to

smooth out the skirt of her pale silk gown, to adjust her white

lace veil.

Then, with a mixture of joy and trepidation, she begins the

long walk down to the banquet hall where the wedding guests

and her bridegroom are waiting.

THE SCARS OF W

Echoes in flesh and wood

These Shoes Strangers

Have Died Or

by Bruce Holland Rogers

Bruce Holland Rogers has been published in F&SF, Ellery

Queen's Mystery Magazine, Quarterly West and many

other periodicals. A story of his, "Enduring as Dust," was

nominated/or an Edgar. His work has also appeared in a

number of antholgies, including DAW'S Witch Fantastic.

Nineteen forty-two was the first summer of the war bond cam-

paign. After the newsreels and before-the feature, a government

clip showed a Japanese soldier bayoneting a Chinese baby. The

voice-over said again and again, "Buy a bond. Kill a Jap. Buy a

bond. Kill a Jap."

The rifle with its bayonet rose and fell. People coming out of

the theater later would look at me, a young man old enough to

shave. Some of them asked me outright why I hadn't enlisted.

"I'll be old enough in September," I'd say.

After the theater was empty, I'd sweep the aisles and then sit

in one of the middle seats, the popular ones even on slow nights

and matinees. I'd close my eyes and grip the wooden armrests.

Beneath my palms the joy and fear and anger and relief that oth-

ers had felt in this theater moved in the wood grain like a nest

of animals, stirring.

Buy a bond. Kill a Jap-

Feelings like a knot you can't begin to untie.

"Kill a Jap. Be a Jap," I said to the curtained screen.

The house I live in now was built to my own design on the

north-facing slope of a canyon where the trees grow dense and

152                 Bruce Holland Rogers

dark. The first floor is half buried so that the second floor won't

rise above the trees, won't too easily reveal the house. To drive

here, you must follow a pair of wheel ruts that turn off from the

gravel road five miles distant. Unless you know where to look,

underbrush hides the way. I stay put in winter. For five months

of the year, the snow between house and road lies undisturbed.

On the second floor is a comer room without windows-

There's a deadbolt on the door to that room, and a padlock. In-

side, a Nazi battle flag hangs on one wall alongside photos of the

camps. Black and white photos of the living and the dead. The

far side of that wall is devoted to wartime posters of buck-

toothed Japanese. There's a photo of me as I was in 1943, a new-

minted soldier, posing with fixed bayonet and glaring at the

camera as if the lens were Tojo himself.

Buy a bond. Kill a Jap.

The war, my war, is limited to that wall. The other walls are

papered with photographs of skulls stacked in Cambodia, bodies

swelling in the sun of Burundi or Rwanda, mass graves opened