Greenmantle (25 page)

“I know that feeling from just seeing her a couple of times,” Ali said.

Lewis smiled. “And yet I trust her. She’s been very good to me—kept me company through many an evening. She likes to have me read to her and brings me the odd book from time to time that she ‘finds.’“

“She brought you all of these?” Bannon asked, looking up from his book.

“Oh, no,” Lewis said. “But some of them. Others my friend Jango searched out and brought me—knowing my interest in such things. The greater portion of them, however, made up the library of the man who built the house you now live in, Ali.”

She remembered something Mally had told her. “The ‘dark man’?”

Lewis nodded. “That’s what Mally calls him. His real name was Ackerly Perkin. He left this area well over fifty years ago.”

“Mally…she’s been around that long?” Ali asked.

“I’ve known her that long. I have the feeling that she’s been around forever.”

“But she looks my age.” Ali couldn’t believe the wild girl was fifty years old, if not older.

“She hasn’t aged a day since the first time I met her,” Lewis said.

“That’s not possible,” Ali said.

Still not looking up from his book, Bannon nodded in agreement.

“There’s a great deal about Mally that doesn’t seem possible, I’m afraid,” Lewis told them.

“What about this Perkin guy?” Valenti asked. He was getting uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was going. Unlike Bannon, he’d heard the piping and seen the stag, so he knew that there was
something
odd going on around here. But people didn’t just stop growing older. Not unless they’d died. “What’s the story on him? And why does Mally call him a dark man?”

“She saw him as something dangerous,” Lewis said, “though I’m not sure what the exact danger was. Either he was capable of showing the mystery to be an illusion—which would, you’ll have to agree, take a great deal away from its power to move our spirits—or the mystery was real, but Perkin was capable of creating illusions that could chase the mystery across the world like the legendary Wild Hunt chased the souls of the dead. What’s even more curious, however, is that there was another Perkin in Wealdborough who was, in his own way, as mysterious as Ackerly Perkin, but his exact opposite. We’re back to illusions again—the original Perkin in England had none, while Ackerly Perkin had too many.”

He regarded the confused looks on the faces of his guests and shrugged apologetically. “I’m sorry if I’m not explaining this very well, but the whole problem has been a source of much personal confusion and soul-searching and I still don’t quite have it set in my own mind. My research has led me down too many false trails—so many, in fact, that I’m not quite sure myself as to which are the illusions and which not.”

“You mean the stag’s not real?” Valenti asked.

“He seems very real,” Lewis said.

Valenti thought about it attacking Shaw’s car last night. “I’ll say.”

“But something pursues the stag—and that’s what confuses me the most at the present time. This Hunt—is it a natural phenomenon? By which I mean, if the stag exists as a mythical being, does it always follow that the Hunt will pursue it? Or was the Hunt created out of Ackerly Perkin’s illusions and set upon the stag’s trail? Or is it my own questioning as to what exactly the stag is that has set the hounds upon it—are the hounds my questions?”

“I thought the stag
was
the huntsman,” Ali said.

“Some cultures have depicted him so,” Lewis replied.

Valenti remembered what he’d seen the first night he saw the stag. There’d been shapes following it, looking first like hounds, then like monks or priests. “Why’s it so important to figure this all out?” he asked. “I mean, either something’s real, or it’s not, right?”

“But it’s not so simple as that,” Lewis said. “We’ve contained the mystery to some degree—kept it from roaming beyond the confines of these forests because if it was to run free in the world…” He paused, looking for a way to phrase what he wanted to say. “There’s too much wrong in the world now,” he said finally. “And if you remember what I said about the mystery reflecting what it finds in the hearts of those who come into contact with it…”

There was a moment’s silence as his guests considered his train of thought.

“Boom,” Valenti said.

Ali shook her head. “I can’t accept that. What if you’re wrong, Mr. Datchery? What if the stag’s presence would be enough to just mellow everyone out?”

“There is no power in the world, not that of
any
religion’s god or mystery, that can change people from being what they are. The world’s history—what little we have recorded of it—proves that beyond a doubt.”

“But—”

“And if you need further proof,” Lewis continued without letting Ali speak, “then remember this: The mystery once had free run of the world. Were there no more wars? Did people help each other in times of famine or plague?”

“So you have to keep it trapped?” Bannon asked, interested despite himself.

“A better way to put it would be that we’re keeping him alive,” Lewis said. “He wouldn’t survive very long in the greater world by himself. Unfortunately, our numbers have dwindled here in New Wolding. We are no longer enough to keep him here. The mystery speaks through Tommy’s music and reaches out farther and farther each time it sounds. The mystery needs the rebounding echoes that come when the music touches the soul of a man or a woman, and then returns to him. The echoes that come back to him now aren’t always good. They make the mystery wilder, driving him farther away from his aspect of the Green Man and more to that of a dumb beast. And at the same time the Hunt grows stronger, feeding on those echoes. It becomes a downward spiral….”

“Maybe it’s time for him to go,” Ali said. “You know. The circle turns and all that? Maybe he’s got to go, so that he can come back stronger.”

“That’s the Christian in you talking. The miracle of Christ’s rising from the dead and His subsequent ascension into Heaven.”

Ali shook her head. “I think it’s more pagan,” she said with a small smile. “I mean, reincarnation and that sort of thing.”

“I think I’m getting a headache from all of this,” Valenti said. “The more you talk, the more confused I get.”

“My own years of research and study have left me no better off,” Lewis replied. “Sometimes I think that only Mally has the right of it. She says to just let things flow. What comes will come.”

“She seems more active than that to me,” Ali said.

Lewis smiled. “Well, she also says that it’s better to do and experience, than to peck and worry at the workings of a thing.”

“There’s just no straight answer, is there?” Valenti said.

“Wait until tonight,” Lewis said. “Maybe
you’ll
find an answer.”

“Will Mally be there?” Ali asked.

“Perhaps. She doesn’t always go.”

“Whatever happened to Ackerly Perkin? Bannon asked.

“The world went to war and he went to experience it.” Lewis shook his head. “We never heard from him again.”

“What about the other Perkin?” Ali asked. “The one in England?”

Lewis sighed. “I don’t know. It’s getting late. Perhaps we should have some dinner and save the rest of your questions for another time. Wait until after tonight.”

“Okay,” Ali said. “Do you want some help with dinner?”

“I’d like that very much,” Lewis said.

Valenti glanced at Bannon, but Bannon merely returned to his book as Lewis and Ali began to make a salad. Lewis already had a stew on and there was freshly raised dough ready to go into the oven. As the scent of baking bread filled the cabin Valenti returned to the door and studied the view.

Somewhere up on that hill, in among the wet trees—that was where the stone was. Somewhere in the forest, the mystery was walking…like a stag, or a goatman, or a man with antlers and a mantle of green leaves. Valenti wondered for a moment before he went back to sit at the table: Did the mystery ever appear as a wild-haired girl with burrs and twigs in her curls who called herself Mally? Or maybe as an old man who lived by himself in a cabin in the forest, on the edge of a village that wasn’t marked on any map?

Just what the hell were they going to find out tonight? He glanced at Ali, who was happily chopping up cabbage and carrots for the salad. Maybe coming out here today hadn’t been such a good idea after all. If anything happened to her… Fercrissakes, he told himself. Don’t even think about that.

10

By six o’clock Monday evening, Howie came to the conclusion that Earl had dumped him. He felt a curious mixture of relief and regret. On the one hand, this was going to be the big score. Earl wanted to just work his way deeper and deeper into the big money rackets, but Howie hadn’t quite decided what he was going to do with the cut Earl had promised him. All he knew was that for the first time in his life, he was going to have enough money to do what
he
wanted for a change. People were going to listen to what he had to say. Women were going to want him in their pants.

The thing that balanced all that slipping away was the fact that he wouldn’t be around Earl anymore. Earl with his crazy eyes. Earl who, if you said the wrong thing maybe, would just as soon blow you away as not. Howie didn’t dislike Earl, but he’d learned to be more than a little afraid of him. His relationship with Earl had become a little like a big cat act in the circus, except the lion was in charge, and if it jumped through a hoop, it was only because it wanted to.

Howie shifted uncomfortably in his deck chair. What the hell was he going to do now? How long were Lisa and Sherry going to take care of him before they, too, picked up on the fact that Earl probably wasn’t coming back to collect him? As though summoned by his thoughts the screen door banged open behind him and the women joined him on the porch. Lisa had a joint burning between her fingers.

“Want a toke?” she asked, offering it to him.

“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

“We,” Sherry announced, “have got the munchies. What do you say to pizza?”

Howie’s little fantasy of the two women both going down on him hadn’t come about, but Sherry kept giving him considering glances like she was interested in him. It didn’t make sense to Howie—women never wanted him unless they were going to get something out of it—but he sure wasn’t going to complain if something started. He found himself wishing that Lisa would make herself scarce.

“Pizza?” he said. “Sounds good.”

“So what don’t you want on yours?” Sherry asked him.

“The works.”

Sherry giggled. “Right, so you don’t want anything on yours.”

“No, no. I meant—”

Howie never finished as the two of them exploded with laughter. Sherry and Lisa had been smoking all afternoon and were both flying high. Howie had smoked about one joint for every three of theirs—enough to keep a buzz on and dull the ache from his shoulder, but not too much so that Earl would come back and find him blasted. He grinned at the women now and took a long toke, holding the marijuana smoke deep in his lungs. Fuck Earl. He’d waited around for Earl long enough.

“Okay,” Sherry said when she caught her breath. “The works for you, Howie.” She started to giggle again but held it in.

“I’ve got it,” Lisa said. “We’ll get one large—mushrooms and green peppers on half, the other half with the works—and one small ham and pineapple.” She retrieved her joint from Howie. “Anybody want to come along for the ride?”

Howie glanced at Sherry. She gave him a look that made him feel a little weak-kneed, so he shook his head.

“Okay. I’ll be back in half hour or so. Don’t get into trouble, kids.”

When Lisa was gone, Sherry knelt down beside Howie’s deck chair. “You’re a funny kind of a guy, Howie,” she said.

He cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah?”

“Mmmm. You’re quiet—but nice quiet, not creepy quiet, you know? How’s your shoulder?”

“It’s okay. Pretty good, considering.”

She leaned forward, resting her arms on the chair by his leg. “You know what I think would be really therapeutic?” she asked. She reached out with one hand and ran her fingers along his thigh. Even through his jeans he could feel each individual nail. “Can’t you even guess?”

Howie shook his head. He didn’t want to break the spell. Christ, he thought. This can’t be happening to me.

“Well, speaking as your personal doctor,” Sherry said, “I think…” She paused and started to pull down his zipper, slipping her hand in to grasp his hardening penis. “I think you need a little therapeutic loving—just to give you back your will to live. What do you think?”

Howie swallowed and nodded.

“Of course,” Sherry said as she lowered her head, “this means you’re going to owe me, and I’ll warn you right now, I always collect on my debts….”

Howie leaned back in the deck chair. Maybe she was feeling sorry for him, maybe she liked him, maybe she was just high—he didn’t care which. He just couldn’t believe this was happening. He didn’t want it to ever stop.

* * *