Mythago Wood - 1 (15 page)

'There were faces too, but much closer -'

'I didn't see them,' I said, surprised.

'They were there. If you'd looked. It's a ghost wood. It's the same. You've
been haunted by it yourself. Tell me I'm right!'

'Do you need me to tell you what you already know?'

His gaze was intense; his wild, fair hair flopped over his brow and he looked
very boyish; he seemed excited, yet also frightened, or perhaps apprehensive. 'I
would like to see inside that woodland,' he said, his voice almost a whisper.

'You won't get very far,' I said. 'I know. I've tried.'

'I don't understand.'

'The wood turns you around. It defends itself . . . well, Good God, man, you
know that from the other day. You walk for hours and come in a circle. My father
found a way in. And so has Christian.'

'Your brother.'

'The very same. He's been in there, now, for over nine months. He must have
found the way through the vortices

Before Keeton could query my terminology, a movement from the kitchen
startled us both, and made us both react with elaborate gestures of silence. It
had been a stealthy movement, given away by the shifting of the back door.

I pointed to Keeton's belt. 'May I suggest that you draw your pistol, and if
the face that appears around the door doesn't have a frame of red hair . . .
then fire a warning shot into the top of the wall.'

'Good God,' Keeton breathed, brightening up, losing his haunted look. He
lowered his arm, slotted the pistol back into the holster without taking his
gaze from the girl. Guiwenneth came over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder
(almost protectively!), standing by me as she scrutinized the burned airman. She
giggled and touched her face. She was studying the awful mark of Keeton's
accident. She said something in her alien tongue too fast for me to catch.

'You're quite astonishingly beautiful,' Keeton said to her. 'My name's Harry
Keeton. You've taken my breath away and I've quite forgotten my manners.' He
stood, and stepped towards Guiwenneth, who moved away from him, the grip on my
shoulder increasing. Keeton stared at me. 'Foreign? No English at all?'

'English, no. The language of this country? Sort of. She doesn't understand
what you say.'

Guiwenneth reached down and kissed the top of my head. Again, I felt it was a
possessive, protective gesture, and I couldn't comprehend the reason for it. But
I liked it. I believe I flushed as brightly as Keeton had a tendency to do. I
reached up and placed my fingers gently on the girl's, and for a brief moment
our hands interlocked, a communication that was quite unmistakable. 'Good night,
Steven,' she said, her accent strong and strange, the words an astonishing
utterance. I looked up at her. Her brown eyes shone, partly with pride, partly
with amusement. 'Good
evening,
Guiwenneth,' I corrected, and she made a
moue, turned to Keeton and said, 'Good evening. . .' She giggled as she trailed
off; she'd forgotten the name.

Keeton reminded her and she said it aloud, raising her right hand, palm
towards him, then placing the palm across her bosom. Keeton repeated the gesture
and bowed, and they both laughed.

Guiwenneth turned her attention back to me, then. She crouched beside me, the
spear rising from between her legs as she held it, incongruous, almost obscene.
Her tunic was too short, her body too conspicuously young and lithe for an
inexperienced man like me to remain cool. She touched my nose with the top of
one slender finger, smiling as she recognized the thoughts behind my crimson
features. 'Cuningabach,' she said, warningly. Then: 'Food. Cook. Guiwenneth.
Food.'

'Food,' I repeated. 'You want food?' I tapped my chest as I spoke, and
Guiwenneth shook her head quickly, tapped her own pert bosom and said, 'Food!'

'Ah!
Food!'
I repeated, stabbing a finger towards her.
She
wanted
to cook. I understood now.

'Food!' she agreed with a smile. Keeton licked his lips.

'Food,' I said uncertainly, wondering what Guiwenneth's idea of a meal might
be. But . . . what did it matter? I was nothing if not experimental. I shrugged
and agreed. 'Why not.'

'May I stay . . . just for that part?' Keeton prompted and I said, 'Of
course.'

Guiwenneth stood up and touched a finger to the side of her nose. (You have a
treat in store, she seemed to be saying.) She went into the kitchen and knocked
and banged about among the pots and utensils. I heard, quite quickly, the
ominous sound of chopping, and the unwelcome, distasteful sound of bones being
snapped.

'Awfully impertinent of me,' Keeton said, as he sat in an armchair, still
wearing his overcoat. 'Inviting myself like that. But farms always have such
lovely supplies. I'll pay, if you like . . .'

I laughed as I watched him. 'I may be paying you . . . not to talk about it.
I hate to tell you this, but our cook for the evening doesn't believe, or even
know, about traditional liver and bacon. It's as likely that she's going to
spit-roast a wild boar.'

Keeton frowned, of course. 'Boar? Extinct, surely.' 'Not in Ryhope Wood. Nor
bear. How would you like haunch of bear stuffed with wolves' sweetbreads?' 'Not
a lot,' the airman said. 'Is this a joke?' 'The other day I cooked her an
ordinary vegetable stew. She thought it was disgusting. I dread to think what
she would find passable . . .'

But when I crept to the kitchen door and peered round, she was clearly
preparing something a little less ambitious than brown bear. The kitchen table
was awash with blood, as were her fingers, which she sucked as easily as I might
have sucked honey or gravy. The carcass was long and thin. A rabbit, or a hare.
She was boiling water. She had chopped vegetables roughly and was examining the
can of Saxa salt as she licked the body fluids from her hands. In the event, the
meal was quite tasty, if somewhat revolting in appearance. She served the
carcass whole, head and all, but had split the skull so that the brains would
cook. These she nicked out with her knife and sliced carefully into three parts.
Keeton's refusal of this morsel was an hysterically funny exhibition of courtesy
and panic, warring for expression.

Guiwenneth ate with her fingers, using her short knife to stab and cut from
the surprisingly meaty rabbit. She dismissed forks as 'R'vannith,' but tried one
and clearly recognized its potential.

After a while she leaned back on her elbows, across my knees, and reached out
with her right hand gently to touch my ankle. The fire made her hair and skin
glow. She was deep in thought, and seemed melancholy.

My question to Keeton abruptly broke the contemplative, silent mood.
Guiwenneth sat up and looked at me, her face solemn, her eyes almost sad. Keeton
stood up and tugged his coat from the back of his chair. 'Yes, it is getting
late . . .'

I felt embarrassed. 'That wasn't a hint to go. You're welcome to stay.
There's plenty of room.'

He smiled peculiarly, glancing at the girl. 'Next time I might take you up on
that offer. But I have an early start tomorrow.'

'How
will
you get back?'

'Same way I came. Motorcycle. I parked it in your woodshed, out of the rain.'

I saw him to the door. His parting words, addressed to me as he stared at the
edgewoods, were, I'll be back. I hope you won't mind . . . but I'll have to come
back.'

'Any time,' I said. A few minutes later the roar of his motorcycle made
Guiwenneth jump and question
me
with her look, alarmed, puzzled. I smiled
and told her that it was merely Keeton's chariot. After a few seconds the drone
of the cycle had gone, and Guiwenneth relaxed.

There had been a closeness between us, that early evening, which had affected
me strongly. My heart beat loudly, my face flushed, my thoughts were
unrestrained, adolescent. The presence of the girl, seated quietly on the floor
beside me, her beauty, her strength, her apparent sadness, all combined to play
havoc with my emotions. In order to prevent myself reaching for her, grasping
her by the shoulders and clumsily attempting to kiss her, I had to grip the arms
of my chair, fight to keep my feet motionless on the carpet.

I think she was aware of my confusion. She smiled thinly, glanced at me
uncertainly, returned her gaze to the fire. Later she leaned down and rested her
head against my legs. I touched her hair tentatively, then more surely. She
didn't resist. I stroked her face, brushed my fingers lightly over the tumbling
locks of red hair, and began to think my heart would burst.

In truth, I thought that that night she would sleep with me, but she slipped
away towards midnight, without a word, without a glance. The room was cold, the
fire dead. Perhaps she had slept against me, I don't know. My legs were numb
from being held in the same position for hours. I had not wanted to disturb her
by any brief motion of my body, other than the gentle caress. And abruptly she
stood, gathered up her belt and weapons, and walked from the house. I remained
seated, and at some time in the early morning dragged the heavy table-cloth
across my body as a blanket.

The next day she returned during the afternoon. She acted with diffidence and
distance, not meeting my gaze, not responding to my questions. I decided to busy
myself in my usual way: house maintenance (that is, cleaning) and repairing the
broken back door. These were not tasks with which I would normally have
bothered, but I was reluctant to follow after Guiwenneth as she prowled through
the house, lost in her own thoughts.

'Are you hungry?' I asked her later. She smiled, turning to me from her
position by my bedroom window, staring out. 'I am hungry,' she said, the accent
funny, the words perfect.

'You are learning my language well,' I said with exaggerated emphasis, but
she couldn't grasp that.

This time, without my bidding, she ran herself a bath, and squatted in the
cool water for some minutes, squeezing the small bar of Lifebuoy soap between
her fingers, conducting a murmured conversation with herself, occasionally
chuckling. She even ate the cold ham salad spread I prepared.

But there was something wrong, something that was beyond my naive experience
to grasp. She was aware of me, I knew that, and I sensed too, that she needed
me. Something was holding her back.

Later in the evening she prowled and poked through the cupboards in the
unused bedrooms, and dug out some of Christian's old clothes. She stripped off
her tunic and tugged on a collarless white shirt, standing there giggling, arms
spread. The shirt was far too big for her, covering her to mid-thigh and hanging
loose over her hands. I rolled up the sleeves for her and she flapped her arms
like a bird, laughing delightedly. It was back to the cupboard, then, and out
with a pair of grey flannel trousers. These we pinned up so that they only
reached to her ankle, and the whole lot was tied at the waist with a
dressing-gown cord.

In this unlikely garb she seemed to be comfortable. She looked like a child
lost in the ballooning clothes of a clown, but how could she judge such things?
And being without concern for her appearance, she was happy. I imagined that in
her mind she associated the wearing of what she thought to be
my
clothes
with being closer to me.

It was a warm night, a more usual summer atmosphere, and we walked outside
the house in the fading light of dusk. She was intrigued by the spread of the
sapling growth that now bounded the house and swarmed across the lawns beyond
the study. Among these immature oaks she walked in a weaving fashion, letting
her hands trail among the flexible stems, bending them, springing them, touching
the tiny new season's buds. I followed her, watching the evening breeze catch
the voluminous shirt, the incredible cascade of her hair.

She undertook two circuits of the house, walking at near marching pace. I
couldn't fathom the reason for the activity, but as she came round to the back
yard again her glance at the woodland was almost wistful. She said something in
a tone that smacked strongly of frustration.

I grasped it immediately. 'You're waiting for someone. There's someone coming
from the wood for you. Is that it? You're waiting!'

And at the same time the sickening thought was occurring to me: Christian!