Seaward (5 page)

C
ally stepped through the mirror, out of the room, and the world blurred as if she were swimming underwater. Then her eyes cleared and she was walking, walking down a broad path with tall, straight-trunked pine trees towering dark on either side. She looked back. Nothing was there but the pine trees. A soft layer of needles covered the path, and her footsteps made no sound. At the edge of the trees, ferns grew green in a thick fringe. Far overhead, where the pines reached together in a high arch, she could hear the wind in the treetops, breathing.

Cally walked slowly, automatically. She felt dazed, detached, as if she were living a dream.
Where am I? How did I get here? Where am I going?
Half-formed, half-heard, the questions floated aimlessly at the back of her mind.

The path seemed to have no end. Before her and behind, it stretched on and on, dwindling into the darkness of the trees. Sometimes as she walked she thought she could hear a distant thudding like the chopping of wood, but whenever
she paused to listen, it died away. Then ahead, at the edge of the trees, she saw a signpost.

It stood beside the path among the tall feathery ferns, pointing into the forest. Its post was green with lichen, and Cally could see no word written on its blank pointing arm. In the direction of its pointing, there was no trace of a trail cut through the woods. There was nothing but the trees. The signpost pointed nowhere.

Yet it gave her a direction; it was better than the endless straight shadowed path. She plunged through the ferns and into the trees, following the signpost's blind finger.

Almost at once she was lost. The ground was rough and treacherous, hummocked with moss-covered boulders and rotting branches that caught at her feet. Stumbling through the trees, ducking beneath dead trunks that leaned against the living, Cally turned this way and that, fighting her way through low leafless twigs with her hands up to shield her face. Overhead a squirrel chattered shrilly at her, but she could not see it. Sometimes she found herself clambering over small rocks piled in long broken heaps, as if they were the fallen remnants of what had long ago been walls. But the wood had swallowed the walls, grown over and through them.

She thought again that she heard the thudding of an axe somewhere far off, but could not tell it from the rhythm of the blood beating in her ears.

The pines were thinning out now; they were smaller, with ferns and scrubby undergrowth between them, and Cally could see broken cloud in the sky above. Then, looking ahead, she saw something among the trees that was not a tree: a dark, straight pillar half as tall again as a man. She went towards it; then caught her breath and stood still.

It was a pillar of granite; its white-flecked surface gleamed dully in the grey light. But it had a head. Carved into the top of the pillar, so lifelike that it seemed about to move, was the face of a woman. The features were clear and beautiful, framed by long waving hair that flowed down and into the rough-cut stone beneath; the mouth smiled, and the eyes were welcoming. There was a gentle kindliness in the face that made Cally feel warm, cherished, as if the sun shone. She looked at it for a long time, feeling her taut wariness gradually relax—until she moved a step further, and saw the other side.

At the back of the head, another face was carved, staring out in the opposite direction. The long rippling hair was the same, merged with the hair of the first. But this face was startlingly different. There were the same clear-cut features, but now they were cold and stern; the mouth was a thin cruel line, and the eyes bored into Cally's with a dreadful chill menace that made her skin prickle with fear. Instinctively she moved aside, but the eyes seemed to follow, relentlessly holding her own.

Cally moved hastily backward to the mildness of the first stone face. But it no longer reassured her; she could not force out the image of the second, waiting on the other side. Then beyond the pillar, she caught sight of a figure standing some way off among the trees. It wore a blue cloak, with a hood pulled over the head: a bright shout of colour in the sombre wood. It stood very still, the dark opening of the hood turned towards Cally, as if it were watching her.

For a moment Cally felt cold with fright; she stood rigid, her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands. But the gentle stone face smiling at her from the pillar gave her confidence once more, and she took a deep breath.

“Hi!” she called, waving one arm at the cloaked figure. “Hi!”

She moved forward, still waving—and suddenly the figure was no longer there.

Cally blinked. Her eyes had been fixed on the patch of blue, and she knew that it had not moved—and there was no cover among the small scrubby trees that could hide it. She paused, unhappy and irresolute, and glanced back at the pillar. Unexpectedly the fierce cold stare of the terrifying second face blazed full at her. Cally looked quickly away. Longing to run, she made herself walk deliberately away through the stunted pines, all the time feeling the stare of the cold stone eyes at her back, until the pillar was out of sight.

She was out in bright daylight now, under a sky filled with drifting clouds. Nearby, a great boulder twice her height rose from the scrubland. Feeling very small and alone, Cally sat down on the edge of the rock to rest. What would she do when night came if she were still wandering over this empty land? She felt in the pocket of her jeans, but produced nothing but a handkerchief, a stub of pencil and a broken comb. Shoving them despondently back again, she leant one hand on the rock—and jumped up at once as if she had been burned. Though this seemed a warm spring day, the surface of the giant boulder was cold as ice: terrifyingly cold, as if all the warmth of the air had been sucked out of it.

Staring at the rock, Cally backed slowly away from it, feeling once more a rising sense of unease, and the beginning of panic. As she watched, a ray of sunlight slanted briefly down from a break in the clouds. It rested on the boulder, brightening the smooth grey rock.

And there came suddenly a cracking, grinding sound, and a rumbling through the earth all around, and Cally saw the boulder move. She thought wildly of earthquakes, but the ground did not shake; instead the giant rock shifted and split and writhed apart, as if it were alive. Watching incredulously, she saw it take shape, two particular shapes, until suddenly there was no boulder at all but two huge figures, standing, turning to her.

For a moment she stood motionless, staring.

There were heads, limbs, bodies, but these were figures like nothing she could have imagined. They were neither human nor stone, but both together; they belonged to the earth and the empty land, and they were looking at her without eyes. Then they began to come towards her.

Cally ran. Choking with terror, she fled through the fern and brush, leaping over rocks, dodging trees; and all the time she heard a great slow tramping behind her, from the crashing stone feet of the two monstrous figures following. She dared not look over her shoulder. She ran and ran, gasping, whimpering, and at last the brush thinned and she was running through long grass, and before her in a clearing stood a low stone house with smoke rising from its chimney. Through the terrible thudding behind her she heard again the strange rhythmic sound, more metallic now, that she had heard from far off, and near the house she saw a man swinging a long hammer up over his shoulder and down.

For Cally he was the most welcome refuge she had ever seen. She raced towards him and he looked up, letting the hammer fall into a pile of rocks. He was tall and lean, wearing rough denim work-clothes; his face was deep-lined, strong and almost ugly, with a shock of wiry black hair above. Skidding, she cannoned into his legs. Behind her, the great thudding steps slowed and came to a halt. The
man caught her by the shoulders. Cally looked up at him in anguished appeal.

His face was expressionless. He set her upright and let her go. “Why do you run?” he said. “They will not hurt you.”

Cally's heart jumped; she felt cold. There was no refuge here. She had made a terrible mistake—but it was too late to draw back now.

The man looked out over her head, and raised his voice. “Why do you bring this to me?”

Behind Cally, a huge rumbling voice spoke, deep, immensely strong, filling the air like the long growl of an avalanche.

“Did not mean to make afraid. Thought you might want.”

The man said irritably, “For what?”

“For work. Did not mean. Girl—did not mean to make afraid.”

Cally stood trembling, her breath uneven. The man made a clicking sound with his tongue, impatient, and he took her again by the shoulders and spun her round. She flinched back against his knees. The two huge figures stood facing her. In the sunlight they were like rough misshapen sculptures clumsily carved from great blocks of stone: arms without hands, legs without feet, heads without features. The slow rumbling voice came again from one of them.

“Did not mean. . . .”

Even through her fear, Cally heard an incongruous note of appeal in the voice that for a wild moment reminded her of a small child apologizing. She swallowed.

“It's all right,” she said huskily. “I'm . . . not afraid.”

“Hah!” said the man shortly, releasing her. “Not afraid? You're shaking like an aspen. And were you running like the devil because you're not afraid?”

Cally said, “It was —when they changed—”

“And if you don't understand, you fear.” He gave a brief snort of disgust, and turned to pick up his hammer. “Just like Lugan's folk. Are you one of them?”

Cally said blankly, “Who?”

“Where have you come from?”

“I—don't know. Another country.”

“Stonecutter,” said the deep creaking voice from the stone figure. “We did wrong?”

“No, no,” said the black-haired man impatiently. “She can work with Ryan. I dare say she needs a roof over her head.”

Cally thought of the dark wood, and the malevolent face on the pillar. In relief she smiled at him. “Yes please.”

He looked at her coldly. “Behind the house there is a door. Go through it, to the woman inside. Understand that here, life is work.”

Cally nodded, her smile fading.

“And understand one thing about the People, so that we'll have no more hysterics.” He pointed to the great stone creatures standing motionless before him. “The sun wakes them. When the sun is gone, they . . . go to sleep. All of us here live by that rule; but for them it must be the touch of the sun that brings them back to life.”

Cally remembered the beam of sunlight on the grey rock. She said, “The People?”

“It is what they call themselves.” The words were a dismissal; he turned away.

Cally glanced at the stone figures, but there was no way of telling if the blank faceless heads were looking back. She went to the house. Behind her, the thudding of the hammer began again—and with it a much more massive crashing, crunching sound, shaking the earth. Cally shivered, and did not turn to look.

The house was made of rough blocks of stone, set with small square windows deep in each wall, and roofed with blue slate. Cally found the heavy wooden door in the back wall, with a tall dark holly bush growing nearby. She knocked, timidly. Then she realised that the door was unlatched. Pushing, she found that it was in two halves; the top half swung open.

“No foot on the floor yet!” It was a quick, light voice, with a singing in its accent. Cally saw a broad, light-coloured floor, with heavy furniture all pushed into a cluster at one
end of the room. By the fire in the big open hearth, a little woman with wispy grey hair caught up in a knot was kneeling with a bucket and a brush. She blinked up at Cally, in the sunlight from the doorway.

“Well, who is this now!” She stood up and padded across to the door; Cally saw that she had pieces of rag wrapped round each foot and tied at the ankles with string. The woman glanced down at them and laughed: an infectious, gurgling laugh, turning her small face into a maze of smiling wrinkled lines and rounding her cheeks like apples.

“It's the day for the floor, you see—no use washing it clean and then grubbying it up with your own feet, is there?”

“No,” Cally said, smiling. “My mum walks about on dusters, when she's been polishing. That is —she used to.” Her smile died suddenly, and she felt a choking in her throat.

The woman looked at her shrewdly, and reached out and gave her hand a quick light touch. But she asked no questions. “Tired, you are,” she said. “A cup of tea, and something to eat. But first I must finish my floor. What's your name?”

“Cally. He—” Cally gestured vaguely at the yard. “He told me to come in here.

“Oh yes,” the woman said comfortably. “You would not be here if Stonecutter had not sent you in.”

“He said, she can work with Ryan.”

“That's me. And indeed you can.”

Cally said hesitantly, “Mrs. Ryan?”

“No, my dear, just Ryan. It is a shortening, of a name harder for the tongue.” She became brisk, looking round the room critically. “Now let me see. I have the elder leaves, I need the dock. Do you know dock leaves?”

Cally was startled. “Yes. The kind you rub on nettle stings?”

Ryan nodded approvingly. She reached to a shelf and took down a basket. “Now do you go out there and bring me back four handfuls of good green dock. And—oh—” She reached again, and put a small dark pottery bowl in the basket. “And a handful of sand.”

“Sand,” Cally said blankly.

“Easy to find. Where Stonecutter is, there's always sand.” She stood smiling at Cally like a small perky bird.

Baffled, Cally went back out into the sunshine with the basket. She turned away from the muffled thunder that was Stonecutter and the People at work, into a meadow beside the house. It stretched in a long lush sweep to the distant edge of the trees; as she wandered through the grass, she was puzzled, and did not know why. In a little while she realised: though trees and bushes and plants grew luxuriantly everywhere around the house, nowhere could she see a single flower.