Darkest Part of the Woods (43 page)

"What

about?"

"Before you made the move to London."

"Not being able to, you mean? I expect half of that was really knowing the job dad wanted to fix me up with wasn't right for me."

"I hadn't thought of that. I know he's proud of the one you're doing. Anything else you recall?"

"You're thinking of Sylvia."

"I could be."

"How we found her after she got rid of the baby and then we somehow got lost in the woods all night. I still wish you'd gone for counselling like me."

"The important thing is you did. Otherwise you mightn't have realised you wanted to do social work, you said so yourself."

"But if you'd gone..."

"Seriously, don't waste any worrying on me. I'm like you. I'm exactly where I want to be and need to be."

"Mum."

"And don't sound like that either."

"Then can I ask you something?"

"You always can, and you should."

"Why were you so anxious to make sure they filled in the place we found Sylvia?"

"We wouldn't want children wandering down there and hurting themselves, would we?

Nothing and nobody's going to get through all that concrete."

"Fair enough, if that's all."

"What else were you thinking it could be?"

"I wondered if it had anything to do with the book you said Sylvia found."

"You're still telling me you never saw it. You don't have to go that far, Sam."

"It's the truth."

"Well, you're never going to see it now. It's no great loss if it made Sylvie go where she ended up, you'll agree."

"I never understood how you thought it could have influenced her so much."

"Then don't let it bother you. It's just your mother being strange."

"I wish you wouldn't keep on saying that about yourself. Listen, I have to go in a moment. I'm meeting someone for dinner."

"Someone I'd like, I hope."

"I think you would. Maybe I'll bring her to meet you."

"You don't want to do that, Sam."

"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"

"No point in coming back here now you've made the break. There's nothing for you here, it would only depress you, and I'd be worrying about you driving here. I'd get even less sleep. I can't help that, being your mother."

"You sound as if you don't want me ever to come."

"Suppose you found you couldn't leave when all your clients need you?"

"That isn't going to happen, not now I've figured out why it did."

"You mustn't be too sure, Sam. I know what we can do instead. We'd like to see where he's living, wouldn't we, mummy? Let's go soon."

"Is Margo there? Say hello for me."

"Sam says hello."

"Hi, Sam."

"And tell her congratulations that her work's popular again."

"I will. Why do you think that's happened?"

"Things go in and out of fashion. What else could it be?"

"You don't think the world's changed somehow."

"Only like always. Listen, I really have to go, but don't have Margo driving all this way unless she's absolutely certainly up to it."

"She's a better driver than ever now she's had her car altered. Custom Car Margo, that's my mother. Do you want a word with her?"

"I better had another time. I'll speak to you both again soon."

"Sleep well tonight and every night, then. Sam says he's sorry but he has to run."

"I ought to as well, Heather. Lucinda was supposed to call about taking more of my work. Don't say it, I won't be running, even less than Sam will."

"I think you're a phenomenon. I'd be nowhere near as sprightly if I'd had to survive what you have."

"And at my age, you're too gracious to say. You've been through plenty, and I know you'll get over it."

"That's the attitude. Looking to the future, that's how the Prices operate.

Anyway, someone's after you. Just Lucinda, that's right. Thanks for all the news."

"You know me, always up for a gossip."

"Was there anything else I should know?"

"I can't think what."

"Any new babies in town lately?"

"Not that I've heard. Heather, you're not starting that again, are you?"

"I wasn't aware that I'd stopped. I haven't been visiting, if that's what you mean."

"I hope you won't. You know how people felt about that."

"I expect they feel safe from me now."

"You don't have to tell me nobody was ever anything but safe with you, but you know the kind of stories people have made up about us. I still don't understand why you feel you have to stay so close."

"So long as you don't let it worry you."

"I won't if I know you're getting better."

"Every day I'm more myself."

Margo released a toneless sigh that might have been a comment or a hint of the effort involved in standing up. Once she was on her feet, however, she made no fuss about hobbling four-legged to her car. As Heather held the lightweight crutches while Margo lowered herself into the driver's seat, she risked saying "So you're still going in the woods."

"Wouldn't you want me to?"

"I don't know how I could stop you."

"Not when I'm trying to make a tribute to your sister."

"How

are

you?"

"By finding traces of her in the woods. The way she'd put her head on one side when she was thinking of a secret. The way she'd hold her hands out when she was going to tell us one."

"You're saying she's there."

"I'm saying nobody but me might notice these things, but that's the point of what I do, isn't it, to make others see? If the shape's growing I paint it, if it's dead and I can carry it on my little trolley I carve it." Margo gestured her closer before murmuring "I keep looking for signs of her baby. I just feel there ought to be some when he or maybe she was never found."

She bunked at Heather's reaction and seemed unhappy with it, especially since she was quick to pretend not to be affected. She reached for her crutches and stored them beside her, then made a parting effort to be positive. "I think I've been rediscovered because I'm sharing what I feel about Sylvia."

Heather managed to conceal her unease for her mother's sake. "Goodbye but not for long," she said, dealing her a kiss on the forehead, and watched her drive out of the gate. Surely nothing much was liable to gain a hold yet-surely the sowing of Margo's vision was less dangerous than any seeds that might have strayed out of the forest, though didn't that mean it was still another reason for Heather to be watchful?

She was making for her father's room when she was accosted. "Heather."

"Yes."

"I heard you with your mother. We can help."

"Tell me how."

"Parents put births in our paper, don't they? We can ask for it to be delivered.

We needn't say it's you wanting it or why."

"That would be a start, but..."

"Then you'd know where to go and look, or you could tell us what to look for.

They can't watch all of us all the time. And there's something better."

"Let me hear it, then."

"We've got them to agree to take a couple of us walking in the woods each day.

That's including you, and we'll tell you everything we see when you aren't there. You're the leader now, remember. You've seen the most. You've got more people in the woods than anyone, as well."

"Thanks, Delia," said Heather, and left her tugging at her cheeks as if to help herself survey more of the forest at once. Heather was careful to smile at the receptionist on the way up to her room-her father's room. Even if she oughtn't to be there-even if nothing except gossip made it best for her to be-she couldn't refuse the help of her father's circle now that she'd taken his place.

She mustn't underestimate the woods as Selcouth had, never realising that he'd been lured to them to increase their power. Perhaps that had been dissipated for a while, but she knew it would gather itself afresh for its next attempt to enter the world.

The trees rose drowsily to meet her gaze as she crossed the room, her shoulders continuing to squirm. As she lifted the sash the few inches it would travel, a faint sweetish smell drifted in. Though the woods looked paralysed by the August afternoon, the smell suggestive of decay betrayed the activity they hid. At least there were birds in the treetops now, or were they black fragments of some far larger restlessness? "You'll have to show yourself sometime," she whispered, and settled down to watch.

The End