Merlin's Wood (Mythago Wood) (11 page)

Everything was recorded and later he was shown the findings, understanding nothing. He watched the screens. Bursts of activity in the frontal lobe triggered sequential activities in the temporal lobe, limbic system and brain-stem. This was as it should have been. But he listened, uncomprehending, as he was shown a ‘furious’ echo from the limbic system, an ‘after-event’ that spread rapidly back, insidiously setting off activity in other regions of the neuro-cortex, a pattern of response that was meaningless to the psychologists who watched.

This ‘event’ occurred when Rebecca spoke words in the strange tongue that Martin had listened to in the deep of the night. But each time she spoke in what Father Gualzator had suggested was some form of early Basque, a normal speech pattern could be observed, though once, when she was whispering at random, she suddenly murmured in the deep-of-night sounds again and set up what Benvenista called a ‘standing field of bio-electric activity’, a split-second in which her whole brain was illuminated, as if awakened at once, a terrible shock that caused her to gasp, sit bolt upright from where she lay, to stare and froth, a fit of tremendous
power, but a moment only, a moment of ancient memory too strong for her sheltered twentieth-century mind to cope with.

Immediately after this there was nothing but darkness on the screen, but she whispered ‘Martin …’ and a small glow appeared, a flicker of light, a guttering candle, a calm flame in the Stygian darkness that was the web within her skull.

Finally, she spoke words in the sequence of lisps and glottal sounds that was the deep-of-night language, and there was no signal at all from the language centre of her cortex, only from the motor area, showing nothing more than that her tongue was moving. She spoke words from a darkness so deep that it no longer registered. Over and over these odd sounds whispered, yet among them came the name ‘Martin’, and when ‘Martin’ was sounded there was that comforting flash from the frontal lobe, but thereafter, just the gloom of visual silence until she was stopped and brought back to whatever consciousness she could experience through touch and sound and shadow.

‘To put it simply,’ Benvenista said, ‘it’s as if her learned language has been scraped away, exposing older forms, primitive forms – like a city, destroyed to expose the hill where the first settlers camped in prehistoric times. The core of our language is embedded – we build upon that core as we grow and experience communication. But the core of Rebecca’s language no longer registers. It is either still there, but has been hidden somehow; or it has been destroyed.

‘But there are no tumours, no areas of necrosis, no
fibrous masses, no signs of a stroke, no abnormalities. Everything in physiological and anatomical terms is healthy. And it’s the same with the visual cortex: show her a shadow and it registers. But the shadows she sees – at least, that she indicates she sees – do not show – except, of course, in the motor cortex as she follows the ghost with her eyes.’

‘But you think her language might still be there? All of her senses? Somewhere – just hidden?’

Benvenista spread his hands and shrugged as he stared out at the bright day. ‘In the absence of damage, I can’t imagine an alternative.’

Martin almost said,
what if someone had stolen her words, her songs, her dreams
, but he refrained from speaking. Across the room, Rebecca was making incoherent sounds and staring in the direction of the voices.

Although Benvenista would have liked to keep Rebecca longer, she was signalling with her body, with her crude speech, that she did not wish to stay. Martin drove them all back to the farm by Broceliande and spent an hour ringing around for a full-time, live-in nurse. He eventually found someone to take the position as from the next day.

Suzanne stayed the night, but Rebecca, once in her room and seated by the window facing the forest, was relaxed. She could perform most bodily functions without assistance, but gave no indication of being aware of either Martin or the older woman.

Two days later, Father Gualzator returned.

Martin was walking along the path with Daniel, holding the boy’s hand, talking to him gently. Daniel’s
behaviour at school that day had been disruptive, and Martin had been advised to take him home. He was coming down with flu, perhaps, was the diplomatic suggestion. As Martin had entered the classroom to take his son home there had been an almost tangible tension. Daniel was by the window, at a desk on his own, illuminated by the pale sun. The rest of the class whispered and wrote in exercise books. Daniel came quickly over to his father, and the teacher, a fair-haired man in his late twenties, smiled reassuringly as he closed the door behind Martin.

‘I’m sure it’s just a temporary upset,’ he said.

As Martin led Daniel down the corridor, behind him the classroom erupted into the sound of baying, barking and cheering, only subdued after thirty seconds of the teacher’s shouting.

On the path, Daniel suddenly stopped, clutching Martin’s hand more tightly. He was listening against the light wind. ‘It’s the priest,’ he said. ‘He’s hiding something.’

Martin scanned the land around, the dark wood, the hill with the sun setting, the scatter of houses. After a few minutes he saw the wobbling figure of Father Gualzator, approaching them on his ancient bicycle.

Smiling broadly, breathing hard, the priest dismounted. He was wearing his track-suit and a Redskins baseball cap. His smile, as he greeted Daniel, was transparently fixed, but he dropped to a crouch and embraced the boy.

‘How are you getting on with Uncle Jacques?’

‘All right. I miss Mummy, though.’

‘I’m sure you do.’

‘Uncle Jacques watches football all the time, and his computer can’t play good games.’

‘Oh dear. That is a tragedy. But he has a lot of books, doesn’t he?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Would you like to have a wobble on the bike? It’s a bit big for you, but it’s good exercise. Too bloody good,’ he added with a smile at Martin, taking a deep breath. ‘I’m out of condition.’

Daniel had grabbed the bicycle and was racing it away towards the church, hidden from view over the nearest hill. As he cycled furiously, he called back, ‘I can hear everything you say!’

Martin shouted, ‘Did you hear what I just said, then?’

Ringing the bell, Daniel called back, ‘You didn’t
say
anything.’

The boy was in the distance. ‘How much is two and two?’ Martin said in a normal voice. The bike skidded to a halt. Daniel laughed. He rang the bicycle bell four times then began to pedal furiously, riding perilously close to the ditch by the path.

Father Gualzator pulled a face. ‘He has
very
good hearing, your son. Conrad had the same facility. Must be something to do with the air round here.’ He gave Martin a meaningful glance. The priest, too, was aware of Conrad’s encounters with the ghosts, and with his belief that Merlin was behind the new phenomena around Broceliande.

‘Daniel’s a very talented young man,’ Martin said. ‘As
soon as Rebecca is better we’ll all be going on a long holiday. Somewhere hot, with lots of sea and sand.’

Daniel had vanished. The two men stopped and stared at each other for a moment, the unspoken words between them signalling their unease with the boy, with the idea of being listened to. Then the priest shrugged, as if to say, ‘What else can we do?’

Martin said, ‘So. Did your Old Eye help at all?’

‘Only a little. Let’s go to the house, I’d like Rebecca to be with us when I tell you what I’ve learned. At least, what I
think
I’ve learned.’

Outside the farmhouse, the priest’s bicycle was propped against the fence. Rebecca was at the window, a pale face in dark dress, staring out across the forest. She didn’t move when the gate rattled shut. Martin stared at her in sorrow, standing on the driveway until a second face behind her resolved into Suzanne, who waved at him.

Inside the house, Daniel was playing a computer game in his room. Martin stood behind him for a few minutes, watching the way the boy manipulated the two ‘mouse’ controls, determining the three-dimensional action of the two mediaeval armies as they engaged on the wide landscape. It always astonished Martin how so much information, so much awareness of what was off-screen, could be held in the mind of a child playing these complex interactives.

‘I’m staying home, now,’ Daniel said quietly,
suddenly. Martin squeezed the boy’s shoulder and was surprised when Daniel looked up at him, moist-eyed.

‘That’s what I want too,’ he said. ‘A nurse will look after Mummy. I’ll look after you. Uncle Jacques will be sorry to see you go, though.’

‘No he won’t.’

Ignoring the bitter words, Martin went to Rebecca. Father Gualzator was sitting with her, holding her hand. He had two sheets of paper on his knee.

Martin kissed Rebecca’s pale cheeks, then brushed her lips with his, eliciting a response, a desperate hug, a shuddering embrace that lasted for minutes. Then slowly Rebecca relaxed, again becoming blank-expressioned and almost limp.

The priest mouthed the words written on the sheets of paper.

I am in hell now. So is the other
.

The fire was put out. The swan drowned in ice waters
.

The bronze thorn pricked as it was intended. The blood was quick. Love was quick
.

Martin. Martin. The stag danced by falling water. Enchantment killed me. The god/ghost behind the mask is in the stone
. (‘That refers to “Mabathagus”, I mentioned him before.’)
The stone covers the pit. The pit consumes the bones. (But) the shadow ones are on the path
.

Love you. Love you
.

The hemp knot is twisted twice. She has no breath. The trickster is tricked
.

I am in hell. Let me out
.

The ghost has been drawn from me. Martin. Martin. Help me
.

Let me out
.

I am in hell
.

Let me out
.

There was the sound of breaking glass, of smashed machinery. Martin leapt from where he was sitting, by the silent, staring Rebecca, by the frowning priest. He ran along the landing to the room where Daniel had been playing.

As he opened the door, the boy pushed past him, screaming as he ran to his mother. The VDU screen was smashed, the keyboard broken in half, the mirror in the room broken too, and all the shelves emptied of their toys and books. Daniel had thrown a fit of rage. Now he was screaming incoherently at the priest. Martin reached for him and dragged him away. Rebecca sat quite motionless, undisturbed, unperturbed.

The boy suddenly stiffened. He was white with rage. His eyes seemed to stare from his head, popping from below the lids. The breath in his lungs was hoarse and animal. Martin felt his skin tingle with an odd electricity.

‘What happened, Daniel?’ he asked quietly.

The boy fled past him, thumping down the stairs. Chasing him, Martin was only able to stand by the back door and see his son, hair flying, racing into the dense edgewood of Broceliande. Where Daniel had leapt
over the fence, a bloody shred of his torn jeans hung limp and sickly.

Upstairs, for a brief and wonderful moment, Rebecca laughed; but it was just the rattle of a dying ghost.

The boy had vanished into the woods. Martin wanted to follow him, but he was frightened, he realised, frightened of the alienness, the anger, the incomprehensibility of the behaviour of the lad.

‘Daniel,’ he whispered. ‘Whatever is happening, whatever rage is in you, you
are
my son. Rebecca’s son too. Don’t abandon us.’

Did Daniel hear? Was that movement in the edgewood, that shift of branches, the rustle of leaves?

In a state of emotional limbo, Martin returned to Rebecca. She was asleep, now, fully clothed, but covered with a thin blanket. The nurse said that the drowse had come quite naturally, as if the woman had been exhausted and just curled up for forty winks.

Downstairs again, Martin read through the meaningless words.

‘Let me out. Let me out,’ he quoted. ‘A genie in a bottle?’

‘There are two voices here,’ the priest said, taking the sheets. ‘There’s the old voice, with its odd references – swans, stags, stone gods; and the phrase “let me out”. And there’s Rebecca’s last message to you. Here, where it says the ghost has been drawn from me; and the use of your name, and the sentiment of love. And “help me”. That’s Rebecca. The other voice is what’s inside her, the
traveller, and the language is a lost one, and the references are to lost events. At least, that’s the conclusion of my Old Eye in the mountains; but even so it was only an intuitive guess on her part. The language Rebecca whispered to me is older than the painted caves. Even to an Old Eye, it’s like trying to reconstruct a burned city from the charred remains of its foundations.’

‘Everyone who talks to me talks of ruined cities,’ Martin said, staring at the forest.

Father Gualzator walked down the drive to where Daniel had thrown his bicycle. He picked it up and checked the tyres, then rang the bell. He was distracted and unhappy and before he cycled back to the church and the hill he walked back to Martin and took the man’s hands in his, staring down, not meeting eyes. ‘This will sound cruel,’ he whispered. ‘And don’t assume it’s true. But I don’t think you can get
both
of them back.’

‘Oh Christ! That’s what Conrad said to me. But I can’t accept it.’

‘You may have to. The old bosker may have been touched, but he was touched by charm, not madness. I don’t think Daniel and Rebecca can ever be together. The one so dead, the other so alive … but they’re both of them ghosts, Martin. I don’t know where you go from here.’

‘Exorcism. That’s all I can think of. Exorcise them.’

‘Bronzebell, Book and Nightfire?’ The priest shook his head. ‘The travellers in your family are too old to be intimidated by the Church and the Hill. The exorcism needed in this case isn’t something I can accomplish.’

*

For half an hour Martin walked briskly to and fro along the edge of the forest, calling for Daniel. The light was going, and a storm was coming from the west. The breeze was cold and beginning to stiffen.