Merlin's Wood (Mythago Wood) (26 page)

Farrel knew where to go all right. He thought about the knoll and its now empty burden of graves, and as the night wore on and a heavy rain began to drum across the countryside, sending icy rivulets across the uneven rock floor of his cave, so the knoll, dark and invisible in the night, seemed to beckon to him. Tig writhed before him, a boy at the mercy, the whim, of forces dying, but still far greater than any that man had ever conceived of, either now or in Farrel’s own time, far in the future. And yet, perhaps that was wrong – perhaps the people of this time
had
conceived of the sons and daughters of the earth who somehow, inexplicably, were directing the destiny of the Tuthanach. Perhaps it was only with time and greater self awareness that man came to forget the spirits and guardians of all that he surveyed, the rock and stones, the trees and winds, the earth, the vast earth; mother …

She called to him and Farrel responded with fear. They had been with him for some time, directing his thoughts, but their touch was tenuous, uneasy. Farrel drew back into his cave and covered his head, blocked his ears and eyes and tried not to see nor hear nor feel what was coming to him: he tried not to think of it, but he could not empty his mind of their presence.

He screamed, confused and terrified by the strangeness of the contact. Dark-eyed, shivering with cold and terror, he cowered in his cave until morning, and dawn-light, and peace again.

He ran across the storm-threatened land, pacing heavily on the saturated turf, waiting for the next cloudburst. Tig scampered towards him and he felt a great sense of relief.

The boy saw his fear and laughed, jumped high in the air, then clapped his hands together in glee.

‘What does it mean?’ cried Farrel.

Tig-never-touch-woman-never-touch-earth dropped to his haunches and plunged his fingers between the tightly knotted grass mat.

‘This Farrel is being prepared to touch earth,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

‘But this Farrel
is
afraid. This Farrel is terrified!’

‘There is no need to be,’ said Tig, suddenly less childish. He watched Farrel through bright, deep brown eyes. Grease and paint were smeared about his cheeks and chin, a meaningless mosaic of colour and half formed design. The wind blew suddenly strong and Tig shivered. He rose to his feet and glanced up, rapping his thin arms around his naked torso. Farrel too hunched up and followed the boy’s gaze into the heavens, where dark clouds and lancing sunlight played confusing chase games across the valley.

‘What is going to happen to this Farrel?’ asked the man.

Tig smiled, almost patronisingly. ‘Wonderful things.’

‘What is underneath the grass? What is hidden there?’

‘This Farrel will soon know. Fear is unnecessary. This Farrel will lose nothing he has not already lost.’

Farrel stared at him, feeling suddenly old, suddenly alien.

‘What has this Farrel lost?’

Tig grinned. ‘His past, his people, his dreams, his strange images. This Tig never understood them, never understood the words. This has always been between us. When this Farrel has touched the earth they will be gone. We will build the temple together: we will build our dreams and our people together.’

‘It sounds magnificent,’ said Farrel. ‘But this Farrel is still afraid.’

Tig laughed again. ‘Afraid of the earth?’ He scuffed the ground with his bare feet. ‘Afraid of clouds? Afraid of sun?’

‘Afraid of …’ He stopped, unsure. ‘This Farrel doesn’t know what of.’

Tig slapped his hands together, shook his head. ‘This Farrel should go back to the cave. Wait there. When you are called, go to them. Go to them.’

Unquestioningly, resigned to his bizarre fate, Farrel turned and walked back to the overhang.

By dusk it was raining again.

She called to him and again Farrel responded. He was still afraid, but Tig’s words, his reassuring attitude, helped him overwhelm that fear and put it from his mind.

He walked through the driving rain, the clay in his
hair running into his eyes and mouth, giving him a foretaste of the great oral consummation to come. He swallowed the clay, tasted its texture, wept as he ran through the rain, through the moaning woods. Behind him, high on a hill, torch light burned beneath a skin shelter where an artist worked on stone late into the night, anxious to express the earth symbols that he had relearned from the one boy who had not forgotten. He was an artist who added his soul to the rock and the rock to the temple … a temple to the earth gods, Woman in the Hill, Dying Father Thunder, those who inhabited the boulders and the wind, the clouds, and the running mud, the grassy turf of uncountable acres of virgin earth.

Through the night and the rain Farrel ran, until he found himself, without thinking, on the knoll that rose above the woods, the great source of earth energy that he had tapped so briefly, so frighteningly, several days before. And here he lay down on the ground, in the trench left by one of the Tuthanach, and stretched out his arms—

Gripped the mother’s flesh—

Penetrated the mother’s fertile womb, ejaculated with the ecstasy of contact—

Ate her breast, drank the cold and grainy milk of her glands, felt it flood into his body, through the apertures of his prostrate corpse, driving the substances of his canals before it, replacing his warmth with its own loving cold. Earth closed over his back, the rain filtering through ran down his skin, drained deep into the tissues of the soil below. His lungs filled with mud – he
breathed deeply and after a moment his heart stopped, his breathing stopped … suspended, touching the earth.

Almost immediately they were there, rising out of the deep rock, flowing through the earth and the pores of the soil, entering Farrel’s body through the tips of finger and penis, down the earth bridge that extended along the convolutions of his gut. He was consumed by them, consumed them for his own part, welcomed them and heard their dying greeting, the words that had flowed through the minds of the Tuthanach during the previous weeks …

I am earth, Farrel, I am the earth, I am of earth, the earth is within me and without me, I am soil and rock, diamond and jade, ruby and clay, mica and quartz, I am the litter of the dead who live in crystalline echo in the sediments of sea and lake, I am ground, I am woman who suckles the infant flesh of man and beast, I am womb and anus, mouth and nose and ear of the great world lover, I am cave and tunnel, bridge and haven, I am the sand that sucks, the field that flourishes, I am root and clay, I am life pre-carnate, I am dirt, who has been called Nooma and Shaan, and is Tutha and Cein, and will be Ga-Tum-Dug and Nisaba, I will be Geshtin and Tammuz and my branches will be earth against the sky and all will be one, I will be Faunus and I will be Consus, I will be Pellervoinen and Tapio, I will be Luonnotar who floats on white water and touches the wind, I will be Asia and Asia-Bussu, Lug and Jesus, I will
be coal and ore and I have existed since a time of desolation and of thunder and of sterility – you, Farrel, who know all these things should know also that this is the moment of our great dying, the breath of wind passing out of the body of earth and into the memory of man …

A second voice: I am wind, who has been called God-singer by the Kalokki who were the first men, and is called Tag and Feng-po, and Huaillapenyi, I am breath and life, I am death, the rising odour of decay, I am storm and rage, light and dark, I am thunder and fear, I am the changing seasons of time, I am the urger of seas and the calmer of wings, I will be remembered as Taranis and Wotan, Thor and Zephyrus and Ga-oh and Hino and my thunder shall be heard until the final fire, but you, Farrel, who knows all these things, should know also that this is the moment of our great sorrow, where we abandon our domain and enter the minds of men, for only in the minds of man can we continue to survive …

And others, then, crowding in, jostling to be heard: I am fire who is Tinedia, who will be Svarogich and Sun and Steropes … I am water who is Uisceg … I am sky … I am serpent … All these Farrel heard and consumed, and then they fell away, back into the rock, up into the wind, leaving just a fragment of each god, a morsel of each great being, settling in his crowded mind.

He rose from the earth, shaking his body and feeling
the dirt and clay fall from his limbs and his mouth and his eyes. The day was cold; he was conscious of rain, of heavy cloud, of a dullness about the saturated countryside: he loved this. Some greater or lesser part of him was aware that a full two seasons must have passed while he lay in his intimate embrace with the earth. From this same greater or lesser part of him came an alien thought, a last tearful cry from his dead future;
truly a great and noble glory will have gone by my time of glass and steel
.

The new born child turned to regard the virgin land. Rain beat against him, washed him. He opened his mouth to drink it and his laughter joined the gentle sounds of the natural world.

I’ve found life, at last, at last …

The great gods were still there, he thought, as he blinked rain away and stared at the greenness all around him. They were dying, now, committing their great suicide, surviving only in the Tuthanach and their children, and their grandchildren, and so on until they were spread everywhere … this they were doing as a gesture of acquiescence to man, but just by staring through the rain, through the unspoiled distance, the man called Farrel could see those gods, could feel them and smell them and hear them.

As he ran down the knoll he could sense them, too, in the brightness of his mind. They were with him by inheritance when he came here, and now they had come direct and he was ecstatic at the greater awareness they had brought him of so many things … over the
centuries their presence would dilute and become weak and perhaps they had not reckoned on that.

There was plenty of time for them to explore him and understand how things would be. As far as Farrel was concerned there were more important things to do than worry over a day and an age when he would be dust and ashes.

He was a part of the earth, now, a man of the earth, a Tuthanach. His people were building a temple to the earth, and he knew how magnificent that temple would be, for he had seen it. He would mark the rocks of the temple with his soul, raise the walls of the temple with his sweat, and fill the temple with his ecstasy. He ran faster across the rain-soaked land until he could hear the sounds of the stone being carved.

The earth went with him.

1

The sound of his sons’ excited shouting woke Huxley abruptly at three in the morning. His breath frosting in the freezing room, he shivered his way into his dressing gown, tugged on slippers, and walked darkly and swiftly to the boys’ room.

‘What the devil –?’

They were standing at the window, two small, excited shapes, their breath misting the glass. Steven turned and said excitedly, ‘A snow woman. In the garden. We saw a snow woman!’

Rubbing the glass for clarity, Huxley peered down at the thick snow that covered the lawn and gardens, and extended, without break, into the field and to the nearby wood. He could just see the fence, a thin dark line in the
moongrey landscape. The night was still, heavy with the muffling silence of the snow. He could see clearly enough that a set of deep tracks led from the gate, towards the house, then round to the side.

‘What do you mean? A snow woman?’

‘All white,’ Christian breathed. ‘She stopped and looked at us. She had a sack on her shoulder, like Father Christmas.’

Huxley smiled and ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘You think she’s bringing presents?’

‘Hope so,’ said Steven. In the dark room his eyes glittered. He had just turned eight years old, a precocious and energetic child, and Huxley was conscious of the extent to which he neglected the lad. Steven was forever soliciting instruction, or games, or walks, but there was so much to do, and Huxley rarely had time for frivolity.

The wood. There was so much to map. So much to discover …

He found the torch and went down to the back door, opening it wide (pushing against the drifted snow) and shining the beam across the silent yards. Steven huddled by him. His elder brother Christian had returned to bed, cold, teeth chattering.

‘What did she look like, this woman? Was she young? Old?’

‘Not very old,’ Steven whispered. He was holding on to his father’s dressing gown. ‘I think she was looking for somewhere to sleep. She was going towards, the sheds.’

‘Dressed in white. Not very old. Carrying a bag. Did she wave at you?’

‘She smiled. I think …’

By the light of the torch he could see the tracks. He listened hard but there was no sound. Nothing in the chicken hut was being disturbed. He closed the back door, looked out of the front, shining the torch around the wide drive and the garages.

Bolting the door closed he chased his son up to bed, then tucked himself down below the covers, taking ages to get the circulation back into his frozen hands and feet. Jennifer slept soundly next to him, a hunched, curled lump below the eiderdown.

Not even wild horses could wake her when the weather was as cold as this.

He closed the book and locked it with the small key he kept hidden in his desk, then stood and stretched, yawning fiercely as he tried to wake up a little more. A tall, lean man of forty-five, he was inclined to stoop, especially when writing, and he suffered agonies of back pain. He took little exercise, apart from the long treks into Ryhope Wood, and, as happened every winter, he was allowing himself to become unkempt. His hair was long, hanging over his collar slightly, and with its burden of grey in the oak brown, he was beginning to look older than he was, especially now that he had a winter’s growth of grizzled beard (to be removed before he started teaching again, in a week’s time).

The diary in which he had just written was not his regular journal, the scientific record of his discoveries and experiments with Wynne-Jones. This was a more private book in which he was keeping a log of ‘uncertainties’. He didn’t want Steven or Christian reading accounts of his study of
them
. Nor Jennifer. Nor did he want his dreams read, but the dreams he recorded, after visiting the wood, were sometimes so appalling that even he had difficulty in confronting them. These were
private thoughts, a private record, for analysis in quieter times.

He kept this second log hidden behind the bookcase where his journals were shelved. He placed the book there now, then tugged on his Wellington boots and overcoat. It was just after dawn, seven thirty or so, and he was aware of two things: the odd silence of the day outside (no clamour from the chicken house), and the second set of tracks through the snow.

These led back, almost in parallel with the first. He could see, now, as he followed them at a distance, that a coat or cloak had trailed between the prints. The right step dragged slightly, as if the woman had been limping.

At the gate, which opened to a track and then a field, there was a crush of snow where the visitor had climbed over and fallen, or struggled upright. Beyond the gate the tracks led down towards the winter wood, and Huxley stood there for a while, staring at the tall, black trees, and the dense infill of bright green holly. Even in winter Ryhope Wood was impossible to enter. Even in winter it was not possible to see inwards more than fifty yards. Even in winter it could work its magic, and dissolve perception in an instant, spinning the visitor round and confusing him utterly.

There was such wonder in there. So much to learn. So much to find. So much ‘legend’ still living. He had only just begun!

Steven appeared in the doorway, wrapped up warmly in muffler, school overcoat and boots. He sank in snow up to his knees and had to wade with great difficulty
towards his father, his cheeks red, his face alive with pleasure.

‘You’re up early,’ Huxley called to his son. Steven bent down and scooped up a snowball. He flung it and missed, laughing, and Huxley thought about returning fire, but was too intrigued by what he might find in the chicken hut. He was aware of the look of disappointment on Steven’s face, but blanked it.

Steven followed him at a distance.

There was no sound from the ramshackle chicken house. This was unnerving.

When he opened the door he smelled death at once, and half gagged. He was used to the smell of a fox-attacked hut, but often the scent of the fox itself was the odour that was most prominent. There was only the smell of raw meat, now, and he stepped into the slaughterhouse and his mind failed to comprehend what he could see.

Whoever had been here had made a bed of the chickens. There had been twenty birds and they had been torn into fragments, and the fragments, featherside up, had been spread about to make a mattress.

The heads had been threaded onto a length of primitive flax, which was looped across the hut from one shelf to another.

A small patch of burning, with charred bones, told of the fire and the meal that ‘Snow Woman’ had created for herself.

Expecting mayhem, finding such order in the slaughter, such ritual, Huxley backed out of the hut and closed the door, puzzled and perturbed. The sound of such
slaughter should have been deafening. He had heard nothing. And yet he had lain awake for most of the night, after the boys had disturbed him.

The chickens had made no sound as they had died, and the smoke from the fire had not reached the house.

Aware that Steven was standing by him, looking anxiously at the chicken house, Huxley led the boy away, hand on his shoulder.

‘Are they all right?’

‘A fox,’ Huxley said bluntly, and felt a moment’s irritation as he realised that his tone was callous. ‘It’s sad, but it happens.’

Steven had not failed to understand the meaning of his father’s words. He looked shocked and pained. ‘Are they
all
dead? Like in the story?’

‘They’re all dead. Old Foxy’s got them all.’ Huxley rested a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘We’ll go to the farm later and buy some more, shall we? I’m sorry, Steve. Who’d be a chicken, eh?’

The boy was disconsolate, but remained obedient, looking back over his shoulder, but stepping away through the snow at his father’s urging, to walk down to the gate again.

There were tears in his son’s eyes as Huxley rounded up a snowball and tossed it in a shallow curve. The snowball impacted on the lad’s shoulder, and after a moment of sad blankness, Steven grinned, and threw a snowball back.

Christian was up at the bedroom window, banging on the glass, calling something that Huxley couldn’t hear. Probably: wait for me!

It was then that Huxley found the ‘gift’, if gift it was. It was by the gate, a piece of rough cloth wrapped around two inch-long twigs of wood and a yellowing bone from some small creature, a fox, perhaps a small dog. The pieces had holes bored through them. The package had sunk slightly into the snow, but he spotted it, rescued it, and opened it before the boy’s fascinated gaze.

‘She
did
leave you a present,’ Huxley said to his son. ‘Not much of one. But it must be a lucky charm. Do you think?’

‘Don’t know,’ Steven said, but he reached for the cloth and its contents and clutched them into his grasp, rubbing his fingers over the three objects. He looked more puzzled than disappointed. Huxley teased the gift back for one moment in order to examine the shards carefully. The wood looked like thorn, that smooth, thin bark. The bone was a neck vertebra.

‘Look after these little things, won’t you, Steve?’

‘Yes.’

‘I expect there’s a magic word to say with them. It’ll come to you suddenly …’

He straightened up and started to walk indoors. Jennifer appeared in the kitchen door, a sleepy, pretty figure, arms wrapped tightly around her against the cold. ‘What’s all the activity?”

‘That old Drummer Fox,’ said Steven gloomily. Jennifer woke up fast. ‘Oh no! A fox? Really?’

‘’Fraid so,’ Huxley said quietly. ‘Got the lot.’

As Jennifer led the frozen boy inside to breakfast, Huxley turned again and watched Ryhope Wood. A sudden flight of crows, loud in the still air, drew his
attention to the stand of holly close to the ruined gate where the sticklebrook entered the wood. This was his way into the deeper zones of the woodland, and he fancied he saw movement there, now, but it was too far away to be sure.

Two pieces of twig and a bone were small payment for twenty chickens. But whoever had been here, last night, had wanted Huxley to know that they had visited. There was, he felt, an unsubtle invitation in the shadowy encounter.

2

After the thaw came a time of rain, a monotonous and seemingly endless downpour that lasted for days, and depressed not just the land around Oak Lodge, but the life within that land, so that everything moved slowly, and sullenly, and seemed devoid of spirit. But when the rain eased, when the last storm cloud passed away to the east, a fresh and vibrant spring set new colour to the wood and the fields, and as if coming out of hibernation, Edward Wynne-Jones made a new appearance on the scene, driving to the Huxleys’ from Oxford, and arriving in enthusiastic mood one afternoon in early April.

Wynne-Jones was also in his forties and lectured, and researched, in historical anthropology at Oxford University. He was a fussy man, with odd and irritating habits, the most obvious and annoying of which was his smoking of a prodigious pipe, a calabash that belched reeking smoke from its bowl, and did little to improve the aura around the smoker. With his weasel looks, a certain sourness of expression that Jennifer Huxley had at once taken against, and which did nothing to relax the children of the house, he seemed incongruous as he sat, puffing on the ‘billy’, as it had been nicknamed by the Huxley boys, and holding forth in lecturer’s tones about his ideas.

He caused a strain in Oak Lodge, and Huxley was always glad to be able to shunt his compatriot and valued fellow, researcher into the haven of the study, at
the farther end of the house. Here, with the French windows opened, they could converse about mythagos, Ryhope Wood, and the processes of the unconscious mind that were at work in the sylvan realm beyond the field.

A map was spread out over the desk, and Wynne-Jones pored over the details, stabbing with his pipe handle as he made points, brushing at the pencil-covered paper. They had detected several ‘zones’ in the wood, areas where the wood’s character changed, where the dominant tree form was different and where the season felt different from that which existed on the outside of the stand. The Oak-Ash Zone was particularly intriguing, and there was a Thorn Zone, a winding, spiralling forest of tangled blackthorn that ran close to a river, but which kept that water source hidden from view.