Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
‘I know what sort of wood it is now,’ he said, and I glanced at him, surprised at his words. He was watching me. The expression in his eyes was akin to triumph, but tinged, perhaps, with terror. The burn on his face was flushed, and his lip, in the corner that had been burned, seemed pinched, giving his face a lopsided look. He leaned forward, hands spread palm-flat on the table.
‘I’ve been searching for such a place since the war ended,’ he went on. ‘In a few days I’d have realized the nature of Ryhope Wood. I’d already heard stories of a haunted wood in the area … that’s why I’ve been looking in the county.’
‘A haunted wood?’
‘A ghost wood,’ he said quickly. ‘There was one in France. It was where I was shot down. It didn’t have the same gloomy aspect, but it was the same.’
I prompted him to speak further. He seemed almost afraid to do so, sitting back in his chair, his gaze drifting away from me as he remembered.
‘I’d blanked it out of my mind. I’ve blanked a lot out …’
‘But you remember now.’
‘Yes. We were close to the Belgian border. I flew on a lot of missions there, mostly dropping supplies to the resistance. I was flying one dusk when the plane was thrown about in the air. Like a tremendous thermal.’ He glanced at me. ‘You know the sort of thing.’
I nodded my agreement. He went on, ‘I couldn’t fly over that wood, try as I might. It was quite small. I banked and tried again. The same effect of light on the wings, like the other day. Light streaming from the wings, over the cockpit. And again, tossed about like a leaf. There were faces down below. They looked as if they were floating in the foliage. Like ghosts, like clouds. Tenuous. You know what ghosts are supposed to be like. They looked like clouds, caught in the tree tops, blowing and shifting … but those faces!’
‘So you weren’t shot down at all,’ I said, but he nodded. ‘Oh yes. Certainly, the plane was hit. I always say a sniper because … well, it’s the only explanation I have.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘One shot, one strike, and the plane went down into that woodland like a stone. I got out, so did John Shackleford. Out of the wreckage. We were damned lucky … for a while …’
‘And then?’
He glanced up sharply, suspiciously. ‘And then … blank. I got out of the wood. I was wandering around farmland when a German patrol got me. I spent the rest of the war behind barbed wire.’
‘Did you see anything in the wood? While you were wandering.’
He hesitated before answering, and there was an edge of irritation to his voice. ‘As I said, old boy. Blank.’
I accepted that, for whatever reason, he didn’t want to talk about events after the crash. It must have been humiliating for him, a prisoner of war, hideously burned, shot down in bizarre circumstances. I said, ‘But this wood, Ryhope Wood, is the same …’
‘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.’
As quickly as possible, without making undue noise, Keeton armed himself. It was a regular forces-issue Smith and Wesson .38 calibre, and he eased back the hammer, raising the cocked weapon in one hand, sighting along its barrel. I watched the entrance from the kitchen, and a moment later Guiwenneth stepped carefully, slowly into the room. She glanced at Keeton, then at me, and her face registered the question: Who’s he?
‘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 pay
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.
‘How are you getting back to the airfield?’ I asked Keeton, later. Guiwenneth had laid a small birchwood fire, the evening being cool. The dining-room seemed cosy, enclosed. She sat cross-legged before the open grate, watching the flames. Keeton remained at the table, dividing his attention between the photographs and the back of the strange girl. I sat on the floor, my back against an armchair, my legs stretched out behind Guiwenneth.
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.
Seven
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!
For the first time I found myself fervently hoping that Christian would not come back. The wish which had obsessed me for months – his return – was reversed as easily, and as cruelly, as one might destroy a litter of kittens. The thought of my brother no longer agonized because of my need for him, and my grief at his disappearance. It agonized because he was searching for Guiwenneth, and because this beautiful girl, this melanc
She was not mine at all. It was not me she wanted. It was my elder kinsman, the man whose mind had fashioned her.
Breaking through that moment’s angry reflection came the image of Guiwenneth spitting on the floor, and speaking Christian’s name with utter contempt. Was it the contempt of one whose affection has been spurned? A contempt now mellowed by time?
Somehow, I thought not. My panic passed away. She had been afraid of Chris, and it was not love that had motivated her earlier violent reference to him.
Back in the house, we sat at the table and Guiwenneth talked to me, staring at me intently, touching her breast, moving her hands in a way that was designed to illustrate the thoughts behind her alien words. She scattered English through her dialogue with amazing frequency, but I still failed to understand the story she was telling. Soon, tiredness, a touch of frustration, shadowed her face, and though she smiled a little grimly, she had grasped that words were useless. With sign language she indicated that I should speak to her.
For an hour I told her about my childhood, the family that had once occupied Oak Lodge, the war, my first love. All of these things I illustrated with signs, making exaggerated hugging motions, firing imaginary pistols, walking my fingers along the table, chasing my left hand, finally catching it and illustrating a tentative first kiss. It was pure Chaplin, and Guiwenneth giggled and laughed loudly, made comments and sounds of approval, amazement, disbelief, and in this way we communicated on a level beyond words. I do believe she had understood everything I had told her, and now had gained a strong picture of my early life. She seemed intrigued when I talked of Christian as a child, but fell solemn when I told her how he had disappeared into the woodland.