Merlin's Wood

by Robert Holdstock

  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.

  He went quickly back to the house, called Jacques, then another neighbour, and when both told him that they had seen nothing of the boy, he fetched his torch and overcoat and went out again.

  It was beginning to rain as he reached th
e first of the old bosker’s lodges, the ramshackle iron and wooden hut. The heads of the hunted foxes had vanished from their stakes, but the hanged line of squirrels turned and twisted in the wet wind, as did the torn oilskin over the door.

  Daniel was sitting on the bed, a shadowy figure. He blinked as Martin flashed the torch in his face, but kept staring at the light. He was leaning against the wall, below the remaining pictures of Conrad’s childhood sweetheart. His arms were limp by his sides, his gaze quite expressionless, save for his narrowed eyes.

  ‘Stop shining it in my face.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Martin set the torch’s light to fluorescent. The stark glow illuminated the boy’s pale features and set sharp shadows around the room. Martin sat down in the old man’s chair.

  ‘Why did you break your computer?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just felt like it.’

  ‘Why are you upset?’

  ‘I’m angry. Not upset. Angry.’

  ‘Why don’t you come home, Daniel? I’ll make supper, we’ll look after Mummy.’

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘You can’t stay here all night. The storm is going to be fierce …’

  As if to illustrate his words, the whole structure shook and shuddered, the oilskin billowing as the rain and wind swirled and gusted.

  ‘I need the storm. I need the darkness. I like the darkness. It helps me think.’

  ‘Daniel …’

  ‘Not Daniel!’

  ‘Not Daniel?’

  The boy stared through the white light. A smile touched his lips; he was otherwise limp, propped against the rough wall like a doll.

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  ‘I’ve got what I want. Most of it. He thought he could starve me at birth, but I’ve taken what I want, and now he can’t see anything but the shadows of lost forests. He’s skogan. He can’t hear anything but stone songs. He can’t make any sound except running water …’ Daniel laughed hoarsely, then looked away. ‘Leave me alone. I have to think.’

  ‘Let Daniel go. I want him home.’

  ‘Too late. The boy doesn’t want to go home.’

  ‘But I want him to come home, and I’ll take him home, and you too unless you release him.’

  Daniel sniggered, his eyes closed as if with deep weariness. The storm raged through the forest, wind swirling through the eaves, sending skins and paper flapping in the cold shack.

  ‘Don’t threaten me,’ Daniel said. ‘I’m here for the duration. He’s kept something back from me. He always keeps something back from me …’

  Martin felt that the reference was not to the boy, but to the ‘he’ who travelled inside Rebecca. ‘I intend to get it. But how? How?’

  And suddenly, uncontrollably, Martin leapt at the limp human figure on the bed. The surge of rage had surfaced unbidden, and took him unawares. He just knew that he hated the traveller, that he was incensed at the so-calm dismissal of the human life in which it was a passenger. As he struck at the face, and squeezed at the neck, he was aware that it was his son’s body that he was assaulting; but it was not Daniel who was the object of his attack. It was the enchantress inside him, who screamed, and laughed through her choking throat, used strong fingers to bend back Martin’s, then kicked him powerfully, sending him hurtling back across the shack.

  Daniel sat up straight, rubbing his neck, weeping from his left eye where Martin’s first blow had landed, taunting. ‘Daddy, Daddy, child abuser!’

  ‘Get out of my son!’

  ‘I am your son, you fool! This is how I was born. The body’s just the shell. Your body’s just a shell. We’re all travellers, as you so quaintly call it. Now go away! I’m stronger than you by far.’

  *

  And Martin left, staggering back through the driving rain, leaving his son behind him in the darkened ruin, leaving his life behind.

  He was weeping as he entered the house. Suzanne was there, and she drew him into her bosom, holding him very tightly as the rain rattled the windows, and upstairs Rebecca shrieked and howled, her words incoherent, her footfall heavy as she stumbled about the room, the nurse trying to calm her, to ease her back to bed.

  At about four in the morning, as the storm abated slightly, Martin woke from a deep, disturbed sleep. He was sprawled on a blanket, by the still-warm stove, using a cushion as a pillow. He became aware of someone crouching by him, a hand on his back, and he turned over quickly, looked up to see Rebecca, dimly lit by the night-light in the hall. She was wet around the eyes and lips, feeling blindly in the dark. When he reached for her she grasped for him and twisted below him, murmuring sounds.

  ‘Oh Beck! Beck … you shouldn’t be up …’

  ‘Ssssh!’ she breathed, and he drew back.

  ‘Can you understand me, Beck?’

  She had opened her dressing gown. He placed his hands on her breasts and she closed her blind eyes, covering his hands with hers, holding him hard. He leant down and kissed her and at the back of her throat she started to sing, her legs jerking violently, meaninglessly until Martin realised what she was trying to do. He reached down and undressed quickly, desperate to keep the kiss, desperate not to lose her.

  Moments later, as she reached down to draw him deeply home, he felt a great fatigue. It was an irresistible drowsiness, and though he fought against it, he was helpless in its grasp; and making love he fell asleep, his last thought a silent plea for wakefulness.

  In the morning she was gone. He woke, cold, half naked, to find the nurse in a panic.

  ‘She’s gone. Oh my God, she’s gone!’

  Quickly covering himself, Martin stood, blinking the sleep from his eyes, rubbing them furiously. She put a spell on me!

  ‘Where? Gone?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. The door was open. I only woke a few moments ago …’

  ‘Call Jacques. The number’s in the book. And the priest. Tell them that Rebecca has gone walkabout, and I need them to help search for her.’

  Outside, in the grey dawn, the forest of Broceliande shimmered with the rain from the night’s storm. It seemed to have grown, to have become heavier, to have leaned towards the farm, to have consumed a little of the path. The air was fresh. The milk-cart was rattling past. Up on the hill, the church was a black tower against the spiralling clouds.

  ‘She’s dead,’ Martin whispered. He couldn’t find tears. He remembered her touch from the middle of the night, the feel of her lips, the warmth of her sex, the touch that said how much she needed him, the touch that had said goodbye.

  ‘She’s dead …’

  And he knew she would be at the lake. He walked indoors again and found his coat and rubber boots. He fetched a rake from the shed. The nurse watched him. He felt very calm. He felt dead.

  ‘Where are you going? Where are you going to look?’

  ‘She’s in the lake,’ he said. ‘Tell Jacques. She’s in the lake.’

  ‘What lake?’

  ‘The lake in Broceliande, by Conrad’s grave. The lake in the heart of the forest.’

  ‘Will he know which lake you mean?’

  ‘Just tell him to follow the path.’

  ‘If you’re sure of this, then go. Now. Hurry!’

  He walked down the path. After the storm, the wood was quite still. It was as if the world had ceased to breathe. He was cold inside, he might have been floating through the trees, not walking. The memory of the kiss, the memory of her body, these things were gentle pleasures, memories of a lost life that walked with him, accompanied him calmly down the path, past the bosker’s cabin, through the silent forest of Broceliande.

  And yet, as he passed Conrad’s hunting place, the frame of wicker, the wooden igloo with its rough skins, a voice said, ‘Hurry!’ and he began to run.

  And by the time he came to the lakeside, to flounder in the mud among the rushes, he was screaming for his lover – as if a spell had broken and suddenly there was hope after all. As if
the drowned were not yet dead, and the water could be brought out through their mouths, their eyes, all the passages of their bodies, and the spirit returned to the flesh.

  As he thrashed in the cold water, so the birds rose in flocks, to wheel about the lake, dark shapes in the dawn, circling and watching like hungry crows over the battlefields of old, waiting for the spoils.

  When he saw her he screamed. As he approached he stumbled, aware of the two shapes floating in the deeper water.

  He rose with a howl, soaking from head to foot, the rake held like a weapon, waved angrily above his head. The rats that had been feeding swam away. The dawn breeze caught the spill of hair. The bodies, interlocked by arms, turned slowly as the waves began to break against them. Martin staggered through the lake, then swam to reach them, drawing them by the feet, drawing them back to the shore, back to the mud.

  They were alike, so alike. They were asleep, their arms entwined, their hair entwined, their faces white and almost smiling. In death the travellers had left them, no doubt. The peace of lives released in death touched each closed eye, the corners of each wide, perfect mouth.

  Martin kissed them both, and hugged them, standing in the lake, the wind chilling his body. Then he dragged them through the reeds and to the dry earth where the wood began, and when Jacques arrived, hours later, astonished by the sight of the lake, he found his nephew on his knees between the dead, holding their hands in his against his chest, as if the three were praying.

  ‘Turn them over! Get the water out of them! Turn them over, man.’

  ‘They’ve been turned over. Let them rest at last.’

  PART THREE

  The Vision of Magic

  How from the rosy lips of life and love

  Flash’d the bare-grinning skeleton of death!

  From Idylls of the King

  Opening the Tomb

  ‘Martin! Martin! There are people on the path. Your people!’

  The words, shouted from outside, seemed like a dream at first, but with the constant hammering at the door, and the rattle of dirt on the window, he soon came awake, stretching out on the floor, groaning as his deadened limbs came back to life. He was fully clothed and his mouth felt sour and dry.