A Different Kingdom

by Paul Kearney

  Cat kissed him, cupping his face in her long hands and brushing his eyes with her lips.

  'Come. The wolves may still be about. We will have to be swift.'

  They moved out on to the landing together, Cat gliding over the floorboards, Michael's boots clumping loud enough to make him wince. But the storm drowned out the minor noises. The rain had been blown away, but the wind was savaging the trees down by the river. Even here they could hear the tossing branches and aching trunks.

  Down to the kitchen, leaving the sleepers upstairs. There was a low red glow in the grate of the range, clothes set out to dry before it. It made Michael shiver to think of leaving the security of the house for the baying night outside.

  He collected an old oilskin cape his grandfather had given him, his game bag and a dozen articles to make life in the Other Place bearable: matches, a knife, candles, soap (which made Cat raise her eyebrows) and the shotgun with a box of shells (which made her frown).

  Cat went to the scullery and rummaged there, clinking and rustling.

  'What are you doing?' he asked in a hiss.

  She emerged with an iron saucepan, a large bulging sack and a length of baler twine with which she fashioned a crude sling. 'Provisions and such. Take this, and I'll try the door.'

  He was weighed down, struggling and encumbered, and cursed under his breath.

  Cat opened the back door a scant six inches, peering out cautiously. The wind pushed hair back from her forehead. It was blue darkness out there, night giving way to morning, the sky swept clear.

  'They're gone, I think,' she said at last. 'We can go.'

  'Are you sure?' He felt a definite reluctance now, had an idea that this was his last chance, the place where the road forked once and for all. If he went out of that door the homely kitchen would never be as safe again. His world would have changed.

  'Come on, Michael!'

  Cat was already out of the door, her hair flying and whipping like a live thing and the wind billowing her shift around her thighs. There were leaves spindling and rocketing in the yard like the ashes of some old fire, and the clamour of the wind-beaten wood was a steady roar.

  'All right, all right.' He stepped outside, and the wind banged the door shut behind him.

  They started across the yard, eyes slitted. He thought of the wilderness he had glimpsed once before, the wide tangled emptinesses, and had a mad idea.

  'In for a penny, Cat!' he shouted into the gale.

  'What?'

  He clanked back the bolt on the half-door of the stables, releasing a warm waft of horse and hay. Fancy stamped invisibly inside.

  'We'll take a horse with us, Cat. We can ride it over there.'

  'Michael, wait—'

  But the idea had him. He fumbled with tack, bridle and saddle, and pushed his thumb in the mare's mouth to open her teeth and slipped the bit in. Cat's urgency had caught him and he worked with speed. It was dizzying to be doing this, this madcap thing, and his reservations were blown away. He laughed as he saddled the startled mare, cinching the girth tight and finally leading her out into the tempestuous yard.

  It was brightening, the navy blue of the sky becoming pale over the mountains. Dawn was not far off and his grandfather would waken soon, if he were not up already. Cat gathered Michael's belongings, and they clattered out of the yard like drunken thieves, the mare yanking at Michael's grip on her bridle. She seemed to smell what was afoot.

  'Where are we going?' Michael demanded.

  'The bridge. Through it is the clearest way.'

  The bridge. 'But Cat ...'

  She ignored him and ran on like a wind-flung leaf towards the dip where the trees were roaring and the river foamed white in the gloom.

  'Damn it, Cat!' He ran after her, the mare prancing at his shoulder. It was harder going once they hit the wet grass of the meadow. He left the gate open behind him, which was unthinkable, but Cat was becoming a livid blur in the trees, leaving him behind.

  'Hold on!'

  He cursed, stuck a foot in the stirrup and hauled himself into the saddle as Fancy circled in confusion. Then he dug in his heels and shouted a wordless cry of exasperation. The mare leapt forward into a gallop towards the trees. They rushed up like a wall, but he did not slow. He bent over her neck as the first branches raked through the air above his head, flaying his face with twigs and briars, and kicked her on.

  The ground dipped sharply, and the mare ploughed down the steep slope almost on her haunches, taking short bounds over stumps and fallen trees. Michael let her have her head. She was raised, the ears laid back on her skull and the whites gleaming in her eyes. Her hoofs were skidding and slipping in the muck and leaf litter.

  Then she gave a lurch and twist. He had an impression of free fall for an instant, there was an eruption of ice-cold white spray around them and water soaked him up to his crotch. They were in the deep part of the river, and the current was racing them along to where the bridge loomed, as stark and massive as the barbican of a fortress, the water disappearing into its maw.

  Fancy was striking out, nose in the air and the water foaming along her neck. Michael slid out of the saddle and clung to her mane, the freezing liquid threatening him with hyperventilation. He swore foully between his chattering teeth, deciding that Cat had deserted him and had led him here to drown.

  But there she was on the bank with his things lashed about her, making a dive into the turmoil of the river.

  'Cat!'

  And she was here, clinging to the saddle with her hair plastered over her face like seaweed. He shouted over the rush of the river and the wind.

  'Where did you go? Why did you run ahead?'

  She pointed to the western bank. Blinking the water out of his eyes, he saw the Horseman there among the trees, the paling sky silhouetting his head, watching them.

  'Holy God!'

  Then they were past, the current carrying them onwards, into the dark depths of the bridge and through to another world.

  PART TWO

  The Other Place

  TEN

  HE LAY FOR a moment watching the patterns the car headlights made on the ceiling, listening to the hubbub of engines and people's voices, even at this late hour; the sounds of the city.

  He was alone in the bed. Decent of her to go before morning made things awkward—as long as his wallet hadn't gone with her.

  It had not. He padded naked across the tiny room and peered out between slits in the blinds, one hand fumbling on the dresser for his cigarettes, The room was hot, and he could feel the prickle of sweat in his armpits; but if he opened the windows the buzz of traffic would become a roar and the fumes would sweeten the stale air. Better to boil. Even now these night noises could keep him awake, creaks on the landing bringing him bolt upright in bed.

  The dream again. That was what had woken him.

  He lit a cigarette and sucked in the blue smoke gratefully. His fingers were trembling and he dropped ash on the floor. After all this time it was the same. How many years?

  He scraped a hand through his hair. Still a bit drunk, his mouth dry-and sour. Briefly he wished his head were not so hard. It was an expensive business, this alcoholic lark, and Christ knew he could barely afford to keep it up. He had a vague idea his health was going, too. That cough in the mornings, the shortness of breath that had taken him of late when climbing stairs or lurching into an unaccustomed jog. Perhaps it was the city. He breathed it in day and night, absorbed the stuff of concrete and smog so that he felt his blood thick with it, sluggish in the arteries. He thought sometimes that if he were to leave, to go back to trees and grass and the growing things, he would cough it up and be eighteen again. Now there was a fancy.

  But there were shadows under the branches of trees, he remembered, and back there only the moon lit up the night. 'The Wolfs Sun', Cat had called it. He turned away from the window and flopped back on the bed, wishing now that stupid girl had stayed to see him through the dark hours, to hold him and talk empty-headed ru
bbish until the dawn.

  Not fair, though, to think she would have robbed him. She had been sweet enough, young and a little credulous. It was the dark eyes that had reeled him in along the bar, conjuring his neck hairs upright. Another mistaken identity. He would file it with the rest. He was a sucker for a certain look, a slant of eyebrow, a shade of hair. It had become a habit.

  What had her name been?

  No matter. The other name was too strong in his head. That face, the grin. Cheshire Cat, and his trip through Wonderland.

  She was gone. He had left her behind, watched her shape grow smaller and smaller as he drifted away. To his own place. She had led him through a strange country, a terrible place that had almost killed them both, hence the dream. That awful dream, taking him back to his childhood and another land. Christ, he hated the dark, the open spaces. Only in the bright chaos of the city did he feel safer, even now. But it was strange—and disquietening—to find the memories returning so clear and fast. He was remembering things he had thought long forgotten or blocked away. Odd.

  There was grief there, also. He had never been sure what exactly about his past had marked him so, had set him this road to tread in all the following years. Perhaps it was the simple, impossible disorientation of it all. To live a life twice, to grow old a second time. He smiled sourly. The mind of a man in the body of a boy. Maybe.

  Or maybe it had been the things he had seen and done. The killing. Or maybe it had just been a memory of Cat. And there her face was once more.

  He sucked on the cigarette again. Years spent forgetting, denying it had ever happened (and God knows it might well have been a dream), but there was no getting away from the nightmare. Brother Nennian's face before he died. The horror of that day.

  You cannot strike deals with memory, he thought. It holds all the cards. There are no bargains made.

  He scanned his watch. Nearly three. Dawn in less than two hours, and work to go to in the morning. Terrific.

  But there was a wash of malt left in the bottle, he noted.

  Something to deaden his mind. He swallowed it in three gulps, feeling the fiery stuff bum his throat and set his insides aglow. That was better. That hit the spot.

  He lay down again, frowning. Had he actually managed it that evening, or had he merely slumped there—hence her precipitate departure? Damned if he could remember.

  To hell with it. Another nameless face and another sleepless night. Police sirens careering beyond the window, whining off into the farther streets. A bottle smashing, laughter and the rush of feet. It's all happening, he thought muzzily. It's all here,

  He remembered cold water, and the mare shaking herself like a dog. He remembered Cat's shining face, and the sight of that first dawn light over the forests and hills of another world.

  'WE'RE THERE,' SHE said. 'Back again.'

  He hauled himself to his feet, chill water filling his boots and running down his back. There was a shiver starting, for they were in the shadow of a stand of trees and the sun was only a sliver of brightness somewhere in their crowns. Night coolness filled the water hollow along with the splashing river. Beside him Fancy shook herself, spraying droplets over them. She seemed bemused.

  They had come out of a cave, it seemed. The river was quieter here than in the place they had left behind, sliding out unbroken around stones and tree roots, plopping and gurgling smugly to itself. The cave was dark, deep as the maw of the bridge on the other side. It looked somehow ominous.

  'Come on,' Cat said. 'We'll freeze here.'

  She started off with Michael's shotgun, sack and other paraphernalia swinging from her thin shoulders, her hair dripping water. Without a word, Michael took the mare's bridle and followed, icy liquid squelching in his boots.

  They struggled up a steep slope covered in Scots pine, needles soft and dry under their feet. The sunrise was huge and silent in the sky, light beginning to flood the trunks of the trees. It was clear as. glass, picking out everything in brilliance and shadow, and there was no sound in the wood save for their laboured progress. The silence was like a great buzzing in Michael's ears. Perhaps there was a faint rushing of air in the very heights of the tallest pines, but that was an.

  They reached the top of the slope, Fancy blowing out through her nose and sniffing the luminous air. And here they paused on what seemed to be the edge of infinite space.

  The trees opened out and became sparse, dotted clumps scattered over a great rolling expanse of broken hills and valleys that stretched for perhaps thirty miles away at right angles to the sunrise. There the trees regrouped, and became at once a dense darkness of thick forest that covered the slopes of the land to the south for as far as the eye could see. Mist had gathered in miles-wide banners where the land hollowed, and the dawn set it alight, made it into a golden shimmer so that the forest seemed almost to be steaming in the sun, the mist and haze making each hill into a silhouette and the air so clear that Michael thought he could make out clearings, glades, even individual trees. It was like looking at an impossibly detailed painting through a magnifying glass.

  'Weoldwyd,' said Cat.

  'What?'

  'The Wildwood, Michael. It runs almost unbroken from here to the great mountains in the south. In the foothills it becomes the Wolfweald, a bad place where there are manwolves and other things that lurk in the trees. I told you of the people who live in the wood—the tribes and the villagers, the wanderers. And the Folk of the Forest, of course: the Wyrim.'

  A wind came searching through the pines and Michael shivered again.

  'What about the Horseman? What's to stop him coming through the same way we did and chasing after us?'

  Cat shook her head. 'I don't believe his purpose is to catch us, either of us. He shadows but he never closes. He is only watching, for the present. It is his minions, the wolves and suchlike, who do his work for him.'

  'Great,' Michael muttered. But he was feeling oddly cheerful.

  It had happened before on coming here, though it seemed now more tangible. It was the crystal air, perhaps, the light in the early dew; or the smell of pine resin on the wind and the vast panorama at his feet, everything coming to life under the dawning sun as though this were its first morning and he and Cat the only ones to see. He felt like singing, but settled for kissing Cat's cold lips and was rewarded with her famous grin.

  'We'll turn to ice standing here. I've a mind for a fire and a breakfast of sorts. What say you?'

  He nodded readily, and they started down the slope to where the trees gave some shelter and they would find wood in plenty.

  Not piglet on a spit this time, but close enough: bacon spitting in a pan and bread to mop up the fat. Michael had been wise enough to keep the matches in a waterproof tin, and the dead branches lying around were as dry as tinder. Their fire was almost smokeless, built high and hot. Around it they had clothes steaming on ground-stuck branches and they sat nude, soaking in the warmth while the mare grazed contentedly nearby. The land around them seemed entirely deserted. There were-birds— Michael recognized the song of both blackbird and thrush—and a hare had sat upon its hind legs to stare at them for a moment, but no sign of people. No roads, no smoke, no noise.

  'No school,' Michael said happily. 'No algebra, no trigonometry, no grammar.'

  Cat cocked one dark eyebrow at him curiously, but she was busy with the bacon, wincing as the dancing fat landed on her skin.

  'I'm free,' Michael went on. 'I can do anything 1 want.'

  'You can give me a hand, then,' Cat told him. 'Hold the pan—there. Almost done.'

  They ate breakfast in the immense stillness, wiping out the pan with mops of bread, grand as kings. A goldfinch warbled at them from a nearby tree and finally plucked up enough courage to hop around their feet in search of crumbs. Michael's laugh startled it away. He stood warmed by the fire with the sky a cobalt dome above his head and the grass cool between his toes. He felt invigorated, invincible, the very air he breathed as sweet as a draught from a sprin
g. Cat laughed up at him and he pounced on her. They rolled, giggling, in the dew and made love as though it were an accustomed overflow of spirits, swiftly and without thought.

  'Where then?' he asked her when they were quiet and her head was on his chest. 'Where to now?'

  'Anywhere you want.'

  Anywhere. He could spend a lifetime here, in this place, and then go home the morning he had left. They had all the time in the world.

  'Cat, you know where we are, don't you? You know your way about this place?'

  'We are in the hills to the north of the Wildwood, far from anywhere. I have no say about where the doors leave us. The bridge on your side is an enduring gateway, as is the cave which is its counterpart in this world, but the rest shift and fade, blink out and reappear with no rhyme or reason. We take our chances with them.'

  'What about getting back?' Michael asked, anxious despite himself.

  'To return to the same place and time that we left we would have to swim through yonder cave. We would come out at the bridge again in your own world.'

  That, at least, was reassuring. Michael stared at the empty sky. There was a coldness to the air, an autumnal bite, that even the flowing fire could not keep from him, though Cat was warm and slight atop his torso. Nearby Fancy was cropping grass as though she were in the meadow at home. The sight was obscurely comforting.

  All that day they spent in the shelter of the trees, drying their clothes and taking stock, pondering where to go and what to do. Michael had an odd feeling that he was not here merely to sight-see. There was a reason behind this, he was sure, and he was positive that it would manifest itself in time.

  'You must have cleaned out half the bloody larder,' he told Cat as the afternoon slipped into twilight and the evening star rose high and bright over the horizon. He was rummaging through the sack she had brought from his grandparents' house. Bacon and bread, apples and jam, cheese, oatcakes, and a mashed apple pie, his grandmother's glory. 'No tea,' he said. 'What do we drink?'