The Beginning Woods

by Malcolm McNeill

  ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

  The Beginning Woods

  ‘McNeill has created a fabulous universe packed full of wonder and terror. The Beginning Woods has earned its place on a shelf with Gormenghast and The Princess Bride. I loved every word and was envious of quite a few. It opened my eyes wide and quickened my heart. A modern classic rich, funny and terrifying’

  Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series

  ‘The Beginning Woods is a vibrant and sumptuous tapestry of a tale… It is hard to believe this is a début novel… You’ll finish the book and feel like you’ve woken from a deep, refreshing sleep full of incredible, slightly unsettling, breathtaking dreams, and your life in the real world will never be quite the same again’

  Zoe Toft, Playing by the Book

  ‘Complex, playful, philosophical, with mysterious vanishings and censorship of dreams’

  Imogen Russell-Williams

  ‘Gripping and highly entertaining… unsettling and spooky’

  Books Are Here for You

  * * *

  MALCOLM MCNEILL was born in England in 1976 and grew up in Scotland. The Beginning Woods is his first book.

  For my parents

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One: The Vanishings

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Part Two: The Beginning Woods

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Part Three: The Dragon Hunter

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  Epilogue

  About the Publisher

  Copyright

  There was a time, not so long ago, when a strange phenomenon swept the world, baffling scientists and defying explanation.

  It had nothing to do with gravity or electricity.

  It altered no weather patterns, sea levels or average temperatures.

  The migration of beasts across the globe did not change, and plants continued to grow, bloom and die in their proper seasons.

  Even the biochemical reactions that sustain life went on with unceasing vigour, as they had for millions of years, propelling organisms down myriad paths of development, just as the continents drifted apart, moved by the massive forces generated in the bowels of the earth.

  Almost the entirety of creation was ignored by the new phenomenon, which concerned itself with one thing alone.

  Us.

  The crisis took place in every country. It was compared to a plague that knew no boundaries, or a fire that ravaged a forest. But scientists were able to cure the plague, and the secret of putting out fires had been discovered long ago.

  There was no stopping the Vanishings.

  When they first began nobody realized what was going on. Crumpled piles of clothes were discovered at the bottom of gardens or in cupboards under stairs, but that was no reason to suppose someone had been Whisked Away Into Nothing, that they had Ceased To Exist, that they had been Cancelled Out.

  Such things were unheard of, after all.

  Then the Vanishings began to spread. Before long thousands were Vanishing every day, and it became clear something unusual was going on—especially from a scientific point of view.

  Of course, whenever a great problem threatens the world all enemies put down their swords and work together to find a solution. This was the case with the Vanishings. Scientists came from far and wide to form an International Symposium in Paris, and a special fund was set up to provide them with everything they needed to carry out their research.

  It was decided to house the Symposium in the Trocadéro Palace, an old museum filled with ancient artefacts, archaeological treasures, paintings, sculptures and fossils. Artists and inventors had gathered at the Trocadéro in 1878 to mark their achievements at an International Exposition, so there was a pleasing historical precedent, but since then the palace had fallen into disrepair, and an immense effort was required to renovate it in time for the Grand Opening.

  Overnight, a skeleton of scaffolding sprang up against the walls. Beneath the flapping plastic that cocooned the building a team of sand-blasters went to work on the decades of grime and soot that had blackened the granite and limestone. Hundreds of workers with barrows poured into the museum and carted off the many treasures to L’Hôtel des Invalides, where they were wrapped up and placed in storage. An army of engineers burrowed deep beneath its foundations, installing laboratories, generators, wires and computers, while gardeners dug their fingers into the barren slopes leading down to the Seine, planting trees and shrubs, decorating them with fountains and pools of water. Finally, stonemasons laid a terrace of granite flagstones in front of the palace, and erected golden statues around it to lend the old building the grandeur it deserved.

  The opening ceremony of the International Symposium for the Prevention and Cure of the Vanishings was a great day for the human race: a day of hope and purpose. The palace gleamed like a hero’s smile, proudly bearing its pennants and flags as medallions of trust and responsibility. Below, the doctors and professors processed through the gardens, their chins tucked solemnly into their necks, their whole manner imparting gravity, wisdom and, most of all, determination. When they reached the terrace a band struck up and the crowds of people cheered. They were the champions of humanity, proclaimed the trumpets and the drums. They were going to pit the might of science against the mysterious disappearances that threatened to devour the human race.

  After speeches, applause, music and cheering the Seekers, as the scientists came to be known, filed into the Trocadéro, where they immediately went to work on a buffet lunch provided by the Mayor of Paris. The people remained outside watching the windows, expecting a triumphant shout to go up at any moment, but the palace only settled into the evening gloom, like an old man in a deckchair folding a newspaper across his face. As darkness fell the crowd began to disperse. Flags, no longer needed for waving, were dropped onto pavements, banners were stuffed into bins and the cafés and bars began to fill up once more.

  How long would it take the Seekers to stop the Vanishings? That was the question on everyone’s lips. Six weeks? Six months? A year? “We do not know the length of the road ahead of us,” the Chief Researcher said in his speech. “We do not know if it will be easy or difficult. We must be patient. We must be cautious with our hopes.”

  So the world held its breath and waited for the first findings.

  Meanwhile the Vanishings continued unabated. In every country, people Vanished without warning. Seeming to sense they were about to be consumed, they took themselves off somewhere secret, like dying elephants. Because of this, most of the Vanishings went unwitnessed—until the telltale puddle of clothes was found there was no reason to suppose a Vanishing had happened at all. But now and again people would find themselves trapped in crowded train compartments, or in busi- ness meetings, where it was not possible to escape the public eye. Some Vanishings even occurred live on television. Elenia Diakou, the Olympic champion figure skater, Vanished in front of six million viewers while singing the Canadian national anthem on the gold winner’s podium; Paul Herbert, the French financier, unintentionally set the record for the highest-altitude Vanishing when he disappeared from beneath his parachute at 57,000 feet; and Edwin Wong, the virtuoso pianist, Vanished while laying down the final chords of Rachmaninov’s Prelude in B minor, which the judges deemed so in keeping with the nature of the piece they awarded him the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium prize, even though he was not there to receive it. It goes without saying that there was no shortage of w
ild theories to account for the Vanishings—but nobody paid them any attention. Everyone was waiting for the Seekers to crack it. Only they could come up with the answer.

  But the days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and the Symposium doors remained closed. In this vacuum of information a new, frightening idea took hold—that the Vanishings could not be stopped, that they would continue until nobody remained.

  Only one thing gave cause for hope, a little quirk in the behaviour of the Vanishings that soon became obvious.

  Children did not Vanish.

  There was something about children the Vanishings did not like, or could not touch.

  But nobody could say what this was.

  After two long years of evidence-gathering and fruitless speculation, the Chief Researcher was forced to admit that the Symposium was no closer to understanding the Vanishings than before. In the storm that followed this confession a new man took over—an unknown scientist called Professor Courtz.

  His inaugural address on the steps of the Trocadéro inspired fresh confidence in the hearts of those who were afraid. They took comfort in his military-style moustache, his grey hair slicked back with tonic, and most of all in his astonishing blue eyes, which sparkled with intelligence. There was something solid and reliable about him, something well thought out and structured, like a judge’s closing remarks or a balanced equation.

  He ended his speech with an appeal for privacy to study the Vanishings undisturbed. All future contact, he announced, would be made through subordinates at monthly press conferences. Those watching barely registered the significance of these words. But that public appearance was indeed his last, and afterwards he disappeared from view.

  At first this odd conduct was tolerated and even appreciated. The new Chief Researcher was a serious man who did not seek celebrity. Well and good! But after some time his reclusive behaviour lost its appeal. Nobody believed the bland reassurances of the Symposium bulletins, and an idea gathered force that the Professor himself had Vanished, that he—even he!—had succumbed.

  It was around this time that the light appeared, glinting and twinkling in the highest window of the Trocadéro. Nobody knew who spotted it first, but there it was, shining through the night when all others had been extinguished. This tiny beacon was all the troubled citizens of the world needed to regain the faith they had lost. When the children of Paris woke from nightmares of empty houses, their parents would carry them to a window and point across the rooftops.

  There he sits, they would say. There he sits, working away.

  One day he’s bound to solve the Vanishings.

  One day soon!

  There are many ways of disappearing besides Vanishing.

  Some people fall into the sea and are marooned on desert islands. Others climb into the mountains, where they shiver and make clothes out of yak fur. There are even those who leave their lives behind and take to the open road, where they get sore feet and a magnificent suntan.

  People have always disappeared; it’s nothing new. It’s something people just do.

  DOCTOR​ BORIS PESHKOV

  Reflections on the Vanishings

  1

  IN A BAD LIGHT

  Boris tapped the desk lamp that had just flickered and died, then unscrewed the bulb and examined the faintly glowing filament, his worn, engineer’s fingers unflinching on the hot glass.

  So that was it, he thought.

  At long last.

  When he’d left the Symposium he’d made himself a peculiar promise: he would continue his struggle to solve the Vanishings until all the bulbs in his flat had blown. Only when he sat in total darkness would he allow himself to admit defeat.

  For days now he’d been carrying this last lamp from room to room—to the kitchen to prepare pots of coffee, or the bathroom to stare at his hollow-eyed reflection—trailing the extension cable round the towers of boxes and stacks of files that were his only companions.

  And tonight his time had run out.

  He sat in the darkness, overcome with relief. For so long now he had wanted to surrender and let it all go. He had done all he could, and more. It was time to stop.

  Except…

  He picked up a screwdriver and pushed himself to his feet. An hour later the refrigerator lay in pieces, and he had built a new lamp from its dismantled parts. But instead of turning it on and resuming his work, he placed his chair by the window and stared out at the lights of Paris and the streets they half revealed.

  In the distance, across the rooftops, the many windows of the ISPCV were dark—all except one, where his old mentor, Professor Courtz, wrestled with the same mystery. He gave Courtz’s light only a momentary glance, and fell instead to watching the late-night loners of Montmartre, meandering about below as though trapped in a labyrinth from which there was no escape; the drunks, the flâneurs and the entangled; the eaters of opium; the criminals. One day soon, he knew, he would join them—when his struggle against the Vanishings had driven him mad.

  What hope did he have, after all? He was no longer a top Symposium Seeker, with access to laboratories and state-of-the-art equipment. Now he was nothing more than an unknown Russian scientist sitting alone by the window of a tiny Montmartre flat. He had his pencils, his notebooks and his brain, and that was all.

  But maybe that would be enough.

  Of all the scientists in the world, Boris was the closest to unlocking the secret of the Vanishings.

  But he did not know this.

  If someone had told him—if, one day as he sat at his desk, a peculiar little man had crept out of the cupboard behind him and whispered softly in his ear: “You nearly have it, my lad, keep going!” he would not have believed him for a moment, even if the little man had then disappeared in a flash of blue light. Sometimes he thought the Vanishings were a mystery he would never understand.

  Nevertheless, even Courtz and the Seekers were far behind Boris in the quest to solve the Vanishings. Boris had something they did not, something worth more than Symposiums and funding and hi-tech equipment.

  He found the Vanishings beautiful.

  Every night, on his own, he studied his files and reports, his photographs and videotapes, trying to find some kind of common cause or link between each case. Over and over in his head he saw the films he had gathered of people fading from the world. The Vanishings were sad, it was true. But were they surprising? He did not leap to this conclusion like everyone else. The Vanishings were certainly strange, but strange in a way that made him tremble with longing, a longing to understand them and put an end to them, and maybe even a longing to Vanish himself—something he was quite prepared to do, if it meant discovering a solution.

  Answers, he knew, would not be coming from the Symposium.

  Courtz and the Seekers treated the Vanishings like a problem of science. Boris felt a different approach was necessary. He reacted to the Vanishings not as a scientist trying to analyse a new phenomenon, but as a complete individual, a living, breathing, feeling soul.

  The Vanishings, he had argued again and again, had nothing to do with science. They came from something else, something human, something poetical. They had sprung from a place where science had no authority: the human condition itself. They had been started not by a change in scientific law, but by an alteration in human nature, possibly even a tiny alteration—a single turn of a single screw in a machine of a million parts.

  Perhaps this change had been brewing for centuries in the processes of history, like a potion in a Witch’s cauldron.

  Perhaps it had struck like a bolt of lightning in recent years.

  But it had come.

  He lit a cigarette and continued to stare out of the window at the streets below.

  As far as he could tell there was only one chink in the Vanishings’ defences, a tiny window through which he hoped to force entry. Again and again he came back to this clue, but he could not see what it meant.

  Children did not Vanish.

  Childr
en had always been the choicest prize of the Wolf, and here was the Wolf, leaving them be. Not because it wanted to; not out of kindness. Whenever he saw a child pass in the streets below his window, he thought he heard the Vanishings snarling in the air—held at bay, somehow, by a lollipop. And this puzzled him.

  “Perhaps it is children who will stop the Vanishings,” he muttered, scratching at his beard. “Not men like me.”

  Thoughts like these, dispiriting to others, only aroused his determination. He switched on his improvised light and opened his notebook to look back through his thoughts. Doing so could set off a new association. But tonight he got no further than the very first entry—a short question, written the moment he’d learnt of the Vanishings. He’d erased it at once, but the letters were still visible, the indentation still there under his fingers. Now it looked more ridiculous than ever, no better than the wild guesses put forward by the celebrity scientists on television.

  He snapped the notebook shut and threw it away from him, then fell once more to staring out of the window. This time there were no thoughts, no ideas, no memories—only a deep sadness that captivated him, and seemed to speak more truly of the Vanishings than words ever could.

  He did not stir again until his watch beeped.

  It was nearly time for the meeting.

  Heaving himself to his feet, he slung on his rumpled black jacket, thrust some coins, keys, matches, cigarettes, pencils and paper into his pockets and left the flat, his heavy tread booming on the stairs that would take him out into the electric glow of the Paris night.

  The question remained, faint in his notebook, faint in the back of his mind:

  Ten minutes later he slid onto a stool in a tiny café hidden along the rue Jacquemont. It was two in the morning and as usual he was the only customer. Ghostly white sleeves hovered in the gloom behind the bar: with a clink, a candle and a coffee materialized in front of him.