The Beginning Woods

by Malcolm McNeill

  You should listen to your heart.

  No, Martha! I shouldn’t! That’s EXACTLY what Courtz is talking about. “Listen to your heart.” “Follow your dreams.” Those are just stupid things people say so they can avoid what’s real. What do they even mean? My heart—it doesn’t have a voice! They just mean listen to some vague thing going on in your head that could come from anywhere, that’s what they mean. Instead of saying “Listen to your heart!” they should just be honest and say “Don’t bother thinking carefully, just go ahead!” There is no “Listening to your heart”! There is no “Following your dreams”! It’s all just stories! And I’m tired of stories. I don’t want any more.

  You’re turning into my parents! This is what happened to them!

  No—

  You’re going to stop believing in me too, like they did. Aren’t you?

  How can I? You’re a voice in my head.

  So that’s all I am now? A VOICE in your HEAD?

  No, that’s not what I meant. You know it’s not.

  Soon I’ll be nothing more than a memory. Then I’ll be even less than that.

  She sank sadly down to the Merry-Go-Round.

  Max spooned out the porridge with angry splats.

  “It wasn’t stories that started the Vanishings, you know,” he said, wanting to do something to test the scientist. “You were wrong about that.”

  Courtz took his bowl and glanced at Max with an amused smile. “I wasn’t wrong because I never believed that to be true,” he said.

  “Yes you did. You started the Censorship to stop the Vanishings, and all those books got burnt.”

  “I didn’t know what started the Vanishings—I never did,” Courtz said. “The Vanishings were simply an opportunity, and I took it.”

  “It was my Appearance—”

  “Yes, yes,” Courtz said, cutting him off. “In the bookshop, I know. Your Appearance brought the Woods and the World too closely together, and the Vanishings became possible. How this all happened may be a matter of personal curiosity for you. But I am sure you will agree: the Vanishings must be stopped.”

  “Yes,” Max said. “They must.”

  “So we agree on this. Well, that is something. But let us think through what this little fact means. Because facts are handy, and can be used to discover other facts. Shall we do that?”

  “All right,” Max said cautiously.

  “Well then. Are the Vanishings of the Woods or of the World?”

  “They’re of the Woods.”

  “And the Vanishings are only possible because the Woods and the World have been brought together. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “So none of this is disputed, and we are on solid ground. Now tell me: if this is the case, as we have shown it to be, how are the Vanishings to be stopped? I would like to know.”

  “The Woods and the World must be separated.”

  “For a short while, or permanently?”

  “Permanently.”

  “Then all that remains is to decide how a permanent separation between two things can be brought about. I will describe the ways, and you can tell me if I have missed any. Let’s call these two things A and B. The complete destruction of either A or B would ensure a permanent separation, would it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “So that is in theory a solution. But it is not practically possible. Are we still in agreement?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then there is only one other option: A must entirely lose the qualities that make it A, and assume those of B. Or vice versa.”

  “Yes.”

  “So the Woods must become the World, or the World must become the Woods. Have I missed any ways?”

  “I… don’t think so.”

  “The choice, then, is this: Science or Stories. Which would you prefer?”

  Max looked away: Courtz had got him again.

  The scientist picked up a spoon and hunkered down near the fire.

  “I am glad we are in agreement,” he said. “Now eat. We only have a few hours before the tranquillizer wears off.”

  They hiked down the slope towards the part of the Woods where the Dragon had fallen. From the mountainside they could see the gash in the trees ripped open by the impact, about a mile into the forest.

  The metal jaws were strapped to Courtz’s back on a leather harness. Spanners, wrenches, pliers and knives jangled from his belt. As he strode along, the apparatus and the tools clanked and rattled, like the scientist was in fact a robot driven by pistons and engines.

  Courtz seemed to know every inch of the mountain—when they reached the trees, it was at the very spot a Path began.

  As they went he continued to talk. He seemed to be glad of Max’s company, and glad of the chance to describe his thoughts.

  “In the World I had to teach people to hate what they loved, to fear it,” he said. “If they hadn’t been afraid of dreams, the Censorship would have been impossible. Here, it is the same. The Forest Folk must learn to hate what they love. So we must violate what is sacred to them—the old ways, the Dragons. Only then will they embrace science. Then we will reach the final era, the ending, when confusion can be set aside and we can finally progress.”

  “What’s the final era?” Max asked.

  Courtz glanced at him. “You have read a great many stories, I am sure. Did you ever come across the tale of the Lindworm Prince? When I was your age, it was my favourite.”

  Max shook his head, surprised to hear the architect of the Censorship mention stories. He realized Courtz was still trying to persuade him. Probably he thought a story would help.

  “A Princess goes to marry a Lindworm,” Courtz said. “She has no choice, she has to, even though the wicked serpent has already married and gobbled up all her sisters. But she takes the advice of a wise old woman, and on their wedding night, she goes before the Lindworm in seven dresses. Each time it asks her to remove a dress, she asks the Lindworm to shed a skin. Finally she is naked, and the Lindworm, well, it is a pink lump of flesh! Following the old woman’s instructions, the Princess puts the Lindworm in a bath of milk, rolls up her sleeves, and scrubs it, hard. She scrubs and scrubs, and slowly the Lindworm’s true form emerges. It becomes a handsome Prince.

  “In that story you have the entire history of our World. For thousands of years its true form has been hidden, obscured by seven skins. With painful effort we have stripped them off. Now at last the true flesh is about to emerge. For the first time in our history we are going to see ourselves as we truly are. But we must roll up our sleeves, and scrub, and scrub hard!”

  With those words he left the Path and strode into the trees.

  “Come!” he said, when Max hesitated. “There is no need to worry about the Wildness. You are beginning to think, I can tell. The Wildness has no power against people who think. You will see!”

  Max stepped off the Path, into that space where the Wildness snarled in the air. And it was true. He couldn’t feel it any more. The trees were just trees, and the Woods was just a forest.

  Already, the Woods was becoming the World.

  Courtz found the Dragon’s crash site with no trouble at all, marching straight up to it like he could smell it.

  It looked like a landslide, a jumble of rocks and branches. Though it was sleeping, the bonfire in its belly was still burning, and the heat rose off it in waves, melting the snow.

  When they reached the Dragon’s head, Courtz unfastened the harness and set down the apparatus. He stretched himself, then leant in and plucked a nodule from above one of the Dragon’s closed eyes. He tossed it to Max. The muddy crust crumbled away between his fingers, revealing a tiny acorn.

  “If you’re wondering what Dragons are, that’s it,” Courtz said as he laid out his belt of tools on the forest floor.

  “An acorn?”

  “Dragons seeded the Beginning Woods. Where they sleep underground, they emit warmth to waken dormant seeds, and scatter them when they travel. They are n
othing more than engines of fertilization. Machines of growth. They are not fantastic. They are not wonderful. They have a purpose, which we are about to modify. That is all.”

  Selecting a large pair of pliers, he clambered onto the Dragon’s lower lip and put one arm over its neck to support himself. Clacking the pliers to loosen them, he gripped the slimy top lip and hauled it up to reveal white molars, big as wedding cakes. “See the upper back teeth? They must come out so we can anchor the apparatus.” He jumped down and took up two short rods with braces at each end. “We’ll do this side first.”

  Max hesitated, looking at the tools with their angles and cutting blades, then at the Dragon and its mossy lips.

  It was sleeping, he reasoned, and wouldn’t feel anything. It was like… being at the dentist’s. Courtz was carrying on as if it was all a slightly boring chore. He’d handled the Dragon’s lip the way a blacksmith hammered nails into a horse’s hoof. That was probably the best way to think about it—as if it was an operation, no more gruesome than anything a vet might do.

  Together they heaved the fearsome mouth wide, and propped it open with the short metal rods. Then Max watched as Courtz pinned up the top lip with a series of butcher’s hooks. The lip was heavy, and Courtz grunted as he hauled it away from the gum, as if he were dragging heavy fish out of water.

  I can’t watch this. And I can’t watch you watching it.

  OK.

  Max replied almost absently, hardly noticing the sadness in her voice. A feeling of detachment was coming over him, the opposite of the Wildness, coming from Courtz and the business-like way he operated on the Dragon.

  And the detachment soon became fascination.

  Now that the lip was pinned up, how was he going to remove the tooth? It was tucked away in an awkward spot in the back corner of the mouth. He watched as Courtz unclipped a metal spatula from the belt. Almost before he knew what was happening, Courtz had slid it under the gum, and with three sharp movements—up and along, up and along, up and along—levered it until the gum ripped free from the tooth and hung in a loose, bloody flap.

  Max moved into a better position so he could see what Courtz was doing.

  Next it was a hammer and chisel.

  CRACK!

  With a sharp blow of the hammer, Courtz drove the chisel between the molar and the adjacent tooth. They came apart slightly, and he struck the chisel again, driving it deeper, widening the gap further.

  “That should do it,” he muttered. “Now for the hard part.”

  He took a crowbar and pushed it into the space. He pressed with all his strength, using the other tooth as a fulcrum. The first three times his struggle had no effect. His face turned purple with the strain, then his breath exploded and he swore and wiped his forehead. But the fourth time there was a small movement from the molar. He tried again, bending all his weight down until a long groan escaped his lips—under the crowbar’s pressure the tooth began to lean out of position.

  “Come… on!”

  He yanked the crowbar back and forth, back and forth. The molar shifted in its socket more freely, until Courtz was able to take it in both hands and wiggle it himself.

  “Stand back,” he said, panting slightly. Max stepped away, bloody snow squishing under his feet. But it hardly troubled him.

  Courtz had picked up his pliers again, and with careful, precise movements was adjusting a screw on them so he could open them wider. With a rough clunk he got a solid grip on the tooth, put a foot on the Dragon’s lower jaw and pulled. The tooth came out a short distance, then stopped. Courtz unexpectedly reversed direction, driving the tooth into its socket, hard—then threw all his strength into a sudden, powerful yank. With a deep slurp of blood, he flew backwards. The huge tooth bounced across the forest floor and landed at Max’s feet, its long roots reaching up towards him.

  Courtz retrieved the tooth, turning it in his hands, then drove it into the forest floor with heavy strikes of his hammer.

  “Sit!” he said, pointing at the strange mushroom.

  So Max sat, and watched Courtz continue his work. After removing the other tooth came the fitting of the apparatus. Estimating the size by eye, Courtz made several adjustments by sliding bars and tweaking screws, then slid the machine into position. When it was secure, he screwed the apparatus in place, then beckoned to Max.

  He was going to “turn it on”.

  Max went to stand at his shoulder. He watched as Courtz reached up and under the front teeth to the back part of the mechanism, where he began to tighten a coil with sharp twists of a key.

  click click whirrrrrr

  The needles began to flicker in and out of the gums.

  click click whirrrrrr

  click click whirrrrrr

  The Dragon’s eyelids flickered.

  “It’s moving,” Max said uneasily.

  “And it’ll keep moving for months,” Courtz replied, still turning the key. “Just as long as nobody interferes with the mechanism.”

  “No,” said Max. “I mean the Dragon’s moving.”

  “Just a reflex,” said Courtz.

  And then the Dragon’s jaws widened a tiny amount, and the metal rods holding them open tumbled out of position.

  The mouth snapped shut.

  Max jumped back at the sudden CLANG. Courtz didn’t move or make a sound. He just knelt there, completely still. The Dragon’s head rolled to one side and the scientist leant over, following the Dragon’s movement as if he was trying to peer up its nose.

  Even then Max didn’t realize what had happened—that the mouth had closed on Courtz’s hand, and the rolling turn of the Dragon was twisting it off.

  Then Courtz fell backwards, clutching the mangled end of his arm, and he knew.

  His first thought was that this was all inevitable. Some part of him had even known it was going to happen. Nothing could have prevented it.

  It was written.

  It had all happened before.

  The second thought, which drove out the first, was that Courtz mustn’t go into SHOCK, because if he went into SHOCK he would die. Forbes had told him many times about the day the grinder had snapped off his hand. The big danger, he’d said, was this SHOCK.

  Two things made SHOCK worse.

  Losing blood.

  Being cold.

  Courtz seemed to know this too. He was sitting cross-legged, gripping his upper arm to shut down the blood supply. His face was ashen-white, but calm. Turning at the waist and leaning forwards, he pulled the belt of tools towards him, shook off the spanners and pliers and strapped it round his arm, tight.

  Then he looked at Max. “Get me back to the cave,” he said in a strangely normal tone of voice.

  He stood, as if it was all going to be easy—but his legs buckled at once and he sank to his knees. Max darted forwards and helped him up. With Courtz leaning on him heavily, they staggered from the clearing. Behind them, branches were already beginning to snap as the Dragon stirred.

  Hurry, Max. It’s waking up!

  I can’t go any faster.

  Why are you helping him? Just leave him!

  He ignored her.

  They soon reached the Path. But Courtz had used up all his strength to get there. Exhausted, he fell forwards and knelt in the snow, one arm planted down as a support. He did not speak. He seemed unaware of where he was, or what was happening.

  Suddenly there was a strange pulse through the ground. Snow fell off the branches of the trees around them.

  It’s coming, Max!

  How does it know where we are?

  It’s the Woods. The Woods is sending it after you! Because of WHAT YOU DID!

  “Come on!” Max begged, tugging Courtz under his shoulder. “We have to keep going!”

  He heaved Courtz to his feet, pulled the scientist’s good arm round his shoulders and staggered along the Path. But the weight was unbearable. Unable to support himself, his feet dragging, the scientist was far too heavy. They could only go a few steps at a time.
>
  Leave him! This is all his fault. Let him deal with it.

  I can’t!

  Courtz’s feet began to weave. The pulses went through the ground again, and again, and again. Every few metres a tremor knocked them off their feet, and each time it took Courtz longer to get up.

  Then the winter sun was glancing off snow, dazzling his eyes. He stopped, blinking. They had made it out of the trees.

  But now what?

  How could they ever get up the mountain?

  The steep slope. The narrow, stony trail.

  It was too far.

  He tried anyway, dragging the scientist across the broken ground. He managed only to reach the first tree stump. With the last of his strength he helped Courtz lie against it, then collapsed beside him, unable to move an inch further.

  GET UP! KEEP GOING!

  He didn’t have the strength to answer, even with a thought.

  He’d climbed just high enough to see over the top of the trees. And there it was—the Dragon on its way. Amazing how it came! Like a whale, hurling itself out of the water! Trees and earth exploded upwards with each surge of its body, and a shrieking roar filled the air.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the Dragon. “I didn’t mean to.”

  MOVE MAX! HIDE!

  But there were no places to hide: Courtz had cut down the trees.

  He got to his feet anyway.

  Why, he did not know.

  Tried, for some reason, to drag Courtz round the other side of the tree stump.

  They were thrown from each other when the Dragon burst out of the trees and hit the mountainside. It tore up a mouthful of earth and flung it in the air. Then again. Then again, as though trying to wreck the machine that was torturing it on the rocks and stones.

  Fallen onto his side, Max watched, hypnotized. The Dragon’s teeth flashed. Flashed. Flashed.

  Dragon teeth.

  Grinder teeth.

  Shark teeth.

  Teeth absolutely everywhere.

  The tooth! MAX! THE TOOTH!

  Martha’s voice snapped him back to where he was, and what was happening.