by Julia Fine
“You’re here for research, then?” I said, heartened. “Here to learn more about . . . the family?”
“I am.”
“Maisie!” called Matthew, having escaped the grieving woman and suddenly aware of my new interaction. “Are you ready to go?” His casual tone almost hid the note of urgency beneath it.
“Just a minute!” I called back.
“Maisie,” said Rafe with a bow. “A lovely name. It’s good to meet you. Who’s your friend?”
“Matthew,” I said as he came closer to us, frowning and tugging at a stray lock of hair. “His name is Matthew. He’s . . . his great-aunt was Mrs. Blott,” I said, desperate to hear more. When Rafe looked at me quizzically, I foolishly continued, “Mrs. Blott, the one who keeps—kept—house at Urizon.”
“Ah!” said Rafe with confident enthusiasm. “Well.” He tapped his fingers in a quick pattern against the edge of the grave, and twice clicked his teeth. Matthew was just a few headstones away, and widening his eyes in an exaggerated gesture that seemed an attempt at a warning. “I wouldn’t normally do this, but I simply can’t help myself,” Rafe said. “Would you come join me for a coffee? I have about a million questions regarding Urizon, and it seems that you two have an inside scoop.” Rafe’s teeth were very white. They glistened when he smiled. “In return, if you’ve an interest in the Blakelys, I’ve got several juicy stories I can share.”
The Bit of Braided Wire
Kathryn, 1223
Kathryn was born, in the year 1206 of her Lord, with an insatiable hunger.
For food, at first. She was a chubby child, worrying her mother with the rate at which she’d finish her pottage, the cause of countless conversations between parents about how they would keep Kathryn and four elder brothers fed. But by thirteen, Kathryn’s appetites had shifted. She shed her baby fat and blossomed, a new need unfolding, a different desire.
Kathryn’s mother came across her on the shore of a stream where she’d been sent to do the washing. Dirtied clothing sat in small piles around the girl, including her own underthings. Her auburn hair gleamed in the light, falling over her bare shoulders, bright against her breasts. Her head was tucked, fingers exploring, mouth caught in a delicate Oh.
The mother ran to the rock on which her daughter sat and took her by the hair, yanked her up, and slapped her. Beat her with the washing bat, three smacks against pert backside, three throbbing red welts. This behavior was improper. It was sinful. It would lead her to her end.
Perhaps, as Kathryn’s father claimed, such punishment did not make an impression. A harsher beating was warranted, a stronger assault. Or perhaps there is no way to punish appetite, which only grows with abstinence, consuming both desirer and desired.
AT FIFTEEN, SIXTEEN, seventeen, Kathryn still wanted. She’d steal off to the wood with the cousin of a neighbor, to the barn with the miller, to the river with a groom. Her family knew, the hamlet knew, but none who might act on the knowledge could ever catch her at it. Her mother pleaded with her to be modest, cried and begged. Her father beat her. When Kathryn carried pails of water up the hill to her home, when she worked in the garden, women would pull their daughters closer, whisper harsh words, throw stones, spit. It did not bother Kathryn. She cared nothing for gossip. She was adept at dodging curses. She was never afraid.
Her brothers disapproved of their sister’s reputation. Kathryn laughed at their mumbling, the burn of their cheeks. She only truly cared for one of them: handsome Owen, three years Kathryn’s elder and her double in complexion. As a small child Kathryn would cling to him, ignoring the others when they tried to entertain her, preferring him over either parent. Owen would bounce his sister on his knee, tend to her bruises. Then came a day on which his sister on his lap set his groin stirring and he pushed Kathryn off, ashamed and stuttering.
Thereafter Owen could not ignore the urges that he felt toward Kathryn. He would watch her bathing, trace his fingers across his own hip bone, thinking of hers. He would dream of the white dip of her neck.
He told no one of his feelings, and would never act upon them; Owen was an honorable man. As they grew older, he was wed to the daughter of an influential socman, a clever young girl who he loved dearly. Still, Owen blushed each time he passed his sister.
Kathryn, for her part, did all that she could to tease him. Would walk behind him and breathe soft against his neck, loosen the top of her dress, bend so he could see her freckled bosom. She would lick her lips and smile.
WITH THE COMING of each spring, the people of their hamlet gathered for a festival. They welcomed warmth with rituals—the drowning of an effigy, a Wild Man dressed in roughage—and concluded with a bonfire and a large amount of ale. So much ale that Owen, aglow with the drink, eventually succumbed to his beautiful sister. They coupled in a barn at the edge of the wood, faces flushed, two pairs of sea-green eyes in mirrored reflection. She nibbled his ear, he sucked on her breasts. He entered her, both gasping. Her nails left red roots on his back.
Owen’s wife found them asleep, their limbs tangled together. No question of identity, their matching red-brown hair and small, peaked noses, each sleeping with bent arm above a head. In shock, Owen’s wife screamed for her mother, for her father, for someone, quick, to come.
Sacrilege, they said, for a brother to lie with his sister. Action must be taken. Something must be done.
THEY TOOK OWEN first. Brought him, clothed, to the stockade. His wife, once her head had cleared, was sobbing, begging her father to spare him. He had done wrong, yes, but he still had her love. A whipping, perhaps, some sort of fine, and his lesson would be learned. It was not Owen, but Kathryn, who needed punishment.
Owen’s father-in-law agreed to spare his life, but only under two conditions. The first: Owen would be banished, could never set foot in the hamlet again. The second: they’d instead take the head from his whore sister’s neck.
Kathryn’s parents pleaded, but Owen’s father-in-law, churchmen behind him, would not be deterred. Owen was given a rucksack with few supplies and sent out of the village, went stumbling, shamefaced, off into the unknown. Kathryn was locked in an underground room of the parish church. She’d have three days to reflect on her behavior, then would be burned ceremoniously. A warning. An example.
Kathryn’s mother sat stone-faced on the hard-packed dirt outside her daughter’s prison, cursing her own failure, silent for the first two days of the girl’s condemnation. On the morning of the third day, Owen’s wife appeared. Kathryn could hear the two women whispering, but could not make out what they said. The door swung open.
Kathryn’s sister-in-law stood at the entrance to the cell, her eyes decades older than they’d been the week before, swollen and red like two battered fists.
“My father will be back soon,” she said. “Run.”
11
It took some haggling to convince Matthew to accept Rafe’s invitation, but when he saw I would not be swayed he finally conceded. The roadside café he selected as safe house for our gathering was remarkable only in its bareness—wobbling tables, harsh overhead lighting, a haggard woman wiping down a counter, her hair tied with a rag. There were few customers. We sat at a booth in the back, sipping weak but steaming coffee, picking at a plate of chips, positioned so I could see Marlowe, chafing at his bonds where Matthew had insisted we tie him up outside.
“You’re suspicious, I see, and so I’d like to start with all my cards out clearly on the table,” Rafe said to Matthew, opening his palms. He turned to me. “You’ve told me you’re connected to Urizon. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you look very much like my friend Peter Cothay. You were at his wife’s grave. . . . Am I right to assume a relation?”
I nodded. Matthew, sitting next to me, coughed into his drink.
“I knew it!” said Rafe, his expression taking on a look of wild glee before he caught himself and calmed it. “I knew you’d have the . . .” He shook his head, took a sip of water, and began anew. “Peter Cothay is a colleague o
f mine,” he said. “We’ve been working together for the past year on a theory I’ve developed. Or that he developed, really, but that I’ve been very eager to adopt.”
“Bullshit,” said Matthew. “Prove it.” I kicked him for his rudeness, but Rafe appeared unfazed. From his coat pocket he produced a stack of letters, all in my father’s hand, dated from the past fifteen months. Matthew flipped through them while I read over his shoulder.
. . . if we assume the wood itself was larger, we can widen our scope and begin to look . . .
. . . from the south, in approx the yr 600 (AD?) . . .
. . . can be translated to mean “lifeblood” or family, so there’d be no need for . . .
. . . once you prove the physics of it, they’ll be hard-pressed . . .
Matthew skimmed faster than me, put the letters down before I had finished. “All right. So he’s a colleague,” he said, pushing the pile toward Rafe. “But why does it matter? What can we do for you?”
“You’re going to have to bear with me,” Rafe said. He had, for the past while, been leaning toward us, his elbows set upon the table, voice deliberately low. Now he leaned back in assessment, as if trying to decide if we were worthy of the coming information. “Keep open minds. Most social anthropologists, archaeologists, even, are more concerned with history than practical application. I admit, to the skeptic, the idea I’m about to pose could seem a joke.”
Matthew sat very still, watching Rafe with eyebrows raised, his mouth already skewed skeptical. I thought that any minute he’d declare it time to leave, that we were done with this diversion.
“We promise to believe you,” I said, stressing the collective.
“All right”—Rafe took in a large breath—“here it is: I’ve found proof of the existence of a very special passage in the wood beside Urizon. But it needs . . . a lot of help with its unlocking. That’s what I was after in the graveyard. That’s why I’m curious to hear about your ties to the house. I understand that others call it pseudoscience—most of my peers think that I’m mad—but there is so much of the world we close our eyes to. So much of ourselves we, in our modern age, dismiss.”
“Unlocking?”
“One of the texts your father studies is concerned with a ritual leading to a woodland prophet. There’s a series of processional routes the ancients would travel to find her—you’ll be familiar with cursuses, I’m sure”—I nodded emphatically, although we were not—“and ley lines, of course. Certain stops along the way functioned like keys. Travelers made pilgrimage to certain sacred places, as if unlocking dead bolts before opening a door. It’s all written out, the directions are all there if you can make the right translation, and I think that I’ve done it. I think that we can get inside.” Rafe exhaled, smiled, and looked to us for validation.
“I don’t understand,” said Matthew flatly.
“You mean a tunnel?” I said. “What, under the ground?”
“Not quite.” Rafe took another sip of water. “More of a . . . path to a different dimension. Well, no, dimension is the wrong way to phrase it. If you haven’t got the background in the history, it can become a bit tricky to explain. Think of a spirit world. A holy place. Not a literal passage, but . . . metaphysical.”
I thought that Matthew might start laughing. Near us, someone’s mobile device beeped. The woman working the counter argued with a man who didn’t have the correct change for his purchase. Outside, Marlowe tugged at his bonds.
I felt that I had begun a large jigsaw puzzle on a surface half its size—my mind was not wide enough to lay out all the pieces, but I could carefully examine little pockets and, by squinting, visualize how they’d combine. Rafe’s explanation took so much of the experience I’d struggled with and wrapped it up so very neatly. I had gone missing and found myself in some other dimension; Peter’s research held the clues. The visions and the forest that I’d had no way to parse—here was my guide. Peter wanted to open the strange, shadow forest, to enter Rafe’s metaphysical world; he thought that I was there and had gone off to find me. Likely, he was waiting for me now.
“Could this be useful?” Using my sweater as a grip, I took Peter’s map from my pocket, pushing it across the table toward Rafe, ignoring Matthew’s quick intake of breath as I laid bare our only evidence. I watched as Rafe unfolded it, his eyes round with his luck. He traced the spirals, whispered the women’s names.
“Where did you find this?”
“Am I right? Is it directions to your passage?”
“Cothay wrote to me about this. We’d been planning an expedition, speaking regularly, and then we got into a slight . . . disagreement. Words were said, the fault was mostly mine. For a few weeks’ time we stopped all correspondence. Then I wrote him an apology, but I’ve heard nothing back. He’s not the type to hold a grudge. I’d thought he’d, well, I didn’t know what happened, but I’d hoped . . . and now it seems he’s gone ahead and done the work without me. You’ve given me exactly what I need to get through.”
“Through?”
“To the holy place. The other world. The undiscovered country.”
“You think that’s where Peter has gone?” I asked. Matthew kicked me again. “I mean, where he would have gone if for some reason he so happened to be missing?”
“I’m certain that it would be. And if you’re all right with my copying these coordinates, very soon that’s where I’ll be, too.” Rafe’s hands were shaking, his eyes glistened bright. His desperation was palpable, and compared to Matthew’s stoicism seemed a hand extended.
“This is absurd,” said Matthew.
“It isn’t,” I said, turning to Rafe, “and I will let you use our map.”
“Really?” Rafe’s hopeful smile extended into a wide grin, revealing rows of porcelain-white teeth, a set of dimples.
“If,” I said, “and only if, you’ll let me through the passage with you.”
A car sounded a long, low honk from the highway. The woman at the counter stifled a burp. Matthew suddenly seemed very tired.
“That isn’t happening.” He turned to me. “You’re going to forget this whole debacle. We’ll go back to your house and we’ll wait there.”
“Your house?” Rafe said. “To wait there?”
I glared at Matthew. “You see,” I said, “Peter Cothay is my father.” I saw no reason not to tell Rafe everything, believing, as I did, that he’d laid bare his plans to me. “Peter is gone, and we’ve been out looking for him. I intend to keep looking, regardless of what Matthew, here, thinks.”
“This is a joke,” said Matthew.
“It isn’t!”
“Would you,” Matthew asked Rafe, jaw tight, his milky coffee sloshing on the table, “mind giving us a moment alone?”
“Not at all.”
Abuzz with discovery, Rafe moved to the other end of the café, took his notebook from his pocket, and started scribbling. Matthew sat with his arms crossed, watching me watch our new companion.
“What?” I said, bristling.
Still no words, only that condescending focus.
“You’ve made your point,” I said, although much of it I had yet to decipher. “Will you please speak?”
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to go off with a boy you barely know on some fool’s errand?”
“I didn’t know you when I first met you,” I replied, aware of the silliness of the sentence and the petulance in my tone. “And I can take care of myself.”
“In my experience,” said Matthew through his teeth, as if I had not said a thing, “it is not a good idea for a young girl to run off with a strange man.”
I bristled at whatever he appeared to be implying, determined not to let him humiliate me. “I thought you’d said he was a boy.”
“What?”
“Man or boy, which is he?”
“Does it matter? Regardless, you shouldn’t go with him. This whole thing is highly suspicious. Sure, he has letters from Peter, but he just told us they’d had a f
alling-out. Something feels wrong here. I’d say that if you thought it over, you’d agree.”
I opened my mouth, but was not sure how to respond. To me, very little ever felt right—I’d built a life around denying gut reactions, curbing my instincts. How was the nagging feeling that I had regarding Rafe any different from the urges I had always been told to suppress?
“Be smart,” Matthew continued. “A wild-goose chase across the country? Unlocking ancient invisible doors? Come on, Maisie. I know you’ve spent years locked away, but you’re in the real world now. Be reasonable.”
“I am being reasonable—”
“Use your head.”
“It’s a giant lead. Our only lead. You don’t know Peter—this is just like him. And he would want me to come—”
“Really? You really think that’s what he’d want? After holing up for years, keeping you quiet, he’d want you to run off on this ridiculous quest? I’ve been lenient, so far we’ve followed all your whims, but as your current guardian I—”
“You are not my guardian.”
“Well, if I were in any official capacity, you can be sure that I’d—”
“Even if you were, it wouldn’t matter. I’d go then, and I’m going now. I don’t care what you say.”
There was a long pause while we looked at each other. Finally, Matthew sighed.
“So you’re set on this?”
IN HINDSIGHT, RAFE’S involvement in my tale is all too simple, too serendipitous. How could he so easily tell I was related to the Blakelys? Why was he so quick to share the theory of the wood? And of course he had just told us that a multitude of scholars had made criticisms of the very theory I was eager to believe.
What I did not know then was the history of the ley line: a collection of purportedly meaningful points—burial mounds, churches, mountain peaks, lakes—that when charted on a map can be connected with a single stroke of the pen. The amateur archaeologist who’d coined the term was thrilled at his discovery. Surely when the old antiquarian looked up to see a chain of fairy lights, monuments, and megaliths in geometric pattern, he’d uncovered ancient wisdom, found some key. Surely these patterns meant something! But give each individual monument and megalith its own symbol, mark them on the map, and count their abundance: his atlas becomes the night sky, a dense collection of such wonders. His ley line becomes a constellation, a pattern imposed to make sense of the world. Not the word passed from the prophetess on high, but a tale he, himself, has written.