The Catswold Portal

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  She had never had this sense before; surely this was Catswold sense, and it excited her. Accurately perceiving the inky spaces around her, she hurried on until she could see Vrech’s light again. Moving ever upward, curiosity filled her, about the world above.

  Mag said the upperworld was awash with falling water, burnt by the spinning fire of the sun, and scoured by tearing wind. Mag said love was deeper there, babies healthier, and that there was in the upperworld a power that had been lost in the Netherworld. She said they did not have magic, but that other power was as strong as magic. The old woman grew morose sometimes, longing for that world. Melissa had no idea why she had left it, or why she never returned.

  The dropping chasm disappeared, the stream ran again beside the path, sending spray across it. She knelt and drank, wishing she had a waterskin to fill. She was painfully hungry, and she was cold again. She imagined the queen making this journey wearing a fur cape and warm boots and gloves, her servants carrying food and wine; a safe, cosseting entourage within which the queen would travel warm and cared for. As I would, she thought, if I were queen.

  Well, to Hell with that. She would rather be herself, and free, than be like Siddonie.

  She waited impatiently while Vrech stopped to eat. She could smell onions, and could hear him chewing. Her stomach growled. They seemed to have been in the tunnel forever.

  After many more hours walking, as the tunnel rose it narrowed so tightly and the ceiling dropped so low she panicked. Walking crouched, her head bent, then creeping, she held her fear in check, sweating, trembling. If she let her fear master her, there was no one to help. To beg help of Vrech would be to die in this tunnel.

  But at last the constricted space eased, and the way rose more steeply. Twice more Vrech stopped to rest, and once to urinate. When she passed that place in the path she could smell his sour scent.

  On and on up dark, winding ways. She sensed vast and dropping chasms, sensed jagged, tumbled boulders teetering across black space. Once she put her ear to the stone wall and heard beyond the stone the hushing roar of an under-earth sea. The tunnel grew so steep in places that steps were cut in the path. Hungry and afraid, she grew achingly tired. She went on heavily, wishing she were safe back in Mag’s cottage. And then suddenly ahead Vrech stopped and spoke. The thunder of his voice, after the long silence, turned her cold.

  But he wasn’t speaking to her. He was reciting an opening spell. She heard stone scrape against stone and saw a stone wall swing in, then his light moved away beyond the wall, and the wall scraped closed, and she was alone in total darkness.

  Tracing her hand along the rough wall, she felt adze marks where the earth and rock had been cut. She found the solid end of the tunnel and, to her right, a wall made of small stones set into mortar.

  She repeated Vrech’s spell.

  The wall moved toward her, pressing in against her. She slipped around it ready to run back down the tunnel if Vrech was there. She stood looking into a storeroom, an earthen cave cluttered with a ladder, wheelbarrow, potting table, and garden tools. She was alone.

  There was a door in the opposite wall. The streak of yellow-white light beneath it told her how bright this world must be. She moved to the door and pressed her ear to it. She could hear wind blowing; she could feel wind shake the door. And when she lifted the latch the door was pulled from her hands by the wind. Wind hit her, pummeling her. Sunlight exploded in her eyes. She stepped back, covering her eyes, pushing the door closed. Red spots swam across her vision.

  When she opened the door again, she was ready for the light and the wind. Wind whipped her hair and dress against her. Light burned her. Squinting, she searched the brightness for Vrech.

  She could make out nothing clearly. Masses of bright color swayed before her; tangled branches swung away to reveal blinding light, then swung back again. She was in a hillside garden. Down the hill stood three houses, their windows filled with the garden’s bright, blowing reflections. When she turned she saw three more houses above, and above those rose the empty sky. She looked straight up at total emptiness and went dizzy, reeling. Clinging to the door she felt as if she would fall upward straight into that tilting and endless space.

  And in the sky rode the sun. Ra. Osiris. Elven tales of the sun god filled her. She felt drawn by that powerful being. The sun made her feel weightless and giddy; she wanted to run through the garden leaping, wanted to bat crazily at blowing leaves. The wild abandon that filled her was beyond any human experience, made her long for claws to rake the trees, made her feel she must have a tail to lash.

  And when, controlling her wildness, she turned to pull the door closed, she was facing cats, dozens of cats. She thought they were alive, then saw that they were carved from the wood of the door. They were familiar; she thought she had seen them before and she reached to touch their little oak faces.

  Nine rows of cats, nine cats to a row. She didn’t need to count, she remembered. She was a little girl again, wearing a short red dress, gazing up at the cats, waiting for them to speak, caught in an intense childhood game.

  She stroked the dear cat faces and touched their little carved teeth, filled with raw longing for that lost time.

  But the memory was connected to nothing. It hung in her mind suspended and alone.

  She touched the heavy vine that framed the door, a vine so old and thick that its cut branches, trimmed to clear the door, formed a deep, rough frame. How familiar the feel of the cut stubs, and of the young tendrils that had snaked out as if they would lash the door shut. How familiar the smell of crushed leaves where the vine had caught in the door’s hinges.

  Behind her the garden darkened suddenly, as if a huge beast had loomed over her. Alarmed, she spun around.

  A gigantic shadow engulfed the flowers and small trees. When she looked above, she remembered Mag telling about clouds. The sun was hidden by clouds, like soft gray islands. And now, below the hill, the houses were absorbed by shadow. But as she looked she realized that the center house was familiar. Puzzled, intrigued, she started down the garden along a winding path. Ducking under small trees, skirting past tangles of flowers, she soon stood at the edge of the brick veranda that spanned the front of the house.

  She remembered rolling a wheeled toy, bump bump, over that long expanse of brick. She remembered playing with dolls here.

  She had been a child in this house. She had stood looking out at the garden. She could almost bring back the voices. In memory she could smell chocolate, and something lemony and sweet.

  But again the memory was attached to nothing.

  The front of the house was different. She did not remember all this glass, she had never seen so much glass; the whole front wall and door were glass. Its reflections of the blowing garden cast her own image back at her alarmingly.

  She didn’t want to look at her image, but she was drawn to look. She had never seen her full image. She put aside fear and studied her figure, and she liked what she saw. She was slim, long waisted. Her green dress looked darker in the glass. Her face was thin and pale against the blowing garden. She moved closer to look into her face and lost her image and could see into the room.

  One big room ran the length of the house. Yet she remembered two rooms, with a little entry between them. In the entry had stood a red lacquer table. This ceiling was different, too. It was higher. There were rafters now where they had not been before, and there was a glass window in the roof between the heavy beams. The house in her memory was changed, as a dream changes.

  These walls were white, not flowered. And on them hung images. Paintings—they were paintings. Their bright colors exploded in the light-filled room, forming bright hills and trees and sky and the images of people. Paintings like the small image in Prince Wylles’ chamber, only these were huge.

  To her right was a little seating area, a soft-looking chair and a couch covered with lengths of silk and velvet in all shades of reds and pinks and orange. Down at the other end of the room were more pain
tings, leaning several deep against the walls. A sound made her turn.

  On a lane beside the garden, cars were parked. She remembered cars, remembered the feel of movement, the smell inside a new car. A car had pulled up now and was parking, but when its door opened she stared.

  Vrech was getting out. She fled for the bushes at the end of the terrace, shocked to see him so suddenly, and amazed to see a Netherworlder using an upperworld machine.

  As she huddled beneath the bushes, Vrech crossed diagonally up the garden carrying a bundle, and let himself into the tool room that led to the Netherworld.

  She assumed he was going back, and despite her fear of him she was unnerved at being left alone in this world. But then as she watched, he came out again wearing different clothes, and got back in the car. He had hardly driven away when she saw a man running toward the lane. As he crossed it, she moved deeper into the bushes. He came directly through the garden toward her. She didn’t breathe. But he didn’t glance toward the bushes; he crossed the terrace and went into the house. He was tall, dark haired, bronze skinned: he was the man from the Harpy’s montage of visions. His bare legs looked strong and muscled, not like Efil’s pale legs.

  Soon he came out carrying a tray with two glasses, a tall bottle, and a bowl. He was pouring himself a drink as another car pulled into the lane and parked. The driver headed for the terrace.

  This man was short, dressed in a suit and tie. This pleased her, that she could remember upperworld clothes. So many memories flashed at her, but none with meaning. The tall man poured a second glass and the two went in the house. She moved so she could see inside.

  They were looking at the paintings, standing together talking, moving along from one painting to the next; but as they progressed from one end of the room to the other they began to argue.

  They came out again arguing, their voices cold with anger. The shorter man said, “This is why you kept putting me off, telling me to wait until I got back from London, then until you got back from Carmel, from Sonoma, to wait until after Christmas. Why the hell didn’t you say something, Braden? I hate to sound stuffy, but under contract, you don’t have the right to cancel the show. I like the work—it’s not as great as the Coloma series, but it’s good. You can’t back out of a show, not so late.”

  “Just put someone else in the date. Get Garcheff. Any painter in the Bay area would be pleased to have a show at the Chapman.”

  “If I’d known earlier I could have put the date up. Or I could have gotten someone. There’s not enough time. And what about the New York show?” He set down his glass and picked up his keys. “The brochures are already at the printers. I won’t cancel.”

  “Call the printer. I’ll pay for the damn brochures.”

  “There isn’t time to do new ones.”

  “The hell there isn’t. Listen, Rye, you—”

  “Christ, Braden. Be reasonable. If Alice were alive you wouldn’t be doing this.”

  Braden went white. He drained his glass, staring at Rye. Rye looked at the glass pointedly. “Ever since Alice died, Brade, you’ve been letting yourself go to hell.”

  “That’s a stupid damn remark.”

  Melissa hardly heard them. Ever since Alice died—Alice…Ever since Alice died…She hugged herself, shivering and hurt, so shocked she felt sick, but she didn’t know why. She didn’t remember anyone named Alice.

  Rye said, “Where is Alice’s work? That whole alcove used to be full of her prints.”

  “At her gallery. Where the hell else would it be?”

  “The last etchings, too? The Thompson thoroughbreds? And those drawings of cats’ faces from the garden door? The Blackeston retrievers? She was the only animal artist on the West Coast worth a damn, and you’ve hidden her work away.”

  Braden grabbed Rye, twisting him around. “I haven’t hidden a damn thing! What the hell do you—?” Then he looked embarrassed and released the smaller man. “Sorry.” He walked away toward the bushes where Melissa crouched, then turned to look at Rye.

  “Alice hasn’t anything to do with this. I’m painted out, run out of steam, that’s all.” He paused. “I have a dinner date, have to dress. Stay if you like. Maybe you can find something for the street fair.”

  Rye scowled at his retreating back. “You have ten weeks to get the show in shape.” He left the terrace. As he crossed the garden, a woman’s voice called from somewhere up the hill, “Tom? Tom?” Melissa watched Rye drive away, puzzled by the argument, and filled with emotions she didn’t understand. Braden had gone inside.

  When she looked up the hill again, a thin old woman in a brightly flowered dress was crossing from one house to another. The wind had stilled. Melissa could smell suppers cooking. As the sun vanished behind the woods she grew cold. She felt suddenly very alone.

  When Braden came out and crossed the garden to a station wagon, she looked speculatively at the studio door. It would be warm in there, and there would be something to eat. She had a sense of delicious food within that childhood refuge. He gunned the engine, and squealed the tires as he turned around in the dead end lane and headed toward the highway. He had been dressed in a pale jacket and slacks, a white shirt and tie. He had left a light burning. She studied the niche between the brick terrace and the house where he had hidden his key. What good to lock a door, then put the key almost in plain sight? She was considering the wisdom of going in when a branch rustled behind her and a boy’s voice said, “Where were you?”

  She swallowed, frozen.

  “There’s chowder for supper; you’d better come on if you want any.”

  Every instinct told her to stay still. She tried to glance up without turning. Her heart was thundering.

  The leaves rustled again. “There, that’s better. Hey! Keep your claws in!” A boy strode past her close enough to touch, carrying an orange cat on his shoulder. As he moved away up the garden, silently she let out her breath.

  The cat must have been standing just behind her. She wondered if it had been watching her. But it was the boy who had shocked her.

  He was about twelve. He had the same dark brown hair as Prince Wylles, the same dark curling lashes and rounded chin—Efil’s chin. The same straight nose as Wylles and Efil. He was fatter than Wylles, his color high and healthy, but still he looked like Prince Wylles. She watched him run up the steps of the white house carrying the cat and disappear inside, slamming the door. She could have been seeing Prince Wylles with only a few pounds added.

  She had seen, close enough to touch, the boy who would be changed for Prince Wylles.

  Surely Vrech had not simply discovered the boy here. He must have brought him here to this garden. She wondered how he had managed that. If Netherworld spells did not work here, what manipulations had Vrech used?

  No matter. The changeling boy was here. Soon Vrech would take him down into the Netherworld. She wished powerfully she could undo her tryst with Efil last night. Thinking of bearing Efil’s child, without clear promise to the throne, made her feel imprisoned, trapped and shamed.

  When the garden was empty she came out from the bushes and approached the glass door. She wanted to see inside the house; she wanted to be in there, perhaps discover something to stir further memory. She felt torn between the two worlds, she did not know where she belonged.

  Chapter 21

  Night was drawing down over the garden, making the vast sky seem less daunting. Melissa approached the glass door and slipped into the shadows. Up the hill behind her, lights burst on suddenly in the center house: not the slow rising of lantern light, but all at once, bright and steady. She tried the knob, pushed the glass door open. Letting herself into the bright room, she moved away from the lighted lamp, hoping not to be seen through the windows.

  The smell of the studio was of canvas and turpentine and linseed oil. Familiar smells that filled her with nostalgia. She touched a corner of the nearest painting, and finding the paint dry, she stroked the colors, caught by the comforting feel of the oils. But
the memories that came glanced away too soon; she could make nothing more of them than pleasant, familiar sensations.

  Tubes of paint were laid out neatly on the table in three rows. Clean brushes stood bristles up in a heavy mug. A can of turpentine and a bottle of oil stood behind the little cups which would hold them. Stretcher bars and rolls of canvas leaned against the wall. But these items used by a painter did not belong to the memory of this house; they belonged somewhere different. And no detail of that other place would reveal itself.

  She entered the short hall knowing she would find, on her right, the kitchen, on her left, the bedroom, and the bath straight ahead.

  In the kitchen she reacquainted herself with the taps for running water, with the refrigerator, and with the knobs that gave fire to the stove. She took two apples from a bowl, and a bottle of milk and some cheese from the refrigerator. She drank the milk and put the empty bottle back. She found the bread, ate two slices, and tied six more and the cheese and apples in a dish towel.

  When she looked into the bathroom she remembered the floor of small, white tiles. She remembered bathing in the tub when she was a child, squeezing soap bubbles over the ornate fish spigots. Then in the bedroom she stood at the open window looking downhill to the highway, watching the lights of passing cars reflected in the marsh water, watching night fall across the bay, as she had done many times when she was small. She sniffed the familiar salty air, gripped by nostalgia, and distressed at her inability to remember more. She went slowly out again to the terrace, caught in the half-awake dream, and unable to put anything together.

  The past that she could glimpse was not whole—feelings and places all were scattered. The people flashing vaguely in her memory could not be drawn forth—they were shadows, their voices were unidentifiable whispers.