Mythago Wood

by Robert Holdstock

And yet I was glad, on that occasion, to have set the alarm so early, for though my imagined woodland nymph was not in evidence, I was being visited. The sound of chickens being disturbed came to me as I climbed back into bed. Immediately I raced down the stairs to the back door, and held the oil lamp high. I had time to glimpse two tall, thickly built man-shapes before the glass of the lamp shattered and the flame was extinguished. Thinking back on that incident I can remember the whoosh of air as a stone was slung, a shot more accurate than is rationally believable.

  In darkness I watched the two shambling figures. They stared back at me; one had its face daubed with white, and appeared to be naked. The other wore wide pantaloons and a short cloak; his hair was long and richly curled, but that detail may have been wrongly imagined. Each held a living chicken by the neck, stifling the animal’s cries. As I watched, each wrenched the head from its animal, then turned and walked stiffly to the fence, lost in the gloom of night. The one in the baggy pantaloons turned, just as he entered obscurity, and bowed to me.

  I remained awake until dawn, seated in the kitchen, picking idly at bread and making two pots of tea that I really didn’t want. As soon as it was light I dressed fully and investigated the chicken coops. I was now down to two animals, and they walked irritably about the grain-scattered arena, almost resentfully clucking.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ I told them. ‘But I have a feeling you’re destined to go the same way.’

  The hens walked stiffly from me, perhaps requiring to enjoy their last meal in peace.

  An oak sapling, four inches tall, was growing in the middle of their ground, and – surprised and quite fascinated – I reached to it and plucked it from the earth. Intrigued by the way nature itself seemed to be infiltrating my own jealously guarded territory, I toured the grounds, more alert than previously, to what was emerging from the soil.

  Saplings were springing up all over the part of the garden next to the study, and the thistle-field which connected that area with the woodland itself. There were more than a hundred saplings – each less than six inches tall – in a scattered band across the small lawn that led from the study’s French windows to the gate. I went through the gate and noticed how the field, sparsely grazed for several years and quite wild, was now richly dotted with seedlings. Towards the woodland edge they were taller, some almost at my own height. I plotted the width and extent of that band of growth, and realized with a chill that it formed a sort of tendril of woodland, forty or fifty feet wide, reaching to the house by way of the musty library.

  The vision, then, was of a pseudopod of woodland trying to drag the house itself into the aura of the main body. I didn’t know whether to leave the saplings, or crush them. But as I reached to tug one of them from the ground, so the pre-mythago activity in my peripheral vision became agitated, almost angry. I decided to leave this bizarre growth. It reached to the very edge of the house itself, but when the saplings grew too large they could easily be destroyed, even if they grew at an abnormal pace.

  The house was haunted. The thought of it fascinated me, even as it sent shivers of fear down my spine; but the feeling of terror was one step removed, as it were; it was the same haunting, terrifying feeling that one gets when seeing a Boris Karloff film, or listening to a ghost story on the Home Service. It occurred to me that I had become a part of the haunting process that was enveloping Oak Lodge, and that as such I could not respond normally to the overt signs and manifestations of the spectral presences.

  Or perhaps it was simply this: I wanted her. Her. The girl from the wildwood who had obsessed my brother, and whom I knew to have visited Oak Lodge again, in her new life. Perhaps much of what would follow was caused by this desperate need in me for love, to find the same degree of commitment to the female creation of the woodland that Christian had found. I was in my early twenties, and save for a brief, physically exciting, but intellectually empty liaison with a girl from the village in France where I had been after the war, I was inexperienced in love, in the communion of mind and body that people call love. Christian had found it. Christian had lost it. Isolated at Oak Lodge, miles from anywhere, it is not surprising that the thought of the return of Guiwenneth began to obsess me.

  And eventually she came back as more than a transient aroma, or watery footprint on the floor. She came back in full body, no longer afraid of me, as curious of me, I like to think, as I was of her.

  She was crouched by the bed; sparse moonlight reflected from the sheen of her hair, and when she glanced away from me, nervously I thought, that same light glinted from her eyes. I could get no more than an impression of her, and as she rose to her full height I could discern only her slender shape, clad in a loose-fitting tunic. She held a spear, and the cold metal blade was against my throat. It was sharpened along the edges, and each time I moved her slightest prod caused the skin on my neck to part. It was a painful encounter and I was not prepared for it to be a fatal one. So I lay there, in the hours after midnight, and listened to her breathing. She seemed slightly nervous. She was here because she was … what can I say? Seeking. That is the only word I know to explain it. She was seeking me, or something about me. And in the same way I was seeking her.

  She smelled strong. It was the sort of smell I would come to associate with a life in the forests and remote places of a barren land, a life where regular washing was something of a luxury, and where one was marked by aroma as clearly as, in my own day, one was marked by the style of clothes.

  So she smelled … earthy. Yes. And also of her own secretions, the sharp, not unpleasant smell of sex. And sweat too, salty, tangy. When she came close to me and peered down I got an idea that her hair was red, and that her eyes were fierce. She said something like, ‘Ymma m’ch buth?’ She repeated the words several times, and I said, ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Cefrachas. Ichna which ch’athab. Mich ch’athaben!’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Mich ch’athaben! Cefrachas!’

  ‘I wish I did understand, but I really don’t.’

  The blade dug deeper into my neck and I flinched, and raised a hand slowly to the cold metal. Gently I eased the weapon away, smiling, and hoping that in the darkness she could see my willing subservience.

  She made a sound, like frustration, or despair, I’m not sure which. Her clothing was coarse. I took the brief opportunity to touch the tunic she wore and the fabric was rough, like sacking, and smelled of leather. Her presence was overwhelming and quite overpowering. Her breath on my face was sweet, though, and slightly … nutty.

  ‘Mich ch’athaben!’ she said, and this time it was almost with a tone of hopelessness.

  ‘Mich Steven,’ I said, wondering if I was on the right track, but she remained silent. ‘Steven!’ I repeated, and tapped my chest. ‘Mich Steven.’

  ‘Ch’athaben,’ she insisted, and the blade nicked sharply into my flesh.

  ‘There’s food in the pantry,’ I offered. ‘Ch’athaben. Downen. Stairen.’

  ‘Cumchirioch,’ she retorted savagely, and I felt myself insulted.

  ‘I’m doing my best. Do you have to keep prodding me with the spear?’

  Abruptly and unexpectedly, she reached out and grabbed my hair, jerking my head back and peering at my face.

  A moment later she was gone, running silently down the stairs. Although I followed her swiftly, she was fleet of foot, and became absorbed by night’s shadows. I stood at the back door and searched for her, but there was no sign.

  ‘Guiwenneth!’ I shouted into the darkness. Was that the name by which she knew herself, I wondered? Or only Christian’s name for her? I repeated the call, changing the emphasis in the name. ‘Gwinneth! Gwineth! Come back, Guiwenneth. Come back!’

  In the silence of those early morning hours my voice carried loudly, hollowly, reflected back at me from the sombre woodland. Movement among the blackthorn scrub cut off my cry in mid-name.

  By the sparse moonlight it was hard to see properly who stood there, but
it was Guiwenneth, of that I was sure. She stood quite motionless, watching me, and I imagine that she was intrigued at my use of her name.

  ‘Guiwenneth,’ she called softly, and it was a throaty, sibilant sound, a pronunciation more like Chwin aiv.

  I raised my right hand in a gesture of parting and called, ‘Goodnight then, Chwin aiv.’

  ‘Inos c’da … Stivven …’

  And the enfolding shadows of the forest claimed her again, and this time she did not reappear.

  Three

  By day I explored the woodland periphery, trying to penetrate deeper but still unable to do so; whatever forces were at work defending the heartwoods, they regarded me with suspicion. I tripped and became tangled in the rank undergrowth, ending up time and time again against a mossy stump, bramble-covered and unpassable, or finding myself facing a wall of water-slick rock, that rose, dark and daunting, from the ground below, itself eroded and covered by the twisting, moss-furred roots of the great sessile oaks that grew here.

  By the mill-stream I glimpsed the Twigling. Near to the sticklebrook, where the water swirled more rapidly below the rotting gate, there I caught sight of other mythagos, moving cautiously through the undergrowth, their features barely discernible through the paint they had daubed on their skins.

  Someone had cleared the saplings from the centre of the glade and the remains of a fire were pronounced; rabbit and chicken bones were scattered about, and on the thistle-covered grass were the signs of a weapons industry, flakes of stone, and the peelings of bark from young wood, where a shaft for a spear or arrow had been fashioned.

  I was conscious of the activity around me, always out of sight, but never out of earshot; furtive movement, sudden rapid flight, and a strange, eerie calling – bird-like, yes, but clearly of human manufacture. The woods were alive with the creations of my own mind … or Christian’s – and they seemed to be clustering around the glade, and the stream, moving from the woodland at night along the oak tendril that reached to the study.

  I longed to be able to reach deeper into the forest, but it was a wish that was constantly denied me. My curiosity as to what lay beyond the two hundred or so yards of the periphery began to peak, and I created landscapes and creatures as wild, in my imagination, as had been the imaginary journey of the Voyager.

  It was three days after Guiwenneth’s first contact with me that an idea for seeing deeper into the woodland occurred at last; why I hadn’t thought of it before I cannot say. Perhaps Oak Lodge was so remote from the normal stream of human existence, and the landscape around Ryhope so far from the technologically advanced civilization at whose heart it lay, that I had been thinking only in primitive terms: walking, running, exploring from the ground.

  For several days I had been aware of the sound, and occasional sight, of a small monoplane as it circled above the land to the east of the wood. On two days the plane – a Percival Proctor, I think – had come quite close to Ryhope Wood, before turning and disappearing into the distance.

  Then in Gloucester, on my way to the bank, I saw the plane again, or one very like it. It was photographing the city for a land survey, I discovered. Operating out of Mucklestone Air Field, an area of some forty square miles was being photographed aerially for the Ministry of Housing. If I could just convince the air crew to ‘loan’ me the passenger seat of one of their planes for an afternoon, I could fly above the oak woodland and see the heartwoods from a vantage point where surely the supernatural defences could not reach ….

  I was met at the perimeter gate of Mucklestone Field by an air-force sergeant who led me, silently, to the small cluster of white-washed Nissen huts that served as offices, control buildings and mess buildings. It was colder inside than out. The whole area was unpleasantly run-down and lifeless, although a typewriter clattered somewhere, and I could hear distant laughter. Two planes stood on the runway, one clearly being serviced. It was a brisk afternoon, the wind was blowing from the south-east, and most of it seemed to whistle through the corners of the cramped little room into which my guide conducted me.

  The man who smiled uncertainly at me as I entered was in his early thirties, perhaps, fair-haired, bright-eyed and hideously burn-marked around his chin and left cheek. He wore the uniform and insignia of an RAF Captain, but had the collar of his shirt open, and wore plimsolls instead of boots. Everything about him was casual and confident. He frowned, though, as he shook my hand and said, ‘Don’t quite understand what exactly it is you want, Mister Huxley. Sit down, won’t you?’

  I did as he bade me and stared at the map of the surrounding landscape that he had spread out on the desk. His name was Harry Keeton, that much I knew, and he had clearly flown during the war. The burn scar was both fascinating and hideous to look at; but he wore it proudly, like a medal, apparently not in the least bothered by the grotesque marking.

  If I regarded him curiously, he was equally puzzled by me, and after a moment or two’s hesitant exchange of looks he laughed nervously. ‘I don’t get many requests to borrow a plane. Farmers, mostly, wanting their houses photographed. And archaeologists. They always want photographs at dusk or dawn. Sun shadows, you see? It shows up field markings, old foundations, things like that … but you want to fly over a wood … is that right?’

  I nodded. I couldn’t actually make out where, on the map, the Ryhope estate lay. ‘It’s a woodland by my house, quite extensive. I’d just like to fly across the middle of it, and take a few photographs.’

  Keeton’s face registered something like worry. He smiled, then, and touched his scarred jaw. ‘Last time I flew over a wood a sniper made the best shot of his life and brought me down. That was in ’43. I was in a Lysander. Lovely plane, lovely handling. But that shot … straight to the fuel tank, and wallop. Down into the trees. I was lucky to get out. I’m nervous of woods, Mister Huxley. But I don’t suppose there’re any snipers in yours.’ He smiled in a friendly way, and I smiled back, not liking to say that I couldn’t guarantee such a thing. ‘Where exactly is this wood?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s on the Ryhope estate,’ I said, and stood and bent over the map. After a second I saw the name. Strangely, there was no indication at all of the woodland, just a dotted line indicating the extent of the massive property.

  Keeton was looking at me peculiarly when I straightened up. I said, ‘It isn’t marked. That’s odd.’

  ‘Very,’ he said. His tone was matter of fact … or perhaps slightly knowing. ‘How big is the place?’ he asked then. ‘How extensive?’ Still he stared at me.

  ‘Very extensive. A perimeter of more than six miles …’

  ‘Six miles!’ he exclaimed, then smiled thinly. ‘That’s not a wood, that’s a forest!’

  In the silence that followed I became certain that he knew at least something about Ryhope Wood. I said, ‘You’ve been flying close to the place yourself. You or one of your pilots.’

  He nodded quickly, glancing at the map. ‘That was me. You saw me, did you?’

  ‘It’s what gave me the idea of coming to the air field.’ When he added nothing, but just looked very slightly cagey, I went on, ‘You must have noticed the anomaly, then. Nothing marked on the survey map …’

  But instead of addressing himself to the statement, Harry Keeton just sat down and toyed with a pencil. He studied the map, then me, then the contours again. All he said was, ‘I didn’t know we had any mediaeval oak woodland of that extent left uncharted. Is it managed woodland?’

  ‘Partly. Most of it is quite wild, though.’

  He leaned back in his chair; the burn scar had darkened slightly and I thought he seemed to be restraining a growing excitement. ‘That in itself is amazing,’ he said. ‘The Forest of Dean is immense, of course, but it’s well managed. There’s a wood in Norfolk that’s wild. I’ve been there … ’ He hesitated, frowning slightly. ‘There are others. All small, all just woodland that has been allowed to go wild. Not real wildwood at all.’

  Keeton suddenly seemed quite on edge. He stared
at the map, at the area of the Ryhope estate, and I thought he murmured something like, ‘So I was right …’

  ‘Can you help me with a flight over the wood, then?’ I asked and Keeton glanced at me suspiciously.

  ‘Why do you want to over-fly it?’

  I started to tell him, then broke off. ‘I don’t want this talked about –’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘My brother is wandering somewhere inside it. Months ago he went exploring and hasn’t come back. I don’t know if he’s lost or dead, but I’d like to see what can be seen from the air. I realize that it’s irregular …’

  Keeton was immersed in his own thoughts. He had gone quite pale, now, all save the burn scars on his jaw. He focused on me suddenly and shook his head. ‘Irregular? Well, yes. But I can manage it. It will be expensive. I’ll have to charge you for fuel …’

  ‘How much?’

  He quoted a likely figure for a sixty mile jaunt that made the blood drain from my face. But I agreed, and was relieved to discover that there would be no other costs. He would fly me out himself. He would turn the cameras on Ryhope Wood and add it to the landscape map that he was compiling. ‘It would have to be done eventually, might as well do it now. The earliest I could fly you out is tomorrow, after two o’clock. Is that all right with you?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll be here.’

  We shook hands. As I left the office I glanced back. Keeton was standing quite motionless behind his desk, staring at the survey map; I noticed that his hands were shaking slightly.

  I had flown only once before. The journey had lasted four hours and had been in a battered, bullet-ravaged Dakota, which had taken off during a thunderstorm and landed on deflated tyres on the runway at Marseilles. I had known little of the drama, being drugged and semiconscious; it was an evacuation flight arranged with great difficulty, to the place of convalescence where I would recover from the bullet wound in my chest.

  So the flight in the Percival Proctor was effectively my first trip skywards, and as the flimsy plane lurched and seemed almost to leap into the skies, I clutched hard to the hand-holds beside me, closed my eyes, and concentrated on fighting down the sudden package of innards that seemed about to burst from my throat. I don’t think I have ever felt so potentially sick in my life, and how I remained in equilibrium is beyond me. Every few seconds my body parted company with my stomach as a gust of wind – a thermal, Keeton called them – seemed to grasp the plane with invisible fingers and shift it upwards or downwards at alarming speeds. The wings buckled and flexed. Even through the helmet and headphones that I wore I could hear the creaking complaint of the aluminium fuselage as this tiny model structure fought the mindless elements.