by Graham Joyce
“Don’t know. I thought I saw someone looking at me. From the tree. Over there.”
Genevieve looked across into the tangle of dead bracken and dripping bushes. She could see nothing.
“I thought someone was watching us,” Jack said.
Genevieve kissed him. “Come on. Let’s join the others.”
They walked back to the family group, who were gathered around the stones waiting for them. The Outwoods, that in an instant could seem so singular and menacing, became familiar and comforting again.
Jack had indeed spotted something in the woods, as had the dogs. Someone had been watching him. But to reveal who had been watching him would be to reveal who has been telling you this story all along. And, as you were advised earlier, everything depends on that detail.
Tara went away, and this time she went away for good. She didn’t leave any further information. She had already tried to tell them everything she understood about what had happened to her, but they had either not wanted to hear or had found her report too unsettling, too risky, and therefore impossible. Perhaps she was speaking in a kind of code; or perhaps she was speaking the literal truth of what happened to her.
Twenty years is, after all, a long time. We are not the same people we were. Old friends, lovers, even family members: they are strangers who happen to wear a familiar face. We have no right to claim to know anyone after such a distance, and for Tara it was just too hard. That much I can say with certainty. And so she made her escape for a second time, in a canter through the woods, over crystal streams and across the broad fields, to a bohemian land of light and fire, to a place where the sun and the moon meet on the hill.
EPILOGUE
Our lives are our mythic journeys, and our happy endings are still to be won.
TERRI WINDLING
May Day, four months after Tara’s second disappearance. It was spectacular bluebell time all over again. The weather was sunny and bright and the sky cloudless. The blossom around The Old Forge was high, the ornamental cherry at the front of the house was in full flush, the apple raced along abreast of the cherry, and the lilac and the sweet chestnut at the rear of the house were aching to follow. Spring was roaring in, and the air was heavy with pollen.
Peter had loaded up his truck to go out on a shoeing job. He’d ducked back into his workshop to pick up a laminitis treatment and another rack of shoes. As he emerged from his dark workshop, blinking into the sunlight, he spotted Zoe talking to someone at the front gate.
The giant ornamental cherry tree formed a spectacular gorgeous shell-pink canopy at the gateway to the front drive, and she was standing beneath it. She wore a pretty, short floral dress and flip-flops, exposing her coltish bare legs to the warm spring sunshine. She ran a hand through her long silky hair, and as she did so the sunlight shimmered along its dark waves like a quiet flame. She lifted her hair behind her ears and the light in it flared and then quieted again.
Peter looked at the man she was talking to, sizing him up. He was a handsome figure, rather older than Zoe. His complexion was weather-beaten, that of someone who lived or worked out of doors, and within a head of dark hair there was the glint of a gold ring at his ear. He was smiling and teasing, his white teeth flashing, and he was pointing at the upper branches of the cherry tree.
Peter decided to go and see what it was all about. Still clutching a box of steel horseshoes under his arm, he made his way up the yard. But the man looked up, and when he saw Peter coming, the expression on his face changed. He held up a hand in farewell to Zoe, and, rather too quickly, he walked away.
By the time Peter drew abreast of Zoe the man had made it several yards down the street and was already climbing into a white van. Peter and Zoe watched him drive away.
“Who was that?” Peter asked.
“No idea.”
“What did he want?”
“I just stepped outside to make a phone call. I’m standing here and he asks if he can have some of the blossom. He says he’s taken a fancy to some of the cherry blossom. He asks me if he can get his ladder out and go up and cut some of the branches, so I said, ‘Well how much do you want?’ And he laughs and says, ‘Oh just a little bit.’ And I’m just about to say I didn’t see why not; I mean, there’s plenty of it, right?”
“Right.”
“Then he looked up and saw you. You scared him away, Dad.”
The pair stood together under the laden cherry, gazing down the road, even though the white van had long gone.
“Zoe.”
“Yes, Dad?”
“If he comes around again …”
“Tell him he can’t have the blossom.”
“Right.”
Zoe grabbed her father and planted a spontaneous kiss on his cheek. But she glanced again down the road before going back inside.
Author’s Note
All writing is an aggregate construction. This story has numerous antecedents, but the slippery nature of its truth is testified by the number of times it can mutate. Meanwhile my intention in prefacing the chapters with quotations is not to lay claim to parity of any kind but to hint at just some of those writers—living and dead—whose work champions the fusion of Realism and the Fantastic.
A number of astonishing and accomplished writers and musicians gave me personal permission to preface chapters with their wonderful words: Antonia S. Byatt pointed the way for me in inspirational work that erases the line between fantasy and a psyche in distress; John Clute, whose remarks about Shakespeare I quote, is a literary critic whose work is like food for the starving; writer and musician Charles de Lint has an encyclopedic knowledge of folklore and uses it so elegantly to blend classical fantasy literature and mainstream fiction; Ursula Le Guin, possibly the wisest woman on the planet, writes fantasy that leaves you in no doubt that you are reading about “this” world; Kate Rusby, “the Barnsley Nightingale,” allowed me to quote her lyrics from the song “Sweet Bride,” itself a beautiful new rendering of an old tale; I am very grateful for Siri Randem’s extensive knowledge of Nordic folk music and folk tale and for her translation from the Norwegian of Liti Kjerst; Marina Warner, the presiding genius in any discussion of the cultural significance of folk tales and fairy tales, is plain magnificent; and Teri Windling, whose extensive and heroic work with The Journal of Mythic Arts and The Endicott Studio has done so much to honor mythic artists past and present. I stand in awe before all of these thinkers and writers. I recommend anything written by them and I thank them for their generous permission to quote. A fuller reference to the work and influence of these inspirational creators can be found on my website: www.grahamjoyce.net.
Angela Carter is another mighty influence, and the quote from The Bloody Chamber is reproduced by permission of the Estate of Angela Carter c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd. Even if Bruno Bettelheim ultimately surfaced as one of Chaucer’s Limitours, his The Uses of Enchantment laid a trail in thinking about fairy tales, and I’m grateful to Thames & Hudson for permission to quote. Likewise to Carcanet for permission to quote from Robert Graves’s poem “I’d Love to Be a Fairy’s Child.” Permission to quote from W. H. Auden’s “Afterword to the Golden Key” comes from Curtis Brown Ltd. The Joseph Campbell quote from The Hero with a Thousand Faces comes by permission of the Joseph Campbell Foundation.
I didn’t quote but would also like to acknowledge the fine work of folklorist Anna Franklin and the splendid insights of critic and academic Gary K. Wolfe. All other permissions have been applied for.
I’m lucky to get terrific professional support and advice from both my agent Doug Stewart at Sterling Lord and my editor Jason Kaufman at Doubleday, and I’m very grateful for it. Finally, my love and gratitude to my wife, Suzanne, who is also my first reader and full-time consigliere, and to my children, Ella and Joe, who put me in my place.
Also by Graham Joyce
The Silent Land
How to Make Friends with Demons
The Limits of Enchantment
Partia
l Eclipse and Other Stories
The Facts of Life
Smoking Poppy
Indigo
The Stormwatcher
The Tooth Fairy
Requiem
House of Lost Dreams
Dark Sister
Dreamside
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
EPILOGUE