“She withers,” sighed the woman, and in her voice McKay heard a faint rustling as of mournful leaves. “Now is it not pitiful that she withers—our sister who was so young, so slender and so lovely?”
McKay looked again at the girl. The white skin seemed shrunken; the moon radiance that gleamed through the bodies of the others in hers was dim and pallid; her slim arms hung listlessly; her body drooped. The mouth too was wan and parched, the long and misted green eyes dull. The palely golden hair lustreless, and dry. He looked on slow death—a withering death.
“May the arm that struck her down wither!” the green clad man who held her shouted, and in his voice McKay heard a savage strumming as of winter winds through bleak boughs: “May his heart wither and the sun blast him! May the rain and the waters deny him and the winds scourge him!”
“I thirst,” whispered the girl.
There was a stirring among the watching women. One came forward holding a chalice that was like thin leaves turned to green crystal. She paused beside the trunk of one of the spectral trees, reached up and drew down to her a branch. A slim girl with half-frightened, half-resentful eyes glided to her side and threw her arms around the ghostly bole. The woman with the chalice bent the branch and cut it deep with what seemed an arrow-shaped flake of jade. From the wound a faintly opalescent liquid slowly filled the cup. When it was filled the woman beside McKay stepped forward and pressed her own long hands around the bleeding branch. She stepped away and McKay saw that the stream had ceased to flow. She touched the trembling girl and unclasped her arms.
“It is healed,” said the woman gently. “And it was your turn little sister. The wound is healed. Soon, you will have forgotten.”
The woman with the chalice knelt and set it to the wan, dry lips of her who was—withering. She drank of it, thirstily, to the last drop. The misty eyes cleared, they sparkled; the lips that had been so parched and pale grew red, the white body gleamed as though the waning light had been fed with new.
“Sing, sisters,” she cried, and shrilly. “Dance for me, sisters!”
Again burst out that chant McKay had heard as he had floated through the mists upon the lake. Now, as then, despite his opened ears, he could distinguish no words, but clearly he understood its mingled themes—the joy of Spring’s awakening, rebirth, with the green life streaming singing up through every bough, swelling the buds, burgeoning with tender leaves the branches; the dance of the trees in the scented winds of Spring; the drums of the jubilant rain on leafy hoods; passion of Summer sun pouring its golden flood down upon the trees; the moon passing with stately step and slow and green hands stretching up to her and drawing from her breast milk of silver fire; riot of wild gay winds with their mad pipings and strummings;—soft interlacing of boughs, the kiss of amorous leaves—all these and more, much more that McKay could not understand since it dealt with hidden, secret things for which man has no images, were in that chanting.
And all these and more were in the measures, the rhythms of the dancing of those strange, green eyed women and brown skinned men; something incredibly ancient yet young as the speeding moment, something of a world before and beyond man.
McKay listened, McKay watched, lost in wonder; his own world more than half forgotten; his mind meshed in web of green sorcery.
The woman beside him touched his arm. She pointed to the girl.
“Yet she withers,” she said. “And not all our life, if we poured it through her lips, could save her.”
He looked; he saw that the red was draining slowly from the girl’s lips, the luminous life tides waning; the eyes that had been so bright were misting and growing dull once more, suddenly a great pity and a great rage shook him. He knelt beside her, took her hands in his.
“Take them away! Take away your hands! They burn me!” she moaned.
“He tries to help you,” whispered the green clad man, gently. But he reached over and drew McKay’s hands away.
“Not so can you help her,” said the woman.
“What can I do?” McKay arose, looked helplessly from one to the other. “What can I do to help?”
The chanting died, the dance stopped. A silence fell and he felt upon him the eyes of all. They were tense—waiting. The woman took his hands. Their touch was cool and sent a strange sweetness sweeping through his veins.
“There are three men yonder,” she said. “They hate us. Soon we shall be as she is there—withering. They have sworn it, and as they have sworn so will they do. Unless—”
She paused; and McKay felt the stirrings of a curious unease. The moonbeam dancing motes in her eyes had changed to tiny sparklings of red. In a way, deep down, they terrified him—those red sparklings.
“Three men?”—in his clouded mind was the memory of Polleau and his two strong sons. “Three men,” he repeated, stupidly—“But what are three men to you who are so many? What could three men do against those stalwart gallants of yours?”
“No,” she shook her head. “No—there is nothing our—men—can do; nothing that we can do. Once, night and day, we were gay. Now we fear—night and day. They mean to destroy us. Our kin have warned us. And our kin cannot help us. Those three are masters of blade and flame. Against blade and flame we are helpless.”
“Blade and flame!” echoed the listeners. “Against blade and flame we are helpless.”
“Surely will they destroy us,” murmured the woman. “We shall wither all of us. Like her there, or burn—unless—”
Suddenly she threw white arms around McKay’s neck. She pressed her lithe body close to him. Her scarlet mouth sought and found his lips and clung to them. Through all McKay’s body ran swift, sweet flames, green fire of desire. His own arms went round her, crushed her to him.
“You shall not die!” he cried. “No—by God, you shall not!”
She drew back her head, looked deep into his eyes.
“They have sworn to destroy us,” she said, “and soon. With blade and flame they will destroy us—these three—unless—”
“Unless?” he asked, fiercely.
“Unless you—slay them first!” she answered.
A cold shock ran through McKay, chilling the green sweet fires of his desire. He dropped his arm from around the woman; thrust her from him. For an instant she trembled before him.
“Slay!” he heard her whisper—and she was gone. The spectral trees wavered; their outlines thickened out of immateriality into substance. The green translucence darkened. He had a swift vertiginous moment as though he swung between two worlds. He closed his eyes. The vertigo passed and he opened them, looked around him.
McKay stood on the lakeward skirts of the little coppice. There were no shadows flitting, no sign of the white women and the swarthy, green clad men. His feet were on green moss; gone was the soft golden carpet with its blue starlets. Birches and firs clustered solidly before him. At his left was a sturdy fir in whose needled arms a broken birch tree lay withering. It was the birch that Polleau’s men had so wantonly slashed down. For an instant he saw within the fir and birch the immaterial outlines of the green clad man and the slim girl who withered. For that instant birch and fir and girl and man seemed one and the same. He stepped back, and his hands touched the smooth, cool bark of another birch that rose close at his right.
Upon his hands the touch of that bark was like—was like?—yes, curiously was it like the touch of the long slim hands of the woman of the scarlet lips. But it gave him none of that alien rapture, that pulse of green life her touch had brought. Yet, now as then, the touch steadied him. The outlines of girl and man were gone.
He looked upon nothing but a sturdy fir with a withering birch fallen into its branches.
McKay stood there, staring, wondering, like a man who has but half awakened from dream. And suddenly a little wind stirred the leaves of the rounded birch beside him. The leaves murmured, sighed. The wind grew stronger and the leaves whispered.
“Slay!” he heard them whisper—and again: “Slay! Help us!
Slay!”
And the whisper was the voice of the woman of the scarlet lips!
Rage, swift and unreasoning, sprang up in McKay. He began to run up through the coppice, up to where he knew was the old lodge in which dwelt Polleau and his sons. And as he ran the wind blew stronger, and louder and louder grew the whisperings of the trees.
“Slay!” they whispered. “Slay them! Save us! Slay!”
“I will slay! I will save you!” McKay, panting, hammer pulse beating in his ears, rushing through the woods heard himself answering that ever louder, ever more insistent command. And in his mind was but one desire—to clutch the throats of Polleau and his sons, to crack their necks; to stand by them then and watch them wither; wither like that slim girl in the arms of the green clad man.
So crying, he came to the edge of the coppice and burst from it out into a flood of sunshine. For a hundred feet he ran, and then he was aware that the whispering command was stilled; that he heard no more that maddening rustling of wrathful leaves. A spell seemed to have been loosed from him; it was as though he had broken through some web of sorcery. McKay stopped, dropped upon the ground, buried his face in the grasses.
He lay there, marshalling his thoughts into some order of sanity. What had he been about to do? To rush berserk upon those three who lived in the old lodge and—kill them! And for what? Because that elfin, scarlet lipped woman whose kisses he still could feel upon his mouth had bade him! Because the whispering trees of the little wood had maddened him with that same command!
And for this he had been about to kill three men!
What were that woman and her sisters and the green clad swarthy gallants of theirs? Illusions of some waking dream—phantoms born of the hypnosis of the swirling mists through which he had rowed and floated across the lake? Such things were not uncommon. McKay knew of those who by watching the shifting clouds could create and dwell for a time with wide open eyes within some similar land of fantasy; knew others who needed but to stare at smoothly falling water to set themselves within a world of waking dream; there were those who could summon dreams by gazing into a ball of crystal, others found their phantoms in saucers of shining ebon ink.
Might not the moving mists have laid those same hypnotic fingers upon his own mind—and his love for the trees the sense of appeal that he had felt so long and his memory of the wanton slaughter of the slim birch have all combined to paint upon his drugged consciousness the phantasms he had beheld?
Then in the flood of sunshine the spell had melted, his consciousness leaped awake?
McKay arose to his feet, shakily enough. He looked back at the coppice. There was no wind now, the leaves were silent, motionless. Again he saw it as the caravan of demoiselles with their marching knights and troubadours. But no longer was it gay. The words of the scarlet lipped woman came back to him—that gaiety had fled and fear had taken its place. Dream phantom or—dryad, whatever she was, half of that at least was truth.
He turned, a plan forming in his mind. Reason with himself as he might, something deep within him stubbornly asserted the reality of his experience. At any rate, he told himself, the little wood was far too beautiful to be despoiled. He would put aside the experience as dream—but he would save the little wood for the essence of beauty that it held in its green cup.
The old lodge was about a quarter of a mile away. A path led up to it through the ragged fields. McKay walked up the path, climbed rickety steps and paused, listening. He heard voices and knocked. The door was flung open and old Polleau stood there, peering at him through half shut, suspicious eyes. One of the sons stood close behind him. They stared at McKay with grim, hostile faces.
He thought he heard a faint, far off despairing whisper from the distant wood. And it was as though the pair in the doorway heard it too, for their gaze shifted from him to the coppice, and he saw hatred nicker swiftly across their grim faces; their gaze swept back to him.
“What do you want?” demanded Polleau, curtly.
“I am a neighbor of yours, stopping at the inn—” began McKay, courteously.
“I know who you are,” Polleau interrupted brusquely, “But what is it that you want?”
“I find the air of this place good for me,” McKay stifled a rising anger. “I am thinking of staying for a year or more until my health is fully recovered. I would like to buy some of your land and build me a lodge upon it.”
“Yes, M’sieu?” there was acid politeness now in the powerful old man’s voice. “But is it permitted to ask why you do not remain at the inn? Its fare is excellent and you are well liked there.”
“I have desire to be alone,” replied McKay. “I do not like people too close to me. I would have my own land, and sleep under my own roof.”
“But why come to me?” asked Polleau. “There are many places upon the far side of the lake that you could secure. It is happy there, and this side is not happy, M’sieu. But tell me, what part of my land is it that you desire?”
“That little wood yonder,” answered McKay, and pointed to the coppice.
“Ah! I thought so!” whispered Polleau, and between him and his sons passed a look of bitter understanding. He looked at McKay, sombrely.
“That wood is not for sale, M’sieu,” he said at last. “I can afford to pay well for what I want,” said McKay. “Name your price.”
“It is not for sale,” repeated Polleau, stolidly, “at any price.”
“Oh, come,” laughed McKay, although his heart sank at the finality in that answer. “You have many acres and what is it but a few trees? I can afford to gratify my fancies. I will give you all the worth of your other land for it.”
“You have asked what that place that you so desire is, and you have answered that it is but a few trees,” said Polleau, slowly, and the tall son behind him laughed, abruptly, maliciously. “But it is more than that, M’sieu—Oh, much more than that. And you know it, else why would you pay such price? Yes, you know it—since you know also that we are ready to destroy it, and you would save it. And who told you all that, M’sieu?” he snarled.
There was such malignance in the face thrust suddenly close to McKay’s, teeth bared by uplifted lip, that involuntarily he recoiled.
“But a few trees!” snarled old Polleau. “Then who told him what we mean to do—eh, Pierre?”
Again the son laughed. And at that laughter McKay felt within him resurgence of his own blind hatred as he had fled through the whispering wood. He mastered himself, turned away, there was nothing he could do—now. Polleau halted him.
“M’sieu,” he said, “Wait. Enter. There is something I would tell you; something too I would show you. Something, perhaps, that I would ask you.”
He stood aside, bowing with a rough courtesy. McKay walked through the doorway. Polleau with his son followed him. He entered a large, dim room whose ceiling was spanned with smoke blackened beams. From these beams hung onion strings and herbs and smoke cured meats. On one side was a wide fireplace. Huddled beside it sat Polleau’s other son. He glanced up as they entered and McKay saw that a bandage covered one side of his head, hiding his left eye. McKay recognized him as the one who had cut down the slim birch. The blow of the fir, he reflected with a certain satisfaction, had been no futile one.
Old Polleau strode over to that son.
“Look, M’sieu,” he said and lifted the bandage.
McKay with a faint tremor of horror, saw a gaping blackened socket, red rimmed and eyeless.
“Good God, Polleau!” he cried. “But this man needs medical attention. I know something of wounds. Let me go across the lake and bring back my kit. I will attend him.”
Old Polleau shook his head, although his grim face for the first time softened. He drew the bandages back in place.
“It heals,” he said. “We have some skill in such things. You saw what did it. You watched from your boat as the cursed tree struck him. The eye was crushed and lay upon his cheek. I cut it away. Now he heals. We do not need your aid, M’sieu.”
“Yet he ought not have cut the birch,” muttered McKay, more to himself than to be heard.
“Why not?” asked old Polleau, fiercely, “Since it hated him.”
McKay stared at him. What did this old peasant know? The words strengthened that deep stubborn conviction that what he had seen and heard in the coppice had been actuality—no dream. And still more did Pollearu’s next words strengthen that conviction.
“M’sieu,” he said, “you come here as ambassador—of a sort. The wood has spoken to you. Well, as ambassador I shall speak to you. Four centuries my people have lived in this place. A century we have owned this land. M’sieu, in all those years there has been no moment that the trees have not hated us—nor we the trees.
“For all those hundred years there have been hatred and battle between us and the forest. My father, M’sieu, was crushed by a tree; my elder brother crippled by another. My father’s father, woodsman that he was, was lost in the forest—he came back to us with mind gone, raving of wood women who had bewitched and mocked him, luring him into swamp and fen and tangled thicket, tormenting him. In every generation the trees have taken their toll of us—women as well as men—maiming or killing us.”
“Accidents,” interrupted McKay. “This is childish, Polleau. You cannot blame the trees.”
“In your heart you do not believe so,” said Polleau. “Listen, the feud is an ancient one. Centuries ago it began when we were serfs, slaves of the nobles. To cook, to keep us warm in winter, they let us pick up the fagots, the dead branches and twigs that dropped from the trees. But if we cut down a tree to keep us warm, to keep our women and our children warm, yes, if we but tore down a branch—they hanged us, or they threw us into dungeons to rot, or whipped us till our backs were red lattices.
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 208