The Darkest Part Of The Woods

by Ramsey Campbell

  "Dr Lowe said something like that."

  "Well, there you are. What do they say about great minds?"

  "Don't know."

  She could have felt disparaged, but she was too concerned with his mental state while he was driving to London. "Are you worried about anything else, Sam?"

  When his lips parted she tried to be prepared for whatever revelation he'd decided to entrust to her, but they closed again before releasing his apparently favourite word of the day. "What?"

  "If it's your grandmother, the hospital would have called if there were any developments. I told you they said she has a pretty good chance of getting about on sticks when she comes home."

  "She didn't seem that bad when they took her to the hospital."

  "Her bones are old, Sam." Heather thought he sounded not unlike a child whose trust in the Tightness of life had been betrayed. She reached to hug him, murmuring "Try not to have her on your mind too much. I'm sure they're doing everything they can for her at Mercy Hill."

  She was disconcerted to find him unresponsive as a tree-trunk. It felt as if he'd formed himself into a barrier against some or all of her encouragement.

  "Isn't it just Margo?" she guessed.

  He didn't answer until she let go of him and stepped back. Again she had the sense of an impending revelation, but couldn't be sure that wasn't to do with the gathering heat, which felt like the threat of a January storm. "Maybe," he muttered.

  "Is it Sylvie?"

  "Maybe."

  His voice was well on the way to withdrawing into itself. He dropped his gaze as his bad leg gave a jerk that suggested it was eager to bear him away, but

  Heather didn't think she should abandon the subject now that she'd raised it in his mind. "She must be too busy to let us know where she is, that's all," she said, almost as much for her own benefit as his. "She's always been a bit like that. I know we'd expect her to keep us informed now there isn't only her to wonder about, but that's my sister, I suppose. I'm certain we'd have heard if anything was wrong."

  His head appeared to be weighed down by her insistence or his thoughts.

  "Anyway," she said, and paused until he looked up. "Here I am using up oxygen when you should be on your way and make sure of having plenty of time."

  She wouldn't have minded seeing agreement with that, but his thoughts were too deep in the dark of his eyes for her to read. "So long as I haven't made you feel worse," she risked saying.

  He shook his head so rapidly he might have been attempting to dislodge a notion and nearly succeeded in hauling up the corners of his mouth. "Go on then," she said and restrained herself from delivering another hug. "You show the world."

  It was simply a form of words, but as he limped to the Volkswagen she was left with the impression that she could have chosen better. She opened the gate for him and watched as the car, having elaborately cleared its throat, chugged away.

  He saw her waving in the mirror and raised one stiff hand without glancing back.

  She held back from stepping into the road to watch him as long as she could, and closed the gate. She heard him brake at the corner of Woodland Close as she returned to the house.

  The interval until she next saw or heard from him was bound to feel stretched close to snapping, but she didn't mean to spend her day off work in worrying about him and her mother and sister. The house had stored up plenty of tasks—if she attacked them vigorously enough they might even leave her no spare energy for thoughts. She was making to release the vacuum cleaner from its cell beneath the stairs when she was halted by a smell so faint she was tempted to dismiss it as imagination. It was the secretively decayed odour of Selcouth's journal.

  Heather didn't want the object in her house. It would be better kept at the university, available to anyone who needed to consult it—she couldn't imagine who or why. It could wait until tomorrow to be removed, even though now that she was aware of it she felt as if she'd been left alone in the house with it. She was about to open the cupboard under the stairs when she strode up them instead. Once she discovered what Sylvia had been reading aloud she would put the book out of her mind.

  She pushed open the bedroom door and hesitated on the threshold. The room retained so little of Sylvia's presence that she might have fancied something had stolen every trace of their shared past, along with her sister. It seemed inhabited only by the journal in its binding black as a lump of night refusing to give way to the sun, and she caught herself wondering what Selcouth might have meant the blackness to recall. The book contained more than enough nonsense without her encouraging it, she thought fiercely. She sat at the desk and threw the volume open with a clunk like the fall of a dead branch.

  Nat. Selcouth, his Journall.

  She'd forgotten how much she instinctively disliked the thick angular handwriting that reminded her of twigs or of stains left on the page by rotten twigs. She wouldn't get far if she started off thinking like that, but the act of reading felt not unlike snagging her mind with the treetops that loomed at the upper edge of her vision.

  I who am named for my Qualities shall here sette down the Historie of my Discoveries, that he who is to follow may carrie the Worke onwards.

  Let him understand that his Blood sets him as far above the Herd as my Powers have elevated me above the Flesh.

  "Well, you did think a lot of yourself." She'd hoped to be objective—it was a piece of history, after all—but couldn't when she was aware that Sylvia had read from it to her own child, even if unborn.

  Heather wasn't sure if that made it better or worse. So long as it didn't mean that Sylvia was losing control of her mind, surely it needn't matter. If Heather thought it did she would have to alert the police on behalf of Sylvia and her child, and her instincts suggested that her sister would never forgive her. She leafed onwards, trying to read no more than would show her the sentence she'd heard in the night, willing the phone to ring—to have Sylvia's voice.

  Spirit calls to Spirit across the Gulphs of Space and Time, and thus my Spirit in its unfleshed Journeyings was called to Goodman's Wood, which is a Site of great Powers forgotten by the Herd and a fit Setting for the Completion of my Experiments. Here have I caused to be builded an Habitation modelled on a Figure visible to me where once an antient Ring of Stone was raised to summon and containe the Daemon of this Place. The ignorant Invaders cast it down and planted Trees sacred to their feeble Gods but meerly constructed the Deamon a Lair wherein to brood and grow in Secret. Now my Tower shapes itself from the antient Circle and presents its one Halfe to the World while an equal Portion lies for ever in the Dark, as befitts the House of one whose Task it is to mate the Twain.

  It occurred to Heather that much of this confirmed traditions Sylvia had wanted to believe were true of Goodmanswood—believe in the sense of adding them to her research. Just because Lennox had ended up convinced of the truth of local legends, it didn't mean Sylvia had followed him along that route. And yet she'd said she had felt summoned to the place as Selcouth apparently imagined he had.

  "It's not the same thing," Heather declared aloud and read on to drive the likeness out of her mind.

  Some faintest Trace of Illumination must remain to the guttering Minds of the Villagers that they keepe without the Wood and mumble Prayers should they become sensible of its Proximity. Only the most aged Grandam of the Village remembers Tales told to affrighte her as a child. Then would a very Cavalcade of Glimpses and Encounters be recount'd which I alone knew to betoken but one single Presence.

  So one Grey-Beard might speak of chancing upon Goodman in the Shape of a tall Man whose Shaddowe caused Insects to swarm within it where it fell, while another would whisper of a Mist with shifting Face, whose Passing thro' the Woods braught down Birdes like Fruit out of the Trees to rot in an Instant and loam the Forest. Againe a Grandfather would describe how, as he crossed the Common while a Boy, a great Arm reach’d forth from the Depths of the Forest to grope for him with many Fingers, and his withered Wife would p
rattle of her Girl-Hood, when beneath the Moone she saw the Trees perform an antient Dance from joining which her Prayers and Eyes closed tight could scarce protect her. Much else besides I learn’d upon a Mid-Night Visit to the quaking Grandam, whose Babblings confirm’d my Belief that the Volatileness of the Forest Daemon fitts it to be shap'd to my Purpose, even as have I shap’d my House. Then, that she should not gossip of my Interest, I let the Grandam spy within my Eyes the meer Reflection of that outer Dark where my Spirit yearns to range at Will, at which the Blood flew from her Heart and sally’d forth from every Egress.

  "Of course it did," Heather scoffed with distaste. Whatever beliefs might have been common in his lifetime, she was certain that the writer had been dangerously insane. Could anyone saner than Selcouth find the book suitable for reading to even or perhaps especially an unborn child? Some of it had to be, otherwise Heather would be on the phone to the police.

  So shall these forgotten Terrours, sunk too deepe in these dull Minds for sounding, keepe my Researches hid from prying Eyes. Even I, Nathaniel Selcouth, suffered that Feare which shrivells the Spirit as I kept the vigill necessary to entice Goodman to me. Throughout the Whole of the first Night of my Vigill, as I watched without my House sans Lanthorn or Taper, I was circl’d about by Footfalls, now light as the Scurrying of many Insects, now pondrous as the Paces of a Colossus. Then from Dawn to renew’d Night the entire Forest held still as a great Cat waiting on its Prey. That second Night many Fingers or Bones touch’d and pluck'd at me, and the Trees were loud with many whispers, despite there was no Wind. Againe a Stillness reign’d thro' the second Day, which I knew to be no more than a Pretence of Light amidst the veritable State of endless Dark. Thus arm’d with secret Knowledge, I had only to entrust my Vision to that Dark so as to observe Goodman when he appear'd in the Midst of the third Night. At first he shap’d himself into a Giant pale as any Toadstool, whose face was but a Vapour, and then it was as if the very Ground opened a vast Mouth and Eyes and spake in a great Voice that set every Beast of the Village to imitating Babel in the Xtian Taradiddle. At the last Goodman saught to cow his Master by rearing higher than my House on many Legs like Trees and lowering his monstrous face to me betwixt them, as it were a Moone should settle its decay’d Mask on the Earth. But I stood my Ground and spake the words of Binding. So the awful Pact was seal’d, and I know that I have yield’d a Portian of my Spirit to this place in having striven with its Daemon. Yet my Spirit is greater than needs mourn the Loss.

  Heather shook her head, mostly at herself. She was finding it hard not to be drawn into the imagery of the journal, which kept making her aware of the woods that loomed above the page, it seemed less distantly than they should. She glanced up to prove they had stayed where they ought to be, and caught herself fancying the treetops were upraised in search of the dark that lay in wait just beyond the sky. "Get on with it," she told both the book and its reader, and tried again to skim. Nevertheless she experienced some satisfaction when it became apparent that Selcouth had overreached himself.

  Great and awful are the Perills even to my self of fathoming the Dark beyond the farthest Spheres, for a Caprice of the Void may transmute the Spirit into Forms for which there are no Words and hence no Formula of Revocation. One such chang'd Horrour did I encounter that would have been a Magus, that now cry'd out sans Voice for it import’d not what Manner of Bodie in which to procure its own swift Death, and for a Month thereafter I feared the very Skies. No less grave are the Hazards of calling down a Messenger from that Dark, for that is to bring the antic Whims of the Void upon the Earth, to consume it as Rot consumes the Apple and make a Maggot even of my self. My Scheme was to send an Other as my Proxie, that I might observe the Transformations of its Essence and so learn how to wield those moderat’d Powers within and about my self. Thus I chose Goodman to voyage in my Stead, he being of more than human Power yet subject to my own..

  What Agitation seiz'd the Forest whenever Goodman strove against my sending! How the Trees groan'd and writh'd and cast up a very Blizzard of mournful Leaves, and how the Village Herd must have cower'd within their Pens! Thus was it borne upon me that as the Centuries transformed the Roman Grove into a Forest grown from Seedes pluck'd by Goodman from the Air, so he became besides the Daemon of the wood, its Essence.

  Thrice I sent Goodman forth to report upon the Dark that takes no Heede of Time. Thrice he rose up, his stretch'd Limbs trembling on the Earth they fear'd to quit, and vanish'd like thin Smoak between the Stars to return a-pace and crowch both like a Spider and a Dog before me. Well might I have thought he had fallen short of the Dark for Cravenness, had he not carry'd with him Traces of the Void that fasten'd on the Wood. Thus the Trees that surround my Tower, whose deepest Cellar is Goodman's Lair, became so altered as to found a new Genus that takes its Nourishment from such Life as may alight upon it, while the Shaddowes of the Forest acquired a Vigour which may yet outstrip that of their Source. Yet no Formula was to be drawn from Observation of these Prodigies, nor any from interrogating Goodman about his Voyages, our Spirits lacking all Affinitie upon which to base a Discourse.

  Therefore I detetermin'd to contain within a Bodie of my own Begetting some Aspect of the Void that had company'd him to Earth, though the Process that had left one London Wench with Child had cast me downe with Weariness and Loathing. To contain the Large within the Small is to concentrate its Power, and every Child must acknowledge its Father. In order to procure a Vessel to receive my Seede I shap’d Goodman into a scent’d naked youth who would appear in a Maiden's Dream and at her Window also to escort her to my Bed, through the Forest that my Powers had render'd charming to every Sense.

  It was a recluse's masturbatory fantasy, Heather told herself, and perhaps not even much more deranged than the average for all she knew. It made the oppressive heat and the woods that seemed poised at the edge of her vision feel closer, and she hardly knew why she was continuing to read the passage: she couldn't imagine Sylvia reading it aloud to anyone in the world.

  On a Night of the full-belly'd Moone I performed my beastly Task upon a Village Wench and charged the wood to snare her Memorie of our Encounter as Goodman shepherd'd her to her Cottage. When the Moone had fatten'd herself thrice upon the Dark I had the Trollop brought againe to me that I might bid her Inhabitant crawl forth from her and plant its hungry Root in the transformed and antic Earth of the lowest Cellar. Already its Essence was the outer Dark, for while I was at my siring I had utter'd the Formula which I sette downe here for the Eyes and Understanding of my Follower.

  Heather especially disliked the notion that Sylvia could have read this to the child inside her, but surely there was no reason to assume she had. There was a full page of it, much of it in some altogether less speakable language, from which Heather glanced up to dispel the notion that the trees at the edge of the common were imitating the letters on the page or otherwise responding to the written incantation. They hadn't moved that she could distinguish, but at least she didn't feel the need to recommence where she'd left off. She turned the page and immediately wished she hadn't, for it had concealed a drawing. From life, the caption said.

  It wasn't the drawing from which she'd recoiled when Sylvia had shown her the journal, but it was as bad. It showed a small creature crouching on all fours beside a tower. Despite its lack of a mouth and its enormous eyes that looked trapped by an unnaturally lightless sky, it reminded her far too much of a toddler. She attempted to ignore it while she scanned the text opposite, then snatched at the page, only to reveal the drawing of a child with eyes swarming out of its honeycomb of a skull. The third and last was worse still; the figure grovelling in the shadow of the tower—a shadow, Heather was eager to realise, that wouldn't have existed given the blackness of the sky—had an almost perfect child's face except for the single huge eye perched on top like an egg in a cup.

  Fragments of the text caught at her mind:

  Though our Spirits were in Sympathie, no Intelligence could I gain from my be
nighted Offspiring. I had thought to spy my Goal thro' its Eyes, but its Innocence did not protect its Wits from being blast’d to Idiocy by those Sights. Its solitary Meritt is to derive all its Nourishment from the Dark which was its Origin . . .

  This second Creature and its vagrant Orbs also proved too puny to trawl the Secrets of the Dark . . .

  So a third Bastard shows itself unworthy of my Goal, nor am I content with the Slavishness which besetts the Embodiement of the Formula. Therefore I must steel my self to undertake that Rite which none known to me has dared perform.

  Part of Heather's mind was urging her to skip the rest, but she was suddenly enraged to feel daunted by a mere book, and one that smelled of its own senility at that. "So did you?" she said through her teeth.

  The waken'd Dead have Strengths not grant’d to the Living, and I hold it to be more than Rumour that the Product of their Mating shall multiply their several Powers within it. Againe, it is an Axiom that Blood shall speak to Blood if generat’d by a Mage. On collecting a Package from London some Weeks past I learned that the Crone my Mother had quit her Prison of Flesh. This was of no greater Moment to me than had a Vessel of inferior Clay crack'd asunder of its Flawes, but now...

  "That's all," Heather declared, and almost slammed the journal shut before she recalled why she was searching through it. Though she was increasingly reluctant to discover exactly what she'd overheard, she made herself continue skimming.

  "Do your worst," she said under her breath.

  In London Wealth and less than Wealth will purchase Satisfaction of any Desire, and but little Payment was requir’d to coax a pair of Gravediggers to reverse their Trade. Having buried the Casket afresh and borne its Contents to a Field yet strong in antient Magick, they were wonderful eager to leave me at my Task of summoning the Dark to restore Suppleness to the wither’d Limbs. Well short of the Hour at which I had bade a Coach-man to arrive, the Corpse was a Puppet of my Will, prancing and curtseying however stiffly beneath the Moone. Once bath’d in Scents and conceel’d by Veils, it might have been mistook for a famous Courtesan, and I doubt not that the Coach-man fancy'd this of my Companion. Indeed, none Other shall its Function be, and thus the Grave shall be a Cradle.