The Dead Path

by Stephen M Irwin

  “I saw you looking.”

  The unexpected voice behind him made Nicholas jump.

  It was the young reverend. Nicholas saw he had misjudged his age. He was probably closer to forty than thirty.

  “Looking at what?”

  “At our Green Man.”

  Nicholas steadied himself. “At your what?”

  “Our Green Man. Jack the Green. Green George.” The minister extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Pritam Anand.”

  “Nicholas Close.”

  The reverend inclined his head; he knew who Nicholas was. “News travels fast. Bad news travels fastest.”

  “I’m bad news?” asked Nicholas.

  Reverend Anand laughed, then looked around to check there were no mourners he might have offended. “News of what happened to Gavin Boye, I meant. A tragedy.”

  Nicholas nodded, and looked at Anand’s red cheek. “Not a bad right hook for an old bird.”

  Anand touched the spot where Mrs. Boye had slapped him. “Some people get upset when a loved one passes.” He inclined his head again, a very Indian gesture that Nicholas was certain induced parishioners to share secrets they’d rather keep.

  The rain, which had been politely holding off, started falling again.

  “You’re getting wet,” said Nicholas.

  “Then join me inside.”

  T here,” said Reverend Anand, pointing. Nicholas followed his finger. Below the angular capital of the column was carved stonework: ivy leaves, fernery, and a long face with oak-leaf tusks sprouting from the corners of its mouth. “And there,” he pointed out another on the pillar’s twin. “And there.” In the carved forest curling ripe behind Christ crucified, another.

  He sat on the front pew, drinking white tea. Nicholas sat beside him, drinking his black. The church, empty of everyone except the two men, felt to Nicholas suddenly huge and much colder. Hardly any light came through the tall, narrow stained-glass windows. The stone sheaves of the roof killed the sound of rain.

  “What are they? These Green Men?” he asked.

  Anand smiled. “He is one entity, Jack o’ the Green. Have you been to Europe? You’ll find him in lots of churches there. Many, many in England; but also Germany, Poland.” He sipped his tea and looked over the cup’s rim in a way that reminded Nicholas of his mother. “But go farther and you’ll find similar images of this face-part man, part tree-in Nepal, India, Borneo.”

  “It’s not Christian?”

  Anand laughed. “Oh, no. His origins long predate Christ. His is a pagan image.” He smiled with barely disguised delight.

  “I’ve seen it before,” said Nicholas.

  Anand nodded, but said nothing for a long while.

  “It is a disturbingly familiar face.” He cast his own gaze upward to the Green Man on the carved ceiling boss, then down to Christ crucified. “The timeless man who dies each year and is reborn. Who symbolizes triumph over winter and death.”

  “Which? Jesus? Or the Green Man?”

  “Exactly,” replied Anand. He turned to Nicholas, a small frown on his smooth forehead. “A man killed himself right in front of you, Mr. Close. Maybe he tried to kill you, too.” He shrugged, as if to say, not my business. “But how are you feeling?”

  The sudden change of tack caught Nicholas off guard.

  “I have a shitty headache,” he said before he had a chance to think. “Not as bad as Gavin’s, perhaps. But still…”

  The young reverend nodded, but said nothing. The men drank their tea in silence a moment.

  “Where’s that slack black bastard?” called an older voice. Reverend Hird bustled into the room. “There!” he roared accusingly. “Slacking!” He looked to Nicholas as if to a fellow witness of gross injustice.

  “When are you going to die?” asked Anand pleasantly.

  “Never! And when I do, I’ll haunt you anyway,” replied Reverend Hird. He looked at Nicholas. “You the chap that Boye shot himself in front of?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were his brother’s friend, too,” said Hird, eyes narrowing as they catalogued Nicholas’s face. “Bad business.”

  Nicholas nodded.

  Hird watched him a moment longer, then coughed and gestured for his colleague to come along. “We have an evening service to prepare for, you slack, slacking savage.” The old man entered the rectory.

  Anand smiled at Nicholas. “Reverend John Hird. He was in Korea. His approach to death is somewhat matter-of-fact.” He stood and extended his hand to Nicholas. They shook.

  “It’s a funny thing, Christianity.”

  “An Indian Christian pastor certainly is unusual,” said Nicholas.

  “Reverend,” Anand corrected. “Next time we meet, call me Pritam.” He smiled and followed his superior, calling over his shoulder, “And India has well over twenty million Christians. More than the entire population of this country.” He smiled again and closed the rectory door behind him.

  Nicholas sat alone under the carved eyes of Christ and the Green Man.

  Blood is the only sacrifice that pleases the Lord.

  Their stony stares unnerved him.

  He stood and quickly left.

  Chapter 11

  S uzette watched as Nicholas entered the house through the back door, carrying a posy of storebought flowers. He gave them to Katharine and told her he had moved out into a flat. Katharine nodded, put the flowers on the kitchen sink, went to her bedroom, and shut the door behind her.

  Nicholas looked at Suzette. “I know they were cheap flowers, but honestly…”

  Suzette narrowed her eyes at her brother. Katharine was angry with Nicholas, and Suzette couldn’t blame her. The two women had spent hours after dinner last night arguing over whether or not to telephone the police and report Nicholas missing. Suzette had had the final word, saying that enough police had been to 68 Lambeth Street in the last week, and Nicholas was probably out on a bender and that might be a good thing. But she’d never guessed he’d gone and found a flat without telling anyone.

  Nicholas explained about seeing Gavin’s suiciding ghost every time he opened the door, and Suzette’s anger ebbed a little.

  “I know you couldn’t tell Mum that. But you could have told me.”

  “I’m telling you now. Besides, Mum never seemed too keen about having me back.”

  “Did you consider it might not be you that’s worried her? The night you get back, a child goes missing and is murdered. A couple of days later, a face from the past knocks on her front door and blows his head off. Can you blame her for being a little fragile? Anyway. Here…”

  Suzette reached into her bag and pulled out her notebook. She flipped it open to the page on which she’d copied the rune that they’d found faintly carved into the health food store’s doorframe. She looked up. Nicholas was staring at the sketch with an odd expression on his face. “It’s the mark from Mrs. Quill’s old shop door.”

  “Oh,” he said quietly.

  “It is a rune. I looked it up.” She flipped to the next page and read from her scribbled notes: “ ‘The third rune, Thurisaz, takes its name from the god Thor, from which is derived the Old English word Thorn. But the rune has other meanings, including Protection and Devil. It’s not a rune to be trifled with. Thurisaz is the most difficult and potentially dangerous of the runes of Elder Futhark. Only a strong will can control it; it will control the weak. It is a war rune. It is associated with the color red for blood.’ ” She looked up at her brother. He was staring out the window. “Did you hear that? Was it a bit boring for you?”

  He shrugged.

  “This is dangerous, Nicky.”

  Nicholas looked at her, then he smiled. There wasn’t a hint of happiness in it. He reached across for her notepad, flipped to a new page and started writing. He stood, his chair scraping on the floor. “That’s the address of my flat. I’m going to get my stuff and go home. You should go home, too. Get home to Bryan and the kids.” He kissed her on the forehead.


  Suzette was so surprised that she said nothing, simply watched Nicholas as he walked to the hall doorway, where he hesitated. “So, it’s an old rune. Anyone could have put it there. But thank you for looking.”

  He smiled again at her, and in a moment was just the sound of footsteps echoing in the hall.

  K atharine could feel the stillness in the air of her house as Nicholas let himself out the squeaking front gate. She went to her bedroom window and watched him walking down the street carrying his suitcase. Afternoon sunlight cast a long, thin shadow behind him, and she watched it till he was around the corner and gone.

  She cursed herself for her foolishness, locking herself in her room like some jilted debutante. But when Nicholas had handed her flowers and said he’d moved out, thirty-odd years cracked like some fragile ice bridge and fell away, and she found herself stranded back in time, staring at a man who looked so much like Don, hearing him say almost exactly what Don had said the night he finally listened to his wife and moved himself out. Katharine felt her eyes clouding with tears again, and she angrily wiped them away. Christ, she’d told Don to move out. Screamed at him to go. He’d begun drinking and she had every reason to see him out of her and the kids’ lives. But when he actually did it… She didn’t run out into the street and call him back. And now her son had gone, again, and she let him. She dried her eyes and shoved the damp tissue in her pocket.

  She went to the door and carefully opened it a crack. The kettle was starting to sing. Suzette was still in the kitchen. Katharine had heard Suzette’s voice as she spoke with Nicholas; although she couldn’t make out the words, she’d heard the urgent tone. The thought of having her children back here in Tallong knotted her stomach into a tight ball of worry.

  Because of her. Because of Quill.

  Quill. A woman she hadn’t thought of in twenty years. But was that true? Weren’t there nights when she dreamed of that dark little shop where dresses and suits hung like the capes of villainous creatures in some bad old Christopher Lee film? Quill was long dead, long gone. Why had Suzette brought her name up the other night? Was it coincidence?

  Katharine wiped under her nose, ran fingertips through her hair, straightened her dress. Yes. Of course it was coincidence.

  She opened her bedroom door wide and went to sit with her daughter.

  N icholas had no idea of the time, but it was closer to dawn than to midnight. He couldn’t sleep. Every time he shut his eyes, images appeared, haunting his skull as surely as ghosts haunted his life: Gavin’s scalp lifting, popping up like a magician’s trick bouquet; Mrs. Boye spitting at an impassive Christ; Teale, arms like Frankenstein’s undead creation, chasing him through dense forest; a dead bird with a head of woven twigs; a strange arrowhead mark carved into the walnut stock of Gavin’s gun.

  A dangerous rune, Suzette had called it. Too fucking right. So dangerous that he hoped he’d confused her enough, or pissed her off enough, that she’d book a flight home to Sydney tomorrow.

  His tired eyes slid shut, and straightaway more dark images played like a silent newsreel: Tristram dropping to his knees and crawling into the spidery tunnel; Laine Boye’s eyes, inscrutable; Rowena’s eyes, shining with youth; Cate’s eyes, open and dusted with white powder; carved stone; the Green Man; dark woods dense with sentient trees; the oak grove at Walpole Park…

  Nicholas’s eyes flew open. He felt suddenly ill.

  The face that he’d seen as he sped past overgrown Walpole Park at Ealing on his motorbike, the face that made him crash-a face glimpsed just for an instant, a half-memory, a ghostly dream from the other side of his life-had been shrouded in leaves, just as the ceiling boss at the church was.

  The Green Man.

  There would be no sleep tonight. He stood and went to the window.

  The night air was thick with fog, and all he could see was the streetlamp floating like a spectral eye. And though he couldn’t see them, he could sense the woods. He could feel the weight of the trees, huge and drawing as the moon to the tides.

  He yanked on a sweater, snatched his keys, and strode out into the predawn chill.

  N icholas walked through the thick mist to the 7-Eleven near the railway station. He agonized outside long enough for his light sweat to turn icy, then stepped inside and purchased two items, cursing himself for a fool every moment of the transaction.

  Then he walked to Carmichael Road.

  The fog swallowed all sound. No dogs barked. No cars passed. He could only see a few feet in front of him. As he crossed Carmichael Road, his footsteps on the bitumen were jealously hushed by the moist air. He stepped into the knee-high grass and felt the chill of it eat through his jeans to his calves. He plowed a wet path to what he guessed was roughly the middle of the gravel track, and stood silent, waiting.

  For twenty minutes, nothing happened. The wet, frigid air seeped into his collar, up his sleeves, into his shoes. He had to bite his lip to convince himself he wasn’t still asleep on the couch, dreaming that he was here in this pearly gray world of cold. An elderly woman in a pink cardigan walked past on the other side of Carmichael Road with a tiny white dog-two faint specters in the mist. She didn’t see Nicholas and was dissolved again by the cloudy gray. He waited another five minutes. The cold burrowed into his skin, his eyes, his bones.

  Then a flicker of movement ahead on the path.

  Nicholas hurried. As he grew closer, the figure grew sharper through the fog like a diver rising from obscure depths. A young girl crouched on the path. She was shoeless and wore a plain sundress. His first thought was that she must be freezing. Then he saw that tall blades of damp grass speared painlessly through her legs and arms. She was as insubstantial as the mist.

  My God. Tristram. The Thomas Boy. This young girl. Maybe Owen Liddy. How many children have died in those woods?

  Nearer, he could see the shift the girl wore was a pattern from the 1940s. Her face beamed in delight: she’d found something wonderful on the path. She looked around cautiously, hopefully, checking that its rightful owner wasn’t around and she could claim the treasure for herself.

  The girl bent again to pick up the invisible object she’d found. The moment she did, her translucent eyes widened in sudden disgust and she jerked away. Nicholas couldn’t bear what would come next. The ghost girl’s head whipped up toward the woods and white terror slammed across her face. She jittered back to run, but got not a step before her arm shot out like a signal post’s and she jetted away through the mist toward the woods, mouth wide in terror, dragged by something unseen, powerful, and fast.

  A cold worm of fear shifted in Nicholas’s stomach. But he didn’t follow.

  Instead, he started searching the path. It took less than a minute for him to find what he was looking for. He bent and parted the wet sword grass. There. A butcher bird. Gray wings, white belly, loose feathers over a swollen body. Legs snipped neatly off. Head gone, replaced with a sphere of woven twigs that was greening with mold encouraged by the recent rains. Hints of rust red peeked from under the ill green. The small bird’s death-curled claws were stuck in like horns.

  He knew without doubt that just a few days ago, Dylan Thomas had seen this same bird on the path.

  Nicholas picked up the talisman. He plucked out the feet, pulled off the woven head, and angrily tossed the legs, false head, and body in three directions.

  There. Now I’ve touched the bird. Why don’t you come and get me?

  He turned and strode through the sword grass toward the woods he knew were waiting.

  A s he pushed through the tightly packed scrub, tendrils of fog curled in his wake. With mist obscuring everything but the few steps in front of him, there was less of an overwhelming palette of green to assault his eyes and he was drawn to details he would otherwise have overlooked: how close the trunks were to one another; how one tree was armored in bark as dark and thick as a crocodile’s hide, while its neighbor was pale gray and smooth as a girl’s calf; how the carpet of leaves underfoot bled tea-colored wat
er as he squashed it, and how it sucked lightly when he stepped off; how the exposed rocks in gully walls bore spots of pale-green moss rounded like spray can spatters on their tops and black shadows like beards below; how vines curled up trunks like possessive serpents, rose straight like zippers, or clung with their own green claws like headless jade dragons. Some trunks were meters wide-striated tendons in the wrists of straining giants. Some massive beeches had tumbled with time and lay prone like beached whales, barnacled with funguses that reminded him of human ears. Some had fallen and exposed clumps of roots twice a man’s height-colossal, arthritic fingers probing the mist.

  As he moved deeper, the fog drew even closer about him and moisture beaded on the fabric of his jumper and jeans. The half-light of misty dawn dimmed further as the dark canopy overhead closed tighter. He walked cocooned in a silent dusk and had to stretch out his arms so he wouldn’t collide with tree trunks that loomed suddenly, their limbs so madly twisted that they reminded him of Mexican catacombs where the dried dead were stacked standing, their leather-and-bone limbs crooked at angry angles.

  He was unsure if he’d been walking ten minutes or fifty when he reached the steep embankment that led down to the creek bed and the water pipe. The low cliff where Tris broke his arm. The gully below was thick with fog, and the dark green tops of shrubs poked through it like the moldering heads of drowned people.

  He slung the plastic 7-Eleven bag over one shoulder and carefully descended the gully face. At the bottom, he walked cautious steps away from the steep bank until his feet clacked on the stones of the wash bed. Then he turned and followed the dry creek until a dark shape coalesced from the thick fog. The pipe. Its flanks loomed like the hull of some ghost ship. Below the red metal, the twin skull eyes of the tunnels watched him.

  He felt his body vibrate with the hard thudding of his heart. He took a breath, feeling the biting harshness of cold air lick his throat, and knelt. From the plastic bag he pulled out a new flashlight and a squat spray can with a plastic lid.

  You could just go back, he thought. Just go back, never come down here again, never see another terrified ghost, just go back and leave town and get a job in a new office and buy a new flat and ignore the dead and-