Darkhenge

by Catherine Fisher

  From the earth’s roots we rose,

  from the broom and the nettle,

  from the water of the ninth wave.

  The Wisest One made us in

  the earth’s dawn,

  knowing what the stars know

  before Time, before the World.

  Under the root of the tongue

  is where the battle is fought.

  The war is won

  In the mind’s mazes.

  “THE BATTLE OF THE TREES”

  There was something strange about the Chair. For a start the snow didn’t settle on it. And from the tree on the left as she watched, a hazelnut slipped and fell, plopping into the darkness of the pool. In the water a fish moved, a flicker under the surface.

  Behind her Vetch said, “The waters of Wisdom.”

  “I could drink some of that?”

  “If it helps.”

  She knelt and scooped up a handful; it was brackish, peaty water, dark with fibers. As she sipped it, it drained from her palm. It tasted cold, and of nothing.

  Then she straightened, walked to the Chair, and touched the red velvet seat. When she turned, it was to face the ring of silent faces.

  This wasn’t right, she thought. There should be something now, some panic, some adventure that would startle her, that would make her see her life with new eyes. An attack from the outside that would save her from having to decide.

  They were all here. The trees, the people.

  She could make it happen.

  Almost as she thought it, Rob gasped. Over her shoulder he glimpsed movement; he yelled, “Vetch!”

  Vetch raised his head.

  Beyond the stones, over the high banks, the forest had invaded.

  Trees shot up, cast a cannonade of acorns and chestnuts, hazelnuts, berries. As soon as they touched the soil they split, sprouted, grew. Roots unsprawled, branches rustled out, uncoiling twigs and leaves. With rustling, horribly accelerated slithers and groans, the wildwood crawled over the henge, gathered, darkened the stars, closed overhead. As it thickened, the moon dimmed; the watchers on the bank were swallowed by it.

  Mac swore. “Stop this, girl!”

  “It’s not me, Mac, I swear!”

  The henge had a green roof. Acorns and conkers and sloes dropped from it. Squirrels ran rustling from stone to tree.

  “It’s not me!” This was the panic she had asked for, but she couldn’t control it, the wild fear of the wood, what it contained. She turned to Vetch and he caught her hands as they reached out for him. “I wanted power, I always wanted it, but it’s stronger than I am! I can’t control the Unworld, Vetch, or the real world either. I can’t make it do what I want! The forest is too strong.”

  Vetch crouched, his narrow face close to hers. “You will, Chloe. I promise you.” He glanced at Mac. “Ask him. God gives no one a gift he cannot master. Right, Priest?”

  Mac growled. But he said, “Right.”

  Then, turning swiftly, Vetch held out his hand to Clare. “Give me back the bag, Goddess.”

  She looked at him, unsmiling. “Why should I?”

  “Because they mustn’t end up as we did, tormenting each other down the years.”

  Clare looked at him, her eyes blue and clear. For a moment Rob thought she would turn and go, into the dark entanglement of the wood. Instead, she did something that astonished him.

  She stepped past Vetch, and past Chloe, and walked around the pool.

  As oak leaves wreathed above her, she sat on the red velvet of the Chair.

  Instantly the forest halted.

  Clare looked up. Three lanky cranes fluttered down and alighted, one on the chair back, two on the narrow strip of grass. Their long beaks snapped and clattered.

  Clare said, “I’m sorry, Chloe. But this is my place and I resume it. I am Ceridwen here, Queen of the Seven Caers, always and forever the muse of all poets.” Her hand reached out, and from her forefinger hung the small crane-skin bag.

  Vetch took it. His eyes met hers, and though he said nothing, Rob knew something had passed between them, something had changed, had dissolved. Then the poet turned and held the bag out to Chloe.

  She seemed confused. “What’s that?”

  “It contains everything you need, Chloe.” Vetch came close. “Words.”

  “I’ve got plenty of words.”

  “Not like these. These are the ogham letters of the druids, the secret runes of the trees. The roots of language, Chloe, the seeds of story. Everything grows from them, all the worlds you want to make. They make peace and start wars, they burn cities, they wound and stab, they heal. They’re the only way we have of making others understand our lives, how it feels to be a man, a woman, a boy, a little girl. While we have them we can shape-shift, we are never trapped in our own souls, our own skin.” He smiled, reached out, and opened her small hand, crumpling the bag into it. “There are a million Unworlds here in this bag, universes uncreated, races unborn. Take it, Chloe. Hang it around your neck. No one will see it, no one will be able to take it from you in all the years you live, not Rob, or Mac, your parents, any husband you may have, any children. Only you’ll know. All your life, the secret gift the trees have given you will be there.”

  For a moment she didn’t move. She seemed small beside him, suddenly bedraggled and tired. When her hand closed around the soft leather it seemed heavy for a moment; her arm dipped as if there was a weight there that was too much for her.

  “What about you?” she breathed. “What will you do?”

  His eyes were dark. He said, “I’ve found my muse. She will have to do.”

  Chloe looked at Clare, who nodded.

  Then Chloe slipped the cord around her neck.

  Vetch smiled. Under his dark hair the star mark on his forehead shone. He took her hand and led her to Mac.

  Mac touched her hair gently. “Time to go, Chloe.”

  She was biting her thumbnail, something small girls did, something Rob had not seen her do for so many months it brought him a stab of joy and terror; then she turned to him, her voice weary.

  “I’m really sorry, Rob.”

  Shaken, he said, “There’s nothing—”

  “Yes there is. Not saying. Being jealous.”

  He shook his head, any answer choked up. “You look tired.”

  “I am.” She laughed a little laugh. “As if I’d stayed up long past my bedtime.” Looking up at him, she fingered the cord around her neck, and he was suddenly reminded of Christmases when she was small, the early morning frantic opening of presents, the satisfaction, the sleepiness that came after.

  He put his arms around her, and she didn’t flinch.

  “Let’s go home, Rob,” she said quietly.

  Over her head he looked at Vetch. The poet was leaning on the back of the Chair, his hand on Clare’s shoulder, and to Rob’s amazement the blond woman reached up and touched his scarred skin, even though they watched Chloe, both of them, absorbed.

  Rob said, “I don’t know how.”

  “I do.” It was the King who spoke. “You must climb, of course.” Pushing Rob gently aside, he put his hands around Chloe’s waist. “Are you ready, my lady?”

  She looked at him closely, then gave him a shy kiss on the brittle mask. “I won’t forget you,” she whispered.

  The King laughed sadly. “Ah, but you will. Though you’ll search all through the poet’s bag to find me again. And one day, perhaps, among the echoes and images, among the tales, something will seem familiar.” Easily, he lifted her, her white dress drifting against him, hoisting her up into the green canopy of acorns and hawthorn. Chloe grabbed a branch, and stepped up onto another.

  She climbed, quick and agile.

  She didn’t look back.

  “Wait for me!” Rob scrambled after her into the foliage, looking down to see Ceridwen’s upturned face, and Vetch’s calm smile.

  “Will you be… Will I see you again?”

  Ceridwen shrugged. “The Cauldron-born cross many
worlds. We live in yours, just as we live here. Part of me will be in Clare still. But hurry, Rob. The sun’s rising.”

  He nodded, glanced once at Vetch and looked for Mac, but the priest was no longer there. Instead, streaming from the east, light was breaking into the Unworld. Brilliant, horizontal, the lazy red fire of the dawn shot through the trees. As Rob climbed quickly, he felt it warm him, knew a slit had widened, as if somewhere an eye was opening, and the slushy drifts of snow slithered and melted and fell wetly on his face.

  Leaves surrounded him. There was no sound from above but a rustle that might be Chloe or might be birds; he called again, “Wait for me!” but there was no answer, and the tree trunks rose around him like dark timbers, an enclosing circle that he was climbing up through the center of, and the boughs of the tree were black, fossilized with age, pitted and cracked with time.

  He was climbing the highest tree in the forest, and he came out above the canopy, and swung there, and saw all the Unworld below, in its sunrise.

  Then he reached up, and touched the sky.

  The sky was warm. It was soft as cloud. It licked his face and nudged itself against him, and then it snuffled and scratched ferociously at its fleas.

  It also stank.

  Rob lay quite still. When he opened his eyes he saw, inches in front of them, the gnarled smooth wood of Darkhenge. A spider was making its careful way over a dewdrop, tickling his cheek. As he breathed out, the web spun from his face to the timber quivered.

  Tearing it, he sat up quickly, grabbing the upturned tree.

  He was soaked, and shivering. The dog gave a short bark of displeasure, then shook itself, sending drips flying.

  He was lying inside Darkhenge. Chips of wood scattered the enclosure, and the chainsaw notch in the central trunk looked raw. Rob caught hold of it and pulled himself up, staggering slightly. He was winded, as if he’d run a long way. Putting his feet down carefully, he pulled himself along to the entrance and stared out.

  The field was empty, except for litter.

  It looked like the aftermath of a rock festival. Bottles and cans glinted in the grass. Abandoned banners were soaked with dew; the rising sun lit the letters of SAVE DARKHENGE with a golden glow.

  “Hey!”

  A policeman was crossing toward him. “Where the hell did you come from? I thought we cleared everyone out.”

  Rob rubbed his face. He was desperate with thirst. “I fell asleep. Look, I need a phone. It’s an emergency.”

  “There’s one in that trailer, but—”

  He didn’t wait. Dodging the man’s grip, he raced up, threw the door open, and dived for the desk. The number of Mac’s cell seemed endless, then there was a crackle of sound.

  The policeman’s bulk darkened the doorway. “You can’t just—”

  “Shut up!” Rob turned. “Mac? Mac!”

  Noise.

  People crying. His mother crying. A babble of voices, high and hysterical. Dan’s voice and Rosa’s. Nurses. Pandemonium.

  “Mac! What’s happening? What’s happening?”

  His godfather’s voice was hoarse. “She’s here, Rob. She’s with us again.”

  “God.” It was all he could say, could think. “Oh God.”

  “Talk to her,” Mac growled.

  The phone crackled. He heard breath and rustles. He heard the moving forest.

  Then Chloe’s whisper. “Rob?”

  He gripped the phone so tight his hand throbbed. “Chloe,” he breathed.

  She sounded small. She sounded as if she wanted him.

  “Where are you?” she sobbed. “You should be here.”

  He swallowed, made himself smile. “This is your time,” he whispered. “Your time.”

  They all wanted to talk to him. He was to get a taxi and race there. His father whooped and gabbled nonsense; his mother could only sob. Finally Mac’s voice came back, gruff and exhausted. “She’ll sleep again for a few hours but get yourself here as soon as you can. She needs you, Rob.” There was a pause. Then, “Where’s Vetch?”

  Rob scraped a hand down his face. He felt light-headed. “Home.” Then he said, “Has she … is there anything around her neck?”

  An empty second. Then, “No. Why?”

  “I’ll … explain. When I come.”

  Mac sounded sour and silly with joy. “I can’t wait to hear that.”

  The phone clicked off.

  On the steps of the trailer Rob stood and saw the sun through the trees. There were so few trees left.

  Beyond them the downs stretched, green and smooth, small sheep on their back. The policeman scowled at him. “You’d better get home before I think better of it.”

  “I’m going, believe me.”

  He stumbled to the gate and looked back.

  In its hollow, beyond the destroyed fence, Darkhenge stood silent and remote. But not still. It moved, and blurred, and at first Rob thought it was his eyes, tired and playing tricks on him, and then the movement became clear, and he understood that he was seeing the swarming of thousands of beetles, tiny wood-boring creatures, their hard carapaces glinting as they scrambled up from the soil.

  The Unworld had sent its messengers to devour the henge.

  By the time anyone realized, it would be eaten to the ground.

  Rob smiled a weary smile. One day he’d do a painting of it. He would be the only one who ever could.

  He’d leave it to Chloe to write the story.

  Excerpt from Corbenic

  One

  His mother kept him there and held him back…

  Conte du Graal

  Very far away, the voice said, “Who drinks from the Grail?”

  Jerked out of a doze, Cal opened his eyes. Then he tugged the earphones off and rubbed his face wearily. The woman who had been sitting next to him must have gotten off at the last station; now her seat was empty. A man in uniform was wheeling a trolley down the aisle of the train; it was crammed with crisps and sandwiches and piles of upturned plastic cups around the shiny urn. The man caught Cal’s eye. “Drinks? Tea? Coffee?”

  It would be embarrassing to say no, so he muttered, “Tea,” knowing it would be the cheapest thing. Then he dragged some coins out of his pocket and sorted through them, trying to look careless, as if money didn’t matter.

  The train was a lot emptier now. It rattled viciously over some points; the trolley man swayed, balancing expertly in the aisle as he filled a plastic cup under the tap, the trolley rocking so that a small packet of biscuits slid off onto the empty seat. Chocolate digestives. Cal scowled. He was so hungry he almost felt sick. “Those too.”

  Outside, wet fields flashed by, and some houses in a scatter of dead leaves. The man leaned over and flipped down the small table at the back of the seat, clipped the lid on the tea and put it down. A tiny bag of sugar. Milk. A plastic stirrer. The train clattered; Cal grabbed the hot cup in alarm.

  “One pound thirty, sir, thank you.”

  Sir. For a moment he thought the joker was making fun of him and glared up, but the man’s face was closed and polite, and once he had the money he trundled away up the carriage resuming his smooth, “Tea? Drinks?”

  Cal leaned back and looked at the plastic cup with distaste. He hated tea. Coffee was more upmarket. He unclipped the lid and stirred the tea bag gloomily. When he’d made some money he’d really spend; travel first class where they had white china and linen, everything of the best. They’d call him sir and mean it then. He peeled the metal top from the milk and it sprayed everywhere. He swore aloud. The woman opposite glared at him. He glared back, scrubbing his jacket. This had cost. It wasn’t designer but it looked it. Or he hoped it did. The momentary fear that it looked cheap slid under his guard, but he squashed it hastily. Pulling the earphones back on, he let the music blast out the train noise, dipping a biscuit in the tea and watching the landscape through his own reflection.

  He’d been on this train all day. It had left Bangor at nine that morning, late, so that his mother had li
ngered on the platform, tearful, her hasty makeup a mess, telling him to phone, going on and on about how much she’d miss him, couldn’t manage without him, about coming back for weekends, about keeping his room the same. His room! He thought of the little box with its grubby paper and the neighbor’s baby wailing through the walls. He was well shot of that.

  Uncomfortable, he shifted. Why had she had to come? Anyone might have seen her, and as usual she’d been barely sober from the night before. He’d gone to find a seat long before the train started; still she had tapped on the glass and waved and cried at the window. Remembering her crumpled misery and runny mascara, his hand clenched on the empty cup; he felt the plastic crackle and then crushed it slowly. His face was hot. But the weak tea had made him feel better, and the biscuits. He hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and he’d gotten that himself, as he always did.

  The train slid into a station, brakes screeching. Cal rubbed a circle of damp off the glass and looked out. Craven Arms, the sign read. Another place he’d never heard of. Mountains, a few people running under umbrellas, the bare platform plastered with clotting autumn leaves. Like all the rest of the stations that day.

  As they pulled out, the carriage lights went on. All at once, outside it seemed dark, the early dusk of November. Hills closed in as the train ran below them; odd craggy ridges, tree-covered. Most people had gotten off; no one had gotten on. Once, a mobile phone burbled stupid music; far down at the end the refreshments bloke was reading a paper with his feet on the opposite seat.

  Cal leaned back, yawning. He was so tired of sitting still, so stiff. The music was tinny, the batteries fading; he flicked it off with a groan and immediately the rhythmic clatter of the train came back, rocking him, comforting. He had at least another hour till Chepstow. Through the steamy windows he could only see himself, looking crumpled, and then very faintly a line of high forestry dark against the twilight. In a farmhouse the windows were lit, looking warm and snug. A girl walking a dog waved to the speeding train. He wrapped his coat around him, and closed his eyes. As the train roared into the blackness of the tunnel, he put his feet up on the seat, leaning awkwardly with his head against the window. It would be all right now. He’d planned this for years; he’d made the break. Life would be different. His uncle would meet him in some big, flashy car. He wouldn’t have to see her anymore. He wouldn’t have to hide the knives and the bottles ever again.