by David Neal
*
Johnny Hedgerow slung his billhook over one shoulder, spun a mallet in his free hand and sauntered once more into the village of Cropsoe, the hub of the Weald. He walked the road with casual ownership, marched straight down the middle knowing no one would challenge him, every step establishing his claim. Wearing Hweol’s livery, a patchwork greatcoat of emerald and jade, battered trousers shaded in earth and feet clad in boots of oak, he told the land he was here: servant and son, keeper of tradition.
Every year, he would return before the Wheel started turning to check the boundaries between this valley and the world beyond. Wood that had rotted needed to be stripped away and replaced with younger limbs, easily molded to weave the skeletal framework required to protect the land and the creatures who made their home there. Something told him this year the Weald would need more than his usual light maintenance. It had been a long time since he had carried out a Hedging. He licked his lips. Soon his blade would drink.
Only a few villagers were out and about, most busy working in the fields or hiding indoors. Mechanized and digitized modern-day life was kept at a distance and much that happened here demanded good, old-fashioned physical labor. The Wheel needed blood and sweat and occasionally tears to keep turning. Those abroad now stopped and stared, quickly averted their eyes should he catch them looking. Nobody acknowledged him directly, however. Johnny grinned. He had no hard feelings at such a cold reception; he was a servant of Hweol as much as they were. Hweol, the one who turned, Hweol, the Wheel; Hweol, the circle of life.
Stepping into the bar of The Five Turns however, provoked a different reaction. Here the landlord and his wife were true Wheelborn. They were kin. They were family. Hweol’s family. Blood spoke in this valley.
“Johnny, man,” cried Simon, the landlord, pulling him into a bear hug. It was a meeting of giants. “Only when I see you do I know spring is here and winter well and truly laid to rest.”
The two men smiled at each other, both fully aware of the meaning buried beneath. Winter had its own share of sacrifice and ritual.
“Brother.” Liza came over and gave him a peck on the cheek.
Johnny gazed around. Being lunchtime, the bar was not busy but buzzed gently with friendly chatter and the clink of glasses. Oak beams and leaded windows, quarry tile flooring and low ceiling, the inn was a quintessentially English rural idyll. As he looked at them, these Cropsoe residents raised their tankards to him, met his eye. They too were Wheelborn, were family.
“A drink, sister,” he said to Liza. “A drink to grease the oil that drives me.”
He watched her take a tankard to a small keg kept separate to the large barrels supplying the pub’s customers. This was a brew only the purest of the Wheelborn could drink. She handed him his pint and he held the honey-coloured ale up to the light. Deep and warm, it would remind him of what being a Wheelborn in this village meant, would renew the bonds between himself and every other inhabitant in the village, containing as it did, a contribution from all families there. Once he had emptied the cask, Johnny would know which saplings to cut down, where to start mending fences. Sometimes though, his family would tell him straight where the gaps in the boundary lay.
“High Ridge Farm,” said Simon. “The world is seeping through.”
“What evidence?” asked Johnny. Precise about his work, it was important to find the truth of the matter. To weave a false limb, an untruth, was to weaken the Weald beyond anything a mere gap could inflict. The drip of resentment, of the miscarriage of justice was poison to the Wheelborn. Until the time of ritual later in the year, the days of the Five Turns of the Wheel, when Hweol could claim whomever he wished, it was up to Johnny to nurture the veil between the worlds, to maintain the balance.
“The current,” said Simon. “The air is charged wrongly in that house. I’ve not been able to pinpoint the source but it is there, somewhere.”
“The Walkers,” said Johnny. He knew them. He emptied his pint and wiped the froth from his mouth. It was time to go to work. In the Weald, the Wheel never stopped turning, Nature—always red, sharp-toothed and with jagged claws—pushed it ever onwards.
Johnny took up his tools and the bar fell silent. As one, they followed him out, formed the vanguard of Cropsoe’s inhabitants. Others would attend the weaving, but not yet. First, the sapling had to be cut, new roots put down.
High Ridge Farm lay a mile from the village center, its land spreading from the house to the boundary of the Weald. It was one of the larger holdings in the valley. Homes were never built close to the border; Hweol did not permit it. So much was transmitted invisibly in the outer world—wireless messages assaulted their borders, digital images hovered in readiness to attack, a bombardment it was his duty to prevent. Cropsoe was permitted some things—limited telecommunications, basic television but not satellite, no internet, no mobile technology, no gaming. The restrictions were meant to protect the village, but occasionally a dissenter would declaim them as tyranny, smuggle in a mobile phone and snare the young of the village, even Wheelborn offspring. It was getting harder and harder to push back.
It took no time to reach the farm, the steady tramp of the Wheelborn alerting the patriarch inside to their approach. He summoned his family and went out to greet them. Johnny stepped up to Lem Walker. They had known each other a long time. He had served Hweol well, observed the old ways, kept the traditions. Lem and his wife Anna had three children. Johnny sensed it was one of these responsible for the tear in the fabric between worlds. The young always wanted excitement, wanted to travel beyond, did not yet know fully the ways of Hweol. But which one?
“Come, children,” said Johnny. “We will walk together a way. I have not crossed these fields for some time. You can reacquaint me with them.”
“Child!” This from the youth.
Johnny looked at him. Karl. Nineteen and grown to manhood. How time had flown. Him? It would be a pity. A scuffing of boot on gravel from the lad next to him. Eyes as resentful as Karl’s at the label applied—how old now? Seventeen? The third boy—no more than ten—just gazed on him with wonder. Hedging was usually a family matter and never discussed beyond their holdings. But the children were taught the ways and what was expected, should have been familiar with consequences. He raised his eyebrows at Lem.
“I told them of the ways,” said Lem, understanding the look. “But they regard it as a fairy tale. My wife,” he gestured at the small woman beside him, “did not want to frighten them.”
Johnny turned his gaze on Anna. She had the decency to blush and lower her eyes. Had he left it so long memories were beginning to fade? In a way it was a compliment to his handiwork the boundaries had stood the test of time, the Weald had stood strong against the encroachment of the outside world. He laughed. If they were not frightened, they would come along easier. Where would the gap lie he wondered.
“Come,” he ordered. The youths didn’t move.
Lem pushed them forward. “You will do as he bids and walk the land with him. Perhaps you might finally learn a thing or two.”
Anna opened her mouth as if to protest but the look on her husband’s face stopped her.
“Consequences,” growled Lem. “I warned you.”
A mother protecting her children from the monsters under the bed, thought Johnny and he looked once more at the three boys. He could be generous. “You,” Johnny said to the youngest. “You can stay with your mother.”
The boy ran into her arms, sensing the danger charging the air around them. She held him tight.
“You two,” said Johnny. “Now.”
He turned and trudged across the field, not looking to see if the youths were following him. Knowing that they were. He was walking the path between the worlds and saw everything. It was time for the boys to meet Hweol. They left the Wheelborn behind with Lem and Anna. They would regather soon enough but for the time being it was just the three of them.
“So, you think me a fairy tale,” said Johnny with a smile.
Karl shrugged, still defiant. “The stories are just meant to scare us, stop us moving away.”
“And did they scare you.”
Karl met his eye. The youth had guts, that was good, good for the strength of the weave. “No.”
“And you?” Erik, he recalled.
This one looked less certain.
“The two of you have walked here often?” he continued.
They both nodded.
“What about here?”
Startled, the youths suddenly looked around them. They were no longer in the top field. They were walking the paths of the Otherworld. Erik moved closer to Karl, who finally began to look uncertain. The path was a wide forest track, bounded alongside by giant black yew trees, heavy boughs entangled with each other to form a dense canopy arching overhead. Only a dull grey light permeated through, gave their surroundings a hazy, surreal atmosphere. Johnny breathed easier here but knew for the youths it would be like walking underwater. The darkness of the trunks gave the appearance of a solid wall but if you looked carefully you could see some lighter shadows, tiny gaps allowing the inhabitants of this world to spy on their visitors.
“Where are we?” asked Karl, his eyes flicking nervously from side to side even as he tried to affect an air of unaffected casualness.
“I have pulled aside the veil between our worlds,” said Johnny, “and now you see where the Wheelborn come from, the roots of your families. This is Hweol’s realm. He is Nature’s consort and it is she who has granted him ownership of the Weald.”
There was a flash of silver between the trees, and another, and another. High-pitched voices giggled, their music breaking the silence. Imps come to see if they would be given a new playmate—their teeth sharpened especially for the purpose.
“I want to go home,” whispered Erik, unable to tear his gaze away from one creature, bolder than the rest, who had stepped out of shadow and was shuffling towards them.
“Not yet,” said Johnny. “You are expected. Look.”
The track narrowed to a point beneath an arch of trees, their branches creating an awning draped with ivy, splashed with gold. A figure stood there, silent, majestic. As they neared, he heard Karl gasp as Hweol stepped forward to reveal himself. Stag’s antlers protruded from the wolf’s skull which crowned him, his robe was a bear pelt and his gloves, the moss of the forest carpet. Under his robe he wore clothes stitched from the tanned hides of creatures from both the Weald and this realm. His face was hidden so that those who looked upon him were unable to discern whether he was man or beast or forest. Nature had chosen Hweol for her husband and in him blood and sap mingled, the hybrid inheritance of the Wheelborn.
“These are the saplings,” said Hweol as Johnny pushed the boys to their knees in front of him.
“One of them is,” said Johnny, with a bow.
Hweol eyed them approvingly. “Good, sturdy stock,” he said. “They will keep the Weald strong.” He clamped Erik’s jaw with his hand, jerked it up, forced the youth to meet his eyes, to stare into the skull’s sockets and see him for what he was. Erik fought against his grip but Hweol was too strong. When he eventually released the lad and turned to Karl, Erik’s bravado had vanished completely.
“They are both yours if you wish,” said Johnny.
“It is tempting,” said Hweol. “But we must be fair to the family and to the village…”
Johnny heard the regret in his voice. Hweol knew everything, knew who carried the guilt but he would leave their fate in Johnny’s hands, allow the wheel of tradition to keep turning; a wheel within a wheel.
“You did not believe in me before,” said Hweol to Karl. “Do you believe now?”
Karl’s terror was palpable, no longer looked the man he was about to become, more the child he once was. He nodded.
“And you?”
“Yes,” said Erik, his voice shaking.
“When you return, you will tell your friends what you have seen. You will describe me to them. You will tell them what I am capable of.” And with that Hweol let out a howl. From the trees around him emerged his Hunters, one of whom dragged a man struggling and fighting before him.
“Uncle!” cried Karl. “How…”
The boys turned shocked faces to Johnny and Hweol before returning their attention to the man in front of them. A gesture from Johnny stopped them moving any nearer to him though.
“You thought your uncle had left the Weald,” said Hweol. “I know it was he who fed you stories of the world beyond the Wheelborn lands, seeded the desire to follow him. I can read the minds of man, see their loyalty and their treason as clearly as if they’d spoken it aloud. He has been brought here for my judgment and you will witness his punishment. He cannot escape my justice.”
Johnny studied the man he had previously delivered to Hweol. Martin, the boy’s uncle, had become a sorry wretch. Haggard and unshaven, clothes no more than rags, barely an ounce of flesh on him. He had been kept a servant in Hweol’s court for a year—although such a year could be a lifetime for a man. Now he was good for nothing except as an example to his nephews. He whimpered at the feet of Hweol whose mossed hands gently raised him up as if to embrace him, then suddenly slipped around his throat and twisted with one sharp, swift movement. The snap echoed around the gathering. The only sound in the silence.
“Take him,” said Hweol, tossing the body to his Hunters as if he were no more than a leaf. “He will feed the hounds.”
Johnny watched the boys’ faces. Now they understood the meaning of Hweol. That was one lesson learned. The next was to be his own.
“You can go,” said Hweol to the boys who started to back away with expressions of relief. They thought themselves safe.
Johnny bowed to his father and followed the youths along the track. He let them lead the way, knowing the path would take them where he wanted them to go, not where they thought they were going and indeed when they emerged once more beneath the skies of the Weald, they were right by the boundary of High Ridge Farm. Beyond this was land not belonging to the Wheel and the village had to be protected from it.
Johnny walked up to the hedge. Parts of it were budding, small green shoots appearing to bring new growth, new life. He left that part alone, continued to walk its length until he came to a barren patch. Here the wood was dead. Almost. It still had a voice and it was time for Karl and Erik to hear it. A murmuring of voices drifted up to him, the Wheelborn had arrived. It was time.
He arced his billhook at the relic of rotting weave. The blade’s edge whistled lightly above Karl’s head, causing the boy to jump back. It carved through splintering wood which howled in protest at the attack. Johnny cut again and the growl developed into a scream, an unearthly wail of agony which sank its song into all who surrounded them. He sensed how much the youths wanted to run, but the Wheelborn formed a semicircle around them, a living fence of flesh to complement the boundary on their other side.
“Your first lesson,” said Johnny, “is to cut out the old, strip out the rotten and corrupt.”
Karl hesitantly reached out for the billhook. His face was white, eyes huge with the shock of recent events.
“No,” said Johnny, gentling his voice, softening his message at the edges. “Rot breaks easily beneath muscle. You use your hands.” He nodded towards the hedge and the boys stepped forward, glanced hesitantly at him and then proceeded to pull at the gnarled and hollow fibers. The Wheelborn remained silent but moved closer, intense observers, he heard their heartbeats combine and merge into one, form the drum, the rhythm, to which the boys’ hands reluctantly kept time.
At first, wood came away easily and the boys made swift work of it, but eventually they came to a part that did not want to yield so easily. Again they looked to the billhook and again Johnny shook his head, although the way he raised the implement so that its edge glinted hungrily at them, caused the brothers to return to their work with renewed vigor and not a little fear. They tugged and pulled and tugged and pulled until their
hands were ripped and bleeding. And still the wood refused to cede to their attempts.
“Now,” said Johnny, nudging them aside with the tip of his blade and stepping in front. “Now we cut out the heart of the problem.” He swung the blade down, heard the whistle of steel through the air and then a scream of such pain, the birds flew from their roosts and nearby sheep bolted. It went deeper than the previous screams, prodded at long-buried ancestral memory, told them of a suffering beyond experience.
“What was that?” Tears ran down Erik’s face, his body shook, a damp patch appeared on his trousers. He started to call for his mother but stopped. Even in his shame he did not want to appear a little boy in front of the grown men surrounding him.
Johnny nodded his head with satisfaction, kept his voice soft. “A tear in the fabric, a soul of the Weald who weakened our barrier. He served his purpose and needs replacing.”
Bewildered expressions remained on the boys’ faces.
“I don’t understand,” said Karl, his terror not quite as palpable as Erik’s, hidden better but still there. “A soul? Do you mean one of the village?”
“One of the land,” corrected Johnny. He was a patient teacher and the lesson had only just begun. “Each family protects its own property with its own blood.”
“But this is wood…” Karl picked up one of the discarded branches, felt its texture, ran his hands along the knots and stubs. As he did so, the surface flaked away and a whitish sheen shone through.
“They are more than that,” said Johnny. “They are the limbs of your family. Branches rooted here sometimes for a century. This one however, has been here for a mere generation. It shows the blood in these parts is weakening.” Johnny remembered this particular hedging. Lem’s own father, the youths’ grandfather. Another story they had not been told. In truth was protection, not in a mother’s silence. Lem and Anna had got it so wrong, should have known better. He stared at the blade thoughtfully. Perhaps…
