She relaxed as she felt her father’s tears and kisses on her face.
Take of English earth as much
As either hand may rightly clutch.
In the taking of it breathe
Prayer for all who lie beneath—
Not for the great nor well-bespoke,
But the mere uncounted folk
Of whose life and death is none
Report or lamentation.
from ‘A Charm’
Rudyard Kipling
THIRTY-SIX
That evening the phone rang and as Susan picked up the receiver she knew at once that it was Michael’s mother. The woman breathed quietly for a while, saying nothing. Susan waited, then said, ‘This is Susan Whitlock …’
‘Something has happened,’ came the gentle voice. ‘What has happened?’
‘The other boy is at peace. Now Michael is at peace.’
‘I am too. It happened this afternoon. I slept for a while. When I woke up the haunting had gone. I’ve been haunted for years. It was such a terrible thing to do. I didn’t really want to do it. But I was so afraid …’
‘That’s why he stayed, perhaps. The other boy. That’s why he clung on to life – a sort of life …’
There was silence, a sad, lonely silence. The call seemed to be long distance, slightly echoing, perhaps coming through a satellite. Then: ‘And is Michael well?’
‘Michael’s sleeping. We think he’ll be fine when he wakes.’
‘Thank you. Thank you for peace.’
‘Tell me something,’ Susan waited for a response, but there was only silence. ‘Hello?’
‘I’m listening,’ came the quiet voice.
‘Who was Michael’s father? Will you tell me something about him?’
After a brief pause Susan heard the other woman breathe out slowly. But all she said was, ‘I think I’d better not. Not now. Not after all this time. He’s been – out of my life – for a long time now. I think I must keep my memories to myself. I’m sorry …’
‘So am I. But I understand.’
‘Again … Thank you for peace.’
The connection went dead.
Michael slept for twenty-four hours, finally waking into a vague, silent state in which he sat and stared blankly, rubbing his neck and breathing shallowly. It would be a week before he was fully recovered.
Françoise sat with him while he slept, watching him, stroking his hair and thinking about the wonderful talent that had been his for a while, and the gift, however weak, however transformed, that might still remain.
And she tried desperately to understand what might have happened to Michael during the time of his incubation in the womb, and after.
‘Perhaps Michael will have some answers for us,’ Susan suggested over coffee, late that night.
‘That doesn’t follow. I don’t know how much Michael was aware of what was happening to him. But with your permission I can try and find out.’
Susan shrugged. She was completely dishevelled and hollow-eyed. ‘You’ll have to come to us to do so. We’re planning to move to the remoter parts of Argyll, well away from the friends of the dead man.’
Françoise ran a hand gently over the sleeping boy’s head, smoothing the brilliant shock of ginger hair. Michael murmured in his deep slumber, curled more deeply under the blanket.
Susan said, ‘Do you think everything he did was just a reflection of his brother trying to come alive again?’
‘I think so. But how can we be sure? His brother’s soul hung on to him during birth. That I can understand. But why did it get loose in time? For that to happen the gateway to time must already have been open. So: one of the boys already had the talent for apportation. But which one? Once born, the spirit locked into what might have felt like a source of local power, the shrine, once built close to your house. From there it moved between Limbo and your son, looking always for a way to return.’
‘Yes. You said that yesterday: Chalk Boy had been trying for years to get back.’
‘I suspect,’ Françoise said, ‘that much of the gift-bringing had been to create the right emotional environment for the passage back. At first he tried pleasure, making Michael happy. Then he tried to work through Carol, helping her see dolls, but that failed. Then he withdrew the gifts and tried anguish. It was only when Michael cracked, when he became uncontrollably furious, that the way truly started to open. And of course, the spirit knew that its preserved corpse was still available. It was a touch of inspiration to create the idea of the Grail in Michael’s mind, to make him focus obsessively on the glass jar.’
Susan finished her coffee and rubbed tired eyes. She could hear Richard outside, dragging one of the totems down the garden to where he kept his stones and pillars, and where, now, a large museum of wood was being formed. They had all wanted the staring, blank-eyed, grinning fetish-faces away from the house.
It was late and Susan went to bed, not at all at peace. She woke, the next morning, to the feel of being gently shaken. She opened her eyes and started with shock, but Richard’s face resolved through her sleepy gaze. He was cold and his breath was unfresh.
‘What is it?’
The body’s gone. The body in the quarry. Someone’s taken it away.’
There was nothing she could say. It was immediately obvious who had removed the corpse. She turned to ice, wondering what would happen now. Richard went on, ‘I saw tyre tracks just outside the pit, a large car. They’ve fetched their own. Maybe they won’t make trouble for us. Maybe they won’t want to tamper with things they don’t understand.’
‘You’ve been reading those children’s stories again. The bit where it says “happy ever after”. I think we get the police; and get them now.’
As she stretched and rose from the bed she became aware of the sound of singing. For a second she was puzzled, then realized it was Françoise, downstairs. The psychic had spent the night in an armchair, close to the boy.
Richard was on the phone. Bright light showed up the layers of dust and filth on the windows. Susan tugged on her tracksuit, listening to the odd, reedy voice of the woman.
Françoise suddenly shouted!
She was standing by the sleeping boy when Susan raced into the room downstairs and stared at her. The woman’s hands were over her mouth and she was shaking. But it was a sort of laughter … a surprised, shocked laughter. Richard was there too, leaning down, brushing at the boy, brushing at the blanket.
‘Oh God. It’s like when he was an infant …’
Dry red earth stained Richard’s fingers. Michael shifted restlessly and the small earthfall poured off the blanket on to the carpet.
Outside, the biggest of the totems, which had been leaning dramatically since it had appeared at Michael’s command, began to move, its shadow sweeping through the room as it crashed heavily and dully to the lawn, then lay still.
If you have enjoyed this book and would like to read more great SF, you will find literally thousands of classic Science Fiction & Fantasy titles through the SF Gateway.
For the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy …
For the most comprehensive collection of classic SF on the internet …
Visit the SF Gateway.
www.sf-gateway.com
Also By Robert Holdstock
Mythago Wood
1. Mythago Wood (1984)
2. Lavondyss (1988)
3. The Bone Forest (1991)
4. The Hollowing (1992)
5. Merlin’s Wood (1994)
6. Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn (1997)
7. Avilion (2008)
The Merlin Codex
1. Celtika (2001)
2. The Iron Grail (2002)
3. The Broken Kings (2006)
Novels
Eye Among the Blind (1976)
Earthwind (1977)
Necromancer (1978)
Where Time Winds Blow (1981)
The Emerald Forest (1985)
Ancient Echoes (1986)
Night Hunter (writing as Robert Faulcon)
The Stalking (1983)
The Talisman (1983)
The Ghost Dance (1983)
The Shrine (1984)
The Hexing (1984)
The Labyrinth (1987)
Raven (as Richard Kirk, with Angus Wells)
Swordsmistress of Chaos (1978)
A Time of Ghosts (1978)
The Frozen God (1978)
Lords of the Shadows (1979)
A Time of Dying (1979)
Writing as Robert Black
Legend of the Werewolf (1976)
The Satanists (1977)
Berserker Trilogy (writing as Chris Carlsen)
1. Shadow of the Wolf (1977)
2. The Bull Chief (1977)
3. The Horned Warrior (1979)
Collections
In the Valley of the Statues: And Other Stories (1982)
Dedication
For Peter Lavery
Robert Holdstock (1948 – 2009)
Robert Paul Holdstock was born in a remote corner of Kent, sharing his childhood years between the bleak Romney Marsh and the dense woodlands of the Kentish heartlands. He received an MSc in medical zoology and spent several years in the early 1970s in medical research before becoming a full-time writer in 1976. His first published story appeared in the New Worlds magazine in 1968 and for the early part of his career he wrote science fiction. However, it is with fantasy that he is most closely associated.
1984 saw the publication of Mythago Wood, winner of the BSFA and World Fantasy Awards for Best Novel, and widely regarded as one of the key texts of modern fantasy. It and the subsequent ‘mythago’ novels (including Lavondyss, which won the BSFA Award for Best Novel in 1988) cemented his reputation as the definitive portrayer of the wild wood. His interest in Celtic and Nordic mythology was a consistent theme throughout his fantasy and is most prominently reflected in the acclaimed Merlin Codex trilogy, consisting of Celtika, The Iron Grail and The Broken Kings, published between 2001 and 2007.
Among many other works, Holdstock co-wrote Tour of the Universe with Malcolm Edwards, for which rights were sold for a space shuttle simulation ride at the CN Tower in Toronto, and The Emerald Forest, based on John Boorman’s film of the same name. His story, ‘The Ragthorn’, written with friend and fellow author Garry Kilworth, won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella and the BSFA Award for Short Fiction.
Robert Holdstock died in November 2009, just four months after the publication of Avilion, the long-awaited, and sadly final, return to Ryhope Wood.
www.robertholdstock.com
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Robert Holdstock 1991
All rights reserved.
The right of Robert Holdstock to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 11887 4
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.orionbooks.co.uk
The Fetch Page 32
