The Hollowing

by Robert Holdstock

  Nevertheless, something had shocked him, something so startling that it had caused him almost to fly backwards with surprise.

  Alex slept, then woke and was silent for the next few hours, not responding to his parents’ attentions. Then he slept again, deeply, restlessly.

  By the end of the second day Richard’s apprehension had begun to develop into terror. Alice, grim-faced and cold, talked and talked to the boy, but Alex just responded with incoherent murmurs. His eyes were wide, almost depthless. He stared at things without thought, without real sight. He seemed immune to suggestion. He was in his own world, a new world. The only words he used, at this time, were “chapel” and “giggler.” When he murmured “chapel” he seemed agitated, perhaps puzzled. But “giggler” was a sound he used in his nightmares, waking screaming this word, or name, shrieked from lips that were flecked, wet, the expression of a boy terrified by his vision.

  He no longer read books. He no longer took interest in the radio, or music, or the events in Shadoxhurst. His models meant nothing. He sat in his room, surrounded by the treasures of his imagination, and stared at the insubstantial air in front of him. The Bradleys kept him away from school, and when the school’s inspector came to interview them it took no more than five minutes to convince him that Alex was seriously ill.

  Perhaps it was this humiliating and embarrassing visit that broke the wall of resistance in both Richard and Alice. A day after the inspector’s visit they arranged for Alex to be taken to the same hospital where James Keeton had spent his last days.

  The boy came home every weekend. The three of them walked, and tried to talk, and Alex was calm, pleasant, responsive to the simplest of things, but without any engagement of intellect or imagination. He might have been two years old again. He showed no wonder, no surprise, no interest. Only at night did he scream. When they walked in the woods, when the light was gentle, Alex would sound wistful and point into the distance.

  “Chapel…”

  Perhaps he was remembering the school play, Gawain, the Green Knight, the woodland chapel below the fairy hill. Richard could never find out, because Alex had no words for him, and quite soon Richard gave up trying.

  Late that summer, Alex disappeared. The windows of his room were locked, but his door had been left open—there had seemed no reason not to leave it so—and he had probably walked out of the hospital at some time during the night. His day clothes were missing. There was no note, of course. One of the nurses told Richard that for two or three days before, Alex had been more vocal than usual. He had seemed frightened, jumping at shadows or unexpected movements around him. Twice he had locked himself in the small toilet at the end of the corridor, only emerging when his favourite nurse encouraged him out. It was to her that he had spoken his last word, before disappearing from the hospital, a wistfully breathed “chapel.” He had been looking into the distance, from his window, over the trees towards Shadoxhurst. Perhaps he had been thinking of home.

  His badly decomposed body was found a year later, half-buried in the leaf litter and wild growth of a boggy elm wood at the edge of a local farm. Rooted up by an animal, probably a fox, the traces had been sniffed out by the farmer’s dog. The skull had been so badly crushed, by two or three blows, that precise dental association was impossible, but from the size of the bones, the male features of the pelvis, scraps of clothing in the same grave, and the fact that it was found so close to Shadoxhurst, the conclusion at the inquest was that the remains were those of Alex Bradley, unlawfully done to death by person or persons unknown. The police investigation lasted two months, and the file was kept open when local activity ceased.

  Alex was buried in Shadoxhurst church in May 1961. His parents’ wreath was shaped like Alex’s favourite model plane.

  Tallis Keeton’s moondream mask was buried with the bones.

  PART TWO

  In the Wildwood

  The Green Chapel: 2

  It had been raining for hours and he sheltered high on the east wall, curled up below the wide stone arch of an empty window. From here he could see down into the cathedral, where the hollyjack moved restlessly among the saturated trees.

  She was upset again. He could tell this easily from the chattering sounds she made, and the way she passed from nest to altar, kicking at the wet benches, gabbling at the wooden faces and watching the boy from behind rain-glistening leaves. The wood in the cathedral rustled continually, occasionally juddered violently as new growth stretched the trunks, the marble floor buckling suddenly as each tree, its roots in the crypt among the bones, thrust a boy’s length upwards, feeding on the rain and the new life that flowed through the earth.

  In the big wood, the giggler came and went, its face thrusting from the edge for an instant only, time enough for the boy in the high window to see a gleaming eye in the black face, a second gouged socket, a grinning mouth, white tusks thin and deadly.

  Other creatures hovered at the edgewood too. During this long time of rain he had seen wolves on their hindlegs, men with the heads of snarling dogs, a pig of vast size, and bird-men of all descriptions. Most disturbing was a woman in torn green robes. Her hair was a rich and full tumble of red around a noseless face that was as white and dead as a fish, the eyes cold and unblinking, her mouth open and wet. She had watched him for an hour, unmoving, then had stepped carefully back into cover. A minute later the giggler had taken her, noisily and terribly, and fed for a long time while the crows had circled in the rain above the trees, disturbed by the stink of flesh.

  Other humans came, peering at the high stone wall of the cathedral. Some had weapons, others were mere shades, cloaked and hooded. One was half-armoured, his face covered with metal, the features of a fox, his heavy cloak red around the green bronze. He watched the boy for a long time, then waved and withdrew. The giggler tried for him, but failed to secure the life and retired howling for a while, before it recovered, parted the undergrowth, and leered at the watching boy.

  Why was the hollyjack so disturbed? She had embraced him and let him travel on the Little Dream, and when he had cried she had soothed him with birdsong and thorny caresses. Although she often accidentally poisoned him with her forest offerings, she was always careful with her touch, and never drew blood except when dreaming with him. When the sadness at dreams of his father had passed, she had taken him into her nest, and they had slept for a day or more. When the sky darkened and the rain began to fall, they had both moved back into the sanctuary wood, and while she had explored the area near the altar, he had ascended to the window on the east wall.

  She called for him now. She was a bristling, beckoning bush in a thicket of red-berried thorn by the Lady Chapel, gleaming as the rain ran from her leaves. But she was calling for him and he swung carefully down the ivy, touching dog-stone face as he passed it, to pacify it, and entered her embrace again, letting her thorns prick his skin, flowing through her roots into the crypt below the marble, out through the rootweb, past the giggler and the other creatures at the edge.

  Where are we going?

  Big Dream!

  Deeper and deeper through the earth, through glades and hollows, by river cuts and high banks, through beech and elm and lime, willows by lakes, and aspen on chalk downs, flowing through the wildwood like blood through water, spreading, thinning, yet always touching the stone-place and the holly bush.

  He came up in a misty place, near a river among silent trees; and the greenjacks were here, the daurog as he heard them named. He was in a place older than stone, at a time before words and language, but he felt the presence in the wood of men, though men with eyes and ears only, no mouths or tongues that could articulate, no way of calling save like the birds or wild creatures of the forest they hunted. He peered out into this ancient grove from the face carved in a tree.

  The greenjacks were waking from their winter forms, the new growth on their bodies vibrant and sensitive. They moved through the wells of light, scratching at bark, scooping fingers into the earth, or brushi
ng water from the stream along the curving branches that erupted from their mouths. He could see the different forms of the creatures, the oakjack, large and densely leaved, the birch female, quivering and restless, a thin silver shape by the water. Willow and a smaller oak were still rooted, although their heads turned to the light, willow’s fringed arms rising as if he was stretching on waking from a deep sleep—and of course, in one way, that was precisely what this family was doing, although it was only the conscious parts of their sylvan minds that had slumbered within the stalking bodies of their winter forms.

  There was a hollyjack among them. This evergreen had emerged from hiding, now that the new growth was on her family, and she ran among them, tending to them. She was aware of being watched by one of her own kind, and the hollyjack that cradled the boy quivered uncontrollably as she observed the much younger form.

  The greenjacks were moving towards the cathedral. They were advancing steadily through the seasons and the wildwood, closing on the stone-place, but as yet the hollyjack was puzzled by the reason. All the boy could understand from the faint flow of thought, whilst sharing the rootweb, was that the daurog were coming for him—and there was great danger if they came in winter.

  But the boy was in a waking dream, still, his mind half on his father, half on the terrible creatures who waited for him beyond the sanctuary. Each day he felt a little more alive, although he thought of it as “seeing further.” Memories shaped, like images in rippling water that was suddenly still. He felt frightened of the greenjacks, but took comfort in the pricking arms of his nesting friend. He was aware of her own fear, the great fear of the still and silent time of winter, the black time for trees among the heavy white of snow on the earth. A terrible death stalked the wildwood at that time.

  Later in the day the skeletal form of the shaman approached the face in the tree, emerging from the darkness of the denser wood. Ghost-of-the-Tree, as the shaman was called, was badly broken. Fragments of bark hung from him like stiffened flaps of brown flesh. One side of his face was ragged, the branch tusks shattered (they would grow back with his own first bud). When he lifted his forelimbs to the watching boy, the fingers were bent, some missing, the nails cracked. He was caked around the mouth and chest with a rust-like paint, the last vestiges of blood from his winter hunting.

  But before he fed now, on the reviving nutrients and water of the natural forest, he came to the tree, watching the carved face through those sinister eyes, the glitter of steel encased in wrinkled oak.

  After a while, bolder, he approached and scraped the bark face with a nail. The thornwood entered the hard skin of the tree, creating a new cut among the old scars.

  There are not sufficient seasons to prevent us from finding you. We’ll find you soon—

  The thought flowed through the rootweb, frightening and threatening at first, yet perhaps it was more of an exhortation, a fervent wish. The greenjacks were gentle. They were lost on this journey and exuding desperation. Whatever they wanted from the boy in the cathedral, they could not communicate it clearly. They were just coming to find him. The seasons would not stop them.

  Boy and hollyjack flowed away from the face in the tree. The rain fell steadily, pouring from ledges and stone faces, pelting the trees inside the cathedral where bush and boy curled together.

  Don’t let me go. Hold me. Don’t let me go—I want to see him again.

  The hollyjack closed over him; rain filtered through the leaves of her crown and dripped onto the boy’s closed eyes. He flowed with the Little Dream again, drawn by the feelings of confusion and anguish from his father.

  The man was alone and frightened. He was hiding in a clearing, striking at shadows; the bear-man was gone, and his father was lost. The power of his fear and his loneliness writhed like a twisted vine through the rootweb, and the boy followed this scent and surfaced at the edge of the glade, his head full, now, of the lost man’s inner voice, memories that were fresh in the man’s mind, recent events that had much to do with his son …

  Out of the Pit

  The drive from his London flat had been long and tedious. Beyond Oxford the traffic had been slow and Richard had been unable to pick up the Home Service on his new car radio. He had been forced, instead, to fill the car with the sounds of rock and roll coming from either the Light Programme or Radio Luxembourg. He had enjoyed Procol Harum (though the lyrics to “A Whiter Shade of Pale” left him bemused), Pink Floyd, and the jaunty sounds of The Kinks with “Waterloo Sunset,” but he couldn’t get away, it seemed, from a syncopated piece of trivia called “Puppet on a String” and an appalling piece of crass commercialism called “I’m a Believer,” and their performance, as he drove the last few minutes to Shadoxhurst, had been punctuated with his cries of Dear God, oh dear God, this can’t be called Music!

  You old man, he lectured himself as he finally stepped out into the cool country air and stared over the thorn hedge at the small spire of Shadoxhurst church. He ached from the drive. He was thirsty, hungry, and haunted.

  He was home for a short break from work, back to the house, back to bad dreams. But for Richard this trip was an annual pilgrimage—his fifth—that he felt he had to make.

  The footpath to Shadoxhurst was overgrown with early nettle. He kicked through the weeds, crossed an open field, and clambered over the locked gate of the small churchyard. It had rained earlier in the day and everything was fresh and moist. His desert boots soon became saturated as he approached his son’s grave and knelt down, his heart torn between grief and peace.

  Someone had put fresh flowers in the small porcelain pot on the green gravel. Bird droppings were smeared across the name on the granite headstone and Richard spent a minute or so cleaning off the lime. His fingers, touching the sharply inscribed letters of the name, felt only stone.

  He’s not down there, not all of him, only part of him. What happened? What in God’s name happened?

  The loss was too much, and the return to the village too strong an event to resist: emotion surged; and for a while he sat, letting the sodden turf saturate his skin through his jeans, and cried, and missed Alex, and thought of Alice, long gone Alice.

  He was startled by the sounding of the church bell. It was three-fifteen. The bell rang a second time, then was silent. A moment later, the side door of the church opened, closed, and was noisily locked.

  Richard returned to his car and drove to his house, parking on the street and spending a few minutes greeting neighbours. It was clear that his absence from the village, and from the house, was a source of criticism. But he had found it impossible to stay here after Alex’s body had been found, and had moved to London, where he now worked in a bank.

  Entering the house through the back door he was at first overwhelmed by the smell of damp. During the winter there had been a leak in the bathroom ceiling, and the carpets were encrusted with fungus. Giant spiders scuttled across the enamel of the bath itself. He trod the floor warily, but the soaking wood was firm. Below, the ceiling of the utility room sagged badly, and he sighed as he thought of a peaceful holiday now inclining towards repair work.

  Everything otherwise was as he had left it. He had fresh bedding and a bottle of wine. The bookshelves were full of old favourites. There was no television. He would not miss it.

  Inside the front door was a scatter of letters. He picked them up and leafed through them, the accumulation of nine months’ absence. Among them were two scrawled notes on paper that had been folded and not enclosed in an envelope, and as he opened the sheets he was disturbed by the handwriting on one of them. It seemed familiar.

  The first note, written in a robust, upright style, read: Mr. Bradley—I have some information for you of urgent interest. No one in the town knows your forwarding address, but I’m told you return here regularly. I’ve left an instruction with the manager of the Red Lion. I’ll drop by just before Christmas and hope to catch you then.

  It was signed Alexander Lytton.

  The second note, in a slan
ting but precise hand, read simply: You’re a hard man to pin down. But we’ll keep trying. Believe me, Mr. B, you’ll want to talk to us. I don’t want to be more specific right now. We need to talk. If you come back to the house in the next few months, can you go out to the brook, where the bridlepath crosses it, and tie a green ribbon to the signpost there? And check to make sure it stays? One of us will notice it and stop by. We move in and out all the time. Sorry to be so mysterious.

  It was signed Helen Silverlock.

  * * *

  When the Red Lion opened, at six-thirty, Richard went into the lounge bar and ordered a pint. He was served by someone he didn’t know, but Ben Morris came down later and greeted him.

  “Showing your face again, eh?”

  “Time to come home, Ben. Time for a holiday.”

  “There were some folk looking for you, a few months back.”

  “Yes, I know. They spoke to you. Left a message or something…?”

  “Last summer. Strange pair of tourists, strange dress. The bloke was small, sturdy, a Scot, very irritable. The woman was very pretty, like, long black hair. A right head-turner. She was American, no doubt about it. Not a hippy, though. Not a student. But both of them queer, like. Odd clothes. They were looking for you but wouldn’t say why.”

  “What did they ask you to tell me?”

  Ben nodded and frowned. “If you came home, you were to tie a ribbon out by the old track, by the brook. Nobody knew where you were, Richard. You didn’t leave an address…”

  “I know. I wanted to be away. Did they say anything else? Did you get an idea where they worked?”

  Ben shook his head. “He was some sort of scientist, working out on the Manor grounds, there. I heard them talking about the ‘Station.’ That’s all. As I said, queer, like.”

  * * *

  It was a fine May evening, very tranquil, very warm, the light almost lucid. Richard walked along the bridleway to the brook, found the signpost, and tied a strip of green rag, torn from an old shirt, around the top. Two riders galloped over the hill, from Ryhope Manor, he imagined. Ryhope Wood, on the Manor estates, was shimmering, a solid wall of green and orange, just across the fields, beyond the rights of way. Alex had been fascinated by Ryhope, as had his friend Tallis, but probably only because it was reputed to be haunted.