Wildwood

by Janine Ashbless

  It was just before dawn. The rain had stopped and a white mist lay over the silent land. I slid my hand through ivy and a small brown bird rocketed out of the leaves and flew away peeping its protests. That woke me up properly.

  I was wedged, standing, between the back wall of my cottage and the remnants of a dead tree which had grown up too close to the foundations. My clothes were torn open down the front and my pubes were mashed against an old knot in the wood. Carefully I tilted sideways and slid out from the embrace of wood and stone, then stood, gnawing my lip.

  I was quite sure that when I’d first looked around my new home there’d been no tree stump this close to the house.

  Ash came to my house a few evenings later. I shouldn’t have been so surprised to open the door to him, after all he and I – and perhaps his fair-weather activists – were in theory the only people on the Kester Estate once the gates were locked at night. But somehow I’d assumed it was Michael, calling to try his luck.

  ‘I brought your flask back,’ he said, a little tentatively. He was wearing a long green coat this time to keep out the drizzle.

  I gaped, then took the flask from his outstretched hand. ‘Do you want to come in for a drink?’ I suggested after a slightly impolite hesitation.

  He nodded.

  ‘Coffee? Tea?’ I asked as I led him through to the living room. ‘I’ve got some bottled beer I think. You got the last of the sloe gin.’

  ‘Tea would be great.’ He looked around him curiously. I wished I’d had some warning of company and a chance to clear my usual mess. My little dining table was occupied by my dismantled chainsaw, which I was busy cleaning, and a new chain soaking in a margarine tub full of oil. ‘The sloe gin was much appreciated.’

  Indoors, he seemed a whole lot taller. It was a tiny room and he seemed to fill it. I swept an armful of magazines off the sofa. ‘Sit down.’

  He sat dutifully. Then as I retreated to the cupboard-sized kitchen he stood up immediately and followed me, stationing himself in the doorway and leaning on the post to watch. I felt rather self-conscious. Was he thinking of that night out in the meadow and my bare body? I wondered.

  ‘Milk? Sugar?’

  ‘Just tea, thanks.’

  ‘How is it going in the woods?’

  ‘Um. Soggy.’ He folded his arms.

  ‘I bet. How long have you been living out there?’ I asked as I hunted out tea bags.

  ‘Oh, pretty much since the last owner of the Grange died. That’s … getting on for four years now.’

  I stared. ‘Winter as well?’

  He nodded.

  ‘God. That must be … I mean, I like the outdoor life, but four years in a tent?’

  He hooked a wry smile. ‘Sometimes it’s a bit grim. Most of the time it’s OK. And there are days I wouldn’t be anywhere else.’

  ‘But that’s much longer than Michael Deverick’s owned the place, isn’t it?’

  ‘I had a lot to do.’

  ‘To do?’

  ‘To get ready for him.’

  Words failed me. ‘Right.’ I found the last teaspoon in the drawer. ‘What is it exactly that you’ve got against him?’ I thought I might as well hear it from both sides.

  ‘Exactly? The fact that he doesn’t give a crap what he destroys in order to accumulate the financial power he’s after. You want details? He owns a major investments company and puts money into anything that’ll make him a profit. His money’s behind exploratory oil drilling in Alaskan wilderness and the Russian Taiga. He makes a fortune from palm-oil plantations in the Far East and soya-bean production in South America on land that used to be virgin rainforest. Companies he’s got holdings in are busy right now all across Britain building roads and houses and airports on green fields so that the English can own their own cardboard huts on coast-to-coast identikit estates and escape on their cut-price carbon-heavy holidays every year to places that aren’t ruined yet but will be after they get there with their stag parties and their chip shops and their nightclubs. Oh, and he dabbles in armaments exports.’

  ‘Well, that’s the Market,’ I said dubiously. I had to take Ash’s cold litany with a pinch of salt.

  ‘Those are the ones I know about because they happen to be legal. I don’t doubt there are others.’

  ‘Well he’s not a big fan of rules,’ I admitted. ‘So that’s the guy I’m working for, is it? I’d no idea he was so important.’

  Ash raised both eyebrows.

  ‘I mean, I knew he was rich. He’s throwing money at this place.’

  ‘Yes.’ The word was loaded with meaning.

  ‘And you’re going to get in his way, are you?’

  ‘I’m going to try.’

  I picked up the hot mugs and ushered him back into the living room. As he took off his coat and seated himself again I walked casually over to the window and cracked it onto the drizzly night. I really had no choice; Ash had brought in with him a reek of wood smoke and clothes that’d got damp and musty and never dried out. I had no great objection to the first – God knows I was used to it – but the mildewy smell was overpowering.

  When I turned back his face was pinched. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘It’s OK …’ I was twice as embarrassed as he was. ‘It’s just –’

  ‘I try to get to the public baths and the laundrette in town but it’s this weather …’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ I grabbed for another subject. ‘You have a car then?’

  ‘I hitch.’

  ‘Right.’ I bit my lip. ‘Um, well, if you wanted a bath here there’ll be loads of hot water now. I forgot to turn the immersion heater off after mine.’

  He looked doubtful.

  ‘And I’ve got a washer and tumble dryer; I could put your clothes through on a quick cycle if you wanted.’ I smiled encouragingly. ‘It all goes on Michael’s electricity bill.’

  The ice cracked. ‘OK. That’d be nice. Thanks.’

  I showed him the bathroom and climbed onto the chair to pull the biggest towel I owned out of the airing cupboard. He kept his eyes on me all the time, even when my backside was at face height. I felt a bit dithery. ‘You’ve got soap, shampoo, whatever,’ I said, wishing I’d been able to hide my razor and the tumbled box of tampons. Why wasn’t I naturally neat? I opened the cabinet and pointed out the rack inside. ‘Bath fizzies here if you like them. That might be a good one for you. It’s lime and eucalyptus – not too girly.’

  I left him in the bathroom and retreated to the armchair, feeling that I’d made a fool of myself. I didn’t have long to collect my dignity before Ash came out again, carrying his clothes in a bundle. He was wearing the towel around his waist and it was long enough to brush the tops of his feet, like a sarong. I fought not to look, and lost. His bare chest was nearly hairless and his left shoulder was covered in a jagged tribal tattoo. I’d expected him to be paper white, being a redhead, but he was tanned to the pale-gold of Jersey cream.

  I wanted to lick him.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I said, reaching for his bundle, but he carried it to the washing machine himself and loaded it, only letting me add detergent. My machines were kept under the stairs, half-concealed behind the sofa, the only place where there was room for them to be plumbed in. ‘Wash cycle three: there,’ I said, pushing the button.

  ‘Great.’ He waited for the machine to start drawing water, then returned to the bathroom.

  He was in there a long time. Long enough for me to tidy the living room, hurl all my clothes off the floor and into wardrobes, straighten the bedlinen, change into a pair of leggings that didn’t have a spaghetti stain on them, wash up and finally sit down and give my full attention to berating myself for acting like a fourteen-year-old. I was a grown woman and he was a grown man and he was in my house naked and there wasn’t any more simple equation than that, was there?

  My eye fell on his mug of tea, balanced on the arm of the sofa. It was cool now. I zapped it in the microwave to bring it back to steaming and carried it over to the
bathroom door. Softly I knocked, my pulse racing. There was no sound from within. As it happens there’s no lock on my bathroom, so I opened the door and stepped inside.

  Ash lay in the milky water under a warm cloud of eucalyptus-scented condensation. Far too tall for my bath, his knees were bent up revealing shins striped with red-gold hair and his dreadlocks dangled into the water about his shoulders. He was fast asleep. Greedily I studied what I could see of his body, but as I looked at the smudges under his eyes I felt a strange flutter of pity. I put the mug down on the corner of the bath. His eyes opened at that small noise and he looked straight up at me.

  ‘Don’t forget your tea,’ I said, my voice husky. I shut the door behind me as I left.

  He didn’t take long after that. Through the wall I heard the sound of him rising, followed by the bath draining, the flush of the toilet and then an odd squeaky noise that I only slowly identified: he was cleaning the bath. Wow, I thought, now that’s the sort of man there should be more of. When he emerged I was waiting for him with a sweater: a plain white hand-knitted thing that had stretched hugely over the years, it was my comfort jumper and if I tucked my knees up I could pull it right down to my ankles. It was the only piece of suitable clothing I had that I thought might fit him.

  He was back in the towel sarong again. I came up close to make my offer: ‘Do you want a jumper?’ Close enough that I could see the water sheen on his skin and smell the eucalyptus and lime. Close enough so that he could easily pull me to him. Your choice, I thought: girl or sweater.

  He picked the clothing. Not swiftly; his eyes were on me the whole time, his expression unreadable but intense. He slipped the sweater over his head and then went and sat back on the sofa, balancing his mug on one knee. It was a good job it was a big towel; like most men he sat with his thighs carelessly apart.

  ‘Suits you,’ I said, then went and perched on the lone armchair opposite, dizzy with longing and disappointment.

  Ash licked his upper lip thoughtfully. I felt like I was under examination. Why the hell didn’t he say anything? The silence was unbearable.

  ‘I asked Michael Deverick about the men he’d sent into the wood, like you said,’ I ventured.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘According to him one of them walked into a wasps’ nest and was stung a couple of times. His mate carried him out but he died of the anaphylactic shock.’

  ‘That’s right. What about the others?’

  ‘He didn’t mention any others.’

  Ash took a sip of his drink. ‘He’s sent a few men to try to get in. One got bitten by “a stray farm dog”, I quote. One broke an arm when he fell off a rock pile. Lots of them had problems with the wasps. None of them got anywhere. Are you seeing a pattern?’

  ‘Yeah. Now tell me why.’

  ‘The wood keeps people out. Deverick knows that and he shouldn’t have sent you in.’

  ‘But why? Why’s it so important that you keep people out? What’s he going to do that’s so bad?’

  Ash thought about answering for a long moment. I could see the doubt in his eyes. ‘There’s something in the wood he wants,’ he said at last. ‘It’s … important. He thinks it’s his to take.’

  ‘So this isn’t about the wood itself?’ I demanded.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But then what is it?’ I asked, exasperated.

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Why?’

  He made a helpless gesture. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I did.’

  ‘Try me.’

  He drummed his fingers on his mug. ‘All right. There was a Michael Deverick supplying munitions to the Allies in World War Two. There was a Captain Michael Deverick in the trenches at Ypres. There was a Michael Deverick in the Order of the Golden Dawn back in 1903. He fell out with Crowley, but then who didn’t? There was a Michael Deverick sitting as member of parliament for a rotten borough in 1831. Same man. Same man as the one you work for. He’s at least two hundred years old and he’s a magus.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A magician.’

  I sat in silence for a while. ‘Well,’ I said at length, ‘he’s managed to get British builders to work for him seven days a week. I suppose there had to be some rational explanation.’

  Ash looked suspicious. ‘You’re taking it well, considering.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not bloody stupid! I’ve seen …’ The words died in my throat. ‘Though to be honest, I’d have had you pegged as the weird one. No offence.’

  Ash put his mug down on the carpet. ‘None taken. Our methods differ. Nevertheless.’

  ‘So you are a … You’re one too?’

  ‘A magus. Yes.’

  ‘That bull bloke,’ I muttered. ‘Bull Peter. What’s he? Is that something you did?’

  Ash looked nonplussed. ‘Ah. I wasn’t sure how clearly you’d seen him.’

  ‘Pretty bloody clearly.’

  ‘Right. Well, I think he’s a changeling – you know, left once in the place of a human baby. He seems to be imprinted on human women. But I’m not totally sure. It’s not as if I’ve talked to him. He’s aggressive with men.’

  ‘He’s a fairy,’ I said. ‘That’s what you’re saying?’

  ‘Uh-huh. You had any problems with him since that night?’

  ‘Problems? No.’ I had a sudden desire to change the subject.

  ‘Good.’

  I thought of the things I’d seen flitting through the weeds around him. ‘What about the other fairies? They talk to you, do they?’

  ‘Not really. Fay tolerate me better than they do most humans. But they don’t talk. You know: parallel lives.’

  ‘OK.’ I had to bite back the desire to mention the deer-girl. ‘And you’re living in the wood and doing your witchy stuff there –’

  ‘Ritual magic.’ His tone was very dry all of a sudden.

  ‘Ritual magic, because you want to keep this other magus from getting the thing in the wood.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then,’ I said slowly and clearly, ‘what the bloody hell is it?’

  I could see the reluctance settling over his face like a cloud. ‘Something powerful. Something he could use to control – I don’t know – millions of lives. It’s something he must never be allowed to get hold of.’

  ‘OK, I get it. You’re its guardian, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Can you take it away from here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you use … whatever it is, against him?’

  ‘Christ. No.’ For a moment he looked really appalled.

  ‘So you’re stuck in the wood, and Michael can’t get in, and you can’t leave.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it. For the moment.’

  I looked at my nails. ‘I’m really starting to wish I’d gone to the pub tonight.’

  Ash rubbed gently at the piercings through his eyebrow. ‘Sorry. You asked.’

  ‘But you came here to talk to me.’ I bit the inside of my lip. ‘Didn’t you? I mean, bugger the flask. You wanted to talk.’

  He sighed. ‘Yes. I need … I mean, I am short of … Listen, this is how the situation is. I’ve had four years to build every defence into the wood that I can think of, without Deverick about. But now the estate’s in his hands and he’s going to be looking for any possible way in past those defences. He’s good at that. He’ll be looking for any weak point. It might only be a matter of time. In fact, he’s found a weakness already.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘You. You walked unharmed right through the wood to the bridle path.’

  ‘How come?’

  He looked apologetic. ‘I set the wards up to block Deverick. They’re at their strongest against him, and they draw from the Wildwood. And I assumed that if he were going to launch an attack on the wood itself, with chainsaws and bulldozers and such, that his crew would be male. So, some of the guards are of no use against, say, you.’

  ‘Welcome to the twenty-first century,’ I
said, with ill-concealed amusement.

  ‘I still think he’s not going to be able to find enough women for that job, though I may be wrong. And anyway, the deeper wards will still function. But that was a weakness. He’ll find others. He’ll think of a way to use them. So I came to ask you if you’d help me.’

  ‘Help you? Against him? What the hell could I do?’

  ‘Well,’ said Ash tentatively, ‘I can’t get into the house any more than he can enter the wood. I’d like to know what he’s doing in there.’

  ‘And why should I?’

  ‘That’s a good question. Because he’s a shit. Would that do it?’

  I stared. At that moment the washer came noisily to the end of its cycle. I welcomed the distraction. I stood and crossed the room to squat in front of the machine. Ash half-rose from the sofa and put his hand on my shoulder as I opened the door. ‘No,’ he said; ‘please …’

  I turned, looking up at him. He was leaning right over me, his face close to mine, and I acted without thought and almost without realising what I was doing, from pure instinct. I put my lips to his in a soft kiss of invitation.

  I think he was more surprised than I was though. For a second I thought he wasn’t going to respond. Then I felt his sharp inhalation of breath, and then his hand cupped my throat and jaw as he kissed me back – not hard but tentatively and very slowly. Almost as if he were afraid.

  For a moment that was all we did. Then I pushed him gently back onto the sofa and followed up, straddling his lap. His eyes were wide with shock, so I kissed him again, challengingly, catching his lip in my incisors. His hands slid round my waist. Our kisses were like strange dogs circling one another, all tension and avid curiosity and barely concealed teeth. Then he slid his hands up the front of my top to cup the bare breasts beneath and I broke away with a gasp, arching my spine as he caught at my nipples. He pulled me up sharply against him, pushing up my blouse and putting his lips to my tits. I felt his wet mouth around my nipple and I cried out in helpless delight. I clasped his head and his long locks were damp under my hands but I was damper, down between my splayed thighs. I love having my tits sucked. Sometimes I can even come that way, they’re so sensitive – if the man is right. If he knows what he’s doing.