The Bone Forest

by Robert Holdstock

  Soon they had formed into a great circle, stretched around the fire and jigging fast and furious to the strident, endless rhythm of drums and violin. All the village danced, and the strangers too, men and women in anoraks and sweaters, and children in woolly hats, and teenagers in jeans and leather jackets, all of them mixed up with the white-and-black clothed Oozers, Pikers, Thackers and the rest.

  Around the burning fire, stumbling and tottering, shrieking with mirth as a whole segment of the ring tumbled in the mud. Around and around.

  The bells, the hammering of sticks, the whine of the violin, the Jack Tar sound of the accordion.

  And at ten o’clock the whole wild dance stopped.

  Silence.

  The men reached down and took the bells from their legs, cast them into the fire. The cudgels, too, were thrown onto the flames. The violins were shattered on the ground, the fragments tossed into the conflagration.

  The accordions wept music as they were slung onto the pyre.

  Flowers out of hair. Bonnets from heads. Rose and lily were stripped off the lych-gate. The air filled suddenly with a sharp, aromatic scent … of herbs, woodland herbs.

  In the silence Ginny walked towards the church, darted through the gate into the darkness of the graveyard … Around between the long mounds to the iron gate …

  Kevin was there. He ran towards her, his eyes wide, wild. “He’s coming!” he hissed, breathlessly.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered.

  “Where are you going?” he said.

  “To the camp. I’m frightened. They’ve stopped dancing. They’re burning their instruments. This happened three years ago when Mary … when … you know …”

  “Why are you so frightened?” Kevin asked. His eyes were bright from the distant glow of the bonfire. “What are you running from, Ginny? Tell me. Tell me. We’re friends …”

  “Something is wrong,” she sobbed. She found herself clutching at the boy’s arms. “Everybody is being so horrible to me. You were horrible to me. What have I done? What have I done?”

  He shook his head. The flames made his dark eyes gleam. She had her back to the square. Suddenly he looked beyond her. Then he smiled. He looked at her.

  “Goodbye, Ginny,” he whispered.

  She turned. Kevin darted past her and into the great mob of masked men who stood around her. They had come upon her so quietly that she had not heard a thing. Their faces were like black pigs. Eyes gleamed, mouths grinned. They wore white and black … the Scarrows.

  Unexpectedly, Kevin began to whine. Ginny thought he was being punished for being out of bounds. She listened, and then for one second … just one second … all was stillness, all was silence, anticipation. Then she reacted as any sensible child would react in the situation.

  She opened her mouth and screamed. The sound had barely echoed in the night air when a hand clamped firmly across her face, a great hand, strong, stifling her cry. She struggled and pulled away, turned and kicked until she realised it was the Mother that she fought against. She was no longer wearing her rowan beads, or her iron charm. She seemed naked without them. Her dress was green and she held Ginny firmly still. “Hold quiet, child. Your time is soon.”

  The iron gate was open. Ginny peered through it, into the darkness, through the grassy walls of the old fort and towards the circle of great elms.

  There was a light there, and the light was coming closer. And ahead of that light there was a wind, a breeze, ice cold, tinged with a smell that was part sweat, part rot, and unpleasant in the extreme. She grimaced and tried to back away, but the Mother’s hands held her fast. She glanced over her shoulder, towards the square, and felt her body tremble as the Scarrows stared beyond her, into the void of night.

  Two of the Scarrows held tall, hazel poles, each wrapped around with strands of ivy and mistletoe. They stepped forward and held the poles to form a gateway between them. Ginny watched all of this and shivered. And she felt sick when she saw Kevin held by others of the Scarrows. The boy was terrified. He seemed to be pleading with Ginny, but what could she do? His own mother stood close to him, weeping silently.

  The wind gusted suddenly and the first of the shadows passed over so quickly that she was hardly aware of its transit. It appeared out of nowhere, part darkness, part chill, a tall shape that didn’t so much walk as flow through the iron gate. Looking at that shadow was like looking into a depthless world of dark; it shimmered, it hazed, it flickered, it moved, an uncertain balance between that world and the real world. Only as it passed between the hazel poles held by the Scarrows, and then into the world beyond, did it take on a form that could be called … ghostly.

  Distantly the priest’s voice intoned a greeting. Ginny heard him say, “Welcome back to Scarugfell. Our pledge is fulfilled. Your life begins again.”

  A second shadow followed the first, this one smaller, and with its darkness and its chill came the sound of keening, like a child’s crying. It was distant, though, and uncertain. As Ginny watched, it took its shadowy form beyond the Scarrows and into the village.

  As each of them had passed over, so the Scarrowmen closed ranks again, but distantly, close to the fire in the square, an unearthly howling, a nightmare wind, seemed to greet each new arrival. What happened to the spirits then, Ginny couldn’t tell, or care.

  Her mother’s hand touched her face, then her shoulder, forced her around again to watch the iron gate. The Mother whispered, “Those two were his kin. They too died for our village a long time ago. But Cyric is coming now …”

  The shadow that moved beyond the gate was like nothing Ginny could ever have imagined. She couldn’t tell whether it was animal or man. It was immense. It swayed as it moved, and it seemed to approach through the darkness in a ponderous, dragging way. Its outlines were blurred, shadow against darkness, void against the glimmering light among the trees. It seemed to have branches and tendrils reaching from its head. It made a sound that was like the rumble of water in a hidden well.

  It seemed to fill her vision. It occupied all of space. Its breath stank. Its single eye gleamed with firelight.

  One was blind … one was grim …

  It seemed to be laughing at her as it peered down from beyond the trees and the earth walls that surrounded the church.

  It pushed something forward, a shadow, a man, nudged it through the iron gate. Ginny wanted to scream as she caught glimpses, within that shadow, of the dislocated jaw, the empty sockets, the crawling flesh. The ragged thing limped towards her, hands raised, bony fingers stretched out, skull face open and inviting … inviting the kiss that Ginny knew, now, would end her life.

  “No!” she shouted, and struggled frantically in the Mother’s grip. The Mother seemed angry. “Even now it mocks us!” she said, then shouted, “Give the Life for the Death. Give it now!”

  Behind Ginny, Kevin suddenly screamed. Then he was running towards the iron gate, sobbing and shouting, drawn by invisible hands.

  “Don’t let him take me! Don’t let him take me!” he cried.

  He passed the hideous figure and entered the world beyond the gate. He was snatched into the air, blown into darkness like a leaf whipped by a storm wind. He had vanished in an instant.

  The great shadow turned away into the night and began to seep back towards the circle of elms. The Mother’s hands on Ginny’s shoulders pushed her forward, towards the ghastly embrace.

  The shadow corpse stopped moving. Its arms dropped. The gaping eyes watched nothing and nowhere. A sound issued from its bones. “Is she the one? Is she my kin?”

  Mother’s voice answered loudly that she was indeed the one. She was indeed Cyric’s kin.

  The shadow seemed to turn its head to watch Ginny. It looked down at her, then reached up and pulled the tatters of a hood about its head. The hood hid the features. The whole creature seemed to melt, to descend, to shrink. Ginny heard the Mother say, “Fifteen hundred years in the dark. Your life saved our village. Our pledge to bring you back is honoured
. Welcome, Cyric.”

  Something wriggled below the tatters of the hood. The Mother said, “Go forward, child. Take the hare. Take him!”

  Ginny hesitated. She glanced around. The Scarrows seemed to be smiling behind their masks. Two other children, both girls, stood there. Each was holding a struggling hare. Her Mother made frantic motions to her. “Come on, Ginny. The fear is ended, now. The day of denial is over. Only you can touch the hare. You’re the kin. Cyric has chosen you. Take it quickly. Bring him over. Bring him back.”

  Ginny stumbled forward, reached below the stinking rags and found the terrified animal. As she raised the brown hare to her breast she felt the flow of the past, the voice, the wisdom, the spirit of the man who had passed back over, the promise to him kept, fifteen hundred years after he had lain down his life for the safety of Scarugfell, also known as the Place of the Mother.

  Cyric was home. The great hunter was home. Ginny had him, now, and he had her, and she would become great and wise, and Cyric would speak the wisdom of the Dark through her lips. The hare would die in time, but Cyric and Ginny would share a human life until the human body itself passed away.

  And Ginny felt a great glow of joy as the images of that ancient land, its forts, its hills, its tracks, its forest shrines, flooded into her mind. She heard the hounds, the horses, the larks, she felt the cold wind, smelled the great woods.

  Yes. Yes. She had been born for this. Her parents had been sacrificed to free her and the Mother had kept her ready for the moment. The nightmare had been Cyric making contact as the Father had brought him to the edge of the dark world.

  The Father! The Father had watched over her, as all in the village had often said he would. It had been the Father she had seen, a rare glimpse of the Lord who always brought the returning Dead to the place of the Lord’s Eve.

  Cyric had come a long, long way home. It had taken time to make the Lord release him and allow Cyric’s knowledge of the dark world back to the village, to help Scarrowfell, and the villages like it keep the eyes and minds of the invader muddled and confused. And then Cyric, too, had waited … until Ginny was of age. His kin. His chosen vehicle.

  Ginny, his new protector, cradled the animal. The hare twitched in her grasp. Its eyes were full of rejoicing.

  She felt a moment’s sadness, then, for poor, betrayed Kevin, but it passed. And as she left the place of the gate she joined willingly in reciting the Lord’s prayer, her voice high, enthusiastic among the rumble of the crowd.

  Our Father, who art in the Forest

  Horned One is Thy name.

  Thy Kingdom is the Wood, Thy Will is the Blood

  In the Glade, as it is in the Village.

  Give us this day our Kiss of Earth

  And forgive us our Malefactions.

  Destroy those who Malefact against us

  And lead us to the Otherworld.

  For Thine is the Kingdom of the Shadow, Thine is the

  Power and the Glory. Thou art the Stag which ruts

  with us, and We are the Earth beneath thy feet.

  Drocha Nemeton

  The Time Beyond Age

  The day before the experiment was scheduled to commence, Martin and Yvonne, our two MAA-grown subjects, were allowed into the observation laboratory for the last time.

  As usual they caused chaos, thundering around the small room, arms flying, bodies taking unexpected turns until every technician in the place was clinging to his or her equipment for dear life. As Martin, a small figure clad all in white, raced past me I made a grab for him and sat him firmly upon the desk by my keyboard. Yvonne squealed (brake-like) and stopped behind me before deciding which way she would jump onto my lap. She chose to arrive from the left; I had been expecting her from the right and her arrival was painful!

  Through her visor she watched me typing. Martin, sitting remarkably still, studied the posters and pictures all around the walls, twisting his protective helmet so that he could see further to each side. I told him not to do that, since the seal would loosen if the helmet were twisted through more than one hundred and eighty degrees.

  I was typing a pre-experimental report for Nature, and was toying to get a decent title. Yvonne watched my fingers at work, every so often adding a letter of her own. Thus I typed:

  NEWZ STU DTITES ON THE AC£CELERATION

  OFXLIFE BY CHEMBIC AL MEANS%

  “What does that say?” she asked, pointing to the line.

  “A little more than I intended,” I replied. Chembical I quite liked. I read the proper title to her and Martin launched himself from the bench, made a motorcycle-like noise, with appropriate hand gestures, and accelerated around the laboratory again. He was stopped by a middle-aged nurse (whose eyes popped open with hilarious effect when the human motorcycle collided with her) who picked him up and carried him, complaining, into the small decontamination cubicle. Coming outside she waited for the air inside to sterilise then snapped instructions to him to disrobe. He complained again, but stripped off his protective suit and the nurse placed her arms into the arm-gloves that reached into the chamber and reduced Martin to hysterics as she tried to administer the various prophylactics with which our two subjects were pumped every day.

  The following morning the experiment began.

  The first stages, of course, were the familiarisation procedures, and our two subjects were introduced to the closed environment that was to be their home for the rest of their natural and unnatural lives. There was something almost depressing in watching the children, conceived, grown and matured to the age of six in a Morris Artificial Amnion, now facing an incarceration in a second womb, this time for good.

  The environment itself was an enclosed area nearly a quarter of a mile wide and exactly a quarter of a mile deep. In the middle, directly outside our laboratory, was a park ground, equipped with trees, benches and bushes. This was the environmental focus and the area within which Martin and Yvonne would be conditioned to spend most of their time. Outside the park was a mock city, houses and offices, detailed on the exterior but empty within. Only ten buildings were complete—the parental homes of our two subjects, their subsequent married homes (two, one far larger than the other) and the offices where they would work during their lives.

  Into this environment they were led and left alone, under a light hypnosis necessary to guard their awareness from the falsity of the city.

  Martin, to our surprise, reacted against the environment in a difficult and worrying way. He lost his sense of security in the open space of the park—it didn’t frighten him, but it made him unhappy and this was something we had not expected to happen.

  I watched him carefully during this acquaintance phase. At first he walked among the trees very slowly, seeming very dubious that anything so irregular could be at all efficient. His examination of the town was almost perfunctory, an acknowledgment of its existence. He returned to the park and I watched him chip bark from the bigger of the two oaks we had grown in the environment. He spent a long time scrutinizing the carefully selected microfauna that seethed beneath the fragment. He had no conception, of course, of the essential artificiality of the ecology, although it was plain to him—and we did not hide the fact, save as regarded the town itself—that the environment was contrived. The extent of our contrivance it was not necessary for him to know for the familiarisation to have its effect.

  Yvonne, by contrast with her chosen mate, warmed immediately to the environment and it was all we could do to get her to return to the laboratory. It became a game—three or four sterile-suited technicians chasing one sterile-suited girl in and out of the shells that comprised the town. In conversation with her later in the evening, as I implanted one more of the interminable number of monitoring devices she would carry to her death, she told me how wonderfully free she had felt sitting on actual grass, picking flowers that were actually growing. It was an unpleasant thought to me that the young girl, knowing only sterility and starkness in the complex prior to this time, was now find
ing in an equivalent piece of unreality all the reality she would ever need. She had yearned to see the outside world, longed for nature and pined, perhaps, for the instinctively realised sensation of wind and rain on her face. Now she was content with a park that encapsulated all her dreams. And she sat in the middle of a construct, half knowing the fact, but finding it completely adequate.

  Yvonne was a very chubby child, round faced and pretty. She had dark brown eyes and she chose to wear her hair in an elaborate display of curls, but had been complaining, as she matured these last months, that her hair was getting greasy. By the time we closed her off in the artificial world beyond our laboratory, she had begun to wear her hair straight, in a style that didn’t suit her. She was growing quite fat, nothing that wouldn’t soon vanish as she grew to adulthood, and it didn’t seem to bother her, whereas Martin was naturally, and almost pathologically, ashamed of his protruding ribs.

  It was May of ’94, a feverish summer forcing itself upon us. The environment looked inviting and in the final weeks when children and technical staff both were in frantic final preparation for Closing Off Day, it was regarded as almost criminal that the cool parklands should be a prohibited area. After all, the disease-free status of the ecology was secured every day, now that Martin and Yvonne were spending time inside without their protective suiting.

  In time, towards August, the atmosphere in the laboratory became almost unbearable as our two subjects underwent full acclimatisation. We watched as they played and explored their new territory, Martin gradually coming to terms with the area, but obviously still unhappy; and as we watched we sweltered and wondered who the true masters of the situation might have been.

  It was at this time that the last member of our team joined us. She was a young woman, Josephine Greystone, only two years out of her basic training, and she brought to the laboratory not only reasonable looks, but a great enthusiasm for biology in general, and it was she who precipitated what were to become almost routine late-night sessions evaluating the utility of biological research as a whole.