In Fallen Woods

by R N Merle

  As John had said, she could find somewhere to be alone, but was it true that she was missing something? The ‘love’ word kept creeping back into her mind. The words in Vardyn’s rules about love had always had a fearful hold over Darklin…

  “Beware the trap of love; it is the most treacherous trap of all. Most love is false, an illusion. Obligation, familiarity, pity, admiration, attraction, affection, lust and infatuation are all mistaken as love.

  Love, when it does exist, and it is not common, makes a person its slave, and it is a most cruel master. Real love is the blackest curse to fall under, and will lead to untold misery. You must never succumb to love, never let it take root in your heart in the guise of liking or regard. Love will destroy you. Turn your heart to stone.”

  Love was forbidden by the rules, the same as daylight. But after feeling the sun, Darklin didn’t want to be without it ever again, would it be the same if she ever felt love?

  Should she at least find out if love was real, and if it was worth living alongside others for, even if it led to her destruction? Could love be more important than power and freedom? There was so much to think about, and the knowledge she had now couldn’t give her the answers she needed. John was right, to discover what was real, she would have to find out for herself. But even if she tried, how could she ever know; who in the world was there to love her?

  The next time Darklin found John, he was lying in the shadow of an oak tree at the edge of the sheep’s pasture. The day was wrapped in June heat, the sun relentless and idle making.

  Darklin had taken off her cloak and rolled back her sleeves, offering her starkly white arms to the light. She had spent the previous night sitting in the rain, pretending to be in Fallenoak, and she had been cold and damp ever since. She was relieved that she had got away with another night of lying to Gressyl.

  She positioned herself outside the tree’s shade, welcoming the fierce strength of the sun to warm her bones. She sat cross legged, plucking strands of grass with her fingertips.

  ‘What you said about love… Is it really worth that much? Gressyl says it only makes people wretched.’

  John considered the question.

  ‘There are many kinds of love. Love for God, and family and friends, the love between a man and a women,’

  Darklin noticed the pink of John’s cheeks intensify as he spoke.

  ‘It is the greatest treasure anyone can possess. That is what my father told me.’

  She noted the sound of his voice, the tone was deep and seemed laden with the weight of unspoken thoughts.

  ‘Gressyl says, when love exists you are either it’s manipulator or its victim.’

  John placed the end of a long stem of grass between his lips, and stared out to the field beyond where his flock were grazing, as if somewhere out there he would discover the answer. His brows gathered in contemplation.

  ‘I think what I am trying to tell you, is that love itself is not to blame for how folk can abuse it. It is true there are people who do abuse the bond of love, but love, when the motives of the people involved are pure, cannot do harm.’

  ‘You said love was a bond, a trap?’

  ‘A bond which cannot be broken, nor should you want it to break. To love and be loved is what is most precious.’

  ‘But what is love, what does it mean, how do you know it is real?’ she asked, lost in words she couldn’t apply meanings to.

  John closed his eyes. Realising he was going to take a moment to answer, Darklin’s eyes darted straight to his face, rushing unguarded over his features; his dark lashes resting against his flushed cheek, the curves of his lips, the sheen on his neck, the opening of his white shirt, the rise and fall of his chest. His beauty made her feel light inside, like she was made of thousands of fizzing, glittering bubbles that were coursing around her body, desperate for a way out. Her breath caught in her throat and she forced herself to look away. He took a few minutes before he slowly opened his eyes.

  ‘It is a feeling.’ he replied. ‘I’m not sure how to explain… It is a wish to protect, to care for. To banish their distress, to always want to be near them, to do what makes them happy, in spite of their faults and wrong doings.’

  ‘And the love between a man and a woman, is that different?’ Darklin murmured. She wanted to know, but for reasons she didn’t understand, it made her feel uncomfortable to ask.

  ‘Being in love?’ John coloured slightly again. ‘I… It, it is something more, so I am told. People say being in love is like magic, like being put under a spell. The person you are in love with becomes the most important thing in your world. Every thought is occupied by them, you feel elated just to be near them.’

  ‘And you become bound in marriage?’

  ‘If they feel the same way, then yes.’

  ‘Gressyl says that marriage is always regretted.’

  John frowned, ‘I suppose some may regret it. Some may be better off parting. But some, like my parents, are only happy together, and they keep their happiness, sometimes for a lifetime.’ John’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Where are your parents?’ Darklin asked him.

  John’s face looked suddenly drained and sad. ‘There was a flood, about a year ago. Overnight the river washed over our land, and when we woke in the morning my mother and father had disappeared. They must have been swept away by the water. We never found them.’

  Darklin recognised his sorrow, it pained her own heart. She wished away the look in John’s eyes.

  ‘That is how I know love is real. When it is gone…it takes and leaves something. The absence of it is always present, like an un-healing wound.’

  They sat for a while with only the sounds of birdsong in the nearby trees. Darklin closed her eyes and tilted her head toward the sun. After a few minutes, John said drowsily,

  ‘You better come into the shade, you don’t want to burn.’

  ‘The sun will burn me, because I am a witch?’ cried Darklin, believing she was about to burst into a fiery ball of savage flames. She scrambled into the protection of the tree’s shadow.

  John smiled slightly. ‘Not because you are a witch, because you are so fair. Everyone gets sunburnt, it will make your skin red and sore.’

  Darklin was filled with dread. ‘Am I burnt? Will Gressyl be able to see it?’

  John sat up and studied her, then slowly drew the back of his hand toward her face, and gently laid it on the skin covering her left cheekbone that had been fully facing the sun.

  Darklin became rigid under his touch. She could not remember a time that she had felt another person’s skin; just as she began to sense it was something not unpleasant, he took his hand away.

  ‘It feels a little warm. You might look flushed, but she won’t be able to tell it is from the sun.’

  Darklin took a moment to compose herself. She thought she had tempted fate enough for one day, and felt that she should get back to the house before anything else could go wrong.

  ‘I brought back the animals.’ she said, drawing them out from the deep pocket of her cloak. ‘Do they belong to James?’

  ‘They belong to each of us, we have all played with them. My father made them for us.’

  Darklin studied the figures; the stag with regal antlers, the details of the rabbit’s paws, the squirrel’s whiskers, the spines of the hedgehog, the feathers of the owl. She placed them carefully, one after the other on the grass in the space between them.

  ‘There is love in them, isn’t there? In the time he took to carve them,’ Darklin said slowly.

  John looked relieved, almost grateful.

  ‘I believe there is.’ he said with a smile.

  For days Darklin thought about love and what it meant. Gressyl had said it was a rare thing, but Darklin realised in John’s life at least, it was handed out generously and without fear. When she looked back on the time that she had watched his family, she saw now clearly; it was love that kept them safe, and made them impervious to her efforts, and it was love that
she had been trying to kill and couldn’t. Still, it was something John had suffered for, she couldn’t forget the look she had seen in his eyes when he had spoken about losing his parents. The tiny grains of truth in Gressyl’s words could never be completely washed away, and remained an irritant in Darklin’s mind, whenever she started to think that there might be another way.

  At times, when Darklin was completely alone in the privacy of the woods, she half-fearfully, half fancifully wondered if she loved John. She couldn’t help remembering his words, ‘‘Every thought is occupied by them…’’. Well that was certainly true. Wherever she was, she thought about what he was doing at that exact moment. When she was with him, she stored up his words, his movements and gestures, and later relived them, time after time. And it was exactly like being under a spell, the power that he held over her was unquestionable.

  But even if those things meant that she loved him, she did not want to make herself foolish. She sensed that it was unwise to have her heart and mind so full of someone who would never hold her in the same regard. If she thought of it too long, it became painful. She didn’t know what it was she wanted to happen, but she was sure that it was something that never would.

  Still, excluding deliberations on love, she enjoyed thinking about him and being with him. She envied his easiness. He seemed so unafraid, and there were moments when she was around him that she too felt peaceful, as if his mood was contagious. She thought more and more of how he had touched her, and the way her left cheekbone mysteriously tingled, long after the sunburn had faded and disappeared.

  When only the small blue vase was left, Darklin became desolate. No matter how hard she tried, she could think of no further excuse to keep seeing John. For days she stayed away, delaying the time until she would finally have to say goodbye to him.

  She became listless and vague, paying little attention to the goings on around her. One night, under Gressyl’s orders, Darklin was preparing a potion in the cauldron. She stared at the liquid bubbling on the surface, mesmerised and ignorant of time. She did not even notice when the potion evaporated to burnt dregs, or that the room had filled with the stench of acrid smoke.

  Gressyl rose from her chair in a fury, her cane whipped across Darklin’s cheek before Darklin had realised what was happening. The stunning pain made her unsteady, and she grabbed hold of the mantelpiece to stop herself falling. The witch’s cane lashed down on her hand.

  ‘Wretched girl, you have wasted this potion with your carelessness.’

  Darklin stood with her back against the fireplace. Before fear took hold of her completely, a spark of anger ignited inside her. Why should she care about some useless potion when her heart was breaking? Darklin suddenly understood that losing John was a pain far greater than Gressyl could ever inflict. Her realisation diminished Gressyl’s power, and gave Darklin strength. The initial spark of anger blazed, and quickly overcame the cold dread that usually made her shiver and cower. She could not control her fury; she didn’t want to. Inside her a sudden and earnest hatred for the witch flared, and when Gressyl’s cane came at her again, before it could impact on her body, Darklin caught the knobbly end of it in her left hand.

  Gressyl gasped and tried to pull it out of Darklin’s grasp, but Darklin held on tightly. She glared at Gressyl, and for a wild moment imagined turning the tables and using the cane to beat her. Gressyl’s face was bleached sickly white, and with her black eyes wide with rage, she looked more ghoul than human, but Darklin did not look away. She held Gressyl’s stare until the old woman dropped her eyes to the floor.

  Darklin pushed the cane back towards Gressyl with some force. Darklin was trembling, she couldn’t tell if it was anger or fear. The side of her face throbbed violently, and the sound of ringing filled her ears. She stumbled off to her room, and was grateful to lie down. She truly did not know what had possessed her. She feared what Gressyl would do in retaliation, but found it hard to care when she knew she would say goodbye to John tomorrow. She could not hold on to the vase forever, and she couldn’t go any longer without seeing him. After severing herself from John, dealing with Gressyl, she thought, would be nothing.

  The next day as Darklin headed towards Shadow’s End, she came across John walking rather aimlessly through the woods. She observed him for a moment, unseen, and was curious to see that he was not carrying any tools. He walked slowly, looking carefully about him, sometimes stopping to peer between trees and into the undergrowth. Darklin took a deep breath, feeling the weight of her leaden heart, and approached him. When John saw her, Darklin watched his face express shock, anger and sadness in turn. She realised how hideous her bruised face must look.

  John quickly stepped close to her, and reached his hand towards her face. Darklin flinched slightly as he delicately placed his fingers under her chin to tilt her face toward the light.

  ‘Your mother did this?’ John asked softly. He looked horrified.

  ‘I was not paying attention.’ Darklin shifted her eyes to the ground, uncomfortable to have him study her ugliness.

  ‘Did she hurt you anywhere else?’

  Darklin shrugged, she didn’t understand John’s interest, it happened often enough.

  ‘Just my hand.’

  ‘Show me,’ said John, holding out his hand.

  Darklin timidly placed her damaged hand onto his palm. He winced at the swollen, raw knuckles, and lightly compressed her cold hand between his own. Darklin felt strangely detached from her own body as the warmth of his hands travelled up her arm, and through to her heart. His touch was blissful, at once thrilling and comforting.

  Disquieted, she withdrew her hand, afraid she might start sobbing. ‘I have come to give you the last of the things I stole.’ Darklin said shakily, as tears blurred her vision. ‘When I give it back, you will have no reason to see me again.’

  ‘You would always have a reason to talk to me if we were friends.’ John replied.

  Darklin instantly recalled what Gressyl had told her about friendship, and knew she needed another opinion.

  ‘What do you mean by friends?’ she asked awkwardly.

  ‘A person you enjoy spending time with, a person you look out for, someone you care about, someone you can trust.’

  ‘And you want to be my friend?’ Darklin asked, amazed. Did he really care about her? ‘You trust me?’ she asked incredulously.

  She counted five deafening heartbeats as she waited for his answer.

  ‘I trust you.’ he said. ‘Do you trust me?’

  Darklin knew this was a critical moment. Choosing to be his friend was closing another door on all that she had been taught, on the life that she had led. She would have to trust John with all her heart to help her find what was true and what was real. Instinctively, she already knew her answer.

  ‘Yes.’ she said slowly, her eyes lifting timidly to meet his. He smiled softly.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘then we are friends.’

  13

  The Unfamiliar

  The spell of golden weather was broken by a week of summer rain. It pounded ceaselessly through the woodland canopy, trickling down to freshen even the most sheltered places in the woods, that had not been touched in years. Waiting for the night to pass under the chestnut tree at Shadows End, Darklin sat shivering in the darkness, her sodden cloak wrapped around her tightly, as she listened to the steady thud of raindrops falling on the broad leaves. When she was supposed to be in Fallenoak, it had become her habit to haunt the Somerborne’s garden, lingering there until dawn drew near, and she could return to her bed.

  For many days Darklin had waited for a reprisal from Gressyl, but she had not come within an arm’s length. Neither of them spoke of the incident. Gressyl behaved as if nothing had happened, though Darklin was sure it had been just as unsettling for Gressyl as it had for her. She feared Gressyl’s lack of reaction, convinced it was because she was taking her time to think of an agonising punishment.

  Still, Gressyl was as insistent that Darklin ca
rry out her curses, and Darklin thought it best to appear to comply. She was thankful that the summer nights were short. The late evenings and early dawns did not allow much time to get curses done, and as Gressyl knew this from her own experience, she did not expect too much of Darklin.

  Darklin pulled her hands up into her sleeves, and eyed the house, thinking of how warm John would be inside. The windows downstairs glowed with yellow light, though it was unusually late for the family to be up. Suddenly a pool of light flooded the garden. John appeared at the back door whistling lowly, then stepped into the garden looking all around him.

  Darklin did not think he would spot her crouched in the darkness, but he slowly stepped in her direction. She flattened herself against the enormous tree, hoping he would soon turn back, but he did not. Her face grew hot, and she squirmed in discomfort. She felt herself being engulfed in lantern light, and looked up at him awkwardly.

  ‘Darklin? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Gressyl thinks I have gone to Fallenoak. I was waiting for the time to pass….I’ll find somewhere else now.’

  John looked at her face, first he looked shocked, and then confused. He frowned.

  ‘Why didn’t you knock on the door? I thought we had agreed that we are friends.’

  ‘I did not think of it.’

  John bent down and took hold of Darklin’s hand and gently pulled her to her feet.

  ‘You are our guest,’ he said. ‘You are most welcome. My Lord, your hands are cold! Come and warm them by the fire.’

  Before she had a chance to protest, Darklin felt herself being pulled toward the house.

  ‘I can’t go in, what about your brothers and sisters?’ Darklin cried.

  ‘They are asleep, only Bess is still up.’