Darkest Part of the Woods

by Ramsey Campbell

  "I think I learned that at school, but I don't see-"Heather became aware that students were gazing none too patiently at them. "I've lunch in half an hour," she murmured.

  "I guess I can wait that long. I wouldn't want you making too much noise in here when I tell you something."

  Heather didn't know whether the remark was simply an expression of pique, but it distracted her from the book she was scanning into the computer. The second time she glanced at her watch to confirm that it had yet to be one o'clock, Randall said "Slip away now if you want to. I'll hold the fort till we're relieved."

  The sisters' breath manifested itself as they emerged into the late November air. Thin isolated trees and their very few leaves looked embedded in the ice sheet of the sky. Sylvia was silent as she led the way past clumps of scarfed students. "You've been busy," Heather eventually said.

  "How do you mean?"

  Heather could have meant Sylvia's research on their father's behalf, or her visiting Lennox more often than Heather did, or helping Margo to collect material to carve and generally helping her at the studio, or driving Sam to and from work in exchange for being lent his car. "I need to make up for all the time I've been away," Sylvia apparently answered herself.

  "I understand," said Heather and at once was less sure, given Sylvia's odd brief smile, that she did.

  Students and a few health-conscious oldsters occupied most of the rough bare tables in Peace & Beans, but a table for two had just been vacated by a pair of worthy dons. Sylvia saved the places while Heather brought over a trayful of falafel and Bombay potatoes and various items all called salads. "Do you want to eat first?" Sylvia said, producing her notepad from her canvas bag.

  "Tell me what you think is interesting."

  Sylvia splayed her fingers on the midriff of her loose denim overalls before leafing through the pad. "There's a reference around the time Arthur was supposed to have lived, and that's centuries earlier than the place got its name. The Good Man was meant to guide anyone who got lost in the woods, especially at night."

  "Sounds like a decent chap to meet."

  Sylvia paused long enough to be discarding a response. "It's often placatory, that kind of name. Up in Scotland Goodman's Croft is the devil's ground, dad says."

  "He'd mean that's what people deluded themselves into believing."

  "Not any longer." Before Heather could decide if she wanted that elucidated, Sylvia said

  "Actually, your book doesn't quite say the Good Man guided people.

  It says he made them a path. You'd wonder how he did and where it led, wouldn't you?"

  "I

  wouldn't,

  no."

  "Okay then, try this. In about the thirteenth century there were stories of a Mr. Goodman who wouldn't let wealthy travellers pass the woods till they left something for the poor. Only I think the bit about the poor may have been added for safety, because I found this as well."

  Sylvia turned the page and read, "'For some decades the route past Goodman's Wood in Gloucestershire was avoided after dark for fear of a man or other creature which was reputed to pursue the unwary faster than a horse could gallop.' "

  "What on earth is that from?"

  "Old English Traditions, 1863," said Sylvia, underlining the attribution so vigorously that her fingernail scratched the page. "I hope you don't think I'm making any of this up."

  "I'm sure you aren't if you say you aren't, but I don't understand why you're so pleased with it."

  "Because it's been waiting for someone to put it together."

  "You're pleased because you're the first person who has, you mean."

  "I don't know that I am," Sylvia admitted. "Here's something from a midsummer masque that was performed in Gloucester: 'Come man and maid, come dance and sing!

  But stray not into Goodman's ring,

  Lest spirits of the air and earth

  Play midwife at their sibling's birth,'" she read, and gazed expectantly at Heather. "You know where that was, don't you, the ring?"

  "I don't think we can be sure."

  "You ought to read some of your books," Sylvia said and clasped her hands over her midriff as though to contain her impatience. "There's one called A Description of a Journey through the English Shires on Foot and Horseback."

  "I was scanning it the other day. I don't remember anything in it like that."

  "Then you can't remember this," Sylvia said, enclosing a paragraph with her fingers and thumbs like a gate until Heather craned to read.

  I have it from the indefatigable Mr. Lyndsey, who had it from a Grandam of the Shire, that in bygone Years the Traveller betwixt Berkeley and Gloucester might spy within the Woods West of the Roman Road the Crown of a Dwelling taller than the Trees and circular in Section. What Occurrence laid this Folly low, the Grandam would not tell.

  "Don't say you don't know where that was," Sylvia said.

  "Where you used to run off when I was supposed to be in charge of you, you mean."

  "Our secret place."

  "Only because mother would have been unhappy knowing we'd gone that far into the woods. It didn't matter that the place had been made safe."

  "You liked it too," Sylvia insisted. "You liked pretending it was a circus ring with all sorts of strange animals. And sometimes it was a moat around a fairy castle, or the inside was the top of the highest mountain or an island that had just risen out of the sea after millions of years. Sometimes the ring was just a path we walked round and round and tried to see what was around us, only all you ever said was it made you dizzy. I never believed that was all."

  Heather found it disconcerting to have forgotten most of that, and felt defensive as she pointed at the notepad. "Sylvie, what's all this for?"

  "Dad wanted it, if you remember."

  "Of course I do, but what use is it to him? How is it going to affect him?"

  "He isn't getting high on it if that's what you're afraid of. It's more like it confirms what he thought."

  "How can that be good, Sylvie?" Heather lowered her voice and thrust her head forward.

  "What's the point of letting him think what he imagines is true? That isn't going to bring him back."

  "The doctor seems happy with how he is."

  "That's only considering, isn't it? Dad came here to sort out a delusion and ended up its worst victim. Once he'd have said all these references you've found show how there was some kind of mass delusion over the centuries. I expect he'd have written a wonderful chapter about it, possibly even a book. Now all he's doing is storing it up inside his head, and how do we know what shape it's taking? Isn't there anything you might want to keep from him?"

  That appeared to provoke a reaction, though none that Heather would have hoped for.

  Sylvia jerked a hand away from her midriff and pressed her fingers to her lips and stood up so abruptly the chair tottered on her behalf. As it clattered to a standstill she vanished into the toilets that exhibited above their entrance a plaque carved with leeks. Heather gave several diners who'd witnessed the incident a grin that tried not to look too perplexed while she considered following her sister. She was gathering their bags when Sylvia reappeared, her forehead glistening with traces of water she'd splashed on her face. Heather dabbed them away with a paper napkin as Sylvia sat down, gazing steadily at her.

  "What's wrong?" Heather said.

  "Why does anything have to be wrong?"

  "I don't know if it has to, but it looks as if it was."

  "I'm okay now. I hope you're going to eat some more, otherwise I'll feel guilty for dragging you here."

  "You didn't. I'll have some more if you do."

  "I may in a while. Right now I'm wondering what I may end up eating."

  "Sorry, you're saying you've had enough of being vegetarian?"

  "I don't know if I have or not. I should think you'd know how it is."

  At last Heather grasped what her sister's gaze was willing her to realise. Her mouth fell open, she had no idea in what s
hape. "Sylvie, you're saying..."

  "There's going to be another price."

  That would have been how it sounded to anyone who overheard, but not to Heather.

  "With a capital P," she cried.

  "I expect he'll need one of those, or she will."

  Heather felt as if the entire restaurant had brightened-as if her face might be capable of lighting it up. "So you didn't just bring yourself home."

  "Right, I've got a passenger."

  "When did you know?"

  "Not long. No need to whisper, Heather. Soon everyone's going to realise."

  Nevertheless Heather kept her voice low. "Does the father?"

  "I don't see any reason."

  "He won't be entering the picture, then."

  "He's already in it as much as he's going to be."

  "Does he have a name at least?"

  "Sure, and he'll be keeping it. I don't need to take it from him. Are you saying you want it?"

  "Not if you'd rather I didn't have it."

  "Let's try not to keep things from each other except that one." Sylvia stared at the laden table and rubbed her lips hard with her knuckles. "Do you mind if we make a move? I've looked at enough food for a while. Pretty soon I guess I'll start eating for two and then I won't have much choice."

  Heather took her elbow to guide her between the tables. The sisters' breaths turned to mist as they stepped out of the restaurant, and she wished Sylvia had worn a coat instead of a denim jacket. At least she should have clothes for every season now that her three cases of luggage had been delivered. Heather was ushering her towards the refuge of the university, though not so fast it might make her ill, when Sylvia said "How do you think mom will take it?"

  "I'm sure she'll be as delighted as I am. She was when Sam was the news."

  "You were married though, weren't you? You had a husband to show her."

  "I don't think she's ever been that old-fashioned. Not too many people are these days."

  "I don't want to get her agitated when she's exhibiting next week. Do you think we should leave telling her till she's finished meeting her public?"

  "All right, it can be our secret," Heather said, reaching for Sylvia's hand. It was colder than she liked, and thin as twigs. "It'll be like old times," said Heather.

  "Here's to their return," Sylvia said and gripped her hand until Heather felt her sister's bones.

  12

  More Than a Shadow

  THE Tottenham Gallery was on Tottenham Court Road. Though - the thoroughfare was almost as busy as Oxford Street at one end and Euston Road at the other, Heather had the impression that it was being visited by trees. As she followed Margo up the shallow concrete steps to the plate-glass doors, a second car with a Christmas tree strapped to its roof passed in the midst of the traffic, while in the window of an electronics shop at least a dozen televisions were displaying a tree in a snowstorm as though they were ornaments that had just been stirred up.

  Even the top of the Post Office Tower above the roofs resembled a tree-stump elevated towards the frostily glittering sky. Through the tall wide knee-high window of the gallery Heather saw a gratifying crowd of people bunched in front of Margo's paintings or gathered around her glassed-in carvings. A few viewers had brought their glasses of champagne onto the steps for the duration of a cigarette. Heather did her best to overhear comments on the exhibition, but nobody seemed to be talking about it; one slim young woman in a long dress as black as herself was wholly occupied in fingering a whine out of the rim of her glass. Heather thought the doorman, a bulk in evening dress but with a bouncer's shaven head and studiedly neutral flattened face, might have intervened on behalf of the glass instead of halting Margo with a thick upraised palm. "May I see your invitation, madam?" he said in not too much of an East End accent.

  "Lucinda didn't send any," Margo said. "I'm Margo Price."

  "That's the artist."

  "The girl of the moment, that's me."

  His immediate response was to render his face still more noncommittal before opening the left-hand door for her. Sam was letting his mother and Sylvia precede him when the doorman treated them to the sight of his palm. "Can you show me your invitations?" he said.

  "They're my family," Margo told him. "They're with me."

  "Sorry, madam, but it's one guest per invited person. That's because of the numbers they're expecting to attend."

  "I'm glad to hear I'm doing so well, and I know you're only doing your job, but this is ridiculous. Where's Lucinda?"

  As the smokers grew hushed with interest in Margo or in the argument, Sam said "I can see your exhibition next time I visit dad. I expect he'll want to see it anyway. I'll take the train and meet you all back home."

  "That's kind, Sam, but it doesn't solve the problem," Heather said, thinking yet again that he hadn't been so restless on a journey since he was a small child.

  "There'd still be one too many."

  "That can be me," Sylvia said at once. "I'll come down when Sam does."

  "You're both very thoughtful."

  Heather was wondering if Margo had concealed any hurt in that, and reminding herself not to ask after Sylvia's condition until they were alone, when both doors were opened at arms'

  length by a woman more middle-aged than her ankle-length backless silver-scaled dress and carelessly cropped ash-blonde hair were designed to make her appear. "Margo dearest," she cried. "Why are you hovering out there? Come and raise a glass to yourself."

  "Not unless my family can too, Lucinda. Apparently they aren't allowed in without tickets."

  "Most emphatically they are. Did I forget to tell you they were imminent, George?

  Apologies to all."

  "No problem, Mrs. Hunt," the doorman said with a butler's discreet cough. "Can't think of everything."

  "File in, do," Lucinda Hunt urged. "Nobody's more welcome. Quick, while there's bubbly."

  She strode flashing like a collection of knives through the crowd to a table bearing flutes of champagne and tumblers of orange juice. "Anyone not tippling?" she enquired.

  "I'm not much," Heather said.

  "You're a great deal," Margo protested. "All my family is."

  "I'll take an orange juice," Sylvia said.

  "Aren't you going to help me celebrate when Heather's driving?"

  "I feel like I'm still travelling when I've been on the road."

  "At least someone isn't going to make it look as if I'm drinking more than my guests,"

  Margo commented, for Sam had already picked up and half emptied a flute.

  Heather waited to be handed one and strolled after Sylvia to murmur in her ear "Is that all that's wrong, what you said?"

  "I had to give mom some kind of explanation. You ought to know why I'm staying clear of alcohol."

  "Just trying to look after my sister."

  "You don't need to here. It's almost like being back inside mom."

  While Heather wouldn't have phrased it quite in those terms, she supposed her experience wasn't altogether unlike Sylvia's. The first room of the exhibition was so full of familiar images-even the original of the impossible tree in her hall-that she found it felt positively comfortable. The next room represented Margo's English period, and the third contained all that year's work. Heather made for that one, only to frown at herself-surely only at herself.

  She'd seen most of the pieces in Margo's studio, and had thought them her mother's best work: carvings that conveyed a sense of the infinite contained within the small, a quality Heather loved in the paintings. Now the carvings looked like no more than they used to be, pieces of deadwood whose shape Margo had elaborated, perhaps over-elaborated. Heather told herself she was exhausted by driving and, worse, by parking. She was circling one sculpture after another in an increasingly anxious solitary dance when a woman said "She's lost it, hasn't she?"

  She was frowning delicately at Margo's latest piece. Her thin pale long-chinned face was framed by a pair of dangling ringlets that pret
ended to have escaped from the mass of black curls packed on her scalp. "I didn't mind some of her earlier product," her companion admitted, his mouth almost hidden by the upper portion of a clump of reddish hair that would have covered his raw pate.

  "Her Escher period, you mean."

  "But now here she is trying to get up to the same tricks."

  "Bad planning on someone's part to let us see how she repeats herself."