Darkest Part of the Woods

by Ramsey Campbell

  The cover gave a creak and a thump as if she'd raised a lid. The words it exposed made her draw in a breath she had virtually to spit out to rid herself of the smell. Nat. Selcouth,. His Journall. Of course n was a coincidence-even less, perhaps, since Sylvia must have been as concerned to track the name down as she was - but hardly one she liked. "Where did you say you found this?"

  "Don't worry, we didn't steal it," said Sylvia, lowering herself onto the edge of Sam's bed. "More like the opposite."

  Heather might have turned the question on Sam, who'd ventured as far as the threshold of his room, if asking in front of her sister wouldn't have seemed distrustful. She turned the page, which felt disconcertingly vital, more like foliage or ancient skin.

  I who am named for my Quallities shall here sette down the Historie of my Discoveries, that he who is to followe may carrie the Worke onwards.

  That was the first line, and as much as she could concentrate on reading; the thick spiky handwriting seemed to gather like blackness somewhere behind her eyes. She picked up the journal to leaf through it and glimpsed a dim shape vaster than the woods raising itself out of the trees. She didn't need to look to know it was a reflection while she was preoccupied with the stifling smell of the book and with the feel of the binding, as cold and slippery as fallen leaves in winter but borrowing warmth from her hands. None of these was the reason why she almost threw the book down. She'd ceased turning the pages, not just to stop the letters swarming like insects across her vision but because she'd happened upon an illustration. From life, the inscription said.

  Though it couldn't be, the drawing was dreadful enough. It showed a shape crouched in what must be a glade, suggested by a background of a few sketched trees. Above the naked childish body, which appeared to resemble cracked mossy bark and which was gripping the earth with unequal hands at the end of elongated arms, a head that looked painfully large for the extended neck was upturned to a sky displaying an elaborate pattern of stars. The wide mouth was baring far too many teeth in a grin that could have expressed delight or agony - the lack of eyes made it impossible to tell. The entire

  upper half of the head was honeycombed with sockets from which insects were streaming, unless those were eyes A few of the sockets were inhabited by objects that apparently had failed to achieve their final shape.

  Heather shut the volume and restrained herself from dropping it on Sam's desk.

  She had no doubt that, whatever his background and the culture of his times, the man calling himself Selcouth must have been more deranged than her father. The smell that seemed to fill the room was enough to make her say "You won't be keeping this in here, will you?"

  Sylvia held out her hands When Heather reluctantly entrusted the journal to her, Sylvia clasped it to her stomach as if one might be a shield for the other. "It can live in my room," she said "Don't you think the university would be the proper place for it?"

  "Not when you might have students who set fire to books," Sylvia said and managed to stand up while hugging the journal.

  Heather watched her bear it to her room and heard the muffled thump as it settled on their father's desk. For the moment she could think of nothing to say except "Let's have dinner."

  At least that should tempt Sylvia and Sam away from their find for a while. Perhaps Heather had too much imagination after all, because just then she could think of no book she would less like to open again, ever in her life.

  25.

  Nowhere But Home

  Sam had no idea how long he'd been climbing the steps. He only knew he was unable to climb fast enough. He kept thinking he could hear or had just heard a voice calling him out of the dark. Now and then, as his hand groped over the curve of the wall, it encountered openings that were darker still, from which objects attempting to resemble hands reached out to help him on his way. He had an impression that they were somehow related to him. Either his eyes were changing or the darkness was growing less subterranean, since he was beginning to distinguish the edges of the steps. He very much hoped he wouldn't have to pass another cell and glimpse whatever made its home within. No, the steps were coming to an end above him. An aperture that put him in mind of a grave framed a sky black as burial except for a solitary constellation that looked in danger of flickering its last, and he knew the silhouette that loomed at the top of the steps was calling him towards that blackness. He found himself straining to name the constellation rather than recognise the silhouette's face. The Eye of the Void, he thought, or Night's Egg, but he was unable to stop trudging upwards.

  The stars appeared to merge with the shadowed face and glitter in its eyes for an instant before he awoke.

  The silhouette above him was still calling him As his body struggled to decide which way to retreat his gaze focused, and the outline against the daylight developed features.

  "Sylvia's here," she promised, then frowned at him "What's wrong?"

  "I didn't know where I was."

  "With me."

  "No, down some steps Too many steps and too dark."

  She gazed at him while her frown lingered over vanishing-she could have been miming comprehension on his behalf. "Perhaps it'll come to you," she eventually said "I'd rather it stayed away." The presence of her bulge above him had started to discomfort him, so that it was partly to hasten the end of their conversation that he said "Was I making a noise?"

  "One I haven't often heard a man make."

  "That's why you came in?"

  "It would have been, but somebody wants you."

  By no means for the first time, Sam had a sense that talking to his aunt resembled descending a series of steps that weren't all where they should be.

  "Who

  does?"

  "Mr. Harvey. Your father "

  Sam began to swing his legs out from beneath the quilt, only to realise he was naked.

  "Now, you mean?"

  "He didn't sound like he was going away." For a moment she seemed arrested by her bulk, and then she bore it from the room As Sam shrugged his way into his bathrobe and knotted the belt.

  He heard her plod downstairs to announce "He was having some kind of a dream, but I think I've retrieved him."

  When he took the phone from her it proved to be almost feverishly warm. "I'll be reading," she said, hauling herself upstairs "Are you there, old fellow'" his father's voice said against his ear "I must be."

  "Busy with a dream, were you?"

  "It was busy with me."

  "Do I get to hear what it was about?"

  "Nothing special," Sam said in the hope that would cause it to dissipate.

  "Not the sort you need to stay in bed for, then."

  "What sort's that?"

  "Just change the subject if the girls can hear." When Sam could think of no reply his father said "Never mind, let me. Maybe we can bring a dream true for you."

  "Which one?" Sam asked with an uneasiness that seemed to have been his companion for months.

  "Remember what you told me in the pub before Christmas?"

  That felt unnervingly distant both in time and space. "I'm not! sure," Sam admitted.

  "You won't have forgotten your wizard in the woods that were bigger than they ought to be and the chap who dug his secrets up, will you? What was the name again?"

  Sam's lips moved before he knew what they would utter, couth?" he mumbled.

  "That's another good one. Worth keeping in mind, I'd say. The one you told me was Bosky, though. See, it's lodged in the old man's head, and it didn't seem to go down at all badly with the girl I met last night at a party."

  If Sam had been some use to his father's love life, that merely confused him further.

  "Who was she?" he supposed he had to ask.

  "Fay Sheridan. She's in publishing. You never know, she may publish your book."

  "You mean the one I'm never going to write."

  "Didn't catch that, old fellow. You sound as if you're still half asleep. Are you going to be awake to drive to town?" />
  "Brichester? What for?"

  "Not there, Sam. The real town, the one that makes things happen. Fay wants to meet you."

  "I've got nothing to show her."

  "Except the most important item."

  Sam was unable to bring anything to mind except the old book Sylvia had acquired somewhere while he wasn't with her. "Which is that?" he heard himself blurt "Sam Harvey.

  Sam Price if you prefer," his father said with affectionate impatience. "Fay's looking for a new assistant. Her current chap is moving up the ladder in a few weeks. She likes her assistant to be new to publishing so she can give him her ideas. You'll never have a better chance to learn what you need to know from someone who wants to teach. Will you see her this afternoon?"

  "Can't she wait?"

  "You don't want that, Sam. Now I've talked you up we need to get you two together in a meeting soonest. Without promising too much, maybe she won't have to see anyone else."

  "I'll need to call her," Sam said as if this might somehow release him "No you don't. I told her I'd call only if you couldn't make it. She's at Midas Books, just off Oxford Circus," his father said. "Ready for the address?"

  Sam was about to discover aloud that he had no means of writing it down when he caught sight of a ballpoint lodged under the phone. He couldn't very well not use it to scrawl on his wrist the details his father dictated. For a moment the action felt capable of reviving a memory, but not while he was preoccupied with wondering when he'd last made a decision of his own. He seemed forever to be performing what one or other of his family required of him, and it scarcely helped to hear his father say not just "Good luck" but "Can I offer a piece of advice?"

  "I expect you can "

  "Just relax and be yourself. Fay's interested in you, so tell her all about yourself, especially your ambitions. She likes people that want to climb. She's happy to give them a hand up "

  Sam was puzzling over how his father could appeal to her on that basis when he realised she might relish his father's ambition for him.

  This seemed merely to confirm his status as a puppet, even before his father said "Can I have a promise in exchange for the advice?"

  "What?"

  "Nothing too unreasonable." Having sounded as though Sam's response was a minor injury, his father healed himself. "That's it, stay in control," he said. "Never agree to anything till you know what it is. I was only going to ask you to give me a call when you've seen Fay."

  "I can do that," Sam told them both.

  "That's all I ask," his father said, which was so unlike the truth that Sam didn't trust himself to pronounce more than half a goodbye. The receiver was still occupied when he dropped it on the hook and limped upstairs to the bathroom.

  Usually shaving helped wake him up, but today it involved too much staring at a face that had no ideas to give him. He ended its act with the shower curtains and ducked under the shower, holding his left forearm more or less clear of the water. A few drops found his wrist and trickled down it, smudging the ink. That failed to render the address illegible, and in any case he hadn't forgotten that it was in All Souls Place. When he dabbed his wrist, having dried the rest of himself, some of the ink transferred itself to the towel, but the letters retained their shapes. He limped to his bedroom and donned clothes that had been good enough for the university and the bookshop, then rapped on his aunt's door.

  "If I'm not home for dinner tell mum I've had to go to London."

  Perhaps his aunt had been reading her book; its ancient sweetish smell came with her to the door. "Your father's fixed you up with someone, then," she said.

  "She works in publishing." His aunt could hardly be jealous, Sam told himself.

  "He thinks he's found me a job," he told her.

  "And has he?"

  "That's what I'm going to find out."

  "We'll have to see how far you go," Sylvia said, clasping her midriff.

  "Only Oxford Circus."

  "It doesn't sound far, does it? What do you think?"

  "I should be there in a couple of hours."

  She glanced down before shaking her head as if she hadn't meant the questions for him.

  "Natty doesn't know"

  Sam found this worse than embarrassing "I'd better move," he said "He's anxious to leave us, isn't he? What shall we say to him?"

  Sam told himself that she was only playing the kind of game expectant mothers played, but he had an uneasy sense of interrupting as he said "I'll see you."

  "That's for sure," his aunt said, resting her hands on either side of her midriff as though to indicate she wasn't speaking solely for herself Sam limped downstairs and out of the house.

  Only the lowness of the sun and the length of the shadows demonstrated that it was still January on the trees buds had started to unfurl As he opened the gates and closed them after driving the Volkswagen onto the road, three neighbours whom he vaguely knew watched him from the corner of Pine Grove All the way to the end of Woodland Close. The car refused to do more than chug, giving them a generous amount of time to stare unfavourably at him He was far less aware of them and of the streets around him than of the woods he would soon reach Perhaps that was at least partly the fault of the old book his aunt had insisted on reading to him. Its smell seemed to cling to his nostrils as its words clung to his mind. One passage in particular kept repeating itself in his head "Lesser even than the task of summoning human vessels to receive the fruits of my studies is the calling of the void upon their minds, that they surrender to my forest all memory of the encounter "This seemed to have some relevance Sam preferred not to acknowledge. He steered one-handed while he bared his inscribed wrist "All Souls Place," he read aloud as if that might blot out the echoes of Sylvia and her book The last cottages fled backwards, exposing the woods Under a sky that looked seared pale as bone. The trees had acquired an elusive greenishness, which must be the beginnings of leaves but which reminded him more of mist and lichen. Strips of haze appeared unusually reluctant to drain into the roadway as he sped towards them, especially outside the Arbour, where he could have imagined something had produced the trail by creeping across the tarmac.

  Beyond it the tail end of a lorry quaked and grew gelatinous. As the woods swarmed past the car he was unable to rid himself of an impression that a presence composed of or otherwise hidden by all the trees was turning to keep him in view. "Surrender to my forest..."

  He might have thought that it wasn't Sylvia's voice he was hearing or that she was speaking on someone else's behalf.

  Once he was on the motorway his imagination would have to let him concentrate on driving, he tried to promise himself.

  The trees swung away to his right at last, fitting themselves into the mirror above the oncoming motorway, and he felt as if they were shrinking in order to fasten the whole of their clawed tangled mass on his mind. "Surrender to my forest..." Perhaps it was the repetition of the phrase that made the voice seem increasingly babyish. A tremor passed through the reflection of the woods, but he couldn't tell whether that was an effect of haze or a shudder of the mirror.

  Then the trees were blotted out by a lorry, its elongated trailer swaying as the cab towered over his back.

  The driver was too busy not just talking to but gesturing with a mobile phone to brake as he herded Sam onto the motorway. Sam trod hard on the accelerator, but for a moment that felt like the end of his breath was sure he hadn't enough of a reserve of speed to outdistance the traffic the motorway unleashed at him. The coach he braved gave him an earful of its horn and swung into the middle lane well after it had finished growing too huge for his mirror. The quiet that followed it was relative at best, full of the muffled hum of tyres, and there was nothing like silence inside him, though the babyish voice had changed its refrain. "The calling of the void,"

  it was repeating now.

  "Dead Souls Place," Sam muttered. "Fay what's her name, I'll remember when I get there or she'll tell me "Minus Books "He was misspeaking the address on p
urpose so as not to be as boringly repetitive as the voice he was unable to outrun, but he could have blamed everything around him for distracting him Even when he lowered the windscreen visor all the way it failed to blot out the sun, which ached in his eyes as though it was committed to forcing him to retreat Whenever he tried to slow down, yet another lorry gained on him, swerving ahead of him at the last possible moment and blaring its horn as a bonus. He felt he wasn't driving so much as being driven, but to where?

  "Dead," he mumbled, "Fay however you spell it, some kind of book," and was pointed at by one of several children in the back of an overtaking Toyota, all of whom then turned to stare at him for talking to himself as he could imagine his grandfather might have. He didn't have to grope in his mind for the details when the address was on his wrist. He gripped the wheel with his right hand and shook his left forearm clear of its sleeve, then raised the arm towards his eyes. The Volkswagen wavered between the lines that marked the motorway lane and was wandering onto the hard shoulder before he clutched at the wheel with both hands. He glanced wildly up from his wrist to reassure himself he wasn't too close to the Toyota as its brake lights throbbed twice to herald the next junction, and then he glared hot-eyed at the ink on his wrist. Sweat had blurred it so much he couldn't distinguish a single letter. A random scattering of twigs, or rather the marks they and moisture might have left on him, would have made as much sense The Toyota veered up the slip road, and the children did their utmost to transform the faces they were presenting to him into objects he wouldn't have cared to meet in the dark. He was just too late to follow them off the motorway in search of a public phone, and could have imagined they were mocking his plight-they and the relentless lowness of the sun, the traffic swelling in the mirror, the utterance that felt embedded in his skull "The calling of the void "It could have been his aunt's voice imitating a child or the reverse He'd lost count of the number of times he had failed to quell the repetition by the time he came in sight of the next junction. At the end of the slip road an intersection showed him the Severn to the west, where it made the horizon look bared. He saw little between it and him except fields, and so he drove left along a road that set about winding to no immediately or even belatedly apparent purpose.