Darkest Part of the Woods

by Ramsey Campbell

  "You've all been seen going in and out of there all the time. Everyone except you at least," Jessica said and cocked her head towards a burst of comforting murmurs in the front room. "I'm not saying it is, but that could be why Rosemary imagined whatever she did."

  "Is she getting over it?"

  "She's stopped screaming. She started when we woke her. I know it's meant to be dangerous to."

  The murmurs tailed off, and a small voice protested "I wasn't asleep."

  "You must have been, Rosemary." Jessica gave Heather the sort of look adults shared about children as she confided "She said she was following somebody too tall for words."

  "He was as tall as the sky," the little girl called past a renewed duet of murmuring, "but he kept being long instead like a shadow."

  "If it was a shadow," Jessica said as if a problem had been solved, "it couldn't have had a face like you said."

  "He did. It was like Mr. Price."

  Jessica backed into her hall. "Shall we discuss it another time, Heather?"

  Heather saw that Jessica didn't want Rosemary further disturbed, but she couldn't help feeling cast out. She was risking a smile as she turned away when the little girl said louder than her parents' murmurs "He had a face and he talked to me."

  Heather faltered and failed to keep a question to herself. "What did he say?"

  "I'll speak to you again soon, Heather," Jessica told her. It might've been intended as a warning; the expression she withdrew into the house was disapproving enough. The next moment the door was shut, just not soon enough to prevent Heather from hearing the little girl's words. They had to be her answer to the question Heather would have given a good deal not to have asked. "My child," Rosemary said.

  29

  A Reading from the Dark

  HEATHER lurched awake convinced she'd done something wrong. When she blinked away some of the dark that was glued to her eyes she managed to distinguish that the luminous twigs of the bedside clock showed a number of minutes past three in the morning. She might have drawn reassurance from the familiar charcoal sketch of the outlines of her room if a smell of hoary paper hadn't insinuated itself into the dimness. Though her next breath was free of the odour, she fumbled the quilt up to cover most of her face. Now she was alone with her sluggishly restless thoughts-with the memory of wanting to take an act back. She wished she had kept Rosemary's answer to herself.

  Perhaps it was a fragment of some fairy tale the little girl had heard or read.

  Heather was perplexed only because it had disturbed both Sylvia and Sam. No doubt that was one more indication of the way his aunt's state was affecting him, and yet another development to be worried about, along with his apparent fear of leaving home that must betray how nervous he was of letting her or his father or himself down, and Margo's obsession with the woods that was becoming a little too reminiscent of Lennox's, and Sylvia's secret breakdown even if it had been treated, and her present condition, and the willingness of people Heather barely knew to blame her family for events they didn't even bother to define... Was there any aspect of her life she didn't need to fret about? Surely her work wouldn't turn on her, but as she let herself anticipate the day after tomorrow-texts to scan, muted queries from students, the masses of hushed books on the shelves, the sense of a past safely bound up for consultation-her job felt too much like a refuge, a denial of everything else in her life.

  Nevertheless allowing her mind to rest on it seemed to be her route back to sleep, and she was beginning to feel close to drowsing when she froze, as did her breath. There was a furtive sound in the house.

  When she raised her head the night came to meet it. At first the only noise she could be sure of was the thumping of a heartbeat. Of course it was her own, though it sounded as if it belonged to the night. She eased herself upright against the pillow and held a long slow breath.

  In a moment she heard what had roused her. Sylvia was speaking in the next room.

  She must be sharing confidences with Sam while she thought her sister was asleep. The notion almost sent Heather marching into Sylvia's room to demand what was so secret it had to wait for the dark. Instead she sneaked her legs out from beneath the quilt and took all the time stealth required. She didn't care how sly she felt-she wanted to hear.

  She had just inched her door wide enough to let her out of the room when a muffled groan escaped Sam. What could Sylvia have said to distress him? His reaction hadn't prevented her from continuing to murmur as though she hadn't heard him. Anger at the insensitivity almost overcame Heather's resolve not to draw attention to herself, but she edged onto the landing without a sound. As she did so Sam groaned again, and she realised he was both in his own room and asleep.

  Then whom was Sylvia addressing? For a panicky instant Heather was afraid to hear an answering voice, and then that Sylvia was talking to herself. Her speech hadn't quite the tone of a monologue, however;

  it was more-Heather tiptoed a pace towards her sister's room and knew what she was overhearing. Sylvia was reading aloud.

  She must be practising for when her child was old enough to listen, Heather told herself.

  Tiptoeing across the carpet gave her time to wonder what Sylvia was reading from, especially since no light was visible under the door. She had to press her ear against one unnecessarily warm upper panel before she was able to make out a word. As she covered her mouth and nose with one hand to silence her breath she heard Sylvia say "All shall be contained within a single form and give it life."

  She was reading to her unborn child from Selcouth's journal. That would have been disturbing enough by itself, but Heather especially disliked the tone of meaningful affection her sister's voice had acquired for the duration of the sentence. Her unease was such that for some moments she failed to grasp why Sylvia had hushed. She must be aware that someone was outside the door.

  Heather was reaching for the doorknob when the smell of ancient paper seeped out of the room. She didn't have to confront Sylvia now. For any number of reasons, some of which she preferred to leave undefined, it would be better to wait until daylight. She couldn't help it if her decision seemed like a retreat. She backed away as fast as stealth permitted and, having felt compelled to shut her door in fractions of an inch, sought refuge in her bed.

  For altogether too long she was afraid of being followed into her room. What could Sylvia accuse her of? Trying to establish what was happening in the middle of the night in her own house? She was doing her best to prepare a response that wouldn't sound defensive when she heard Sylvia resume reading aloud. She strained her ears until they felt stuffed with her pulse, but could identify only one word. "Nathaniel," Sylvia murmured, and minutes later

  "Nathaniel."

  The affection in her voice surely meant she was speaking to her child rather than reading the name from the book, but reassurance wasn't coming anywhere near Heather. As she heard her sister's murmur underlying her own breaths she grew desperate enough to try to feel that Sylvia was reading her to sleep. She had no idea how much time passed before unconsciousness took her, let alone before she was awakened by a presence in the room.

  She felt as if she hadn't slept-as if she had been followed directly from Sylvia's room-but when her eyes sprang open she saw daylight and Sam. He knotted the cord of his bathrobe tighter around himself while she blinked stickily at him. "Have I overslept?" she mumbled.

  "It's Sunday."

  "I won't be late for work, then. Do you need me for something? Does Sylvie?"

  He'd been ready to answer the first question, but the second pressed his lips together. He seemed uncertain how or where to look as he muttered "She's gone."

  "Sorry,

  gone

  where?"

  "Couldn't

  say."

  "What did she tell you?" Heather said impatiently.

  "Nothing. I was asleep when she went."

  "Then how do you know?"

  "You can see what she left."

  "I
>
  will."

  She had scarcely taken hold of the edge of the quilt when Sam limped out of the room, leaving her to reflect how much warier he was of glimpsing her undressed since Sylvia had moved in. She retrieved her robe from the hook on the door and groped into the sleeves, and tied the cord around her waist as she padded onto the landing. While Sam loitered at the top of the stairs she pushed Sylvia's door open, then sucked in a dismayed breath that tasted bitterly of paper. Her sister's three suitcases had been nesting on top of the wardrobe, but there was no sign of them.

  Advancing into the room didn't help. The cases weren't hiding on the far side of the bed, and there was insufficient space beneath. If the room didn't feel wholly deserted, that was no comfort: the occupant was Selcouth's journal on the desk. She was overwhelmed by dislike of the secrecy of its contents, its binding as black as the carapace of a beetle, its indefinably rotten smell. She turned her back on it to find Sam watching her.

  Without giving her time to interpret his expression, he pointed down the stairs.

  "She left a note."

  "Couldn't you have brought it up?" Heather protested, and would have steered him none too gently out of her way if he hadn't limped aside. A small square of paper so thoroughly inscribed that from the top of the stairs it looked almost as black as Selcouth's journal was drooping against the phone. The couple of seconds involved in running downstairs gave her too much of a chance to imagine Sylvia's message before it was in her hand. Thanks for putting up with me and looking after me! Please don't think I'm being ungrateful or impulsive, but the book's taken me away again. No need to worry about Natty or me. You'll be seeing us soon.

  Wish I could have helped more. SXXX. The handwriting of the last two sentences was so microscopic Heather might have concluded they were designed not to be read. Even so, they had left so little space for Sylvia's initial that the kisses had to compose themselves from the extended lower curve of the letter, as if they were pinning her symbol down or consuming it or both. Heather's thoughts snagged on the idea. Any moment she would have to consider the implications of the note, and she knew she would like them less and less. Her mind hadn't freed itself when the phone rang.

  She snatched up the receiver, hoping it would have Sylvia's voice. "Hello?"

  "Mrs. Harvey? That's to say, Ms Price?"

  "Either," she said, anxious to know why the man sounded familiar.

  "It's Francis Lowe at the Arbour."

  "Dr Lowe." She both wanted and was afraid to learn "Is my sister there?"

  "Your sister. No, Mrs. Price."

  "You don't need to keep playing with my name. Why are you calling?" she said, experiencing dismay that came close to rendering him irrelevant as she reread Sylvia's note.

  "I'm saying it's your mother. She's the Mrs. Price who's here."

  "Oh, I see. Sorry if I was..." Her growing sense of Sylvia's absence was robbing her of words, and she had to search for the right question to ask. "Why is she?"

  "My apologies for bringing you bad news." Presumably his pause was intended to let Heather brace herself rather than demand what kind. "I'm afraid there's been an accident," he said. "She was in a collision with a car."

  30

  The Lowest Room

  THAT was my house when I was just me," said Sylvia, gazing across the common. In the dimness before sunrise Woodland Close was back-lit by the streetlamps, but every window was dark. For a moment she hoped to see hers light up-hoped that, having found her note, Heather was hurrying upstairs to discover the suitcases hidden in the wardrobe and realise her sister couldn't have gone far. The window stayed unlit, while behind her the forest whispered and creaked and touched her neck with a clammy breath. Even if all that was only the wind, it felt as though the trees were eager to have her among them. "You'll be with me, won't you, Natty?"

  she murmured.

  "Yes."

  She didn't so much hear as feel his voice. It seemed to rise from a depth far greater than she could contain-from a darkness under the earth or beyond the thin faint sky-but it was her only companion. She had to leave her old home behind and everything it represented. She lifted one hand in a wave almost too small and tentative for her to be conscious of performing it, and turned to step into the forest, past a log that resembled a giant eyeless lizard with deformed unequal stumpy legs. As she set foot on the edge of the vast pattern of decaying leaves she felt the woods grow aware of her, and saw the trees flex themselves like antennae attuning themselves to her presence.

  For as long as it took her to remember to breathe she couldn't move. She wouldn't have been surprised to see the log raise itself blindly but purposefully on its remains of legs to lead her or herd her between the trees.

  She did her best to think that would only be like one of the games she used to play by herself in the woods, since it had failed to appeal to her sister-the game of turning over a log to expose its hoard of insects that would swarm back into hiding for her to turn up again and again, though hadn't the teeming mass put her in mind less of insects than of fragments of discoloured bark? The poised stillness of the wooden reptile sent her stumbling into the woods as if she had to keep up with her swollen belly so as not to overbalance. She was digging in her handbag for the flashlight when she realised that although the trees had closed around her and overhead, she could see her way, just as earlier she had been able to read Selcouth's journal in the dimness of her room. "Are you doing that?" she wondered. "Are you changing me?"

  "Yes."

  She was more aware of his consciousness than of anything physical within herself. She had yet to feel movement in her womb. Sometimes, in the depths of the night, she felt she contained nothing except a darkness more intense than she imagined could be found even at the limits of the universe, and then she would become sensible of harbouring a mind besides her own. Since its conception she had gradually regained her memories of all her visits to the forest, a process that felt as if the creature with which she was sharing her body was adding its mind to hers or using hers. It couldn't harm her, she kept needing to think, without harming itself. "We'll look after each other, won't we?" she promised or pleaded or both.

  "Yes."

  The response was enough to send her plodding onwards, watching for signs of her father. Surely it must have been whatever was left of him that had given Rosemary the message. That was a reason for Sylvia to be here, and so was her pledge not to betray her and Sam's secret-she wouldn't have felt certain of suppressing it if she'd stayed with him and Heather. Besides, she had never been afraid of the woods; why should she start now?

  "It's a magic place, isn't it?" she murmured.

  "Yes."

  It appeared to be. The trees of the natural avenue down which she was advancing framed a vista that brightened as she watched, treetrunks gleaming like silver pillars cracked by antiquity, fallen leaves composing a design as elaborate and many-coloured as the floor of an ancient temple. She thought dawn was responsible for the brightness until she glanced back.

  She hadn't realised she had already walked so far; she could barely distinguish the glow of the streetlamps, let alone the shapes of houses, and no other light was to be seen.

  Yet when she faced forward the glow of the woods renewed itself as though it had only been waiting for her to look. "Are you there?" she ventured to call, however softly.

  "Yes."

  "Not you this time, Natty. I know you are," she said, though the buried voice had seemed less precisely located than ever. "I meant my father."

  She had a sense, too vague for definition, that he was near. If he was hiding behind any of the trees ahead he must have grown considerably thinner. She couldn't help hoping he wouldn't play the game she used to play among the trees with Heather. Perhaps it was thanks to the nervousness she was suddenly unable to ignore that she had a momentary impression of being accompanied, not under cover of the forest but beneath the ground she trod on-accompanied by a vast presence that had shrunken itself to pace her
. When she twisted around, planting her feet wide to support the burden of herself, she saw only forest, not a hint of the town. She turned away for fear of losing her balance and as her midriff carried her another step deeper into the woods she was informed "He's waiting."

  "You can talk. You don't just answer. You're growing up fast," said Sylvia, telling herself she had really heard the words: she wasn't talking to herself as she roamed the forest-she hadn't gone the way so many people thought her father had. "Where is he?"

  "Keep going."

  She took that for an answer as well as a direction while she attempted to decide whether the voice sounded more like a child trying to imitate a man or the reverse. She was distracted from looking for signs of her father by a scent in the humid air. It was almost too faint to be distinguishable from fancy-it was subtle as the intimation of a mystery-and yet if it had been any more intense its sweetness would have overpowered her. "You can't smell that, can you?"

  she hardly knew why she asked.