The trees fastened on the light as if they didn't need to move in order to pounce. As her foot found the earth, whose decaying surface felt ready to slither apart beneath her, every visible tree vanished into blackness, or it welled out of them. Nothing was visible except the filament of the flashlight bulb, a shrivelled reddish ember-not even any stars or the difference between the sky and the branches she sensed looming overhead, if they were only branches.
"Where are you?" Sam called, his voice giving way. "Where's the light?"
"Here. I'm here."
She was afraid of alerting the dark by telling him. She had so little idea where she was that she felt in danger of losing her balance, of sprawling into whatever the darkness hid. She risked planting her feet wider apart but found herself retreating a step, to be where she could be certain she'd already stood.
The next moment the bulb flared up.
Though the beam had by no means regained all its strength, she was able to make out the nearest trees. "Can you see that?" she did her best to shout.
"I'm not sure."
She heard him struggling to sound his age. She mustn't worsen his panic, she mustn't panic herself, but it felt as though she might have to when she yielded to the only idea she could find in her aching brittle skull. As she stepped back a pace the action felt like an unspoken prayer. It was answered; the flashlight brightened, hinting at dozens of trees. "I can now," Sam told her as if his voice had drawn power from the beam.
She scarcely heard him. If the darkness hadn't come close to extinguishing the flashlight in order to keep her and Sam apart, what had its purpose been? She paced backwards and saw the beam stretch dimly further in what was unquestionably a response-and then she became aware that she was backing towards Goodmanswood. In that moment she didn't just understand: she sensed the thirst of whatever was intent on urging her in that direction, a thirst more profound and awful than the voraciousness that had consumed her light. Perhaps everything she'd glimpsed in the woods had been designed to lead or drive her out of them. Something wanted her to carry it or its influence beyond them, into the world.
"Where are you going?" Sam protested, but his words were dwarfed into insignificance.
She was unable to halt her insight, which was letting her perceive far too much. She was beginning to glimpse the essence of the woods-the presence they had grown both to summon and conceal.
At first it seemed that her surroundings had been reversed-that the woods were rooted less in the earth than in the darkness the familiar sky would have masked. This left her utterly disoriented, in the grip of a vertigo that let more of the truth come for her. Her mouth opened as her mind did, but she no longer knew if she was desperate to cry out or to breathe. The entity whose thirst she'd sensed was using the forest to reach for her and the world. The forest was a member with as many claws or digits or tendrils as there were trees. It was the end of a gigantic limb that stretched into a blackness she was terrified to contemplate. However insubstantial the limb might be in terms of the reality she had taken for granted, it was gaining some kind of substance.
The body to which the limb belonged was drawing itself along it like a spider down a thread of web. The prospect of looking up appalled her, and yet her head was tilting helplessly skywards as if her neck was being manipulated like a puppet's. Any moment she might see more than blackness overhead. She might see what its inhabitant had for a face.
"What's wrong?" Sam called, which struck her as almost, though dreadfully, comical.
She heard his footfalls pounding towards her, muffled by leaves, if only leaves. She was suddenly afraid that he would be prevented from reaching her-afraid of how he might be prevented-but apparently all concentration was on her. She felt frozen by the notion that she and Sam were less than insects trapped beneath a great cat's paw. Her gaze edged upward, dragged towards the blackness that was no longer merely night. She was peripherally aware that Sam was close to her; he'd halted a few feet away and was muttering "Oh Jesus." Had her perception somehow rendered her unrecognisable? When he came at her and thrust his hands around her neck, she thought he meant to strangle her.
Even this seemed negligible under the blackness that was lowering itself to settle on her or to crush her in its grasp. Then she realised that he was trying to remove some object from her neck.
At once the sense of hugeness grew unfocused, and there was only the weight on her shoulders. She felt thin limbs clinging to her neck an instant before Sam broke their grip and flung away the creature that had been riding her ever since she'd crossed the threshold of Selcouth's lowest room. As it struck the ground it began to squirm feebly on its back and grope at the air with its rudimentary limbs as though searching for Heather. It was pallid and half-formed, very obviously premature, except for its oversized head. That was all Heather glimpsed-she hadn't even time to turn the beam on it-before Sam grabbed the flashlight. "Sam,"
she gasped.
She'd realised what he meant to do, but it was too late to stop him, even if she should.
As he swung the flashlight, the beam lit up the creature's face. It was by no means unlike Sam's, but dauntingly ancient, and transformed into a mask of flesh by the eyes, which were filled to their brims by a blackness deeper than any night. Was it grinning or baring its toothless gums in some other kind of anticipation? In a moment Heather might have known, but two blows with the flashlight made sure of crushing its fragile skull.
A cry was rising to her lips when an indrawn breath cut it off. Every visible tree was straining towards the sky, an agonised convulsion that she heard seizing the entire forest, while the creature lost its substance. In an instant it was skinless, in another shapeless, and then there was only a trace like a glistening mist or a haze that seeped into the shrouded earth. A faint sweetish scent lingered in the air for a heartbeat before she sensed the withdrawal of a presence, how far and in what direction she was unable to judge. When she dared to glance up, having heard the trees creak back into their everyday form, she saw stars pretending there was nothing besides them in or beyond the sky. "Gone," Sam muttered, and stood fingering his forehead as if something had vanished from within it. Heather found she couldn't stop writhing her shoulders as she turned to urge him to light the way out of the woods.
Epilogue:
The Watcher
"SAM."
"Did it have to be me?"
"No, but I hoped it was. How are you this week?"
"Pretty good. How about you?"
"Never better. I'm the last person you should worry about. Only pretty good?"
"No, fine."
"Now, Sam, the last person you should try that on is your mother. What's wrong?"
"Just the job."
"You aren't enjoying it as much."
"Yes I am, and there's none I'd rather be doing. None I can think of that would be more worthwhile either, but it can get frustrating."
"For
example?"
"We've a family where I'm sure the father is abusing all his daughters, but the hard part is getting anyone to say so."
"I can imagine how you must feel about that."
"I don't want you to think I wish I didn't have to handle it. It's my kind of case."
"I've gathered that. Why, do you think?"
"Because it's the worst kind, the kind that most needs somebody to intervene."
"That's it, of course. That must be it. Sam..."
"I'm still here."
"I keep meaning to ask you, that's if you feel like talking about it, how much you remember."
"What
about?"
"Before you made the move to London."
"Not being able to, you mean? I expect half of that was really knowing the job dad wanted to fix me up with wasn't right for me."
"I hadn't thought of that. I know he's proud of the one you're doing. Anything else you recall?"
"You're thinking of Sylvia."
"I could be."
"How we foun
d her after she got rid of the baby and then we somehow got lost in the woods all night. I still wish you'd gone for counselling like me."
"The important thing is you did. Otherwise you mightn't have realised you wanted to do social work, you said so yourself."
"But if you'd gone..."
"Seriously, don't waste any worrying on me. I'm like you. I'm exactly where I want to be and need to be."
"Mum."
"And don't sound like that either."
"Then can I ask you something?"
"You always can, and you should."
"Why were you so anxious to make sure they filled in the place we found Sylvia?"
"We wouldn't want children wandering down there and hurting themselves, would we?
Nothing and nobody's going to get through all that concrete."
"Fair enough, if that's all."
"What else were you thinking it could be?"
"I wondered if it had anything to do with the book you said Sylvia found."
"You're still telling me you never saw it. You don't have to go that far, Sam."
"It's the truth."
"Well, you're never going to see it now. It's no great loss if it made Sylvie go where she ended up, you'll agree."
"I never understood how you thought it could have influenced her so much."
"Then don't let it bother you. It's just your mother being strange."
"I wish you wouldn't keep on saying that about yourself. Listen, I have to go in a moment. I'm meeting someone for dinner."
"Someone I'd like, I hope."
"I think you would. Maybe I'll bring her to meet you."
"You don't want to do that, Sam."
"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"
"No point in coming back here now you've made the break. There's nothing for you here, it would only depress you, and I'd be worrying about you driving here. I'd get even less sleep. I can't help that, being your mother."
"You sound as if you don't want me ever to come."
"Suppose you found you couldn't leave when all your clients need you?"
"That isn't going to happen, not now I've figured out why it did."
"You mustn't be too sure, Sam. I know what we can do instead. We'd like to see where he's living, wouldn't we, mummy? Let's go soon."
"Is Margo there? Say hello for me."
"Sam says hello."
"Hi, Sam."
"And tell her congratulations that her work's popular again."
"I will. Why do you think that's happened?"
"Things go in and out of fashion. What else could it be?"
"You don't think the world's changed somehow."
"Only like always. Listen, I really have to go, but don't have Margo driving all this way unless she's absolutely certainly up to it."
"She's a better driver than ever now she's had her car altered. Custom Car Margo, that's my mother. Do you want a word with her?"
"I better had another time. I'll speak to you both again soon."
"Sleep well tonight and every night, then. Sam says he's sorry but he has to run."
"I ought to as well, Heather. Lucinda was supposed to call about taking more of my work. Don't say it, I won't be running, even less than Sam will."
"I think you're a phenomenon. I'd be nowhere near as sprightly if I'd had to survive what you have."
"And at my age, you're too gracious to say. You've been through plenty, and I know you'll get over it."
"That's the attitude. Looking to the future, that's how the Prices operate.
Anyway, someone's after you. Just Lucinda, that's right. Thanks for all the news."
"You know me, always up for a gossip."
"Was there anything else I should know?"
"I can't think what."
"Any new babies in town lately?"
"Not that I've heard. Heather, you're not starting that again, are you?"
"I wasn't aware that I'd stopped. I haven't been visiting, if that's what you mean."
"I hope you won't. You know how people felt about that."
"I expect they feel safe from me now."
"You don't have to tell me nobody was ever anything but safe with you, but you know the kind of stories people have made up about us. I still don't understand why you feel you have to stay so close."
"So long as you don't let it worry you."
"I won't if I know you're getting better."
"Every day I'm more myself."
Margo released a toneless sigh that might have been a comment or a hint of the effort involved in standing up. Once she was on her feet, however, she made no fuss about hobbling four-legged to her car. As Heather held the lightweight crutches while Margo lowered herself into the driver's seat, she risked saying "So you're still going in the woods."
"Wouldn't you want me to?"
"I don't know how I could stop you."
"Not when I'm trying to make a tribute to your sister."
"How
are
you?"
"By finding traces of her in the woods. The way she'd put her head on one side when she was thinking of a secret. The way she'd hold her hands out when she was going to tell us one."
"You're saying she's there."
"I'm saying nobody but me might notice these things, but that's the point of what I do, isn't it, to make others see? If the shape's growing I paint it, if it's dead and I can carry it on my little trolley I carve it." Margo gestured her closer before murmuring "I keep looking for signs of her baby. I just feel there ought to be some when he or maybe she was never found."
She bunked at Heather's reaction and seemed unhappy with it, especially since she was quick to pretend not to be affected. She reached for her crutches and stored them beside her, then made a parting effort to be positive. "I think I've been rediscovered because I'm sharing what I feel about Sylvia."
Heather managed to conceal her unease for her mother's sake. "Goodbye but not for long," she said, dealing her a kiss on the forehead, and watched her drive out of the gate. Surely nothing much was liable to gain a hold yet-surely the sowing of Margo's vision was less dangerous than any seeds that might have strayed out of the forest, though didn't that mean it was still another reason for Heather to be watchful?
She was making for her father's room when she was accosted. "Heather."
"Yes."
"I heard you with your mother. We can help."
"Tell me how."
"Parents put births in our paper, don't they? We can ask for it to be delivered.
We needn't say it's you wanting it or why."
"That would be a start, but..."
"Then you'd know where to go and look, or you could tell us what to look for.
They can't watch all of us all the time. And there's something better."
"Let me hear it, then."
"We've got them to agree to take a couple of us walking in the woods each day.
That's including you, and we'll tell you everything we see when you aren't there. You're the leader now, remember. You've seen the most. You've got more people in the woods than anyone, as well."
"Thanks, Delia," said Heather, and left her tugging at her cheeks as if to help herself survey more of the forest at once. Heather was careful to smile at the receptionist on the way up to her room-her father's room. Even if she oughtn't to be there-even if nothing except gossip made it best for her to be-she couldn't refuse the help of her father's circle now that she'd taken his place.
She mustn't underestimate the woods as Selcouth had, never realising that he'd been lured to them to increase their power. Perhaps that had been dissipated for a while, but she knew it would gather itself afresh for its next attempt to enter the world.
The trees rose drowsily to meet her gaze as she crossed the room, her shoulders continuing to squirm. As she lifted the sash the few inches it would travel, a faint sweetish smell drifted in. Though the woods looked paralysed by the August afternoon, the smell suggestive of decay betrayed
the activity they hid. At least there were birds in the treetops now, or were they black fragments of some far larger restlessness? "You'll have to show yourself sometime," she whispered, and settled down to watch.
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