The Silver Bough

by Lisa Tuttle

  “I don’t get it,” said the older boy, Callum. “If it was the earthquake, how come the Johnstones can’t get Sky TV? Theirs was out yesterday.”

  “Jennifer Connor said the same thing to me,” said Shona. “That’s odd, isn’t it? I mean, we’ve lost reception before—remember that big storm last January?—but it never affected people with satellite dishes.”

  Graeme always had an opinion, even on things he admitted knowing nothing about, like modern technology. “You know, I was reading about earthquakes,” he said. “And they produce an electromagnetic pulse. That’s something that would disrupt all transmissions. Remember that disaster movie we saw last year, what was it called?”

  Ashley felt sure that a small earth tremor couldn’t do anything of the kind, but she didn’t bother trying to argue the point. She’d already discovered that Graeme was a slippery debater, impossible to pin down. No sooner had you pointed out a flaw in his argument than he was arguing something else…or something that sounded the same, but turned out to be completely different. It was like the theory he’d developed about Appleton’s origins. Based on the fact that the Apple was not represented on a couple of early maps and some ambiguous remarks made by early medieval travelers, he’d concluded that this substantial chunk of land had originated somewhere else. According to him, it had been a floating island until some cataclysmic event, taking place roughly around 1655, had pushed it hard against the west coast of Scotland, where it had remained to this day. She was prepared to believe it—why not?—until he started calling on old myths and legends as further proof, and she understood that he wasn’t talking about an ordinary chunk of earth that had been grafted onto another in an unusual, yet possible, geological way, but something far more mystical. He seemed to imply that the place now known as Appleton had once been part of a different, supernatural world, and she reckoned that was like somebody in Texas arguing that Galveston Island had been part of Heaven until it fell out of the sky circa 1490. When she objected, he changed his line, shifting from myth to history to psychology to religion and even taking in quantum physics and some obscure, abstruse mathematical theories with hardly a pause for breath. She didn’t know if she was too literal-minded or too slow-witted to follow the connections he made, but she soon gave up trying.

  After a brief, gloomy discussion of how they would manage if they had to do without TV forever and ever, the kids were cheered by their father’s suggestion of “a magical mystery tour” to show their American cousin the delights of the “wee Apple.”

  “Southport beach?” asked Ewan, lighting up.

  “Certainly.”

  “The fairy village?” Jade clasped her hands together in a theatrical pleading pose.

  “It wouldn’t be much of a magical mystery tour without it.”

  “What’s the fairy village?” asked Ashley, thinking of miniature golf courses and children’s rides.

  “You’ll have to wait and find out.”

  “The beach is more fun,” said Ewan, casting a disgusted look at his little sister.

  “We can do both,” said Shona. “But only if you kids run and get your swimming things, and whatever else you want to take. I want everybody ready for the car in ten minutes, got that?”

  They scattered, shouting happily.

  “Do you have a swimming costume?” Shona asked.

  Ashley wrinkled her nose uncertainly. She’d brought one, of course, but as for wearing it when the temperature was barely above seventy degrees Fahrenheit…“Will it be warm enough?”

  “This time of year the sea’s at its warmest,” said Graeme.

  “I thought it was pretty warm yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, it was nice,” Ashley agreed. “But for swimming…well, I remember once I went swimming at Galveston at Easter—it was only about eighty—it was all right, I guess, but I’m used to it hotter.”

  Shona looked bemused. “It’s not likely to get as high as eighty degrees.”

  “If you don’t want to swim, I can show you the sights of Southport,” said Graeme.

  His wife laughed. “What sights?”

  “Come on! There’s the Grand Hotel, and King Arthur’s footprints…”

  “King Arthur? But he was English—what would he be doing up here?”

  “Oh, it’s like ‘Queen Elizabeth Slept Here,’” said Shona. “Everywhere in Britain tries to lay claim to our most famous hero.”

  Graeme leaned forward, quivering slightly, in his typical hound-upon-the-scent stance. “The one thing we can be sure King Arthur was not is English! He was a Celtic warlord, and while there are plausible connections linking him to sites in Cornwall and Wales, it is far more likely that he was the leader of a Scottish tribe. You should read a book called Arthur and the Lost Kingdoms—”

  “Save it for the journey, Graeme,” Shona interrupted. “I need you to help me load the car. And do you know what happened to the big cooler?”

  Ashley liked him, but he was kind of exhausting company. She’d never met anyone so full of stories, and so bursting with the need to share them. She thought his obsessive, part-time scholarship had made him a little crazy, and hoped, for his family’s sake, that he wasn’t so manic all the time.

  Soon they were all in the car and heading out of the town. Shona drove, which left Graeme free to twist around in the front seat and regale them with more stories of Appleton’s far-distant past. Ashley felt herself to be his captive, solitary audience, for although she shared the backseat with the three children, they were all preoccupied: Callum, with earphones, immersed in music; Ewan absorbed in a handheld video game, and Jade in a world of her own as she moved two plastic ponies about in her lap and muttered to herself.

  Graeme told her about “King Arthur’s Footprints”—a pair of roughly boot-shaped marks on a rock supposed to have been made when the mortally wounded chieftain was helped out of the boat and onto the shore of Avalon by the great enchantress Morgan Le Fay.

  “You’re saying Avalon was really Appleton?”

  “It was called ‘the island of apples’ or simply ‘Apple’—which sounds something like ‘ooh-vall’ or ‘ah-vull’ in Gaelic, hear that? not so far from ‘Aa-vahl-on’ I don’t know if the ‘on’ bit was a corruption, or one of those whaddyecallems—grammatical inflections that you get in languages like Gaelic, where the nouns change as well as the verbs. Anyway—you’ve got the amazing similarity of the two names; plus the fact that it was located to the west of mainland Britain—and, this is particularly important, it was said to be a place of very great magic, home to a race of immortals. And another interesting thing: This isn’t a late attribution. It’s not the Victorians playing their sentimental games, because when the very first settlers arrived, before there was a town here, the locals pointed out the imprint left by the great Arthur. And there’s a cave…”

  She tried to look politely attentive, but could feel her eyes glazing over. So many details! She picked up on one of them. “Um, so what happened to those immortal beings who lived here way back when?”

  Jade piped up unexpectedly. “I know. They live in the fairy villages, under the ground.” She patted Ashley’s arm. “You probably won’t see them, though. I never have, and I always look. They’re very small, and they’re very good at hiding.”

  She glanced at Graeme, expecting a wink or a tolerant smile, but he was nodding as if Jade had given a perfectly reasonable reply.

  It took about twenty minutes to drive to Southport, a tiny village that consisted of two rows of houses, a small, pretty church, and a general store and post office that also advertised home baking, sandwiches, and hot drinks to take away. Spreading away from this were a scattering of houses, a camping site, and trailer park.

  The beach was amazing: a huge, curving sweep of pale, silvery sand, dotted here and there with large rocks, which time and tide had worn down to smooth, organic shapes. More rocks could be seen rearing up out of the shallows, barriers against which the rolling breakers smashed into
spray and foam. There were probably no more than a dozen people making use of the beach on this fine Sunday morning which showed, thought Ashley, how very far away from everywhere else this underpopulated place was. She noticed three people out on surfboards, all of them in wet suits, and knew by this detail that it was certainly too cold for swimming, despite the sight of the hardy local children who had stripped down to the skin and plunged in.

  She left her Scottish relatives arguing the merits of bodysurfing over sand castle building and strolled along the beach by herself, enjoying the sun and the wind and the smell of the sea, occasionally bending to pick up a pebble or shell. Very soon, as she followed the shoreline, pale sand gave way to a pebble beach, then to much rougher, rockier ground that looked difficult to traverse without going into the water. She thought at first that she would be forced to turn back, but then she noticed there was a path winding up the cliff side. It looked well-worn and easily accessible, and she decided that rather than retrace her steps she would follow it.

  The path took her up to the road, to a deserted spot she supposed was on the far side of the village. A distant glint of light caught her attention, and she looked up and across the road, shading her eyes against the glare. On the hilltop, overlooking the sea, was a very large, white building, with a number of cars parked to one side. It had been the sunlight reflecting off the cars that had caught her eye, but the building was far more interesting. It reminded her at first of a classical Greek temple; a moment later, she recognized that it was a thoroughly modern building, designed by a fanciful architect who was happy to mix elements of Classical Antiquity with Art Moderne, and throw in a dash of Gothic Revival, too. She wondered what it was: hotel? conference center? or some millionaire’s summer villa? Whatever it was, the joint was clearly jumping. As she went on gazing, she realized she could hear music: the lively sound of an old-fashioned swing band. Dance music.

  She was assailed by a powerful urge to join in. She loved dancing; since she was nine or so she’d taken just about every dance class offered, and although she preferred salsa, she could do swing—give her a partner and she’d lindy with the best of them.

  Staring up at the big white building, listening to the distant music, she wondered what kind of party it was, how accessible or private. Her eyes traced the pale narrow strip of driveway that ran uphill, and she imagined herself going up there, to the big front entrance…or maybe she could just slip through an open set of French doors. She was too far away to be certain about such details, but she could see tiny figures going in and out of the building, and from that and the way the sunlight glinted off glass, she guessed that both windows and doors had been left open to the refreshing sea breeze. A place like this, so far from the city, wasn’t likely to have bouncers. It wasn’t hard to crash a party; all it took was confidence and the ability to blend in.

  But her heart sank as she remembered how she was dressed. She looked down at her filthy sneakers and knew it for an impossible dream. Turning her back on the music hurt, but what else could she do? She was halfway down the path to the beach when she heard someone call her name, and a moment later saw Graeme, looking rather wild-eyed as he rushed toward her.

  “Where’ve you been? I thought you were lost!”

  She shrugged it off. “How could I get lost? I didn’t think I’d been gone that long. I’m sorry. Are we ready to go?”

  “Oh, no, the kids are still…” he waved a hand toward the sea. “That’s not…” He stopped and began again. “I’m sorry. I’m so used to riding herd on a group of youngsters that if somebody goes missing at the seaside, well…” He gave an uncertain chuckle. “Do you want a tour guide, or would you rather be left to your own devices?”

  Her glimpse of that distant, unattainable party on the hilltop had left her with a craving for company. “A tour guide would be good.”

  He brightened up. “OK! King Arthur’s landing is just around the corner, as it were. Mind, the tide’s in, so if you’re worried about getting your feet wet…”

  “I don’t mind,” she said, and followed him around the rocky headland, clambering over and around the boulders that, not long before, she’d seen as a barrier to further exploration, until they arrived at another sheltered inlet with a beautiful, unspoiled, empty beach.

  “The footprints of King Arthur,” he announced, pointing dramatically to a large, flat rock. She went closer to look at the twin shallow declivities, and measured her own feet against them.

  “Hmm, the king had very dainty feet, for a guy,” she said.

  The cave, not far away, in the base of the cliff, was also smaller than she’d expected. She peered into the gloomy recess. “So he’s supposed to have been buried here?”

  “Not buried. The tradition about the cave is that he went into an enchanted sleep from which he would awake in time of Britain’s greatest need.”

  “Long way to travel,” she said, turning to stare out to sea. Her sense that she was actually on an island had been growing steadily. She looked back at Graeme. “Do you have a boat?”

  “Me? No. How could I afford it? Why?”

  “I just wondered. If the road takes a really, really long time to repair, how will people manage? I mean, how will ordinary supplies get here?”

  “Well, the supermarket’s part of a chain, you know, and they’ve already sorted out some sort of vessel to make the regular deliveries. I’m not sure exactly how the smaller shops are going to manage—I guess it might be the end for one or two of ’em. As for the mail, well, I told you we’re to get a plane from Glasgow every morning; if not tomorrow, then Tuesday. I imagine it might take passengers as well, in the great Scottish tradition of the rural post-bus, which will help at least until there’s a regular ferry service. We will get a ferry, of that I have no doubt, unless everyone else has forgotten us so thoroughly that they don’t mind cutting us adrift permanently!”

  She looked at the cave again, casting her mind back over what she could recall of the Arthurian legends. “I thought the idea was that after he’d suffered his mortal wound, Arthur was taken off to Avalon to be healed and live forever—not to be shoved into a hole in the ground.”

  “There are different traditions. And I’m not sure the two ideas are totally incompatible. The great hero’s saved from death, but he’s not alive in the usual sense, he’s in another state of being, another world. And to the Celts, that other world was both physically real—a place that you could get in your boat and sail to—but at the same time it was a spiritual realm, insubstantial, accessible to mortals only in dreams, or after death.”

  She frowned. “I don’t see how it could be both.”

  He nodded. “It’s a hard one to get your brain around, I agree. But…” He looked at his watch. “Maybe we ought to head back.”

  As they turned back, Ashley asked about the big white building she’d seen on top of the hill across the road.

  “Oh, that’s the Grand Hotel—do you want to go up there?”

  Her heart gave an unexpected leap. “Can we?”

  “Sure! Why not? We’ll drive up—the kids always like it.”

  Her spirits lifted even more. If the Walkers went there often—as Graeme’s words implied—maybe what she’d glimpsed and heard was not a private party but a standard Sunday afternoon event—dining and dancing. Maybe they could stay for lunch. Although it might be better if she planned to come out on another day, in more suitable clothes, if she wanted to dance.

  They found the children draped in multicolored towels and munching snacks from crackling paper bags.

  “This is just to keep them going,” Shona explained when they arrived. “I’ve told them, we’ll have our picnic lunch soon enough.”

  When the children were dried and dressed they set off back to the car; this time, Graeme took the driver’s seat.

  “Why don’t you sit in the front, Ashley?” said Shona. “You’ll see better, and it’s more comfortable.”

  “I thought we’d go up and have a cl
oser look at the Grand,” Graeme said, starting the car.

  “Ooh, the spooky place!” Ewan exclaimed gleefully, and Jade squealed.

  “Mum!”

  “Ewan, keep your hands to yourself.”

  “It wasn’t me, it was ghostly fingers!”

  “Ghost fingers yourself!”

  “Hey!”

  “If you two don’t settle down, we’re going straight home.”

  “Why is it spooky?” asked Ashley but, in the turmoil, her question went unanswered, and she soon saw for herself.

  As the car toiled up the steep driveway, she was aware of the many potholes, and the fact that the verges were heavily overgrown, some weeds even growing up through the paving, as if it did not get much use. But not until they reached the top did she see that the Grand Hotel was an old, long-abandoned, empty ruin. There was scarcely a whole pane of glass in any of the windows, the white paint was peeling and streaked with ancient soot, and at least half the roof was gone. She gaped in astonishment, unable to speak.

  “Shall we go in?”

  “No, Graeme, that would not be a good idea,” said Shona swiftly and firmly over the two boys’ whoops of excitement.

  He twisted around to grin at her. “Aw, come on.”

  “No. Boys, settle down now. We are not going in. Graeme, I can’t believe you even suggested it,” she went on, exasperated. “You can see it’s not safe. What if a wall suddenly collapsed while one of us was standing under it? Just because it’s stood so long…just because the council can’t be bothered to fence it off or put up proper warning signs…who knows what that earthquake might have dislodged?”

  He looked penitent. “I’m sorry.”

  At last, Ashley found her tongue. “What happened to it? Where is everybody?”

  They all stared at her.

  “There were people here, less than an hour ago. I saw them,” she said, and heard the desperation in her voice.

  “You must be thinking of another place,” said Shona.