The Silver Bough

by Lisa Tuttle

  She allowed herself this hopeful fantasy: finding him a mile or two outside of town, standing sheepishly with his thumb out, tired and confused but suffering from no more than inconvenience and embarrassment. And then she’d take him home.

  “Next time, tell me before you go off,” she said, like a bossy mother, addressing the imaginary hitchhiker. Next time, next time…Unexpected tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, Dave,” she cried out as if he could hear her. “Dave, Dave, where are you?”

  As the empty miles clicked past, her hope withered. There were no other cars on the road at all, and this new day—if it was day—was weirdly birdless. The only living creatures she saw as she drove past fields and farmland were a lot of bedraggled sheep, two pale horses, and a herd of black-and-white cows.

  Thick clouds hung overhead, making the sky seem unnaturally low, as if a huge, opaque bell jar had descended upon the land, isolating it from all the known world.

  The road gradually rose, and farmland gave way to rough, rocky moors. She drove past a pond—what they called a “lochan” here. The water looked very still and deep and gleamed like a black mirror beneath the paler sky, and for no obvious reason she felt oppressed by the lonely sight. Then, on the other side of the road, she saw the sign: TO THE LIGHTHOUSE and the line from Dave’s letter came back to her; she could practically hear him saying it, “the sign which always makes me think of Virginia Woolf…”

  Her heart leaped, and, in a surge of giddy excitement, she pressed down too hard on the accelerator.

  It should have been all right. There was absolutely no traffic; she hadn’t encountered a single car or person since she’d left Appleton, and the road stretched reasonably straight and empty ahead. But suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge white horse stepped out onto the road in front of her.

  She slammed on the brake; the car wobbled, fishtailed, and slewed around. Wrestling for control, she managed to bring it to a halt, but not before it had gone off the road, canting to one side, one wheel hanging in open air above the steep ditch.

  “Oh, shit!”

  She switched off the engine, yanked on the emergency brake, and then, terrified, scrambled out the passenger-side door, expecting all the time to feel the car shudder and roll over. It seemed a sort of miracle that she managed to escape unharmed, and that the car remained precariously balanced.

  The horse was standing in the middle of the road, looking at her.

  “Well, thank you very much,” she said, in a voice at least an octave higher than normal. She looked back at her car. Amazingly, it appeared undamaged, but clearly she would not be able to get it back onto the road by herself.

  Looking back at the horse—undeniably a handsome animal—she realized it was saddled and bridled, all ready for riding, and a small note of alarm sounded in her mind. She scanned the other side of the road for a fallen rider, but there was no sign of anyone, either lying injured or stumbling after a runaway mount.

  “Where’s your owner?”

  The horse whickered and moved toward her. Wary, she backed away. It appeared friendly, but then so had the Shetland pony who’d nipped her painfully on the arm when she was ten, establishing her lifelong attitude of extreme caution around all members of the equine race.

  Perhaps sensing her unease, the animal stopped. It dropped its head, then angled around to present its side to her as if inviting her to mount.

  “Oh, yeah, and what’d you do with your last rider? No thanks.” She turned away to peer anxiously along the road again, longing for the sight of someone, anyone, who could help her. An ancient noisy tractor, a taciturn shepherd with dog riding pillion on his quad-bike, even a limping teenager screaming abuse at her runaway steed.

  “Hello!”

  A man’s voice boomed right behind her, and she whirled around, shocked, to find a very fit young man beaming at her. Looking back, she could see no other vehicle but her own drunkenly leaning car; even the horse had disappeared.

  “Where did you come from?”

  He pointed in the direction of the lochan.

  “You live over there? Very near?”

  He nodded, still smiling in his open, friendly way, and she sighed with relief.

  “Thank goodness! That’s my car,” she explained. “I need help. Is your phone working? No? Ah, well, do you have a car? Truck? Tractor? Anything, really…” As he went on cheerfully shaking his head, she bit her lip. “Well, you must know somebody who does! All I need is something to pull the car back up onto the road—if we had some rope—”

  “I could get rope,” he volunteered.

  “But not a car? Don’t you drive?”

  “Never have,” he admitted cheerfully.

  She sighed. “Actually, even a horse might—hey, did you see it? That beautiful white horse? Was it yours?” It was suddenly obvious, explaining the mystery.

  “Want to come back to my place?”

  She was taken aback. It was clear what he meant from the way he eyed her, and in another situation she might have been flattered that such a handsome young hunk found her attractive, but under the circumstances it just made her nervous.

  “No, thank you,” she said cautiously, with an appeasing smile. “Actually, I’m expected somewhere—White Gates. They’ll be wondering where I am—probably come out to look for me soon! Do you know White Gates?”

  He nodded slowly. “I know. I could show you, later, after we go to my place. I’ve got rope there—you said you wanted rope?”

  “Rope’s not any use to me without a truck or a tractor to pull my car up,” she explained. “Or a horse—if you think your horse could do it.”

  He scowled in confusion. “I thought you didn’t want the horse.”

  Oh, dear. “I just want my car back on the road.”

  That seemed to cheer him up. He looked past her, down the road at her precariously tilting car. “I could do that for you.”

  “I wish you would!”

  Keeping a slight distance, she followed him back to her car and watched without saying anything as he made a half circuit of it, bending and peering as he made his own sense of its position. Then he clambered down into the ditch, set his shoulder against the front end, and, with one mighty heave levered the car up and onto the road.

  She stared, openmouthed. True, the Micra was a small car, but the strength that must have taken…

  “That was amazing,” she said as he came bounding back.

  He grinned broadly. A light sheen of perspiration stood out on his brow, but he wasn’t even breathing hard. “That was easy. I’m strong. Anything else I can do for you?”

  She shook her head quickly. “No, I don’t think so. You’ve already done so much!” She edged toward the driver’s-side door, trying to keep cool although her heart was hammering. There were so many ways he could stop her leaving if he wanted to…“I’d better check that everything’s all right, that it’ll start after that…” She slipped in behind the wheel, and turned on the ignition as he watched blankly. The engine caught immediately.

  “Great!” she cried. “Thank you so much!”

  He seemed to take in for the first time that she was leaving, and sprang forward, hand out to seize the door handle, but she’d already stomped down on the accelerator, and the small car shot away out of his reach. She felt a tiny twinge of guilt for treating him so callously when all he’d done was help her—she didn’t know that he’d meant her any harm; despite his lustful gaze and stupendous strength, maybe all he wanted was to take her home for a nice cup of tea and introduce her to his hardworking mother. Her eyes flashed to the rearview mirror. She expected to see him standing desolate in the road, staring after her, but there was no sign of him, nothing there except the large white horse she’d encountered earlier.

  Startled, she stepped on the brake, and twisted around to make sure of what she’d seen. Where had he gone? And where had the horse come from? She couldn’t see anywhere to hide on this stretch of empty road and moor.

  The horse sudde
nly veered about and galloped off the road, heading straight for the lochan. It didn’t stop at the water’s edge, but plunged straight in and, while she gaped, disappeared in a churning spray, beneath the silvery water. She went on watching, expecting the great head to erupt, snorting, above the surface as the horse swam across, but all that happened was that the choppy waves gradually died away, and the ripples of disturbance grew smaller and slower until finally the water in the little lochan was again as still and calm as a dark mirror.

  Shivering, she turned around in her seat again and discovered that the engine had died. This time, when she tried to start it, there was no response. For the first time in their happy, four-year relationship, her dear little car had let her down.

  Although it seemed to be totally dead, she went through her repertoire of psychological voodoo tricks: letting it rest, turning the key in different ways, jiggling the gear stick, promising various rewards if it would start and punishments if it remained stubborn.

  Finally, she had to get out and start walking. She felt very exposed without the protective shell of her car, and walked as fast as she could without actually running.

  She had read somewhere, or been told that, despite its small size, the Apple contained such a variety of landscape features that it reflected Scotland in miniature. It offered mountains, moors, bogs, lochs, rivers, forests, and farmland, as well as both rugged coastline and sheltered bays, sandy beaches, and rocky cliffs, all compressed into such a small space that the scenery changed dramatically almost minute by minute as she traveled through it by car. She felt grateful for that scenic diversity now, as the bleak empty moorland gave way to mixed woodland.

  Only, as she glanced into the shadowy depths of the forest, she saw flickers of movement deep within, and realized maybe the change wasn’t such an improvement. She froze at the sound of snapping twigs, the crunch and clatter of disturbed undergrowth. There was something large moving in there among the trees, and it was coming her way.

  She still hadn’t decided what to do when he came crashing out onto the road: a man wearing muddy blue jeans and a once-smart, now sadly battered, leather jacket; a man with long, greying red hair, which fell in tangled strands around a flushed and weary face; a man who looked worn-out, middle-aged, totally uncool, and unutterably dear to her. Her heart turned over. “Dave!”

  His head came up and he looked around, his eyes wide but unseeing. “Kathleen? Where are you?”

  “I’m right here.”

  He put his arms out like a blind man. “Keep talking, so I can find you.”

  A lump rose in her throat; she thought of Jane Eyre finding Rochester at the end, and could not speak.

  “Kathy?”

  “To—to your right, and straight ahead. Just a few steps—here—” She stepped forward to meet him, and then they were in each other’s arms, clinging together.

  She closed her eyes and rejoiced in his solid, real presence, breathing in the smells of leather and damp cloth and his warm, perspiring flesh.

  “Oh, God, you’re real. It’s really you. Kathleen. How did you find me?”

  “I don’t know.” She pulled away slightly to look at him. “What happened to your eyes?”

  “My eyes? Nothing.” They were more green than she’d remembered.

  “You can see me?” Even as she asked the question she knew there was nothing wrong with the eyes that looked back into hers. “Why couldn’t you see me before?”

  “Well, because it was so dark!”

  “It’s not dark.”

  “No, not now,” he agreed, looking around, then back at her, with a warmth in his eyes that made her go weak in the knees.

  He let go of her and stepped back, looking around, getting his bearings. “I think I know this wood, but I’m not sure. Do you know where we are?”

  “The sign for the lighthouse is back that way.” She pointed back the way she’d come. “Maybe a mile.”

  He whistled. “I did get turned around. Still, that’s not too bad. Where’s your car?”

  “Not going anywhere.” She explained about it breaking down, describing its position in relation to the lochan, but not mentioning the man who’d turned into a horse.

  “OK, so we walk—it’s a couple of miles to my house, but there’s nothing else any closer.”

  He took her hand and they began to walk along the road. For a while they went in silence, matching their steps, developing an easy rhythm that made them comfortable with each other.

  “I owe you an apology, and an explanation,” he said at last. “You know about Kay.”

  “Your wife.”

  “My late wife. She died a year and a half ago. I loved her very much, and I still miss her, but—she’s dead.” He sighed. “Start again. Do you remember when we first met?”

  “In the library, with the heavy reference book?”

  He grinned. “Nearly knocked me out, anyway. So I started flirting with you—”

  “Never!”

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice?” He gave her a sidelong glance, fluttering his eyelashes.

  “That’s not what I meant. I thought it was me flirting with you.”

  “Snap. So, there we were, both of us enjoying ourselves, when that grumpy old man came and banged his book down on the counter to get your attention.”

  “The ever-patient, soon-to-be-sainted, Mr. Rand.”

  “The book had a picture of a swan on the cover.”

  Unable to remember, sure it could not be important, she shrugged.

  He went on: “Swans mate for life.”

  “Oh?”

  “So I’ve heard. And when one of them dies, the other one just pines away. No second marriages for Mr. or Mrs. Swan. That’s the thought—well, the association—that came into my mind at that moment, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was really, really attracted to you.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, more than just appreciating your looks and charm and wit—it was…I hadn’t felt like that about anyone for a long, long time. Not since I first met Kay. And—when I made that connection, well, it really did my head in. I had to turn around and walk away just to get some kind of control—that’s why I wasn’t there when you’d finished dealing with Mr. Rand.”

  She tried to pull her hand away, but he held it more tightly. “Do you mind letting go my hand?”

  “Why?”

  “It just seems very inappropriate for you to be holding my hand while you tell me why there can never be anyone in your life but your late wife.”

  “That’s not what I’m telling you.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  He stopped walking to face her and gazed intently into her eyes. “I thought I was supposed to be good with words; I don’t know why I’m doing such a rotten job of explaining.”

  She thought she saw fog creeping in from the seaward side, but when she turned her head to look, it wasn’t there. But the air seemed thicker, somehow, and the light more dim. “I think we should keep walking. And go faster.”

  “OK. Can we still hold hands?”

  She didn’t object, and they went on as before. She liked the comfort of his warm clasp, even when her heart was aching.

  “What I’m trying to say, in my clumsy way, is that I’m not, and never could be, a swan. I’m a faithful type, but, well, death is the end…at least as far as this life is concerned, and I’m not planning to go celibate to my grave.

  “Kay and I had even talked about it. She’d expected I’d get married again—she thought I was good husband material, despite my many flaws—too good to stay on the shelf. And I started dating about six or seven months ago, but more because it seemed like I should and friends kept wanting to fix me up with all these amazingly gorgeous, kind, single women. But nothing clicked. I was just kind of going through the motions, and, frankly, it was kind of depressing.

  “That’s actually why I came back here. I wanted to get away by myself and think about what I was going to do with the rest of my life�
�whether I should sell White Gates…”

  “Because it had been Kay’s place?”

  “No.” He sounded surprised. “I’d been coming to Appleton before I met her. The thing was, I’d had the old barn converted to a recording studio, with the idea of making it a commercial venture. I didn’t go ahead with that because—well, because then we’d got Kay’s diagnosis. I decided to spend a few weeks here, to get the feel of whether or not it could work for me, living by myself and working at White Gates.”

  “And then the landslide happened.”

  “And then I met you.” He squeezed her hand.

  They walked on a little way more in silence. “So why did you run away from me last night?”

  “Not away from you. It was such bad timing.” He took a deep breath. “I saw Kay. I knew it couldn’t be, but—there she was, across the Esplanade, walking past the harbor with a group of people. One of them I recognized—my old mate, Mickey Stark.”

  She recognized the name of a pop star who’d taken a fatal overdose twenty years ago.

  “So you ran after them.”

  “Kathleen, what would you have done? If two people you had loved, and thought were dead, went past on the street? Wouldn’t you go after them?”

  She tried to imagine it, but everyone she’d ever loved was still alive, apart from her grandparents, and she barely remembered them now. She picked him up on his phrasing. “Thought were dead?”

  He sighed. “OK, knew. I was with Kay when she died, and I had no illusions that Mickey could have been spirited away to Tibet, but—I damn sure knew I wasn’t dreaming. I couldn’t just let them go without trying to talk to them, find out what it meant, what was happening.

  “I yelled out Kay’s name. She heard me, I’m sure, because she stopped and looked around. I was waving my arms and jumping up and down like a crazy, but, I don’t know, she never would wear her glasses except for driving, and her long-distance vision wasn’t great, especially at night. When she turned her face toward me, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Kay, not just somebody who slightly resembled her.