The Dead Path

by Stephen M Irwin

  “You think you know,” she whispered, “but you can’t know.”

  She looked back at the flames. As she rocked, Nicholas noticed something on the wall behind her. It was a calendar of sorts, but made of wood, with movable squared pegs plugged into holes like a board game belonging to some Victorian-era child. But the pegs were marked with strange symbols: stylized seasons, runes, phases of the moon. The board had an elaborately carved frame; at its top, staring through hooded eyes as black as wells from a face of oak leaves, was the Green Man.

  “I have so much to tell. So much,” Quill whispered. “So many stories. So many years.” She spoke so quietly, her lips hardly moving, that Nicholas wondered if he was dreaming her voice in his still-swimming head. “Can you imagine my delight when I learned from your mother that you were a Samhain child?” She pronounced the word as Suzette had: sah-wen. A word lush and full. Quill turned her eyes again to Nicholas. “A special child. A child with the sight. And you do have the sight. A grave-digger’s eyes. A stomach full of sadness to match mine.”

  The old woman was suddenly gone and the young Rowena Quill sat in the same dress, its collar loose enough around her pale shoulders to show the curve of her breasts below. Her lips were red as blood. Then a log cracked in the fire, and the old woman was back in the chair.

  Nicholas stared. “Then why did you try to kill me?”

  Quill watched him for a long moment. “I never did.”

  “You set a bird for me,” he said. It was hard to talk, his own weight pressing on his ribs. “As you did for Hannah. And God knows how many other children.”

  Anger flared freshly in her eyes, but was hidden away just as fast.

  “But never for you. I sent Gavin Boye to you with a wee fib, to entice you here. T’weren’t hard-all his thinking was done with his little head.” She winked, a wrinkled sphincter. “The bird you found was for his brother, your plucky little blond gossip, and it found him sure as sure. He saw a lovely tin hussar. You saw it for what it was. A bird.” She fixed him with her eyes, then looked back at the warmth of the fire. “No, Nicholas Close. I wanted you full grown. That’s why I asked Him to send you back.”

  Nicholas suddenly felt his heart beat harder. Its thudding pumps shook him on the floor.

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled, perfect white teeth alternated with rust red, almost toothless gums.

  “England was too far away. Too, too far. So I asked Him to bring you home,” she said. “And here you are.”

  Nicholas felt his vision sparkle and the blood drain from his face. And memories of flashing green; the thrum of a motorcycle; the glimpse of an inhuman face among the black tangles of an oak grove; Cate’s neck bent too far back over the white porcelain edge of the bath, her open eyes dulled by a fine patina of plaster dust.

  “What did you do?” he whispered.

  She let free a laugh that was at once as clear and pretty as fine bells and graveled and moss-thick as a blocked drain. Her eyes watched him fondly.

  “My pretty man. I did what I had to. I want us to be together.”

  T he smell was familiar.

  There wasn’t a hint of goodness about it. It was the sour scent of rot and wet shadow; the smell of bad earth and failed flesh. Hannah recalled it, or something like it, from when she had accompanied her father under the house, crawling low between stumps, over damp earth where sunlight never shone, until they found the dead possum. Its gray bones poked from beneath a pungent shroud of fur, green stuff, and wriggling white. Maggots. The smell of death had made her gag and skitter back to fresher air. Now she had no such luxury.

  She was upright, but couldn’t move or see. Her legs were swaddled fast together and her arms were bound tight and crooked against her body. Her eyes were shut and she couldn’t open them: a second skin had her wrapped from head to foot, with only a little space left under her nostrils. Fine strands like baby’s hair tickled her nose when she inhaled the stale, soiled air.

  But she knew what it was holding her. She was trussed up just as she imagined Miriam had been: spun tight in spiderweb, alive and waiting to be fed upon by scuttling things with sharp fangs and unblinking eyes.

  A hot wave of panic swept through her, and she fought for control of her bowels. Idiot, she thought for the thousandth time since she’d watched Nicholas-at least, she’d thought it was Nicholas-return from chasing Miriam’s voice. He’d smiled and said, “Just the wind.” Then he pointed, “But what the hell is that?” She’d turned to follow his outstretched arm, realizing as she twisted that she had fallen for the oldest trick since smell the cheese. Something hard had come down fast on the crown of her skull, and minutes suddenly disappeared. She’d woken on the ground with her arms tied behind her back and her knees lashed together and rags shoved in her mouth. Then, like looking into a bewitched forest mirror, she saw herself standing in the darkening glade, smiling back at her. The hairs on her arms and neck turned to wire, and her twin called in her own voice: “Nicholas!”

  The real Nicholas- the one with a gun, dummy! -had rushed back, looked at Hannah, and his eyes had widened. He’d raised the gun and, just when she thought she was dead for sure, swung the barrel away. Then, blammo!, and a sting ten times worse than any bee’s had rammed like a hot darning needle into her left calf muscle, which now ached like hell. Tears had rolled down her face as she watched her twin self pull out a syringe and stick it into Nicholas. He folded like a dropped doll, and then her twin came over to her. “Sleep tight,” the other Hannah had said, and stuck the needle into her arm. About ten minutes ago she’d woken from a black sleep to here, a fly in the spider’s parlor.

  Hannah realized she was crying. Fat lot of good that would do.

  “Help!” she called.

  Her voice was muffled and sucked up by the blackness; it was like yelling from inside a wardrobe full of clothes. The dead sound and the spoiled butter smell of rancid earth confirmed she was underground. It was as if she was dead already.

  Hannah expected this to make her sob even more, but instead she found her tears drying up and her tummy growing warm. How dare they? How dare they do this to little girls! She understood why her parents got so angry when they saw the results of bombers in the white hot streets of the Middle East, why men and women wailed in anger as well as grief when they lifted the limp bodies of children from the rubble. How dare they? No. She wasn’t going to die like this, wrapped up like some helpless baby.

  She concentrated, trying to picture herself. There was no weight on her feet. She was vertical. Her heels, back, and shoulders were pressed against something hard and cold-the earth wall. She was hung like a side of lamb. She sent a testing kick of her twinned legs against the wall behind her and heard a small shower of earth trickle and a faint rattling like glass. She kicked again. Another small fall of soil, another rattle like glasses on a shelf. If only she could see . There was only one way that was going to happen.

  She strained and forced open her mouth, and stuck her tongue between her teeth. It touched a fibrous skin that made her wet flesh instantly recoil and her stomach jumble. Come on, she told herself, there’s no other way. She opened her mouth again, wider. She felt the binding silk around her jaw stretch. She closed and opened again, wider, the muscles in her neck straining hard. Come on! She closed and opened one more time… and felt the horrible fabric tear a little.

  She put her tongue out and felt the raw edges of the torn silk. She looped her tongue around them and drew them into her mouth. Just a little bit, she thought. That’s all I need to free my eyelids. She pulled the tasteless web between her teeth and ground, pulling her jaw down in a grimace-it felt as if she was eating the very skin off her face. But the silk over her eyelids shifted. She opened her mouth and gagged, her stomach heaved and finally let go, and a warm gush of acidic mush jetted out. She spat and sniffed up snot. Her eyes opened a crack.

  It was impossible to judge the room’s size because it was almost completely dark. The inkiness w
as broken by three weak slices of light that shone down onto a set of ascending stairs made of old bricks. The far wall was swallowed by the darkness-it could be three meters away, or three hundred for all she could see. She twisted her head to the right. From the corner of her eye, she could just make out the wall she was hung from; into its earth were cut rows of horizontal shelves, and on them were jars and jars and jars. So that’s what was rattling. She twisted her head left and bit back a scream.

  The skull looking back at her had its mouth open. The spiderwebs that bound the mummified child had long turned gray and now sagged morosely. The child’s skin was the black of old book leather. Curled black hair poked dully between the smoky silk around its skull. Its eye sockets had been closed over with fresher webs.

  She looked away, heart cascading. How long had she been here? How long would she need to hang here until she was too weak to do anything and met the same fate? How much time did she have? A fresh wave of tears built up inside her, threatening to burst out. How much time?

  Time.

  T-i-m-e. T-I-M-E. T-I…

  If she screamed now that she’d spat out the gag, the witch would surely hear her. She closed her eyes, focused on the letters. T-I-M-E. T-I-M-E. Tick tock. Tick tock goes the clock. Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock… Her breaths came more evenly as she ran the children’s rhyme through her mind. The bird looked at the clock. The dog barked at the clock. The bear slept by the clock… Her heartbeat slowed. Before she realized what she was doing, she moved her legs left, just a little, then let them drop back. As she swung down, she lifted her legs right. And drop. Tick tock. She began a rhythm, a human pendulum, swaying on the wall. She didn’t ask herself why; she knew it felt right. With each drop and swoop up, she strained, getting higher and higher. She felt her back, her bottom, her elbows, her heels, scrape on the dirt, grinding through the silk. That’s it! Scrape! Tick! Scrape! Tock! She swung herself, straining left, straining right; swing-scrape, swing-scrape. The tightness around her chest eased just slightly. Her strapped ankles grew slightly freer. She felt wet, cold earth trickle into her shirt, down her back. Left-swing-scrape… Right-swing-scrape… a little higher, a little higher… She could flex her arms, just a little, but that little bought her room to swell and contract as she swung. A couple more! She could hold her legs a few centimeters apart. Her shoulders could shrug. She could slide her hands across her belly. Yes! One more! She swung…

  And felt a line of fire draw across her shoulder blades. She yelped. Her body scraping across the raw earth had exposed a sharp rock, and it dug deep into her flesh as she slid across it. It felt like a line of boiling oil had been dribbled from shoulder to shoulder. Hot tears poured from her eyes and she bit her bottom lip hard to stop the scream from coming out. She stopped swinging.

  And, despite the tears, grinned in triumph. Her feet were on the floor.

  N icholas watched Quill rise from her chair and walk to the fire pit.

  Her calves-squat and blue and veined, then slender and pale and taut-passed before his face. She knelt at the larger fire and began stoking its coals. Glowing orange sparks rose in a syrupy fountain of dying stars.

  Outside, the wind grew stronger. It batted at the window, setting it knocking in its frame, and whistled sorrowfully in the flue. The fire behind the grate grew brighter as if jealous of its increscent neighbor.

  Nicholas felt his mind eat its way back, like a snake through its burrow, to the Ealing flat’s bathroom where he sat watching Cate hear her mobile phone, climb down the ladder, slip and fall-sudden as a snapped branch-to strike the icy white of the bath edge, and lie still. She’d never have fallen if he hadn’t phoned. He’d never have phoned if he hadn’t dropped the bike. He wouldn’t have dropped the bike if he hadn’t seen the face between the dark trees in Walpole Park. And he wouldn’t have seen the face if Quill hadn’t asked for him to see it.

  She’d summoned the Green Man.

  “You killed my wife,” he whispered.

  Quill drew a hooked poker through the coals as if she hadn’t heard him and blew gently through pursed lips. Flame burst alive, and, as reward, her profile grew young and perfect, a sculpture cruel and lovely.

  “I asked. The Green Man arranged. But you killed her,” she corrected.

  The flames in the fire pit licked higher.

  “You selfish bitch,” he whispered. “Cate. Tristram. All those children.”

  Quill looked sideways at him. “You haven’t asked why,” she said.

  Nicholas saw she wore a thin belt under her cardigan. On it was slung a sheath, narrow as a letter opener, from which protruded a bone handle.

  “I know why.”

  She arched her eyebrows.

  “You bought yourself a longer life with theirs,” he said.

  She watched him for a while, long enough for him to hear the hungry crackle of flames and the eerie moan of high, cold wind-the scene was so rustic, they could be a hundred miles away and a hundred years ago. Then she shook her head and laughed. For just a moment, it was a pretty, girlish laugh without poison or hate. Then it soured and died. She gritted her teeth.

  “I did nothing for me, Nicholas Close,” she tutted. “I thought you were wiser than that.”

  He watched her: an ancient woman with a ghostly flicker of youth haunting her features, tending a fire in an old cottage in the middle of woods that should have been bulldozed and built over long ago.

  “For the woods?”

  She gave the fire a last prod. Satisfied, she rose painfully to her feet.

  “Everything I’ve done was done for these woods.”

  She sat again, and fussed her fingers over the wooden calendar, then leaned to look out the window. As she did, moonlight struck her skin, washing away the years and bringing the young Rowena Quill full into life. She stayed that way-youthful and perfect-as she spoke, staring at the moon.

  “My mam had skill. She taught me. Her mam taught her. We were women of the woods for as long as long. There was respect once, for women with knowledge. Who knew how to heal. How to divine this and that. How to help sway luck. Respect and fear. But the world, the world moved on…” Rowena cocked an eye at him. “Bought life, ya say? Do you know what was considered an old woman when I was born? Forty years.” She hissed the words, disgusted. “Forty years was old age. We were a dozen folk a cabin in our clachan. Our land was long in the hands of the English. Cromwell did his work well and thorough. My folk were cottiers, pretty low folk. We grew lumpers, ’taters. We all grew lumpers…” She nodded to herself. “I was jes’ a girl, not twelve, when the ’tater leaves started turnin’ black and rottin’.” As she spoke, her lilt grew thicker, her gaze farther away. “You’ve smelled dead t’ings. But nothin’ stenches like a t’ousand fields of a million wet, rottin’ lumpers. No ’taters. So they sold us corn. Peel’s brimstone. It rips ya up inside and does nothin’ good for ya. Useless. We were payin’ ta die. We started starvin’. My beautiful mam…”

  Rowena’s skin was the cold blue-white of marble in the moonlight. She might have been carved of milkstone, but for the flicker of her dark eyes.

  “She, all of us, we all starved thin. So we all stole. And we all whored. Only I picked poorly. The man I whored for wanted what I wouldn’t give him. He wanted a wife and a sprig.” She frowned. “Sweet words and fancies. I thought about it, I truly did. But the shame of an English husband was too much. Too much.” Her small nose wrinkled with distaste. “He got to hittin’ hard, takin’ for free t’ only thing I had to sell. So I stabbed him. But I were no good at that, neither. Three days he took to perish. Plenty of time for him to tell who done it and for the coats to find me and jail me up. And try me. Hangin’, they gave me.”

  She swiped the fire lazily with the poker, and turned her eyes to Nicholas.

  “But we had a calf, a skinny ragged t’ing. The most valuable t’ing me mam owned. Mam took it to the woods on Mabon, when we say thanks for the harvest. Not much ta t’ank for. But she took
it and cut it and asked Him to save me from swingin’.” Rowena nodded her head at the carved image of the Green Man. “The next week, m’ sentence was commuted to transportation. Mam waved me off from Youghal. She walked all the way, poor pinched t’ing, and as we were marched to the pier, she ran up and told me how she bought my life. What He did for her. She made me promise, wherever I ended up, to show m’ thanks by lookin’ after His woods.

  “He saved me.”

  She stared at Nicholas, chin high.

  The fire ticked uneasily.

  Nicholas held her eyes.

  “And who is here to save the children from you?”

  Quill didn’t move a muscle. She seemed frozen in light and time, an ice statue that could stare implacably for a thousand years. She spoke at last.

  “Blood is the only sacrifice that pleases the Lord.”

  T here was nothing left in Hannah’s stomach to sick up. As she’d struggled to ease her hands out of the silk, the clinging strands had stuck between her fingers and under her nails. Finally, she’d freed her fingers enough to rip a hole through which she could shove her forearm. She cleared her eyes and mouth, but the feel of the persistent, sticky web pulling at her face and hair made her choke. What she removed from her hair stuck to her fingertips. After awhile, the sense of it clinging and grasping sent her into a panic, and she danced about, trying to fling it from herself; as she whirled, she collided with the mummified black boy in his cocoon, sending him rattling dryly. Her stomach gave itself up in a long retching fit.

  It was while she was on her hands and knees, ropy spit hanging from her mouth and nose, that she spotted something curled in the corner of the cellar. She wiped her mouth and hurried to it. Her backpack!

  She carried it to the brick stairs and, under the three slivers of moonlight, opened it, heart thumping excitedly. Inside were sodden newspapers, still tangy with the smell of alcohol. Loose matches scattered like tiny bones. She dug, and found what she was looking for: the paring knife, its blade still wrapped in crinkled aluminium foil. Just holding its plastic handle in her fingers made her feel better. A weapon.