by Beech, Mark
And when he told her the story of the man, whose tongue and arms had withered, she lost all patience and instructed the foreman to gouge the woodland entirely from her land. In her spite and zeal, they passed far beyond the borders of her property, cutting a clear swathe to the hidden path.
The view surprised and delighted her. The fall of the trees revealed the hill and its cave. And brushing past the wreck of branches, leaves and fruit, she saw the cascade of water. Intrigued, she grabbed a stick from the devastation, to fend off any remaining brambles and hastened to investigate.
The hour before dawn, when the old fears and nightmares came to the humans—especially in the houses of glass and steel—was his favourite. In partial darkness, their brash new settlements appeared subdued and vulnerable. He felt he could brush them away with a sweep of his hand and extinguish forever their soft pulsing lights, that glowed like candles around a corpse. And it was always at this hour, that he slipped noiselessly, through the trees, to bathe in the pool, by the waterfall.
He had known her in all her seductions and moods, since the forests rose, hills were shaped and the river’s course shifted to create her—a solitary nymph, silvery blue at dawn. He immersed himself in her; her breath in the whirlpools and eddies, her whisper in the reeds and river flowers and her rumours and stories, in the cascade from the hill. And he was jealous of any mortal who dared to share her intimacies. Terrified of his rages and sudden unpredictable acts of vengeance, they had grown trees around the path, to hide the glory of his progress. Now, he crept in stealth, from the tumult of the town; a half-forgotten minor deity of the fringes and hinterlands.
He had watched their tribes, civilizations and empires bubble, flourish and fade. But their skills and brash confidence grew with each wave as his own powers had waned. The first ones had called him ‘Lugus’, a violent god of darkness. They had built temples to him; fashioning his image out of gold, stone and wood, for his whims decided their crops and their fertility. When they were driven west, the new invaders called him by different titles but still they honoured and feared ‘Old Polk’, as a malignant spirit of the woods and hills. He lingered then in folk memory and the church slyly stole, not only his temple, but his name, to create their spurious hermit.
Once, he had been capable of tenderness towards them, feeling the poignancy of their mortality. When he held the quick bright girls in his arms, he longed to make them immortal with an embrace and delay the mutability of the strange children they bore him, that fools called changelings. He knew the forgotten burial places of them all; the white bones in the mounds on the hillside, where of old, the grass was cropped by the wild white cattle and the smudgy brown-faced sheep. And he honoured with flowers and yew, even those confined in the mean little churchyards of his enemies.
Apart from the older wiser residents, only pockets of belief remained in the town, that sputtered and fizzed, according to fashion. Earnest youths and their pale anxious girls, in flowers and beads, had once spent a night in his woods. And a coven of the middle-aged and elderly, creaking and puffing, with rheumatism and damaged hearts, met regularly at solstice. Their flabby nakedness and sterile obeisances, devoid of passion and fire, wearied him. But their clumsy homage was well meant and his unseen followers had shepherded them from harm and guided them home, unscathed.
But now he realised that the brief and futile fertility of the humans would outlive him. His retinue, once hundreds strong, had dwindled to a handful. He remembered their glow and shine; the spirits of felled trees, of the lakes and marshes, drained by the mortals, and the sacred haunted places, desecrated and made sterile by their engines and towers.
He had heard his followers lament the naiad of the woodland spring. Her sly humour and tricks had given him solace and consolation, for many recent centuries. She had confided to him all the crazed dreams she had implanted in the coarse agricultural labourers, who had slurped and dribbled at her shrine. And he had watched them, as they stumbled and sweated in the heat, confused and shamed by her visions. She had died in his arms, encrusted and choking with the filth of their machines. Once, he could have crushed them utterly—wreaking havoc and revenge upon them all. But his powers were long diminished. And this morning, he came to grieve for her, with her companion nymph, of the pool. As he dived and swam, he caught his own reflection in her eyes. His face was old and hollow. His lips were drawn back; the skin and hair taut, and his teeth were bared. The image disturbed him for it echoed the last wolf of his lands; cornered by them, in a copse, some six hundred years ago. Its fur had bristled and its eyes had glowed, as it sprang, one last time, at their throats.
Throughout his dark reveries, he had been aware of a new infringement, an imminent peril, that cut into the last vestiges of his world. But beset with grief, he had dismissed the premonition. As he surfaced and sprang lightly onto a poolside boulder, he saw a young woman, standing high on the opposite bank, watching him. She reminded him of the lost beauty of the old tribes, with her grey-green eyes and hair, streaked with the yellows and reds of the sky at sunset. The presence of one so enticing was rare and her intrusion forgiven. The taste of the naiad of the pool was still in his mouth and nostrils—the roots of old trees, the chalk and the flowers, as yet unformed.
But then, as he breathed the perfume from her skin, hair and clothes, came the death smell of slashed and broken trees, like marrow oozing from a jagged bone. He recognised them all—the blackthorns, hazels, alders and rowans, on the fringes of the lands of the old woman, a year dead, who had brought him flagons of wine, as offerings. A centenarian, many had marvelled at her longevity and independence. But benevolent to those who honoured him, he had stopped the cancer that gnawed at her throat and reversed the blindness, he knew would ravage her.
And this new woman, an interloper, in a morning’s work, had desecrated one of the last sacred places. He saw a smirk form on her face at his nakedness; her eyes drawn to his thigh, in a mixture of disgust and contempt. In her hand she carried a switch of hazel, still raw and bleeding with sap. Idly, she flung it into the pool, laughed and departed.
That afternoon, Ellie Crinan sat in her garden, with a friend, admiring the cleared swathe of landscape and discussing the stranger by the pool.
“I thought at first it was a young guy for he sprang out of the water like a gymnast. But the eyes were old—dark and nasty, like those filthy old men, queuing in the chemist for their prescription viagra. Probably, a well-preserved old lecher, sniffing around after those girls. And he was unnaturally hirsute—back and legs covered in thick black curls. I’ve not seen him in the town—no doubt a foreign worker—cheap labour, picking fruit at the farm.”
“Sounds more like an itinerant pedlar or cacker,” her friend said. “Next thing, you’ll find him knocking on your door, offering to tarmac the drive or mend your guttering, in the hope of peeping in your bedroom window, when you’re dressing. You say he was agile for his age—years of shinning up drainpipes, pinching the lead off church roofs.”
“And the air was rank with him. Although he’d been swimming, there was an unwholesome musk, like passing the cage of some dung-encrusted beast, all horn and slimy fur, at the zoo. But the pool and waterfall were quaint. Families and their kiddies would love to paddle and splash there. The shrubs and brambles need to be cut back and the boulders removed. The council could connect it to the main road. They could put a lamp standard down there, a bench for the elderly, with a litter bin and a notice, warning dog owners, about their pets, fouling the path.”
“And a sign prohibiting nude bathing. You’d think, at least, he could have covered it with his hands.”
“Do you remember at Oxford—the jokes about ‘Parson’s Pleasure’, on the Cherwell, where in the past, the bachelor dons used to bathe naked?”
“Yes, and once they were observed by an undergraduate girl, out punting. All of them hid their sagging privates, except one, who covered his head with a towel and said that he, at least, was known in the university,
by his face.”
“Our pool could be called ‘Pikey’s Pleasure.’”
Their anecdotes and laughter drifted to the woodland of her neighbour, where a figure watched and listened. His rage grew for the intrusion, for his lost naiad and for the imminent threat to the nymph of the pool. The mortals, who had once lived in dread of his glories and humours, now mocked him and viewed him as one of their own pariahs—an aged thing of furtive vices; a voyeur, a thief and a pedlar. He remembered the old gypsies with affection. They had their own inherent magic and acknowledged him with gifts and a name, in their secret language.
That night, as Ellie Crinan lay with her lover, a soft wind blew from the hill, filling the bedroom with the scent of gorse and heather. The cave’s entrance was white, under a full moon and a plume of chalky light filtered through the open window. She felt she could almost see the scoured outlines of the strange drawings on its walls, flickering and twisting. As she stared into its mouth, she remembered the obscene statue that had wounded her, the dried trickle of her own blood and the bitter echo, when her hammer had crushed its eyes into dust. And she saw a blackness, deep in the maw of the hill; something old and malign, that seeped into their bedroom. It seemed to curl like smoke, thick and suffocating, from the bones of rocks and trees, long fallen and buried, but now oozing from the grass and chalk. The moonlight was only a trick to enhance its potency.
In the mirror, she glimpsed their clumsy tangled embrace. Their flesh was the colour of ash and their limbs, like pumice stone, were swollen and ugly. They resembled the calcified dead from Pompeii, engulfed by lava, but reanimated by some cruel conjuring or sleight of hand. They twitched and fumbled with the same compulsive gestures as dupes and stooges, hypnotised on stage; living mannequins, compelled into acts of grotesque hand washing or begging for titbits on their haunches and barking, like dogs. And she felt marooned and isolated in the landscape and moonlight that had flooded their bedroom. The mirror seemed a pool or lake and they were the only ones in a hostile wilderness, naked and alone.
Her lover sensed her unease and they rolled apart, all desire withered. She rose, drew the curtains to block the vastness of the night and covered herself with her pillow, gathering the bed sheet around her. But the sensation persisted. She dreamed she was crouched under a bush or in thick undergrowth, hiding from the moon, the trees and the dark potency of the cave, on an endless plain, bereft of people. With growing fear and panic, she dreaded the dawn, for its light would pinpoint her, clinging to branches and tussocks of grass. And the panorama of sky, scudding clouds and the sweep of valleys and hills, with all their malevolence, would render her giddy and teetering, unable to stand or run, from something that advanced slowly and inexorably towards her.
She woke to a lingering memory of the night’s anxieties. But irritated at having succumbed to irrational fears and fancies, she busied herself with work, relying on her mantras of assertive and confident thoughts and actions. The coming day was crucial. In the afternoon, a celebrity magazine was arriving for a photo shoot, showcasing her designs. The panoramic view from the back garden, with the newly-exposed cave on the hill, added a new dimension, broadening her wealth and status. The town’s most photogenic citizens were her hand-picked guests. The sunburned coiffured sportsmen, twinkling civic greybeards and the glamorous owners of coffee shops, boutiques and salons, together with some docile farmyard animals, would be the extras on her parade. They exemplified a modern rural lifestyle, with the countryside tamed and disinfected. Her interiors had been polished and preened. Contracts had been agreed with designer brands and their product placements discreetly arranged. All was perfect as she stepped outside to inspect her garden.
A movement on the hill caused her to look up to the cave. Its chalk was defaced with bold slashes of black abstract lines in charcoal. As her eyes focused, she noticed the resemblance to the statue from her garden, with its surrounding group of acolytes. And busily engaged in their graffiti, were the girls who had trespassed onto her land. One was embellishing the creature’s thigh with crimson paint or dye. She understood the taunt. Her injury had been observed and in broad daylight, they were mocking her and sabotaging her plans.
But they had underestimated her. She had them trapped. With her speed and training, she could scale the public path to the cave, in a matter of minutes. If they attempted to brush past her, or even assaulted her, in their escape, she would be able to identify them for a successful prosecution. It would enhance her reputation both in the town and nationally.
She sprinted to the foot of the hill and mounted the wooden steps, two at a time. On a platform, only yards from the cave, she paused and saw the girls, as they retreated into its depths. She had expected a rough uncouth athleticism and pictured them wearing the fashions and make-up of some current teenage tribe or cult. But their clothes seemed odd and intangible. As they moved, she had the impression of water, shimmering on a river, or the leaves and branches of trees, folding and overlapping, as the wind blew. And there was a cold inhuman ferocity in their eyes. She recalled a visit to the enclosure of a tawny forest cat, at a wildlife haven. The creature had stared at her briefly, with the same vehement feral hatred, before fading into the shadow of its den.
Their strange beauty and grace astonished her. And even in her zeal to catch and punish them, she identified something marketable; an eroticism that could be refined and harnessed. Men would lust after them and women would envy their poise and magnetism. She imagined herself as a mentor in their rehabilitation. They would be in her thrall and accentuate her celebrity.
She followed them into the cave, confident she would find them hiding and giggling, in its furthest recesses. But it was deeper than she remembered and in the dark, their silhouettes were still yards ahead of her.
She emerged in the heart of a forest, where the trees towered above her. She glimpsed her quarry but their shapes merged swiftly into the trunks of elm, ash and rowan, and one was reflected in a fast flowing river of treacherous current and strength. In the patterns of leaves, branches and grey water, she recognised the hues and contours of their hair and clothing. And she understood their nature and their power.
It was a place of intense melancholy, where a brooding sadness made the air close and oppressive. The immensity of the wood brought a rush of vertigo and panic and she felt hemmed in by its silence and malevolence. She sensed its hatred of mortal things that walked on two legs; things that felled, slashed, cut and burned. Tendrils and whips of briars stretched out to strangle; branches to beat and crush and roots to trip and suffocate her, in the gaping hollows and boles. One fallen oak lay nearby, clustered with ivy, that seemed shaped like a body, swollen and twisted, as if an interloper had been pinioned by its navel and its entrails wrapped around the trunk, to appease the anger of the wood.
In the maze of vegetation, the cave’s entrance was lost and she scrambled vainly amongst ferns and thorns. And from the distance, but approaching fast, came sounds that seemed to originate from the roots and bones of the trees; notes of bitterness and madness, without melody, from a deranged musician. The forest caught their echo and they reverberated around the banks of the streams and rivers and high in the canopy of the trees.
She fled from their roar and menace. As she climbed mounds and hillocks and jumped ditches and mires, she realised that she had been gulled and lured to this place. And even as she ran, the malice of the forest was directing her flight, nudging and shepherding her. Determined to frustrate its influence, she swerved aside, lost her footing and tumbled down a grassy bank. She heard laughter; the same mocking echo, from her destruction of the statue. As she lay, dazed and exhausted, it seemed that someone touched her eyes and breathed on her. The gesture was cold and she felt the hand and mouth recoil, as if her flesh was repellent.
But she opened her eyes with a feeling of serenity and a heightened awareness of her surroundings. She was alone, by a lake, on the fringes of a great forest, with the valley below. She felt the sentience of
wood, stone and water. The shadows of the spirits of hills and trees flickered elusively as her eyes struggled to focus on their shapes. And there was a murmur and whisper; a ritual of dance and language so beautiful, that she desperately wanted to understand. She remembered the ones who had entered her land. Their voices and colours shimmered and glowed again and her mouth formed their names: Arbeth, Llinon, Elenid and Blodeuedd. She knew their moods, pleasures and sorrows and she grieved too for the naiad of the spring, whose name was Dathyl.
Days, months and years seemed to pass in minutes. In the valley, where her own house had stood, were stones, like hooded white figures. When the stars and moon spun and rolled, she saw their patterns and alignments, from earth to firmament. Winding from the huts of the town, were people, shy and fearful, bringing gifts to the altars. The pageant stretched back through the centuries, from the fervency and belief of the old tribes, to the fitful indifference of recent years. And she understood the solemnity of stone and the swaying dance steps of the trees. When she listened intently, she could hear the heartbeats of creatures, deep in the woods, and eavesdrop on the dreams of wolves, sea eagles, pine martens and things remembered only as bones, in the rocks and earth.
In the distance, the unseen musician was playing again but the tune was no longer deranged and discordant. Its sweetness made her want to rise and immerse herself in its rhythm. She saw her face, reflected in the lake. Her youth and beauty seemed enhanced by her insight and knowledge. But her limbs would not move. She felt them paralysed and atrophied. From her image in the water, she felt the ooze of petrol and polythene, the sickly heat of plastic and the smell of rotting sap, still on her skin and hair. A dragonfly, its body the colour of black opals, hovered over the water and alighted on the green of her eyes. The reflection broke as the ripples spiralled and her face crumbled. The music was silent now and someone moved behind her. In the lake, she saw his face, as the first tribes had known him, before the years of bitterness and cynicism. But his touch on her eyelids was dead and passionless and she saw his contempt, as he passed from view. She felt limbs, strong as branches or whirlpools, grip and carry her through the forest, before she slipped into unconsciousness.
