The Forest of Souls

by Carla Banks

  He put his hand on her arm. ‘It would be better for you if you didn’t see this man again. I can easily arrange it. You don’t have to be troubled.’

  ‘It doesn’t trouble me,’ she said. ‘It’s Nicholas I’m concerned about.’

  He gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘Nicholas Garrick is not your responsibility. You paid his hospital bills. You found him work. Don’t you think you’ve done enough?’

  She watched the fire. The coals shifted again, and the flames licked up. ‘No.’

  ‘There’s no reasoning with you,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and change. I’m free this evening. There’s a performance of Der Rosenkavalier on Radio 3. Shall we listen to it?’

  Back in the days when she was well, they used to go to the opera together. They’d been to La Scala when he had lived in Milan, to the Metropolitan in New York, to the Royal Opera House during his time in London. As her illness confined her more, prevented her from travelling, he would come to her and they would attend performances at the Manchester Opera House. Now, she was dependent on the radio schedules.

  After he left, she sat looking out of the window at the night. The rain spattered against the glass and blew across the roofs. Behind her, the hot coals hissed.

  Baba Yaga

  This is the story of the witch in the woods.

  Not far from the house in the forest where Marek and Eva lived, there was a village. After the railway came to the forest, the village began to grow, and slowly the forest around the wooden house began to vanish as the village spread.

  And there were troubled times. Men came and took Papa away. They took the fruit from the orchard, and the hens. ‘They want to make us Polish,’ Marek had said angrily. ‘They want to take away our home and our language.’ Without the fruit to sell, and the hens for eggs, it was a time of being hungry.

  Marek went into the forest when Mama wasn’t looking. He would put his fingers to his lips if Eva saw him, and vanish down the paths. He brought back mushrooms and nettles and rabbits, and sometimes a bird. He would pretend to Mama that it was a gift from a neighbour, or that he had found these things near to the house. And sometimes he would slip out early in the morning and then there would be milk for Eva.

  Then there came a time when Marek slipped out and came back limping, and there was no milk. Eva was more hungry than she had ever been, and Mama’s hands were so white it was as if the light was shining through them. ‘Read to me,’ she would say, to distract Eva from the empty place that gnawed inside her, so Eva would sit beside her and read to her, her voice halting at first as the letters gradually shaped themselves into sounds, the sounds into words, the words suddenly leaping from the page. She read the story of the firebird, the story of Havroshechka, the story of the snow child who played in the forest too close to the fire. She read the story of Baba Yaga, the witch whose house ran on chicken legs, and whose fence was hung with the skulls of the people she had eaten.

  And sometimes, Mama would fall asleep in her chair, the bump, bump of the rockers slowing to silence. Eva would tiptoe to the door and watch Marek until she saw him slip away along the path that led into the forest, and then she would follow him. Now she was older, she could walk further into the forest, but that day Marek was walking fast and she lost sight of him. She didn’t mind at first, following him along the path. She would catch up with him soon. The sun felt warm where it shone through the leaf canopy and she swung herself round the trunks of the trees, the silver of the birch and the dark, heavy pines.

  A bird took fright, somewhere in the deep glades, and shrieked and clattered its way into the air. The path divided here, and she didn’t know which way Marek had gone. That way was to the railway line. She listened. The forest was still. No train, no birds, no rabbits. Just the silence of the forest around her.

  The other way…She looked along the path. She didn’t know this path. Maybe Marek had gone this way. Maybe this was where Marek got the birds and the rabbits and the milk. She walked further, looking at the trees that were starting to change colour, the long fronds brushing against her face as she walked She’d never been this far into the forest before. As her feet pressed into the ground, she could smell the damp earth and the leaf mould. The breeze stirred the leaves and made the shadows dance on the forest floor. The trees whispered to her: Eva. Eva.

  And she could smell something else, faint on the breeze. It was a sour, rotting smell. It reminded her of the time a rat crawled under the house to die. She stopped. The path branched again ahead of her, winding away through the trees. As she watched, the sun came out above the leaf canopy, and its rays dappled the ground that was golden with the early fall of autumn. The breeze moved the air again and she smelled the scent of the forest, and the birch fronds danced and beckoned. Eva. Eva. She turned along the winding path.

  It led to a cottage, a house in a clearing, one of the houses in the deep forest that the village hadn’t yet reached. It was timber with a picket fence, and along the path, under the trees leading to the house, there were bushes, and the bushes were covered with berries.

  The empty place inside Eva came alive. She looked round quickly but the house seemed to be deserted. She ran along the path, and knelt down to look at the bushes. She knew these berries. She could eat them without cooking. And there were enough to take back for everyone. She crammed them into her mouth until the empty place went away and she felt a bit sick. She began to collect berries in her apron.

  But the sick feeling wasn’t just the berries. It was the smell. The smell was here, in the clearing and it was in her nose, in her hair, in her clothes, in her hands. She was inside the smell, and now she wasn’t so hungry, she couldn’t ignore it.

  She looked at the house again. She could see the white fence glimmering from the shadow of the trees, and the windows were dark spaces behind. She’d never heard of a house so deep in the forest before. She crept nearer. The house was clean, well cared for, and the smell caught in her nostrils and brought tears to her eyes.

  She could see movement in the shadows. There was something dark hanging from the beam above the porch. The shape came clearer as she moved closer. She could see a face. The face was watching her, but the eyes were half-closed and sunken. The hair, which was white, was pulled into a neat bun, like Mama’s. And the breeze blew, and she almost expected to smell Mama, the smell of lavender and herbs that she knew so well. But the smell that the breeze carried was foul.

  And as the forest breathed around her, she knew what it was. She waited, frozen, for the house to stand up on chicken legs and step towards her with deliberate but silent tread. Her hands let go of the corners of her apron, and the berries fell, unheeded, to the ground. She backed away, and again, then turned and ran down the path not stopping, not daring to look back, until suddenly she was past the trees and into the clearing, and she could hear Mama calling her, and Marek had come back from the railway with potatoes and Mama had made soup. She couldn’t eat it, though Mama scolded and worried.

  Over the next few days, she heard the women talking about the old woman in the woods–‘…her boy…shot in the fighting…hanged herself…’ And they made the sign of the cross, and Mama sighed.

  But Eva had seen Baba Yaga’s house, seen the fence hung with the bodies of the people she’d killed. And at night, she would lie in bed, tense, listening to the sounds of the forest, trying to pick out the scrape of chicken feet stepping across the forest floor. She could remember the way chickens walked, the way they lifted their feet, the way the tendons moved under the wrinkled skin of their legs, the way their claws stepped on to the ground with slow deliberation. And she knew that Baba Yaga’s house was hunting her through the forest, stealthy and inexorable.

  She had stolen Baba Yaga’s berries and now her bones would hang on that high, white fence.

  8

  The following morning dawned bright and clear with the promise of an early spring. The sun was rising as Faith left for work, the winter light warming the grey stone and gleaming
off the rocky outcrops on the high moors in the distance.

  She was worried about Helen. She’d tried contacting her, but no one answered the phone. She’d left messages, but there had been no response. She thought back to the last time they’d talked. Helen had seemed distracted. Daniel was putting a lot of pressure on her. ‘He wants his share of the house,’ she’d said. ‘I didn’t want all of this to go through lawyers and the courts. I thought we could sort it ourselves.’

  ‘Why don’t you just buy him out?’ Faith said. It seemed the simplest way–a clean break.

  ‘I can’t take on a mortgage that size. It’ll mean moving, and the kids…Now he’s saying he’s going to take me to court for custody.’ She sighed, apparently more exasperated than concerned.

  ‘Do you think he means it?’

  Helen shook her head. ‘He’s just making smoke. He thinks we’re going to get back together. He’ll come round.’

  ‘Are you?’ Helen had blossomed since she had left her marriage. Despite all the worries and all the hassle, she’d seemed brighter and happier than Faith had seen her in years.

  ‘Sometimes I think it would be the easiest way, but…’ She shook her head. ‘It’s not going to happen.’

  Faith thought about this conversation as she negotiated the traffic. Helen had been evasive about the break-up, about what had been the final trigger. Though Helen hadn’t said anything definite, Faith suspected that there was someone else in the picture. She had been astonished when she saw Helen for the first time after the break-up. Despite all the problems, she’d looked years younger. She had been the buoyant, vivacious woman Faith remembered from their university days, but a sophisticated one now, beautifully turned out, her hair styled, her clothes immaculate.

  Another time–just after her birthday–Helen had been wearing a new watch with a delicate silver band. ‘Present from Daniel?’ Faith had asked, though it looked a bit subtle for Daniel.

  ‘No,’ Helen had said, caressing the band round her wrist. ‘Just a treat.’

  A couple of days ago, Faith had met her in the lobby coming back from lunch. She was carrying a bag with the logo of one of the expensive department stores, filled with tiny boxes that looked as though they contained filmy, lacy garments, not workaday cotton.

  ‘I’m sick of the hausfrau image, that’s all,’ she’d said rather defensively when Faith had raised an ironic eyebrow at her.

  Faith put the matter of Helen to the back of her mind, and tried to focus on putting together the budget to finance the research programme that had been approved in yesterday’s meeting. But her thoughts drifted to her own family. She’d phoned Katya the evening before, choosing a time when she was pretty sure her mother would be out, and left a message to say that the interview had gone ahead and there hadn’t been any problems. But it wasn’t the interview that worried Faith. It was the sense of a gathering futility in Grandpapa’s life, epitomized by the slow decay of the house. It was as if he had stopped caring–as if his life no longer had any use or purpose.

  His life had always been his work. He hadn’t let the reins of business go until he was well into his seventies. And after that, she had been his project for a while–he had supported her through university, helped her out when she was first trying to get established and living hand to mouth on post-graduate grants. But she was independent now, had been for years. Maybe that was it. Maybe for him, life had lost its point.

  She was due to see him tomorrow evening. He was making supper for her–he enjoyed making small occasions of her visits. She could talk to him about it, try and find out what was wrong. While she was at it, she meant to put pressure on him about the house–he could at least get it weatherproof. She’d seen the rainwater stains on the ceilings upstairs, and she had felt the chilly draughts from ill-fitting doors and windows. He was going to make himself ill.

  Her worries about him occupied her all the way to work. She walked across the campus, the detritus of other people’s lives clamouring for attention in her head. Enough! she wanted to shout. She needed to focus on the day ahead.

  As she approached the Centre, she saw that there were vehicles parked outside, cars and a van. The campus was generally vehicle free and she wondered what was going on. As she got nearer, she saw a man coming out of the main entrance, his arms loaded with files, which he put into the back of the van.

  He was in uniform.

  She stopped. The writing on the van came into focus. Police. And there was a police logo on one of the cars. Someone else was coming down the steps now, carrying a computer. There was a flash of colour from the side of the machine, a bright rectangle of card that flipped over as the breeze caught it. And suddenly she remembered standing in Helen’s cubicle the day before, seeing the photo stuck to the computer, the photo of Helen with Finn and Hannah, Helen squinting into the sun with her hair blowing across her face, Hannah’s cheek pressed close to hers.

  That was Helen’s computer. The police were taking Helen’s computer away. And Helen hadn’t been around yesterday, had missed her meetings, not answered her phone, not replied to messages…

  Faith could feel a chill inside her, a tension that twisted her stomach and left a feeling of rising sickness in her throat. She was moving again now, walking faster towards the Centre, breaking into a half-run and stopping as a woman in uniform emerged from the doorway.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  The woman didn’t answer Faith’s question. ‘Do you work here?’

  ‘Yes. What’s going on?’ She looked past the woman into the lobby. It was empty and silent.

  ‘And you are…?’ The woman’s voice was calm. She wasn’t going to answer Faith’s questions until she knew who she was.

  Faith swallowed her impatience. ‘I’m Faith Lange. I’m…’ A man came down the steps past her, carrying a box of files, Helen’s files, Faith could recognize the handwriting. ‘What’s he doing?’

  The woman had a clipboard with a list of names. Faith indicated her own, trying to see past the woman as the uniformed man stowed the box in the back of the van. ‘I’m a friend of Helen Kovacs. That’s her stuff. What’s happened?’

  ‘Mrs Kovacs was…’

  ‘Doctor,’ Faith said automatically. The woman looked at her. ‘Dr Kovacs. Helen is Dr Kovacs.’ Helen always insisted on her title, probably because Daniel had been so disparaging of it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman said. ‘There’s been an incident involving Dr Kovacs…’ Her eyes checked Faith’s face for her response.

  ‘An incident? But she’s all right?’ She waited for the woman to offer the standard reassurances: She’s fine.

  But she didn’t.

  Faith tried again. ‘She’s okay?’

  Still the woman refused to pick up her cue. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She paused, and in that pause, Faith understood. ‘Dr Kovacs was found dead yesterday.’

  Dead. ‘But…’ She needed to explain. Helen couldn’t be dead. It was Hannah’s birthday on Saturday. Faith hadn’t told her about…They were supposed to…She was aware of a hand on her elbow as the policewoman steered her through the entrance into the Centre.

  ‘Do you need to sit down?’

  The policewoman was young, serious, professional. She didn’t know that Faith and Helen had been close. In a way, it was easier to hear it like this. She was just doing her job, telling someone that a colleague was dead. She wouldn’t be nervous of grief, wouldn’t be embarrassed by her own inadequacy. Faith withdrew her arm, and took a deep breath to ensure that her voice would be steady before she spoke again. ‘No. Thank you. I’m all right. What happened?’

  ‘We’ll need to talk to you,’ the woman said. ‘Would you mind waiting?’ It wasn’t a request. ‘We’ve asked the staff to wait in the office.’

  Faith wanted to shake the information out of the woman. What happened? Instead, she turned away and walked through the lobby. The winter light flooded the high space, the poster for Antoni Yevanov’s lecture glowing on the displ
ay board–After Guantanamo…She hesitated at the door of the office, then stepped back. She didn’t want to step into the room, listen to the voices falling silent, listen to people who’d hardly known Helen speaking with hushed excitement, listen to the speculation.

  Suddenly she was overwhelmed with nausea. She could feel the cold sweat on her forehead and down her back. She went quickly into the ladies and made it into one of the cubicles before she was sick, dry retching long after her stomach was empty. Her legs felt shaky as she stood up.

  There was no natural light in the cloakroom, and the mirrors over the row of basins threw back her reflection bleached of colour. The tap water was tepid and she let it run cold before she rinsed her mouth and splashed it over her face.

  There was a small yard at the back of the building where the rubbish skips were lined up for collection. She let herself out of the rear entrance, glad to see that no one else was there. It was one of the smokers’ refuges, cigarette ends littering the ground and a stale smell of ash lingering in the air. She sat on the low wall by the skips and stared up at the sky. The nausea lingered like a reminder in the pit of her stomach.

  Years before, the daughter of one of her colleagues had been killed. A young man had been driving along a straight bit of road, had put his foot down, then swerved to avoid something. His car had clipped the pushchair in which the three-year-old had been sitting. Faith had gone to the funeral. People wept at the graveside, but the bereaved mother hadn’t. She had stood there, cradling an infant that someone had given her to hold, and she had watched them bury her daughter. Her stillness was incandescent with a grief that was beyond tears.

  Hannah and Finn. They were Helen’s world. Faith reached for her phone and tried Helen’s home number, but there was no answer. She flicked through the pages of her diary. She could remember scribbling down the number of Daniel’s phone at some time. She keyed it in, hoping it was still current. It rang several times before it was answered.