Read Online Merlin's Wood (Mythago Wood) by Robert Holdstock - Free Book Online

laughing! – fills me with fear and I plunge off the path and into the bushes. The land gives way into a pit and I fall, screaming, spinning in the air, endlessly falling, reaching for the branches and the stone outcrops that will save me, reaching for safety but always missing, falling and falling until I wake up terrified!’
    She turned back to Martin.
    ‘I felt a moment of that wild dance and the wild wolf run tonight. It woke me up. It brought the dream back to me.’
    She was trembling. Martin sat next to her and enfolded her, feeling her tears as a cool moist touch on his neck.
    ‘Perhaps it
was
me,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps I
was
possessed.’
    Suddenly she sat up, strong again. ‘I’m frightened, lover. I think we should get the hell out of here. First thing in the morning. What do you say?’
    ‘The paperwork will take two days. Don’t go near the path. Avoid the bosker. We’ll be safe for two days. Come on, I’ll take you back to bed. We’ll talk more about it in the morning.’

PART TWO
The Unquiet Grave
    My breast, my love, is cold as clay,
    My breath smells earthly strong;
    But if you kiss my cold clay lips,
    Our days they will be long.
    From
The Unquiet Grave

(folksong, variant ca. 1750)

The Unquiet Grave
    1
    A child was laughing, outside in the night, running along the path towards the church. Martin got out of bed and watched the small boy, visible by moonlight. It was Adrien LeConte. He whirled and slipped in the darkness, his eyes alive with the vision of enchantment, his head filled with the sounds of ghostly hearts and voices.
    ‘It goes on,’ he whispered, and turned to look at Rebecca, realising at once that she had gone. Her clothes were no longer over the chair.
    With an apprehensive glance back through the window, over the field to Broceliande, Martin murmured, ‘Don’t go to the forest, Beck. For Christ’s sake, don’t go to the forest …’
    He couldn’t eat breakfast. He fed the chickens and the ailing retriever, walking the dog for a few hundred yards, but the creature was long past her prime and preferred the warmth by the wood stove. Jacques called by, his Citroën belching exhaust fumes, his breath even stronger with tobacco smoke. He had brought a pile of boxesfor packing, and a suitcase for the clothes that he would be taking for his and Suzanne’s own use. He stayed for coffee, then went back to his house. Martin took the opportunity to enter the forest’s edge and look for the bosker, but Conrad was off hunting, or fishing, perhaps exploring.
    Bess’s barking brought him running back to the farm. The bitch was up on her hind legs, forepaws on the gate, barking towards the path. She was not normally disturbed by the phantoms from Broceliande, so perhaps she was aware of something in the woods themselves. Martin scratched the animal’s head and patted her, calming her, and the barking changed to a nervous wheezing. ‘What did you see, old girl, eh? What did you see?’
    There was someone in the house, the door was open. ‘Rebecca?’
    She called back, and Martin found her inside drinking coffee and reading a magazine.
    ‘Where did you go?’
    ‘Up to Seb’s cold home.’
    ‘Don’t you mean his grave?’ Martin was trying to be light, but Rebecca stared at him, unsmiling.
    ‘It feels cold up there, Martin. It’s a cold home. I wanted to make my peace, in case I
did
have something to do with the death.’
    She was very matter of fact, and Martin nodded, irritated with himself for not having thought of something so obvious.
    ‘
Is
he at peace?’
    She sipped at her cup and nodded, eyes skimming thetext of the magazine. ‘I think so. I know
I
am. But it still feels cold where he lies.’
    ‘I thought you might have wanted to talk to Conrad.’
    She closed the journal and looked up thoughtfully. ‘I do. I think I’ll wait for a while, though. But I do want to talk to him. Last night I was afraid, very afraid. That dream, your story, your hostility