Read Online Mythago Wood - 1 by Robert Holdstock - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Holdstock
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mythago myself.
Don't come back here, Steve. Not for a long, long time.'
'Chris -' I began, but too late. He had thrown back the covering of the hole
and was running from me. Moments later the most enormous shape passed overhead,
one huge, black foot landing just inches from my frozen body. It passed by in a
split second. But as I scrambled from the hole and began to run I glanced back
and the creature, hearing me, glanced back too; and for that instant of mutual
contemplation, as we both moved apart in the forest, I saw the face that had
been painted across the blackened features of the boar.
The Urscumug opened its mouth to roar, and my father seemed to leer at me.
----
PART TWO
The Wild Hunters
One
One morning, in early spring, I found a brace of hare hanging from one of the
pothooks in the kitchen; below them, scratched in the yellow paintwork on the
wall, was the letter 'C'. The gift was repeated about two weeks later, but then
nothing, and the months passed.
I had not been back to the wood.
Over the long winter I had read my father's diary ten times if I had read it
once, steeping myself in the mystery of his life as much as he had steeped
himself in the mystery of his own unconscious links with the primeval woodland.
I found, in his erratic recordings, much that told of his sense of danger, of
what - just once - he called 'ego's mythological ideal', the involvement of the
creator's mind which he feared would influence the shape and behaviour of the
mythago forms. He had known of the danger, then, but I wonder if Christian had
fully comprehended this most subtle of the occult processes occurring in the
forest. From the darkness and pain of my father's mind a single thread had
emerged in the fashioning of a girl in a green tunic, dooming her to a
helplessness in the forest that was contrary to her natural form. But if she
were to emerge again, it would be with Christian's mind controlling her, and
Christian had no such preconceived ideas about a woman's strength or weakness.
It would not be the same encounter.
The notebook itself both perplexed and saddened me. There were so many
entries that referred to the years before the war, to our family, to Chris and
myself particularly; it was as if my father had watched us all the time,
and in that way had been relating to us, had been close to us. And yet
all the time he watched, he was detached, cold. I had thought him unaware of me;
I had imagined myself a mere irritation in his life, a nagging insect that he
waved aside brusquely, hardly noticing. And yet he had been totally aware of me,
recording each game I played, each walk to, and around, the woodland, recording
the effects upon me.
One incident, written briefly and in great haste, brought back a memory of a
long, summer's day when I had been nine or ten years old. It involved a wooden
ship, which Chris had fashioned from a piece of fallen beech, and which I had
painted. The ship, the stream we called the sticklebrook, and a raging passage
through the woodland below the garden. Innocent, childish fun, and all the time
my father had been a sombre, dark shape, observing us from the window of his
study.
The day had begun well, a bright, fresh dawn, and I had awoken to the sight
of Chris, crouched in the branches of the beech tree outside my room. I crawled
through the window in my pyjamas, and we sat there, in our secret camp, and
watched the distant activity of the farmer who managed the land hereabouts.
Somewhere else in the house there was movement, and I imagined that the cleaning
lady had arrived early, to benefit from this fine summer's day.
Chris had the piece of wood, already shaped into the hull of a small boat. We
discussed our plans for the epic journey by river, then scampered back into the
house, dressed, snatched breakfast from the hands of the sleepy figure of our
mother, and went out into the workshed. A mast was soon shaped and drilled into
the hull. I layered red paint on to the
Don't come back here, Steve. Not for a long, long time.'
'Chris -' I began, but too late. He had thrown back the covering of the hole
and was running from me. Moments later the most enormous shape passed overhead,
one huge, black foot landing just inches from my frozen body. It passed by in a
split second. But as I scrambled from the hole and began to run I glanced back
and the creature, hearing me, glanced back too; and for that instant of mutual
contemplation, as we both moved apart in the forest, I saw the face that had
been painted across the blackened features of the boar.
The Urscumug opened its mouth to roar, and my father seemed to leer at me.
----
PART TWO
The Wild Hunters
One
One morning, in early spring, I found a brace of hare hanging from one of the
pothooks in the kitchen; below them, scratched in the yellow paintwork on the
wall, was the letter 'C'. The gift was repeated about two weeks later, but then
nothing, and the months passed.
I had not been back to the wood.
Over the long winter I had read my father's diary ten times if I had read it
once, steeping myself in the mystery of his life as much as he had steeped
himself in the mystery of his own unconscious links with the primeval woodland.
I found, in his erratic recordings, much that told of his sense of danger, of
what - just once - he called 'ego's mythological ideal', the involvement of the
creator's mind which he feared would influence the shape and behaviour of the
mythago forms. He had known of the danger, then, but I wonder if Christian had
fully comprehended this most subtle of the occult processes occurring in the
forest. From the darkness and pain of my father's mind a single thread had
emerged in the fashioning of a girl in a green tunic, dooming her to a
helplessness in the forest that was contrary to her natural form. But if she
were to emerge again, it would be with Christian's mind controlling her, and
Christian had no such preconceived ideas about a woman's strength or weakness.
It would not be the same encounter.
The notebook itself both perplexed and saddened me. There were so many
entries that referred to the years before the war, to our family, to Chris and
myself particularly; it was as if my father had watched us all the time,
and in that way had been relating to us, had been close to us. And yet
all the time he watched, he was detached, cold. I had thought him unaware of me;
I had imagined myself a mere irritation in his life, a nagging insect that he
waved aside brusquely, hardly noticing. And yet he had been totally aware of me,
recording each game I played, each walk to, and around, the woodland, recording
the effects upon me.
One incident, written briefly and in great haste, brought back a memory of a
long, summer's day when I had been nine or ten years old. It involved a wooden
ship, which Chris had fashioned from a piece of fallen beech, and which I had
painted. The ship, the stream we called the sticklebrook, and a raging passage
through the woodland below the garden. Innocent, childish fun, and all the time
my father had been a sombre, dark shape, observing us from the window of his
study.
The day had begun well, a bright, fresh dawn, and I had awoken to the sight
of Chris, crouched in the branches of the beech tree outside my room. I crawled
through the window in my pyjamas, and we sat there, in our secret camp, and
watched the distant activity of the farmer who managed the land hereabouts.
Somewhere else in the house there was movement, and I imagined that the cleaning
lady had arrived early, to benefit from this fine summer's day.
Chris had the piece of wood, already shaped into the hull of a small boat. We
discussed our plans for the epic journey by river, then scampered back into the
house, dressed, snatched breakfast from the hands of the sleepy figure of our
mother, and went out into the workshed. A mast was soon shaped and drilled into
the hull. I layered red paint on to the
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