Free Mythago Wood - 1 by Robert Holdstock Page A

Christian gained on the spinning
vessel and reached out across the water, snaring our tiny model.
    He shook off the water and held it high, his face bright with pleasure.
Panting, I arrived beside him and took the model from him. The sail was intact,
the initials still there. The little object of our dreams looked exactly as when
we had launched it.
    'Stuck, I guess, and released when the waters rose,' said Chris, and what
other explanation could there have been?
    And yet, that very night, my father had written this in his diary:
    Even in the more peripheral zones of the forest, time is distorted to a
degree. It is as I suspected. The aura produced by the primal woodland has a
pronounced effect upon the nature of dimensions. In a way, the boys have
conducted an experiment for me, by releasing their model ship on to the brook
that flows - or so I believe - around the edge of the woodland. It has taken six
weeks to traverse the outer zones, a distance, in real terms, of no more than a
mile. Six weeks! Deeper in the wood, if the expansion of time and space
increases - which Wynne-Jones suspects - who can tell what bizarre landscapes
are to be found?
    During the rest of the long wet winter, following Christian's disappearance,
I increasingly frequented the dark, musty room at the back of the house: my
father's study. I found a strange solace among the books and specimens. I would
sit at his desk for hours, not reading, nor even thinking, merely staring into
the near distance, as if waiting. I could visualize my peculiar behaviour quite
clearly, snapping out of the mindless reverie almost irritably. There were
always letters to be done, mostly of a financial nature,
since the money on which I was living was rapidly dwindling to a sum
insufficient to guarantee more than a few months' idle seclusion. But it was
hard to focus the mind upon such humdrum affairs when the weeks passed, and
Christian remained vanished, and the wind and rain blew, like living creatures,
against the smeared panes of the French windows, almost calling me to follow my
brother.
    I was too terrified. Though I knew that the beast -having rejected me yet
again - would have followed Christian deeper into Ryhope Wood, I could not face
the thought of a repeat of that encounter. I had staggered home once, distraught
and anguished, and now all I could do was walk around the forest edge, calling
for Christian, hoping, always hoping, that he would suddenly appear again.
    How long did I spend just standing, watching that part of the woodland which
could be seen from the French windows? Hours? Days? Perhaps it was weeks.
Children, villagers, the farm lads, all were occasionally to be seen, figures
scurrying across the fields, or skirting the trees, making for the right of way
across the estate. On each occasion that I sighted a human form my spirits
leapt, only to subside again in disappointment.
    Oak Lodge was damp, and smelled so, but it was in no sorrier a state than its
restless occupant.
    I searched the study, every inch of it. Soon I had accumulated a bizarre
collection of objects which - years before - had been of no interest to me.
Arrow and spear heads, both of stone and bronze, I found literally crammed into
a drawer, there were so many of them. Beads, shaped and polished stones, and
necklaces too, some made from large teeth. Two bone objects - long thin shafts,
much inscribed with patterning - I discovered to be spear throwers. The most
beautiful object was a small ivory horse, much stylized, its body strangely fat,
its legs thin but exquisitely carved. A hole through its
neck showed that it was meant to be worn as a pendant. Scratched within the
contours of the horse was the unmistakable representation of two humans in
copula.
    This object made me check again a short reference in the journal:
    The Horse Shrine is still deserted, I think now for good. The shaman has
returned to the heartlands, beyond the fire that he has talked about. Left me a
gift. The fire