Merlin's Wood (Mythago Wood) Read Free Page B

silence that is invoked by that hollow sound.
    ‘Why do you dream of him?’ Martin asked at length. ‘I don’t understand. If you
could
turn the clock back, how could you help him?’
    ‘I could have flown to him; or I could have moved thestone closer to the shore. I had the power to do it. For a year or more I’d known I was a stone-shifter, ever since I’d danced on the path. But I was too frightened … perhaps too young. I didn’t trust myself to do it right.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘I could have
flown
to him. I stayed on the earth. I could have moved the stone. I didn’t even try to grip it. My father died, but in my heart I know he
knew
that I could have saved him. That’s why he waved. He trusted me. I had danced among the people on the path – the magic was in me. He knew this, he’d heard me talk. I failed him. That’s all. And I think that’s all I can say for the moment.’
    Jacques opened the window and tossed his cigarette into the storm.
    ‘I don’t understand,’ Martin said.
    ‘I didn’t expect the sea to change its game. I wasn’t ready to take on the sea. I thought he could do it on his own.’
    ‘And you thought you could move the standing stone?’
    ‘It was a
gift
! I’d danced and played inside the ghosts. And sometimes you get a
gift
if you do that, and it lasts a while then goes. Like ‘Old Provider’s’ Christmas presents, though, there’s always a catch. Like nearly every child, I was too afraid to use the gift, and now it’s gone, and your grandfather died when he might have lived.
    ‘Eveline was there too and she too felt helpless, and yet she felt she
could
have helped. And whatever it was happened to
her
during that terrible storm later madeher frightened for you and Rebecca, which is why she encouraged you to go away and
stay
away.’
    Jacques fumbled for the starter and the Citroën shuddered into life. Martin sat back, cold and confused, and let the rain and the saturated land drift past as his uncle drove him home.

The Songliner’s Tale
    Four days after the interment, Martin dressed warmly against the chill weather and walked through the drizzle up the path to the cemetery. He had had a restless night, waking at one point to the sound of movement downstairs. Half dreaming, half alert, he had imagined that someone was prowling about the house, at one point even entering the bedroom where he lay. Indeed, in the morning he found the back door swinging free, and the signs of sandwich-making. Not knowing his mother’s routine, nor lifestyle, he was not unduly concerned by this intrusion.
    He approached the old church, with its half-shroud of scaffolding, and as he reached for the gate, he saw a crouching figure by the hump of green-cloth covered soil, the new grave. It was a woman, he thought, from the drop of auburn hair around the figure’s shoulders, but he did not recognise her. She wore a heavy lambskin coat, green cord trousers, and black leather boots that were scratched and muddied. She was hunkered down and singing softly, her arms folded across her chest, her head raised slightly, as if looking above the top of the gleaming marble headstone.
    Her voice suddenly made contact!
    ‘Rebecca?’ Martin whispered. Her singing voice came clearer, sharper through the fine rain. ‘Rebecca?’ he called more loudly, and the woman turned to look at him. Martin stopped walking, shocked by the face that stared at him.
    Slowly Rebecca rose to her feet, rubbed at the backs of her knees and came over to her brother. Her long hair was damp, framing a strong and handsome face, aged by sun and dust. She was as hard as stone, as carved as wood; when she smiled she revealed the absence of a canine tooth, something that the younger Rebecca would have never allowed to go unfilled. But the smile was a genuine gesture of pleasure, the wry turn of the lips, gladness conveyed in every movement of face and hands as she reached for Martin and hugged him.
    ‘You look