Mythago Wood - 1 Read Free

he
said simply, and I stopped, startled.
    'What does that mean, Chris? Gone where?'
    'She's just gone, Steve,' he snapped, angry and cornered. 'She was father's
girl, and she's gone, and that's all there is to it.'
    'I don't understand what you mean. Where's she gone to? In your letter
you sounded so happy . . .'
    'I shouldn't have written about her. That was a mistake. Now let it drop,
will you?'
    After that outburst, my unease with Christian grew stronger by the minute.
There was something very wrong with him indeed, and clearly Guiwenneth's leaving
had contributed greatly to the terrible change I could see; but I sensed there
was something more. Unless he spoke about it, however, there was no way through
to him. I could find only the words, 'I'm sorry.' . 'Don't be.'
    We walked on, almost to the woods, where the ground became marshy and unsafe
for a few yards before vanishing into a musty deepness of stone and root and
rotting wood. It was cool here, the sun being beyond the thickly foliaged trees.
The dense stands of rush moved in the breeze and I watched the rotting boat as
it shifted slightly on its mooring.
    Christian followed my gaze, but he was not looking at the boat or the pond;
he was lost, somewhere in his own thoughts. For a brief moment I experienced a
jarring sadness at the sight of my brother so ruined in appearance and attitude.
I wanted desperately to touch his arm, to hug him, and I could hardly bear the
knowledge that I was afraid to do so.
    Quite quietly I asked him, 'What on earth has happened to you, Chris? Are you
ill?'
    He didn't answer for a moment, then said, 'I'm not ill,' and struck hard at a
puffball, which shattered and spread on the breeze. He looked at me, something
of resignation in his haunted face. 'I've been going through a few changes,
that's all. I've been picking up on the old man's work. Perhaps a bit of his
reclusiveness is rubbing off on me, a bit of his detachment.'
    'If that's true, then perhaps you should give up for a while.'
    'Why?'
    'Because the old man's obsession with the oak forest eventually killed him.
And from the look of you, you're going the same way.'
    Christian smiled thinly and chucked his reedwhacker out into the pond, where
it made a dull splash and floated in a patch of scummy green algae. 'It might
even be worth dying to achieve what he tried to achieve . . . and failed.'
    I didn't understand the dramatic overtone in Christian's statement. The work
that had so obsessed our father had been concerned with mapping the woodland,
and searching for evidence of old forest settlements. He had invented a whole
new jargon for himself, and effectively isolated me from any deeper
understanding of his work. I said this to Christian, and added, 'Which is all
very interesting, but hardly that interesting.'
    'He was doing much more than that, much more than just mapping. But do you
remember those maps, Steve? Incredibly detailed . . .'
    I could remember one quite clearly, the largest map, showing carefully marked
trackways and easy routes through the tangle of trees and stony outcrops; it
showed clearings drawn with almost obsessive precision, each glade numbered and
identified, and the whole forest divided into zones, and given names. We had
made a camp in one of the clearings close to the woodland edge. 'We often tried
to get deeper into the heartwoods, remember those expeditions, Chris? But the
deep track just ends, and we always managed to get lost; and very scared.'
    'That's true,' Christian said quietly, looking at me quizzically; and added,
'What if I told you the forest had stopped us entering? Would you believe
me?'
    I peered into the tangle of brush, tree and gloom, to where a sunlit clearing
was visible. 'In a way I suppose it did,' I said. 'It stopped us penetrating
very deeply because it made us scared, because there are few trackways through,
and the ground is choked with stone and briar. . . very difficult walking. Is
that what you meant? Or did you mean something