Darkhenge (20 page)

“Shut up. All of you!” Then she turned on Vetch. “Am I dead? Is that it?”

The poet's calmness seemed to still her. After a moment he said, “You're not dead.” His voice was gentle; he took a step toward her and she didn't back away. “Your body lies in a coma, a long way from here. This is Annwn, where hidden things are clear, where memories surface. Rob has come to take you home.”

Impatient, she shrugged. “How long?”

“Three months.” Rob's throat was dry; he swallowed. “You were riding Callie. You fell. Near Falkner's Circle. You must remember.”

She turned away, arms around herself, so he went on, the words tumbling out now in a breathless rush. “Mum's been frantic, and Dad's turning into a stranger. None of us can face the house, your room, each other. Everything's changed, Chloe. School, church, the whole world. Life's stopped out there, as if nothing grows, as if it's winter in August. We're just marking time till you wake up. We're all waiting for you.”

Still she kept her back to him. He glanced at Vetch, who shrugged slightly.

Beside the slowly unfurling holly, the King grinned.

Rob came up behind Chloe. “We thought you were a prisoner.”

“I was.”

“It doesn't look like that.”

She whirled. Through the mask she stared at him, and he was astonished at her anger. “So you want me back, do you? Little Chloe. Girly Chloe. You want me back so your life will be perfect again, and tidy, and just like it was.” She smiled, looking at him closely. “I suppose they're all thinking about me all the time now, are they, Rob? Around my bed, holding my hands, smoothing the hair out of my eyes. That must rankle. That must be annoying you.”

He was breathless, silenced with dismay.

Vetch was watching; now the poet said quietly, “You do him a wrong. He loves you.”

“Well, I don't love him.” Her hands were trembling; she crushed them together. “In this world he can't have whatever he wants. I'll go back if and when I want to.”

The King sat down, his back against a trunk, his knees up. He grinned, shaking his head.

She turned on him. “Not because of you, either, so don't think that. But because I'm beginning to see this is my world.” She looked back at Vetch, challenging. “It is, isn't it? Mine. This world is me.
I am the forest.
”

He said unhappily, “Chloe—”

“At first I wanted to escape. Sent birds, messages. But I'm growing. I can feel myself … my mind … spreading out. As if I've escaped from some enclosure, all that bother of growing and hurting and eating and walking and hiding what I feel, even from myself. As if all I used to keep under the surface is bursting up and growing, like the trees.” She waved a hennaed hand. “Look at me! I can make anything happen here. I've been a fool not to see that. Watch.”

Instantly, all the trees stopped moving. Their constant rustle of growth ended. Rob stared around.

“I did that.” Chloe smiled. She spun, arms wide. “Did you see? I did it. Maybe I can do anything. Why should I go back? I'm sick of being small, and a girl, and the youngest. Here I can do what I want.”

“I could force you to,” Vetch murmured.

“Yes.” The green eyes darted to him through the mask. “You could. You're the dangerous one.”

“For God's sake, Chloe, stop this!” Rob couldn't bear it. He pushed past Vetch and grabbed her arm. “We're going.
Now!
And take that stupid mask off!”

He grabbed it; she screamed and shoved him away, but the mask tore and he saw her face, flushed and furious. Crashing into the undergrowth, he fell on his arm and pain shot through him; then he gasped and twisted and kicked. “Vetch!”

The roots were growing around him. Rapidly, swiftly, they snaked under his arms and over his shoulders, forcing him down, whipping around his neck and tightening. He choked, kicked, tried to pull them away, but his hands were full of leaves, tangled bines that wove between his fingers.

“Stop it!” Vetch snapped. He confronted Chloe. “Stop it. Leave him.”

She smiled, took a breath. Rob coughed, slumped. He stared at her in amazement, unable to speak, unable to believe.

“We're going.” Face to face with Vetch, she smiled coldly. “Get out of my way.”

The poet didn't move. His eyes flickered toward the King, who had closed up behind her like a shadow. The King's fingers came over her shoulder. He held a small berry.

“Take this, Chloe. Eat it. Now, in front of them. Then they'll never be able to take you back, not even the shape-shifter, not even Taliesin himself.”

Rob tore the ivy from his throat.

Chloe's hand came up and took the berry. Slowly she held it to her lips, smiling, teasing. “Shall I?” she whispered. “Shall I eat it, Rob?”

He froze. “No. Chloe…”

“I could. That would show them all.”

“No. Please. Keep the choice open. Don't close the way back.” Vetch's voice was soft, grave. Rob knew he was using it against her, the sounds of the words, the very letters in them. “Please. I know they've hurt you, Chloe. I know it's all inside you, and they've never seen it. I hurt someone like that once, and I think she will never forgive me, never. But imprisoning yourself here isn't the way. Think about it. Take your time.”

She looked at him a moment, then slid past him. Vetch backed, making no move to stop her or the King, watching them to the foot of the ramp.

Before she climbed up, Chloe looked back at Rob. She grinned, and waved at him. “See you, Rob. And be careful. I'm only just finding out what I can do.”

She put the berry to her lips again, touched it with her tongue, watching him, then the King. Behind the holly mask his eyes were bright.

Chloe giggled. She flung the berry hard at her brother, turned and raced joyfully up the ramp. All the way to the top, they could hear her laughing.

“I heard it, Mac.” Katie was out of her seat. John turned right around, coming in with coffee.

There was something, but surely not laughter. No one here is likely to be laughing.

Outside, the summer stars hang in the night without moving.

A priest shouldn't be at such a loss. I want Christ to rise into the sky like the sun. I want Chloe to be warmed by him, and sit up and really laugh.

But all I can do is walk over and put my big hands on Katie's shoulders.

Half asleep, she jolts, looks up at me.

“It'll be all right, Mac,” she whispers. As if I were the one whose daughter is dying.

Who can measure Annwn?
Or know the extent of its darkness?

T
HE
B
OOK OF
T
ALIESIN

T
he forest of the Unworld shivered. A ripple and murmur moved through it, disturbing birds. Starlings and thrushes and jackdaws rose, karking and fluttering.

Clare sat at the foot of the poplar, gazing up at them.

Darkness had come. Maybe for the first time in millennia the stars glinted through the dark midnight of the trees, and a breeze gusted, so that loosened leaves fluttered down. Stumps and undergrowth had become shadows, gatherings of mystery. Small rustling movements seemed huge. Moths hatched and danced in the starlight.

She wrapped her arms around her knees, chilled.

Vetch certainly knew she was still hunting him. He always knew. She had spent lifetimes trying to catch up with him, to take back the knowledge he had stolen. As otter and greyhound and hawk and goddess she had pursued him; they had been flames on the marsh, stars that moved silently and infinitely slowly over the skies, grains of corn on a barn floor. In the world above they had played out their fate; she had been a woman called Clare, another echo of herself, another transformation. Remembering, she changed her appearance now, her clothes to faded dungarees, her hair plaited.

In all that time she had never wavered in her fury for revenge.

Until now.

She frowned, rubbing the lichen swirls on her face.

When she had pushed him down the stairs there had been one second of exhilaration, and then terror. As he fell, so violently, gasping and crashing down, utter terror.

For a moment she had been sure she had killed him.

It should have been a triumph. Instead it had been a cold spear in her heart. Her life was a pursuit of him. What would she do if he was gone? As the girl had run up past her she had stood rigid, then raced down and grabbed him, turned him, feeling for his heartbeat, at his chest to hear his breathing.

Relief had swamped her; relief and then fury, because he had made her feel that. Vetch. Gwion. Taliesin. He was her enemy, and she hated him because she could not hate him enough.

It was then she'd had an idea.

The crane-skin bag had lain under him, and she would have had it then if the boy hadn't come. Now she smiled, and nodded. This time she'd steal it from him. There were other ways of revenge.

Leaves swirled. She looked up, then stood quickly.

Someone was climbing out of the Spiral Castle.

Two dark shapes against the stars, then running down the shell white hill. Clare narrowed her eyes. Chloe and the King. For a moment she wondered how they had escaped, how they would cross the lake; then she saw the smaller one beckon, and with a shiver of tree roots and soil, a causeway squelched up out of the green water, a bridge of dry land. Even from here she could hear how the girl laughed at that, a giggle of delight.

Clare frowned. It seemed the child was beginning to discover how the Unworld worked.

By the time she had walked down to the shore, they were already across, the King like a somber shadow in a new mask of dark holly.

Chloe was grinning; in the gloom she almost walked straight into Clare. “Oh, it's you,” she said.

“What have you done?” Clare looked curiously up at the caer; already its whiteness was greening over. Trees were thrusting through its sides. “Where are they?”

“Inside.”

“But your brother—”

“Don't talk to me about my brother!” Chloe snapped. “That's my business. He and your druid want me to go back with them but I won't.”

“Won't?”

“I've told them.” She looked flushed, triumphant. Then demanded, “Haven't I?”

The King nodded. He stood under the trees nervously, biting his nails. He glanced at Clare and then down. “It was her own idea,” he muttered.

Clare nodded, uneasy. “I see. So you're going farther in?”

The girl shrugged. “Why not?” She jerked her head at the King. “He says there are seven caers, each stronger, and if I can reach the seventh, not even Vetch can force me to go back. No one can.”

“That's the heart of the Unworld,” the King said earnestly. “The Chair itself.”

Clare nodded. “You don't need to tell me. But Vetch will try everything to stop you.”

“Not if you deal with him.” The girl came up to her eagerly. “I thought that was what you wanted to do.”

“I thought so too.”

The girl's eyes were bright; starlight glittered in their darkness. “So what went wrong?”

“I don't know.”

Chloe looked at her scornfully. “Adults,” she said, “are pathetic.” She marched away through the marshy hollow of silver birch. The King scrambled behind and Clare followed, noticing how the earth rose up to meet the girl's feet, keeping her dry.

“You say Vetch stole everything from you.” Chloe turned abruptly. “Well, that makes him just like Rob. He's stolen from me, though he's too wrapped up in himself even to notice. He stole time, and people's attention from me, and respect, and maybe even love. Just by being bloody Rob. So now I'm stealing all the same things from him. You could do that with Vetch. Couldn't you?”

Clare tucked the ends of hair behind her ears. There was dirt under her nails; the peat of Darkhenge. She cleaned it out thoughtfully.

“I could.”

“And that would stop him catching me.” Chloe came up to her. Her eyes were bright; leaves drifted into her hair. She smiled a sly smile. “Will you do that, Goddess? That's what he calls you, isn't it? Can I trust you to do better this time?”

Clare didn't answer. Finally she said quietly, “I used to think I was Queen of the Unworld. Now I'm not so sure.” She stepped back, chilled at the girl's cool composure.

Chloe narrowed her eyes. Then, deliberately, she touched a twig. A leaf uncurled from it, opened, spread, crinkled, and died, all in seconds.
“Decide,”
she whispered.

Clare stared at the withered fragment. When she spoke again her voice was icy.

“Find the next caer. Leave Vetch to me.”

“Oh, that's good.” Chloe half turned. “Because if it came to a struggle, I might have to do something bad like that to him. And I wouldn't want to.”

She strode away, ducking under branches. The King hurried after her. As he slipped between the trees, he gave one glance back at Clare.