The Hollowing (40 page)

Richard raced after Lytton, following the man by sound alone. To his right he could hear Lacan and Sarin taking a different path through the forest. It was only after some seconds that he realised Helen had stayed at the Mask Tree, watching the final emergence from Alex’s devastated mind. He called for her, but she didn’t answer, and when Lytton shouted angrily, “Richard! Come on!” he continued to follow the elusive protogenomorph through the wood.

They struggled through the tangled darkness, tripping over roots, forcing their way through thickets so dense that they almost suffocated. When they suddenly emerged into open ground, it was into an overgrown cemetery, where stained grey stones poked from thistle-covered mounds. The wall of the cathedral rose before them, white and frosted, already beginning to shed its surface layer of stone.

Richard’s cry of triumph gave way to a howl of frustration and disappointment. “It’s just another shell! He’s tricked us again.”

“I don’t think so,” Lytton said calmly. “Look!” He pointed to the ivy-covered porch. The depthless shadow of the boy moved there, then seemed to seep into the stone, vanishing. “This
is
the place. But how do we get in?”

To their left, Lacan burst from the wood, his hair in tangles, ribbons of briar hanging from him like a bizarre May Day veil. Sarin crawled on all fours from the cover, her breath misting in the intense cold.

Where was Helen?

Lacan called out in alarm, “The place is dead. We’ve been led off the track…”

“This is the place all right!” Lytton called back. He was scanning the high windows, the jagged line of the wall where the roof had fallen, the buttresses, the porch, the steep rise of what had once been a bell tower.

And as Richard followed that gaze with his own, he saw the falcon. It stretched from below a high arched window, a rain gutter, its mouth the opened beak of the bird, which stared down at the man with an almost teasing gaze.
The bird that spits
 …

“The bird window…” he whispered. “Into the chapel, disguised as a falcon … That’s how Gawain did it in Alex’s play…”

Lytton was exhilarated. “If this is the Green Chapel, then we may find a way through to the Otherworld.
Our
world, that is.”

Lacan shouted, “We’re being followed! Daurog, I think, but they’re changing. We have to find safety.”

“Is Helen with you?” Richard called back, but Lacan just shrugged.

Richard led the way, climbing to the roof of the porch, then ascending the slope of a buttress to gain access to a statue niche, the figure long since rotted. From here it was a dangerous climb, using fingerholds in the pitted stone, to the stretched neck of the falcon and the wide sill, carved with oak-leaves and acorns, below which it extended. Behind him, Lacan grunted and heaved his weight, reaching back for Lytton, whose arms were no longer strong enough to accomplish the climb. From high on the wall, Richard scanned the black forest below, and saw how winter crept, a growing silver crystal, towards them.

He could not see Helen, and the concern he now felt for her began to make him shake.

It started to snow, the dull sky deepening into a grim, grey cover, shedding flakes that began to swirl about the church.

From the sill, Richard saw the greenwood that had grown to fill the centre of the cathedral. A wave of warmth and moisture ascended from this summer place, although the first snow crystals were already wetting the higher foliage. He called for Alex and succeeded only in disturbing a roost of rooks, away towards the closed doors, where a tangle of vegetation suggested a huge, spherical nest.

As Lacan arrived on the stone sill, there was suddenly less room than before, and Richard almost lost his grip. Lacan steadied him, pointed to the ropes of creeper that covered the inside wall, and carefully Richard lowered himself to the chapel-wood below. Lacan dropped next, then Sarin, then Lytton, who immediately pushed his way through to the massive structure. Richard followed, aware of the terrible stench that exuded from the mound of dead wood and grass. Lytton had entered the nest. He emerged, brushing black feathers from his face, looking around. “Empty,” he said. “A daurog birthing place—she’s shed, probably dead now.” He saw something, below the statue of the crucified Christ. “There!”

The hollyjack had been laid on a crude bier. Her arms were outstretched, but had risen in the first moments of death so that her thorn-fingered hands seemed to be clutching at the open sky and the gently falling snow that was settling on her. Her mouth was hideously agape, the four branch tusks dry and mouldering. The leaf on her head had turned yellow-brown. Her body gaped, was arched as if in pain. A small, dead rook was entangled in the dry ribs.

Someone had placed a small straw effigy of a bird above her head.

From the chapel-wood Lacan hissed, “Something below us!”

Richard felt rather than heard the movement below the marble flooring. The disturbance was brief and he wondered if it might be Alex, so he called for the boy again and from the far end of the ruin he heard a voice call questioningly, “Daddy?”

With memory of the shapechanging Jack freshened by apprehension, Richard forced aside the foliage and approached the altar. Something gold was gleaming there, and after a few moments he recognised a crucifix, as tall as a man, rising above the consuming swathes of holly.

“Alex? Where are you?”

The boy moved suddenly from the green. He was unkempt and naked, a frail figure, his skin as white as the snow that drifted down around him, eyes fierce in a feral face, hair to his shoulders. He was trembling like an animal caged.

Richard began to cry. Alex was so young, so old. Despite the long hair, he was almost exactly as Richard had remembered him over the years, the Alex of those last terrible months in the long-gone when he had looked at the sky with blank eyes, when he had lain listless and content on the grass, responding with nothing more than reflex actions. But this boy, this Alex, had a light in the terrified eyes that spoke of intelligence, of awareness of the long-to-come; and best of all: of recognition.

“Daddy!” he yelled suddenly, and ran to the crying man, to Richard, who dropped to his knees to gather in his son. “We’re in danger!” Alex shouted. “Gawain’s coming!”

The Green Knight

Green light played on the white ceiling and walls of the hospital room. Alex lay and watched the swirling colour for a while, then rose from his small bed and walked to the window. He watched without wonder or fear as a knight emerged from the wood and rode across the dew-bright lawn. The knight was huge, on a massive white horse with flowing green trappings. His hair and beard were green, as was his scaly armour and the rippling cloak that unfurled behind him as he cantered; he left a spreading fan of glowing green that reached back to the tangle of the dawn wood.

He came close to the hospital, then reined in, reared up, and turned twice on his charger, grinning at the watching boy above him. He beckoned. Five spears were strapped to his saddle, and a curved axe, its cutting edge smothered in leather, swung from his belt. Tusked faces formed his armour, which looked more bone than metal. Alex felt drawn without really comprehending the compulsion to follow. He saw the colour and the patterns of the knight, but felt no fear, no pleasure, no curiosity. Compelled, though, he left his room and went out into the early morning.

Once outside he could smell the rank sweat of the horse, and hear its heavy breathing. The ground vibrated as the beast turned, shook violently as it reared and fell back with a jangle of trappings. The huge knight reached down with a green-gloved hand. His breath smelled of earth. Alex accepted the grasp and was swung into the saddle behind the green man. No words were spoken. Alex held on to the thick cloak. His legs were stretched hard over the broad saddle. Faces of the dead, branches growing from their gaping mouths, watched him from the armoured back. When he touched one, its eyes narrowed and it snapped at him, giggling.

He gasped, then, as the horse charged back to the wood. It entered the trees without hesitation; the knight ducked, laughing as branches tore his flowing hair. Alex turned to glance briefly at the grey and silent building behind him. Then darkness closed about him and thorns began to tear his hands.

It was a wild ride. Silently, the knight rode through the woodland edges, sometimes using a knife as long as a scythe to cut a path. He crossed fields and roads, shouting encouragement to his steed, uttering a shrill cry when he saw a game bird, or hare, and running it down with almost magical speed, snatching and catching the creature more often than he missed. The horse pounded the country lanes, foaming at the mouth, complaining noisily when its direction was changed so that it had to plunge into marshy forest, or canter along shallow brooks.

A moment came when Alex passed his house in Shadoxhurst. He watched, aware yet unaware. There was movement in the garden, someone digging. He glanced back once, but without pain or longing, only recognition. The digging man had looked up, looked round, perhaps aware of the distant canter. But the knight was on the bridleway to Hunter’s Brook, and his green aura was dispersing in the fog that filled this lower, marshy land.

They were soon at Ryhope Wood. The knight rode carefully into the edge by the old Lodge. Here, in a clearing by the ruin, he dismounted, to gather wood and grass, bits of rag and bundles of leaves. As Alex watched from the saddle, he shaped a boy on the ground, gave it Alex’s features, then lifted it and made Alex spit into the wooden figure’s mouth. The false-Alex stood and ran to the edge, then across the fields, uttering a meaningless gabble of sound. Alex watched it go without thought, without question.

He rested his head against the knight’s broad back as they rode through the forest, his face cushioned from the bone scales and living armour by the thick cloak. This he wrapped around his body for warmth. His knuckles were white where he gripped the knight. His backside and legs were bruised and aching from the hours of cantering. He rode without a murmur though, embraced by his rescuer.

The forest opened into wide hills, then closed into stony valleys. They waded through deep snow, skidded on winter ice, were drenched with rains that soaked them for days.

One dusk, they came to a wide lake. A black barge was moored there, its sail furled. Three women stood on the shore among the tall rushes, watching. The knight kicked his horse forward, then stretched round to help Alex from the horse, down to the soft earth. The smallest of the women, a girl of about Alex’s age, came forward and wrapped her red cloak around the boy. Alex stared into her eyes for a moment and she smiled. A second woman, who looked like his mother, robed in brown, turned to the barge and reached for the tethering rope. The third, clothed in black, was old. She climbed into the barge and unfurled the sail, then sat, facing the shore.

The Green Knight leaned down and tugged at Alex’s hair. His breath misted as he spoke, his accent odd, “I heard your call. I was the first to come back to you. I have to find the other knight, to bring him back.

“You need time now, to heal. These ladies will take you to the place where that healing can be managed. They will heal you with Courage,” he pointed to the girl, “with love,” the woman in brown, “and Magic.” He scowled at the woman in black. “But mostly you will be healed by Courage. I shall send a small spirit to be my eyes and ears as you recover. Don’t do anything to hurt the wolves in winter! Each nick in their flesh is a nick in mine.”

And with that, he turned and rode away, axe swinging at his thigh, cloak billowing.

The girl held out her hand and Alex stepped with her aboard the barge. The woman in brown pushed the vessel from the reeds, knee deep in the mere, then clambered in. She picked up the oars and rowed the vessel across the silent lake until a breeze caught the sail and the eldest of the women leaned forward to hold the ropes.

After a while, as if in a dream, they drifted through fog, but emerged, oars stroking gently, to see tall trees and a craggy shore. The girl scrambled from the barge. She ran into the hidden land, through the mossy rocks of the shore, then came back and beckoned to Alex. As the older women stayed with the boat and watched, he held hands with the girl and let her lead him. They emerged from the wood to face the towering wall of a church. It was in a state of ruin.

“This is your place,” the girl whispered. She looked round anxiously. “Go inside quickly. It’s not safe on this side of the window.” She kissed him, first on his cheek, then his chin, then ran back into the undergrowth, toward the lake and her companions. “Go inside!” she called again, and Alex turned to face the grey wall.

Inside the ruin he could hear the sound of birds … They had gathered on one particular window.

The doors were all blocked. He climbed the wall and went inside. It was warm but empty, yet as soon as he arrived, the wood began to grow from the crypt below, saplings at first, then a bristling, rustling forest.

Nothing had any meaning. He explored the ruin without interest, instinctively seeking warm places, and shelter. Faces watched him from the dark benches, from the stone figures on the walls. Light caught the tints of coloured glass from shattered windows. He scavenged for food, was drawn to water in a well, outside the wall.

At some time in the sequence of days and nights, he heard movement in the heavy wood, where the girl had left him. A sinister presence had arrived, that changed its shape, sometimes wolf-like and howling, sometimes tusked and giggling, sometimes a grinning knight who called to him with a mocking human cry. It meant him harm and attacked him when he came too near, and he became afraid to leave the sanctuary of the place of stone.

The hollyjack came, rustling in through the window where a stone face with feathers spat water when it rained. And it was soon after she had come that he began to dream again. The dreams came back to him, at first ugly and distorted. But one by one they passed the giggler in the wood, creeping into him through the doors and windows of the sanctuary. As he dreamed, so things found names again, and small figures danced out from the wooden benches, and the coloured window where the greenjack lived began to grow, to reveal the knight and the green man, and the great mound of green turf through which a bright land gleamed. Everything was almost real again.