The Hollowing

  The cold water carried him. It entered him, bathed him, washed him, clothed him. He slipped and slid, ducked and crawled where the cavern narrowed, ran blindly when it widened, shedding everything that was false upon him, a trail of clothes like skins, letting the stone air and rock spray form a miasma around his taut and sensitised flesh.

  He was aware that time passed, but in the absolute dark he measured its passing by the flow of dreams and voices that ebbed and surged, touching his eyes, his heart, his laughter.

  At last he crawled out of the earth, emerging through the rock and the turf, clinging to the swollen root of a massive tree. He had been following the root for many dreams, through the lower darkness, embracing its softer texture where it emerged from the icy stone in which it was embedded. The trunk of the tree extended above him, filling his whole view as he rose to his feet, naked and filthy. The colours of the interlocking masks were bright despite the gloom cast by the huge spread of the canopy. He stumbled and jumped across the spread of surface roots, then scampered into the brush at the edge of the Mask Tree’s vast glade, looking back at the faces carved there, old faces, weathered and stained, overlain with newer, brighter shapes. The more he looked the more he was able to see among the horned heads, the wide eyes, the oddly gaping mouths, the grins—a thousand masks etched and gouged on the black trunk of the oak, each one watching him from its own forgotten time.

  The tree affected him strongly. Somewhere in the maze of faces a sweeter face watched him, a boy, an earnest child—but he couldn’t see the eyes, only sense them, and he curled down into the leaf litter, rubbed soil and crushed grass over his skin, smelled the ground and let the miasma strengthen.

  * * *

  After a while the vague sense of distress and loss that affected him in the glade passed away and he moved at ease through the wildwood, through the dappled light, gathering the scents of rose and wood anemone, bud and sap, gathering all of these to the miasma that flowed with him. The scent-trail which he still followed was strong, and he knew the woman was close. When the land dropped towards a moist hollow, filled with thorn and hazel thickets, he knew he had found her. The place was warm and hazy, the ground marshy, in shifting light as the taller trees that crowded and loomed over the dell moved to an unfelt breeze. A stream flowed at the bottom of the hollow, separating two banks, where briar and thistle grew densely, and as he looked from one bank to the other he saw her bower, a thickening in the copse of hawthorn and hazel, where grasses and dead branches had been woven into the thicket to create a protective wall, and a warm shelter.

  He went to the stream and the miasma flowed around him, attracting more scents. The light from above made the fine mist in the hollow seem to glow. Through that bright, gently shifting veil, he watched the bower, and if he concentrated he could see her moving. She watched him too, but drew back into deep cover when their eyes met.

  He couldn’t decide if he should approach or not, and he crouched by the stream, splashing at the water, letting the heavy stillness of the dell envelop him, learning from the faint sounds where the nests were above, and the warrens and passages through the earth and hollow boles around.

  At last he crossed the stream, drawing the miasma with him like a cloak, and ascended the bank, through the briar and bramble that she had laid in lines and patches where the ground was more open. The hawthorn bower shook to her sudden movement and a dart penetrated his flesh painfully, then another, thin slivers of white wood tipped with a blue stain. He turned and scampered back to safety.

  He constructed a warm, dry place in a thicket, making a bed of ferns covered with grass, a crude roof of dead wood and the broad leaves of sycamore. From here, each dawn, he watched the hawthorn bower.

  At first light the grass-covered woman slipped through her own defences to the brook, to crouch, sing, and drink, her body tense, her head always cocked, her eyes and ears alert for danger. Her hair was black and streaked with more silver than his dream-memory of her recognised. It fell loosely around her face, where bright, dark eyes flashed and a full and sensuous mouth opened to sing or drink. She was always moist, and light sparkled on her body. She was adept at brushing small fish onto the bank, stunning them and storing them in a leaf pouch. She always carried the thin pipe with its poisoned darts and if he stirred she raised it threateningly.

  His arm and neck itched infuriatingly where the fungal toxins had penetrated his skin.

  Each dawn when she had finished she would return through the haze, the thick miasma of heat and scent, and it was his turn. She would watch him from cover, sometimes singing in her reedy voice.

  Animals came to drink, and he learned to snare hares, the occasional, incautious fowl, a heron, and on one occasion a small pig. Without fire, the flesh was chewy, that of the hare strong and bloody, but exquisitely reviving.

  The days in the dell were long, the moist warmth stifling at times. There was a silence and a stillness about the place, broken only by the brook and the restless murmur of birds. The nests of herons woke him each dawn with the clattering of their bills. Huge crows cawed and cackled from a colony nearby, and somewhere in a thicket deer were living. He could hear the male bark, the doe cough. But he never saw them, though their air flowed into the dell and mingled with the miasma of odours that formed each dawn above the brook.

  Each dusk he returned to the Mask Tree and sat among the sprawling roots, staring up at the ancient faces. There were many things that tickled memories in his head, such familiarity, but no words or names came to him, only images of strange men, strange creatures, hints of stories, and the occasional thought of a bright boy running through tall grass, holding something wooden above his head that suddenly escaped him and soared into the sky, an unflapping bird.

  He felt sad sometimes, but the sadness lifted as night shadow made the tree faces invisible, and only the monstrous black bole faced him. At this time he would stand against the trunk, his body almost enfolded by one of the deep channels in the thick bark. If he listened hard, if he blocked from his mind the chatter of nightjars, the rustle of voles and weasels, the furtive movement of cats and pigs, the flutter of nestlings, he could hear songs in the tree, but the words meant nothing. When he himself sang he sang with words that shaped the tune, and stirred feelings in his chest and stomach, yet meant nothing to the mind above—he had ears and eyes and thoughts only for the woman in the hawthorn bower.

  One dawn, the scent miasma had changed. It stirred him deeply. It was sour-sweet, exciting, and he ran along the brook, splashing furiously, circling through the underbrush before crossing the brook and staring expectantly at the bower.

  The leaves moved, eyes watched. The new scent flowed down the bank, encompassing him. His body reacted with pleasure and he closed his eyes for a long moment. But the bower remained shut. He whooped, called and sang, then returned to his shelter. When he was back, and out of harm’s way, the bower opened and she came down to drink.

  He watched her hungrily, silently. There was something different about her. She had tied her hair into a single frond at the back. Her breasts were naked and she washed them carefully. Her legs and waist were still thick with grass, but when she turned to run back up the bank, he saw that her buttocks were naked too, and without the usual caking of mud. When she stooped to enter the bower the breath caught in his throat before he could whoop his call. Sweat suddenly beaded his skin.

  As he watched the strutting of birds by the brook, and later two hares on their hind legs, boxing and rolling in the grass, memories surfaced from the edge of dreams of men dancing by the light of high, roaring fires, which gave brilliance, by reflection, to the colours of cloaks and the gold of masks and helmets. As the dream dissolved he went to scavenge for leaves and feathers, to make himself the ritual garments of display, a primal urge impelling him to decorate himself.

  All day he constructed his display. He used thin splinters of tough grass to sew leaves of birch down each of his arms, and of oak across his chest, and of shinin
g beech, emerald green, down the fronts of his legs. He was careful to pierce only the surface skin and not draw blood, which would add the wrong scent to the miasma.

  He selected long heron feathers for his chin, working them through the long, thick hairs of his dark beard so that they hung like a white fringe. Black crow tail feathers formed a fringe across the base of his belly. He used chalk and light clay on the exposed skin of his body, then dabbed the purple and red juices of sloe and belladonna to make eyes on the clay-white.

  Instinct told him that this would make a good impression.

  Finally he used a mixture of resin, sap, and clay to stiffen his long hair, raising it into a crest that spanned his head from ear to ear. It took a long time, and it was almost dusk before he was ready. When he moved at last to the brook, the first of night had descended. A bright moon made the water gleam, the leaves on his body shine, his whitened skin glow. As he crawled to the brook, watching the hawthorn bower, he saw the leaves rustle and part, and he stood up slowly, arms stretched, legs apart. When the bower window remained open he grinned and wiggled his hips, then did a slow turn, and so began his first dance.

  At the end of the dance he sang the first calling song. His voice was loud in the still night air and the herons clattered above him, irritating him as he summoned forgotten words and melodies from his other life.

  But when the song was over, the bower window closed. He frowned, thought hard, then turned twice and started his second dance, drawing the miasma around him, feeling the condensing moisture with its stinks and perfumes of the wood. He danced a wide circle through the wood and returned to the bank of the brook. The bower window was open again. He cast quick glances at it as he turned and whistled, and when his back was to the bower he allowed a smile to touch his face. His heart was racing with anticipation.

  At the end of the moon, however, she was still inside the hawthorn wall.

  Disappointed and exhausted, he returned to the shelter, though as he stooped to enter the dry place she emerged and sang slowly and sweetly from the top of the bank, a brief call, thanking him.

  Delightedly, he whistled back.

  He couldn’t sleep. The earth shook below him, sounded strange. The trees that surrounded the dell, its brook and bowers, trembled and shifted, as if a storm was coming. At some point, in the depth of the dark, a horse rode through, breathless, burdened by a man’s shape, which struck at the low branches. Later, four foxes came to drink, barked, fled when something stirred in the hazel scrub. He watched that dark shape apprehensively, the faint gleam on tusks. He had sensed it, but not how big it was, and for a while he wondered if it was watching and waiting for him as prey. He was relieved when, after a few hours, he heard it move away.

  At dawn, he danced again, before drinking from the cold water of the brook. Then he returned to the Mask Tree and stood with his back to the carved and painted faces, feeling the enfolding bark, letting the air and aroma drift across him, watching the day’s shadows pass with the sun, the light on leaves, the movement of trees and fern, the restless passage of clouds in the far distance, at the edge of the great canopy overhead.

  And then at dusk he danced for the hawthorn bower with renewed energy. He crossed the brook and ventured up the bank to the lines of briar, turned and called, sang a song that had arisen in his soul like a dream, when he had been standing by the Mask Tree.

  He retreated to the stream and waited for the night and dark. When the dell was bright with moonglow he danced again, in his own miasma, singing vigorously, and this time she emerged from the bower, approaching the brook slowly, entering the scent cloak around him, her body wrapped in grasses, her hair flowing, the streaks of silver bright.

  She did a quick dance of her own, then laughed as he responded vigorously, encouraging him, before bounding off, disappearing into the night, following the curving bank of the brook, out of the dell and into the deep wood.

  He leapt into the air and raced after her, drawing the miasma with him.

  All night she led him on a wild and sensuous chase through the deepwood. He had known her in another dream. He remembered her pleasures, and they sang to each other from oak, ash, glade, and earthen bank. Soon—it was that deathly time before dawn—they came to a high stone rise, a sheer wall of grey rock, carved with grim faces, and draped with ivy. She turned back from this ruin, then led the way to a dry-earth place, among small trees without thorn or rose briar, and here she danced and sang for a while, before beckoning for him.

  He stepped quickly through the trees, grasped her, and they fell to the ground. She shredded the leaves from his arms and chest, tore the crow-feathers from his belly and held him. He bit through the grass knots and uncovered her, entwined his fingers with her hair, pressed his body against hers. Her mouth was soft and wet, her taste familiar and exquisite, the touch of her skin thrilling as they rolled together on the dry ground.

  Midges plagued his back, biting hard; a mosquito droned faintly near his ear; an earthworm slid through the fingers of his hand as he grasped the raw earth for support; but he was in the earth with her, and the smells of earth and sweat, of blood and her mouth filled his senses, filled hers, and they moved frantically, then gently, then vigorously again, but always together, his mouth going down on hers when she began to scream, so that he drank the sound and the pleasure, sucking every cry, every tremor, every arching thrust of her body against his own, until after a long while she fell back breathless, holding his skin, his damp flesh, easing him to the edge of her body, then tugging him deep again, giggling and teasing.

  When she had finished kissing him she lay below him, peaceful, breathing gently, looking up through the canopy, at the stark light, the shifting light, but listening to furtive movement inside the cold, false stone of the ruin close by.

  The miasma flowed over them as the night changed, and the deathless dawn crept through the grass and the fine roots of the trees, and the pores of the leaves. Everything was suddenly very cold, very wet. A new vibrancy flowed suddenly about the lovers and the earth wrapped them with tendrils, feeding on the chemicals on their skin before drawing back.

  And as dawnlight replaced the dark, Richard rolled away from the curled woman beside him and entered a lucid dream state in which he murmured her name and his own, and began to remember who he was, and the events at Old Stone Hollow.

  He was cold, and curled into a ball, and he was tired, so he dozed, aware of movement and whispering all around.

  Skin of Stone

  At some time during the waking of their bodies and the reawakening of their minds, Helen had risen and left the clearing in the trees. Fully conscious again, Richard followed her and found her by the high stone wall, a greyish, naked shape in the morning haze, her long hair thrown back as she stared at the stone faces above her. Richard approached and she turned, stared darkly at him for a moment, then smiled and reached for him. They hugged for a long time, shivering slightly, rubbing each other’s backs for warmth. “I have a feeling you were glad to see me,” she said dryly.

  “You remind me of someone I once knew. Helen Silverlock…”

  A tighter hug, a longer shiver.

  “I hoped you’d find me,” she said. “It’s been a hell of a long wait. I buried Dan a long time ago, back at the Station. I’ve missed you.”

  Her words reminded him of the note she’d left, in another time, a misplaced time. Should he mention it? He decided not, saying simply, “When Lacan described the process of going ‘bosky’ to me, he made it sound dreamlike and silent, a great deal of communing with the rustling leaves and lapping lake waters. It wasn’t like that at all. First I went on a mad stampede with herds of bison and gazelles and packs of wolves, then I followed your smell, acted out some sort of mating ritual, hunted you through the wood and became totally and absolutely rampant.”

  “And so did I,” she said quickly, perhaps sensing the apology that was about to be expressed, and silencing it with a grin and a direct look. “I wanted you very much
.”

  “Me too.”

  “And wasn’t it wonderful?”

  “I certainly feel a lot better. Thank you.”

  She pinched him very hard, sharing his smile. He went on, “My mouth is full of mud and leaf mould. I’m scratched and bitten … and I think I jabbed a crow’s feather into your rump … at one of the more passionate moments…?”

  “You did. I forgive you. Try to control yourself next time.”

  “I coated myself with clay and feathers. I pranced around by the brook like a prize prat, singing to you. God knows what I was singing…”

  She suddenly laughed, dark eyes wide with delight, then kissed him on the mouth. “But you were wonderful! I was half-aware of the songs because they were familiar from this life, and half responding to them like a bird responding to a mating call. Sound pheromones! But you really aroused me—the primitive me—even though you were singing such funny things. That’s what brought me out of the bower, dragged along by my own instincts.”

  “For God’s sake—what did I sing?”

  She did a little bobbing dance, arms slightly out from her sides, knees bending, silver-dark hair falling over her breasts, eyes twinkling with mischief as she sang, “Love, love me, DO.”

  “Beatles songs?” Richard cried. “I sang Beatles songs? You’re joking!”

  But memory came back; full, horrifying, and embarrassing memory.

  “Christ. I did. And Presley: There’s a place for us.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And then suddenly you sang. I can’t get no satisfaction.”

  “Which at that time I couldn’t. But you seemed to remember how much I liked the Rolling Stones. You chased me through the wood singing ‘Jumping Jack Flash!’”