Enchanted Forests (21 page)

"I'll try," she whispered.

She left the spear and rope behind, and never again dreamed

of Yggdrasil, the father of forests.

My Soul Into me Bougns

A Gothic Tale

by Teresa Edgerton

Teresa Edgerton's most recent book is her eighth fantasy

navel. The Moon and the Thorn. Before she wrote "My

Soul into the Boughs," she spent some months reading

fairy tales and Victorian horror stories which could ac-

count for a certain spookity hybrid quality in her story,

There are owls nesting in the rafters over her bed. Lying trapped

under the covers, her limbs weighted with sleep. Laurel cannot

see the birds, but she knows they are there. She can hear a duU

fluttering of wings, a harsh scrape of talons on the heavy oak

beams, and she can picture the owls vividly in her mind; great

white predatory birds with ominous yellow eyes.

At the same time, she realizes there is something very strange

about her bedchamber, the broad, pleasant room that appeared

so ordinary by daylight—no sign of owls or nests among the raft-

ers then. But now there seems to be a stream running through, a

slow, steady trickle of cold water over her feet that is just as un-

accountable as it is chilly.

To make matters worse, every time the owls become particu-

larly active, she feels a sharp, painful tug on her scalp, as

though the hairs of her head have somehow grown to an incred-

ible length and become entangled with the branching rafters

overhead. With a sudden wrenching shock, she realizes all at

once that this is literally true: her hair has grown and involved

itself with the leaves and branches ... at the same time that her

toenails have anchored her to the footboard.

In a panic, she opens her mouth to scream, but the only sound

136

Teresa Eogerton

that emerges is low and tortured, like a creaking of tree limbs

during a storm.

"The most extraordinary dream," Laurel tells her grandmother,

over the breakfast table. "I actually believed I was turning into

a tree. I'm afraid there is something about the position of this

house and the way the trees grow in so close, that has made a re-

markable and rather unpleasant impression on my mind."

Mrs. Windboume reaches out with a hand as pale and skeletal

as me birches and the aspens surrounding the ancient manor

house, and pours herself a second cup of tea. "You find the sit-

uation oppressive? It is true we have very few visitors and none

of them linger very long. But I hoped you would be different,

that you would love the house ... and the forest as well." Her

voice trails away on a deep sigh.

"Because my mother was born here?" Laurel considers that, as

she raises her own cup of tea to her lips. She and her grand-

mother arc eating their breakfast in a dim sitting room attached

to the old lady's bedchamber. The room is dim because there is

no light except a beam of weak sunlight which has somehow

managed to creep in through a leaded glass window partly ob-

scured by vines; the sitting room is also damp and smells

strongly of earth, but the reason for this is less apparent. In one

shadowy comer a blotch of moisture has spread across the wall,

under a rogues' gallery of miniature portraits done in oils. To a

fanciful mind, an unfocused eye, the irregular stain might appear

as a frieze of leering foliate heads, created as an obscure jest on

the family pictures.

Laurel, however, is a practical young woman, and she only

sees a spot of damp. Besides, she is otherwise occupied, ponder-

ing the question at hand: Should she reel some particular affinity

to a particular location, merely because her mother and who-

knows-how-many of her more distant ancestors were bom on the

spot? It is not as though her mother ever regaled her with stories

about the place, not as though Laurel was reared with any sense

that the history of this decaying mansion on the verge of a pri-

meval forest is her own history as well. In fact, her mother never

shared any family history or childhood memories with her at all.

"It really is hard to know what I should or shouldn't feel,"

Laurel says out loud.

And not just about the house, she adds silently. What is she to

think, for instance, about the faded little creature in musty, rus-

tling autumn-colored silks, who sits on the other side of the

MY SOUL INTO THE BOUGHS      137

breakfast table, still a stranger for all the ties of blood that bind

them? "It is such an amazing set of circumstances, to suddenly

discover I have a grandmother I never even knew existed, and in

less than a month after that discovery to find myself staying with

you here."

Mrs. Windboume smiles. Despite her great age, her teeth ap-

pear very strong and even; it is the strange quality of the light,

probably, that gives them a greenish cast "Laurel dear, you must

have suspected there was a grandmother somewhere in your past.

Or did you suppose your mother came into existence in anything

other than the usual way ... brought forth out of the womb of

flie earth itself in some monstrous cataclysm, or else ripped out

by force like a mandrake root?"

Laurel laughs uneasily, because it is such an odd and improper

remark, especially considering the source. She takes another sip

of the tea. There are bits of bark floating among the tiny black

leaves, and the flavor of the tea is not like anything she has ever

tasted before. However, it smells of mushrooms and cellars.

"Let us say, then. a grandmother I supposed unalterably es-

tranged and probably long since dead," she amends. "And you

never did tell me what my mother did to offend you so badly,

that you and my grandfather refused to see her ever again."

Mrs. Windboume sits up a little straighter in her carved oak

chair. The carvings consist of owls and ivy in a highly involved

pattern. Laurel wonders if some brief glimpse the night before

was the source of her nightmare.

"Is that what your mother told you?" the old woman asks in-

dignantly. "But it was Linnet who turned her back on us, who

ran away from home after a trilling quarrel and never made any

attempt to communicate with any member of the family after-

ward." She subsides a little, brushes one hand over her eyes.

"Ftahaps both sides were equally to blame. We were each too

proud to even think of making the first move. And now it is too

late for your grandfather and for poor Linnet... but how fortu-

nate that you and I somehow managed to find each other before

the end."

It makes Laurel feel hot and uncomfortable under her light

summery dress, how frankly the old woman speaks of her own

imminent demise- It was one of the first things mentioned in her

lener—that remarkable document which arrived so unexpectedly

to announce Mrs. Windboume's existence and her desire for

reconciliation—and the spreading cancer was also one of the first

things they discussed when Laurel arrived at the house. Under

138                    Teresa EJgerton

other circumstances such openness might make everything easier

and more natural, since it frees them both from so many eva-

sions. But again. Laurel is left not knowing how she ought to

feel. Should she grieve for this woman she hanily knows?

/ can grieve, anyway, for the time that has been denied us.

Feel disappointed I have so little opportunity to get really ac-

quainted with her, or to learn how to love her. Life can be so

beastly unfair sometimes!

"Grandmother, do you feel well enough to go out for a walk

this afternoon?" she asks, on a sudden conciliating impulse. "I

would so like for you to show me the garden and a little of the

forest"

"And I would like that also," Mrs. Wmdboume answers. "But

me doctor has warned me against too much air or exertion, and

I doubt I will ever leave these rooms again. However, do please

feel free to wander about as much as you like on your own."

Now Laurel thinks she has caught her grandmother in a lie.

There is a crust of mud on the soles of the old lady's shoes—

Laurel noticed it as soon as she came into the room—and a frail

leaf skeleton caught in the wispy white hair over one ear. It

seems obvious Mrs. Wmdboume has already been out for a walk

in the early morning air- But the old woman looks so ftail and

tired, me younger one feels a guilty disinclination to call her to

account

The garden is really nothing more than a patch of overgrown

ground between the back of the house and me ragged edge of the

encroaching woodlands. There is a stable, a thicket, a stagnant

fishpond, and beyond a tumbled drystone wall, what appears to

be a ruined chapel and a graveyard right in among the trees.

The weather is pleasant and not too warm, but everything

looks dull and lifeless: grass, trees, brambles, and a few scrubby

bushes over by me stable—everything limp and sapless. On the

trunks of some birches up ahead, the white bark is peeling off

like tissue paper. The oaks and the elms farther on are already

losing their leaves, and they look ugly in their semi-nakedness,

all contorted into shapes of agony. Laurel wonders if there has

been a drought in this part of the country, or if the forest and the

garden have been infected by some invisible blight Remember-

ing the dampness inside the house, she decides a drought is out

of the question.

Raising the hem of her white batiste skirt, she climbs through

a gap in the drystone wall and wanders among the gravestones.

MY SOUL INTO THE BOUGHS      139

One of them, a little taller than the rest and draped in vines that

look somewhat greener and fresher, catches her eye, and she

bends down to examine the chiseled inscription more closely.

"NICHOLAS WINDBOURNE," it proclaims. And below that, in

smaller and rounder letters: "Nicholas Perrin."

Standing by her grandfather's grave. Laurel again realizes how

little she knows of her family history. When and why did her

grandfather change his name? It seems an extraordinary, even a

slightly disreputable, thing to do. Like a man with a secret, she

muses.

At this moment, something sharp pierces her ankle. Glancing

down and lifting the hem of her skirt a chaste few inches off the

ground, Laurel discovers she has somehow blundered into one of

the thorny vines. Her ankle, under its delicate white silk stock-

ing, is scratched and spotted with blood. And now something

truly appalling begins to happen; the vine writhes, constricts, and

begins to crawl up her leg with a sinuous, sensuous movement

that is just as indecent as it is terrifying,

Laurel screams, tries to pull away, and in doing so, uninten-

tionally steps backward onto the grave ... only to leam mat the

soil there is so soft and so loose that she instantly starts to sink.

Within seconds, she is trapped in the devouring earth up to her

knees.

But a hard hand catches hold of her shoulder, a strong arm en-

circles her waist, and someone lifts her bodily out of the grave

and deposits her safely on solid ground.

Still gasping, Laurel turns to confront her rescuer.

He is a rough-looking fellow and her first impression is all in

shades of brown: shaggy russet hair; tawny face; amber eyes

flecked with something darker; a pair of broad shoulders under

an earth-colored coat. Further impressions are more complex: He

smells of smoke and autumn leaves. He is not much older than

she is herself, and rather attractive—in a crude, unfinished sort

of way. She likes the way his hand rests at the small of her back,

me pressure of one muscular, leather-clad thigh, felt through her

skirt and petticoat. He is holding her much loo closely.

Before she can act on any of this, he steps back and releases

her. Robbed of both her breath and her dignity. Laurel seeks to

restore both by smoothing her skirt, tidying her hair. It works tol-

erably well, and she is finally able to address him with a fair de-

gree of equanimity.

"I suppose I ought to thank you," she says primly.

He regards her solemnly, yet Laurel thinks she detects a flicker

140 Teresa Edgei-ton

of something ... arousal? ... curiosity? ... resentment? ... in

those amber eyes.

"You'll be the granddaughter," he states flatly, in a deep,

countrified burr.

Glancing down, Laurel sees that the entrapping tendril of vine

has withdrawn, disappeared; could it be that she only imagined

its astonishing, provocative behavior?

Feeling once more in control of the situation, she smiles gra-

ciously. "Yes, I am Laurel Springer, Mrs. Windboume*s grand-

daughter. But who are you?"

He waves a square brown hand in the direction of the stable

and on toward the house. "Josiah Marten. But you open any win-

dow and call out 'Joss.' That usually fetches me."

"Joss, then." Laurel permits her gaze to wander back to the

grave. Though she is well on the way to convincing herself that