Magdalen Rising by Elizabeth Cunningham

Author:Elizabeth Cunningham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing
Published: 2013-03-21T04:00:00+00:00

Though I had never been there, I knew how to find the Dark Grove. All I had to do was follow Afon Braint, the river that runs all through the college like life’s blood. As soon as I left Esus, I did just that. Picking up the thread of the river a mile and a half further in from Caer Leb, I walked east towards Bryn Celli Ddu, the late shadows lengthening before me. I wanted to case the joint, stake out some cover for myself, maybe explore the fabled mound where, rumor had it, human bones lay in a silent huddle. And I wanted to make sure of the way, so that I could find the Mound, night or day, when the time came.

For a while, the river ran through planted fields and grazing meadows, now and then a copse. Gradually, the trees and shrubs grew more densely, and the air around me was damp and green. Yet the moment I entered the Dark Grove itself, I knew it. The very air surrounding the wood, riddled with protective charms, gave resistance. As you know, I was an old hand at trespassing. I held my breath and wriggled through the invisible wall, just as you might squeeze through barbed wire, taking care not to let it catch your clothes.

Once inside the Grove, I stood still, waiting for my extra senses to waken and tell me which way to go. The wood was uncannily silent, as if the trees, almost all gigantic oaks, held their breath and suspended their judgment while they waited to see what I would do. The prevailing winds moaned in the distance. Everything and everyone seemed far away. I looked up at the forest roof, the leaves so thick I could not see the sky. The last light caught the highest branches, and they glowed green, high, high above me. Except that I could breathe, I might have been gazing up through fathoms of water at sunlight rippling on the surface.

No wonder I felt dizzy and disoriented. If I’d had any sense, I would have turned and run back to Caer Leb. Instead I turned to my left and began to walk slowly away from the river into the wood. I followed no path, but so little light found its way through the leaves, there was practically no undergrowth. Despite the growing darkness, I did not stumble, yet it seemed every soft, bare footfall reverberated. Then, through the spaces between the trees, I saw the mound rising in the midst of the dark grove, an earth swell, a fallen moon gleaming in the half-light, round and smooth and unmistakably secret. I stopped mid-step and stared.

At that moment, a murder of crows came screaming into the wood, racketing into the branches above me. You wouldn’t have to be a superstitious Celt, reading omens or ogham in every flap of a bird’s wing, to believe that these Crows were sounding the alarm. Imagine being a burglar in the middle of a heist hearing the wail of a siren.

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