Mythago Wood (Ryhope Wood) by Robert Holdstock

Author:Robert Holdstock [Holdstock, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780575088450
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 2012-10-29T06:00:00+00:00

‘What is your earliest memory, Guin?’

We were walking in the late afternoon, skirting the wood to the south, between the trees and Ryhope. It was cloudy, but warm. The depression of the day before had passed, and as is the way with young lovers, somehow the anxiety and pain of what we had talked about so briefly had brought us closer, and made us more cheerful. Hand in hand we kicked through long grass, picked carefully between the sprawling, fly-infested pats of cow dung, and walked always with the Norman tower of St Michael’s church in the distance.

Guiwenneth remained silent, although she hummed softly to herself, a broken tune, weird, rather like the music of the Jaguth. Some children were running across the Lower Grubbings, throwing a stick for a dog, and shrieking with boyish laughter. They saw us and obviously realized that they were trespassing, and cut off away from us, vanishing over a rise of ground. The dog’s hysterical barking drifted on the still air. I saw one of the Ryhope girls riding at a canter along the bridle-way towards St Michael’s.

‘Guin? Is that too tough a question?’

‘What question, Steven?’ She glanced at me, dark eyes gleaming, mouth touched with a smile. In her way she was teasing me, and before I could restate my query, she broke from me and raced – all flapping white shirt and baggy flannels – to the woodland edge and peered inside.

Raising a finger to her lips as I approached, she murmured, ‘Quiet... quiet... oh, by the God Cernunnos … !’

My heart began to beat faster. I peered into the darkness of the wood, seeking among the tangled growth for whatever she had seen.

By the God Cernunnos?

The words were like pinches and punches to my mind, teasing strokes, and slowly I became aware that Guiwenneth was in a very playful mood.

‘By the God Cernunnos!’ I repeated, and she laughed and began to run along the track. I chased her. She had listened to the way I blasphemed and adapted such blasphemy to the beliefs of her own age. Normally she would never have expressed surprise with such a religious oath. It would have been a reference to animal dung, or death.

I caught her – and therefore she had intended me to catch her – and we wrestled on the warm grass, struggling and twisting until one of us gave in. Soft hair tickled my face as she leaned to kiss me.

‘So answer my question,’ I said.

She looked irritated, but couldn’t escape my sudden bear hug. She looked resigned, then sighed. ‘Why do you ask me questions?’

‘Because I want answers. You fascinate me. You frighten me. I need to know.’

‘Why can’t you accept?’

‘Accept what?’

‘That I love you. That we’re together.’

‘Last night you said we wouldn’t be together always …’

‘I was sad!’

‘But you believe it’s true. I don’t,’ I added sternly, ‘but in case … just in case … anything did happen to you. Well. I want to know about you, all about you. You.

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