The Language of Stones. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

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СКАЧАТЬ what if the Wise Woman had failed to find Willow? What if Willow had got the message but had been given some inescapable chore to do? And, worst of all, what if she had got the message but had decided not to come?

      He pushed that idea away. Then, even though he was a little late, he forced himself to stop and calm down. ‘There’s no point in worrying,’ he told an elm tree. ‘I’ll know what’s what soon enough.’

      But when he reached the heights above Grendon Mill a terrible sight met him. The entire hillside above the pool had been cut and all the fallen trunks dragged down to the road. Where there had been deep forest it was now a ruinous wasteland. It made his heart sink to realize that the special place in which he and Willow had met was now no more.

      All around were crudely axed stumps, broken twigs and chippings underfoot where tree limbs had been hacked off and stacked by the charcoal pits. He looked up suddenly, feeling his skin prickle in warning. Then, as if he was dreaming it, he imagined gangs of men chopping and sawing, and a pair of yoked oxen hauling the trunks away. There were shouts and the cracking of an ancient yew tree as it groaned and split suddenly in half. But then the moment burst open inside his head and the horrible vision was gone, leaving him alone and in silence.

      There was no thump-thump-thump. The continuing dry weather had, in the intervening weeks, lowered the water in the pool below the level needed to drive the wheel. The mill was deserted, and all the men sent away to other labours. He went down to the pool and called out Willow’s name.

      His voice echoed, but no reply came, so he sat down on a log and waited, his chin in his hands. An emptiness was growing inside him, though at first he refused to call it disappointment. He got up and walked back and forth across the earth dam. He did not want to go near the sheds or kilns that stood by the mill, so finally he wandered back to the edge of the pool and looked down at his own face in the water. Two fair braids hung down by his left cheek. Without thinking more about it, he took out his knife and cut one of them off. Then he cut the other.

      ‘There! I don’t look like a girl now,’ he told the emptiness, and threw the braids as far as he could into the pool. They floated forlornly as circles widened around them on the surface.

      ‘Willow!’ he called out again. If she had bothered to come at all she would not have waited long. He remembered what she had said: It’s a dirty, stinky, smoky place now. Not at all the sort of place I like. It was foolish to have tried to meet her here. But how could he have known it would be like this? And where else was there? They had not shared the name of any other place within Wychwoode except the tower.

      As his hopes faded he thought of the trick he had learned in the hope of impressing her. He had practised long and hard with craneflies after the bluebottle incident. Before making his promise to the Wise Woman he had meant to do a piece of naming magic for Willow with dragonflies. He had found out the true name of the large kind that wore a dazzling pale blue stripe along its body.

      Well, he thought, if Willow’s not coming then there’s no longer any harm in it.

      In an effort to cheer himself up he stepped to the water’s edge and called out grandly, like King Leir of old addressing his army.

      ‘Ealsha, ealsha, sathincarenta comla na duil!’ he commanded.

      No sooner had his words echoed out across the pool than a dragonfly swooped in and began to circle before him. He repeated the enchantment five times, and a moment later there were half a dozen of the wonderful insects dancing in the air before him.

      ‘Sathincarentegh erchim archas, teirisi! Cruind!’ he told them, raising his arms, and they immediately began to fly in triangles. Yet another command, and they began to loop in figures of eight, darting in and out of each other’s paths, their great double pairs of wings chattering in time with one another.

      ‘What marvellous skill you have!’

      Will turned at the voice. There was a girl standing behind him in the brightness, a girl just like…

      ‘Willow?’ he said, shading his eyes.

      She looked like Willow, but surely she was not, for she shimmered like pale gauze.

      He rubbed his eyes. She was tall and slender, and as like Willow as any sister, but her eyes were glowing with a faint, sad light and her voice was deeper and more dreamy. She wore a shining, white gown of such fineness that it might have been made of dragonfly wings. It reminded Will of the one the ghost had worn down by the bridge over the Evenlode, the one he had seen the day he had arrived at the Wychwoode.

      ‘Come to me, Will,’ she said. ‘Give me your hands and I will show you wonderful things.’

      ‘Willow? Is…is it you?’ He shook his head, trying to clear it but the whole world was swimming now. ‘Who are you? How do you know my name?’

      ‘I’m your friend, Will. I’ve been searching for you, and now I’ve found you. You’ve come to me at last, my own true love.’

      ‘I…’ He wiped at his face, striving against the weariness that was overpowering him, but there was a cloying sweetness on the air. It was as if his arms and legs had lost their strength.

      ‘Sit down. You’re tired. Don’t you want to sit down?’

      The girl’s glowing eyes had lost their sadness. Now they assured him that sitting next to her would be the most wonderful thing there was. He remembered the look on Willow’s face when she had reached down to help him out of the muddy hole. How could he not do as she asked? It was hot now and the still, quiet warmth of the afternoon closed in around him like a suffocating blanket. He drew breath, but the air did not seem to satisfy his lungs and he sighed for more.

      ‘Let me touch you,’ the girl said, soothing his struggles. He felt a cool hand stroke his knee, his arm, the side of his face. ‘Isn’t that better? Isn’t that so much better than waiting alone? Close your eyes, Will. Rest. Soon we will be together.’

      A part of him resisted, knowing there was something wrong, something important, but when he tried to think what it might be it vanished. His eyes felt dusty and sore, and it was getting too hard to keep them open. He fixed his gaze on the dragonflies still turning and circling above the water. The brilliant blue flashes of their bodies swept out the loops into which his spell had locked them. I must release them before I go, he thought. But somehow he could not remember the releasing words, and it seemed not to matter any more if they flew on while he rested.

      The dragonflies’ weaving patterns reflected in the dark waters of the pool like a mystic symbol. It seemed as if the surface of the water was a looking-glass, a looking-glass that had the power to change him. He would have smiled but the tiredness was too great, and the soothing voice irresistible. ‘Close your eyes, Will. Come with me. Come with me into the beautiful, cool water. There is a wonderful world below. A wonderful realm bigger and more beautiful than anything you’ve ever dreamed. So much. So much you never thought could be. You’ll see many things, many wonderful things. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Come with me, then. Come, and we shall be together. Together forever.’

      He felt the last shreds of resolve drain from him. The drowsy opal sky burned and seemed to press down on his head. He felt the warm mud seeping between his toes, making the ache in his feet go away, making the hurts of his long journey out of childhood fade. When he looked again he was already knee-deep in the water and the girl was naked beside him. But it was all right. It was how it was meant to be. Velvet smooth mud caressed his skin, inviting him deeper. He sank to his waist, then to his chest, and then he felt СКАЧАТЬ