His father called to him. ‘Jack? Rona is gone. Yssobel’s horse is gone. All the other packhorses are here.’
They met at the rear wall and looked at the field, and across the field at the hill. Haunter whispered: Nothing to see. But in this mess of tracks and chaos, I can’t be sure. If she went this way, she went towards the hill, or Serpent Pass. But I can’t be sure.
Had she gone to the valley?
Jack walked through the main gates, out into the cruel day, and stared at the far hills, the winter woods, the place from where his mother had struggled to return. He saw there the same hound tracks and the man tracks; they led in, then out. The outward traces suggested they had turned into the pass. There was no sign of any horse or horses going anywhere but into the villa.
Jack stood there for a long time, feeling the ice wind, listening to the silence, searching the distance for movement, seeing only the movement of cloud and the swirl of gusting snow, picked up by an elemental wind. This winter had lasted too long. Too many winters, too much wasteland. Distantly, he could hear a woman softly crying, and recognised the mourning keen of Rianna, who perhaps was sensing the end of the home.
And then his father’s voice: ‘I’m going to lose you too! I know it. Everything about you tells me that’s what’s going to happen.’
‘What about me?’
‘Your anger.’
Jack turned from the gate, walked to his father and took him in his arms. Steven Huxley was a shade of himself - dark-rimmed eyes, deep frown, shivering with cold and something more: fear, perhaps.
He was taller than his son, but now Jack felt taller. ‘We should go into the warm.’
In the villa, in Jack’s room, surrounded by his son’s models of the edge of the world, Steven started to smile. He looked at the model of Oak Lodge; at the landscape of the fields and woodland; at the small wooden buildings that represented Shadoxhurst - the church far too prominent, the spire too high. It was such a small town in the land, even though it called to all the villages around. Shadox Wood. And what had Shadox meant? Not even his father had been able to understand the meaning behind the name.
It sounded like shadow.
Steven said, ‘The edge of the world is shadow, Jack. To me it’s memory. To you, a place to find. I’ve always known that.’
He exchanged a long and silent look with the young man whom he loved. ‘But do you really need to go there now?’
‘Yes. And for a second reason.’
Rianna appeared at the door. At Steven’s signal she came in and sat at the table. ‘I didn’t see her go. I didn’t hear her go. But the horse was mine, my gift to her. And the horse was charmed. I can believe that in riding out, before dawn, she would have left no signs.’
‘Do you have any idea where she might have gone?’
But the High Woman shook her head. ‘If I’d known what was in her heart I could have followed, but it’s too late now.’
‘My thinking exactly,’ Jack said. He looked at the gaunt woman. ‘Will you look after this man in my absence?’
She seemed surprised and insulted. ‘Where else can I go? Of course. This is my home.’
‘This is my home too,’ Jack replied. ‘And Yssobel’s. To find where she’s gone I need to find my grandfather.’
Steven shook his head. ‘That makes no sense.’
We can find him. We can summon him. We can explore what he has seen. He has been close to us for years, and might have the clue to where she has gone. This may be instinct, but instinct that should be obeyed. Go to the edge, Jack. Your Haunter will get you there.
‘I think . . .’ Jack began, but paused. He corrected the word: ‘I’m certain that I can find Grandfather George.’
‘You’ll find no more than a mythago. He’ll be an impression, an echo of your own needs, your own passion. What is the point? Raising a man who is not the true man?’
‘But dad: Guiwenneth came to you with memories of her past. They weren’t yours, they were hers. You’ve always told me this. You brought her to life. You brought my mother to life. She came with life! A memory of life. So can George. If I can call him.’
‘Why do you think my father would ever venture near the edge of the wood?’
‘Because that’s where the Lodge is. Because that’s where he began. Because for him, that’s the place where he can cross between worlds. All he needs is the call. I’m guessing, of course. But I’ll try. If I can bring him back, I can ask him about my mother and Yssi.’
‘And see the world you’ve dreamed of so obsessively at the same time.’
‘But I’ll come back. I promise.’
‘What would bring you back? What reason would you have to come back if you find the world you’ve dreamed of?’
‘You. This place. This life. It’s so intriguing. But, that said, I will leave again, eventually. But not before I’ve said a proper goodbye to you.’
Rianna interrupted. ‘Would you like me to prepare food for your journey? Hurthig can saddle the horse. You’ll need a pack animal too. Are you leaving now?’
‘The day after tomorrow. I smell spring. I want the snow to go away. I’d like to be alone with my father now.’
Rianna rose and smiled, vanished like a ghost.
Jack said: ‘Well: now we can talk for a while longer. And I’ll call to you when I return.’
This was the end of the villa. Rebuilt from ruins, now it was ruined again, by the loss of so much of the warmth of the life that it had contained.
Return
Steven stood in the middle of the field. It was night, and a brisk early-autumn wind was blowing. The field had healed itself; no sign now of the passing of Legion those many seasons ago, that confused passage of time. Silver gleamed on the hill, between the trees. The silver was woman-shaped.
He watched, aware that he should go no closer.
A darker form appeared, masking the silver; man-shaped, weary. The glow of the woman made a halo around his body. Steven heard her words:
‘A friend has returned.’
And then the call of his son: ‘I’m home. And I know where Yssobel has gone.’
Silver faded, that enigmatic glow he had witnessed before, not understanding it, but gone now. His son came down the hill, a gaunt man, stinking of travel and the wild. None of that mattered. Afraid though he was of walking too far into the ground belonging to the Iaelven, Steven approached his son and held him.
‘Where has she gone?’ he asked.
‘Beyond the fire.’
‘And my father? Did you find him?’
‘I did. Not a good encounter, but good enough.’
‘Did he remember me?’
‘He remembered you. And your brother. And for a while he confused me with you, but he soon understood who I was. And he knew of Yssobel.’
Steven smiled. ‘You were right. There was a good reason for going to the edge.’
‘And I’ve brought you your book. The Time Machine. I’ve read some of it. It’s so strange! I like it, though I don’t understand the world in which it’s set. Such a strange future. And I’ve also brought a chess game. From Christian’s room. It’s all I could think to bring.’
‘Chris liked chess. Thank you.’
‘And I don’t propose to leave again for several weeks.’
His father smiled now. ‘I’m glad to hear that. But food is scarce.’
‘Food can be obtained.’
‘Not much warmth in the villa.’
‘We’ll see about that.’
‘This was a hard trip, I think. For you.’
Shrugging off his leather packs, pushing them into his father’s arms, Jack said, ‘Not hard at all. There’s a part of me that can pursue trails through anything that’s hard. I’m pleased to see you.’
Fading eyes brightened at the words, then the frown in the gaunt face again. ‘Who was the silver woman?’
They looked back towards the hill. Jack said, ‘Someone from the past. When I’ve found our Yssobel - should she need finding - I’ll come back for the silver woman. And someone else.’ He shivered with the cold. ‘Why are you asking me so much? Out here. In the field! I need to sleep and see you in the light.’
The hill was dark now, but Rianna had lit a torch and was waving it, a fire of welcome by the outer wall. Exhausted, but with his arm around his father, Jack went back to the comfort of his first home.
The Crossing Place: Moonsilver
Jack stayed with his father for several days, enjoying both the comfort of the villa and the awareness that Steven Huxley was transformed by his son’s return. It was quite clear that Steven had not been looking after himself. He was dishevelled and ragged, his eyes rimmed with dark through lack of proper sleep, and he had developed a substantial belly.
But now he was a fury of activity and chatter. And laughter.
Hurthig had maintained the villa as well as he could, though there were distinct signs of change, and Rianna had kept it clean, though she had failed to persuade Steven to wash more often and trim his hair. It was as if he had wanted an excuse to clean himself up. And that excuse had come back into his life. Apart from the paunch, he was a new man.
On the second day of Jack’s reappearance, Jack told of everything he had found at Oak Lodge.
‘You found my father? You found old Huxley?’
‘He was just the ghost of the man, I’m sure of that,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t know from whose mind he was resurrected. And it was the ghost of a journal. But he wrote about Yssobel when I whispered in his ear.’
‘And you know where she’s gone?’
‘Where she’s gone, and how she got there. But if I’m right,’ Jack had been thinking hard about what Huxley had written, about his sister’s transit to Avilion, ‘that way is not open to me.’
To the extent that he could, he recounted the scrawled contents of the notebook. Steven was fascinated and perplexed in equal measure.
Jack described the Amurngoth, and his failed attempts to walk beyond Shadoxhurst.
His father was not surprised. ‘It’s true; we would find mythagos dead on the land. They would come to the edge of the wood and peer at us, but those that tried to move outwards always perished. I didn’t know this until I read my own father’s journals, long after he had disappeared.’
Jack shook his head. ‘At least one mythago made it to the outside and survived.’
Steven was surprised. ‘Oh? What was it?’
‘Who was it! His name is Caylen Reeve; he’s been with the Shadoxhurst church for generations.’
For a moment, Steven was speechless. ‘Good Lord. The Reverend Reeve. He used to conduct the harvest festival every year. That’s the only time I ever really met him. How in the name of . . . how do you know he was from the wood?’
‘He told me. He recognised me for what I am.’
‘Tell me more.’
When Jack had finished filling his father in on the details of his journey and his edge-world experiences, he presented Steven with the two items he’d requested.
Steven looked at the copy of The Time Machine and shook his head fondly. ‘This was my favourite story when I was a child. I must have read it fifty times. Maybe more. It makes me shiver just to think about it now.’ He opened the book, read a paragraph or two to himself, then closed it and kissed it. ‘You must read it before you go again, Jack. And I know you’re going to go again.’
Jack passed his father the chess set. ‘Ah,’ said Steven. ‘He was a good player, your brother. Better than me, though not as good as George. When our father deigned to leave his study and come and spend time with us, that is. The pieces are made of something called bakelite. It was quite new.’
‘They feel strange to the touch. I would have expected ivory.’
‘Ivory or wood. Yes. This was a birthday gift from a friend of my father’s, his great companion and fellow scientist. A man called Wynne-Jones. Heaven alone knows where he is now. In our different ways, we all became lost.’ He placed book and game to one side. ‘Thank you, Jack. These are precious souvenirs.’
It was warm in this room, in the villa. It was as Jack remembered it. When his mother and Yssobel had shouted at each other, the room could seem cold. But when the family were quiet, eating and laughing together, this place of simple furniture, decoration and open hearth had been comforting and enclosing. Or was this nostalgia at work, the constant draw to home? Life in the villa had been hard, and his and Yssobel’s growing frustration at their confinement had been harshly expressed.
Perhaps it was just that he was pleased to be away from the journey, feet up, sipping Hurthig’s strange brew, appetite satisfied with Rianna’s meat stew; and seeing his father with a glow upon his face.
He stayed for seven days, helping Hurthig at the forge, Rianna with the running of the smallholding, and with her cooking. Several visitors came and went, all entertained, none particularly entertaining.
But Jack was getting restless. Something Haunter had heard whispered as they had followed the Iaelven through the under-passages of the wood kept coming back to him: that the Iaelven could traverse all boundaries.
Each evening he went up onto the slope between the villa and the wooded hill and wondered if they would appear. He called out at times. Only once did he hear anything from that mysterious, invisible entrance below the ridge, and it was not the whistle-speak of the Amurngoth but the angry and frustrated shouting of the boy, the human boy.
And only once did he see anything. The silvery glow of the young-old woman who was the eternal prisoner of the Amurngoth.
At the end of seven days Jack realised that he was now ready to go; it was not a feeling he perceived in himself, but only by looking at the signs of anxiety and sadness in his father’s gaze. Steven Huxley could tell what was in the wind, and his heart was breaking again.
‘Why don’t you stay? Yssobel will come home when she’s achieved what she needs. She has no reason to stay in that part of Lavondyss once she has found Gwin.’
Jack thought about that. ‘If she finds Gwin, she will probably find Christian. From what you’ve told me, that might not be for the best.’