In the Night Wood

“I’m fine.” She pushed herself to her feet, wincing, and reached for her ankle. “Just get my stuff.”

But Merrow was already collecting it: makeup and lipstick, her passport, an assortment of pens and pill bottles. A sketchbook. A framed photo. Merrow stood, looking at it. “Your daughter?” she asked, scraping mud off the edge of the frame. “She is very beautiful. The glass has cracked, but that can be mended easily enough, can’t it? Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I just twisted my ankle. I’ll be fine.”

She didn’t look fine. Mud streaked her jeans. She was flushed. When she took a step, she favored the bad ankle.

“Here, let me help you,” Charles said.

“Really, Charles, I’m fine.” And then, relenting, with a small smile, “Walk it off, right?”

“I guess so,” he said.

“Well, let me get your bag, at least,” Merrow said. “Come on.”

Together — with Charles and Merrow hovering to either side of Erin — they made their halting way toward the house. By the time they’d reached the stairs, six of them, climbing to a square portico, the door had been opened from within. A stout, fifty-something woman in full Mrs. Danvers livery — black skirts, white apron, even a black cap with her gray hair pinned up underneath — descended to meet them. It was like seeing a nurse in whites, complete with cap, in your local emergency room.

“Ah, Mrs. Ramsden,” Merrow said.

Mrs. Ramsden smiled. “Here, let me help you, now,” she said, reaching for Erin’s arm, and together they hobbled up the stairs into Hollow House.

4

They stood in a vaulted entrance hall, like children in a tale, long lost and returned at last to break the spell that had been cast over their ancestral home. A great chandelier illuminated the tapestries and framed portraits that adorned the walls. Doors to the left and right stood closed. The high archway before them framed a long, luxuriously furnished salon.

“I saw you fall,” Mrs. Ramsden said. “That stile is a menace. I don’t know how many times I’ve told Mr. Harris we need to do something about it.” She sighed in exasperation with Mr. Harris as she led them through the salon, past twin oaken staircases that curved like the necks of swans to the gallery above. The balusters had been carved with an intricate motif of leaf and vine. Cunning foxlike faces peered out at them as they passed. “Anyway,” she added, “welcome home. The house isn’t always lit up this way, but we wanted to put her best face forward for you. I’d hoped to give you the grand tour, but I don’t think you’re in any shape to enjoy it, Mrs. Hayden. Let’s get you upstairs and see if we can’t find some ice for that ankle.”

They went up a back staircase to what had been Mr. Hollow’s living quarters: a house inside the house, Charles thought, and a luxuriously appointed one: polished floors and plush oriental rugs, Victorian-era furniture, built-in bookcases stocked with neat rows of leather-bound books. Capacious, high-ceilinged rooms — study, sitting room, dining room — radiated off the large central foyer, where a grand staircase curved up to an open gallery. “There are four suites and a maid’s room upstairs,” Mrs. Ramsden said, leading them down a wide hall into a breakfast room lined with windows, providing a panoramic view of the lawn. There was a second stone house down there. A cottage, really: a single floor, with narrow windows.

“That’s Mr. Harris’s house,” Merrow said, putting Erin’s satchel on the table. “He’s the estate’s steward.”

“We do hope you’ll be comfortable here,” Mrs. Ramsden said as she got Erin settled. “I’ll get you some ice.”

Merrow took out her phone. “Let me see if I can find you a doctor.”

“Please don’t bother. I just twisted it.”

“It’s no bother,” Merrow said and turned away, holding the phone to her ear. By the time Mrs. Ramsden returned with a dish towel and a large plastic bag of ice, Merrow was saying, “Yes, I expect you to come out here, John. We’re speaking of the new mistress of Hollow House. Yes, three should be fine. Yes, I’m sure she’ll survive until then. Good. Thank you, then.”

She ended the call and smiled — a little tightly, Charles thought. “Dr. Colbeck will be here at three,” she said. “Can you endure it for a couple of hours?” When Erin nodded, Merrow turned to Mrs. Ramsden. “Does Mr. Harris intend to join us?”

Mrs. Ramsden hesitated. “See, we thought you’d be arriving a little bit later. Mr. Harris ran into Yarrow. I expect him back directly.”

“Not the day I should have chosen for a trip into the village,” Merrow said. “Well.” She looked at Erin. “You seem to be in good hands. If there’s nothing else I can do for you …”

“You’ve done more than enough.”

“Then I’ll be off.” At the doorway, she turned. “Keys. Mustn’t forget the keys.” She reached into her purse and withdrew a heavy key ring. “I’ve marked the important ones. Mr. Harris will have to help with the others.”

A doorbell rang in the foyer.

“I suppose that’s him,” Mrs. Ramsden said.

“No doubt,” Merrow said. “I’ll let him in on my way out. In the meantime, if you need anything, please do ring me up. You have my card.” And then, smiling at Erin, “I’m sure you’ll be up and about in no time.”

5

“The house operates on a skeletal staff, sir,” said Cillian Harris as he led Charles through the salon. “Mr. Hollow kept just enough people on to maintain the property — groundskeepers and housemaids. It’ll be a bit of a lifestyle change, sir.”

Charles glanced at Harris. He looked more like a linebacker than a steward: mid-thirties, with a thatch of unruly dark hair and a crooked nose — not unhandsome in a rough-hewn kind of way. His eyes were bloodshot, and though the man seemed sober enough, Charles was almost certain that he’d caught the scent of whisky on his breath.

It was just past two o’clock.

“Mrs. Ramsden sees to the living quarters and supervises the housemaids,” Harris was saying. “She’ll arrive most mornings around seven. I’m always available. I live in the cottage. You may have noticed it from the breakfast room. I manage the estate.” And then, almost as an afterthought, he said, “Under your direction, of course.”

“Well, let’s work on a more informal basis, then. Why don’t you call me Charles?”

“I couldn’t do that, Mr. Hayden. All my life I served Mr. Hollow, and my father before me, and never once did I call him by his given name. Mr. and Mrs. Hayden you must be to me, by force of habit if nothing else.”

Charles reminded himself that he was an interloper in a foreign land. The custom of the country and all that. “If you insist.”

Harris nodded. “I understand that you intend to do research.”

“Yes, Caedmon Hollow, his book —”

“I know his book all right.” Then, hesitant, as though he felt he was overstepping his bounds, “Never should have written it, if you want my opinion.”

Not really, Charles thought, but he said nothing.

“Well, you’ll want to be back before the doctor arrives,” Harris said. “Let’s just have a glance into the library.”

6

“Tea?” Mrs. Ramsden said.

“Why not?” Erin said.

Mrs. Ramsden busied herself setting out the service: cookies on a platter, sugar cubes and milk, floral teacups and saucers. Everything had the pearly, translucent glow of bone china. “It’s been a long trip from America, I warrant. You must be tired.”

“Exhausted.”

“As soon as I set out your tea, I’ll leave you to rest.”

“Why don’t you join me instead? I’d enjoy the company.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I fear our different stations in life preclude such intimacies.”

“Oh, dear, Mrs. Ramsden, I am thoroughly middle class, I assure you.”

“Mr. Harris wouldn’t approve.”

“Well, Mr. Harris works for me now.”

Mrs. Ramsden offered her an uncertain smile.

“I insist,” Erin said. “We’ll finish up before he comes back. Charles will spend half an hour in the library alone.”

“I’ll have to get another cup.”

“Use that one.”

“Oh, that’s for Mr. Hayden, ma’am.”

“We can get him one when he gets back,” Erin said. “Please, sit down. What’s your first name, anyway?”

“Helen, ma’am.”

“Helen it is, then.” Wincing, Erin leaned forward to extend her hand. Mrs. Ramsden’s — Helen’s — was dry and cool. “I’m Erin. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise, ma’am. Let me just pour the tea.”

“Sure. If you’d reach me that satchel, too, I’d truly appreciate it. I’d get it myself, but —” She laughed without mirth at her predicament.

“Why don’t I see about fresh ice?”

“It’s fine. Really. Just hand me the satchel. And please, have a seat. I mean it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The “ma’am” was going to have to go, too, Erin thought. Baby steps. At least they were moving in the right direction. The satchel, on the other hand, was a mess: her sketchbook smeared with mud, her pens and pencils jumbled at the bottom. And the photograph, of course, the glass broken, as Merrow had said. It was unbearable to look upon it, impossible not to. She had to force herself to set it aside and dig out her meds, nearly two dozen jumbo-sized plastic bottles. She counted them, to be sure. She’d been doctor shopping, hoarding, afraid of not being able to get what she needed — wanted, her therapist would have said — in this benighted country. Effexor for the depression. Trazodone and Ambien to help her sleep. Her medicine chest, Charles called it. Her personal pharmacy.

Sometimes she hated Charles.

She shook out a Klonopin — she had half a dozen prescriptions for anxiety, Ativan, Xanax, you name it — and dry-swallowed the pill; then, impulsively, she shook out another one.

Mrs. Ramsden was right about one thing, though: the journey had been too much. The girl at the hotel. That small figure watching from the roadside. We see what we want to see, as her therapist had said, adding, Be careful or you’ll learn to love your chains.

She did not want this. She wanted to be free.

She would never be free.

Mrs. Ramsden — Helen — sat down at last. Sugar and milk, a shy smile across the table. She ignored the vials of medication. She cleared her throat. “You’ll want to know about the household, of course,” she said. “Mr. Harris handles most matters, but he generally gives me free rein in domestic affairs. In addition to myself, there are seven maids. They keep up the larger portion of the house. I’ll introduce you to them soon. I had hoped to do so today, but you’ll want to rest your ankle. I maintain the residential section myself, so you can expect to see me daily.”

“I hope we see a lot of each other. I imagine I’ll be lonely all by myself out here.”

Mrs. Ramsden hesitated. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of company as soon as you recover from your fall.”

Which was hard to imagine. She and Charles hadn’t entertained in nearly a year now. Even the usual visits after … after Lissa … had been difficult affairs for all involved. While everyone had been generous and kind — their sympathies had certainly been genuine — the unacknowledged specter of Charles and Syrah Nagle had haunted every interaction, dividing her even from her closest friends in the end. You could not easily speak of it, yet you could hardly ignore it. So after the initial flurry of visits — the inundation of more food than she and Charles could ever eat, the follow-up phone calls, the two or three lunch invitations that she had declined — their social life had dwindled to nothing.

“Now, as to the matter of cooking —”

“We’ll cook for ourselves, Mrs. Ramsden.”

“I always cooked for Mr. Hollow.”

“Charles and I have always cooked for ourselves,” Erin said. But this too was a fraught subject, wasn’t it? Her parents had both been functioning alcoholics. The car wreck that had killed them — Erin had been a sophomore in college by then, and the drinking had escalated as soon as she moved out — had been no chance accident. By the time she was twelve, Erin was taking care of her own meals. Even in the early days of their marriage, she and Charles, both of them busy with careers, had more often eaten meals alone than together. Only after Lissa made her debut had Erin made a concerted effort to be home for dinner. Nor did she drink, at least in those days. She would not repeat the mistakes of her parents — or so she had vowed.

Now it didn’t matter, of course.

Now nothing mattered.

She glanced at Lissa’s photograph, helpless to stop herself, but if Mrs. Ramsden noticed, she didn’t say a word. She merely said, “You’re in no shape to cook, are you? And I would wager that your husband is indifferent in the kitchen at best. Husbands usually are. You could use some meat on your bones, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“Mrs. Ramsden —”

“I serve promptly at five. I will brook no protests, Mrs. Hayden.”

“Can we at least revisit it after I’m on my feet again?” Erin asked, amused that Mrs. Ramsden, for all her deference, had already maneuvered her into asking permission. She had a feeling that she wouldn’t be doing much cooking. Which was just as well, she supposed. It wasn’t like either one of them had spent much time in the kitchen in the last year.

Mrs. Ramsden let the question pass. She smiled. “You’re an artist.”

“I sketch,” Erin said. It was a new endeavor, but it came easily to her. She’d loved drawing as a child. “I’m teaching myself.”

“May I see?”

Erin hesitated.

“I don’t mean to pry.”

“No, it’s fine.” Erin pushed the sketchbook across the table to her.

As Mrs. Ramsden flipped the pages, Erin turned her cup in its saucer, staring at the crest she’d seen at the top of so many letters from the Hollow estate over the last few months: a capital H entwined in green and gold foliage. It put her in mind of the first edition of In the Night Wood, passed from hand to hand down the generations of her family, the baroque initial letter of each fresh chapter. Someday, she supposed, she would have passed it on to Lissa.

“They’re very well done,” Mrs. Ramsden said, turning a page. “You have an eye.” She looked up. “It’s all the same girl, isn’t it?”

Erin bit her lip. Nodded.

“The girl in the photograph there?”

She couldn’t bring herself to answer.

7

“Erin?”

Alone in the breakfast room — Mrs. Ramsden had gone about her duties, whatever they were — Erin closed the sketchbook and looked up. The Klonopin had kicked in. She stood outside her emotions, aware of them but detached, an observer of her own inner life. The meds insulated her from her grief and anger, nothing more.

“Dr. Colbeck is here,” Charles said from the door.

Indeed he was. He towered over Charles, a gaunt, ginger giant: ginger hair, ginger beard, all knobby elbows and knees. Six-three or -four, at least, and vastly underfed. Ichabod Crane, she thought. Ichabod Crane was to be her doctor.

“Dr. Colbeck.”

The ginger stranger actually bowed slightly. He put a black medical bag on the table and took in the rows of pill bottles arrayed in front of Erin without expression.

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t get up.”

To his credit, Colbeck ignored this witticism. He smiled. “Please, call me John,” he said. Then: “So you’re the Americans who’ve inherited Hollow House. You’ve been much anticipated hereabouts.”

“Warmly, I hope,” Charles ventured.

“Of course. You’ll find the natives friendly enough, I think.”

“Did you grow up here?” Charles asked.

“Born and bred. My training eroded my accent somewhat; for good or ill I am uncertain.”

“Then you knew our benefactor?” Erin asked.

“Only in a professional sense. I took on Dr. Marshall’s practice ten years ago, when he retired. Mr. Hollow needed little care. He came of hardy stock. He lived to ninety-seven, and I doubt he was ill a day of it until the final crisis overtook him. He was a reclusive man. Cillian Harris attended to most of his affairs.”

“You’ll find us more approachable, I hope,” Charles said.

“I’m sure I will.” Colbeck cleared his throat. “Let’s have a look at that ankle.”

He knelt and took the ankle in question into his big hands. Erin winced, the pain brief but not insignificant. Then Colbeck was saying, “You appear to have a sprain, Mrs. Hayden, and a minor one at that. You should be up and around in a day or two. In the meantime” — he opened his bag, which, despite the rank of shiny instruments on view, disgorged nothing more sinister than an ankle brace — “in the meantime,” he said, “you seem to be doing the right things. Rest and elevation and ice, though no more than twenty minutes at a stretch. Compression” — he held up the brace — “helps as well, and you’ll need some support when you get back on your feet. Easy enough, yes? I can fetch some crutches from the car, if you like.”

“Why don’t you —” Charles started to say, but Erin overrode him.

“I think I’ll be fine.”

“I think so, too. The brace should be sufficient. Weight is the key. What your ankle wants is weight. Twenty-four hours, and then you’ll start trying to get up and around, won’t you. You can alternate paracetamol and ibuprofen for pain every two hours or so. Three or four days and you’ll be good as new.”

He leaned over to close his bag, and that was when his gaze fell on the photograph. “Oh my, she’s a lovely young girl. Your daughter, I presume.”

“Yes,” Charles said. “Our daughter. Lissa. Back home.”

The words hung in the air like undetonated bombs. Erin could not speak, but if Colbeck noticed anything, he didn’t acknowledge it. He just snapped the bag closed and stood, saying, “Nobody mentioned anything about a daughter.”

8

Charles saw Colbeck out.

In the front yard, the doctor said, “What happened to your daughter, Mr. Hayden?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your daughter. She must be, what, five, six at the most? One doesn’t usually leave a child that age behind when one plans an indefinite stay abroad.” He turned to look at Charles, his eyes knowing.

Charles stared back, something tightening in his chest. “I’m not sure it’s anything for you to concern yourself with, Doctor.” Just at the edge of rudeness, maybe a hair across.

If Colbeck noticed, he didn’t seem to care. He said, “You may have noticed that your wife had twenty-two vials of medication on that table, Mr. Hayden. I counted. You may also have noticed how remote Yarrow is. Unless you intend to drive to a surgery in Ripon every time you have a head cold, I’m likely to be your physician. It is in fact my business to know.”

Colbeck held Charles’s gaze. Charles looked away, surveying the green mass of the Eorl Wood. “She died,” he said.

“And your wife?”

“She hasn’t adjusted well. She blames me. There was an accident.”

“An accident?”

“And that really isn’t your business, Dr. Colbeck.”

Colbeck didn’t push it, though Charles, still staring at the wood, could sense his scrutiny. After a time, he said, “How long ago did this happen?”

“Almost a year ago. I could name the time to the day and hour if you must know. In your capacity as my physician.”

Colbeck didn’t take the bait. He sighed. After a time, he said, “I can offer you little in the way of comfort. I’m very sorry for your loss. I’m very, very sorry. Words are inadequate. But your stay here won’t heal matters between you and your wife. It may not heal at all, and if it does, it will leave a scar, quite a bad one. Sometimes marriages survive the loss of a child, more often not. In cases where one spouse blames the other …” Colbeck shrugged. “In the meantime, it might help to talk about it.”

“Erin was seeing a counselor at home.”

“And you?”

“No.”

“Perhaps you should consider it.”

“Perhaps.”

“I can give you the names of some good people. You’ll have to drive into Ripon for that, but I think the trip might be worth it.”

“That would be fine.”

“But you won’t go.”

“No.”

“Your wife —”

“I doubt it.”

“Well, I’ll ring you with the names all the same,” Colbeck said.

Charles turned to face him. “I should check on Erin now.”

Colbeck nodded. “Ice, twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off, Mr. Hayden. Try to get her up and moving tomorrow. It will be tender for a while.”

“Yes.”

“Good afternoon, then.”

“Thank you for coming out.”

“You’re quite welcome.” Colbeck paused. “At the risk of overstepping my bounds, Mr. Hayden, may I offer you two further pieces of advice before I go?”

“Why not?”

“In the matter of your wife, I counsel patience. These things take time. Fits and starts. Two steps forward, one step back is the rule. But even such halting progress gets you there in the end.”

“And the second bit of wisdom, doctor?”

“I should steer clear of the wood if I were you.”

“Why is that?”

“People get lost, Mr. Hayden.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Do. And ring me if you need anything.”

With that, Colbeck put his back to Charles. He strode with long steps across the yard to the stile. On the other side, he wheeled around a battered four-by-four — it might have been red once, but had long since faded to a dull, no-color brown — and disappeared into the trees. Charles stood there, knowing that he should do as Colbeck had said and go in to check on Erin. But the doctor’s closing words lingered in his mind: I should steer clear of the wood if I were you.

Charles turned his gaze back to the forest. He had an obscure sense that something was watching him from the line of trees, but when he scanned the wall, there was nothing there.

9

Nothing else happened that day.

Except that Charles and Erin slept in separate bedrooms, as they had every night since Lissa died.

Except that, somewhere in the deepest trough of morning, Charles opened his eyes.

He stood by the bed, dreaming of a black combe where a shallow stream hurried over a bed of broken stones and a green moss grew. The window had been flung open and a breeze caressed his bare skin, beckoning him toward the deep purple sky where a horned moon hung like a child’s toy, and the night wood, girdling the great house, whispered green thoughts in its green and leafy shade.

II

YARROW

When Laura told him of the little creatures in the trees with their daemonic physiognomies, the Helpful Badger said, “All manner of Folk live in the Wood. And they are all abroad under the Moon, for this night they must shrive.”

“They frighten me.”

“They are more often capricious than they are cruel,” the Badger said. He yawned and scratched a flea, adding, “There is only one whom you must fear. When you encounter Him, you must summon all your strength and courage and bring all your wit to bear.”

“Must I encounter Him?”

“The Story requires it of you,” the Badger said.

“But who is He?”

“I dare not say his name. But He long ago seduced the Wood Folk into betrayal and grievously wounded their rightful Lord, whom He banished into the Outer Dark. And now the Wood Folk must bow before him and shrive their sin in secret.”

“How will I know Him when He comes?”

“He wears a crown of horns.”

— CAEDMON HOLLOW, IN THE NIGHT WOOD

1

It was haunted, of course, Hollow House.

But they were all haunted — Erin and Charles, Cillian Harris, Mrs. Ramsden, too. And though Mrs. Ramsden’s sins and failures and regrets, like those of Ann Merrow or Dr. Colbeck, have but glancing significance in this story, they were each of them protagonists in other tales, with their own dramas, their flights of joy, and their plunges into sorrow. Once upon a time: no life too humble, no event too insignificant.