Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

“My, you are full of questions, aren’t you?”

“I think they’re reasonable.”

“Yes, well. Shall we take them one at a time then? I know your work because I make it my business to keep informed of such endeavors.”

“But I haven’t done masks in ages—and never to sell. The last ones I did were for a friend’s play. And they weren’t cast, either. They were papier-mache.”

“Nevertheless, masks you have cast.” She smiled. “That rhymes, doesn’t it?”

Ellie dutifully returned her smile.

“Now,” Wood went on. “I hadn’t planned to approach you on the street as I did—that was merely happy circumstance—though I certainly recognized you immediately. You have a—shall we say—quality that is unmistakable.”

“What sort of quality?”

Wood regarded her for a long moment, then waved a hand dismissively. “And lastly, I didn’t ask you then as you seemed somewhat otherwise occupied.”

Ellie wanted to pursue this quality business, but realized that there probably wasn’t much point. She remembered how earlier Wood had told her that evasiveness was a habit she had. Obviously she hadn’t been lying about that.

“But you could have given me the card yourself,” she said, “instead of leaving it on the dash like you did. You could have given me your phone number, or called me.”

“Look around. I have no telephone.”

“But…”

Ellie sighed. There didn’t seem to be anything to be gained by pointing out that there were such things as payphones, or that the main house at Kellygnow had a phone. She knew that, since it was listed in the phone book.

“Okay,” she said. “Never mind about the phone. What kind of a mask did you want to commission?”

And I hope I’m not going to regret getting involved in this, she added to herself.

“Perhaps it would be easier if I simply showed you,” Wood said.

She rose from her chair and went to the chest at the foot of the bed where she took out a cloth bundle. When she brought it back to the table, Ellie saw that the soft cotton was merely being used as wrapping. Wood undid the leather thongs holding the pieces of cloth in place and folded them back to reveal two halves of a carved wooden Green Man mask.

Ellie had seen Green Men in numerous churches while traveling through England a few years ago—strange carved or stone faces that peered out from an entangling nest of twigs and leaves. She hadn’t been much interested in the folklore behind them, but she’d loved the images themselves. This one was gorgeous. The wood was dark and polished—what sort, she couldn’t say, but it had a beautiful grain. The carved leaves were life-size and remarkably lifelike. The odd face they half-revealed was a strange cross between a gargoyle and a cherub, a fascinating mix that repelled Ellie as much as it appealed to her. The openings for the eyes were the most disturbing, she decided, though she couldn’t say why.

The separation between the two halves was clean, as though the mask had broken along a meandering hairline crack, or perhaps a natural weakness in the wood. Ellie traced the edge of the crack with the tip of her finger, then ran her hand along a smooth wooden cheek until it was stopped by a spray of carved leaves.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, looking up at Wood.

Her host nodded.

“But it’s made of wood,” Ellie went on.

“Oak, actually.”

“Whatever. The problem is, I don’t work in wood.”

“I realize that. I want you to make me a copy in metal.”

“What sort or metal?” Ellie asked. “Like a bronze?”

“Something pure. No alloys. And nothing with iron.”

Ellie gave a slow nod. “No iron,” she repeated. An odd request, but what wasn’t odd about this whole situation? She picked up one half of the mask and studied it for a moment. “I could make a cast directly from this, I think.”

“No, it must be new,” Wood told her. “You must start over from the beginning and redo it.”

Was there any point in asking why? Ellie wondered as she set the piece back down on its cotton wrappings.

“I’m not asking for an exact copy,” Wood said, “but rather for something that captures the spirit of the original. It’s important that you have some leeway.” She smiled, adding, “By which I mean that I expect you to use your artist’s intuition in your rendering.”

Ellie gave a slow nod. “It seems very old,” she said.

“One might call it a family heirloom.”

Not it was, but “one might call it.” Ellie sighed. Why did some people have to make a mystery out of everything?

“How did it get broken?” she asked.

For a long moment Wood made no response.

“I’m not sure,” she finally said. “The two halves have not been together for a very long time. There are stories as to how it came to be broken, the halves separated, but…” She shrugged. “There are always stories, aren’t there? Suffice to say that I have been looking for them for many years now.” She touched the right half. “This was recovered in England a decade or so ago, in a forest on the edge of Dartmoor.”

“And the other?” Ellie asked when Wood fell silent.

“Was brought to me this summer. Friends tracked it down in Britanny, in the Forest of Paimpont—what was once called Broceliande.”

She spoke as though the places she referred to should be instantly familiar, but they were mostly only words to Ellie. She’d heard of Dartmoor, of course. Britanny she thought was somewhere in France. But the others? They had the ring of storybook names to her.

Returning her attention to the broken mask, she found herself wondering what it had been used for. It didn’t have the look of something that was simply decorative.

“I can offer you five thousand dollars,” Wood said. “Plus expenses, of course.”

Ellie blinked. “You’re kidding.”

Wood gave an apologetic shrug. “I’m afraid I’m on somewhat of a budget. I can’t afford to pay you any more.”

Ellie cleared her throat. It had suddenly gone all dry on her.

“No,” she managed. “Five thousand dollars would be fine.”

Like it wasn’t a fortune. Five thousand dollars would go an awfully long way at the rate that she spent money.

“I’ll, um, need to take the mask for reference,” she added, trying to be businesslike about all of this when all she wanted to do was dance around the room.

“That’s impossible.”

“But—”

“Having so recently recovered the mask,” Wood said, “I’m afraid that I’m too nervous about losing it again to allow it be taken very far from where I can keep an eye on it. I was thinking of having some studio space put aside for you in the house and that you could work on it there. Would that be suitable?”

Five thousand dollars and a residency in Kellygnow—if only for the duration of this commission? The residency alone was worth it, considering the gallery doors it would open for her.

“Yes,” she said, managing to keep her voice level. “That would be fine.”

Wood smiled. “Good. I’m glad that’s settled. I’m sure you’ll find everything you’ll need to work with in the studio, but don’t hesitate to ask if you require anything else.”

“I, um, won’t.”

“Can you start tomorrow?”

Ellie nodded.

“Very well then.”

When Wood stood up, Ellie scrambled to her feet as well.

“I’d like to apologize again for my bad humor when you first arrived,” Wood said. “You caught me at a somewhat inopportune time.” She gave Ellie a small smile. “In the middle of an old argument.”

Ellie schooled her features to remain blank, but a warning buzz began to sound in the back of her head. Argument? she thought. With whom? There was no phone and the only door out of the building was the one she’d come in. Unless there was a back door behind the curtain in the far corner, which she doubted.