Dale Bailey - In the Night Wood

“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.”

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.

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.

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