Lavondyss (Mythago Cycle) by Robert Holdstock Read Free Book Online Page A

of what had once been the house called Oak Lodge. The first thing she saw was a shallow fire-pit, cut into the wild turf that was all that remained of the lawn. Animal bones were scattered around and she saw the burned remains of sticks which had been used in the fire.
    She called out nervously. She had the strongest sense of being watched, but could see no betraying detail or movement. Her voice, when she called, was almost dead in the confined space; the heavy trunks of the besieging oaks absorbed her words and replied only with the quiver of bird life in their branches. Tallis patrolled the small garden space, observing everything: here, the remains of the wire fence; there, impaled by roots, several slats of wood which might have come from a chicken coop, or kennel.
    And dominating all, casting its sombre shadow over the small clearing: the carved trunk, the totem. Tallis touched the blackened wood and it broke away in handfuls, exposing seething insect life beneath. She stared up at the angry features, the evil eyes, the leering mouth. She could see how the shape of legs and arms had been added to the column, now corroded almost into obscurity.
    This ancient effigy watched the house; perhaps it was keeping guard on it.
    The house itself had become a part of the forest. The floors had burst open under the pressure of trees growing up from the cold earth below. The windows were framed by leafy branches. The roof had been punched through in the same way and only the high chimney stacks rose above the tree tops.
    Tallis looked into two rooms; first, a study, its French windows hanging loose, its desk covered with ivy, its space dominated by an immense V-shaped oak trunk. Then, the kitchen. There were the mossy remains of a pine table in this small room, and an old cooker. Branches stretched like vines across the ceiling. The pantry was completely empty. When she picked up a cast-iron saucepan from the hook on the wall she nearly jumped out of her skin as the twig that had burrowed through the brick beneath it sprang out, released from its confined space.
    When she peered into the parlour she was daunted by the tree growth that occupied every foot of the room, crushing furniture, embracing walls, penetrating the faded, framed pictures.
    Tallis returned to the garden. The sun, high overhead, made it difficult for her to look up at the grinning totemic figure carved on the immense trunk of wood. She wondered idly who had erected the statue, and for what purpose …
    Everything about the clearing by the ruined house suggested to her that it was a
living
place, that someone used it. The fire-pit was old; the ash had been compacted by many rains, and the bones had been dragged about the garden by animals. But there was a sense of occupation, not unlike the occupation of an occasional camp – a hunter’s camp, perhaps.
    Something moved past her, swiftly, silently.
    She was startled. Her eyes were still dazzled by the brilliance of the sun, glimpsed partially against the corrupt outlines of the wooden effigy. She had the idea that it was a
child
running past her. But it had swiftly vanished into the undergrowth, the same patch of wood from which she had earlier made her cautious entry into this small, abandoned garden.
    All around her there was movement in the woodland, an enigmatic and frustrating flickering at the edge of her vision. It was a sensation with which she had become quite familiar, and it did not alarm her.
    She must have
imagined
the child.
    She felt suddenly very calm, very peaceful. She sat down by the immense carved trunk, glanced up at the jagged outlines against the bright sky, then closed her eyes. She tried to imagine this house when it had been used. Her grandfather would have told her about it. Perhaps his words could be made to surface from the primitive, infant parts of her mind.
    Soon she imagined a dog prowling the garden; chickens pecking the ground, roaming free. There was the sound of a wireless