Darkest Part of the Woods (23 page)

"Maybe nobody can share everything they are. Maybe they shouldn't." As Sylvia opened her eyes to see if the answer had satisfied Heather, she resembled a child playing a game. "I wouldn't have minded telling you," she said. "I think you can handle it if I have. I just didn't want mom worrying I'd started to end up like dad."

"Did

you?"

Sylvia giggled so hard that Heather thought she heard a tiny fleeting echo at her back.

"Come on," Sylvia said. "Have I been acting like him?"

"You both have a thing about the woods. I mean, he had and you have."

"You're saying it has to be the same thing."

"I don't know if you keep secrets, do I? All right, that isn't fair. I know what you're having to deal with, but that isn't why you were in hospital with that woman."

"No need to make it sound as if it was her fault. She had a whole lot of problems, that's all."

"I just don't like the idea of you sharing a room with someone like her."

Heather heard herself sounding jealous as well as concerned- perhaps that was why Sylvia risked a faint smile. "It's okay, Heather. You can't catch someone else's mental problems just by living with them, so I hear."

Both the smile and the remark angered Heather enough that she said "So what did you need to be cured of?"

"Nothing."

"That

isn't..."

"Go on. You keep saying we shouldn't have secrets."

"You must have been in hospital for some reason."

"That isn't what you stopped saying."

"I was going to tell you your friend said there was a reason."

"I don't know why you'd believe her when you think she's such a' crazy bitch."

"I didn't say that, did I? That doesn't sound like me."

"Only thought it."

Heather stood up so fast that Sylvia visibly held herself still in order not to react, even when Heather sat on the bed and began to stroke her sister's forehead. "All I'm getting at,"

Heather said, not that it was, "is you must have felt you needed help."

"I just needed to sort myself out, and hospital seemed like a good place."

"What

needed

sorting?"

"Material for my next book. Too much of it going round and round in my head while I was trying to earn a living with jobs. You're lucky not having to write."

"Are you working on it now?"

"My mind's full of Natty right now. I guess it will be till appears, and after that, who knows."

"If he's anything like Sam he'll be your world for a while."

"I won't have a problem with that. Are you happy now?"

Heather would have liked to be able to lie. "Not altogether, Sylvie."

"Go on then," Sylvia cried and sat abruptly up. "Tell me what Merilee said, since you want to so much."

Her movement brought her midriff into contact with Heather's hand. The baby was as still as the forest where the night was taking shape. "I only want what's best for you," Heather said.

"So finish with Merilee."

"She said you heard somebody calling you home."

"You think I didn't?"

"I'll believe you if you say you did."

"You know I did," Sylvia said, gazing past her at the oncoming dark. "That's what made me come home."

"Then why did you need-"

"To put myself in the hospital? You know, sometimes I have to agree with mom that you could use a bit more imagination. Maybe if you thought you heard a voice that wouldn't stop till you did what it said you'd go on tranquillisers too."

"You're saying that's all."

"I had to tell them I was cured of all sorts of stuff before I could leave."

Heather wanted to believe that, and surely it must be the truth. Nevertheless she didn't know what she was opening her mouth to say when the doorbell rang.

"Are you going to get that?" Sylvia said.

"Do you want me to?"

"It's your house."

"I'd better see who it is," Heather said and made for her room. She felt uncomfortably like a child with a guilty secret when she retreated from the window before murmuring "It's mother."

Sylvia headed her off at the top of the stairs. She held out her hands but stopped short of touching Heather, who had the odd irrational notion that the unborn child had intervened between them. "Are you] going to tell her what we've been talking about?" Sylvia said.

A stranger would have thought her blank gaze meant she didn't] care. "You haven't stored up any more surprises," Heather said with more lightness than she was expecting to discover in herself.

"If I have they'll be good ones."

"She won't find out otherwise, will she?"

"Not from me."

"She's been upset enough. Let's remind her she still has most of her! family.

Even more of one now," Heather amended, and led the way downstairs.

Margo was extending a finger to the bellpush. When she stepped back Heather thought she was recoiling until the smile Margo produced made it clear that she'd wanted more of a view of her daughters. "I feel better already," she said.

"Than what, mummy?"

Margo only blinked at that on the way to scrutinising Sylvia, and; Heather felt doubly ignored. "How's Sylvia?" Margo said.

Since the question could have been addressed to either of her children, neither responded at once. It was both the silence and realising Sylvia was waiting for her to keep her word that made Heather blurt "Pretty well as she looks."

"Only pretty well?"

"I'm fine, mom. Just feel as if my insides are bigger than I am."

"That's exactly how I felt when I was having you. And how's Heather?"

Since her sister seemed unlikely to reply on her behalf, Heather said "Staying on top of things."

"And taking care of everyone as usual. That'll always be our Heather, won't it, Sylvia?"

"You

bet."

Heather was feeling not so much complimented as sentenced when Margo said "I'd sing a carol except it's too late, so do I get to sit and maybe talk?"

Once the three were seated facing one another in the front room she seemed content to draw breaths deep enough to pass for sighs. Even if they weren't designed to provoke a question, Heather hadn't stopped wanting an answer. "You were going to tell us why you needed cheering up," she said.

"Was

I?"

This could have been an appeal to Sylvia, who admitted "I thought so too."

"You don't want to let an old lady's problems bother you."

"You're not old, and of course we do. We'll only worry more if you don't tell us. You don't want Sylvia doing that in her state."

Heather saw her sister resist glancing at her to be sure what state she had in mind. Both of them eyed Margo until she tried on a wry grin that didn't fit her words. "Everything's come to bits at the exhibition."

"What's anyone been saying now?" Heather demanded.

"No, I mean literally. The exhibition's finished, and when Lucinda and her people started moving my pieces they fell apart. The pieces not the people."

As the attempt at humour made Heather's eyes feel big with moisture, Sylvia said "Was anything inside them?"

"Insects, you mean, like the ones I'm famous for now if I'm famous for anything.

None that anyone could see, Luanda said."

"So what's she going to do?" Heather said with more anger than she could contain.

"I've told her to junk it all. By the sound of it that's all it's worth."

"Aren't you at least going to take a look first?"

"I know it wouldn't mean anything to me, Heather."

Heather was too dismayed not to say "But it's years of your work.

"Years of learning what I should be doing instead, and now I am.'

"That's one hundred percent positive of you, mom."

Heather was less persuaded that it wasn't unacknowledged desperation. "How much responsibility is Lucinda taking?"

"Her insurance company will be looking at the damage, but you can guess their argument will be the problem was in the wood and not the gallery. According to Lucinda it all looked as if it had rotted from within."

Sylvia clasped her hands over her stomach. She might have been taken to be praying if she hadn't said "They'll have heard about the insects."

"That'll be part of their argument for sure."

As the last to be positive, Heather had a try. "Nothing's gone wrong with your pictures, has it?"

"No, they'll be coming back to me. I'll still have them if nobody buys them, and remember I'm a video artist now. I'll have to show you the results soon, though nothing I make in the woods is anywhere near as important as our forthcoming event."

Sylvia crouched over the cage of her fingers. "Hear that, Natty?" she whispered.

"Grandma's anxious to see you."

A sound not unlike a scratching of fingernails seemed to respond. At first Heather couldn't locate it, perhaps because she wasn't expecting to hear it so soon. As the key was withdrawn from the lock and the front door shut with a muted thud she called "Is that you, Sam?"

Since he was the only candidate, she couldn't blame him for answering with barely a syllable. "You weren't long at Andy's," she said.

"Long

enough."

He was heading for his room when Margo called "Aren't you going to say hi to me?"

"Hi." He sounded willing to leave it at that, but relented and produced a dutiful smile as well as himself. "Hi," he said without much variation.

"What did Andy want?" Heather took the opportunity to ask.

A shrug and a terse laugh or at least an expulsion of breath let her guess the answer before he said "Just to tell me he's closing the shop. Closed it, actually. I don't know why he couldn't have told you instead of making me drive over."

"Never mind, Sam. More time for us to walk in the woods," Sylvia said.

"I expect Sam will be out looking for jobs," said Heather, not too heavily, she hoped. "I know Terry would want that too."

Perhaps her mentioning his father betrayed how concerned she was. Margo broke the awkward silence by saying "Can't Sam do both?"

"If he can't I expect you could walk with Sylvie."

The silence this provoked was longer still, apparently because Margo was choosing her words, though Heather didn't think much of her choice. "Don't try to make him less than he can be, Heather. We all ought to be doing everything we can to stay close."

She either took Heather's muteness for assent or ignored her inability to trust herself to speak. "Have you been back in there yet?" she asked Sylvia.

"We were today."

"How did you find it?"

"I feel like I could go in any time."

"That has to be nothing but good, doesn't it, Heather? We want her to be whole before she has to concentrate on being a mother."

From the size of her sister's midriff, Heather could have thought that would be sooner than it had any right to be. "I don't think I'll need to go back many more times," Sylvia said,

"thanks to Sam."

"Thank you, Sam," Margo said, and aggravated his uneasiness by taking his hand.

"So stop worrying about them, Heather. If I can you can."

Heather felt her lips open and was unable to predict what she would say. She had the impression this might be her last chance not to be alone with everything she'd learned from Merilee. She saw her sister splay her fingers on her midriff as though its occupant was threatened, and that swayed her. "I'll do my best," she said, and glimpsed the fleeting smile Sylvia gave her. It must be meant as gratitude, but she felt as if they were children again, hiding from their mother in the woods.

23

The Cells

HAVE you remembered?" Sylvia said. Sam had to separate her murmur from the other sounds in the forest. The notion of having to turn up a memory connected with the woods brought him unexpectedly close to panic. "How about you?" he said in an attempt to fend it off.

"I remembered when we were on the common."

"That's all right then," he said without the least idea whether it was.

"But you know why we're here too."

He raised the spade that kept letting him down as a walking-stick "Not much we can use this for except digging."

"You know what, though."

He'd known as soon as he'd left the common, but could have done without referring aloud to the prospect while the wind that was invisibly at large in the woods made everything restless, the multitude of trees and shadows describing passes over one another that looked magical-that he could have imagined were designed to lure him an his aunt deeper into the forest.

"Steps,"

he

nevertheless

said.

"They're our secret for now, but I'm looking forward to sharing whatever we find with the others, aren't you?"

"It's only a secret because we forgot it. How can you take that for granted?"

"I don't see what else we can do with it. There are stranger things in the world."

If she was about to tell him more of her tales, the possibility failed to appeal to him. "I believe you," he said quickly.

That silenced her, and she contented herself with holding onto his arm. The lack of conversation only aggravated his awareness of the sounds around them. Behind the cawing of branches as the trees tossed their spiky faceless heads, the huge irregular breaths of the forest resembled a blurred voice close to forming words. Sam dug the edge of the spade into the ground he was limping over, in case the act could drive away an impression of walking on a substance more alive than it appeared to be. When the clearing appeared beyond the trees, he didn't know if he was relieved that it would bring him into the open and the sensation perhaps to an end.

There was no question how the sight affected Sylvia. She strode forward, pulling at his arm, as the woods muttered around them and snatched at the sky. Yards short of the clearing she let go of him and hurried ahead, only to halt at the ring of bricks. "Someone's been here,"

she complained, and then her resentment faltered. "Or something has."

The glare of the unseasonably hot mid-morning sun caught at Sam's eyes as he ventured to join her. He had to blink and use his free hand as an eyeshade in order to see that the patch of the mound he remembered her tramping smooth had been not disturbed but altered. It had acquired a covering of leaves, an almost perfect square of them that appeared to contain an elaborate pattern. Before he could distinguish it, the leaves raised themselves in unison as though scenting the newcomers and swarmed off the mound, scuttling away to add themselves to the gestures of the woods. "They were just leaves," Sylvia said.