So, while my mother was out with her Sisters, and my father had taken his shift atop the Savoy on ARP duty (earlier in the year he had volunteered as a warden), I had sat in our apartment feeling such an ominous weight of dread about my shoulders that I could no longer bear it.
I used my Darkcraft.
I rarely touched it, but tonight I was prepared to risk using it. To be honest, I think I might have torn my hair out if I’d been forced to use the trains or buses to get to Epping Forest (I had no doubt that Jack’s marking would take place there), not to mention the walk I’d then be forced to take to reach Faerie Hill Manor once I’d arrived at either train station or bus stop. I did not drive, so I could not take one of my father’s cars.
So I used the Darkcraft. I sat on my bed in our apartment, wearing the first thing I’d found to throw about me, and allowed the Darkcraft to well up and consume me.
It was terrifying, if only because I thought Catling might reach out and bite. But she let me be, and I surrendered to the Darkcraft, closing my eyes against its power…
And opened them on the terrace of Faerie Hill Manor to find myself looking at Jack’s back as he stood on the terrace. I knew he’d intuited my presence, and so I spoke, and he came over and sat down to talk to me.
I was more unnerved than ever, because I could feel his deep unease. He had, of course, wanted to know why I was there…I could hardly tell him it was because I was morbidly curious about this marking, and so I rattled on senselessly about my mother and how I feared he was going to upset things and…
Oh dear. I must have come across like a stupid young girl. I knew I’d come across as a stupid young girl because Jack had snapped at me, and all I’d wanted to do was to run away, to cease to exist, because he was so angry at me, and I was so mortified.
Then he’d been apologetic (and appeared as if he meant it, too), and from then on the conversation had oscillated between fear and candour and suspicion. I was furious with myself for allowing him to realise I’d been trained as a Mistress of the Labyrinth; he was furious to discover it.
And, I think, disappointed. He must have thought I was a pathetic Mistress of the Labyrinth.
I don’t know why I told him about Catling sitting with me at night. I’d told no one for hundreds of years—why him? Jack had a terrible habit of just sitting and watching me from behind the smoke dribbling from his cigarette, and words seemed to tumble from my mouth.
Anything, to fill the silence.
We’d gone back inside eventually, and Harry, just arrived back from whatever he’d been doing in the Faerie, professed some surprise at my presence. He’d told me to spend the night, and that he’d have me driven back to the Savoy in the morning, and then he and Jack had, separately, left.
I waited ten minutes after Jack had left, then followed.
I followed Jack, rather than Harry. Harry had vanished from my perception, but I could sense Jack’s movements through the forest, although I don’t know what power I used to do so. It was hardly as if I had any natural connection with the forest, or with Jack himself, but once I left Faerie Hill Manor I turned about slowly in the driveway…and I felt a glimmer of Jack’s movement to my north.
And so I trailed him. Very quietly, using every ounce of natural and magical quiet I could (although I was very circumspect in using my Darkcraft).
The forest was very dark and, for me, very unknowable. I rarely spent much time here at all. I’d been to Faerie Hill Manor a handful of times in the past few years, and I don’t think I’d ever walked in the forest itself. As soon as I stepped beneath the trees and felt the “foreignness” of the forest, its deep, mystical power, I realised how much of my life had been spent tucked away in some quiet room in whatever house or apartment my parents had at the time. I’d been so sheltered (by both parents, although of course my mother had been the better at it) that I’d experienced very little of the outside world, let alone the Faerie magic of a place like Epping Forest.
I hadn’t even been back to the Faerie since I was a baby. I think everyone had thought it might be unwise. Think of all the damage that Catling might wreak there through me.
I’d spent my life huddled in rooms, as if I were a prisoner.
Yet now, here I was, creeping through a forest which seemed to watch every movement I made.
I was more unnerved than ever, but paradoxically more determined. I would not be frightened. I had the Darkcraft. I could keep silent. Harry and Jack would never know I was following them.
I could participate, even if silently and unknowably, rather than be told six weeks after the event.
The journey through Epping Forest in Jack’s trail took about half an hour, I suppose. We were heading north towards the town of Epping, and I did not know if Jack meant to go all the way to the town, or if he had a destination somewhere closer.
Somewhere closer, as it turned out.
I became aware eventually that he’d stopped moving, that he’d arrived at wherever he needed to be, and my own movements became far more cautious. I crept as best I could, every nerve straining for danger or chance of discovery, my Darkcraft simmering, begging to be allowed full rein.
Although the trees were well spaced, I had the sense that they were crowding about me, watching me as I started up the incline of a hill that itself seemed to be a living, breathing entity. I could see a cleared space at the top of the hill, lit with the faint luminescence of magic, and my movements slowed even further. I inched forward, careful silent step by careful silent step, taking cover behind every tree, every shrub, until I worked my way to the eastern edge of the clearing, and found myself a massive beech tree behind which to crouch. There was a small crab apple just to one side of it that was more shrub than tree, and it enabled me to peer from behind the beech without chance of discovery.
To be frank, I have no idea what I was expecting, but the group that met my eyes was quite extraordinary. Harry, I was not surprised to see, but I had so rarely seen him in his existence as the Lord of the Faerie that I stared at him for long minutes. Staid Walter Herne was standing half-naked by a large stump, looking as if he wanted to be anywhere but. Malcolm lurked on the other side of the clearing with blue paint smeared all over his face, looking like something from a history book; his appearance did not surprise me at all, but his presence did make me feel uncomfortable. Then Jack…Jack, standing before the Lord of the Faerie, dressed only in his trousers.
My eyes lingered on Jack, but eventually returned to the Lord of the Faerie. I’d known Harry all my life—but I barely knew the Lord of the Faerie. The Lord of the Faerie existed only in the Faerie, where I’d spent so little time, and Harry had been…well, Harry had been Harry whenever he appeared in this world, and him I knew quite well.
Perhaps a little too well.
A few years ago we’d been lovers, briefly. It had been Harry’s idea—at least he’d been the one to suggest the liaison—and I’d acquiesced out of loneliness, curiosity, and a deep sense of needing to do something other than be Catling’s victim.
It had not been a particular success. It had taken exactly one night to sate whatever curiosity I’d had (Harry had been my first, and thus far, only lover), and I’d sensed very quickly that Harry’s heart was not in it. He’d been kind, thoughtful, but, in the end, slightly distracted. I’d asked him why he’d wanted to do this: why, when all knew full well he had heart only for Stella, he’d decided to take me as a lover, and he’d shrugged and said only, “I was trying to help”, which was no damned help at all.
So while I knew Harry reasonably intimately, during my adult life I’d never seen much of the Lord of the Faerie and, crouching behind the beech and peering through the crab apple, I suddenly wished it had been the Lord of the Faerie who had taken me as a lover, and not Harry. The Lord of the Faerie had such vibrancy, such vigour, such authority, that I felt a moment’s envy for what Stella enjoyed, and I had not.
Walter was fidgeting with something on the stump now—I could not
see what—but Jack and the Lord of the Faerie appeared to be engaged in a brief but intense discussion. The Lord of the Faerie had his hand on Jack’s shoulder, then abruptly he shifted it into Jack’s hair, grabbing at it and giving Jack’s head a little shake. It looked almost as if the Lord of the Faerie was trying either to ascertain Jack’s agreement for whatever was about to happen, or was trying to talk him out of it.
I squirmed about so that I was sitting comfortably—I didn’t want to be struck with a sudden and catastrophic cramp if I got too cold and stiff—and peered even more closely through the crab-apple.
Walter had stilled now, and was looking intently at the Lord of the Faerie.
Everyone’s attention was on the Lord of the Faerie. Even Malcolm on the other side of the clearing appeared to be transfixed by him.
Then Jack gave a small nod, and some of the tension dissipated.
“You are sure, Jack?” I heard the Lord of the Faerie say, and Jack nodded again.
“This can’t be undone.”
“I know,” Jack said.
The Lord of the Faerie gave a small, tight smile, looked at Walter, and inclined his head.
Then, so suddenly I almost gasped with the shock, the Lord of the Faerie used his hand buried amid Jack’s hair to push Jack face down over the stump, his chest centred on its top. I am sure Jack wasn’t expecting that, for he gave an audible gasp, and for an instant tensed as if he wanted to struggle.
Then he relaxed, although I could see it took a conscious effort.
My heart was thumping. Suddenly that stump no longer looked like a stump, but an altar, and Jack its sacrifice.
Walter lifted a hand, and let it rest flat-palmed between Jack’s shoulder blades.
I could see Jack’s muscles tense again, even from my distance.
With his other hand Walter lifted something from the stump to Jack’s side. It was shiny but other than that I could not quite make it out.
Then Walter spoke, and what he said was so strange I assumed I had not heard aright.
“I remember,” he said. “I remember it all.”
I stared at him, frowning, and then realised that somehow the dynamics within the group had changed. No one had moved—the Lord of the Faerie and Walter still stood either side of the stump with Jack pushed face first atop it, and Malcolm still stood to the far side of the clearing—but something had changed.
Everyone, Jack included, was focussed on something to the south of the clearing.
I looked, and my heart felt as if it had stopped.
A ghostly white stag with blood-red antlers had stepped forth from the forest into the clearing. I wasn’t so silly or so protected that I had no idea who it was. It was the ghost of Og, he who had been the god of the forests before Jack assumed that mantle.
And ghost surely, because the creature was so ethereal that I felt a goodly gust of wind would blow him away entirely.
Welcome, friend, I heard—felt—the Lord of the Faerie say.
I felt Jack shudder (I have no idea how), and my eyes flew back to him.
Walter smiled, cold and terrible.
His right hand, that which held the shiny instrument, moved and I saw that he held a scalpel.
I felt sick. More than anything I wanted to edge back from the clearing, and fade away into the forest, but I knew that if I made a single movement everyone would become aware of my presence.
And that would be dangerous. I understood that so clearly that I felt as if a terrible, icy hand was squeezing at my stomach.
If they realised my presence now they’d be worse than furious.
I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t be here. This wasn’t for me. This was some nightmarish, arcane ritual in which I had no place. For the gods’ sakes, I was Grace, tied to Catling, and I hexed everything I touched.
Walter finally lowered both his eyes and his right hand…
And began to slice into Jack’s flesh.
I jumped. I couldn’t help it. I jumped and the movement shook the crab apple and the leaf litter crackled under my body.
At the same moment that I moved (and created what sounded to me like my own little hurricane of noise), Jack cried out.
It was the most terrible sound I have ever heard. His body twitched, his hands, to either side of the stump, grabbed onto the wood, his head jerked back and he cried out with a haunting, hoarse cry of…oh, gods, it sounded like a man lost. There was pain in it, yes, but there was such an undercurrent of bewilderment, isolation and uncertainty to the cry that I had to momentarily close my eyes.
If he was this uncertain, this isolated, this bewildered, then what hope had any of us?
No one within the clearing reacted to Jack’s cry. Walter kept cutting. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but his hand was moving as if possessed.
Only a slaughterman could cut so deftly.
There was blood everywhere. It flowed over Jack’s arms and down his back until it stained his trousers. He hadn’t made a sound since that initial cry, but I could see every muscle in his back and legs and arms tighten until I couldn’t believe that the stump itself didn’t implode under the pressure.
Walter kept on cutting.
I forced my eyes away from him and Jack, and saw that the Lord of the Faerie and Malcolm stared, not at Jack, but at the stag.
I jerked my eyes in its direction.
And felt a wave of faintness sweep over me. Dear gods, I shouldn’t be here, I had no business here, I shouldn’t be seeing this…oh, gods, I was everyone’s doom…had I brought calamity to this ritual as well?
The stag was vanishing.
Curve by curve, line by line. His hindquarters had all gone, and his spine was dissolving as I watched. His back legs were there one moment, and gone the next.
Walter was carving the stag into Jack’s flesh.
And as he did, so the stag disappeared, line by line.
I knew then that I was witnessing the final marriage of Jack to his power and potential as the god of the forests. He was literally absorbing all that Og had been. After this ritual was completed, then so would Jack be absolute.
I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t be here…
Too late to run away now…
Then a terrible sense of dread permeated my bones.
Something was standing behind me.
I didn’t want to look, but I had to. I couldn’t bear not to know.
I slowly turned my head.
She was standing about ten feet away, barely visible, but there. The despicable, terrible parody of the young woman, hiding her true nature behind that cold mask of beauty.
And then, for the first time in all these years, she spoke.
“Good girl,” she whispered, the patronising bitch. “You’re doing just what is needed.” Her face grimaced in a smile so cold that I cringed and clamped my eyes shut.
When I opened them again, she was gone.
Achingly slowly I looked back into the clearing, sure that all must be staring in my direction.
But no. Walter was still carving into Jack’s shoulders and back, the Lord of the Faerie was now looking at Jack rather than the stag—which was virtually all gone save for his shoulders and head—and Malcolm was studying the bloody tableau at the stump.
I felt frozen, my life stilled. This had been Catling’s plan, that I should be here; perhaps so that my presence should corrupt Jack’s final transformation.
The Lord of the Faerie was leaning down to Jack now, and I barely summoned the interest to keep on watching. He’d taken hold of Jack’s left arm, and was helping Jack to turn over so that he now lay with his bloody, mangled back against the stump.
I saw a glimpse of Jack’s face as he twisted, and it was truly terrible. That he was in agony there could be no doubt, and it appeared as if he could barely control his limbs—the Lord of the Faerie had to grab him at one point to stop him sliding off the stump.
Walter now began to carve into the front of Jack’s shoulders and chest. Wal
ter was doing what all good priests of every religion have done since the beginning of time.
He was acting as a conduit for the god power.
I looked to Jack. He was flexing his legs very slightly up and down, his hips swivelling from side to side, as if he was in so much pain he could barely restrain himself from leaping up from the stump.
I found myself rubbing my own wrists, and wondered that Catling had not thought to wrap me in agony while she was here.
Perhaps she hadn’t wanted to interrupt the ritual taking place within the clearing.
The stag was now reduced to its spread of blood-red antlers, and as I watched even they disappeared.
Walter sighed, blinked, and tossed the scalpel to one side. His shoulders sagged momentarily, then he aided the Lord of the Faerie to pull Jack into a sitting position.
Jack’s entire torso was awash with blood. I could see the darker scoring of the lines Walter had cut into his flesh, but as there was so much blood about I could not make out their pattern.
As if I could not guess what pattern they would make.
I sank as low as I could. My protecting beech and crab apple were in Jack’s direct line of sight, and I was more scared than ever that I would be discovered.
Walter had now picked up a mortar and pestle, and was grinding away at whatever he had in the bowl. Then he set the pestle to one side, scooped up the ground ingredients in his fingers, and started to rub it into Jack’s cut flesh.
Jack cried out, and I winced. He twisted under Walter’s ever-rubbing fingers, but the Lord of the Faerie had him by the upper arms, and Walter continued to work away, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing over Jack’s shoulders, his back, down his chest.
Occasionally a low moan came from Jack’s lips, and his body flinched and shuddered as Walter’s fingers rubbed too deep here and there.
Then Walter stepped back.
“It is done,” he said. “I have made the mark.”
“And the mark has made Jack,” said the Lord of the Faerie.
Malcolm walked forward, and in his hand he had a pristine white towel. He rubbed away, first at Jack’s back, and then his shoulders and chest, removing the worst of the blood. He was not rough, but it could hardly have been a pleasant experience for Jack.