Darkhenge

As I struggled for breath inspiration saved me.

Heaven’s lord would set me free.

THE BOOK OF TALIESIN

Chloe ran into the entrance, Rob and Clare behind her like shadows.

Before them, the vast interior gusted with snow. This caer had no roof but the sky, and that was lost in the blinding drifts. Its ditch was water-filled and frozen. On each side, huge as petrified giants, great stones rose, a stark, blunt ring of them, snow settling in their holes and crevices.

They all knew this place. This was Avebury henge, the great circle as it must once have been before its village cluttered it, and roads divided it.

Between the enormous entrance stones Chloe trudged purposefully, sinking knee deep into the snow, and as Rob followed her in, he saw that a ring of fire had been lit, great balefires crackling between the stones. Outside, the trees gathered. All around the great bank they closed in, a besieging force hundreds of miles deep, a black rustling army pressed tight, and out of them creatures slunk, fox and otter and hare and bear, climbing the bank, outlined against the moon. He thought he saw people come out and stand there too, ancient hunters with spears, as well as Marcus and Jimmy, all the tribe with their fluttering colored banners planted in the chalk, as on the day he had hauled Vetch into the circle.

Dan climbed up, and Chloe’s friends from school, and his mum and dad, and Mac, his arms folded, looking disapproving, and yet in the blizzard they blurred and thinned, as if whoever’s mind it was that had brought them here was barely strong enough to hold them to this place.

Chloe said nothing. Her face was set in a cold white control that scared him, and she struggled forward without looking around.

Clare muttered, “Vetch isn’t here.”

“He’ll come.”

She glanced at Rob sideways, sour. “You trust him too much.”

“I like him. Mac liked him.” That surprised him. He hadn’t even known he knew.

Chloe crossed a second ring of fires and reached the central circle; the southern one, with its odd row of smaller stones, and in the center a mighty obelisk.

Rob stared up at it in awe. Thin and leaning, its blue shadow stretched over the snow. A third flame ring surrounded it, the flames lapping the stones, so that there was only one entrance, a narrow gap. Chloe stopped. Her shadows, hundreds of them, flickered and leaped.

She turned. “This is it, Rob.”

His heart jumped. “Chloe, I can’t go back without you. I won’t.”

She smiled ruefully. “Yes you can. Because you got used to it, didn’t you? Me lying there. Me being so still. You got so used to it you were starting to think I wouldn’t wake. Even that it would be better that way.”

“Yes!” Furious, hot tears in his eyes, he marched up and yelled in her face. “Yes I did! All right! I did! I didn’t know that’s what I was thinking, but I was, and who can blame me! I had to protect myself, Chloe, had to build a fortress around me. Day by day a few more stones. Because it would have been unbearable otherwise.”

Shocked, she stared at him.

“And Mum was doing it, and Dad and Mac, we were all hardening at the edges and that’s okay! That’s normal! It didn’t mean we’d given up! It didn’t mean we didn’t love you.”

A movement to his left. He saw Clare glance over quickly.

The blizzard stopped.

It stopped so abruptly they were all surprised; their breath clouded the clear air. Above them cloud streamed away; the stars were suddenly burning, the strange constellations of the Unworld, fiercest blues and reds.

And within the circle, they saw that the tall stone was the immense backrest of a chair. The seat itself was a horizontal slab, and over it lay a length of red cloth, each corner weighted with a small hanging golden apple. On each side a single twisted hazel tree grew, heavy with nuts, and before the throne a well opened in the ground, a small round circle of water, reflecting the stars.

Chloe took a step toward it.

“Chloe!”

To everyone’s astonishment the voice was Mac’s.

He was climbing awkwardly down from the bank and was walking forward between the stones, his bulk more solid with each step. Rob felt overwhelming relief, joy like a sudden weakness behind his knees.

Chloe stared in dismay. “How did you get here?”

Mac shrugged. “Vetch is a little … tied up. He asked me to have a word.” Reaching into his pocket, he drew out the cigarettes and familiar lighter. Striking the flame, he bent his head to it. “Well, not just me,” he said indistinctly.

Chloe looked around.

They were coming down from the bank, a tribe of men and women in crazy-colored clothes, and Dan trailing behind them, giving her a weak grin. “Hi, Chloe,” he said nervously.

“This is mad. I didn’t bring you!” She felt panic rise; fought it down. “Don’t come any closer, any of you. You’re not really here. You’re back there.”

“And so are you.” Mac blew the cigarette smoke out gratefully. “Lying still and crooked with your mum and dad beside you going through agonies. I never thought, girl, that you’d do that to them. I never thought you could treat us all with such contempt.”

Tears sparked in her eyes. His rebukes had always hurt her; when she spoke she knew her voice was small. “I’m not. It’s just—”

“Pure self-indulgence.” Mac looked around at the vast stones. “Seems to me I know this place. You could have used the church, Chloe, for your inmost caer.” He looked behind her at the Chair. “Though that looks vaguely familiar.”

She couldn’t bear this scorn. “I only ever wanted you to think as much of me as you do of Rob!”

Mac pointed a stubby finger at her. “Not true. Jealousy, Chloe, that’s what this is. A deadly sin. Don’t fool yourself.” His voice softened. “And I do love you, you silly girl, as much as Rob. We all do.”

“There you are. Silly girl. That’s how you think of me, Mac, and even you can’t see it.”

That silenced him. She saw him grimace.

After a moment he said, “I’m sorry, Chloe. What you say may be true. And it’s true I feel I have a responsibility to Rob—I am his godfather and that’s important. Maybe it means you’ve lost out. But if you want me, I’ll be yours too from now on. If any of us remember any of this.” He hesitated, throwing the cigarette down and grinding it under his heel. Then he looked up. “There’s a forest like an army out there. But I think we could bring your mum and dad through it, if you—”

“No.” She shook her head firmly, taking off the white muff and crumpling it in her hands. “No thanks, Mac.” She was suddenly sure she would cry. It was rising up inside her; what a fool she’d look, before all these people, and up there on the bank, all the kids from school.

She glanced at the Chair. “If I sat there I could send all of you away.”

Clare said, “Could you?” Tucking her muddy hair back, she came and caught Chloe’s arm.

Chloe pulled away, irritated. “Get off me.”

“I know what you’re thinking. You think if you sit there you’ll rule the Unworld. I thought that too. But people can still hurt you, Chloe, they still will. There is nowhere in this world or any other where you can hide from them.”

“I’m not hiding—”

“That’s exactly what you’re doing. I know what it is to take refuge in revenge. Spending eternities damaging yourself, just for the sake of seeing him hurt.” She stepped back, watching the girl carefully. “But if you go back and face things, you can change them.”

Stubborn, Chloe snapped, “Everyone always thinks they know best—”

“We do,” Mac growled.

Rob edged a step closer. There was one way he could stop her. If he could get past her, he could sit in the Chair himself. But a flicker of doubt came and went, the thought of Chloe and his parents without him, and it must have shown on his face, because with a gasp of anger she turned from him and ran, dodging Mac, sliding between the fires.

“No!” Rob yelled.

Something shoved past him, a musky-smelling roebuck, its flank iced with sweat. Between Chloe and the Chair it ran, and shivered into a man in a dark coat, breathless and weary. Before she could stop herself Chloe ran right into his arms. She screamed and kicked in fury; Vetch held her tight.

“You won’t stop me!”

“I know I won’t.” Vetch sounded worn; he forced her to turn her head. “He will.”

Rob spun in surprise.

The King of the Unworld stood behind them in the circle. He wore his final mask, of ice and silver birch, and in the red light it was a shimmer, and his face and hands and clothes were garish in the heat and scorch. Sparks rose from the flames behind him.

“It’s me, Chloe,” he said sadly.

“You!” She stepped toward him; Vetch kept hold of one wrist. “You were the one who brought me here in the first place!” She tipped her head, trying to see him clearly through the smolder. “Why did you do that? Who are you?”

He came forward. And as he reached out and took her fingers they saw that his hands were crusted with bark, his nails gnarled and lichened. Small threads of root clung to his clothes.

“I didn’t bring you. You called me and I came for you, and I wanted you to stay. You know who I am, Chloe, because you dreamed of me, put me together from all the words and syllables you know. That’s what poets do. They make people out of sound and images. Out of leaves and seeds.”

She stepped back, eyes wide.

He smiled. “You made me from the forest, Chloe. I’m anything your imagination wants me to be.”

Vetch let her go. Carefully, and very slowly, she reached out to lift off the King’s last mask. He stood still, letting her, his eyes dark behind the silver. Her fingers touched the icy bark. Then, as if she feared what she might find beneath, she pulled her hands back.

He smiled at her.

“Do you still want me to stay?” Chloe whispered, “Won’t you be all alone without me?”

The King said, “I want you to make your own choice.”

She looked at him, then turned to Rob, and Mac. “What about you?”

“He’s right,” Mac said unexpectedly. His voice was a rasp of pain. “Decide, girl.”

Rob couldn’t look at her. His face was hot; when he raised his eyes he could only see how much she had grown, how much she looked like him.

“Rob?”

He nodded, silent.

Chloe turned to Vetch. The poet said gently, “You see, you do have power. Words give you power, to create or destroy.” His eyes flickered to Clare. “Even to forgive. Be generous to yourself, Chloe. Go home.”

She sighed, then walked around him to the Chair.

None of them moved. She gazed down at the velvet seat and Rob knew that she could sit there now if she wanted to, that none of them could stop her; that she could settle herself back against the cold stone, and raise her hands and command the weather and the words and the Unworld.

They had come to the seventh caer, and the decision was hers.