Avilion (Mythago Wood 7) Read Online Free PDF Page A

who kicked you. Did you understand what he was calling you? The word? The name?’
    Jack shook his head, hardly able to remember anything. ‘Just as well,’ Julie went on. ‘Not to be repeated.’
    ‘Someone said that to me yesterday, but I was too dazed. Come and see the house. It’s not far to walk . . .’
    She hesitated for a moment. ‘All right. I am interested,’ she added more brightly. ‘I’ve written a small pamphlet on Ryhope. About some of the figures that have been seen here. Haunted Wood.’ She folded her arms, again looking beyond Jack and frowning. ‘All right. But I mustn’t be long.’
    He led the way through the scrub and over the low bank that seemed to mark the edge. Following the narrow track through the trees, it was a matter of moments before the wall of the house could be seen. But already Julie was shaking, her arms held tightly across her chest, her breathing oddly laboured.
    Jack hesitated, watching her. Perspiration was beading her face. ‘Can you see the house?’
    She looked at it and nodded. As Jack walked on, she followed nervously, then suddenly cried out. ‘Where am I going?’
    ‘To the house.’
    She shook her head violently. ‘No, this isn’t right. It doesn’t want me. I’m going to be sick.’ She started to turn and twist, looking frantically about her. ‘This isn’t right.’
    She stumbled away from him, bumping into trunks, tripping over roots, and Jack chased after her and led her out to the field. She was shaking.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered in a small voice. ‘That was very unpleasant. I’m sorry. I hope the clothes fit . . .’
    And with that Julie started to run back towards the old railway line, and the road that wound through the farms to the town, only slowing to a walk when she was about to disappear from view. She didn’t look back. Jack watched her go with some sadness.
     
    It doesn’t want me.
    What had she meant by that? What had she been feeling? The house was just a ruin; a very intact ruin, certainly. It gave no signs of having been burned or ransacked, used by wayfarers. The wood had grown around it, embracing the bricks and mortar. Jack had the uncanny feeling that the house was being protected. But from what? Against what?
    Ransacking, perhaps. Or curiosity?
    He returned, that morning, to the ‘sticklebrook’, and though the shallow water was cold, he stripped and washed, feeling invigorated by the action. The clothes felt strange on him. He was not used to buttons, but understood them instinctively. He tucked the blue-fabric trousers into his boots. The garment felt loose around the waist but he managed to tighten it through the belt loops with some twisted ivy. He had rope in his small boat, but that was a good stretch inwards and along the dangerous riverland where the Muurngoth had their enclosures. He wanted only one visit back there, and that was to find the inwards river and return to the old villa that was his home.
    Jack walked along the edge of the woodland for most of the afternoon, watching machines at work on the land, fighting the urge to run down one of the absurdly woolly sheep he saw in a flock (for its meat), standing for a long time by a field, admiring the fine, lean horses grazing the pasture, beasts that would have towered above the ponies that his family had accumulated as pack animals. They were creatures from a vision-dream, drawn out, extended, long-necked and long-legged, and when they ran they were so graceful they might have been birds in flight.
    With the coming of late afternoon he returned to Oak Lodge. He had not hunted but he would open one of the metal containers in the cupboard, an experiment, anything to keep the hunger pangs controlled. He had long since learned not to acknowledge hunger, only to satisfy the craving when the opportunity arose.
    He was in the kitchen, staring at the shiny cans, knife in hand ready to jab one of them open, when he heard a sigh from deep in the house, and the sound