Mythago Wood - 1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

put father, his work
and his notes, as far from my mind as possible, as if they were spectres whose
haunting would reduce my resolve to go forward.
    Christian wiped his hand across his mouth and stared at his empty plate. He
suddenly sniffed at himself and laughed.
    'By God, I do stink. You'd better boil me up some water, Steve. I'll wash
right now.'
    But I didn't move. Instead I stared across the wooden table at him; he caught
my gaze and frowned. 'What is it? What's on your mind?'
    'I found her, Chris. I found her body. Guiwenneth. I found where you buried
her.'
    I don't know what reaction I expected from Christian. Anger, perhaps, or
panic, or a sudden babbling burst of explanation. I half hoped he would react
with puzzlement, that the corpse in the yard would turn
out not to be the remains of his wife, and that he had no involvement with its
burial. But Christian knew about the body. He stared at me blankly, and a heavy,
sweaty silence made me grow uncomfortable.
    Suddenly I realized that Christian was crying, his gaze not wavering from my
own, but moistened now by the tears that coursed through the remaining grime on
his face. And yet he made no sound, and his face never changed its expression
from that of bland, almost blind contemplation.
    'Who shot her, Chris?' I asked quietly. 'Did you?'
    'Not me,' he said, and with the words his tears stopped, and his gaze dropped
to the table. 'She was shot by a mythago. There was nothing I could do about
it.'
    Mythago? The meaning was alien to me, although I recognized the word from the
scrap of my father's notebook that I carried. I queried it and Chris rose from
the table, but rested his hands upon it as he watched me. 'A mythago,' he
repeated. 'It's still in the woods . . . they all are. That's where I've been,
seeking among them. I tried to save her, Steve. She was alive when I found her,
and she might have stayed alive, but I brought her out of the woods . . .in a
way, I did kill her. I took her away from the vortex, and she died quite
quickly. I panicked, then. I didn't know what to do. I buried her because it
seemed the easiest way out . . .'
    'Did you tell the police? Did you report her death?'
    Christian smiled, but it was not with any morbid humour. It was a knowing
smile, a response to some secret that he had not so far shared; and yet the
gesture was merely a defence, for it faded rapidly. 'Not necessary, Steve ...
the police would not have been interested.'
    I rose angrily from the table. It seemed to me that Christian was behaving,
and had behaved, with appalling irresponsibility. 'Her family, Chris . . . her
parents! They have a right to know.'
    And Christian laughed.
    I felt the blood rise in my face. 'I don't see anything to laugh at.'
    He sobered instantly, looked at me almost abashed. 'You're right. I'm sorry.
You don't understand, and it's time you did. Steve, she had no parents because
she had no life, no real life. She's lived a thousand times, and she's never
lived at all. But I still fell in love with her . . . and I shall find her again
in the woods; she's in there somewhere . . .'
    Had he gone mad? His words were the unreasoned babblings of one insane, and
yet something about his eyes, something about his demeanour, told me that it was
not so much insanity as obsession. But obsession with what?
    'You must read the old man's notes, Steve. Don't put it off any
longer. They will tell you about the wood, about what's going on in there. I
mean it. I'm neither mad nor callous. I'm just trapped, and before I go away
again, I'd like you to know why, and how, and where I'm going. Perhaps you'll be
able to help me. Who knows? Read the book. And then we'll talk. And when you
know what our dear departed father managed to do, then I'm afraid I shall have
to take my leave of you again.'
     
Four
     
    There is one entry in my father's notebook that seems to mark a turning point
in his research, and his life. It is longer than the other notes of that
particular time, and