Mythago Wood - 1 by Robert Holdstock

Mythago Wood - 1 by Robert Holdstock

Author:Robert Holdstock [Holdstock, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Contemporary, Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, Great Britain, Forests and Forestry
ISBN: 9780765307293
Google: WDGY4a9v6nwC
Amazon: 0765307294
Publisher: Orb Books
Published: 1984-01-02T08:00:00+00:00


And there was so much more than love to express. I could see it, of course. Each evening, as we sat on the lawn, or walked quietly through the oak orchard, her eyes glittered, her face was soft with affection. We stopped to kiss, to hug, even to make love in the still woodland, and every single thought and mood was understood by the other. But she needed to say things to me, and she could not find the English words to express how she felt, how close to some aspect of nature she felt, how like a bird, or a tree she felt. Something, some way of thinking that I can only crudely translate, could not be put into English, and sometimes she cried because of it, and I felt very sad for her.

Just once, in those two months of the summer - when I could not have conceived of greater happiness, nor have imagined the tragedy that was gaining on us by the hour -just once I tried to get her to move away from the house, to come with me to the bigger towns. With great reluctance, she wrapped one of my jackets around her, belting it at the waist as she belted everything. Looking like the most magnificently pretty of scarecrows, her feet bare but for some home-made leather sandals, she started to walk with me along the track to the main road.

We held hands. The air was hot and still. Guiwenneth's breathing grew more laboured, her look more wild. Suddenly she clenched my hand as if in pain, and drew a sharp breath. I looked at her and she was staring at me, almost pleading with me. Her expression was confused, a mixture of need - the need to please me - and fear.

And equally suddenly she had slapped both hands to her head and screamed, beginning to back away from me.

'It's all right, Guin!' I yelled, and made after her, but she had begun to cry, turning and running back towards the tall wall of young oaks that marked the orchard.

Only when she was standing within their shade did she calm down. Tearfully, she reached for me, and just hugged me, very hard, and very long. She whispered something in her own language, and then said, 'I'm sorry, Steven. It hurts.'

'That's okay. It's okay,' I soothed; and hugged her. She was shaking badly, and later I learned that it had been a physical pain, a shooting pain through her whole body, as if she were being punished for straying so far from the mother wood.

In the evening, after sundown, but at a time when the world outside was still quite bright, I found Guiwenneth in the cage of oak, the deserted study where the wildwoods grew. She was curled up in the embrace of the thickest trunk, which forked as it sprouted from below the floor, and formed a cradle for her. She stirred as I stepped into the cold, gloomy room. My breath frosted.



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