Darkhenge by Catherine Fisher Page A

hospitals.” He reached into his coat and pulled out the small bag.
    â€œWhat is that?”
    â€œThe crane-skin bag. It contains words. All a poet needs.”
    He opened the drawstring neck and tipped out some small sticks onto the bed. Rob came closer.
    The shaven twigs were about three inches long, and looked like hazel, because some of the bark was still on the back of them. Each had one side sliced smooth, and into its edge were cut a series of stiff, angular lines. Some horizontal, others leaning.
    â€œWhat are they?”
    Vetch glanced up. “Letters. The alphabet is an ancient one, called ogham.”
    The room had dimmed. Now Vetch moved the pile of Mum’s red knitting, switched off the lamp, and it seemed black. “Open the window all the way,” he said. “And stay over there. Don’t come closer until I tell you.”
    Rob hesitated, then did it. When he turned there was a new sound in the room. It lay behind the quiet regular beeps of the monitors, behind the sound of the breeze in the trees outside. It was a whisper, a murmur of words.
    He leaned back against the windowsill, sweating. Anxiety was tight in his chest; he was breathing too hard, and yet there seemed to be no air. Something was sucking the air out of the room.
    It was the words. They were in no language he knew, and there were so many of them. Small shadows fluttered and crackled and landed on the bed—moths, he thought, or maybe not, maybe letters, the stiff letters coming alive, crawling, unfurling, flying. And yet there were real moths in here too, blundering through the open window, their shadows distorted as they banged against the lit glass panel over the door.
    Vetch leaned forward. He touched Chloe’s forehead, her closed eyelids, her mouth. His fingers were thin and damp, and Rob felt that touch and shivered. But Chloe didn’t move.
    Vetch said, “There are many ways into the Unworld. A door opens, a bird sings. Someone invites you, someone takes your hand. You go in, you listen. It only seems like seconds. Out here, lifetimes pass.” He had glanced around the room; now he lifted the vase of flowers and took the circular woven placemat from underneath. He placed the mat on the bed, took one of the small sticks, and pushed the base in, so it stood upright.
    Very slightly, the murmur in the air modulated.
    â€œOnce you’re there, you must not eat or drink. If you do, you may never come out.” He looked up. “Do you understand?”
    â€œIt’s… That’s old stuff. Legends.”
    Vetch slotted a second notched twig into the base. “Yes. These days people would say the pathways of her brain have been altered, that some cortex or node has been damaged. Each time cloaks its knowledge in imagery. As the men who built the henges did.”
    A third twig stood upright. Rob felt the darkness gather; behind him curtains drifted, a soft touch on his arm. Sounds whispered and crisped like wings.
    He took a step closer.
    â€œStay back.” Carefully, listening intently, Vetch put in another twig, then another. They had begun to make a tiny wooden circle around the circumference of the placemat, the notched shaven wood close together, the words a rampart.
    He was re-creating the henge.
    As each new sliver of wood stood upright, the echo and murmur in the room coalesced and strengthened. Syllables began to form, whole phrases in the air, a chanting.
    â€œWho’s saying it?” Rob whispered.
    Vetch didn’t answer. He was concentrating, his fine fingers adjusting the pegs of the henge, swapping them, turning them, as if it was some musical instrument he tuned, and with each addition and movement the poem—because it was a poem now—seemed nearer, though it was coming from very far away, distorted and scrambled, as if a radio wasn’t quite on the station.
    Rob was stiff with tension.
    â€œThere are seven fortresses in that world.”