The Hollowing by Robert Holdstock Page A

had appeared to him they had horrified him—they had been death’s heads, or wolf’s heads, on the bodies of men, and although the names should have been comforting, the men were not.
    Nevertheless, as dawn crept through his head he alarmed the hollyjack as he scampered past her through the sanctuary trees, sending one of the uplifted pews crashing to the ground from the thin branches that supported it, shattering the small face at its end.
    The dancer.
    The whole bench was rotten. Alex picked up the pieces of the face. They were soft, like fungus, crumbling at his touch. He joined them together and placed them safely at the side of the wooded nave. He thought of taking the shattered dancer down to the bones and stone vaults below the floor, but he had heard something moving about down there, occasionally thumping at the marble slabs as if trying to get through to him, like the trees, and he kept the heavy door closed and barred with a branch.
    The hollyjack shrieked suddenly. He turned quickly, staring at her from the altar, close to the golden cross that gleamed from its protective thicket of thorn. She seemed rooted. Her arms were over her leafy body and her branch tusks clattered. She was watching him in earnest, but a moment later she turned away and scurried awkwardly to her nest from which, for a long time, came the sound of her chattering, a sound of pain.
    Helpless, Alex left her in the nest, leaving her sanctuary through the window, by the stone falcon, and dropping to the wet grass of the graveyard. Everything was still. He went to the well and drew water, drinking and staring at the wood a few feet away. Someone was standing in the cover, hardly breathing. He could feel the gaze on him, detect the shallow intake of breath, the betraying thump of the heart. When he moved slightly, as he lapped water from his cupped hands, he glimpsed dull grey fabric, a shawl and long dress, and red hair in a wild tumble. The glitter of watching eyes eventually resolved from the sparkling points of light that were wet leaves. These eyes were fierce, yet the hesitancy suggested fear. And a name came to him, drawn from the figure, finding a roost in his head.
    Guinevere …
    At once, as if the name on leaving her had released her from a spell, she screamed and ran. And at once the wood a few paces away erupted into a second flurry of movement. Alex backed towards the cathedral as the giggler broke through the tangled wood, a giant, stooping form whose stench emanated suddenly from the undergrowth, and whose voice rose from a growl to the braying laugh that haunted Alex’s waking dreams. The woman stepped out into the open for a second and Alex grimaced at the face below the flowing hair, the twisted features, the vile mouth. This was not the beauty of his story-dreams. Her clothes were the rags of shrouds. She seemed to stare at him with pity, or perhaps uncertainty, but a moment later she had vanished into the wood and for a long time the sounds of the hunt told of her speed, and the giggler’s determination.
    Alex withdrew to the porch roof, below the ascent to his sanctuary. Rain came and went, and there was further furtive movement: a boy, then a figure in red uniform, then a hooded man. All of them glanced out from the wood, then retired: but not before he had named each of them, a whisper of recognition, a second’s delight.
    Suddenly the giggler grinned at him, fresh blood on its white face and teeth, the briefest of apparitions in the undergrowth, so quick that Alex could hardly grasp it. It chuckled as it withdrew, moving heavily away to the right.
    A touch on his hair made Alex jump with fright. The hollyjack had eased herself down the ivy rope so carefully, because of her size, that he had not heard her approach. She crouched on the porch now, shaking like an aspen in the wind. There was something very final about her. In as much as Alex could tell her expression from the oddly shaped eyes, deep in the twisted wood