The Book of Lost Things (2006) Page 8

  “I treat all living creatures in this place with the respect they deserve, but it is in the order of things that man should rule over all.”

  “Then perhaps it is time for a new order to rise,” said the wolf-man.

  “And what order would that be?” asked the Woodsman. David could hear mockery in his tone. “An order of wolves, of predators? The fact that you walk on hind legs doesn’t make you a man, and the fact that you wear gold in your ear doesn’t make you a king.”

  “There are many kingdoms that might exist, and many kings,” said the wolf-man.

  “You will not rule here,” said the Woodsman. “If you try, I will kill you and all of your brothers and sisters.”

  The wolf-man opened its jaws and snarled. David trembled, but the Woodsman did not move an inch.

  “It seems that you have already begun. Was that your handiwork back in the forest?” asked the wolf-man, almost carelessly.

  “These are my woods. My handiwork is all over them.”

  “I am referring to the body of poor Ferdinand, my scout. He appears to have lost his head.”

  “Was that his name? I never had a chance to ask. He was too intent upon tearing out my throat for us to engage in idle chitchat.”

  The wolf-man licked his lips. “He was hungry,” he said. “We are all hungry.”

  His eyes flicked from the Woodsman to David, as they had done for much of the conversation, but this time they lingered a little longer on the boy.

  “His appetites will no longer trouble him,” said the Woodsman. “I have relieved him of their burden.”

  But Ferdinand was forgotten. The wolf-man’s attention was now entirely focused on David.

  “And what have you found on your travels?” said the wolf-man. “It seems that you have discovered a strange creature of your own, new meat from the forest.”

  A long, thin thread of saliva dripped from its muzzle as it spoke. The Woodsman placed a protective hand on David’s shoulder, drawing him closer, while his right hand held firmly on to the ax.

  “This is my brother’s son. He has come to stay with me.”

  The wolf fell to all fours, and the hackles on its back rose high. It sniffed the air.

  “You lie!” it growled. “You have no brother, no family. You live alone in this place, and you always have. This is no child of our land. He brings with him new scents. He is…different.”

  “He is mine, and I am his guardian,” said the Woodsman.

  “There was a fire in the forest. Something strange was burning there. Did it come with him?”

  “I do not know anything about it.”

  “If you do not, then perhaps the boy does, and he can explain to us where this came from.”

  The wolf-man nodded to one of its fellows, and a dark shape flew through the air and landed close to David.

  It was the head of the German gunner, all cindery black and charred red. His flight helmet had melted into his scalp, and once again David glimpsed his teeth still locked in their death grimace.

  “There was little eating on him,” said the wolf-man. “He tasted of ash, and sour things.”

  “Man does not eat man,” said the Woodsman in disgust. “You have shown your true nature through your actions.”

  The wolf-man crouched, its front paws almost on the ground.

  “You cannot keep the boy safe. Others will learn of him. Give him to us, and we will offer him the protection of the pack.”

  But the wolf-man’s eyes gave the lie to its words, for everything about the beast spoke of hunger and want. Its ribs stuck out against its gray fur, visible beneath the white of its shirt, and its limbs were thin. The others with it were also starving. They were now slowly closing in on David and the Woodsman, unable to resist the promise of food.

  Suddenly, there was a blur of movement to the right, and one of the lower order of wolves, overcome by its appetites, leaped. The Woodsman spun, the ax rose, and there was a single sharp yelp before the wolf fell dead upon the ground, its head almost severed from its body. A howling arose from the assembled pack, the wolves twisting and turning in excitement and distress. The wolf-man stared at the fallen animal, then turned on the Woodsman, every sharp tooth in its mouth visible, every hackle raised upon its back. David thought that it must certainly fall on them, and then the rest would follow and they would be torn apart, but instead the side of the creature that bore traces of something human seemed to overcome the animal half, and it brought its rage under control.

  It rose once again on its hind legs and shook its head. “I warned them to keep their distance, but they are starving,” it said. “There are new enemies, and new predators who compete with us for food. Still, this one was not like us, Woodsman. We are not animals. These others cannot control their urges.”

  The Woodsman and David were backing toward the cottage, trying to get closer to the promise of safety that it offered.

  “Do not fool yourself, beast,” said the Woodsman. “There is no ‘us.’ I have more in common with the leaves on the trees and the dirt on the ground than I do with you and your kind.”

  Already, some of the wolves had advanced and begun to feed on their fallen comrade, but not the ones who wore clothes. They looked longingly at the corpse but, like their leader, they tried to maintain a veneer of self-control. It did not run deep, however. David could see their nostrils twitching at the scent of blood, and he felt certain that were the Woodsman not there to protect him, the wolf-men would have already torn him to pieces. The lower wolves were cannibals, content to feed upon their own kind, but the appetites of the ones who resembled men were much worse than those of the rest.

  The wolf-man considered the Woodsman’s answer. Masked by the Woodsman’s body, David had already taken the key from his pocket and was preparing to insert it into the lock.

  “If there is no bond between us,” it said, thoughtfully, “then my conscience is clear.”

  It looked to the assembled pack and howled.

  “It is time,” it snarled, “to feed.”

  David fitted the key into the hole and began to turn it, just as the wolf-man fell to all fours, its body tensing and ready to spring.

  A sudden yelp of warning came from one of the wolves at the edge of the forest. The animal turned to face some threat as yet unseen, and it drew the attention of the rest of the pack, so that even their leader was distracted for crucial seconds. David risked a glance and saw a shape moving against the trunk of a tree, coiling around it like a snake. The wolf backed away from it, whining softly. While it was distracted, a length of green ivy extended itself from a low branch and looped itself around the wolf’s neck. It cinched tight upon the fur and then yanked the wolf high into the air, the animal’s legs kicking in vain as it began to choke.

  Now the whole forest appeared to come alive in a blur of twisting strands of green, the tendrils curling around legs and muzzles and throats, hauling wolves and wolf-men into the air or trapping them upon the ground, drawing tighter and tighter around them until all struggles ceased. The wolves immediately began to fight back, snapping and snarling, but they were powerless against an enemy like this, and those that could were already trying to retreat. David felt the key turn in the lock as the pack leader’s head jerked to and fro, torn between its desire for flesh and its urge to survive. Lengths of ivy were moving in its direction now, creeping across the damp earth of the vegetable patch. It had to choose quickly between fight and flight. With a final growl of fury at the Woodsman and David, the wolf-man turned tail and ran south, even as the Woodsman pushed David through the gap and into the safety of the cottage, the door closing firmly behind them and sealing off the sounds of howling and dying from the edge of the forest.

  IX

  Of the Loups and How

  They Came into Being

  DAVID MOVED to one of the barred windows as a warm orange glow crept through the little cottage. The Woodsman had made sure that the door was securely bolted and the wolves had fled bef
ore piling logs into the stone fireplace and preparing the fire. If he was troubled by what had occurred outside, then he wasn’t showing it. In fact, he seemed remarkably calm, and some of that calm had spread to David. He should have been terrified, even traumatized. After all, he had been threatened by talking wolves, witnessed an attack by living ivy, and the charred head of a German flier had landed at his feet, half gnawed by sharp teeth. Instead, he was merely bewildered, and more than a little curious.

  David’s fingers and toes tingled. His nose began to run in the growing warmth, and he discarded the Woodsman’s jacket. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his dressing gown and then felt a little ashamed. The dressing gown, now looking decidedly sorry for itself, was the only item of outer clothing that he possessed, and it seemed unwise to add to its current state of disrepair in any way. Apart from the gown, he had one slipper, a pair of torn, muddy pajama bottoms, and a pajama shirt, which, compared with the other items, was almost as good as new.

  The window at which he stood had been blocked by internal shutters behind the bars, with a narrow horizontal slit to allow those inside to see out. Through the gap he saw the corpses of wolves being dragged into the forest, some leaving trails of blood behind.

  “They are growing ever bolder and more cunning, and that makes them harder to kill,” said the Woodsman. He had joined David at the window. “A year ago they would not have risked such an attack upon me or upon another under my protection, but now there are more of them than ever before, and their numbers are swelling with each passing day. Soon they may try to make good on their promise to take the kingdom.”

  “The ivy attacked them,” said David. He still could not quite believe what he had seen.

  “The forest, or this forest at least, has ways of protecting itself,” said the Woodsman. “Those beasts are unnatural, a threat to the order of things. The forest wants no part of them. It is to do with the king, I think, and the fading of his powers. This world is coming apart, and it grows stranger with each passing day. The Loups are the most dangerous creatures yet to have arisen, for they have the worst of man and beast fighting for supremacy within them.”

  “Loups?” said David. “Is that what you call those wolf things?”

  “They are not wolves, although wolves run with them. Neither are they men, although they walk on two legs when it suits their purposes, and their leader decks himself in jewels and fine clothes. He calls himself Leroi, and he is as intelligent as he is ambitious, and as cunning as he is cruel. Now he would war with the king. I hear stories from travelers through these woods. They talk of great packs of wolves moving across the land, white wolves from the north and black wolves from the east, all heeding the call of their brothers, the grays, and their leaders, the Loups.”

  And while David sat by the fire, the Woodsman told him a story.

  The Woodsman’s First Tale

  Once upon a time there was a girl who lived on the outskirts of the forest. She was lively and bright, and she wore a red cloak, for that way if she ever went astray she could easily be found, since a red cloak would always stand out against the trees and bushes. As the years went by, and she became more woman than girl, she grew more and more beautiful. Many men wanted her for their bride, but she turned them all down. None was good enough for her, for she was cleverer than every man she met and they presented no challenge to her.

  Her grandmother lived in a cottage in the forest, and the girl would visit her often, bringing her baskets of bread and meat and staying with her for a time. While her grandmother slept, the girl in red would wander among the trees, tasting the wild berries and strange fruits of the woods. One day, as she walked in a dark grove, a wolf came. It was wary of her and tried to pass without being seen, but the girl’s senses were too acute. She saw the wolf, and she looked into its eyes and fell in love with the strangeness of it. When it turned away, she followed it, traveling deeper into the forest than she had ever done before. The wolf tried to lose her in places where there were no trails to follow, no paths to be seen, but the girl was too quick for it, and mile after mile the chase continued. At last, the wolf grew weary of the pursuit, and it turned to face her. It bared its fangs and growled a warning, but she was not afraid.

  “Lovely wolf,” she whispered. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

  She reached out her hand and placed it upon the wolf’s head. She ran her fingers through its fur and calmed it. And the wolf saw what beautiful eyes she had (all the better to see him with), and what gentle hands (all the better to stroke him with), and what soft, red lips (all the better to taste him with). The girl leaned forward, and she kissed the wolf. She cast off her red cloak and put her basket of flowers aside, and she lay with the animal. From their union came a creature that was more human than wolf. He was the first of the Loups, the one called Leroi, and more followed after him. Other women came, lured by the girl in the red cloak. She would wander the forest paths, enticing those who passed her way with promises of ripe, juicy berries and spring water so pure that it could make skin look young again. Sometimes she traveled to the edge of a town or village, and there she would wait until a girl walked by and she would draw her into the woods with false cries for help.

  But some went with her willingly, for there are women who dream of lying with wolves.

  None was ever seen again, for in time the Loups turned on those who had created them and they fed upon them in the moonlight.

  And that is how the Loups came into being.

  When his tale was done, the Woodsman went to an oak chest in the corner by the bed and found a shirt that would fit David, as well as a pair of trousers that were just a little too long, and shoes that were just a little too loose, although the addition of an extra pair of coarse wool socks made them wearable. The shoes were leather and had clearly not been worn in a great many years. David wondered where they had come from, for they had obviously belonged to a child once, but when he tried to ask the Woodsman about them, he just turned away and busied himself with laying out bread and cheese for them to eat.

  While they ate, the Woodsman questioned David more closely about how he came to enter the forest, and about the world that he had left behind. There was so much to tell, but the Woodsman seemed less interested in talk of war and flying machines than he was in David and his family, and the story of his mother.

  “You say that you heard her voice,” he said. “Yet she is dead, so how can this be?”

  “I don’t know,” said David. “But it was her. I know it was.”

  The Woodsman looked doubtful. “I have seen no woman pass through the woods for a long time. If she is here, she found another way into this world.”

  In return, the Woodsman told David much about the place in which he now found himself. He spoke of the king, who had reigned for a very long time but had lost control of his kingdom as he grew old and tired and was now a virtual recluse in his castle to the east. He spoke more of the Loups and their desire to reign over others as men did, and of new castles that had appeared in distant parts of the kingdom, dark places of hidden evil.

  And he spoke of a trickster, the one who had no name and was unlike any other creature in the kingdom, for even the king feared him.

  “Is he a crooked man?” asked David, suddenly. “Does he wear a crooked hat?”

  The Woodsman stopped chewing his bread. “And how would you know that?” he said.

  “I’ve seen him,” said David. “He was in my bedroom.”

  “That is him,” said the Woodsman. “He steals children, and they are never seen again.”

  And there was something so sad and yet so angry about the way the Woodsman spoke of the Crooked Man that David wondered if Leroi, the leader of the Loups, was wrong. Perhaps the Woodsman had had a family, once, but something very bad had happened and now he was entirely alone.

  X

  Of Tricksters and Trickery

  DAVID SLEPT that night upon the Woodsman’s bed. It smelled of dried berries and pi
necones and the animal scent of the Woodsman’s leathers and furs. The Woodsman dozed in a chair by the fire, his ax close to hand and his face cast in flickering shadows by the light of the dying flames.

  It took David a long time to get to sleep, even though the Woodsman assured him that the cottage was secure. The slits in the windows had been covered up, and there was even a metal plate, pierced with small holes, set halfway up the chimney to prevent the creatures of the forest from entering that way. The woods beyond were silent, but it was not the quiet of peace and rest. The Woodsman had told David that the forest changed at night: half-formed creatures, beings from deep beneath the ground, colonized it once the half-light faded, and most of the nocturnal animals were dead or had learned to be even warier of predation than before.

  The boy was aware of a strange mixture of feelings. There was fear, of course, and an aching regret that he had ever been foolish enough to leave the security of his own home and enter this new world. He wanted to return to the life he knew, however difficult it might be, but he also wanted to see a little more of this land, and he had not yet found an explanation for the sound of his mother’s voice. Was this what happened to the dead? Did they travel into this land, perhaps on the way to another place? Was his mother trapped here? Could a mistake have been made? Maybe she wasn’t meant to die, and now she was trying to hold on here in the hope that someone would find her and bring her back to those whom she loved. No, David could not return, not yet. The tree was marked, and he would find his way home, once he had discovered the truth about his mother and the part this world now played in her existence.

  He wondered if his father had missed him yet, and the thought made his eyes water. The impact of the German plane would have woken everyone, and the garden was probably already sealed off by the army or the ARP. David’s absence would have been quickly noticed. They would be looking for him at this very moment. He felt a kind of satisfaction in the knowledge that, by his absence, he had made himself more important in his father’s life. Now perhaps his dad would be worried more about him and less about work and codes and Rose and Georgie.