Once. Part 23

She wrenched her mouth away and spat blood. Her head to one side, she implored, 'Stop it, stop it, please stop it!'

No use: the attack continued. Nell's hands seemed to be all over her body, beneath the T-shirt, abusing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, pinching the soft flesh of her waist, reaching between her legs again, and all the time laughing, spitting, squealing her l.u.s.t and rage. Katy still held on to the tracksuit leggings and she kept them between their bodies, hopeless protection, but all she had, a psychological barrier of useless cloth. It was when she felt those invasive fingers with their wicked nails inside her once more that her terror turned to outrage once again.

Enough! she told herself. Enough!

But it was a reflexive action that saved her for the moment. A s.p.a.ce had been created between them by the madwoman as she tried to push her hand further into Katy and the therapist swiftly brought her heel down hard on Nell's bare toes.

Air escaped her attacker in an explosive screech and for a second or two Katy was free. However, the rage was still with her, and that was good, that was positive, for it gave her the strength, the superiority over mindless panic, to bring one fist down hard across the other woman's face. Nell staggered and Katy's arms shot out, her other hand still clutching the joggers, to catch her attacker off balance. She thrust at her with all her might, sending Nell stumbling to the floor by the side of the bed.

Seizing the moment, Katy whirled and ran through the

open doorway, then down the staircase, her heart racing as H to beat her to the front door below. Her bare feet pounded on the boards, which groaned and cracked with the hurried pressure, and when she reached the small landing below, she did not pause, not even when she thought she saw something - a blur of movement only, a small animal perhaps that had crept into the cottage while she and the woman had been otherwise occupied upstairs - dart through the bathroom doorway that was slightly ajar.

Besides, the maniacal screaming coming from the bedroom above easily overrode any curiousity she might have had.

Never mind that she was naked from the waist down, Katy flew out of the cottage on to the cracked path, spitting blood as she went, small stones sticking to the soles of her feet. She felt no pain then, only blind panic - almost literally, for without her spectacles her vision was seriously at fault -and the adrenaline that roared through her body overruled any notions of modesty. Because no one was likely to steal her car in this remote area of the woods, she had left the key in the ignition and gratefully she tore open the driver's door to throw herself inside; with virtually the same action and without waiting to catchher breath she switched on the engine. Then she quickly locked both driver and pa.s.senger doors.

There was not enough room in the clearing outside the quaint 'gingerbread' (her first thought on seeing it) cottage, so Katy had to reverse at an angle, go forward to the trees, then reverse again. It was a stilted three-point turn, but at last she was facing the rough lane leading to the main road.

At her second reverse, Katy had glanced back at the cottage, expecting Nell Quick to come chasing out after her, but the path had been empty. She had, however, looked up at the bedroom windows and there was the woman, somehow made pale, ghostly, by sun reflecting on the gla.s.s. She appeared to have one hand to her cheek as if soothing the blow she had taken; she also appeared to be grinning. A

flurry of wings as a bird took off from the parapet above distracted Katy for a moment, and then she was concentrating on the track ahead, pressing down hard on the VW's accelerator so that wheels spun and stones and small sticks shot up from behind the tyres. The green car roared off through the opening in the woods, with Katy jolting and bouncing inside, her naked b.u.t.tocks slipping in the seat, loosened hair blown by the breeze coming through the open windows.

She drove fast, trees and branches rushing by on either side, the longer, leafy branches frequently scratching metal and scarring paintwork as she fought to keep control of the vehicle, the steering-wheel jerking violently in her hands each time the wheels struck a particularly deep rut. Even so, as she drove further away from the cottage, her heart still beating crazily, her breath coming and going in short sharp gasps, Katy became aware of her nudity. She slowed the car almost but not quite to a stop, manoeuvring the joggers down her legs, taking swift peeks to see what she was doing, pushing the left foot through first, then releasing the accelerator pedal for an instant to stab her right foot through. The car almost stalled, but she quickly stamped down again and it roared on. Then it was a question of pulling the grey joggers up to her knees, pressing back against the seat so that she could raise herself and slide the clothing all the way up. She did not notice the magpie circling overhead.

The track was difficult to see through the tears she continued to weep - out of anger as much as shame and fear - and her own poor eyesight hardly helped. She knew she would soon be approaching the busy main road that ran past the estate, but she increased speed again, wanting to be as far away from that dreadful woman as quickly as possible. The only other vehicle apart from Thom's Jeep at the cottage had been an old-fashioned bicycle leaning against the wall by the front door, and, a.s.suming it belonged to Nell Quick, Katy could not imagine the woman pursuing her

on such a heavy contraption, but still she did not slow the car.

Now though, despite Katy's ongoing panic, recriminations began to burn her again. What had she been thinking of? She wasn't a lesbian, even if there had been that one experience so long ago, so why had she given in so easily to this strange woman? She hadn't drunk or eaten anything, so she couldn't have been drugged with some kind of inhibitions-loosener. Yet she had felt so ... felt so ... h.o.r.n.y. That was the only word she could think of. She, Katy, had not truly given in to seduction. More correctly, she had submitted to her own suddenly demanding s.e.xual needs, the overriding - the irresistible - desire tomake love with someone, man or woman, or something. She shuddered and wept freely.

Oh G.o.d, how could it have happened?

And would Nell Quick boast of it to Thom? Katy prayed not.

Regardless of her worsening vision, Katy put her foot down even further, the little two-door car's engine revving loudly. The steering-wheel bucked in her hand again as the VW hit ridges of hardened mud and sunk into dips, but she kept going, desperate to be away from that place, realizing despondently that she would never return, not even to see Thom, not even to carry out her professional duties. He would have to make other arrangement.

Katy wiped a hand across her eyes, trying to brush away the wetness there, but she sobbed again and more tears welled. The waistband of her leggings was beneath her hips, but at least she was covered, just a plumpish ridge of belly exposed. She felt uncomfortable, it was difficult to see, but she was not about to stop and calm herself, nor adjust her clothing: her emotions would not allow it.

The junction into the main road was less than fifty yards ahead, although she could not properly see the break in the trees. Only when something large and painted yellow - a

high-loader transit van, in fact - blurred past the gap that was fast looming did she realize that she was about to arrive at the main road with possibly heavy traffic. Just before she could jam her foot down hard on the brake pedal, something appeared from nowhere in front of her, a flurry of movement between her and the windscreen.

It was a bird, of course, but Katy was too shocked to realize. It must have been travelling towards her at a good speed to fly through the open side window.

Strong black, blue and white wings flapped at her face and the bird's beak scored b.l.o.o.d.y lines down her forehead and nose, while feather tips stung her eyes. She tried to fight off the creature, but it was like battling a maelstrom. Katy's screams as she slapped and beat at it with hands and fists and the bird's own harsh squawking filled the car's interior with noise.

Katy continued to thrash out at the maddened thing, forgetting the steering-wheel for the moment, forgetting the footbrake, forgetting she was swiftly approaching the usually busy road. The VW shot from the small lane and into the main thoroughfare, unfortunately just as an articulated 'sheepdog', a carrier loaded with brand new Renault Meganes, fresh from the Continent, bright and gleaming on their treads, was approaching from the right.

Katy Budd had no chance. The vehicle-carrier smashed into her little VW Polo, knocking it a hundred and fifty yards further down the road, straight across a small ditch where it bounced back off trees that were part of the Bracken Estate's woodland, and into the ditch again.

When it did come to rest, concertinaed bonnet rising over the edge of the ditch, the car was no longer recognizable as the model it was deemed to be. And Katy was hardly recognizable as the girl she used to be.

MARKER.

THEY WALKED around the lake and Jennet led him even further into the forest.

'I never thought I could get lost here,' he remarked, 'but this is something else. I couldn't have come this far when I was a kid.'

'You did, but you were too young to know,' she replied, taking him through a tangle of brambles and undergrowth as if there were some secret path. "When you did grow older, when you reached an age to understand and remember, she stopped bringing you here.'

Wait a minute. How d'you know all this? You're younger than me. At least, you seem to be.'

'I am, Thom. Even in your years I am.' She lightly pulled him onwards. The story, almost a legend among us now, was pa.s.sed down. A union between mortal and faerefolkis is something we could never forget.'

Then why didn't she want me to know? Why didn't my mother tell me what she was? Or at least about my father?'

"You were too young for the burden. Besides, it seems, she'd made a promise.'

He came up short again. 'A promise? To whom? About what?'

'You'll understand much of it soon. Let's keep walking, Thom. I can only be with you for a certain amount of time.'

He could only brood over the secrecy all these years. Why, when she was alive, had his mother not told him of his father and these fabulous little people who lived in the woods? If she had, as Jennet had claimed, surely he would never have forgotten? And what did Jennet mean, why could she only stay with him for a certain length of time, where the h.e.l.l was she taking him?

Jennet said no more to him for a while. They pa.s.sed old oaks, venerable elms, sycamores, beech and many more that had grown undisturbed by man in this forest for countless centuries, alongside them new, leafy saplings that provided forage for fallow and roe deer. Animals, birds, insects too, appeared unperturbed by Thom and Jennet's intrusion as they journeyed through this perfect and self-contained ecosystem, where each forest layer provided sustenance for every denizen - ground and soil, shrubbery and undergrowth, lower and upper canopies. Insects, animals and birds dwelt here in a harmony that today, at least, not even human presence could disrupt. Birds and small animals might feed on insects, some birds on some animals, some animals on some birds, but at this wondrous time for him, there were no sudden scuffles as one species preyed on another, no squawks of birds diving for some juicy beetle, no squeals of rabbits captured by old enemies: today this world seemed at peace.

He continued to catch sight of little people playing among flowering hawthorn, elder, or spindle, none of them shy of him but all of them curious if only in a pa.s.sing way. At the earthy, blackened end of a thickfallen tree trunk, where twisted roots slowly degenerated, he saw what he had first

thought was a nest of termites, but on closer inspection discovered that they were hundreds of tiny faeries playing and bustling about, their frail red wings now giving them the appearance of minute moths or b.u.t.terflies. He began to wonder just how many different types of faerefolkis there might be.

There were still hosts of lights, no more than bright specks in the near-distance, flitting between trees or disappearing into undergrowth caverns, although not as many as he had observed before; in fact, the deeper into the woods that he and Jennet went, the less he saw of both animal and faery.

The great green canopy overhead grew thicker so that in places they made their way in twilight. Silver shafts of light broke through the overhanging branches to speckle the mulch floor, or to highlight certain patches of ferns and wild plants, and in the very deepest parts of the woods they seemed like beacons to Thom, letting him know that the sun still governed the skies. Yet it was cool beneath this leafy pavilion as well as shadowy, the tops of the trees absorbing the sun's heat, a thin breeze below chilling Thom's flesh.

He shivered and wondered how much further they had to go? The girl walked on ahead, her movement graceful, snarled undergrowth no impediment, the sudden duskiness no disincentive, and as he was about to speak she pointed ahead.

There, Thom,' she said. 'Do you see it?'

He followed her direction with his eyes and saw in the distance a bright oasis of light, a smallish clearing where the trees parted overhead to allow the sun full ingress. It was like a bright jewel in the sun-peppered gloom.

Her steps quickened as though she were eager for him to find out what lay ahead in the clearing and he followed close behind, trying to tread in her footsteps, for she knew the path that was all but invisible to him. Occasionally he stumbled, but hurriedly gathered pace again, feeling an

excitement - one that curiously was mixed with dread -rising up in him. His mind had not yet tired of the phenomena brought by the day's events, but undoubtedly the constant shocks, delightful though they were, had been slightly numbed by his own brain defending itself from overload; but now his thoughts were racing once more, his imagination beginning to fly. Jennet had good reason for bringing him to this place, the confidence in her voice had rea.s.sured him of that, but so far she had not even hinted at the clearing's mystery. There was a quiver in each breath he took and he felt an unsteadiness in his stride.

She reached the spot that was like a forest grotto well before Thom and turned to wait for him, her lovely, if playful, smile encouraging, enticing. He hurried his steps despite the shaking of his legs and the accelerating beat inside his chest.

'Jennet...' he said, but could think of nothing more to add. 'It's all right, Thom.'

The soft-voiced words soothed him. He didn't know why, there was just something in this girl - her beauty, the stillness of her nature when she was quiet like this, the pleasing gentleness of her tone? Maybe it was her mystery, the idea that she was not as others he knew, did not possess the foibles and jealousies, and perhaps pride, so common in humans - something that made him trust her implicitly. He hardly knew her, yet he knew he already loved her. What normal and unattached man could fail to fall for one such as this?

He reached her, almost stumbling into the small clearing in his haste and she swiftly reached out to steady him, her movement fluid, her grip surprisingly firm. Like his mother's, he remembered.

The colours in this sun-blessed site were dazzling: bluebells, late-blooming like those close to Little Bracken, mixed with wild orchids, foxglove with balsam, cowslips with

dropwort, and others whose names he did not know, a close-confined mixture he would not have believed were he not seeing it with his own eyes. An elder stood proud of the circle of ferns, shrubs with red berries and other trees, a fine, lush example thick with long tooth-edged leaves and creamy-white flowers, as though the soil here was rich in nitrogen - possibly a rabbit warren tunnelled through its roots, or badgers had built their setts nearby. Other elders, mere shrubs though, were in the vicinity, but only this one appeared to have flourished so well.

Thom looked at Jennet questioningly and she pointed once more, this time at the gra.s.s a few feet in front of the elder. He noticed the top of a stone or rock among the tall blades. Again he regarded Jennet.

'See for yourself,' she said, and when he went forward she accompanied him. He knelt on both knees before the stone - he could tell now that it had an uneven but generally flattish top - and parted the blades of gra.s.s. The stone had straight but roughly hewn sides too.

It was a marker. No, there was chiselled lettering on the rugged front. This was a headstone, for the lettering spelt out a name. It said: JONATHAN BLEETH.

INSIGHT.

SIR RUSSELL'S elder son? The soldier who was killed in Northern Ireland?'

Thom was stunned by the implication of this tribute stone deep in the woodlands of the Bracken Estate.

Jennet did not reply to his question; she merely watched him.

'Jonathan Bleeth. You're saying ... you're saying he was my father...?' At last she spoke. 'It should have been obvious to you.'

'Why? Bethan never spoke of him.'

'Perhaps she thought it best. I can't really say, Thom, I only know the story that's been pa.s.sed down through the years.'

He looked from her face back at the marker again. 'It isn't possible. She would have said. And surely when she died, Sir Russell would have let me know.'

Jennet gave a small shrug. "Who can understand humans? Come, let's sit down and we'll talk.'

She strolled to the edge of the clearing and sank to the gra.s.sy floor, ankles crossed, the broad exposed tendril of a nearby oak at her back.

'Come on, Thom,' she entreated again.

Only after gazing at the rough and inscribed grey stone for several moments as if it, itself, would offer answers to the questions that almost swamped him, did he follow the girl. He dropped to the ground and leaned against the trunk of the oak, wrists on raised knees, eyes gazing back at the marker peeping over the blades of gra.s.s.

*Why? Why wouldn't my mother tell me? If I'd known ...'

What? If he had known, then what? It was a question to which even he had no answer. But Sir Russell must have been aware. At last Thom began to understand why the old man, his mother's employer, had become his patron, sending him off to private school, giving him a small but helpful allowance to get by on. But why hadn't the old man acknowledged Thom for what he was, his grandson? He looked at Jennet uncertainly.

"You are telling me Jonathan Bleeth was my father, aren't you? That is why you brought me here?'

She nodded.

He was a confusion of emotions, glad at last to have the solution to the mystery that had vexed him for most of his young life. With it came some kind of relief, although the reality was perhaps more perplexing: why had n.o.body -especially his own mother - explained to him, told him of his heritage? He and Bethan had not been deserted by Jonathan Bleeth; his father had been blown to pieces by an IRA bomb. Why hadn't Sir Russell and Hugo acknowledged him as Jonathan's son? Because he was illegitimate? Was that much shame attached to the label in those days? Surely not? And what about now, when he was a grown man? Was he still to be rejected? It seemed so.

'G.o.d.a.m.nit!' he said with force and Jennet reached out to touch his arm.

Try to forgive her, Thom. Bethan must have had her reasons.' 'Oh I don't blame my mother. You're right, she must have had her reasons. She could never have kept the truth from me otherwise. But why didn't anyone else let me know?'

He thought of Hugo. Had his lifelong friend been aware all this time, or was it a secret kept from him too? In all the years Thom had known him, Hugo had never alluded to the possibility that they were kin of sorts, even if not in name. Thom tore a clump of gra.s.s from the soil and scattered it. Why? What was the purpose? Was Sir Russell really that upset at having a b.a.s.t.a.r.d grandson? Were his values still so set in the past?

As if having read his mind, Jennet said: Tm told they were married right here, Thom, in this part of the woods. A faerefolkis ceremony.'

Then he, Jonathan Bleeth, knew about Bethan, knew where she had come from?'