Having well oiled the locks, as David turns the key, the bolt slides silently into the latch plate. He knows that the farmhouse is being watched and his movements monitored, so leaving after sun down before moon rise is his only option. A Morgan has lived on this land for over four hundred cycles, every cell in his body has been constructed from this soil, his being lives and breathes with the being of this place. For too long he has squashed it down and tried to squeeze it out, letting grief and fear ride his back, but not now, not this time. With no need of a torch to light his way, he has all he needs packed in the sack upon his back. Tonight he is heading for the old logging shack, where he and Bethan used to take Cerridwen once she’d learnt to walk, from there he can scout out the sulphur lake and keep tabs on the CERC contractors. He skirts the outer edge of the lower meadow to gain access to the woods with out getting too close to the big grippers and the earth movers lumbering back from their day’s destruction. That old dog fox has laid good tracks between his larders, he can follow them most of the way, besides he has pardon to beg of the red dog if they should have chance to meet. In returning to himself he will never use that rifle again, nor will anyone else, it’s been left scuppered on the kitchen table.
The first hour is pretty easy going, the trees are fairly sparsely stood, leaving plenty of light for herb carpet, moss and grasses, but as the ground begins to climb the standing ones close ranks and herb gives way to bramble and briar, prickly holly and low crouching hawthorn, moss and loam have become rock and stone. Overhearing the site managers progress report earlier in the day, David estimates that he should be crossing their track limit with in half a league and half that again to reach the shack on the other side. A ke-wick seeks out a responding hoo-hoo-oo. Several unanswered calls later she moves deeper into the woods continuing the search for her echo mate. A twitch of anxiety niggles in David’s gut at the thought of Mr Tawny having met a fowl end in the jaws of one of CERC’s tree harvesters. Apart from the solitary owl the forest seems unusually quite, just the gentle swish and rustle of the bronzing leaves playing with the breeze, accompanied by the creak, crack and squeak of shifting timber. David pauses for a moment placing a hand upon the peeling bark of a youthful sycamore. Looking up through the canopy at the night sky, his eyes well with emotion and his heart with grief, rapidly followed by anger. He screams at absent ears.
‘You bastards! How dare you! How dare you come into this magnificent temple of life and rip it up by its roots. How dare you think that that’s ok! You bastards! You feckin’ bastards!’
He stops howling, takes a calming breath and gently leans into the sycamore resting his forehead upon her trunk for a moment. Deep in the unspoken places within him he feels her strength flowing through him. Straightening his back he stands purposefully, overflowing with compassion he bows, with hand upon heart, to the sycamore and the other tree beings around him, before continuing along Louarn’s trail deeper into the forest. The eeriness of the forest is intensified by its silence, no twigs snap except the ones beneath David’s feet, no invisible fluttering of leather flaps from the night bug hunting bats, nor the distant snuffle, scrape and snaffle of a snacking badger. Accentuated by the absence of incessant insect intonations. All because humans and their mechanicals have entered the sacred forest, or is it that CERC has some new method of nature sterilisation at play? Now, that, he wouldn’t put past them, it was all self interest and personal gain with that lot, they didn’t give a damn about sentient life not even of their own kind. But no, something just on the edge of his awareness, not quite within his awakening grasp, was whispering that there was something else a foot. A “Ke-wick, ke-wick.” lifts him up from his mind grappling just in time to stop him from tripping over a giant divot and the deep ruts left by the heavy mechanicals. He has made more ground than he realised or is it that time has tricked him with his mental wonderings? Either way it matters not, a number of sleeping tree destroyers have been left parked up in the forest over night and an idea mischievously crosses his mind, seconded by another “Ke-wick, ke-wick”. Having risen whilst he walked in deep thought, the moon takes kindly to David and shines her silvery light down through the branches to guide his way, she is but half full yet as bright as if she were and the sky is crisply clear. As he approaches the first monster mechanical he notices a pair of reflective lens watching him from her perch on the roof of its cab, “Ke-wick, ke-wick”, Mrs Tawny seems to be chivvying him along.
‘Alright, alright my Lady I’m coming.’
David chuckles to himself, but the thought of a comrade in arms, even if only in his imagination, is comforting. It has been a very long time since he dropped his revolutionary mantle and so much more besides. A few missing leads and some “worn” drive belts should render them static for a few days with no harm to man, beast nor land. It is no great effort to access the underbelly of these monstrous metal beasts and the best place to slash the drive belts where they won’t be noticed.
Finally feeling that he has done something good, something unselfish, something that Bethan would approve of, his heart weighs less heavily upon him as he makes the final clamber up to the old logging lodge. The forest makes its gradual climb up on to the great mountain in steeps and plateaus, the shack sits on top of a steep at the edge of the first plateau ledge, shrouded by cliff creepers and hangers, fluffy with their white beardy seed balls or glossy with their deep evergreen leaves that show off their flamboyant flowers during the spring and summer or prickling with protective spikes defending clusters of blood red berries. Inside the shack is a little cast potbelly stove upon which sits a battered enamel kettle, a small shelf above housing a pair of enamel mugs and some jars of dried leaves, a simple wooden cot with a dried bracken stuffed hessian mattress and a small hammock slung above it between the eaves. A couple of large animal furs and one of Aunt Meg’s hand stitched quilts are still slung over the hammock to keep them aired whilst not in use. David picks up the kettle and takes it out side to fill it from the rain water butt, that takes the drain-off off of the lean to and gathers up an armful of dry tinder and logs from the stack under it. He can afford to light a small fire tonight, enough to cook and make a cup of tea at least.
*
Ulmus pokes at the glowing embers in the grate with mounting agitation, he throws on a couple of tinder herb bundles to set a rapid flame and irritates them into life.
‘Come on, come on, we are losing time.’
Adding some sappy pine bark the fire spatters and sparks and in the fizzling flames familiar forms emerge under the Elm’s intent gaze.
‘Ah Friends, thank you for coming so quickly. I need your help most urgently or I fear all will be lost before it has begun.’
‘Your vexation is fevorous friend, what trouble taunts the Master of Hounds?’
‘I have urgent news that must reach the Crone tonight, in fact now. The snake moves to take them, they will be lost by dawn if they do not move now.’
‘We can take this message Master, do not fret.’
‘I am afraid that it is too late and no one will be watching the fire now. Please friends you must reach the Annwm, I can feel that Lamia is tightening her coils. She is up to something in the far waters, building a floating island, it seems foul and feels fouler.’
‘It is done friend, rest easy.’
A frizz and a crackle and the flames die, leaving the aromatics smouldering a rhythmic pulsation of glowing heat, trailing a scented smoke into the room. Ulmus breathes deeply the calming lavendula and gentle chamomilla oils as they are lifted in to the air, but his hackles will not rest. He has put his pieces into play and now must wait, blind to their performance, this is not a position Ulmus finds any comfort in sitting.
*
The fire crackles and spits in the grate, it’s chattering stirring Roshan from her light and tampered sleep. She begins to unfurl herself from the curled up nest she’d fallen a sleep in on the floor between her mother and the fire. As she sits up and begins to rub her eyes the chattering becomes more insistent.
‘Wake up, wake up! She comes, she comes!’
Roshan is not entirely sure that she is in fact awake, may be she is dreaming waking from her slumber by the fire.
‘Wake up, wake up! She’s coming for you!’
‘Who’s coming and who are you and where are you?’
‘Quickly, quickly leave before she gets you.’
‘What are…..’
Loud foot falls on the kitchen flagstones snap Roshan into silence and her heart into rapid response mode, she tries to maintain her breathing.
‘I’ll get the sisters you erase the Crone.’
Roshan barely manages to muffle her alarmed in-squeak of breath as she scurries crablike back towards the grate and grabs the fire iron. The brass door nob rattles in the unseen hand that grasps it to turn and as the door swings open, Roshan scrabbles to her feet raising the fire iron with both hands above her head, ready to strike.
‘What the Mother are you doing child? You could hurt someone with that.’
Cerri trots down the two small steps into the living room and walks towards the fireplace and Roshan.
‘Stay back, or I will hurt you! Leave my mother alone.’
Roshan sidles around the room putting herself between Cerri and her mother, asleep on the daybed.
‘Roshan what’s the matter? What’s got in to you child?’
‘What’s got into me?! I heard you out there, you’ll get the sisters while Tom “erases the Crone”. They said you were coming, that we should leave.’
Roshan maintains her defensive stance despite shuddering with sobbing, shock and fear.
‘No, no, no my sweet. I said “raise the Crone” meaning wake her up. We must leave Roshan my dear, you are right, it’s Lamia, they will strike before dawn.’
‘Lamia?’ She tentatively lowers the fire iron.
‘Yes my sweet, they must not find us here. But who told you?’
‘I…I..don’t know, I just heard it. In my head. The fire, it was…chattering…it woke me up. I thought I might still be dreaming then I heard you.’
‘I promise you, I would never hurt you, or your mother. We must get her up though sweetheart, it’s not safe here anymore and we have to head into the forest leaving no tracks behind us. Quickly now.’
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