i the hollow behind the hearthstone

8/13/2019 i the Hollow Behind the Hearthstone

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THE ORB OF FORGETTING

I. THE HOLLOW BEHIND THE HEARTHSTONE

I shiver violently and it snaps me out of the half-sleep I was in. Before I even have

time to think, I’m on my feet and my head flicks left right. No one there. Good. Yet, at least. I

shiver again and look more slowly. The air is chill and smells of damp and heavy earth, and

seems almost as if I can see the way it smells as all about me is dense and roiling fog,

billowing along the ground, clinging to it, writhing between the trees. The trees are bare and

black, stark still pillars leaning this way and that against and up into the nothingness. I look

down and see the ground is covered with a muddy, pulpy layer of dead leaves and other

debris. The mud and wetness covers me as well. I try to calm my too-fast breathing, and stand

a moment, my eyes closed. Looking inward, it seems the fog is inside me as well as outside.

There is nothing, save mocking echoes that I can’t quite make out. I shake my head to clear

them, thinking now I don’t want to know what they were. Starting to walk a skewed path

down the slight hill, I see there is no underbrush save only thick and twisted patches of

brambles, secret and hideaway in the dark-filled hollows. A flurry of motion just to my right

and flapping blur of feathers bursts up from the ground and is as quickly lost into the nothing

fog, with just a sad tearing cry, that was like an echo of another sound, to mark its leaving.

And then it begins again.

A shudder ripples through my body, taking my breath for a second, and I know, before

I could possibly know, that they’re here. All my muscles whip taut and I crouch, ready, head

held up for sound or smell. Not long in coming this time, I hear the first call, a shrieking,

howling roar, still very far away. Still awful though, it makes my face, my fists clench, nails

draw near to blood, near through the skin. The pain frees me suddenly and I run. Down. A



mad dash, feet slipping, as I run my mind seems floating near my body, trees fly past me, left

right close. The ground pounds up and down as feet plunge legs push faster faster faster. Now

I cease to feel and my eyes are all they fly through the fog ever downward, AAHH!!

grounddropsoutfromunderseemlikefloatingsplitsecondforeverfreefalling … … THUMP!

ground and up and running quicker than I can or should and over tree-root stumble keep on

going splash through … far above, my mind, that’s floating calmly and detached, can hear the

wincing, echoing cries that follow. Now an echo, now what seems an answering call, and then

another. Now the sudden harsh, flat blare of a horn, still very far away, so far indeed that it

could almost be a memory that echoes off the fog and … legs were hurting now just numbing

jumping running over stream and ditch or hollow hill has stopped now ground is flat and

coming into … a great clearing, down about ten feet, in which fog lies like a ghostly lake,

crowded all around the brim with the stark still skeletal trees. I can’t see the other side as it is

lost into blank cold white. Quick! Don’t stop but scramble hurriedly down the side grabbing

onto tree roots protruding out of the damp, thick earth. Now on the floor of the clearing, and

how strange the dead leaves on the ground, each one is dusted infinitely delicately with

morning’s frost, and each one gleams as I look in the grey and feeble light … Stop dreaming!

I run across the flat floor of the clearing, each step crisply crunching as I go and on until I stop

short seeing ahead of me, looming out of the fog, a mighty oak-tree, wide and deep-rooted,

rising into nothing, stand watch in the centre of the clearing. The fog swirls slightly round it,

still unmoving, lending it solidity, immobility, realness, in a sea of phantoms. I run to it, no

longer fleeing but going to, with a childish eagerness. As I near the tree, I see that it contains

many clefts between the great boles that wrap together to form the trunk. I walk straight to

one of these, and into it, and up. The cleftway leads me into the heart of the oak, up a narrow

hole and into a little chamber, almost spherical, floored with dry dead leaves and lit by pale

thin shafts of light through little chinks higher up. In the centre, the oak has made a little



raised bowl-shape, which is full of clear water, cold as I sit beside it and run my hand in it.

Then I lower my head and drink deeply. The water flows through my entire body, calming

me. I ease gently down among the dry and whispering leaves and drop into forgetful sleep.

I wake and stretch, and for a moment there is no thought, there is no fear, there is

simply a beautiful peace, and then, like a black tide, the smothering fear rushes in and over

me. I sit up and realize that the fog has filtered into the tree-hollow, and lies draped around

me like a grave-cold lover. I shudder and, slipping on the slick-smooth wood of the cleftway,

I make a bruised way down from my breached safety. As soon as I step out into the clearing,

the smell hits me, a rotting, putrid, gut-twisting stench, that lingers with the fog. It calls to

mind carrion, and maggot-eaten death, and cold blood running from between jagged, jutting

teeth in a grinning mouth. Dropping to my knees, I fight and fight the retching that is rising in

my throat, until finally I win, and stumble to my feet. The footprints I left in the frost-dusted

leafy clearing floor are no longer along. A tangled mess of other prints are all about, some

frightening of shape, and the black remains of a fire, sunk a little into the ground. None of the

prints, however, goes within twenty feet of the tree. So they were right, I catch myself

thinking, wait! who? who were right about what? The thought eludes me like a fleeting

dream.

I must go on. There is no sense of time, the fog lies and swirls and cheats the eyes just

as it did, the light is faint and hopeless. But the sparkling clearing floor is marred, and torn,

and holds no beauty anymore. I must go on. I lean forward and fall into a walk, each foot

swung just in time to stop me falling, and a wail of eerie terror deep in the pit of my stomach.

I scramble up the other side of the clearaing, rugging earth-clotted roots that give alarmingly

and almost let me fall. After a little hill, the forest sweeps downward once again, and I am

helpless to go anywhere but with the slope. At first, it is not even a sound, but only a texture

to the silence, but it grows, a rushing sibilance, into the unmistakeable gush of water, not a



trickling stream, but the hiss-roar of a river. And somehow I know that I must find it. Not a

hard thing to do, all it needs is to follow the slope of the ground and the sound of the water

that grows as I slowly descend.

Not long after, I reach the river’s edge and I stand up on the bank with tree-roots

tangling out and down into the water below. The river is wide and looks deceptively slow, as

if it looks slow on purpose, to trick poor travellers such as me. The opposite bank is almost

lost in the mist which seeps between the shadow trees. I cannot cross here, it looks too deep

and cold and hungry for my tired, quivering muscles to take on. I begin to walk to the right,

downstream along the bank, for who knows, maybe there’s a ford or a bridge further down.

And then, faintly, faintly, muffled by the fog, there comes a haunting cry, that prickles my

spine, and flutters my heart into pulsing faster and faster, there it is again, and that means

they’re on my trail again, and images flash across my mind’s eye of dark shapes bounding

through the mist and trees, growling and slavering, now letting free a terrible howl from

tooth-filled maw, and clumps of dark earth flying from their galloping steps. And now they’re

closer, and a hoarse shout which may or may not have contained words, but rang with hate,

and oh I stand and twist and turn, an agony of indecision, and the fog echoes and I can’t tel l

which way the roaring comes from, but what to do now, what can I do I hear the crashing

coming closer and I almost see I turn and run and … jump. The water hits me, sucks me

under, the cold like a great steel blade that slides between my ribs, and for an eternal moment,

underwater, there is silence, breathless, noiseless, but for the pressing rushing in my ears, and

I seem to slow, and is that the water rushing or is it my own blood or maybe the sand in an

hourglass somewhere, slower, slower, might I just drift? … No! I burst above the water once

again and sounds and whirling sights rush in with the air into my freeze-burning lungs, and a

little water as I’m pulled under just a little as I thrash my arms and legs to keep afloat. The

water pulls me quickly from the shore where I feel rather than see their frustrated presence



falling away behind me. The water holds me up and, for a while, I am content to let it take me

where it will, because I know it is away. I kick feebly to keep my head above and my arms are

stretched out, as if to fly.

After time, I begin to try to make my way towards the opposite bank, with small

motions and turns of my body. The river is widening even more here and getting shallower,

rushing between upthrust rocks, and over shoals of clacking pebbles, until I can stand up,

covered to the waist, and wade wearily to shore. The air chills my wet body right to the bone,

my thin shirt clinging to my shivering torso as I slosh through the shallows, the water

dragging at my feet. As I begin again through the mist-draped forest, I clasp my arms futilely

about my chest and my teeth chatter loudly and uncontrollably. I stumble along what seems,

yes, wait, without even realizing it, I’ve been walking along a narrow cleare d path, almost

parallel with, but getting somewhat further from the river. The path is only such in the sense

that it is devoid of trees and almost straight; it, like all else, is carpeted with mud and dead

leaves. The trees arch over the path, and all that can be seen behind me and in front of me is

the path narrowing and disappearing into nothing. It could be that the path only exists for a

certain length before and behind me, then dissolves again into mist. And now the silence

begins to press on my, the river’s sound has fallen off to my right, and the view is much the

same in front and behind, or on either side. The silence drowns out my already-muffled

footsteps, and I feel as if, were I to scream, my mouth would open, spilling nothing into

nothing. The silence has me in its grip, an old and time worn hold, and in this dreamy

strangeness it seems likely that the silence has reigned here for years upon years, choking

those who cleared the path and rolling over their graves, then thwarting their purposeout of

spite, by making the path lead from nowhere to nowhere except to quiet madness for those

who walk … Stop! shake my head, clear these thoughts, these strange imaginings, I must not

let that happen, but it does seem as if I have been walking among these tight-packed galleries



of trees forever, always stepping regularly, rhythmically, stepstepstepstepstepstepstep … Stop

it! I stand still, and close my eyes, breath deep and start to run. As if to run were the only way

to break from this endless, soundless walk. But then I look back once and see, see a dark

shape plunge out of the mist far behind and they’re here, here, go! Run faster nowmyheart -

ispoundingliketobreakmychestIfeelthefurnacehotbreathlickingheelsbutstillNoSound!andright-

behindmestumblinggoonrightthererightbehindmerunrunrunrunBURST out into a clearing, and

I turn and see it leap at me its roar now suddenly released, I tear a pendant from my neck, it’s

all so slow, and hold it up and shout a word that reaches my ears as if through water, the

flashing pendant hurls the creature back into the deeper misty shadows of the path, where it

lurks, its eyes burning like the dying embers of a fire, its rumbling growl, rising. I stand

completely still, not sure what has happened, the pendant I didn’t know I had held up to ward

the dark thing off. It glints in a tiny needle ray of sunlight, from somewhere. The things that

crouches, barely visible in the mouth of the path melts away back from the opening and

disappears. I turn, safe for now, and see, in the little clearing, what remains of a small, crude

cottage. This long-abandoned dwelling has become so overgrown now that it looks like it is

sunk into the ground. Thick ivy clogs the walls and what remains of a thatched roof, in which

grow clusters of some purple wild flower. All that can be seen to identify it as a house is the

moss covered stone around the tiny, overhung doorway, and an almost grass-filled hole that

might once have been a window. I approach it slowly, and I know that I’ve seen it before, the

tingle of impossible memories stroking the back of my neck, the feeling of tiny chiming

music somewhere inside me growing strong. Through the tiny doorway, the hanging grass

strokes my hair, and my eyes adjust to the dimness within. Looking around, I see a small

table, covered in a cloth so faded that it is impossible to discern its former colour, the rafters

are heavy-laden with rusted pots and pans, desiccated bundles of indeterminate herbs, jars and

bottles and vials – the labels faded beyond legibility – and earthenware jars hanging from



metal hooks. The fireplace is stone cold, containing only a fine powdery dust that is the

memory of ashes. A small chair is there, turned towards the fire, for its long-departed heat. I

sit, suddenly weary, oh so tired. My bones ache, and there is cold in me that nothing can

banish. Outside, the fog seems thicker, and all I can see through the once-window and missing

door is blankness, whiteness. I stroke the grain of the wooden chair, and my mind spins,

unable to hold a thought. I drift, half-aware, for who knows how long, and sometimes it seems

as though, from the corner of my eye, I can see a fire blazing in the grate, but when I look

straight at it, it is gone. And I hear an echoed laugh, or snatch of song, and turn quickly to see

… nothing. Now I rise, and reach into the hollow behind the hearthstone, that I knew,

howdidIknow, was there. My hand touches an old crackling leather bag, and I draw it slowly,

oh so slowly, out, and reach inside. As my fingers touch the glass surface of the globe, a thrill

of fear and delight shivers me. I take it out and place it on the table before me … I hear a

twigsnapcrack outside … it is perfectly round, perfectly sized to fill your hand … a low,

shuddering growl, then another, and another … its surface is cold to the touch, completely

smooth … the growling noises get closer, closer, closer … inside the globe, the fog swirls

slowly, making maddeningly familiar ghostshapes that run into each other … the dank fog

seeps in through the once-window and empty doorway, through the chinks and the cracks in

the crude stone walls … the beautiful orb draws me closer, shuts out all else, the fog in the

orb, the fog in the forest, the fog inside me … the fog brings with it the rank and rotting smell

that sends bloody images chasing each other through your mind … I open my left hand, until

now clasped so right around the pendant that I didn’t know I had, that it left its impression on

my palm in blood … a harsh and metal shout resounds around the clearing o utside, and roars

and charging towards me, rushing inward … I lift my hand, and smash it down, onto the globe

which breaks and shatters … everything.

i the hollow behind the hearthstone

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