Dog Hill Wood

Cider was our currency and apples our windfall. It was autumn, and I came in from the orchards into the streets of Laddebury with the leaves starting to hue. The sunlight was strong, and the breeze was brisk. Rosy lived on the floor above her uncle’s tavern – The Saxefras Blossom. I would see her tonight. My hands were in my pockets. She waved at me from her balcony. Her clothes would smell of tobacco. They always did. Yet she was bubbly and golden and glowing. And she hadn’t a mind beyond this market-town dale.

My thoughts reached to Dog Hill Wood. Its forested crest loomed before me, over the shingled roofs and tight streets and laughter and the clatter of horses’ hooves. Gwyllgi, the black wolf-dog, it was said, would sometimes wander over from Wales and sleep there for the night.

It would be a full moon.

Rosy must have run down, or I had been in a daze, for I had hardly lifted my hands from my pockets when I had to take her in my embrace. I knew not if I had earned her love.

We strolled along, arm in arm, and crossed the wide market street, between carriage and pedestrian passing by, to the narrow alley-way that led to the pub that was the Golden Swan. Rosy called for a stout; she always drank the darkest of beer. I would have my sweet bubbly golden cider.

An Irish Traveler sang and played the mandolin in the cobblestone yard outside. We listened and couldn’t make out the words, and they bounced away into the slanting beams of the late afternoon sun. Rosy did not hold in her no-shame giggle. I just held her in my arms.

The bookshelf kept luring my eye. I had read most of them. This was my library, ever since I was a lad. But there was the one book, the black book.

“It’s not written in our English,” said old George, behind his bar and his moustache so many years ago. “Old Mercian, rather.”

I could only peer up to him with my big marble eyes.

“Saga me forwhan byth seo sunne read on aefen? Ic the secge, forthon heo locath on helle!”

Upon our next round of drinks I grabbed it – the black book – , and I slipped it into my coat. I handed Rosy her tulip-glass of stout and scooted back next to her. I was trying a new cider, from Talybont-on-Usk.

The Irish Traveler was done and packing up his mandolin. Two sisters, from the town over, waited with their fiddles in hand.

“You can’t read it,” she said.

“Read what?”

“The book. In your coat.”

I fumbled it forth and opened its old sallow pages with shy hands.

“What does it say?” she asked, betokening to a line.

healdeð mec on heaþore hwilum læteð eft

“I don’t know,” I answered.

She smiled, and I set it down. A blue forget-me-not fell out and floated down to the floor.

I swallowed at my cider, and I spoke, as if from somewhere else. “Let’s go up to Dog Hill Wood. To our spot.”

Foam clung to her grinning lips. “Now? I’m still not done with my ale.”

“We could make the sunset.”

“Then we shall go.”

She reached to the floor and folded the forget-me-not between her fingers.

We grabbed a flagon of cider for the road and didn’t say much, only listened to the birds. A path from the alley-way led through the churchyard, and it emptied at the foot of a switchback up the hill. Nigh atop, a small stone-wall curved out on a ledge overlooking the town. The dusk cast fiery red and yellow hues over the rolling hills and shadowing dells.

We slipped down to the grass and took turns curling the flagon to our lips. We could gaze all the way to Wales. Evening came, and she fell asleep on my shoulder. I stayed awake, wondering, about nothing. It was soothing.

The cool of the night shrouded me. I was dreaming.

Wild dreams.

Ships without sails churned in from the seas. Iron horses on iron paths thundered into our dale. The Queen paraded through town with cheers and jubilee. Men strode from the delves with soot on their cheeks and clothes.

The iron horse raced into a tunnel, straight into the side of our Dog Hill Wood.

I ran after it, like a youthful hopeful lad. I was not fast enough. Its light dimmed away. I was lost in the dark. I tried to trace my steps. My hands wandered the damp walls. The iron horse thundered again. There was a light at the end.

A wet tongue lapped at my face. I awoke. Red eyes blazed over me.

The black wolf-dog.

Gwyllgi.

He had come.

I shoved myself against the back of the wall. Rosy was still asleep. I could only breathe.

Gwyllgi snarled, his fangs a piercing white, his breath hot and rotten and sulfurous.

I shook my shoulder, and Rosy stirred. She brushed aside her hair and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

“Nos da fy nghariad,” she said, barely above a whisper.

“What was that? Welsh?”

“He is from Wales,” she answered. “But he is an old dog. Where is the book?”

“The book?”

“The black book. Draw it out.”

No longer did I heed the drool of the wolf-dog that dripped before me, only her haunting enchantress stare.

“Open it,” she said.

I obeyed. My fingers quivered across the page.

“That line.”

sylfum to sace þōn ic sinc wege

She read it aloud. The branches rustled. Gwyllgi howled. A rumble quaked from deep within the darkness of the woods.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Arwain y ffordd, Gwyllgi.”

She took my hand. It was cold. The flagon stayed behind. The path wound between thicket and tree. The moonlight was scant. When it broke through, it shimmered on the bristly fur of Gwyllgi, his sinewed frame striking forth.

He would growl at times, yet pent down, within.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Going home,” she answered.

“Home?”

“You shouldn’t have taken the black book.”

“I’ll take it back.”

“It’s too late. I will be free now.”

She no longer smelled like tobacco. There was still a smoky air, as if everything from the underworld was lifting up, like ghosts, as cold breaths, swinging between the swaying leaves. I was frozen, in that I couldn’t withstand her hold. I twitched in her tugging wake.

“Take me back then,” I said.

She didn’t look at me, only forward. “Byddwch chi'n gyfoethog nawr.”

Gwyllgi stopped before a stone outcropping. I had played there as a lad. The roots of an old oak, scarred by many a lightning wrath, slithered over its top.

Rosy withdrew the forget-me-not and pinned it above her ear. The stones rumbled. A burst of light dove down, and a hollow wrung open.

“What’s in there?” I asked.

“Riches, my love.”

Behind Gwyllgi, and still in the towing clutch of my haunted friend, we stepped down a spiraling stairway in the full garnishing of the moon.

At the bottom, deep in the hollow, soft and soothing water bubbled out from a mossy spring. A small bed of forget-me-nots grew next to its stream. Gwyllgi tugged at a silver rope that hung away, from a well-frame over the water, and a bucket drew up.

“The book,” said Rosy. “Once more.”

I obeyed as before.

I waited, like a child, for her to show me which line.

swylce beorht seo mað wīr ymb þone wælgim þe me waldend geaf

She heaved the bucket and poured it out. Molten and glowing gold, not water, splashed hot over the floor. Outward it crept and oozed, into the nooks and crannies and cracks. Spouts of smoke steamed up as it cooled. It trampled over the blue forget-me-nots, and it flaked and flowed into little gold jewels.

“Do you want more?” she asked.

“I am not greedy,” I answered.

My eyes became enflamed.

“Not when you’re being haunted?”

Gwyllgi bent up, in wrath, and his bristly fur stabbed back into his writhing body, like a thousand little pricks. He howled and cried. I could see his skin, wan and sickly. He buckled to the floor, whimpering, as a man, and he cuddled near the spring.

I shuddered. My legs could not move. Glints of the gold flared the fire in my eyes.

I snatched at each little jewel. Into every hole and pocket and cavern of my clothes, whatever niche I could find, I gathered all that I could bear. There were still a few ungilded forget-me-nots in the lot, though I gave little care. My eyes skirted up.

Rosy knelt down to the wan-man that was once Gwyllgi.

I ran.

I could run.

The stairs were gone, but there was a small light still bursting down from the firmament. I crawled upwards amongst the roots and moss and damp stones. A sharp cry slashed behind me. The hollow shuddered about me.

My gold was falling like leaves of the autumn. There was still plenty jingling in my clothes. I dared to peer down. What had fallen floated on the silver stream, as feathers, and Rosy swayed a slow dance along its banks.

Beneath the tangling of roots Gwyllgi was ripping behind, as a snarling half-wolf, his eyes blazing red again. He howled, as if to beckon the moon right down.

The small gape of light was before me. I clawed at it. My fingernails were wild. Wet dirt fell into my mouth. Gwyllgi scratched at my coat. His claws cut into my skin. The gold spilled over him. He tumbled down.

I was tumbling too. Only a smothered forget-me-not was left in my hands. I wept, not for my loss of gold but for my descent. I collapsed into a pillow of wings. They lifted me aloft, and I floated, as if on a cloud, back to the gape of light.

Rosy whispered in my ear.

“Forget not the best.”

I struggled and clawed again at the earth, and I squeezed myself forth, to the stone outcropping and the old oak. A whisper of a wind drew down whence I had come. The hollow shut.

It was morning.

I brushed myself off, and I strode away. Leaves littered the path between the trees of Dog Hill Wood. I stumbled to the small stone-wall. The flagon lay in the grass, still half full. I drank with deep swigs, and it cooled me inside.

My tired eyes slipped to the town below.

My thoughts began to churn. Riches were underneath me. So was Rosy.

All that I had left was a smothered forget-me-not, a black book, and a torn set of clothes.

I snuck down to the Golden Swan. I knew not where else to go. Old George sat alone with a savory breakfast of pudding, bread, and a poached egg.

“I see you’ve come to return my book,” he said.

“No… I hadn’t even thought about it.”

“Rosy left you something.”

He handed me an envelope. I glanced inside – neat bills of money – more than I had ever dreamt.

“What’s this?”

“There’s twenty thousand in there. And a ticket for the next boat out of Bristol. To America. Take my horse. They’ll be asking questions.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Rosy knew you’d lead her back.”

“Should I ask?”

“Have some breakfast first. You still have a little time.”

By midmorning, with a full belly, I bade my host farewell and rode away on his chestnut horse, past my home, past the peaceful countryside of merry England.

“There’s promise over there,” he said. “Get yourself settled in first, that is. But you should invest some of that money. There’s a new technology – trains as they’re calling them.”

I glanced behind one more time, a forget-me-not snug in my pocket. The apple orchards still gleamed.