That cow byre isn’t there, of course—nothing left but a kind of impression of the floor. I’d never have found it if Tamsin hadn’t guided me out there one afternoon when I should have been helping Sally in her garden. There wasn’t anything to look at, but I stood still for a long time, trying to see into the past the way Tamsin did. But I couldn’t find a foothold, a place to begin imagining… except maybe one thing. The wild grasses had long since taken the place back comphetely; all but a single small area, about the size of a bath mat, bare and bald as a brick. I pointed it out to Tamsin, and she said it was right where the door had been— maybe a few inches inside and to the right. Some things she remembered like a photograph after all the years. I just couldn’t ever be sure which they’d be.
“Seems weird, the grass not growing in that one place,” I said. “I wonder what would cause that.”
“My mother says—” Tamsin began. She stopped herself, and then she said it again, very deliberately. “My mother says that nothing will grow where a murderer lies. Or where a virgin has been martyred—for she inclines just a bit to papistry on some points, does my mother. Or where the Wild Hunt has set foot.”
I froze on the spot—it actually felt as though hands had reached out of the tall grass and grabbed my ankles. The whole notion of those mad, laughing horsemen wheeling down from the night sky, leaping to earth, stalking this ground where I stood, where Tamsin Willoughby had come running desperately to find her man… to find what? You’d think seeing the Wild Hunt close to would be something that stayed with you, but Tamsin went completely blank on that—all she remembered was Edric’s absence and the Pooka carrying her home. But I kept standing in that empty place, staring at the patch where nothing grew.
On the first halfway warm weekend Meena and I went on a picnic. Julian wanted to come, but he also wanted to go to a big football match in Dorchester, and football won. Meena brought an Indian box lunch for the two of us, and I chipped in Sally’s stuffed mushrooms, which Meena adores, and a thermos of iced coffee. We got started late, because Dr. Chari had an emergency to handle at the Yeovil hospital before she could bring Meena, so Sally told us not to worry about getting back, as long as we were home for dinner. She did want to know where we’d be picnicking, and I told her probably around the Hundred-Acre Wood. Not in—not after that first time—but somewhere around.
It’s a good hike to the Hundred-Acre Wood: uphill, pretty much, but not too uphill, and the path mostly runs through land that probably hasn’t been cultivated since Roger Willoughby’s time. All kinds of berries growing wild, and some elm and ash trees that look even older than Tamsin’s beeches, and a lot of snug little dells just perfect for spreading out the tablecloth and unrolling the mats. Meena sang songs from Indian movies as we walked. She says they’re incredibly silly, but I’m getting so I like them. After that we sang practically the entire score of My Fair Lady.
It was a nice picnic, maybe the best we ever had. We took our time about everything—didn’t even start eating right away, but dozed in the sun a bit, “like bears coming out of hibernation,” Meena said. She’d brought a book of poems with her, and we took turns reading a few aloud. I can’t remember which ones now, but it was fun.
We’d skirted wide around the Hundred-Acre Wood when we came up to find a picnic spot; but by the time we were ready to start home, the late sun was shining on it at an angle that made the young new oak leaves glow like emeralds, and the forest itself look golden and sleepy and magical. Meena kept glancing over at it while we were packing up the picnic stuff, and all of a sudden she said, “It would be so much shorter to go back straight through the Wood. Let’s do that, Jenny.”
“Let’s not, how about that?” I said. “You hated the place—we all did. Very bad idea.”
Meena scowled. She doesn’t do it well, but it’s cute. “I was scared,” she said. “I don’t like being scared. It’ll bother me until I do something about it.”
When Meena gets locked in on something, that’s the end of it. She’ll always listen, she’s always polite, but you might as well not bother. Even Chris Herridge would have found that out, sooner or later.
We were halfway to the Hundred-Acre Wood, making good time on the downhill walk, when I saw the Black Dog.
He was flanking us on the right, keeping between us and the Wood. Daytime or not, he looked just as black as he’d looked in moonlight, and maybe even bigger. Not a sound out of him—no bark, no breath, no footsteps in the grass—nothing but those red, red eyes fixed on me. I stopped where I was. I said, “What do you want?”
Meena was walking a little way ahead of me. She turned around, blinking. “What? Did you say something, Jenny?”
The Black Dog had stopped walking when I did. I asked again, louder this time. “What the hell do you want?”
“Jenny,” Meena said. She came up to me, partly blocking my view of the Black Dog. “Jenny, who are you talking to?”
“The Black Dog, for God’s sake. Don’t you see him?” Because Tamsin’s one thing—I can imagine how some people might not notice a wispy, transparent ghost, even if she’s practically sitting in their laps, the way she always was with Tony. But the Black Dog looks like a solid chunk of midnight that somebody hacked into the shape of a dog. Other people have seen him, I know that, there are books. I still don’t understand how it all works.
“The Black Dog,” Meena said. She turned to look where I was pointing, and then back at me. “Jenny, I don’t see anything.” She was keeping her voice as even as she could, the way people do when they’re really worried about you. “I don’t see a dog.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll explain.” I moved her out of the way, very gently, and I asked the Black Dog again, “What? What is it?”
Nothing. I don’t know what I expected—he’d never made a sound, even to Tamsin, or told her anything useful, except to watch out for some aggravation or other. But when I started walking again (with Meena sticking close and looking anxious), so did he, always edging us away from the Hundred-Acre Wood, like Albert steering those idiot sheep. I’m not quite that dumb, so I told Meena, “The Black Dog always comes as an omen. He’s telling us to stay out of the Wood.”
Meena stopped studying me as though I were crazy and just started to laugh, standing there with her hands on her hips. “And that’s it? That’s what all this is about? You don’t want to cut through the Wood, so—voilà!—here comes the Black Dog to warn us off. Really, Jenny.” She was trying to look stern and severe, but she was giggling too much to pull it off. She said, “Well. You and the Black Dog will just stay out of the Wood, and I will be waiting for you at the Lightning Tree,” which was a storm-splintered alder where we’d veered away from the oak forest on the way up. “Just don’t take too long. I want my tea.” And she started straight off into the Wood, walking right past the Black Dog. He didn’t move to follow her, or block her path again—didn’t even look after her, any more than she looked back to see if I was coming. Just at me.
Well, there wasn’t any damn choice, obviously. I met the Black Dog’s red eyes, spread my hands, lifted my shoulders, mumbled, “Yeah, I know, I know,” and followed Meena. I looked back once, and of course he was gone. He’d done his job.
I walked a little way into the wood, along the path Meena had taken. Tamsin had only made me promise never to walk in an oak forest after sundown, and we still had plenty of daylight left. But oak forests are different from pine woods. Under the pines it’s dark and cool almost from the moment you step into their shadow; but with oaks, at first you still feel that you’re walking in sunlight. For a while. Scuba diving’s like that, I remember: warm and sparkly near the surface, with the light drifting down through the water; but the deeper you go, the scarier it gets, until it’s icecold night and going to be night forever. That’s the way the Hundred-Acre Wood is, once you’re inside.