Rites of Spring by Anders Motte (life books to read .txt) 📗

He waves a dismissive hand.

‘Oh, I just lost the thread. I’d eaten badly, had too little sleep, and I just ran out of energy. But you saved me.’ He reaches out and takes her hand. ‘Without you I’d have fucked up completely. I really am grateful, Thea.’

She smiles at him, pleased that he appreciates her sacrifice. Tries not to think about the risk she has taken.

‘What was that interviewer asking about?’

‘I don’t . . .’

‘He mentioned a third girl who died.’

David slowly shakes his head. ‘It’s a tragic story. A young girl was murdered in the forest back in the Eighties. Absolutely not something we want associated with the restaurant – that’s why I didn’t quite know what to say, but you rescued the whole situation.’

He releases her hand and stands up. Takes out his phone.

‘Sorry, I have to take this.’

Only when he’s left the room does Thea realise that she didn’t actually hear his phone ring.

*

She waits until dawn, then goes back to the coach house and changes into dry clothes. It’s stopped raining, and the sky is pale blue, streaked with pink. Dr Andersson won’t be here for several hours, and Thea is too anxious to sit around and wait for her. She decides to take Emee for a walk in the forest.

The ground is sodden after the storm. The track is full of puddles, and raindrops sparkle on the spiders’ webs that have survived the downpour. Thea lights up a secret cigarette, takes several deep drags and blows out the last traces of the panic attacks. However, it isn’t the residue of the PTSD that worries her the most.

David tried to trivialise the whole thing, but it’s obvious that he didn’t want to talk about the dead girl. Why not? If she died in the Eighties, he must have been a child when it happened.

She’s finished the cigarette by the time she reaches the glade and the Gallows Oak. Emee has beaten her to it, and is sniffing around the base of the tree with great concentration.

Something has happened to the ancient oak. There is a black mark on the trunk that wasn’t there yesterday. Thea moves closer. Emee has started scratching among the leaves at its roots.

The black patch begins right at the top and runs down the trunk like a jagged scar, splitting the Green Man’s face in two before it reaches the ground. This must have been where the lightning struck last night. The force and violence of the strike are both horrible and fascinating. She touches the scar. The edges are blackened, the rough bark has been burned away and in the centre she can see the paler wood inside the tree. The smell of charring lingers in the air.

Emee is still scratching, becoming more and more agitated.

‘What have you got there, sweetheart?’

Thea crouches down. The scar is broadest at the bottom, as if the power culminated when the electricity reached the ground. It has burned a hole in the trunk, and Emee is kicking up earth and fragments of wood, half-barking and half-whimpering with excitement.

‘What is it, Emee?’

Thea can see something shining. She gently moves Emee to one side and reaches within. Her fingers touch a smooth, cold object. She tries to pick it up, but the hole is too small. She breaks off some of the wood to make it bigger. Emee wants to help, but Thea moves so that her own body is in the way. The dog isn’t happy, but co-operates.

The object is partially buried in a brownish mixture of rotten wood and dried flowers. With a little persuasion, she manages to get it out and discovers that it’s an old paint tin with a lid, about twenty centimetres high and half as wide. The label is gone, the surface pitted with rust. Thea has also brought out an almost fresh wood anemone. It must have been one of the bunch she pushed into the Green Man’s mouth yesterday, which suggests that the tin once went in the same way. A very long time ago, judging by the state it’s in.

She shakes it gently; it rattles. Emee has sat down beside her with her tongue out and her head on one side. She seems to be as curious as Thea is.

The lid is stuck fast, as if it is determined to preserve its secret at all costs. Thea manages to insert one of her keys beneath the lip. The metal bends and creaks, then suddenly the lid flies off.

Thea tips the contents into her hand. A small figure comes out first, then a few dry leaves. The figure is no more than ten centimetres in height, and is made up of two twigs woven together. The longer twig has been bent in the middle to form a loop, giving the figure a head and a body. The ends provide the legs, and the shorter twig, twisted just below the loop, creates a waist and arms.

For a second she thinks of her father. The wooden doll he carved for her when she was little. She quickly pushes away the thought.

There’s something else inside the tin, a rolled-up piece of paper. Thea puts down the figure and fishes it out, only to discover that it is in fact an old, faded Polaroid photograph. She smoothes it out as best she can.

The photo shows a dark-haired young woman in a white dress. She is standing on a flat stone with her arms folded across her chest, her head inclined slightly. Her eyes are closed, and in her hands she is holding two antlers.

Strangely distorted trees can be seen behind her, and on either side of the young woman stand two figures – children, judging by their height. Their faces are concealed by animal masks that remind Thea of the artwork on the dining-room ceiling in the castle. Hare, fox, owl and deer.

Each child is holding the end of a length of ribbon tied around the woman’s wrists. It almost looks as if they are