long, too regular in outline for a cave. Above them the ceiling consisted of a tangle of roots sustaining loose earth, but beyond he made out stubby pillars curving upwards, into arches, and a glimpse of man-made walls on either side, with pointed window-holes choked with leaf-compost and snarled tubers.
Nathan reached in his pocket for the small torch which had been part of his Christmas stocking. The beam was weak and the gloom was not deep enough to enhance it, but it cast an oblong of vague pallor which travelled over the squat columns and the chinks of wall. The stone looked dry and crumbly, like stale bread. He stood up, rather stiffly, and followed the torch-beam into the dimness, Hoover at his side. The soil underfoot thinned, revealing flagstones, some cracked, some thrust upwards by burrowing growths. The beam picked out fragments of carved lettering on the floor and a strange little face peeping out from an architrave, its features blunted with erosion, leaving only the bulge of pitted cheeks under wicked eye-slits, and the jut of broken horns. ‘This is it,’ Nathan whispered. There was no need for him to whisper, but in that place it was instinctive. ‘This is the lost chapel of the Thorns. That face doesn’t look very Christian, does it?’
Hoover made a snuffling noise by way of agreement and thumped his tail against the boy’s leg.
At the far end they found three steps up to a kind of dais – ‘This is where the altar was’ – and above it a recess in the wall overhung with a fringe of root-filaments and silted up with earth-dust. ‘Perhaps that was where it stood,’ Nathan said. ‘The holy relic …’ He felt inside, but the recess was empty. As he withdrew his hand, he heard a sound so alien he felt his skin prickle. A low, soft growling, deep in the throat. Hoover never growled. But he was staring at the recess, his lip lifted, backing away step by step. The hairs along his spine bristled visibly. ‘What’s the matter?’ Nathan demanded, but the dog did not even glance in his direction. All his attention was focused on the vacant hollow in the wall.
Nathan didn’t say: ‘It’s all right. There’s nothing there.’ He knew that if Hoover sensed something, then there was something to sense. The dog had been his friend for as long as he could remember, and had never been seen to growl at anyone, human or animal. Canine hostilities were conducted in barks. He had always seemed to be the sort of dog who was good with small children, did not bite the postman and would deal with a burglar by licking his face. But he understood everything people said, Nathan was sure of that, and would follow him into every adventure. And he was old. Older than me, the boy thought, and for the first time he wondered how old, since eleven was a fair age for a dog. He found himself backing away too, keeping close to Hoover. Watching the hollow.
Afterwards he couldn’t recall which came first, the light or the voices. Perhaps they weren’t voices, just sounds, soft, whispery sounds, word-shaped though he couldn’t make out the words, thread-like ghosts of noises long gone. Hoover ceased growling and froze; there was froth round his mouth and all his teeth showed. Nathan had a hand on his neck, and found he was trembling. He had switched off the torch and they were both staring at the light, a tiny green mote that had appeared in the back of the recess. But either the cavity was much deeper than he had thought or the light was coming from somewhere else, somewhere dark and very far away. It grew slowly, as if it were drawing nearer, emerging from an abyss of blackness, until they could see it consisted of a nimbus encircling some small object. The whispering increased, becoming a chorus of hissing murmurs. And now Nathan could make out the words, or rather a single word, repeated over and over again: he thought it was sangré, but the voices were so blurred he could not be certain. His heart was beating very hard, bumping against his ribs. His bruises were forgotten.
The green halo filled the hollow and spilled over. The object within it seemed to be floating not resting in the cavity, a cup or goblet with a short stem and a bowl as wide as it was deep. It looked as if it was made of some greenish stone, polished to a metallic lustre, or even opaque glass. There were designs engraved on it that appeared significant, though what they might signify he could not guess, and here and there the gleam of furtive gemstones, but all green. He found he was drawing closer, or being drawn; his body seemed to have no will in the matter any more. Now he could see inside the cup. He had expected it to be empty, but it was full almost to the brim. In that light the liquid looked black, but it wasn’t. It was red.
Behind him, the dog gave a strangled whine of protest. He reached out, and the cup began to drift towards him, and he knew with a knowledge beyond understanding that he must drink. (Only the pure in heart …) It was full of blood, and he must drink … The voices sounded like a host of snakes murmuring with forked tongues. Sangré, sangré, sangreal …
With a supreme effort the dog broke free of the spell and sprang forward, seizing a mouthful of Nathan’s jacket. The boy stumbled backwards. The snake-voices fragmented into a crackle like radio interference and were gone, vanishing on a snarl. The green light was abruptly extinguished. ‘Where is it?’ Nathan cried, and as Hoover released him he flung himself down on hands and knees, groping on the floor for the cup. Then he stopped, and confusion slid like a cloud from his mind. He turned back to the dog, who was regarding him with vivid concern, tail motionless. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
It was easier said than done. Earth-falls and woodland detritus had built up a slope close to the hole where Nathan had tumbled through, but it was steep and sliding soil made purchase difficult. It took at least half an hour before he and Hoover managed to climb back up, enlarge the gap, and scramble back into the open air. Nathan had no idea how long they had been down there but the last of the sunset had faded and the night-filled wood lived up to its name. He switched on the torch but in the dark it was impossible to be sure of his route and he let the dog guide him, trusting to Hoover’s instincts. Only when he had gone several yards did he realize that he had not marked the location in any way. He had found it walking blindly with the sun in his eyes and had emerged into darkness; he hadn’t even registered the appearance of the trees in the vicinity. He tried to turn back but Hoover wouldn’t accompany him, insisting with short staccato barks that they should go on. I know the direction we came, Nathan reflected, and there’s a big hole in the ground now. I can’t miss that. ‘Okay,’ he told the dog. ‘Let’s go home.’ They went on up the slope.
At the edge of the Darkwood where the ground levelled out and the trees changed, becoming taller and friendlier, making way for paths and glades, Hoover suddenly stopped. His fur ruffled though there was no wind. Something like a shadow passed over his eyes and fled, leaving them bright and unworried. When he set off again, it was with his customary lolloping stride, without the air of prudence and purpose that he had shown since they left the chapel. Nathan could not know it, but the whole incident had been wiped from Hoover’s mind.
The boy remembered it – he remembered every detail – but when he tried to speak of it, to Hazel, or his mother, or Barty, the man he always called uncle, his tongue would not form the words, and the chapel and its contents stayed locked in his head, a guilty secret that he did not want to keep. He would dream of it sometimes, and wake to hear the snake-whispers calling to him from the corners of the room for seconds after: Sangré sangreal … Once in his dream he lifted the cup and drank, and his mouth was full of blood, and the sweat that poured off him was red, and when he opened his eyes it was a relief to find himself wet with nothing but perspiration.
He looked for the place again, though always with a friend, not saying what he was searching for, half afraid of finding it. But even the hole seemed to have gone, and the sun stayed out of his eyes, and the chapel had vanished into the secrecy of the wood.
At the dark end of a winter’s afternoon early in 1991 a young woman climbed down from a lorry on the road through Thornyhill woods.
‘Are you sure?’ said the driver. ‘I can take you on to Eade.’
‘I’m sure.’ He had placed a hand on her knee. That was enough. She had insisted on being set down.
‘It’s a lonely stretch of road,’ he said, hefting her bags out of the cab, too slowly