A Nest of Nightmares

TREADING THE MAZE

We had seen the bed and breakfast sign from the road, and although it was still daylight and there was no hurry to settle, we had liked the look of the large, well-kept house amid the farmlands, and the name on the sign: The Old Vicarage.

Phil parked the Mini on the curving gravel drive. ‘No need for you to get out,’ he said. ‘I’ll just pop in and ask.’

I got out anyway, just to stretch my legs and feel the warmth of the late, slanting sun rays on my bare arms. It was a beautiful afternoon. There was a smell of manure on the air, but it wasn’t unpleasant, mingling with the other country smells. I walked towards the hedge which divided the garden from the fields beyond. There was a low stone wall along the drive, and I climbed onto it to look over the hedge and into the field.

There was a man standing there, all alone in the middle of the field. He was too far away for me to make out his features, but something about the sight of that still figure gave me a chill. I was suddenly afraid he would turn his head and see me watching him, and I clambered down hastily.

‘Amy?’ Phil was striding towards me, his long face alight. ‘It’s a lovely room – come and see.’

The room was upstairs, with a huge soft bed, an immense wooden wardrobe, and a big, deep-set window which I cranked open. I stood looking out over the fields.

There was no sign of the man I had just seen, and I couldn’t imagine where he had vanished to so quickly.

‘Shall we plan to have dinner in Glastonbury?’ Phil asked, combing his hair before the mirror inside the wardrobe door. ‘There should still be enough of the day left to see the Abbey.’

I looked at the position of the sun in the sky. ‘And we can climb the tor tomorrow.’

‘You can climb the tor tomorrow morning. I’ve had about enough of all this climbing of ancient hills and monu­ments – Tintagel, St Michael’s Mount, Cadbury Castle, Silbury Hill – ’

‘We didn’t climb Silbury Hill. Silbury Hill had a fence around it.’

‘And a good thing, too, or you’d have made me climb it.’ He came up behind me and hugged me fiercely.

I relaxed against him, feeling as if my bones were melting. Keeping my voice brisk, mock-scolding, I said, ‘I didn’t complain about showing you all the wonders of America last year. So the least you can do now is return the favour with ancient wonders of Britain. I know you grew up with all this stuff, but I didn’t. We don’t have anything like Silbury Hill or Glastonbury Tor where I come from.’

‘If you did, if there was a Glastonbury Tor in America, they’d have a lift up the side of it,’ he said.

‘Or at least a drive-through window.’

We both began laughing helplessly.

I think of us standing there in that room, by the open window, holding each other and laughing – I think of us standing there like that forever.

Dinner was a mixed grill in a Glastonbury café. Our stroll through the Abbey grounds took longer than we’d thought, and we were late, arriving at the café just as the proprietress was about to close up. Phil teased and charmed her into staying open and cooking for two last customers. Grey-haired, fat, and nearly toothless, she lingered by our table throughout our meal to continue her flirtation with Phil. He obliged, grinning and joking and flattering, but every time her back was turned, he winked at me or grabbed my leg beneath the table, making coherent conversation impossible on my part.

When we got back to The Old Vicarage, we were roped into having tea with the couple who ran the place and the other guests. That late in the summer there were only two others, an elderly couple from Belgium.

The electric fire was on and the lounge was much too warm. The heat made it seem even smaller than it was. I drank my sweet milky tea, stroked the old white dog who lay near my feet, and gazed admiringly at Phil, who kept up one end of a conversation about the weather, the countryside, and World War II.

Finally the last of the tea was consumed, the biscuit tin had made the rounds three times, and we could escape to the cool, empty sanctuary of our room. There we stripped off our clothes, climbed into the big soft bed, talked quietly of private things, and made love.

I hadn’t been asleep long before I came awake, aware that I was alone in the bed. We hadn’t bothered to draw the curtains, and the moonlight was enough to show me Phil was sitting on the wide window ledge smoking a cigarette.

I sat up. ‘Can’t you sleep?’

‘Just my filthy habit.’ He waved the lit cigarette; I didn’t see, but could imagine, the sheepish expression on his face. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’

He took one last, long drag and stubbed the cigarette out in an ashtray. He rose, and I saw that he was wearing his woollen pullover, which hung to his hips, just long enough for modesty, but leaving his long, skinny legs bare.

I giggled.

‘What’s that?’

‘You without your trousers.’

‘That’s right, make fun. Do I laugh at you when you wear a dress?’

He turned away towards the window, leaning forward to open it a little more.

‘It’s a beautiful night . . . Cor!’ He straightened up in surprise.

‘What?’

‘Out there – people. I don’t know what they’re doing. They seem to be dancing, out in the field.’

Half-suspecting a joke, despite the apparently genuine note of surprise in his voice, I got up and joined him at the window, wrapping my arms around myself against the cold. Looking out where he was gazing, I saw them. They were indisputably human figures – five, or perhaps six or seven, of them, all moving about in a shifting spiral, like some sort of children’s game or country dance.

And then I saw it. It was like suddenly comprehending an optical illusion. One moment, bewilderment; but, the next, the pattern was clear.

‘It’s a maze,’ I said. ‘Look at it, it’s marked out in the grass.’

‘A turf-maze,’ Phil said, wondering.

Among the people walking that ancient, ritual path, one suddenly paused and looked up, seemingly directly at us. In the pale moonlight and at that distance I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. It was just a dark figure with a pale face turned up towards us.

I remembered then that I had seen someone standing in that very field, perhaps in that same spot, earlier in the day, and I shivered. Phil put his arm around me and drew me close.

‘What are they doing?’ I asked.

‘There are remnants of traditions about dancing or running through mazes all over the country,’ Phil said. ‘Most of the old turf-mazes have vanished – people stopped keeping them up before this century. They’re called troy-towns, or mizmazes . . . No one knows when or why they began, or if treading the maze was game or ritual, or what the purpose was.’

Another figure now paused beside the one who stood still, and laid hold of that one’s arm, and seemed to say something. And then the two figures fell back into the slow circular dance.

‘I’m cold,’ I said. I was shivering uncontrollably, although it was not with any physical chill. I gave up the comfort of Phil’s arm and ran for the bed.

‘They might be witches,’ Phil said. ‘Hippies from Glastonbury, trying to revive an old custom. Glastonbury does attract some odd types.’

I had burrowed under the bedclothes, only the top part of my face left uncovered, and was waiting for my teeth to stop chattering and for the warmth to penetrate my muscles.

‘I could go out and ask them who they are,’ Phil said. His voice sounded odd. ‘I’d like to know who they are. I feel as if I should know.’

I stared at his back, alarmed. ‘Phil, you’re not going out there!’

‘Why not? This isn’t New York City. I’d be perfectly safe.’

I sat up, letting the covers fall. ‘Phil, don’t.’

He turned away from the window to face me. ‘What’s the matter?’

I couldn’t speak.

‘Amy . . . you’re not crying?’ His voice was puzzled and gentle. He came to the bed and held me.

‘Don’t leave me,’ I whispered against the rough weave of his sweater.

‘ ’Course I won’t,’ he said, stroking my hair and kissing me. ‘ ’Course I won’t.’

But of course he did, less than two months later, in a way neither of us could have guessed then. But even then, watching the dancers in the maze, even then he was dying.

In the morning, as we were settling our bill, Phil mentioned the people we had seen dancing in the field during the night. The landlord was flatly disbelieving.

‘Sure you weren’t dreaming?’

‘Quite sure,’ said Phil. ‘I wondered if it was some local custom . . .’

He snorted. ‘Some custom! Dancing around a field in the dead of night!’

‘There’s a turf-maze out there,’ Phil began.

But the man was shaking his head. ‘No, not in that field. Not a maze!’

Phil was patient. ‘I don’t mean one with hedges, like in Hampton Court. Just a turf-maze, a pattern made in the soil years ago. It’s hardly noticeable now, although it can’t have been too many years since it was allowed to grow back. I’ve seen them other places and read about them, and in the past there were local customs of running the maze, or dancing through it, or playing games. I thought some such custom might have been revived locally.’

The man shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ he said. We had learned the night before that the man and his wife were ‘foreigners’, having only settled here, from the north of England, some twenty years before. Obviously, he wasn’t going to be much help with information on local traditions.

After we had loaded our bags into the car, Phil hesitated, looking towards the hedge. ‘I’d quite like to have a look at that maze close-to,’ he said.

My heart sank, but I could think of no rational reason to stop him. Feebly I tried, ‘We shouldn’t trespass on somebody else’s property . . .’

‘Walking across a field isn’t trespassing!’ He began to walk along the hedge, towards the road. Because I didn’t want him to go alone, I hurried after. There was a gate a few yards along the road by which we entered the field. But once there, I wondered how we would find the maze. Without an overview such as our window had provided, the high grass looked all the same, and from this level, in ordinary daylight, slight alterations in ground level wouldn’t be obvious to the eye.

Phil looked back at the house, getting in alignment with the window, then turned and looked across the field, his eyes narrowed as he tried to calculate distance. Then he began walking slowly, looking down often at the ground. I hung back, following him at a distance and not myself looking for the maze. I didn’t want to find it. Although I couldn’t have explained my reaction, the maze frightened me, and I wanted to be away, back on the road again, alone together in the little car, eating apples, gazing at the passing scenery, talking.

‘Ah!’

I stopped still at Phil’s triumphant cry and watched as he hopped from one foot to the other. One foot was clearly on higher ground. He began to walk in a curious, up-down fashion. ‘I think this is it,’ he called. ‘I think I’ve found it. If the land continues to dip . . . yes, yes, this is it!’ He stopped walking and looked back at me, beaming.

‘Great,’ I said.

‘The grass has grown back where once it was kept cleared, but you can still feel the place where the swathe was cut,’ he said, rocking back and forth to demonstrate the confines of the shallow ditch. ‘Come and see.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ I said.

He cocked his head. ‘I thought you’d be interested. I thought something like this would be right up your alley. The funny folkways of the ancient Brits.’

I shrugged, unable to explain my unease.

‘We’ve plenty of time, love,’ he said. ‘I promise we’ll climb Glastonbury Tor before we push on. But we’re here now, and I’d like to get the feel of this.’ He stretched his hand towards me. ‘Come tread the maze with me.’

It would have been so easy to take his hand and do just that. But overriding my desire to be with him, to take this as just another lark, was the fearful, wordless conviction that there was danger here. And if I refused to join him, perhaps he would give up the idea and come away with me. He might sulk in the car, but he would get over it, and at least we would be away.

‘Let’s go now,’ I said, my arms stiff at my sides.

Displeasure clouded his face, and he turned away from me with a shrug. ‘Give me just a minute, then,’ he said. And as I watched, he began to tread the maze.

He didn’t attempt that curious, skipping dance we had seen the others do the night before; he simply walked, and none too quickly, with a careful, measured step. He didn’t look at me as he walked, although the pattern of the maze brought him circling around again and again to face in my direction – he kept his gaze on the ground. I felt, as I watched, that he was being drawn farther away from me with every step. I wrapped my arms around myself and told myself not to be a fool. I could feel the little hairs standing up all along my arms and back, and I had to fight the urge to break and run like hell. I felt, too, as if someone watched us, but when I looked around, the field was as empty as ever.

Phil had stopped, and I assumed he had reached the centre. He stood very still and gazed off into the distance, his profile towards me. I remembered the man I had seen standing in the field – perhaps in that very spot, the centre of the maze – when we had first arrived at The Old Vicarage.

Then, breaking the spell, Phil came bounding towards me, cutting across the path of the maze, and caught me in a bear hug. ‘Not mad?’

I relaxed a little. It was over, and all was well. I managed a small laugh. ‘No, of course not.’

‘Good. Let’s go, then. Phil’s had his little treat.’

We walked arm in arm back towards the road. We didn’t mention it again.

In the months to come those golden days, the two weeks we had spent wandering around southwest England, often came to mind. Those thoughts were an antidote to more recent memories: to those last days in the hospital, with Phil in pain, and then Phil dead.

I moved back to the States – it was home, after all, where my family and most of my friends lived. I had lived in England for less than two years, and without Phil there was little reason to stay. I found an apartment in the neighbourhood where I had lived just after college, and got a job teaching, and, although painfully and rustily, began to go through the motions of making a new life for myself. I didn’t stop missing Phil, and the pain grew no less with the passage of time, but I adjusted to it. I was coping.

In the spring of my second year alone I began to think of going back to England. In June I went for a vacation, planning to spend a week in London, a few days in Cambridge with Phil’s sister, and a few days visiting friends in St Ives. When I left London in a rented car and headed for St Ives, I did not plan to retrace the well-remembered route of that last vacation, but that is what I found myself doing, with each town and village a bittersweet experience, recalling pleasant memories and prodding the deep sadness in me wider awake.

I lingered in Glastonbury, wandering the peaceful Abbey ruins and remembering Phil’s funny, disrespectful remarks about the sacred throne and King Arthur’s bones. I looked for, but could not find, the café where we’d had dinner, and settled for fish and chips. Driving out of Glastonbury with the sun setting, I came upon The Old Vicarage and pulled into that familiar drive. There were more cars there, and the house was almost full up this time. There was a room available, but not the one I had hoped for. Although a part of me, steeped in sadness, was beginning to regret this obsessional pilgrimage, another part of me longed for the same room, the same bed, the same view from the window, in order to conjure Phil’s ghost. Instead, I was given a much smaller room on the other side of the house.

I retired early, skipping tea with the other guests, but sleep would not come. When I closed my eyes I could see Phil, sitting on the window ledge with a cigarette in one hand, narrowing his eyes to look at me through the smoke. But when I opened my eyes it was the wrong room, with a window too small to sit in, a room Phil had never seen. The narrowness of the bed made it impossible to imagine that he slept beside me still. I wished I had gone straight to St Ives instead of dawdling and stopping along the way – this was pure torture. I couldn’t recapture the past – every moment that I spent here reminded me of how utterly Phil was gone.

Finally I got up and pulled on a sweater and a pair of jeans. The moon was full, lighting the night, but my watch had stopped and I had no idea what time it was. The big old house was silent. I left by the front door, hoping that no one would come along after me to relock the door. A walk in the fresh air might tire me enough to let me sleep, I thought.

I walked along the gravel drive, past all the parked cars, towards the road, and entered the next field by the same gate that Phil and I had used in daylight in another lifetime. I scarcely thought of where I was going, or why, as I made my way to the turf-maze which had fascinated Phil and frightened me. More than once I had regretted not taking Phil’s hand and treading the maze with him when he had asked. Not that it would have made any difference in the long run, but all the less-than-perfect moments of our time together had returned to haunt me and given rise to regrets since Phil’s death – all the opportunities missed, now gone forever; all the things I should have said or done, or done differently.

There was someone standing in the field. I stopped short, staring, my heart pounding. Someone standing there, where the centre of the maze must be. He was turned away, and I could not tell who he was, but something about the way he stood made me certain that I had seen him before, that I knew him.

I ran forward and – I must have blinked – suddenly the figure was gone again, if he had ever existed. The moonlight was deceptive, and the tall grass swaying in the wind, and the swiftly moving clouds overhead cast strange shadows.

‘Come tread the maze with me.’

Had I heard those words, or merely remembered them?

I looked down at my feet and then around, confused. Was I standing in the maze already? I took a tentative step forward and back, and it did seem that I was standing in a shallow depression. The memory flooded back: Phil standing in the sunlit field, rocking back and forth and saying, ‘I think this is it.’ The open, intense look on his face.

‘Phil,’ I whispered, my eyes filling with tears.

Through the tears I saw some motion, but when I blinked them away, again there was nothing. I looked around the dark, empty field, and began to walk the path laid out long before. I did not walk as slowly as Phil had done, but more quickly, almost skipping, hitting the sides of the maze path with my feet to be certain of keeping to it, since I could not see it.

And as I walked, it seemed to me that I was not alone, that people were moving ahead of me, somehow just out of my sight (beyond another turn in the winding path I might catch them up), or behind. I could hear their footsteps. The thought that others were behind me, following me, unnerved me, and I stopped and turned around to look. I saw no one, but I was now facing in the direction of The Old Vicarage, and my gaze went on to the house. I could see the upper window, the very window where Phil and I had stood together looking out, the point from which we had seen the dancers in the maze.

The curtains were not drawn across that dark square of glass this night, either. And as I watched, a figure appeared at the window. A tall shape, a pale face looking out. And after a moment, as I still stared, confused, a second figure joined the first. Someone smaller – a woman. The man put his arm around her. I could see – perhaps I shouldn’t have been able to see this at such a distance, with no light on in the room – but I could see that the man was wearing a sweater, and the woman was naked. And I could see the man’s face. It was Phil. And the woman was me.

There we were. Still together, still safe from what time would bring. I could almost feel the chill that had shaken me then, and the comfort of Phil’s protecting arm. And yet I was not there. Not now. Now I was out in the field, alone, a premonition to my earlier self.

I felt someone come up beside me. Something as thin and light and hard as a bird’s claw took hold of my arm. Slowly I turned away from the window and turned to see who held me. A young man was standing beside me, smiling at me. I thought I recognised him.

‘He’s waiting for you at the centre,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t stop now.’

Into my mind came a vivid picture of Phil in daylight, standing still in the centre of the maze, caught there by something, standing there forever. Time was not the same in the maze, and Phil could still be standing where he had once stood. I could be with him again, for a moment or forever.

I resumed the weaving, skipping steps of the dance with my new companion. I was eager now, impatient to reach the centre. Ahead of me I could see other figures, dim and shifting as the moonlight, winking in and out of view as they trod the maze on other nights, in other centuries.

The view from the corner of my eyes was more disturbing. I caught fleeting glimpses of my partner in this dance, and he did not look the same as when I had seen him face to face. He had looked so young, and yet that light, hard grasp on my arm did not seem that of a young man’s hand.

A hand like a bird’s claw . . .

My eyes glanced down my side to my arm. The hand lying lightly on my solid flesh was nothing but bones, the flesh all rotted and dropped away years before. Those peripheral, sideways glimpses I’d had of my dancing partner were the truth – sights of something long dead and yet still animate.

I stopped short and pulled my arm away from that horror. I closed my eyes, afraid to turn to face it. I heard the rustle and clatter of dry bones. I felt a cold wind against my face and smelled something rotten. A voice – it might have been Phil’s – whispered my name in sorrow and fear.

What waited for me at the centre? And what would I become, and for how long would I be trapped in this monotonous dance if ever I reached the end?

I turned around blindly, seeking the way out. I opened my eyes and began to move, then checked myself – some strong, instinctual aversion kept me from cutting across the maze paths and leaping them as if they were only so many shallow, meaningless furrows. Instead, I turned around (I glimpsed pale figures watching me, flickering in my peripheral vision) and began to run back the way I had come, following the course of the maze backwards, away from the centre, back out into the world alone.