Without thinking, I point to them. “You’ve been digging in clay soil.”
He looks down at himself in surprise. Raises his fingertips to his chest. “I have indeed. Planting hydrangeas. Are you a gardener, uh—?”
“Hazel. And no, I’m not. I’m not sure what I am. The correct term is a mycologist, but I’m an amateur, really. In this country, mushrooms are mostly seasonal, so this is a busy time of year for me. I’m going hunting today, in fact. All this mist and drizzle, it’s the perfect weather for it.”
“Is that right? What are you looking for?”
I sit carefully down on the bench and indicate for him to joinme, which he does after a moment’s consideration. His face is lined and craggy, like a ravine. It reminds me of petrified wood.
“As it’s nearly Halloween, I’m hoping to find a fungus called devil’s fingers. I go looking for them every year, but I’ve never seen them. This year I’ve had a tip-off about a place where they’re known to grow, so I’m feeling pretty confident.”
“Why are they called devil’s fingers?”
“Because that’s what they look like, coming out of the ground.” I extend my fingers out of the end of my sleeve, wriggling them. “Red and pointy, like something out of a horror film. What’s worse is that they produce a smell like rotting flesh to attract insects.”
“Blerugh!” He mimes gagging. “Where can you find these horrors, then? I need to know where to avoid.”
I slide my bag from my shoulder. Inside it is an old book I’ve carried everywhere with me for the last five years. It’s a field guide to mushroom identification written in the eighties. It had been a birthday gift from Joe, bought from a secondhand bookshop on the corner of his road. My fascination with mushrooms has always bemused Joe. His bees are the purring, drowsy creatures of summer days and elegant wildflowers, the sweet amber of honey. He didn’t understand the dirt and decay, the coatings of sap and slime. It was a mystery to him.Iwas a mystery to him.
“Here. I’ll show you.” I’ve folded the corner of the page down, and I find it quickly, turning the book toward him. On the page is an illustration of devil’s fingers: otherworldly and alien looking, erupting bright red tentacles from a gelatinous egg sac. On the facing page, a few paragraphs of type and then my notes handwritten in the margins. The book is full of them, scribbled in corners and crammed between paragraphs. I’ve got footnotes on footnotes in there, annotations and maps. Joe used to tell me it was liketrying to untangle a cipher. The man frowns at it, rubbing it with his thumbnail as if that will make the handwriting more legible.
“What’s that say? Drey Town?”
“Bray Farm. It’s up in the woods. Do you know it?”
His face sets, becoming almost serious. He hands the book back to me. “I know it. Don’t you need the owner’s permission to go up there?”
“Huh.” I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve just been powering through my hangover, too infused with the concept of my new start to consider whether I would be trespassing. I shrug. “Yeah, I guess. I don’t think anyone owns it, though. I mean, who’d want to after what happened?”
Even though he is staring intently at me, his gaze has no weight. It is a feather turning in the wind. His eyes are pale brown, almost golden. He looks at me a beat too long, and that’s when the penny drops.
“Oh shit.You’rethe owner?”
“That’s right. I bought it thirteen years ago and been renovating ever since. It’s an old building, and that makes it a long process.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“The history?” He laughs. “Hazel, all the stuff that happened in that house was over a hundred and fifty years ago. I don’t even think about it anymore.”
The morning mist has dragged itself along the treetops and across the precinct, bringing with it the heady, fertile scent of the forest. I feel a tickle run up the back of my neck. I love being among trees. I love the damp, drizzly days of autumn spent digging through loamy soil and layers of rotting wood. But I’ve never likedthesewoods. For a start, everyone knows they’re haunted. As kids we all heard the story about Joseph Bray, the farmer who went mad onewinter and took an axe to his family out in the barn. There are rumors that some parts of it are so thick and dark that if you get lost, you never come out. Sometimes soft lights can be seen flickering and floating among the branches at dusk.
“Hazel?” He nudges me a little. “You’ve gone very quiet. I was just saying that if you want my permission to look around the farm, then you have it. Just don’t go into the house itself—it’s still a bit of a wreck, and I can’t vouch for its safety. You got a pen?”
I nod, pulling it out of the front pocket of my rucksack. I’m getting thirsty. It’s all this talking. I’m thinking about getting a cold can of lemonade or maybe a cup of tea at the kiosk round the corner when I see what he is doing. He is writing his name on the flyleaf of my book. I frown as he hands it back to me.
“That’s me. Andrew Garrison. In case you want to look up on the land registry who the farm belongs to. I don’t want you thinking I’m some creep.”
“Oh, I don’t think that.”
Idothink that. I have an innate wariness of men offering me anything.This man probably wants to kill mehas run through my head more times than I’d care to admit. He unfolds himself with a groan that speaks of aching joints and old bones. I know how he feels.
“You know the Bray Farm has legs, don’t you?” Now it’s my turn to stare at him blankly. He throws his head back and laughs. “Ah. You’re not as old as me. That’s what the old-timers used to say about the Bray Farm back when I was a kid, because you could never find the place, even with a map. It was like it was running round the forest, hiding from you.”
I laugh, but the image of a house with legs gives me the creeps a little bit. It makes me think of Baba Yaga and her house of the dead marching on long chicken legs.
Andrew looks up toward the forested hills before adding, “Seriously, though, Hazel—between here and there is about fifty miles of wild, arcadian forest. You sure you know where you’re going?”
“Half the fun is in the finding,” I tell him, and it’s the truth—me and my forager buddies say it to each other all the time, even when we’re wading ankle deep through boggy leaf litter or wet, clingy grass. Even in the rain, even in the hail.Half the fun is in the finding.One afternoon Terri had turned up in a homemade T-shirt that readHALF THE FUNGI IS IN THE FINDING!and we’d all laughed. Thinking about my old friends makes me feel sad. A slump in my mood is setting in, my headache announcing a comeback bigger than Vegas Elvis. I get up, extending my hand to Andrew, who gives me another of those broad grins as he shakes it. His hand is big and rough and calloused.