The Forest of Souls

CARLA BANKS

The Forest of Souls

For Volodia Shcherbatsevich, Masha Bruskina and Kiril Trous, murdered by the Nazis in Minsk, 26 October 1941

And also for Doug.

And what of the wolves, she’d say, the nine wolves that in the winter’s grey stone dawn would smash their bones against the door, hammering like hungry seals until the door splinters and the baby is got at–even from the cradle even from its precious sleep

And listen…there are men As bad as wolves who no door —no matter how solid the oak– will keep out.

From ‘My Mother’ by John Guzlowski

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

1

Later in the week, we were given orders to clear the area. That night, they firebombed the houses and left the streets burning. I watched as the work progressed. Towards midnight, a woman with a young child in her arms ran towards the gates. She was stopped by a policeman who seized the child, who was perhaps a year old, struck it against the wall then threw it into the flames. He shot the mother dead.

I very much wish to be home.

The light had faded as Helen worked. She looked up from the page she was studying, her eyes aching from the cramped script. The old library was dark, apart from the pool of yellow cast by the desk lamp on the table beside her. Something had distracted her. She lifted her head, listening. The silence closed around her, the smell of damp, the mustiness of old paper, the chill of the abandoned house. But she knew what she’d heard. It had been the click of the door closing.

There was someone else in the library.

She’d arrived at the old house later than she had planned. She thought she knew the route to the Derwent Valley–thirty minutes, maybe forty-five if the traffic was heavy. It took her less than thirty minutes to get to the far side of Glossop, the small commuter town on the edge of the Pennine hills. The sun was touching the horizon as she reached the top of the Snake Pass and dropped down into the valley at the other side. Last summer, she and Daniel had brought the children out here. They’d flown the kite that Finn, just eleven, had designed and made. ‘Chip off the old block,’ Daniel had said, proud for once of his studious son.

The road swept round and the valley opened up in front of her. Ladybower Dam lay ahead, the hills reflected in its black mirror. The road wound away to the east under the shadow of trees, the heather moors stretching away beyond. She turned off into the wooded depths of the Derwent valley. The road was narrower here, and her car bumped over the rough surface. The sky had clouded over, and rain began to spatter across the windscreen. The trees closed around her and the road was just the arcs of her headlights in the shadows–ruts and potholes, and a rabbit frozen for a moment in the brightness.

She checked the piece of paper on the seat next to her. The house was about two miles along this road, round the head of the dam. She was driving deeper into the forest and she peered through the windscreen as the car bumped and lurched.

The road turned, and she had to negotiate a gate with a red sign: PRIVATE ROAD, NO ENTRY EXCEPT FOR ACCESS. To her left, silhouetted against the evening sky, she could see the towers of the dam wall above the trees, turreted and massive. Ahead, the road became a track, shadowed by the still, dark trees.

She slowed down more, trying to pick out landmarks. She passed stone gateposts, a high wall, another gate that opened on to a muddy drive, then she was back into the wild. Past the houses, the directions said. Another half-mile up the valley. It was hard to gauge the distances when she was driving so slowly.

Her headlights picked out the incongruous homely red of a letter box, and then she saw gates to her left. She stopped and leaned across, trying to read the lettering carved into the stone posts. OLD HALL. She’d made it. She negotiated the turn. The drive bent sharply back and ran steeply up between the trees. And then she was clear of them, and she saw the house for the first time.

It was massive against the darkening sky. The blank windows stared back at her. The stone was patchy with white lichen, and stained where water had run down from the broken gutters and fall pipes. This wasn’t a house that was loved. Or one that loved. The thought jumped into her mind, startling her.

The rain was a fine drizzle that chilled her skin and seeped through the protective covering of her coat. The door was solid wood, sheltered by a stone canopy. The bell push looked old. She pressed it without much expectation and waited. Nothing happened. She’d thought there would be something more…official? More organized. She tried the bell again, then hammered on the wood. Come on. Come on. Water dripped on to the stone, splashing her feet.

She was about to knock again when the door opened. She’d heard nothing through the heavy timbers. A man, presumably the caretaker she’d been told about, stood there. He was holding a torch.

‘I’m Helen Kovacs,’ she said. ‘You should be expecting me.’

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was working. I didn’t hear you.’ He didn’t look more than twenty. She’d been expecting someone older. Her head barely came up to his shoulder as she stepped past him. Despite the icy weather, he was in his shirtsleeves. She wondered what it was about young men that made them impervious to the cold.

The smell of the house closed round her, a smell of damp, of mildew, of rot. There was no light. The entrance hall was an echoing dimness. She could just make out a staircase that swept up in front of her to a shadowed gallery.

‘This way.’ He shone the torch in front of him. ‘Watch where you’re going. Something’s shorted the lights. I was just trying to fix them.’ He led her through long corridors towards the back of the house, pausing every so often to make sure she was following. In the faint light, she could see dark panelling, damaged in places and rotted away. The ceiling arched above her, and she thought about the tiny semi she shared with Hannah and Finn–that she used to share with Daniel as well–characterless, perhaps, but comfy and warm. She shivered.

‘How long has it been like this?’

He paused halfway along the corridor, and pulled a bunch of keys out of his pocket. ‘Since the guy who lived here died, I suppose,’ he said as he tried a key in the lock of the double doors in front of him. It stuck, and he had to jiggle it to free it. He tried another key. ‘I don’t go in here much.’

This kind of deterioration took years. The last owner of the house, a reclusive Russian scholar, had died just a few months before. ‘It’s a pity,’ she said, ‘that it’s been left like this.’

‘He was a bit of a nutter by all accounts. Thought the KGB was after him. Shut himself away here. He lived in the back of the house, let the rest fall apart.’ The key turned and he gave a grunt of satisfaction as he pushed the doors open and stepped through. He shone his torch around. ‘You’re right. It’s a shame. It must have been beautiful once.’

The library. She was in Gennady Litkin’s library. In the twilight, the room was filled with shadows. The high ceiling and the rows of bookcases gave an illusion of space, but as she managed to get a sense of the scale, she realized it was smaller than it seemed. There was a smell of damp and old paper. She looked up. The ceiling was ornate but the plasterwork was damaged. She could see stains and patches, places marking the incursion of water.

She walked slowly down the aisle, looking at the high shelves and the panelled walls. The shelves were piled with boxes–box files, cardboard boxes sagging at the seams, old shoe boxes, a treasure trove of papers from the past, and one that would probably never be fully explored. As she looked round the shelves closest to her, she realized she had never understood how vast Gennady Litkin’s collection had been.

He had died intestate. The collection–books, paintings, letters, diaries, legal documents, photographs–was being archived and would probably end up scattered among various universities and museums. The house was nearly empty now, and once the last details of the estate were sorted out, it would be sold. Even in its dilapidated state, it must be worth a fortune.

She looked at the boxes with growing anxiety. ‘Has everything been packed up?’ She had the reference from Litkin’s eccentric filing system to help her, but if the papers had been sorted and stacked, it would be useless. It would take years to go through all of this.

The young man looked at her and then shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m just here to keep an eye on the place.’

‘What’s your name?’ She should have asked sooner.

‘Nick,’ he said.

‘Nick.’ She held out her hand. ‘Do you live here?’

He touched her outstretched hand briefly. ‘Just until March. They’ll have it cleared then.’

‘It must be lonely.’ He looked very young to be shut away in the isolation of the old house.

‘It’s not so bad,’ he said. ‘I’ve got the van–I go down to the village. I can go into town if I want, but it’s all right here. It’s a great place for walking.’

‘You like that?’ she said. She used to go walking a lot before she and Daniel got married, before Finn was born.

He nodded, looking suddenly enthusiastic. ‘I did the Pennine Way last summer.’

‘That’s serious walking.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s nothing. What I want to do is go to the US, do the Appalachian Trail.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘That’s serious walking.’

He grinned. ‘You said it.’

She’d have liked to go on talking, but she had work to do. ‘I’d better get on.’ Officially, she was here to look at the records from a long dissolved mining company. ‘I’m looking for the ledgers for the Ruabon Coal Company,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ He’d obviously been briefed. ‘Everyone wants to look at those. It’s about the only thing anyone knows about. They’re over here. I got them down for you.’

She followed him down the aisle to where two sets of shelves formed a kind of nook. She looked at the boxes that filled the shelves. Some of them were labelled, but the ink had faded. She leaned in closer to try and read the words.

Suddenly, a light came on. She turned round. Nick was balancing a desk light on an empty ledge. Its long neck was too high to fit and it stuck out awkwardly, making its position precarious. He shook his head, obviously unhappy with the arrangements. ‘That’s the best I can do. You’ll have to use this. I’m sorry. I’m working on the lights now.’

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I wondered how I was going to manage. Listen, before you go, there’s something else I want to have a look at–I’m not sure where to start.’ It hadn’t occurred to her that Litkin’s system might have been disrupted. ‘I’m looking for some stuff from the last war. There’ll probably be a diary, and some letters…I know they’re in this library somewhere. Maybe you’ve seen…’ Her voice trailed off as she looked round the crammed shelves.

He steadied the light with his hand. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. It’s all just, you know…’ He gestured around him. ‘Papers and stuff.’

She looked back at the boxes on the shelves, wondering what to do. Then she noticed something she hadn’t seen before. In the light, faint pencil markings on the boxes had become visible. 112.33 OTE. She knelt down to get closer. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘It’s his filing system.’ She ran her fingers along the boxes. ‘It goes up–the ones I want…’ She tried to track the numbers on to the next shelf, got lost and then picked it up again. She could feel the tension inside her releasing–the boxes hadn’t been put out of sequence or repacked. They were the way he’d left them. She moved along the shelves. What had he said? Third shelf from the top, halfway along…Here. A box file marked 120.43 PEKBM. She pulled it out and looked round for somewhere to put it. The young man watched for a moment. ‘I’ll get you a table. Hang on.’ He disappeared.

But the box was empty. She ran her fingers through her hair, tugging at it in frustration. She’d be lucky to get another chance at these papers. It would take forever to get the ownership status sorted out–she’d had to resort to a manufactured interest in the Ruabon Coal Company to arrange this visit. And she didn’t have a lot of time.

She went back to the shelves. The boxes were in shadow. She screwed her eyes up in the dim light, trying to read the rest of the inscriptions as she moved along the row, but it was no good, the lettering was too faded. 12_4_KBM. That could be…She lifted the box file out and moved closer to the light. She balanced it on her knee as she opened it. It contained a sheaf of papers, old and stained.

She shifted her balance to stop the box from falling, and lifted the papers out carefully, aware of their fragility. They looked like jottings for someone’s accounts–balance sheets, profit and loss. This wasn’t what she was looking for. She changed her grip to put them back, and something fell out from between the sheets on to the floor, something that had been slipped into the pile.

It was a book. She felt her heart thump, and she found herself looking over her shoulder around the dark library before she crouched down to pick it up. The cover was stiff card, marbled, and the pages were yellowed and brittle. She turned them carefully. They were covered with a minute script, neatly and economically written, wasting no space. The ink was brown with age. The writing went on and on, and then suddenly ended. The last pages of the book were blank.

She heard the click of the door, and a dragging sound. Nick came into view, pulling a small table. Instinctively, she snapped the book shut. ‘It’s a bit scruffy,’ he said, wiping the top with his sleeve and inspecting it. ‘Here.’ He pulled the table into the alcove and moved the light from its precarious balance on the shelf. He looked pleased with the result. ‘That’s better.’ Then he looked down at her crouched on the floor. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Fine.’ She stood up, dusting off the knees of her jeans. ‘Thanks.’

He hesitated for a minute. ‘Do you know how long…?’

‘Does it matter?’ she said, looking up at him.

‘I’m supposed to lock up at nine.’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not going anywhere. When you’ve done, take the door on your right at the end of the corridor. I’ll be in there.’ His face was under-lit by the lamp.

‘I’ll be finished before nine,’ she reassured him. ‘Thanks.’ She put the papers on to the table.

He looked at her working arrangements with some dissatisfaction, and nodded. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’ He turned and walked away up the aisle.

She sat down at the makeshift desk and went through the box file carefully. Tucked in among the accounts there was a large envelope that had probably contained the notebook. She looked inside it, holding her breath. There were sheets of paper, folded round something. She slipped them out carefully. The writing on them was dark and recent, and as she unfolded them, she recognized the hand as Gennady Litkin’s. She felt a stab of disappointment.

But they had been folded for a purpose. They were wrapped round a thin bundle of letters written on fragile paper that was starting to crumble along the edges. She pulled the shade of the desk lamp down, redirecting its beam. It was a cheap one, and the mechanism that was supposed to hold it in place was faulty. The slightest movement, and it lifted its head slowly, like a wading bird that had been disturbed, expanding its neck in alarm, cautious, checking.

She steadied it, then flattened out the first letter. She didn’t recognize the language at first. Russian? She only knew a few words. The script was minute. The first line had to be a salutation: My dear Captain Vienuolos…It seemed to be an acceptance of an invitation. She scanned down to the signature to see if she could work out the identity of the writer, but it was an indecipherable scrawl: P…E…She pulled the lamp closer, and the light flickered. Who are you? Who were you? But there was no answer.

She turned to the diary. There was a label on the front of the book, peeling at the edges, and handwritten in ink that had faded. She could barely make it out. The writing was Russian again and for a moment, she felt discouraged; then she realized that Gennady Litkin must have written it. She carefully transliterated the letters she could read. There were two words and what looked like dates. The last letter was

She opened the book. It was, as Litkin had told her, written in Lithuanian. Even though she’d been studying the language for years, she found the writing hard to decipher, and she remembered that Litkin had said something about making a translation. She looked at the pages of modern notes, suddenly hopeful, but of course, they were in Russian. If Litkin had translated the diary, he had written in his own language. Her Lithuanian should be sufficient. She applied herself to the diary again.

Her head was starting to ache by the time she’d read the first few pages. She checked her watch. It was after seven. She had been here for almost two hours. She hesitated, reluctant to pull herself away, but she wanted to check on Hannah who had been complaining of earache and a sore throat.

She switched on her phone. The beep as it found the network was an intrusion from the 21st century. She keyed in Daniel’s number, but his answering machine took the call. She left a message, feeling relieved that she wouldn’t have to talk to him. ‘It’s Helen. I’m just checking that the kids are okay. I’ll see you on Thursday.’ His usual day for having the children.

She was just getting back to the letters when her phone rang. It was Daniel. ‘I was working out front,’ he said. ‘Any reason why they wouldn’t be okay?’

She didn’t want to row. ‘Hannah felt poorly. And it’s not their usual night…’

‘Right. It isn’t. And you dump Hannah when she’s ill.’

She felt a stab of anxiety. ‘Ill? Has the earache…?’

‘She’s fine, since you’re so worried. They need their routine, Helen. Except when it suits you.’

‘I told you. I had to work. Like you do, you know? When you get a late call?’

‘Oh, sure, old letters and bits of paper. What does your wife do, Mr Kovacs? Oh, she’s got a BA in old shopping lists.’ There was a moment’s silence, then he added. ‘And a PhD in banging the boss.’

Not that again. ‘I’m working,’ she said. ‘Are the kids okay? That’s all I wanted to know.’

‘I told you. They’re fine.’

‘Can I speak to Hannah?’

‘It’s a bad line. She won’t be able to hear you.’

‘I’ll be home by nine. I’ll phone when–’

‘She’ll be in bed.’ His voice was cold.

‘I know. I’d just like to say–’

‘I’ll tell her you called.’ He hung up.

She felt depressed after the call. She and Daniel couldn’t even have a civil conversation about the children. At least it looked as though she wouldn’t have to take time off to go to the doctor’s with Hannah. She wouldn’t have to cancel her meeting with Faith.

She looked at the letters spread out on the desk in front of her, and at the diary. She was about to make a decision. She couldn’t finish reading these here. She’d assumed there would be some kind of copying facilities–the word ‘library’ had conjured up a different image from the one that had confronted her. But no one knew the letters and diary were here, so no one would miss them. She could slip them into her bag and take them away to study at her leisure. It would be okay–she was a bona fide scholar, and she could quietly return them when she’d finished with them. No harm done.

And that was when she heard the sound. It was–it had been–the soft click of the door. ‘Nick?’ she said. There was no response. She paused with the notebook closed over her finger. ‘Hello?’ she said.

Silence whispered back. And in the silence…Was she imagining it?–the faintest sound of breathing, of something moving through the darkness like silk. She stood up, suddenly uneasy. ‘Who’s there?’ She picked up the lamp to lift it higher, to expand the area of light, but the cord pulled tight. She put it down on the desk and moved slowly back down the aisle, the high shelves looming shadows in the darkness.

Now her imagination was playing tricks, making movements in the dark corners of the room, making soft sounds like footsteps behind her. She spun round, looking back along the aisle to the pool of light that marked the place where she had been working. ‘Hello?’ she said again.

The aisle was empty, running back into the shadows. But she’d heard…

Then there was someone behind her and before she could move something snaked round her neck and pulled tight. Her breath was cut off and her hands clawed futilely at the thing that bit deep into her flesh, feeling the slipperiness of blood under her fingers. Blood? My blood? And her legs were starting to tremble as she twisted and struggled for air and there was no one behind her as her flailing arms hit out and the darkness was darker and…

And the circle of light from the desk lamp crept up the wall, illuminating the shelves, up and up until the balance mechanism caught, and the light froze, fixed upwards at the stained and ornate ceiling where a plaster cherub, half its face gone, dispensed grapes from fingerless hands and the stains darkened as the rain penetrated and dripped on to the papers spread out below.

2

When Faith was a child, she thought that she lived in a forest. Her grandfather’s house, where she spent her childhood, was surrounded by trees, beech and sycamore and chestnut, their heavy leaves shielding it in summer and their branches standing like guardians when the winter stripped them bare. The garden was a playground of green tunnels and damp leaf mould where the sun would sometimes break through and dapple the ground with sudden colour–the vivid green of a leaf, the scarlet of a berry.

The house itself was a place of dark corridors and closed-up rooms, cold and rather comfortless. But she could remember the evenings she spent with her grandfather when he read to her from his book of fairy tales with pictures of witches and goblins, dark paths and mysterious houses in forest glades. And he would tell her stories about his own childhood in a house built deep in a forest, somewhere far away.