This email will not be sent. I hope to bring it back with me to form a record of  
events here. My batteries for the phone are almost depleted and my final 
message must be a warning. I worry now that I may never escape the constant 
darkness and mists of this camp. Maybe by continuing to record events, 
I may preserve a last semblance of logic and positive thought, and hold back 
the torrent of confusion in my mind. 

The events of last night are still strong in my thoughts. Maybe - there upon the 
bank,  events lasted but seconds before they were over and an eerie calm 
and silence pervaded, but to us - it was an aeon... a frozen moment... where  
all one's experience, habits, expectations, and knowledge, is suddenly  
replaced by the crushing realization that all this life-time wealth was 
'itself' - illusion! 

There is a reality we never see: nor should we! 

We walked back through the wood to the tent. Not a word was said, nor 
sound made beneath foot, as our tired and defeated gait,  trampled twig and 
leaf that relented silently - too scared to 'crack' - lest its unwary sound 
broke the spell of calm... and call into the darkness for chaos to return. 
  
Vanessa fell into deep slumber - the 'sleep' of the exhausted! 

It was Larry's tired voice  that broke the silence. I listened as though  
I were priest and he -  the troubled confessor. What he told me, I had not  
known till then. Only Larry and Vanessa knew the long reputation  
and folk-law of this area. 

I record it here briefly.  

He spoke of time long ago, long before the middle ages and the hysteria 
of witchcraft which spread,  darker than the plagues, throughout Western  
Europe for three hundred years. He spoke of pagan rites and the last 
foothold here - close to Chelsham - of a tribe hunted and hounded for 
their beliefs and  differences with those of an emergent Christian world. 

Around the turn of the century - this group, decimated and reduced in  
number by the constant persecution and  murder of their creed, took 
a final stand. Surrounded and out-numbered - a single last rite was  
held to call for forces and support rom outside the world of man. 

It was a night of slaughter: first -  the hunted, and then the hunters! 

Few survived. Of the group that came to slay the pagans, but two  
men of one-hundred-and-nineteen, emerged, shocked and dazed,  
on the far edge of the woods. Their account is recorded.  Larry showed 
me the narrative (translated to modern English) in one of the books  
in the tent:- 

"...we found them on the far side of the woods... near the stream - a  
ragged group of men, women and children huddled together. There 
was no resistance... not a cry... no movement... as ran upon them 
and in a merry mood - slaughtered them like lambs. 

We burnt their wooden idols, their belongings, and threw their 
bodies to the fire. Not one thing was taken by any man in our group 
for his own. All was left to burn. 

The smoke from the fire was arid - it filled the wood and confounded 
our journey back through the trees to the village. Our number became 
divided as each lost there bearing and their way. 

Then it began... a wind that rushed... and a dark looming shape that 
swallowed mist and brother. I ran, ears pained and heart filled with fear. 
Care not did I for the others, their screams and panic all sides of me, as 
I ran against thorn and tree, fell, and ran again in my desire to escape. 

But once I stopped to look back into the mist - towards the chorus of 
scream. I saw a beast, a demon, massive and of the devil himself..." 
 

Larry said the church, St. Mary's, had been built on the spot where 
the men had come out of the woods. The villagers, back then, saw it 
as a holy-gate, a fort, a defence - should the 'demon' follow the 
survivors out of the woods to the village, where they feared it may 
seek revenge. 

Accounts of 'trouble' and disappearences of people, who strayed into this  
wood, seem to be sprinkled throughout historic local records from that 
moment on up until the year 1644. This is where new accounts of a local 
woman being a witch, and her visits to the wood, begin. 

Larry went on to tell me more before giving a long weary sigh and declaring 
that he would go and get help. I told him we had the cell-phone. We tried it 
several times but either the signal was too erratic or the batteries too 
weak to connect to the cell. 

He left around 5.00pm - swearing me to mind Vanessa, and vowing - himself - 
to return within a few hours with help. 

Vanessa is waking. I must get her some soup. 

Mol