Silver in the Wood

by Emily Tesh

June 18, 2019 · Tor.com

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Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh is a gorgeous novella that feels somewhere between fairy tale and myth, only it’s the kind of myth that is probably true. One comes away from reading it with the feeling that yes, this is what happens in the woods, and also feeling both eager and afraid to go for a walk in the woods and perhaps lose oneself there.

It’s very hard to say much about the story without spoiling it, but I’ll try.

Tobias has been the Wild Man of Greenhollow Wood for four hundred years now, protecting the Wood from the local people, and the local people from the things that dwell in the Wood. These include smaller spirits like dryads, both friendly and otherwise, and more dangerous creatures like the Summer King. Tobias is very much part of the Wood himself, and though he certainly started life as a human he is not, quite, human and mortal at this point. To local villagers, he is a creature out of myth himself, and someone to fear.

And then one day Henry Silver, the lord of the manor, turns up at his door in a rainstorm, dripping wet, charming, handsome, curious, and, oh yes, a folklorist. What could possibly go wrong?

So much of this story is about the atmosphere. I love the way the Wood is embodied in the story and in Tobias – even the way he thinks and feels about the world seems very slow and green and strong and old, like an ancient oak.

Slow and green he felt the life of it, the life that had been his life as well these four centuries past. It poured around him thick and steady, binding all together: the long patient strength of the trees that anchored, the deep bright power of the handful of dryads – Tobias felt Bramble clear as day among them, young and strong – and then the small and necessary, bracken and ferns, the mosses and mushrooms. Here were the songbirds and ravens and solemn wide-winged owls, shy deer and burrowing rabbits, fox and badger and snake, beetles and moths and midges, all the things that were the wood, that lived each in their own way under the shelter of the old oak.

The feel overall was reminiscent of Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising books, I thought. This isn’t a magic of words and spells, but one of nature and strangeness, and it is definitely not a human sort of magic. And natural is of course not the same as light – the villain, when we meet him, is quite terrifying, both a part of the woods and an unnatural thing, bright and beautiful and horrifying. Nature and unnature, all at once, and entirely chilling.

I love the way the magic creeps up on you in this book. Tobias is our narrator, and he’s used to the way things change in the Wood, and doesn’t feel any need to comment on this. It’s only as the story progresses that one begins to realise, from his passing remarks, and from things that Silver says, that, for example, his house is never in the same place twice unless he remembers to make sure of it. It’s a lovely, habitual sort of magic, and it also kind of plays into the feeling you get when you are lost in a wood or bushland that you’ve seen this bit before, but somewhere else, or that the paths have moved and you have wandered in a circle. (Come to think of it, this experience may well be at the root of the many stories people tell about magical forests.)

Silver is also a delight – his name suits him very well, as he is a strand of light and brightness, quick and sharp against the slow green darkness of the wood. He is curious about the wood, curious about Tobias, and instinctively generous and open in a way that Tobias cannot be. I was charmed by the way he flirts with Tobias, who is oblivious.

“Are you sure about this?” said Silver when Tobias waved him towards the bed. “Where will you sleep?”

“Floor,” said Tobias.

“It doesn’t look very comfortable,” said Silver. “The bed’s big enough to share, surely.” He gave Tobias a smile.

Tobias looked down at him and said, “Really?”

“Well,” said Silver, after contemplating the bulk of Tobias for a moment or two, “maybe not.”

(Tobias does figure it out eventually, but one gets the sense that he is not in the habit of thinking of new things and his thoughts move with the slowness of old sap when their direction is unfamiliar.)

The growing relationship between Silver and Tobias is lightly drawn, but lovely nonetheless – reluctant friends to lovers is perhaps the best description, and I adore the pairing of a grumpy, laconic hero with a charming and verbose one. But here is where I run into difficulties, because while the love and affection the various characters have for each other is key to the way the story comes together and to its resolution, this is very much a fantasy novella, not a romance. And so I don’t want to tell you how their love story ends, because that would give away certain aspects of the story, and I feel as though a good part of my enjoyment and satisfaction with the story came from that tension of not knowing whether or not Silver and Tobias were going to be OK.

On the other hand, Tobias and Silver are, as you may have gathered, both men, and I know the Bury Your Gays trope is a dealbreaker for many readers. And also, some of us just don’t like reading books unless they know that everyone will be OK in the end. (Some of us frequently check ahead to the last page to make sure of this, even though we know that this is a cardinal sin against both books and their authors, but we do it anyway because we can’t enjoy the book unless we know that everyone is alright.)

If this is you, please enjoy this spoiler tag, handcrafted for your reading pleasure, which will tell you whether you get a happy ending or not. (If this is not you, shut your eyes and scroll down, or better still, stop reading this review and just go and buy yourself a copy of this beautiful gorgeous book.)

The minor characters are another delight. I especially enjoy Bramble, the dryad, who is very fond of Tobias and has an undryadlike propensity not to settle down into a single tree. And Silver’s mother is rather wonderful, though I’m just as pleased not to be related to her. She is a folklorist of a more practical bent than Silver, who knows her son better than he thinks, and not as well as perhaps she needs to.

This is a novella – the paperback edition I read was just over 100 pages – and it was both too short and the perfect length. I wanted more, but the story was told and well told in that space. And I loved it. I honestly can’t think of a single flaw in the story. If you love fairy tales and myths, and want to read a story that will transport you into the woods and leave you feeling like maybe a part of you is still rooted there, or wandering lost under its branches, then this is the book for you.