The Puzzle Ring

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘If I wanted to be serving up food like soggy rubber, then I’d be getting one of those darned new-fangled things, but I don’t. My old cooker does the job just fine, thank you very much!’

  ‘Well, let me help you wash up.’ Roz picked up the basket of squirrels and looked for somewhere to move it.

  Linnet took the basket from her and put it back into the sink. ‘No need for that, Lady Fairknowe. I’d rather do it on my own, when I’m good and ready.’

  ‘Call me Roz, please.’

  Linnet ignored her. ‘Now why don’t you go and have a walk about the garden, and enjoy the sun while it lasts? You’ve never seen the garden so pretty before.’

  ‘All right then, if you’re sure.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ Linnet ushered Roz and Hannah out the door and into the garden.

  There was a tall, slim tree growing right outside the door, bending delicate sprays of red leaves and berries over the lintel. Beyond was a long garden, bounded by tall stone walls where fruit trees had been trained to grow flat against the stone, like old wooden runes. Basking in the sunshine were rich mounds of black soil in which flourished herbs and vegetables of all kinds, grown in neat rows mulched with straw. The garden beds were divided by thick hedges of lavender, cut back hard in preparation for winter. In one corner, hens clucked in a small portable coop, with Jinx the cat staring at them with lashing tail and hungry golden eyes. In the other corner was a row of square white boxes, humming with bees. A small but very pretty glasshouse took pride of place in the centre.

  ‘What a difference! This garden used to be half in ruins. I can remember Linnet out here, trying to turn the soil over with a spade near as big as herself, and Bob having to help her,’ Roz said.

  They walked through an iron gate, Jinx deciding to leave the chickens in peace and follow them instead. A velvet lawn stretched towards a tumbledown grey wall at the far end of the garden. ‘That’s the old castle,’ Roz said, pointing. ‘Not much of it left now. Your father used to have a kind of cubbyhouse in it.’

  Together they wandered around the garden, Jinx following lazily. Roz had a story for every tree and glade. ‘We were married here,’ she told Hannah as they walked down to a white summerhouse by the loch. ‘Your father fixed it all up for the day. We were so happy . . .’ Her voice failed her and she stared out at the soft blue waters, clutching her wedding ring with one hand and hurriedly wiping away tears with the other. Hannah looked away. She always felt uncomfortable with her mother’s grief, and wished she knew some way to make her happy again.

  A white van revved up the drive. ‘There’s Allan with our things. I’d better go and help, I suppose,’ Roz said, dabbing her eyes dry.

  ‘I’ll keep on looking round, okay?’

  ‘Don’t go too far, will you?’

  Hannah ran away through the trees. She could hardly believe this whole garden was hers to explore. First she went to the rose garden, where crimson roses with golden hearts spread their thorny arms above grey-silver plants like woolly lambs’ ears. I wonder, Hannah thought, if it’s true Mary, Queen of Scots, walked here . . .

  Hannah had read about Scotland’s most famous queen on the plane, and knew that Mary had inherited the throne when only six days old. She was sent to France as a child to marry the king’s son, and became Queen of France at the age of sixteen, when her husband inherited the throne. She was widowed the very next year, and returned to Scotland, unable even to speak the language and knowing nothing about her native country. Queen Mary had loved to dance and sing and flirt, and had married again twice, before murder and scandal made the country rise against her, and she had fled to England. In the end she was executed by Queen Elizabeth the First.

  Imagining she was that beautiful, doomed young queen, Hannah danced a few steps, lifting her skirt and swaying a curtsey, then bent her head to smell a rose. In the centre of the garden was a mossy old sundial, inscribed with the words Now Is Yesterday’s Tomorrow. It sounded like a riddle, but Hannah was too excited to think about it for long. The rest of the garden beckoned.

  The loch was dusky purple now, the islands looking more mysterious than ever. They must have looked the same, Hannah thought, a thousand years ago . . .

  She walked down to a small wooden jetty, with a rowboat bobbing at the end of a rope. It was a battered old thing, worn to grey by the elements, but Hannah was thrilled nonetheless. She imagined herself rowing about on the loch, fishing, exploring the islands and the wild shore. She wondered if the boat had belonged to her father once, and she lay down on the jetty and trailed one hand in the water. It was shockingly cold. A narrow path went creeping away through the undergrowth, and Hannah followed it, damp leaves underfoot. Jinx slunk along behind her, and skittered away when Hannah tried to pat her.

  ‘Donovan! Your father wants you!’ Linnet’s voice called from the house. Hannah parted the leaves and looked through. She saw Allan—freshly washed and combed—standing on the front steps, his arms crossed. Linnet and Roz stood beside him, both looking rather anxious.

  ‘Donovan!’ There was no answer, and Linnet shrugged. ‘He’ll be back in his own good time,’ she said and disappeared back into the house.

  ‘I’m at the end of my tether with that boy!’ Allan growled. ‘Never does a thing he’s told, always sneaking out to come up here. He might as well just move in!’

  ‘Oh, well, he has his pets here, doesn’t he?’ Roz said. ‘Allan, you shouldn’t have let Lady Wintersloe pay you for bringing our bags up, that’s my responsibility. Tell me how much it was so I can repay her.’

  Allan flushed scarlet. ‘That’s between me and Belle,’ he said. ‘You can pay me for bringing up the bags. It’ll be ten quid.’

  ‘Oh! All right.’ Roz gave him a curious glance, then bent her head and rummaged in her handbag.

  ‘Belle helps me out with the boy,’ Allan burst out, looking red and uncomfortable. ‘I’ve had a rough time since the accident. She knows that I . . . well, it’s been hard, bringing up the boy on my own. She knows I’ve made sacrifices . . .’ His voice trailed away, and he looked down at his scarred and crippled hand. Words burst out of him. ‘I wanted to help, you know . . . to do what Bob would have liked . . . but it’s not what I expected to do with my life!’

  ‘What do you mean, you wanted to do as Bob would have liked?’ Roz asked after a long moment. Her face was very pale.

  Allan went scarlet and looked away, shoving his hands in his pocket. ‘It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. I have to go, I’ve still got work to do. If you see that boy, tell him he’s in big trouble if he doesn’t get home and do his chores right now!’ He limped down the steps, clambered into his van, and drove off in a spray of gravel.

  I don’t blame that boy Donovan for skipping out, Hannah thought. Mean old man! She worried over Allan’s words as she crept away through the undergrowth. What had he meant? His words had upset Roz too, she knew. Her mother had gone back into the house, gnawing on her lip, the frown between her brows deeper than ever.

  The path led through a shadowy thicket of rhododendrons to a tall, spreading tree dressed all in golden leaves, growing tall beside the pepper-pot tower. It had scattered its leaves in a great circle around its trunk. Hannah ran and kicked and twirled, throwing up armfuls of shining yellow leaves that rained down upon her head. Then she ran on, across the lawn, and through an archway cut in a tall hedge to a knot garden of low hedges, with trees cut into the shape of rearing horses at each end. A dancing statue stood in the centre of the knot garden, lifting a set of pan pipes to his stone lips. He had the body of a man and the horns and hooves of a goat, and looked merry and wild and free. Beyond the statue was the ruined castle. All that was left was a few towering walls with arrow-slits and broken archways.

  Hannah was enchanted. She roamed about, trying to imagine her father playing here as a boy, and found a room that was not nearly so ruined as the rest of the castle. It was furnished with a rickety wooden table, three mismatching chairs, and a shel
f on which stood some battered tin plates and cups. Black ashes were in the fireplace, with an old kettle slung from a hook above. Shoved in one corner was a pile of plastic swords and daggers, and a bow with rubber-tipped arrows, and even a few light-sabres. Although they were all rather battered and discoloured, Hannah did not think they could have belonged to her father. They must belong to the gardener’s son, she decided. Obviously he and his friends played here. A pang of possessive jealousy surprised her. Already she was thinking of the ruined castle and the garden and the grand old house as being hers. She did not like the thought of people playing here without her permission. She realised they must have played here many, many times before, and felt a fresh stir of anger at her mother for depriving her of a childhood spent here instead of in a grungy flat.

  In the inner courtyard there was an old crumbling stone seat over which grew a great bush of roses, its trunk as thick as a tree, its thorns as long as daggers. The petals of the few roses remaining were pink with a golden heart. When Hannah walked through an archway hung with the roses, she breathed in a faint, sweet fragrance.

  Jinx the cat sat on the back wall, washing her paw. As Hannah walked along the wall, the cat slinked after her, but would not come when Hannah held out her hand, instead streaking over the wall and disappearing.

  Halfway along the back of the garden, the wall was interrupted by an immense old tree. Its trunk was so thick that Hannah could not have hugged even half of it with both her arms spread wide. It towered overhead, its foliage black in the fading light. Needles were strewn underfoot, so that Hannah’s footsteps were silent. She drew close, and put her hand on the scaly bark. A rift yawned under her hand. Hannah bent her head and stepped inside. It was a doorway that led straight through the very heart of the living wood. She could see long rays of sunlight striking through the trees on the far side and on the steep cone of Fairknowe Hill, rising behind. Hannah could hear a little tinkle of falling water as a spring trickled down into a dark green stretch of water that lapped against the roots of the massive old tree on the other side of the wall. She could not walk through, though. An ancient iron gate was set deep into the wood, barring the way.

  Hannah gave the rusty bars a little shake. They did not budge. Her eye was caught by the gleam of something metal. A chain was looped about the bars, secured with a modern padlock. Hannah picked it up to examine, but it was so dark in the rift of the tree that she could see very little. She backed out, turned, and gave a yelp of surprise.

  The Fairy Hill

  A boy was standing right behind her. Dressed in black jeans and a long black coat, he was almost invisible in the shadows under the foliage.

  ‘Hi!’ he said.

  ‘Hi,’ Hannah answered, her voice coming out too high. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her startled nerves.

  ‘I’m Donovan MacEwan. I know who you are. You’re Hannah Rose, the long-lost great-granddaughter.’

  ‘Your father’s looking for you.’

  ‘Again? Oh, well, let him look.’

  ‘He said you’d be in big trouble if you don’t go home now.’

  ‘I’m always in big trouble.’ He gave her a brief, crooked smile.

  Hannah smiled back. ‘Me too.’

  ‘You like it here?’

  She nodded. ‘You bet!’

  ‘This yew tree’s more than a thousand years old, they reckon.’ Donovan rubbed his hand on the bark.

  ‘Really? How can it be? Trees don’t grow that old!’ Hannah looked up at the tree. Its roots and trunk and branches were so thick and gnarled that it seemed almost possible.

  ‘Yew trees do. There’s one at Fortingall, not far from here, that’s meant to be five thousand years old. They say it could be the oldest tree in the world. Older even than the pyramids.’

  ‘That’s amazing.’

  ‘Miss Underhill says people would have walked through the doorway in this yew tree for centuries, on their way to the fairy hill and the pool.’

  ‘Is that the fairy hill?’ Hannah looked up at the high hill rising on the far side of the yew tree, with its crown of dark thorns.

  Donovan nodded. ‘Knowe means hill. In the olden days, they thought the Fair Folk lived there. Fairies, you know.’

  Hannah nodded, thinking of what Lady Wintersloe had said.

  ‘Why is the gate locked?’

  Donovan hesitated. ‘Miss Underhill says that one of the ways into fairyland is to walk through a rift in a yew tree. So I think people used to come and run through it all the time. Just for fun half the time, but also, who knows? Maybe it works. It’s like the witch’s pool over there.’ He pointed through the doorway in the yew tree to the shadowy gleam of water on the other side. ‘People still come and wish on the pool.’

  ‘I’d like to wish on it,’ Hannah said impulsively.

  ‘What would you wish for?’

  To stay here . . . For my father to come home . . . For a friend . . .

  ‘You can’t tell, else the wishes don’t come true,’ she answered.

  ‘Okay. Let’s go then.’

  ‘Okay.’ She cast Donovan a shy glance. He was a striking-looking boy, with blue-grey eyes edged with thick, dark lashes, pale skin, and a thin, bony frame. He looked as if he did not smile much, let alone laugh out loud.

  ‘It takes ages to go all the way round,’ Donovan said. ‘You need to go out the front gates, and then through the woods. I normally just climb the yew tree to get over. But maybe you’d rather . . .’ He cast a dubious look at her prim and proper navy-blue dress.

  ‘I’d rather climb the tree too,’ Hannah said at once. She looked up at its thick, spreading branches. ‘It looks easy enough.’

  ‘All right, then, come on.’ Donovan swiftly clambered up into the yew tree, then reached down his hand to help Hannah up. She scorned his help. Hitching up the hated navy dress, she scrambled up after him with quick agility. Her hem caught in a twig, and tore, but she dragged it free rather than show any slowness in front of him. One branch extended over the wall. Hannah was halfway along it, precariously balanced, when suddenly a magpie came diving down from the sky, striking at her head with its sharp beak. She cried out and flung up her arm. Donovan caught her other arm, keeping her from falling. The magpie beat about their heads, shrieking, and Donovan struck out at it. The magpie darted away.

  ‘I think it ripped a chunk of my hair out.’ Hannah touched her fingers to her scalp. They came away bloody. ‘I’m lucky I didn’t fall!’ Rather shakily she let herself down to the ground, touching her fingers to her scalp every now and again.

  ‘Magpies are bad luck. Always raiding other birds’ nests and stealing things. I wonder why it attacked you like that?’

  ‘Maybe it’s got a nest nearby.’ Hannah looked up into the tree branches.

  ‘Not in October,’ Donovan said. ‘They only nest in spring. Maybe it thought your hair was something valuable. They like flashy things.’

  ‘Oh, so my hair’s flashy, is it?’ Hannah was not altogether pleased.

  He gave her a quick crooked grin. ‘It’s certainly bright.’

  She tossed back her hair irritably. ‘All right, then, bring out all the old red hair jokes.’

  ‘I don’t really go in for jokes,’ Donovan said. ‘You want Max for that. Besides, I kind of like it.’

  To her dismay, Hannah felt heat rise in her cheeks. ‘So did that magpie.’ She turned to stare down into the pool, deep, green and mysterious. Faded ribbons and scraps of material had been tied to the yew branches overhanging the pool, and Hannah could see a few coins shining in the murk at the bottom of the pool.

  ‘Let’s climb the hill first,’ Donovan said. ‘We can see the sun going down over the loch. Then you can make your wish at sunset. That’s a good time for wishing.’

  As they walked up the path to the top of Fairknowe Hill, Donovan jerked his head towards a great boulder that half concealed a narrow cave in the hillside. ‘That’s where they burnt the witch, you know. One of the first witches
burnt in Scottish history.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Just in front of that big rock. It’s meant to guard the gateway to fairyland. Miss Underhill said she was really a fairy that had been locked out, and the locals caught her and burnt her for being a witch. Miss Underhill wants to put a plaque there, but Lady Wintersloe won’t let her.’

  ‘That girl at the shop . . .’

  ‘Scarlett?’

  ‘Yes, her. She said the witch haunts the castle.’

  Donovan gave a little snort. ‘Miss Underhill would have told her that. She’s always telling ghost stories at Halloween. She’s really into all that sort of stuff, ghosts and witches and fairies. I mean, really into it. Not just playing at it. Scarlett says Miss Underhill is really a witch herself. A modern-day witch. Wicca, it’s called.’

  Hannah nodded to show she had heard of it, though she was much too puffed to speak. It was a steep climb to the top. To her chagrin, Donovan was not short of breath at all. He climbed with long easy strides, the wind blowing back his dark hair from his face.

  They had a spectacular view over the countryside from the crown of the hill. Ben Lomond glowered from clouds to the north, and lights sparkled here and there on the far shore. The sun was spilling liquid flame onto the clouds along the horizon. It had grown so cold it hurt to breathe. Hannah shivered and hugged her arms about her.

  They did not speak. Everything was too grand and beautiful for words.

  Once Donovan touched Hannah’s arm, then pointed. An owl flew past on muffled wings.

  Hannah stepped back, turning her head to follow its flight. She gave a little cry as her arm brushed against the dagger-sharp barbs of the great twisted hulk of blackthorn behind her. ‘Ouch!’ she said, and tried to pull her sleeve free. It was snagged on the thorns.

  Donovan snapped the twig off, heedless of the sharp tips, and handed it to her.

  ‘You know this bush has not bloomed in more than four hundred years?’