by B G Denvil
Rosie, sitting on the middle chair, had moved Oswald to a more visible position, still pinned to her tunic but now on the loose belted waist. There were three huge smiles around the table, and only Oswald was complaining. “No drink for me, I suppose?”
The sunshine spun its own web through the window mullions, and the light was a glitter of promise.
“Right,” said Peg, through her grin. “Let’s begin.”
“You first, dear,” Edna told Rosie.
Rosie shook her head, a little embarrassed. She had been flown from the tree nest all the way to her father’s tree house and had been shocked at the ruin there. It gave her comfort now believing her father could surely not be the killer, although that was not yet positive. Yet why? Nothing made the slightest sense to her.
Rosie had then been flown directly in through Edna’s window, and was now sitting comfortably in Whistle’s old room. Yet after a day and two nights in the owl nest, she was aching all over and kept sneezing with feathery scraps of down up her nose. The headache had eased, but every other ache was vibrant and seemingly had no intention of leaving. Rosie’s mind was certainly not functioning as clearly as she would have liked. Although the misery of self-pity had flown with her own flight, she still remained horribly conscious of being so weak in the presence of others so considerably stronger.
“You first, Peg,” Rosie said. “I’m not really feeling clever this morning.”
“I am not surprised,” Peg answered her. “But I do feel we should grab this glorious opportunity as quickly as possible, in case something else goes wrong. And I couldn’t possibly do this without you beside me, dear.”
“And,” Edna looked up, her hand on the water jug, “I do think it should be you, Rosie, my dear, who should do this little water trick.”
Rosie sighed but took the jug and carefully poured some water through the holes in the toadstool. She spilled half the water, but no one seemed to care. Then she lifted the toadstool to her mouth and drank back the water she had just poured in. She then copied the same procedure with the spoon, and this time spilled even more. But she drank and felt remarkably refreshed. “Last one,” she said, and poured water into the cup. After all she had spilled, there was only just enough. But the cup was brimming as she picked it up between her palms and drained it.
The tiredness disappeared. Then, as she sat forward, one by one, every single ache in her body faded away. Gradually her entire body felt joyously young. She wanted to dance. She almost wanted to sing.
Edna was watching her with considerable interest. “You want to ask the questions after all, don’t you, my dear? Then, please, go ahead.”
She didn’t know how brightly her eyes were shining, but Rosie smiled at the three silver items on the table, rubbed a small finger over Oswald and said quite loudly, “Who is my real father?”
“I take away Alfred Scaramouch,” said the toadstool.
“And I give the proper name,” said the spoon,
The cup tipped up and then settled. It spoke even more loudly and said, “Whistle Hobb.”
Rosie’s delight and energy dropped. “That’s impossible,” she whispered. Peg and Rosie were staring, but Rosie noticed Edna was not.
“We cannot ever be wrong,” the cup pointed out. “But it is your choice whether to believe it or not.”
“Then,” Rosie said, this time after a great exhale, “who is my mother? I cannot believe that Mamma was ever Whistle’s wife.”
“I take away Alice Scaramouch,” said the toadstool.
“And I have nothing to give,” said the spoon.
So the cup said, “You do not have one.”
After a very short and shocked silence, Peg and Rosie both spoke together. “Impossible.”
Peg hurried on. “We are witches, and Whistle was a great wizard, but we must all still have a mother. Without a mother, no baby can be born.”
Rosie was shaking her head in bewilderment. “I’m glad it’s not Alice. So very, very glad. But all this is so hard to take in. And I have to have a mother. Emmeline is always so sweet to me,” she suggested. “It has to be someone, even if she’s not living at The Rookery.” She turned to Peg. “I wish it was you, Peg. I’d be so proud to call you my mother.”
But the cup simply repeated its previous statement. “You do not have a mother.”
After the initial excitement, the following disappointment – and now this, Rosie wasn’t sure she could believe anything else the cup told her. She leaned back in the chair, closed her eyes and asked, “Who killed Whistle and Kate?” She was sure if the cup told her it was her father, who wasn’t her father, she would throw the cup through the window and go to bed in tears.
But after the usual taking and giving, the cup said, “Boris Barnacle.”
And once again everyone stared at everyone. Even Edna no longer seemed complacent.
“He’s close to the last person I’d have expected,” Peg frowned. “A very weak magical power, and a funny little man who usually speaks rubbish, either bored or just too stupid.”
Sighing, Edna reached out, smoothing her fingers around the top of the cup. “But we cannot simply dismiss everything we’re being told. These beautiful objects are Whistle’s own creations. How can we possibly believe we know better than this, when we actually have no idea?”
“I thought,” Rosie said, turning to Edna, “that perhaps you did know something. When the cup said my father was Whistle, which is just preposterous, you didn’t even look surprised.”
“It’s the one thing about you I do know,” Edna said, eyes suddenly large. “I have no idea who this Boris person might be. And I find it hard to imagine a child being born without a mother. However, my dear, I came here to do justice to Whistle, who was once my greatest friend in all the world, and I am inclined to trust his magical inventions.”
“I think I want to go to bed,” said Rosie.
“Then I think,” concluded Edna, “you should sleep in my room, dear. Indeed, I insist. I think you are still in danger. Sleep here, and I shall put spells on both the door and the window. You will not be disturbed.”
“I’ll be disturbed anyway,” she mumbled. “I feel like a mouse in a trap. And none of this is supposed to be about me. I just wanted to find who killed Whistle, and then Kate.”
“Perhaps Boris after all?”
“Anything is possible,” frowned Edna. “But apart from putting a spell on the door and the window, I feel I should put a spell on you, my dear. You must sleep long and deep.” And she raised both hands. “Climb into bed, dear.”
With a long habit of obedience, Rosie clambered onto the vast soft mattress, snuggled down into the amazing comfort and closed her eyes. Within three seconds, she was asleep.
It was much later when she started to dream. Whistle was sitting on a cloud.
“Why don’t you want me for a father, child? Most unappreciative.”
“Number one, I hardly know you, and you hardly know me. Number two, you’re a ninety-three or something and I’m a fifty—”
“Let me interrupt you here and now,” Whistle said, crossing his shirt striped legs, “you are not a fifty. You might be a two hundred and forty-six for all you know.”
“That doesn’t exist.”
“Ah,” exclaimed the vision. “So already you know better, eh? Says she’s a lowly fifty, but then insists she knows better than me.”
“Come on then, wise wizard. What is this murder and mystery all about, and what has it got to do with me anyway?” The dream-state Rosie was also sitting on a cloud, pink, which was remarkably soft and both warm and dry. “I know you aren’t my father, but if Alice isn’t my mother, I’d be quite pleased. It would be hard to get used to, but I really don’t like her.”
“No,” nodded the apparition. “I made a bad choice.”
“To be the mother of your child?”
“Not really. Much more complicated,” Whistle said. “Go and read some of my papers.”
“They’ve
been stolen, torn up, burned and lost,” said Rosie with slight confusion.
“So get the damned things back,” said Whistle with a bit of a shout. “You’ve got my toadstool, spoon and cup, for heaven’s sake. And you have dear Oswald. I made a special point of whizzing you off a couple of weeks ago, not so easy when you’re dead, you know, just to make sure you got Oswald, and now you’ve hardly made any use of him at all.”
Even the dreaming Rosie had to stop and think about this. Yes, indeed, she had been very suddenly spun into a nowhere land and then returned safely with the addition of one remarkable hat pin, pure ruby and quite chatty.
So she nodded “I’ll talk to Oswald again, but he doesn’t know who killed you. Surely you know yourself?”
“Actually,” replied the floating wizard, “I didn’t at first, since he crept up on me from behind. I didn’t feel a thing. Anyway, he’s not important.”
And Rosie woke to the rich smell of pea, leek and cream soup with plenty of buttered chunks of bread.
With delight, Rosie sat, accepted the bowl and spoon, not the huge silver one, but an average sized tin one with a bit of a bump in the middle, and said between mouthfuls, “I dreamed of Whistle.”
Peg sat on the edge of the bed while Edna settled herself on a large cushioned chair. “It’s hard to judge dreams,” said Peg. “But I do agree that Whistle is at the bottom of all this. So I am going to try and bring back all his papers. Some are bound to bring solutions and answers. I think we might learn a lot.” She stood, and Rosie saw she was carrying another large jug of water. Smiling back at Rosie, Peg asked, “You or me, dear? I still believe it should be you.”
Although the silver trio’s answers had not convinced her in the slightest, Rosie remembered the glorious refreshment the second hand water had brought. She longed to experience that again, so she cheerfully agreed, hopped out of Edna’s bed and went to sit at the table once more. This time, with a far steadier hand and more confidence, she poured the water from the jug into the toadstool and then drank. As it had claimed, it took away. Rosie immediately realised it had taken away her remaining aches, her fuzzy thoughts and her worried confusion. So she filled the spoon from the jug and drank carefully. The spoon gave, and so now she was given clear thoughts and a sense of blissful rejuvenation. Finally, the cup. She filled it right up to the brim. Not a drop spilled as she drank.
Then Rosie leaned back with an enormous smile of satisfaction. She felt wonderful and was sure she could achieve whatever she wished. Life was suddenly glorious.
“Ask for every single one of Whistle’s papers, books and parchments to be returned,” Peg murmured. “Brought back from whoever has taken them, but also reproduced if any were destroyed.”
As Rosie spoke the words, a flap of breeze started to whirl and swirl, suddenly switching to flocks of white mist. Then the mist cleared, edges becoming sharp and clear. White merged with traces of black, then the black snatched up the white, still zooming into unravelling circles. White controlled black once more, the papers were visible as they flew, then a little slower, and finally fluttered into a soft surrender. Now the papers lay still, covering the table, the bed, the three skirted laps and most of the floor.
“Claws, beaks and wings,” Peg exclaimed. “There are more than I’d realised. It will take a year to read them all.” Three scrolls of parchment had balanced on her head, and one was unrolling with eager anticipation.
“Me first,” it squeaked.
“I do wish you weren’t all so eager,” Rosie sighed, trying to stop one small piece of papyrus from climbing inside the neck of her tunic.
Edna wasn’t listening. She had turned back to Rosie. “Tell the papers they must arrange themselves,” she said. “Any of them related to the same subject must club together. Letters to him from other people in a separate pile. Organisation in general, and the most recently written papers on top.”
Rosie smiled. “Yes, all of that,” she said without bothering to repeat anything, and at once the papers began to flutter again. “Most obliging of you,” she added.
“Exhausting,” a tome looking like a beautiful prayer book mumbled, flapping open and showing it was actually a book of spells.
“I’m unique,” said a folded paper. “I won’t fit with anything else.” But within a few moments, the papers sat in four neat piles, the first being gigantic, and about to topple over.
Peg grabbed this, and Edna said, “This is an excellent beginning. “I shall leave you in peace, my dear, since you’ve been looking forward to reading all Whistle’s thoughts and experiments. There should be a few good new spells mixed up in there. And, of course, some clues. That’s what we want most of all. And you, my dear, are the expert in runes and translations, as long as you remember not to stand on your head.” She stood, nodding towards Rosie. “Meanwhile, I think I shall go for a walk with Rosie. A very open and obvious walk, so everyone can see her. And I shall be watching each passing face and how they look at her.”
“Must I?”
“I think it’s important, my dear. With me, I promise you will be entirely safe, since I’m on my guard, and a ninety-three being particularly watchful really cannot be beaten. I need to see the reactions. Some more than others, of course, but everyone is relevant.”
“Especially Boris.”
“Boris, Alice, and a few others,” smiled Edna without explaining.
Nineteen
Boris nodded and said, “Hoppity hop, flopperty flip.”
Alice glared. “How dare you run off, stupid girl,” she said, glaring, eyebrows in a rigid line of distaste. “No buckets of water when I need them, no beds made, no one to serve meals, no one to help at all.”
With her new confidence exaggerated by the water from the silver trio, Rosie waved and put her nose in the air. “Poor Kate was the maid, and it didn’t exactly make her life a happy one. Go and employ someone else. You can afford it.”
Alice’s eyes narrowed, cold and furious. “How do you know what I have or don’t have?”
“You’d be surprised,” Rosie laughed at the eyebrows. “By the way, you look like a troubled caterpillar. You should send one of the men for those horrible heavy buckets and make your own bed.”
Rosie trotted off before Alice could stagger back from the shock. Edna led her around to the meeting hall, past the stables, beneath the crows’ rookery and back into every shadowed corner, corridor and dining room. A few people waved. Emmeline said she was glad to see her again and offered a lump of chocolate, which Rosie later shared with Edna, and they finally ended up in Rosie’s own bedchamber.
Standing aghast in the open doorway, Rosie stared at the mess which had once been her own tidy little shelter, where she could dream alone and escape her mother. Now she saw her best tunic torn on the floor, the eiderdown she had made herself screwed in a heap and her nice polished table stuck fast to the wall. The bed stared back at her. The four legs seemed glued to the ceiling, and all the covers had tumbled. Rosie felt like crying again.
She was jolted from her complacency. “That’s – horrible,” she said, trying to stop her knees shaking. “Talk about making the beds. I can’t even reach mine. It’s upside down on the ceiling.”
“So why?” demanded Edna.
“I own nothing valuable. Nothing even interesting.” And then she realised. “My father – that’s Alfred – he came in the middle of the night, really scared, poor man. He told me to run, because I was in terrible danger. Next on the list, he said. So I did, and I hid where he told me and where you found me. But I took the silver things with me. I bet that was what someone was looking for.” Pausing again, she thought of Kate. “Kate took the toadstool and the spoon when she cleaned up Whistle’s room. She stole them, but when I asked her about things, she offered them both if I paid, which I did.”
“And the cup?”
“Dodger the owl brought it to me while I was in his nest. Sounds a bit odd, doesn’t it? He found it in my mother’s chest of secrets hidden u
nder her bed. But,” she added, “I should have asked him what else he saw in that chest. I never thought of it. I was just desperate.”
“I’m not sure it matters,” Edna said. “We’ll see. If we decide it matters one day, we can walk back to the hollow yew tree and ask him.”
“Easier than that,” Rosie said. “He’s living upstairs with Cabbage now. Romance.”
“Humph. Very sweet, I’m sure,” said Edna with evident sarcasm. “Now let us get back to Peg and the papers. I imagine she’s read quite a few by now.”
She had. Peg was engrossed, her nose in the various papers which surrounded her, but she stopped, looking up as Rosie and Edna entered.
“I have an important mission,” Peg said, leaning back in the chair and crossing her arms. Being rather short, her feet did not reach the rug, and were dangling half way. Yet her expression was in no manner child-like. “You and I, Edna, are going to do something you know about, but I’ve never done before.”
Edna nodded, “I know what you’re thinking of, my dear. An excellent idea.” I shall guide you.”
“Whistle’s papers are hard to follow,” Peg continued. “Some are completely indecipherable. And sadly, I assume the most urgent and important ones are those he put in such difficult code. But one thing is clear as rat droppings. This whole business is dreadfully important and involves Whistle, Alice and Rosie.”
“Me again?” Rosie sank onto another of the chairs. “And my wretched mother?”
Edna moved away the papers, piling them on the bed with Peg’s help. She then moved the silver objects and took them into the second room. Lastly, she held out her hand to Rosie. “May I have that dear little hat pin you chat to?” she asked. “I have a good reason, as I’m sure you can guess, and you shall have it back very soon.”
With a sigh, Rosie unpinned Oswald and handed him over. Oswald shouted, “What a cheek, old lady. I go where I want.” But Edna took no notice and bundled him off into the other room.