by B G Denvil
Rosie was silently wondering what miracle had overcome the woman. She was quite a different person to the one Rosie had met before. Perhaps, she wondered, it wasn’t just the disappearance of the red cup, but the joy of pregnancy as well.
Alid murmured suddenly, “But, my love – please – not Mandrake for a boy. That’s such a strange name.”
She shook her head. “No, we have Richard all decided, my dear, after our blessed king.”
“Our family is certainly blessed,” Alid said, mouth full of biscuit. “May we come to The Rookery to see her and meet the lucky man?”
“Certainly,” Rosie said, a little hesitant, and hoping that neither of them would recognise the donkey she had stolen from their farm a week ago, when she saw it half-starved in one of their fields.
They were standing to leave, but Edna turned, asking, “And Godwin Trout? Does anyone know who killed him yet?”
Alid and Joan stared at each other, as if only just remembering that the man had lived, let alone died. “Well, no, as it happens,” Alid finally said. “Does it matter?”
“I think it does,” Peg said. “Doesn’t your law,” she realised the mistake and added, “I mean, our law say we shouldn’t go around murdering people, however nasty they are?”
“Yes, indeed,” Alid answered firmly, “but it’s all – a bit misty.” He seemed to be trying to remember whether he’d done it himself.
“This may sound a little odd,” Joan said confidingly, leaning over to Peg’s shoulder, a good deal lower than her own, “but the memory is rather blurred. Was poor little Maggs accused? But surely she wouldn’t have done it. She’s not a violent person.”
“Certainly not,” Alid continued. “A gentle girl. Even when Godwin beat her, she didn’t retaliate, but just went to her bed to weep or came over here for comfort.” And now he also leaned over, lowering his voice. “Sometimes I felt I should have killed him myself, to save my poor sister.”
“But he didn’t,” Joan said. “He’s too gentle as well, my dearly beloved husband.”
So some of the memories were drifting back. Rosie decided the effects of the red cup needed a lot more understanding. And since it seemed that only few in the whole village remembered the previous weeks, Rosie was sure it would be extremely difficult to ever discover the killer. The blurred memories were both welcome, and confusing, to cope with. She certainly hoped she hadn’t forgotten important matters herself.
Yet for a moment, she was intrigued as well, not for Godwin’s murderer, but for the birth of a human baby. She had not been born normally herself, but since she didn’t remember any of that, it hardly affected her curiosity. She’d never seen a baby before, let alone touched one.
“Good luck,” Rosie said, and meant it.
Twenty-One
Peace had returned. Questions remained. Rosie, however, was tired of questions. She had discussed the village confusions with Peg and Edna for three hours, and now liked the idea of sending her own memory on a trip far, far away.
“I really don’t seem to care anymore,” she informed the squirrel. “I do agree there are plenty of answers floating around unseen, but I don’t want to see them.”
“A shocking lack of curiosity,” complained the squirrel. “My fault, I suppose. I just didn’t make you interesting enough.”
Rosie giggled, but stopped herself. “You made me a ninety-eight, and how you managed that when you’re only a ninety-three yourself, I’m not sure.”
“The last-minute kitten, perhaps,” suggested the squirrel. “Rosie the cat leapt into your bowl just as the lightning struck. Edna’s kitten, if I remember rightly. So perhaps you could almost call her your mother.”
“Mummy Edna?”
“No, the cat,” Whistle objected. “Mummy Puss. Now Edna’s adopted a cockatoo instead. Idiot bird speaks a foreign language and has fallen in love with a donkey.”
“Twizzle is a darling,” Rosie grinned. “And it’s wonderful for Donkey to have such a close friend.”
“I think,” Whistle continued, “we are losing track of the main subject, my dear. The conversation is supposed to be of shadows and light, murder and mayhem, memory and forgettery. In other words – should you need other words – where is Alice hiding – where she originally found the red cup – where the red spoon and toadstool lie forgotten – and who murdered Godwin Trout?”
“Whereas I am far more interested in the wedding party for Mandrake and Maggs.”
Whistle, who was sitting on her shoulder as she lay sleepily on the swinging hessian hammock outside her bedroom window, grunted with distain. “You sound almost human. Shocking, my dear. Enjoy your frivolities, by all means, but do not forget your duties as owner of The Rookery, and one of the few ninety-eights alive.”
“But,” Rosie hoisted herself up a little and looked sideways at the small red squirrel, “kindly remember that I’m twenty-five in human years, and you’re over two hundred. I’m young! A strange word to you, but a true one.”
“Such an argumentative brat,” the squirrel sighed. “Clearly I didn’t bring you up properly.”
“You didn’t bring me up at all,” Rosie pointed out. “You stayed in your study and left me to the nastiest witch in the whole place. And we still don’t know where she is.”
“Exactly.” Whistle nodded. “One of the questions I need answering.” His voice smoothed and became sympatric. Rosie knew perfectly well that this was an intentional change. “My dear daughter,” he said, which startled her, “young or old, it is the magical grade which alters everything. In effect, you are considerably older than your ancient friend, Peg, who is only an eighty-five. As for Alice, a measly fifty – so you are the perfect one to find her. Besides, if you don’t, she will cause all the trouble she can dream up.”
“I suppose she will.” Rosie sighed. She really didn’t want to think ever again about murder and shadows.
The sun was blazing, and no shadows surrounded her, although she knew she had created one herself as her hammock swung from its chains. The squirrel had now jumped from her shoulder and was climbing one of the chains, its tail fluffing out as it skimmed upwards. “I shall begin my own investigations,” Whistle called back down to her. “And if I discover anything important, I shall expect a little interest from your end, my girl. “
Rosie promptly closed her eyes, enjoying the heat sliding over her. She could hear her donkey snorting its very eccentric greeting, and guessed that Twizzle had flown down to say good morning. There was a faint squawk answering the bellow, and Twizzle’s voice in the distance, “G’day, mate. Who’s a few stubbies short of a six-pack.”
Donald, who did not speak apart from the raucous donkey bellows, seemed delighted by this load of rubbish.
Twizzle settled down on Donald’s back, started to groom himself and then proceeded to groom Donald. The donkey’s eyes closed in absolute joy. He was now a comfortable size with barely a bone in sight. His mane, frequently combed by Twizzle, shone like tufty silk, and when he belched, which he did often, it did not smell of decaying starvation.
Rosie drifted back to her dream, swinging just a little in the breeze, delighting in the fresh perfumes of sunshine on grass and the crystal water in the well not far off. She heard the very faint swish of the leaves moving, the bird song no longer of the crows, but of the finches, the blue tits and blackbirds.
And then, less peacefully dream-like, she heard the voice of her adopted father, Alfred, as he cleared his throat, hoping to wake her without too much of a shock.
Rosie opened only one eye and muttered something resembling hello.
“Don’t wish to bother you,” Allred muttered. “But thought you ought to know.”
“Daddykins.” It was what she used to call him when she was young and thought that was who he was. “How can I help?”
“Not sure you can.” Alfred Scaramouch hesitated, almost hovering. He was wearing a large tradesman’s apron, which he often did while he carved or whittled, now his favourit
e occupations. Both his hands were firmly plants in the apron pocket. “But have to ask.”
She was still waiting, having hoisted herself up on her elbows as the hammock swung a little more vigorously. “I’ll try to help if I can.”
He still paused and finally, with a deep sigh, he brought out one of his hands tightly squeezed as though holding something small which he was frightened to drop. With another even deeper sigh, without opening his fingers, he said, “Alice.”
Nearly falling out of the hammock, Rosie sat up fully and, swinging dangerously, asked, “How? When? Where from?”
With a faint tremble, as though feeling the guilt and shame as if he had arranged this himself, Alfred tried to explain. “Wife, you know. Quite lawful. About fifty years married, although not happy or anything unbelievable like that. But linked like the marriages say they are. And you of course, my dearest, as though we were real parents.”
She got the point. “Yes. Husband and wife. But where did she come from?”
He shook his head, tangled white hair now twining itself into the tangled white beard. “Just came,” he said. “I was whittling out under the trees. I like it outside, you know, and I rather miss the tree house.”
“You can have it back, once Maggs moves in with Mandrake,” Rosie said in a hurry, “but tell me everything about Alice.”
“I had found a twig,” Alfred said sorrowfully. “Fallen from the furthest ash tree. A good solid twig, so I picked it up and put it in my pocket for a little carving later on. I’d planned a wooden feather, you see, since I’m always sorry when the crows leave the nest.”
“So you’d collected the Troilus bug from the ground along with the fallen twig,” Rosie finished the story for him. “And I suppose you know it’s really her and not just an ordinary beetle?”
“She talks,” he admitted. “Not the big strident voice she used to have of course, but a faint twittering voice. She talks non-stop, unless I stop her. Like this – with a bit of a squeeze. The first time I grabbed her, she tried to bite me. But she’s too titchy, and those teeny-weeny teeth didn’t manage a prick. But Troilus bugs are carnivorous, you know. So what do I do with the wrinkled bug?”
Rosie was trembling herself. Even being so minute now, she still hated and feared the woman she had once thought was her mother. But she managed to ask, “Show me. Open your hand, but don’t let her get away.”
Gradually, one chubby finger by one chubby finger, Alfred opened his hand and there, on his well calloused palm, sat a squat brown beetle. It seemed sufficiently tiny, ugly and incapacitated to be harmless, until Alice’s voice croaked out.
“Stupid child,” said the bug, which was what Alice had invariably called her, “Don’t go thinking you can take me prisoner.”
Rosie wondered what graceful action she should possibly take and laughed. “You were sentenced to life as a Troilus bug,” she said, “which is what you are. You should have waddled off far, far away and left poor Alfred and the rest of The Rookery alone. You know what horrible things you did, and if the High Court had been able to grab you at the time, you would have been exploded. Which is what you deserved.”
The bug wriggled, but could not jump. Alfred’s hand was too high from the ground. So she sat and grumbled. “I get blamed for all the bad things,” she said, “but never get appreciation for the good thigs.”
“Good things?” Rosie asked in surprise. “I certainly don’t remember any of those.”
“No one can be good all the time, but what about all the meals I fed you? What about dressing you and washing you when you were little? What about giving you a nice room all for yourself when you got your grade? And what about all the birthday presents?”
“Did you get me any?” Rosie couldn’t remember a single one.
“Well, probably not,” Alice admitted. “But I thought about it once or twice. Indeed, one year I remember getting you new stockings.”
“They were the old ones you’d got fed up with and they had holes in the toes.”
“There’s gratitude for you,” muttered the bug.
“However, there’s one important question I want to ask,” Rosie said, staring at the bug’s top end where she presumed its eyes must be. “It’s about the red cup. Where did you get it from?”
“Never heard of it. Never had one. What red cup?” The bug twitched and ran a small circle, which made Alfred chuckle.
Rosie resisted the temptation to pinch its tail end. “Rubbish,” she said. “You had four chests under your bed, three of them locked with spells. The first one had everything you’d stolen from Whistle, and the next was full of money, most of it stolen too, I expect. Then clothes – fair enough. But the last secret chest held a couple of things again stolen, and the magical red shadow cup. It smelled dark and disgusting, and I couldn’t touch it. So where exactly did it come from?”
“No such thing.” The bug twitched again, “must have been put there by someone else. Boris – or Alfred.”
Holding up thumb and forefinger, Rosie said, “I could squash you to death as easily as this.” She was rubbing the tips together.
Too small for courage, Alice sighed. “Oh, very well,” she said. “I’ll tell you as long as you promise to leave me somewhere warm where I can go hunting in the undergrowth.”
After some consideration and a gulp of guilt, Rosie promised. “But don’t go burrowing.”
“I was asleep on my own one night, some years ago,” Alice said. “Alfred was already in the tree house, so I had my rooms all to myself. Then something very cold touched me, and I woke up.” The bug paused, clearly trembling itself.
“Just a dream, then?” Alfred asked.
“Certainly not,” Alice said with a cross grunt. “It was a magnificent shape, all twirling and swirling, like silk in the wind. It wasn’t like a person’s shape, or anything’s shape really, just very dark without clear endings. Not even a face. But it had a deep dark voice, and I was – well, I admit it, at the time I was scared.”
“So what did it do?”
“It spoke. It was years ago, but I remember every word. I could never forget, and the voice was terrifying, so deep, really, really deep as a well, and sort of sinister too. It said, ‘Those who love the shadow are always welcomed by the shadow. You have loved the shadow for many decades, but as a fifty, your power to progress into the darker depths is limited. I forget no one, and you will be helped when you hold and kiss my goblet.’ And out of his swirls and curls, came this glowing cup, heavy and shining and the shadow tipped it between my hands. I was amazed. It felt so heavy, like a stone, and I couldn’t lift it up, but I loved the feel. It was so smooth and beautiful, and I kissed it. It was too gorgeous not to kiss. But I knew it was dangerous, so I locked it away under my bed where no one else could find it.”
“So you were wanting the darkness so much,” said Alfred in complete shock, “you were actually visited by the shadow king himself.”
“Why not? I’m not ashamed of that,” the bug squeaked with a visible glower. “Yes, I chose the shadows instead of that silly candle flicker. I was born with shadows and welcomed them.”
“It hasn’t done you much good,” Alfred pointed out.
“Well, the cup is cracked now,” Rosie told the shivering bug. “It’s been taken up to the High Court under restraint. It can’t move down here again. It’s where I should be taking you, but I’ll take you out under the trees, so you can carry on living there, and don’t come back around here. Ever, or I will take you to the judge.”
Twenty-Two
“I thought you weren’t interested?” objected the squirrel.
“I’m so clever,” grinned Rosie, “that I worked it out for myself in just a couple of blinks, just to please you.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Whistle.
“Alright,” Rosie surrendered. “It just happened, and I didn’t ask. Alice is even smaller than you now, and ended up in Alfred’s pocket. Unintentionally, but that’s the sort of thing
that happens in magical houses. He was looking for twigs, and she was sitting on it. So she told me all about it after I promised to let her go.”
“You should never have let her go,” Whistle insisted. “Even that small, she’s a problem, and we all know it. She burrowed that wretched tunnel which popped out all over the village, so the red cup could blow its shadows up. It infected everyone, and that was entirely her fault.”
“But I can’t stamp on someone I used to think was my mother. Or take her to the judge. It just wouldn’t feel right”
“So you released her? Where?”
“Way out past the old yew tree near the end of our grounds. And said if I ever saw her again, I’d give her to the crows for breakfast.”
The squirrel nodded. “I may not be an insect eater,” he said, “but if I see that wretched creature, I’ll certainly find a way to get rid of it.”
“So I did answer one of your questions,” grinned Rosie. “How about you? I assume you’ve solved absolutely everything?”
“Not quite.” A smile on a squirrel didn’t quite work. “I guess the cup killed Godwin. He was a shadow human, and probably drank out of the cup and dropped dead.”
“But that’s a guess?” Rosie asked.
Whistle admitted it. “I can’t find an obvious culprit. Half the village are suspects, and with the cup sending its shadows rolling into every garden, tavern and hovel, a perfectly decent person could have been inspired to murder.”
“Someone should find out the truth one day. It could even be important.” Rosie sighed. “But I just don’t seem to care. Maybe after the wedding I’ll get interested again.”
“I’m still interested, and it could be more important than you think.” Whistle nodded, russet brown tail bobbing. “But as for the rest of the shadow temptations, the toadstool and the spoon, I do have an idea. No proof, I’m afraid. But you know that magical place they call Stonehenge not all that far from here – well, it most certainly has a strong atmosphere. Hard to be sure, but something’s definitely there, and it’s not just a beetle on a twig.”