Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy

by Karen Foxlee

  She went through a small room containing a collection of Chinese finger bowls, another containing medieval jewelry. She ran through a re-creation of a nineteenth-century street.

  When she’d found her father, she’d say, “Dad, stop. Stop what you are doing. You have to stop and understand.”

  She sped past a small collection of fossils, Farming Equipment, Culture of the Cossacks, dolls, teddy bears, shoes, History of Silhouettes (which she was sure was in a different place now). There were rocks, gemstones, a room filled floor to ceiling with sepia photographs. There were Romans at Work and Romans at Leisure.

  Ophelia, said her mother. Slow down. Think about what you have with you.

  She slowed down. She stopped in a very big space filled with several stuffed elephants, their saddles and headdresses studded with jewels.

  “What do I have?” said Ophelia aloud. “I have nothing. I can’t find the boy. I can’t find the sword. I haven’t even started to look for the One Other.”

  Breathe, said her mother, very calmly. Find a place to sit down.

  Ophelia walked to a window behind the elephants. She felt her stomach growl. How long since she had eaten? She saw the sky had grown dim. The streetlights had come on. The snow whirled and spiraled to the ground. Her body ached with tiredness.

  You have the boy’s satchel, don’t you? asked her mother.

  Ophelia opened the satchel. She took out the little biscuit man Petal had baked all those years ago. If she ate it, perhaps it would give her the strength to keep going? She raised the magical biscuit man to her mouth and then stopped. Her mouth watered, but she put the biscuit man back into the satchel. She knew it wasn’t meant for her.

  Instead she took out the fragile paper containing the words from the Great Wizard. She unfolded the thin piece of paper.

  The letter was written in a very old-fashioned writing, a little shaky. It was a list.

  First, always be kind, it read.

  Be kind to everyone whom you meet along the way, and things will be well.

  Kindness is far stronger than any cruelty.

  Always extend your hand in friendship.

  Be patient.

  You may feel alone, but there will always be people who will help you along the way.

  Never, ever give up.

  Ophelia leaned her cheek against the cold window. She closed her eyes.

  Your heart, said her mother, very softly in her ear. Use your heart, my dear daughter.

  20

  In which Ophelia remembers some other words and an owl in a tree

  At the end Susan Worthington liked to rest in a chair in the front sitting room, in the sunshine. The sitting room had comfortable chairs and a cuckoo clock, which they had bought in Switzerland, and family photographs on the walls: Alice and Ophelia smiling beside the sea, buckets in hand. Alice as a baby in her mother’s arms. Susan and Malcolm on their wedding day. It was a good room, bright and warm and full of love.

  One day her mother had called Ophelia there.

  “Come here, let me clean your glasses,” her mother said. She cleaned them with the hem of her skirt. “There, you should always do that. Promise me you’ll do that at least three times a day.”

  Her mother had grown very thin. Her hands were bony and pale. Her hair had grown back in small tufts. That day she had a deep blue scarf on her head.

  “You look tired,” she said to Ophelia.

  “There’s this owl,” said Ophelia. “It has been hooting every night in the tree in the front garden.”

  “I’ve heard it too,” said her mother.

  “And once I got up to look out the window, and I could see its big golden eyes shining in the dark.”

  “I wish I’d seen that.”

  “You could put it in one of your books.”

  “I just might,” her mother replied. “Come here. One of your ponytails is higher than the other.”

  “That always happens,” said Ophelia, “when I have to do it myself.”

  “You’ll get better at it,” said her mother.

  She smoothed back Ophelia’s bangs and straightened her school tie. “I want to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  “About everything.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” said Ophelia, because she knew what her mother wanted to say.

  “When I’m gone, you mustn’t be terribly sad,” said her mother.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I’m only telling you in case,” said her mother. “Promise me you won’t stay too sad forever.”

  “Don’t talk about it,” said Ophelia. She put her hands over her ears.

  “Ophelia, darling. Listen. I want to talk to you.” She took Ophelia’s hands from her ears.

  It was a perfectly ordinary day when they had that conversation. The mail thumped through the mailbox onto the foyer tiles. A truck started up somewhere outside. There was a gaggle of schoolgirls passing outside on the street, shrieking with laughter.

  “Sit on my lap,” said her mother. “Like you did when you were a little girl.”

  She sat on her mother’s lap, and they didn’t say anything. The clock tick, tick, ticked. She lay against her mother’s chest and listened to her heart beat.

  “I just wanted to tell you that everything will be well,” said her mother, “in the end.”

  “When will I know it’s the end?” asked Ophelia.

  “I will write it for you,” said her mother.

  “In capitals?”

  “In capitals.”

  “With a full stop?”

  “With a full stop.”

  “Underlined?”

  “Underlined.”

  21

  In which Ophelia uses her heart, and the compass comes in handy

  Ophelia Jane Worthington-Whittard liked to think scientifically, but that hadn’t worked. She knew her mother was right. She knew there was no point in looking for evidence or compiling lists, shading maps, or asking questions. But if it was her heart she had to trust, then why wasn’t her heart speaking to her?

  You have to stop thinking so much, whispered her mother.

  Which was much more difficult to do than to say.

  Look in the satchel again, whispered her mother.

  Ophelia opened the satchel again and peered inside. She saw something glinting, and when her hands closed around it, she found it was the compass. She took it and held it flat in the palm of her hand. It was very old and tarnished, and the arrow swung wildly as she turned it from side to side. She’d done orienteering once with her class. They’d been given a list of certain things they had to find and a map with coordinates. Lucy Coutts had won, of course. She won everything, or nearly everything, and if she didn’t win, she turned red and became very cross.

  What had the wizards told the boy? Always make sure that the compass points south. Ophelia held the compass and turned until she found south. It was just an idea. Only an idea. But the idea gave her butterflies, and the butterflies danced in her stomach. Take me to the sword, then, she thought. Yes, that sounded like her heart speaking.

  “Take me to the sword,” she said aloud.

  Ophelia followed south. South took her down two flights of stairs with malachite banisters, which she had never seen before. South took her through the pavilion of wolves, past the elephants again, straight through the Gallery of Time, which was very difficult because of the crowd. The crowd pressed against her. She weaved her way under arms and legs, crawled the last section on the floor along a wall.

  South took her into a silvery elevator and out the other side, down the stairwell to the sword workroom, which made her briefly excited, until she was there and found it was almost completely empty. She followed south to the very back of the room, where there was another door that led to a storage space: a jumble of cardboard boxes and plastic that had been torn from mannequins, and even a mannequin too, which hadn’t been used, lying on his side, with his doll eyes staring straight ahead
forlornly.

  Ophelia’s father appeared from the back of the storeroom.

  “There you are!” he said. “I tried to phone you and Alice at the hotel. Then I saw Alice in the gallery, and she said you were resting here. I was very worried you’d run off again.”

  Now, why would the compass lead Ophelia to her father?

  Her heart sank. She tried not to look disappointed. But she felt tears smart in her eyes. It was just an idea. A stupid idea. Of course the compass wouldn’t take her to the sword. Of course not. Of course she couldn’t save the world.

  “And you’re meant to be resting, darling. Look at you. You are still looking very peaky.”

  The tears spilled over her eyelids. She tried to stifle a sob. Of course, she thought, of course. There was no hope for anything. She’d be frozen soon. It wouldn’t matter. Everyone would be … finished.

  “Darling, what’s wrong? Why are you crying? What have you got in your hand there?”

  Ophelia clutched the compass to herself and fell into his arms.

  Her father, who was not very good yet at embracing or at wiping away tears, put his arms around her. “It’s okay, Ophelia,” he said. “Whatever’s wrong, it’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” she sobbed. “It’s not. I’m not okay, and you’re not okay, and Alice is not okay. It’s no good pretending that it is.”

  “Ophelia,” said her father. He took a handkerchief from his pocket to try to dry her eyes.

  “No,” she said. “You can’t just keep pretending it’s all fine. We’re sad. We’re all so sad.”

  “It’s okay to be sad,” said her father.

  “Then why don’t you ever show it? Why won’t you ever talk about her?” she cried, pulling away from him.

  Mr. Whittard looked dreadful then. He clenched his jaw, and tears appeared in his eyes. He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m trying as hard as I can.”

  “I want her back,” said Ophelia.

  “I want her back too,” said her father, beginning to sob.

  Ophelia embraced her father hard until she felt him embrace her in return. She took the handkerchief and wiped the tears slowly from his eyes.

  “I’ve just remembered something,” he said finally. “I found something this afternoon that I know will cheer us up.”

  “What?” Ophelia said, wiping her eyes.

  “Come with me.” He led her further inside the storage area, to the very back of the small room. “It isn’t much to look at, I know. But it does look very old, and it has a carving that could be a closed eye. There was no place for it in the show, of course. I’m actually thinking, at one stage, it may have been a toy, although a rather heavy one.”

  He bent down into a pile of broken stuff, which had been pushed into a far corner of the room. He rummaged around.

  “Here it is,” he said.

  He handed the sword to Ophelia. The strange, rather ugly-looking sword. The sword with the smooth wooden hilt and the tarnished blade. She held it in her hands. She didn’t say a word. The eye opened just above the blade. A green gem showed.

  “I never noticed that there before,” said her father.

  She felt the sword singing and humming in her hands. It felt as light as air. As though it had a life of its own. She slashed with it in front of her suddenly.

  “Hold on one minute,” said her father. “Be careful. I need to look at that thing again; I never saw that stone before.…”

  But Ophelia wasn’t handing it over. She laughed. Already the tears were drying on her face. “Daddy,” she said. “I love you. Do you know the time?”

  “It’s half past five,” Mr. Whittard said. “Where are you going?”

  She was running out of the room as fast as she could, with the sword raised before her. She called back to her father. “I’ll be back soon. I’ve just got to save the world.”

  Ophelia didn’t know where the boy was, but she ran as though she could find him in time. She pushed through the crowd that had entered through the museum foyer. They came in waves through the great revolving doors, and the snow came with them. It was like trying to swim upstream. She was pushed and pulled, and once she fell and only barely moved out of the way of a boot.

  There was no point in trying the elevators. People were jamming themselves inside, and the guards were shouting and banging them over the heads with their handbags. She took the grand staircase two steps at a time. She ran with the sword in her hand and her two braids streaming behind her. She took her puffer from her pocket and squirted as she went.

  The sword took her. That was what she said afterward. It flew in front of her with a life of its own, and all she had to do was try to keep up. People scowled at her. People jumped out of the way. People called out for the guards.

  Some thought it was part of the exhibition and applauded as she passed.

  Then the crowd petered out in the dimmer parts of the museum. Past the gallery of teaspoons and the shadowy arcade of mirrors and down the long, gloomy gallery of painted girls. She ran as though just the act of running alone would take her to him.

  The dinosaur hall was far from the crowds, and when she hit the elevator button, she heard it rumbling from above. With the sword in her hands, she didn’t feel frightened. Well, only a little. She slashed it in front of her, and it sang a song. She stepped inside the elevator and pressed floor 7. The boy must be somewhere on the seventh floor. He must. The elevator began to move, complaining and whining upward, but it stopped suddenly on only the third floor. The doors opened, and all of Ophelia’s bravery evaporated. There before her stood Mr. Pushkinova.

  22

  In which Ophelia has a conversation with Mr. Pushkinova

  Ophelia lunged toward the CLOSE button, but Mr. Pushkinova, rather casually, put his hand between the doors. He said nothing. He snarled. A low, grumbling snarl. Ophelia raised the sword at him. He looked a little worried at that, but still he stepped inside the elevator with her. The doors closed behind him. The elevator began to travel upward.

  “I—I—I need to know where the boy is,” stammered Ophelia, pointing the sword at Mr. Pushkinova.

  “There is nothing you can do to help him,” he whispered.

  “But look, I’ve found the sword,” said Ophelia. “That’s all he needs.”

  He moved toward her, and she jabbed at him. He seemed surprised. The sword made a noise like a hissing cat.

  The elevator went on up, up, up. It didn’t seem possible that it could keep going.

  “He said you were good,” said Ophelia. “He said you were a very good man.”

  Mr. Pushkinova hesitated.

  “I don’t believe him; I didn’t believe him. But I’m not so sure. Why would he say you were good if you weren’t? He knows everything there is to know about good and bad.”

  Mr. Pushkinova snarled. But it was halfhearted.

  “He said you were his friend,” Ophelia continued.

  “There is nothing you can do to help him,” Mr. Pushkinova repeated, although this time his voice shook. He closed his eyes as though he were trying to erase the boy from his memory. And from his heart.

  “All these years of you taking him his porridge and talking to him.”

  Mr. Pushkinova said nothing.

  “Please,” said Ophelia.

  At last the old man opened his eyes. “I have told you twice, little girl. There is nothing that you can do. What can you do against the force of winter? Have you thought of that? What can you do? Can you not imagine the strength of the Queen?”

  “But if you’ve looked after him all these years, how can you not care about him?”

  “He has been a good boy,” said Mr. Pushkinova. “In the beginning he ran away often but never got far. He was full of spirit in those days. Always, every day, hoping for the person who would rescue him. The one that the wizards had told him of. He pinned all his hopes on this. And look. Now we are at the very end, and this person has not arrived.”

>   Two tears slipped from Ophelia’s eyes.

  “But I never even got to say goodbye to him,” said Ophelia. “And he’s my friend.”

  Mr. Pushkinova sighed. “He’s not up here,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “He is laid out in the Winter Garden.”

  “But I’ve been to the Winter Garden. I didn’t see him.”

  “You will find him there. He is waiting.…”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “Use your imagination, child,” said Mr. Pushkinova, but he said it very sadly.

  His shoulders slumped, he leaned back against the doors, and he pressed the button for down.

  “He said you were good,” whispered Ophelia. “He said all these years you have been his only friend. He would like you to know that.”

  “He is in the Winter Garden,” Mr. Pushkinova said. The door opened in Prehistoria. “But there will be nothing you can do to save him, child.”

  23

  In which Ophelia finds both the boy and the One Other

  It was terrible to think of him being outside. He would be freezing in just his golden coat and his stockings and knickerbockers, without a scarf or a hat or even gloves. She ran out into the courtyard and found that the snow had stopped briefly, but also that it was so chilled that it took her breath away. It was perfectly still, and the world was perfectly glittering and shining, like a Christmas bauble.

  “Boy!” she shouted into the white landscape.

  “Take me to him!” she shouted to the sword, and it pulled at her arms like a dog on a leash, and she skidded and skated across the ice, her braids streaming behind her.

  The sword did not enter the walled garden but rather the large open space of the courtyard. There were statues there as well. Giant ones, covered in snow, so that it was impossible to tell anymore what they might be. She rushed past their shadows, drawn by the sword.

  “Good sword,” she said. “Good sword.”

  The sword took her to the very center of the courtyard and stopped her there. There was nothing but a mound of snow. It was a mound of snow like a mound of earth on a freshly filled grave. Ophelia squeaked. The sword fell from her hands. She knelt down and began to dig as fast as she could. She dug furiously, tears spilling from her eyes, the air squeezed from her chest by the cold.