‘I will set out directly. You must rest here from your travels, under my roof. But do not show your face abroad in the town—my servants will tend to you, and to the widow’s coach and drivers. And, again, when you take your carriage back to St Olafred’s tomorrow, Mister Oxman, allow no one to see you, if you please.’
‘Very well,’ I said.
But she was already gone. ‘Wife Marchpane?’ she called in the hall. ‘Hilda? Have Gadbolt saddled up for me. Marchpane, we must leave our preparations for the moment.’ And her voice died away as she strode through the house, still issuing commands. The cat jumped down from the table, and with a last look behind and a meow of scorn, followed her out.
‘Now, there is a woman,’ Wife Ramstrong said, patting my hand and laughing with the surprise, ‘who knows, and exactly, what is what.’
In the autumn of her twenty-fifth year, Branza and Wolf walked up to Hallow Top, where the stones lay every which way in the heather. The wind was cold, but the walking warmed her, and she stretched her fingers and swung her arms to uncramp them after her morning’s work embroidering under the window. Liga was still there, sewing; she never seemed to tire of it, never seemed to hunger for air and movement.
When she reached the Top, Branza climbed up to sit on one of the stones. The wolf leaped up too, and settled beside her, his head raised like a lion’s on a crest, blinking into the wind.
With her heels kicking the stone’s side high above the ground, Branza was a girl again, though she was full-grown long ago; though the years had accumulated behind her in their great pointless pile.
The wind was fitful, like an irritated hand scratching and slapping her. It hissed in the tall, dry grasses and hummed on and off in Branza’s ears. It moved the grass unpredictably, tugging Branza’s glance to here and to there with the illusion of things arriving, or darting about. She expected at any moment for that little crotchety girl with the basket, her dark sister, to round a rock before her and stamp into sight, her eyes full of thoughts and rebellion. She would be muttering, Of all the daft things! When we could be in town by now. Always dallying and dreaming. And then she would look up, and push her hair out of her eyes, and call, What are you up there for, goose-girl? Let us go!
Urdda. Urdda. How long it had been since the name had sounded in Branza’s mouth! How sorely she still missed her: the underlying fact of all her days was that she was absent a sister; that her three-corner family was broken, one of its corners lost, cracked off like the edges of just such stones as these by the ices of many winters. How many winters had Urdda been gone? Would it be ten this year, or eleven? ’Twas a hopelessly long time, whichever. And Branza was no wiser as to why than she had been that day, when Urdda had risen early and walked out of the house, and not returned for breakfast, or for the evening meal, or to sleep.
Things came, things went, and there was no sense to it. First-Bear had arrived, and then flown away to the moon. That littlee-man, he had popped up and stamped himself away as he pleased. And then Bear—that second bear, the one that Mam had not trusted so much—he had gone too, run away to nowhere, out through the back of his cave.
Wolf laid his head between his paws, and Branza dug her fingers into the ruff of fur at his neck to make his eyes close in bliss. Kick, kick, went her heels against the stone. It was all so long ago, but these were the last important things to happen to her, so she remembered them clearly, remembered them often.
Had Urdda stayed, the loss of second-Bear would not have seemed such a blow—he was not, after all, so noble an animal as first-Bear; Mam had been right in that. But he had been Branza’s last connection with her sister. The day before Urdda left, while Branza had dug the littlee-man’s grave, her sister had stood among the trees imploring that bear for something, plaguing him with her curiosity. Bear had arrived; Urdda had bothered him; and next day Urdda was gone. Had he answered her pleading, somehow? Had he told her where he came from, and how to reach that place?—for that was surely what she had wanted him to tell her. And had she got there, or had she wandered afar and lost herself—or died!—in the trying? If she had not died, where was she that was so much better than home that she could stay away ten years, or eleven, without visit or word?
These were the thoughts that always revolved in her mind. If she spoke to Mam about the lost Bears, or Urdda, or the nature of the world, Mam moved very quickly on to other matters. Ada Keller, and other women in the town, grew glazed-eyed or worried-looking if she asked them. Everyone seemed to want Branza to know exactly the little she did know, and no more.
Kick, kick, her heels went, like a tiny child’s against a window seat. Dig, dig, went her fingertips into the warm depths of the wolf’s fur.
‘What would I do if you decided to go, little brother?’ she said. ‘To one of those other worlds?’
He blinked vaguely and lifted his chin to her scratching.
Worse, what if Mam were to go—to walk into a cave one morning and never come out again, to stamp her foot behind a rock and disappear? Or if Branza were to find herself in one of those places, with no Mam or Wolf, no Urdda or Bear—with only nasty littlee-sorts on all sides, laughing and cursing at her, swinging from her hair?
There seemed no reason why such things would not happen. This was the awfulness she met at the edges of her nightmares, the night going on and on all around her, the worlds and the possibilities multiplying, with nothing in place to limit their fearsomeness and hostility. From this locked terror she would reach out, her blind hand moving stiffly down the darkness between the tapis and the bed-panelling, to touch Wolf’s warmth and constancy; to move her fingers in his fur, which was as good as lighting a lamp; to hear him half wake, and mouth the ordinary night, and resettle with a croon and a sigh to his untroubled sleep.
The moment she saw the woman at the door, Urdda knew life was about to toss her up from its blanket again, and who knew where she would come down this time?
‘Is this the house of the Widow Bywell?’ The woman was whitefaced, with eyes bruised from exhaustion, but alert for all that, and determined.
‘It is,’ said Urdda. She turned to the boy in the hall behind her. ‘Anders, run for Mister Deeth,’ she told him, and turned back. ‘You have ridden a long way, mum—our Mister Deeth will care for your horse. And how might I introduce you, mum, to my mistress?’
‘Miss Dance, tell her. I am come from Rockerly.’
‘Horse!’ said Ousel, wandering from his breakfast into the hall to see the goings-on.
‘Just so, Ousel!’ Urdda scooped him up. ‘You have ridden all the night, then, mum? Are you hungry? Will you join us at our meal?’
‘I will not, though I thank you.’
When Miss Dance had instructed Mister Deeth in her horse’s care, she followed Urdda upstairs—for Urdda had seen at a glance that she was not to be put in the parlour to await the widow’s leisure.
‘Lady Annie?’ Urdda poked her head around the widow’s chamber door. ‘There is a Miss Dance here, come all the way from Rockerly to see you.’
The widow’s teacup rattled to the saucer. She looked as if she would rather leap from the window than face this meeting. But she only nodded, fearfully, for Urdda to show the lady in.
Miss Dance wore costly riding clothing, odd, severe, dark, and absolutely silent in its movements. Her authority clothed her in another layer of darkness and mystery. Lady Annie quailed at the sight. ‘Stay by me, Urdda,’ she said. Suddenly she seemed a child, her own clothing fussy and overornamented. ‘You have no objection?’ she said to the visitor.
Miss Dance glanced quick and fiercely at Urdda and Ousel. ‘Of course not,’ she said. She crossed the room and sat down uninvited. She scrutinised Lady Annie as if she had just forked her out of a stewpot to check whether she was tender yet. ‘But you and I have met before!’
‘I believe we have, miss. Many a year ago it were, miss, but I do recall you, yes I do. At High Oaks Cross, it were, at the market there, by Wife Matchett’s powders-stall
. . .’ She finished in a whisper, her gaze on the knot of ring-stones in her lap.
‘High Oaks Cross, was it? Maybe so. I seem to recall our having words, yes. You were not so well placed in society at that time, I think.’
‘No, miss. I were but a little hedge-doctress, and no more.’ The widow made herself littler in her seat.
The silence was charged with the forceful woman’s thinking. Urdda looked up from occupying Ousel with his wooden animals on the floor. Miss Dance was so handsome, so serious! Her strange dress must be exactly correct for the exotic place she hailed from. Rockerly! She, Urdda, must see that place someday, where women dressed so beautifully yet so plain, and rode about alone. No one would dare spit upon this woman, or call out at her. She had a different kind of boldness, a strength that did not defy that of men so much as ignore it, or take its place without question beside it—Urdda wanted some of that boldness.
Miss Dance released an impatient breath. ‘Judging from other information I have gathered this morning, you have done what I expressly told you not to do.’
Annie’s forehead drooped an inch towards the rings.
‘You have given someone their heaven. Or tried to. And maybe half succeeded. That is the feeling I gain from this, from what I have seen.’
Lower still sank Annie’s head. ‘Please, miss,’ she said, ‘what is it you have seen?’
‘A furred lad, that cannot shed the bearskins he put on for your Bear Day feast,’ said the lady. ‘This wealth around you, very suddenly got, so people say. And two men, I have heard, who stumbled on a heaven in error and languished there, not knowing how to return.’
The mudwife now was panting, her whole small frame atremble. Ousel looked up at her curiously, a wooden sheep in each hand. Urdda sat forward with her hands stretched out to distract him, and promptly he handed her a sheep. ‘Seeps,’ he whispered, then handed her the other. ‘Nudder seeps.’
‘I did send him there,’ the widow said in a low, frantic voice. ‘And he died there and was et.’
‘Who was et?’ said Miss Dance, as if this were the most sensible conversation in the world.
‘My friend Collaby Dought. My old friend from Onion’s days, my fellow orphan.’ She looked up at Miss Dance with tear-bobbled eyes, and her ring-bobbled hand groped out towards Urdda, who dropped one sheep in her lap and clasped it. ‘Honest, I meant no harm, only to rescue him from his troubles.’
Slowly, Miss Dance sat forward in her chair and fixed a gaze on the widow. Then she murmured, thrilling Urdda with the sound, ‘Who did you think I was, Annie, when I told you not to meddle there? Some busy-biddy like yourself?’
‘I did not know, I did not know, miss. I can—’ A gulp interrupted Annie. ‘I can see now that you are a person of consid’rable power. Honest, though, when I first met you, I were but a foolish maid—’
On the floor, Ousel took up a wooden chicken and clucked softly.
‘It was this Collaby Dought’s heaven, then?’ said Miss Dance now, more sharply. ‘But how can a man die in his own heaven?’
‘Oh no, miss! Dought’s heart’s desire was all stumpets like himself. The place he went, he never met a single littlee. Only girt lumps, he said, same as here.’
Miss Dance sat silent, an expectant thundercloud. ‘That place,’ said the widow unwillingly.
‘That is, Urdda and I have discussed it, haven’t we, Urdda? And we think, perhaps, though we cannot be sure . . .’ But in the face of Miss Dance’s disapproval, she could not go on.
‘We think it is my mother’s place,’ said Urdda. Her voice was a surprise to both ladies—and to Ousel, who in a moment of doubt held the chicken to his chest. Annie let go of Urdda’s hand and watched her nervously.
‘My mother, Liga Longfield,’ Urdda said, with some satisfaction at knowing the name. ‘It is the world as my mother would have wanted it, for us all to be safe in, her and Branza and me—Branza is my sister.’ She accepted Ousel’s chicken and looked up at the two ladies. ‘It is quite like here, only simpler, with all the cruel people taken out, all the rudeness and suddenness, and much of the noise and bustle. Ale and spirits also. And the coin and jewels, and much of the commerce involving them, too—though Lord Dought seemed to find plenty there, when he visited.’
‘You have been there too?’ said Miss Dance.
‘I lived there all my life, until a year ago, when I came here.’
‘All your life? But you cannot have been born there. Well, you cannot have been conceived there, to travel here as more than a phantasm.’
‘I cannot?’ I knew it! Urdda thought. I knew I belonged here, even before I properly knew this place existed. ‘Then my mother must have taken us there—me and Branza—when we were but babbies.’
Miss Dance touched fingertips to her temple and forehead, and closed her eyes a moment, resting Urdda and the mudwife from the sight of her intelligence. ‘So your friend Mister Dought, Annie—he has died in this girl’s mother’s heaven?’
‘Indeed,’ whispered the widow stringily.
Miss Dance glared. ‘Was it you that sent the mother there?’
‘No!’ The little old woman reached out again, and Urdda spared her a hand to clutch. ‘It were not me! I never met the girl! I only ever sent Collaby through—and since then I’ve done nothing of actual spelling, not even looking at fortunes. I only herb and heal now; Urdda will confirm it. I took up those harmless things again, close on her arrival here.’
‘Do you know the sorcerer who did send the mother?’
‘I do not, Miss Dance. I don’t know of anyone with powers but myself and you. And Gypsy Tross, what taught me all my herbing—but she’s long dead.’
‘Very well. Now, you say the man Dought was eaten in that heaven?’
‘I believe so. Urdda saw it. Et by a bear.’
‘Et by Teasel Wurledge as a bear,’ said Urdda, handing a sheep back to Ousel, ‘as went from here to there on Bear Day, a year back last February—that is, in this world’s time. Three winters ago and more, by home’s time—if you believe Teasel, which you may not want to.’
Miss Dance nodded, closing her eyes again. ‘So you destroyed the key-joint, mudwife.’
‘I’m sorry?’ whispered the widow.
‘The factor, the mechanism, the piece,’ said Miss Dance in a voice that positively crackled with frost, ‘that keeps the times aligned between here and a heaven.’
‘I did?’ The widow’s voice was a dry squeak.
‘Have any remains been retrieved?’ snapped Miss Dance.
‘Pardon, mum?’ said Annie.
‘Bones, hair, clothing—has any part of the dead man been brought back?’
‘Nothing, mum,’ muttered the widow.
‘Although . . .’ Urdda glanced at the women and then at her lapful of animals. ‘Although quite a lot of him would have come back absorbed into Teasel, I suppose.’
Miss Dance cleared her throat. ‘And before he died, am I right, Mister Dought brought back jewels from Liga’s place?’
‘Yes, stones such as these.’ Annie let go of Urdda’s hand to turn her rings in the window-light. ‘And coin, coin in abundance—gold and silver. As much as he could carry, every time.’
‘How many times did he pass across?’ Something like dread inflected Miss Dance’s voice.
‘I would not know,’ admitted Annie, ‘for I think he did not always tell me. He knew I were worried about the effects—’
‘Approximately, though?’
‘Four? Or five—that I knew of, as I say.’
‘Always by the same perforation?’
Lady Annie sank back ashamed again. ‘I don’t believe so,’ she said softly. ‘I believe he made several . . . puff’rations.’
Miss Dance abruptly stood and went to the window. ‘You have set me quite a task, mudwife,’ she said with studied gentleness, to the glass, to the street outside.
‘Puss!’ said Ousel joyfully, and held a wooden cat out towards the sorceress.
‘
I told him he ought not,’ said Annie. ‘I only really authorised that first puff—the first time he went through.’
Miss Dance turned at the window, but the other side of her was no less focused and terrifying. ‘I would have you tell me, Widow Bywell, exactly how you achieved that first perforation, if you please.’
‘Puss!’
‘Show me the puss, Ousel,’ whispered Urdda, and put out her hand. Doubtfully he placed the wooden cat in it.
‘It were a long time ago,’ murmured Lady Annie, ‘to go remembering everything.’
‘Nevertheless, I must have all the details, if I am to undo this mess you have made. Here, this will take some time.’ From the saddlebag she had left in a chair by the bedchamber door, she fetched writing kitment and a small canister, which she handed to Urdda. ‘Would you brew up three goodly pinches of this to a wine-cup of water for me? Don’t fear,’ she added at Lady Annie’s gasp. ‘There is no power in it—it is only to keep me alert, for I have had no sleep, and I’ve much to do today. I can trust you, can I not, to give me a full account of your activities in this matter without my using potions or powders on you?’
‘Indeed you can,’ the mudwife said humbly.
‘Then we will begin.’ Miss Dance sat at the table by the window and began unpacking the kitment.
Urdda took the canister, swept up Ousel and his cat, and withdrew.
Anders was on the stairs. ‘Who is that lady?’ he whispered as soon as the door was closed.
‘That is a wise-woman, and a very powerful one, I am hoping,’ said Urdda. ‘Come, we must make her her special tea so that she can continue to be wise.’
‘She has a fine mare,’ said the boy, words he had borrowed from Mister Deeth.
‘Oh,’ said Urdda, beaming at him as he followed her down, ‘she has a fine everything!’
‘You would not think it so exhausting, would you,’ I says to Wife Ramstrong, ‘to sit in a carriage all day and watch the country pass?’
‘Oh, there were a hill-climb or two,’ she said. She looked as fresh as if just woken. I’ve two babs and am cooking up a third, she’d laughed to me earlier. This is like a resting-cure to me. ‘And a spot of clambering around the muddy parts. And just the excitement, of strangers and strange places—that tires a person, two days of it.’
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