by Joan Aiken
“The fourth Earl, Robin’s father, was a very talented musician. He played many different instruments, and he composed music as well. He often used to play tunes to the little boy, who, like his father, loved music. He was always humming and singing—in his bath, in his cot, when he walked out in the park. And—it is thought—one of the tunes that he hummed or sang must have activated the magic mat, which they had put in the bathroom. There was a nursery maid, Ellen Rigby—she walked into the bathroom one evening, ready to give Wee Robin his bath—there he was, sitting on the mat, humming a tune, happy as a sandhopper—and then—the next minute—there he was not! Clean vanished. They searched, of course, they called, they hunted—first the whole house, then the gardens and park, then the village. They told the police. They advertised, locally and in national newspapers. None of it was any use. They never saw Wee Robin again. Both parents died of grief. They had no other children. So the Fourth Earl’s cousin inherited the house and land and the title.”
“But why has he come back now? And why didn’t he stay?”
“Hearing a tune sometimes fetches him back—from whereever he has gone—no very happy place, it seems; he always seems very forlorn and bewildered.”
“Have you seen him, Delia?”
“Once. And Charles has seen him once.”
“Poor, poor little creature, I do wonder where he comes from.”
“And where he goes back to. Perhaps it is a different place every time. He is still hunting for his parents. And for Nurse Ellen. There is a belief among the local people that, if you see him three times, he will stay with you. But no one has ever seen him three times.”
Secretly, Aunt Martha resolved to try and see Wee Robin again. His sadness, his loneliness, his strange plight had touched her deeply. The Countess offered to change her bedroom for the last three days of her visit, but she said no to that.
And every time she went into her bathroom she sang or whistled “Gathering Peascods.” Once, she had a fleeting glimpse of Wee Robin, skinny and forlorn, sitting on his mat.
“Oh, won’t you come with me?” pleaded my aunt Martha. “I’d look after you—I’d love you—I’d teach you and care for you and make a home for you—!” But all he whimpers out is “I want my Mammy! I want my Daddy! I want Nurse Ellen!”
Gone, all of them, long into the past.
And before Aunt Martha could touch or soothe or persuade him, he was gone again, back, perhaps, to where he had come from. Or to some other desolate corner of time or space.
My aunt Martha never married. Never had a child of her own. I think she always hoped that she would see Wee Robin a third time. But her friends left Tyle Place and it was pulled down. A wind farm occupies the site. Forty great spinners stand there, whirling their arms against the sky, and if Wee Robin comes visiting there, he must find it bleak indeed.
The Fluttering Thing
A line of men trailed wearily across the plain. They made slow progress, shuffling along, one behind the other. Red beams from the setting sun cast their shadows sideways off the embanked track and across the quaking bog which lay on either side of it.
The men did not speak to each other; they stumbled along in silence. Each of them was thinking about food. One dreamed of lamb stew, another of a cheeseburger, another of crab salad. They knew they would get none of these things when they reached the end of their march. The evening meal would be grey gruel, as it had been at breakfast.
Their minds on food, the marching men kept their eyes on their feet. They did not look ahead or sideways. They had come this way so often that there was nothing new to fix their attention. Beyond the bog, and all around them, lay a ring of smouldering volcanoes. Each one belched out pink or grey smoke. Now and then they spat up a fan of sparks. From time to time a trickle of molten lava slid down the side of one of the mountains. The marching men ignored these occurrences, which were nothing new.
Now and then a man would fall to the ground, unable to walk any farther. He would be ignored by his companions. Perhaps, after a few minutes’ rest, he might struggle to his feet and recommence walking. Perhaps not.
At the rear of the column were guards with machine pistols. These were seldom used. If the fallen man appeared to be dead, there was no need to shoot him. His body would be tossed into the bog, where it instantly sank from view. If he proved to be alive, and able to go on, he would be prodded to his feet.
If alive, but too weak to walk, he went into the bog.
A man called Mark was talking to himself as he plodded along. He was in the middle of the column, with half his companions ahead, half behind him.
He was not talking aloud, but inside his mind.
“Moist sugar, raisins, currants, candied peel, flour, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, eggs, milk, grated lemon peel, brandy. Some say grated carrot. Some say mashed potato. I say no. Some say mace. Boil for six hours, or steam for at least seven. Serve with a suitable sauce, perhaps brandy butter. Did I say flour? Did I say salt? Heat a tablespoonful of brandy in a spoon over a candle, set light to it, and pour over the pudding before serving. Mashed potato! What a revolting suggestion!”
At this moment the man called Mark saw something unusual just ahead.
A live creature was floundering in the bog on the left-hand side of the causeway. Something was in difficulties there. Due to the coating of black mud it was impossible to decide whether it was human or animal. Neither would last long before sinking out of sight.
Most of the trudging men had passed by without taking the slightest interest in what was taking place by the side of the road. If they thought about it at all they assumed that it was one of their companions who wished to put an end to his dismal existence.
But Mark, for some reason, decided differently. He strode out of the moving column, knelt down, extended a hand, grabbed the nearest part of the creature that he could reach, and pulled hard.
The rest of the marching men paid no heed to this attempt at rescue. They plodded on their way.
Mark pulled again—tugged—twisted.
With a loud, sucking gulp, the bog released its victim. The black, slimy body suddenly exploded out of its gluey socket and landed on the bank, knocking Mark off his feet.
“I thank you!—I thank you!” gasped the stranger as Mark scrambled up and was about to resume his plodding march. “Wait! Don’t go! I am able to reward you! I have a—I have a—a thing.”
“Errrch. A—a thing?” Mark was so much out of the habit of talking that his words came out in a thick croak. “A thing?” he said again.
“A magic thing. A wish thing.”
The muddy stranger pulled a kerchief from his pocket and, crouching at the roadside, carefully wiped an object that he had been clutching in his right hand. It was about the size of a hen’s egg.
“Found it—on the volcano—Mount Tlextac—” gasped the rescued man. “My great-grandmother—told me—about them—”
“Which volcano?”
“Tlextac. On the first day of autumn—or the last day of spring—the fire mountain throws up these pods—”
“Pods? Looks like a stone to me.”
“No. There is something inside. Something alive.”
“Alive?”
“Yes. But you must never let it out. Or the power is lost.”
“Power?”
“Power to grant a wish. One wish every twenty-four hours. Anything you want. A wish to each person who holds it—I was just going to wish,” the muddy man said, “when the mountain heaved up its crust and threw me into the bog. If it weren’t for you, I would have sunk. So now I am going to wish my wish, and then I will give you the pod—don’t open it, whatever you do, or the power will be dispersed—”
The muddy man stretched out his muddy hand and laid the curiously heavy oval object in Mark’s palm.
“Saints! I can feel something fluttering inside—like a chick inside an egg—horrible!”
“Yes, but whatever you do, don’t let it out—or no more wishes.�
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The stranger drew a deep, croaking breath. Then he laid a finger on the object in Mark’s palm. He said, “I want to go there! ” and immediately vanished. But the heavy, egg-shaped stone remained in Mark’s hand. The fluttering inside it was now frantic. It tickled, it shivered, it struggled.
“Poor devil in there,” thought Mark. “What can it be? What it must be like, trapped, shut up inside that hard, heavy case—”
He studied the solid, egg-shaped object.
It was greenish grey in colour, slightly shiny where the stranger had rubbed it with his handkerchief. A thin white line ran round its widest circumference. “Can that be a crack?” wondered Mark. “Like the opening of a box. I wonder if it unscrews . . . ?”
“Come on you—number ninety-four!” called one of the armed guards. “Get going!”
He prodded Mark with his pistol. Mark took a couple of steps forward.
He said, “I want a Christmas pudding!”—and then sharply unscrewed the object with a twist of both hands. The two halves separated smoothly. There was nothing inside, apart from a drop or two of greenish fluid.
Mark heard—but did not see—something that whisked up into the air above his head and immediately fluttered away over the bog towards the distant mountains.
Mark threw away the two halves of the pod and stooped to pick up a Christmas pudding which lay in a dish at his feet on the muddy ground. Somebody had just poured flaming brandy over it.
“Hand that over!” said the guard.
Water of Youth
Gay and glorious, one day every year, the market square of this little town is, and that’s the day in September when the fair comes, and music peals, and roundabouts whirl, and the through-traffic, if it wants to get by, has to give the town a miss and scrape along side lanes past sodden blackberry hedges. Though where through-traffic should be going, don’t ask me, for beyond the town, up the mountain, stands nothing but the water tower, on its one leg like a broody heron, and the castle of Owen Richards the poet; beyond again, and all round for that matter, lie only the mountains, heaving their mossy shoulders into the rain and the mist.
On Fair Day, then, the big roundabout takes up all the centre of the town square with its horses and swans and dragons, while round it thick as currants in a birthday cake crowd the sideshows and stalls and rifle-galleries, not to mention Jones the Rope Trick, the lovely fortune-telling Myfanwy, and, this year we are speaking of, Señor Pedro.
Señor Pedro was a wizened little man, nose like a parrot, eyes like chips of anthracite, hair a mere wisp at the back of his head, and a walnut shell face that was wrinkled and seamed all over as if, every night, he slept facedown on a doormat.
Indeed, he was talking about his face, standing on a big box in front of his little tent. The box was wreathed about with pink paper, and on the tent hung a banner: Agua de Vida, Water of Life.
“You see my face, señores, señoras?” he was shouting to the crowd. “Wrinkled, you think, my friends, but you are wrong. My face was scratched by thorns, yes, thorns—those very thorns that the South American pygmies use to tip their arrows. On the slopes of the Andes, your honours, grows a terrible thorn thicket, many miles across. In the middle of this thicket is a spring. Ah, your honours, such a beautiful spring! Nowhere in the world is there one like it—this is the spring of the water of youth. One sip removes twenty, thirty years from your age.”
“A fine story to tell us, that is!” shouted a derisive voice. “Why hasn’t anyone ever heard of this water before?”
Shrugged a patient shoulder, Señor Pedro did. “Am I not telling you, señoras, señores? This water is very hard to procure. The Indians are hostile, the place is distant, the thicket is impenetrable and perilous, muy periculoso.”
“If the water does that to you, why don’t the Indians drink it and stay young forever?”
“Quien sabe? Maybe they do. Who can tell what age a pygmy has reached? But what I am come to tell you, señoras, is that with me I have”—here he brought it from under his jacket and held it up with a flourish—“a bottle, the last bottle in Europe, of this renowned, miraculous, youth-giving liquid brought to you all the way from Brazil.” There was a murmur of wonder from the crowd, and they gazed at the stone bottle, which was crowned with gold foil and might hold a quart.
“Why don’t you drink it yourself?” shrilled Mrs Griffith the Dispensary. “Poison I believe it is!”
“Ah, there’s probable! Or why should he be offering it for sale when he’s as worn and wizened himself as an old seed potato?”
“Maybe he prefers the money, fair play?” suggested Rhys the Red Dragon.
“Why should I wish to grow younger?” said Señor Pedro scornfully. “One life with its troubles is enough for me. I have all I need. Back in the Andes my good wife is waiting for me, beautiful as an angel. But the dearest longing of her heart is a new grand piano, for though we stood the legs of her Otway in four pans of kerosene, the termites ate it away until nothing remained but the keys.”
“Did you ever hear of such a calamity?” mourned the sympathetic crowd.
“Her only wish is to play once more. And that is why, señoras, señores, at risk to my life I filled six bottles with the water of youth and came to Europe. Here you see the last of them. I am now going to auction it. Will any gracious lady or gentleman offer me five hundred pounds for it, this miraculous elixir, this water of youth?”
“Come on, now, Lily Griffith! Tickled to death your old man would be, to see you a lovely young twenty-one-year-old again!”
“As if I’d waste my money on such stuff,” sniffed Mrs Griffith. “Better things I have to do with it. Five hundred pounds indeed!”
The crowd hesitated, broke, laughed, and chaffered. Señor Pedro kept the auction bubbling like a lukewarm kettle.
There were other attractions in the square. Music thundered between the houses, there were goldfish to be won by a skilful fling of a dart, hot dogs to be eaten, vases and tea sets at the rifle gallery, candy floss for the children; and all the time the rain pelted down. But the great shafts of light pushing upwards from the sideshows turned the rain to a canopy of sparkle.
Owen Richards the poet came down from his castle to the fair with Ariel, his guest, a famous actress from the boards of London, and the love of his long life.
“I must have my fortune told,” said she, making a beeline for Myfanwy’s van with its sugar-pink stripes and the portrait of Myfanwy over the door which had so bewitched Ianto Evans two years before that he had gone into the van and never been seen again.
“You at least should have no worries about your fortune, Ariel,” said Owen, but she shuddered as she glanced into a little shell-encrusted looking-glass that he had won at the rifle gallery and caught a glimpse of her lovely, ageing face. He followed her into the sugar-striped van.
Myfanwy was playing waterfalls with a pack of cards which she could pour from one hand to another like water from a cup to a can.
“Tell my fortune,” commanded Ariel, and she put out her hand.
“Steady you must hold it, then,” Myfanwy bade her, and she built a card-house on Ariel’s palm, ten, jack, queen, king, and the ace for a roof; Ariel neither budged nor spoke.
“Second storey is it,” Myfanwy said at that, and she built another on top of the first. Ariel held her hand steady as a table—a fine, thin hand, and the wrist so transparent you could see the veins in it. “Fancy now,” Myfanwy said, and she laid a third storey on top of the second. “Very unusual that is.”
But still the tower stood without falling on Ariel’s palm, and Myfanwy pursed her lips and added the final storey, four black spades and the ace on top of it all.
“Now blow,” she said, and Ariel blew, scattering the cards like a shower of apple-blossom across the tent. Myfanwy picked them up. A look of amazement came over her face.
“O dammo,” says she, “crazy old fortune you’ve got here. Neither head nor tail can I make of it! Try again, you must.”
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“No, I’ll not try again,” says Ariel, laughing. “I’m not wishful to tempt Providence too far. We’ll leave it at that.” And she crossed Myfanwy’s hand with a flourish of half-crowns.
“Can’t you say if she’ll marry?” asked Owen Richards the poet, anxious as a hen with one duckling.
“Far as I can make out she’ll have more husbands than Henry the Eighth,” Myfanwy says. “A heron must have flown over the van and bewitched the cards. Good luck to you, lady, and remember Myfanwy in your will.”
Ariel laughed. “Maybe I’ll never make a will,” she said. Out they went into the rain again.
Soon as they were gone, Ianto Evans, he that had left his good wife for Myfanwy’s sake two years before, crept out from under the bed.
“Ten o’clock,” he said. “Blodwen will have been out to Jones the Cod to buy her bit of fish and chips. Locked away snug, she’ll be, watching the telly; I’ll just nip along home and dig up the clematis by the back door. Planted that clematis myself, I did; no reason it shouldn’t come with us on our wanderings. Lovely little flowers it has, like red butterflies.”
“Careful now, Ianto, bach,” Myfanwy said. “Supposing she’s out at the fair? Meet her you might, and then the fur would fly.”
“Not Blodwen, not her. She never went to a fair since the day she was old enough to pop a penny into a moneybox.” And off he strode into the silvery wet night, and sniffing up the alley to his back door like a hound on a fish trail—only he was on the track of Blodwen and her Friday four-pennorth, to make sure was she safely locked up with the hake and chips. Smell of fish there was, sure enough, but it had been left by Thomas the Electric, four houses farther on. Just put the clematis in his pocket, Ianto had, when Blodwen came along with her supper and let out a screech at sight of him.
“Oh, there’s my skulking husband that ran off and left me for a cardsharping Jezebel! Wait till I get my hands on you, Ianto my man!”