by Joan Aiken
“You must not pick the fruit yet,” said Hella’s father. “The tree must be allowed to keep its fruit, for it is not a common tree but came from a temple in the land of Zipanou. When you and the tree are both twelve years old, then you can pick the plums.”
After that, Hella’s father had to call his crew together, and they embarked in his ship Elda and sailed away, far away to the north, to the distant point where sea and sky meet together. On, on, out of sight they sailed, and never came back.
“Poor souls, they have been lost at sea,” people in the nearest town said. And about the ship, Elda, Hella heard them say, “The deadly sea mice got her.”
Hella wondered many times to herself what the deadly sea mice might be like. She had never seen them. Fierce little things, she thought they must be, with sharp, sharp needle-sharp teeth, hungry little swimming mice who gnawed and chewed away at the planks of ships until they broke to pieces and sank under the waves.
Hella pondered and pondered about the sea mice, as she wandered along the shore. While, in the silent house, her mother, instead of cleaning the rooms or weeding the garden, sat still with sorrowful heart and idle hands, grieving for her husband.
One night Hella had a strange dream and woke up crying: “Oh, mother! I saw the sea mice! I saw the sea mice coming with their sharp teeth to eat up you and me as they ate up my father and his ship!”
But her mother said slowly, “No, no, child. There are no such things as sea mice. What sank your father’s ship was the seam ice—the thin skin of ice that forms between two icebergs, which breaks, and melts, and forms again, and sometimes traps a ship in its jaws.”
Despite what her mother had said, for many months after that, and even years, Hella went on dreaming and wondering about the sea mice; only now she did not think of them as savage and wicked, but just wild and lively and carefree, scampering on their own concerns over the frozen ocean.
Every year, at fruit time, Hella longed to pick the plums from her tree. There was never a large crop, not more than five or six fruit each year, but they were very fine, clear all through, like glass, so that the plum-stones in the middle could be seen, pale greenish amber in color.
Each year the plums ripened, and fell off the tree, and rolled down the sandy cliff into the sea.
When Hella was nine, her mother pined away and died of grieving, and there were no other relations to look after the child. Hella was left alone, with nothing in the world but her plum tree.
“Remember child, remember not to pick the plums until you are twelve years old,” her mother reminded Hella just before she died. “Your father brought the seed from a temple in Zipanou, and the priest told him that bad luck would fall upon anybody who touched the fruit until the tree’s twelfth summer. When you and the tree are twelve, child, then you may pick the fruit and it will bring you luck.”
After her mother’s death, Hella was obliged to leave the little wooden house, and go away to look for work. She walked twenty miles to the town, and found a place as kitchenmaid in a big house. Her mistress was a hard woman, and Hella was kept busy all day long, sweeping, dusting, carrying pails of water, lighting fires, peeling potatoes, washing clothes. All day long she had to work so hard that, when night came, she fell asleep as soon as she lay down on her hard, cold bed. Then she began to dream.
Every night she dreamed about the sea. In her sleep she thought that she could still hear the sound of the waves—although the coast was twenty long miles away. And Hella dreamed about the sea mice, frisking through the foam at the water’s edge, and scampering on the sandy shore. Now they seemed kind little creatures, friendly and welcoming.
“Don’t grieve, Hella!” they said. “We will help you by and by. Wait patiently.”
Hella was allowed only one day’s holiday a year. But at least she might choose at what season the day fell, and so she chose her birthday, which fell in August, when the evenings are still long and light, and the plums are ripe.
On her first holiday Hella jumped out of bed just after midnight, put on her clothes, let herself out of the house, and set off to walk all the way to the sea coast, to the cliff where her father’s house had stood and where her plum tree grew. The walk was long and tiring. By the time she reached the cliff, the sun shone high in the sky, and she felt sad to see how shabby and uncared for the little wooden house had become. Nobody lived there any longer. Weeds grew in the garden, and the gate hung on one hinge.
But Hella’s plum tree was thriving. It had grown big and healthy, stretching its branches up and out in the shape of a fan. They were covered with a fine crop of fruit, plums big as gulls’ eggs and clear as crystal, each with a pale yellow stone at its heart. The plums flashed in the rays of the climbing sun as Hella walked along the sandy beach below the cliff. She longed to pick the plums—even just one!—but knew that she must not for another two years.
When she was just below the tree on the cliff top, a large bird floated overhead; all gray and white it was, and cast a black shadow on the wet sand. As Hella gazed up at it, shading her eyes and smiling in wonder, for she had never seen such a large bird before, an arrow flew from the cliff top and pierced its heart. The bird fell dead on the beach, and from above Hella heard a shout of triumph.
Down from the cliff ran a red-haired boy. He was big, and rather fat, and carried a bag of arrows slung over his shoulder. In his hand he held an unstrung bow. Taking no notice of Hella, he pulled three feathers from the bird’s tail and stuck them into his headband.
“Oh, why did you shoot the beautiful bird, why did you do such a thing?” she cried.
He glanced at her scornfully.
“What affair is it of yours?” he said. “That was not your bird!”
And without another word he climbed back to the top of the cliff and shook the boughs of the plum tree until all the fruit fell off. He did not eat the plums, or pocket them, but kicked them idly down the cliff, and, with a careless jerk of his wrist, flung three or four of them into the sea.
“Why, why did you do that?” cried Hella again.
“It’s not your tree,” sneered the boy. “It belonged to an old fellow who, they say, was eaten by the sea mice. Sea mice! As if anybody believed in them!” And he said again, “It’s not your tree,” before turning to stride away, whistling, along the cliffs.
No, thought Hella, it is not my tree now, but it will be in two years’ time.
She looked sadly down at the body of the beautiful bird, which lay on the sand where the boy had left it, though the tide was creeping closer. Then Hella saw that thousands of tiny white mice had come crowding out of the surf and were taking hold of the feathered body with their strong little paws. They pulled and tugged the bird into the waves until it vanished from view. At this sight, Hella felt a little comforted. They will take care of the bird, she thought.
Next the mice scampered on to the sand in order to tidy up the spot where the bird had lain, washing away the blood, making all clean and smooth as it had been before. They took not the slightest notice of Hella, but ran to and fro about her ankles, faster than drops of sea water or grains of sand blowing in the wind.
The sea mice were just the way she had dreamed them, no bigger than acorns, white, and frosted all over with salt, so that their ears and whiskers and the tassels on their tails twinkled like grains of diamond in the rays of the sinking sun. And so did their eyes.
Now Hella knew that she must leave the beach and walk all the long tiring way back to the town where her mistress lived. “Goodbye, sea mice!” she called. “Take care of my plum tree. I will see you next year.” The sea mice made no reply but went busily on with what they were doing.
Another year passed. Hella was kept hard at work, sweeping, dusting, scrubbing, fetching, and carrying. Sometimes she was scolded, sometimes she was beaten. Always she had very little to eat. And every night, on her hard bed, she dreamed about the sea
mice, darting about on the sand or frisking in the shallows of the sea.
When Hella’s next holiday came she rose, as before, just after midnight, and set off to walk the twenty miles to the beach. From far away, this year, she could see in the rising sun how big and handsome her plum tree had grown. But the little wooden house was now hardly more than a pile of rotting boards.
As Hella walked to the top of the cliff and paused to admire the heavy crop of plums that grew on her tree, she heard a thud of hoofs behind her, and turned in time to see a great stag come plunging up the landward side of the cliff.
In pursuit of the stag rode a red-haired huntsman on a black horse, and two black dogs ran ahead of the horse, baying and yelping. Just as the stag reached the cliff top the huntsman loosed an arrow, which sang through the air and struck it in the neck.
The stag gave a loud bellow of pain and sprang out from the cliff top, landing at the sea’s edge on the shore below. It was badly hurt and bleeding, Hella could see—drops of blood splashed down on to the white sand—but it staggered into the waves, and plunged through the surf, and managed to swim away, out into deep water.
The huntsman cursed long and furiously when he saw his prey escape him. Leaping off his horse, he beat the two dogs, who howled and whimpered. Then, casting an angry glance at Hella, the hunter strode to the plum tree, which he shook and shook until all the fruit fell off. A few plums he crammed into his pockets, the rest he kicked into the sea below.
“Well, don’t look at me so sour-faced!” he growled at Hella. “It isn’t your tree!”
And he remounted his horse and galloped away, followed by the two dogs.
No, thought Hella, it is not my tree now; but next year it will be.
After the hunter had gone she walked down to the beach and watched the little sea mice come out of the creamy surf to clean away the drops of blood left by the stag as it limped over the sand. The mice rubbed against Hella’s ankles and sometimes scampered right over her feet; she thought they looked at her with friendship in their tiny dazzling eyes.
And then she was obliged to turn away from the sea and walk all the long road back to the town.
Another year of hard work and harsh words passed. Once more it was time for Hella’s free day. She rose just after the town clock had struck midnight, dressed herself, and walked to the shore, arriving at sunrise, for she was older now, and could walk faster.
This year, she thought, I am allowed to pick my plums.
But when she came to the top of the cliff she was dismayed to hear the sound of angry shouts and the clang of weapons. Looking down on to the beach below she saw two men fighting savagely: one had red hair, the other black. They fought with swords and daggers, thrusting and slashing. The white sand was kicked and trampled all over with their footprints, and splashes of blood lay where they had wounded one another. In the early sunshine their shadows raced behind them, long and black and sharp. Above them hung the plum tree, heavy with its crop of glittering fruit.
“Oh, stop!” cried Hella. “Oh, please stop! Oh, why are you fighting?”
But they took no notice of her words. Both were bleeding from many cuts; by now the sand was scarred and stained red as if the beach, too, were bleeding. At last, when they had fought for more than two hours, the red-headed man, who was the taller of the two, managed to pierce his enemy right through the heart. But as the other dropped dead, he too, tottered and fell to his knees, and then over on to his side.
A moment later there were two dead men lying on the shore.
No more than a single moment after that, thousands of little sea mice came dashing out of the surf, and they set to work without wasting a moment, dragging the two dead bodies into the waves, cleaning up the scuffed and bloodstained sand, smoothing and washing where it had been trampled and soiled, until all was clear and flat and white once more.
Hella, sitting on a rock, watched the mice, and it seemed to her that they gave her friendly glances. When they had done, and the beach was empty and clean, Hella climbed to the top of the cliff where her plum tree grew. The branches were heavy with fruit.
Every glassy plum had a rose-colored stone at its heart. Taking hold of the boughs, Hella shook them vigorously, until all the plums had fallen off and rolled down to the beach below. From where she stood, the shore looked as if it were covered with diamonds and rubies.
“Sea mice! Sea mice!” Hella called. “My plums are for you!” And the sea mice looked up at her with eyes that sparkled as brightly as the fallen plums.
Then Hella ran down the cliff again, and she ran towards the sea.
Observing her do this, the sea mice, frisking in the lacy surf, pulled back a huge wing of green sea water, as the corner of a quilt is pulled back on a bed, making a dry path for Hella to walk out into the deep ocean.
With bare dry feet she walked away from the shore, far, far into the distance, following the track taken by the hurt stag, and by her father’s ship. Close behind her followed a procession of sea mice, each carrying a rosy-hearted plum. And, behind the sea mice, the water closed together again.
Five minutes later, nobody would have been able to guess what had happened.
Next autumn the leaves blew off Hella’s plum tree. During the winter a landslide carried away the cliff top, and the ruined house. Hella’s tree, roots and all, slid into the waves and floated away, who knows where? Perhaps to the land of Zipanou.
A Biography of Joan Aiken
Joan Aiken had a very happy childhood, and her memories centered around her two much-loved homes: a haunted house in the historic town where she was born, and a tiny old cottage in a country village where she grew up. These magical places became the settings for many of her stories, as you will be able to easily imagine if you read on …
The house where Joan was born in 1924, nearly a hundred years ago, was in the small medieval town of Rye, in the county of Sussex, England—a place of cobbled streets and red-brick houses jostled tightly together on a high little hill rising out of the flat green plain of Romney Marsh. The English Channel was two miles away. Some of Rye’s castle walls and fortified gates still remained from when the village served as a stronghold against French invaders. Jeake’s House, where Joan was born, stood halfway up the steep, cobbled Mermaid Street. It was built in 1689 and was owned by several members of the Jeake family. One of them, Samuel Jeake, was an astrologer and mathematician; a huge leather-bound book written by him once belonged to the Aikens. Samuel Jeake had invented a flying machine, and, trying it out, he boldly leapt off the high wall of the town. Sadly, it did not work, and he crashed down into the tidal mud of the river Rother, which ran around Rye. Joan certainly included that in one of her stories!
There was a very ghostly feeling about Jeake’s House, which Joan described as follows: “[Its smell was] a delicious blend of aged black timbers, escaping gas, damp plaster, and mildew; I can remember the exact feel of the brass front-door knob turning gently in one’s hand, the shape of the square black banister post, and the look of the leaded windows with their small panes.”
Just as clearly, Joan remembered the stories she first heard at the house, which were read aloud by her mother and her older brother and sister, John and Jane: “First there was Peter Rabbit, and then The Just-So Stories, fairly milk-and-honey stuff; then Pinocchio, rustling with assassins, evil plots, death, moonlight, and irony; then Uncle Remus, told in a mysterious dialect, full of wild characters, with the wicked Br’er Fox.” No wonder this house haunted her memories!
When Joan was five, her father, the American poet Conrad Aiken, returned to the United States, and her mother, Jessie, married an English poet. Along with her mother and new stepfather, Joan went to live near the rolling green hills of Sussex Downs, five miles away from the closest town. John and Jane were sent away to boarding school, but for the next six years, until the age of twelve, Joan was homeschooled by her mothe
r.
This new home was a different kind of paradise for Joan. Now she could roam the wild garden, climb trees, and explore the little village of Sutton, which had no “sidewalks”—as her Canadian mother called them—just one road with grass banks and little scuffed paths along the top where children had made tracks of their own. Sutton had one tiny store, which sold everything from bread to postage stamps. A four-minute walk from the shop was a forge, where the blacksmith, Mr. Budd, worked at his roaring bellows or clanged shoes onto the great, fringed feet of farm horses. In those days, a carter would go into the town once a week with his pony and trap and bring back goods for the village families. Joan’s household did not have a radio or a car—or even electricity! Water was pumped by hand from a well, and at night they lit oil lamps and candles. Much of their food came from the garden’s vegetable patch and fruit bushes; milk and cream or meat came from farms nearby. Even the poorer families in the area had help in their houses, and a village girl called Lily came to Joan’s to scrub and wash dishes. When she had finished her work, she sometimes took Joan to climb the slopes of the Downs, half a mile away, or pick cowslips and kingcups in the marshy meadow behind Lily’s mother’s cottage. Sometimes, Joan and Lily would walk two miles in the summer heat to a shallow pond where they could bathe.
Jessie quickly taught Joan how to read, and gave her lessons in French, Latin, English, history, arithmetic, geography, and even Spanish and German. With no school friends to play with, books became Joan’s friends—she read everything in the house! First, she went through the novels from Jessie’s Canadian childhood: Little Women and the Katy series. Then, she read all of the fairy tales, The Jungle Book with its stories about Mowgli, and the books her older brother and sister left behind. When these ran out, she moved on to ghost stories or books about history, such as stories about the Three Musketeers and the Princes in the Tower. Joan’s mother would read longer works aloud before they had radio or television; this was their main entertainment. Every night at bedtime, or when the family went on picnics, or as they sat stringing beans for supper, Joan would be listening to stories, so it was not surprising that she soon started writing some of her own. She saved up her pocket money and bought herself a notebook at the village shop, then set to work writing exciting tales with titles like “The Haunted Cupboard” or “Her Husband Was a Demon.” She was so proud of them that she kept those pages for the rest of her life.