by Livi Michael
‘She wriggled out of the fish skin and stood up. Behind her were the curtains of rain, before her was a silvery world of starlight and moon-whitened trees. The trees stood around her in a ring, white flowers formed a circle at her feet and even the stars above seemed to shine down in a circle. Then the turnip jiggled in her arms once more.
Set me down, set me down,
Bring to me my faerie crown.
The woman looked but she couldn’t see a crown. So she began to weave one from the white flowers, and before she had finished, Mabb appeared before her.
‘“Why have you come here?” Mabb said.
‘“I have come for my son,” the woman said. “See – here is your baby.”
‘Mabb walked all the way around the turnip head, frowning.
‘“That is not my baby,” she said. “Do not play tricks on me. That is only the head of a turnip.”
‘Then the woman dropped the crown of flowers on to the turnip head, and immediately it began crying like a baby.
‘“Yes, he is my baby, I see it now,” Mabb said, and she picked him up. Then there was another cry, and the woman’s own baby lay where the turnip head had been. She picked him up gladly, and immediately Mabb and the turnip head, and the land around them, disappeared, and the woman stood once more at the crossroads with the thorn tree and the charred remains of the bird she had roasted.
‘A few black feathers still clung to her, so she plucked them off and dropped them on to the bird by way of saying thank you. But as soon as they fell, the bird began to move and change shape, and her husband stepped from the ashes of the fire.
‘“I was hunting for food when Mabb came to me,” he said, “and asked me for the food I had gathered. But when I would not give it to her, she changed me, and trapped me in the tree. Then you came and set me free.”
‘And so at last they made their way home together, and were never parted again.’
I’m quiet when Myrna finishes her tale. I know it’s only a story, but I can’t help thinking about my father, and how he went away. Maybe he isn’t dead, after all, I’m thinking. Maybe Mabb knows where he is. I can see the four of us together, my mother and father, me and Lu, and there’s a kind of light around us all so that for a moment I have to blink very hard.
I don’t say any of this to Myrna, who is gazing into the far distance.
‘What happened to Mabb?’ I ask.
‘What do you mean?’ says Myrna.
‘Didn’t she ever come back? For the baby.’
‘How would I know?’ says Myrna irritably. ‘It’s only a story.’
‘Mabb was cruel,’ I say slowly. ‘What she did was wrong. Didn’t they punish her?’
‘How would they punish her?’ Myrna says. ‘Magic is neither cruel nor wrong. It’s only magic.’
Only magic, I think. The words echo strangely in my mind. I’m still trying to put my next question together when Mabda arrives, carrying Lu under one arm and holding a pot full of warm milk in the other. Lu wriggles and squawks when he sees me, so I take him off Mabda and he laughs and pats my cheek.
‘Working hard?’ Mabda says to me, smiling.
‘She’ll do,’ says Myrna. Mabda says that my mother will be back soon, but she has sent Lu back because he keeps running away. ‘Can he stay with you till she gets back?’ she asks.
‘Of course he can,’ says Myrna. ‘We need some water, though, for the dye.’
‘I’ll go,’ I say, and before anyone can stop me, I scoop up a water bowl with one hand, and hurry out of the hut, still holding Lu in the other.
Of course, I’m not supposed to leave the huts but I’m tired of staying in. My legs are aching from sitting still all afternoon. I’m not supposed to take Lu to the river either, but I reckon I can be there and back before anyone notices.
I go a different way to the river, to avoid seeing my mother or Bryn, and I kneel down and dip the bowl into the water. It’s one of Myrna’s most tightly woven baskets, made of reeds dyed with different-coloured lichens and braided together so no water escapes. No one else can weave a bowl so cunningly that it doesn’t leak, and so that the patterns are beautiful and each one means something. This one has something to do with the flight of swans, and in the water, where the colours ripple and change, I can see their movement. I lean over and touch them through the water. They are flying to Mabb, I think. If I could follow them, I might find my father. Just like the woman found her husband and baby, in Myrna’s story.
But of course I have to let go of Lu’s hand, just for a moment, and when I look up again he isn’t there.
‘Lu!’ I shout, then I stand up, blowing all my breath out at once. ‘Lu?’
Nothing. I’m scared now, not angry.
‘Lu – stop it!’ I shout. ‘Come back now!’
Then I hear a dull splash, like a large stone hitting the water, and I run towards it, crying in my mind. Oh, Lu, sweet baby brother, don’t fall in the river, baby – don’t fall in Lu, please, PLEASE!
I see his brown curls bobbing in the water, and throw myself in after them without stopping to think.
The river pulls me in. It’s strong and terrible. It seizes my whole body. I struggle to hold my head up, and flap my arms and kick. My tunic’s all tangled up with my legs, and when I try to shout Lu!, water gushes into my mouth. The river drags my head under as I lunge towards Lu. Then I’ve got him, but he’s still face down and I can’t turn his head round. The water is pulling and pushing both of us downstream, and I can’t do anything about it. I can’t get us both to the bank.
No one knows where we are. No one can hear if I scream for help. The water roars in my ears and tugs at us, stronger and stronger. I’m kicking hard, but the water’s stronger than my legs. I bump my hip on a huge stone, and try to hold on, but the water tears me away. I feel as though it will tear me in two. I let go of the rock and I’m sucked under. It’s cold. The coldness soaks into me. I push my head up again, spluttering, and we’re whirled along, rolling and tossing like willow branches.
The river isn’t playing. It’s strong and terrible and never stopping. It’s roaring in my head and I can’t feel anything any more. I can’t even feel if I’m still holding Lu. This isn’t what I meant when I wanted something to happen – if I lose Lu, I’ll be in trouble for the rest of my life!
Suddenly I can hear someone shouting and I don’t even know if it’s me. My head’s sucked under again, and I force it up, spluttering. Then a branch thrusts towards me, and Bryn’s face is shouting something I can’t hear. I grab hold of the branch and the water sucks me under again. There’s a great splash as someone else leaps in. I feel something tugging Lu away from me and I let go, but I’m still gripping the branch. The water pulls at me and pushes too, trying to drag my head under the branch, but my chin grips on to it and my arm clutches. All I can feel is that branch, scraping my chin, and the river, tugging me away. Can’t feel my fingers, but they’re slipping, slipping. Then I feel the branch moving sideways, against the tug of the river, and I bump against the bank.
Bryn hauls me out. From the corner of my eye, I see that Arval’s got Lu and is pumping the water out of him. I’m terrified that he’s dead, but I can’t speak. I close my eyes and feel the earth under me. I lie on it and all I can do is breathe. The ground is hard and solid and it doesn’t move.
‘Lu,’ I say, when I can speak.
‘Can you get up?’ Bryn says.
When I try to move, my head whirls. Then I feel Bryn’s hands under my arms, hauling me upwards. All my clothes cling to me, and I try to ask if Lu’s all right, but my teeth start to chatter and my legs buckle when I take a step.
Bryn picks me up. I see the stones and the earth banked up where they’re building the dyke. Arval carries Lu and Bryn carries me, almost running back up the hill towards the huts. Griff and Gwern are staring, but I can’t look at them. I can’t look at anyone. My head is still filled with the roaring of the river. I turn my face into Bryn’s shirt and bump and jerk aga
inst his chest as he carries me.
Then my mother comes running. ‘What’s happened?’ she cries. She takes a look at my face, then tries to take Lu from Arval, but he walks past her. She runs with us, all the way to our hut.
Bryn puts me down, and I can stand now, holding on to the wall. Arval finally hands Lu to my mother. Lu’s head lolls backwards and his face is green.
‘He’s swallowed a lot of water,’ Arval says.
Bryn and Arval make up a little bed near the fire, and my mother kneels down on it, clutching Lu. Lu coughs and turns his face away.
He’s alive! I think, and relief gushes into me like water. I take a few steps forward and sink down on the bed near my mother. No one looks at me. My mother is still holding Lu, with a strange, terrible look in her eyes. Bryn nods at Arval, and he leaves.
‘What happened?’ he says.
I try to explain what happened – that I only took my eyes off Lu for one minute – that I only took him down to the river in the first place because I didn’t want to let him out of my sight. It’s the best story I can come up with but none of it comes out right. Lu lies pale and still and my mother chews her lip. Then finally she turns to me, but all she says is, ‘Take your wet things off, Keri.’ Then she looks away from me and will not look back. I stare at her, and try to speak, but she only bends over Lu, whispering.
I go into my room and peel all my wet things off. I don’t have anything else to wear, so I stay where I am, only peering round the sackcloth hanging to see what’s happening.
My mother makes up a thick brew in a pot. She rubs Lu’s chest with a mixture of feverfew and garlic, and the bitter scent fills the air. Then she takes some of the herbs she’s mixed into a paste and puts them on Lu’s tongue. It makes him splutter and cough again, but she keeps on doing it, and suddenly he’s sick. A great flow of greenish water spills over her hand and on to the bed.
More people come to the doorway of our hut. Tilse is there, then Griff, and I can see Gwern pressing behind.
‘How is the boy?’ Griff asks. No one asks about me.
My mother doesn’t answer him. She glances over to where I stand, half wrapped in the sackcloth curtain. ‘Pass your wet things through, Keri,’
She’s still not looking at me properly, but I hurry to do as she asks. I pass my wet clothes through the curtain, Bryn takes them from me and my mother drapes them on some sticks near the fire. I catch Griff looking at me.
‘Wasn’t she supposed to be looking after him?’
My mother comes over to me and takes my leggings from me. I look urgently up into her face. ‘Mother – I didn’t –’ I begin. But her face is terrible – stern and far away at the same time.
‘It’s a good job we were by the river,’ Griff says, still looking at me.
I turn away then. I don’t want him to talk to me while I’m standing here naked. Besides, it’s cold. I lie down on my mattress and pull the cover over me. My hip hurts where I banged it on the rock, so I can only lie on one side. I want to show my mother the bruise, but she’s too busy with Lu.
I hear Myrna saying, ‘We’ll see how he is in the morning.’ Then I can hear people leaving.
When I close my eyes all I can see is the river. I can still hear it roaring in my ears. I try to get warm in my bed, to stop shivering. I’m in real trouble now. But no one thinks of how I jumped in after him, and wouldn’t let go. My ears strain towards my mother and Bryn, to hear if they’re talking about me, but I can’t hear anything. I close my eyes again, remembering all the times I played by the river, with Digri and Arun and Peglan and little Ogda, making necklaces out of reeds and laughing as the fat frogs plopped into the water.
Seemed like a different river then.
I try to stay awake, worrying about Lu, and about what my punishment will be, but I can’t. Sleep pulls me downwards, closing over my face like water.
In the night I’m woken up by Lu’s crying, a thin, high, tearing sound. It’s hard to sleep with your fingers stuffed in your ears. After a few moments I can’t stand it any more, and I kneel up and peek through the curtain.
There is my mother, pale and red-eyed, holding Lu against her shoulder, and his head’s turning this way and that. Bryn’s stirring something in the pot, and there’s a bitter smell. The fire’s smoking badly, and it stings my eyes. I duck down again quickly before they catch me looking, because I know I’m in trouble. Feel all hollow inside. Stuff my fingers back in my ears. I hold on to my father’s amulet and whisper,
‘Stop screaming, stop screaming,’ over and over.
Nothing happens, of course. After a moment I peek through the curtain once more. There’s only a sliver of light from the moon at the window, but I can see my mother putting Lu in the cradle. He kicks and thrashes, then bawls like a lost calf. Bryn says something and my mother answers him sharply. Then she picks Lu up again, rocking him forwards and back, and Bryn leaves.
‘Mam?’ I whisper, then I have to say it louder. ‘Mam?’
She barely glances my way. ‘Go to sleep, Keri.’
But I’m wide awake now. I pull the cover round me and slip out, greatly daring. Then I crouch at her side and bury my face in her and breathe in her smell, which is the smell of honey and sweat and smoke, from tending the fire. She doesn’t hug me or even pat my hair, and after a moment I look up. ‘Where’s Bryn?’ I say.
‘Gone to fetch Myrna,’ she says, then I know it must be serious. No one goes for Myrna in the middle of the night, unless it’s life or death. I feel a sharp pang of fear. ‘How’s Lu?’ I say. I kneel up, so that I can see him better, and my mother lays him in her lap. One side of his face is swollen and red.
‘Lu?’ I say timidly, but he doesn’t respond. Only one side of his face screws up when he cries. His eyelids flutter, but he’s not properly awake. My stomach twists. Seems like he’s far away, somewhere I can’t follow.
I wish I could see his eyes, which are big and greenish, like my father’s eyes. Only in the left one there is a brown freckle. I put out a finger and touch his fine hair, that’s clinging to his forehead with sweat.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ I ask, but my mother doesn’t answer. She tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear. Seems like she’s gone far away from me too. I tug at her sleeve and she looks at me then for the first time, her face half shaded by the fire. Then she puts out a hand and touches my cheek.
‘Mam – I didn’t mean to let him go!’ I whisper urgently. ‘I only let go of him to dip my basket in the water – and I jumped in to save him!’
She doesn’t say it’s my fault, for taking him to the river in the first place, and letting him fall in. Her fingers run from my face to my hair and back again, then down my neck to the amulet, and she manages the ghost of a smile.
I know what she’s thinking. She’s told me the story many times. My father carved it from the antler of a deer, to drive evil spirits away, and wouldn’t speak to anyone while he carved it, so that all the power he could summon would go into this one magic charm. To keep me safe.
‘He spent all one morning whittling it,’ she tells me now. ‘It was after…’ But her voice trails away as we hear other voices outside.
Myrna’s long shadow fills the room, and I rise and stand silently by my mother.
Crookbacked though she is, Myrna is very tall, and she looks about her with those sightless eyes.
‘Show me the child,’ she says.
My mother rises and takes Lu to Myrna, then Bryn fetches the stool and Myrna sits on it, putting Lu on her lap. He twists and whimpers restlessly. Her long fingers probe him this way and that.
‘Has he a rash?’ she asks.
In fact he does have a rash, when my mother pulls his shirt up. A little rash, like strawberries under his skin. Myrna clucks and shakes her head. Then she prods the swollen place beneath his ear.
‘Poison in there,’ she says. ‘It’ll have to be drawn.’
My mother and Bryn look at one another. ‘Poison?’ says my moth
er, her voice catching. ‘It can’t be – I mean –’ She looks helplessly at Bryn.
I can see them thinking, this is no ordinary sickness.
Myrna’s chewing something, and her face works strangely. I look from Myrna, to Lu, then my mother, until Myrna says, ‘Heat the knife.’
Bryn’s hovering behind my mother, his face pale, but he turns to the fire. I see the glint of the short blade in the flames. Feels like my voice is all stopped up in my throat. My mother’s face is greyish, sagging with fear. She takes Lu from Myrna and lays him on the little bed that’s made up by the fire, cupping his head in her hands.
Stiffly, Myrna drops to her knees. Then Bryn hands her the knife. Suddenly I find my voice.
‘NO!’ I say.
Myrna barely glances at me, but my mother looks up, white-lipped.
‘Go to bed, Keri,’ she says, in a trembling voice. But I fling myself forwards as though I will throw myself over Lu’s body.
‘Don’t let her!’ I say. ‘Don’t let her cut him!’
‘Keri!’ says my mother, very stern, and I can feel Bryn’s hand on my shoulder. But I wrench away from him. ‘Don’t let her!’ I cry. I turn to Myrna. ‘Stay away from him!’ I shout at her, and my mother gasps.
Myrna’s face is still as carved stone, waiting. Bryn pulls me back.
‘Come away, Keri,’ he says.
All my words shrivel in my mouth as he hauls me upwards. I take one step back, then another. The short blade flashes as Myrna lifts it, then lowers it to his neck. Lu’s body goes rigid, arched. Then he squeals, a high-pitched, terrible squeal, and suddenly I can’t stand it any more. I push past Bryn and run to my bed, flinging myself down on it and stuffing my fingers in my ears the way I did when Griff and Gwern killed the hog.
These were all the children of my father’s house.
One before me that died, a boy.
One after me that died, a girl.
Two that came early and never drew breath.
Another boy, that died in the Year of Sickness.
And Lu.
But Lu can’t die, he mustn’t die!