by Livi Michael
Faster and faster I whirl, like a spark in a tunnel of flame. There’s no time to look around, but from the corners of my eyes I can see there are shapes in the fire, and the shapes are like trees, roots and branches. No time to wonder, or even think. The shapes are more solid now, and everything’s darker. It’s like looking at the roots of trees, down deep in the earth. Yet there’s still a fiery glow.
Trees take shape all around me, and I tumble over and over, expecting to crash into one of them, but somehow I don’t. And soon my feet are skimming over roots and fern and bracken on a forest floor. And it’s just like the forest I remember, except everything’s lit from within by this weird, fiery glow.
And it’s alive. I always knew the forest was alive, but now I can hear it breathing, feel it looking at me. I can almost hear it think.
And I’m flying! Well, not exactly flying, but not walking either. My feet aren’t on the ground. They’re just brushing over it. I can feel a movement between my shoulders and I crane my neck round to look.
It’s the cloak the Peggotty Witch gave me, greenish and shimmering. Thought before that it looked like wings, and now that it’s spread out behind me, I can see that’s exactly what it is. Wings. In beautiful, shimmering colours that catch all the light. And when I try to move them, I can. Some muscles I didn’t even know I had quiver, and the wings quiver with them, and I start to move faster, flying through the forest of light.
All the time I’m thinking, this is me, flying! The old, ordinary me feels far away and long ago. This is the new me, and I’m magic!
My wings seem to know where I’m going, which is a good thing because I haven’t a clue. And there aren’t any paths. I’m flitting past trees, and over brambles. Small branches reach towards me as though wondering what I am, and blue-green ferns unfurl their feathery fronds. Soon as I start to think about where I’m going, I’m lost. Then the voices start.
‘Over here, over here!’
‘Not that way, this!’ And so on. Takes me a moment to realize it’s the forest itself that’s talking, the deep, rasping voice of roots and stones, the high twittering voices of flowers and birds. I hover in mid-air while all the voices come together in a great jumble in my head, and the branch of a tree nearly grasps me.
Don’t know which way to go any more. I change direction, dodging round a tree, and instantly the light changes, to a cold, greenish glow. There are faces in the moss on stones and the holes in the tree trunks are like gaping mouths. I flutter my wings backwards and the light changes to a warm glow. So now I know that something’s guiding me, even if I don’t know what.
No time to think. I flit and weave, letting my wings find the way. Flowers like jewels waggle their heads and chatter excitedly as I pass. Other winged, beautiful creatures brush past me and disappear. If I had time to think, I’d be stunned by the beauty of it.
Further on and the light changes again. Softer and more welcoming. Like the light of summer dreams, and friendship, or cherry blossom in May. Like falling asleep in your mother’s arms or finding something you thought you’d lost forever. There’s the sound of humming beyond all the chattering voices, a beautiful, sad tune, sweet and strange, yet familiar too.
I drift forward into that enchanted light, and feel it cradling me. Beautiful memories flutter by on soft coloured wings and brush me with the lightest of feathery touches. Small acts of kindness whirl round like blossom in a breeze, and little rainbow-coloured hopes and dreams appear and disappear like bubbles on the surface of a pond. I fly among them in amazed delight that such a place could exist in the dark forest.
How could I not have known this before? I think. And How could I ever want to leave?
Seems like the tune’s lulling me into sleep, but I’m resisting. Don’t want to fall asleep before I find what I’m looking for. I came here to find Mabb, after all. So that’s what I fix my mind on now.
I start to feel as though I know this place, or at least part of me does. It’s the feeling that you can have in a dream, when you’ve always known that something is there. Trees and grass part in front of me, and here at last is a path, as I knew it would be.
The humming is sweeter and clearer as I follow it, and there’s the sound of chattering and laughter. Yet somewhere in all the humming and laughter, there’s the sound of weeping too. Then the path opens out into a clearing, like a chamber in the forest, and there it is.
A roundhouse. Just like one of the huts at home. Except that there’s tangled ivy and honeysuckle all around it. And light pouring from it. I realize that all the light of the forest comes from here. And that this is where I want to be. I recognize it immediately. It’s home.
Right in front of me there’s a door. A small arched doorway, beautifully carved. With a little quiver of fear, I remember it. I know it’s the door to Mabb’s house, and that if I go in, I’ll find her there.
There is the handle, shaped like a hand. I take hold of it, and it takes hold of me. The door glides open silently and the hand lets go, waving me in.
The sound of humming is louder now, and so is the weeping, a heartbreaking, lonely sound stronger than the humming, though still making a kind of music of its own. I brace myself against it, and look around.
I’m in Mabb’s house all right. There’s the little table that she called her dressing table, with something hanging over it, like a still pool. Mirror, she called it.
Now, of course, mirrors are something that the People just don’t have. If you want to look at yourself, you look in water, in a pond, or a bowl. Yet I know exactly what this is, grey and glimmering against the wall, and it comes to me that I must know it from my time before, with her. I remember all the times I sat with her in front of that mirror, combing her beautiful hair. I remember trying to talk to her about going back home, just once, to visit the human world.
‘What for?’ she said. ‘You would only feel sorry for them, with your soft, jelly heart. It is as soft as frog-spawn, your heart.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ I said. ‘I only want to laugh at them.’
But she wouldn’t believe me, and the more I pleaded, the more suspicious she got. Her hair turned from shadows into thorns, and I had to start brushing it all over again.
Now, when I think of how she trapped me here and kept me prisoner, my heart burns fierce and cold, and I can’t bear to look at the little table with its mirror any more. But everyhere else I look, there are things that remind me. A crystal basin full of tears for washing in, a chair of sighs. Then there are the shadows, flickering across the walls as if they’re looking for something, or afraid they’ll be found. One has its finger pressed to its lips, just like the reflection in the mirror. Others are running and hiding like they’re playing hide and seek. I remember them. I used to try to talk to them on those long afternoons when Mabb would go out and leave me here, and I would get so bored, and lonely. But it was no use. They just carried on as if I wasn’t there, trapped in their own shadow-play. A woman rocking a cradle, and an older woman spinning wool. And a man, like a hunter, who strode across the wall and disappeared into a mass of shadows. He was here before. I remember running after him because something about him reminded me of my father, but he ignored me, like all the others. Yet sometimes they seemed to know what I was doing. And now, as I pass, they all huddle together as though whispering. It’s not a comfortable feeling, but I ignore them and land slowly on the floor. I walk, rather than fly, over to the windows.
There are four of them, one on each wall. When I look through the first one, it’s winter, snow falling quietly, beautifully, in a wood. But in the next, it’s spring, blossom whirling about or clinging to the branches with little wet, pink mouths. Summer in the third, with the rippling shadows of birds and clouds, and autumn, of course, in the fourth, wind whipping a thousand, thousand coloured leaves. And now my memory of this place is so powerful I can hardly remember anything else. I remember asking Mabb about the view from the windows, why it was winter in one and summer in another.
‘All times exist here,’ she said. ‘And no time at all.’
And on another occasion she said, ‘Shall we go out of the summer door?’ And the window became like a door, swinging outwards, then we stepped outside and climbed into her chariot, which was like a hazelnut shell, and the creature pulling it had six legs and wings, and enormous eyes. There were round parts on either side of the chariot that made it roll in a way I had never seen before – round like spiders webs, or the heads of flowers, or the rays of the sun. I remember touching one of them in wonder before I got into the chariot, and asking Mabb what it was, but I don’t remember what she said. Then she held her hand out to me and I climbed inside, and we skimmed through the grass that was as tall as trees.
Everything looked different then. Thread woven by insects clung to the grass like thick rope, droplets of water hung from them with whole shimmering worlds inside, and thistledown puffs flew overhead like clouds. We spent all that day cleaning the spines of baby hedgehogs, shaking the pollen from foxgloves or mending cracked eggshells with the silvery slime of snails. In every damp, sticky, oozing place we came to, giant insects extended their feelers into the soaking droplets that dripped from the fronds of ferns. And Mabb spoke to them in a strange language full of clicks and whirrs, and helped the baby caterpillars from their cocoons. Everything was more dappled, freckled and spotted than I ever knew, toads and leaves and fungus, snakes and reeds. Summer was almost autumn when we returned, exhausted, to our bed.
All these memories come flooding back to me now, as I gaze through the summer window, and then I notice the doors. Four of them. One door for each window.
I remember trying to make my own way through those doors while Mabb was out, cautiously opening one, and leaping back in horror because suddenly I was on the edge of a cliff, so steep and sheer I could only see clouds far below. And when I opened the next one there was fire, and a third opened on to flood so that I had to slam it shut quickly, before the water lashed into the room. And when I opened the fourth, there was a storm so thick and hard and cruel, hailstones like little spears, that I wouldn’t last a minute, I’d just be beaten down and lie buried in the snow. And I shut the door again quickly, trembling, and crept back into the bed.
That’s when I remember the bed. Mabb’s bed.
I turn round slowly, and there it is. Like a great shell. Gossamer curtains fluttering around it as though there’s a breeze.
That bed – the bed I made. The curtains I spun, the coverlet of insect’s wings! That’s where the humming’s coming from, of course. It’s here now, in the centre of the room. The rest of my memories come flooding back as I look at it. I thought I’d be angry as a wasp, but as I look at that bed, all my anger seeps out of me. I can hear someone weeping in it, and my legs turn to water, and I can hardly move.
I glance back at the shadows. Sure enough, they’ve all turned to look at it. All the shadows on both sides of the room, facing that bed.
I take one step, then another towards it. It is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. With each footstep I can see the shadows tiptoeing with me. One of them, the little girl, still has its finger pressed to its mouth. It’s separate from all the others, closest to me. When I look at it I remember why I’ve come here. My other memories, of this place, are so powerful that I’ve almost forgotten. But I’ve come here because I want to go home. I take hold of this thought and cradle it, like a candle flame in my heart.
The curtains part noiselessly, like clouds. Small tufts of cloud weave around the bed. I brush them away and they are soft and sticky on my hand. My head fills with the murmurings of insects on the coverlet, and the soft, musical weeping. I look down and there, like a pearl on the shell-shaped bed, is Mabb.
She is so beautiful, a beautiful little girl, just my own age, with her hair floating all around her pillow like moss in water. And she’s weeping, softly, as though her heart will break. Everything I’ve ever been told about Mabb melts away as I look at her. She’s not a terrible queen or a wicked enchantress. She’s a girl like me, and she’s weeping into her pillow.
The sound is so lonely and sorrowful that I just want to be with her. I bend over her as though to kiss her, and at the last moment she lifts up her face, which is wet with tears, and opens her eyes, which are the no-colour of rain, and as soon as she sees me, she lights up, like sun on water.
‘Keri!’ she says. ‘Oh, you came back to me! I always knew you would!’ And she opens her arms, and I fall into them, and I know at last that I’m back where I belong.
‘Look at you,’ she says, ‘look at your funny clothes. What has happened to you?’
But I can’t remember what’s happened to me.
‘You have suffered so much,’ she murmurs, and her rainy eyes fill with tears once again. ‘Was it so hard to come back to me? Was the journey so long and bitter?’
It was long and bitter – I remember that now. The longest and most bitter journey in the world. I’m overwhelmed with exhaustion, just thinking about it.
‘You must rest and sleep,’ she says, pressing me gently down into the bed. And the bed – the bed I made from cobwebs and thistledown and insects’ wings and snail shells and cricket bones, that bed folds round me like a cloud. All I want to do is sleep, and dream the rest of my life away.
‘You made the bed,’ she says, ‘and now you must lie on it.’
And that’s what I do. I lie on it and sleep, cradled in her arms.
When I wake up I’m on my own again. The room is darker, and the curtains fluttering around me seem threatening somehow, blocking my view. I sit up and push them aside.
The room is there, just as I remember it. There is the chair of sighs, and the basin of tears. There is the little dressing table with its mirror, and all the windows, casting an eerie light into the room. The shadows seem to be standing to attention, like guards. One of them stands alone, though, the shadow of the little girl. I don’t know why I think this, but it seems to be looking at me, and is definitely cross.
‘What?’ I say, looking back at it, but of course it doesn’t answer. I get up then, and potter about the room. It follows me, pointing at things, but I ignore it. I splash my face with water from the basin of tears, then wipe it with my sleeve.
Where has Mabb got to? I remember how often she would leave me like this, and how much I hated it. I would wander round and round the room looking for something I couldn’t remember, but when she came back, it was as though she had never left.
None of the shadows move as I go to look out of the autumn window. There is a quiet, still path in the woods, leaves drifting down, and a deer picking its way delicately across. The woods look so lovely, I wonder if she’ll take me into them when she comes back, and how long she might be. When nothing happens, and she doesn’t return, I try to open the window.
Instantly the wood changes, horribly. I can see that it’s all made of bones. Small bones like twigs splinter and fall from skeletal trees to the ground, and the skeleton of a deer lies across the path. Then a tree opens its mossy mouth that is full of death, and a great voice cries, ‘THIS IS THE REALM OF OLD BONES OF THE DEAD!’
I shut the window quickly and turn away, heart hammering. The room hasn’t changed at all, and when I turn back to the window, there is the deer, and the quiet path, the leaves gently falling. But my stomach twists with fear and anger, because now I remember that I can never, ever, leave this room without Mabb.
I turn back again, slowly. There is the shadow of the little girl, on the opposite wall. She shakes her head vigorously as I look at her, then nods. She seems to be trying to tell me something. She stands very still as I cross the room towards her.
I go right up to her and trace the outline of her face and hair. Still she doesn’t move, but when I put up my left hand towards her, her own hand raises and our palms meet.
Instantly my memories judder into life. Jumbled and tumbling, pictures of my mother and Myrna, Digri and Bryn, then Lu as a baby, and the old
man and woman I saw. And I remember, clear as a bell, Mabb’s voice saying you must leave me something in exchange.
It’s my shadow, of course. My shadow, that I had to leave here, with Mabb.
I stare, appalled and fascinated at my shadow on the wall, and my shadow stares back at me. I lift my other hand, and my shadow lifts hers. Then I lift my leg, and my shadow does the same. But when I step back from the wall, my shadow stays there, silent, watchful. I look all around myself on the jewelled floor. It’s true. I have no shadow when I step back into the room.
I look back at my shadow on the wall, and she nods her head. It’s really true, she seems to be telling me. I am your shadow. Mabb made you leave me behind when you went back to your world. That’s how she knew you would return.
And that’s how she changed me, so that when I went back to the human world, I wasn’t human like them. Part of me remained here, with Mabb.
When I realize this, I feel a spark of pure rage. It surges through me until I want to leap and howl. Because I never left Mabb at all! She kept me here, all that time – even when I went back home my shadow was always here! She tricked me – and I don’t know what to do about it. Because how can I get my shadow off that wall?
I go right up to my shadow once again. It waits, patiently, while I press my hand to its shadow hand, and move it away quickly, as though it might stick to the palm of my hand. But of course it doesn’t. She lifts her hands with me, one at a time, then both together, and then she lifts her feet. It’s as though she wants to, she’s really trying, but she just can’t leave that wall. I leap away from her in a rage and stamp my foot, but all she does is press her finger to her lips.
Then I stare at her in despair. ‘What are we going to do?’ I say.