The Tunnel Behind the Waterfall

by William Corlett

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Reinforcements,’ Pica replied grimly and as he spoke he turned and headed for the end of the lake where the standing stone was just visible, with the yew tree behind it at the top of the hill.

  Behind them the crow continued to squawk ominously. Now his call seemed to be answered by a terrible buzzing sound, coming from the beech woods on the Four Fields side of the lake.

  ‘Now what?’ Mary gasped.

  ‘More of Morden’s friends,’ Pica whispered.

  Cinnabar was almost at the end of the lake when the hornets attacked. They came out of the beech woods in an angry, buzzing swarm, flying round his head and diving at his eyes.

  ‘What are they?’ William screamed.

  ‘Wasps – sort of wasps. Hornets in fact,’ Cinnabar answered. Then he flinched as one of the insects managed to sting through his thick fur.

  ‘Ow! That hurt!’ William exclaimed, kicking a back leg painfully as he tried to shake off another hornet that had just stung them.

  ‘We’ll have to make for the water,’ Cinnabar shouted.

  ‘Can foxes swim?’ William wondered.

  ‘If we have to,’ Cinnabar answered in his head and a moment later, as if to prove the point, he dived into the icy water, shaking the dreadful crawling insects off his back and legs.

  Spot, who was still a little way behind Cinnabar, saw the swarm of hornets and quickly swerved, making for the gorse and broom bushes that edged the beech woods.

  ‘What’s happening, Spot?’ Alice whispered in her head.

  ‘Ssssh,’ the dog hissed gently, then, lying on his stomach, he wriggled under the cover of the dense foliage, turning as he did so, in order to look out towards the lake.

  They could see Cinnabar being attacked by the buzzing horde and watched as he turned and made for the water.

  ‘Morden’s doing,’ Spot thought.

  Then Pica’s desperate cries made them look up into the sky.

  The magpie was surrounded by several crows who flew at him in turn, beating their wings and alternately snapping with their beaks and striking with their claws.

  ‘That’s Pica,’ Spot said, grimly.

  ‘Is he one of us?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Pica?’ Spot sounded surprised. ‘Pica is the Magician’s magpie. The Master thinks very highly of him. We must try to do something.’

  ‘But what?’ Alice cried. Then, as Spot crawled forward a little, she looked back along the shore of the lake. ‘I wonder where Mary is?’ she thought.

  ‘Pica! Behind us,’ Mary screamed, as she and the bird dived away from the claws of one of the crows.

  Pica looked back in the direction that Mary was indicating. The sky was black with birds.

  ‘Oh, no!’ he groaned. ‘Starlings. I really hate starlings. They fight dirty.’

  As he spoke the first of the starlings arrived, diving towards them, chattering gleefully as it aimed its beak at the vulnerable underside of Pica’s wing. Pica kicked it away with his foot and dived lower, skimming along the surface of the lake, making one of the crows who was coming in for a renewed attack, miss his mark and hit the water with a smack.

  ‘Good, Pica!’ Mary squealed. Then she had to save her strength as they batted off two more starlings.

  ‘We need reinforcements ourselves,’ Pica muttered. ‘Sirius!’ he croaked. ‘Hey, Sirius!’

  Spot stood up, hearing his name, and bounded down to the edge of the lake.

  ‘What?’ he yelped, excitedly.

  ‘Bark, damn it!’ Pica yelled. ‘Let the others know they’re needed! Bark like hell, Sirius!’

  ‘Right!’ Spot muttered. ‘That’s something I can do. Are you ready for this, Al? My barking can cause quite a headache!’

  ‘No, wait . . .’ Alice cried urgently. She had just seen William wading out of the lake, swatting hornets and tearing his shirt off. Cinnabar was swimming far out now and it looked as if William had returned to the shallows to draw the insects away from the fox.

  ‘William!’ Alice called and, as she did so, she saw Spot lift up his head and start to bark, a loud, incessant sound.

  Alice, once separated, ran towards William who was making swiftly for the standing stone.

  ‘Al!’ he shouted, looking over his shoulder as he ran. ‘I’ll need your help.’

  Alice caught her brother up as he was running up the sloping ground towards the stone. Some hornets were still buzzing around, but they seemed to be losing interest in him and they didn’t bother to attack Alice at all.

  ‘I won’t be able to reach to the top of the stone,’ William gasped, fighting for breath. ‘You’ll have to stand on my shoulders. Can you do it?’

  ‘I expect so,’ Alice replied, doubtfully.

  William crouched down, facing the stone and Alice, after a couple of false attempts managed to stand on his shoulders, while hanging on to the stone with both her hands. Slowly, using the stone as a support, William started to stand up.

  ‘When you can reach the top,’ he gasped, ‘feel with your hands. The pendulum should be in a sort of hollow right in the middle of the stone.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alice whispered, ‘I’ll try . . .’ Then the last word turned into a desperate yelp, as she almost fell off his shoulders. She grabbed at the stone, steadying herself.

  ‘All right?’ William asked.

  ‘All right-ish,’ she replied, in a tense voice.

  Pica saw the chain glinting as he rose once more into the upper air, moving away from the surface of the water, pursued by three mean little starlings, who snapped and chattered and would not let him go.

  ‘There it is,’ he thought and Mary, seeing through his eyes, was dazzled by the brilliant gleam of sunlight on gold.

  ‘Go for it, Pica,’ she shouted. ‘Go for it.’

  Like an arrow from a bow, Pica shot towards the standing stone with the starlings in close attendance. At that moment, while both his and Mary’s attention was distracted by the sight of the pendulum, they failed to notice the big crow, Corvus, dropping out of the sky towards them.

  ‘Squawk!’ he yelled, turning in the direction they were heading and seeing the flashing sunrays on the sliver of gold. Corvus knew he was nearer to the stone. He had the advantage. He laughed as he dived, cutting Pica off, reaching forward with his beak and claws.

  Alice, shaking like a leaf, stretched up, clinging to the stone. Inch by inch she grew closer, until the top came into view.

  ‘I’m there, Will!’ she cried triumphantly and, putting one arm around the stone to give herself a secure hold, she reached across the surface, feeling for the pendulum.

  ‘Squawk!’ Corvus screamed in her ear and, with a gasp, Alice swung her head round to discover the big crow inches away from her face.

  ‘This time it’s mine, I think,’ the crow rasped and, raising a claw it scratched the length of Alice’s hand just as her fingers wrapped round the smooth nugget of gold.

  Alice gasped. The pain on her hand was awful. It felt as though a scalding steel knife had been ripped into her flesh.

  ‘Al?’ William cried out desperately from below, unable to see what was happening and with all her weight pressing down on his shoulders. ‘Alice? Are you all right? What’s happening?’

  Alice gritted her teeth, biting back tears. A sudden terrible anger possessed her.

  ‘Get off!’ she yelled, hitting out at the black bird with her free hand, while still gripping the nugget of gold in her fingers.

  The crow turned, eyes blazing, and pecked viciously at Alice, stabbing his beak into her arm and her hand. With a cry of pain, she pulled away, releasing as she did so her hold on the pendulum. It slipped out of her grasp and fell back on to the top of the standing stone.

  But this distraction gave Pica his opportunity. Seizing his chance while Corvus was attacking Alice, he dived for the stone and snapped up the golden chain by a single link. Then, putting all his strength into his wings, he raised himself up vertically off the stone, making for
the upper air.

  The pendulum hung down from Pica’s beak, flashing and glinting as it swung in the sunlight. Corvus, looking up, saw the great nugget of gold within easy reach and opening his beak, he snapped the chain into his mouth. The two birds were now linked together by the pendulum. Locked together by the chain, they rose into the air, wings beating, necks and heads straining away from each other as they both tried desperately to gain supremacy.

  Pica, with a determined effort, turned and headed in the direction of the lake. But he couldn’t shake Corvus off, nor could he get him to release his hold on the chain.

  Falco heard Spot’s urgent, incessant barking as he was lazily hovering over the great green forest, casually looking for a snack. He turned on leisurely wings, mildly curious to know what could be causing so much commotion and then, where the water of the lake glinted on the far horizon, his piercing eyes picked out the starlings and the crows mobbing the solitary magpie. Flexing his wings, the great kestrel sailed down the wind, aiming for the centre of the battle, curious to know what was going on. As he grew closer, he realized that the magpie was Pica and that he was in real trouble. Like a stone, Falco dropped out of the sky, his eyes focusing on the centre of the black crow’s neck.

  Pica and Mary were losing strength. The starlings continued to mob them on all sides and several crows swooped low, clawing and pecking. They constantly had to swoop and turn to avoid these attacks and every time Corvus gained a little on them, gathering more and more of the chain into his beak until the two birds were practically flying cheek to cheek.

  ‘Well, Pica!’ the black crow rasped, his voice harsh and mocking through his clenched beak, ‘This time my master wins, I think . . .’

  But at that moment, silent and deadly, the kestrel, Falco, fell on the crow’s neck, killing him in an instant with a dreadful blow from his savage claw.

  Corvus cried out once, a long, agonized croak of surprise and of death. As he did so the pendulum chain slipped from his beak. The sudden release of tension took Pica completely by surprise. He veered away, tilting dangerously in his flight and, gasping with the shock, he opened his own beak allowing the golden chain with its smooth nugget to fall like a glittering streamer towards the lake.

  On the shore, William ran forward, crying out. He saw the kestrel strike the crow. He saw the crow fall, spiralling towards the water. He heard the croak of surprise from the magpie and, last of all, he saw the prize possession, the reason for the fight, his hope for the future, the golden pendulum of the Magician glitter and sparkle as it slipped beneath the surface of Goldenwater and disappeared into its depths.

  18

  Meg Joins the Company

  WILLIAM WAS IN despair. He was feeling anger and frustration and misery all at the same time. Worst of all was the terrible sense of failure. He walked away along the shore, kicking stones, with his hands in his pockets.

  The birds were dispersing. The irritating chatter of the starlings was fading as they flew in a pack, swerving and diving, towards the distant fir forests. The few crows that were left wheeled about, cawing fitfully, then, one by one, they disappeared back to where they had been when they had each first heard Corvus summoning them to the fight.

  Falco, hovering on a warm thermal, was lifted higher and higher into the blue sky. ‘Kee Kee’ he called, to no one in particular, and the melancholy sound echoed and re-echoed across the valley before getting lost in the distant hills that only he could see.

  Exhausted and bleeding, Pica alighted on a flat rock that jutted out from the shore into the lake.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he whispered and, as he did so, Mary pulled herself towards the water and bathed the blood from a wound on her arm. She was too shaken to speak, too tired to want to do anything. The hair on the back of her head was matted where another wound was already forming into a scab. Her legs were scratched. There was a bruise throbbing on her forehead.

  The magpie stood at a distance from her, eyeing her. Two of his tail feathers were sticking out in a lop-sided fashion and there was blood dripping from under one wing. A tiny stab wound above one eye gleamed red against the midnight-black of his head feathers.

  Pica laughed loudly.

  ‘That was some fight!’ he exclaimed. ‘Didn’t do too badly, considering the numbers against us!’ Then he stretched his wings and winced with pain. ‘We owe Falco, though! We were about done in when he arrived on the scene. Awkward that! I don’t like owing. He and I aren’t usually the best of friends, either. He will drop in and pinch my food after I’ve done all the hard work.’ He paused, looking round, a new thought occurring to him. ‘Speaking of food . . . Let’s go and get a mouse or something. I feel quite hungry. Come on . . .’

  ‘No!’ Mary shuddered, fighting back a wave of nausea as she remembered going hunting once, with Jasper. ‘You go, Pica. I don’t very much like eating mice.’

  ‘You are all right,’ the bird said, in his harsh, cold, voice.

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ Mary replied. ‘I’m fine. I’ll just . . . rest here . . .’

  ‘No. I wasn’t asking – I was telling you,’ Pica croaked. ‘You are all right, Mary. I like you. The Master’s chosen well. I don’t like many humans. We magpies don’t. Your sort and my sort don’t mix. But . . . I like you. If ever you’re in a real fix – you shout for Pica . . .’ and, flapping his wings, he flew away towards the beech woods.

  ‘No, don’t go now, Pica . . . please!’ Mary called. ‘The pendulum. We must try to get it back.’

  ‘I don’t swim,’ the bird squawked. ‘Ask Lutra – that’s more his line.’

  Mary turned and scanned the flat surface of the lake. There was no sign of Lutra anywhere.

  Alice was sitting with her back to the standing stone. The scratch on her hand had stopped bleeding, but one of the stab wounds on her arm that the crow had made with his beak was throbbing and sore. She sniffed and rubbed a hand across her tear-stained cheek. She hadn’t realized she’d been crying. In front of her the lake stretched in a calm expanse, reflecting the blue sky and the distant trees. Spot was standing on the edge, lapping water, his tail between his legs. His throat was rough from all the barking and his shoulder hurt where a hornet had stung him without his noticing. Turning his head to lick the wound, he saw Mary sitting on the rock further round the shore.

  ‘Mary!’ he said, barking once, and he paddled through the water towards her.

  ‘William!’ Alice called. ‘There’s Mary’. She got up and walked slowly towards her sister.

  William had gone in the opposite direction and when he turned and saw Mary she was some distance away from him. He had a picture of her sitting peacefully by the lake – a lazy, indolent, scene. So typical of Mary to be just lying in the sun enjoying herself, he thought. It really made him angry. He couldn’t believe that she was so totally unaware, so completely wrapped up in herself, that she wasn’t sharing with him the awful thing that has just occurred.

  He turned and started to run towards her.

  ‘Where were you, Mary? What were you doing?’ he yelled. ‘We needed you, Mary. Are you a part of all this or aren’t you?’ His anger was unstoppable. It made his voice shrill and ugly. As he drew closer to her he wanted to hit her. She looked so comfortable sitting on the rock, leaning on one arm, trailing her hand in the water. ‘This isn’t a picnic we’re on, you know,’ he bawled. ‘If you’d only been here to help us, none of this might have happened . . .’

  But then, as he reached the rock, Mary turned to look at him and he saw the blood, the wounds and scratches, her wild, dishevelled hair and her bruised face. She wasn’t sitting enjoying the sun, she was shaking and sobbing and big tears were running silently down her cheeks.

  ‘What happened?’ William mumbled, ashamed of his own behaviour.

  ‘She was flying with the black and white bird,’ Alice whispered, putting an arm round Mary and holding her.

  ‘Pica,’ Spot said. ‘The Magician’s magpie. She was with him all the time – right in
the middle of the fight.’

  ‘Oh – Mary!’ William sighed and, unable to look at her any longer, he squatted down, gazing out across the lake.

  ‘Can’t go home looking like this,’ he said, speaking to himself. ‘Phoebe’d have kittens. Besides – how are we going to explain all the mess?’

  ‘We could say we’d been in a fight,’ Alice suggested.

  ‘Who with?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘What will happen?’ Mary asked, in a small voice.

  ‘Happen?’ William queried.

  ‘Without the pendulum?’ Mary sobbed, fighting back more tears.

  ‘Don’t know,’ William replied, in a strangely brusque voice. ‘We can’t worry about that now. We ought to take you to a doctor, Mary.’

  ‘How?’ his sister asked, bitterly. ‘What could we say to him? That I’ve been attacked by a lot of birds? He’d think we’d gone mad.’

  ‘When I get hurt, I always go to Four Fields,’ Spot whined. ‘Meg knows how to help. Well, anyway, that’s where I’m going,’ he said, walking away. ‘I got stung.’

  ‘Where?’ William asked.

  ‘On my shoulder.’

  ‘Only once?’ William asked. ‘You were lucky, then!’ and, as he spoke, he took off his shirt, revealing big angry red marks on his back.

  ‘William!’ Mary exclaimed. ‘They look awful. Do they hurt?’

  ‘Of course they hurt,’ William snapped.

  ‘You’re being very brave,’ Alice said, studying the sting marks with enormous interest. ‘I’m sure I’ve heard of people being killed by being stung a lot of times.’

  ‘Thanks, Alice!’ William exclaimed.

  ‘She’s right, though,’ Mary said. ‘They could be dangerous, you know.’

  ‘Come on, then,’ Spot barked, impatiently, and he ran a few steps towards the beech woods and then looked back at them. ‘Meg will help,’ he told them.

  Although the weather was so warm, Meg’s kitchen was cool and gloomy. It had only a tiny window and outside a great tangle of ivy hung down, blotting out most of the light. The room was crammed with furniture, crockery, piles of old papers, books, rolls of string, empty tin cans, bottles and the accumulated mess of innumerable years. A hen was sitting on top of an old coat. A cat was asleep in a saucepan.