by Jan Siegel
The sailors had made it to the sea via the little harbour of Grimstone, and enjoyed themselves very much learning how to tack out in the bay, where a brisk wind whipped the waves into scuds. The river journey back took more than two hours, since the Glyde was winding, and Michael observed the speed limit, so it was dark before they reached the mooring outside Riverside House. They had left the breeze behind in the bay and it was a clear still night with a young moon not bright enough to obscure the stars.
‘There’s the saucepan,’ Hazel said. ‘And Orion’s belt.’
‘Do you know your stars?’ Michael asked.
‘Nathan does.’
‘Not much,’ Nathan disclaimed.
‘You can navigate by the stars,’ Michael said, ‘if you’re out at sea. Look, there’s the Pole Star, and the Evening Star. They tell you what direction you’re going in. It’s like a route map up there.’
‘I thought you had radar,’ said George.
‘Yes, but a good sailor doesn’t need them. Not that I’m a good sailor – I don’t know the sky well enough.’
‘Do you know what that star is?’ Nathan asked, pointing. ‘The one just under Orion.’
‘No idea. I told you, I’m not really an expert. I just remember the easy ones.’
‘Is that the new star we found last year?’ said George. ‘The one that wasn’t on the chart?’
‘You found a new star?’ Michael was amused. ‘Well, it’s a busy sky up there. Maybe it was an old one that had popped out for a tea break when the chart was drawn up.’
Nathan found the opportunity to tread on George’s foot. ‘My star chart’s pretty basic,’ he said.
It was back, the unknown star, hanging above the village; he was almost sure it hadn’t been visible further downriver. He didn’t know why, but he wasn’t prepared to discuss it with grown-ups yet – not even a grown-up as nice as Michael. It was their star, they had located it, a private star shining over Eade.
‘Like the star of Bethlehem,’ Hazel said later.
‘That’s silly,’ George objected. ‘There’s nothing special about Eade. Even if it was the second coming, Jesus would have to be born in the hospital at Crowford, like my cousin Eleanor. That’s where the – the maternity unit is. And the Bethlehem star was big and sparkly: the three kings followed it from another country. Ours isn’t really noticeable at all. I still think it’s a UFO.’
‘Why would a UFO be interested in Eade?’ Hazel retorted scornfully. She thought George was getting much too assertive.
‘Why would a star?’
‘Shut up arguing,’ Nathan admonished. Michael joined them (he had been locking up the boat), and they cut through the gardens of Riverside House and set off along the lane towards the village. Nathan tried not to keep glancing upwards, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself, and he half fancied the star was looking back at him, gazing down from its viewpoint in the night like an unwinking eye.
THREE
The Luck of the Thorns
Annie wondered a good deal about her conversation with Bartlemy and his theories concerning Nathan’s conception. On the one hand she dismissed them as bizarre, on a par with the worst of New Age mysticism, crystal power, geomancy, and the sort of people who talked about former incarnations. On the other hand, Bartlemy was not that kind of person, and the fold in her memory – the timeless moment locked away – was something she felt, dimly now, but still real even after the passage of over thirteen years. She could recall clearly the deep shock she had experienced, less from Daniel’s death than from her own involvement in it, her journey to another place, forgotten but still sensed, forever a part of her, forever changing her. It remained always the most intense event of her life … but founded on what? Fantasy – delusion – her imagination overworking in an attempt to blot out the abyss of her loss? No, she decided; in the end, you must trust yourself, because if not yourself, whom can you trust? Besides, she had seen them, she had heard their whisperings, and if shadows walked in this world, then anything was possible, in any world. She sat in the bookshop on a quiet afternoon, her fingers slackening on the computer keyboard, revolving these things in her mind, always returning to the same enigma: Nathan’s paternity. It was strange how she had accepted it, over the years, rarely troubling herself with speculation. And now …
For the first time, Annie found herself trying to go back – and back – into her memory, into the past, into the unopened rooms of her subconscious. She thought she must have been afraid to remember, to even make the attempt, but now it was necessary, it was urgent. She pictured the pallor of that hospital room, Daniel lying there, the bruising on his face dark, dark against the whiteness of his skin, white bandages, white pillow … Daniel slipping away from her … and the sudden opening of his eyes, and the love in them that stabbed her, even now, making a wound that would always be fresh, always raw, as long as her heart beat. She clung to that moment, and shrank from it, because beside it all the other moments of her life were as shadows and half-lights; but this time she knew she must go beyond it, opening up the pain, reaching into death itself. Her fingers slid from the keyboard; her face emptied. There were impressions – colours – a spinning sensation – falling into softness, warmth, touch. There was a love enfolding her, mind and body, filling every pore, eclipsing both heart and thought, absorbing her into its passion and its potency. Daniel’s love – it must be Daniel – but Daniel had given much, and taken little, and this was a love which took everything, all that she was, and all that she had, and gave only on its own terms, in its own way. A great gift, a gift that was worth the price, though she paid with her life and her soul …
There was a violent jolt, and her head was in her hands, and the world slid back into place. She looked up, and saw the bookshop, and her current screensaver, fish swimming through a coral grove, and the spiralling dust-motes caught in a ray of sunshine from a small side window. Gradually her pulse steadied, but she didn’t move. After an hour or more, she got up and went to make tea.
When the tea was ready she returned to the table, sat down, sipped, pressed a few keys on the computer, tapped out an e-mail to other dealers about a rare first edition she was trying to obtain for a client. But her thought was elsewhere. She had listened to Bartlemy’s theory, but hadn’t really digested the implications. Something – someone – had taken her, in the instant of Daniel’s death, and made her pregnant. She had been invaded and violated, when she was open and vulnerable, when she had offered her whole being, to Daniel, for Daniel – but it was not Daniel who had accepted. Some alien power had seized her and used her, drawing a veil in her mind to blind her, leaving her with … Nathan. She loved Nathan as much as she had loved Daniel, though differently, but in that moment it didn’t matter. A slow-burning anger mounted in her, like no anger she had ever known, a white fire with which she could have torn down the walls between worlds, and stormed across the multiverse to find her ravisher. He had imprinted her with his spirit, but she would tear him out, and take back the life he had riven from her, and the love he had poisoned, and the soul he had left broken or benumbed. Her heart raged until the tea grew cold, and the fire died within her, and the tears came and came and would not stop.
Hazel Bagot found her there, when she came round to borrow a book for school. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said, horrified. ‘Annie, Annie, what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Annie sobbed, struggling for self-control, and Hazel put her arms round her, awkwardly, embarrassed to find an adult weeping with such abandon, though she had seen her mother cry, often and often. Her bracelet caught in Annie’s hair, pulling it sharply, so she started with the pain, and Hazel sprang back, stammering an apology, and ran out into the street. And there was Michael, walking towards her, and she dragged him inside, though he offered little resistance, and left him to do what he could in the way of comfort, while she headed home to brood on the mystery of it, with Annie’s hair snagged on her bracelet.
In the shop, Annie laid h
er head against Michael’s shoulder, and wept herself to a standstill.
‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Can I help?’
‘No. Thanks. It’s just … something a long time ago, something I never understood … never realized till now.’
‘Can you tell me?’
‘No. Sorry. It’s too …’
‘Too private?’ he suggested.
‘Too difficult.’ She looked up at him, red-eyed, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand, like a child. ‘Excuse me. I need a tissue. Possibly several.’
‘I’ll get them.’ He got up. ‘Where –’
‘Loo paper. In the bathroom. Upstairs on your left. But you shouldn’t …’
He ran upstairs, returning presently with a skein of toilet paper.
‘Thank you,’ Annie said again, feeling helpless and rather foolish. She blew her nose vigorously, wondering what she could say, unwilling to lie when he was being so kind.
But Michael asked no more questions. ‘If there’s anything I can do …?’
‘No, really. I’ll be fine now. I’d just like to be alone.’
‘Sure?’ She nodded. He stood looking down at her, and for once the crooked smile wasn’t in evidence. ‘Okay. But I meant what I said. If there’s anything I can do, ever, you have only to ask. It sounds melodramatic to say you’re alone in the world – I know that’s not exactly the case – but you don’t have a husband or family, at any rate, not round here. I want you to know you can call on me, any time.’
He does like me, Annie thought, and the knowledge warmed her, and unsettled her, more than she would have expected, ruffling what little serenity she had left.
She thought of asking him: How would Rianna feel about that? But of course she didn’t.
Not long after his birthday Nathan went walking in the woods near Thornyhill. He had left Hoover behind, ostensibly because he wanted to watch for birds and squirrels, but really because he needed some time to himself, to think things over. Hazel had told him about finding his mother in tears, and he had asked Annie what had upset her, but all she would say was that it didn’t matter now. ‘I was crying over spilt milk, and everyone knows that’s a waste of energy. What’s done is done. It’s nothing you need worry about.’ He didn’t want to press her, but instinct told him there was something very wrong, something important, one of many nebulous troubles that threatened to disturb the pattern of his life. The vision of the cup – dreams of another world – the illegal immigrant – Effie Carlow – Michael Addison – the star. He sat down on a log some way from any path, his gaze resting absently on the fluttering of leaf-shadows across the woodland floor, primrose clumps around a tree-bole, a mist of bluebells stretching away into a green distance. There was no traffic noise from the road, only the song of unseen birds. It was a beautiful scene, restful to the soul, but he was thirteen and his soul was restless. There were so many things he wanted to know …
The face was watching him from the crook between branch and tree-trunk: he must have been staring at it for some time without seeing it, the way you stare at a puzzle picture until the instant when the hidden image becomes clear. He thought at first that it was an animal, maybe a pine marten – he had always wanted to see a pine marten – but the face, though pointed, was hairless, bark-coloured and thrush-speckled, watching him sideways from a dark slanting eye. He became aware of spindle limbs clinging to the tree-trunk, leafy rags of clothing. Even so, it was several minutes before he said, very softly: ‘Woody?’
The woodwose shrank away, retreating into the shelter of the tree.
‘Please don’t go! It’s me, Nathan. Woody, please …’
‘Nathan?’ It was the slightest of whispers, emanating from behind the oak.
‘Yes, it is. Really …’
‘Nathan … was little. No bigger than me.’
‘I grew up,’ Nathan said. ‘I couldn’t help that. It’s what people do. I’m a teenager now.’
‘You went away.’ The woodwose was still invisible, only a voice among the leaves.
‘I know. I’m sorry. They told me you were imaginary, and I suppose … I got to believing them.’
‘They?’ The tip of a long nose reappeared, followed by the gleam of an eye, the twitch of an ear.
‘People. My mother. Some of my friends. It wasn’t their fault: they didn’t know you. It was my fault.’
‘You’ve grown too big,’ Woody said doubtfully. ‘Too big to talk to.’
‘I’m the same,’ Nathan insisted. ‘Look at me, Woody.’
The woodwose studied him, first from one eye, then the other. ‘You are Nathan,’ he said at last, ‘but you are not the same. You are … more. Perhaps too much …’
‘It feels that way sometimes,’ Nathan said. ‘But you can still talk to me. Honestly you can. Please come out, Woody. Please.’
Slowly, tentatively, the woodwose emerged into full view, staying close to the tree, no longer relaxed as he had been with his child playmate but a nervous, distrustful creature, easily startled, poised not to flee but to fade, back into the concealment of the wood. ‘Do you,’ he murmured, ‘do you have any – Smarties? You brought some once, I remember, in a tube with a lid on. They were small, and many-coloured – all different colours – and they tasted very good.’
‘I’ll bring some next time,’ Nathan promised. ‘I’ll come again soon. What … what have you been doing, all these years?’
But he knew the answer. ‘Being here,’ said the woodwose. ‘Waiting.’
‘For me?’
‘I – yes. You are all I have. You told me so. My parents, my friend.’ And, after a pause: ‘What is imaginary?’
‘It means, I invented you. You came from my mind. Where did you come from, Woody?’
‘From your mind,’ said the woodwose. ‘I think.’
Nathan remembered the man he had pulled from the seas of another cosmos, onto the beach at Pevensey Bay. He had no memory of it, but perhaps he had found Woody, too, in a dream, in the woods of some alternative world. It was an uncomfortable idea, though he hadn’t yet had time to work out why. The two of them sat for a while, almost the way they used to, watching a beetle creeping through the leaf-mould, and sunspots dancing on a tree-trunk, and a tiny bird with a piping call which Nathan would never have seen without his friend to guide him. ‘Would you look out for anything-different?’ Nathan asked at last. ‘There are things happening now, strange things. I can’t explain properly because I don’t understand, but I think you should be wary. If you see-oh, I don’t know – anything unusual, weird …’
‘Weird?’ Woody looked bewildered. There were few words in his vocabulary.
‘Odd. Peculiar. Wrong.’ Nathan paused for a minute, struck by a sudden thought. ‘How do you speak my language, Woody? It isn’t natural to you, is it?’
‘I must have learned from you,’ said the woodwose. ‘I’ve never spoken to anybody else.’
Nathan didn’t say any more. He bade his friend goodbye, and set off back towards Bartlemy’s house. An awful fear was growing in him, that he had brought Woody here, had dreamed him into this world and then abandoned him, and now the woodwose had no other friend, no other place, no other tongue. It was a frightening responsibility, but the wider implications were worse. He had no control over his dreams. (What had Effie Carlow said? Dream carefully.) Perhaps, if he really had this power, this ability, he might find himself bringing other people here, other creatures, unhappy exiles who could never go home, unless he found a way to dream them back again. The idea was so terrifying it made his mind spin. He forced himself to think rationally, to analyse what it was in his dreaming that had transported the man in the water from world to world – if that was indeed what had happened. There had been the urge to help, to save him – a huge impulse of will. After all, he had only brought back one person – not any of the xaurians or their riders, or the man in the white mask. And maybe some similar impulse had drawn Woody to Thornyhill to be his companion. A selfish impulse, a child’
s impulse: the desire for a secret friend. ‘And I couldn’t send him back,’ he reflected, remorsefully, ‘even if I had the power. I don’t remember where he came from.’ He resolved that he would dream carefully from now on, he would suppress all such urges, he wouldn’t – he mustn’t – allow his feelings to dictate his actions.
He wanted to tell Bartlemy – he wanted to tell someone – but he feared to be treated as an over-imaginative child, diminished by adult scepticism. Somehow, because she was so old, so eccentric, Effie Carlow had been different: he could have endured her scorn, if she had scorned him. But Bartlemy was the person he respected most in the world, knowledgeable and wise, and in his inmost heart Nathan shrank from the very notion of his disbelief.
Even so, the need to confide might have been too much for him, if he had found Bartlemy alone when he returned to Thornyhill. But in the living room he found Rowena Thorn, Mrs Vanstone to give her proper name, drinking tea and talking earnestly about something. She was a long, lean, tweedy sort of woman in her mid-sixties, with a face which had once been plain, until character and humour had left its impress on her features. She was given to serving on committees, organizing, charitable events, and riding her friends’ horses since she no longer maintained one of her own. In between, she ran an antiques shop in Chizzledown. She greeted Nathan absent-mindedly, though she normally found time to inquire after his progress at school, and reverted immediately to the former subject under discussion.
‘The provenance is clear: they have all the necessary documentation. It is the genuine article, I’m sure of it. You’ve seen our records. That awful little tit Rowland sold it to this Birnbaum chap just before the war – he was a German, too, frightfully bad form if you ask me – and then went and got himself killed, silly business really, survived the Somme and then got run over by a tank or something in the week before the Armistice. Henry died in the ’flu epidemic and that was more or less the end of the family. My father was only a child at the time, besides being just a cousin, and there was nothing left for him to inherit but debts. My grandmother always said that when we lost the cup we lost our luck, but personally I’ve never been sure about that. I remember Great-aunt Verity contended it was our curse, an evil burden the family had a duty to bear. Probably all nonsense, but you never know. The point is, it’s ours, and if it really has resurfaced I’m damn well going to get it back.’