Seth stared at the road ahead, his mouth tightly closed. After a while he pulled over on to a verge. Kite turned the volume down to hear him talking to Ruby, telling her how beautiful the countryside was, how warm and welcoming people were here, and about the soft lilt of their voices, and the vivid turn of phrase that he wanted to capture in his ballad. He spoke about Jack and then Mirror Falls and how much she would love it when she visited. He said how being here had sparked a new urgency to find out about his family. It was what he didn’t talk about by the time he passed her the phone that interested Kite.
‘Haven’t heard him this fired up to write in years!’ Ruby said. ‘And how about you, my darlin’. What do you think of the place?’
Kite didn’t know how to reply. What she did know for sure was that if she told Ruby or Seth or Dr Sherpa that she felt Dawn was trying to reach her here, they would probably worry about her even more. But somewhere deep inside her she knew that she had been drawn here for a purpose as strongly as Seth had, and now she had no choice but to stay.
‘Kite? Are you all right, my darlin’?’
‘Fine.’
‘And Seth said you slept all the way up to the Lakes. How have you been sleeping since you got there?’
‘Much better.’
She hadn’t slept more than a few moments at a time, but she knew if she told Ruby the truth she would probably jump on the next train up here. Who knows, maybe Dr Sherpa would have her admitted to hospital like she’d overheard Seth and Ruby talking about in London, and she couldn’t risk that because it would mean missing out on whatever it was that Dawn was trying to tell her.
When Ruby and Kite had said their goodbyes, Seth took the phone off her, opened the door and walked away from the car. He paced along the boundary of a dry stone wall, picking bits of moss from between the crevices. Even though she was too far away to hear what he was saying, his pacing up and down made Kite feel uncomfortable. He was listening to Ruby more than he was speaking and that made her nervous. What new thing did Ruby think would be good for her now? Seth kicked shards of slate aside as he listened – now he seemed to be arguing with Ruby. As he ambled back towards the car Kite cranked up the volume on her iPod and pretended to be fast asleep. Seth placed a little posy of heather that he’d collected on her knee.
‘Yeah, it’s lovely blue skies and wall-to-wall sun so far – the locals are saying it’s unheard of!’ he told Ruby cheerily . . . as if they’d been talking about the weather all this time.
‘I don’t care what they say about that woman Agnes, she’s created something exquisite in this house,’ declared Seth as they walked back into Mirror Falls. He pressed the remote to slide back the living-room roof, then sauntered over to the window. If anything, the owl print showed up even clearer against the backdrop of the deepening fiery sky.
‘We’d better close the blinds then, if it’s landlady’s orders! We don’t want any more birds injured. I suppose they must get disorientated if they can’t tell the glass is there.’ He pressed the button for the blinds. ‘Shame to miss the sunset, but that’s pretty good too,’ Seth whistled as the enormous abstract painting of the valley unfolded.
As they lay at opposite ends of the sofa, Kite began to ponder about Agnes Landseer. Why would you design and build a place as extraordinary as this as your retirement home, and then leave it? And why did Jack seem so disturbed by even the mention of Agnes’s name?
Seth began his familiar light wheezy snore. She covered him with a throw and walked up the spiral staircase and into the bathroom. She filled the sink and reached into the cupboard where she had hidden Dawn’s soap. She let the rich lemony scent seep into her skin. It was uncanny how that smell could summon Dawn into the room. Kite placed the soap on the side and walked into her bedroom, pressing the remote to open the bookshelf, behind which she had created a den out of cushions and blankets, like the ones she and Dawn used to make in primary school. She snuggled under the woollen blanket and took out Dawn’s reed box. With great care she flicked up the little copper catch and prised the lid open. There was Dawn’s golden reed. She eased it out, holding it between her thumb and index finger and raised it to her mouth. Then she took a sharp breath in and blew as hard as she could, but no sound emerged. Kite placed the reed back in the box and hid it under her den pillows with her Dawn feather and her unopened birthday card.
It was snug in here, and being so close to Dawn’s precious things might help her sleep. Maybe Dawn would come to her in her dreams.
‘Close your eyes and open your senses, my darlin’.’ She heard Ruby’s soothing voice like a lullaby in her head.
Rush of waterfall . . . click of switch in the kitchen below . . . something electrical turning itself off. Sheep bleating . . . dog barking, or perhaps too high-pitched for a dog. Maybe foxes mating in the dark then . . . And yes, there it was, hollow and clear, the insistent hoot of an owl. What was Dawn trying to tell her? There was no way that she could sleep. The cacophony of her own mind was even louder than the waterfall. She threw off the blanket, crawled out of her den and surveyed the bookshelf. Her attention was caught by a thick coffee-table tome on the top shelf. Its cover was stained and the pages well thumbed. Owl Lore. The title was written in old-fashioned swirly writing and a giant owl face stared from the cover. She shivered. This could not be a coincidence. She felt as if Dawn was leading her by the hand.
Kite reached up, tilted the heavy book over the shelf edge, eased it down with both hands and returned to her den. A corner of the dust jacket, where the owl’s wing should have been, had been ripped away.
She closed the wardrobe, lay down on her bed, propping her head on her pillows, opened the front cover and read the ‘Foreword’.
I thought hard about the naming of this book. It has taken me a lifetime to collect together all the photos you see here, and as for my learning about owls, that started when I was just a boy, on the day I met my first ‘Little Owl’. He was sitting on a wall near my home in Yorkshire. For a long time I thought the title of this book should be Owl Knowledge, but as I added to it, I began to realize that I was accumulating so much more than learning from these magical birds. In the thirty-five years it has taken me to write this book, I have spent hours watching owl behaviour and charting the changes in their lamentably threatened habitats. I have also talked to people from around the world about their extraordinary experiences with owls. I have trawled through folklore and tales from ancient times, and what I have come to learn is that lore, and ‘owl lore’ in particular, is a kind of learning that goes beyond books, beyond knowledge, beyond observation, beyond logic, beyond traditional ‘wisdom’ itself to a deeper place of learning within. If this book leads you to listen to their call in the stillness of night as they soar through the darkness to offer you their ‘lore’, then you would be a fool not to listen.
Anthony Gill
4th June 1962
Kite’s hands shook as she turned the pages. She flicked through the pictures of owls in various stages of flight until her eye was caught by a paragraph in the section headed ‘Folklore’.
In Celtic legend it is said that the cry of an owl is the cry of a trapped spirit begging to be released. I’ve been told by many people that owls are used by the dead as a vehicle, to take a message to the living. In Norse legend we find this idea repeated in the figure of the feather-cloaked goddess Freya, who can carry messages between the living and the dead by wearing a coat of feathers, transforming herself into a bird and rising up out of the underworld.
‘You know what they say when a great bird like that flies at you.’ Ellie’s words from earlier echoed back at her.
Kite slammed the book closed. Maybe she was going mad and needed help . . . to talk to someone; but the person she needed to talk to more than anyone else in the world was Dawn.
Kite Carrec
Kite took the first two steps down the stairs. There was the Dawn owl print, as bright and sharp as ever against another bright blue sky.
&nbs
p; ‘Did you sleep?’ Seth asked as she continued down the stairs. He was lounging on the sofa, roof off, guitar by his side, along with an untidy splayed-out mess of papers covered in crossings out and reworkings, which he was just now collecting into a pile. She had the impression that he hadn’t slept either.
‘Not bad,’ Kite lied, edging her way to the opposite end of the sofa and lying down. Her head throbbed with tiredness.
‘I was remembering last night when I started teaching you and Dawn the guitar and you would never practise because I suppose you were rebelling, but really, from such an early age, she was always going to be a wonderful musician. I hope to God it wasn’t too much pressure for her, getting that scholarship to music school; I thought she was looking forward to it. Did she ever say anything to you?’
‘Only that she’d got in,’ Kite replied.
Seth wiped the tears from his eyes as he spoke and tried to cover his emotion by tidying up his manuscript papers.
When he’d finished he patted the cushion for Kite to join him at his end of the sofa. She rested her head on his shoulder, following the path of a few wispy clouds meandering like smoke trails high above them.
‘You won’t believe what Ajay told me about Jack! Sometimes a song will come back to him from his childhood and he can sing the whole thing through word perfect, not a stutter or a stumble.’
‘I thought he couldn’t speak,’ said Kite.
‘I know, that’s what so incredible, isn’t it? Ajay was explaining to me that it’s a curiosity of the brain that the songs you sing over and over as a child can be stored in the memory forever.’
Kite wondered if Dawn’s Brahms symphony had been stored like that somewhere deep inside her. She could hear her playing right now as swallows darted above them, swelling the sky with life.
‘Ajay’s going to drop by and see how you’re doing later,’ Seth said in a throwaway manner. ‘I gave him the referral letter from our doctor and he thinks it might be useful for you to see him. Just to make sure you’re feeling OK.’
‘You had no right to do that!’ Kite pushed Seth away sharply as she jumped up off the sofa, her chest tightening with anger. She’d sensed that all this softly, softly stuff was leading to something.
‘He can come if he wants to, but I’m NOT talking to him.’ She turned her back on Seth and walked towards the window.
‘But, Kite, sweetheart, you haven’t even cried for Dawn, and you won’t talk to any of us. We’re worried about you. Isn’t that what happened to Dawn, bottling things up and refusing to talk?’
‘I don’t know what happened to Dawn!’ Kite shrieked at the top of her voice, slamming her fist into the window. ‘I mean, what do you want me to say? Once upon a time I had a best friend and then one day she killed herself, committed suicide, and she’s not here any more and then we all lived unhappily ever after. Rubbish story, isn’t it? It’s easy for her. At least she’s dead and can’t feel anything. There you go, I’ve said it, given it a name, which is more than you’ve had the guts to do.’
Seth’s eyes filled with tears again but he didn’t try to pursue her as she sprinted to her room, her knuckles burning from the punch. She threw on some running gear and her trainers. Her hands shook as she fumbled with the laces. She ran back down the staircase, ignoring Seth’s pleas for her to come back, and headed out of the open entrance of Mirror Falls.
She found herself pounding the rocky ground, running downhill by the side of the waterfall, sliding occasionally on the damp rock, letting her feet feel their way as she skidded and leaped over the bony ground. She threw her body forward, accelerating despite her overextended angle to the earth. Dawn’s warning cry echoed back at her from the day of the rope-swing accident.
‘Be careful, Kite, don’t jump. It’s too steep!’
If she fell here she would gash open her head on the rock and plunge senseless into the waterfall, but her feet held steadfastly to the path, her heart racing in her chest from this unexpected burst of activity. There was no thought, just the rush of green and rock and branches lashing her face, a ledge and a drop of half her body height, a moment of flying, a heart-leap on to grass littered with sheep droppings. She ran along by the side of the widening stream, feeling the heat of the sun on her back and the sweat trickling down her spine. Now she settled into an even pace, enjoying the stretch of muscle and sinew in her legs, ignoring the feeling of dizziness as her head swam with exhaustion. She began to enjoy the floating sensation, her feet carrying her forward of their own accord. At a turn in the stream she heard the sheepdog’s greeting. Now here he was running beside her, occasionally glancing her way. Then he pulled ahead and seemed to be leading her. She followed him up the fell to a small lake nestled in the mountainside. Bardsey ran to the shore where a tiny waterfall cascaded into the lake – and drank thirstily. Kite collapsed on the bank, her heart thudding so loudly she felt as if she was sending a racing heartbeat through the earth, like a roll of thunder. She stared up at the sky, where a gathering of red birds swirled above her head.
The lake was surrounded by an imposing grey crag. Her eyes followed the red birds, whose huge wingspans dominated the sky as they swirled around and around. A vision of Annalisa on her cloud swing entered her head.
The branches in the coppice of trees to her right rustled. She stood up and took a step closer. It was probably a deer: she had read in the guidebook that red deer were common in the area. Then she heard it. Dawn’s beautiful playing meandering through the branches, so delicate and soft and warm that it broke her heart to hear it this close.
‘I love that.’
‘Really? It’s something I’m working on for my first concert.’
‘Can I come and see you?’
‘Yes! But don’t tell my mum and dad or they’ll invite everyone they know. Just let me get this first one out of the way.’
‘Are you nervous?’
‘Terrified!’
Dawn’s playing seeped into Kite just as it had done at that first concert when Kite had been so proud of her best friend.
Dawn stood between the trees and smiled at her, her fine auburn hair floating on the breeze. Her skin almost transparent. ‘I like it here,’ she sighed, looking up at the sky . . . ‘It’s so peaceful. Thanks for bringing me. I know you need me for a while but I can’t stay forever. I can always play for you, though.’
Kite nodded, noticing the oboe tucked under Dawn’s arm.
‘Give me back my golden reed then!’ Dawn reached out her hand. Kite felt around in her pocket for the little box and handed it to Dawn. ‘My best present ever,’ said Dawn, taking out the reed. She walked down to the water’s edge and dipped the reed in the lake, attached it to her oboe and began to play. The sound was so rich and tender and golden, it could have made the earth weep.
‘There you are, Bardsey!’
Kite tried to lift her head to see where the voice was coming from, but the dog was frantically licking her face. The air felt cool on her skin. She opened her eyes. Everything looked different; the blue had faded and the sun sat low in the sky. She gently pushed the dog away and sat up.
The boy she had seen on the road was staring at her. He looked different close up, less perfect than before. His nose was slightly bumpy over the bridge as if it had been broken. His grey eyes held in them a deep look of concern. Around his neck was a leather necklace with a piece of flat circular slate resting on his collarbone, the grey-blue the same colour as his eyes. Bardsey barked again and bounded at him as if he was a long-lost friend.
‘I hope he’s not been mithering you?’ the boy asked in a soft, low voice.
He was looking at her as if she was an alien that had just landed.
‘Did you run all the way up here?’
Kite nodded. ‘Why are you staring at me?’ she heard herself ask.
‘Sorry! Just never thought to come across you here, that’s all. Folk aren’t usually this adventurous. Are you all right? I mean . . .’ He stood awkwardly transferring
weight from foot to foot. From what she’d seen of him until now, Kite had imagined him to be more confident, like one of those perfect American high-school boys in films, handsome and golden, glowing with health and motivation.
‘Why shouldn’t I be all right?’
‘No reason! I didn’t mean anything by it,’ he mumbled.
What was she going to say to this boy who probably already thought she was crazy? That she’d heard her friend, or rather the ghost of her friend, playing the oboe and it had sent her into the deepest sleep she’d had in weeks?
‘Do you know what time it is?’ she asked.
‘Around six o’clock,’ the boy answered, looking up at the sun.
Seth would be beside himself with worry. She should get back, but part of her wanted to stay in this place that had given her a feeling of peace. She stood up and walked towards the lake, wondering if any of this was real. She held her hands in the stream of running water and splashed her face several times. Her eyes felt sore and her cheeks stung as the icy water touched her skin.
‘Taste it! Freshest spring water you’ll drink – some folk think it’s got healing powers,’ the boy said, coming to her side, cupping his hands together and taking a glug himself. ‘So what brings you up here?’
Instead of answering, she dunked her hair into the flowing stream and threw her head back, splashing droplets behind her in a great, glistening rainbow arc. The boy seemed lost for words.
‘You’ve been crying,’ he said eventually.
Had she? Kite reached up to her face. That’s why her eyes stung – she must have been crying in her sleep. Maybe Dawn had drawn her here to sleep and to cry and perhaps she had a plan, a reason why Kite should meet this awkward boy here too. The strange thing was that now that she was standing so close to him looking out over the flat surface of the lake, something about his quietness and intent listening gaze reminded her of Dawn.
Kite Spirit Page 11