“Looks to me as if he could do with a wash,” said a soft voice.
Chill with terror Margaret swung around. Lucy was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips, her face more foreign than ever—elfish, almost—in the faint light of the lantern. She wasn’t looking at Margaret, but down at the wounded witch.
“Yeah,” he said with a rasping sigh, “water would be good.”
“But how are we going to get it here without anyone …” She stopped. In the panicky silence she could hear Tim gnawing a morsel of mutton out from a cranny of bone. She stood up, trying to seem (and feel) like a mistress talking to a servant.
“Lucy,” she said hotly, “if you tell anyone …”
But Lucy was smiling, and Margaret could think of no threats that would mean anything.
“It’s I could be menacing you, Miss Margaret, and not t’other way about. But I’ll help you for Tim’s sake. I mind him sitting by my bed when I had the measles, afore they took him away, just bubbling, but he made me feel better nor any of the medicines they gave me. He’d have been a doctor, Tim would, supposing he’d been in his right mind.”
“Doctor?”
“Leech, then, but a proper un. I’ll be fetching hot water. Fruit’s what he needs, miss, not that pappy bread.”
“What shall I do? Can I help?”
Lucy looked at her again—not her secret, half-mocking glance, but something new, considering, only a little suspicious.
“Aye,” she said at last, “mebbe you could. We’ll make as if we’re mucking out Tim’s shed, which I should a done weeks back. The Master’s in Low Pasture, and your aunt’s too fazed to notice what we do. So I’ll go and set the big kettle on the stove, and you could mebbe fork all that straw out of Tim’s shed and set light to it. Mind you don’t burn his treasures—you’ll find ’em under a bit of planking in the back corner.”
She slipped out, silent as a stoat. Margaret had to run and scramble over the tow-bars in the dark barn to call after her in a straining whisper, “I’ll come and help you with the kettle, Lucy.”
Lucy turned, black in the bright rectangular gap where the iron sheet had been, nodded in silence and flitted away.
There was a hayfork by the midden above the orchard. Margaret scrattled the straw in the shed together—it was cleaner than she’d thought, just musty with damp from the bare earth beneath; and really there were no more flies under the low roof than there were in any other shed on the farm. The plank in the corner she left where it was, after inquisitively lifting it to see what Tim’s “treasures” were: a broken orange Dinky-toy earth-shifter; a plastic water pistol; the shiny top of a soda siphon; a child’s watch which could never tell the time because the knob at the side only made the big and little hands move around the dial together. As she put the plank back Margaret was astonished that she should know what they all were—four days ago they would have been meaningless, except that she’d have known they were wicked.
She picked the driest straw she could see from her heap, twisted it together and took it back into the hut where the witch lay. Tim began to croak with alarm when she opened the lantern to poke it into the flame, so she carried the lantern out into the shed, lit her wisp of straw there and thrust it into the heap. After she’d put the lantern back she stood for several minutes leaning on her fork and watching the yellow stems shrivel into black threads which wriggled as the fire ate into the innards of the pile. Her cheeks were sharp with heat when she began to walk up through the orchard toward the house.
Lucy was in the kitchen, struggling to carry the steaming kettle single-handed. Aunt Anne sat on one side of the stove in an upright chair and Mr. Gordon sat in the rocking chair between the stove and the fire, rocking and clucking. Neither of them looked as though they would pay any more attention to the comings and goings of children than they did to the tortoiseshell butterfly which pattered against the windowpane.
“Can I help you with that, Lucy?” said Margaret.
“If you please, Miss Margaret,” said Lucy. “I thought I’d best clean out Tim’s shed afore winter sets in.”
Margaret picked up a cloth and gripped one handle of the kettle with it. But it wasn’t a kettle, she thought. A kettle was a small shiny thing with a cord going in at the back. You didn’t put it on the stove, but it got hot from inside because the cord was … was electric. This big pan they were edging out through the door, very carefully so that the hot water wouldn’t slop over, was a … a … preserving pan. She looked excitedly at Lucy’s down-bent face.
“I say, Lucy, I’ve just remembered …”
“Careful, Miss Margaret, or you’ll be spilling it all, and then we’ll have our work wasted.”
The interruption was soft and easy, but the glance from under the little lace cap was as fierce as a branding iron. Margaret suddenly saw what a comfortable time she’d had of it since the Changes—Scrub to break and ride and care for, a share of housework, only the occasional belting from Uncle Peter to be afraid of. Wary, of course, but never till now Lucy’s cowering softness, like the stillness of a mouse when a hawk crosses the sky above it. Not even Jonathan’s dangerous adventuring.
Those times were over, since they’d rescued the witch. She would have to cower and adventure with the others. This was what Jonathan had meant about being stuck.
They could never have cleaned the witch without Tim. At first, while Lucy dabbed at the spoiled face, bristly with beard between the scabs, he squatted beside the bedding and watched with the soft glance of a clever spaniel. But as soon as they tried to lift their patient and undress him Tim pushed gently between them and ran his arm under the limp shoulders, lifting the body this way and that while the girls eased the torn and blood-clotted rags off.
“We’d best be burning most of this too,” said Lucy. “D’you think you could find some old clothes of the Master’s, Miss Margaret—nothing that he’ll miss, mind?”
“I’ll try,” said Margaret. “Jo was right—he is wearing some kind of armor.”
“Yeah,” said the witch faintly. “Bulletproof, but not rock-proof. I figure I got two or three busted ribs, and a busted arm, and I don’t seem to move my legs like I used to. You some sort of resistance movement, huh?”
“Resistance?” said Margaret.
“I guessed …” said the witch, and paused. “Oh, forget it, you’re only kids, anyway. Who knows I’m here?”
“Me and Jonathan and Lucy and Tim,” said Margaret. “I heard you groaning under the stones and I told Jonathan and we got Tim to help us bring you down here. Uncle Peter would kill you if he knew, though.”
“Us too, mebbe,” said Lucy, so softly that Margaret only just caught the words. Then she added in a brisker voice, “Which is your bad arm, mister?”
“Left. Roll me over on my right side and you can unzip my armor.”
They had to show Tim what they wanted, and he turned the witch over as gently as a shepherd handling a lamb. The man’s legs flopped uncontrolledly, not seeming to move properly with him, like a puppet’s. Then the zip puzzled them for a few seconds, but they both remembered in the same instant and reached out to pull the tag down.
“You’d best be looking for them clothes, Miss Margaret,” chided Lucy. “If we let him chill off, he’ll catch his death, surely.”
Margaret walked slowly up through the orchard, coming to terms with this new Lucy, not the slut who didn’t fill the lamps or rake out the ashes or scrub the step clean, but a different girl, a stranger, who knew just what needed doing. Rather than risk Mr. Gordon’s fierce and knowing glance she climbed the ivy and crawled in through Jonathan’s window—much easier by daylight than it had been in the dark. When she tiptoed out onto the landing she saw Jonathan crouched at the top of the stairs; he looked around at her and put his finger to his lips.
“What’s happening?” whispered Margaret.
He beckoned, then pointed to the floor; he must be showing her which board creaked, so she stepped over it and crouched by
his side. He said nothing, but the steady clack of Mr. Gordon’s rocking chair came up the stairs, mixed with his wheezing and clucking.
“He’s waiting for her to break,” whispered Jonathan at last. “I don’t know what to do. He’s willing her to it.”
“Can you go in and interrupt them?”
“No, I daren’t—she’s protecting me. She knows, somehow, though I’ve never told her. And he seems to know she knows.”
“Oh.” Margaret felt despairing. It was so unlike Jonathan not to have a plan. Well, at least she could try.
“Find some of Uncle Peter’s old clothes,” she whispered, “ones he never uses. Take them down to the witch. Lucy’s washing him. I’ll do something to stop Mr. Gordon.”
“Thank you,” said Jonathan, and slipped off down the passage toward Aunt Anne’s room. Margaret, her gullet hard with fright, crept back into Jonathan’s room, out along the shed roof and down the ivy. It would have to be a lie—a good big one.
When she threw open the kitchen door Mr. Gordon was still rocking and clucking, and now Aunt Anne was leaning forward in her chair like a mouse which has caught the eye of an adder. Neither of them looked around when the door banged against the dresser, though she’d pushed it so hard that the blue cups rattled on their saucers.
“Oh, Aunt Anne, Aunt Anne,” she croaked (and her terror was real), “a ginger cat just spoke to me. He said “Good morning.’”
The rocker stopped its clack. Aunt Anne eased herself back in her chair, gazed at the palm of her left hand, and then turned her head.
“What did you say, darling?” she said dully.
“I went down the lane to see if any of the crab apples had fallen at the back of Mrs. Gryde’s, so that we could make some conserve, but before I got there a big ginger cat came out of the hedge from the six-acre and looked at me and said ‘Good morning.’”
Mr. Gordon jumped out of the chair, sending his blackthorn stick clattering across the floor. Margaret ran to pick it up for him, but as she knelt his bony hand clawed into her shoulder, so that she dropped the stick again and almost shouted with surprise and hurt. He pulled her close to him; she could see the individual hairs that sprouted from the big wart on the side of his nose. His bloodshot old eyes glittered.
“Mrs. Gryde’s cat, that’d be?” he said fiercely.
“No,” croaked Margaret. “Hers is quite a little one. This was big, the biggest I’ve seen, and lame in one leg. It went away up toward the New Wood. Shall I show you?”
Mr. Gordon clucked once or twice, thinking. “Ah,” he said at last. “That’s where we found the witch. Mebbe he didn’t go back to his master after all. Mebbe he turned hisself into a cat—and he’d be lame all right, after the stoning we give him. You bring me along and show me what you seen, lass.”
He let go of her shoulder, but gripped it again the instant she’d turned. Aunt Anne had to scrabble for his stick. Then Margaret led him hobbling out into the road, hoping there were no witnesses about; but Mother Fatchet was driving her black pig up the slope toward them. Mr. Gordon stopped her, and the two old people at once began an excited cackling discussion about what might have happened, during which Margaret’s invented cat seemed to grow bigger and bigger until she was afraid they wouldn’t believe her when she showed them the rabbit run she’d decided on for it to have appeared through—a gravelly place where even the heaviest cat’s paw-marks couldn’t be expected to show up. But when she showed them the hole they didn’t seem to mind that it was small. Mr. Gordon made her tell her lie all over again while he stared hotly up to where the young beeches of New Wood stood russet in the silvery sunlight. Then, at last, he let go of her shoulder and began hobbling up toward the center of the village to roust his cronies out of the pub for another witch-hunt. Mother Fatchet tied her pig to the farm gate and scuttled up the lane so that she should miss none of the blood-soaked fun.
Aunt Anne was at her stove, stirring uselessly at the big gruel pot which simmered there night and day. Margaret slid into the larder, opened one of the little bottles of cordial, poured half of it into a mug and placed that on the stove by Aunt Anne’s left hand. Her aunt stopped stirring, picked up the mug and sniffed at it, looked sideways at Margaret, hesitated, then shut her eyes and took three hefty swallows. When she put the mug down she gave a long sigh and reached out to draw Margaret close against her side, as though she was afraid to say thank you out loud, as though even the crannies and shelves of her own kitchen might be full of spies waiting for the betraying word.
It would be dangerous to go back to the barn, Margaret thought—they wouldn’t find anything up at the New Wood and then they’d come to look for her to hear her story again. When Aunt Anne let go of her she chose a couple of bruised apples from the larder and ran out to the paddock to talk to Scrub. He was sulking, jealous after three days’ neglect, and wouldn’t come when she whistled. But Caesar, Jonathan’s unloved and melancholy gray, came boredly over and Margaret gave him one of the apples and started to fondle his ears. This was too much for Scrub and he cantered over with a clownish look in his eye as though he’d only just realized she was there. She accepted his pretense and gave him his apple too.
All at once she heard harsh voices shouting on the other side of the road, up in the six-acre; she climbed up onto the second bar of the gate and teetered there trying to crane over the tall hedge. When that wasn’t any good she slid across onto Scrub’s back and coaxed him along toward the gap further down the field—difficult sitting sideways without saddle or reins, because she had no control at all. But Scrub was in a mood to show how clever he could be, and did what she wanted.
There were eight or nine men standing in a circle just below the New Wood. Three old women in black watched them from twenty yards away. The men all had sticks or cudgels and were taking it in turn to beat something that lay on the grass in the middle of the circle; they shouted at each blow, egging each other on. She could recognize Mr. Gordon by his stoop, and Mr. Syon the smith by his apron, and the two black-bearded brothers from Clapper’s Farm. While she was wondering sickly what they’d caught, one of the men struck so hard that he snapped his cudgel; he threw the pieces angrily on the ground and began to walk down across the six-acre toward her. As he came nearer she saw it was one of the stonecutters from the quarry on the Beacon: nearer still, and his cheeks were burning with cider though it was still only the middle of the morning.
“Think your uncle would mind if you lent us a spade, lass?” he shouted.
“I’ll get one,” Margaret shouted back. She slid off Scrub’s back, climbed the fence and ran around to the farmyard. The stonecutter was already staggering in through the gate when she came out of the shed where the garden tools were kept. Aunt Anne had come to the kitchen door to watch.
“What did you find?” asked Margaret as she handed the big man the spade. Her fear and disgust must have sounded just like excitement to him.
“Ah,” he answered with gloating pleasure, “he were a clever one, but he weren’t so clever as he thought he were. He’d changed hisself into a rook, you see, so’s to be able to fly away from where Davey Gordon could smell him out, but he’d forgot as how his arm was broke. The cat you saw was lame, weren’t he, missy? So now he was a rook, his wing was broke, and he couldn’t fly away after all.”
The man gave a bellowing, cider-smelling laugh.
“We smashed him up, that we did,” he shouted. “He won’t do no more witching now. Thankee, missy—I’ll fetch your spade back in half an hour. You done a good morning’s work, you have.”
He stumped out, too drunk to notice how white Margaret had turned, or how she reeled and hugged the well-pump to keep herself from falling. When the whole hillside and valley had stopped slopping around she found Aunt Anne standing anxious beside her.
“You’d best be away for a few hours, Marge,” she said. “If I gave you a pot of damson cheese you could ride over to Cousin Mary’s in the Vale. I should have sent it weeks back, but it sli
pped my mind. I’ll pack you up a bit of bread and bacon, too, for your dinner. Mr. Gordon’s sure to come round talking to Uncle Peter then, so you’d much best be somewhere else.”
“Oh, thank you, Aunt Anne. I’ll get Scrub ready.”
Twenty minutes later Margaret was clear of the village, riding sidesaddle as she always did. She’d waved to old Mr. Sampson digging his cabbage patch by the almshouses; she’d craned over the Dower House wall to see the yew trees all clipped into shapes of animals; she had sniffed the thymy air as they came out of the woods, and leaned right down over Scrub’s mane as the pony took the steep bank up the common grazing ground below the Beacon; it was just like any of a hundred other rides, hill and valley exactly the same as they’d always been, as though nothing had happened to change her world four days ago.
Scrub was skittish and restless with lack of exercise, tossing his head sideways and up as though he wanted to get a better grip of the bit; so she let him canter all the way up the steady slope to the corner of the cemetery, where no one had been buried since the Changes came because people preferred to be buried in the churchyard even if it meant jostling the bones of long-dead generations. As they swept around the corner they hurtled into the middle of a swirling and squawking white riot—they’d gone full tilt into the flock of village geese. Scrub reared and skittered sideways with an awkward bouncy motion, but Margaret had had half a second to see what was going to happen, so she gripped the pommel of her saddle tightly, allowed him a few moments to be stupid (he knew all about geese, really) and then reined him firmly in.
The geese subsided into angry gossip. Mother Fatchet’s eldest grandchild was supposed to be herding them but he’d taken time off to swing on a low branch of one of the cemetery pines; now he jumped down, picked up his long stick, put his thumb in his mouth and stood watching her sulkily. Margaret said good morning to him as she rode on, but he didn’t answer. For the first time she realized how suspicious everybody was nowadays—suspicious of strangers, suspicious of neighbors. Anyone could betray you. Perhaps other villages were different—friendly and easy—but this village was like a bitch with a hurt foot: move and it snarled.
The Changes Trilogy Page 15