She chanted softly to herself and plucked at the grass stems in front of her, trying to keep the thought of what she had done at bay. But the scissors kept flashing into her mind, and she could still feel the weight of them, the curve of them against her palm, the pinch of the open blade as she stabbed at the dark pain … hate you, hate you, hate you, hate you …
‘Hate … hate … hate … hate …’ Celandine muttered aloud as she rocked to and fro.
‘Cake … cake … cake … cake …’
Celandine looked up, startled by the echo.
A blurred little figure dropped from the overhanging boughs and landed in the flattened grass before her. Celandine scrabbled backwards, unable to focus properly. It was a surprise to find that she was crying, and yet even through her tears she knew instantly what this was – who this was. She even remembered his name.
Fin …
Chapter Five
CELANDINE WRIGGLED AWAY on her hands and heels, but she didn’t get up and run. She saw Fin’s worried little face, his agitated hands, and realized that he was filled with anxiety at her own distress.
He rocked from side to side, stroking the back of his wrist and pressing it against his grubby cheek – making desperate little cooing noises, as though he were comforting a baby. ‘Ooo … ooo … better … all better … ooo … ooo.’ It was clear that he was confused and upset, so that Celandine’s first instinct was to reassure him, despite the shock of his being there at all.
‘No … I’m all right. Don’t be … I’m all right.’ She brought her hand up to her face and made a brief show of wiping away her tears. ‘See?’ Her neck was tingling, and her cheeks felt flushed and icy cold at the same time.
Yet now he seemed to have momentarily forgotten her, to be caught up in some inner turmoil of his own, moving away from her as he continued to pet the curve of his wrist, ‘Ooo … ooo …’ The long rough grass caused him to stumble, and he threw his arms forward in alarm. He just managed to save himself from falling, and stood with his fingers splayed, open-mouthed, as though he was balanced at the edge of a precipice. ‘No … I all right. I all right. See?’ He looked at her in delight, very pleased with his balancing.
Celandine was sure that if she blinked he would be gone. If she closed her eyes for just one moment, he would disappear – and so she kept absolutely still and simply stared at him. His long black hair was dusty with pollen, great hanks of it tumbling wildly about his small brown face so that his eyes were as startlingly perfect as birds’ eggs in a ramshackle nest. The ill-fitting corduroy tunic, slung over his skinny frame like an oversized waistcoat, was so worn away that great bald patches of the weave were visible across the shoulders and his knee-length leggings hung down in baggy ruins, supported by what looked to be a strip of rabbitskin tied about his middle. His wiry little limbs were scuffed and grazed, streaked here and there with the green of tree-bark, and on one of his bare shoulders there was a single bead of blood, as shiny-bright as a ladybird in the sun, and presumably just acquired. The poorest village urchin would have laughed to see him, and yet how miraculous he was. How beautiful, and extraordinary, and perfect.
Fin turned his head sideways, looked away for a few moments, and then glanced shyly back, pretending to see her for the first time once more. ‘Cake?’ he said, in his throaty little croak of a voice, and Celandine wanted to pinch herself.
So many times they had told her – her mother, her father, her Uncle Josef – that her account of what had happened on the day of the Coronation party was all her imagination. She had had a nasty bang on the head, and that was the cause of it. And yet here was the truth, the amazing truth, standing before her – fidgeting with the ragged hem of his open tunic, looking up at the sky, seeing her, not seeing her, his attention everywhere and nowhere. ‘I all right. I all right.’
His actions seemed entirely unpredictable and Celandine felt a moment of apprehension, the same wariness with which she would regard a stoat or an owl, or any wild creature that was suddenly sprung upon her and beyond all reason and control. He might bite, she thought. He was tiny, perhaps a little more than knee-high to her, but he wasn’t a child. There was something monkey-like about the length of the arms and stooping body. He could hurt her.
No, she thought, he wouldn’t hurt her. He could have been newborn, for all the harm in him.
She was holding her breath, she realized, as she watched him – not daring to move lest she should frighten him away. He gazed out over the distant landscape, his small weathered hands clasped unselfconsciously together, his mouth open in a little ‘o’ of fascination. But then his eyes widened, as if he had perhaps recognized or understood something, and his expression became agitated. Something was troubling him.
‘Fin?’ She had remembered his name, and it was funny to hear herself whisper it.
He turned to her, and now there was growing panic in his expression.
‘No. Ooooh! No! Bad! Not go there. Gorji there. Gorji is get you!’ He ran at her and gripped her sleeve. ‘Ah – ah – ah.’
‘What? What is it? What’s the matter with you?’ Celandine drew her arm back, alarmed by the sudden change in his manner.
Fin let go of her sleeve and scuttled off a few paces – crouching low in the long grass – then ran back to grab at her again, and all the time he kept looking out over Howard’s Hill as though he were expecting an attack.
‘Ah – ah. Gorji! No! Come I – come I. Gorji is! Come I – me.’
His panic transferred to her, and she too looked about wildly, scrambling to her feet and wondering where the danger was. The sunny wetlands below seemed as tranquil as ever, but Fin was insistent that they should move – ‘Is Gorji come! Is get you!’ He looked quickly upwards at the branches he had lately tumbled out of, half raising his arms towards them. But there was obviously no possibility of getting back into the wood by that route, and with a last tug at her clothing he was off. Celandine followed as best she could, picking her way through the clumps of dock leaves and tufts of long grass, keeping close to the high barrier of brambles that surrounded the wood.
Doubled over as he was, scurrying low through the undergrowth, he could easily have been mistaken for a hare or a pheasant – but every so often his head bobbed up from the grass, making sure that she was still there, his eyes wide with panic. He moved quickly and it was difficult to keep up with him, but Celandine was not going to lose him if she could help it.
Around the crest of Howard’s Hill she stumbled in his wake, until they were approaching the place where the gully was – a steep cut in the hillside that Celandine remembered as having explored before, with Freddie. By this time she was convinced that she must be dreaming, that this could not be happening to her, and when the little figure ahead of her disappeared over the edge of the gully she was certain that she would never see him again.
She reached the top of the gully a few seconds later and looked down the stony bank at the damp trickle of the stream below. Nothing but brambles and bare rocks and silence. Her side hurt and she pressed a hand to her ribs as she tried to get her breath back. Whatever it was that she had been chasing had gone.
The pounding in her ears gradually subsided and the sounds of the world returned – the cry of the lapwings drifting up from the wetlands below, the doleful clank of a distant mowing machine, the chirrup of grasshoppers on the warm hillside. Mill Farm was down there, along with all her troubles, and soon she would have to go back and face up to what she had done. Celandine shook her head, trying to keep the terrible thing at bay, but she could find no escape. The very trees were whispering behind her back, as though they were telling each other how wicked she was, and the insistent warble of some nearby water-bird sounded like a mocking little laugh. She looked down into the gully, half-heartedly searching for the source of the sound, and then saw Fin once more, crouching among the brambles at the head of the stream. He had his hands cupped to his mouth. When he was sure that she had spotted him, he parted the brambles a litt
le and gave her a hurried wave.
There was a tunnel – a dank and forbidding place – cleverly hidden behind the brambles. It looked like the inside of a long wicker basket, a loose weave of willow sticks, black with age and damp, spanning the little stream. Astonishing though this was, Celandine really didn’t like the look of it. The tunnel was only a few yards long, and if she stooped low enough she would just be able to squeeze through it, but she wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to try. The overhanging brambles that concealed the entrance were already snagging at her clothing, and if she went any further she would almost certainly get her feet wet. She turned and looked behind her to where the bright sparkles of sunlight danced upon the rocky shallows of the stream, then peered once more along the extraordinary basketwork construction. She caught a glimpse of Fin, briefly silhouetted against the circle of light at the far end. Then one of her feet slipped on a stone and she fell forward with a gulp, pushing her hands against the creaking wicker walls as she tried to save herself, feeling the instant shock of cold water through her shoes and stockings. She staggered on a couple of paces further, still trying to regain her balance, and it seemed as though her choice had been made for her. Yet she stopped and hesitated once more. It was chilly in here – creepy-cold – and there was a musty smell, like the smell of the black earth beneath the laurel bushes at home.
Celandine called out, her voice sounding panicky and strange in the dim confined space.
‘Fin?’
But Fin had disappeared again, and there was no reply.
The end of the tunnel was only three or four yards away, and it would now be easier to continue than to try and turn around. Celandine could see a grassy bank in the sunlight, clumps of brambles, part of a mossy tree limb, but little else. Another few crouching steps forward, her feet now hopelessly soaked, and she paused again, listening. She thought she had heard Fin’s voice – ‘Ah – ah – ah …’ – a brief, muffled cry. She peered ahead and waited, shouted again, but Fin did not return. There was nothing but the sound of her own fast breathing, and the soft trickle of the water over the slippery stones.
At last she made up her mind and picked her way along to the end of the tunnel, her hair coming undone and falling over her face so that she could hardly see. She kept one hand resting on the top of her head to prevent the sharp ends of the willow sticks from making matters worse, but then her bracelet became caught up instead and this delayed her further. The colour of the wickerwork had changed, she noticed. It was lighter at this end of the tunnel, newer, as though it had recently been added to, or replaced.
Celandine emerged into the dazzling sunlight and it was a relief to be able to straighten up. She stumbled blindly forward, found her footing on a large flat stone in the middle of the trickling shallows and began to push back her mass of tangled hair – retrieving the loose ribbon in the process, along with one or two stray hair-pins that dangled across her limited vision. But then, out of nowhere, some larger object swept past her face, frighteningly close, and she very nearly overbalanced as she tried to avoid it.
The thing jabbed at her threateningly – it was like a big fork – and Celandine squealed with shock, raising her arms to try and fend it off. More sharp objects … spears … javelins … they were suddenly all around her, all stabbing and prodding in her direction …
She caught terrifying glimpses of small bearded faces between her flailing hands and flying hair, as she shielded herself from the stickle of weapons that kept lunging towards her. They were going to kill her. There were lots of them, hordes of them, hissing and snarling at her, and they were going to kill her. She buried her head in her arms – dizzy with terror – quite unable to defend herself against so many assailants and certain that she was about to die. Her legs gave way and she banged her knees on the damp stone as she fell.
The material of her pinafore muffled her cry of pain and fear, and it was as though she were screaming to herself beneath the bedclothes … go away … go away …
Celandine felt hands tugging at her sleeve, gripping her wrist, yanking her arms away from her face.
‘Ah – ah-ah …’
Fin’s voice. It was Fin – clinging to her, hanging on tight to her arm. Celandine struggled to free herself, still squealing with panic, but her hair was in her eyes again – she couldn’t see what was happening.
‘Fin! Get out o’ there!’ Another voice. Then more voices, all of them shouting, ‘Fin! Fin!’
‘Pato – grab a hold of ’un quick, afore she strangles ’un!’
Celandine managed to get one arm around the wriggling creature at last and lifted him off his feet in order to gain some sort of control over him. With her other hand she roughly swept back her maddening hair, shouting with anger now, not caring any more, feeling nothing but outrage towards this impossible thing that was happening to her.
‘Get … OFF me, you … you … lunatic!’
‘Ah – ah – ah …’ Fin was still hanging onto her like a monkey, but at last she had a clearer view of the rest of the group and she realized, through the mist of her rage, that they had backed away from her. There weren’t as many of them as she had imagined – half a dozen perhaps – and although they still brandished their weapons at her, they did so from a safer distance. The wild-eyed expressions on their unshaven faces spoke more of panic and confusion than of murder. Celandine struggled to keep her grip on Fin as she glared, panting and furious, at the semi-circle of agitated little figures – and waited for them to do their worst. They hopped and splashed about in the stony shallows, making short determined rushes towards her, then retreating just as quickly. So close, they came, but no closer. They were frightened, she realized – frightened of her. They were frightened of her.
Her fingers were beginning to slip. She tried to renew her grasp on the material of Fin’s tunic, but could not find the strength. Her legs and arms suddenly felt useless and her head wouldn’t stay upright. She let her chin fall onto her chest for a few moments, her burst of anger exhausted, weak with shock.
Fin, released from her hold, kept his hand on her shoulder as he bent down to peer into her face.
‘Ah – ah – ah … ooooo … all better … all better …’ He wouldn’t stop jabbering. Celandine raised her head once more, in helpless exasperation now, and put a finger to her lips.
‘Shhhhh!’
She didn’t know what had made her do such a thing, but it worked. Fin was instantly quiet and calm, staring at her finger in fascination, following it with his eyes as she allowed her hand to fall back into her lap, continuing to watch it as though it had just performed some astonishing trick and might well come up with another.
‘Fin!’ An urgent hiss from one of the group – the one with the long fork. ‘Get out o’ there! Come away with ’ee!’ Celandine tried to focus. Was this the one she had seen before – the anxious bearded face that she had glimpsed that first time when she lay in the baby-carriage beneath the trees? She couldn’t tell. Her head was spinning, as it had done then. Yet there was something about him … something familiar …
Fin turned uncertainly towards the frantically beckoning figure, but remained where he was.
‘Come away now! Fin … come away, ye dratted young zawney – if thee don’t …’
But Fin lifted a finger to his lips; ‘Hschhhhhhhhhhhh!’
The sound was as loud as a steam engine, and once again the effect was instant. All were immediately quiet and still. Fin studied his finger, apparently delighted that it held such power. Celandine was aware of him, his free hand still resting unselfconsciously upon her shoulder, but she reserved her blurry concentration for the others as she tried to get her breathing back to normal, pressing a clenched fist to the thudding pain in her chest.
There were five of them – six including Fin – and they all looked as though they were as frightened and confused as she was. They had lowered their weapons, and she saw that these were not actually weapons at all in any real sense – or at least the
y weren’t spears. Three of them simply carried sticks, and one of them had part of what appeared to be a window-hook, the kind of pole with a metal attachment that Miss Bell employed to open the high classroom window on hot days. Then there was the one with the strange trident – a rake handle, by the look of it, with an old gardening fork lashed to the end of it. There were traces of the original red varnish on the handle of the fork …
They were not quite as raggedly dressed as poor Fin, but it was plain that much of their clothing had started life elsewhere. Part of a shepherd’s smock on one – the elaborate pattern of stitching across the chest contrasted with the crude tacking around the shoulders and hem, where it had been hacked off to fit. On another a labourer’s shirt, collarless and similarly butchered. A bridle strap, used as a belt. A thick piece of sacking with the printed emblem of the manufacturer clearly visible, cut and stitched to form a rough tabard. Lengths of binder-twine, used as drawstrings about the waist … all these things were familiar to her, and yet so out of place in such an unbelievable situation. And there were bits of fur; scraps of moleskin, rabbit, squirrel, adorning their wrists and ankles. One of them wore a necklace of tiny bright blue feathers: a kingfisher?
Their hair and complexions were all the same – a dark gypsy look to them, all of a kind, a race or a tribe, like the leather-skinned travellers that camped on Burnham Common in the fruit-picking season. They were people, Celandine thought. Just little people …
But no. They were not just little people. They were breathtaking. As ordinary as sparrows, yet unimaginably strange. Their locks of black hair rose gently in the breeze, and it was as though they were floating, drifting through space. The narrowed eyes, fixed upon her, glittered from the dappled shadows that fell across their brows. Fear and suspicion she saw there, a deep wariness, but also curiosity. Was she as extraordinary to them as they were to her?
‘Don’t ’ee hurt ’un, mind.’ The bearded one with the trident. His voice was full of concern and agitation, almost apologetic. ‘Only he be weak in the nog.’ He wiped a nervous forearm across his face.
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