Celandine

by Steve Augarde

  It was too much to remember. She didn’t want to look back to that place, and yet found that she had to – didn’t want to think about it, and yet found that she must.

  ‘I like my hair better now, though, Mama. I know that it doesn’t look very nice yet, but I like the feel of it, shorter.’

  ‘Well, we shall see. And is easier for brushing, I know. But Celandine …’ her mother reached out and grasped her hands between her own. ‘I am so glad to see you better, that I don’t care if you have no hair at all. I want only to see you well, and happy. That is all I ever want.’

  ‘I know, Mama. And I am better. Really, much better.’

  ‘Good. And one more other thing. Josef says that when you come to the farm, I must not ask you questions, so many. I must be happy that you are safe, and not wish more. Josef is my brother, liebling, and so I trust him – as Freddie was your brother and you would trust him. I am only frightened for you, that is all. But I make him my promise. So you will tell me when you can, and I say no more, yes?’

  ‘Yes, Mama. I’ll tell you when I can – whatever I can. I promise.’ Celandine put her arms about her mother’s neck and gave her a long hug.

  ‘That is good, liebling. And all will be well. And now I must go to the station. Sarah! It is the time!’

  ‘Where did you put my clothes – and the bag?’ Celandine brushed her hands across her eyes.

  ‘All is upstairs on your bed. But you must throw that bag away, liebling. Piuu! Where did you find it – in the barn? I get for you a new one, when you come home. Sarah!’

  Celandine sat on her bed, and held the pecking bag in her lap. She didn’t want to see it, and she certainly didn’t want to look inside it. But it had been a day for seeing those things that she did not want to see, a day for looking inside those places where she did not want to look, and she would face whatever she needed to face.

  Not here, though, and not now. She would go to the Hart Garden – nobody would be there at this time of day.

  The low rounded wall of the fountain was a comfortable place to sit, and a peaceful one. Celandine dabbled her fingers amongst the lily pads. The garden was silent, apart from the gentle trickle of the water. It was still warm – a lovely summer’s evening – but it was that hour of the day that always seemed to make her sad. She looked up at the bronze cupid, forever about to fire his arrow at the archway. And yes, now she could see why. He was aiming straight for the heart – the neatly clipped topiary heart that topped the arch. The heart garden. Of course.

  She sighed, and looked down at the pecking bag that lay at her feet. One of the corners had been repaired with red wool – wool that she herself had brought to the forest …

  The forest. Did it really all happen? Had the person who had seen such things truly been her?

  This was hard. She had managed to push that other world away from her, tuck it so far into the back of her mind that it was almost forgotten, and now it was horribly painful to drag it out again. She had been so frightened, and so hurt by them – hunted down and driven from the woods like a wild animal. Why? What had she ever done but keep her promises and try to help?

  She should throw this smelly little bag away, as her mother had advised, and then go back to the business of forgetting once more. To open it up and take out all the presents they had given her would only bring more pain and confusion.

  But no. Just one last look, she decided, and then she would put it all behind her for ever. Celandine picked up the bag. It had been very securely fastened, the leather straps bound together with a length of string. She had no memory of doing that. It took her a while to get the thing undone.

  The tinsy pendants lay heavy in the palm of her hand. Now that she had taken them out, they did not seem particularly meaningful. She felt no greater sensation of fear or loss for seeing them. This was a good thing to be doing – easier than she had imagined it would be. Celandine held the pendants up by the thin cords that were threaded through them, and dangled them over the water. They twisted and turned for a moment in the evening sun – the flower engravings flashing against the light. Then she let go. The heavy discs hit the water with a satisfying little gloop-gloop, and somersaulted away into the darkness.

  Celandine delved into the bag and brought out the bracelet. This also was made of metal – a circular band with a gap in it where it was supposed to slip over the wrist. It was far too small for her. She tossed it into the fountain and it felt like another release, another satisfying act of revenge.

  The little walnut-shell boat was less easy to discard. It puzzled her. Why would the tiny wax figure be using feathers for oars? She held it up, and moved it across the light of the dying sun, sailing it through the sky. A boat in the sky … a sky boat. The sudden understanding of it tugged at her heart. The Skye Boat Song.

  Speed, bonny boat, like a bird on the wing … over the sea to Skye …

  She had taught them the song, and this was how they had imagined it – a boat with wings … carrying the lad who was born to be king … over the sea to sky …

  Her nose began to tingle, and she felt her eyes water. Why, after giving her such a gift as this, had they been so cruel to her? She gently placed the little boat in the fountain and watched as it bobbed away amongst the lilies. It sailed perfectly.

  The piece of exercise paper she knew she would have to keep. No matter what they had done to her, she would not be able to just screw it up and throw it away. She had taught them how to write. That crowded pattern of scribbled names was as much her achievement as theirs. She hesitantly unfolded the sheet.

  thee orbis be not saf and so it must leev this …

  What was this? Celandine glanced at the dense paragraph of pencilled text, quickly turned the exercise sheet over, and then back once more. This was a different piece of paper. This was not what they had originally given her.

  She started again:

  thee orbis be not saf and so it must leev this plas with thee this da i sl tel thee icren that twer stoln and can not bee fownd ffor thay wood but tac it from us if twer cept heer ther bee wone as nos mor and i do this with thee ayd of shee non other nos of this ceep thee orbis hid for wee till better tyms be comn and wee med meet with thee agen thee sl no thee da thee bee owr tru frend as wee bee yorn and wee sl not fforget from micas

  Celandine shook her head in amazement and spoke to herself out loud. ‘What is this? I don’t understand …’

  Again she tried to puzzle her way through the scrawl of pencil marks, but was hardly able to make any more sense of it than on the first hasty reading. Micas’s name was written at the end. Was this from him? She picked out the word ‘orbis’ once or twice … ceep thee orbis hid …

  Keep the Orbis hid? Was she being asked to hide it? Did Micas still think that she had taken something? It made no sense.

  Celandine looked down at the pecking bag. Could there be something she had missed? She picked the bag up and gave it a cautious little shake. There was something else in there. She put her hand inside, and reached down to the bottom of the left compartment. Her fingers closed around a bundle of cloth, and she felt her shoulders tingle.

  Wary now, and with half averted eyes, Celandine drew the object from the bag. A round thing, wrapped in oilcloth. She held the bundle in the palm of her hand for a moment and caught a faint whiff of linseed from the stiff dry cloth. Another few moments of hesitation and then she cautiously began to peel back the material, keeping her head turned as though she were unwrapping a grenade.

  Part of a metal frame appeared, a kind of circular cage. It didn’t look dangerous. She felt more confident now, and she steadily unwound the rest of the cloth until the object was revealed.

  Such a strange thing. A curving piece of metal, shaped like the letter ‘C’ – the kind of frame that might support a miniature globe of the world. At the top and bottom of the ‘C’ were knurled knobs that could be turned, adjusted to grip something between them. Were these what held the Touchstone in place? There were o
ther parts to it – sliders that moved up and down the curve of the ‘C’, and two more circular supports for the main frame. The whole thing looked as though it belonged in an observatory or in the navigation room of a ship.

  And so this was it. This was their Orbis – the thing that the Ickri would do murder for, and which the cave-dwellers considered so precious that they would risk smuggling it out of the forest in the pockets of a giant, rather than see it in the hands of their enemy.

  Celandine studied the piece of paper once more. It was no good. The words were barely legible. This needed working out a bit at a time, with pencil and paper of her own. She put the Orbis back into her bag, along with the letter, picked up her walking sticks, and then hobbled around the fountain to look for the Skye boat.

  It was as much a matter of punctuation as anything. With a fresh sheet of notepaper, and the letter beside her, she began to peg away at the meaning of it, word by word.

  thee orbis be not saf and so it must leev this plas with thee this da i sl tel thee icren that twer stoln and can not bee fownd ffor thay wood but tac it from us if twer cept heer ther bee wone as nos mor and i do this with thee ayd of shee non other nos of this ceep thee orbis hid for wee till better tyms be comn and wee med meet with thee agen thee sl no thee da thee bee owr tru frend as wee bee yorn and wee sl not fforget from micas

  The Orbis be not safe, and so it must leave this place with thee this day. I shall tell the Ickren that ’twere stolen and cannot be found, for they would but take it from us if ’twere kept here.

  So far so good – and Celandine could hear Micas’s dry voice speaking the words as she wrote them out. She turned up the gas mantle above her bedroom table, in order to give herself more light.

  There be one as knows more, and I do this with the aid of she. None other knows of this. Keep the Orbis hid for we, till better times be come and we may meet with thee again. Thee shall know the day. Thee be our true friend, as we be yours, and we shall not forget.

  From Micas.

  Slowly it began to make sense – not just the letter, but some of what had happened to her in those last few hours among the Various. Celandine tried to think back. Micas had been frightened for her safety, frightened that the Ickri would kill her, and so he had told her to go. That much she remembered clearly. But then he must have decided that the Orbis was also too vulnerable to stay in the forest, and that it too would have to go, smuggled away to safety before the Ickri either found it or forced him to reveal where it was. And she would have to be the one who carried it out of there for him.

  So had Micas only been pretending to believe that she had stolen the Orbis? Had he laid the blame for its disappearance upon her so that blame would not fall upon the cave-dwellers? Yes, that would make sense. He was trying to save his people from violence and destruction. And he must have thought that she would be safe by then. He must have assumed that she was out of the forest and far away, long before he revealed where the Orbis was supposed to be hidden. How horrified he must secretly have been to find her still there, amongst them. Celandine thought of the terrible moment when Corben had raised his bow to shoot her – and how Micas had jogged against him so that the arrow had missed her. Had he done that on purpose in order to try and save her?

  Other details were still hazy though. What was all that business with the pine-cone, and when had the Orbis been hidden in her bag? She couldn’t see how that had happened. And how could Micas have been sure that she would even open the bag once she had brought it to safety? She might easily have put it away without looking inside. Nor could she see why the Orbis would be so very much safer outside the forest than in. Wasn’t the Touchstone supposed to be able to seek it out wherever it was? And who was this other person – this ‘she who knew more’ – who Micas spoke of?

  But it was late, and her head was aching from all that had happened today. It was too much for her to cope with. Celandine looked at the little Skye boat, now sitting on the dressing table in front of her.

  … carry the lad that was born to be king …

  Smuggling a precious cargo away to safety, just as she had …

  Celandine yawned. She couldn’t think about it any more. It was time to go and say goodnight to Uncle Josef and Aunt Sarah.

  Later, before she closed her eyes, she thought of the last words in Micas’s letter.

  Thee be our true friend, as we be yours, and we shall not forget.

  That was the only important part, really. Micas knew all along that she had taken nothing from them. And now she knew that Micas had not really betrayed her. She hugged that thought to her as she turned down the gas mantle above her bed.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS, marching as to war …’

  Celandine barely needed to glance at her hymn book, so many times had she sung ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ since the war had begun. Now the words and the prayers came automatically, so that by the time the Sunday morning church service was drawing to a close she found that most of it had passed her by unnoticed.

  Vague pictures came into her head: Micas on her shoulders, replacing the box that contained the Orbis … the pine-cone … Micas adjusting the straps on her pecking bag … Had there been something surreptitious about that?

  She saw herself standing at the mouth of the cave on the night before she left, and remembered that she had heard voices whispering in the hawthorn bushes …

  Who might that have been?

  ‘In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost …’

  Celandine closed her eyes for the blessing.

  ‘Amen.’

  It was time to leave the church.

  More glimpses of the forest: Micas, knocking his staff against Corben’s bow … Fin, magically there, just when she needed him most … and Corben again, down by the wicker tunnel, suddenly distracted by the splash in the stream, just as he seemed about to discover her …

  But how much of it had been planned, she wondered, and by whom? Was it all Micas’s doing? No. He said that there was another, one who knew more.

  Then she thought of Maven – that wild and mysterious figure who had helped her to escape and so saved her life. Maven-the-Green. An ancient spirit of the woodlands, humpbacked and apparently wizened, yet as graceful as a cat. Perhaps she was younger than she looked …

  Was Maven the one who knew more? Was it Maven who had planned the spiriting away of the Orbis? Why? Who was she, and where had she come from?

  Celandine put her penny in the collection dish, and lifted Samuel up so that he could do the same.

  ‘Will you help me with the jigsaw when we get home?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, all right.’

  She was still confused, but she was feeling so much better. She liked her cousins, she realized, and it was fun to sit together with them, and slowly watch the jigsaw grow. They had managed between them to assemble most of the hay-wain and the mill, and now they were working on the trees and the sky.

  Aunt Sarah put her head around the parlour door.

  ‘A visitor for you,’ she said.

  Celandine looked around. It took her a moment to recognize the figure in the doorway – now out of uniform and with shorter hair – but then she jumped up so quickly that her chair rocked backwards and tipped against the wall.

  ‘Oh – I can’t believe it! Nina! But you look so …’

  ‘And I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were here! Idiot!’ Nina ran across the room and gave her a big hug – an action so out of character that Celandine stumbled backwards against the tilted chair, and sat down on it with a bump.

  ‘I didn’t think! I didn’t think!’ said Celandine. ‘I don’t know why. I just forgot that you were living in Taunton now. And so much has been happening … but it’s so lovely to see you! Peter, Samuel – this is Nina. My best friend.’

  The boys looked a bit embarrassed, but politely said their hellos.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about “best” friend,’ said N
ina. ‘I do think you might have written, or come to call, or something. I’m only just a few streets away, after all. But what have you done to your leg? You’ve been in the wars, I gather.’

  ‘Yes. I have. I’m getting better, though.’

  Aunt Sarah said, ‘Come into the sitting room, both of you, and I’ll put out some tea for you. I know you’ll want to talk in peace – and these poor boys won’t have to be on their best behaviour then.’

  ‘She’s nice, your aunt,’ said Nina, when they were alone.

  ‘Yes, she is. She’s lovely. But Nina, tell me … well … just tell me everything. You look so different!’

  And she was different. As Nina talked about her new school, and her friends, and all that she had done since they had last met, Celandine wondered what had happened to the frail and stuttering girl that she remembered. There had always been an underlying strength to Nina, a refusal to give in even to the worst of all the bullying, but now she just seemed so confident and cheerful. And normal. Nina had grown up.

  ‘But talk about me being different,’ said Nina. ‘What about you? You’re so thin! What happened to your hair? And tell me about your accident.’

  ‘Oh, my hair. I just cut it off, that’s all.’ It sounded very lame, and Celandine was conscious of what a fright she must look to anyone who hadn’t seen her for a while.

  ‘You did it yourself? Well …’ Nina sought for something nice to say about it.

  ‘Oh, I know it looks awful. I just got so fed up with it. As for my ankle, I broke it falling down Howard’s Hill.’

  ‘What, again? Didn’t you hurt yourself there once before? You should stay away from that hill, dear, it’ll be the death of you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Celandine tried to smile, but the tears weren’t far away. Nina suddenly seemed so strong and full of life, whilst she felt so weak. Once it had been the other way round.