by Rhian Ivory
CHAPTER 12
BLAZE
‘I saw you. I saw you yesterday with that servant girl from the Hall on the hill. Jenny White! I saw you touching her and then I saw her hold your hands, her no better than she should be and … you! Did she give you something? Did she put something in your hands? I thought I saw her kiss you, but that can’t be right, can it?’ Emilia barged into my hut and stood over me, hands on hips waiting.
I didn’t say anything. I’d heard her slam through the gate mumbling under her breath. I could feel the rage rolling off her like heat waves. I knew I’d done nothing wrong, but I wished there had been the time to pack my things away. I wished there had been just enough time to grab my box and hide what I’d been drawing.
‘And I’ve seen the others, it’s like some summer madness, all those lovesick puppies bounding in and out, your door opening and closing. I’ve seen silly skirts coming in empty and leaving with pockets full of pictures to match their stupid smiles. I’ve been watching you.’ She pointed at me with her long thin finger, shaking with anger. I wondered what she’d seen and where she’d been spying from.
‘And what did any of them ever do for you in return, eh? I bring you clothes, I bring you food and my company and what do I get out of the bargain?’ She seemed to have forgotten the many vials of medicine I had made her.
‘Well, your face has cleared, hasn’t it? And your hands are healing really well, so my herbs must be helping you. Aren’t they? I can always stop bringing you the vials if they are no good.’ I left the threat hanging in the air, but she chose to ignore me, moving across to my little table, snatching up a piece of paper. And then everything else was forgotten, everything forgiven.
‘What’s this, lovey? What’ve you been drawing now, you clever thing?’ she asked, her breath coming quickly. She looked excited, her eyes were sparkling and there was a thin smile forming on her now clear and pretty face.
‘Is this me?’ She looked hopeful.
‘No, sorry, it’s not you, Emilia,’ I replied, hesitating, choosing my words as carefully as I could. I wished I could say, ‘Yes, this is your future, that’s your fate there outside the church with the flowers and the bells ringing and everyone come smiling to see you.’ But it would have been a lie. My life would be a lot easier if I could lie but the words never flowed; they staggered about me falling in a heap. And the truth always came scuttling out in the end, like a black beetle.
‘But why not? How do you know? This could be me; this could be me and Henry. You don’t know everything. Ha! How can you? You can’t even speak English properly. You’re just a boy, aren’t you; after all’s said and done you are just a stupid runaway boy,’ she spat out.
‘Then why do you come back, if I’m just a stupid boy?’ I challenged and again she ignored me, carrying on her rant.
‘You can’t even write, for God’s sake! I don’t know even what I am doing here with you, a foreigner. If he ever found out, well, I just don’t know what Henry’d do.’ She began to pace, which was a challenge in the small space. Her bright yellow hair was falling out of the tight bun she wore. She kept grabbing bits of hair, forcing it behind her ears. Her skirts swished back and forth as she twitched and turned and I knew something was building, something was coming which would force me into a corner.
‘Henry might feel it was his duty to help you out of this situation, lovey, set you on the right path as any good Christian man would. He knows a few people you see, a few Guardians who might be interested in your welfare. But there’s no need to worry about that just yet, this can be our little secret, can’t it. Haven’t I kept you here all this time, tucked away in this hut? So many secrets hidden away down here at the bottom of this garden, aren’t there, and you the biggest one of all.’ Emilia glowered at me, holding my history over my head like an axe.
She knew everything; she had told me why they sent my mother away, told me why no one would come and see me down the Manor House path, told me why I had to hide from words like witch and workhouse and gipsy.
‘Draw me now. Put that one away, whichever silly girl this one’s for. Don’t waste your time on strangers. Draw a friend’s future instead. I have to know … no, I need to know. Please? I’ll bring you something good, something nice; make it worth your while, lovey?’ she crooned in a light voice, as if asking a small favour.
‘No,’ I told her, standing my ground.
Her face closed in like the weather on a stormy night.
‘Do it now or I’ll tell. Do it now or I’ll make you stop. I can put an end to you! I can finish all of this.’ Emilia pushed me back down onto my stool and stood over me, keeping a bony hand on my shoulder. I sighed loudly, deciding not to fight her, not yet. I held my pencil, wondering what to do, what to draw. What could I show her that would just make her go away? I’d drawn her so many pictures, but none of them showed her what she wanted, so she ripped them up, threw them on my little fire and asked for more – always wanting more.
She pushed the thin paper towards me and it crackled and crunched. I smoothed it out flat with one hand and began drawing with the other. I had one thing left I could show her before she realised what the lines meant.
One more small delay.
I began to sketch circles, wrapping around something, over and over. Thick circles made of steel or metal that closed and didn’t open. The circles went around and around and around, binding something forever.
Sealing it like a ring.
‘Rings! Wedding rings! At last, I knew you could do it. I knew you could show me the right way if you just tried hard enough.’ She sounded happy, as she patted me on the shoulder and smiled brightly at me.
‘Ah, so you are a little fortune teller after all. I knew you’d see my future one day, mine and Henry Hall’s.’ She tore the paper out from under me and folded it carefully, placing it into her pocket. She rested her hand over it, as if to keep it safe.
‘You’ve made my day, lovey. I’m looking forward to coming back and seeing even more next time.’ She winked at me as if we were friends and left me with a spiky smile. Once this picture showed its dark self to her, she’d be back, without the smile, and then the storm would break.
CHAPTER 13
NOAH
‘We’re going to Broaks Wood tonight,’ I whisper, pretending to make notes in my exercise book. I place my copy of Great Expectations in front of my face like a shield.
‘Going for a run?’ Beth asks.
‘No, not tonight. Dad wants to take photos. There’s a thing on, a walk with bats, it’s run by the Essex bats group.’ I look up to check where Mrs Ashwell is in the room. I don’t want her to hear us and ask what we’re talking about. She’s really into sharing class conversations to embarrass us. She likes repeating what we’ve said in a loud sarcastic voice. The more time I spend in her classroom, the more she reminds me of Pip’s sister, the dreaded Mrs Joe Gargery.
‘Oh. Sounds good, if you like that sort of thing, I mean.’ She sounds less than convinced with my plan. I have to give her something more.
‘Why don’t you come with us? Ask your mum. Everyone’s meeting in the car park at 7.30pm? Come with me?’ I ask as everyone starts to pack away, anticipating the bell. I want her to say yes. I need to ask her to do something, go somewhere with me other than her house or down to the river. I want us to go out, not on a date, but yeah, on a date, but I don’t quite have the bottle for that yet. I need to work up to it.
‘Not sure. Maybe. Anyway, I haven’t finished Great Expectations yet. Pip has just begged Joe to forgive him. I completely love Joe Gargery, he’s easily my favourite character. I know he’s going to make things right for Pip, even though Pip has been so rude to him. I’ll text you later if I’m coming.’ She folds down the page she’s on and puts the book in her bag as the bell rings. No one moves until Mrs Ashwell dismisses us.
‘Beth, hang on, I’ve got something for you,’ I call her back as she sets off up the corridor to her piano lesson. I reach into my ru
cksack, pulling out a paper bag with daisies all over it. I pass it to her quickly and try to look casual.
‘What’s this?’
‘Open it and see,’ I tell her smiling, hoping she’ll like it.
She folds back the paper bag and peers in. Her face changes straight away and I wonder what she’d been expecting. She pulls the key ring out. It is a hand-carved wooden treble clef. It’s a fairly largish one so hopefully she won’t lose it or break it.
‘I love it! It’s lovely, totally me. Thanks, Noah.’ She moves towards me in the busy corridor, but then stops before she reaches me. I thought she might have been about to kiss me. Instead she strokes the soft wood and then puts the key ring back in the paper bag, holding it closely to her chest. I don’t know what she’s thinking or what to say. She looks like she wants to leave, but at the same time I can tell she’s pleased. It is way too confusing to work out what she’s thinking, so I give up.
‘So, I’ll see you later then?’ I ask shoving my rucksack onto my shoulder. She shrugs her shoulders, smiles, then runs off up the corridor, bumping into Eva and Georgia who have been watching and waiting. Eva holds out her hand, says something and then Beth reluctantly shows her the key ring. I turn away. I don’t need to see the girls’ reaction and the teasing that’ll probably follow.
I wait for her later but she doesn’t come. I’ll have to do better next time, offer her something more than a bat walk in the dark, it isn’t exactly difficult to see why she turned me down. Dad and I meet everyone in the car park. It’s that in-between time, when the sun is still out, still hanging on low in the sky, not quite willing to give up its spot to the moon and the stars. It is my favourite time of day as no one really seems to know where they are – dusk, soft and suggestive, said in a whisper. Twilight.
‘Did you get that book finished?’ Dad asks as we walked along the riverside to Alderford Mill. Everyone’s eyes are searching and scanning the sky, hoping for a spotting.
‘Yep. I’d forgotten some of it so Mum was probably right,’ I reply, looking up as the trees form a tunnel over our heads.
‘She usually is, mate,’ Dad jokes as we walked along together.
‘“Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies,”’ Dad bursts out, his voice loud and out of place on the quiet walk. He looks pleased with himself. ‘I read it last year when your mum did that evening class at the old college. She kept going on about it so much, I had to see what the fuss was about.’ He waits for me to say something.
‘Yep.’ I want to be interesting and to talk to Dad about books and phrases and language, anything but myself. Of all the quotes he could have picked, that one was the worst. I look at him to see if it is a dig, if he’s trying to make a point, if he realises how close to the mark he is. But I am way off course, his face is open. He tries hard to start up another conversation with me and I have to say something; I don’t want him to think this is a waste of time, that spending time with me is dull and boring.
‘“The broken heart. You think you will die, but you just keep living, day after day after terrible day,”’ I quote back. I find it easy to remember things like quotes, not for long but they usually stay in my head long enough to use at school in a test or right now when I want to say something but don’t have the right words. As soon as they are out of my mouth I realise these aren’t the right words either.
Dad doesn’t nod this time. This isn’t the conversation he meant us to have. This is the conversation we usually avoid. He looks sad as he opens his mouth to say something, but the woman starts her talk and everyone stops walking to listen.
‘Those sounds you can hear, the calling and singing, are nightingales. There can be as many as twenty-five males in the air. They’re quite a small bird, about the size of a robin, but less colourful. We normally see them around May, but due to the heat there are still plenty of them about.’
She continues walking and talking and we all follow at a slow pace. The nightingales are making high-pitched sounds, twittering and singing to one another, trilling and whistling. It’s very odd, like listening to a toy bird. I feel anonymous amongst this group of people, in the almost dark. No one is interested in me. I don’t have to think about what to do with my face, or how to hide the pictures in my head from showing through my eyes. I can just be me.
I see the first bat right by the alder tree. At least I feel like I’m the first one to see it. I hold my breath. It is dark brown and small, much smaller than I had expected. It swoops low over my head and then high again, skimming the trees, diving down towards the riverbed.
‘There! That was a soprano pipistrelle. They are the commonest and most widespread of all British bat species. Can you see how fast and jerky he is in his flight pattern? Their aerial agility is quite magnificent. A single pipistrelle can consume up to 3,000 insects in one night!’ the woman tells us as her bat detector clicks away.
We look up, expecting to see the same bat again, but instead see several others, silhouetted against the dimming sky, all swooping and looping through the trees. It is as if they’ve been there the whole time watching us with amusement. Their wings are flexed so far apart; they almost look like hands, waving.
‘They are looking for small insects to catch and eat on the wing,’ the woman whispers as we gather together, watching and waiting. It looks like a chaotic dance at dusk.
‘It’s called aerial hawking, when they eat on the fly,’ my dad shares with me. I nod, even though I didn’t know this. I look up at Dad’s face but it is hidden by his camera. ‘We all have sad things happen to us, Noah. We all do. Sometimes accidents just happen, terrible as they are. Sometimes there’s just no one to blame, especially not yourself, mate.’
Later, when we walk back along the river, I think about what he said. I know he meant it but I can’t accept it. If I accept what he’s saying, would that mean forgiveness? But the words he’s offering like accident and tragedy are things that can’t be helped, that couldn’t have been stopped and this could. I could have stopped it. I should have saved her and so there is someone to blame, there’ll always be someone to blame. Me.
I feel a blast of air on my neck, warm and damp. At the same time across the river a large dog barks sharply, making me jump. I put my coat back on. I look down to do up the zip and as my head rises, I see something. It looks like a flicker of movement on the little island in the middle of the river, like something waving or blowing in the breeze. But it is too dark to see properly, the only light now coming from the moon and the surprisingly bright stars.
Dad drops his long arm around my shoulders as we head back to the car park and I feel the heavy weight of it, the pressure, the warmth and the presence.
CHAPTER 14
BLAZE
I opened the purse the maid gave me and shook a ring into the palm of my hand. The shine on it was golden and rich, like nothing I’d ever seen before. Maman never wore a ring, said there was never the time and place for one with my father. Told me the chance was taken from them. The only jewellery she wore were the stones around her neck, which paled in comparison to the gem I held. But it was cold, hard and sharp, not soft and warm.
I didn’t know what to do with it. I could see it was precious and perhaps old and certainly worth something. The inside of the circle was dull and worn with time as if it had rested on many different fingers over the years. I wondered who had worn it last and who would wear it next. I could sense it wasn’t new. It felt weighty as it sat heavy in my hand, full of history. I clutched it, my fingers closing around it like a secret. I imagined the green glowing through my skin, lighting me up, like an emerald fire that could burn, marking me out as a thief.
I had only one person to ask, one person I could show this to and trust. My one friend. I gathered up my coat, hat and the drawstring purse. I pulled it tight and tucked it in my pocket. This time, I would find her. I would go to her and ask a favour and offer her something she couldn’t say no to. This time I would walk through the gate, down the riv
er path and into the village to find her.
She thought she owned me; that I would always owe her. Well, this ring would even the balance finally. She could sell it for me and take her share of the profits and then I’d be free. I could leave, following the river Couënon all the way back home.
Dog jumped up and followed me out, trotting happily behind me as I pushed the gate open. He could sense my excitement as we headed down the path towards the village and the Swan Inn. For the first time since Maman died, I felt happy as I clutched the purse in my pocket and held on to it like hope.
CHAPTER 15
NOAH
‘And don’t forget: if you don’t get your letter signed, you can’t go on the History trip. Eva, stop talking! Are you guys listening? Letters, take them home, get them signed, bring them back. OK?’ Mr Bourne waves a letter around in the air trying to catch our attention, but the prospect of a trip to some old museum in Halstead isn’t swinging it. We’re all too nervous about our assessed talks to focus on letters home, especially me. I’ve got no idea how this is going to go, if this is the right thing to do, but it’s too late now. I’ve put the photo boards up on easels at the front of the class, so there’s no turning back. I shove my letter to the bottom of my rucksack and focus on my breathing. Beth is already getting up, shuffling her cue cards, gesturing at me to hurry up.
‘For our village life project, Mr Bourne said we all had to take portraits of our community. Beth and I chose to focus on animals rather than people. We thought of the famous fish in the long pond at the Manor House. You might already know this, but if you don’t, these fish are not ordinary fish. They’re called shubunkins and have been in Sible Hedingham for as long as the Manor House has stood.’ I pause, glad to have got the first bit of my talk over with. I step back to let Beth take over and read from her cue cards.