The Door In the Tree

by William Corlett

  ‘Telescope? What is this telescope that I keep hearing you mention?’

  ‘It’s another instrument for looking into the distance,’ William joined in. ‘Only it’s much more powerful and there’s only one hole to look through. . . . Oooh, it’s very difficult explaining these things.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ Stephen Tyler agreed, staring at William now.

  ‘A telescope is used for looking at the stars,’ William started again, trying to sound confident while feeling acutely nervous.

  ‘Looking at the stars?’ Stephen Tyler sighed. He sounded almost sad. ‘How I wish I’d been born later. There is so much knowledge that I lack.’

  ‘But, I don’t think there’s been anyone, ever, anywhere, apart from you who can time travel,’ Alice told him, filled with admiration and not wanting him to be sad.

  ‘No, no. You misunderstand me, little girl,’ the Magician told her. ‘I know I’m brilliant, it’s just that I lack the insight of later discovery and knowledge. The stars are a great mystery. I would have liked to probe them before I die . . .’ Then, changing the subject abruptly, he swung round to stare at them once more. ‘Who has been using this tree room?’ he demanded.

  ‘We don’t know,’ Alice replied with a shrug. ‘We’ve only just found it ourselves.’

  ‘But surely you didn’t find this place on your own, did you?’ Stephen Tyler asked.

  ‘Well, not exactly, no. Spot sort of drew my attention to it,’ Alice admitted.

  ‘Spot?’

  ‘The dog,’ Mary reminded him.

  ‘Ah, yes. The dog. Well, good, good. I wouldn’t want this place to be too obvious,’ the Magician told them. ‘Right, now, to work. How has it all been going since I last saw you? When was that, I wonder? Yesterday?’

  ‘Three months ago,’ Mary told him. ‘We’ve had a whole term at school since we were last here.’

  ‘Oh, yes. School!’ the Magician said in a withering voice. ‘Totally useless institutions, in my opinion. They teach none of the right subjects.’

  ‘Well, we are taught chemistry and science now,’ William told him.

  ‘Chimistrie?’ Stephen Tyler thundered. ‘They teach children chimistrie? Most unsuitable.’

  ‘Well what should they teach us then?’ Alice demanded.

  ‘They should teach little girls not to ask questions all the time and they should teach little boys not to know all the answers,’ he snapped. And then, quite unexpectedly, he laughed aloud and clapped his hands. ‘Splendid, splendid. How good that we’re all together again. I can’t stay long this time. I only came up here to check on the . . .’ he frowned and shook his head. ‘What was I going to check? It really is most essential that you learn everything there is to learn before you become old. Because then, you will find that the mind lets you down. That, to a magician, is a most tiresome experience. What was I saying . . .? Oh, yes. How long will you be staying at Gelden House?’

  ‘Just over a week,’ Mary told him.

  ‘Is that all?’ the man asked. ‘But there is so much to be done. Never mind. At least you’ve started. How did you like the first lesson?’

  The three children blinked. They hadn’t an inkling what he was talking about.

  ‘What lesson?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Well, what are you here for?’ Stephen Tyler sounded cross again and then immediately seemed to relent and softened his tone. ‘I’ll tell you, shall I? Would that be best?’

  Alice nodded, emphatically. She was not at all keen on being lectured to but she was even less fond of being snapped at and, what was more, she was in danger of saying so, Magician or no Magician.

  ‘Before you return to your places of learning, I want you to understand the . . . world of the natural.’

  ‘The natural?’ William demanded, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Nature,’ Stephen Tyler snapped. ‘You must have heard of nature?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ William mumbled. ‘I just didn’t understand . . .’

  ‘No, of course you wouldn’t,’ the old man said, more kindly. ‘The last thing they teach you in a school is any of this,’ and he gestured out of the window at the bright world beyond. ‘But it is essential, for our work, that you three come to understand the world of the animals and of the birds.’

  ‘For our work?’ Mary asked, eagerly. ‘What is our work, Mr Tyler?’

  The Magician looked at her closely.

  ‘A good question,’ he said. ‘Our work is on ourselves. We each have to discover ourselves – or rather our self; our true Self. And then we must discover our place in the order of things. Finally, we will, each of us, have to do our duty.’

  ‘Oh,’ William groaned, ‘it’s not like belonging to the scouts, is it?’

  ‘Scouts?’ Stephen Tyler asked.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ William said.

  ‘William hated the scouts,’ Alice whispered confidentially. ‘He thought it was silly.’

  ‘I promise you, our work is not silly,’ the Magician assured them.

  ‘So, what you mean is . . .’ Mary said, frowning and trying hard to follow what was being said, ‘ . . . we have to be good at botany and biology and stuff?’

  ‘No, no. Listen to me,’ the Magician said, holding up his hand. ‘It really is much more simple than we allow it to be. Man – you and me, all of us – Man is a part of the natural world, but Man has become separated from his origins . . .’

  ‘You mean we’re really animals?’ William asked, with a flash of understanding.

  ‘Yes!’ Stephen Tyler cried. ‘But most tricksy animals! The Human Being has the potential to be an angel and the aptitude to be a beast. It is vital to be able to separate the chaff from the wheat, the dross from the gold, the impure from the pure. But you have to discover this aptitude for yourselves. It is an important part of the work. Let me know how you get on.’

  ‘Has all this something to do with Alchemy?’ William asked.

  ‘Certainly,’ the Magician replied. ‘It has everything to do with it. But don’t try to walk before you can even crawl. That’s what Morden, my assistant, is doing – with the most regrettable results.’ Then he lowered his voice and leaned towards them. ‘It isn’t really safe meeting in the upper chamber any more. Morden is always listening. And besides, in your own time, someone seems to have discovered its whereabouts.’

  William gasped.

  ‘You mean somebody else knows about the secret room as well as us?’

  ‘I do. Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure? But who?’

  ‘I am certain. But I don’t know who it is,’ the man replied. ‘I can always tell when someone has been in. I’m expecting you to discover who it is . . .’

  Then suddenly, in mid sentence, he sat bolt upright on his chair, and turned his head to the side, darting it forward like a bird and listening intently.

  ‘There’s someone coming up the tree,’ he whispered.

  The children hadn’t heard a sound. But the Magician raised a finger to his lips and then pointed towards the open door. As they turned and looked out of the room, they could see the narrow landing outside and the branch blocking the way.

  The light beyond the door was poor. As they watched they saw a foot appear below the branch. It was wearing a very muddy wellington boot. Then a hand appeared under the branch, feeling its way and the hand was followed by an arm and the arm by a shoulder and the top of a head. It was like watching a human figure materializing before their eyes. The head was covered by an old and battered trilby hat. The figure, as it rose upright, having negotiated the branch, was seen to be dressed in a brown mac, belted at the waist with a piece of string. The person was short and stocky. The wellingtons reached to the hem of the mac. The light was too dim to get a clear impression of the face.

  ‘Well, now!’ a woman’s voice exclaimed. ‘Who are all of you, I wonder? And what are you doing in my hidey hole?’

  Mary stepped forward, not because she was the bravest, but because she was nearest
the door and there wasn’t much room for the others to pass her.

  ‘We’re not doing any harm,’ she said. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘Bless you, I didn’t think you would be,’ the woman told her as she walked into the room.

  Now that she was standing in the light that came in through all the windows, they were able to see her better. She had a round, rosy-cheeked face with a shock of wild white hair sticking out from under the man’s hat she was wearing. Her mac was bunched round her waist and her wellingtons were caked with mud. She looked not unlike a cheerful scarecrow. Her eyes twinkled and her smile revealed irregular, but very white, teeth.

  ‘Children?’ she said. ‘What are children doing in my hidey hole. And, God love us! A kestrel at the window!’ and she reached out with a gnarled hand to where a moment before Stephen Tyler had been sitting in the chair. The children turned quickly and saw a sleek grey and brown bird, perched on the sill of the window, staring over its shoulder at them.

  ‘Well, Kes!’ the woman said, softly. ‘You’re not one that I recognize. I should have brought a mouse for you, if I’d known. Come, Kes,’ she whispered, holding out the back of her hand.

  But the bird refused to be drawn and remained aloof and staring.

  ‘You have to be a bit careful with them. A kestrel can give you a savage nip and those claws could tear your hand off. What d’you call it then?’ the woman said, looking at the children.

  ‘Kee Kee,’ Alice replied on an impulse.

  ‘There now, Kee Kee,’ the woman said, reaching out once more to the bird. ‘Can’t we be friends?’

  But the bird only cocked its head on one side and blinked at her. Then, turning, it launched itself off the sill and out through the branches into the dazzling light beyond.

  ‘Kee! Kee! Kee!’ they heard it cry as it flew out of their sight.

  ‘Now there’s a strange thing,’ the woman said, leaning on the sill, with her back to the children, as she followed the bird’s flight. Then she turned back into the room and smiled at them once more. ‘Here we all are,’ she said, ‘not knowing who we are and the only one with a name has left us.’ And she laughed, a light, chuckling sound. ‘I’m Meg Lewis,’ she told them. ‘And who might you all be?’

  As the children introduced themselves, the kestrel’s distant, mournful, cry could be heard again as he flew somewhere, up above them, beyond the pointed roof and the matted branches of the tree, in the clear blue sky.

  ‘Kee! Kee! Kee!’ he called, as if he were saying goodbye.

  8

  Meg Lewis Tells Her Story

  FOR A MOMENT there was silence in the little tree house. The woman who had called herself Meg Lewis looked at the children and they, in turn, looked at her.

  ‘Silence reigned, and we all got wet!’ Meg said eventually. ‘Cat got your tongues?’

  ‘We didn’t mean to trespass,’ William said.

  ‘No,’ Meg nodded. ‘No more you did. Tell you the truth, I’m not sure that I can claim this place as my own, anyway. Let’s just say that I make use of it. So, who’s to say I don’t trespass myself? But I doubt the true owner minds or even knows, for I think he or she must have gone many years ago. I found this place quite by chance one night, when I was on the watch. It came on to rain, you see, and I stepped under the spreading branches of the tree to shelter. Well, one thing led to another, didn’t it? Just as it happened for you, I expect, and I found my way up here. Mind, I’ve done a bit of repairing. It’s been here for a good while, I reckon. That lantern is a fair age – and the wood these walls are made of is solid oak. Oak! There’s not much building done with oak these days, now is there? But I had thought I was the only one who knew of this room, and here you all are. You’re not from these parts, are you?’

  ‘No,’ Mary said. ‘We’re staying with our uncle.’

  ‘And who might he be?’ Meg asked her.

  ‘His name is Jack Green. He lives in Golden House. It’s the big house down in the valley over there . . .’ Mary explained, pointing as she did so out of the window, where the chimneys of the house could just be seen rising above the trees, down at the bottom of the almost sheer drop.

  ‘Yes, I know Golden House,’ Meg said. ‘Time was my family lived there. But that was a while ago now, wasn’t it? Before we hit bad times. And now the Lewis family don’t live there any more and it’s the Greens, is it? Ah, that’s what I came back for!’ she exclaimed, picking up the binoculars from where they lay on the seat of the chair. ‘My prize possession. Given to me by a policeman. What d’you think of that, then?’

  ‘D’you come here to bird watch?’ William asked her, feeling less nervous now. He decided he liked Meg, even if she did look a bit wild and had a funny way of dressing.

  ‘God love you! What time have I got to bird watch?’ Meg exclaimed. ‘I’ve two cows and six sheep. Four fields to tend. Water to draw from the well. Lamps to trim. A fire to lay. The dogs and the cats. The rabbits, which are a blimmin nuisance, though I say it who shouldn’t. And a rascal of a squirrel that leads me a dance. And all that just during the hours of daylight. The nights are when I do most of my work.’

  ‘What work?’ Mary asked.

  Meg turned and looked out through one of the windows.

  ‘I can’t rightly call it work, I suppose. Not real work like most people do. But it’s work to me. Not hardship, I mean. Never that. A privilege.’ She fell silent, staring out into the distance.

  ‘But, what do you do?’ Alice asked her.

  ‘I go about the woodlands, keeping watch.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For the men who come with the torches,’ Meg replied.

  ‘What do they do with their torches?’ William asked her, puzzled.

  ‘You’re too young to bother with these things,’ Meg said, looking back at them. Then she frowned and turned away again, speaking almost to herself. ‘We’ve been free of it here in Golden Valley for a good while now. But it’s happening again.’

  ‘That’s what Spot said,’ Alice whispered to Mary and William. ‘Don’t you remember? When we found the dead badger.’

  Meg swung round, a look of shock on her face.

  ‘What did you say?’ she asked.

  ‘It was yesterday . . . You see, I got lost in the forest and Spot came to find me . . .’

  ‘A dead badger, did you say?’ Meg gasped. ‘How dead?’

  ‘Very,’ Alice answered. ‘Uncle Jack helped us bury it just now.’

  ‘Poor beast,’ Meg sighed. ‘That was good of you to bury it. I wonder which one it was.’

  ‘Spot called it Brock,’ William volunteered eagerly.

  ‘Brock? Not Brock,’ Meg’s voice was full of sadness. ‘How did you know this? Who is this . . . Spot did you say?’

  ‘He’s our dog,’ Alice explained. ‘At least, he lives at Golden House. Well, he does now. He came from . . . I don’t really know where he came from, exactly. But he’s our dog now. Anyway, he led us to a place called the Dark and Something Path . . .’

  ‘The Dark and Dreadful Path,’ Meg said, quietly. ‘You’ve been there?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alice whispered. ‘Why is it called that?’

  ‘If you’ve been there, then surely you don’t need to ask, do you?’

  Alice shook her head and shuffled her feet. She didn’t really understand the answer, but felt she should and so remained silent.

  ‘This dog of yours,’ Meg continued. ‘He’s an unusual creature. It seems he talks to you and you understand him.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Alice agreed, enthusiastically. ‘He’s the Magician’s dog really . . .’

  The words were out before she could stop herself. She knew at once what a stupid thing she’d done. She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks and William and Mary were looking at her with such dismay. But the reaction of Meg Lewis was strangest of all. She dropped the binoculars back on the chair seat and raised her hands to cover her ears as though she was trying to avoid a terrible sound.


  ‘Magician?’ she whispered. Then she looked quickly round the room, as though she half expected Stephen Tyler suddenly to appear.

  William who had watched her closely from the start now frowned.

  ‘You know about the Magician?’ he asked her, in a half whisper.

  ‘I know nothing,’ Meg replied, ‘and I wonder how you do. But, of course, you come from that house. That would explain a lot.’ She turned, quickly, closing all the shutters one by one with a bang so that the light in the room was gradually reduced until they were standing in darkness. Then she crossed to the door. ‘I’d like to meet this dog of yours,’ she said as she went out on to the landing. ‘Last one out close the door after them,’ and she ducked out of sight beneath the hanging branch.

  ‘Alice,’ William groaned.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘It just slipped out.’

  ‘We were never to mention the Magician to anyone.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Will. Honestly I am.’

  ‘She didn’t do it on purpose, Will,’ Mary said. ‘And anyway, I think Meg Lewis had heard of the Magician before. You saw how she reacted when Alice mentioned him. It was like as if she was scared or something.’

  ‘Oh, frog’s legs!’ Alice exclaimed. ‘You don’t suppose she’s an enemy? Someone belonging to that assistant of Mr Tyler’s, do you?’

  ‘Like the rat was, you mean?’ Mary said. ‘What d’you think, Will?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ William answered. ‘I can’t believe she is. I mean she seems nice. The rat wasn’t nice at all.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t.’ Alice agreed with a shudder, remembering the rat that had so terrified her at Christmas.

  ‘Come on,’ William said. ‘We’d better go down. She’ll be waiting for us.’

  When they emerged out of the branches of the tree, Meg was standing on the grass, in the bright sunlight, with Spot sitting at her feet. His tail was wagging and he was looking up at her, as though he expected her to give him a treat.

  ‘Spot!’ Alice exclaimed, taken completely by surprise.

  ‘So, this is your Spot,’ Meg said, stroking the dog’s head. ‘Well, Spot,’ she said gently to the dog, ‘you’ve had other names in your time, haven’t you? I used to call him Gypsy – for he was ever a wanderer. And my father had a dog just like him that he called Blackbane.’