The Door In the Tree

by William Corlett

  At the sound of this last name, Spot whined and cowered away from Meg, with his tail between his legs. Alice ran forward, putting an arm round the dog’s shoulder, as if protecting him.

  ‘There, child,’ Meg said, gently, ‘I wouldn’t harm him. It’s my words he doesn’t like. Blackbane and my father fell out.’ She shook her head and frowned. ‘I never knew the half of what went on. But I promise you, I’m the animals’ friend. You ask your Spot. I must get home.’ She looked up at the sky again. ‘The nights will be long again for a while.’ And she turned and walked away from them towards the standing stone.

  ‘Miss Lewis,’ William called, running after her.

  ‘Bless you, boy! Call me Meg, everyone else does,’ Meg said, stopping and turning to him.

  ‘Please tell us what all this is about,’ he said. ‘The dead badger and the Dark and Dreadful Path. We might be able to do something. We’re only here for a bit but . . . We would like to help.’

  ‘Help?’ Meg asked, frowning. Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, really,’ William mumbled. ‘It’s just . . . we want to understand about the country and everything and . . .’

  ‘Badger baiting,’ Meg cut in.

  ‘Sorry?’ William asked, not fully understanding what she had said.

  ‘Around here is one of the finest badger setts in our country. The badgers are my friends. All animals are, really. I prefer animals to people. But the badgers are special. And the foxes. The poor foxes. There is a hunt here, every winter. I won’t let them across my land. I’m despised for that.’

  ‘Do you know where the foxes live?’ William asked, remembering Cinnabar.

  ‘You like the foxes?’ Meg asked him. ‘Yes, I could take you. But now my work will be cut out. Men come, out from the towns mostly. They have snappy little terrier dogs and some of them have lurchers and pit bulls . . . hard dogs, not like animals, vicious like their masters. They come at night, with torches. They send the dogs down the setts to flush the badgers out. They put nets over the holes, then when a badger comes out, they catch it. Or, sometimes, they just stun the poor beast with the back of a shovel, and take him that way.’

  ‘But, why?’ Alice asked. ‘What for?’

  ‘Sport,’ Meg replied.

  ‘Sport?’ William exclaimed. ‘How can that be sport?’

  ‘They set their dogs against the badgers. Sometimes the dogs are badly mauled. They bet on their dogs; put money on which one will beat the badger.’

  ‘Beat?’ Mary asked, horrified.

  ‘Conquer, beat, defeat, kill,’ Meg said the words slowly, sadly almost.

  ‘But, that’s horrible,’ Mary said, her voice shaking. ‘That’s not sport. D’you suppose that’s what happened to the one we saw?’

  ‘Almost certainly,’ Meg replied.

  ‘But what can you do about it, Meg?’ William asked.

  ‘It’s against the law – so, if I catch them at it, I report them to the police. I get photographs of them, with my flash. I note the numberplates of their cars. I follow them.’ She walked away from the children, thoughtfully, until she was level with the standing stone, then she turned. ‘What puzzles me though is that we’ve been quiet for a while. I thought the men had all given up. There was quite a roundup by the police last year. Heavy fines were imposed. I thought we’d seen the last of them. Where have this new lot come from? That’s what I don’t know.’ She looked up at the sun, hanging low over the top of the trees. ‘I must go back, soon be evening.’ And, with a wave of the hand, she turned and walked away from them.

  ‘Come and see me at Four Fields,’ she called, without looking back.

  9

  Phoebe Reads the Riot Act

  IT WAS THE middle of the afternoon, far later than they had realized. They ran down the steep hillside, dodging in and out of the trees, following Spot, who raced ahead of them, his tail streaming out behind and his ears flapping.

  Alice was soon lagging behind and had to call out to them to wait for her.

  ‘I have got the shortest legs, you know. It’s OK for you two,’ she protested, as she slithered and scrambled down towards them.

  The route they took was in an almost straight line from the yew. The tree house was completely hidden by the green branches.

  ‘And, of course,’ William said, looking back up the steep gradient, as they waited for Alice, ‘yew is evergreen. So that means the room must be secret, summer and winter.’

  No sooner did Alice catch up, than, ahead of them, Spot barked impatiently, urging them on.

  ‘It isn’t fair,’ she yelled, as the other two immediately ran ahead again. ‘I didn’t get to have any rest. Oh, frogspawn!’ she swore violently, to no one in particular, and, feeling better, she set off in pursuit once more.

  The ground became ever more steep. They had to hang on to the trunks of the trees to prevent themselves falling. They skirted an outcrop of rock. They pushed their way through vast clumps of undergrowth, with vicious brambles and long branches of briar rose. They slipped and slid between the roots of chestnut trees and through thick coverts of broom and gorse. They panted and gasped and sometimes they tripped and tumbled as they followed Spot’s dizzying career down towards the valley bottom.

  Alice thought her lungs would burst for want of breath and Mary, who was in the lead, dug her knuckles into the side of her waist to fight off the pain of a stitch. Eventually they reached the same forest track that they’d started out from. Here William collapsed in a heap on the grassy verge, and lay back, sweating and fighting for breath.

  ‘Oh!’ he sobbed. ‘I can’t go another step.’

  But Spot was already chasing off along the track. They had arrived at a point some distance from the gate into the kitchen garden and in the opposite direction to the way they had taken when leaving the house that morning.

  ‘You can’t see any path at all,’ Mary said, staring back up the wooded hillside and searching the distant tree line for any sign of the yew tree house.

  ‘I’ve been cut to ribbons on those thorns,’ Alice complained, rubbing a long thin scratch on one of her arms.

  Then, ahead of them, they heard Spot barking impatiently again. So they hurried to follow him, Alice and Mary dragging William up on to his feet while he continued to protest that he couldn’t move another inch.

  ‘Honestly, Will!’ Alice mocked him, ‘you are hopeless! Don’t you do any exercise at that school of yours?’ Then she dodged away from him and ran ahead, screaming and laughing, with William chasing after her.

  They found Spot standing outside the wooden gate set into the high brick wall that led into the kitchen garden. The gate was closed and so he was unable to enter. But the moment Alice pushed it open, he shot past her, almost knocking her over in his impatience to be inside.

  ‘What is the matter with him?’ Alice complained, irritably.

  The dog streaked down the length of the garden and out through the gate into the yard without waiting for them.

  ‘Maybe it’s his dinner time,’ Mary suggested.

  ‘I must admit I’m starving,’ Alice agreed.

  But, as they approached the yard gate, their steps got slower and slower.

  ‘We’re so late. What are we going to say?’ William said, voicing all their thoughts.

  ‘We’ll just have to tell the truth,’ Alice said. ‘Say we didn’t realize how late it was and explain what happened.’

  ‘But we can’t say what we’ve been doing,’ William protested, ‘without mentioning the Magician.’

  ‘Maybe we could say that we got lost again,’ Mary suggested.

  ‘But we didn’t,’ William said. ‘And I wasn’t even really lost yesterday. Not really.’

  ‘Well, I certainly was,’ Alice said. ‘I went round and round in circles in that foul forest. If it hadn’t been for Spot, I expect I’d have faded away and died in there.’

  ‘And the kestrel,’ Mary added. ‘It was the kestrel who showed us where you were.’ Then she shuddered.
‘It was a vile place, wasn’t it? I don’t think I shall go back there again.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll have to,’ William said. ‘Maybe that’s what Mr Tyler meant about learning about the natural world.’

  ‘Well, I won’t go back in that pine forest, not ever. Not for anyone,’ Alice declared. ‘I wouldn’t go near that Dark and Dreadful Path again – not even for the Magician.’ And, as she finished speaking, far above them in the pale sky a kestrel wheeled and cried:

  ‘Kee! Kee! Kee!’

  ‘Oh,’ Alice whispered, looking up. ‘D’you suppose he heard me?’ and she hurried forward towards the yard gate.

  Phoebe was standing at the kitchen door, with Spot beside her. She was drying her hands on a towel and when she saw the children she threw the towel down on the doorstep and came quickly towards them.

  ‘Where on earth have you been?’ she cried. ‘Jack’s been searching everywhere for you.’

  ‘Sorry, Phoebe,’ Mary said. ‘We didn’t realize how late it was.’

  ‘You’ve been gone for hours,’ Phoebe shouted. She was in a terrible temper and for a moment it almost looked as if she was going to hit one of them. Her fists were clenched and she banged them against her thighs, her anger making her movements tense and her voice shrill.

  ‘We really are sorry,’ William said. ‘We sort of went further than we meant and . . . we . . . well, we . . .’

  ‘ . . . didn’t realize how late it was,’ Alice cut in, sounding a bit fed up with the need to explain. ‘Sorry!’

  ‘Sorry?’ Phoebe exclaimed. ‘You’re sorry? Have you any idea what I’ve been going through? You’re here in our charge and you disappear for most of the day. I couldn’t believe it when Jack said he’d let you go off again. Come in, at once. There was a lunch waiting for you. I’ve had to throw most of it away.’

  She turned her back on them and walked into the kitchen, picking up the towel from the doorstep.

  Alice pulled a long face and shrugged.

  ‘Oh, fishcakes!’ she whispered. ‘She’s throwing a real wobbly.’

  ‘Come on,’ William told them, in a resigned tone.

  ‘I bet she didn’t need to throw the food away. She just said that to make us feel worse.’

  ‘She’s right, though,’ William said. ‘We have been away hours, it’s no wonder she was worried.’

  ‘We shall just have to tell her the truth,’ Mary said, following him across the yard.

  ‘What truth?’ William asked, obviously surprised.

  ‘Everything that happened,’ Mary replied.

  ‘What? Even about the Magician?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Why not?’ Mary asked. ‘He contributed to us being late. If we hadn’t seen him, we’d have left the tree house much sooner and we’d have missed Meg and we’d have been home ages ago. Well, a bit earlier, anyway.’

  ‘We can’t tell Phoebe about the Magician, Mary,’ William told her. ‘She wouldn’t believe us.’

  ‘She might. It’d be worth finding out. Besides, it isn’t our fault if we tell the truth and then we aren’t believed, is it?’

  Phoebe appeared at the door again and shouted, angrily:

  ‘I said come in. Now, this minute. Do as you’re told.’

  Spot was sitting near the kitchen range. He looked up, as the children entered, and whined.

  ‘And I’m disappointed with you as well, Spot,’ Phoebe snapped, crossing to the sink. ‘You were supposed to be looking after them.’

  ‘But he did!’ Alice cried out in dismay. ‘We’d never have found our way if it hadn’t been for Spot.’

  ‘Be quiet, Alice,’ Phoebe said, swinging round and glaring at her.

  ‘No, Phoebe,’ Alice bravely insisted, running across and putting a protective arm round the dog, who trembled and whined miserably. ‘Blame us as much as you like, but please don’t be cross with Spot. He didn’t do anything wrong. Punish me if you want to. But please not Spot.’ She finished speaking in a tiny, trembling voice and she swallowed hard and blinked, trying to clear the tears that had suddenly filled her eyes.

  Spot pushed close to her and turned his head to give her cheek a brief, surreptitious lick. This was too much for Alice, who buried her face on the dog’s shoulder and howled noisily.

  The sound of Alice woke Stephanie, who had been sleeping in her cot at the other side of the kitchen range. She started to cry on a high pitched note and then Spot, hearing the baby’s distress and bearing the weight of Alice round his neck, added to the din by raising his head and baying mournfully.

  The hall door opened and Jack came into the room.

  ‘What the hell is going on in here?’ he yelled. ‘Shut up, all of you. You, Spot . . . Be quiet . . .’

  But his shouting only added to the commotion, as the dog, the baby and Alice each continued to grieve with renewed vigour.

  ‘Stop it!’ Jack yelled, covering his ears with his hands. Phoebe crossed, picked up the baby and, rocking her in her arms to soothe her, hurried from the room.

  Jack, meanwhile, pulled Alice away from Spot and put his arms round her.

  ‘What is the matter with you, child?’ he yelled, as she continued to sob in front of him.

  Spot crawled away towards his basket, by the back door, and curled up in it, his eyes open, watching every movement in the room.

  All this time Mary and William had remained standing half way across the kitchen between the door and the range, which was where they’d arrived when Alice had first started to bawl.

  ‘Can’t you do something to stop her, Mary?’ Jack shouted as Alice continued to sob noisily.

  Mary simply shook her head and remained silent. She’d seen it all before.

  ‘She’ll stop in a minute if you ignore her,’ William said.

  ‘How can you ignore a noise like this?’ Jack demanded. ‘It’s worse than a cat in a rain storm!’ And he mewed tragically, putting his face close to Alice and shaking his head.

  Alice was half way through a new howl but, seeing Jack’s cat impersonation, she gulped and smiled.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said, gently. Then he wiped the tears off her cheeks with his hands and put an arm round her shoulders. ‘All right, you lot. You’ve got some explaining to do.’ He raised a finger. ‘But not to me,’ he added, ‘to Phoebe,’ and he pointed towards the hall door, through which Phoebe had departed. ‘She’s been worried sick about you. You’d better have a good story ready. You were supposed to be back for lunch. She’s going to read you the riot act – and I wouldn’t be in any of your shoes while she does it. There’s nothing more terrifying than Phoebe when she’s in a temper.’

  Spot grunted and closed his eyes, obviously hoping to avoid the wrath to come by sleeping.

  ‘It honestly was a mistake, Uncle Jack,’ Mary said.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Jack protested. ‘Tell her,’ and, as he spoke, Phoebe came back into the room.

  ‘She’s quiet now,’ she said, obviously referring to Stephanie, whom she had left in some other part of the house. ‘Go on, Spot,’ she continued as she walked over to the kitchen range, ‘go and sit with Steph.’

  Spot rose quickly and scampered away into the hall, relieved to be out of the room. Phoebe, meanwhile, put some logs on the range fire and raked out the hot ashes with a poker.

  There was an awkward silence in the room. Alice sidled across to stand between William and Mary. She felt vulnerable standing on her own, Uncle Jack having followed Phoebe to the fire as soon as she entered. He now put his hands on either side of Phoebe’s waist and turned her so that she was looking at him.

  ‘All right?’ he asked her gently.

  The children saw Phoebe frown slightly, then she passed the back of a hand across her forehead, brushing some stray hairs away from her eyes.

  ‘Don’t Jack, please,’ she said, pushing him away gently but firmly. ‘Well, where’ve you been?’ she asked the children, turning to look at them.

  ‘We met a woman called Meg Lewis,’ Mary told her. T
hen, when this brought no response from Phoebe, she shrugged and continued. ‘I think she lives somewhere near here. Anyway she knew this house. She said her family used to live here . . .’

  ‘Jonas Lewis,’ Phoebe said quietly. ‘Don’t you remember, Jack? That book you borrowed from the woman at the museum, when the children were here at Christmas.’

  ‘Of course!’ William exclaimed. ‘The book about alchemy. Have you still got it, Uncle Jack?’

  ‘No. I returned it to Miss Prewett. Apparently the man she’d borrowed it from decided to give it to the museum . . .’

  ‘As far as I can remember,’ William continued, thinking out loud, ‘Jonas Lewis left Golden House right at the end of the last century. D’you think he could have been Meg’s father?’

  ‘How old is she?’ Jack asked, his curiosity aroused.

  Mary shrugged.

  ‘Probably older than she looks. She has a sort of unlined face, you know? One of those pale, shiny faces, that always look as if they’ve just been washed. But her hair’s all white. It’s difficult to tell what age she is. I mean she wasn’t too old to climb a tree . . .’

  ‘Climb a tree?’ Jack asked, with a laugh. ‘I think you’d better begin at the beginning!’

  And so the children started to recount the events of the day, all talking at once and adding bits that the others had left out. But not one of them mentioned seeing Stephen Tyler. Mary later said that she’d fully intended to, but that, when it came to it, she’d realized that Jack wouldn’t begin to understand or believe her, and she didn’t want to stop the conversation, which had been going rather well.

  Jack questioned them closely about the tree house and was obviously delighted by the sound of it.

  ‘You must take me and show me,’ he said.

  Then they’d gone on to tell him about Meg’s arrival and about the badger baiters.

  ‘Here? In our valley?’ Jack asked. ‘I’m sure that can’t be true. I’d know if there were people wandering about here . . .’