‘Then you will be like yourself – and no one else,’ the answer came to her. ‘You will be . . . yourself. When that time comes . . . then the alchemy will have taken place. Then you will indeed be . . . gold.’
16
The Lights in the Dark
ALICE SWOOPED THROUGH the warm air. She had never felt so happy in the whole of her life. The sensation was rather like swimming or being on an endless big dipper at a fun fair. The early sun beat down from a clear sky and below all the trees of the forest glittered with dew as if they’d been dusted with diamonds. Her companions, the other swallows, were so full of joy that they filled the space around her with twittering laughter. Alice wanted nothing more than to fly and skim and whiz through the morning light for ever. She turned and, with a tremendous spurt of energy, thrust herself upwards, parting the air with her sharp wings as if she was trying to reach the sun itself. The light was so dazzling that she felt herself merging into the sky. In the final moment, just when it seemed that she would disappear for ever into the vast blue distance, she turned again and careered towards the earth, like an arrow shot from a bow.
The ground sped towards her. Trees parted, bushes brushed her, the tall grass enveloped her like a jungle.
‘Alice! Alice!’ she heard a voice calling to her from far away.
‘What?’ she said and, at the same moment, she opened her eyes. The room was in darkness. Then she heard the voice again:
‘Alice, wake up,’ it said.
At first she couldn’t remember where she was. She wanted to go back to sleep and fly with the swallows. But Mary was kneeling on the ground beside her bed, gently shaking her and sleep slipped away.
‘What’s happened?’ Alice asked, alert and a little frightened.
‘There’s something funny going on. Come and look,’ Mary whispered.
Alice climbed out of bed and followed her sister out of the room and across the tiny landing to the bathroom.
‘It was the barking that woke me up,’ Mary explained and, as she did so, Alice heard a sharp, staccato sound coming from beyond the bathroom window. ‘But then I came out here and – look!’ Mary continued.
At first the view from the window was only a blank wall of night but, as Alice watched, she saw for a moment a light flickering in the darkness. It came and went so fast that at first she was hardly sure that she’d really seen it. But then it reappeared again at a slightly higher level.
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
‘Someone up on the side of the valley. Near where we were when we found the tree house, I think. Look – there’s another light, over to the right.’
As the girls watched, the two lights gradually came together and a ferocious growling mingled with the barking.
William came into the room behind them.
‘You’ve seen it?’ he whispered. ‘I was coming to wake you.’
‘William, you’re dressed!’ Alice whispered.
‘Yes. You’d better hurry,’ he told them. ‘Put on sweaters. It’ll be cold out there.’
‘We’re going out?’ Alice asked, surprised.
‘Well, I am. I want to know what’s going on. If you’re coming, you’d better hurry,’ and, as he spoke, he flicked on the torch he was carrying, lighting their way back to the bedroom.
The night air was cold as they let themselves out of the kitchen door and hurried across the yard into the walled garden. Spot bounded ahead of them, as if he knew immediately what was going on. Then he waited for them by the back gate and, as they went out on to the forest track, he turned, jumping up and down, with his tail wagging.
‘All right, we’ll follow you, Spot,’ Mary whispered. ‘But we must go carefully – whoever it is may not be friendly. We just want to see what’s going on, that’s all.’
Spot led the way along the track and then turned, following a narrow path that climbed through the trees up the steep side of the valley.
Although they were travelling at quite a speed, Alice was able to keep up with the others. William used the torch as little as possible, only flashing it on for brief moments if the ground became particularly uneven or an obstacle presented itself. Once they were in amongst the trees, they were unable to see the moving lights any more, but the occasional sharp bark told them that they were drawing closer to their goal.
Eventually, after about fifteen minutes of stiff climbing, the trees around them began to thin. They could see the crest of the hill with the great, dark shape of the yew tree billowing up out of the surrounding shadows and silhouetted against the sky.
The rising ground was very precipitous here and the path disappeared altogether. Spot, ahead of them, slowed his pace to an apprehensive prowl, his paws rising in slow motion, his head straining forward, as he probed the half-darkness with all his senses.
Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, a voice broke the stillness.
‘Who’s there?’ it whispered, urgently. ‘Ted?’
The children froze. The ground in front of them was so steep that they were clinging to the side of the hill.
‘Over here!’ a more distant voice called.
Above them and a little way to their right a light suddenly appeared, moving away from them.
Spot half turned to look at the children, as if he was about to warn them of something, but a moment later any such warning was too late.
With a savage growl a dog sprang out of the undergrowth and landed on Spot. At once the shape of the two dogs turned into a madly twisting mass of fur and claws as they fought for supremacy. Spot’s agitated barking mingled with the vicious snarling of his opponent.
‘Spot!’ Alice hissed, scrambling up the hill towards them. But William grabbed at her, putting a hand over her mouth.
‘Stop, Al! You can’t help him,’ he whispered. ‘You’ll get torn to pieces if you try to separate them now.’
Alice fought him with her clenched fists, hitting at his face and tearing at his hair in her anguish, but William had her securely.
Out of the shadows up above them the figure of a man appeared. As he did so, he switched on a torch. The heaving, snarling mass of the two dogs leapt into view.
‘Fang!’ the man snarled.
It was a chilling sound, powerful and commanding. But still the dogs continued to fight.
‘Fang! Drop!’ the man shouted. ‘Drop, I say!’
‘What’s to do?’ the other man called and a moment later a second figure appeared beside the first.
‘Fang! Here, dog. Come here!’
With a final, ferocious yelp the seething mass separated once more into two dogs and one of them crept away up the bank towards the men.
‘Come here, Fang!’ the voice said.
The children dropped and pressed themselves against the thick grass of the hillside. Above them, Spot rose and limped away into the undergrowth. As he did so, the pinprick beam of light from the men’s torch followed his movements.
‘Dog, was it?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Anyone with it?’
‘Not sure.’
The light swung back, combing the rough ground, getting nearer and nearer to where the children were hiding. Then, just when it seemed inevitable that they would be discovered, another voice, a woman’s, rang out from the top of the hill.
‘You, down there!’ it called. ‘I can see you. I have informed the police that you’re here . . .’
‘Scarper!’ one of the men hissed and they disappeared along the lower ridge and into the trees. As they went, one of them called in a low, hoarse whisper:
‘Fang!’
17
The Sett
‘NOW, GYPSY,’ MEG Lewis said, stroking Spot’s head, ‘let’s have a look.’
The dog lay on his side and allowed her to peer at his neck.
‘Could one of you hold the torch?’ she asked, after a moment.
Alice reached across and took it from her.
‘Just point the light here, pet. That’s fine. Now, let’s see wh
at the damage is. Oh, my poor! Oh, my beauty!’ Meg sang the words in a gentle way, almost as a lullaby. Spot sighed and stretched and seemed unconcerned as he allowed her to examine the wound on his neck.
‘It’s not too bad, I think,’ Meg told him. ‘But you were lucky, mind. You should have known better. That was a vicious animal.’
‘He didn’t have any choice.’ Alice immediately leapt to the dog’s defence. ‘The other one just came out of the dark and went for him.’
‘Should be put down, a dog like that,’ William muttered.
‘No, pet!’ Meg protested, gently.
‘It just went for Spot,’ William told her. ‘He hadn’t done anything. It just attacked for no reason at all. Horrible thug!’
‘Ah, but you see . . .’ Meg said, quietly, ‘an animal is what his master has made him. In the wild, they only attack for survival. But that one has been trained differently. It’s the master is the thug, pet. He’s the one should be put away – not the dog.’
As she spoke, she produced a tube of ointment from her pocket and, squeezing a little on to her finger, she rubbed it on Spot’s neck.
‘D’you know who they were?’ Mary asked.
Meg shook her head.
‘I told you when we last met, it’s only just started up again. I haven’t had chance to find out much, yet. There, pet,’ she said to Spot, ‘you’ll soon heal.’
They were sitting on the grass at the top of the cliff not far from the yew tree. The night pressed in all around them. Dark clouds scudded across a starlit sky. A breeze was stirring the branches of the trees. Distantly, a dog barked, making Spot raise his head, his nostrils quivering, his ears pricking forward, listening.
As the children stretched out on the grass, Mary put her cheek against the ground and felt the cool damp of the dew.
Meg sat beside them, with her legs tucked up under her, leaning on one arm, watching the shadows.
‘I was up in the hide,’ she explained. ‘I can keep an eye on the whole length of the sett from up there.’
‘What’s a sett?’ Alice asked, turning on her side to look at Meg.
‘Where badgers live,’ Meg explained. ‘There’s something big on. I heard from a friend across country. He came to see me. He thinks there’s a meeting being organized.’
‘A meeting?’ William asked.
‘You know – like you have a cricket match, or a horse race say,’ Meg said. ‘Well, the baiters get together and indulge in their sport as well. They choose a secret place, somewhere where they won’t be discovered . . .’
‘Then what? What do they do there?’ Alice asked, dreading the reply. ‘They don’t race the badgers, do they?’
‘Race them?’ Meg exclaimed. ‘No, pet. No! I told you before. They might bring four or five badgers to a meeting. Then they’ll set the dogs on them, one after another. They put money on the dogs . . . bet which one will make the first kill; which one will kill the most; which one will last the longest in the ring . . . that’s their sport, you see.’
‘You mean the dogs . . . kill the badgers?’ Alice asked.
‘Eventually. Not too soon, they hope. That’d spoil their fun. But eventually the badgers die, yes. Sometimes the men do the killing themselves. A badger can put up quite a fight. Sometimes . . . if they get a really strong one, then he might be a match for the dogs – might look as if he’s going to win. Then, as like as not, the men will impose a handicap.’
‘What’s that?’ Alice asked.
‘Well, you see, the baiters value their dogs, so they don’t want too much harm to come to them. If the badger looks as if it’s going to win, they make it impossible for it to do so. They might muzzle it, or break one of its legs first . . . to give the dogs a better chance . . .’ She was silent for a moment, lost in thought, or perhaps in some terrible memory. Then she shook her head. ‘Another favourite game of theirs is to tie the badger to a stake and set several dogs on it, all at the same time . . .’
‘Oh, stop – please!’ Alice said, covering her ears with her hands. ‘Please don’t tell us any more.’
‘Bless you, child!’ Meg said, putting an arm round her. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. I thought you’d know these things.’
‘How could we?’ Alice sobbed. ‘I’ve never even seen a badger, till I came here.’
‘And it was dead,’ Mary said, quietly, remembering Brock on the Dark and Dreadful path.
‘Would you like to meet them? My badgers?’ Meg asked and, as she spoke, she struggled to her feet. ‘You stay here, Gypsy. Stay now.’
Spot looked up at her and wagged his tail.
‘Better not have him along,’ Meg explained. ‘They might smell the blood and sense the fear. Come on then.’
As she led them over the edge of the cliff and down a steep narrow path, the moon came out from behind clouds and somewhere near at hand an owl hooted.
Mary looked up, searching the sky.
‘Jasper!’ she called, quietly.
Meg glanced back at her, a surprised expression on her face. Mary smiled, shyly.
‘I have an owl that’s a friend,’ she explained. ‘Only I haven’t seen him since we’ve been here this time.’
‘You’re strange ones,’ Meg said. ‘You have owls and kestrels for friends. I think my badgers will take to you at once,’ and, putting a finger to her lips, she motioned them to sit down on the grass.
For a while nothing happened and Alice began to feel sleepy. Then, just as she was about to suggest that maybe they should go home to bed, a movement further down the steep bank attracted her attention.
‘Betty!’ Meg whispered. ‘Come on, my girl. Come and see.’ And, rummaging in her pockets, she produced a handful of dried fruit.
‘Raisins,’ she whispered. ‘Badgers love raisins!’
As the children stared through the half-darkness, the sweep of the ground below them was disturbed by what looked like a moving mound of earth. Gradually the mound resolved into a snout and the snout was followed by a long body, as a badger emerged from its underground den on to the moonlit turf. It sniffed the air cautiously and turned, rising up on its hind legs, to stare up the slope in their direction.
‘Betty!’ Meg called again, in the same singsong voice that she’d used with Spot.
The badger shambled up the hill towards them, stopping every few steps to sniff the air. When it reached where Meg sat, leaning forward, her hand outstretched with the raisins in her palm, it reared up once more and put both its front paws on her shoulders. A pungent, acrid smell filled the air.
‘She’s musking me,’ Meg explained in a whisper. ‘Aren’t you, my girl? It’s her way of welcoming me. Here,’ and she held out her hand again and the badger licked off the raisins.
Now other badgers started to appear from several different, well-concealed, holes. At first they were tentative because of the presence of the children. But, in time, they became more relaxed and took raisins from their outstretched hands and one of the smallest, whom Meg introduced as . . .
‘Candy. She’s from Stella’s last litter . . .’
. . . actually came and nuzzled up to Alice and, to her delight, fell asleep in her lap.
Meg knew all the badgers by name. There was Trish and Grey and all the cubs and a big male called Bawson. Bawson kept himself apart from the others. He stood, raised up on his haunches, with his head moving from side to side, listening for sounds of danger.
‘They still miss Brock,’ Meg explained, sadly. ‘Poor Brock. He was the leader. Now Bawson has the responsibility.’
The smell of badger was strong on the air and the sound of their breathing and snorting, as they rooted in the undergrowth, foraging for food, was so foreign to the children that it seemed like a dream they were living and that soon they would wake up and find themselves in bed, as Alice had woken from the flight with the swallows.
‘These are my badgers,’ Meg whispered. ‘These are my friends. They have no enemies in the wild world, except only men. Men, l
ike those two, who kill them for sport. Can you explain that to me? Can anyone explain it? Isn’t that the most horrible, saddest, thing you ever did hear? Look at them. Creatures of the night, family animals, with aunts and uncles and grannies, who live together in a close-knit group, caring for each other, grieving for each other – and men like that will come with dogs that they have bred specially to be vicious killers. They’ll rip open the setts and they’ll take the badgers and then they’ll enjoy watching these beautiful, peaceful, loving creatures being torn to pieces. Why? What has become of us? How can it be that some of us – flesh of our flesh – can be like that? How?’
As she spoke, the badgers crowded round her, rubbing themselves against her, playfully batting her with their paws and ruffling her hair with their snouts until, at last, they reduced her to troubled silence.
A long time later she said:
‘I never have understood that. That’s why I don’t mix with people. I like it here, in the night, with my friends.’
Eventually it was time for the children to go. The first glimmer of dawn was showing in the eastern sky and an early blackbird began to sing.
‘How will I keep them safe,’ Meg whispered as they were preparing to leave, ‘with these men about? These lampers and baiters . . .?’
‘You said the police were coming,’ Mary said. ‘Was it true?’
Meg shook her head.
‘It is sometimes. They’re very good. But it’s a long way out here from the town. I said it to scare the men off. The police came last time. That’s how we stopped it then. There’s one man, he’s a sergeant now, Bob Parker, he cares about the badgers. He’ll always come if I can get hold of him. But I don’t have a telephone. He comes round to see me sometimes. But it’s luck if he’s here on the right night. We have to know in advance, what’s going on. We need to know who those men are. We must always try to be one jump ahead of them.’
‘We can find out who they are,’ William said, suddenly.
‘You can?’ Meg asked, surprised.
‘They gave themselves away,’ William told her.
‘How?’
‘One of them called his dog Fang. We’ve come across that name.’
The Door In the Tree Page 13