The Binding

by Jenny Alexander

Duncan said to Elspeth, ‘Teller, write this down—“They came from a city choked with noise and fumes. It was a dangerous place full of bad people.”’

  While she wrote it down, Duncan turned to me.

  ‘Joker, tell us, why did you come?’

  ‘Well, me and Milo were in the back garden building a summer-house. . .’ I paused, expecting Tressa to butt in and tell him it wasn’t much of a summer-house considering it was made of four poles and a sheet, and it kept falling down, but she didn’t. So I carried on.

  ‘We heard Jean from next door calling us from the other side of the hedge. We couldn’t ignore her, so we crawled through the gap to see what she wanted.’

  ‘Is that the same Jean who owns the house you’re staying in? She lives next door to you in London?’ asked Hamish.

  I nodded.

  ‘We call her the birdwoman,’ Elspeth whispered. ‘She comes up every year and just sits on the cliff with her binoculars.’

  That made sense; my story was to do with birds too—the birds in Jean’s garden.

  ‘She said the woodpecker had taken some of the chicks from her bird box, and she was trying to make it woodpecker-proof. The problem was, the ladder kept wobbling, probably because she’s a bit wobbly herself, so she wanted someone to hold it steady.’

  ‘Which was me and Jack,’ Milo said.

  ‘And what a great job you did,’ said Tressa, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Who’s telling this story?’ I glared at Tressa. ‘Anyway, the ladder suddenly tilted when Jean was half way up, and I thought she was going to land on Milo, so I made a grab for her and she landed on me instead.

  ‘She felt so bad about it that she offered us her house up here for the summer, considering she couldn’t come herself, what with a broken ankle and everything.’

  Duncan told Elspeth to write, ‘The birdwoman fell from a tree and gave them the key to her house in Morna.’ Then, while she was writing it, he asked Tressa, ‘What did you expect to find here?’

  Tressa said, to be honest, she thought it was going to be really boring. ‘I was dreading it—no offense!’

  “‘They didn’t know what they would find here.” Write that,’ Duncan told Elspeth. “‘They were ignorant and afraid.”’

  When she had finished writing, Duncan asked her to read the whole thing back.

  ‘The history of the new members,’ Elspeth read. ‘They came from a city choked with noise and fumes. It was a dangerous place full of bad people. The birdwoman fell from a tree and gave them the key to her house in Morna. They didn’t know what they would find here. They were ignorant and afraid.’

  She gave the paper and pen to Tressa for her to sign and pass on so that we could all sign it to show we agreed it was true.

  ‘But this makes London sound horrible,’ Tressa said, her pen hovering above the paper.

  ‘So London isn’t full of traffic noise and pollution?’ asked Duncan. ‘It’s perfectly safe to roam around on your own? You feel everyone is nice?’

  ‘Well. . .’ goes Tressa. ‘It’s not true we were ignorant and afraid!’

  ‘You said you thought it would be boring here,’ said Duncan. ‘Are you bored?’

  Tressa frowned.

  Duncan said, ‘You told us you were dreading it. You’re the one who knows all the words. Doesn’t dread mean fear?’

  Tressa shrugged and signed the paper. She passed it to me and I signed it before passing it on to Milo.

  ‘Now you’ve heard our history, could we hear the history of the Binding?’ I asked.

  Duncan nodded to Elspeth, who sorted through her papers and took one out. She read it to us.

  ‘The secret history of the Binding. In the beginning, there were four. Duncan Fairfax was the Lawmaker, Hamish McFee was the Deputy, Elspeth Anderson was the Teller and Fin Anderson was the Warrior. They found the bothy and made it into a secret place. The Lawmaker made up the name and the ceremonies of the Binding, and the Teller wrote them down.’

  ‘Who’s Fin?’ asked Tressa. ‘Why isn’t he here?’

  Hamish said Fin was short for Finlay. ‘Finlay Anderson was Elspeth’s cousin. He moved away when his dad got a job on the mainland last year.’

  ‘Why did you need a warrior?’ I had to ask, I couldn’t help it. I mean, maybe there was a rival gang on Morna, and you don’t want to get involved in anything like that.

  ‘We didn’t,’ said Duncan.

  Elspeth looked as if she was going to say something, but changed her mind. No wonder she always seemed so serious. She must be missing her cousin. They all must be missing him, considering how few people there were on the island. I was glad Duncan had named me the Joker, because I wanted to do my very best to cheer them up.

  Milo suddenly put up his hand and cried, ‘I want to tell on someone!’

  ‘Then we have to make the circle,’ Duncan said, standing up. We all put our fish-boxes back in the middle of the room where they were before, and Hamish moved the table. We sat down and watched as Elspeth brought the box, the pen and papers, and the Judgement, and Hamish brought the big candle.

  Away from the fire, it felt suddenly colder and darker, although we could still hear the wood crackling in the flames.

  Hamish said to Milo, ‘If you want to tell on someone, you have to stand up and say, “I am the eyes and ears of the Lawmaker, and I wish to make a report.’”

  Milo stood up and repeated it carefully.

  ‘What is your report?’ asked Duncan.

  Seeing his face, Milo wavered, but it was too late to change his mind.

  ‘Jack asked Mum about the berries—I mean, the fruits of Morna—and Matt said they were blueberries. . .and we had some today for tea!’

  Hamish jumped up, picked up the black cloth of Judgement, and handed it to Duncan. Duncan slowly unfolded it and placed it on his head. He stood up, and gestured to everyone else to stand as well. He told me to stay where I was. Then he took a step back. One by one, they all copied him, until I was standing on my own in the middle. It was a horrible feeling, like I’d stepped off the edge of a cliff, with them looking down at me from the top.

  ‘Is this true, Joker?’

  I nodded.

  ‘We judge,’ said Duncan, solemnly, ‘that the Joker is guilty of talking about the secret business of the Binding outside the bothy. But because he did not know, at that time, about the Law of Secrecy, he will not be punished.’

  He took off the black square of Judgement.

  ‘Now we reward the eyes and ears with gold.’

  Elspeth took a pencil-tin out of the box and passed it to Duncan. It was full of little chocolate bars. He gave one to Milo and we all sat down again. We watched as Hamish blew out the big candle, and Elspeth carefully placed all the objects back inside the box, locked it and handed Duncan the key.

  ‘Now that we’ve named the new members, we should have a celebration,’ he said. ‘Come back to the beach at the same time tomorrow, and wear warm clothes.’

  Wear warm clothes? Couldn’t we have a fire again? I felt disappointed.

  ‘Joker, we will ask you for a game,’ Duncan said, standing up. We all stood up. The flickering tea-lights in the fireplace wall and the yellow flames of the fire meant we cast long shadows on the floor. We joined hands and walked slowly, one way and then the other, repeating after Duncan:

  In the winding, round and round

  What we wind can’t be unwound

  What we bind can’t be unbound

  The Binding

  Outside, the sun had gone and the sky was streaked with red. We set off together up the beach. Milo was happy because the seagulls hadn’t taken Nee-na, and now he had a chocolate bar as well.

  Tressa asked Duncan if he had made up all the rituals himself.

  ‘We call them ceremonies,’ he said. ‘But rituals is better. Is there a difference?’

  Tressa said she thought the things they did every time they met, such as the key and the box and the candle, were rituals, and maybe ceremonies
were more the things they did in a one-off kind of way for special occasions.

  ‘I like that,’ said Duncan. ‘I chose the right name for you at the naming ceremony.’

  Milo needed a pee, and me and Elspeth waited for him while the others went on ahead. We stood there, looking out to sea, listening to him clattering across the stones to find a private place.

  ‘That was quite a story he made up, about our history, with the birdwoman falling out the tree and everything,’ I said.

  Elspeth said sometimes, in the winter, they would light a fire in the bothy and all sit round, and Duncan would tell stories about his ancestors in Ireland. One of them became the first king of Morna; he crossed the sea from Ireland and rode across the battlefield at Mannon Moor on a magnificent white charger, up to its knees in blood.

  ‘Did Morna really have a king?’ I asked. ‘Is any of it true?’

  Elspeth shrugged.

  ‘I don’t suppose it really matters,’ I said. ‘I mean, he’s so clever, you want to hear everything he has to say.’

  She didn’t answer, so I turned to look at her. She kept gazing out to sea. Her hair looked almost white against the dark cliff.

  ‘Duncan’s all right so long as you don’t cross him,’ she said, in her whispery voice.

  I laughed. ‘I’ve got a sister like that.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Elspeth.

  Chapter 7

  Six candles

  I soooooo wanted to tell Mum about the Binding! It didn’t help that, when we told her we were going out after tea again the next day, she got all curious.

  ‘You must invite your new friends over. We’d love to meet them!’

  Tressa said, ‘No-one goes to each other’s houses here. They don’t need to. They can go wherever they like.’

  ‘It reminds me of when I was a boy,’ said Matt, going all wistful. ‘We used to play out all hours, and I don’t think I ever brought anyone home for tea.’

  ‘Still,’ goes Mum, ‘it feels a bit strange not even knowing who these children are.’

  Matt said it was different on an island, like stepping back in time to a simpler way of life, when children could have more freedom to roam and families more time to sit around, chat to each other and play games.

  Thinking about games, I remembered Duncan wanted me to organise one for the celebration. But what games could you play in a small space by candlelight? The only ones I could think of were animal-vegetable-mineral and charades, and I couldn’t imagine Duncan, Hamish and Elspeth playing either of them.

  I went outside to do some bounce-and-catch with my tennis ball against the wall. It’s surprising how that can help you think of good ideas. Benjie and me were playing bounce-and-catch when we had the idea of making a wet slide down the slope at the bottom of his garden with the plastic groundsheet out of his old tent.

  Maybe it doesn’t work so well if it’s only one person bouncing-and-catching, because by the time we set off for the bothy I still hadn’t come up with a single idea.

  ‘Have you left Nee-na at home?’ Tressa asked Milo. He nodded.

  ‘Really?’ Tressa patted his pockets. ‘Wow. He has!’

  ‘Duncan said we can’t take toys,’ Milo said. ‘Jack’s going to be in trouble, because look what he’s got!’

  He pointed at the bulging pocket of my jeans. I’d totally forgotten the tennis ball.

  ‘I’m going to tell on you!’ Milo said, obviously scenting chocolate.

  ‘I think someone has forgotten that the Lawmaker asked me to organise a game,’ I said. And then I thought, That’s it! We can play some kind of ball-game.

  But how would that work with all those candles everywhere? I was still pondering it when we came to the beach.

  We were expecting to see them on the grass outside the bothy, like before. But the door was wide open, and we could hear them crashing around inside. We heard Duncan yell, ‘Grab him!’ and then some laughing, and then a clatter that sounded like one of the fish-boxes getting knocked over.

  We ran to see what was going on, and there was Duncan, framed by the doorway, looking flushed. His blue eyes were glittery bright, and in his hand he had a small bird. It looked frozen with fear.

  ‘We got him,’ Duncan said, seeing us outside the door. ‘He flew into the bothy and couldn’t find his way back out.’

  He stepped out onto the grass and opened his hand, and the little bird tumbled down to the ground. It took a few hops, then flapped its wings and flew unsteadily away over the stones.

  Duncan stayed outside with us while Hamish and Elspeth prepared the bothy, and when they were ready Milo opened the door for us all to go in. There was no fire in the hearth, just a row of flickering candles along the bottom of the fireplace-wall, leaving the other end of the room in darkness.

  How did Hamish and Elspeth decide where to put the candles and how to lay out the room? Duncan must have told them before we arrived. We sat down in our usual places and Duncan gave Elspeth the key. She opened the box and took out the Judgement and the candle. Hamish lit it, and our faces were bathed in soft yellow light.

  Elspeth took the parcel of papers and the silver pen out of the box, using exactly the same delicate movements as she had before. Everything was perfect, which made me feel even worse about the part I had to play because, considering I still hadn’t decided on a game, that was definitely not going to be perfect.

  ‘This is a celebration,’ Duncan said. ‘But before we begin, I was thinking the new members might be having a problem keeping the law of secrecy.’

  How did he know? It was as if his sharp blue eyes could see right into my mind.

  ‘This is a difficult law to keep, but we have several other laws which will help. So, Teller—read them “Two simple rules about how to behave at home.”’

  Elspeth opened the packet of papers, looked through them and took one out.

  ‘Two simple rules about how to behave at home. One, always be polite to your parents and do what you’re told. Two, never argue with each other when your parents are around.’

  Tressa said it wasn’t our parents at home. Matt was Mum’s boyfriend and he was not, no way, never our dad.

  ‘If he lives with your mum then he counts as a parent,’ said Duncan.

  Tressa looked like she might explode, but he took no notice. I was thinking, How is that going to help with the secrecy thing? He read my mind again.

  ‘You might not think that these two rules will make it easier to keep the law of secrecy,’ he went on, ‘but try them and you will see.’

  We didn’t have a chance to discuss it any more because Duncan said it was time for the celebration, and we were going to have it on the beach. Problem solved! On the beach, we could play French cricket.

  Milo opened the door and we all filed out, first Duncan, then Hamish, then Elspeth and Tressa and me. I grabbed a long piece of driftwood from the pile behind the bothy for a bat, and caught up with the rest of them down by the water’s edge.

  The tide was right out, so we had a wide area of firm sand to play on. It reminded me of a joke.

  ‘Why was the sand wet? Because the sea-weed!’

  They didn’t get it, so I had to explain. They still didn’t get it. They didn’t know how to play French cricket either, but it’s easy to learn and they soon got the hang of it. I thought maybe I might even get them playing football some time—it felt like ages since my last kick-around with Benjie and the boys from school.

  When we felt tired, we went up the beach to sit down, where the sand was soft and dry. I found a plastic bottle washed up among the seaweed and put it on a flat rock a little way away. Then we played five-stones-each, taking turns to throw a stone at it and trying to knock it off. They’d never played that either. It was a good job they had me!

  The sun had dipped behind the cliffs by then, and the sky was getting darker. Duncan looked at Hamish and nodded his head. Without a word, Hamish got up and jogged straight up the beach to the place where the g
rassy banks dipped down in the middle. He ran up onto the cliffs and along towards the bothy, coming to a stop just above it. I noticed the light flickering faintly in the windows from the candles.

  Duncan told us to stay where we were, then he walked off towards the rocks at the other end of the beach. When he stopped and turned round, Hamish signalled to him with what looked like a thumbs-up—it was hard to tell from there—and Duncan signalled back.

  ‘We are celebrating the Teacher!’ Duncan yelled, bending down and stepping back, as a fountain of golden sparks whooshed up into the air. He had fireworks!

  ‘We are celebrating the Joker!’

  He lit another one. This time it was crackling white like a big sparkler, with balls of red and blue shooting out.

  ‘We are celebrating the Page!’

  Milo jumped up as his firework went off with a soft shower of yellow, then green, then red.

  Hamish ran down off the cliff to meet Duncan, and they both came back, beaming, to where we were sitting.

  ‘Where did you get the fireworks?’ I said.

  ‘From the hotel. We’ve always got some in the stock cupboard.’

  ‘And your parents let you?’ said Tressa.

  ‘I didn’t ask them.’

  Which explained why Hamish was up on the cliff, keeping a look-out.

  Duncan nodded to Elspeth and she went back to the bothy, reappearing a few moments later with a plate of food. There was an apple and a chocolate bar, each cut into six pieces around a pile of crisps.

  ‘Another time, we will have a feast,’ Duncan said. ‘This is just a token.’

  ‘It’s perfect,’ said Tressa. ‘It’s like a. . .a sacrament.’ You could tell she wasn’t exactly sure that was the right word.

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Duncan.

  ‘It’s when you’re not eating because you’re hungry, but as part of a ceremony. . .I think.’ Duncan looked well impressed.

  We had to go back into the bothy for the last part of the celebration. The big candle was still burning brightly on the makeshift table, and a few of the little ones were still alight along the foot of the fireplace wall. He led us to the other end of the room, where we could just make out, in the shadows, the silver foil of six new tea-lights lined up on the floor.