The Girl In the Cave

by Anthony Eaton

  On the whole, the cave was unremarkable in full daylight. The stone roof was grey and dirty, the sand floor damp. Here and there little patches of mould and fungus clung to the walls, but otherwise there was nothing interesting to look at.

  With a sigh, Kate lay back and stared at the roof. It had been ages now since she’d been sent from the kitchen and still no word from Aunt Tina or Uncle Dermott. It was most unusual. Soon they’d be missing their lunch, and that had never happened before.

  While she was lying there, the morning grew hotter and hotter and brighter and brighter. She wished she could go outside, just to sit on the lawn, but with Uncle Dermott’s mood she didn’t dare. Instead she lay on her rock bed and tried as hard as she could to remember something about her parents, just as she did most nights before going to sleep. But the harder she tried, the less she seemed to remember. It was as though there was something in her head that blocked her memories. At night, however, as she relaxed, every so often a thought or two might jump into her mind. A picture of a woman with sweet eyes and long brown hair, or sometimes a memory of being pushed through the park in a blue pram with yellow daisies hanging from the hood. But every time, as soon as she tried to hold on to the memory, it would slip away again and Kate would be left lying in the dark, alone in the cave. She had learned that when her special memories floated into her head, she should just relax and let them carry her off to sleep, and then she would have more pleasant dreams.

  That was what happened this particular afternoon. As Kate was lying there, with the daylight getting stronger and stronger outside, she suddenly recalled a voice, not Aunt Tina’s rasping, whiny one, but a soft, deep, sweet voice singing a song:

  Night has come my little one,

  Here comes the moon, there goes the sun.

  So dream some happy little dreams,

  Where nothing is quite what it seems.

  And with these words ringing in her head, Kate drifted off to sleep.

  When she woke, it was late in the day. At first she wasn’t at all certain what time it was, because she was never allowed to sleep during the day. Then she remembered the telephone call, and Miss Pincushion, and being sent to the cave.

  Kate sat up, puzzled. Surely Aunt Tina and Uncle Dermott wouldn’t have left her to sleep in the cave all day? They needed their meals cooked and the cleaning done and the mail collected. But it seemed Miss Pincushion’s call had upset them so much that nothing else mattered.

  She wondered if perhaps she should go up to the house and find out what was going on. It was time to start dinner and she hadn’t eaten all day, so she was hungry. But Uncle Dermott’s instructions had been quite clear: “Get out to your cave and wait there until we call you. And don’t you dare set foot anywhere in the house or yard until then.” Those were his words and Kate had the feeling that it would be a particularly bad idea to disobey him at the moment.

  Her tummy rumbling, Kate sat on the edge of the rock shelf. The afternoon sun had dropped low in the sky now and was shining directly in through the mouth of the cave, lighting up the inside all the way to the back. That was how Kate noticed something strange or, more accurately, two strange things.

  The first was a rock, which might not seem particularly unusual in a cave, but this was an odd, flat rock, right in the deepest, darkest corner at the back of the cave, and it didn’t seem to fit in with all the others. It was shimmery black in colour, whereas all the other stones were a dull grey, and the way it was propped against the back wall seemed deliberate and not just higgledy-piggledy. Crawling across the sandy floor, Kate picked up the strange stone. It felt warm and out of place in the cold dampness.

  She hauled it back to her rock shelf, to examine it more closely, and as Kate turned the stone over she gave a gasp of surprise. There was writing carved into the shiny black face of the stone:

  All that glimmers is not gold.

  But then again, who knows?

  What’s mine is mine and yours is yours,

  As this stone clearly shows.

  You’ll have to dig a little way,

  To find the proper vein.

  But if you’re clever

  Then you’ll never

  Need to dig again!

  P.P.

  Kate read the little poem over and over. What did it mean? She was still puzzling about it when she noticed the second strange thing. In the back wall of the cave, in the space which until a couple of minutes earlier had been hidden by the flat black rock, the sun was making something shimmer and glint. Something in the rock. Something golden.

  Kate leapt back across to the sparkling rock. She crawled the last bit on her hands and knees, but finally, after banging her head a couple of times on the low roof, she was close enough to examine the twinkle carefully.

  “How strange!”

  Running through the stone was a thin, uneven golden thread, gleaming gently in the dying sunlight. In a couple of places it was as thick as her little finger, but for the most part it was no wider than a strand or two of thin cotton. It meandered this way and that across the face of the grey stone, until it disappeared into the deepest, darkest, tiniest little corner of the cave.

  Reaching out, Kate traced a fingertip along the golden trail, surprised to discover that the shining rock felt a little warm and almost soft, unlike the rest of the cold, hard rocks in the cave. Then the sun finally sank and the last rays of light faded inside the cave. The little thread shimmered for a moment or two longer before fading and blending back into the rock. If she peered closely enough, Kate could still make out a dark wriggle across the face of the stone, but without sunlight all the shine had disappeared.

  Kate crawled to the mouth of the cave and sat on the sand, looking out into the yard and thinking about what an odd day it had been. She was so used to working hard that now, after spending most of the day fast asleep, she felt awake and restless. The sun had gone completely, and a persistent rumble in her tummy reminded her that she hadn’t eaten anything all day.

  Kate decided to risk sneaking up to the house to find some food in the kitchen. By night the tangled back garden was full of shadows and hiding places, so if Uncle Dermott came out, she could duck out of sight.

  Slowly and carefully she made her way along the path towards the back door, staying deep under the cover of the thorn bushes and weeds. From the cave, it was impossible to see the house, so as she crept out from under the final bush she was surprised to see every light in the house switched on and burning brightly.

  Usually Uncle Dermott was very fussy indeed about people leaving lights on. He said that it ruined his butterflies and would get angry if he found a lit-up room with nobody in it. Of course, he always blamed Kate, even though it was usually Aunt Tina.

  “Girl!” he would bellow, and Kate would come running.

  “Yes, Uncle Dermott?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you not to leave lights on? Power isn’t free, you know? Are you trying to drive your poor aunt and I broke?”

  “But Uncle Dermott …”

  “Don’t make excuses, you wasteful little gnat! I suppose you are going to deny leaving this light on.”

  “But I haven’t been in this room all day.”

  “A likely story. Who left the light on then? Your Aunt Tina?”

  Kate knew better than to blame Aunt Tina for anything.

  “Sorry, Uncle Dermott.”

  “I should hope so. Now, to teach you the importance of honesty and also how evil it is to squander your aunt and uncle’s electricity, go and clean all of the tiles in the laundry, using your own toothbrush, in the dark.”

  After that, Kate was always careful to turn the lights off after herself, and to also watch where Aunt Tina went, so that she could rush in and turn the lights off after her too.

  You can imagine, then, how surprised she was to find the whole house lit up like a fireworks display. It looked like a ship out at sea—every single light beaming, from the basement to the attic. The glow from th
e windows cast long pools of light out onto the brown-patched lawn. From the protective shadows under the last thorn bushes, Kate stopped and stared.

  “How very odd.”

  A sharp pain in her stomach reminded her why she was risking life and limb and she decided that she had better be as quick as she possibly could getting up to the kitchen and then back to her cave again. Uncle Dermott was clearly in a strange mood and she certainly didn’t want to be caught.

  She dashed across to the kitchen door, checked quickly to see that nobody was there, and slipped quietly inside.

  It was a mess! A total shambles. All of the cupboards were open, and all of the drawers. Pots and pans and trays were piled on the floor, plates covered every bench top, and the oven was wide open. There was a pair of oven mitts thrown in the sink. Someone had been through that kitchen, pulling everything out, and in a hurry, too.

  As fast as she dared, Kate crept across and pulled open the fridge. She found a plate with some leftover cold sausages and she grabbed two or three, as well as an apple.

  She shoved the food into her pockets and was just about to sneak back out the kitchen door when she heard something that made her freeze – Aunt Tina and Uncle Dermott were coming down the passage to the kitchen! There was no time to escape! By the time she had picked her way through all of the pots and pans, they’d be there. If she tried to run for it, they’d hear her for sure.

  Desperately, Kate looked around. What to do? The footsteps were coming closer and closer and she could hear Aunt Tina now, whining: “But Dermott, it’s so late.”

  Like a flash, Kate darted into the pantry cupboard and pulled the door shut behind her, just as her aunt and uncle stomped into the kitchen.

  “It doesn’t matter, Tina. We have to keep looking.”

  “But I’m hungry. We haven’t eaten all day. Let’s just get the girl to deep-fry a couple of Mars Bars.”

  “There’s not enough time. And besides, I don’t want her anywhere near this house until after that woman has come and gone.”

  “But what about me? Who’ll feed me?”

  “Perhaps you could feed yourself.”

  “Don’t be silly, Dermott.”

  Uncle Dermott’s footsteps came across the kitchen towards Kate’s hiding place.

  “Well then, have a quick drink of water and then we must get back to work. We’ve still got to search your bedroom and the attic. I might even have to start pulling up floorboards.”

  “But Dermott, we did all this when we moved into the place.”

  “I know, dear. But that was ten years ago, and we haven’t really looked all that hard since. Besides, we made a deal with that horrible woman, and you know what will happen if we don’t keep it.”

  “I know, Dermott.”

  “Well, then.”

  He stopped right outside the cupboard. Kate held her breath; she could feel her heart thumping in her chest. The pantry door started to open, just a crack.

  “Dermott?”

  “What, Tina?” Through the crack in the door Kate could see past her uncle’s leg to where Aunt Tina was slumped against a bench on the far side of the kitchen. She was filthy dirty, her hair was frazzled, and her dress was torn in several places.

  “I think there are sausages in the fridge.”

  “There are? Good. We’ll have those.”

  Uncle Dermott let go of the pantry door and Kate breathed out silently. She listened as the fridge door was opened and then closed, and then a few moments later she heard the two of them stomp out of the kitchen and back along the passage.

  Kate waited in the pantry until she was certain that they had gone. Then, as fast as she dared, she crept out of the kitchen and through the back door again, into the garden.

  Back in her cave, and munching on an apple, she thought about the strange conversation. What on earth were they looking for? Whatever it was must be important, because Aunt Tina was missing proper meals, and that was unheard of.

  When she’d finished her dinner, Kate climbed up onto her rock shelf and lay there, trying to make sense of all that had happened and glancing from time to time into the dark back corner of the cave.

  Chapter Six

  A Visitor

  The next morning Kate was woken early by her uncle yelling from the kitchen.

  “Girl! GIRL! Get up here!”

  Quickly, she pulled on her clothes and dashed up the path to the back door.

  “Yes, Uncle Dermott?”

  “We’ve been robbed! Get in here and start tidying up.”

  “Robbed?”

  “That’s what I said. I imagine that they were after my Zerynthia polyxena.”

  Kate knew, of course, that Aunt Tina and Uncle Dermott hadn’t been robbed at all. It was all their mess from the night before.

  “Well? Don’t just stand there gaping, child. Get to work. We’ve a visitor coming at ten, and I want the whole house spotless before she gets here.”

  “Yes, Uncle Dermott.”

  For the next few hours Kate worked harder than ever. There wasn’t a single room that didn’t have everything in it strewn all over the place. It was so untidy that, for the first time she could remember, Uncle Dermott actually started cleaning himself. While they were both working, Kate decided to risk asking:

  “Who is Miss Pincushion?”

  You would have thought that someone had stuck a red-hot poker into Uncle Dermott. He whirled around and sort of yelped.

  “Where did you hear that name?”

  “On the telephone yesterday. She was the lady who called. Is she your visitor?”

  He made a strangled noise and started to turn a blotchy red colour.

  “Oh. Yes. That’s right, you answered the telephone. I’d forgotten.”

  He breathed a deep sigh.

  “Miss Pincushion is an old family friend of your aunts, and yes, she is coming to visit, but this doesn’t concern you, because while she is here you will remain out in your cave.”

  And he turned his back on her and carried on tidying. Kate smiled to herself. After what she’d heard last night, she had no intention of missing out on Miss Pincushion’s visit.

  By nine-thirty the house was neat again and Kate went looking for Uncle Dermott. She found him in his study, pacing this way and that, beads of sweat running down his face.

  “Everything’s finished now, Uncle, so should I go back out to my cave before your visitor arrives?”

  Normally, Uncle Dermott would have been suspicious of Kate’s being so helpful, but at the moment he was too distracted.

  “What? Oh, yes. Very good. I don’t want to hear a peep out of you until you’re called. Understand?”

  “Yes, Uncle Dermott.”

  “Right, then. Off you go.”

  Kate made as much noise as possible marching down the stairs and out to the kitchen. She opened the back door, then let it slam loudly so that it would sound like she’d gone outside into the garden.

  She had already decided where she was going to hide. In the front lounge room, where Aunt Tina watched television, there was an old-fashioned sideboard cabinet with built-in cupboards. Usually these were full of books, but while they’d been tidying up, Kate had secretly slipped most of them under the couch, leaving just enough space in the cupboard for an eight-year-old girl.

  Once safely inside, she pulled the door closed, leaving just a crack through which she could listen. It was cramped and dusty, but she was determined to find out about this Miss Pincushion and why her aunt and uncle were so frightened of her.

  At ten o’clock exactly, there came a loud knock at the front door, and her uncle hurried to answer it.

  “Miss Pincushion! How lovely to see you again.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Dermott. I know exactly how happy you are to see me. Where’s that blimp you call your wife?”

  Miss Pincushion’s voice was deep and husky. It reminded Kate of the women Aunt Tina watched on Shameless Passions.

  “Tina will be down in a f
ew moments. She’s a little tired at the moment.”

  “I imagine that just getting out of bed would make Tina tired.” The woman laughed, a slippery, silvery little chuckle. “I’d forgotten what a pokey, horrible house this is. I’m so glad I let you take it off my hands.”

  Miss Pincushion and Uncle Dermott came into the lounge room. Kate could tell that the woman was wearing pointy high-heels—they clicked across the floorboards with a sharp little tapping noise. Kate decided to risk a quick peep through the door.

  Miss Pincushion was long and slender. Not thin in the skinny, scrawny way that Uncle Dermott was thin, but curvy and silky. Her straight blonde hair came all the way down to the bottom of her back. She wore a blood-red tight-fitting dress, and her fingernails were long and sharpened and painted the same colour. And the shoes! As Kate suspected, they were high-heels, but the tallest, narrowest, pointiest shoes Kate had ever seen. They were made of very fine, deep red leather, almost the same colour as the dress, and the long heels tapered to such a fine point that it looked as though Miss Pincushion was walking along on two sharpened pencils.

  She wandered around the lounge room, running her long fingernails lightly over the surfaces, tapping them against the china dogs and snow-domes and other knick-knacks that Aunt Tina kept dotted around all over the place. Uncle Dermott stood nervously in the middle of the room, mopping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief that Kate could see was already soaked.

  “And what about the girl? What was her name again?”

  Uncle Dermott shuffled slightly, awkwardly.

  “Uhm, Kate.”

  “That’s right. Kate. How old is she now? Seven? Eight?”

  “Eight, I believe.”

  “And where is she?”

  “She’s out in her ca- … room. She’s in her room. I asked her to stay out of the way while you were here.”

  “What a pity. I would have quite liked to see her. I imagine she’s very different now from the little baby I remember. Still, never mind …” Miss Pincushion suddenly looked right at where Kate was hiding. “I’m sure I’ll get to meet her again sometime soon,” she turned back to face Uncle Dermott “one way or another.”