by Patricia Bow
She coughed again. “I’m lucky I’m not a cinder!”
“You really were in there. In the ghost house.”
“You just figured that out?”
“Still getting my head around it.”
“You didn’t really believe me before, did you?”
“There’s a difference,” he said carefully, “between believing somebody and knowing a thing for yourself. You … you just vanished!”
“Well, here’s the real proof!” She held out the flute.
Mark sat back on his heels. “So that’s it. Not much to look at, is it? Where’s the carving?”
“We’ll check it out later.” She jumped to her feet and shoved the flute into the waistband of her jeans, under her T-shirt. Her skin shivered away from its cold touch, but there was no way she was going to walk up Grant Street with the bone flute in her hand, plain to see.
As they climbed the street she told Mark what had happened inside the ghost house. “You see, I can’t just hand it over. I’ve got to be sure.”
“Which one started the fire? That should tell you.”
“It doesn’t. I never saw their faces and I’m not sure of their voices. I’m only sure of one thing. I want to get this horrible dead bone away from me!”
“We could be wasting our time,” Mark said. “Maybe they don’t know you’ve got it.”
It was five o’clock. Mark was sitting on Camrose’s desk chair, busy with a handheld electronic game. Camrose was sitting on the bed with her pen and notebook, trying to write down what happened in the ghost house.
“I bet they know. But I can’t decide which of them should have the flute. I wish I could just throw it away.”
A clinking sound came from behind the closet door. Wire hangers swinging, hitting each other.
Mark bounced from his chair and Camrose leaped from the bed. They exchanged pale-faced looks. Mark nodded, and Camrose yanked open the door.
“You!”
“Surprise, Keeper!” Miranda was squatting with her toes curled around the hanger bar.
“How did you get in there?”
“I get around. I see you found it.”
“Does this mean they know where it’s hidden?”
“No. But they know you’ve got it. Now everybody waits for you, including me.”
Camrose set fists on hips. “Okay, if you’re so anxious for me to decide, you can help. I need to know what’s going to happen to Diarmid if I give Terence the flute.”
“You know the story.”
“He swore to make Diarmid dance in the outer darkness forever,” Mark said. “Whatever that means.”
“Mmmrr.” Miranda’s lips curled back from her teeth. She jumped down from the bar and prowled around the room.
Camrose closed the closet door and leaned on it. “It means something bad, anyway. Could he do it?”
“Course he could. In his land everything has two faces, every light makes two shadows, and there’s a back door to everywhere.”
“Door. What does that make me think of? Oh, I know. That time by the river, today,” Camrose said slowly, “he made me see his father’s hall in the Otherworld.”
“So that’s why you were looking so out of it,” Mark said.
“I guess I was. Anyway, it was a big beautiful room, but there was a door there that … ” She shivered. “It looked like they hoped it wasn’t going to open any time soon. Miranda?”
“What?” Miranda was scrunched in the corner next to the desk.
“Do you know anything about a do—”
“Brutal thing?” Miranda croaked. She slid down the wall. “Strong, all bound about with bronze, locked tight, guarded?” The lower she slid, the more she shrunk.
“That’s it! Where does it go?”
“Nowhere,” Miranda whispered.
“But how can that be?”
“Take it easy.” Mark frowned at Camrose. “Can’t you see how scared she is?”
Miranda was not much more now than a quivering heap of fur. “The door,” she muttered from under her hair. “It goes Nowhere. To the place where Nothing is. The Void.” She drew a hissing breath and whispered, “The Outer Dark.”
In the silence that followed, Camrose thought she heard an answering whisper somewhere far away, like a cold wind in a stony place. Mark glanced around uneasily.
“If Terence gets the flute,” Camrose said, “he’ll send Diarmid through that door. How can I let that happen?”
“So, give the flute to Diarmid,” Mark said.
“But if I do that, Terence might hurt … Bronwyn, and … and other people. If only there was somebody we could tell!”
“Like who?”
“My dad. I could phone … ” No, she couldn’t. She’d tried again in the last hour, once from a pay phone downtown and once from Mark’s house. That time Mark tried to make the call. Same result.
“Anyway, what makes you think he’d believe you?”
“He would, that’s all!”
“Never. Not even my Uncle Wes would believe. He’s cool about a lot of things, but he wouldn’t understand about this.”
“If only my dad was here and seeing it all for himself! If only he … ” Light dawned. “Okay!” She threw herself at the closet.
“What?”
“What do you think?” She pulled armloads of clothes off the bar and dumped them on the floor. Then lifted the loose steel clamp and swung the bar off its wooden bracket.
“Cam, what’re you doing?”
“What did that rhyme say? I bring the blood back to the bone … ” The bar was hollow. Camrose reached inside and pulled out something wrapped in a white gym sock. Then she replaced the bar on its bracket.
Miranda was hovering at her shoulder. “It says, ‘I call the blood back to the bone, I call the spark back to the stone, I call the heart back to its own, I call the wanderer home.’ And it isn’t a rhyme, Keeper. It’s a spell. One of the strongest.”
“Good. I’ll bring him home myself.”
Mark looked worried. “I don’t know. In the story they said it was an evil thing.”
“Listen to him, Keeper, he talks sense!”
“Oh, that was just in the story.” The more they tried to warn her off, the more they irritated her. “Look, if nothing happens, fine. If it does work … Well, Dad will be here, all of a sudden, all the way from Nova Scotia, and then he’ll have to believe, won’t he?”
She sat on the bed cross-legged, the flute in her hands. It was nothing like what she’d pictured from the story of Diarmid the bard. It was brown and stained and looked exactly like what it was: an old bone, about ten inches long, with holes in it. You could see where someone had carved something, but the carving had worn down to a spiral line of scratches.
“Just a bone, after all,” she muttered. But it wasn’t just a bone. It was cold as the earth under a rock and heavy enough for three bones. She didn’t like touching it.
For courage, she thought of her father. She pictured him sitting at the kitchen table, waving a finger as he argued with Bronwyn over something on the six o’clock news. “Bring him home,” she murmured. “Home.” She took a breath, raised the flute to her mouth … then put it down and exhaled.
“Wait, let me think.”
“Nobody’s stopping you,” Miranda growled.
“Suppose I bring him home, and he believes me, and he tries to do something about Terence, and then Terence … Maybe it’s not such a good idea.”
It gave her a funny feeling when she realized what she was doing. Protecting her father. Wasn’t he supposed to protect her? A strange, lonely feeling.
“If only we could find those three women,” Mark said. “Those Wyrde. You could just hand the flute back to them.”
“They won’t come,” Miranda said from her new perch on top of Camrose’s dresser. “They don’t interfere. They’re not allowed.”
“Not allowed?” Camrose laughed. “Who’d boss them around?”
“That would be te
lling—a lot more than I’m allowed.”
“I bet you don’t know.”
“I know this, as Keeper it’s your job, and you have to do it, not me. You’re the one with the powers.”
“Powers?”
“Powers?” Mark echoed.
“Me? What powers have I got?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Miranda interlaced her stubby fingers and recited, “The powers of the Keeper are these: plain sight, far sight, insight and foresight. And unfolding from these gifts of sight, judgement: the power to decide. There.”
“You’re kidding. When did I ever see … ” Camrose stopped, remembering the burning house.
“Just now, when you decided not to call your father home, that was insight.”
“And today when I saw what Terence really looks like?”
“Plain sight.”
“And when I saw that door?”
Miranda flinched. “Far sight.”
“Powers.” Mark gave Camrose a strange look and stepped away from her. The desk chair caught him behind the knees and he sat down.
Camrose pushed the flute on the coverlet with her foot. “Well, my insight tells me Mark’s right. If I could hand those Wyrde the flute, everything would be okay. You could tell they could handle Terence and Diarmid rolled up in one, no problem.”
“But how can we get to them?” Mark asked.
“Maybe the flute would call them.”
Miranda shook herself. “You’re asking for trouble. That thing has a will of its own.”
“I’ll be careful.” Camrose grabbed the flute and raised it to her mouth again. “Now, how do I do this?”
“I won’t help.”
“Cam, I really think you better not.”
“I’m telling it where I want to go.” Camrose shut her eyes and said firmly, “Take me back to the beginning of this story.”
She took a breath, then another, and blew gingerly into the flute. Out came a sour squeak that made Mark grimace, but nothing else happened. “Do I have to play a tune? Miranda?”
Miranda turned her back.
A breeze, cool after the storm, swirled in through the window and over her hands. The flute whined. The room blurred.
When her vision cleared she was standing at the window, looking out. In the yard below the gates were open, and a man was riding in on a path of sunset light, like a hero out of a tale.
18
Rhianna’s story
The guest rode up from the loch and in through the west gate at sunset. The sun laid down a golden highway through the gate and across the middle of the courtyard, and along that shining path rode Diarmid, fair as the hero of one of his own songs.
The window of Rhianna’s room was a perfect place to watch people arriving. Rhianna could see almost the whole front courtyard. Behind the bard on his tall gray horse walked a man leading a mule. Man and mule were equally loaded down.
“Presents for you, lots of them!” Alaric pushed his head under her arm so he could get a bit of window. “And some for me too, maybe.”
“Looks more like bedding. Maybe he doesn’t trust ours.” She watched Diarmid, noting every detail. He was both handsome and young, so far as she could tell from here. He moved like a young man, dismounting with ease, and his hair caught the light and swirled like pale fl ame to his shoulders.
Shiny things all over him and his belongings reflected the warm light. His horse’s bridle and saddle winked with gold and so did the strap of a big leather bag he lifted from the horse and slung over his shoulder. It was the one thing he carried himself. His harp, no doubt.
“He looks rich,” Alaric said. “The king must really favor him. Did you know he can sing the deer out of the thickets?
It’s true! He can lure them out to the hunters’ bows, just by singing. Ned said so.”
“That doesn’t sound very fair to the deer.”
Alaric laughed, but Rhianna hardly heard him. She was still watching the courtyard. Her father was out there now to welcome the guest. They’d just turned toward the house together when the servant clumsily let slip some strap on the mule and a pack fell to the stones with a crash.
Quicker than you could blink, Diarmid turned back and cuffed the man to the ground. His head hit the paving stones. Rhianna heard the thud.
Her father put out a hand in protest, but Diarmid laughed, a clear sound that rose like a musical scale to Rhianna’s window. He took her father’s arm and they walked into the house, disappearing from her view. The servant lay still.
A moment later old Ned from the stables ran across the courtyard and knelt beside the fallen man. He helped him sit up. His eyes were open now, but there was blood on his face.
A babble and bustle broke out in the room behind her and her mother rushed in with two maids and an armload of clothes.
“He’s here! Alaric, off you go and put on a clean tunic, that one smells of the stable. Rhianna, come away from that window and off with that dress. Quick now! Sara, where’s that comb? Child, your hair’s a rat’s nest! Never mind, tomorrow you’ll outshine the queen. I suppose that’s what you’ve been daydreaming about. There now, stop shaking. Wait till you see him. He looks like a prince!”
This time tomorrow, Rhianna would be Diarmid’s wife. She bent her head against the pull of the comb and thought of Alaric’s tale of the deer. In her mind’s eye she saw them flicking their ears and stepping delicately from their thickets, following the lure of a song, never seeing the archers.
That night the old hall looked brighter than it had since they celebrated Alaric’s birth. In honor of the guest, candles burned in all the sconces, and the best silver and linen decked the high table. Someone had even taken a long pole and cleared the cobwebs from the corners of the ceiling. Rhianna wore her second-best dress and her best gold pin, and felt as well decked out as the table, and for the same purpose.
They sat Diarmid at her father’s right hand, with Rhianna facing him. “Well, well, well,” he said slowly. “Hair of the true red-gold, eyes like the sea, fairest maid in all the west country. So they say, and I see it’s no lie.”
Rhianna’s mother beamed. Her father smiled absently, as if he were calculating something. Perhaps, thought Rhianna, he’s figuring by how much he can reduce my dowry.
She was glad custom required her to look sweet and say nothing. She could not have spoken a word for all the king’s gold, not with Diarmid’s eyes on her face. Eyes as gray and cold as a winter sky.
“So far, I’m pleased,” he told Rhianna’s father without look–ing at him, a small piece of rudeness that lit a spark of anger inside her. “But is she fit to live at the king’s court? I promise, I won’t take it lightly if she shames me.”
“Fit?” Her father scratched his beard. “Well, she can sew, and, um … ” He looked helplessly at his wife, who started in briskly, as if she’d only been waiting for this cue.
“She can spin, weave and sew like an angel. She can ride and hawk. She can make elegant conversation. She can read and write. And,” she added triumphantly, “she can play the rebec, the flute, and the lap harp.”
“Wait, back up a bit.” Diarmid waved a hand as if brushing away flies. “Did you say read and write?”
“I did,” Rhianna’s mother said proudly.
“What nonsense!” He laughed his musical laugh. “Whatever possessed you to waste such learning on a girl?” Then he frowned. “And she plays, you say?”
“Like an archangel,” said Rhianna’s mother, a little defiantly now, but still proud.
“All right, let’s hear her. Go get her … hmm … her flute. Let her play for me.”
Play? Rhianna nearly choked. Me play for the king’s bard?
He smiled back at her, his eyes still cold.
Rhianna’s mother sent a servant, an old gray-haired man who hobbled from side to side as he walked, to get the flute. Rhianna couldn’t remember ever having seen him before. Perhaps he’d come from one of the farms.
While she
was still lulling her mind with these thoughts, the better to keep her courage, the flute lit down in her hands and the old man backed away to the wall. Rhianna took a deep breath, then another, to still her shaking hands. She raised the flute to her lips.
One quavering note, a second sweeter one and a third, strong and true, and she was up and away. The music lifted her on wings and all fear left her. The quick notes chased each other laughing under the high ceiling, and except for Rhianna’s playing the hall was silent.
When the last note died into the candlelight, she knew she had never played so well. She looked at Diarmid, hoping to see him warmed and softened.
But his eyes were colder than December seas. “No.” He shook his head. “It won’t do.”
Rhianna’s father looked bewildered. “I don’t understand,”
her mother said.
“Of course you don’t,” Diarmid said. The contempt in his voice lit another spark of anger in Rhianna. “I can’t have my own wife showing me up! Can’t you hear the jokes? ‘The best bard in all the land—except for his wife.’ No, there’ll be one musician in my household and one only.”
“What … ?” Rhianna forgot herself and spoke. “What are you telling me?”
“I’m telling you there’ll be no more music from you. Is that understood, my lady Rhianna?”
She shook her head slowly. He might as well have told her there’d be no more air to breathe, no sun to shine tomorrow. Then she knew, all at one blow, what he meant to take from her.
“I know this. I’ll never marry you, never!”
She was standing, her bench overturned behind her, and her mother was clucking over her, and her father was shouting, and Alaric was looking from her to Diarmid with tears in his eyes.
In the midst of the uproar came a breath of silence and the whisper of the lame old servant, soft in her ear, “Take heart.” It was a brave kindness. She was careful not to look at him.
Diarmid said nothing. He sat and sipped his wine and smiled. When the noise died down he lifted his cup to Rhianna. “I’m still pleased with my bargain. She’s headstrong, but I know ways of dealing with that. In a year you won’t know the child, I promise.” Rhianna’s father looked relieved.