by Andre Norton
“There’s the maze, if we could get in.” Judy bumped heads with Holly, she was so eager to get closer to look at the page. “Grandpa, Grandma, they might know—”
Carefully Holly loosened the plastic page from the album. And, when they heard Grandma’s dinner bell, she carried it with her downstairs. She was already thinking about what she would say when they asked her where she found it. To tell about Tamar’s book—no, she could not do that. But she could say, and it would be true, that she found it folded in the pages of an old book. Grandma knew she had been going through the books on Grandma’s library shelves, and some were very old.
“Shouldn’t think you young’uns ’d want much to eat tonight,” Grandpa said when he had finished saying grace, “seein’ as how you had all those party fixin’s.”
“An’ eat all of ’em did,” Grandma announced. “Not only ourn but all the rest. Seems like young’uns get empty clean down to their toe-tips.
“I was right proud of you,” she continued. “Miss Sarah an’ Mrs. Beach, an’ Mrs. Hawkins, they all came up to me to say as how them costumes of yours were awfully good. Mrs. Dale, she wants the pattern for the cat one, Judy. Says as how they’re fixin’ to give a play at Christmas time with Puss-in-Boots, an’ she never did see such a lifelike-lookin’ cat as you turned out to be. Yes, the party was grand, all of it.”
But to Holly the party was already far in the past. It was the present, and the plan she was working on, which were of the first importance. She waited for Grandpa to finish his soup and start in on his brown bread and jelly. Then she could wait no longer. “Grandpa, does any of the old garden here still show? I know the maze is there all grown up and tight, but the rest of it?”
He took what seemed to Holly an extra long moment to answer. “Well now, it’s hard to tell. There’s some old lilacs, like trees now. But they weren’t planted that long ago. Oaks maybe—I jus’ dunno.”
Holly felt a swift disappointment. If none of the old garden was there, then no one would be interested in keeping it. The maze—there was only the maze left!
“Grandpa, could you sort of tame the maze, find the old way in and out?” She held on to that last hope.
“The maze!” Grandma was staring at her.
But Grandpa looked interested. “Funny you say that right now, Holly. I was goin’ ’round the edge o’ that this afternoon. An’ there was a dead bit which sorta hung out. I don’t know why I gave it a tug, but I did. An’ a whole big lot of it came loose, jus’ like I pulled me out a cork. Inside there was a path, a paved path. It warn’t near as growed together in there as we always thought, neither.”
“Miss Elvery,” cut in Grandma, “she said as how we should keep away from that.”
“Miss Elvery has been gone to her rest a good long time now, Mercy. Anyways—it always looked so dark an’ dismal-like, I didn’t have much use for it. But this evenin’, well, it was different somehow. I got the feelin’, with just a little prunin’ an’ the like, it could be opened up agin.”
Holly reached under the table edge for the sheet of plastic lying on her knees. “Grandpa, I found a kind of map—of how the garden used to be. It was in an old book, all folded up, and just fell out. Look here!”
He took the page and held it closer to the lamp. “I do declare. Mercy, you remember that there book as you found for Miss Sarah, the big one from the Winslow place what they tore down to build the motel ’cross the river? That had all them queer oldish pictures ’bout gardens an’ such. Well, this here might be right outta that.”
Grandma took the page in turn, rammed up her glasses high and hard on her nose. “It sure do look a little like ’em, Luther.”
“I’m going to copy it for my project,” Holly said. “But Grandpa, mazes—they aren’t common in gardens, at least ’round here, are they?”
“Never did hear tell of one ’cept this.”
“Then it would be important to have one to show people,” Holly persisted. “People like the garden clubbers and the Scouts, and the people coming to the Sussex birthday celebration. It says on here that this was made in 1683. That’s almost as old as the town, awfully old—”
Grandpa had stopped eating. He reached out and took the page back from Grandma, holding the sheet quite close to his nose as if to get a better look at every small detail.
“Th’ town meetin’ ”—it was Grandma who spoke first. “Luther, if the maze could be opened an’, like Holly says, showed off right—”
Slowly Grandpa nodded. “It’s a good thought, Mercy. Monday mornin’ I gets me out there to see what good such thinkin’ can do us.”
“You turn right to get to the center,” Judy said.
Holly was scared at her sister’s thoughtlessness. Now they would ask how she could possibly know that. She thought the question was actually forming on Grandma’s lips.
“You know how I know?” Judy continued, making, as far as Holly could see, bad matters much worse. “ ’Cause it’s on the pillow—wait—”
She pushed free of the table, rushed for the stairs, disappearing above.
“Oh th’ pillow, what does that young’un mean?” Grandpa asked. He looked to Holly for an answer and she could not find one. But Judy was coming back so fast, she almost tripped on the stairs. In one hand she held the pillow, which she gave to Grandma, who was the nearest, and with her finger she traced the lines of embroidery. “Look at the picture, then at this! See—they are the same. If you just keep turning right each time, you find the center!”
“I do believe she’s right!” Grandma traced the way with her own finger, then got up to lean over Grandpa’s shoulder to do the same on the plastic above the drawing. “An’ mazes—they is uncommon, Luther. When Mrs. Holmes went with the garden clubbers from Boston on that there tour two springs ago, she told us all about one she saw in Virginia. They thought that was so important, people came from ’way off just to walk through it. They had to pay money to visit it an’ the man who owned the place, he used the money to keep it in shape, hiring gardeners an’ all. Luther, if there be anything th’ Selectmen would relish, it would be a way of makin’ money, ’specially durin’ this birthday week they is so set on havin’. Everybody in town is tryin’ to think of ways to help out. Mr. Correy, he’s goin’ to open th’ old blacksmithin’ part of his shop an’ have a blacksmith there to make things—an’—But you’ve heard ’em all a-talkin’ ’bout this. Now you do some nosin’ into the maze, an’ if you think as how we can make somethin’ unusual, we’ll tell Mrs. Correy an’ Mr. Bill. That’ll give ’em some-thin’ excitin’ to say at the town meetin’! Luther, you take that there picture in to Miss Sarah on Monday. She’ll be excited too. Me, I’m goin’ to tell Mrs. Pigot an’ Mrs. Holmes. She will be sure surprised what we got right here an’ you don’t got to go to Virginia to see, neither!”
Holly felt a shade of disappointment. After all, she had found the garden map, and no one seemed to remember that. Then she thought about the other parts of the plan. She would tell Mrs. Finch and Mrs. Dale. Crock, he could talk to the Scouts. They’d just have to organize, see that plenty of people would go to the town meeting—
She thought it would be hard to get to sleep that night, she had so many things to think about. But it was not. Instead she slipped right into a strange dream, one which she was able to remember in detail when she woke, as one seldom remembers a dream.
She had been in Tamar’s house and it welcomed her; she felt as if she had come home to her own place. Tamar was there, sitting in the tall-backed chair at the table. She did not glance at Holly, or speak to her. Yet the girl was sure that Tamar did know she was there. But what she was doing was so important that she must not be disturbed.
Tamar’s elbows rested on the table, her hands supporting her chin, as she gazed into a mirror which had been laid flat before her. Only, Tamar was not reflected in that mirror, nor was anything else about her. Instead the surface was covered with a silvery cloud which billowed and changed.
&
nbsp; Holly felt the force of Tamar’s will, for she was willing something to happen.
When Holly looked down onto the clouded mirror, it made her feel queer and dizzy, and she could not do it for long. But Tamar sat there so still, you hardly knew she breathed, willing—
The cloudiness became a shape. For a single moment Holly thought she saw a face clear and bright. Then the cloud returned. Tamar sighed, leaning weakly back against the tall support of the chair. Her eyes were closed. Holly longed to go to her. Only, in this dreamworld she was rooted to the floor. That mirrored face—had she really seen, in Tamar’s strange mirror, a small, clear reflection of her father?
How could her father have come to Tamar’s house? Though Holly looked almost wildly around the room now in search, he was not there. But at that moment Tamar’s eyes opened. She looked straight at Holly, catching her own gaze, holding it fast. Holly saw Tamar’s lips shape words. Though she could not hear them, she knew exactly what those words were:
“By all the powers of land and sea,
As I do say, ‘So mote it be.’
By all the might of moon and sun,
As I will, it shall be done!”
Then, again, more slowly, with a pause between each word as if to impress the message on Holly’s memory: “So mote it be!”
Tamar’s hand was raised; her fingers moved in the air tracing a sign which glowed for an instant, as if she had written so with fire. And then—
Holly awoke in her own bed. The dark was complete. Around her were the sounds of the barn-house—as if it reassured itself each night, when no one was awake to hear, that it was still standing sturdy and complete.
Holly’s lips shaped Tamar’s last message. “So mote it be!” She had not a single doubt that she knew its meaning. There would be another telegram. Oh, maybe not tomorrow, or next week, or even next month, but there would be one—a good one, this time. Then their own small world would change again, from the dark Left to the sunny Right. Wherever Tamar now was, she had worked her own magic for Dad. He would be coming home!
However, now it was left to Holly to work magic, too—the magic for Dimsdale. She did not have Tamar’s powers, she had only her own will and whatever she could think of. But as she willed, it should be done!
They did not have a chance on Sunday morning to go out and see the maze. Sunday was church day, again Holly must curb her impatience. She knew also that she could not share, even with Judy, her last dream. Somehow she was very certain that it would break Tamar’s magic if she talked about it.
After they had eaten dinner Grandpa seemed restless. He did not sit down to leaf through his pile of old garden catalogs, which he always did when he was settled for a quiet time.
Grandma asked finally, “What’s got into you, Luther? You’re like a cat on hot bricks. There’s somethin’ a-botherin’ you.”
“I know it’s Sunday, Mercy. But I’ve got me the need to go lookin’ at that there maze. Not to do any work on it, just give it a look. I don’t know why it sticks in my mind this here way, only it do.”
Grandma did not answer him at once. She got up from the chair where she had settled herself with a number of National Geographies to hand.
“Funny you should say that, Luther. Th’ very same thing’s been runnin’ in my mind. All right, suppose we all go an’ take us a look. Tomorrow I’m to fetch some cookin’ herbs over to Mrs. Holmes. Could be if I had somethin’ real to tell her, she’d come out for a look ’fore the town meetin’.”
So they all followed Grandpa to where he had found the break in the maze wall. Holly looked for the two cats on guard. And she was sure, though the brush had grown up a lot, that she could still trace there the old outlines of both. She did not know how they could be drawn to Grandpa’s attention later, or whether he could make anything of them again, but they were there, only waiting to be freed from what had grown about them.
Between those hidden guardians was the entrance, where they could indeed see a paved walk through a tunnel of green, far more open than one would think upon viewing the matted and tangled outer wall. There was nothing alarming or forbidding about that opening, and Grandpa stepped right in.
“Might as well see,” he said over his shoulder, “just how far in we can get. But it’s clearer than outside—”
He took the first right turn. Again the way was reasonably open. It was as if the maze had been waiting just for them to come exploring. Now and then Grandma stopped to stoop and finger a stalk of frost-killed plant or pick up a dried leaf.
“There was a regular wall of lavender here, Luther,” she cried excitedly. “An’ here’s mint, I do believe; an’ that there’s surely thyme! The bushes must give all this shelter. Rosemary—that there’s true rosemary!”
Again they made a turn. At the fourth turn some failure of the growth made the tall cats stand out clearly. Grandpa stopped short to stare at them.
“Now whatever’s here?” he demanded. “Lookit this, all of you: the bushes cut to make them! I never seen th’ like.” Suddenly he paused. “That ain’t quite so—’member that Geographic picture, Mercy? Th’ one about that garden what’s in England where all them bushes were cut up careful to be birds, an’ animals? Tomorrow”—he was clearly growing more excited—”I’m goin’ right in an’ get Mr. Correy. He ain’t no gardener, but he knows ’bout old things. He’ll sure be surprised to see this here.”
“Maybe there’re others,” Crock suggested. “They might be grown over some. If they were to be cut again—”
“Surely!” Grandpa nodded excitedly. “Only it will take some figurin’ how to do that just right, without spoilin’ ’em none. It would have to be done real careful.”
Grandma held her glasses tightly in place as she viewed the brush cats.
“Now that there,” she announced, “wasn’t in that Virginia maze. This beats that other maze all to pieces. Luther, you can get Mr. Correy, but you’ll have to bring out Mrs. Holmes, too. She will sure be taken back to find you don’t have to go clear to Virginia to see this!”
Grandpa seemed reluctant to leave the cats, but Holly urged him on. She was sure that there was no longer any house caught within the maze, but she was eager to see what did lie there now.
Three more turns and they came out into the open. Though there was a thick growth here now, of sere and withered plants, lines could still be traced to show Tamar’s ordered garden. And there was the pool, a small slick of ice still at its bottom.
Grandma fell upon the remains of the plants, excitedly identifying them from brittle leaves, or stalk.
“This was just a big herb garden, Luther. ’Course a lotta what was once here must be dead. But lookit all what kept growin’ all these years. It’s hard to believe it could, Luther, ’cept we know there weren’t no way anyone could get in to plant an’ tend it. Why, we can plant it again. An’ it will be somethin’ as no one hereabouts has ever seen in their born days!”
A hand slipped into Holly’s. She turned her head, Judy was smiling broadly. Crock, his hand holding Judy’s other one, was grinning. Without quite knowing that she said it, Holly whispered, “So mote it be!”
She was as sure at that moment that Dimsdale was safe as she was that someday their father would come. She remembered Tamar’s farewell to them:
“Blessed be!” And she did say that more loudly, but neither Grandpa nor Grandma seemed to hear her. Only Judy and Crock nodded with vigor and certainty that that would come true—Dimsdale was no longer cursed, but blessed.
To Make Tamar’s
Rose Beads and
Other Old Delights
ROSE BEADS
Choose fully open roses with a strong scent; dark red are best. Remove petals only and put these in a strong crockery bowl. Using a heavy utensil (the handle of an all-metal ice-cream scoop is excellent), crush the petals into a thick paste.
Roll the paste into beads, which can then be strung on thread with a sharp needle. Or put them in a small nylon net bag for use in
drawers as sachet. But dry them well first. The fragrance will last a long time.
TASTIES FOR TEA
Take a good-sized, thick-skinned orange and mark the skin with a knife into quarters. Peel these away from the fruit. With the knife, scrape the white inner side of the peel as clean as you can. Then cut into small squares about three-quarters of an inch in size.
Into each square push a stick of clove. And then allow to dry. Keep in a closed tin box or jar. Drop into hot tea for special flavor.
SUGARED MINT LEAVES
Pick mint before the flowers bloom. Select the medium-sized leaves, not the large ones near the bottom of the stem, nor the too-small upper ones. Wash and dry by laying out on a paper towel.
Take the white of one egg and beat it slightly, until it is frothy. Dip the leaves into the egg and then into a saucer of sugar.
Spread on a sheet of foil and put in oven at the lowest degree of heat until each leaf is dry. Keep in tightly closed bottle or jar. These may be eaten as candy, or used to flavor either hot or cold tea.
POMANDER BALL
Select a well-shaped, medium-sized orange. Using Scotch tape, mark it off into halves lengthwise. Get two small boxes of whole cloves.
Using an ice pick, make holes between the tape lines very close together and insert a clove into each until no skin can be seen at all.
Pull off the tape and put ribbon in its place, so that the ball may be hung in a closet if you wish. This will last for a long time and give a fine spicy scent. Pomander balls were often used in linen cupboards.
TOR BOOKS
Reader’s Guide
Lavender-green Magic
ANDRE
NORTON
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The information, activities and discussion questions which follow are intended to enhance your reading of Lavender-Green Magic. Please feel free to adapt these materials to suit your needs and interests.