by J. M. Wilson
At the end of the meadow she came to the edge of a wood.
She didn’t remember seeing the wood when she had been walking.
Then again, she had been concentrating on the sounds of the children.
It was surrounded by a small dry ditch, laced with brambles, set with red berries, not yet ready to eat, and nettles that were setting flowers, ready to seed for next years new growth. It encircled the wood like a small moat.
She supposed that the ditch would fill with water in the winter, or when heavy rains came.
The wood looked old.
Thick vines twisted around the large tree trunks. Vines climbed high into the trees, strangling and choking the host trees, as they grew towards the light. The trees grew tall, and the masses of leaves high up the trunks, shaded the wood from sunlight. The woodland floor was a mass of bracken, twisted bramble, and ripe stingy nettles. The ground was black with mulch, and there was a distinct earthy smell in the air. Tentatively, she scrabbled down the steep ditch side, pulling on the tree roots with her left hand to help herself up. Her hand slipped, and she shot out her right hand to grab at something, anything, to stop herself from falling. Instantly the pain of shredding skin made her let go. She didn’t fall, her left hand had reconnected with the root. She heaved herself up and stepped through the trunks of the trees, into the cool and dark of the wood. The smarting of her hand had her looking at it, as deep red droplets of blood wetted her skin. As if in slow-motion she watched drops of warm blood fall to the ground, splattering and separating from one drop into several, as the blood hit the mulched earth. Ruby heard the sound of her blood hitting the ground, like a flour-bomb hurled at a window. She winced at the sight of the cut, and pulled at a Dock leaf to wrap around her hand .
An earthy smell of dampness hung in the silent still air.
Almost instantly Ruby realized the sounds of the children had stopped.
She must be going the wrong way, was her first thought.
She hesitated with her next thought. Not only had the sounds of the children stopped, all sound had stopped.
No birdsong.
No rustling of the leaves in the trees.
No wind, whistling through them. Nothing. Then, suddenly, with no warning, a swarm of fireflies surrounded her again.
They made no noise.
Dots of light swirled around her head, her body, her legs.
As she hurriedly brushed them away, an overwhelming urge engulfed her.
She felt a tremendous need to leave, an urgency to get out.
Not questioning herself at all, Ruby jumped the ditch.
She was out of the wood and back in the meadow.
Nutty was barking like a mad dog.
She had been unaware that Nutty had followed her, too busy looking for the kids maybe? However, she thought it was more strange that Nutty hadn’t continued to follow her into the wood. Ruby bent down to calm Nutmeg. She stroked her with her good hand,
“Good girl Nutty.” She wouldn’t be calmed though. The darkness and the cold from the wood began to seep towards Ruby and Nutty, chilling Ruby to a shudder. A feeling, a sort of sixth sense, signalled to her. ‘Move away! get away!’
Ruby ushered Nutty to move on.
“Come on then you, Nutta. Let’s get back if you wont shut up.”
She felt like she was in a hurry. There was an urgency to move, move away from the wood. Not knowing why exactly, she moved quickly.
She was thirsty now, hot and slightly annoyed that she had not found the kids she had heard, and Nutmegs barking was becoming a bore. It was not until they had got back to the puddle they had found earlier, that Nutty stopped her constant yappy outbursts.
She ran into Grans kitchen and went to the fridge for a drink. Granddad was still reading the morning paper and Gran was having more toast.
“Granddad, where do the kids play in the meadow?”
She asked her granddad because he walked Nutmeg every day over the fields, so he would probably have seen them.
“I have no idea! I’ve never seen children in the meadows. The odd dog walker, but we’re a bit far out from the village for kids.”
“Maybe,” said Kate to them both, “some of the older kids from the village have come out exploring.”
Then she pondered a second and said.
“Even if that was the case, it’s a bit early for the kids to be out this far at breakfast.”
“Granddad, I’ve seen a swarm of fire-flies and they didn’t scare me. When I was in the wood they surrounded me, and I just brushed them away.”
“You don’t get swarms of fire-flies in this part of the world Ruby, and a wood you say? What wood?
Ernie lowered his paper and looked at Ruby,
“What wood Rubes?”
“Well obviously I don’t know what wood it is, but I followed the meadow till I came to the edge of the wood. I’ve been walking for hours. Nutmeg came with me. Didn’t you notice we’d gone?”
Ruby looked at her grandparents’ blank faces.
“ I know we’re old Ruby Red, but we can still keep track of time. You can’t have been gone more than twenty minutes. Look! I’m still eating my breakfast. Your Granddad’s on his first cup of tea. As for Nutmeg, she’s been nipping in and out.”
Some sort of sick feeling turned in Ruby’s stomach.
Now she felt scared.
What was going on?
Ruby turned to Nutmeg,
“Come on girl,”
Together they both ran full pelt out of the house. Ruby pulled the Dock leaf off her hand as she was running down the garden.
The bleeding should have stopped by now. Stopping her in her tracks, Ruby stared at her hand.
There was no cut.
Not even a scratch.
Ruby ran to the bottom of the garden. Nutmeg was jumping and chatting at her heels. Again Ruby went over the fence, and Nutmeg under. She looked around and tried to get her bearings.
“Left” she said out loud, “We went left Nutty. We walked through the meadow.”
She tried to go the way she thought they had earlier. It was hot and the grasses were dry and prickly as they scratched her hands as she walked through them. Nutty kept her head down, sniffing this way and that, interested in whatever it is dogs are interested in. Ruby felt the full force of gravity as she climbed the long shallow incline of the meadow. Had she noticed that she’d been walking up a hill before? The sky was vast and light blue. There was the odd wisp of cloud, static in the sky. As Ruby came to what appeared to be the top of the hill, she surveyed the land below and beyond.
There was no wood.
Where was the wood? For goodness sake, if there was a wood she should see it from up here, surely!
Confusion, panic and tiredness washed over her as she crumpled to a sitting position in the long grass.
Nutmeg came and sat with her, panting in the heat.
She couldn’t hear any children. She couldn’t see any fireflies, or even swarms of ordinary flies. There was no wood, and her hand had miraculously healed, supposedly in minutes. Was she going mad?
She felt a lump come into her throat, the kind of lump that you get when you are going to cry, only she was not going to cry.
She just did not know what to do?
That night when Ruby went to bed she couldn’t sleep. She knew it was late. She had heard Big Ben chime on the TV downstairs, so it was past ten. Later on she had listened as Gran and Granddad chatted on the landing, readying for bed. The house was still and quiet once they had gone to bed. Ruby got up and went to the window and opened it. She looked out over the garden. Silver sheets of light from the large moon highlighted what it hit, and cast into shadow what the moon’s rays couldn’t touch.
The garden was motionless.
Not a breath of wind at all. Ruby looked out over the moonlit garden and outwards to the meadows in the distance.
Always, she was drawn to the bottom of the garden.
CHAPTER 4
A NEW FRIEND
‘Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small it takes time,
we haven’t time, and to see takes time,
like to have a friend takes time!’
(Georgia O’Keeffe 1887-1986)
Ruby’s body tingled like she was excited and frightened all at the same time. She did in fact feel very very strange, but then she figured she’d been up most of the night hatching a plan.
What would adults call it?
‘Over tired!’
Ruby pulled a chair from under the table, it scraped loudly across the tiled kitchen floor, grating and vibrating, making her grandparents wince.
Ruby slopped the milk over her cereal and ate in a hurry.
“Slow down with that breakfast, you’ll give yourself stomach ache.” Her Gran said. She wasn’t starving.
Ruby just felt like she had to go.
Go to the bottom of the garden. Everything she had done that morning had been rushed. Getting dressed. Getting washed. Brushing her hair, her teeth.
She felt like she was going to be late.
But late for what?
That was the question?
Gran always had toast. Granddad always had porridge. And always, in the centre of the small wooden kitchen table, was a large brown pot of tea, covered with a stained old hat.
Gran called it a tea-cosy. She said it kept the tea warm.
It looked like an old hat that homeless people might wear. When she had finished her coco pops Ruby went over to kiss her grandparents. She was about to embark upon her planned journey. She felt as if she was gliding over to them. This strange feeling was intensifying and a little overwhelming.
“Do you know,” said Kate, looking up into Ruby’s face as she stood beside her.
“ I do believe your growing before my very eyes. That will be a trip into town for more clothes, Bones, for this one.”
“Yep, I guess so” Ernie said as he peered over his paper to check Ruby out.
“Right, I’m off out” Ruby announced, “To the meadows. Come on Nuts”.
She looked down, searching for the dog under the kitchen table.
Then she saw. Her feet were not on the floor, but at least an inch above it.
She was floating!
‘Creepers! What is happening to me’, she thought.
She quickly bent down making out she was moving towards the dog. She willed herself, feet first, back on the floor. The soles of her Converse boots made contact with the tiled floor.
‘Poor Gran’, thought Ruby, ‘no wonder she thought I was growing’.
Out in the garden, and out of sight of her Grandparents, Ruby tried to float.
As she tried to re float herself, willing her feet to move off the floor, she felt like she had brain-ache. Much like the feeling she had when she tried to do a maths question she wasn’t familiar with. It felt just as frustrating too.
Why couldn’t she do it?
She had done it before without even thinking? Had she imagined she had been floating, because she certainly wasn’t now, and couldn’t now, or were things just getting weirder and weirder?
Nutmeg bobbed her head and wagged her tail as she followed her newfound friend down the garden.
Reaching for an old stick, Ruby went over what she had done the day before, when she had found the wood.
‘I had a stick the first time’, she thought, as she jumped over the fence, following her plan.
Again Nutmeg scooted under it.
They walked in the same direction as before, coming to the puddle. She had jumped in the puddle before, so she jumped in it again.
“You didn’t stir the puddle!”
She heard a voice, but didn’t quite hear what was said.
Swirling around to look for the owner of the voice, she could see nothing, and nothing was happening.
She walked around the puddle that practically took up the whole of the narrow mud path.
‘Hmm, think’, she instructed herself.
She walked around the puddle again, this time dragging the stick around its edge.
“Use the key! Turn the key!”
She had heard that voice again.
“Turn the key!”
This time she heard what was said.
“What key?” Ruby whispered, as if talking under her breath.
All the while, her head was searching this way and that, in search of the owner of the voice.
“Where are you? And what key?” She said.
She began looking at the floor for a key. She couldn’t see a flippin’ key!
Frustration built inside of her as she continued looking.
She began hitting the grasses out of the way with the stick, as she not so patiently searched.
Without noticing at first, her hand with the stick in it, began to circle. Then, pointing the stick down to the floor, it, the stick in her hand, began to circle around and around, hitting the weeds and the grasses, making Nutmeg jump out of the way and start barking.
Ruby wasn’t doing this, a different energy was.
Using her other hand, Ruby grabbed at her arm swirling the stick, as she tried to bring it back under her own control.
She heard the voice again,
“The key!”
Then the energy that had moved her arm stopped.
Nothing had actually gripped her arm, but something had connected with her mentally.
It had been a few days now since Ruby had moved into her Grandparents and, as each day passed, things had gotten stranger. She had got stranger. She had seen her mum as a ghost. Floated. Heard voices. Had out of control arm movements, experienced time standing still, and, it seemed, she had cured her granddad’s deafness in his bad ear.
“Here you go young un.” He’d said, passing her an HMV bag. Ruby pulled out the new Mcfly CD.
“It’s the new one Ruby. I couldn’t remember the name of it, but when I said it was like a Scottish bug, Scottish fly name, the lady knew straight away.”
Laughing at her granddad’s lack of street cred, Ruby swiftly moved to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, giving him a squeeze.
“Oh granddad! I do love you.” She whispered into his ear. Quickly jerking away, her Granddad said,
“Steady on Ruby. You’re shouting in my deaf ear. I’m not that deaf you know.”
Since then Ernie had been cracking jokes that Ruby had blown his brains in shouting in his ear, and in doing so had cured his deafness.
Ruby knew she hadn’t shouted, and she knew it wasn’t her who had cured his deafness.
Breakfast time arrived again, and as was the usual, the only thing normal and predictable around here, was her grandparents, who, were once again sat in the kitchen having their breakfast. The kitchen, with it’s low ceiling and terracotta coloured stone floor, it’s large old-fashioned fireplace, and the big black cooker, shining like newly polished boots, warmed the old house. Even though it was the height of Summer, there was a small crackling fire in its grate.
Gran often joked that this was the place where she cooked up all her spells, bringing fairies to life.
She often said to granddad
“Should I get those magic fairies to come and clean that?”
She often chafed when her Granddad had left a mess in the bathroom, or hadn’t cleaned Nutmeg properly when he’d been out on a long muddy walk.
Ruby knew there was definitely something mysterious, and yes, possibly magical going on.
In fact, if she was honest, something very scary was going on around here.
However, she very much doubted her Gran’s spells were responsible!
Indeed Ruby admitted, if the full truth be known, she didn’t know what was responsible for all the weirdness around here.
The mystery of the phenomenal happenings was definitely escalating and becoming ludicrously unbelievable. Ruby knew that if she told anyone she had been floating or hearing voices, or that when she was down the bottom of the garden, time seemingly sto
od still, not only would no-one believe her, but they would actually think she was sick, or going mad? They would probably blame how weird she was, on account of her parent’s accident.
Who knows?
Perhaps she was as loopy as a fruit cereal.
She didn’t know whether she was or she wasn’t, and really she wasn’t bothered. Just getting to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the pull to the bottom of the garden, and what all of this had to do with her mothers secret, whatever that was, was all she could think of right now.
Today, as she had the past couple of days, she would go to the bottom of the garden and once again follow her plan. It wasn’t as if she had a choice. By now she did not feel she had one. It was like being hungry and having to eat, like wanting to go to the toilet, you have to go. That was the pull to the bottom of the garden, and it was getting stronger. Again she would try to re-enact the first day and find out about the wood. She felt she had to work out how she had got to the wood. The wood that appeared to no longer exist. This, for some reason, seemed important.
There was no shooting out of the house and running down the garden today.
Nutmeg did not want to come.
Ruby opened the kitchen door to let them both out and there it was, the ‘Great British Summer’. Rain. Lots of it. It wasn’t fast, but there was a lot of it.
Tiny spits and spots bouncing on the leaves of the trees and bushes, creating the gentle pitter-patter associated with summer rain.
“Come on Nuts!” Ruby pleaded.
If the dog could have talked, Ruby was sure she was saying “No way!”
Nutmeg backed away from the door, lowering her head and skulking backwards under the kitchen table to sit between her master’s legs.