by Joan Aiken
"Shouldn't you go and ask at the house first? He may be there?"
"But as we are here—in the grove—with dogs—"
"Oh, very well!"
In truth, Harriet felt slightly uneasy at allowing the use of the dogs—who, after all, did not belong to her—for this unprogrammed purpose. Suppose the dragon was warlike? Irascible? Suppose some harm came to the dogs?
But Mark was definitely interested in the possibility of finding a dragon in Nightwood Copse.
"Let's go!” he said, parked his oboe in the Chinese police car, and relieved Harriet of four of her charges—she had hooked them onto their leads again while they were being approached by the car.
"I make a signal,” said Captain Thing, and he took from his pocket an elegant little metal triangle the size of a playing-card and struck it with a slender metal rod. The resulting ping! could only just be heard—but it was heard, for it was followed by an instant's total hush in the wood, and then by a soft and wondering chorus of chirrups, whistles, tweets, twitters, coos, croaks, carols, and warbles.
Captain Thing listened to these so attentively that Harriet wondered if in China the police ran Schools of Listening for their recruits. He repeated the signal—twice—and the third time, after the birds had finished their responses, held up a finger, and said, “Hark!"
Harriet thought she heard a faint sound, between a croak and a bleat.
"Ah!” Captain Thing beamed in triumph. His colleague gave an emphatic nod. “That is S'an Ch'in. But he sounds weak—not well—not in good order. It is well time we came.” He glanced at the group of dogs and his eye fell on the Jack Russell, who was straining at the leash and looking very alert and keen.
"Come. We follow him."
The Jack Russell—whose name was Mickey—led the six other dogs and four humans along a difficult, bumpy, muddy, and tangled trail across the patch of brambly woodland to the river that divided it in half.
"Is there a bridge?” inquired Captain Thing.
"Only a fallen tree—but the river isn't deep,” Mark assured him. “You can wade it."
Captain Thing looked less than eager at this suggestion, and began to make his way upstream along the mossy and rocky bank. The river—hardly more than a brook—was clear and fast-running with small islands in it that were merely grass-grown rocks, and sandbanks that would be submerged when the stream was at its winter level but were now dry and clear.
On one of these lay a small dragon.
It would be plain, even to person who had never seen a dragon before, that he was not in good health. His scales, which ought to have been crisp and shining green, were grayish in colour, damp and limp, like those of fish that have lain too long at the fishmonger's.
"S'an Ch'in!"
The little dragon bleated. It was a faint, pitiful sound. He opened one gummy eye. Then—as if he could hardly believe what he saw—he opened the other eye and feebly raised his head. A wispy flicker of pale flame spurted from his nostrils.
Simultaneous volleys of Chinese admonitions poured from Captain Thing and Professor Wrong. Plainly they were urging the dragonlet to save his strength, not to overexert himself. Professor Wrong pulled a little silver flask from his pocket, scrambled down the bank to where the dragon lay, and tipped its contents onto the long pale tongue and in among the curved razor-sharp fangs.
"Ginger cordial,” murmured Captain Thing. “Best by far for sick dragon."
The dogs, meanwhile, were evidently thunderstruck and wholly discomposed at the sight of this creature that had turned up in their accustomed playground. They stood in a row like a firing squad, panting, tongues lolling out, eyes trained on the dragon, as if they were waiting for a word of command. Harriet was thankful that Bobbie-Dob had been left in the police car.
Professor Wrong now unpacked from his knapsack a kind of canvas carry-all, and into this he and Captain Thing carefully and tenderly rolled the dragon, who was about the size of a well-grown twelve-year-old boy. He had been chained to some tree-roots on the bank; Captain Thing, with an expression of total disapproval, brought out a pair of metal-cutters and snipped through the chain.
"Who can have done that?” exclaimed Harriet. “What a foul thing to do!"
"The Lady Havergal, no doubt,” said Captain Thing. “Or her husband."
"But why should they want to steal a dragon? And keep it tied up?"
"You want a Himalayan bear,” Mark pointed out. “Some people want dragons."
"And pay much money for them,” nodded Captain Thing. “The lady may be a dealer in dragons."
He and Professor Wrong now hoisted their reclaimed property up the bank, gave him another dose of ginger cordial, and carried him slowly, and with pauses to take breath, back to the car.
Here Mark and Harriet were amazed to see that Bobbie-Dob, who had just woken from his drug-induced nap, did not fly at the young dragon and tear him to shreds, but treated him with the utmost affection, licked him all over, and then lay down close beside him in the back section of the police car.
"He was a House Father in the dragon sanctuary. So it is often arranged if the dragon's own parent is not at hand. Dragons lay eggs, you know, and leave them buried, like crocodiles.—Now we leave you and return to China."
"But—but aren't you going to go and see Lady Havergal-Nightwood—tell her off—arrest her?"
"What need? She will be her own punishment. That will soon overtake her. Our need was to recover our dragon—help him back to good health. I thank you for your assistance—most timely."
Captain Thing got into the driver's seat, started his engine, and did a neat three-point turn.
"You're going to drive all the way to China? Won't that be a bit much for the dragon?"
"Ah! No! Him we send by plane—we radio for an ambulance plane for dragon and carer-dog.” Captain Thing raised his hand in salute, and the white car departed round a curve in the track.
"Oh dear,” said Harriet. “Now we have to break the news to Lady Havergal-N that she has lost her dragon and dog. And that we know all about her wicked dealings."
"I'll do that,” said Mark, who looked as if he quite relished the prospect. “You had better take the dogs back to their owners—they'll be wondering where on earth you have got to."
"That's true. I'll see you back at home."
As it turned out, Harriet arrived home long before Mark.
"D'you know what,” he said, hungrily applying himself to a late supper when he came in. “Sir James Havergal-Nightwood had been dead for weeks, sitting there in that old Morris car. The milkman spotted him in the end. Lady H left him there because of the inheritance quarrel. She wanted to be sure it was he and not the brother who got the house. But the brother turned up from some island in the Indian Ocean and was in a great rage about it."
"Why did she want the house?"
"She wanted a house with a wood to keep the dragon in."
"So she kept the dragon in the wood and her husband in the car. No wonder she didn't want builders about the place."
"Oh dear,” said Mrs. Armitage, “I do hope we get some nice people in Nightwood Park Hall next time."
The back doorbell rang and Lady Havergal-Nightwood popped her head round the door.
"Dulling Mrs. Armitage! You were going to teach me the Chinese Dragon patience."
Mrs. Armitage was rather flustered.
"Oh! Dear me! So I was! But I thought you had left the village?"
"I moved into Mrs. Hipkin's Bed and Breakfast. But now do, do teach me that game. I do so want my heart's desire!"
"And what is that?” asked Mrs. Armitage, leading the way into the sitting-room with a slightly disapproving expression. She took three packs of patience cards from the games cupboard.
"Aha! I mustn't tell you that, dulling, or I shan't git it!"
"Well, I hope she doesn't get it!” whispered Harriet to Mark in the kitchen as they washed up the supper dishes. “She doesn't deserve to. Look at all the trouble she's caused. And h
er husband dead all that time! What did he die of?"
"Fatigue and heart-failure, the police doctor said. After driving all the way back from China."
"So she just left him in the car. What a pig!—Do call me Piggy!” Harriet giggled, wiping down the draining-board.
In the sitting-room they could hear Mrs. Armitage saying patiently, “No, the seven of spades may not be moved until the covering three cards are taken away...."
At half past nine she called: “Children! Can you kindly make Lady Havergal-Nightwood and me some cocoa?"
At half past ten Mr. Armitage came into the kitchen and hissed furiously: “Isn't that perditioned female ever going to leave?"
At half past eleven he stomped into the kitchen again, carrying a brandy bottle.
"Why aren't you two in bed, may I ask?"
"We were just watching the end of the eleven o'clock news, Dad. A stolen dragon has been returned to a dragon sanctuary in north China. Isn't that good?"
At ten minutes to midnight Mrs. Armitage called her husband excitedly. “Gilbert, Gilbert! I believe it's going to come out!"
Rather skeptically, Mr. Armitage and his two children left the warm kitchen and went into the sitting-room, where the large sewing-table was completely covered with cards in a complicated and curving pattern. The atmosphere in the room was tense, fraught, and breathless.
Mr. Armitage looked over his wife's shoulder, said, “Gad! There! I see how you can do it—take that nine across onto the eight—then that frees the Queen of Spades—"
"So it does! Cliver Mr. Armitage!” Lady Havergal-Nightwood gave him a beaming smile and adjusted a couple of cards.
"That's it! You did it!"
"I have! I have! I have done it! Now I shall get my—"
A strange, puzzled expression came over Lady Havergal-Nightwood's face. Her hands, which had been up in the air, dropped to her sides. Her mouth fell open. Her eyes grew fixed. Then her knees buckled and she folded “like a concertina,” as Mark said afterwards, and fell to the floor.
"Oh dear, she has fainted from the excitement,” said Mrs. Armitage. “I'll fetch the smelling-salts—if I can ever find them."
She started for the door. But her husband, stooping over the unwelcome guest, said, “Don't bother, salts won't help. Better phone the doctor. She's dead."
"Oh goodness gracious me! Now she'll never have her heart's desire."
And serves her richly right, thought Mark.—Something whizzed past his head.
"Oh, no!” cried his mother. “Here's that dratted robin got in again! Where can it have come from? Open the window, Harriet, and shoo it out. We don't want the doctor to think we live in a madhouse—"
Harriet captured the robin in a rush fishbasket, opened a window, and cast it out.
"And don't come back!” she told it. “If you are who I think you are!"
"Where did it come from?” said Mark. “All the windows are shut."
Harriet said: “—I've changed my mind. I don't want a Himalayan bear. Better it should stay on Mount Everest.—Oh bother it!"
"Now what?"
"That wretched woman never gave Mother and me our wishes!"
[Back to Table of Contents]
Don't Go Fishing on Witches’ Day
* * * *
* * * *
Mark whistled as he cycled along the narrow country road through the cool early morning air. The tune he whistled was well known in his village—"Don't go a-fishing on witches’ day, on witches’ day, on witches’ day, Don't you go fishing on witches’ day unless you take me along, too...."
"But when is Witches’ Day?” Mark wondered. “Hallowe'en? St. Wenceslas? St. Swithin's? Midsummer? And who was the “me” in the song?"
"Harriet would be sure to know,” he thought. His sister Harriet was into all that kind of stuff. She did courses in curses, in philtre-making, potion-brewing, astrology, incantation, and hoodoo; her ambition was to graduate into witchcraft like some old great-aunt on Dad's side of the family. Harriet would have come along with him this morning had it not been for a radio programme on BBC 13 about blessings and curses and ever-filled purses that she specially wanted to catch; the witchcraft programmes on BBC 13 were always at five o'clock in the morning. Mark was not normally up this early but he wanted to get to Herringbloom Ponds and cast an eye—and a fishing-line—over them before his father went and bid for them at an auction which was due to start at nine o'clock.
"Three beautifully situated carp ponds with adjacent ruined mansion,” said the Estate Agents’ brochure, under a picture of a blue stretch of water reflecting the branches of green arching willow trees.
"Bless my soul!” Mr. Armitage had exclaimed at breakfast the day before. “Bless my soul, my dear, see here in the local paper, Herringbloom Ponds come up for sale at last. Great-aunt Marianna's curse must have run out at last. Or lifted, or whatever curses do when they die down."
His family, munching toast, looked at him with interest.
"Great-aunt Marianna? Who was she?"
"My father's aunt. Lived with her cousin Victoria in Herringbloom Lane, beyond Froxfield. And there was some quarrel with Marianna's brother Wilfred—he was younger, but he claimed he should have inherited the ponds."
"Why?” asked Harriet.
"Because he was a male. And because he said they were witches, not eligible to own aquatic properties. There was a great family feud about it. But Wilfred mysteriously vanished. And, after that, the old ladies’ house burned down."
"What happened to Marianna and Victoria?"
"Died in the fire. But Marianna was heard to say with her expiring breath that, because of Wilfred's unbrotherly behaviour, no man should ever cast a fly over the ponds without incurring doom and dole—or some such tarradiddle—she laid a curse on the water and foretold that anybody who fished in it should something-or-other—"
"Would what?"
"I really forget. Fish in peril of his life, perhaps."
"And did the curse work?” asked Harriet eagerly.
"Well, I don't believe the ponds have changed hands more than a couple of times in the last fifty years,” Mr. Armitage said. “Old Miss Shelmerdene bought them from the estate, but she did nothing with them—I'm sure she never went fishing—she never lived in the house, it became more and more of a ruin—and then Sir Robert Pope-Nottingham bought the land—come to think, he hasn't been around for the last fifteen years—"
"So perhaps the curse is still working?” Harriet looked hopeful. “Where exactly are Herringbloom Ponds, Father?"
"About fifteen miles from here, other side of Froxfield Green. I've a good mind to make an offer for them myself. The sale's tomorrow."
"Oh, do. Do!” Harriet's eyes sparkled at the possibilities which opened before her.
Mark had not taken much part in this conversation, but he had listened hard. Mark was not particularly interested in curses, but just now he had a great passion for fishing, and he was keenly attracted by the thought of Herringbloom Ponds. If no one had fished them for fifty years, what treasures might those waters not hold? There was a local prize for the most uncommon catch brought in before St. Swithin's Day, and Mark thought that Herringbloom Ponds might produce just what he needed to win it. But, on the point of urging his father to buy the ponds, he remembered that Mr. Armitage was also a keen angler, so kept quiet.
And now here he was, out on Midsummer Morning when all the woods and fields were bathed in clear daylight at 4 a.m. and the sun was just readying itself to rise.
"In a minute,” thought Mark, as he pedalled along the road to Froxfield Green, “all the trees will have long shadows stretching westwards.” The road was bordered by some young copper-beech trees, planted by Sir Robert Pope-Nottingham, owner of Froxfield Manor, before he failed to come home one evening and was never seen again.
Next minute the sun did rise, over Badger's Hill, and the shadows of the young beeches, and Mark on his bike, all cast themselves forward along the road. And, on either si
de of his own shadow, Mark noticed two others, tall gaunt skinny shadows, keeping pace with him on his bike.
He stopped pedalling, put a foot on the ground, and looked sharply behind him.
Nobody was there. And the shadows had disappeared. But as soon as he got back into the saddle and rode off, the shadows reappeared, keeping pace with him.
* * * *
Harriet, meanwhile, was in her bedroom listening to BBC Radio 13. A paragraph of instructions in the Radio Times had said, “Listeners will benefit by supplying themselves beforehand with three different recordings of J. S. Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, BWV 903. These should be played at intervals of five minutes, overlapping, while the programme is going on."
Fortunately Harriet's bedroom was an attic at the top of the house, for the noise made by three different recordings of Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, all started at different times, was very complicated indeed. But Harriet had grown accustomed to it.
"Time is progress,” said the radio voice. “A leaf grows, then withers. A flower opens, then fades. But the music that you are hearing now is not affected by time. It can be played at different speeds, on different instruments. It remains itself. Similarly, other activities can be undertaken without regard to time. Step outside the frame of time and you acquire power—power to move mountains, to plunge deep into the matter of existence, to cross immense divides of space, to go forward, backward, sideways."
Harriet listened with great concentration. She was taping the talk so that she could play it again. “Maybe I should make three different recordings of the talk and play them again at different speeds,” she thought.
"You have been listening to a talk by Regina Queenscape, Countess of Nearly Nowhere,” said the announcer. “It is one in our series of programmes for student necromancers and beginners in auspication; the next in the series will be at the same time on August 1...."