Song for a Scarlet Runner

by Julie Hunt

  I wondered why she was bothering to patch me up when I was going to be killed.

  ‘Of course, they’ll all want a piece of you once we get back to the huts,’ she said. ‘But you’re mine. I found you. You were caught in my trap, so it’s up to me whether I share you or not.’

  I shuddered and closed my eyes. I might as well have stayed at the Overhang to meet my fate, rather than come all this way only to be taken by swamp hags.

  ‘How dare you call us that!’ The woman grabbed my wrist. ‘I’ve a good mind to let you wander off into the Far Reaches. We’re marsh aunties, not swamp hags and my name is Eadie!’

  She was silent for a while. When she spoke again she had calmed down. ‘I suppose you’re delirious, poor little sod.’ The marsh auntie sat down heavily on the ground beside me. ‘What’s this?’ she asked, picking up my cow charm.

  ‘That’s mine.’

  ‘Ah, so you speak aloud as well as to yourself.’ She held up the charm. ‘A cow herder. Where are you from, girl?’

  ‘Skerrick.’

  ‘Can’t say it rings a bell. Now this is more interesting!’

  Eadie held up the tobacco pouch. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I was hanging upside down. ‘You’ve come from Amos Last!’ she declared.

  She passed me the charm and pulled a long curly pipe from somewhere inside her coat. She began stuffing it with the tobacco.

  ‘He’s all right, Amos,’ she said. ‘He could be a mud uncle if he tried. But he’s under the thumb of that wife of his. Do you know she has lived on the edge of the marshes all her life and she’s never seen a skiff?’

  I wasn’t listening, because I was staring at her pipe. It was made of bone! A thigh bone or an arm bone.

  ‘Yes, it’s a humerus,’ she said. ‘Do you know what a humerus is?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘It’s the name of the bone. Funny, don’t you think?’

  I didn’t think it was funny at all.

  ‘This bit is the humerus,’ she said, pointing to the stem of the pipe, ‘and the rest is made of pipe clay. Myriad makes them. She makes pots as well. You’ll meet her at the Welcoming.’

  She lit the pipe with the torch, sucked on it and blew a thin trail of smoke into my face.

  ‘Imagine never seeing a skiff in all your life. They’re scattered around like seed pods. They’re everywhere you look. And when it rains and the tracks flood, they all float inland on the tide. That Last woman is thick as a ditch.’

  Eadie sucked on her pipe again and blew out three little boat-shaped puffs of smoke, which sailed into the night.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked.

  ‘My leg is tingling under the bogwort, and it’s not hurting me now.’

  ‘We’ll need a splint to get you home, then tomorrow I’ll collect the bindweed. It’s marvellous for bone-setting.’

  She puffed on her pipe and leaned back. ‘Just listen to those frogs,’ she remarked. ‘All talking at once, and saying the same word over and over. Doesn’t it drive you mad?’

  She seemed to be waiting for a reply. I was trying to think of one when the air was pierced by a scream.

  The marsh auntie put down her pipe and stood up. ‘That’ll be Lily. It serves her right. Stay here. I can’t deal with you at the moment. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.’

  She lumbered away with the torch, leaving me in darkness. I heard her feet squelching in the swampy ground then some branches breaking as she crashed through the undergrowth. If I was going to make a run for it, now was the time.

  I got onto my hands and knees and struggled to my feet. My leg didn’t hurt, but it immediately gave way under me. I crawled towards the water, thinking it might be easier to swim rather than cross the walkway. Getting wet was now the least of my worries. I could hear the marsh auntie shouting.

  ‘I should leave you hanging there. It’s what you deserve.’

  ‘I wasn’t snooping,’ a shrill voice replied. ‘I came here to practise, just like you.’

  ‘That’s a filthy lie, Lily, and you know it. The marshes are endless and you choose the same island as me? Do you expect me to believe that?’

  ‘Believe what you like. Just let me down. The blood is running to my head and ruining my complexion.’

  ‘Let it run to your head. It might feed your brain!’

  I reached the water and was about to crawl in when something flapped overhead. There was a deep honking sound, then wings brushed my face. It was the bird I had seen earlier. And its claws were grabbing at my hair!

  ‘Get out!’ I screamed, waving my hands about my head to fight it off.

  The bird circled then dived for me again. Eadie hurried back, clapping her hands.

  ‘Beat it,’ she yelled. ‘Shoo! Shoo!’

  The bird flew off with a plaintive cry.

  ‘It won’t hurt you,’ she said. ‘It’s just after hair for its nest. Now listen . . .’ She put her face close to mine. ‘I told you to stay put. You’ll undo all the good I’ve done. Do you understand?’

  Her eyes were very dark and I could smell fish on her.

  I nodded. Anything to get her away from me.

  ‘You don’t understand at all. If you wander into the marshes you will get lost and die. Is that clear?’

  I’m going to die anyway, I thought.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But not yet.’

  ‘Let me down!’ cried the voice of Lily in the distance.

  ‘Anyway, it’s your decision. If you wander off and die you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.’ She stood up and sighed. ‘Waifs! They can be so difficult at times!’

  Eadie headed back up the path and I heard snatches of the conversation that followed.

  ‘. . . scarf . . . torn silk . . . ruined . . .’ The shrill voice was lower now, and Eadie was no longer shouting.

  ‘. . . teach you a lesson,’ she said. ‘. . . swamp waif . . .’

  ‘Swamp waif?’ Lily’s voice went up. ‘Show me at once!’ she screeched.

  LILY

  ‘This is my sister, Lily,’ Eadie said gruffly.

  The second marsh auntie was tall and thin and she was wearing layers of some fine fabric that shimmered as she moved.

  ‘It’s called glimmerweb,’ she said. ‘Divine, isn’t it?’

  Her face was pale, and her long fair hair hung to the ground in tendrils. I couldn’t help thinking how unalike the two sisters were.

  ‘That’s because we’re not from the same family,’ Eadie muttered.

  Lily knelt down beside me. ‘Call me Lil,’ she said with a wink. ‘What’s your name, sweetie?’

  ‘Peat.’

  ‘Can you spell it?’

  ‘Of course she can’t spell it,’ Eadie snapped. ‘She’s only just arrived in the marsh.’

  ‘P-e-a-t,’ I said.

  Lily laughed, a high tingling sound. ‘No, spell it,’ she said. ‘Look, I’ll show you how. My name is Lily. Watch me.’

  She put her hands together as if she was saying a prayer. Then she closed her eyes and slowly opened her fingers. For a moment I thought I saw a pale lily opening from a bud. Then she clapped her hands, giving herself a little round of applause.

  ‘You see? Now it’s your turn.’

  I was suddenly very tired. I hadn’t eaten for ages, my leg was broken and I had been in fear of my life for too long. If they were going to kill me, I just wanted them to get it over and done with. I didn’t have the energy for this game.

  ‘We need to find something to make a splint with,’ said Eadie.

  ‘Splint? Why?’ Lily had a breathy way of speaking. Everything about her was light.

  ‘Because the swamp waif is injured and we can’t stay here all night.’

  Lily came closer and looked at me. I could smell some sweet fragrance on her – so sweet that I took a deep breath.

  ‘Like it?’ she whispered. ‘I call it Essence of Limelight.’

  She turned to Eadie. ‘You’ve broken the poor waif’s l
eg. See how dangerous your snares are? That could have been me.’

  ‘It was meant to be you. Come on. Help me find some splint wood.’

  Eadie headed back along the bank and Lily followed, holding her garments up and stepping carefully.

  ‘I’ll take the swamp waif,’ Lily said. ‘She’ll be my apprentice. I’ll teach her to make perfume.’

  ‘She’s mine. I found her and I’m having her.’

  ‘We’ll ask the Great Aunt,’ Lily said airily. ‘She can decide.’

  I heard a branch snap in the dark, and before long the two of them returned. Eadie had split a small tree bough in half. She bound my leg between the two flat sides of the wood.

  ‘Go and get a skiff, Lily,’ she said. ‘Make yourself useful.’

  Lily stepped delicately across the surface of the water. She was on the same walkway the sleek had used.

  ‘And be quick about it,’ Eadie barked. ‘The swamp waif is getting cold.’

  ‘I’m not a swamp waif,’ I said.

  ‘Of course you’re a swamp waif. All children who wander into the marshes are swamp waifs. But most aren’t as lucky as you. Most aren’t found. Swamp waifs grow up to become marsh aunties. But not all marsh aunties were swamp waifs.’

  I closed my eyes, tired of all this talk I couldn’t understand.

  Lily came back with a reed-boat. She and Eadie had just lifted me into it when the honking bird returned. This time it went for Lily. When it clutched a clawful of her hair she squealed and quickly pulled a tiny bottle from the shimmering folds of her dress. While the bird was still pulling her hair, she unscrewed the lid and held it up. The bird immediately let go. Its eyelids drooped and it flapped to the bottom of the boat and sat there with its head under its wing.

  Eadie snatched the bottle. ‘What’s that?’ she demanded.

  ‘Swoon,’ Lily replied. ‘It’s from my latest collection. Like it?’

  Eadie took a sniff. ‘It stinks.’ She handed it back and began paddling vigorously. ‘And what’s more, it doesn’t work!’

  ‘I’m still perfecting it.’ Lily slipped the bottle into her dress. ‘So far it only works on creatures.’ She turned to me. ‘When you are my apprentice, Peat, I’ll show you how to make magical perfumes. Would you like that?’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t. I told you, she’s mine.’

  ‘We’ll ask Hazel,’ Lily sighed, running her hands over her head. ‘I wish I had a mirror. I’m all messed up.’

  She studied one long lock of hair. ‘Really, Eadie. That wretched bird of yours has broken some of my finest strands.’

  ‘It’s not my bird,’ Eadie said sharply. ‘Start paddling.’

  Lily began stroking the surface of the water with a paddle, pausing from time to time to gaze at the patterns she was making.

  ‘Moonshine?’ she wondered. ‘Or perhaps Swirl. It’s hard to know what I’ll call my next perfume. What do you think, Peat?’

  I didn’t answer. The motion of the boat was making me drowsy.

  ‘Can’t you see the waif is exhausted?’ Eadie cried. ‘Leave her alone.’

  I closed my eyes and went to sleep to the sound of the marsh aunties arguing.

  EADIE

  I woke up inside a stilt hut exactly like the one where the sleek and I had stayed, except this was lived in. It was crammed full of shelves and bottles. Bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling, and jars of coloured liquids were stacked against the walls. There was a little stove with a pile of sticks on one side of it and a low table on the other. A jar of everlasting daisies was wedged into a hole in the table.

  The hut had a musty smell. An old hessian bag hung over the doorway, and when I heard a splash I wriggled across the floor and looked out.

  Eadie was sitting on a small walkway below, cleaning fish and throwing the guts into the water, where they were immediately taken by the shag. He dived for them then flapped up onto a post at the end of the walkway, stretching his beak skywards as he gulped them down.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Eadie said, without looking at me. ‘You’re meant to be keeping that leg completely still. I’ll be up in a minute.’

  The hut swayed as she climbed the ladder. She slapped two fish down onto the floor and stood up, wiping her hands on her coat, a knife between her teeth. She reached behind the stove and pulled out a chopping board, then she spat out the knife and chopped the fish into thick chunks, throwing them into a pot. One bit missed and landed under the table.

  How messy the hut is, I thought.

  ‘It’s not a hut, it’s a hide,’ said Eadie.

  And what is she hiding from?

  ‘The other aunties,’ she replied, as if I had asked the question out loud. ‘They’ll all want you, but you’re mine.’

  Suddenly the hut, or hide, tilted to one side and righted itself again. A couple of jars slid off the shelf. Eadie caught one of them. The other smashed to the floor.

  ‘That’s Healbane! Do you know how hard that is to find?’ She glared at me as if it was my fault, then she stirred the pot with a stick. The smell of the cooking made my stomach growl.

  I noticed that my leg had been bound up. The splint was gone, and in its place was some sort of mud pack wrapped around with long green tubing.

  ‘I had to go out early to gather the bindweed stems. You have caused me a lot of trouble. Are you hungry?’ she asked. ‘Here’s your breakfast.’

  Eadie handed me a steaming bowl and I took it eagerly.

  ‘Fish soup and wild marsh rice flavoured with duckweed and charmwort,’ she said. ‘Duckweed will help heal your snide bite, and charmwort will be good for the break.’

  The soup was delicious. I’d never tasted anything like it. Marlie and I had made soup in the Overhang but it wasn’t delicious like this. Eadie refilled my bowl, and it was only when I had finished my third helping that I looked at her properly.

  Her coat was huge and lumpy and sprouting all sorts of greenery. It was made of fur or fleece, and there were bulging pockets all over it. The surface of it was slightly glossy in places, as if it had been slicked with fat to keep out the weather.

  ‘Like it?’ She smiled at me and I saw she had a tooth missing. Her face was wide and her skin looked like polished leather. She had a brown moustache and her eyebrows met in the middle.

  ‘It’s taken me a lifetime to get it to this point.’ She stroked the coat as if it was an animal, and her eyes gleamed with pleasure.

  ‘All the pockets are full,’ she said proudly. ‘And if I need more, they appear.’

  She opened the front of the monstrous coat and I saw that the inside had even more pockets than the outside.

  ‘Isn’t it heavy?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course it’s heavy!’ she said. ‘But I’m very strong. Do you want more soup?’

  I shook my head. Eadie was a lot less frightening in the daylight. She bent down to pick up my bowl, and I had a close look at her hair. It was like her coat – dark and matted, with things growing from it. I recognised a piece of cling-vine.

  ‘Pull it out, will you?’ she said. ‘I haven’t got time to be weeding my hair.’

  She kept her head low. There were other things in her hair as well – seeds, small bones, and some white mess that smelled of fish.

  ‘Shagmuck,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t let that bird land on my head.’

  I pulled out the cling-vine.

  ‘You could wash your hair,’ I suggested, although I didn’t see how that would be possible, because her hair had grown into her coat. It was hard to work out where one ended and the other began.

  ‘My hair doesn’t like water!’ she snorted. ‘Now, I must grind some swamp-balm seed, because your poultice will need changing this evening. I want to get it done before the Welcoming.

  She took a bottle from the shelf and poured some seeds into a bowl, and then she began grinding them with a round stone.

  ‘I have remedies for everything,’ she told me. ‘How old are you, Peat?’

  ‘Nine.’<
br />
  ‘Thought so,’ she said. ‘You’re small for nine. You must have been stunted. Well, there’s no quick remedy for that.’

  ‘Are you a doctor?’ I asked.

  ‘Something like that.’ She added a drop of pale liquid to the seeds and continued grinding. ‘All marsh aunties have the healing skills. Well, they’ve got to be good for something, haven’t they!’ She laughed, and her face crinkled up into a hundred wrinkles. She poured the ground seed mix into a jar and secured the jar to the shelf with string.

  ‘This hide moves,’ she explained. ‘At times it’s inconvenient. There are breakages. That’s why I should always tie my jars to the shelf. But I can’t be remembering everything. Not at my age.’

  I wondered how old she was. She looked ancient, but she moved like someone younger than Wim. Her hands were sure and steady, and she was full of energy.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ she said. ‘And there’s no point in asking the others because they haven’t got a clue. They think they know everything, but they know nothing.’

  Just then I heard voices outside.

  ‘Eadie?’

  ‘Are you there?’

  Eadie crouched down next to the stove.

  ‘Ignore them,’ she said quietly. ‘There’s no skiff underneath the hide. There’s nothing to tell them I’m here.’

  ‘Eadie?’

  ‘She’s not home. Let’s come back later.’

  ‘No, we’d better check.’

  I heard the splash of paddles. The hide shook slightly as something bumped against the stilts.

  ‘Look at the state of her ladder. You’d think she’d do some repairs . . .’

  THE MARSH AUNTIES

  ‘Ah, there you are, Eadie!’

  A face appeared in the doorway – a little crinkly face with keen eyes. The woman was small and wiry. She had a string bag slung over her shoulder and there was a rope coiled around her waist. She stepped off the ladder and took in everything in Eadie’s hide.

  ‘Hazel says you’re to bring the swamp waif at once, and the Welcoming will be held in the Reed House.’