The Riddles of Epsilon

by Christine Morton-Shaw

  A lovely woman—Yolandë perhaps—watching the doctor’s house.

  And a creature with one fang missing, watching the east. Who else could this be but Cimul? The Lord of Inversion, carrying his mirror.

  I checked on the map for what he could be pointing at.

  Coscoroba Rock.

  The place he had fled to in his myth, after he had been cursed. The same rock the tooth had been taken from, snatched from his hand by a porpoise long ago and carried into the depths of the sea.

  The wind touched the nodding grasses around the tower and made them shimmer. Such a peaceful place. Such a strange tower, with terrible stories told in its stone. I remembered something Dad had told me once, about gargoyles. That some believed they awoke at night and left their stone plinths. That they had the power to fly, to cause mischief, but they were always back again by sunrise, to sit the day through in total stillness. Meanwhile the tops of their heads caught the rain and spat it out of their open mouths, down to the ground far below. So they watered the land they watched over, the land they flew out over each night.

  I was glad to get away.

  I was pretty shaky by the time I got to the doctor’s, I can tell you. And it didn’t help when I saw the plaque on the front door—MILTON HOUSE. I remembered the first time I’d seen this name—in Sebastian’s first diary entry. Seb had been taking settles and benches over to Milton House. Which is now the doctor’s place, where the garden fete is going to be held tomorrow, apparently. Then later, we’ll all go down to the beach for a massive barbecue and for the ceremony of the Coscoroba pole. Just like Sebastian did, more than a hundred years ago. Just like people have been doing on this island for hundreds of years before that, even. An ancient tradition. A ceremony. To celebrate what?

  I stared up at the plaque and felt scared. Whatever it was, the Greet was tomorrow. And I sensed that something would happen that couldn’t be stopped. “Once power comes to the surface,” Epsilon had said, “there is no stopping it.” That was what I felt like now—like I was just one small cog in a great machine that had been set into action and could not now be switched off.

  Finally I left the plaque and did what Mom had said. Round the back, park the bike, unpack the bags, through the gate (stroke the cat), onto the back porch, take a deep breath—yell!

  “DOCTOR PARKER!”

  “Great heavens! You scared me out of my wits, girl!”

  Poor Dr. Parker. He hadn’t been upstairs in his study at all—he was right behind the back door!

  “Good thing I have a stout heart, isn’t it?” he said, looking weak with fright.

  “Sorry, Dr. Parker. Mom said this one has to go straight into the freezer—it’s prawns.”

  “Charles. Call me Charles. Makes me feel old, all this Dr. Parker stuff. What have you been up to then? Look as white as a sheet.”

  “Oh . . . just walking.”

  His freezer was filled to the brim with small packages wrapped in newspaper. Hundreds of them, in fact. He saw me staring down at them and grinned.

  “Every fisherman in the place seems to bring me a share of his catch. Mackerel, mostly. I give Mrs. Shilling most of it, or use it for pike bait. Here—cram it in!”

  Pike bait. So maybe he had been fishing that night, after all? I started to relax a bit.

  “Don’t you like mackerel then?

  He stared down ruefully at all the fishy parcels.

  “Hate the stuff. Allergic.”

  That started me off, and him, too. I never thought an adult could laugh like that. For such a big man, he has this daft little giggle that makes you want to join in, just to hear it again. It was the same all afternoon. He took me driving round the island on his rounds, said the bike looked like a death trap, and anyway, he could do with the company. We laughed at anything and everything. It started as soon as we set off in the car.

  “So how old is Mrs. Shilling?”

  “Oh, her. Eighty-seven.”

  “Eighty-seven?!”

  “Mmm. Didn’t know you’d even met her!”

  “Yes. She was sitting on the back gate when I came in.”

  The car came to a shuddering stop.

  “Mrs. Shilling was sitting on the gate?!”

  “Yes. Having a good scratch. She didn’t look all that old, though—even in cat years!”

  He bent over the steering wheel and started to wheeze. That giggle, it built up and up till it exploded with a giant snort.

  “What? What have I said?” But I could hardly get the words out for laughing.

  Finally he subsided.

  “Mrs. Shilling isn’t my cat. She’s my housekeeper. She gets to eat the fish. Well, she can barely chew anything else—she has barely any teeth!”

  “Oh! Oh, I see. I thought . . . with you saying about the fish . . . and I’d just seen the cat and—oh!”

  I’d forgotten what a good laugh felt like. Even when we were back on our way, driving to the village along the top road, he kept quivering and snorting and we’d start off all over again. He laughed till he cried.

  “Sorry, sorry! I just keep thinking of Mrs. Shilling, sitting on the back gate, having a good scratch. Oh, god! Stop it, stop it, I’ll crash this thing! You’ll know what I mean when you meet her.”

  And I did. The first cottage we stopped at.

  To the door came the smallest, most bent, most wrinkly, most smelly, most ancient old hag I have ever seen in all my life. She sniffed at me when he introduced me, then looked up at the doctor with suspicious little eyes.

  “I hope you’re not getting a cold, Doctor? Your eyes are rather watery.”

  A twitch of his mouth—a sort of hiccup.

  “Me? No no no, Mrs. Shilling—it’s you I’m worried about. Left your medicine again, tsk tsk tsk. You can remember to put my whiskey and soda out each night but can’t remember to take your stomach medicine. It will not do!”

  She glared at me, as if something major was my fault.

  “Well, I suppose you’d better come in.”

  The inside of her house was like Mrs. Shilling, only bigger. Smelly, crumpled, and every stick of furniture old and rickety. Each chair looked incapable of holding anything heavier than a bird.

  Talking of birds—they were everywhere! Pictures and ornaments, robins and swallows on the wing and eagles swooping onto mice, and blue tits and herons, on every mantelpiece, every shelf. If they’d all been alive, the noise would have been totally deafening. I stared at them as the doc took her blood pressure, though she informed him it was all stuff and nonsense and there was nothing wrong with her at all, just a bit of indigestion.

  When he went to wash his hands (don’t blame him either—she stank!), she spent the time glaring at me as if I were a particularly revolting bit of dog poo. I sat on the edge of a very filthy chair and tried to smile at her.

  Suddenly she said, “Well, girl? Have you found it yet?”

  “Found what, Mrs. Shilling?”

  “There is no need to shout, child. I am not in the slightest bit deaf.”

  “Sorry. Found what, Mrs. Shilling?”

  “You know what, young lady. Here. This should help, if you have half a brain. Pretend it’s a boy.”

  I blinked, startled. She’d quickly gotten out of her chair, crossed the room, as nimble as a child—and now she put into my hands one of the small bird pictures. It was grimy and torn, a curled bit of card.

  “Uh . . . thank you! I . . . er . . .”

  She stared down at me and gave a sniff of utter derision.

  “Just as I thought. Stupid as they come!” she snapped.

  Then the doctor was back, and he boomed his good-byes and gave her a parcel of frozen mackerel, slamming it onto the sugar-strewn table as he passed.

  “See you tomorrow, Mrs. Shilling. I’ll come by bright and early to pick you up—lots to do, what with the Greet and everything.”

  “Will she be there?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes—guest of honor, in fact! Now then—two spoonfuls
tonight, just before bed, and no forgetting. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Clear as crystal, thank you. Now go away—the pair of you. You make me tired.”

  Back in the car, I turned to him immediately.

  “That? Is your housekeeper?”

  “I know, I know. She’s completely gaga, and I cannot get her to wash! But she arrived one day a few years ago, insisting she make me cups of tea—and I drink coffee—and oddly enough, she’s a very good cleaner. She’s harmless, and kind enough.”

  “Kind! She said I was as stupid as they come!”

  He roared with laughter when I told him what she’d said.

  “What does she think you’re looking for then? God, she’s as mad as a cat in a sack! Should be locked up, really—but I keep my eye on her.”

  But I didn’t tell him about the card. I’d slipped it into the back pocket of my jeans and realized that if I got that out, out, too, would come the map—and Mom’s drawings. If he thought Mrs. Shilling was as mad as a cat in a sack and should be locked up, what might he think of my mother, gathering shells and doodling ancient castles?

  “What’s up, Jessica?”

  “Oh, nothing. Where next?”

  “A tour. Meet a few more people. We should walk, really—it’s only a few hundred yards. Getting lazy. Anyway, Jerry C.’s next. Arthritis. Hands. He’s a carpenter, too, needs his hands. He’s been trying a diet rich in tomatoes. Here we are.”

  Outside Jerry C.’s house, a small crowd stood. They were admiring a tall carved pole, propped up by the door. The doctor nodded to it as we climbed out of the car.

  “The Maypole thing. Well . . . we call it that, even though it’s not May at all. Can’t really call it a July pole, can we?”

  I went close and stared at it, and it instantly happened again. That sudden lurch, that sideslip in time. It was as if Sebastian had stepped closer out of the past and was whispering something urgently in my ear . . . .

  “Master Cork . . . is not like the rest . . . . I have spent much time at his hearth. He lets me sit quiet while he whittles the tall pole for the Aroundy dance. He calls the pole his Coscoroba, and the way he fusses over his wood is remarkable to see.”

  I leaned against the wall and steadied myself as I looked up at the Aroundy pole. It was truly amazing—the intricacy of that carving! A thick pole of wood, about six inches in diameter, and all the way up it, fish creatures and snakes and swans and flowers. Hundreds of them, all intertwined together in high relief. And another thing—the swans were in the very same design as the swans on my bed. The same stylized curve of neck, the same overcurved beak, the same sharp little eyes.

  At the very top of the pole, holes were carved deep into the wood, like so many tiny caves. For ribbons to be threaded into—and sure enough, some of the women were uncurling long coils of ribbons from their pockets and reaching up.

  I turned to the old man standing at the door.

  And suddenly I fancied I saw him—Sebastian Wren, standing just behind Jerry C.

  A little boy, wearing hot, itchy knickerbockers and a thick jacket. A boy who dressed differently and sounded too refined to the islanders. A boy who didn’t fit in. An outsider, like me.

  Then I blinked, and Sebastian was gone. There was just the old man, Jerry C., smiling down at me.

  Instantly I knew that this was the very same cottage Sebastian had come to, to sit at the hearth. This man was a descendant of Sebastian’s Master Cork.

  Jerry C., the doc had called him. C for Cork. Both men were carpenters, sculptors; both men carved the Coscoroba, each in their own time. Before I could think, I’d blurted it out.

  “You are Jerry Cork,” I said weakly. “And one of your ancestors carved my swan bed. He carved the Coscoroba, too.”

  Jerry Cork reached for my hand and shook it. Arthritic fingers curled over my own.

  “That he did, young lady. That he did. There’s his carvings all up and down this island. But only this family know the design for the Aroundy pole, for the pole gets burned every year and never copied down, so it’s all kept up here.”

  He tapped his head proudly.

  But even as I smiled up at him, I started to feel dizzy. The doctor came up and took my arm. He made me sit down, and they brought me a drink of water, very cold and pure from the well, and I began to feel like I was in a long, long dream. I went on chatting somehow—the village women all said hello and called others from their cottages until there were too many people to talk to at once. Then, inexplicably, I started on a long series of massive yawns. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.

  The doc bundled me back into the car and—incredibly—I fell asleep. I was passed out all the way back to his house. I woke up only when the doc dropped my bike when he was putting it in the backseat and bashed one of the panniers. Then he drove me home, scolding and tutting and saying I needed iron (“Iron, young lady! You tire far too easily—good thing I have some in my bag!”) until we bumped our way back past the lake.

  No sign of the swan, but I twisted round to look at the Miradel.

  “Doctor. Who built that tower thing?”

  “Mmm?” (He was avoiding a pothole.)

  “Back there. I mean—no doors, no windows—who on earth built it?”

  “Oh, that! That’s just a folly. Our ancestors were very fond of follies. Had more money than sense, some of them. It serves no purpose.”

  “Is it true that there’s no way in and no way out?” I asked.

  “Way in? There’s nothing inside it to get into. It’s solid. I’ve investigated every inch of it. Had to—it used to be on my land. Couldn’t risk it falling down on someone’s head—they’d have sued me for every penny I’ve got.”

  “Who built it?”

  “Mmm? My great-great-dunno-how-many-greats-grandfather.”

  “Really? What was his name?”

  “Milton. Milton C. Parker. He built it as ‘a place of rest,’ according to family legend—but how you rest in a solid building is beyond me. Some say he was buried nearby. Maybe that’s what he meant.”

  “Milton! So your house was named after him?”

  He nodded, then slowed the car down to negotiate the turn into our front gates.

  “Awfully interested in history all of a sudden, aren’t we?”

  “Me? I just like old things. So who does it belong to now?”

  “The Miradel? Why—all of us, I suppose!”

  “The whole of Lume?”

  “The whole of Lume. Here we are then! I’ll just pop in—have a word with your mother, give her these iron tablets, and make sure you take them.”

  But just as I said ’bye and started to push the bike round the back, he stopped me and held out something. Something small and grubby and curled up at the edges.

  “Jessica? You dropped this.”

  It was Mrs. Shilling’s little card, with the picture of a bird on it.

  I reached out to take it. But he didn’t let it go. We each hung on to one end of it, and a familiar look came over his face. That casual look—overcasual—like he had in my room that day when he’d first seen the bucket.

  “By the way, Jess,” he said, “how did you know that the Aroundy pole was called the Coscoroba?”

  I stared at him, blushing beet red. I’d given myself away.

  “What?”

  “You said it to Jerry Cork. You called it the Coscoroba. But that’s a very ancient name for it. An old island name. However did you come to hear of it?”

  I racked my brains. He still wouldn’t let go of that card.

  “I . . . read it. I read about it somewhere. In an old book—the house is full of them. The same word is on the map, too.”

  “The map?”

  “Coscoroba Rock. It’s a rock that sticks out. At the end of Long Beach. Everyone knows about it—you must have heard of it?”

  “Of course I have. That’s where we’ll burn the Coscoroba pole tomorrow. It’s an old custom, to cast it into the sea from Coscoroba Rock.”<
br />
  “Well then,” I stammered, “that’s how I heard the name.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause.

  “Jessica. Are you . . . worrying yourself about anything?” he asked.

  I stared up into those crinkled, kind eyes. Longed to tell him everything. Longed to trust someone with all this.

  “Worrying about anything? No.”

  For some reason, I let the card held between us go.

  He glanced down at the bird picture and I swear he did a double take. Then he flipped the card over onto its information side. He read quickly, his frown deepening. Finally he looked up again and smiled at me.

  “This is a small island, Jessica. It’s full of old stories, old legends. But that’s all they are—legends. It wouldn’t do to get scared and all upset about legends now, would it?”

  “Upset? Why . . . no. It wouldn’t. That’d just be silly.”

  “You would come and tell me, wouldn’t you? If anyone had been upsetting you at all? You can trust me, you know.”

  Unexpectedly, a huge lump rose up in the back of my throat. I could have sat down then and there and cried my eyes out. But something stopped me.

  “I’m fine, Dr. Parker. Really I am. I’m just not feeling very well. That’s all. But thanks anyway.”

  Finally he nodded and handed me the card. Then he strode away to go and find Mom. I stared down at the tiny picture in my hand—the bird card.

  Not just any bird, I saw now as I stared down at it. I flipped the card over and read the back.

  LATIN: TROGLODYTES TROGLODYTES. Common name: The Wren. A very small European bird, much loved for its loud, melodic song.

  What had Mrs. Shilling said? “Pretend it’s a boy.”

  A wren. A boy. A boy called Sebastian. Sebastian Wren.

  She knows.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THERE IS ONE MEMBER IN THE CHAT ROOM:

  JESS

  JESS: Are you there, Epsilon?

  E: I’m down here at the cottage. I’m waiting for you.

  JESS: Will I . . . I mean, will you . . . Will I see you? Please don’t do that thing with your eyes again.

  E: I won’t harm you.