And then just as he touched the Stone’s pinnacle, he felt himself falling, spiralling through darkness to land in a pit thick with clay. He writhed and he thrashed, trying to pull himself free, but the more that he struggled, the deeper he sank, until the other boys tugged him out and he stood, smeared and shaken, his head spinning, his legs trembling, gazing up at the Shuttle Stone, up to its pinnacle. But he knew that he had been there, he knew that he had touched it, just as every boy-who-would-be-man who had come to the Stone before him.
They lofted him high, Crossdogs and Hamsparrow, Bullbreath and Longskull, daubed the dull clay across his face and carried him on their shoulders along the length of the Shuttle Stone’s shadow, till at its end stood Thunderhead, his arms folded across his chest. He reached out and touched Larkspittle with the end of his stave.
“As a boy you learnt to climb. As boy-who-would-be-man you have learnt that you can fall. Now as a man you must learn that you can rise again.”
Thunderhead beat his stave on the ground. The boys carried Larkspittle away from the shadow of the Stone and back to the dance that still raged on all around Brunt Boggart’s Green. In the middle of the rhythm, the stamping feet, the wheeling arms, the gripping hands, they threw him. Larkspittle staggered, shaken and smeared, his legs wandering drunk from the fall.
“Dance,” the boys shouted, clapping their hands.
“Dance!” shrieked the old’uns, milling around.
“Dance!” the girlen taunted as they bore Riversong towards him, her red skirts hitched high and her face glowing with wine.
They tipped her down and she stumbled into him. They held each other numbly, hardly knowing what to do, as the eyes of the onlookers burnt around them and the flames of the fire leapt higher and the rhythm of the Drummer pulsed on.
Riversong looked back towards the Red Grove and Larkspittle released her. She stumbled slightly as she walked between the lines of watchers who parted to let her through. And Larkspittle was left standing, all alone in the middle of the crowd, who turned away as the fiddle played a slow lament and the Drummer’s hands moved so quietly he scarcely touched the skins. Then they struck up again and the dance surged on, but Larkspittle walked away, out into the darkness as clouds drew over the moon, and cold was on the world.
Another day and another and the sun rose bright above the Green. The path to the Shuttle Stone was bruised with footprints and the path to the Red Grove strewn with fallen petals. But at the end of another path, Riversong met Larkspittle without ever saying a word, and they made their way to the stream which flowed, beside the meadow filled with pillows of grass, under the bridge at Sandy Holme.
Arnica, Cloudrunner and the Wolfsbane
Let me tell you… Let me tell you about Arnica. Arnica was just a young girl, but her eyes glinted bright with the power of the sun which shone all day on Bare Stone Crag, where she lived all alone with her mother. Arnica would step from the house each day and stretch out her arms to greet the sky. Then she would run down to the rough of gorse and heather and stare out across the plain to the valley and the woods and the river. In the distance she could see Oakum Marlroot’s fields, and just a little further over, she could see Brunt Boggart, with plumes of smoke rising from the chimney tops.
Arnica and her mother would keep each other company all through the day, washing and baking, sewing and cleaning, but Arnica was lonely. When she went out to play, she had nobody at all. And so she would sit at the top of the Crag and watch the clouds roll by. She’d pretend that each one was her friend and wish that she could fly out and touch them and run with them, all around the hill-top and back. But whenever she tried, when she spread her arms wide and she ran and she ran up and down the stony track, why she just fell over and her knees were all grazed.
When she grew tired of chasing the clouds and grazing her knees, Arnica would sit on a patch of scrubby grass betwixt the house and the mountain edge. And there she would gaze down at the river and the hills and the fields – and while she was sitting, staring far away and wishing for someone to play with on top of Bare Stone Crag, why then she thought that maybe somebody might come if she made a present for them. But what could she make, all up there on the bare crag with nothing but rocks and gorse and scrub? But then Arnica saw the wolfsbane flowering bright, opening its yolk-yellow blossom wide to the sun, just the way that she did when she stretched her arms each morning. She smelt their heady scent, so rich she felt she could drink it – and so she sat and rocked herself, bathing in the power of the wolfsbane.
Then she began to pick the flowers, slow and sure, one by one and two by two. Plaited and twisted their long green stems, making chains of wolfsbane to festoon around her. And she looked and she hoped and she watched and she wished that someone might climb to the steep crag’s top so that she could drape the chains all around them and then they could play together, singing ring-songs and clapping all there in the sun.
But nobody came.
Then one day she looked down from the top of the crag and thought that she saw a great bird flying. A red bird, a yellow bird with blue feathers strung from the tail. From far away and far she saw it coming up the side of the Crag. But slowly, bobbing on and on, more like it was someone walking. And then it reached the meadow, the green meadow hung out like a pocket handkerchief, half the way up the Crag and half the way down. Until it flew. Flew up and towards her – and then she saw it was not a bird at all, but a kite. A great paper kite, yellow, red and blue. A great paper kite on a string. And it flurried and flapped and swooped up towards her. But then Arnica was not watching the paper bird anymore. Her eyes travelled down the line of the string pulled tight to see that there was a boy, tugging and reeling and twisting the line. Arnica called out to him.
“I love your kite!” she cried. “Bring it up here and show it to me.”
But the boy did not hear. His eyes were fixed on the kite as it soared, as it swerved, as it flew. He was not listening for a girl’s voice, lost in the wind on top of the crag. He only listened to the kite’s string singing as it cut its way through the wind. And Arnica sighed as she watched him and wished he would come and play with her, for in truth she was more interested in meeting him and seeing his face and knowing his name and making wolfsbane chains for him and taking him to meet her mother than she was in the kite – be it ever so bright and yellow and red with blue feathers strung from its tail.
Day after day Arnica watched the boy, for he came every morning to the meadow where the wind was always high. Arnica knew which hour he would come – and every day she would call to him and hope that he would hear and throw his kite aside and climb to the top of the crag and come and play with her. But the boy never heard her, however loud she shouted – her words were always carried away by the same wind which tugged at his kite. In the end she decided that if the boy would not come to her, then she must go down to the boy. So early one morning, when the mist had scarcely lifted, she scrambled down to the meadow below where the boy came every day.
It was nearly the time when he would appear. Arnica felt excited. She raced around the meadow, flapping her arms as if she was the boy’s great red and yellow kite. But he did not come. Arnica peered down over the edge of the ledge. She thought that she could see him far below, still crossing the plain all the way from Brunt Boggart. Arnica sat down. She combed her fingers through her hair. She spread her skirt around her on the grass. And then she grew restless and so she began picking at the wolfsbane blooming brightly all about – slowly at first, then quicker and quicker, gathering them into her lap. And then she made a wolfsbane chain, slitting the stems and twisting them till the chain was so long it fitted over her head and right round her shoulders and down to her waist. But still the boy did not come.
“He must be here soon,” thought Arnica. She wanted to run and peer over the ledge, but her legs would not move and she stayed sitting there, with wolfsbane festooned through her long tumbling hair.
Then over the ridge at the edge of the me
adow came a huge kite the shape of a bird, red and yellow with a tail of blue feathers. And beneath the kite was the boy, plodding slowly. He stopped, saw the girl sitting in the meadow that he came to every day. The meadow where he came, so alone and so free – only him and his kite and the wind. But now there was a girl here too, sitting making wolfsbane chains. He didn’t know what to say and so he said nothing and did what he did every day. He ran with his kite until he could feel the wind tug it and pull it away, up and up, the feathers of its tail trailing out in the breeze.
Arnica didn’t know what to say either. She had waited so long to meet this boy, to ask him to play – and now she didn’t know what to say and so she bit her lip and turned away and counted the flowers in her lap again and again, as the boy rushed by, nearly as fast as the wind while the kite climbed higher in the bright morning sky.
Arnica shivered. The wind was cold. She hugged her bare arms and stood to stretch her legs, letting the flowers in her lap slither down to the ground. She turned around and there was the boy, almost on top of her, so busy with his running and tugging of the kite strings – it was as if he’d hardly seen her at all.
“Look out!” Arnica shouted and the boy swerved away, but then his foot seemed to catch on a tussock of grass and he fell. He fell to the ground while Arnica stood over him – and high in the sky the kite tugged away before he grabbed at the line and then pulled it back. But now he’d stopped running, the kite lost the wind and suddenly but slowly, downwards it came, a great red bird with yellow belly and blue tail – tumbling down, twisting and plummeting until it landed beside the boy where he lay on the grass.
He looked up at Arnica.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
The boy said nothing. He grabbed at the kite, checking it over, the thin gauze of its wings, the frame of light timber – to see that nothing was broken, nothing was snapped.
“Are you alright?” Arnica repeated.
The boy glared in front of him, then turned around suddenly.
“The kite is alright,” he gruffly replied.
“Let me see,” said Arnica.
Reluctantly, the boy showed her.
She ran her hands gently across its body, across its wings, stroking it almost as if it was a real bird. She let the long feathers of its tail play through her fingers.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“Careful,” the boy muttered as he snatched the kite back. “It’s just had a knock. You don’t want to harm it.”
Arnica smiled. “Of course not,” she said. “Who made it?”
“Darkwind, my father,” the boy replied. “He makes kites for all the boys in our village. Makes chairs and tables too.”
“Why do you come here, all by yourself?” Arnica looked puzzled. “If Darkwind makes kites for all the boys, why don’t you fly them together?”
The boy shrugged. He looked down. Down to the fields and the valley and the smoke of Brunt Boggart way across the plain.
“I like it here,” he said. “You get the best wind. My father saves the best kites for me. Best kites need the best wind. And you can see so far. It’s like being a bird. Seems like you could fly.”
Arnica reached out to touch the kite again. This time the boy didn’t pull it away. Arnica seized a fistful of wolfsbane chains and started to tie them to the kite’s long blue tail. The boy smiled.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Arnica grinned. “Nothing,” she said. “I just wanted to see – wouldn’t it be fun to fly wolfsbane in the sky? It would look just like stars coming out in the day!”
The boy grasped the kite and started to run, away from Arnica, away across the meadow. He ran and he ran, but the kite would not lift. When he got to the far side he ran back again, all the way to where Arnica was standing, her long dress billowing all around her in the wind. The boy shook his head and stopped to catch his breath.
“It’s no good,” he said. “The wolfsbane is too heavy.”
Arnica sighed. “It would have been so beautiful to see it fly. I know,” she cried, “come with me!”
She grabbed his hand.
“Where are we going?” The boy kept tight hold of his kite.
“To the top of the Crag. Follow me!”
Hand in hand they scrambled up the steep path of slippery shale, all the way to the top of Bare Stone Crag.
“Here!” Arnica shouted excitedly, her voice whipping away. “Here the wind is so high that the kite will fly with a tail of flowers as bright as the stars!”
The boy caught his breath and let go of her hand. Together they tied the wolfsbane to the kite’s blue feathers again.
“Run!” the boy instructed and they ran, keeping pace with each other across the bumpy ground. At first the kite did not rise, but then they twisted around and ran back to meet the wind buffeting full in their faces as it rose from the flat plain below.
“Go!” cried the boy to the kite, as he let it drift away from them, up and up, tacking into the wind. Arnica stood beside him, hanging on to his arm as he played out the line. The kite rose higher, the great red bird with its yellow belly and tail of blue feathers pulling the line of wolfsbane that shone bright as stars up towards the sun. Up and up above the high crag top and Arnica’s mother’s house and the map of flat fields laid out far below. The kite dipped and soared and Arnica stood and watched the boy’s face set in concentration as he guided its flight by the strings.
“Arnica!” her mother was calling her.
“I must go,” she said, hurrying away to the house. And then she turned back. The boy was still standing, reeling in the kite.
“Wait!” she said. “You didn’t tell me your name.”
The boy paused. The line had become tangled.
“It’s Cloudrunner,” he told her.
“Arnica!” her mother called a second time.
“There – now you know mine,” said the girl as she ran towards the door. “Come again, Cloudrunner. Come again.”
And he did. The next day and the next. Arnica would watch for the red bird climbing up Bare Stone Crag, earlier each day as he seemed more eager to reach the top.
“For the wind,” he said. “The best I’ve ever known.”
And Arnica smiled.
But day by day the kites would change. Sometimes it was not a red bird she saw, trekking up the hillside. One day a giant eye, another a fish, and then a huge butterfly. And Cloudrunner would collect strange-shaped stones and dried sheep’s bones as he scrambled up the path. One day he even brought a key and a tea-pot lid and a bag of shiny marbles that he found in the dark corner of his mother’s cupboard back home.
And what did they do with them, Arnica and Cloudrunner, all up in the mist on the top of Bare Stone Crag? Why, they tried them and tied them to the tail of the kite, to see just how much weight each one would carry. And if one kite would not take the strain, why then next day Cloudrunner came back again with a bigger kite, a stronger kite – or sometimes even two!
“Look!” cried Cloudrunner, one blustery morning. “Look what I’ve brought.” And he emptied a bag filled with old trinkets fished out of the stream. “Let’s tie them up to this kite. It’s the size of a haystack – the biggest my father’s ever made!”
But Arnica looked away.
“That’s all you ever bring,” she told him. “Mean bits of metal to string from your kite. You bring nothing for me, no brooches, no baubles, nothing at all. And I stand here all day and watch you at play as you run with your kite. It’s never me you come to see. Only Bare Stone Crag and the wind. I stand here in the cold and I may as well not be here at all!”
But Cloudrunner was away to catch the wind, to catch his kite the size of a haystack, to climb to the sky and rise. Arnica’s words were borne away by the very same wind, across the valley and the fields of the plain, all the way to the river and over the sea.
Arnica shut the door of her house. She went inside to her mother. And all the next day the door stayed s
hut but Cloudrunner scarcely noticed when he came. He just shrugged when he saw that Arnica was not there and went on flying his kite, just the same as he ever had, just the way he had on the meadow lower down, before Arnica ever invited him to climb to the top.
And what of Arnica? She was so sad that Cloudrunner did not want her – only his kites and the Crag and the wind. So early next morning, while her mother was sleeping, Arnica rose and walked out through the door. She walked out across the scrub of grass where every day Cloudrunner flew his kite. She walked to the edge, where the cliff face dropped away. She stood and she gazed, out across the valley, out across the plain, out across the fields to where Brunt Boggart lay still slumbering in the morning mist. It was too early for Cloudrunner to have started his journey, though she looked for him still. And she looked and she stared and she strained her body forward till she could feel her flowing hair caught in the Crag’s wild wind. As the wind tugged her hair she reached out towards it, reached with both her arms as her body stretched forward. As her body stretched forward, her arms flung out beyond her and as her arms spread outward, so her body followed. And she plunged and she span and she twisted. But then she did not fall. She did not fall – she flew. She flew as the wind caught her, caught her arms in its own and gently lifted her and turned her, till it bore her around the top of the Crag and there she stared down at the valley and the plain and the river far below. The wind took her and held her and filled her every pore. The wind became Arnica – and Arnica became the wind.
So that when Cloudrunner arrived, struggling up the track, carrying his kite, he finally began to wonder where Arnica had gone. She was not there to welcome him, to see his new kite and try how many trinkets they could fasten to the tail. Cloudrunner shrugged.
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