“What took you so long?” she demanded. “And why you been dallying all down by your mother’s well in the yard?”
Larkum wiped the back of his hand across his dusty brow.
“Been a long walk all back from the village,” he explained. “I just stopped off beside the old well to get me a drink of fresh water.”
Larkum paused. He stopped and saw she was standing there with fistfuls of flowers strewn all around – the daisies and valerian which Old Mother Tidgewallop had tended all her life.
“What’s this?” Larkum exclaimed.
“It’s more of your mother’s old nonsense,” Grizzlegrin told him. “I want the garden to look tidy and neat, not covered in brambles and choked up with weeds. I want you to pave it all over, just the way Wife Pottam has it.”
What could Larkum do? He wanted Grizzlegrin to be happy. What point was there in more sadness? So he followed her wishes and covered the garden with great heavy flagstones – the garden where his mother had tended her flowers, the garden where he used to play. When he’d finished, toiling all day in the back-breaking sun, Grizzlegrin came to look at his work. At first she smiled.
“Why – it’s beautiful,” she told him. “Just like I wanted. Just the way Wife Pottam has it.”
But then she fell sad again.
“The flagstones look too grey.”
“Of course they look grey,” Larkum replied. “Everything looks grey now the flowers have gone.”
“I don’t like flowers,” Grizzlegrin told him. “The colours are so bright that they blind me and the pollen makes me sneeze. But the garden looks bare now. Go down to Scritch’s hut, down by the river and see if you can get me some of those windmills and butterflies he twists from the metal that he finds in the stream.”
And so Larkum went out again, and with their last few coppers bought a whole basketful of Scritch’s shiny trinkets. He placed them all around the garden in front of the cottage to cover the grey of the stone. But the harder he worked to make Grizzlegrin happy, the sadder she became. And that made Larkum sad too.
“What else do you want me to do?” he asked. “I’ve lost my mother, now all her precious things are gone, her knick-knacks and her needles, her garden and her flowers.”
Grizzlegrin strode into the house and returned a few moments later.
“You can take away this old cloak too,” she said. “I don’t wear it any more. None of the wifen in the village ever wear a cloak like this. They all wear dresses and stockings and smocks.”
And Grizzlegrin gave him the cloak that Old Mother Tidgewallop had sewed for her. Larkum scurried off with it and in a while and another while he came scurrying back again.
“Oh, Grizzlegrin, are you happy now? What else do you want me to do?”
“What else do I want you to do?” Grizzlegrin cried. “Next you must cover the well, that old well at the bottom of the yard. The bricks are broken and the water’s too deep and your mother told me that Snizzleslide the troublesome snake used to coil up at the bottom. You must cover it over before he comes again. I couldn’t stand him slithering round, not when we’ve got the house so neat and the garden so trim.”
Larkum sighed and did what she said. He nailed planks of wood across the top of the well where Old Mother Tidgewallop had drawn water every day. When he had finished, Grizzlegrin came to look.
“I’m thirsty,” she said. “Make me a brew of good nettle tea.”
“I’m thirsty too,” Larkum replied. “It’s dry work hammering and nailing. But we’ve got no water now I’ve covered the well.”
Grizzlegrin scowled. “You’ll just have to go down to the village and fetch a fresh bucket from the well by the Green, same as all the rest of ’em do.”
So every morning before he could start his work in the fields and tending of the pigs in the wood, Larkum would trudge to the well in the village, with a bucket on each arm. The more water he brought, the more Grizzlegrin needed, for she kept the cottage clean as clean to drive away the dust which made her so sad. Every day she would wash the new curtains and hang them to dry and scrub the floor of the kitchen till it was worn near away and as soon as she’d brought in the curtains from the line she’d be back again at the tub, rubbing and scrubbing the blankets and pillow cases and all of the table-cloths and napkins as well. But still she was never happy.
“I don’t know why I bother to fetch water,” Larkum remarked. “You spill enough tears to fill both of these buckets.”
Soon Larkum was so tired from trudging with those buckets that he would fall asleep in the fields. And while he was sleeping, the weeds began to grow and the black crows flew down and pecked up all his seed and the pigs ran amuck in the woods. So when harvest time came, Larkum had no grain to sell and the pigs had all strayed and Grizzlegrin just sat in the cottage all day staring at the walls which she kept on painting first cream, then pink, then lilac, then green, then cream again – and crying and wailing because whichever colour she painted them, they didn’t seem to suit her.
Then one morning, dull and misty, Grizzlegrin was sitting in the kitchen, waiting for Larkum to bring the water for her first brew of nettle tea. When Larkum struggled in through the door he dropped the buckets onto the floor.
“Put on the kettle!” cried Grizzlegrin, without even looking up. “Put on the kettle, I’m mardy dry.”
Larkum banged at the buckets with his boot.
“Tain’t no use,” he wailed. “Brunt Boggart well’s run dry. There’s been no rain for many a moon. Ain’t no water for the chickens, ain’t no water for the swill, ain’t no water for the washing and sure as sure, there ain’t no water for your brew of nettle tea.”
Grizzlegrin burst out sobbing.
“Whatever shall we do?”
“Ain’t no use crying,” Larkum replied. “Your tears ain’t no good. Not lest you’re going to cry them into this empty bucket and go on crying till you’ve wept enough to mop the floor.”
So Grizzlegrin stopped.
“You’ll have to go down to the river,” she said. “Go down to the bridge where Scritch always sits and draw me some water from there.”
So Larkum went to the river, bucket in hand. On his way he met Granny Willowmist and Wife Pottam and Oakum Marlroot, all clattering along with their pails and their kettles and their watering cans. And little’uns with bowls and cups and Pickapple with a sieve. And they clanked and they clacked and chatted and worried, all the way down to the river. And there sat Scritch with his back to them all, glaring out at the cracked dry mud where the water should be. But the water was gone. Just puddles of sludge. Old Granny Willowmist tucked up her skirts and trudged out into the silt and tried to fill her bucket with sullage. But it was no good, no good at all.
“Can’t drink it,” she cried. “Tain’t no good for washing. Tain’t no good for nothing.”
And Pickapple sat with his sieve on his head and stuffed mud in his mouth and cried. Larkum looked at them, looked at them all – the old’uns, the farmers, the wifen, the girlen, the boys-who-would-be-men, the Crow Dancers and Thunderhead – all staring at the sky, with their tongues dark and dry, waiting for the rain.
Larkum ran home and picked up his axe.
“Where are you going?” Grizzlegrin cried. “Was there water at the river? Can you brew me up my strong nettle tea? – I need a cup before I start my washing!”
“There’s no water at the river,” Larkum told her. “I’m going to my mother’s well, the well we boarded over.”
“Our well’s a curse,” Grizzlegrin snapped. “Snizzleslide comes there and I don’t want him back. I couldn’t stand him slithering around – not when we’ve got the house so neat and the garden so trim.”
“What good’s a neat house and a garden where nothing grows?” Larkum sighed. “And what good’s a well that’s all boarded over when there’s no water down in the village? Never mind your nettle tea, never mind your washing. There’s all of Brunt Boggart sitting down there with their tongues dr
ying out. Oakum Marlroot can’t water his fields and poor Snuffwidget doesn’t know what to do for he can’t brew none of his wine.”
And before Grizzlegrin could stop him, Larkum threw his axe across his shoulder and marched down to the end of Old Mother Tidgewallop’s yard. He swung his axe once, he swung his axe twice, till the boards on the well were smashed to smithereens. Then he flung the axe aside and clambered down the slippery walls, hand over hand. When he reached the bottom, he heard a slithering and a sliding – and there was Snizzleslide the trickster in the guise of a troublesome snake, all wound around a box that was sitting in the water. For yes, there was water, there in Old Mother Tidgewallop’s well, flowing strong and clear.
“I knew it,” cried Larkum. “I knew I’d be right. Old Mother Tidgewallop’s well is deeper than Brunt Boggart’s, for it taps straight into a sweet clear stream flowing down from high in the hills.”
Snizzleslide raised his head.
“So,” he hissed. “You have returned.”
“Yes, I’ve come,” said Larkum, “just as I said I would. Is the box safe?”
“For sure, for sure. I would not let it wash away. Old Mother Tidgewallop was good to me. She brought me my breakfast every day of mice and dead bats’ wings, spiders, slugs and snails. I was so sorry to hear she’d been taken off to the Burying Ground. The least I could do was keep my word to you and guard the box where you’d locked all the trinkets.”
Larkum seized the box that lay in the water, the box where he’d placed all his mother’s precious things which Grizzlegrin had asked him to sell. But he hadn’t sold them at all. He’d packed them up tight in the box and taken them to the well at the bottom of the yard on his way back home to the cottage.
Snizzleslide smiled and Larkum thanked him, when from the top of the well he heard Grizzlegrin calling.
“Larkum, Larkum, come quickly. There’s a great crowd of people here, knocking at the door.”
Larkum scrambled quickly out of the well, dragging the box behind him. There at the cottage gate was Snuffwidget carrying two great pails. And behind him was Wife Pottam and Old Granny Willowmist and the rest of Brunt Boggart, all waiting down the track with their buckets and kettles and watering cans. And Pickapple stood at the back with his sieve still jammed on his head.
“Larkum,” they cried, “you’re our only hope. We heard you say you were going back home to open your well again.”
“Come in, come in,” Larkum replied. “Our well is deeper than Brunt Boggart’s well. There’s water a-plenty. You’re welcome one and all.”
Before Grizzlegrin could say anything, the villagers tramped in through the cottage, scattering mud from their boots all over her neat clean floor. Grizzlegrin looked ready to burst into tears, but Larkum took her aside.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “Look what I have here.” And he opened up the box, still dripping the well’s deep water. And there inside were necklaces, bracelets and rings. Grizzlegrin gasped when she saw them all.
“They’re beautiful!” she cried. “Wherever did you get them?”
She picked out one of the bracelets and slid it over her wrist.
“Don’t you recognise them?” Larkum asked her. “They all belonged to my mother. You wanted to be rid of them, but I knew that they were precious to her, as you are precious to me – and so these should be precious to you.”
Grizzlegrin blinked and looked again. “Larkum, they’re beautiful. I just never fully looked at them when first I cleared the rooms. Now here they are all shiny and bright. But I thought you took them away. I thought you took them down to the Green and sold them.”
Larkum shook his head.
“I polished them up and packed them in the box, but nobody wanted to buy them – so I hid them away at the bottom of the well.”
Grizzlegrin was puzzled.
“But where did you get all the silver shillen to buy new curtains for the windows, shiny trinkets for the garden and whitewash for the walls?”
“I wanted to see you happy,” Larkum explained. “I always kept a few shillen stashed away, in case hard times came. But now hard times have come anyway, with the crops all failing and the pigs gone missing and the well in Brunt Boggart run dry.”
But Grizzlegrin was hardly listening, she was too overjoyed. As she gathered up the trinkets, the needles and the rings, she saw something shining beneath them all and plunged her hands deeper, down into the box. There at the bottom lay the cloak that Old Mother Tidgewallop had made her, the cloak of darkness sewed all over with stars.
“Put it on,” Larkum told her, and so she did – and as soon as its warmth wrapped around her shoulders, why then she felt happy again.
“Oh, Larkum, Larkum – you know I always loved this cloak. I only stopped wearing it because none of the other wifen in Brunt Boggart ever wore one, and I wanted to dress in stockings and a smock just the same as them.”
But then there came a clanking and a rattling as Snuffwidget clattered in from the yard, spilling water from his buckets all over the floor. He set them down and out tipped more, but Grizzlegrin didn’t say anything, she only stood and smiled. Snuffwidget wiped his forehead, then thrust his hand into his pocket and brought out a bottle of his celebrated potion – Nana Corbin Night-thorn’s Morning Sunrise.
“Here – this is for you. Now that I have water I can start to brew again.”
And so it went on. Granny Willowmist brought them a pie to eat that she’d been saving in her pantry. Nanny Ninefingers gave them a linen bag, packed with Herb Robert and Golden Rod – and Pickapple gave them his sieve.
As Grizzlegrin stood in her cloak of stars a broad smile spread across her face.
“Thank you all for your gifts,” she said. “And thank you Larkum, for bringing Mother Tidgewallop’s cloak of darkness safely back to me. And now, husband, I have a gift for you.”
Larkum stared at his wife to see what she had to give him. She stood and she smiled and placed his hand on her belly.
“We’re going to have a child…”
Thunderhead and the Five Cures
Let me tell you… let me tell you… Ramshadow House was built before Brunt Boggart came to be. Now it sat at the edge of the village like an old man slumped by his fire. Half the roof was missing and weeds and herbs pressed up through the floor. Wind blew down the chimneys as sharp-eyed crows hopped in and out as if it was their home.
Shattered pots lay all around, made of dull red earthenware, graven with patterns, mazy and swirling. The old stone walls crumbled while its carvings and statues were so weather-worn you could scarce see their faces – and who they were and what they had done, no-one knew nor cared.
Thunderhead lived there now, waking each morning, sometimes in one room, sometimes in another. He would lie and listen to the crows’ raucous call from the chimney tops. And he would call back, a throat-racking screech, before scratching and stretching, his long limbs striding, his shirt a-tatters, his face daubed with clay the same as the Crow Dancers as he loped all out to the garden that grew around Ramshadow House, a tangle of briars and thorns. Then Thunderhead poked and prodded and pulled until he’d gathered up a handful of sagebrush and hawkbit, silverweed and Knotty Brake – which he carried back into the smoke-blackened kitchen where he set a pan of fresh water to simmer on the stove.
Soon as the bubbles were breaking, Thunderhead plunged in the herbs then dragged his long fingers through his straggling hair and reached for his hat, his black hat, his tall hat which hung on the wall. Its rim was festooned with feathers and bones and weasel skulls all whitened in the wind. The talismans and trinkets rattled and shook as Thunderhead began his dance. Slow as slow, his strong limbs shadowing, his long arms reaching up, calling sunlight and rain, whirlwind and hail, calling snow and ice, blizzard and gale – while far away, from across the flat meadows, he could hear the sound of the Drummer a-beating, out by the Fever Tree, at the end of the Echo Field.
Thunderhead danced till light filled his eyes – ligh
t of watching, light of dawning, light of sun and moon and stars. And then he stopped. Pulled on a shirt, a raggedy shirt, hung all about with tassels and patches. He sat on a wooden bench, lifted the pan from the stove and poured his herb brew into a bowl. He settled there and cradled it between his sinewy fingers, then he breathed in the aroma, his head wreathed in steam. It tasted of pasture, of woodland, of birdsong. Tasted of mountain and river and Wolf. Was stronger than anything Nanny Ninefingers would brew for the village, or anything Snuffwidget served up from his cellar. This was Thunderhead’s potion that he brewed for himself.
He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and reached down his cloak of straggling feathers – eagle and raven, kestrel and hawk – and hung it around his shoulders. Then he stood and let out the crow cry again and strode into the morning.
He walked down to the village to tend to anyone who had some sickness, some sadness of spirit that couldn’t be cured by Nanny Ninefingers’ potions. He’d talk all gentle and soft, or curse and chant, his crow voice shrieking. Or he’d dance and rattle his bone-sticks, his long stave shaking to his foot’s stomping rhythm. And sometimes he’d shiver till his limbs lost control and his eyes would fix far on lost suns and moons. He would writhe on the ground, he would wail, he would moan. And then he’d lie silent. But the sick’un he was curing – from head-pains, from darkness, from fever, from sorrow – would stand there all smiling, and their pain would be gone.
Thunderhead would rise from the ground where he’d fallen and he’d gaze at them strangely and then take their hand. They’d pass him a shillen, or what they could give and then they’d slip quietly away, their heart lightened, their head clear, their limbs moving true, while Thunderhead turned to spew bile in a hole.
At the top of the house a bedchamber sloped between the broken walls, hung with bunches of ribbons, all the colours of the sun. In the corner was a chest filled with white dresses, shining clear as the moon. There slept Jonquil with her face so serene. She would walk round the house in the morning, fussing at dishes and baking sweet bread and trying on brooches enamelled with patterns, mazy and swirling.
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