Brunt Boggart

by David Greygoose

  But no-one who passed the house ever seemed to know of her, or saw her step out into the woods that grew tangled and dark right up to the door. But some said they saw Snizzleslide, the trickster who took the shape of a troublesome snake, slithering through the tall grass, right up to Thunderhead’s door. Then he would look this way and he would look that and then he would slip in through the gap beneath the door. Soon as he was on the other side, all Thunderhead saw was Jonquil, who soothed his sore head and poured him his potion and took him to bed till the morning.

  One night Jonquil woke and heard a dog barking, heard it scratching at doors, whimpering and howling.

  “Thunderhead!” she shook him. “Whose is that dog?”

  Thunderhead turned over and opened one eye.

  “There is no dog,” he said.

  And sure enough, Jonquil knew she never saw it, just heard it scratting outside. And other times when she came she heard foxes prowling and one night thought she heard a Wolf at the door.

  “Thunderhead!” she cried as she woke him. “Wolf be here for sure.”

  Thunderhead shrugged.

  “Ain’t no Wolf,” he said. “And if’n there is, then dog will see him off.”

  Jonquil shivered.

  “I thought you told me there was no dog,” she said as she sat upright in the old creaking bed. Then she heard a baying, a howling and a rapping of claws on the great oaken door. Jonquil clung tightly to Thunderhead’s shoulders. He was sleeping again, but in a moment and another moment, all the commotion was still. Wolf was gone. Dog was gone. Only Thunderhead now. But when he woke in the morning, Jonquil was gone too.

  Thunderhead rushed to the door, quick as quick but no-one was there. He was too late to see Snizzleslide sneaking away through the thicket and all down to Brunt Boggart to find what he could.

  Snizzleslide was gone all the long day long and all the next night too. Thunderhead was alone in Ramshadow House, stretched out under the broken roofs, staring up at the stars as they wheeled across the patch of sky. He traced out their paths with his toe in the dust that covered the uneven flagstones of Ramshadow’s floor, then lay down to sleep beside this chart he had drawn of the sky.

  Next day when he woke, he heard the Drummer, out by the Fever Tree. Heard him moving, closer and close as he came across the fields, till the Drummer was there, outside his door, beating a rhythm through the overgrown garden. Thunderhead flung the door open and brought him inside – and as the Drummer played on, Thunderhead danced, trip and step, along the lines of the chart he had drawn on the floor. Thunderhead knew, for others had told him, that when he danced, someone might fall sick, and someone might get well. Or sometimes nothing would happen at all. But Thunderhead did not dance to cause sickness, nor dance to bring a cure. He danced for the sake of the dance. He danced to map out the stars. Not the stars in the sky, nor the stars on the floor but the stars and the galaxies and the planets far away that he could feel turning inside him – in his limbs, in his body, in his head – as he danced and he danced until he could dance no more.

  Then the Drummer wiped the back of his hand across his sweating brow and Thunderhead sat awhile and then set the pan on the stove in the old blackened kitchen to brew up a potion of herbs. Then they fell to talking, Thunderhead and the Drummer. Talked of rivers and mountains and storms before time. And come the late afternoon, they played again – Thunderhead pulling a flute from his pocket which he blew till the notes rose wistfully above the Drummer’s beat. And way off and away, down in Brunt Boggart, Snizzleslide heard the flute, sensed its silver voice tremble through his slithering body, and he set off home again, back to Ramshadow House to show Thunderhead all that he had found.

  By the time Snizzleslide reached the house, the Drummer was gone – and when Thunderhead opened the door, the snake was gone too and there stood Jonquil, all smiling and fresh.

  “What have you brought me?” Thunderhead asked, never minding where she’d been as she emptied her basket filled with trinkets and shiny things. Thunderhead pored through them, grabbing at baubles and handfuls of geejaws. A fistful of spoons, lost rings, tarnished thimbles. He rushed through to the floor strewn with dust, strewn with sand, where the lines of the stars had been traced by the soles of his feet. At each point where a star would shine in through the broken roof, he placed one of the glittering things to mark it on the floor, till the whole room was lit by their glinting, reflecting the last rays of the setting sun striking in through the rafters.

  Back in the kitchen, Jonquil kindled the stove and set up a brew, for the road from Brunt Boggart was dusty and dry – then wandered back to see whether Thunderhead had finished his chart.

  “One star more!” he pointed excitedly.

  Jonquil smiled.

  “One star more,” she responded. “You always ask for one star more. But then when I bring it, you need another and another. Always one star more. And I go out and find it, but you’re never satisfied. Each night you gaze up and see a new star in the sky.”

  Thunderhead ran his fingers through his grizzled hair, all hung with tarnished glitter.

  “This time, tis true,” he declared. “I need one more star to draw them together. One star more to lay over here.”

  Jonquil followed his finger to where there was one space more for one more star at the point which would join all the lines, for once, for all.

  “Fetch me my star,” Thunderhead pleaded.

  Snizzleslide sped away from the house, slithering through the undergrowth, the long grass whispering.

  “I know this chart,” he hissed. “Seen it all before. Seen the cloak that Old Mother Tidgewallop sewed, a cloak as dark as night, stitched all over with sparkling things, same as this chart that Thunderhead’s made. And the cloak had one star missing too. One star in the corner she never could find. And I told her that I had that star, that I hid it in the well. I tricked her then – I tricked her false, I tricked her true.”

  Snizzleslide paused, his quick tongue licking his lips as he remembered. “But can’t trick Thunderhead. No-one tricks Thunderhead. Thunderhead must have his star, and Snizzleslide must find it.”

  Snizzleslide came to Brunt Boggart and soon as they saw him people turned away, hid their coins and their keys full deep in their pockets as he slid by. Snizzleslide watched with eyes sly as sly.

  He tried to look in Snuffwidget’s house, but Snuffwidget sent him away. He tried to slip in through Willowmist’s window while she was out for the day. But the locks were all bolted and he hurried on, while mistrustful eyes seemed to follow him, glinting as keen as the star he was seeking. But where? This crawling through dust on his belly made his throat parched and dry. Snizzleslide headed on to Mother Tidgewallop’s old cottage, to slake his thirst in the well just as he’d always done.

  He slithered down the slippery walls, then he drank and he drank of the clear icy water before climbing back up to the yard. There he stared and he stared at the cottage, the sun glinting bright off the windows. He knew that Old Mother Tidgewallop was gone. Larkum her wayward son lived there now with Grizzlegrin his wife, who cried at the moon – and their baby daughter Lovage who was the one crying now, up in the bedroom, wailing for milk.

  Snizzleslide slipped in through the door, same as he ever had before. Slipped up the stairs quick as quick. Larkum was away in the woods, tending the pigs – Snizzleslide knew that. And Grizzlegrin was too busy with baby Lovage, so no-one noticed Snizzleslide as he slipped up to the dresser. No-one noticed Snizzleslide as he opened up the drawer. No-one noticed Snizzleslide as he seized the cloak as dark as night and dragged it off behind him, away across the floor.

  “What’s this?” grunted Thunderhead. Jonquil stood before him and spread out the dark black cloak.

  “It is a chart,” she replied. “A chart of stars. There are many stars here, many shiny things. I reasoned any one of them could be your missing star.”

  Thunderhead pushed back his battered black hat and twisted a strand of hair.
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br />   “You reasoned wrong,” he said.

  Jonquil looked disappointed. Thunderhead led her to the room of dust with the trail of stars laid out on the floor.

  “Look,” Thunderhead pointed, spreading out the cloak. “These charts are the same. The stars on the cloak are lined up the same as the stars on the floor. Both map the path of the planets. Both have one star missing. See, there…”

  He placed a hand on Jonquil’s shoulder and pointed. Sure enough, in just the same place was a space, a darkness.

  Jonquil shook her head.

  “The cloak is no use to me,” Thunderhead told her as she gazed at the chart of stars on the floor. “Fine as it may be, handsome as it is, it is not my cloak,” Thunderhead continued. “Belongs to another. Belongs to Grizzlegrin, made for her by Mother Tidgewallop, fine woman and true. I laid her in the Burying Ground and spoke the words to the sky. This cloak is no use to me. Take it back to Grizzlegrin.”

  And early next morning, Grizzlegrin was woken in her bed, just as the birds were singing, by a rustling, a scurrying, a dragging and a slithering.

  “Larkum! Wake up!” she cried.

  Larkum sat up slowly and rubbed his bleary eyes. Daughter Lovage began to weep at their side.

  “Listen!” whispered Grizzlegrin.

  “Can’t hear nothing,” grumbled Larkum. “Must be the wind and the morning birds. Go back to sleep now, will you – or tend to Daughter Lovage.”

  Just as Grizzlegrin took the child on her arm, they heard the sound of a rattling door. Larkum leapt from the bed and rushed down the stairs, but nothing could he see, anywhere around.

  “Snizzleslide! Snizzleslide been here, sure as sure. It was him took the cloak of darkness that Grizzlegrin wore to comfort me. Snizzleslide took it, he must have done. What’s he taken now?”

  Larkum poked around in the half-light of the kitchen, but nothing seemed to be missing. Not a key nor a needle, not a kettle lid nor a thimble – not any of his mother’s old keepsakes and trinkets. None of the things Snizzleslide usually came for.

  “Nothing’s gone,” he said and scratched his head. “Too early to get up yet. Too late to go back to bed.”

  Larkum trudged up the stairs and set his eyes on the spare room door, hanging half open.

  “Strange,” he said. “I shut that last night.”

  He looked inside. The drawer of the dresser was open too, same as the door. Larkum went to check.

  “Snizzleslide, Snizzleslide… now let’s see what he’s took.”

  He pulled the drawer full open and then he saw – Snizzleslide had taken nothing at all, but there – just where it should be – was the cloak of darkness all covered in stars, a little rumpled, a little crumpled, a little dusty where it had been dragged down the track. A little stained where it had slithered through the grass and the mud, all the way back from Ramshadow House. But now it had returned.

  “Grizzlegrin!” Larkum shouted to his wife as she held Daughter Lovage to her breast. “Look here – no need to cry now, the cloak of stars is come back!”

  “Go! Go and don’t come back. If you cannot bring the star to me – then what good are you here?”

  Thunderhead’s words still rang in Snizzleslide’s head as he slipped away, not wanting to hear the voice again, but saddened to have failed. So he curled himself at the bottom of Old Mother Tidgewallop’s well, to hide away and watch the sky, watch the clouds and sun and moon as they passed above his head.

  Back in Ramshadow House, Thunderhead lay sick. He called for Jonquil, but she came no more. His voice echoed around the empty walls and up through the rotted rafters to rise through the broken roof and send the crows that sat there clattering to the sky. His head was heavy, his mind was fevered, his limbs they would not move. He lay a-bed and watched the stars, wishing he could reach out and pluck one down. Take it in his trembling hands and place it in the empty space that waited on the dusty floor.

  The Drummer did not come any more. Thunderhead could hear his rhythms out by the Fever Tree where he played each day to the Crow Dancers. He did not come to Ramshadow House, for Thunderhead was too sick to mix his own potion and it was for the potion that the Drummer came, as much as it was to talk with Thunderhead or to beat out a rhythm for his dancing and his flute. So Thunderhead lay for days, counting the moons as they turned. He had no victuals, no water passed his cracked parched lips. Some days he heard a knocking, a knocking at the door – but it was not the Drummer and was not Jonquil. He knew by the voices calling him that it was the sick’uns come for a cure, though now he was more sick than them. He heard them talking, muttering, in the garden overgrown with weeds.

  “Where is Thunderhead?… No-one seen him… He can’t be here… This cough sits on my chest worse than a bear in a fog. How’m I going to fix it now if Thunderhead is gone?”

  “Go to Nanny Ninefingers, same as me. She got the potions to fix you up…”

  “Go to Ninefingers, that’s for sure. She can cure you right as day…”

  And Thunderhead lay in his fever bed and heard the voices pass away.

  “Ninefingers, Ninefingers…” he repeated to himself.

  But he would not go to her. All down the years, Old Nanny Ninefingers and Thunderhead would watch each other, eyes askance, pulling the same roots, picking the same herbs and flower heads, treating the same sick’uns who would come clamouring to see them. But Ninefingers would give’em one cure and Thunderhead would give’em another. And they both might work in their different ways, or they might not work at all. But Ninefingers and Thunderhead they never worked together, and if they could help it, they never spoke to each other. But who else was there? Who else to cure Thunderhead now he couldn’t cure himself?

  First cure was getting up. He looked at the walls. He gazed at the sky. He could do that, and rose up shaky on his long spindled legs. Second cure was getting dressed. He looked at his feathered cloak laying there and his tall battered hat. He could do that, though his hands were trembling as he pulled them on. Then he walked to the earthenware pot in the corner and daubed some clay in blotches and streaks, all down his cheeks, across his forehead and up his arms. Third cure was going out. Thunderhead pushed open the door. It creaked on its rusted hinges. Thunderhead took one step outside. He could do that. He blinked awhile and peered around, listening out for far-off sounds coming down the lane – voices raised and children squealing and the long wind rushing, hithering and thithering in between the trees. Thunderhead took one step more, then another and another, all the time listening as he went – hoping he might hear Jonquil yet, coming back to him. But she was gone. Thunderhead knew it.

  So he walked on, on past Pottam’s Mill and down Mallenbrook Lane, threading through the ruts and the standing puddles until he came to Old Nanny Ninefingers’ cottage. And there he rapped upon the door. Rapped once, rapped twice, as loud as loud. Nanny Ninefingers was pouring powdered silverweed into a vial and she near spilt it all, he knocked so loud. But she kept on pouring until she was all finished and done – and then she swept the powder she’d spilt, all careful back into the jar. Then she rubbed her hands together and went and opened the door.

  There stood Thunderhead. She looked him up and down.

  “Why do you come here knocking? You never come to this door before. What is it you want?”

  Thunderhead’s hands were shaking. His limbs were weak. He opened his mouth but could not speak. Old Nanny Ninefingers squinnied his eyes.

  “You have a sickness, I can see.” Her voice was gentle now. “Come in, come in.”

  Thunderhead took one step inside. This was the fourth cure. Now he was here. Now he was here, but what could he say? Ninefingers gestured to the kitchen chair.

  “Sit down,” she said.

  Thunderhead sat, removed his tall battered hat and dragged his long fingers through his matted hair.

  “Take your time,” Ninefingers murmured. “You took time enough to come here all these years, that’s for sure.”

  “Al
l these years,” said Thunderhead slowly. “All these years I never needed you. All these years you never needed me, though maybe one day you will. But today I come to ask you, Ninefingers… Don’t come for no potion – I can make potion of my own…”

  “I heard about your potions, Thunderhead…” Ninefingers began to admonish him gently, but Thunderhead raised his hand.

  “Don’t need no potion, Ninefingers – though I see you got plenty here and more.” His eye roamed around the kitchen, the bottles and jars, the vials and pitchers racked along the shelves and cupboards that covered every wall.

  “Don’t need no potion, I just come to ask you…” Thunderhead paused.

  Ninefingers watched him. She was listening. Outside in the treetops the jackdaws clattered. Thunderhead looked down. He stared at the floor as if he was tracing the chart again, that was marked in the dust back at Ramshadow House. He pointed, his long finger quivering. He pointed to a spot where the sunlight fell in through Nanny Ninefingers’ window, but that was not what he saw. He saw the star.

  “What is it?” asked Ninefingers.

  “The star!” he roared suddenly. Then was quiet again. Quiet as a child.

  “The star that I seek.” His shoulders were hunched beneath his cloak of feathers. He was sobbing almost.

  Ninefingers shook her head.

  “You do not seek it. This is a craving. This is a sickness.”

  Thunderhead nodded.

  “Can you give me a potion?”

  Ninefingers stood up and looked away.

  “Thought you didn’t want a potion, Thunderhead. And no potion of mine could help you, even if you did. If you want the star so bad, you got to find it yourself.”

  “But where?” he begged.

  “Ain’t in no tawdry shiny things,” Ninefingers explained. “Ain’t in Brunt Boggart, ain’t in the fields. Ain’t in the river, nor the sea. Not even in the sky. Ain’t nowhere you been looking, nor anywhere you might go and look.”