Thunderhead was shaking. He stretched his arms. His hands were trembling, his fingers shivering. He cupped them about as if they might be filled with a ball of bright light – but nothing was there but the dust in the air. Thunderhead slumped back in Ninefingers’ kitchen chair. The old woman shook her head.
“There are no stars to guide you. You must find the star inside you,” she said.
Thunderhead sat still, as quiet as quiet. Quieter than you are now. Ninefingers reached for a piece of chalk and drew on the floor a five-pointed star.
“Go to the top of Langton Brow when the night is dark and the stars full bright. Lay yourself out beneath the sky with your four limbs stretched to the four points of the star.”
“And where is the fifth point?” Thunderhead asked, knowing this must be the fifth cure at last.
Ninefingers looked at him.
“You must close your eyes. The fifth point is where you find the power of the star inside you.”
Thunderhead strode to the top of Langton Brow. As he lay on his back he breathed gently, breathed slowly, drew the whole of the sky deep into his lungs. He felt himself bathed in the light of a hundred stars, a thousand stars. A thousand, thousand stars, and a thousand more – the stars beyond the stars.
Thunderhead cupped his hands and raised them. It seemed to him they were filled with an energy which he could not see, but he could feel as he drew it like a glowing ball towards him. As the power surged through him he let out a great cry – then leapt to his feet and ran. He ran all the way down Langton Brow, down the rutted lane towards Brunt Boggart. When he reached the meadow he paused, for the darkness was filled with a sudden light as if a star had fallen, not now but a long while ago. He shook his head. Not a star at all but a bush in early blossom. He looked again. Not a bush but a sheep, wandering lost back to its field. He looked again. Not a sheep but a fall of sudden snow. And then he ran on. Ran on across the meadow and through Brunt Boggart’s sleeping streets, way past the Blacksmith’s forge and beyond until he reached Ramshadow House.
With his hands still cupped, he shouldered open the door, still clutching the power, the energy of the star. The chart of planets lay traced in the dust on the floor, marked by a myriad of meaningless trinkets, geejaws and baubles, lockets and pendants, brooches, bracelets and keys. Thunderhead leapt to the shadowy space which waited for the final star. He unlocked the cup of his hands and let the glow of the energy seep into the space. As he did so, he heard a familiar rhythm as the Drummer set out from the Echo Field. Thunderhead began to move. His long limbs swayed, his hair shook free. As the Drummer arrived through the open door, Thunderhead clapped his hands. And then the dance began.
A turning dance, a burning dance. A dance of all he’d ever learned. A dance of stars as the planets were joined all across the chart. But as they joined, the stars in the dark of the sky above Ramshadow’s broken roof began to wheel as if the whole universe was revolving. Thunderhead let out another cry, so loud that down in Brunt Boggart, everyone must have heard it and they stumbled sleepy from their beds, out into the streets to see what the matter might be. And there above them they saw the stars spinning across the endless sky.
As the sky gyrated, so just for an instant Brunt Boggart was gone and they stood in a place they did not know – a teaming city crowded with more people than they had ever seen before. Down on the waterfront drums were beating and trumpets braying. Beside the quayside stood a sagging collection of tents, painted bright colours. A fire-eater leaned back with his hands on his hips, breathing flames that shimmered and twisted while a one-legged juggler tossed wooden discs into the air and caught them as they fell. All around there were stalls ladened down with pies and loaves and sweetmeats. A grizzled brown bear, its legs in chains, capered sluggishly on top of a barrel.
And as the drum beat, the people of Brunt Boggart danced, twining and kissing the same as they might at the season’s moon when Skyweaver would come and play his fiddle all out on the Green. But tonight it was only the Drummer who played, though where he was, nobody knew. They could only hear his echo, be it from Ramshadow House or down on the city’s waterfront.
Ravenhair was there, with all the other girlen, and she found herself holding Crossdogs’ hand and peering up to the sky. Her head was spinning, she felt fearful yet happy. She felt as if she was dancing although she was standing quite still as Crossdogs took her in his arms. She looked up.
“The stars have stopped turning,” she whispered.
Crossdogs followed her gaze. It was true. And when they looked back, the city had gone – the stalls and the minstrel troupe and the crush of the throng. The drumming had stopped and all the people of Brunt Boggart stood out on the Green, bemused and shivering in their nightshirts and gowns. They shook their heads and shuffled back to their beds, back in their own familiar cottages.
Back at Ramshadow House, the Drummer slipped away. Behind him lay Thunderhead, collapsed on the floor in the midst of his chart of the stars. And from beneath his prone body a strong smoke rose in a shadow all around him, rose through the timbers of the broken rooftop and out towards the echoing sky.
Saffron
Let me tell you… Let me tell you… the mist hung low over the meadows and the air tasted sharp with the soil’s sodden blackness, as Greychild woke on a day much like today, nuzzled in the warmth of his coat beneath a canopy of twigs. In the distance he could hear a rising lark, while close by a dead branch snapped. Could be fox, could be badger. Greychild rolled over, shivering in the cold of the morning. He could feel damp dew flowing through his veins and kissing his bones.
Brunt Boggart was behind him now. All the day before, in the hedgerows and the gorse bushes, the dunnocks had chirruped and yellowhammers too, wagtails, goldfinches and little tippet wrens, all calling him and leading him, dipping and weaving as he walked.
Greychild rose and shook himself. Through the trees he saw a patch of blue, the very same colour, the very same hue as the dress he knew his mother wore, whenever she came to visit him. He followed it through scagging briars, followed it through nettle bite, followed it through mud and mire – but walk as he did and try as he might, the blue dress stayed ahead of him, leading him on, till Greychild pushed the branches aside, sure that he must find her. He saw the blue of her dress shimmering before him, but when he rushed out to touch it again, to bury his face in its folds, he knew it was only the blue of the sky. Greychild gave a sigh, then let loose a howling cry. All around him soft leaves fell and he held out his hands to touch them as if these were his mother’s tears and she was weeping now that she’d lost him. But not lost him at all for she’d found him again as he felt the sweet sunshine warm his face just as his mother’s smile had done.
A skein of geese flew across the sky, leading Greychild on again, slow as quick, quick as slow, only his coat on his back, his pockets empty as they’d ever been, till he came stumbling down the side of a hill where chaffinches rose twittering and the long grass swayed in the wind. There sitting on a stile was a girl with a wide friendly smile. As Greychild drew closer, she ran her long fingers through her dark flowing hair and spread her skirts around her like the petals of a flower.
“Come sit with me,” she said and smoothed her hand along the fence beside her. Greychild scrambled up. He was glad to settle awhile, for he was weary from walking all the morning.
“Tell me your name,” the girl implored, stroking Greychild’s face the while, her fingers light as any feather.
“I’ll tell you mine when I know yours,” Greychild replied.
“They call me Saffron,” said the girl, and when Greychild told her the name that Old Granny Willowmist had given him, why then she said, “I can see you’re grey from the dirt of the road. Do you think that the dust is water to wash your face and clothes?”
Greychild grinned.
“I know that dust is dust. But I am thirsty now. Tell me Saffron, you have asked me to sit with you – can you offer me a drink?”
&nbs
p; Saffron laughed and tossed back her hair.
“I can give you a drink here, I can give you a drink there.”
Then she took off her shoe and gave it to Greychild.
“But this is a shoe,” he protested, “and an empty shoe besides.”
Saffron frowned and shook her head.
“Tis nary a shoe, but a fine drinking cup!”
Greychild glanced at her nut brown face, all grinning and laughing in the midday sun, and thought that he would play along with her game. He raised the shoe to his lips and took a draught full long and true. The taste was sweet, the taste was clear, as pure as any water. And when he stopped his drinking, for sure his thirst was quenched. He passed the shoe back to Saffron who bent down low, her hair all tumbling, to slip it back on her foot.
“Thank you,” he said to her, “for offering me your cup.”
Saffron smiled and took his hand.
“Are you warm from your journey?” she asked.
Greychild nodded and pointed up.
“The sun is full high,” he exclaimed.
But Saffron shook her head.
“That is not the sun,” she said. “The sun would never shine by day. Why no, good Greychild, I know not who taught you but here we call that the moon.”
Greychild was puzzled. He looked into Saffron’s eyes to see if she was teasing him, like the girlen in Brunt Boggart when they played with him on the Green.
“If that is the moon,” he reasoned, “then what is that great white plate that climbs in the sky at night?”
“Why that,” cried Saffron, as she leapt from the stile and spread her skirts wide on the grass. “Why that, good Greychild, that be the sun, as anyone round here will tell you.”
Greychild scratched his head as he gazed down at the merriment in Saffron’s eyes. He could never be sure about words – he’d learnt them all as quick as quick at Old Granny Willowmist’s table when she’d taken him in from the woods, but sometimes he mixed them about. Saffron laughed at the puzzlement on Greychild’s face and reached up to pull him down beside her on the grass.
“Lie with me awhile,” she begged. “Awhile and another while more.”
Greychild didn’t know what to say. His limbs were tired and aching and he would be pleased to rest, but he needed to continue his journey before the end of the day and anyway, he mused, what did Saffron mean?
“If the sun be the moon and the moon be the sun when you ask me to stay, do you mean Go away?”
Saffron laughed and plucked up a buttercup to tickle him under his chin.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out. Come and sit closer now.”
In her lap lay an orange between the folds of her skirt. Greychild reached out to take it, but she pushed his hand away.
“I’m sorry,” he said, hanging his head. “My belly is growling with hunger. I have not eaten all morning and I love the sweet flesh of an orange and the tang of the juice on my fingers.”
Saffron looked at him and frowned.
“This is no orange,” she said, “but a fine speckled egg, laid freshly at dawn in my own father’s barn.”
Greychild scratched his head.
“Nothing here is what it seems to be,” he said. “If the sun be the moon and your shoe be a cup… and now an orange is an egg, why how can I be sure that you’re even a girl at all?”
Saffron shook out her hair and ruffled her skirts. Then she stood up of a sudden and the orange rolled down to the ground. As it lay on the grass between them she flung her arms up into the air as if they might be wings.
“You have guessed true,” she declared. “I am no girl, but a goose!”
Greychild grew afraid, for this goose girl looked so suddenly fierce.
“The sun is the moon,” he shouted, “and the moon is the sun,” agreeing with all she had told him. “Your shoe is a cup and the orange is an egg!”
He picked up the fruit and its skin seemed brittle and speckled, as like an egg might be, and as he did, the girl’s arms beat down then beat upwards again with a flap and a clatter, and she rose up before him then flew away over the trees and the hills. As Greychild watched the great bird go, the trees were no longer trees, but flowers and the hills had all sunk down into valleys. The sky was darkened, it was day no more, but deep in the pitch of the night. Greychild shivered. He felt he should sleep, but his belly told him it was still only afternoon. And so he walked on down the Pedlar Man’s Track, though it seemed more like a sparkling stream than any road he knew. The wheat in the fields around him stood frozen with frost. Rainbows arched into bridges of stone across the dark sea of the sky. Birds crawled about him as if they were spiders while a leather backed beetle perched on his shoulder and sang like a nightingale.
Greychild felt as though he’d been turned inside out. His tongue hung dry and parched even though he’d just slaked his thirst. His belly growled empty again as soon as he had eaten. He cried salty tears even when he felt happy and when that made him sad he couldn’t stop himself from laughing. He stood at the top of a high hill with the wind roaring round in his head. Below lay dark fields scattered over with flowers whose petals glowed purple and beckoned like fingers. But how could he be sure if this hill was a hill, or was he deep down in a vale?
“Moon is moon!” Greychild threw back his head and shouted. “Moon is moon and sun is sun. I am Greychild and you are Saffron. Orange is orange and egg is egg. Your shoe is a shoe and no cup anymore!”
He closed his eyes, then slowly opened them again, hoping that all would be changed. But he still stood on top of a high hill, the wind blowing wild through his tangle of hair and the dark fields below calling his name. And so he followed, down and down. Down a track of pebbles that glistened like eyes. Down a gully of shadows brighter than sunlight. Down to a thicket of soft velvet bushes and there he heard a girl crying. He pushed on through and there she sat, the girl who told him moon was sun. The girl who told him sun was moon.
“Greychild!” she called to him, and held out her hand. An orange still rolled in the lap of her skirt. She lifted the fruit and begged him to take it, to stroke its soft skin, to suck of its juice. But Greychild refused.
“You are not Saffron, true.” His voice was firm and steady. “For in this place where night is day and day is night, then if you seem to me to be a girl, then I know you true to be a goose.”
And so she was. Her arms raised up to beat again and she was gone. But as she left him, sun became moon again and moon became sun, and Greychild came stumbling down the hill where chaffinches rose twittering and the long grass swayed in the wind. He found himself standing back at the stile, his belly growling with hunger and his tongue dry with thirst and his feet sore and weary at the end of a long morning’s walk. But in the long grass, by the side of the fence, lay the segments of an orange, all freshly peeled.
The Waking Sleepers
Let me tell you… let me tell you how Greychild came rattling at the cold metal knocker on the great oaken door of the house that stood at the end of the wood. Not a sound could he hear from within and so he knocked again. Knocked once, knocked twice, but with the second knock the door swung open. There inside was a passageway heavy with dust which clung to the carvings of the low heavy beams.
As Greychild tiptoed forward to shelter from the night’s chill wind, the door creaked shut behind him. He stood awhile, letting his eyes grow used to the smothering darkness. Then he thought he heard a rustling, a low gentle moaning, a muttering and a calling from somewhere up the long narrow staircase which he could just make out before him.
“Who’s there?” Greychild cried, but the voices continued their mumbling like as if they were talking to each other in a dream, like as if they had not heard Greychild’s knocking at all, or the heavy thud of the door.
Greychild paused at the foot of the stairs. He could smell a smell such as he had never known before. More potent than any of Nanny Ninefingers’ potions: orange and clove, cinnamon and comfrey. But something e
lse. It was the smell of death, but not death at all. It was the smell of sleep, but not sleep at all – it was the smell of dreams.
Greychild moved forward slowly, his hands groping in the darkness. He brushed against a table, and from it rolled something cold, something metal. It clattered to the floor, echoing eerily along the passages of the house. From above the voices rose, a curious muttering at being so rudely disturbed. Greychild paused. Who would come? Who would come shuffling down the stairs to confront him? But the voices quietened and Greychild crept forward again, his foot knocking up against whatever had fallen. It rolled and rattled away from him, but he bent to pick it up. His hands ran over the length of its smooth cold surface until he came to a design all mazy and swirling. Greychild realised he was holding a long metal horn and without thinking raised the instrument to his lips and gently blew, then harder. One ringing note seared through the dust, the cobwebs and the gloom. Greychild caught his breath, for the sound was louder than ever he’d imagined. It echoed and ran along the deserted passageway, was swallowed up into the empty rooms, then welled out and around again.
He dropped the horn clanging to the floor, louder than ever before. Greychild froze. What should he do? The echo trailed away. He turned to run towards the door, but his legs would not move as up above his head he heard footsteps drawn towards him, shuffling and groaning as the muttering grew louder. Then a slithering and a shuddering came trundling down the stairs, juddering along the corridor from the rooms up a-top.
Then light. Light of lanterns, light of candles. And faces pressing close to him. Greychild gasped. These creatures seemed same age as him, their skin was smooth, their limbs long and supple. But in the light of the lanterns’ flicker, their eyes stared ancient and rheumy and their hair hung matted and straggled in snow-white locks.
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