Ravenhair clung fast to the blue crow babe who was still asleep on her shoulder, while Lumbucket the Bear rocked this way and that, all the while mauling at the air with his paws, a desolate roar trapped deep in his throat while Hobknockle beat on his drum – but still Marsh Brunning did not come. In between and all around, Homminy roamed with his foolery, beating his bladder-stick upon the ground and bawling lewd jokes in the girlen’s ears as he tweaked the little’uns under the chin before blundering away again.
Then they stopped. Ravenhair looked around. The ragged troupe stood in a line and joined hands, as if to take a bow, just as they always had done at the end of any show. But the childern and the old’uns gathered on the mossy bank at the side of the hollow pelted them with the oranges, with turnips and rotten apples.
Lumbucket lunged forward as Hobknockle held him back.
“None of this ever happened back in Marsh Brunning’s day,” Slipriver whispered.
But then a silence fell as out of the darkness between the trees at the far side of the hollow, there came a woman, young as old, who carried a star that shone so bright it seemed twas made of pure light. She placed the star in the centre of the ring while her companions capered around her. She held out a hand and all were hushed as she began to sing:
“Where is the shadow
That follows the wind?
Who knows where she goes to,
Who sees where she’s been?
Soon as you find her
She turns to the sun
Which holds you so tightly
When you are alone.”
One by one the troupe joined in, spinning around and around, their voices both harmonious and hoarse, while Lumbucket shuffled and bellowed and Hobknockle took up the rhythm on his drum. Soon as they stopped, a hush fell on the grove. One of the little’uns let out a cough, but his sister clapped a hand across his mouth.
Then out of the dark woods came flurries of moths, a cloud – thicker and thicker, flying all around. The moths turned to butterflies then bright coloured birds all singing, flying faster and faster till they changed to a snow-storm, a blizzard. A blizzard of fire, of thunder, of ice. Then the ice was as swans, their wings spread and wheeling, their long necks pulling as they sped. Ravenhair gasped as they sailed straight towards her, becoming boats with white sails drifting down from the sky. And from the vessels stepped pale-faced children all clapping their hands, though their faces did not smile. They stepped into the hollow that was woodland no more but a quayside and harbour – and there they danced to Hobknockle’s drum.
And then they were gone. The blue crow babe in Ravenhair’s arms, who had slept through all the rumpus and commotion, woke up and looked about with a bright beady eye and then opened its beak and let out a cry which was not babe true and not crow neither and the sound it grew louder while the woman in the centre of the ring held out her arms. The bird flew to her and nestled there close at her breast and Crossdogs looked and looked again and saw twas Downfeathers, with her painted cart waiting at the edge of the clearing.
The bird was blue crow no more, but true a babe, crying as only a babe can cry, then chortling and cooing contentedly, nestled in its mother’s arms. The childern of the village looked around, wide eyed and puzzled. A rattle of applause rippled around the grove and then they straggled away, leaving Ravenhair and Crossdogs sitting together, watching as the tired troupe gathered up their props and bags, then picked up their stars: the star of twisted twigs, the star hewn out of stone, the star of hammered metal and the star of plaited rushes.
Ravenhair sat beside Downfeathers as she held the star of pure light carefully in her hands.
“Where did you find it?” Ravenhair asked.
“I went back to the field where our tent burnt down, back to where we left our dreams. There on the ground I found this star, burning fierce enough to start a fire. It cooled each day as I kept it, as I carried it, bright enough to light my way. Ever since that day, I had this star – but don’t have Marsh Brunning, sure and sure.”
“But you have your babe now,” Ravenhair said.
Downfeathers frowned, fussing and fidgeting at the bird’s flustered feathers.
“Got him right enough,” she shrugged. “But still ain’t got Marsh Brunning. That’s who we wait for. Wait for him to come again. Wait for him to play.”
“What happens when he plays?” Ravenhair asked.
Downfeathers squinnied up at her.
“You have to be there,” she said. “You have to wait and see.”
Then she lay the blue crow babe in the cart of gaudy flowers and pushed him away after the others as they slipped into the silence of the woods.
Ravenhair walked slowly back to Crossdogs and they sat alone underneath the glimmer of the moon.
“The babe is gone,” Crossdogs sighed.
“Twas never our babe,” Ravenhair reminded him.
“Felt lost when it came,” Crossdogs mused. “Didn’t know how to tend it. Didn’t know what to do… now feel more lost without it, wailing and pecking and wanting its food.”
Next day they woke and looked about the hollow. The ground was all trampled and a litter of orange peel strewn all around. Crossdogs rubbed his eyes.
“Come on,” he muttered. “There’s nothing here now. Need to find our way back to the Track.”
But Ravenhair stopped. There at the centre of the clearing five stars were burnt into the grass.
“Come on,” Crossdogs called again as he set out to follow a path through the trees.
But Ravenhair paused and bent to pick up one stray blue feather. She stood alone in the centre of the hollow, and then began to sing, as if she could hear a hurdy-gurdy, playing beyond the hills:
“Which way is the sorrow
That dwells in the shade?
Who knows where she comes from,
Who sees where she strays?
Soon as you find her,
She laughs like the wind
And hides in the days
Where no-one has been.”
The Edge of the World
Let me tell you. Let me tell you how Crossdogs left Ravenhair back on the Track and met a man all stooped and squat with squinnied eyes and his forehead frowning. On his shoulders he bore a great wooden yoke and balanced up on top of the yoke was a rickety chair. In the chair sat a scrawny old woman who called out every step of the way in a voice that rasped out harsh as a crow:
“Go this way, go that! Go faster, go slow!”
The man traipsed on, dusty and weary, his brow wet with sweat from the sun’s raging heat. He tottered and staggered with the weight of the woman and all the while, beside her cursing voice was the clatter of pans that she carried in a basket and the racket of the chickens that sat in the pans. A clucking and squawking and a laying of eggs that toppled from the pans to splatter all around the man as he walked.
“Now then!” Crossdogs sang out in greeting as the man sank to his knees. “Which way are you going and why do you carry that old woman that way?”
“This woman’s my mother,” the man replied. “Carry her this way and carry her that.” He gasped for breath as his fingers dug deep into the damp green grass that grew at the side of the road. But before Crossdogs could say more the mother shrieked out –
“What have we stopped for? Get up, carry on, you lazy good-for-nothing. We have to be there before long and long!”
But the man did not move, he was straight out of breath.
“Have to be where?” Crossdogs asked him, offering a drink from the flask of water that he kept on a strap at his waist. The man slaked his thirst gratefully and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, ignoring his mother sitting above him as she continued to chide and to curse.
“Have to go here,” he said. “Have to go there. Have to go on till we find a new home for mother and me – for our house it burned down three long moon ago.”
“But sure twould be easy enough to set up a new home,” Crossdogs said. “I s
een empty shacks a-plenty as I’ve passed along this road. Slept in ’em too, for one night or more. Could fix one up easy to make a new home.”
“What have we stopped for?” the mother called again. “I don’t like it here. Go on – go on!”
The man shook his head. “You hear what she tells me. Wherever I find, be it ever so fine, she has to move on. Says nowhere’s as good as the house that burnt down.”
“Why, where did you live?” Crossdogs asked him, ignoring the eggs that came raining down and the clatter of pans and the mother’s shrieking whine.
“Twas a house such as you have never seen,” the man explained, “with twisted turrets and winding stairs and windows tinted the colour of petals. In every room a music box played, each one of them a different tune. And if you climbed to the top of the house, right to the topper-most turret, why there was a little round room. And the windows were as clear as day and if you looked out of them, any way you chose – why then you could see to the edge of the world!”
“What’s all that talking?” his mother exclaimed. “And why aren’t we moving? Got a long way to travel if we’re to get there by nightfall!”
There was a flurry of eggs which splattered to the ground and a rattle of pans which echoed all around. The cockerel started to crow and the hens chattered on, picking and pecking at the sides of the basket.
“Move!” The mother lurched, swaying in her chair. “Move on! Move on! Did I rear you to sit on your haunches all day, you lazy good-for-nothing son?!”
The man winced and brushed away the sweat from his brow as it mingled with the tears that ran down his cheeks. Crossdogs gazed upon him.
“I’m sure I could help you,” he said. “I’m young and I’m strong. Let me carry your load for you a little way down the road and then you can set your back straight.”
No sooner had Crossdogs suggested this than the man began unstrapping the harness that fastened the yoke. Easy and steady he lowered the chair till the whole caboodle was set around Crossdogs’ broad shoulders. As soon as he was done, the man straightened up. Crossdogs took the strain and raised the yoke and chair, mother and chickens, pots and pans, teetering and tottering up into the air. He braced his knees and took a step, then another and another until he had gauged the weight and the height of his load and they trundled on slowly all down the road.
“Which way are we headed?” he called to the man. There came no reply, so he asked him again –
“Which way shall I go?”
“On and on! On and on!” the mother’s voice shrieked. “On and on till you find me a house with a turret so that I may see to the edge of the world!”
Crossdogs squinnied round as far as he could. He looked for the man whose mother he carried. Peered this way and that and called out again – but there was no-one in sight. The man had gone. The moment that Crossdogs had taken his burden, the man had put foot for foot towards the horizon.
“On and on!” shrieked the mother, high up above him. “On and on!”
On and on they trudged, mile upon mile. Crossdogs staggered and stumbled. The knee that he’d crocked all back in Brunt Boggart when he fell from the apple tree – why it buckled and bent. But still he kept on, for what could he do? The mother kept screeching, like as if he was her son – for how could she know, up there in the sky, who was carrying her at all? And the sun it beat down, then the rain it came falling and Crossdogs’ face was all matted with sweat and the trickle of eggs slithering down with every step he trod.
A cluster of crows came cawing around and a raddle of ferrets stalked after the eggs. Across the fields a lone fox bayed just as the day began to fade. Far away Crossdogs spied a light glinting. He bunched his fists and straightened his back and strode on towards it.
“On and on!” the mother cried, for she had seen the light too – and soon enough they were upon it. It was a house fine and strong. Not a big house, not a small house but a middling sort of house and though it had no turret on top, the rays of the fading sun were glimmering on two huge windows.
Crossdogs lowered his burden and unfastened the harness. The mother clambered crookedly all down to the ground and straightened her back with a crack. What did she say when she saw Crossdogs there and not her own son at all? Why, this woman said nothing, just stared at the house.
“What’s this place you have brought me to? Looks worse than all the others you’ve shown me. Got no petal-tinted windows. Got not turret on top. Now how’m I going to see to the edge of the world?”
Crossdogs shook his head wearily.
“Mother,” he said, for he knew of no other name to call her. “Mother, be it tall or small, this house is all that we’re going to find today, for I am full weary and can travel no further – so let us go in and see what we can see.”
“See what we see,” the mother retorted. “See what we see… See everything, see anything, see nothing at all.”
But Crossdogs ignored her, and the racket of chickens and rattle of pans, and set his shoulder firm to the door. Inside was a carpet of warm grey dust and spider webs hanging from the ceiling. But Crossdogs was more weary than he’d ever been before and even his new-found mother, who was no mother at all, seemed thankful to find a place to shelter from the night. They set to, closing the curtains and brushing away the dust while the chickens squawked and cackled in and out the rooms, their long legs strutting, pecking and scratting at anything they could find. But wasn’t much to find at all – only a table and some chairs and an old blackened cooker huddled in the kitchen. Soon enough the mother gathered eggs from the chickens and cracked them into a pan.
“Eggs for tea again, m’dear,” she cried in a voice that was almost kind. “Hope you ain’t sick of eggs, but it’s all we got, is all I can say, though I know we eat’em every day.”
Crossdogs shook his head. No good trying to tell her that he was not her son at all, that her own son had gone, over the hills and away. At least here was sheltered and out of the wind and up the top of the rickety stairs he found two beds where they could rest for the night while the chickens were roosting all down in the kitchen.
“On and on!” the mother called. “On and on! Your eggs are done. Come and get’em while they’re hot.”
They sat side by side at the old kitchen table as if they’d sat that way all their lives. The mother sucked and gobbled at her eggs then wiped her hand across her mouth.
“Why are we sitting here, staring at curtains? Pull’em aside, son – let’s watch the sun setting.”
Crossdogs tugged at the length of grey curtain. Dust billowed everywhere as he slowly drew it open. There was the eye of the glowing sun – there beyond rivers, beyond forests, beyond ocean, sinking down blood red and fierce. Crossdogs had never seen so far before.
“It’s the edge of the world,” he whispered, hoping the mother would believe him and then she’d cease her searching and he could leave her here and continue his journey, knowing at last she was happy.
He looked over at her, to see what she was thinking, but all of a sudden the mother was sleeping, her head nodding down and her gap-toothed mouth drooling. Crossdogs stared again through the window. Could he truly see to the edge of the world? He stared on as long as he could and then he stared some more till he swore he could see all the way to Brunt Boggart, see Hamsparrow and Bullbreath wrestling on the Green and Riversong and Larkspittle kissing down by the woods. Could hear their voices calling and old songs on the wind. But was this truly the edge of the world, or just his mind dreaming, weary from walking all this day long with a yolk on his shoulders and a chair balanced there, carrying this mother who was sleeping now? But then she awoke. Awoke with a start.
“Been dreaming,” she said, rubbing her eyes.
“What did you see?” Crossdogs enquired.
The mother glared at the darkness that had gathered outside the window.
“Seen the edge of the world,” she said, “just like before.”
“Who did you see there?” Crossdog
s asked her.
The mother rubbed her eyes again and gazed around the room.
“Seen my son,” she said thoughtfully – then stared at Crossdogs, as if for the first time. “You ain’t my son!” she suddenly cried. “You been trying to trick me? Where is my son?”
Crossdogs sighed.
“I ain’t your son, though was no good to tell you, for you took me to be him. But I ain’t trying to trick you for I brought you here true as true when your own good son ran off and left you stranded by the side of the road.”
“Least he’s not stranded now,” said the mother. “I always told him he should leave and find him a good woman and true. Seems like he’s gone and done that now, for back in my dream, when I saw him standing at the edge of the world, he was kissing a girl whose hair was long and shining and as black as any crow.”
“Know only one girl who looks like this,” Crossdogs cried, and before the mother could say any more he sprang to his feet and rushed out the room.
“Ravenhair! Ravenhair!” he called all down the night. He wandered long and lonely over crags and through the mires – for he could not bear the notion that this man who he had helped by taking up his burden might be out there at the edge of the world kissing the girlen he’d known since they were children.
He cried her name to the dawning. And then in the early morning light he heard feet running towards him. Could this be her? – he asked himself, as his heart beat fast and pounding. But over the brow of the brooding hill came no girlen but the man who’d deserted him to his mother and the chickens. The man was running, wild-eyed and breathless. Crossdogs looked behind him, looked to left and right to see if Ravenhair was following out of the shadow of the night. But no-one was there, only the wind – and the man was alone and alone. His breath was seized in silent sobs and he was scarce able to speak.
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