by Sharon Sant
Almost as if Mary could tell what Charlotte was thinking, she voiced it, ‘Don’t worry, I think Mrs Brown talks nonsense’
Charlotte halted on the road and turned sharply, ‘Mary!’
‘Well, I mean to say, I don’t take seriously what she says and neither does mother.’
Charlotte thought for a moment. ‘What does Mrs Brown say?’ she asked slowly as they started to walk again.
Mary hardly managed to keep the satisfied smile from her face, ‘she says that the baby was left out on the heath in a raging storm. That your mother brought her to Mr Finch for the orphanage, but then suddenly changed her mind at the last moment, almost as if she was not of her own mind…’ Mary lowered her voice, ‘almost,’ she continued, ‘as if the child had enchanted her… She says that your mother should be wary of what sort of devil she’s taking in.’
‘She is rather enchanting, but I don’t think she’s a devil.’ Charlotte replied briskly, knowing full well that Mary did not mean that sort of enchantment.
‘She says that she wonders if you have taken in a changeling, or a witch and that we all should stay away for fear that we will be enchanted too.’ Charlotte tutted loudly. ‘Don’t you think it is a strange turn of events?’ Mary pressed.
The problem was, Charlotte did think it was a strange turn of events. She could think of little else these days. A turn of events that had worried her more and more the longer Georgina stayed with them. The question remained unanswered: who had left that basket out on the heath and why? Where did Georgina come from? Was there a mother somewhere, weeping for her lost child? Or worse still, was there a mother somewhere sighing with relief? If she was a magical child, could they trust her? Were they safe?
‘We could do nothing but take her in. Mother did not want to send the child to the orphanage.’ Charlotte looked pointedly at Mary,’ would you like it in the orphanage?’
‘No,’ Mary replied. She paused, seemingly wondering whether to air her next thought. ‘Father also says that the wolf arrived when the baby did.’
Charlotte frowned as if she would argue, but then sighed. ‘Mary… Georgina is just a baby. That’s all. A charming but human child, however boring that may sound. There is nothing else to say about it.’
Mary was immediately silenced by Charlotte’s tone. Her gaze dropped to the ground and Charlotte, glancing across, relented. ‘Perhaps you can come and see Georgina, to see for yourself that she’s perfectly ordinary and really very sweet. I’ll ask mother and tell you her decision when I see you at school.’
Mary’s head lifted again and she beamed. ‘I would like that.’
When they had got to the point where they were to part they halted, and as Mary turned to take her route home, she cast one last glance back at Charlotte.
‘I look forward to meeting Georgina.’ Charlotte smiled. Then, remembering something else, Mary added. ‘Don’t go out after dark until my father has caught the wolf.’ Her face now was more serious. Charlotte wondered whether Mary actually believed this, and was not making it up after all. Even so, Charlotte didn’t think a word of it was true. Wolves had not been seen in these parts for hundreds of years. There were stories, of course, there were always stories, but they were just that.
She waved a hand airily. ‘Of course, I’ll be careful.’
Charlotte arrived home to find her mother baking bread and Georgina sitting at her side making patterns in the flour. She beamed at Charlotte’s entrance. ‘Georgina started to walk today!’ she squeaked. ‘Isn’t that marvellous? She’s so quick and clever.’
A bit too quick and a bit too clever, Charlotte thought, and those nagging doubts began to fill her mind again. ‘Mother…’ she began, ‘Mary told me something today, about the things some people in the village have been saying about Georgina…’ She glanced uneasily at her mother, surprised at herself for bringing the conversation up. Her mother seemed unconcerned.
‘What sort of things?’ she asked absently as she wiped at Georgina’s face with a damp cloth.
‘That…’ Charlotte took a deep breath. It was a ridiculous idea and one that she hated herself for repeating, ‘that she is a changeling… that there is something strange about her…. that….’
Her mother looked up sharply. ‘Charlotte! How often have I told you to pay no heed to the gossip you hear from the village?’
‘Yes, but this –’
‘This is no different! Georgina is a poor, abandoned child in need of a guardian. As I recall, you did not want to take her to Mr Finch.’
Charlotte could have argued that her mother did want to take Georgina to Mr Finch and suddenly, inexplicably changed her mind. She could have argued that since Georgina’s arrival her mother had behaved like someone completely enchanted by her. She could have said that she hated the way Georgina had taken George’s place and become the most important thing in the household, that Charlotte missed the time she used to have with her mother that belonged to just her. She could have told her mother that sometimes, when she thought about where Georgina might have come from, it gave her an uneasy feeling. But she didn’t say any of these things, because she knew that her mother would not listen to them. She simply bowed her head and went to her room to take her boots off.
Later, when the kitchen had been cleared, Charlotte’s mother turned to her. ‘I have an errand to run this afternoon. Would you watch Georgina for me?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Charlotte had planned to spend the afternoon sketching. Her teacher had always taken an interest in Charlotte’s drawings, praising her as a great talent and it had encouraged her to keep practising at every opportunity. But mother had asked her, and considering the conversation they had had earlier, Charlotte could not refuse. Her plans would have to wait for another day.
Charlotte’s mother wrapped a thick shawl around her. ‘I should be back before teatime, but if I’m not, don’t forget to feed Georgina.’
‘I won’t,’ Charlotte replied, not really paying attention. Georgina was playing happily with George’s old wooden blocks, bashing them on the hard floor and grinning at the racket. Charlotte wondered just how many other keepsakes of George’s her mother had kept hidden and was now bringing out for Georgina.
Pushing the thought from her mind, she followed her mother to the outside door and watched as she glided across the heath towards the direction of the village, hitching up her long skirts to save the hems getting snagged on the rough bracken. She closed the door softly and turned back to Georgina, who was so busy playing that she hadn’t even noticed Charlotte’s mother had gone. If she continued to be this preoccupied, Charlotte thought, perhaps she could get on with her sketching after all.
Hurriedly, she gathered her pencils and some thick paper from the box under her bed. She went back to the kitchen with them, to find Georgina still happily amusing herself. Next, she rushed to their tiny growing plot at the side of the house, where a holly bush grew at the cottage wall, and picked a few sprigs. Returning to the house, she took a seat at the kitchen table and began to draw.
Charlotte hummed as she drew, pleased with the way her pencil moved and the picture that formed as she worked. After a while, she sat back and admired what she had done. Then it occurred to her that some colour would make it even more pleasing. Her mother had a wooden box of watercolour paints that she kept in the old chest in her room. Charlotte had been allowed to use them, carefully, from time to time. She set down her work and, after making a quick check on Georgina, who was still happy, smacking out an odd beat by bashing her blocks together, Charlotte went to find the paints.
She hadn’t been gone long, but when Charlotte came out from her mother’s bedroom with the box of watercolours, Georgina had moved from her spot. Instead, she had somehow pulled Charlotte’s work from the table and held pencils in both hands, scribbling merrily. Charlotte’s masterpiece lay ruined, thick black snakes of pencil markings criss-crossing it. Georgina looked up at Charlotte, pleased with herself, and held the mess up for her to
see.
Charlotte yanked the pencils from Georgina’s hand, whose face suddenly went from smiles to shock, and then her bottom lip began to quiver, and then she began to wail. Charlotte was too angry now to feel sorry for her. She grabbed Georgina roughly under the arms and dragged her away from the mess.
‘I hate you. I don’t want to look at you. Stay there!’
Georgina’s crying became louder but Charlotte ignored it. There were also pencil marks over the wood of the table and all over the floor and, angry as Charlotte was, she knew that it would have to be cleaned before her mother returned. She was supposed to be watching her, after all, and her mother would not accept any excuses. Muttering under her breath, she ran to the outhouse and fetched a hard brush and a bucket of freezing cold soapy water and began scrubbing on her return. All the while, she could hear Georgina crying, but the sound became a whine that Charlotte ignored, as she would ignore an annoying fly.
So when the sound stopped, she thought nothing of it. And when she had finished her cleaning and went to tip the water away, she did not think to check where Georgina was. As she collected her drawing equipment and put the paints away, deciding to give up for the day as dusk was moving in, no thought of Georgina crossed her mind. Finally, when the house had been silent for perhaps twenty minutes as Charlotte had busied herself, putting things straight, she finally wondered why it was so quiet.
The porch door was open. She realised that it must have been open the whole time she had been tidying. After a quick check around the house, hoping against hope that her worst fears would not be realised, Charlotte dashed into the tiny garden. No sign of Georgina. Then all round the outside of the house, then out onto the heath, calling her name desperately. But there was no reply, no tiny figure anywhere.
Georgina had gone.
Then, that sound again, a hollow moan that gradually lengthened into a chilling howl, coming from the direction of the dark woods that bordered the heath, a sound that made Charlotte shudder and her skin prick into tiny bumps all over. She had let Georgina out on the heath alone and she dared not think what might be waiting out there for her.
Ten
Polly threw another carrot into the bowl, her gaze on the darkening sky outside the window. ‘He shoulda been back by now.’
‘He’s been caught,’ Annie said, digging into a sack of potatoes and producing a handful. She took them over to the sink where Polly was washing vegetables for Ernesto’s dinner.
‘I’ll bet he has. I don’t fancy bein’ the one to tell Ernie, though.’ She looked at Annie.
‘Me neither.’
‘Someone’s got to.’
‘What d’you think he’ll do?’
‘The best Isaac can hope for is that Ernesto leaves him there to rot.’
Annie’s eyes widened. ‘They’ll deport him!’
‘Probably,’ Polly returned, her face unreadable as she resumed her task.
Annie stared at her in silence. ‘We could go and get him,’ she said finally.
Polly fished out the last clean potato and tipped the sludgy contents of the bucket down the sink. ‘An’ then we get arrested an’ all.’
‘You’re clever, Polly, you can think of something.’
‘An’ you have magic but I don’t hear you offerin’ to use it.’
‘I don’t.’ Annie turned away from Polly’s fierce gaze.
‘You don’t trust me but I’m the only family you got. Sooner you understand that the better.’
Annie’s mouth worked silently for a moment. ‘You’re going to leave Isaac there?’ Polly nodded. ‘What about Ernesto?’
‘Pretend you don’t know anythin’ about it.’
‘D’you think he’ll go and get Isaac?’
Polly threw back her head in a mirthless laugh. ‘Not ruddy likely! Ernesto ain’t as pure as the first snow. His face ain’t one he’ll be wantin’ to show in any jailhouse any time soon.’
Annie regarded Polly thoughtfully. ‘He’s mixed up in criminal goin’s on? I never seen ‘im leave the house.’
Polly tapped the side of her nose. ‘That’s ‘cause you ain’t lookin’ at the right times, sweet. Ernesto’s got plenty of dealing goin’ on.’
‘What kind of deals?’
Polly shrugged as she reached for the pan and placed the peeled carrots into it. ‘Not for me to know, is it? Not for you neither if you know what’s good for you.’ She glanced out at the sky again, dusk now colouring the courtyard in grainy shadows. ‘We’ll feed Ernesto,’ she said, passing the pan to Annie, ‘I’ll slip him an extra special tot o’ somethin’ and then we’ll see if we can find Isaac.’ Annie shot her a questioning glance and Polly produced a tiny vial from her apron pocket. ‘Did you really think I was goin’ to let that useless dolt get a free holiday to Australia?’ she said with a grin.
Eleven
The sky was pink and lilac over the horizon, faint stars just beginning to show higher in the sky, and Charlotte’s breath now curled away from her in clouds as the evening became colder. She carried a storm lantern in her shaking hand to light the way as the rough ground of the heath was, even now, becoming difficult to see in the gathering gloom. It took all her strength not to sit down on the grass and cry. Mother would be home by now, wondering where they had both gone, worried and angry at the same time. Perhaps, even now, her mother was out at neighbouring farms, calling for help to find them. The thought made guilt tear at her, but she couldn’t deny that she wanted to be found right now, carried home in strong arms, back to her warm kitchen that smelt of freshly baked bread and sweet, sticky jam. These were the times when she missed her father the most. He had been a difficult man, serious for the most part, and very strict, but she never doubted his love for her and she loved him in return. Right now she wanted someone to come and take care of her, someone to worry about Georgina in her place. But Charlotte had to do the worrying, there was nobody else now.
She kept going, calling out for Georgina, but always no reply. The woods stretched out before her, closer and closer with every step. Charlotte didn’t want to go into the woods, especially as night was falling, but when she had covered as much of the heath as she could, or at least as far as she thought Georgina could travel, she knew she would have to. It was the only place left to look.
The woods thickened quickly once into them, the trees tightly packed, almost growing on top of one another. It was only the efforts of the local farmers, pruning and chopping every year, which kept them from taking over the heathland and the nearby houses altogether. And it was dark properly now, the moon appearing in silver chinks through the roof of bare branches. Charlotte’s light was not much help either; the trees were so dense that she could only see a few feet in any direction, a thick fog made of bark and branches. Everywhere she looked, Charlotte’s lantern revealed shapes, creatures flitting away in the corners of the light so Charlotte could never quite see what they were. And sometimes, it simply illuminated eyes, round, demon reflections everywhere watching her from high up, as if the trees themselves were spying on her. The forest rustled and hooted and scratched and creaked. All these things filled her with a kind of dread that was hard to explain. She didn’t dare call out here, filled with an irrational fear that if the trees heard her they would snatch her up from the ground and hold her prisoner in thorns and branches. But she pushed herself on; the sooner she found Georgina, the sooner they could get back home. Mother would be furious, but Charlotte wanted nothing more than to face her mother’s punishment right now. Whatever it was, it was better than being out here.
It seemed like hours had passed, and still there was no sign of Georgina. Charlotte found herself thinking back to the night she found her. It was such a short time ago, but it was only now that she realised just how completely the baby had become a part of their family. Could it be possible that whoever had left her had finally claimed her back? Perhaps not even a someone but a something. And now they had taken her away, never to be seen by human eyes again. It sounded m
ad, but it was so easy to believe, alone in the darkness of the woods with no trace of the girl anywhere, not a footprint, not even a strand of black hair snagged on a branch to ever show she had been there at all. Charlotte thought about the tears that her mother would shed over the lost girl, just as she had done over George. It made Charlotte more determined than ever to find her, and shaking the fear and cold, she began to shout her name over and over, into the darkness: ‘Georgina! Please, Georgina stop hiding! I’m not angry any more…’ But in the cold of the woods, Charlotte’s words only echoed back at her.
Charlotte began to realise that she was going to have to face going home and telling her mother what had happened, because she was going to need help. She turned and started the trudge back through the woods and across the heath to her cottage. She had not walked more than a few metres when her light fell upon a shape on the floor, a mess of tangled up clothes and hair curled in the crook of a tree trunk. Charlotte let out a cry of relief.
Georgina had fallen asleep huddled in the hollow of a huge tree trunk, her thumb in her mouth and her grubby cheeks streaked with tear tracks. Charlotte felt a stab of guilt as she realised that Georgina must have got lost and cried herself to sleep. Quickly scooping up the little girl, she hugged her close. Georgina’s eyes opened and she blinked up at Charlotte with a smile. At that moment, Charlotte’s candle spluttered out and they were plunged into darkness.
Charlotte didn’t panic, even when Georgina began to whimper.
‘Shhh. Don’t be afraid. I’m here,’ she soothed as she held Georgina and wrapped her shawl around both of them. Georgina clung onto Charlotte’s neck as Charlotte slowly and carefully picked her way through the woods, using the pale slivers of moonlight that struggled through the trees to show the way. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was all they had. She kept upright, ignoring the pain of banging her ankles and stumbling on tree roots and fallen branches, all the while holding her precious Georgina safely in her arms.