Moon Eyes

by Poole, Josephine

  The witness in the bushes, peering between the leaves, caught a glimpse of her face as she rushed past, and saw on it a dreadful expression, not just of rage, but of grief, as though Kate had killed something she desperately loved.

  And still Thomas drew, as though nothing had happened.

  Kate went down to the pond, down the shallow steps where Aunt Rhoda's footmarks dried out in shrinking patches. She was out of breath, as though she had been fighting as she picked her way through the mess of plants and sticks and puddles silver in the sun. Even as she went to Thomas a leaf fell, slowly, and settled on the water like a small green boat.

  He looked up as her shadow fell across him and smiled. She loved his round pink face and clear blue eyes and yellow curly hair; she wanted to hug and kiss him. Her heart was full because she had delivered him. What could really come between them? Aunt Rhoda was wasting her time, she might as well pack up and go. Kate and Thomas were too strong for her.

  And then the whistling started, from the wood. It was the first time they had heard it in daylight. It lasted a couple of minutes.

  Suddenly Thomas pursed his lips and whistled back.

  Kate was astonished. She had never heard him whistle, and now he answered the call from the wood on the same note thin, clear, prolonged. “What on earth are you doing?” she shouted, and for a moment she thought that he might answer her.

  But he stopped, and then she could hardly believe that he had made that noise. He stood looking down, like the statue which was reflected perfectly now so that two little boys stood above and below the water, with a double motto between them.

  And then she saw what he had been drawing on the pavement. Stars and stars and stars to the same fivepointed pattern that she had seen for the first time under the wallpaper in Aunt Rhoda's room.

  PART THREE

  Dancing

  Hurst Camber

  Monday, I am not sure of the date

  Dear Father,

  I hope you are well, and enjoying your time by the sea, and have done some good painting. Most of all I hope this letter won't be a disappointment to you or inconvenience you in any way.

  We are not very happy at the moment which is our own fault in a way because we met Aunt Rhoda (Cantrip) and asked her to stay, and now I do wish I hadn't. She does not seem to be a very nice person. I do not know how to ask her to go away, as she wants to stay and treats the house as if it was her own, which she is not entitled to do but she does not listen to what I say. Mrs. Beer has taken offense and has been put upon and Thomas is getting out of control I really am very worried about him and please do come home. I am sorry to have to ask you to come back just to sort out a mess we have made but I hope you will understand. We did get lonely without you, and it seemed a good idea to ask her to come and stay but now I wish I hadn't. I mean Aunt Rhoda. She is spoiling everything she has written on the statue in the lily pond and she makes Thomas excited and stupid.

  I do hope you are feeling better and will not mind this letter but it is not only me who is worried, Mrs. Beer is as well and she made me promise to write although I would have anyway and meant to before. Can you please come soon I mean when you get this? I am, sorry to bother you and would not as you know but it really is urgent. Because I am frightened of Aunt Rhoda, I am afraid for Thomas.

  This brings you our best wishes and love and I am longing to see you as soon as possible,

  Your loving Katie

  It took over an hour to write this letter, and by the time it was finished she had missed the evening post. She read it through carefully, underlined the word “urgent” and wrote it in capital letters on the envelope she addressed to her father. There was a stamp machine in the village and she had three pennies. She ran all the way to the postbox, and all the way back, with her heart hammering against her aching ribs. With a last spurt she climbed the stairs two at a time to Thomas's room. He was not in his cot, although it was his bedtime. Perhaps he was waiting for her in her room, but he was not there either: only Aunt Rhoda sat on the edge of the bed. In her hand she held the postcard from Milton-le-Sands that Mr. Pawley had sent: having copied out his address, Kate had carelessly left it on her windowsill.

  Aunt Rhoda had not been in her bedroom before. It gave Kate a shock to find her sitting there, at her ease.

  “You didn't tell me you had heard from your father.”

  “Why should I?”

  “But this card is dated a month ago” she continued smoothly. “Have you heard since?”

  “I really don't see why you should be interested if I have.”

  “Anyhow, I shall keep this. It has your father's address on it, I see, and I may want to get in touch with him later. I should hate you to do anything rash or stupid. He would not want you to worry him; let him do his works of art in peace.”

  Kate thanked her stars that she had lost no time in posting her letter.

  “And you have no manners, Kate, you are a rude girl, a coarse type ; it is a pity you were never at boarding school, it would have done you a world of good. You shall go, when things are sorted out.” She stood up, and looked round the room, tucking the postcard into her belt. “I never saw such an untidy room. No wonder that you cannot accomplish anything; you have a disorderly mind.”

  “You've no right in my room, and no right to take my card from Father,” cried Kate hotly.

  “Turn me out then, and take your card away,” said Aunt Rhoda with a mocking smile. Kate turned and went downstairs to find her brother. She heard Aunt Rhoda cross the landing soon after, and go into her own room.

  Thomas was sitting on the carpet in the drawing room, cutting folded paper into the shape of a flying bird. He looked so cool, so detached, so prim sitting there with clean knees, that she completely lost her temper with him: he made her feel untidy, and helpless, and involved.

  “You little beast, what have you been doing to poor Mrs. Beer? You've upset her dreadfully. I'd jolly well like to hit you, you nasty little boy; where do you think we'll be if she doesn't come any more I You're a cruel little beast; you made her cry and you don't care one bit.”

  He did not seem to hear what she said. He carefully finished cutting out, and then, unfolding the paper, held up a string of flying birds.

  “Come up to bed,” said Kate, seizing his arm and hauling him to his feet. He heard Aunt Rhoda on the stairs: his mouth turned down and he started to wail. She took no notice of him, however, but let herself out by the front door; they heard the crunch of her feet on the path, and the slam of the garden gate. “Off again. You see, she doesn't really love you. She wouldn't think of putting you to bed, or reading you a story. She just wants you to make a fool of yourself.”

  He had his bath, and she read him the tale of Samuel Whiskers and Anna Maria. She liked reading aloud, putting on different voices for the various characters; he lay in his cot with his thumb in his mouth, watching her face, listening intently. Afterwards she kissed him good night, and he put his arms around her neck as he always did, and settled down to sleep as though Aunt Rhoda did not exist. She closed the nursery door softly behind her.

  Across the well of the stairs, on the left, was the door to Rhoda Cantrip's room. She opened it cautiously and crept inside.

  The common glowed like a sheet of copper through the window. She stared at it, blinking, and then turned to look around the room. It seemed particularly dark, at first she thought by contrast, but when her eyes got used to the gloom she saw that in fact Aunt Rhoda had been busy. She had peeled the wallpaper from one whole side of the room, leaving the dark green paint that must have been there in her mother's time, and this, too, was scratched over with the star diagrams. The red bulb was still burning in the lamp -- I expect she leaves it on night and day – why not, when it's our electricity! Under it the round silver-framed mirror stood on the bedside table. Kate looked into it: to her great surprise she could not see her own face, or the lamp, or the room. It could not reflect because it was full of smoke, wreathing, opaque
; and she dared not touch it to see if the surface of cold glass remained.

  Rhoda Cantrip was scrupulously tidy. Not one article lay about, the covers on the bed were pulled so tightly you would think that it was never slept in; there was no dressing gown or nightdress case or bedroom slippers to be seen; only the cardboard suitcase lay on top of the wardrobe, and the pair of silver brushes on the dressing table. Kate opened the wardrobe. The red dress hung, it had a full look; it gave her a start, the way it hung, in folds that might have contained parts of Aunt Rhoda. The silver brooch was still pinned to the front of it. There was also a pair of black shoes with long pointed toes, and in their insteps, instead of the maker's name, was stamped that five-pointed star she knew so well (in gold this time). There were no other clothes, not even a handkerchief: she made haste to shut the wardrobe door. She looked under the furniture, but there was nothing, not even dust.

  And she did not know what it was that she expected to find. She picked up one of the brushes on the dressing table.

  But it was not really a brush at all. Under the handsome initialed back there was a tortoiseshell box, cunningly measured so that it could not be seen unless the “brush” was moved. Kate found that it opened, twisting away from the silver back. Inside was a teaspoonful of dark powder, which had no smell. The other contained a greater quantity of powder which smelled of spice and made her cough. She put them back carefully upon the dressing table.

  Perhaps Aunt Rhoda took snuff.

  She could think of only one more place to look: inside the suitcase on top of the wardrobe.

  Suppose Aunt Rhoda came back? She moved so quietly it would be difficult to hear her before it was too late. Then she thought: If I open the suitcase in Thomas's room I can see over the road between the woods and the village, and I ought to have time to put it back before she gets here.

  She had only to stand on tiptoe to reach the suitcase. It was very light. She carried it into Thomas's room and settled down by the window. He was fast asleep.

  She did not want to open that suitcase. She hated people who poked and pried. Besides, she was afraid. All her instincts told her to put it back, and go and read a cheerful book, or do some gardening. A voice clamored in her head: This can't be true! Such things don't really happen, not now in the twentieth century. You're jealous of Aunt Rhoda, that's all there is to it. It's wicked to spy into her affairs. Anyway, Father will be back soon: if there is anything to worry about let him sort it out. But Father might not get her letter. Or he might come too late. She had to look into that suitcase. She glanced at Thomas, where he lay peacefully, his thumb still in his mouth, his eyelashes two dark arcs against his pale skin. She had to look. Only she prayed it would be locked.

  But it was not difficult to open. The cheap catch clicked back, and she lifted the lid.

  There was only one thing in it: the red exercise book she had watched Aunt Rhoda reading in the drawing room.

  She had heard people talk about atmosphere. They said that you could sense the happiness of a house when you went into it, you could tell what sorts of things had happened in its rooms. She had not thought much of it until now when she lifted out that red exercise book. She felt most strongly that it was bad. She did not want to open it; she did not want to see the author's handwriting the personal quirks of i's without dots, or Greek e's: all that is a clue to a person and she did not want to know anything about the writer of that book. But she had to have clues, so she did open it.

  The lefthand pages were kept for diagrams, which she could not understand, and only glanced at. On the right were entered accounts of witches, as far as she could judge, the evils attributed to them, and their familiars. It was shocking to see all this written down in an ordinary exercise book such as she used at school, in blue-black ink that had probably been bought down at Morris's shop. One page, particularly, held her attention:

  When John Law a peddler refused Alizon Device pins from his wares, she set her Spirit at him . . . and he saw a great black Dog stand by him, with very fearful fiery eyes, great teeth, and a terrible countenance, looking him in the face.

  There were Californian poppies out in the kitchen garden, from here she could see their brilliant orange flowers, folded now in the evening. The clouds over the valley were beginning to color like blotted ink; along the opposite horizon the woods lay like an army appearing, and like an army in waiting just up the road from Hurst Camber. As she stared out of Thomas's window with the book limp between her hands, she saw Aunt Rhoda glide in at the front gate. She threw the book in the suitcase, shut it, shoved it back on top of the wardrobe in the spare room and had time to glance around and make sure that everything was in order. When Aunt Rhoda's feet were on the stairs, Kate was safely in her own room, getting ready for bed.

  She prayed she had left no trace behind her. It was difficult for her to go into a room without creasing a cover, or pushing against the furniture. After she was in her bed she lay for half an hour, stiff with the fear that Aunt Rhoda would somehow find out she had been spying and come in to deal with her.

  Nothing more, however, happened that day.

  The next day, which was Tuesday, she bicycled to school as usual. The journey seemed to take forever. She thought continually of how things were at Hurst Camber. Mrs. Beer had come that morning, but with an expression that meant she was not prepared to stand any more nonsense. Rhoda Cantrip wanted her out of the way, so more nonsense there would be; and it would not be easy to get her back a second time.

  It was warm, but windy: clouds of dry red dust blew up round her bicycle, and she reached Miss Bybegone's feeling hot and dirty. Even her mouth tasted of earth and she longed for a drink of water, but there was no time, as usual she was just able to slip into her chair before the lesson began. She could not have felt less interested in the consolidation of the British Empire and, as the morning went on, found to her embarrassment that it was more and more difficult to keep back her tears. Outside the window two airplanes, silver dots, trailed slow white arcs in a sweep of blue sky; but already the clouds had massed over Scroop. She thought of Mrs. Beer, and foolish Thomas, Aunt Rhoda's pawn; and wondered whether her father could possibly get her letter that afternoon, and realized that it would be a stroke of luck if he got it at all. A tear splashed onto the table in front of her, clear on the polished wood. She pushed it into an interesting shape with her pencil, hoping that no one had noticed; but Miss Bybegone was unusually kind to her that morning which made her more tearful than ever.

  As soon as lessons were over she went to the cloakroom, and locking herself in had a good howl. Through the wall she could hear old Mrs. Bybegone berating her daughter for some fault, as if she was a child and indeed the poor creature became one when she was with her mother. Kate combed her hair and washed her face with cold water. There was no mirror and she could not tell how noticeable it was that she had been crying. She hoped to leave the house without meeting anyone the other girls had gone but she bumped into Miss Bybegone as she was hurrying down the passage.

  “Gently, gently, gently! More haste, less speed,” and then, looking closely at her, “Come, Kate my dear, what is the matter?”

  “It's nothing, I'm quite all right now, I must hurry, I'm terribly sorry.”

  “Is anything wrong at home?”

  Two hot, slow tears crept down her face like ashamed visitors.

  “It's Aunt Rhoda Cantrip,” she gulped, at last. And although as she told the whole story she could see that Miss Bybegone did not always believe what she said, it was such relief to tell it, that she was almost prepared to agree with her opinion:

  “You know, my dear, I think you are getting overwrought. I'm glad you have written to your father, he should be home this week: I think he has been away too long and you and Thomas have suffered. No doubt Aunt Rhoda is doing as she thinks best as regards Mrs. Beer; and as for the things you have found in her room, well, l have met Miss Cantrip, and I would say she is an unusual person, yes, and probably very cle
ver; but it did strike me how fond she was of you, although as you say she is not your real aunt; and, after all, you have not made much attempt to get to know her have you?”

  “She won't let me.”

  “Yes, but have you asked her about her red notebook?”

  “I can't, she'd say I was spying.”

  “Well, but don't you think she may be compiling a history of witches and sorcery, or something of that kind? It is a fascinating subject. From what you tell me, I would say she was making notes, and doing research.”

  “But she wasn't making notes, she was learning by heart, that evening in the drawing room; and she isn't doing research, she's doing it herself. I'm sure. She isn't always like she was when you met her.”

  Miss Bybegone considered Kate's hot, pink face for a few moments in silence.

  “Well, my dear, your father will be home soon now, and you know that I am always here if you want me. I really do not think you have to worry, but if it would make you feel happier I have a book of charms and amulets, and we will look through it together.” She added, as they went into the schoolroom: “You are really too old for this sort of nonsense: I suppose it is all due to your artistic upbringing. The imagination, like everything else, should be subject to proper control.”

  It was an old brown book, not large, and very dusty. Miss Bybegone blew on the pages, and wiped the covers carefully with her white pocket handkerchief. Suddenly they heard a sort of muffled bellowing coming from the parent's quarters. Miss Bybegone sprang to her feet at once. “Look at it yourself, dear, and put it back in its rightful place when you have finished with it.” She hurried away in a fluster, and Kate opened the book.

  The pages were thick and shiny, and the print very small. She learned that witches burn deadly nightshade, henbane, thornapple and myrrh, but that “trefoil, vervain, John's-wort, dill, hinder witches of their will.” Most of the charms were made of old-fashioned stuff that meant nothing to her, but it was mentioned that scrapings of lead from a church window were a valuable amulet. She could hear voices arguing in another part of the house, and felt awkward at still being there. And the book was really not much use: the print was so small and the words were so long. She felt that what she read trickled uselessly away, like water into sand; and she put the book back and let herself out.