Even that woman, Violet, probably wasn’t bad in the beginning.
Bear’s not here to listen to me. He’s already gone and Ghost’s gone too. The cave’s empty.
When Bear’s back, someone is with him. A woman. She’s wearing animal skin. I think it might even be lynx. She smells of the earth and her hair stretches down her back in one long plait.
But all this I notice later. When she comes into the mouth of the cave, I think she’s an angel.
She places her palm on my forehead and her brow pleats as Bear lifts up the blanket and shows her my swollen, festering foot. She then nods her head and smiles at me. “Don’t worry, little one. We’ll make you well. We’re good at this.”
Bear’s face is tight and worried and sort of proud too because he brought her here. And I love him so, so much.
I sink back, glad to be the little one, to have this woman here, her warm hands working to make me well.
I can smell herbs and garlic and onions and something acrid. Something unpleasant. But the woman’s face and hands make me trust her. She sings as she wipes my brow and as she places a cup by my mouth and asks me to drink. Commands me.
“Come, Juniper. Your brother needs you.”
Is it her voice that I’m hearing, this woman that Bear has brought to save me? Or is it Annie Rose, back in our glasshouse?
Someone calls the woman “Mama”. Is it our mother? I can’t ask Bear. I’m not sure what’s stopped working, my brain or my voice, I just know I have to be silent. I can’t form the words and my energy is needed elsewhere.
I drift. In and out of sleep and in and out of the Palm House too.
I stir when the woman touches my foot but she nods when I squirm and when my eyes close with pain. “It’s good. It’s good you feel it.” And over again – “Shush, little one. We’re here now.”
The woman’s voice sounds like music and she says these words over and over – shush, shush – though I don’t think I’m crying. Time passes and the woman is still here, by my side.
She’s not our mother. The voice calling “Mama” comes from another boy, almost my age. He comes into the mouth of the cave and brings things. Takes things away. He’s always smiling and the woman calls him Cam. Sometimes Bear is with him, following him in and out like he always did with Etienne. Bear says the boy’s name too. “Cam! Cam!” The name winds in and out of my head like a river.
It’s not this boy I see in my dreams though. In my dreams, it’s always Etienne.
It’s not just hours, it’s days passing. I know this because sometimes it’s dark and then I wake again and it’s light and, disorientated, I form Bear’s name and he comes running. If he doesn’t, the woman goes to the opening of the cave and calls him for me, calls him louder. His name sounds strange in her mouth. Foreign.
When Bear comes, his cheeks are red, like he’s been running a long way, or if it’s night, like he’s just come from the fire that I can smell burning somewhere outside the cave. “Bear!”
“It’s OK now, Ju! Hester and Cam and the others are looking after us. You’re getting better!”
I nod. I can feel it. I’m not just clinging on, I’m waking up, coming back to life. I’ve been shut up in the dark like that old jack-in-the-box, but Hester’s winding the handle of the tin and with each turn the lid’s lifting higher.
When I’m sat up for the first time and eating solid food – some warm thick soup with chunks of meat – Bear comes and sits beside me. He watches me eat and takes my bowl out when I’ve finished. When he comes back, his eyes are wet. “I thought you were dying, Ju.” He can say it now because now it’s not going to be true. He can see it. I’m getting better.
“You saved me,” I say.
Bear bends down into the curve of my arms, cautious, afraid he’ll hurt me. “You saved me,” I repeat.
“Hester did that,” he says, embarrassed. “She’s Cam’s mum. And Queenie’s.”
“Queenie?”
“Cam’s sister. My friend.”
I smile. “You saved me too. You found the cave and you brought me here. And you found Hester.”
“I had to get help, Ju. I knew they were good, cause I’d heard them singing. They’re the forest folk, Ju!”
“The forest folk?”
“The twig signs?” Bear says. “Don’t you remember?”
“Hester’s people made the signs?”
“Well, some of their people did. Forest folk, like I told you.”
“Have you got the GPS, Bear? I wanted to check on the route.”
His face scrunches up, red.
“Bear?”
“The battery’s gone. I took the GPS to find the cave and I didn’t turn it off. I thought I had, but I didn’t, and now it’s dead.”
“Dead?” I repeat slowly. The GPS felt like a lifeline, winding out golden thread for us to follow. Maybe it was greedy of me to expect it to last all the way. “We have Mum’s map,” I say. “We can use that.”
Bear looks relieved. “I found water too, didn’t I? Proper mountain water from a waterfall!”
I hug him close. “That was the best water I ever tasted.”
“Really?”
“Cross my heart.”
“But don’t hope to die?”
“No, I’m all done with dying.”
The next morning, Hester leads me out into the light.
My left foot feels strange, like it’s not quite part of me, but then my right foot feels strange too. I’ve been lying down a long time.
Outside the cave, it’s totally different to the world I left. It’s not green any more, it’s white. Everywhere. Everything bleached and glazed and frosted. We came through the wardrobe. We walked right into Narnia.
Sunlight glints off the snow like a thousand torches and I have to put my hand over my eyes to shield them from all the light.
We’re on a hillside and down in the bottom of the valley is a lake. A looking glass, reflecting back trees and sky.
I’m about to ask Bear’s question – Ennerdale, how many more miles? – when this silver-grey cat emerges out of the trees and stands there, watching me.
“Ghost?” I gasp.
“It’s a good name for her,” Hester says.
“She’s different.” I recognize the markings, of course I do, but she’s a whole new shade of colour.
“It’s definitely your cat,” Hester says. “All the days we’ve been here, she’s barely left your side.”
“She was golden.”
“She’s grown her winter coat,” Hester says, matter-off-actly.
“She’s camouflaged,” Bear chirps, appearing beside me. “Didn’t you notice? For the snow. The snow’s pretty, isn’t it, Juniper?”
He sprinkles snowflakes on to my hand. Tiny ice crystals. Snow flowers, or stars, almost violet in the light. They prick at my palm.
“Beautiful,” I say, distracted, already staring back at Ghost. I call her but she retreats back under the trees. Gone. Like she’s changed into her name, a real phantom of the forest. For some stupid reason, I start to cry. The ice flowers melt away in my hand.
“Ju!” Bear says, wary.
A little girl’s standing a way off, her head to one side. She has dark hair winding down to her knees and pink dusty cheeks and is wearing fur, like a rabbit. She’s beckoning to Bear.
“Be off with you both,” Hester says, shooing him, and Bear scampers after the girl without a backwards glance. He’s had enough of me crying.
Hester sits me down on a rock just outside the cave, where icicles hang down from the top. She puts a fur round my shoulders and I look at it, suspicious.
“It’s not lynx,” she says, laughing. “Mine is. Your cat doesn’t think much of me! She gives all of us a wide berth. You and Bear though, it’s one of the strangest things I ever saw. Like you’re her kittens.”
“How long have I been ill?”
Hester’s face creases. “A couple of weeks, I reckon. When your brother found us, he wasn�
��t talking much sense, but that wound of yours, I reckon it had been festering a good few days. More. Then we’ve been with you seven days now.”
“Two weeks?” No wonder there’s snow. It must be December already. We should have been at Ennerdale by now. “Did Bear tell you?” I say reticently. “That we’re on a journey?”
“Aye, he did that. Ennerdale.”
“You know it?” I ask in a rush.
“I have a fair idea. It’s near one of our stopping places. We go to those valleys sometimes. We collect berries from your trees.”
I look at her, confused, and she winks at me. “The juniper tree. They make a nice tipple of gin.”
“Have you seen anyone?” I ask, impatient. “Any people.”
Hester nods slowly. “There’s a village down by the lake. We’ve traded with them, various times. It’s not a bad destination to have, Juniper.”
I can hardly believe she’s saying it. She’s seen people there. A whole village. “It’s still there? Ennerdale?”
But Hester’s face has changed. Darkened, like when the sun goes behind a cloud. “This ain’t the right time of year. Not to cross those mountains.”
I shake my head. “We have to. To our parents. Ennerdale’s our home now.”
“Aye, I get that. And if it were spring or summer, or even a few weeks back, we’d take you. Show you the way. But not wintertime. Not with the coldest weather on its way. The deep freeze. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait with us. Wait a while. Let winter do its worst and then go.”
“No,” I say, still shaking my head. “We’ve come this far. We’re so close now. We’ve got a map that tells us the way.”
Hester swipes out with her hand dismissively. “The way over the mountains changes all the time. Storms and ice.”
I keep my face composed. “Our mum left the map for us. She drew the route on herself and she’s been there. She’s there now, waiting for us.”
Hester softens. “Listen, I’ll make a deal with you. We’ll go west with you a little way, until I see how that foot’s bearing up.”
“Yes?”
“Yes,” Hester says. “I can’t leave you for the cat to look after.” She laughs again – this soft peal of laughter. “Although she wasn’t doing half bad.”
“We’d be dead without her,” I say loyally.
“I reckon you might be right.” Hester nods gravely. “I’ve sent the rest of our party south with most of the horses and wagons and the kids and that. That’s the direction we normally travel in wintertime. We’re like migrating birds. But I reckon those of us left can at least set you on your way. Then it’s up to you, Juniper Green.” She looks me up and down like she’s sizing me up.
“Cam and Queenie are still here,” I say defensively, as laughter floats up from the lake.
Hester twinkles. “Aye, they wouldn’t be having none of it when I said they should go. Queenie’s taken a right shine to Bear. She’s sticking to him like a burr, she is. And Cam ain’t half excited about you waking up. A new audience for his tales! We don’t get many outsiders.”
“We’re insiders, really,” I say. “Or we were.”
Hester nods. “Aye, you’re from Portia Steel’s city, Bear tells me.”
I nod.
“You made a good choice, I reckon, getting out.”
“It wasn’t a choice.”
“No,” Hester says simply. I want to tell her more – tell her about Annie Rose and Etienne. How they’d have come too, if they’d been able to. How we had to leave them behind. We didn’t want to, but we had to. I don’t say anything though. Annie Rose and Etienne and Ms Endo and the Palm House are shut away, deep inside me. It would hurt too much to even say their names.
“When do we leave?” I ask instead.
“Tomorrow. One more day for your foot to rest and for you to properly wake up, and then I reckon we’ve been here long enough. You’ll find that out about us. We don’t like to stick around.”
“We tried to do that too. To keep moving.”
“Sounds like you did pretty well, until that ugly great trap.”
“Who do you think set it?” I ask.
Hester looks thoughtful. “Hard to say. Not us. We shoot clean, with an arrow. There are others though. People who don’t fit in anywhere.”
I nod. “There was a woman. She found Bear, or caught him. Caught us both. She was bad…” My voice trails off.
Hester pats my shoulder, even though I’m not even telling half the story. “It’s tough out here. People go hard, just like the land in winter. It’s different for us. We’re meant to be out in the open.”
“Who are you?” I ask, curious and embarrassed too. In case it’s rude somehow. “Bear calls you the forest folk! He said you made the signs we kept seeing.”
Hester laughs then, warmly. “We’re travellers, my girl. Romanies. Gypsies, you might have called us once. But forest folk will do. It has a certain ring to it!”
“I didn’t think you existed, not any more. I mean, I know the words from stories. I thought the travellers had gone to live in the cities like everyone else.”
“Aye,” Hester says softly. “Lots did. The city authorities were fierce back then, rounding us up like we were animals. But some of us got away. We knew where to hide.”
“Travellers had disease resistance?”
Hester shakes her head slowly, sad. “Not all of us. But it was never our way to be shut up. Never to see the hills or breathe the sea air again. We’ve been prisoners before. We know how it works out. We took our chances in the elements. Ticks or no ticks.”
I watch Hester’s face. It’s like watching that old film reel back in assembly. Sadness turned up so loud it’s unbearable.
“Lots of folk died,” she goes on. “Lots of little ones and older ones too. The disease don’t always come all at once, sometimes it comes slowly, wears you down. That’s what happened to Cam and Queenie’s mum.”
“You’re their mum,” I cut in.
Hester snorts. “I’m far too old. Look at me!”
I look at her, gaze at her, but I still couldn’t guess her age. “Cam calls you Mama.”
Hester laughs again. “Plenty do. I guess it’s something we all need, some time or other, someone to call Mama.”
Hester sends Cam to come and get me. He appears in the mouth of the cave and bows, and I get this flash of Barney welcoming me into the Emporium when I was small.
I smile, embarrassed, but Cam’s eyes are all twinkly, just like Hester’s are. He doesn’t even wait for me to get up – he puts his hand out for me to take and runs his other under my shoulders as I stand so I don’t fall back.
“Thank you,” I say shyly.
Cam grins. “You must be fed up of the dark. The light’s been calling you, huh?”
Cam diverts past the bigger rocks and catches me when I stumble. It feels a long way to the lake but it’s worth it. The fire’s big and glowing, and encircled by tents – round frameworks of branches hung with brightly coloured fabric. There are horses too in and among everything – these warm, soft, breathing patchworks of white and brown and black, with long feathered hair at their feet. The people and the ponies and the bright tents, I think it’s the most welcoming sight I’ve ever seen.
Hester’s there and there’s another woman too, younger than her, and two men. Cam introduces me to everyone.
The young woman is Larch. Her dark hair’s tied up in a yellow scarf and she has golden hoops hanging from her ears. She smiles kindly and throws out a rug, gesturing for me to sit. Then she goes back to stirring a big cooking pot with wonderful-smelling steam wafting up from it.
The men are Danior and Manfri, though Danior says right away that I should call him Dani. He shakes my hand firmly. “We’re happy you’re on your feet again, Ms Green.” There’s a scar on his face and I try not to look at it, but it’s hard not to. It cuts his whole face in two.
The other man, Manfri, nods briskly then turns away.
Bear bound
s up, trailing his new friend. “This is Queenie, Ju. Like I told you about. She’s their queen.”
There’s a cackle of laughter from Cam, and Queenie throws her hair over her shoulder and deliberately turns her back on him. She puts her hands on her hips as though waiting for me to receive her.
“Pleased to meet you, Queenie,” I say. “I’d curtsey, but my foot’s still healing.”
“You don’t need to curtsey this time,” Queenie says regally, then crouches beside me on the rug. “Were there maggots in it?” she says, looking down at my foot. “Dani had maggots in his arm once. You could see them wriggling.”
“Juniper didn’t have maggots!” Bear says, appalled.
“Are you telling fibs again, Queenie?” Cam asks.
“No,” Queenie says, sitting up straight. “It’s true. There were maggots, weren’t there, Dani? In your arm?”
“Queenie doesn’t lie,” Dani says, winking at me. “There were maggots, and flies after that! They flew right out my arm!”
Bear’s green now. “Oh, don’t worry,” Queenie says when she sees his face. “Hester sorted it. She sorts everything. She’s a miracle worker.” She lowers her voice to a whisper and turns back to me. “She did think you were a goner in the beginning though, Juniper. Hester said the spirits properly wanted you.”
“Queenie!” Cam laughs. “Juniper will be dancing round the fire with you soon enough.”
“Will you?” Queenie beams. “Do you dance, Juniper?”
“Er, not really,” I say uncomfortably. It never felt like there was much reason to dance back in the city.
Something warm and soft presses against my neck, and I jump.
Cam and Queenie are cackling with laughter.
“Dixie!” Bear says, starting to giggle too.
The black-and-white horse nudges into my shoulders, with huge flared nostrils breathing warm air into me and the hair along her neck – her mane – tickles me. I shiver.
“She likes you,” Cam says, pulling at the straps around the horse’s neck. “Come, Dixie Chick. Juniper won’t be used to horses.”
Queenie springs on top of the pony and squeezes her legs into the black and white of Dixie’s sides. She rides off, high and proud, glancing back every now and then to check Bear and I are watching.
Where the World Turns Wild Page 18