A Green and Ancient Light (32 page)

Then I followed the now-familiar path up the slopes, in the secret tree world that was like the beds of the deep sea. Mrs. F ——'s laundry had started me thinking about ships, and I imagined having
a ship that could glide on the rolling waves of the trees' crowns, the leaves whispering along the hull, the masts up among the clouds, and the anchor crashing down at times through these limbs to catch among the roots and hold the vessel in place. It would creak and rock up there where only green branches and blue sky were visible, and no village or smokestack could be seen anywhere. And maybe with the anchor keeping it steady in just such a place, the summer for those aboard the ship would never end; the leaves would never turn red; the cold winds would never blow; and there would be nothing but clouds and sun, moon and stars.

When I returned, I found R —— sitting alone on the terrace. He said that Grandmother and Mr. Girandole had gone for a walk. My first impulse was to run and try to catch up with them, but when I asked which direction they'd gone, R —— motioned for me to sit on a bench.

I did so, setting down the rucksack, and felt awkward and sad. I'd never said a real good-bye to a person forever. I knew I'd never see R —— again in this life.

“I close eyes,” R —— said, pointing at his head. “I think . . . I try remember home.” He frowned in concentration, shut his eyes, and sat still for a long time. “I no see, not see Mother, Father, Brother . . . wife, too. Baby, too—not see. You know?” He shook his head and laughed quietly, in a way that seemed sad. “Remember people, not . . .” With a gesture, he indicated his face. “Not faces.”

I nodded. “I can't see my mother or my father clearly, and for me, it's only been about five months.” I couldn't hear their voices in my head. How quickly those things faded from our memories. But the people were there . . . people without faces, without sound. I stared at R ——, trying to memorize his appearance.

“I see . . .” he went on. “I see . . . the river. The tree. Old piano of my mother. Old clock,
tick tock tick tock tick tock—cuckoo! Cuckoo!
”

He watched me with a smile and brushed back his greasy, unkempt hair. He'd grown a scraggly beard and mustache and looked like a character from a book—a pirate or someone marooned on a desert island. He called me by name, pronouncing it pretty well, and I grinned back.

“You smart,” he said deliberately, tapping his forehead. “You writing in book. Find fairy door.”

“We all did it together,” I said. “It started with your poem.”

“I —— [his nationality]. You help me.”

I watched him, thinking of what Grandmother had said, that the concepts of war and enemy had no place in the sacred woods.

“Thank you,” he said, and held out his hand.

I shook it and answered, “You're welcome.”

He handed me his flute and said, “You keep.”

I felt my eyes beginning to burn with tears that might spill out, so I just nodded and took it.

But R —— wasn't content to
give
it to me; he wanted to be sure I could
play
it. For the next half hour or so, we had a flute lesson. The instrument was little more than a whistle he'd carved out of the reed. I grew light-headed from blowing and blowing, trying to find the angle at which my breath would coax sound from it. But when I could finally play three notes, R —— taught me the ­simplest of the fairy melodies.

At last we saw Grandmother and Mr. Girandole returning, and I slid the flute into my shirt pocket.

“You be good man, future,” R —— said. It wasn't an order; it sounded more like a prediction.

During his walk with Grandmother, Mr. Girandole had managed to catch a squirrel, which he now took away to dress and cook. I wasn't sure exactly
how
he'd caught it. The image of him pouncing or leaping up to snatch it off a branch was unsettling.

Grandmother was satisfied with the kitchen gleanings I'd brought. I told her about my adventure with the policemen and Mrs. F ——. She laughed at the end, at what Mrs. F —— had said about not wanting to wring the story out of me.

We waited on the terrace; Grandmother and R —— talked more about music, and we played a final game of pitching cockleburs at the cloth target, which I carried down from the chamber above. I found in my notebook a sketch of the leaning house—one of my better drawings of anything in the garden. I added the four of us, doing my best to capture our attitudes and postures with simple lines and shading. It wasn't perfect, but it was decent. Carefully, I tore the page out and gave it to R ——. He looked at it for a long time, then folded it with great deliberation and put it into his own pocket. “Best present,” he said. “I always keep.”

When the shafts of light slanted deep golden from the west, and dusk was already gathering in the quiet places, Mr. Girandole returned with roasted meat on skewers. Our feast began with us all bowing our heads. Instead of praying aloud, Grandmother put one hand on Mr. Girandole's wrist and one on R ——'s. The two of them took my hands, completing the circle. We all looked solemnly at one another, and then we prayed our own prayers in our heads. That was the beginning of a dinner party I would never have imagined when the spring began.

Grandmother leaned back against the terrace railing with her ankles crossed, sipping her tea. “Girandole,” she said suddenly,
“there is something I've been wondering about all afternoon. If the duke really went into Faery and never came back, why didn't he take the key with him? Why was it hidden in the statue of Apollyon? Did he have a second key?”

Mr. Girandole dusted cracker crumbs from his lap. “Fairy doors also open for certain words—poetry, spells, and the like. The duke probably knew the secret words if he was able to discover the door. If so, he didn't need the key; he meant it for others to find. We can hardly know all his reasons for making the garden, but two of them seem clear: for one, it points the way to his discovery. I would guess he made that key with magical art so that others who cared enough to find it could open the door. He found a way to go beyond the veil—beyond the shadows—and the garden was his unselfish act of gratitude. He made this place for others. He left hope in the world.”

“And the garden's other purpose?” Grandmother asked.

“It was his tribute to G ——, his monument to love that never dies.” Mr. Girandole gazed toward the pedestal of the beautiful feet.

Watching him and Grandmother, listening to their voices, I felt my tears overflowing at last. Pretending to brush hair back from my forehead, I wiped at them. My chest ached with the happiness of knowing these two, of knowing I could come and visit on every holiday, and they would be waiting here, together, with their truest feelings confessed. Duties and sacrifices were behind them now; ahead were warmth and friendship. Before this year, I hadn't grasped the enormity of the gifts we receive through our loved ones. Whenever I came, Grandmother and Mr. Girandole would welcome me, and no matter what was happening in the world, we would have our own special place where the coldest winds didn't reach. So I thought; I was very young.

*  *  *  *

All too soon, the meal was over, and we put the dirty cups and empty tins back into the bag. I rolled up the cocklebur target and offered it to R ——, too. “You can teach the fauns to play,” I said.

R —— laughed, nodding, and tucked it inside his shirt.

Fireflies had begun to wink in the dusk around us.

“Well,” said Mr. Girandole softly, “it will be dark soon.”

“Yes,” said Grandmother. “We'd better do this while you can still see the keyhole.”

So, we stood up, stretched, and breathed deeply in the evening's cool. Grandmother brought the carpet bag. R —— preceded us; Mr. Girandole helped Grandmother on the eastern stairs—but I lingered on the terrace for as long as I could, peering in turn at each of the fantastic figures I could see: the tortoise, the elephant, a glimpse of Heracles, the sea serpent, the boar, Neptune on his throne, and the four women at the pool. Soon, I thought, the garden would be silent again, left to the birds, the small creatures, the leaves and moss, and the changing light. The monsters would all be here, slowly sinking again into the blankets of vines—but we would be gone as the summer passed away, and autumn settled in for a while with a riot of colors and a rattle of nuts. And then rainy winter would steal in like age. But then we'd come back. I had to keep reminding myself of that.

Grandmother stood for a long time before the pedestal of the sandaled feet. R —— trudged onward, but Mr. Girandole waited beside Grandmother, his hand on her shoulder. Finally, gazing once into each other's eyes, they continued walking, and I followed.

We made our way through the arch and up into the higher glade.
The mermaid regarded us somberly as we passed—wondering, I fancied, if we had any news of the ocean, which she could hear and smell away down the slopes but could never see.

I had the unsettling notion that the night's darkness was pouring out of the screaming mouth. I'd never been in the garden at such a late hour. Somehow, this time of twilight, with the sun vanishing, frightened me more than the pre-dawn dark when daylight lay just ahead. Tiny frogs sang in the trees and along the mossy stone wall. Crickets chorused in the thicket. On every hand the fireflies kindled their pale lamps. I wondered what I'd see if I ran after the fireflies and looked closely.

There was a breathless feel to the woods. The visible patch of sky above the hilltop, where the temple stood hidden behind the trees, had become a deep lavender; the stars were not yet alight.

“This is the hour,” said Mr. Girandole. “The walls of the worlds are thin.” He pointed to murky recesses in the bank's foliage, alignments of depth and silhouette where day and night com­mingled. I wasn't sure what he saw there, but I believed him about the nearness of Faery.

R —— pressed forward, approaching the limbless tree, a ghostly tower now beneath its garment of leaves.

Mr. Girandole clutched my arm and spoke quietly into my ear. “You see how eager he is to be there—to leave this world behind without a thought. That's what happens when the colors and voices of my land get into a mortal. Stand well back from the door, if you want to have any peace for the years that remain to you. In fact, the two of you should hold onto each other, and don't come close, no matter what you hear, no matter how badly you want to peek inside. The border is always dangerous.”

“What about you?” Grandmother asked.

“I'll make sure he gets through the door safely, and that it closes behind him.”

R —— had already floundered into the brambles, his hands on the bone-white trunk of the ancient tree. He called excitedly to us when he'd relocated the keyhole.

Twisting his hat more tightly onto his head, Mr. Girandole led us to the tree's foot. We sidled around it, the thicket black and tangled. To move even a step required planning and wriggling. Mr. Girandole positioned Grandmother and me to his right as he faced the trunk, with R —— on his left. There was scarcely room to stand. Branches poked our backs, and thorns tore at our clothes. The thicket was so dense I could no longer see the gaping mouth. It was steamy among the vegetation, even with the sun gone.

R ——'s eyes were wide and expectant, but he came forward and embraced us one by one. He smelled of sweat.

“Kind, kind lady,” he said, squeezing Grandmother's hands. I thought about what a long way we'd come since he'd been hanging in the tree and pointing his gun at us. Clearly, he was healing; his injuries were not going to kill him—nor was our medical treatment. Grandmother had done well. “You save me. I remember. I always remember.”

“Yes, well,” said Grandmother, “we'll remember you, too.” She hugged him again and patted his face with both hands. “I'm glad you came to us. Be careful, R ——, and be well.”

He glanced a final time at me, and I touched the flute in my pocket. He grinned and gave me a thumbs-up.

Grandmother drew the key out of the carpet bag and used the shears to snip the twine that bound it to the handle. She looked
at me. “This key belongs to you most of all,” she said, and passed it to me.

I ran my fingers over its ornate head and handed it solemnly to Mr. Girandole.

Grandmother told him, too, to be careful. Then she clutched me with both arms, and we retreated a step, as far back as the thicket would allow us.

From my position, I could just make out the keyhole in the deepening gloom. R —— took his hands off the trunk and moved aside. Mr. Girandole drew a breath, held up the key, and slid it into the keyhole. It sank in almost up to the head. He turned it slowly, and there was a loud click from inside the tree.

Then the key was jerked from his fingers. The trunk pulled it in like a retracting tongue. Though the keyhole was too small to admit the head's flanges, I distinctly saw the hole widen like a mouth, suck the key inside, and then close, puckering in upon itself. In the next instant, even the keyhole was gone; only bare, hardened bark remained.

Mr. Girandole dropped to a crouch, clawing at the trunk.

But then a narrow door swung inward, a rectangular section of the bark just wide and tall enough to accommodate a person of average size. The receding portal tugged at the vines that covered its surface. Some were dragged after it; some tore loose and hung slack across the opening.

From our vantage, Grandmother and I couldn't see inside, but Mr. Girandole and R —— were bathed in a wondrous, changing light. At first, it was so blue-white and brilliant that they shielded their eyes. All the leaves behind them shone as if under the full face of the sun, and shadows were banished far back into the thicket.
Then the light softened and shifted to a silvery green. I thought at once of the reflection from one of my favorite Christmas ornaments, an old glass globe of my mama's that hung on our tree each year.