Arcadia

If this be magic, let it be an art

Lawful as eating.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
The Winter's Tale

F
rom the top of Briar Hill he can see the whole world.

Once upon a time there was a stone plaque up here. Rory remembers it, mostly. There was a map on it which told you what you were looking at, which island in which direction. Why you'd need a map when you can see all the islands just by turning around—Home lying right next to Briar, blackened Martin peeking over its shoulder, Maries and far-off Aggies across the Gap, and then the two bleak mounds of Sansen where no one but the gulls ever lived, even before—he can't now imagine. Anyway, the plaque's gone. Or it's still there but buried forever under the gorse, so it might as well be gone. Everyone's been telling him how fast he's growing but the gorse is growing faster.

He perches on tiptoes at the highest point of the clearing and surveys the world.

As always, he looks for the Mainland first. On very clear days, if you face the north end of neighboring Home and then stare over it and way way across the sea, there's a smudge on the horizon. That smudge is the Mainland. It's the only sign of anything beyond the world: another world. It's not much even on a clear day. It looks like smoke, or something you could blink out of your eye.

He remembers bits of it, but the memories are also turning into smoke. A year and a half's a long time when you're ten. He remembers the helicopter most vividly, the noise it made and the smell of it, and the grass buffeting underneath. Other things come in flashes. Big square signs beside wide roads, glittering when lights hit them. The red and green people who told you when it was safe to cross. A paper cup full of stripy straws.

You can't see it this afternoon. There are no clouds at all, but an autumn haze blurs the horizon despite the breeze. Everything there is in the world is arranged in a ring around him, islands and rocks. The rest, in every direction, is just the sea.

He remembers watching boats from up here, in The Old Days. In the Gap separating Briar and Home from Maries and Aggies, where the other people live there used to be boats all the time, little boats, medium-sized boats, sometimes boats as big as islands (which doesn't seem possible but he asked Laurel once and she said yes, there really were).

There isn't a single boat out of harbor.

He's never seen so many birds.

The blackberries are never as good around the top of the hill. He'll have to go back down in a bit and start picking. He's only climbed all the way up because it's such a nice afternoon, and (secretly) for the chance to see what he sometimes sees out amid the foam and spray and rocks on the far side of Briar. A glimpse of a whiteness which stays, instead of dissolving into mist.

Just thinking about it makes him feel guilty. He fingers the plastic bags rolled up in his pocket. He can't go home until he's filled one with blackberries and the other with sloes. He'd better get started. If Laurel and Pink see him standing around on top of the hill not doing anything they'll tell on him, or at least Pink will, though the two of them should be busy at the Farm and it's out of sight from here.

On the other hand, the later he gets back to Home, the less likely it is he'll have to do another job before bedtime.

For some reason this idea makes him remember sitting in the classroom at school staring at the clock.

This memory isn't fuzzy at all, even though it's been summer and winter and now another summer finished since he last set eyes on that clock. He spent a lot of time staring at it, in The Old Days. He remembers, exactly, which configurations of its thin and thick hands meant happiness (end of lesson, time to go home) and which meant despair (less than halfway through the lesson, less than halfway through the day). Something's missing from the memory, though. The key to it. What the clock was
for,
what it was
about
. Whatever it is, it's like the plaque with the map. It must still be there somewhere but it might as well not be.

Once his mother took him to watch Scarlet's class do an assembly at their school, the big school on Maries, where Scarlet and Jake went by boat across the Gap every day. The assembly was about somewhere called Germany. Scarlet had learned lines about sausages and said them aloud; then the whole class stood in a line—Scarlet was between her friends, who were Tilly and Adam—and sang a song which went
O Christmas tree O
Christmas tree
. Scarlet was so nervous about doing it she cried and shouted at their mother for days beforehand when she was supposed to be learning her lines about the sausages; that's why Rory still remembers. But what he can't remember anymore is what they meant:
Germany, sausages, Christmas, Tilly, Adam
. They're to do with a different world, when there were things other than what you can see from here, on top of Briar Hill. They're gone. Like Scarlet and Jake.

Someone's coming.

He can hear huffing and rustling up the steep track through the brambles. Laurel or Pink, it must be, though they crossed from Home at the same time he did so they shouldn't nearly be finished getting milk. If they find him standing around not working he'll be in trouble. He pulls one of the bags from his pocket and unrolls it hurriedly. There's nothing to pick up here at the top of the hill but he'll have to pretend he thought there was.

But it's not Laurel or Pink. It's Ol.

This, Rory knows straightaway, is not good at all.

Ol stops as soon as he comes into the clearing. “Whatchya doing here?”

Instinctively, Rory glances across the narrow Channel towards Home. If anyone was looking across to Briar they'd see the two of them. “You're not supposed to be here,” he says.

“ ‘You're not supposed to be here,' ” Ol mimics, in a whiny voice.

“How'd you get across?”

“Flew.”

Rory stops scanning the shore of Home to look at Ol and immediately wishes he hadn't. Ol is grinning a Got You grin.

“Whatchya think, stupid? Rowed, didn't I?”

“In a boat?” Rory says. That's how bad he's starting to feel.

“No, in a tractor. ‘In a boat?' What's wrong with you?”

Rory's never liked Ol much. He's supposed to like Ol because they're the boys so they play together a lot, but Ol arranges the games so he wins every time, and he's always talking like he understands all sorts of things Rory doesn't just because he's three years older. This time, though, Rory doesn't care about Ol being rude. He's much more worried about the fact that he's here at all.

“Who said you could take a boat?”

“No one.”

“You just took one?”

“Don't be such a girl. Whatchya doing, anyway? Picking? Better get on with it, I bet your mum's gonna want that whole bag full.”

Rory reddens. Ol's mother is Molly and everyone in the world knows that Molly is Nice. She doesn't badger Ol all the time. Rory often sees Ol playing by the pond while he's bicycling past on his way to do whatever boring job his own mother's told him to do. It's always Molly who comes by to ask if Rory can play with Ol for a bit instead of working. His own mother never goes to ask if Ol can play.

“If someone sees—”

“Oh, shut up. I don't care. Anyway they're all over on the far side. Some stuff washed up. They'll be busy with it for ages.” Ol advances up the clearing, gazing around like he's daring anyone to look at him. Rory's hands are beginning to feel clammy. Ol not being allowed on the water isn't like Laurel not being allowed to touch anything after she's been in the chicken coop until she's rinsed her hands, or Rory not being allowed to use more than a speck of toothpaste. It's proper not being allowed. It's frightening and serious and to do with the things the women talk about in lowered voices in other rooms. It's to do with Them.

The very moment he has that thought he can't help looking over Ol's shoulder towards the spiky rocks beyond the far side of Briar, and, as if it's his fault for thinking of Them, he sees it: a glimpse of whiteness at rest.

“You're not going to tell, are you?” Ol says. “You better not. You're not a sneak.”

It's unmistakable. The sea froths and spits where it meets the rocks, but above the turmoil a still white shape has settled.

“If you sneak on me I'll put your head down the toilet. One of the old toilets. I mean it.”

“I won't.” Rory can feel his cheeks going stiff and heavy and hot, like his face knows he's trying to hide something. “Let's go down,” he says.

“I told you, no one's going to see.”

“Come on. Laurel and Pink are at the Farm.”

“So what.”

“Let's go see what they're doing.” This is desperation. He hates it when he's with Laurel and Pink and then Ol shows up. Ol always tries to act older in front of Laurel and the two of them whisper and giggle and he ends up stuck with Pink. But Rory's bad feeling is getting worse. It's really important that Ol not be here. Really, really important. Ol has to go back to where he's supposed to be. Everything's always got to be where it's supposed to be, that's one of the Rules they live by since What Happened.

“I know what they're doing.” Ol makes squeezing motions with his hands, grinning. “Sticking their hands under goats. No thanks. I like it up here.” He stretches and makes a show of admiring the view.

“Don't!” Rory squeaks.

“Don't what?”

“You're not supposed to look.”

“I know I'm not supposed to,” Ol says, exaggerating the words and fixing his most contemptuous sneer on Rory, which at least stops him staring around. “You know what? I'm fed up with it. It's stupid. You're allowed on Briar, why shouldn't I be? I'm fed up with everyone acting like I'm a prisoner.”

Over his shoulder, across the little rocky scoop of bay between Briar and the Western Rocks, the glistening white shape makes itself upright. Rory knows he has to get Ol back down the hill right now, before something very bad happens. But how can he? You can't make someone do something when they're older, that's not how it works.

“I think They're gone anyway,” Ol says. “No one's seen one of Them for ages. If they ever did. It's all a story old women made up to stop me doing what I want, that's what I think.”

“Let's go,” Rory says. “Please.”

Ol sighs. “You're such a pussy.”