Celandine (14 page)

Celandine soon learned that there were four distinct groups, or tribes, that inhabited this secret and forgotten world. They sometimes referred to themselves as the Various.

‘Aye, Various we be,’ said Micas. ‘The Naiad do work the Great Clearing, and the Wisp do fish the Gorji waters. Us Tinklers and Troggles don’t see much o’ they, for we biden in the caves and keeps to our own.’

Pato and Fin, and the others of the first group that Celandine had seen were Naiad, so Micas told her. She had yet to meet any of the Wisp. She got the impression that those who lived below ground were inclined to avoid those who lived above it.

By the fourth day of listening to her stories, the cave-dwellers became more relaxed. They sat upon the bank now, rather than stood, and some of the younger ones dabbled their toes in the water as Celandine read to them, from another book now, of frogs and wolves,
of
wicked witches, and of children who got lost in the woods.

The old fairytales could be quite frightening and when, on the fifth day, she told the story of Little Red Riding Hood, she caught something of the nervousness of her listeners – feeling a chill across her own shoulders as she reached the part where the wolf was about to pounce. Celandine was aware of the silence around her – the eyes that stared, the open mouths that dared not breathe – and so when Fin came suddenly bounding out of the brambles behind her shouting ‘Ah – ah – ah!’, she scrabbled to her feet along with the rest of them, and leaped from the stone to the bank, shrieking with fright.

In an instant she was laughing, of course, clutching her chest and gasping for breath. Fin danced around her, grabbing at her sleeve and saying ‘
cake-cake-cake
’ in his throaty little voice. He was so plainly delighted to see her that she could hardly be cross with him, but the scattered group of Tinklers regarded him from a safer distance, scowling at him as though they were cats that had just been doused with a garden hose.

He had escaped at last, for surely they must have somehow kept him away from her these last few days, and now he was making the most of his freedom.

‘
I
all right.
I
all right.’ He splashed back to the rock and picked up the book – which Celandine had dropped, face-down, in her panic. The pages fascinated him and he riffled his fingers through them, dangling the book above his head so that he
could
see from beneath how the leaves fluttered back and forth.

But his joy was cut short, for now here was Pato, bursting through the undergrowth on the opposite bank of the stream with Rufus and a few others of the Naiad in red-faced pursuit.

‘
Fin!
Come away from there! Fin – I
told
’ee . . . I warned ’ee . . . I’ll give ’ee such a latherin’!
Fin!
’ Pato was furious. He made a dash towards the rock, but Fin was too quick for him. He jumped across to the near bank, scampered up it, and ran to hide behind Celandine. ‘Ah – ah – ah!’ He was hanging onto her skirts, so that when she spun round he spun with her. For a few moments she felt as if she were a dog that was trying to catch its own tail.

Then Pato came running up, very hot and angry looking, and managed to get a firm grip on the collar of Fin’s tunic. He swung back his free hand and shouted, ‘I told ’ee! I told ’ee!’

‘Don’t!’ Celandine half reached towards Pato’s raised hand. ‘Don’t hit him! Please don’t!’

Pato lifted his hand higher still – but then he paused, and his shoulders seemed to sag. He lowered his arm.

‘Hit ’un?’ He sighed, and wiped the back of his brown wrist across his streaming forehead. ‘No, I casn’t hit ’un. Casn’t do it somehow – though by the Stone, I comes close to it, and thass the truth. Maybe ’tis my blame, but there ’tis.’

‘He doesn’t mean any harm, I’m sure he doesn’t.’ Celandine looked down at poor Fin who, though
secured
by the scruff of the neck, seemed content enough, his attention now on the nearby group of Tinklers.

‘No,’ said Pato. ‘He don’t mean no harm . . .’

‘But he’ve brung it upon us all the same.’ Rufus and the other half dozen of Pato’s companions had drawn closer. It was Rufus who spoke, but he didn’t pursue the point. Like Fin, his attention seemed to be drawn towards the cave-dwellers.

There was silence for a few moments, and Celandine was aware of the uneasy way in which the two separate groups regarded one another. There was a mutual curiosity there, but also a wariness that seemed strange to her.

She said, ‘Fin hasn’t really brought you any harm, at least . . . not if you mean me. Nobody else knows that I’ve been coming here, and nobody ever will – I’ve already promised you that. I’m very careful, you know, not to let anyone see me. And I’ve tried to bring you things that might be useful.’ She looked slyly at the bright red stitching around the shoulders of Rufus’s waistcoat. ‘Did you like the wool?’

Rufus looked the other way.

‘And I don’t think the others mind me coming here – Micas, and Loren, and Elina . . . and the rest. I’ve been reading to them. They like it, I think.’

Pato looked at the book, which Fin was now clutching to his chest, and muttered, ‘What
be
that thing?’ He called across to the other group. ‘Micas! What is it ’ee
do
 . . . what do ’ee . . .?’ His voice trailed off, waiting, as Micas walked over. ‘When ’ee do all sit
there
by the gwylie, Micas, and this yere maid do break open that . . . that
thing
 . . . and she do talk to ’ee . . . well, I don’t understand it, thass all. What bist she a-doin’ of?’

Micas rubbed the palm of his hand across the top of his shiny head.

‘’Tis named a boox. She do bring tales from’t. Though we don’t see how. It speaken to her in voices we m’nt hear, though we hearken right close. By piece and by piece it speaken to her, and she speaken to us.’

‘We med all tell a tale, Micas – thee or I as well as the next – and have no need o’ such things. Bide
still
, Fin, will ’ee?’

‘This’m but a maid, Pato. Nor maid nor giant, nor thee nor I, would hold so much – aye, tales upon tales – in but one pate. No. We’n a-held much parley on this. It speaken. ’Tis witchi.’

‘Witchi?’ Pato raised his eyebrows and yanked Fin towards him, as he bent forward to take a closer look at the book.

Celandine had to stifle a giggle.

‘It’s just a
book
,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing . . .
witchy
 . . . about it. Look, I’ll show you.’ She gently took the book from Fin and let it fall open, lowering it so that Pato and Micas could see the pages. The two of them moved in a little closer – Pato, reluctant and suspicious, Micas more curious and interested.

‘See? Here’s a picture – of a crow. And over here, there’s a fox. And these are the words that tell the tale. Can you see?’

The two faces, one so dark, the other so pale, studied the open pages.

‘I sees a corben, and a renard,’ said Pato. He bent his ear towards the book. ‘But I casn’t hear no tale.’

‘Well, you don’t
hear
anything. You have to
read
it – these words . . . all these marks on the page, they’re words . . .’ Celandine was beginning to realize how difficult it would be to try and explain. ‘You see, each word . . .’ – she pointed with her finger – ‘each word makes a sound. Or rather, each letter . . .’ She gave up.
‘Tomorrow
I’ll bring some paper and a pencil. Then I can show you.’

Pato turned away, disinterested. ‘’Tis all nonsense to I. Micas, thee and I shall have this out, now we’m gathered. Be you for letting this maid to keep coming here or no?’

Micas was still examining the pages of the open book. He looked up. ‘She’m a-coming here in any wise, Pato, without let from you or I. Might we not gain from her?’

‘I casn’t see us’d gain aught but a handful o’ trouble. But you’m right – she’ll do as she will.’ Pato sighed and scratched his nose. ‘Well, let her, then. You’ll hear no more about it from I, for ’tis no more nor less than I said would happen from the fust.’ He turned to Rufus – who simply shrugged his shoulders – and then to Emmet and the others. There were one or two muttered comments, but no definite objections.

‘You med keep this yere book,’ said Pato to Micas, ‘if that’s what pleases thee. I’ll take the fish hooks.’ He looked up at Celandine. ‘As many as ever I zhould find.’

The matter seemed settled. The forest-dwellers would agree to trust her, and to allow her come and go as she pleased. Celandine stood among the Naiad, next to Pato and Fin. Together they watched as Micas gathered his own tribespeople together and led them back up the stony path towards the caves. Celandine was struck once again by the difference between the two groups, and the caution with which they regarded
one
another. On the way back to the tunnel she said, ‘Aren’t they your friends – the Tinklers? Don’t you like them very much?’

Pato grunted. ‘They bain’t like we. There be some lopsided notions in they mazy heads o’ their’n, I can tell ’ee. Proper crack-nogs, the lot of ’em.’

More than that he didn’t say. As she splashed her way along the tunnel, Celandine could hear Fin’s voice fading into the distance. ‘Ah – ah – ah.
I
all right!’

When she returned the following morning she found Pato and Fin waiting for her.

‘We’ve all thought on,’ said Pato. ‘And ’tis best we be warned, if ’ee be a-coming in. Then we can see if thee’ve kept to thee vow and have come alone. Can ’ee bird-whistle?’

Celandine shook her head.

‘Then I’ll show ’ee how.’

Celandine sat on the bank beside Pato and watched as he cupped his brown wrinkled hands together. ‘Do ’ee see?’ he said. ‘Like this.’ He blew into the gap between the bent knuckles of his thumbs, and produced the most startling array of bird calls: wood pigeon, curlew, heron, owl. All were immediately recognizable, perfect imitations of the sounds that Celandine had so often heard among the trees and fields about her. Fin automatically copied his father, raising his own small hands to his mouth and trilling away to himself like a blackbird as he crouched beside the shallows of the stream, off in some world of his own.

Celandine was astonished. ‘I can’t do
that
,’ she said.

‘Then ’tis time ’ee could,’ said Pato. He showed her how to position her hands, one clasped over the other, how to make a little gap between her thumbs, where to blow. It took her a while, but eventually Celandine managed to make a breathy little hooting sound.

‘Owl,’ said Pato. And he was right – it
did
sound a bit like an owl. Celandine was encouraged, and kept on trying. After about half an hour she found that she could more or less reliably produce two different sounds: an owl and a wood pigeon. Pato decided that these were to be her warning signals before entering the tunnel. The pigeon call would be for daytime, the owl for night.

‘What if nobody hears me?’ Celandine said. ‘Who’ll be listening?’

‘All o’ us,’ said Pato. ‘We hears more than ’ee do reckon. We has to. And I s’ll set Fin to watch for ’ee. He’m down here by the gwylie more times than not, anywise, if I let ’un.’

Celandine looked doubtfully at Fin. She was happy enough to give a signal before entering the forest, if that was what Pato wanted, but couldn’t see that Fin would make much of a watchdog.

‘But how will he know that it’s not a real bird?’ said Celandine. ‘A proper owl?’

Pato laughed. ‘A proper owl?’ he said. ‘You ain’t like to be mistook for one o’ they, maidy. Not even Fin be such a zawney as all that.’

* * *

She inhabited two different worlds, connected by a wicker tunnel, and as she daily crossed from one to the other Celandine felt as though she was two different people. When she was on the farm she was a child, a being of no great importance and of whom nobody took a great deal of notice, beyond the fact that she was a nuisance. But when she was among the Various she was a giant, and all were hushed at her coming.

It was no easier to be a giant, though, than it was to be a child.

Celandine took an exercise book and a wax crayon into the forest in order to explain to Micas and the other cave-dwellers what the alphabet was and how it worked – a prospect so daunting that she felt like giving up before she had started.