Night Gate (3 page)

They had carried him inside, leaving Bear nuzzling and worrying at the other puppies. Mam heated Bear’s milk and watered it down, then she told Rage to put her finger into the mouth of the puppy so it would suck, and she would dribble the milk into its mouth with an eyedropper. Rage obeyed and was horrified to feel that the inside of its mouth was cold. She had not wanted to touch him after that because she thought death had already got into him, but Mam said death did not always win.

Billy had lasted the night, but the other puppies died. Bear had moved them out of the garage and under the house, and that was where they found her with the poor things in the morning. Mr. Johnson came and took the bodies away, but Bear kept scratching under the house as if she thought the ground had swallowed her puppies up. Then quite suddenly she seemed to realize that Billy was inside. She howled and sniffed at the door, but they couldn’t give him to her because he was too small and sickly.

It took them a long time to make him well, and when they did let him outside as a gangling, floppy boy dog, Bear had sniffed at him with disinterest.

“Perhaps she doesn’t know Billy is her son,” Rage said.

But Grandfather had said Bear knew all right but that she didn’t care. “Love can end,” he had added malevolently.

Rage tripped over a furrow. Picking herself up, she was startled to notice how dark it had become while she was daydreaming.

Now that she and the dogs were all still, she could hear something rustling through the grass behind them. Fear poured through her veins, but Elle seemed not to scent whatever was making those soft noises. Rage told herself she must be imagining things. But still she could hear twigs snapping, the sound of creeping movements through the grass. A rabbit, then, or birds?

What sort of animal would creep after a human and four dogs?
she wondered with a shiver.
Wouldn’t a wild creature run away as fast as it could from such a strange procession?

She remembered the dazzling flash of orange in the orchard and wondered if a cat or another dog was following them. But if so, why wasn’t Elle barking?

A branch cracked as loudly as a gunshot, and she whirled, catching Elle by the collar.

It must be a person,
Rage thought. Someone following and hoping she had money or something valuable to steal.

There was another rustle, and this time something big and white emerged from the dark tangle of foliage. Rage gave a little sobbing laugh of relief when she found herself looking into the strange, square-pupiled eyes of Mrs. Johnson’s goat. It shook its curls and gave a loud, plaintive bleat. Of course none of the dogs had barked. They had recognized the strong smell of the goat’s wool. Elle, who liked the goat especially, trotted over to it and snuffled at its long white ringlets.

It occurred to Rage that the goat could only have followed them if the Johnsons’ gate was open. Except she distinctly remembered closing it. Shutting gates was one of the important rules on Winnoway Farm. That meant someone else had opened it.

“Don’t be silly,” she told herself, fighting panic. “Why would anyone deliberately let the goat out?”

There was a snicker of sound somewhere behind her, and Elle leaped up, barking frantically.

“Elle!” Rage cried, but it was too late. The bull terrier had plunged away with Mr. Walker at her heels. Bear stayed by Rage, growling softly, while Billy sniffed the air in a puzzled sort of way.

Rage stood there stupidly, indecisive, until Billy gave an urgent bark.

Spurred by the thought that Elle and Mr. Walker would head back to the farm, Rage began to run and stumble after them, pushing brambles aside and ignoring the jagged thorns scratching and tearing at her bare skin.

It was full dark now, and Mrs. Johnson would have begun to worry. Bear and Billy trotted at her heels, the goat skittering along behind them, but the others were too far away to see. “Elle,” Rage yelled. “Mr. Walker!”

Rage completely lost her sense of direction as the ground began to slope suddenly down into a fold where the undergrowth was even thicker and more tangled. She could hear Elle and Mr. Walker barking ahead, but it sounded as if they had stopped running. Maybe they had treed a cat or bailed up a fox in its hole. She was scratched to pieces, even through her jeans, when at last she broke through a wall of blackberry bushes and into a small clearing.

Right then the bright crescent moon that had risen behind a cloud bank slid out into the open, bathing the world in a silvery light.

Rage stopped dead in astonishment. Right in front of her, looming far above her head, was a high, wild wall of brambles, and in the midst of the tangled branches was a perfect archway, like the gate in the hedge at home. Spiders had spun their webs, tying all of the leaves together with a silvery lace that glimmered in the moonlight, but not a single cobweb stretched across the opening.

Elle and Mr. Walker growled at the strange gate. The goat trotted up to stand behind them. Beside Rage, Billy Thunder whined. When she dropped a hand to his head, she found that he was trembling all over.

“What is it, Billy? What do you smell?” Rage asked, trying to understand who had created such a thing in the middle of the wilderness, and why. It was far too perfect to be an accident of nature.

Then came another of the snickering chitters. Elle began to bark again, inching closer to the bramble gate.

“Elle!” Rage said sharply. To her relief the bull terrier came to heel, Mr. Walker following. She ran her hand along Elle’s back and found all the hair standing up on her spine, stiff as bristles on a toothbrush. What was it about the strange gate that had got the animals so upset?

Studying it, Rage saw that it offered a clear path out of the brambles. But why would someone make a gateway here? Nothing could be kept in or out by it.

“Who made you? I wonder,” Rage murmured aloud.

“Wizard making bramble gate,” answered a purring voice out of nowhere. “Is enchanted gateway.”

Rage froze in shock. “Who said that?” she whispered.

“Am being firecat, Ragewinnoway,” the voice responded, soft and rough as a cat’s tongue licking the evening air.

Rage’s heart gave a nervous jump as she looked around, but she could see no one. “Wh…who is that?”

“Am firecat,” the voice repeated.

Rage licked her lips. “How do you know my name?”

“Am knowing many things,” the firecat responded, its voice beguiling, but with a hint of teeth in it. “Am knowing Ragewinnoway is thinking about sleeping mother.”

Rage gasped in fright.

“Not hurting Ragewinnoway,” the voice said hastily.

“What do you want?” Rage wondered if someone was using ventriloquism to play a nasty trick on her. Except who could know so much about her?

“Firecat helping Ragewinnoway wake mother,” the voice said.

“I…I don’t need any help,” Rage quavered.

There was a hissing laugh. “Mother of Rage being far away…and even if finding her, daughter-calling not powerful enough for waking mother from such deep and dangerous sleeping. Ragewinnoway needs waking magic.”

Even through her fear, the sneering words cut Rage. She had been a fool to think she could wake Mam when the doctors had failed.

“Come through bramble gate, Ragewinnoway,” the voice invited. “Wizard will conjure waking magic.”

“How do you know about Mam?” she asked, blinking hard to stop herself from crying.

The firecat ignored her question. “Ragewinnoway must forget being careful if wanting to save mother. Must become Ragewinnoway whose name is Courage and enter bramble gate. All questions being answered on other side.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Rage stammered. “My name isn’t Courage. It’s Rebecca Jane Winnoway. Rage for short.”

“Naming something hidden can bringing it out of its hiding place. Firecat can smell boldness hidden in Rage Winnoway. Firecat smells that Rage Winnoway can become Courage Winnoway,” the firecat said slyly. “If wanting to helping mother.”

“Of course I want to help her,” Rage said.

“Then coming through bramble gate,” the firecat said eagerly. “Wizard helping.”

Rage shivered and wondered if she could be dreaming. But when she pinched the inside of her wrist, she did not wake. “How do you know the wizard will help Mam?” she called out.

“Waking magic being payment for service to wizard,” the voice said briskly.

“What service?”

“Wizard needing something delivered to him. Something small. Very, very small.”

“Why don’t you take it to him?” Rage called. There must be a microphone somewhere because she was sure no one was concealed in the brambles. The voice appeared to be coming from the bramble gate itself.

Again the speaker ignored her question. It said, “Come through, Ragewinnoway, before too late for sleeping mother.”

“Who are you?” Rage called again. “What has this to do with you?”

There was no answer.

Rage stared through the bramble gate. Who would play such a trick on her, and why? And most of all, how?

She thought of Mam lying in the hospital bed, and a tear trickled down her cheek. She had left Winnoway Farm to help Mam. The slinky voice had made her see that she had behaved as if she were in a fairy story about a girl going to save her mother, with happily ever after waiting around the corner.

But what if it really was an enchanted gateway? “Oh, don’t be such an idiot,” Rage cried, dashing away the tear. Of course there were no such things as magic gates and powerful wizards. Any more than daughters who could save their mothers.

Rage drew closer to the gate, and the air fizzed against her skin. Startled, she looked down at her arms. All of the hair was sticking up. Rage told herself it was only static electricity. They had done experiments with torn-up bits of paper and combs in science class at school. She was determined to expose the trick. Entering the gateway, she found herself wishing that the animals were human so that she didn’t have to face this alone.

But as she passed through the gateway, the air began to glow. A slit of darkness opened under her feet like a greedy mouth, and she screamed as she fell into it.

She fell and fell.

She was in the living room, a fire burning in the small, deep hearth. Mam was on the couch with her feet curled under her, reading a thick book. Rage was on the floor, making some plasticine dinner for her plasticine fairies. Grandfather Adam was in his chair, staring into the flames just as he always did. Outside, the wind whined and rattled the glass in its frame.

“Mam, could I have a sandwich?” Rage asked.

“The girl did not eat dinner when it was offered,” Grandfather said, never taking his eyes from the flames. His words were like stones set in the center of the room. A fierce coldness came off them.

“We ate early tonight,” Mam said.

“The girl is not to run wild under my roof,” Grandfather answered. Then he began to cough. His whole body shook with the force of those coughs. Rage waited for them to shake him to pieces, but he closed his mouth and forced them back down his throat.

Then there was nothing but the sound of a heavy, raspy breathing full of sharp points and edges.

Rage woke to find herself lying on her back and staring up into the night sky. Only a few stars and a misty sliver of moon were visible. She sat up. There was no fire, no Grandfather (because, of course, he had died), no Mam (because she was in the hospital, lost in her dreams).

Rage’s head hurt, and she guessed she had hit it. The last thing she remembered was running after the dogs in the darkness. Then there had been a dream about going through a magical gate. Fingering her head for the bump, she looked around. She was on a grassy slope hemmed on all sides by a dense forest. The faint moonlight made long shadows that striped a dark patch of brambles to one side of the clearing. There was no sign of a gateway, enchanted or otherwise.

“It was a dream after all,” Rage said aloud. The animals were nowhere to be seen. Had she also dreamed of taking them away from Winnoway Farm? She heard something making its way through the trees toward her, and opened her mouth to call out. Then she closed it, because whatever was pushing its way through the trees was a whole lot bigger than any dog.