Wildwing (3 page)

The Safety of Stone

“
A
ddy! Come back!” cries Mum.

I keep running. I don’t even turn my head, not after what she’s done to me. And now she’s standing in front of the Whittingtons’ house calling my name… . The bridge cobbles blur. Market Street rises up around me. A motorcar screeches to a stop. A shop boy, his arms laden with boxes, turns to stare. They’re all staring, everyone in the whole bloody village. At me: Addy Morrow, girl in disgrace.

I keep running until the streets of Little Pembleton are far behind me, and the cobbles turn to packed earth, and the bricks give way to trees. I’ll never live this down, never. I can hear Caroline at school, her high-pitched voice boasting how she’s made the halls safe from bastards and upstarts. Imitating Mum shouting in the middle of the road. Gloatingas she describes my head bent before her all meek and subservient.

I feel as hollow as a pitcher, the life poured out of me.

The trail grows steep and narrow, and I slow to a walk. The air here is brisker, saltier, and I take gulping breaths as if it could wash the wounds inside me clean. I round a bend, push through a last tangle of trees. And there it is: the castle. Or what’s left of it.

It’s been more than a year since I last came, but the call is as strong as ever, a magnet pulling me around the pond, past the remnants of walls, across the dips and ridges that hint where smaller buildings once stood, and up to the tower.

I used to come here all the time, before there was so much work to do. I never told Mum, with her fears of the steep cliffs plummeting down to the pounding surf, her warnings of men lurking behind trees to snatch away any young girl so foolish as to be out alone. But I couldn’t help myself; I was drawn here by the sound of the sea, the stubborn stones. I came because I found early on that
they
never did. Couldn’t be bothered to walk so far in their fancy shoes. Didn’t think it worth their while, a pile of old rock buried in moss and lichen.

At the base of the tower, I stretch out a hand to touch an ancient stone, waiting for the familiar chill. And then myfeet are climbing the few remaining stairs, up to where they collapse into rubble. My fingers remember every handhold. I haul myself up to the gaping hole that was once a grand doorway, and step through into darkness.

I inch along the inner wall, watching each time I place a foot to make sure there’s stone enough to hold me. Through the arch, to the twisting stair, and now I’m spiraling up, higher and higher, freer with every step, as if, when I reach the top, I could fly away.

But there is no top; the tower lost its upper stories long ago. I step into a chamber where the only roof is sky.

And there’s my window seat, nestled in a wall so strong, no catapult could ever destroy it. I’ve measured with my steps. These walls are thicker than our rooms at home are wide. Outside the castle, people must have lived in a state of constant fear, like sparrows glancing up after every bite, watching for the danger that’s always about to pounce. But here there was power aplenty to protect them. I step up into the nook and sit. Gray-green rock above and below me, before and behind me—here, in the safety of stone, I can finally breathe.

I slide over to look out the narrow slit of a window. Caroline’s voice crashes into the wall like a brittle arrow; it shatters and falls. Her purple dress blocking the servants’door, the waves of shame tugging me under as I stood there apologizing for what wasn’t my fault: the castle resists it all.

I lean my cheek against cool, chiseled stone. This is how thick my skin will be from now on. When Caroline’s obedient flock caws like scornful crows, when their mothers glance at my cap and apron before turning and whispering to one another: that’s when I’ll remember these walls. How they let nothing in. And nothing out.

I sit, and sit, and sit. Mum will have long been back at her stitching, expecting me at her side. Let her worry. I’ll stay here until the sun goes down. I’ve no classes to attend, do I? No play to rehearse, and only this one last day until my new position is pasted on me like a label.

A hawk swoops by. I follow its flight down to the pond and its fringe of trees, each one stuck wherever a seed happened to land. Then the sun bursts out from behind a cloud, there’s a patch of blue—and all at once the pond is a shimmering mirror. It holds the same trees I was just looking at, but for once there’s nothing to imprison them, and they float free.

My breath catches in my throat. That’s the world I want, the one in the lake, the one without roots or rocks or soil to

hold me down.

A fish breaks the surface of the water. From that small spot, circles start to spread, and the bigger they grow, the more they waver, losing whatever force once held them together. Suddenly the circles are gone, and there’s nothing but ripple. Then the mirror is gone, too, blurred by a gust of wind, as if a mighty hand is dipping down to stir the waters. What was trees shimmers into a green-gold haze, and then even that disappears.

The brief brightness is gone, and I’m left with a yearning so strong, it hurts. An ache for a land somewhere between rooted trunks and shifting water, between the bound world and the dream.

But not here, I think bitterly. An alder tree can’t become an oak at will. A maple can’t pick up its roots like legs, and stride, step by powerful step, along the shore to find the sun. And everything that ever said otherwise—all those years of school, and the plays and moving pictures that promise you can be someone else, something more—they were all lies.

A Strange Old Bird

F
irst we’ll lay the fire,” says Mrs. Beale, thrusting the cinder pail and a metal box toward me. “I assume you know
that
much.”

I nod and follow her out the kitchen door.

“I shouldn’t even be here,” she grumbles, huffing and puffing down the hall like an overworked locomotive. “Lord knows I have more than enough on my plate as it is, leaving for London tomorrow. I can only spare you an hour, and I won’t explain anything more than once, so pay attention.” She’s speeding up, gathering a full head of steam. By the time she reaches the room with the portrait, she flings the door open, surging in without so much as a knock or a by your leave!

I freeze, tensing for the blast of Mr. Greenwood’s anger.

But after a moment of silence, Mrs. Beale appears back in the doorway, hands on her wide hips, and exclaims, “Don’t stand there big-eyed like a rabbit, girl! We have work to do.” “But Mr. Greenwood …”

“Out rambling the woods, like he does every morning. And a good thing it is, so you can do your work without getting in his way. Now, are you coming or not?”

She waves toward the hearth. I walk over and set down my equipment, then kneel and open the box. But it’s full of so many brushes and bottles and cloths, you could stock a shop with them. I pick up a bottle at random. My confusion must be written plain on my face, because Mrs. Beale sighs in exasperation and creaks down to her knees.

She starts by pulling out a clean cloth, and makes a great to-do of laying it on the rug. “You don’t need any more dust in
this
house,” she grumbles, handing me the cinder brush. “This, at least, you recognize?”

I sweep up the ashes neatly and quickly enough to win a nod of approval.

“Now your black-lead,” she says, taking a brush from the box. “You use
this
brush to lay it on”—a few dabs—”and
this
one to brush it in”?her hand spins in circles?”and
this
one for your polishing.” Only then does she arrange the paper, then kindling, then coal, and most particular aboutthe amounts, she is. Out comes a leather, and she polishes the grate. Finally she leans back, nods in satisfaction, and lights the fire. She motions me to put everything back in the box as she struggles to her feet.

“He likes the drapes closed,” she says, walking to the window. “The fire and the one electric light, that’s all he wants. Like a tomb it gets, in here. But I say a person needs proper light for vacuuming.” She pulls the velvet roughly aside and sunlight streams in, illuminating a swirl of dust. “And dusting. That will take you long enough, with all this nonsense around.” She picks up a small metal object and flips a switch on its side. Tiny stairs start to move up; when they reach the top, there’s a blur and then a spark?

She turns it off and bangs it back down on the table. “Inventions, he calls them. But does he ever use them for anything? Or even make new ones? Dust traps is what I say, cluttering up the house and making more work for the likes of us. I’d tell him about it, I would, but I stay out of his way. If you know what’s good for you, that’s what you’ll do as well. A strange old bird, he is.”

But her voice is becoming a dull drone in the background as I look around the room. Why didn’t I notice them before? Odd bits of wood, wire, and steel are everywhere,scattered atop piles of books, shoved into shelf corners. My eyes linger on miniature gears connected to a tiny clock, on a cylinder sprouting wires that for some reason makes me think of a castle tower flying a misshapen pennant. A crumpled trail of papers starts at its base and meanders across the shelf, as if Mr. Greenwood was about to throw them away and then couldn’t quite let them go. The more I look, the more magical it all feels, almost ominous, as if I’m peering into a wizard’s lair and the wizard himself is about to walk through the door and find me out. And yet there’s something oddly tempting about it as well. My fingers reach toward a brass box, flicking a miniature handle to open a miniature folding door—

“Good Lord, girl!” cries Mrs. Beale, snatching the box up harshly. “Mr. Greenwood may not look like he notices much, but break one of his gewgaws and he’ll give you a tongue-lashing you won’t soon forget! So watch your hands.” Her eyes narrow, as if she’s remembering something. “And your temper, I daresay.”

I feel my face grow hot. She’s been hearing about me. Her, and everyone else in town. She walks out the door, but I have to wait a moment, swallowing my humiliation, before I can follow.

She’s standing outside the drawing room, staring at thefar, dark end of the hall. As I approach, she lifts her hand and points. Now I make out another door, almost lost in the shadows.

“Whatever you do, don’t go in that room,” she says. “It’s locked. Always locked. Do you hear me?”

I want to ask what’s inside, but she’s already chuffing back to the kitchen. She sighs down onto a stool and starts ticking off on her fingers.

“Let’s see, then. Laundry. Electric iron, plugs in over there. Breakfast and dinner. Tea, if he’s home for it. Likes ginger cake, he does. Remember, you’re a daily with light cooking, not a cook with cleaning, so nothing fancy. The vacuum is in there?nasty, heavy, unwieldy thing. Woodwork. Dusting. Polish. Oh! That’s right. The grocer’s. You’ll have to walk to town to place your orders. Mr. Greenwood can’t be bothered with a telephone. Never talks with anyone himself, so he can’t see why others would need to.” She sighs, making sure I appreciate the hardships she’s suffered. “Have I covered it all, then?”

Oh, she’s given me a clear picture, right enough: a tomb of a house, with odd creations lurking in every corner, and a fierce old man who hates people and is likely to explode if I do anything wrong. Lovely.

She comes to her feet, rummages in her pocket, andhands me a great clanking ring of keys. “A chance like this doesn’t come along very often,” she says. “You’re a lucky girl.”

I rise in the dark and have a quick swig of tea to brace myself. As I tie on my apron, Mum nods at me in approval. “Not so bad, now, is it?” she asks, as if she can’t see the way I set my jaw. I slam the door behind me, and then I’m dashing through town, quick as I can, before the other girls have a chance to wake. Past the shops, still shuttered, and the funny old church with its squat tower, the bird heads carved around its arched door peering at me in the first glimmers of light. I let myself into the house ever so quietly and put the kettle on.

He only takes tea and toast for breakfast, and I can do that right enough, though I have to search for the bread knife and the marmalade pot. By the time I’ve got it all on a tray and carry it to the dining room, he’s already sitting at the table, those fierce eyebrows pulled low. I don’t say a word, just set things out before him, pour the tea, drop a curtsey, and dash out as quick as I can.

Back in the kitchen, I draw a deep breath, then start filling the sink for breakfast dishes. But when I turn for the soap, my elbow knocks a cup off the counter, the elegant cup I chose for my own morning tea, and I reach out—too late! There’s a terrible crash as the cup strikes the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces.

My head jerks up and I stare at the door, my chest so tight I can barely breathe. But there’s no shout from the dining room, no clomp of angry footsteps down the hall. He must not have heard.

I gaze down at my disaster. Shards of china jut up like blue and white cliffs from a sea of white specks.

Do I tell him?
That teacup probably cost more than my week’s wages.

I think about it for a long moment. Then I tiptoe to the closet and take out the broom and dustpan. I sweep up every grain. And when I empty it all into the dustbin, I bury the evidence deep under scraps of paper and soggy tea leaves.

Not long after, I hear Mr. Greenwood shuffling down the hall. The front door opens and closes again. He’ll be out for hours, now; that’s what Mrs. Beale said.

After I’ve washed and dried his breakfast dishes and put them away again, after I’ve mopped the kitchen, I decide to start a cake for his tea. Ginger cake, that’s what she said he likes. I start opening drawers in search of a cookery book, but all I find is a jumble of papers and bits of string. In frustration, I jerk open a small drawer near the window. And there, right on top, sits a stack of well-thumbed cinema fan magazines.

Well! So much for the virtuous, always-working-too-hard Mrs. Beale!

I pick one up and start leafing through. All those actresses with their pouty little mouths and their huge wide eyes, their transformations from picture to picture, not one of them stuck being someone she can’t stand to be.

I slap the magazine down on the counter. If Mrs. Beale could take time for herself now and then, so can I.

Into the drawing room I march, bold as you please, right up to the shelf. A forest of books rises before me: red, brown, green, black. I should choose something worthy of the risk I’m taking. An elegant leather volume catches my eye, gold glinting from the tops of its pages, and a kind of greedy determination fills me. I may not have a part in the play, but as long as I’m working here, at least I’ll have this.

The play … Now I know what I’m looking for. Not the school play, but something much better. I start skimming the titles, shelf after shelf, working my way deeper into the room. Finally, near the heavy drapes, I find them: slender matching volumes bound in deep blue, gilt letters sparkling on their spines. The works of Shakespeare.

Romeo and Juliet, Two Gentlemen of Verona—and then there it is. The Tempest.

The moment I slip it into my apron pocket, I feel eyes on my back. Slowly, sure I’m about to be sacked, I turn. But it’s only the lady in the portrait looking at me, amusement sparkling in her sky-blue eyes, as if she knows something I don’t. I sigh in relief.
She
won’t mind! And she certainly won’t tell.

I’ll learn to do my work well enough that I can do it quickly, and there’ll be a half hour now and again to sit with a book and a cup of tea. A half hour when I get to be part of a different world.