Winter Wood (15 page)

Midge smiled back as best she could, and then turned away again. She picked up the cup that had the picture of the fairy on it. It looked as though it might be quite old – or perhaps it was just old-fashioned. The fairy was very pretty, all dressed in green and yellow, and holding a big yellow flower. Midge turned the cup upside down and looked at the base. ‘The Celandine Fairy', she read. ‘Cicely Mary Barker'. But how wonderful that there should be such a thing. A Celandine Fairy. Her great-great-aunt must have bought this for herself, as a reminder of what she had seen – although the winged Ickri looked as unlike this delicate creature as was possible. Still, it was an encouraging sign.

Midge got up from her chair, unable to just sit
there, waiting. She wandered over to the big window. Carol was right. You could see the Almbury Mills car park from here, just on the other side of that line of trees. The streetlights were all on, misty orange in the cold night air, shining down on the rows and rows of cars. She looked at her watch, and realized that she still had the fairy cup in her hand. Twenty to five. Just a couple more minutes, she'd give it, and then she really would have to . . .

The squeak of the swing door made her turn from the window. She hoped that it was the manager, Carol, returning to rescue her – but no, it was someone in a wheelchair. Another old relic, being manoeuvred through the doorway by one of the staff.

Then she recognized the woman who was pushing the wheelchair. It was the one who had come down in the lift to see her. Elaine? Yes, Elaine.
Oh my God
. And so that must be . . .

That
must be . . .

Celandine.

Midge put out her free hand and groped for the window sill beside her. She needed something solid to touch, something to hold on to, just for a moment. It was too bright in here, and too hot, and everything was out of her control. The wheelchair seemed to have got stuck, half in and half out of the room. Elaine was struggling to push the thing and hold the swing door open at the same time. Midge moved away from the window sill, and guiltily replaced the china cup on its saucer. Should she go and help? No, they were safely through.

But then the figure in the wheelchair raised an arm, and there was a murmur of sound. Elaine was leaning forward, head bent low, and Midge heard her say, ‘What? What is it?'

Midge allowed herself to look – to properly look – at her great-great-aunt, for the first time. Celandine.

She was tiny. As tiny as a child. She could have been a nine-year-old for all that there was of her. Except that she wasn't a child at all. She was a shrunken old woman, in a white blouse, crisply pleated at the front . . . a blue brooch . . . tartan rug over her knees . . . and shiny little black shoes that peeped out from under the rug, so that Midge was reminded of a miniature Scots doll that she'd once owned. But her hair . . . what had happened to . . .?

The arm was moving. Beckoning to her? Midge hesitated. But no, this was apparently a signal to Elaine because the chair began to move again, rolling
across the room towards her, the wheels silent on the thick grey carpet.

Midge stood up a little straighter. The approaching face was so heavily creased about the mouth, the eyes so deeply buried in wrinkles, that it was difficult to read any expression there. Midge didn't know what to say, or how she was even going to begin.

‘I'm
so
glad you could come.'

‘Oh. Oh, yes . . .'

The old lady had surprised her by speaking first. Celandine. And yet not Celandine. Midge just couldn't see how this person could be the girl in the photograph, the girl on the wicker box, clutching a tiny bridle in her pale hands. It seemed impossible.

One of those hands was extended now, and Midge awkwardly reached out.

‘Yes, I'm . . . I'm glad too. Glad to meet you.' How silly the words sounded. She held the thin hand for a few seconds, felt the skin, warm, but so loose and separate from the tiny bones within. It made her think of Pegs, and of Little-Marten, for some reason. Yes, that same strange touch of bone and membrane. Wings.

And something else? Some brief jolt of recognition . . . picture-memories. Midge withdrew her hand, unsure of what it was that she had felt in that moment. And uncomfortable with it.

‘But I really can't stay,' she said. ‘Not for very long.' She was dizzily aware that everyone in the room was looking in her direction, still curious at her presence.

‘Elaine, could we have some tea now, do you think?'
said the old lady. ‘And please' – she turned back to Midge – ‘do take a seat, dear.'

Her voice was quiet, and the words came out slowly and carefully. Yet her speech was clear – and she was clearly used to being in command of those around her.

Elaine said, ‘Right you are, Miss Howard. I'll just see to a couple of the others, then I'll be back.' She gave Midge a quick smile and moved off. Midge sat down at the little table once more, her hands in her lap. She found it hard to look directly into the wrinkled face opposite her. Such terrible old age was too scary, the shock of it too much to take in. Could that beautiful child really have turned into
this
?

But then she had to look up, because the low voice said, ‘I've seen you before, haven't I? We've already met.'

‘Have you? I mean, have we?' Midge was taken aback, and answered without thinking. Yet there
had
been times, hadn't there, when she had definitely sensed . . . what . . . a connection. A presence. But it had been the presence of another girl that she had been aware of, a girl of her own age, not this strange person. She could see the old lady's eyes now, gypsy-dark beneath the sunken papery eyelids. And then came the first glimpse of something that she could recognize, something that began to convince her. It was that same faraway look she knew so well, that same gaze into the distance beyond her shoulder. This
was
Celandine. It really was. The truth of it caught at her heart and her throat, so that her voice shook as she tried to answer again.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I sometimes think we've sort of met before, too. I've . . . I've got a picture of you, in my room. A photo. Of when you were a girl. And sometimes it's like . . . it's like . . .'

The dark dreamy eyes shifted slightly, so that they were looking directly at her, and Midge didn't know how to finish the sentence. She took another breath and changed tack. ‘You're sitting on a kind of wicker box thing. And there's a clock in the background, and you're holding a thing with bells on it. It looks like a toy bridle. And you've got really long hair.'

But then she felt embarrassed as she said the words ‘really long hair', because this was perhaps the most shocking thing of all about Celandine's appearance. She was very nearly bald. Just a fuzzy sprinkling of thistledown, all wispy and thin, was the little that now remained of that amazing cloud of curls. You could see the shape of her head quite plainly, her scalp all mottled, pink and brown.

‘A bridle? A toy bridle? No, I don't believe I ever— oh!' Celandine stopped mid sentence. Her mouth remained in the shape of that little ‘oh', and her eyes were again fixed somewhere beyond Midge's shoulder, scanning the distance.

‘Yes, I
do
remember,' she said at last. ‘Mr . . . Tilzey. The photographer.
Boof!
 . . . it went. And there was a magpie . . .'

Midge felt the hairs prickle at the back of her neck.

‘And then I was somewhere else. It was so very bright. And just for a moment I was . . .' The old lady's voice had become troubled, more frail and uncertain.
‘Who
are
you?' she said. ‘What's your name, dear?'

Midge let out her breath, and took another before answering. It was
so
hot in here, and her tongue felt dry. ‘My real name's Margaret Walters,' she said. ‘But everybody calls me Midge. I live at Mill Farm – over at Withney. Where you used to live.'

‘Ah.' A wrinkled hand reached across and brushed Midge's arm. ‘I
saw
you there, you know, when I was little. You were up at my bedroom window, looking out over the paddock. And I saw you once from a train. And I saw you here, too, years and years ago, when this was my school. Yes, most definitely.'

‘Here? But I've never been here before. I'd have remembered . . .'

‘Well . . . I don't think you were
really
here. Not then. I think I was seeing . . . what was to be. What would happen someday. Today.'

Midge thought about that for a moment. ‘You mean like seeing into the future?'

‘
Yes
.' Celandine leaned back in her chair for a moment, her voice seeming to express a sense of relief – either because she had been understood or because she had finally understood something herself. ‘Like seeing into the future. I knew what you would be wearing, my dear, and where you would be standing – just here by the window. Oh, I've waited so long, and wondered about it so often. Whether you'd come. And now here you are. Tell me' – she shifted sideways onto one arm, and gently pushed herself into an upright position again – ‘could we be
related
in some way, do you think?'

Midge laughed, despite the tension she felt.

‘Well, yes,' she said. ‘Didn't you know? You're my great-great-aunt.'

‘
Am
I? How funny. A great-great-aunt. No, I never knew that. So are you one of Thos's . . . no, that can't be right. Oh dear. I'm afraid I can't work this out. What's your father's name?'

‘His name was Walters. No, we're related on my mum's side, I think. Her dad was a Howard. Maybe it was . . .' Midge struggled to picture what their family tree might look like. ‘Did you have children?'

‘No. No, I never had children. My elder brother had sons, though. Two, I believe. You must be descended from one of them.' There was silence for a while, the old lady looking down into her lap, puzzling over the past perhaps, lost in her own thoughts.

Eventually Midge said, ‘What should I call you? Would “Aunt Celandine” be all right? Only, “Great-great-aunt” seems a bit . . . you know. A bit much.'

‘You see, what I don't understand' – the old lady raised her head again; apparently she hadn't heard Midge's question – ‘is why. Why you're here. And why I kept seeing you, when I was young. Those are dungarees you're wearing, aren't they? Green dungarees?'

‘What?' Midge had lost the thread.

‘Because when I first saw you, I wouldn't have known what such clothes were. Dungarees. Stripy T-shirts. There were never such things around then. I had no name for them. And yet I saw them.' Celandine's hand came up to her mouth as she talked,
fingertips resting on the bottom edge of that dark empty circle, eyes searching the distance. Midge looked at the moving mouth, and then at the folds of skin across the knuckles . . . and at the wrist . . . and more folds of skin above the crisp white collar. Too big, the collar, so that the wrinkly neck looked like a tortoise's neck, coming out of its shell. How weird to be so ancient, and to have so much extra skin. Maybe people shrank when they got old, but kept the same amount of skin they'd always had, and that's why it got so creased.

‘Sorry?' she said. ‘What did you say?'

‘I said, I don't know why this is happening, dear. I've pictured you so often, and imagined this day so many times. And talked about it too. I knew you'd come, but I still don't know why I knew, or how. I'm sure the staff here think I'm off with the fairies.'

Celandine looked straight at her, as she said the word ‘fairies'. Was this a hint, Midge wondered, a cue that she should respond to? The dark-shadowed eyes were focused upon hers, waiting perhaps.

She decided to take a chance. A quick glance around the room, and then she leaned a little closer, resting her fingers on the arm of the wheelchair.

‘Well . . . it's all to do with the little people, isn't it? The Various.' There. It was out.

‘What? What was that you said?'

Maybe she hadn't heard properly.

‘The Various. I know you've seen them too.'

‘The
various
? The various what, dear?'

Midge felt her heart begin to collapse in disappointment, but she tried one more time.

‘The tribes of little people that live in the woods . . . and the Touchstone . . . and the Orbis. You know all about it . . . all about them. I know you do. You remember, don't you?'

‘Little people?'

Celandine had leaned closer still, so that Midge caught the faint scent of her – something of soap and eucalyptus. But then the dark eyes turned away from her in puzzlement, and as they caught the light Midge saw that they were covered in a bluish film – like the eyes of Phoebe, Uncle Brian's poor old spaniel. Yes, like Phoebe, who could scarcely see a yard in front of her nose nowadays. Aunt Celandine was probably almost as blind, Midge realized. She swallowed, as much shocked by this revelation as at the lack of response to her mention of the Various. The old lady could barely see, and it was plain that she had no idea what this conversation was about. Not the first clue.