Winter Wood (28 page)

They dared not set out across the open fields, although there was little chance of their being seen in this weather. Instead they kept to the borders and the banks of the rhynes, dodged along the lines of willows, finding what cover they could. Their zig-zagging progress was slow and dispiriting – made worse whenever they were forced to backtrack because of some hedge too thick to penetrate or some rhyne too wide for Henty to jump. Exhaustion finally brought them to a standstill. Henty sank into a crouching position at the base of a willow, her back to the wind.

‘Just let me rest a little,' she said. ‘Then we'll go on.'

But Little-Marten knew that neither of them were able to go much further. They would have to find shelter, and soon, if they were to survive the coming
night. He turned and looked beyond the narrow rhyne from where the willow stood, searching what little he could see of the swirling landscape. There were dark shadowy shapes out towards the middle of the next field. Little-Marten couldn't tell from here whether these were bushes or pieces of Gorji machinery, but he would go and investigate.

‘Bide here,' he said.

The wind threw him off balance as he spread his wings in order to jump the rhyne. Little-Marten teetered on the edge for a moment, but then launched himself and managed to land safely on the opposite side. He scrambled up the snowy bank and leaned into the wind, battling across the field towards the objects that lay there.

It was a tree – or the remains of one – an old oak that had been cut down. The rotten stump remained in the ground, whilst all around lay stacks of logs and branches. It looked as though the Gorji were in the process of sawing and sorting the wood, ready for some future use. Little-Marten moved among the piles of snow-covered tree limbs, looking for a likely place to shelter. As he circled the area, eyes screwed up against the biting sleet, he saw that there was a great split in the main stump of the tree – a deep hollow. He pushed his way towards it, and crouched down to take a closer look. Immediately his heart lifted. The hollow was big enough for both him and Henty to crawl into. It looked fairly dry in there, and better still it was to the leeward side of the wind. That was enough. He would go straight back and get Henty.

She made a better job of crossing the rhyne than he had, jumping lightly from bank to bank as he stood with his hands outstretched ready to catch hers. Her face was desperately white, though, and the touch of her fingers was like ice.

‘I've found somewhere,' he said. ‘And 'tis just a step.'

Little-Marten was already unpacking the bindle-wraps as they approached the tree stump. He ducked into the hollow, quickly spread an oilskin on the ground, and laid the soft Gorji sack on top of that.

‘Get theeself in there,' he said.

They buried themselves deep inside the red bindle-wrap, their limbs aching and shaking beyond control, their faces so numb that they could barely speak. The very air inside them was frozen. It seemed impossible that they could ever be warm again.

But eventually their teeth stopped chattering, and a little feeling returned to their fingers and toes. The amazing Gorji wrap had begun to work its magic. Little-Marten was the first to surface, lifting his head from beneath the soft material and squinting out at the wild landscape. They were protected in here from the worst of the weather, and though the wind growled around the entrance to their makeshift cave it could no longer gnaw at their bones. He shivered at the thought of what would have become of them if they had not found this shelter.

The inside of the tree smelled musty, and was so rotten that the slightest movement caused crumbling lumps of wood to fall upon them, lumps that could be
pinched to dust between their fingers. Little-Marten and Henty lifted the corners of the oilskin wrap beneath them and grubbed around to see if there might be a few acorns that they could eat. Nothing. Not even a beetle.

They were warm now, and relatively dry, but darkness was falling on a day that had been without food, and it was plain that they could not live for long like this.

‘We could go back to the forest.' Little-Marten voiced the thought that he knew to be in both their heads.

‘No,' said Henty. ‘I'd rather be frozen here with you than alone there and warm. I shan't go back – not unless my father should change his stubborn thinking. And I never knew that to happen yet.'

‘Heh. You be his daughter then, right enough.'

Little-Marten caught a dig in the ribs for this remark, but he'd already braced himself for something of the sort, and at least it showed that Henty's spirit was far from broken. They would see what tomorrow would bring. In the meantime it had stopped sleeting outside, and the wind was dying down. It looked as though the worst of the storm had passed.

‘
YES, IT'S A
bit disturbing,' said Uncle Brian. ‘All that business with the tree house and George's rope ladder.'

‘Mm.' Midge rubbed her elbow against the misted car window, and looked out at the sleet that came billowing across the moors. ‘He often does pull the ladder up, though. Maybe he climbed down the tree, last time he was up there, or jumped or something instead of using the rope ladder. And then just forgot.'

‘Well, yes. But that doesn't explain all the mess, or the ruined sleeping bag. I'm a bit concerned, frankly. It looks to me as though we've had intruders.' Uncle Brian glanced across at her. ‘Not that I'd want you lying awake worrying about that, mind. It'll be just lads, probably. Half-term . . . kids with too much time on their hands . . .'

Lads. Midge smiled to herself. She knew better. Yes, it was pretty clear to her who'd been camping out in the tree house. She was sure she'd caught a glimpse of the culprits, scurrying away into the hedge. But where would they go now? she wondered. The passing
countryside looked desperately bleak, a miserable prospect for anyone caught out in this weather. She hoped they'd managed to find somewhere – or better still come to their senses and gone back to the forest.

‘Can you smell something sort of . . . pongy?' Uncle Brian was making a face and sniffing.

‘I think it might be me.' Midge had her reply ready. ‘Sorry. I stepped in some compost. I needed it for a school project thingy.'

‘Ah. That's OK, then. Thought something had crawled into the heater and died.'

Midge pushed her carrier bag a little further into the footwell.

It had only been a few days since she'd last seen Aunt Celandine, but her appearance had definitely worsened, Midge thought. She looked thinner and more frail than ever. And sadder too, somehow. Usually there was a big smile for her whenever she turned up, but today Aunt Celandine just seemed exhausted.

‘I haven't been sleeping very well,' she said. ‘And the truth is I don't want to be sleeping all the time. The doctor comes round and tries to give me pills, but I don't want them. I want to think, I tell him, not sleep.'

Midge took up her usual perch on the wing-backed chair opposite her great-great-aunt. ‘But you need to rest,' she said.

‘No.' Aunt Celandine's voice was tetchy. ‘There'll be time enough for that. I can't be . . . peaceful . . . not in
my mind, until I've untangled everything. I keep getting close, you know. I remember little bits and pieces of things that happened to me . . . faces and voices . . . sounds. But then they fade away again. Do you know what I wish now? I wish I'd spoken at the time. I wish I'd told people, whilst I still remembered, where I'd been and what I'd done. But I didn't. I never even told Nina. And now it's too late. I don't think it'll ever come back.'

‘Who's Nina?' Midge had never heard this name mentioned before.

‘Nina?' Aunt Celandine looked at her for a few moments. ‘Nina was my . . . well, she was my friend. My very dear friend.'

Midge blinked, and in the silence that followed she thought that she understood something about her aunt that she had not understood before. Oh.

‘Oh,' she said. ‘And, er . . . and . . .' But she could find nothing else to say about this, and so she picked up the carrier-bag bundle that she had laid beside the chair.

‘Aunt Celandine, I've got something here for you. It's a present. Well, I think it's a present. It's not from me, it's from someone else. I'll, um, I'll just see if I can get it out of these bags.'

Midge tore apart the knotted plastic bags, glad to be able to occupy her hands. She would look again, she thought, at that photograph. The one with the two young women on the beach, laughing and holding onto their hats . . .

‘A present?' Aunt Celandine leaned forward in her
chair, trying to see. ‘But what on earth is it? And who's sent it?'

‘Here you are.' Midge lifted the leather pouch and placed it in Aunt Celandine's outstretched hands. ‘It's from Maven-the-Green.' Midge came right out and said it. She watched her great-great-aunt's face – to see if there was any reaction.

‘Maven the . . .
what
did you say . . . Green? Maven-the-Green?' Aunt Celandine rested the bag in her lap, and sat staring down at it. ‘Maven-the-Green . . . Maven. Maven . . .'

Midge said nothing, but she could feel her heart beating faster. Was there a glimmer of recognition there?

Aunt Celandine lifted the bag a little higher towards her, and sniffed at it. She closed her eyes, and remained like this for a while, slowly breathing in and out. ‘Caves . . .' she said at last. Midge noticed the tremor in the pale mottled hands. ‘Yes – I can smell the caves! And horses. The little horses. Lavender . . . and camomile . . . wild garlic . . .' Aunt Celandine raised her head, but still kept her eyes closed. ‘And mushrooms . . . nettles . . . wet leaves . . . oh, and all the forest. It's all here in my hands. So clear, now.
So
clear . . .'

The old lady sat as though transported to another time and place, her eyes closed, a smile of pleasure on her wrinkled face.

Midge was amazed at this sudden breakthrough. She waited for a while, then said softly, ‘There are things in the bag for you, Aunt Celandine. Gifts.'

‘Gifts . . .' Aunt Celandine murmured. ‘
Thee'm one wi' a gift . . . a gift to be given
. Who said that? Maven-the-Green. Yes, Maven. I was so frightened. But she was there to help me. I had a gift, she said. A gift to be given . . .' A slight frown crossed Aunt Celandine's face. ‘But there was another gift.
A gift to be hid, till better times than these
, she said.
Thee shall know the day
. And I can't . . . I can't remember what that was, or what it meant.'

‘Shall we look inside?' Midge was really excited now. She should have brought some scissors, though, to cut the twine that had been used to fasten the bag shut. Stupid. Aunt Celandine was beginning to look agitated. Her eyes had opened, and the spell was in danger of being broken.

Midge didn't want to disturb the moment by asking where a pair of scissors might be found. She stood up and quickly scanned the room. There had been a penknife somewhere – she remembered it. Yes, over there, on the shelf next to the cricket ball.

‘I'll use this,' she said, not waiting to ask for permission, and grabbed the little knife. The thing was ancient and it was a struggle to get the blade open, but she managed it.

‘Shall I, er . . .?' Midge stooped to gently take the bag from her aunt's hands, and began to hack through the bits of string. Her fingers were impatient, and she was lucky not to stab them with the rusty blade. Finally she got the bag open, and placed it back on the old lady's lap.

But Aunt Celandine was staring off into space now,
her mouth silently moving, and Midge had to prompt her.

‘The bag, Aunt Celandine. Don't you want to see what's inside?'

‘I was running away, and they were after me. All of the . . . all of
them
. Chasing me through the darkness. Through the vegetables . . . like an allotment. And tapping with sticks, the way that beaters do to drive the pheasants.' Aunt Celandine was still somewhere else, still remembering. Midge was desperate to find out what was inside the bag, but she had to be patient. And this was good, wasn't it? She could see that Aunt Celandine was actually back in the forest, talking about what had happened to her.

‘And they were so close, so close . . . and then this wonderful little person . . . Maven-the-Green. She helped me. I climbed a big tree. It had been struck by lightning.' Aunt Celandine lifted the bag and breathed in its odour once more, as though this was the fuel for her memory. ‘I thought they were all coming up the tree after me . . . the little people. Yes, the little people.
Tap-tap-tap
. And I jumped down from the tree, and escaped. And then it was hailing. I ran
down
the hill. Hailing like bullets, it was, as though I was going over the top, like all those poor boys.' Aunt Celandine put the bag back in her lap and sat there nodding. ‘Poor boys. That's all they were. Just boys. Ours and theirs.' She looked down at the leather pouch. ‘And I was carrying a bag. Just like this one.'