A String in the Harp (10 page)

Just as Becky and Rhian were dishing up the sponge pudding—also steamed—all the lights went out.

“Well,” said Peter addressing the darkness where he’d last seen Jen, “I did warn you.”

“I forgot. Does anyone know where there are candles?”

“No, but there’s a flashlight on the mantlepiece in the study.” That was David. “Sit tight and I’ll find it.”

“What should I do with the pudding?” Becky wanted to know.

“Just hang on to it, of course. We’ll have some light in a minute.”

“There
must
be candles somewhere in this house.”

They all heard a loud, indistinct curse from the direction of the hall. A couple of minutes later David returned with a dim spot of light. “Not much left in it, I’m afraid, but let’s see what else we can find with it.”

“What happened to you?” Becky demanded.

“Nothing,” he said shortly.

“If you were a candle, where would you live?” asked Peter whimsically.

Rhian was the one to find them, in the back of one of the kitchen drawers bundled together—an odd assortment of ends of various colors, including two deep purple ones.

Supper resumed by candlelight.

“You know,” said Peter, scraping up the last of his sponge, “it tastes better when you can’t see it.”

Jen glanced anxiously at David, but even he was grinning in agreement and made no remark about disrespect to Mrs. Davies.

The decision not to do dishes in the dark was unanimous, but David did make them clear the table and stack everything in the sink. “It’ll be awful to come down to breakfast tomorrow and find leftover dinner sitting here stone cold,” he said firmly.

The electricity showed not the slightest flicker of life, reading by candles proved unsatisfactory, and it was impossible to play cards, so they went to bed in the dark house early, with a stern warning from David about making sure the candles were out.

“Thank heaven you got the bed moved before the lights went out,” said Jen, as she and Becky and Rhian undressed in their room. The third bed had been wedged in at the foot of
the other two, and there was very little room to move around. In the dark, on the second floor, they seemed very close to the storm.

“I don’t mind the lights going out”—Becky yawned—“but I hope that’s all that happens.”

Only Peter had been reluctant to go to bed. David wouldn’t mind being alone and the other three had each other for company, but Peter had to go by himself and he didn’t much want to. It wasn’t that he minded the storm; he really rather relished it. He was apprehensive about what he might see in the darkness once he was alone. There was no pattern in the pictures the Key showed him, or if there was, he couldn’t see it; but he did know from the warmth of it as it lay against him that it was gathering strength again, and it was only a matter of time until it began to sing.

He took a candle with him to his room and set it on his bureau where it flickered uneasily in the draughts and made weird shapes on the ceiling. In the dim light he got the Key out without taking it off his neck and peered at it. Despite the layers of tarnish and the scratches, he could see the intricate, woven design of it. He had passed the chain through the center hole—that seemed to be what the hole was for. Each shaft had been patterned to look as if it were braided. The Key had obviously been worked by a craftsman of great skill, for, though simple, it was perfect.

Nothing could have induced Peter to part with it, no matter what it showed him. He couldn’t get over the peculiar feeling that he’d been meant to find it. And how on earth was he going to explain that to Jen? Or anyone else, for that matter. But he’d come closest to trying with Jen.

He sighed and thrust the Key back under his pajamas. Ordinarily Peter wasn’t a coward; there had in fact been many times when his parents had wished he were or would at least show a little more sense. At home in Amherst, Peter could always be counted on to be the force behind the least responsible
plans he and his army of friends carried out. He’d gotten a number of good stiff lectures on the subject, and sometimes worse.

But that was quite different. Then
he’d
been in control—the ideas, even when they got out of hand—were still his. Now all that had changed. He’d been robbed of his independence and all feeling of control, first by his father who’d landed him here, and now by the object he’d snatched from the sea.

He blew out the candle and climbed into bed, glancing uneasily around at the dark, waiting for it to dissolve, but it didn’t and he fell asleep thankfully.

It was midnight when the Key began to sing. It woke Peter without warning, and as soon as he opened his eyes, he saw the same storm-ravaged landscape he’d seen earlier: tossing trees and the great, flat plain. There, too, was the dyke and near it a low circular building that had been made of thick logs, driven upright into the ground in a closed circle, the cracks between them plastered with a mixture of hard river clay and straw. It had a thatched roof that ran to a point in the middle. From the hut came the sound of coarse, slurred singing, loud and ragged. The Key took Peter inside and he saw that the hut was lit by a single, central fire. The smoke from it hung in the air. Five men lounged around it, each with a huge pot of ale. Their faces were blurred and indistinct with drinking, their mouths wide, their chins wet. A stout, red-faced young man led them all in song, his voice loudest. He half lay on a heavy, brown cloak, the leather belt unbuckled from his waist, a long-bladed knife driven point first into the hard-packed floor of the hut.

The song of the Key shifted up a tone, and the picture flickered. Instead, it became the great sea dyke. Down all its length tremendous waves burst like fireworks—they advanced with a sizzling hiss, exploded with a hollow thundering boom, and burst into showers of luminous white sparks, flinging up into the darkness higher than a man could reach, hesitating,
suspended for a moment in the air, before dropping back to join the next onslaught. The whole dyke shuddered as though it were being dynamited. The sea clawed ruthlessly for a hold. Men should have been patrolling it, but the watchmen were drunk and foolish and kept to their hut.

The song was a high, keening wail, steadily building in intensity. In the northern corner of the Low Hundred was a place where a wide, swift-running river came down from the hills to meet the sea. There the dyke had been fortified with special care from water on two sides, and there it should have been guarded most closely tonight of all nights. Through the billowing smoke of the sea spray, two figures were barely visible; they moved with great effort along the dyke, clinging to one another to keep from being washed over it, for the waves already topped it in several places. They came closer—the young bard and the boy from the Great Hall, their faces pale in the gloom, their hair and cloaks running with water. And behind them, the piece of dyke they had just come over crumbled under the pressure of the sea, a jagged hole opened, the wall had been breached! The level of the water on the far side of the dyke was higher by several feet than the land within.

Again the picture changed, and it was dawn. In gray light the wind dropped, but rain continued to fall in long silver threads, making circles on the waves that rose and fell where the day before there had been forest and garden-patch, grass-plain and wattled hut. The waters were still rising, lapping higher on the mound where the Great Hall stood, but it was men now, and not the storm, who were taking it apart. They were feverishly pulling down the huge timbers and lashing them together with thongs. They were building a raft. In the midst of the activity stood the golden man, his face dead in the cold light of morning, his eyes full of tears. Near him were the bard and his boy, crouched on the muddy ground, watching the raft-builders.

Here and there on the gray, uneven surface of the new
sea floated dark things: bits of wreckage, farmers’ carts, uprooted trees, terrified animals swimming without direction, out of their element and drowning, pieces of huts with wet and wretched people clinging to them, coracles and other rafts laden with women, children, and men, too stunned and cold to weep for all that had been lost. In a coracle that drifted close to the mound were three of the five men who had been drinking, and the loud one was among them, now stone-sober, his red face gone pasty, his eyes lost and wandering.

From the mouth of the golden one came words, echoing with grief and fury, and in his coracle the other shrank with fear.

Stand forth, Seithenin,

And behold the dwelling-place of heroes,

The Plain of Gwyddno which the ocean covers!

Cursed be the sea guard

Who in his drinking

Allowed in the destroying waters of the raging sea!

A cry from the sea arises above the dykes!

A cry from the sea arises above the winds!

A cry from the sea . . .

Rhian slept curled in a tight little ball like an animal, face hidden in her pillow. Becky was sleeping restlessly, but Jen wasn’t sleeping at all. Her eyes simply wouldn’t close no matter what she tried. She lay staring crossly at nothing for what seemed like ages, then finally, when she could stand it no longer, she sat up in the cold room. No point in disturbing the others, she thought, feeling frantically for her slippers. The floor was so cold it stung the bottoms of her feet. She dragged on her pullover. Perhaps if she could make some cocoa or at least warm some milk, it would put her to sleep. The squeak of the door and the creak of the stairs were covered by the noise of the wind. Downstairs in the hall, she groped among the
coats for her own. “Damn!” she muttered crossly as one fell. At last she settled for David’s tweed overcoat and pulled it on thankfully.

She’d forgotten the kitchen lights wouldn’t work and almost gave up and went back to bed, but it was silly to have got this far and admit defeat. The candles from supper were still on the table and she found matches by the stove. By the time she’d lit a burner and put a pan of milk on it, she was feeling quite pleased with herself.

A sudden blast of chilly air made the candle flame gutter dangerously and Jen looked up to see the door of Peter’s room gaping black. He appeared in the middle, moving like a person sleepwalking.

“Peter! You startled me! Did I wake you up?”

He didn’t answer, and for an instant she wondered if he were really awake. She went over to him and his left hand shot out and caught her wrist, his fingers were like ice and clamped tight.

“Peter!” Jen was a little frightened. “Are you all right? What’s the matter?”

“Jen?” His voice was hoarse.

“What’s the matter? Were you dreaming?”

He let out his breath in a long hiss. “Yes—I—no. I don’t know.”

“I just came down to make some cocoa—do you want some?”

“What?”

“Cocoa,” she repeated impatiently. In the light of the candle his eyes had a dazed, faraway look.

“Yes.” He nodded vigorously as if trying to shake something out of his head.

“You’d better put something on over your pajamas. Aren’t you frozen?”

He released her and dove back into his room, reappearing in a moment with his bathrobe. Jen mixed the cocoa and
gave him a mugful, then they sat down across the table from each other.

“Was
it a dream?”

“Oh, cripes!
I
don’t know, but it was awful! I went to sleep right off, you know, after we all went to bed, and then . . . and then I think I woke up again. Anyhow, it was dark and there was a storm—”

“There still is,” Jen interrupted dryly. “Or hadn’t you noticed.”

He paid no attention to her. “I don’t know where I was. I mean the place seemed kind of familiar but I didn’t recognize it. There were people in it, but they really looked foreign—old—wearing strange clothes like they might have thousands of years ago. They were all sitting in a big hall and eating, and there were some others who were drunk—”

“What book have you been reading?” Jen inquired skeptically.

“Treasure Island,”
said Peter reproachfully. “Don’t interrupt. There was an awful flood. There was a dyke, like the sea wall only made of dirt and boulders, and the sea broke it down and flooded this whole country. People and animals got drowned in it. Trees came up by the roots and whole houses just got washed away, and no one could do anything to stop it.”

“Peter!” Jen exclaimed sharply. “Don’t!”

“It happened. I saw it.”

“You dreamed it. It was a nightmare.”

Peter stared at her. “I don’t think it was. I’m sure I wasn’t asleep.”

“What else could it have been?” Jen sounded angry. He’d frightened her with his wild story and the way he’d just appeared in the middle of the night. He obviously believed what he was telling her and she didn’t like it. “Well?” she demanded.

Now was the time to tell her, if only he could think of the right words, words that would convince her, words that would
make her believe in the Key. With hands that shook slightly, he dragged out the chain and held up the Key.

“What on earth is that?”

“I’m not sure. I found it on the beach near here about three weeks ago. I kind of liked it, so I brought it back with me.”

“So? It looks like a peculiar sort of a key. Why on earth do you wear it?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Peter demanded. “I can do what I like with it. It’s mine.”

Jen shrugged. “Suit yourself. But what has that got to do with your dream?”

Peter was beginning to regret having shown the Key. It wasn’t going to work, but he had to try now he’d started. “I told you it wasn’t a dream. It came from this.”

Jen stared at him in complete disbelief.

“It’s happened before, several times when I wasn’t even in bed. I’ve seen things and I don’t know why.”

“Oh, boy,” said Jen. “You’ve got a good story this time, Peter.”

He was angry. “You asked and I’ve tried to tell you. If you won’t believe me, I can’t help it, but you could try.”

“Do you know how fantastic it sounds? Like you’ve been having hallucinations. I don’t know what you found, but whatever it is you ought to get rid of it.”