A String in the Harp (25 page)

“What has he said about this key? Will you tell me?”

“Not much. He says it makes him see things—the stories.”

Becky had been silent, listening to Dr. Rhys’s questions and Jen’s answers, but now she said, “No, that’s not all, Jen. He knows who it belonged to. It was Taliesin’s.”

“Taliesin?” Dr. Rhys’s voice was suddenly sharp. He looked hard at Becky. “You are sure he said Taliesin? Did he say why?”

Becky gave Jen an apprehensive glance. “The pictures he sees all have to do with Taliesin, and Peter’s seen him with the same key.”

“This is quite a story indeed,” remarked Dr. Rhys, sitting back in his chair. “Either your brother is playing a very clever game, or . . .” He let the sentence hang.

“Or?” Jen caught him up.

“Or he isn’t. You told me he found the key before Christmas—we’ll call it a key for convenience, shall we? I had not met your brother before Christmas, of course. I had not lent him any books then.”

Jen stared at him, bewildered. He seemed to be arguing
against
her. “But you don’t
know,”
she burst out. “Peter’s been miserable ever since Dad brought him here. Peter never wanted to leave home. He’s sulked and been unhappy and refused to try to like it. I think he’s made all of this up because he hasn’t got anything else to do and he feels more important. But he’s got Becky half-convinced, too.”

“Are you?” Dr. Rhys asked Becky gravely.

“I’m not sure,” said Becky, looking troubled. “I know Peter’s acting funny, but it isn’t just him any more. What about the other things, Jen? Like last night. No one’s explained it.”

“Tell me,” said Dr. Rhys calmly. “You have begun, you may as well finish. Perhaps we can put some of it together then.”

Reluctantly Jen began. She told Dr. Rhys about the night of the rainstorm and Peter’s first story: the flood. Then about the strange boats they’d seen on Christmas Day and the coracle and fishing weir along the Dovey, the
hafod
and the
men on Foel Goch, and finally the lights on the Bog. Becky refused to let her leave anything out, but Jen tried to sound as flat and matter-of-fact as she could, adding the explanations that seemed to her to make the best sense. “But Peter’s used all of these things, don’t you see? They’re peculiar, but they must all have reasons,” she finished, appealing to Dr. Rhys to agree with her.

“Other people don’t think so,” challenged Becky. “The people who live here, like Rhian’s father. And even Gwilym wasn’t sure about the fires.”

Dr. Rhys was watching Jen shrewdly. “You came to me, Jennifer, because you believed I would agree with you that your brother has made up these stories, didn’t you?”

“Y-yes.” Jen was startled at how easily he’d seen it.

“What do they teach in your American schools?”

“The same as they teach here, I suppose,” said Jen, not seeing the sense of his question. “What has that got to do with Peter?”

Dr. Rhys sighed. “They teach you that reason can answer everything, and that there is a scientific explanation for even the most unscientific events. People do not like
not
understanding, do you see. Because as long as we understand, we feel we have control. You are really here”—he leaned across the desk toward Jen—“because you are not quite sure of yourself. You would like me to say that you are right and Peter is wrong.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” said Jen stiffly.

“I do not wish to offend you, truly I don’t, but that is what I hear in your words, underneath them. And you see, I cannot offer you that support, because I am not at all sure you
are
right.”

Jen stared at him, open-mouthed. She had never expected this, never. “But how can you say that? That means you
believe
Peter!”

“And I believe in magic and superstition? I have shocked
you, I’m sorry.” His voice was mild. “I am educated. I have studied history and folklore and mythology for many years—some might say too long—and you thought I would have the answers you want. But, my dear, the more I learn the less it is I know. If we think a thing is impossible, does that truly make it so? Who are we, after all? Why should there not be forces we do not understand?”

“Then it’s true?” asked Becky. Jen sat in numb silence.

Dr. Rhys smiled a little sadly. “You flatter me greatly if you think I can tell you that. I
can
tell you that the things you have seen and explained with reason could fit the story of Taliesin, though your sister would rather not hear it. This is his country, do you know, Cardiganshire. He became the friend of the king Gwyddno Garanhir whose lands were flooded, the legends say, through carelessness. The man set to guard the sea wall did not attend to his job and the wall broke during a storm. Much later Taliesin, who had been bard to a king in the north called Urien Rheged, was captured by Irish pirates. He escaped and washed ashore in a fish weir on the Dovey, tended by Gwyddno Garanhir’s son. Elphin. During the time Taliesin stayed with Gwyddno, another king called Maelgwn invaded the country at Cors Fochno, your Bog, and captured Elphin. It was Taliesin who won Elphin’s freedom in a contest with Maelgwn’s bards. He composed a riddle in the form of a poem that none could either answer or match. The answer was ‘the wind’ and, according to legend, it came to Taliesin when he called it. This frightened Maelgwn, so he released Elphin as he had agreed.

“But that is all in the story of Taliesin, and it is very difficult to say how much of it is legend and how much true. That Taliesin himself, Maelgwn, Gwyddno, and Elphin were real men, that
is
known.”

Quietly, effectively, Dr. Rhys destroyed Jen’s hopes. She had come looking for an ally and had found none. Becky was listening raptly to the story he told, but Jen scarcely heard it,
she was too shaken. She had put trust in adults and they had failed her—they didn’t know the answers, they simply didn’t. Dr. Rhys was saying what Mr. Evans had said at Llechwedd Melyn, in different words, of course, and Jen was utterly confused.

She got Becky away from Dr. Rhys as soon as she could, without being downright rude, and they rode back to Borth together in silence. Becky took one look at Jen’s withdrawn face and didn’t try to make conversation.

“No one can have gotten enough sleep last night,” remarked David, looking at his family that evening. “You all look dismal. Bed early again, I’d say.”

But before she went up, Jen finally broke her silence. “Peter?”

He didn’t look at her. “Yes?”

The question was terribly hard to ask, but she had to ask it. “Do you know what happened on the Bog last night?”

“Yes,” he said. And that was all.

***

The Key grew distant now, its song became a whisper that Peter found sometimes hard to hear. He felt as if he were all pins and needles, just coming back to life after being asleep when he oughtn’t to have been. It was a very odd sensation. There seemed to be a lot he couldn’t remember very well and he wondered if anyone had noticed him. It was a relief not to be pulled back and forth through time quite so much; it had been rather exhausting.

Taliesin had left Gwyddno’s lands. Harp slung across his shoulders, he crossed the Dyfi and struck into the wild, mountainous country of Gwynedd. As a bard, he was welcomed in hut or hall, wherever he stopped for the night, but he always went on the next day at first light. He found, as if by instinct, the secret ways through the mountains of Eryri.

Taliesin went away, and Peter came back.

“W
ELL, THEN
, I’m just going,” said Mrs. Davies, sticking her head around the kitchen door. “I’ll be in tomorrow morning same as usual.”

“Yes,” Jen answered absently. “That’s fine.” She was trying to make up her mind between peas and corn for dinner. Her father and Becky really liked corn, but it was the same color as chicken and Jen had read somewhere that you oughtn’t to cook meals that were all the same color. So it should be peas. And some other vegetable—there ought to be two anyway.

“Do you think—” Jen began, looking up, but Mrs. Davies was gone. She was off to houseclean for Susan in Bow Street, and Jen was truly on her own. She wrote “Chicken” and “Peas” on her shopping list and thoughtfully chewed her pencil. Surely it didn’t take Mrs. Davies this long to plan each meal? It
had
to get easier with experience, and the nervous feeling must go away. But, Jen supposed, she was entitled to feel nervous the first time she cooked a whole meal by herself for her family. This was really a test; it would prove whether
or not she was capable of managing Bryn Celyn for her father. She wrote “Mashed potatoes.”

She had grand dreams of exotic casseroles or a roast of beef or leg of lamb, but commonsense won and she chose broiled chicken, quite plain, to begin on. The morning passed quickly and satisfactorily as Jen made a chocolate cake—from a package. Her conscience had given her a little trouble on that, but she put it to rest by making her own butter cream frosting. And it looked beautiful when she’d done: high and smooth and shiny.

After lunch she walked down to the shops, with her grocery bag, in very good spirits. In the business of planning her first meal she’d managed to put Dr. Rhys and his disturbing conversation right out of her thoughts. She’d made a point of not discussing it with Becky after their visit. Instead she’d bottled her confusion and frustration inside herself, trying to find her own way out of the maze Peter had unknowingly created for her.

The queue at the butcher shop was quite long when Jen joined it: older women, Jen observed, studying them out of the corners of her eyes. They’d all had years of experience and knew precisely what they wanted. Her spirits fell a little. There was a bewildering variety of meat and poultry at the counter to choose from. Jen glanced at it and chewed her lip.

“Next? Miss?”

She started when she realized the butcher was talking to her and she had to make up her mind. He was brusque and businesslike, anxious not to keep his customers waiting too long.

“I’d like a chicken, please.”

“What kind of chicken, then?”

Jen looked at the man blankly. “Kind?”

“What do you want it for?” he asked as if she were dim.

“Just eating,” she ventured.

“Roaster? Boiler? For stewing?”

“Boiler.” She clutched at a straw. Why on earth wasn’t chicken just chicken?

“Head and feet taken off, do you?”

Jen felt herself going scarlet. She thought everyone must be watching her and wondering why she’d been sent to do the shopping. “No,” she managed, “I’ll just take it!” Thankfully, she grabbed the brown paper parcel he handed her, paid, and escaped from the shop.

The peas and potatoes were simple enough to buy, at least.

But she knew she’d made a mistake the moment she unwrapped the chicken. It lay in front of her, quite dead and plucked—not a chicken at all. It was a corpse. The sight of it, with its scrawny neck and funny little head, its feet stiff, made Jen feel queasy. She stared at it for several minutes wondering what in the name of heaven she ought to do with it. She couldn’t broil it whole, obviously. Finally, in desperation, she grabbed the bread knife and without stopping to consider, she somehow hacked off the head and feet rather untidily, then stuffed them quickly back into the paper and pushed them into the garbage. She couldn’t bring herself to chop any more, so she decided to roast the thing instead.

When Becky and Peter came in after school, they found Jen red-faced and cross, pounding potatoes in a large pot. Exchanging a glance, they left her to it and vanished quietly. It looked like a good idea not to interfere.

But they both came racing back to the kitchen half an hour later when they heard a horrified shriek. They collided in the doorway. The kitchen was full of the smell of burning, and smoke and flames were coming out of the open oven.

“What is it?” cried Becky.

“It’s caught fire, can’t you see?” wailed Jen.

“Do
something!” Becky advised, dancing up and down.

“What?” said Jen furiously.

“Close the oven door first.” Peter took command.

“But my chicken—”

“Just
close
it or your chicken will be a crisp! Oh, here!” He ran over and slammed the door. “It’ll stop burning if it can’t get air, see?” He fiddled with the oven knobs. “What did you do to make it catch fire?”

“I didn’t do anything! I turned it on to warm up and I put the chicken in, then I smelled it burning and when I opened the oven, there were flames.” The outside of the oven was smoked black.

“Well, no wonder,” said Peter in a tone that made Jen bristle. “You had the grill on. The oven should have been turned to bake.”

“But how did you know to close the door?” Becky asked, interested.

“You smother a fire. You stamp on people or wrap them in blankets when they’re burning because the flames need oxygen. I learned that in Boy Scouts
years
ago.”

Hesitantly Jen opened the oven again. The flames had indeed died, but a cloud of bitter smoke rolled out making her eyes smart. She looked at the charred object with helpless rage.

“Stopped burning anyway,” said Becky encouragingly.

“What does
that
matter?” cried Jen. “It’s
ruined!
It’s a cinder! Oh, damn, damn, damn!”

Becky looked at Jen in amazement. Peter matter-of-factly pulled the roasting pan out and set it on the edge of the sink. “Don’t swear,” he told his sister maddeningly. “All you need to do is scrape off the black part, and under the skin there’s nothing wrong with it. See? It didn’t have time to burn through. Just cook it the rest of the way and no one’ll know.”

“You
will,” said Becky.

“I’m not sure—” began Jen.

“Oh, it’ll be all right. I’m sure Peter’s right.”

Jen relit the oven, making sure it was set at bake. Peter suggested she lower the rack inside two notches so the chicken
wouldn’t touch the heating coil this time. He handed her the pan without further comment.