Eppie (80 page)

She pressed forward, towards its crumbling walls. Thrusting
through thickets and tangled branches, she came across the hillocky tussocks of
a rabbit warren. Glancing back, she trod on, desperate that no one should see
her. Something snapped around her foot with a clang. Crying of out in surprise,
she tumbled sideways.

To discover the source of her agony, she pushed herself up
by her hands. She instantly recognised the flap of goat leather tied around the
metal to distinguish the trap from those used by other villagers. ‘Oh, Wakelin!’
she whimpered. ‘Why do you have to leave your stupid snares everywhere?’

Although the cottagers, herself included, relied on the meat
of trapped birds and animals, she frequently berated Wakelin, much to his
chagrin, about the cruelty of snares. Often, lying in bed at night, she would
hear the squeal of a rabbit, its paw caught in the vicious-toothed jaws of a
trap. The sound lingered in her mind, particularly so because rabbits were,
otherwise, such silent creatures.

The vice-like grip of the trap was crushing the blood out of
her toes. Fortunately, the teeth had not yet penetrated the robust leather of
her boot. She grasped her heel in a frantic bid to pull free. It was useless; the
trap was clamped tight.

Gabriel
rode to join the chase. ‘Thurstan’s dangerous! Don’t any of you tackle him on
your own.’

Truculently,
Wakelin yelled back, ‘Ya can count me outta that!’

An anchoring spike, attached to a chain, secured the trap in
the earth. With a wrench, she hoisted it out and made to stagger away. Gripped
by a shooting pain, she cried out in misery, realising she must have twisted
her ankle when she fell. Wretchedly, she thudded back on top of the burrow.

From the corner of her eye she saw a man dash forward. The
next thing she knew, Thurstan was beside her.

‘Remain still.’ Thrusting his fingers between the jaws, he carefully
prised open the spring. ‘Pull.’

Grabbing hold of her leg beneath the knee, she dragged her
foot out of the jaws.

‘There he is!’ Leaping over a fallen log, Tom hurtled
towards them.

In Thurstan’s face, as he glanced down at her, she saw the
terror of a wild beast that knows its hunters are drawing closer in a circle of
vengeance. She also thought she saw a look of repentance. ‘Run!’ she implored,
consumed with sorrow at his plight. ‘You must run!’

Struggling to stand, she grabbed a sturdy branch and limped
after him.

Seeing her hobbling forwards, Dawkin dashed up and took her
by the arm so that she might lean upon him. By the distracted look on her face
he knew that this was not the best time to ask what had befallen her.

By now, almost all of the men had gathered around the
Crusader Oak.

Gabriel vaulted from his horse and joined them.

Above the villagers, the parched branches of the oak dripped
like an oversized clump of roots. The rancid stench of black mould emanating
from the tree was overpowering, like leaves rotting in a vase of stagnant
water.

Thurstan stood with his back to the tree, staring into the men’s
harsh, uncompromising faces. Though his ugly, sour countenance reviled the
villagers, he no longer had the power to frighten them.

Bill worked his mouth as if chewing tobacco and spat onto
the ground. Brandishing a fearful-looking dock lifter, with which he had been
toiling, he made towards Thurstan.

Turning, Thurstan frenziedly tore away a dank lump of wood at
the entrance to the tree and scuttled inside. It was an action so swift and so unexpected
that Eppie was filled with a sense of relief.

The watchers listened to him climbing inside the hollow. Breathing
heavily, he sought firm handholds on the decaying timbers, and cursed as he tripped
on the gnarled floor.

Not about to relinquish his desire for vengeance, Thurstan
thrust his arm through the shattered-edged window, pointing reproachfully at
the villagers. ‘I
will
be the lord over all men!’ Everything obnoxious
about him, every evil thought, every arrogant belief and selfish act seemed
distilled in his facial expression. He turned his outstretched palm towards the
sky. ‘You will do my bidding!’

It swiftly dawned upon Eppie that Thurstan believed the
locket would simply materialise in his palm. He sought the token of immortality
for
himself
, not for any compassionate feelings towards Talia. Not
content that his malevolence should die with him, he wanted it to go on,
perpetually. A wraithlike lord, he would sweep through the world, poisoning the
lives of all men for eternity.

The
villagers glanced about, terrified, as an inexplicable battering storm whipped
around.

Branches
swayed and clashed violently as if, with its dying breath, the Crusader Oak
were rebelling against Thurstan’s malice.

The
sky darkened, filled like a giant cloud, blackening against his wrath.

Cries
of foreboding escaped the men, who were doing all they could to keep their
footing and not be swept away. ‘He’s summoning the devil!’ shouted Edmund.

Their heads bowed against churning grit and dust, the
villagers ran for their lives. Around their feet, dead leaves, caught in the
vortex, swirled. Deer bones, littered around half-buried boulders, soared.

Gabriel grabbed his horse’s reins and sought to calm the
shying beast.

The last of the fleeing men disappearing from sight, the
storm died as rapidly as it had whipped up.

Frostings of ragged spiders’ webs hung like hammocks across
the shattered remains of teasels. They did not break as Talia rode through them
on her white pony.

Glancing at Wakelin and Dawkin’s astonished faces, Eppie
realised that they, too, had seen Spellbound fill the sky, his wings blackened,
thudding, creating the wild tempest.

Eppie and the others had not, however, felt the slightest
breeze. Around their feet not even a leaf had stirred. It was as though the
villagers had been blown away, Talia desiring only those whom she cherished to
be present at her death. For her ghostly death it was. She had existed in a
watery underworld, but no more. In her sister’s face, as their eyes met, Eppie
saw a yearning for peace. She knew from Gabriel’s expression that he, also, understood
that their sister was leaving.

‘
Talia!’ Thurstan
shouted elatedly, setting eyes upon her. ‘Cast the locket to me!’

Eppie
wanted to weep with hopelessness knowing that, once Thurstan had the cicada in
his clutches, evil would triumph. At the same time she was fraught with anxiety,
desiring Talia’s liberty more than anything.

Talia concentrated her supernatural powers upon the locket. Emitting
a high-pitched whine, it sped from her hand, faster than an arrow shot from a
crossbow. At the moment it struck the tree, a terrific boom rent the air like
breaking waves thundering into a sea-cave. Louder even than this, though cut
short, arose Thurstan’s euphoric cry of victory.

From the tree emanated a breath of earthy air. Dangling,
broken twigs sprang back briskly and merged resolutely with their mother
branches.

Creaks and groans arose from within the oak like a galleon
battling its way through stormy seas. These were swiftly followed by the soothing
resonance of gentle waves as though the vessel had succeeded in its quest for
still waters.

By enchantment, the woodland vanished.

Eppie squinted, her lips slightly parted, trying to
recognise the spectral maiden who drifted towards them through the snow-white
mist.

Wakelin broke the silence of the watchers, almost gasping out
the words. ‘It’s Molly. My Molly!’ Sobbing joyfully, he fell to his knees and
gripped his fingers before his stubbly chin, as though in prayer.

Molly kissed him upon the forehead. It was a touch that
encompassed them all, a kiss so delicate that it could hardly be felt; a touch
as soft as the wings on an angel.

In stunned silence, they watched Talia turn and ride away,
trailed by Ophelia and Prince Ferdinand.

The girls took one last lingering look back, on their faces
expressions of bliss, before welcoming, heavenly arms swept around them,
enfolding them in love.

‘Thank you,’ Eppie whispered to her sister, realising her help
in granting her desire for Wakelin.

Leaning on her make-shift crutch, she limped towards the
Crusader Oak and ran her fingers over the bark. It no longer felt flaky, but
firm and solid.

It was only then that she noticed a branch she did not
recall seeing before. It looked the exact shape of Thurstan’s arm, where she
had last seen him reach out to Talia. From the fist-like end dripped a fine
golden chain.

When Thurstan had caught the cicada, his cry had abruptly changed
to that of a coward; a man who had destroyed everything in his path and knew
that his own life must now be forfeit. The victim of his own ploy, he would
exist for eternity, though not in a way he could ever have envisaged. Losing
its flesh and blood, his body had transformed to canker, crushed as the tree’s
heartwood regrew.

Black ooze, like tears, bled from his eyes, staining the
bark and tainting the lichens. Eyes which sank into the tree and dried, until
they looked like knotted swirls in the wood.

Rays of sunlight scattered to earth between the buckled
branches of the tree.

A girl was singing a joyful melody.

Carried on warm, heavenly winds, it was a song of farewell to
a beloved brother and sister. At last, Talia had found her voice.