Maddigan's Fantasia (13 page)

‘Does she always do that?’ asked Eden, turning his head away from her as if she might not notice him if he didn’t look at her directly.

‘No way! This is the first time!’ Garland replied, feeling Eden’s uneasiness in her own head, just as if it were catching. ‘The first time like this, anyway.’

Now the Witch-Finder lifted the forked ends of her stick into the air. Holding it out in front of her as if she were indeed going to divine something – either water or wickedness – she touched Maddie then smiled and nodded. She moved on and touched Yves, looking at him seriously, before moving on to touch people and things as she moved by, using her wand to finger those members of the Fantasia who stood close to her. She also touched the ropes … touched Tane’s trumpet in its black case.

Suddenly the stick began to twitch. The Witch-Finder held it higher, pointing it towards Garland. It grew even more
agitated
, and Garland suddenly felt terrified as if she might, after all, be guilty of some wickedness she did not know about. For, after all, these days she had her private ghost. What would a Witch-Finder make of that? But suddenly the Witch-Finder was pointing her stick towards Eden and suddenly the stick was leaping away from her, flying through the air to lie on the ground, twisting as if it were in huge pain before turning back into an ordinary stick once more. Eden jumped down from the
van’s running board and made for Timon, who flung an arm around him. They drew together while the Witch-Finder stared at them. She seemed frightened, and somehow the Witch-Finder’s fear was even more frightening to other people than her writhing wand had been. Then she began to shout and point, and, though Garland could not quite understand what she was saying, she was sure that the Witch-Finder was ordering the Fantasia to move on immediately. Maddie watched with some confusion, turning and talking rapidly to Yves, glancing across at the boys as she did so. Yves began frowning and shaking his head. And suddenly Timon leaned forward as if he were part of the secret conversation. ‘Don’t give in. Stay here!’ he was telling Maddie in a low voice. ‘Don’t move on!’

‘Right! I don’t see why we should be dictated to,’ Yves was saying. ‘Look at all the people around us. We need to
give
a show. They need to
see
a show. We’ve got what they want … what they need. What’s wrong with that?’

Timon nodded.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ Garland heard him say, like a slow, low echo, underlining Yves’s question.

‘What does it matter to you?’ Garland called, tumbling out of the van as Timon straightened up once more. He frowned as if he wasn’t too sure of himself, then slowly walked across to her, sighing and shrugging. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It was just that I – for a moment there your Witch-Finder reminded me of the Nennog in some way. It’s as if she had some sort of darkness in her head, and when they have that darkness – when they lose the light – people stop seeing clearly. I think you have to stand up to them in some way.’

Eden had joined them. ‘Our parents …’ he put in, ‘they saw the light. I mean they kept on seeing it. They utterly absolutely refused to give in to the darkness.’

‘Your parents!’ said Garland, and felt once more that stab of
grief that she was getting used to by now. ‘Won’t they be worrying about you? Won’t they wonder where you are?’

‘They’re dead,’ Timon replied. ‘I told you. Remember?
Murdered
I think. That’s how the Nennog became our guardian. Mind you, I think he wanted Eden more than he wanted me, because of Eden’s power, but he grabbed us both.’

‘They were scientists – physicists,’ Eden said. ‘They studied time. String theory! They were the ones that worked out a way of expanding the time pulses so that people could ride a pulse in the way we did.’

Garland did not have any idea what they were talking about, but she decided it would be better not to ask them to explain, for any explanation might only confuse her even more.

‘But you’ve escaped,’ she said. ‘Not that it’s totally safe here … the world’s still dangerous … but …’

Timon sighed, shaking his head as if he had a fly in his ear.

‘We haven’t
absolutely
escaped!’ he cried in a soft impatient voice. ‘There’s no
total
safety. And it’s not just us the Nennog wants. Remember? It’s something he calls the Talisman. He knows we’ve got it.
We
know we’ve got it. We’ve inherited it, but the weird thing is …’

‘… the weird thing is we don’t really know what it is,’ said Eden. ‘Our parents knew, but they never let on. They’d just look at each other and smile and call it the Talisman. “The Talisman will bring us luck” they’d say. We used to ask them what the Talisman was. “All in good time” they’d say.’

‘But the good time never came,’ murmured Timon. ‘Not for them, anyway.’

‘The Talisman! It sounds like – I don’t know – a magic lamp,’ said Garland. ‘Or like that medallion you wear,’ she added, looking at Eden. ‘Maybe that’s the Talisman and maybe your magic power comes from that.’

The two boys looked at each other.

‘His power doesn’t actually come from that,’ said Timon, ‘It’s something from deep inside him. But we do think that medallion might be the Talisman. We do think our parents might have melted powers into it in some way. And Eden wears it, because he’s got the power to protect it. Anyhow we’d do anything to keep it away from the Nennog.’

They had been standing there, guessing and gossiping, almost forgetting the dark looks of the Witch-Finder but
suddenly
she was striding across the circle of vans more like a
wizard
than a witch. Garland realized, as she watched, that she had always imagined a witch slinking in the full light of day, but the Witch-Finder swirled and blazed in her coloured skirts as she held out her wand once more – not at Eden this time, but at old Goneril. Once again the rod twitched madly. Then the Witch-Finder spun around and pointed it at Eden again, and once more it writhed.

‘Demons!’ she shouted. ‘A witch and her demon familiar.’ And, as she shouted this, there was a sudden flood of angry, hot light. A nearby barn had burst into flame. ‘Demons!’ shrieked the Witch-Finder again. ‘I recognize them! I can feel them! I
know
them!’

There was confusion as people, including the Fantasia crew, ran to put out the fire. But a few Community women closed in on Goneril, sitting there with little Jewel on her lap – some accusing, some apologetic – while others grabbed Eden, and yet more stepped forward to keep other Fantasia people at bay. One of the women drew a knife.

‘Stop!’ cried Timon, ignoring it, though it looked extremely pointed and sharp. ‘Don’t touch him! Let him go!’ But Yves, coming up behind him, seized his arm.

‘We won’t desert them,’ said Maddie, closing in on Timon’s other side. ‘But we’ll just take it easy for a few hours. We don’t mind an argument, but we don’t want a battle. Look! Goneril
knows what to do. You know what a scolding old thing she can be, but right now she’s going gently. Just look how calm she is and try to copy her. Be calm too.’

The Witch-Finder had now closed in on Eden, staring down into his face. Suddenly her hands shot out and clasped him around the back of the neck.

‘The medallion!’ cried Timon. ‘She’s taking the medallion!’

‘I promise you,’ Maddie muttered in his ear. ‘We’ll get it back. But if you fight now – if we fight now – we could all come to harm. And look at those people watching us. None of them are in a playful mood and our animals are out there – our jugglers and performers … we need to get them closed in and safe once more. Then we’ll get Eden and Goneril back again. Promise!’

The little Jewel, now in the arms of an acrobat called Amy, began to cry, and Amy ran towards them.

‘They say they’re going to duck Goneril and Eden!’ she cried. ‘The Witch-Finder and her friends say she is a witch, and tomorrow morning they are going to lock her into that ducking stool by the swamp and duck her. They say it will wash the witchery out of her.’

‘To the jail! To the jail!’ a chorus of voices began to cry. ‘We find them! We find them! We bind them! We bind them!’

And then, amid all the confusion a strange thing happened. There was a sudden soft explosion of another sort of light … not the light of the torches or the burning barn … but
something
coloured blue and green and gold. Up on the top of the hill the windows of that dark tower had burst into light.
Looking
up Garland saw vague shapes swimming backwards and forwards behind the coloured glass … saw shadow-shapes, mouths opening and closing and heard music floating down towards them – not complete tunes but scraps of songs and melodies that seemed tumble softly towards the crowd below like autumn leaves drifting from a tree.

The Fantasia people stared up in puzzlement and perhaps apprehension, but the people of the Community, those who were not fighting the fire, were suddenly beaten into a sort of surrender. They bowed their heads, turned their faces away and scuttled away from the Fantasia as if anxious not to be seen in dangerous company.

‘The Witch-Finder is jealous of us,’ said Maddie with a sigh. ‘She’s always been jealous of Goneril, and it goes a long way back because they knew one another slightly when they were girls – back when old Gabrielle led the Fantasia. And this time I think she’s jealous of Eden’s magic as well, and she’s getting her own back at us by picking on Goneril.’

‘But, Mum,’ Garland said, ‘that barn did burst into flame … and then that tower lit up. She’s not only a witch-finder … she’s a sort of witch herself.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Maddie. ‘Who knows who’s hiding what and where? We’ll give it all time to quieten down overnight. And in the morning … in the daylight … we’ll begin our arguments again, and we’ll buy them back. We won’t desert them. You know that.’

It seemed impossible to sleep. Lying in her bunk, Garland tossed and turned then lay almost but not quite dozing. What a strange world it was, this world putting itself together after the Chaos. But perhaps it had always been like this. Perhaps there were always some people who longed to be in charge of
everyone
else. Gramth and its Mayor … and now the Community with its Witch-Finder. And perhaps small towns in an uncertain land were always frightened of the dangerous world around them. Perhaps having someone fierce in charge of them also made them feel they were being protected. Garland shook her head restlessly. She heard the wind sigh around the van and heard Maddie sigh in echo, weeping a little in the private silence of the night. But then Maddie’s sighing became a
steady breathing. She was asleep. Garland, however, could not sleep no matter how hard she tried. Thoughts about the wild world out there seemed to be haunting her and the night seemed to stretch out into several nights before finally she found she could see early morning staining the inner roof of the van. No possible sleep … not now! Garland decided to wake up properly … to slide silently out of her bunk, just as silently into her clothes and then (even more silently) into the outside world.

‘Where are you going?’ came Maddie’s voice, unexpectedly. She had not been as deeply asleep as Garland had thought she was.

‘Nowhere,’ Garland answered. ‘But I can’t sleep … and I thought I’d get up and do a bit of work … rub the horses down … talk to Samala. I haven’t been riding her much lately.’

‘Keep your head down,’ said Maddie. ‘And Garland. No running away. I forbid it. I’ll be up myself in a moment. It mightn’t look like it, but I’m working already, lying here and thinking things through.’

It was going to be a fine day.
The sky was mostly clear – though huge streaks of cloud, lying low over the hills fiercely slashed the east with scarlet and gold. It was as if the Witch-Finder herself was somehow flying across that morning sky and setting the world alight. Garland looked around the tents and wagons of the Fantasia, and suddenly loved it all over again, for these vans and tents and even the spaces between them made up a home-town for her – a true place. She somehow felt all the Maddigans who had gone before her – Maddigans she had never met but who were still part of her even including old Gabrielle who had started the Fantasia and then disappeared so mysteriously – all moving around her, smiling, putting their hands on her shoulders and pushing her forwards.
Get going!
they seemed to be telling her.

Over in the Community she could see a few Community people stirring and beginning to go about their day-to-day lives. And there – over there – beginning to climb through the scrub that patched the lower slopes of the hill, clambering towards the tower at the top, she suddenly made out two
scrambling
beetles – two figures that would be largely invisible from the Community. She immediately knew who they were, even though they were too far away for her to see them properly.

Timon! Timon and (she wrinkled her face incredulously) – Boomer! Boomer? And they were carrying something. What was it they were carrying? Garland stared, concentrating, but she could not work it out. However there was one thing she knew – knew instantly. She, Garland, a true Maddigan, must not be left out of any adventure. Climbing up the hill towards the tower could not possibly count as running away. It was just – just a bit of exploring.

Slipping behind Goneril’s empty wagon, and then Tane’s tent, angling herself away from the Community and from the Fantasia as well, Garland leapt through morning grasses,
growing
tall and tangled around the base of the hill, and then began scrambling after the two boys, feet pushing, hands grabbing at the tussock and the branches of scrubby trees on the sharp slopes above her. Unencumbered as she was, she soon found herself catching up with them, and was able to make out what they were carrying. Stilts – Byrna’s stilts. And no one would carry stilts like those up a hill unless they were planning to use them.

‘Hey!’ she called in a soft, panting voice. ‘Wait … wait for … wait for me! What … what are you doing?’

The boys swung around, and the stilts swung with them, striking wildly through the air. Garland leapt back and ducked down, even though she was in no real danger.

‘What are you doing?’ she repeated, gathering her courage (and her breath) once more, and drawing alongside them.

‘We’re going to break into that tower,’ Timon said. ‘We’re going to find out what’s going on in there. Well, I have to. I have to rescue Eden. A brother can’t see another brother locked into a ducking stool and sloshed down into a swamp can he?’

‘It was
my
idea,’ said Boomer quickly. ‘I mean, the stilts were my idea.’

‘I’ll help you,’ offered Garland. ‘Three’s the right number
for an adventure, isn’t it? There’s three in all the old stories.’

‘Okay! Come on then! You can hold back branches and things,’ said Timon, breathing hard. ‘It’s difficult to – you know –
manoeuvre
when you’re carrying stilts.’

Together they swarmed up the last third of the hill, and suddenly there was the tower, so much bigger than it had looked from down below … so powerful … so invulnerable. Garland, Timon and Boomer stood like frozen people, staring up towards the top of the tower, then staring at each other, too out of breath to say a word. Then, still wordlessly, they leaned the stilts against the tower wall, and began to walk around the tower, looking at the stone surfaces, looking up towards the uneven summit, and testing every window of dark glass along with the two doors, both of which were closed so tightly they seemed to be sealed shut. There were streaks of light frost on the ground and on those walls, but as Garland ducked under the branches of an apple tree that grew close to the tower she saw plump spring buds waiting to break out on its bare branches. The seasons were changing places as they danced their ancient dance.

At last they came back to the place where the stilts still leaned patiently against the wall. ‘Just as well we left the stilts here,’ Garland said, ‘or we might have walked round and round this tower for an hour without remembering where we started from.’

‘Locked. All locked,’ said Boomer gloomily, ‘except …’ and he pointed upward. Following his gaze Garland saw for the first time that one of the narrow slot-like windows high in the wall was tilted open – just a little bit open.

‘That’s why we need the stilts,’ Timon said. ‘I mean, I didn’t know what we’d find when we got up here, but I thought it was best to be prepared, just in case there was only the one way in.’

‘But Goneril and Eden aren’t in there!’ cried Garland.

‘No.’ Timon agreed. He stood there, touched by early
sunlight
, looking almost like the sort of fairy-tale prince a princess in a story might marry. ‘But I think the answers to all the Witch-Finder
riddles
are in this tower. And if we can answer those riddles we might get power over her. And if we have power over her we’ll get Eden and Goneril back again. Now the thing is – can we get through that window without waking her up?’

‘If you could stand on the stilts I could stand on your shoulders,’ Garland suggested.

‘I was going to do that,’ said Boomer a little indignantly.

‘But I’m taller,’ said Garland. ‘And I can walk the tight-rope. And sometimes I’ve stood on Byrna’s shoulders when he was stilt-walking. I can balance. I’ll stand on Timon’s shoulders and somehow he’ll get up onto the stilts.’

‘It might work,’ said Timon. ‘If we can hoist Garland up onto my shoulders she could put one hand against the wall to steady herself, and then I could try to get up onto the stilts. It won’t be easy.’ He looked at Boomer. ‘If you could turn
yourself
into a sort of box, and I used you as a step … I mean I wouldn’t stand on you for long.’

‘Let’s try,’ said Garland.

Timon dropped down onto his knees, stretching his arms up to ear level. Garland took his hands, put her foot into the small of his back, hoisted herself high, then stepped up onto his shoulders with an ease that surprised her. Timon stood up, straightening very slowly, wobbling a little then growing steady enough for Garland to balance without any trouble while Boomer passed Timon the stilts. Then, rather heroically, Boomer dropped down onto all fours so that Timon could step briefly onto his arching back. Boomer grunted but held firm, as Timon, hooking up one of his long legs in a way that would have done credit to any Fantasia acrobat, placed a foot on the foothold of the first stilt.

‘This is the hard bit,’ he said, hoisting himself upward. He swayed; he wobbled; he took an accidental giant stride forward and nearly tumbled: he leaned back a little and it was Garland’s turn to sway and gasp, bending to grab handfuls of Timon’s golden hair. Somewhere Boomer groaned. And then suddenly Garland found Timon was actually standing tall on the stilts and she was standing, even taller, on his shoulders, while Boomer was rolling on the ground far below her. The open window was right beside her. Just for a moment Timon swayed backwards and forwards and she thought he was really going to topple this time, and then, of course, she would have to topple too. She imagined herself smashing down on the stony ground below them, and (up there on Timon’s shoulders)
half-crouched
, preparing to turn her toppling into a jump. But then Timon’s shoulders seemed to strengthen under her curving feet once more, and even broaden out.

‘I’m going to swing around a little,’ he said warningly, sounding somehow far, far below her. ‘I’m going to try lifting the right stilt. Ready?’

Reaching back, Garland grabbed hold of the windowsill.

‘Ready!’ she said, and felt Timon swing for one dangerous moment.’ But now she was facing the window and could hook one arm up over the sill, and reach in to touch the catch which was unexpectedly simple. Releasing the window and swinging it wide, she strained upwards, standing on tiptoe and then she was hauling herself up … up and over … so that the sill was at waist level. Bending forward, grunting, struggling, and using that sill as a sort of pivot Garland found herself thinking for the first time, ‘I hope the Witch-Finder isn’t sleeping in
this
room. I hope this isn’t her bedroom.’ Then she pitched forward and the floor came up to meet her before she was ready for it. She hit it shoulder first, slid
sideways
, scraping her ear, and for a few seconds all she could
think of was how very much her shoulder and her ear were hurting.

The room was empty. Garland lay there, getting her breath again, looking sideways at a small closed door and hoping all over again – ‘I hope it isn’t locked.’ She sat up, took a moment to rub her bruises, scrubbing at them as if pain was something that could be wiped away, then scrambled to her feet. At last she was able to look briefly out of the window, waving
triumphantly
to Timon and Boomer standing below her looking up anxiously. She could see them both grinning with relief as they waved back. Turning, she made for the small door on the other side of the round room. It opened easily.

Garland now found herself confronted by a narrow winding stair. She followed it down, walking as silently as she could, quite determined, yet also frightened that she might encounter, around one of those echoing curves, the Witch-Finder herself, perhaps, climbing towards her, claws raised. But the stair was empty. Two twists downwards and she found herself a room which seemed to be a space entirely used to store old toys or machines that nobody wanted any more. But there was no time to look at anything in any detail. Softly, softly, half-holding her breath, she crossed the room only to find it opened onto another small landing, to the top of another stair. Down … down. She must surely be at ground level now, she thought, and the door over there – that must be the door that would open to the
hillside
. There was a key hanging on a nail beside it. Garland took it down, slid it into the keyhole, seized it with both hands and turned it. She had imagined it would be stiff and unwilling to unlock the door, but it turned easily. The door swung open as if it were glad to be opening on an outside world.

Within a moment Timon and Boomer were crowding inside with her. The tower around them felt as if it were waiting to hear them speak, but they looked at each other in questioning
silence. Garland, putting her finger across her lips, pointed up the stair behind her. Then, Garland first, Timon next and Boomer last of all, they climbed back up the lower stairs, and into that room of toys.

It was like being in a small museum, shelves filled with dolls and puppets, some bigger than life-size, teddy bears, bowling balls, yellowing photographs of places and people that might not exist any more – stiff people caught on cards that curled with age bowing the pictured people over. Standing on the floor, taking up a lot of room, were ancient pinball machines, pots that must once have held big plants or trees, and there, against one wall, a long box that looked like a coffin, with a veiled figure lying inside it.

‘A Sleeping Beauty,’ whispered Boomer, but Garland thought it might not be a beauty. She did not altogether want to see the face under that veil.

‘Look!’ exclaimed Timon softly, and both Garland and Boomer looked, in spite of themselves.

‘What are they?’ asked Garland, staring down at the great tray of objects that had caught Timon’s attention.

‘Fire crackers?’ whispered Boomer.

‘I don’t know,’ Timon said. ‘They’re before my time … before yours too probably. But I think they’re weapons of some kind … what they used to call detonators. And I’m pretty sure that that thing under the tray – that – that’s a flame thrower. And …’ his voice suddenly changed. ‘Hey! Look! Here it is!’

He was holding the Witch-Finder’s wand. ‘Look!’ He tilted it towards Garland. The big knot at the base of the cleft was a dial. Timon touched the glass and the stick twitched wildly. ‘If I just …’ said Timon, running his fingers along the shaft.

Suddenly there was something like a loud pop. The ceiling above them lit up. A series of colours passed across it and then a series of shadows, strange and yet somehow familiar, rose up
from among the couches, the pinball machines and the
freestanding
shelves of toys.

‘Will-o’-the-wisps!’ cried Boomer, too startled to bother about silence.

He was right. The room suddenly seemed crowded with will-o’-the-wisps. They were more than shadows. They had shape and form. They had glowing eyes. For all that they were not much more than ominous toys.

‘Don’t be frightened,’ Timon told Boomer quickly. ‘They’re not real.’ And saying this he boldly turned his back on them.

This was a mistake. Immediately one of the will-o’-the-wisps leaped at him. It was real … real enough to have claws with which it tore at Timon. Garland swung at it, knocking it across the room, but the other figures were now closing in on them.

‘Get away!’ yelled Boomer. ‘Get away!’ and he snatched something off the shelf next to him and flourished it at the approaching will-o’-the-wisps with all the force he could. They seemed to waver for a little but then advanced again.

‘Get away!’ yelled Garland and Boomer struck out with the only weapon he had – the object he had snatched from the shelf beside him. It suddenly lashed out with a long black tongue. Boomer flung his arm up and down again.

CRACK!

Garland and Timon leaped at the sound, then looked at Boomer incredulously. But he was looking at his own right hand with even more astonishment. He had snatched up the Witch-Finder’s whip.

CRACK!

The will-o’-the-wisps stood still. Garland thought they were looking at Boomer with a kind of obedience, waiting for him to tell them what to do next.