Merlin's Wood (Mythago Wood) (20 page)

She grabbed her clothes, pulled them on, not bothering with her hair but making a token effort to polish her shoes. It was Lord’s Eve. She
had
to be smart today. She couldn’t find her bell necklace. She had on a flowered dress and red shoes. She pulled a pink woollen cardigan over her shoulders, grabbed at her frilly hat, stared at it, then tossed it behind the hat rack … and fled from the house.

She ran up the road to the church square, following the path that, earlier, the column of dancers must have taken. She felt tears in her eyes, tears of dismay, and anger, and irritation. Every year she watched the procession from her garden.
Every year!
Why hadn’t mother
woken
her?

She loved the procession, the ranks of dancers in their white coats and black hats, the ribbons, the flowers, the bells tied to ankle, knee and elbow, the men on the hobby horses, the fools with their pigs’ bladders on sticks, the women in their swirling skirts, the Thackers, the Pikermen, the Oozers, the black-faced Scarrowmen … all of them came through the smouldering fires at the south gate, each turning and making the sign of peace before jigging and hopping on along the road, keeping time to the beat of the drum, the
melancholy whine of the violin, the sad chords of the accordion, the trill of the whistles.

And she had missed it! She had slept! She had remained in the world of nightmares, where the shadowy blind pursued her …

As she ran she
screamed
her frustration!

She stopped at the edge of the square, catching her breath, looking for Kevin, or Mick, or any others of the small gang that had their camp in the earthen walls of the old fort. She couldn’t see them. She cast her gaze over the ranks of silent dancers. They were spread out across the square, lines of men and women facing the lych-gate and the open door of the church. They stood in absolute silence. They hardly seemed to breathe. Sometimes, as she brushed past one of them, working her way towards the church where Gargoyle’s voice was an irritating drone in the distance, sometimes a tambourine would rattle, or an accordion would sigh a weary note. The man holding it would glance and smile at her, but she knew better than to disturb the Scarrowmen when the voice was speaking from the church.

She passed under the rose and lily gate, ducked her head and made the sign of peace, then scampered into the porch and edged towards the gloomy, crowded interior.

The priest was at the end of his sermon, the usual boring sermon for the feast day.

‘We have made a pledge,’ Mr Ashcroft was intoning. ‘A pledge of belief in a life after death, a pledge of belief in a God which is greater than humankind itself …’

She could see Kevin, standing and fidgeting between
his parents, four pews forward in the church. Of Michael there was no sign. And where was mother? At the front, almost certainly …

‘We believe in the resurrection of the Dead, and in a time of atonement. We have made a pledge with those who have died before us, a pledge that we will be reunited with them in the greater Glory of our Lord.’

‘Kevin!
’ Ginny hissed. Kevin fidgeted. The priest droned on.

‘We have pledged all of this, and we believe all of this. Our time in the physical realm is a time of trial, a time of testing, a testing of our honour and our belief, a belief that those who have gone are not gone at all, but merely waiting to be rejoined with us …’

‘Kevin!
’ she called again.
‘Kevin!
’

Her voice carried too loudly. Kevin glanced round and went white. His mother glanced round too, then jerked his attention back to the service, using a lock of his curly hair as her means. His cry was audible to the Gargoyle himself, who hesitated before concluding,

‘This is the brightness behind the feast of the Lord’s Eve. Think not of the Death, but of the Life our Lord will bring us.’

Where was her mother?

Before she could think further someone’s hand tugged at her shoulder, pulling her back towards the porch of the church. She protested and glanced up, and the solemn face of Mr Box stared down at her. ‘Go outside, Ginny,’ he said. ‘Go outside, now.’

Inside, the congregation had begun to recite the Lord’s Prayer.

He pushed her towards the rose gate, beyond which the Oozers and Scarrowmen waited for the service to end. She walked forlornly towards them, and as she passed the man who stood closest to her she struck at his tambourine. The tambours jangled loudly in the still, summer square.

The man didn’t move. She stood and stared defiantly at him, then struck his tambourine again.

‘Why don’t you
dance
?’ she shrieked at him. When he ignored her, she shouted again. ‘Why don’t you make
music?
Make
music!
Dance in the square! Dance!’ Her voice was a shrill cry.

4

There was no twilight. Late afternoon became dark night in a few minutes and a torch was put to the fire, which flared dramatically and silenced all activity. Glowing embers streamed into a starless sky and the village square became choking with the sweet smell of burning wood. The last smells of the roasted ox were banished and in the grounds of the Red Lion the skeleton of the beast was hacked apart. A few pence each for the bones with their meaty fragments. In front of the Bush and Briar Mr Ellis swept up a hundredweight of broken glass. Mick Ferguson led a gang of children, chasing an empty barrel down the street, towards the south gate where the fires still smouldered.

For a while the dancing had ceased. People thronged
about the fire. Voices were raised in the public houses as dancers and tourists alike struggled to get in fresh orders for ale. A sort of controlled chaos ruled the day, and in the centre of it: the fire, its light picking out stark details on the grey church and the muddy green in the square. Beyond the sheer rise of the church tower, all was darkness, although men in white shirts and black hats walked through the lych-gate and rounded the church, talking quietly, dispersing as they re-emerged into the square. Here, they again picked up sticks, or tambourines, or other instruments of music and mock war.

Ginny wandered among them.

She could not find her mother.

And she knew that something was wrong, very wrong indeed.

It came as scant reassurance when a bearded youth called to the Morrismen again, and twelve sturdy men, all of them strangers to Scarrowfell, jangled their way from the Bush and Briar to the dancing square. There was laughter, tomfoolery with the cudgels they carried, and the whining practice notes of the accordion. Then they filed into a formation, jiggled and rang their legs, laughed once more and began to hop to the rhythm of a dance called the
Cuckoo’s Nest
. A man in a baggy, flowery dress and with a big frilly bonnet on his head sang the rude words. The singer was a source of great amusement since he sported a bushy, ginger beard. He wore an apron over the frock and every so often lifted the pinny to expose a long red balloon strapped between
his legs. It had eyes and eyelashes painted on its tip. The audience roared each time he did this.

As Ginny moved through the fair towards the new focus of activity, Mick Ferguson approached her, grinned, and went into his Hunchback of Notre Dame routine, stooping forward, limping in an exaggerated fashion and crying, ‘The bells. The bells. The jingling bells …’

‘Mick …’ Ginny began, but he had already flashed her a nervous grin and bolted off into the confusing movement of the crowds, running towards the fire and finally disappearing into the gloom beyond.

Ginny watched him go. Mick, she thought … Mick … why?

What was going on?

She walked towards the dancers and the bearded singer and Kevin turned round nervously and nodded to her. The man sang:

‘Some like a girl who is pretty in the face.

And some like a girl who is slender in the waist …’

‘I missed the procession,’ Ginny said. ‘I wasn’t woken up.’

Kevin stared at her, looking unhappy. He said, ‘My mother told me not to talk to you …’

She waited, but Kevin had decided that discretion was the better part of cowardice.

‘Why not?’ she asked, disturbed by the statement.

‘You’re being denied,’ the boy murmured.

Ginny was shocked. ‘Why am I being denied? Why me?’

Kevin shrugged. Then a strange look came into his eyes, a horrible look, a man’s look, arrogant, sneering.

The man in the hideous dress sang:

‘But give me a girl who will wriggle and will twist

Each time I slap my hand upon her cuckoo’s nest …’

Kevin backed away from Ginny, making ‘cuckoo’ sounds.

‘It’s a
rude
song,’ Ginny said.

Kevin taunted,
‘You’re
a cuckoo.
You’re
a cuckoo …’

‘I don’t know what it means,’ Ginny said, bewildered.

‘Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo,’ Kevin mocked, then jabbed her in the groin. He cackled horribly then raced away towards the blazing bonfire. Ginny had tears in her eyes, but her anger was so intense that the tears dried. She glared at the singer, still not completely aware of what was going on except that she knew the song was rude because of the guffaws of the adult men in the watching circle. After a moment she slipped away towards the church.

She stood within the lych-gate watching the flickering of the fire, the highlit faces of the crowds, the restless movement, the jigging and hopping … hearing the laughter, and the music, and the distant wind that was fanning the fire and making the flames bend violently and dangerously towards the south. And she wondered where, in all this chaos, her mother might have been.

Mother had been so supportive to her, so gentle, so kind. During the nights when the nightmare had been a terrible presence in the house by the old road, where Ginny had lived since her real parents had died in the fire, during those terrible nights the Mother had been so
comforting. Ginny had come to think of her as her own mother, and all grief, all sadness had faded fast.

Where
was
the Mother? Where
was
she?

She saw Mr Box, walking slowly through the crowds, a baked potato in one hand and a glass of beer in the other. She ran to him and tugged at his jacket. He nearly choked on his potato and glanced round urgently, but soon her voice reached him and, although he frowned, he stooped down towards her. He threw the remnants of his potato away and placed his glass upon the ground.

‘Hello Ginny …’ He sounded anxious.

‘Mr Box. Have you seen mother?’

Again he looked uncomfortable. His kindly face was a mask of worry. His moustache twitched. ‘You see … she’s getting the reception ready.’

‘What reception?’ Ginny asked.

‘Why, for Cyric, of course. The war hero. The man who’s coming back to us. He’s finally agreed to return to the village. He was supposed to have come three years ago, but he couldn’t make it.’

‘I don’t care about him,’ she said. ‘Where’s mother?’

Mr Box placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and shook his head. ‘Can’t you just play, child? It’s what you’re supposed to do. I’m just a pub landlord. I’m not part of the Organisers. You shouldn’t even … you shouldn’t even be
talking
to me.’

‘I’m being denied,’ she whispered.

‘Yes,’ he said sadly.

‘Where’s mother?’ Ginny demanded.

‘An important man is coming back to the village,’ Mr Box said. ‘A great hero. It’s a great honour for us …
and …’ He hesitated before adding, in a quiet voice, ‘And what he’s bringing with him is going to make this village more secure …’

‘What
is
he bringing?’ Ginny asked.

‘A certain knowledge,’ Mr Box said, then shrugged. ‘It’s all I know. Like all the villages around here, we’ve had to fight to keep out the invader, and it’s a hard fight. We’ve all been waiting a long time for this night, Ginny. A very long time. We made a pledge to this man. A long time ago, when he fought to save the village. Tonight we’re honouring that pledge. All of us have a part to play …’

Ginny frowned. ‘Me too?’ she asked, and was astonished to see large tears roll down each of Mr Box’s cheeks.

‘Of course you too, Ginny,’ he whispered, and seemed to choke on the words. ‘I’m surprised that you don’t know. I always thought the children knew. But the way these things work … the rules …’ He shook his head again. ‘I’m not privileged to know.’

‘But why is everybody being so horrible to me?’ Ginny said.

‘Who’s everybody?’

‘Mick,’ she said. ‘And Kevin. He called me a cuckoo …’

Mr Box smiled. ‘They’re just teasing you. They’ve been told something of what will happen this evening and they’re jealous.’

He straightened up and took a deep breath. Ginny watched him, his words sinking in slowly. She said, ‘Do you mean what will happen to
me
this evening?’

He nodded. ‘You’ve been
chosen
,’ he whispered to her. ‘When your parents were killed, the Mother was sent to you to prepare you. Your role tonight is a very special one. Ginny, that’s all I know. Now go and play, child. Please …’

He looked suddenly away from her, towards the dancers. Ginny followed his gaze. Five men, two of whom she recognised, were watching them. One of them shook his head slightly and Mr Box’s touch on Ginny’s shoulder went away. A woman walked towards them, her dress covered with real flowers, her face like stone. Mr Box pushed Ginny away roughly. As she scampered for safety she could hear the sound of the woman’s blows to Mr Box’s cheek.

5

The fire burned. Long after it should have been a glowing pile of embers, it was still burning. Long after they should have been exhausted, the Scarrowmen danced. The night air was chill, heavy with smoke, bright with drifting sparks. It echoed to the jingle of bells and the clatter of cudgels. Voices drifted on the wind; there was laughter; and round and round the Morrismen danced.

Soon they had formed into a great circle, stretched around the fire and jigging fast and furious to the strident, endless rhythm of drums and violin. All the village danced, and the strangers too, men and women in anoraks and sweaters, and children in woolly hats,
and teenagers in jeans and leather jackets, all of them mixed up with the white-and-black clothed Oozers, Pikers, Thackers and the rest.