The Pack (21 page)

In her excitement, Floris took her blue glass and flung it as far as she could into the lake. For a moment it hung in the air and the last fierce light coming from the sky and from the water kissed it a brilliant blue.

*   *   *

They never saw the Old Woman working that miracle again. “Extraordinary times give rise to extraordinary attributes,” she said, adding, “as I'm sure you're only too well aware.” In fact, when Bradley described Red Dog and his helmet frown to her, she recalled a bank manager she had once known—a rather small man, bald as an egg, who had loved amateur dramatics. She herself had never cared for him. “Pompous little man at heart.”

“Do you really think…?” said Bradley.

“Unlikely, most unlikely. Still, you never know…”

She had her own story to tell, of course, of how Shelter and she had set out for the cabin the morning after Bradley and Hunger had left. As a blind old beggar woman, shrunk inside her cloak, with only a dog to guide her, she had been threatened once or twice and been mocked by boy soldiers and vagrants, but anyone could see she was not worth robbing and let her go on her way. They had just made it to the cabin before the heavy snows came. Old stocks of tinned food and the occasional rabbit or fish had seen them through the winter and there were lots of warm clothes in a trunk the mice had not got at. Now they were working to clear a vegetable garden and a flower garden.

“Flowers!” said Floris.

“Yes,” said the Old Woman. “I have plans to live in ordinary times.”

“Plans?” said Bradley.

“It's what you do if you believe in the future.”

*   *   *

Part of the Old Woman's plans involve daily lessons in reading and writing. She insists now on being called Mrs. Newton—though out of class Bridget is perfectly acceptable.

At night she reads to them from the old shelf of yellowing, broken-backed books in the cabin—
White Fang, Oliver Twist, Peter Pan.
Soon she can share the reading with Martha—and, for short spells, Bradley—though Victor will occasionally grab a book from their grasp, finding something so striking he pores over the page, as if words are animals that might leave a spoor behind them.

“It's only the words,” says Mrs. Newton. “Only words and your imagination.”

Victor looks at her suspiciously. Of all her pupils he needs the most reassurance. He resents the way Floris has begun to follow Bridget around, to obviously enjoy laying her head on Bridget's lap as she reads. So Bridget values those moments when Victor comes near, when he looks intently at the page and stays beside Floris, as she reads on. Soon she will lay a hand on Victor's head and he will not shake it off.

And in the summer sunlight, on the edge of the lake, Victor straightens. Next year he will not be too shy to take off his shirt and let the sun soothe his scars. Then he will pick for golden-haired Floris the first bunch of flowers.

*   *   *

Martha's hair too has grown long and shiny—it reminds Bradley of the color of spring strawberries. Without the constraints she had willed upon it, her body loses its boyishness.

She swims through the lake like a fish. There is a small island which she and Bradley like to race to. Most often, Martha wins. She waits at its edge, kicking her smooth calves in the water—looking at Bradley with fresh, laughing eyes.

In the evening, after the readings, there are other stories by the stove.

The Old Woman, for again it is she, tells them that there is a world out there, waiting; that soon it will change again, for the better, and that sometime they could play a part in helping it on its way.

Bradley sees Chloe's face in the lamplight. He can summon her image any time he wants now; and the face also of their old neighbour, Margaret, who used to take him in from the leaking house and offer him a bowl of broth.

Even so, the Old Woman says, they must remember.

“What is the world made of?”

“Ashes. Dust.”

“All worlds. But what cannot crumble? What cannot be burnt or be broken?”

“Stories.”

“Stories,” she says. Then, with a smile, “Now be gone and let an old woman get some sleep.”

*   *   *

Bradley lies in his bunk and listens. Each night, as the sun turns red and sinks below the black line of firs, he hears their singing. It is a tapestry of cries and of howls. Yet still he can pick out the thread of Hunger's voice in this, his last season, as he sings to them and to Shelter. Shelter will not join his pack, but her pups—his pups—will. The forest will be theirs again and whoever comes there will have to find a way of living with them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Pow is the award-winning author of four books of poetry—
Rough Seas, The Moth Trap, Red Letter Day
and
Landscapes and Legacies.
He has also written three radio plays, a travel book about Peru—
In the Palace of Serpents
—and three picture books—
Who Is the World For?, Callum's Big Day
and
Tell Me One Thing, Dad. Scabbit Isle
was his first novel for young adults.

Mr. Pow was Writer in Residence at the Edinburgh International Book Festival from 2001 till 2003. He works at Glasgow University Crichton Campus in Dumfries, where he teaches courses in creative writing and storytelling.

Copyright © 2004 by Tom Pow

A Neal Porter Book

Published by Roaring Brook Press

Roaring Brook Press is a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership

143 West Street, New Milford, Connecticut 06776

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First American edition June 2006

eISBN 9781466874534

First eBook edition: May 2014