The Various (48 page)

Be accepting
. That was another thing that Pegs had said. Don’t be afraid – no matter what may happen. There didn’t seem to be anything left to be afraid of. She stared dreamily at the little engraved figures, their mouths open, Celandine standing in their midst. Beautiful, they were, in their plain smocks and simple shifts. Beautiful, like Henty, and all with their mouths open, singing, singing . . . Then, as she looked at them, she
heard
them – a rush of sound, a brief snatch of song, quite audible, as though somebody had switched a radio on and off. She blinked, and half sat up. It had been so sudden, and clear, so real, that she had nearly dropped the bowl.
Where the flying fishes play
 . . . She could still hear the words echoing in her head, the high harmony of many small voices, like a children’s choir. The funny thing was that she knew what the next line would have been. She remembered it.

For quite a long while she sat staring apprehensively at the bowl, then eventually shrugged her shoulders and lay down again, gradually letting her eyelids droop once more. Be accepting, be accepting.
Don’t be afraid
.

A tiny yellow butterfly tumbled into her hazy vision, and landed on the warm flagstones by the old Wellington boot. She watched it as it sunned itself – the delicate wings moving backwards and forwards like breathing. Then another twitch of movement caught her eye, as the boot began to stir. From its shadowy depths the tiny face of the Favoured One slowly emerged – all eyes and whiskers – watching,
concentrating
, intent upon the butterfly. The bright insect seemed oblivious to any danger and remained where it was, its wings continuing to rise and fall. Half out of the boot now, the kitten crouched low, her miniature front paws flexing in a curious shuffling movement. The pounce, when it came, was hesitant and clumsy – and the butterfly casually floated up from the flagstones, escaping unharmed into the warm summer air. But the Favoured One’s cute little face had looked different in that moment – fiercely intense – the expression familiar somehow. She was her father’s daughter, Midge realized, and in those pretty blue eyes there was a darker look, a reminder of her ancestry, and a glimpse of the powerful huntress she would someday become.

It was too hot to lie on the wall any longer, and Midge sat up again. The farmyard was quiet, the others having gone into Taunton on various shopping errands. She had been happy to stay behind, alone and peaceful.

Now she wandered into the silent kitchen to get a drink of water, carrying her bowl with her and laying it on the big cream table. She took a glass from the draining board and moved towards the tap, but then stopped for a moment, listening. Something was different. Something had happened – or was about to happen. A tingly feeling began to steal around her shoulders, not creepy exactly, but . . . odd. It was as though she was being watched. Or as though she was watching herself. She let her hand rest on the tap, and
turned
to look about the room. All seemed as it should be, so what was it? There was nothing, nobody there, no sound that she could determine, and so she filled her glass and drank the cool water.

She sat down on one of the big wooden chairs, picked up her bowl and held it in her lap, thoughtfully turning it in her hand, stroking the engraved surface with the ball of her thumb and listening to the silence. The unfamiliar silence. Of course. It was the clock, she realized – the little alarm clock that stood on the dresser. It had stopped ticking. Twenty-five past ten, it said. She looked at her watch – twenty-five past ten – and then glanced up at the photograph of Celandine, suddenly knowing, in that split second, what was about to happen. It had happened before.

The searing flare of white light seemed to burst in her head, blinding her completely, and the smell of burning magnesium filled her nostrils. She couldn’t see a thing – but in that helpless moment knew only that her boots were too tightly laced and that her toes were pinched, and that her scalp was sore from where her impossibly frizzy hair had been scraped and scraped back in a futile attempt to make it behave. She was chilly, and her shoulders ached with having to pose upright and still for so very long. Between her fingers and the ball of her thumb, she could feel the leathery textures of the little red bridle – tooled and embossed and smooth on one side, slightly rougher and less finished on the other. The silver bells jingled briefly as her hands jumped in a late reaction to the photographer’s flash.

* * *

Gradually her vision returned, though the smell of magnesium lingered, and the shrinking spot of white light – greenish around the edges – continued to dance about the room for quite a long time afterwards. Midge put the bowl back on the kitchen table, and waited as the friendly familiar atmosphere of Mill Farm descended upon her once more – the warm scent of apple-wood from the old Rayburn, the faint clucking of the hens around the front door, and the fast tick of the little alarm clock on the dresser. It was OK. Everything was OK. She knew who she was. She accepted it, and she wasn’t afraid.

About the Author

Steve Augarde was born in Birmingham, but spent most of his life in the West Country, working as an illustrator, paper-engineer, and semi-pro jazz musician. He has written and illustrated over 70 picture-books for younger children, and has produced the paper-engineering for many pop-up books, including those by other artists – as well as providing the artwork and music for two animated BBC television series. His first book for older children,
The Various
, won a Silver Smarties Award in 2003.

THE VARIOUS
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 407 07781 9

Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company

This ebook edition published 2012

Text and illustrations copyright © Steve Augarde, 2003

First Published in Great Britain

Corgi Childrens 2004

The right of Steve Augarde to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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