Goblins and Ghosties (13 page)

The djinni smiled. ‘I'm sure you would, little man. But we can't always have what we want. Look at me. I asked for forty wise men willing to give their lives for the sake of the city. All I got was you. Ah well. Never mind.'

Then, the djinni began to change his shape. He grew taller, broader, stronger, greener. He roared and the sound was like thunder. Lightning flashed all around. He raised his great fist and Sidi Rahal closed his eyes, waiting for the fatal blow to strike.

He
heard an ear-splitting crunch but felt nothing.

‘Was that it?' he wondered. ‘Am I dead?'

Cautiously, he opened his eyes and saw that the boulder holding the river back had been shattered into a thousand pieces, the djinni had vanished and he, Sidi Rahal, was still very much alive.

Not so the thirty-nine wise men who had only seconds to live. They thought they'd found a safe place to stand. It never crossed their minds that the djinni might change the course of the river until they saw the huge wave of water thundering down the mountainside towards them. They turned to flee, but there was nowhere to go, no time even to pray for mercy before, in a swirling, foaming torrent of water, they were all swept away.

So the djinni got his tribute of forty lives – all bar one. Why he'd been allowed to live was something Sidi Rahal would never know for sure. Who can read the mind of a djinni? Perhaps if the others had come willingly, the djinni would have spared them, too.

As
it was, he'd asked for forty wise men brave enough to die for their city. All he got were fools and cowards. That, so they say, is why the river still takes its tribute of forty lives every year. A child playing too close to the water's edge, a young man taking a swim after a night out, a woman reaching after a piece of washing that's drifting away.

That's why its local name is the River of Death.

The Cold Lady

Japan

It was quite the worst time of year for a journey, but the old man insisted his business in the city couldn't wait till spring. So what was a good son to do, but go with him? As it turned out, they were lucky with the weather until they were part way home. Then, the blizzard struck. And what a blizzard! The wind howled in their ears like a thousand devils and the snow was an unbroken white curtain, swirling about them.

Still
the young man would have pressed on as long as he could make out the road at his feet, but he could see his father (though he'd never admit it) could hardly put one foot in front of the other. So they took refuge in a cave on a lonely hillside and waited for the storm to blow itself out.

They had no water and nothing to eat. Worst of all, there was no way of getting a fire going. All they could do was huddle together for warmth.

At last, the old man stopped shivering and fell asleep. The young man, too, must have slept, because when he opened his eyes again, he saw that the storm had passed over. It was bright moonlight outside and there was someone moving about inside the cave. He saw a woman, dressed all in white. Her hair, too, was white as snow.

But her face in the moonlight was the face of a young girl.

The closer she came, the colder he felt, till he was colder than he'd ever been in his life before. She bent over his father, breathing
a
deathly cold over the old man as he slept. He saw the old man's last breath leave him, drawn up into the cold lady's mouth.

Then she turned towards him, the son. Strangely, he wasn't afraid, only faintly surprised. ‘Is this it?' he wondered. ‘Is this death? The end of all my hopes and dreams?'

‘Such a pretty boy!' the cold lady murmured. ‘So young! Too young to die yet.'

She was about to move away when she saw that his eyes were open, watching her.

‘Swear to me,' she said, ‘that you will never speak of me or of this night. Not to mother nor brother, nor sister, nor sweetheart, nor wedded wife, nor child, nor friend, nor foe, nor to any living creature that walks or crawls on land or swims in the sea or flies in the sky.'

‘I swear,' he said. Then fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Next morning, he was found by some shepherds who were out searching for sheep lost in the storm. It took him some days after that to recover his strength and arrange for his father's funeral.

By
the time he got home, he found his mother had taken on a new servant girl, Yuki.

‘I think of her more as a friend,' said his mother.

‘Her friend and her nurse,' Yuki told him quietly. ‘You mother is sick, but I will do what I can to make her last days happy ones.'

So she did, moving quietly about the house, always there when she was needed but never in the way.

He got so used to having her around that, after his mother died, it seemed the natural step for them to marry.

And they were happy.

Seven children they had over the years. The children grew up and married in their turn. So now it was just the two of them, growing old together.

His hair was turning white. So too was Yuki's, though she still had the smooth, unlined face of a young girl.

So it was that one winter's evening, seeing her standing in the moonlight looking out at the snow falling on the garden, he was
reminded
of that night long ago.

‘What are thinking?' she asked him.

‘I was thinking of a dream I had once,' he said. ‘At least, I think now it must have been a dream, though it seemed very real at the time. It was the night my father died.'

‘Tell me about it,' she said quietly.

So he told her about the cave on the lonely hillside and the cold lady and the oath he'd sworn.

‘Do you remember the words of that oath?' she said.

‘Strangely, I do,' he said. ‘Every word. It was never to speak of her or that night, not to mother, nor brother, nor sister, nor sweetheart, nor…'

‘Nor wedded wife, nor child,' she said, ‘nor friend, nor foe, nor to any living creature that walks or crawls on land or swims in the sea or flies in the sky. You broke your promise,' she said sadly.

Suddenly, the room was deathly cold.

‘Such a pretty boy you were then,' she said. ‘So young, that I took pity on you.'

She
turned away, opened the window and stepped out into the garden.

He cried out, ‘Take me with you! Don't leave me here alone!' but by the time he reached the window, there was nothing to see but the snow softly falling.

The Brownie under the Bridge

Scotland

Ever since he was a wee, small boy, Torquil had been afraid of the brownie that lived under the bridge. It began with his father, Torquil sitting up beside him every Wednesday, driving their pony cart to market. As they came to the bridge, his father would whip up the pony till she was going so fast it was a wonder she
didn't
go flying up into the sky, cart and all.

When Torquil asked him why, his father told him it was because of the brownie living there. ‘If that brownie ever lays hands you,' he said, ‘why then, you're finished. You'll never see your home or your kinfolk again.'

When he grew up and took over the farm, Torquil did as his father had done, going at top speed over the bridge, because the chances were that the brownie was still there. Brownies live a long time, so he'd been told, maybe two or three hundred years.

In time he married his childhood sweetheart, Jeannie, a sensible sort of a girl who didn't try to change his mind, since Torquil's fear of the brownie cut short their weekly trip to market by a good ten minutes.

Soon, she found she was expecting a baby. The weeks and months went by, until one evening she said to Torquil, ‘I think the baby's coming. You must go and fetch the doctor.'

‘What, now?' said Torquil, thinking of driving the trap over the brownie's bridge in the dark.

‘
Yes, now.'

‘Can it not wait till morning?'

‘This baby will be born long before morning. Off you go now and fetch the doctor.'

‘Would it not be better if I stayed with you?'

‘What do you know about delivering babies?'

‘I don't like to leave you alone.'

‘I won't be alone for long. The sooner you go, the sooner you'll be back.'

‘What if I don't come back? What if the brownie…?'

‘If you don't bother the brownie, it won't bother you. Please, Torquil, I'm begging you…'

At that moment, a knock came at the door.

Outside, stood a little old tinker woman. She was wrinkled and bent and smelt of fish and mouldering leaves, but Jeannie welcomed her in as if she'd been an angel sent from heaven.

The old woman had barely begun to speak, ‘I wonder, could you spare me a bite to eat and if I could sleep in the stable…', when,
‘
Come in! Come in!' says Jeannie. ‘There's a pot of stew on the stove and bread made fresh this morning. And a proper bed, too, for you to rest your weary bones this night, if you'll just keep me company while this man of mine goes for the doctor.'

‘I'd be happy to,' the old woman beamed. ‘Off you go now, lad – spit-spot!'

With the two women standing against him now, Torquil knew he'd no choice but to go, so he took the road at such a lick that he barely noticed the brownie's bridge till he was safely over it and knocking on the door of the doctor's house.

It wasn't till the doctor was fetching his little black bag that Torquil realised the pickle he was in. He'd got to drive the doctor back to the farm. Then, after the baby was born, he'd have to bring the doctor home again, and then drive back to the farm again, alone. Four times in one night he'd be driving over the brownie's bridge.

‘No, no!' he whispered. ‘I cannot do it!'

The doctor was very understanding when
he
explained. ‘No problem,' he said. ‘I'll saddle up my own pony and ride behind you. Then there'll be no need for you to bring me home.'

But saddling up the doctor's pony took that little bit more time. And that pony could no more break into a gallop than fly to the moon.

By the time Torquil arrived back at the farm with the doctor riding behind him, he found Jeannie sitting up in bed with her newborn baby in her arms.

‘Well, well,' said the doctor. ‘It looks like you didn't need me after all.'

‘Where's she gone?' said Torquil. ‘The little old tinker woman who promised to stay till I came home again.'

‘You mean the brownie woman?' Jeannie said smiling.

‘The what? The who?'

Jeannie laughed. ‘Poor Torquil! All these years you've been afraid of the brownie under the bridge and never stopped to wonder what it might look like! That one was the sweetest creature – and she's delivered more babies than you ever will, doctor, in a lifetime. No offence.'

‘
None taken,' the doctor said, smiling. ‘Though if I were to live another couple of hundred years…'

The next day, Torquil took a basket of eggs and left them by the bridge on his way to market by way of a thank you. When he came back the basket was empty. Often after that he and his children after him − and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren too − would leave a little something now and then for the brownie, right up until the day they died, though none of them ever saw the brownie woman again.

Though brownies do live an awful long time. So it's quite possible she's living there still.