Maddigan's Fantasia (12 page)

‘Swamps next,’
Garland had told Timon three days after leaving Gramth. She was suddenly sure of the road ahead and world around it. Great to be in a part of the country where things had held still since last time they had been there. ‘Quite soon,’ she added. And, sure enough, they came over a faint rise in the land, and there in front of them the river’s banks somehow dissolved so that the water bled out over the land, conjuring up a kingdom of wild bogs, of soft, sullen
pools lashed with dark green water grasses, and of reeds, reeds, reeds. The Fantasia people looked out over a strange greenish-brownish landscape, stabbed through and through by sudden daggers of light.

‘We have to go around the swamps,’ Garland told Timon and Eden, waving her hands as if she were conducting music. ‘See how the land rears up over there … that’s the mountains putting out a hand to help us … well, not so much to help us, but to sort of welcome us. So now we swing off towards that first hill –’ Garland swung her hands again, illustrating how they must go ‘– and there at the bottom of the hill is the land of the Witch-Finder.’

‘Witch-Finder,’ said Eden uneasily. ‘Sounds dangerous!’ Garland couldn’t help boasting. ‘Our life
is
dangerous,’ she said. ‘No way out of it. But they’re always pleased to see us over there. It’s a place we can rely on. Look … we’re making the turn.’

And Maddie’s van, leading the Fantasia on its inching progress, slowly swung to the left in a half-turn as it began its long, slow trek around the edge of swamp towards the small hills and the kingdom of the Witch-Finder. On and on! On and on!

‘On and on forever,’ groaned Boomer. His drum was packed away at the end of Goneril’s van but he pretended he was
wearing
it and beat the empty air. His green eyes flashed as he blinked in time to his own rhythm. ‘Boom! Boom! Boom!’ he chanted. ‘Boom! Boom! Boom!’

As Boomer beat the empty air Garland felt as if a single chord of music had begun to vibrate, not simply in her ear but right through her. She looked left, looked right, looked back ahead, and there, sure enough, was the silver girl floating and gesturing. Her lips seemed to be moving, but Garland couldn’t make out what she was trying to say.

‘What is it?’ Timon asked, looking at her face, then staring himself, trying to see what Garland was seeing.

‘I think I got a sort of warning,’ Garland said vaguely. She did not want to tell anyone about the silver girl, particularly when there was never any silver girl for anyone else to see. And it was not as if her strange vision ever lasted for long. Already that sifting shape was beginning to fade … to blur back into the empty air.

As if nothing had happened Garland told Timon, ignoring Boomer, ‘Their town has no name. At least it didn’t last time we came by. They say the Witch-Finder eats names. We just call it the Community. Look! They’ve seen us even though we’re such a long way off. They’re coming to meet us.’

And indeed a mob of people, the children in front, waving their arms and cheering, came running towards them. Within a few minutes they were surrounded by the children and then their parents, holding out apples left over from the autumn’s crop, or stretching out their hands so that they could brush fingers with Fantasia clowns and acrobats.

They marched in through the gate with the ancient sign over it.

Tane read aloud with a mixture of pride and uncertainty. ‘Here is the place of the …’ He fell silent.

‘Go on! Say it!’ shouted Goneril. ‘Don’t be a wimp!
Witch-Finder
! That’s what it says over the gate. Here is the place of the Witch-Finder.’

Tane made a gesture as if Goneril’s words were troublesome flies and he had to beat them away.

‘What’s that place up on the hill?’ asked Eden. ‘Some sort of lookout post?’

‘That place?’ cried a girl in the crowd, looking him over with admiration. Garland found she remembered that girl from last year. Her name was Sara. ‘That’s the tower, that is, and the
tower’s full of ghosts,’ Sara said with a curious note of triumph in her voice. ‘That tower shines out at night. We’re a special place – because the Witch-Finder lives there, these days, keeping the ghosts from coming in at us and eating our souls.’

‘There’s one with snapping jaws,’ cried the boy beside Sara, holding up his hands, cupping them a little, then clapping them together, turning them into a greedy mouth, lunging and biting the air. ‘Snapping jaws …’

‘And claws …’ added another boy, and suddenly all the children close enough to hear these stories began imitating a curious swaying walk, holding their hands high and hooking their fingers forward as they did so.

‘Do
you
believe in ghosts?’ Timon asked Garland. ‘I don’t. Well, we don’t. Not in my time.’

‘That’s because you
are
ghosts,’ Garland said quickly. ‘Ghosts probably don’t believe in other ghosts.’

Timon laughed as if he might be agreeing with her.

‘Anyhow, we have worse things to worry about,’ said Eden a little gloomily as if the joking was somehow turning serious, and Garland immediately felt herself turn serious too.

‘I half-believe in ghosts,’ she said. ‘Every now and then I think I see one.’ Suddenly she felt she could, after all, tell Timon about her impossible silver ghost, partly because he was wanting her to believe something impossible about himself, and partly because she suddenly wanted to hear how her
haunting
would sound, turned into words and let loose in the outside air. ‘Sometimes I see a sort of silver ghost-girl … and she’s always pointing something important out to me. It’s funny, because she’s really weird, and yet I’m not frightened of her … well, not exactly frightened. I don’t know how to tell about the feeling she gives me. Anyhow you must altogether believe in ghosts too, because what about that Nennog of yours … the one Boomer saw?’

But Timon was shaking his head. ‘Boomer saw the Nennog through science, not a haunting,’ he declared. ‘That’s even worse, if anything.’

‘But maybe science and ghosts are part of the same thing,’ suggested Garland obstinately. She wanted to go on arguing about this, watching the way Timon’s fair hair was tumbling onto his forehead, catching the light and shining with hidden gold, but Maddie’s van had reached the edge of the settlement. Yves (with Lilith beside him) was already leaning sideways out of the window … waving … shouting … pointing.

The Community was a town of shacks and cabins built on green blisters of dry land, linked by curving bridges, with swamp mists rolling like constant unwelcome visitors down its narrow streets. The Fantasia frisked and danced over the first bridge, across the first island, over a second bridge and into a main street. The swamp deepened at that point, and water took over – spreading itself out into a little lake fringed with reeds.

On the edge of that lake a strange shape, a cumbersome
seesaw
of a thing, was squatting, stretching one of its arms out over the water. Garland had seen it before and it always filled her with suspicion and anxiety. There it sat, that one end hoisted high in the air, the other resting on a beach of slimy stones. The high end ended in a chair … a rather grand chair with armrests and what looked like a footplate with great iron boots welded onto it. It was hung around with silver chains and, for all its empty grandeur, looked particularly threatening there, squatting above the mists, but reflected darkly in the dark water below.

‘What on earth’s
that
?’ asked Eden, staring over at this strange machine with a troubled expression.

‘It’s for dunking witches,’ Garland said. ‘They’re worried about witches here in the Community. That’s why they have a Witch-Finder.’

‘Set up! Come on! Quickly! Set up!’ Yves was shouting. Then he swung down from Maddie’s van, and began walking the length of the Fantasia wagon train, still waving and yelling instructions. Lilith scrambled down too, and followed him, pointing and shouting like a squeaking echo. Garland saw her chance to have Maddie to herself for a few minutes. Tearing herself away from the boys, she swung herself up into the cab of the van only to find Maddie was preparing to clamber out. And before she had a chance to say anything much, Yves was back, looking in at the window on her side of the van, but talking past her.

‘We’ll do the rise-of-Solis act here,’ Yves was declaring. ‘There’s good flat ground, and now we’ve got fuel for the lamps. We’ll be able to make that bookshop part of the act really glow.’

‘Mum,’ said Garland. ‘He’s calling it a bookshop, but that act – well, it’s about a magical library, isn’t it … all that juggling with books that appear and disappear? It stands for dancing with wisdom. You told me it was old Gabrielle’s fancy back in the beginning.’

‘Yves knows all that. Right now he’s only joking a little,’ Maddie said. ‘Come on! We need a bit of light-heartedness. The last few days have been just so difficult.’

‘But he’s taking over!’ Garland cried, looking straight at Maddie, but pointing secretly at Yves. ‘He’s acting as if the Fantasia was
his
and it’s ours … it’s Maddigan’s Fantasia. And he’s taking you over, too.’

‘Look, darling girl! I just haven’t time …’ Maddie began with something of a deep impatient sigh in her voice. ‘Darling Garland – (that’s “darling” twice over – I hope you noticed – I know we need to find the time to talk, but right now there’s just too much to
do
. Look around you. We’ve just arrived in the Community. We’ve got to get organized – set up! It’s what
Ferdy would have wanted. Just remind yourself about what you know already.’ As she spoke she was moving from side to side a little, looking and listening past Garland. Her expression changed. ‘Listen to that. What’s happening?’

It was hard to describe what was happening. It is usually shouting that makes people look around and wonder. Silence should be safe and peaceful. But this was a twisting silence, a dangerous one. The crowd, which had been cheerfully jostling and cheering only a moment ago, had grown suddenly still. The faces around them were poised and watchful. ‘I don’t know,’ said Maddie a little wildly. ‘We’ve never had a journey like this before. Every town seems to be having some sort of mad trouble. What’s happening to the world?’ Garland turned away from Maddie and looked out from the van. People were bowing their heads a little as if they were surrendering, and making way. A single shape, a woman, was working her way through the crowd, walking towards the Fantasia … towards Yves who was now advancing, rather quickly, to meet this newcomer. Maddie groaned softly, then slid down and marched around the front of the van. As Garland peered out of the window Eden suddenly rose up beside her, standing on the van’s running board.

‘Who is
she
?’ he asked, rather apprehensively.

‘The Witch-Finder,’ Garland answered, watching Maddie and the Witch-Finder meeting and greeting. ‘In a funny way she’s like the boss of the Community and she’s always
suspicious
of us, most likely because the people here love us. We make them laugh, which brings on a bit ofWitch-Finder jealousy. See that stick she is waving? That’s her wand.’

The Witch-Finder was dressed in layers of crimson and gold. Her shirts and skirts swirled around her as if worked on by a wind that nobody else could feel. Those skirts were clean and shining and yet they gave her a curious, ragged look,
while the long, lumpy rod she was holding in one hand (she was waving it almost like a sword) resembled a piece of polished driftwood, forked at the top like a diviner’s rod, with a swollen knot just below the point where the arms of the rod divided, springing up and out as if the rod was warning the world of danger. The Witch-Finder’s long fingers were hooked around that rod like claws, while in her other hand she carried a whip which she cracked as if she were herding the wind ahead of her.

‘People here are a bit scared of her wand,’ Garland told Eden, looking at it rather uneasily herself. A curious buzzing sound began to echo around the town. First one and then another disturbing shadow flitted out of one street only to slide into another, not so much parting the visiting swamp mists as skidding across them.

‘What’s that?’ Eden cried. ‘What are those – those things?’

The woman cracked her whip again and suddenly they seemed to be surrounded by insubstantial yet somehow ominous figures flying around them and then dissolving out of the mist once more.

‘What are they?’ Garland cried.

A new voice cut in on them.

‘The Witch-Finder calls them “will-o’-the-wisps”, but outsiders like you call them “spirits”.’

Garland turned. She found she recognized, yet again, the girl who was speaking to them.

‘Hello, Sara!’ she said, pleased to see this friend. On other visits they had liked each other. Perhaps that was why Sara had come edging up to her. But Lilith was pushing in and interrupting in her bossy fashion.

‘Are they ghosts … those shadowy things?’

‘Sort of ghosts!’ Sara began, frowning doubtfully, but the Witch-Finder was really holding forth by now, and when the
Witch-Finder talked even the gossipy Fantasia fell into careful, listening silence.

‘What’s she saying?’ asked Eden.

‘I can’t understand it all,’ Garland replied, ‘but I think she’s saying we – the Fantasia that is – are bringing something evil into their town. She says she can – I think she’s telling Yves and Maddie that she can sense evil … that she can detect it with her wand.’