Maddigan's Fantasia (24 page)

In the echoing library
Garland, Timon and Boomer stared at the paper trying to read what it might have to tell them. Then Garland’s face cleared. She looked up and laughed then bent over the paper once more, pointing at something written on it.

‘This is a map,’ she said. ‘Look! It’s got the library marked on it in big black letters. It
is
a map and I think it’s a better map than the one Bannister works with. His is all blurry – it’s really ancient – but once you get all these lines worked out this one is clear enough.’

‘It’s not clear,’ protested Boomer. ‘The words are all crawling about.’

‘No they’re not. It’s just that someone has written all over it,’ Garland said. ‘The actual printed words are underneath and the scribbled words are on top. This is where we are now, isn’t it? And look! Away over here on this empty piece. Doesn’t it say “Solis”? And this line must be the road the vans are on. Look! There are drawings of those houses and temples and things. The buildings that have turned into ruins. That road out there – it might be some sort of holy road.’

Timon bent over the map peering at it in the faint light. His expression changed.

‘I think we’d better get back and warn them,’ he said.

‘What about?’ asked Boomer, trying desperately to peer over Timon’s arm at the map. ‘What does it say?’

‘It says “swamp”,’ said Timon. ‘Right here in the middle of that road we’re on. We wouldn’t want to find ourselves driving the vans into swampland, would we?’

‘Let’s go,’ cried Garland, completely forgetting her quarrel with Maddie. ‘Go now! Quickly!’

‘That’s what I’ve been telling and telling you to do,’ said Boomer.

‘We’ll take the map,’ said Timon. ‘It’s a good one. Look! There, just before the swamp begins there’s another road marked in. I think it swings out around the swamp, but I can’t be sure.’

He swept the map from the table. But as he did this an echoing sound surged in on them from every direction. The doors of the big room swung shut. A moment earlier they had been able to look out of those doors, along the hall, out though the front door to the strange gate, and the sunny meadow. Now, suddenly, there was no way out.

A section of bookshelf swung open, creaking as it did so. As they watched a dark, crumpled shape edged towards them from behind the books. Some goblin, candlestick in hand, was coming out through the wall. Boomer made a strange groaning sound … the sort of sound people make when they find themselves facing a ghost. It was no ghost however. A moment later they could see that it was a woman – a strange, oblong little woman who seemed almost like a book herself … a book filled with creased pages caught together in a bent cover.

Even in the twilight of that badly lit bookroom they could see she was old – very old. Very old. And yet she was somehow powerful too. Timon and Garland were certainly both taller than she was and even Boomer towered over her by a full inch, but for all that there was something formidable in her advance
across the room towards them. And there was something about her that Garland immediately recognized, though she had never visited that library in her life and had certainly never met the old woman before.

‘Borrowers,’ this old, old woman said to them. ‘Borrowers at last. I’m the librarian. Now, what can I do for you? What do you want to read?’

Garland was staring at her as if she had seen a ghost … indeed she thought she
was
seeing one. It wasn’t so much the old woman’s face (though by now she was sure there was something very familiar about that face). It was those earrings – those long earrings set with blue stones, tumbling from the lobes of the old woman’s ears almost to her shoulders. Garland had seen those earrings in drawings and had even been told about them in family stories of the old times.

‘What are you doing with that map?’ the old woman suddenly asked sharply, staring at Timon who was standing with the map rolled in his hand. ‘That map belongs to the library.’

‘We were only looking at …’ Boomer began. But Garland interrupted him with an incoherent cry, and then: ‘Gabrielle!’ she exclaimed incredulously. ‘Gabrielle Maddigan.’

The old woman started. She came to a standstill, then leaned forward, holding out her candle and peered at Garland carefully.

‘No one has called me that for years,’ she said. ‘I almost forgot I actually had a name. But who are you?’

Garland could not believe it. There before her was the actual, amazing Gabrielle … Gabrielle the great reader! Gabrielle the great rider! The very Gabrielle who many many years ago had invented Maddigan’s Fantasia and turned it loose to wander the dissolving roads of the world. Somehow, though she had always known that Gabrielle was a real person, she had never quite believed in her.

‘I am Garland Maddigan,’ Garland said. ‘I’m the daughter
of Ferdy who was the son of Cosmo and Cosmo was
your
son.’

It was the old woman’s turn to look incredulous. She stood very still once more, staring at Garland as if she were a closed book filled with some remarkable story.

‘Such a long time ago,’ she said at last. ‘Such a very long time ago. And oh – I loved that Fantasia. But first my husband died, and then my dear Cosmo, and then Ferdy took over. It seemed it was time for me to move on.’ She looked at Boomer and Timon. ‘Are you Maddigans too?’

‘I almost am,’ said Boomer.

‘I’m a friend,’ said Timon. ‘Actually I’m not born yet.’ Gabrielle showed no surprise at this strange statement, but moved forward a step or two still studying Garland.

‘Welcome then, you Maddigan you. Welcome to the library – my library. A second Maddigan’s Fantasia. Books and stories can be fantastic journeys too, you know. You stand still and yet you go …
everywhere
!’ She flung her arms wide, and though she was so small and old, excitement flowed out of her.

Garland looked around her. She had a curious feeling of contradiction.

‘Do many people come here to borrow books?’ she asked cautiously.

‘This library is a place where books are defended,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Somewhere along the line their time will come again, and then, because I’ve saved them, this place will be the starting place for a thousand new journeys. And those people who will read them some day … will start their travels here, will spin and somersault and cartwheel and swing and clown and balance as they dance a thousand feet up in the air. And you –’ Gabrielle peered intently at Garland ‘– you can tell me – is my old Fantasia still going?’

‘Yes, it is!’ cried Boomer, not wanting to be left out. ‘And I’m the one who beats the drums. And I’m learning to be a clown,
too. Tane is teaching me. And Garland there – she does a bit of everything … a bit of magic … a bit of juggling … but mainly tightrope walking. She’s an amazing tightrope walker. And Timon doesn’t do anything, but his brother, who isn’t here, is a wonderful magician and …’

Garland felt so overcome with the strangeness of things that all she wanted to do was sit down and hold her spinning head in her hands, but there was no time to do that. She had to fight her way through the great confusing cloud of astonishment that had closed in around her. Somewhere beyond those closed doors was the world, and in that world the Fantasia just might be driving towards the swamp.

‘The thing is,’ she said, interrupting Boomer, ‘we’ve got to get back and warn the Fantasia. This map here shows that the road they’re on –
we’re
on –’ she added quickly, for after all, even if she was confronting a remarkable ancestor in a strange library in the middle of a forgotten wilderness she was still a Fantasia girl ‘… this road runs into a swamp and I’m scared Yves and Maddie won’t see where the swamp begins and our vans will get stuck and we might lose a van. And we’ve got to get back to Solis because …’

‘Solis? Is Solis still standing?’ asked Gabrielle. She sounded genuinely surprised. ‘I thought it would have tumbled over long ago. So many places tumbled. The world out there often fell to bits around me as I travelled through it. Mind you, for all my flipping and cartwheeling I always wound up on my feet. Not everyone did. Believe me, I came to understand just how savage the world could be. Oh, I stood up against it, but it wore me down, bit by bit. Years went by and I grew too old to live easily in such a shifty place. Then Ferdy took charge of the Fantasia, and for some reason I felt that passing it all on to Ferdy set me free. So I live here now … have lived here for a long time now, with my friends around me.’

‘Your friends?’ asked Garland.

‘My books,’ said Gabrielle. ‘I always loved reading you know, and when I found this place – it’s marked in on that map you’ve been looking at – it seemed made for me. So I take care of the books … and some day the right time will come and, as I said, this will be a treasure house. There
is
one difficulty however.’

As she said this she began looking rather sternly at Garland, almost as if Garland herself were the difficulty.

‘The difficulty is that the Fantasia might get stuck in swamps,’ said Boomer. ‘Hey! We’ve got to go.’

‘The difficulty is that I am getting old,’ said Gabrielle, speaking now in rather a pathetic voice, and holding out a limp, wrinkled hand to Garland who took it obediently. Gabrielle’s hand tightened on hers, and though Garland tried to shake herself free, she found it impossible to escape the vice-like grip. After all, Gabrielle had been an acrobat for years and years and somehow or other she had stayed very strong. ‘I need you,’ Gabrielle said. ‘You have come to me at the right time. It must be a sign.’

Garland’s mouth fell open. ‘But I’m part of the Fantasia,’ she said. ‘I mean, I do love stories and reading, but I have to travel on with the others.’

Gabrielle’s grip did not loosen. It tightened if anything.

‘It’s so astonishing that we should meet like this,’ she went on, as if Garland had not spoken. ‘There are reasons for everything. You must stay with me. It’s meant! You’re needed here. And it’s wonderful work – caring for the books, helping them to last. True life lives on through the librarian. You’ll love the work.’

‘No way!’ cried Boomer, ‘we’ve got to go
now
! We’ve got to warn the Fantasia. And we must take this map to them. It’s a miles better map than Bannister’s.’

‘Oh no!’ said Gabrielle. ‘That map is a treasure. It stays here. But I’ll open the door for you.’

She must have touched some button somewhere – under the edge of the table perhaps – with her left hand, for the big doors swung open again. There was the entry hall with its open door … there was the strange gate with the sunny meadow stretching around it. In the distance Garland could even make out the steps cut into the face of the cliff. And somewhere beyond the cliff, out of sight, the Fantasia might, even now, be scrambling around looking for its lost children. Or it might even be setting out without them. She sighed and licked her lips.

‘I’ll stay,’ she said. ‘Well, I’ll stay for a while but Boomer and Timon have to go … they have to take that map too … take it to my mother. Because if the Fantasia is saved, then it’s like a part of you has been saved. And a part of me. And as long as we get the message to them we can stay here and argue about the rest.’ As she spoke she scooped up the map with her free hand and held it out to Timon who snatched it away from her and quickly began folding it.

‘Hey! No way!’ cried Boomer, dancing with impatience and fury. ‘No leaving Garland behind.’

Garland turned to look at him

‘Go!’ she hissed. ‘Go now! Run! Run and warn them.’

‘It’s a bargain I suppose,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Believe me, I wouldn’t hold you like this, but I do need someone. I need you.’ She hesitated. ‘If I let you go you must promise me you won’t run off. Yes. Give a promise. A Maddigan promise. A Maddigan promise, one Maddigan to another.’

Garland stared at her through the gloom. She thought about the Fantasia … she thought about the old woman facing her … her great grandmother. She knew Maddie wouldn’t desert her, but she might send the Fantasia on ahead. Garland thought of the swamp that might be lurking there, possibly hidden from sight.

‘All right. I promise,’ she declared in a serious, promising voice.

Gabrielle relaxed.

You’re a Maddigan,’ she said. ‘Maddigans don’t lie to each other. I trust you.’ And she let Garland’s hand fall to her side.

For some reason Garland now felt more tied to the library than she had felt when Gabrielle’s old fingers had been clasped around her wrist. Boomer and Timon who had been standing, half-turned towards the door, turned back again, staring at her.

‘You’re free,’ yelled Boomer. ‘Run!’ But Garland was already sighing and shaking her head.

‘Maddigans don’t betray other Maddigans,’ she said. ‘You’re the free one. Quickly!
Now
!’ she suddenly yelled, and, at last, after all their hesitation they did run. Garland watched them leap side by side through the great door out from the shadows and into the sunlight. She watched them tearing across the meadow transformed into golden boys by the late afternoon glow.

‘You’ve done the right thing,’ said Gabrielle. ‘And now – would you like a glass of milk? Fresh milk? I’ve got cows out the back. And hens! And a garden! There are not many libraries that have a farming section like ours. Let me show you around.’

But Garland was watching Timon and Boomer run, racing towards those dangerous steps. She watched, and Gabrielle watched with her, as the boys climbed up the cliff and vanished over its rim.

Once they had edged themselves up those stairs and over the rim of the cliff, Timon and Boomer jogged up the track, winding between the rocks as quickly as they could, making for the place where, only an hour ago the Fantasia had been struggling to shift the pillar across the road and arguing about their next direction.

The boys came over the rise and stopped in dismay for the Fantasia vans were gone. It had moved on without them.

‘But they wouldn’t leave us,’ said Boomer. ‘Even if Maddie was furious with Garland she wouldn’t just …’

Timon interrupted him.