Miriam's Talisman (19 page)

‘All of the stories. Oh, Miriam, that's fantastic. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.'

Inside they're creamy white and as smooth as the satin ribbon. And the smell, the wonderful new-book smell, like nothing else. I bury my nose between the pages and sniff it in
.

‘I haven't read
The Last Battle
or
Prince Caspian
.'

‘Well, you can now. We can start at the beginning and follow the history right through.'

‘Haven't you read them all, Miriam?'

‘Yes, but that was a long time ago. I'd love to hear the stories again.'

Why is Mummy looking at us like that? Strange, sort of angry and sad all at the same time. Now the two grownups are looking at each other, as if they know what the other one is thinking. There's a nasty, tight feeling in my stomach. Mum's turning her back on us and leaving the kitchen. Miriam has followed her and the door is pushed to. They're shutting me out. She must be angry. I must have
done something wrong. Even with the door closed I can hear her
.

‘Of course I don't approve. You knew that when you bought them.'

‘I can't see what is wrong with a few harmless children's stories.'

‘Harmless? How can you say they're harmless? Fantasy worlds and talking animals. You've stuffed her head with so much nonsense she hardly knows what's real and what isn't. Telling lies all the time, saying she's seen things. And this constant daydreaming. When I try to reason with her all I get is tears and tantrums. I just don't know how to cope with it any more.'

‘What's so wrong with make-believe? She's a child, Hannah. Of course Cliohna has imagination, but, more than other children, she has the talent to express it. We should be nurturing her creativity, not stifling it. She desperately needs you to understand her.'

‘Don't tell me what my daughter needs. Yes, of course she's a bright, intelligent girl. Don't you think I know that? What she needs is to concentrate on her schoolwork, to spend time with children of her own age. She needs books about real people that tell her what real life is about.'

‘Why can't you try to see the world through her eyes?'

‘Your world, you mean. Through your eyes. It's this world she has to live in. This is where she has to earn a living, make a home, bring up a family. How is she going to survive with her head in fairyland?'

‘Those are your values, Hannah. We can't all live your way.'

‘Chloe is my daughter, I'll decide how she lives.'

Why is she being so horrible to Miriam? Miriam loves
me better than anyone in the whole world. That's the best present I've ever had. She can't take them from me. She can't. I won't let her
.

I have the box tight in my arms and I'm running up the stairs. Not the bookshelf. Where, where? The wardrobe, she won't look there. That's it, right at the back. I'll cover them with my old sweaters and pile shoes on top. My birthday's all spoiled now. I can feel myself getting angrier and angrier. It's like a big red dragon, growing inside me. My face feels hot and my eyes hurt. Why do I always cry when I'm angry? It's not fair
.

All my best books are the ones Miriam gave me. Why should Hannah tell me what to read ? She doesn't understand anything about stories. Look at the silly books she gives me. I pull one book from the shelf and hurl it onto the floor. Stupid
Girls' Adventure Stories
. I hate it! Then another and another:
Patricia and the Bloody Pony Club
! Stupid bloody
Ballet School
. As if anyone would want to read this rubbish. Another book hits the carpet and bounces open. Silly, stupid children with their silly, stupid games. Wouldn't know an adventure if you rammed it up their noses. None of them can even draw a sword. Couldn't tell a basilisk from next door's cat. I won't be made to read this rubbish, I won't!

My arms seem to be working all by themselves, picking up the scattered books. I'm heading down the stairs as fast as I can. I stop when I get to the kitchen. Can they hear me? No, she's too busy shouting at Miriam. Shouting about me. I start to cross the kitchen on my way to the dustbin. But there's something on the kitchen table, next to her cigarette packet. Well, I'll show her! I snatch up the lighter and run out into the garden
.

There, I've thrown them all down in a heap. I grab one
and wrench at the pages, all the silly, smarmy pages about soppy, useless children. One after another they rip and tear and are hurled onto the pyre. How do you work this lighter? I flick with my thumb and a little blue spark jumps and fades and jumps again
.

I've got it—a flame. It's running up the edge of a page and leaping across to another. Salamanders, that are what they are, fire spirits. They're scampering all over the dry paper, blue and yellow salamanders eating up words and paragraphs and whole chapters
.

Only the fire's getting big. This doesn't feel right any more. I'm scared. I'm trying to stamp out the flames but they are running too fast for me to catch them. A gust of wind flips the curling edges and lifts burning fragments high into the air like a swarm of winged insects, scorched and shimmering. They look nasty. One lands on my shoulder. Its wings are glowing as red as hot coal. It's eating at my T-shirt, gnawing through the cloth, its fiery teeth biting into my skin, and biting and biting …

‘Mummy! Mummy!'

Hands are on me. Miriam's hands, beating at my shoulder, beating until the insect falls dead. But the pain is still eating at me. Oh, it hurts so much
.

‘Mummy, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it.'

She has me now, wrenching me away from Miriam. I bury my face in my mother's arms. She's shouting again. ‘This is all your doing!'

‘Oh, no, no. Hannah, I didn't mean for this to happen.'

‘You're to stay away from her, do you understand? I won't let you have her.'

‘Hannah, no, you can't mean that.'

My shoulder feels like one big hurt and Mum's so furious
that I can't understand what she's saying. Things about Ireland and Miriam not loving her own child. If I hold onto Mum, she won't be so angry. The pain is biting deeper and deeper into me and I don't care how much I cry. I look around at Miriam and she's crying too. She is trying to reach out to me but she's not allowed
.

‘I'll make it up to you, Cliohna. Somehow. I promise.'

And she turns and walks away
.

‘Where have you been?' It was Iolair's voice. He reached up and pulled my hand from my shoulder. I had been rubbing the mark, the little patch of white, puckered skin, a traitor's brand.

‘I was remembering my birthday. That dreadful row. I watched her leave. Part of me went with her and part of me clung to my mother. I was terrified I would be banished too. It was like being ripped in half, like those pages, torn and jagged and not one line of me left whole. I never meant to cause so much pain.'

‘Yes, Miriam was hurt, and Hannah, too. But it was
their
quarrel. They were each responsible for what happened to them.' He ran his fingers over my scarred shoulder. His hands had lost their pallor in the glow of the fire and his face now shone with a soft, golden light.

‘And what of you?' he whispered. ‘What of
your
pain?'

‘I suppose that's when I started to change. Up to then I'd been awful. I could sense my mother's vulnerability, the soft, fearful places in her tough shell. I would poke and prod at them, to make sure she wouldn't crack I suppose, like most children do. All I had to do was to mention
fairies or elves. She wouldn't say anything, but her nails would dig into the palms of her hands until they left a row of little half-moons. A few times I told her I'd actually seen things. Or perhaps I
had
seen something, I'm not sure now. Anyway, she'd get practically hysterical. That was the only time I was smacked, but even that didn't deter me. And of course I knew how I could hurt her with my worship of Miriam. I had no idea of the consequences until it was too late.

‘After that I worked hard at being Hannah's daughter. I figured out that there were parts of me that belonged to her, things that she would approve of. And there were parts of me that belonged to my grandmother and it would be as well to keep those to myself. Hannah and I got on better after that. No, you can't go around just saying and doing whatever you feel. People get hurt. If you need people to love you, then you must be what they want to love.'

He ran his hand along my arm, rubbing gently on my skin. ‘Even if it means sacrificing your own being? Do you think being loved is worth that much?'

‘I suppose it's better than not being loved at all, better than losing it.'

‘No, you are wrong.' Suddenly his fingers were digging into my arm. ‘There are some kinds of love which cannot be withdrawn.' He grabbed the poker and jabbed violently at the burning logs. They cracked and broke. A spark leapt towards me and I pulled back, dragging the blanket away from the hearth. ‘We do not all have a choice.' There was bitterness in his voice. ‘There is a love that is beyond the will of the loved or the lover. It is as inescapable as death.'

There was a long silence. I thought I'd lost him again and I didn't know what to say to win him back. Although he stared into the fire, his eyes were darkened as if they no longer gathered the light in the room. Then, just as abruptly, the little boy returned to tease me.

‘What about this Paul, then? You're not seriously intending to marry him, are you?'

‘No, of course not.' That wasn't the answer I expected, but the words were said and I couldn't retrieve them.

‘Another attempt to please Hannah, was it?'

‘Oh, no, though I didn't doubt for a moment Hannah would be pleased with him. At first I was more concerned about Miriam's approval. I took him to meet her, secretly. They didn't get on. She said he was a pleasant enough boy but I was being betrayed by my own feelings. She said that I craved emotional fulfilment and I was ready to fall in love with love itself and would project this onto the first likely candidate that came along. It all got quite heated—in fact it was the only argument we ever had. I set about proving to her how mature my feelings were by getting engaged to Paul.'

‘And how did Miriam respond to that?'

‘I expected her to be exasperated. Instead she thought it was hysterically funny. She said, “That's more like the little girl who set fire to Enid Blyton.” Then she became very serious. She made me promise not to marry just yet, to wait just a little while longer. It was as if she were plotting something.'

The light was shining on Iolair's face, his eyes gold and amber. He moved nearer, perching himself on the arm of my chair. His arm went around me once more and I leaned back against his shoulder.

‘She was right, of course. I'm not the person Paul thinks I am, and I'm beginning to resent this other Chloe he has in his head. It's as if he doesn't see me at all. He gives me no idea of myself and I don't know who I am any more. It's like looking in a mirror with no reflection. I'm afraid that if I go on with him I might completely disappear.'

‘And do you see yourself when you look at me, Little Wren?'

I looked up into his eyes and saw the fire crackling red and black. For a moment I thought there was something else there, something fluttering.

‘Why do you call me that? That's what Miriam used to call me. In fact, I think it was her idea to name me Cliohna.'

‘It certainly was not your mother's.'

‘Yes, I've often wondered why she would choose an Irish name, knowing how she felt about the place.'

‘Well, there are ways of persuading people to favour a certain course, often without them realising it.'

‘What do you mean?'

But he merely smiled and said, ‘She knew you would be irresistible, like that other Cliohna. You must know the story. She's said to be a strange, unearthly spirit who dwells in the hearts of rocks and at the sea's edge and lures young men to their doom with her haunting cry. She would sometimes appear as a wren, did you know that? The Druid's bird, the people called it. At one time young men would hunt them down as a sacrifice to her. They'd decorate branches with the corpses then go rampaging through the countryside with them, terrifying the peasants.'

‘No, you're making that up!'

‘No, I'm not! It's the honest truth.'

‘I'm not sure I'd want to be a sacrifice.' I suddenly felt lost and desperate. I buried my head in the coolness of his neck. ‘It's all such a mess. What am I going to do?'