Mist upon the Marsh: The Story of Nessa and Cassie (37 page)

Baer was the last to go. For reparation of all ill feeling that had ever passed between them, it seemed that he had a last present for Nessa. With a broad smile, he clapped her shoulder, and offered her the keys to his car. And what could Nessa say? Well, she could only thank him.

And so, in the mere blink of an eye, they all were gone. The truck disappeared from Nessa’s sight, with its bed all full of travellers, as it turned a bend in the road. She looked to the barn, where a single beam of sunlight shone brilliantly on the shining hood of Baer’s car; and this time, as she smiled, she could not help but to weep, as well.

She met Cassie in the house. She had exchanged polite goodbyes with all the others, and was waiting presently in the parlour, looking altogether unsure of herself. Yet Nessa was determined to erase quickly any need for such feelings.

As the sun passed away, and the moon came to call, she and Cassie went out to the porch. They sat down together in a pool of silver light; and kept there all the night, so that they bore witness next morning to a beautiful sunrise; and felt, in that time, that all was right with the world.

~

And so our story ends. With the departure of the house of Dahro, there fell Dog’s Hill to Nessa and Cassie. As there can be no more said of either Arol or his surviving cohorts, neither can there be anything of Birdie Post, or Tommy Wells, or Bobby-Ray Williams. Those three were just as much a part of the dark of the night, we have learnt, as were the Ziruk.

But there can be something said, of just two things more. The first was Mr Samuel Clocker; and we tell you now, that he did not perish that night Qiello’s sons took Cassie from his house, but survived in the way that people such as he are best at doing. And just as soon as she was able, Cassie desired to go and see him. Nessa went along with her; and although old man Clocker still would never agree to leave his house, to come and be with them, they went each and every week to the swamp, and dined with him there. And Nessa became much more fond of him, than she ever would have suspected was possible.

             
And now, for the second thing. One day Cassie came to Nessa, and asked her:

“What would you say, Nessa, if I asked you – whether or not my sister should come to live with us?”

Nessa had no objection to the thing, though she was admittedly somewhat nervous (the reasons for which you can surely comprehend). But still she and Cassie set out, and snatched Embie up out of her prison: that hall which smelled of disinfectant, plastic, soiled linen and insanity. She was loaded into the back of the Mustang, where she sat silent and sullen for a long while, seeming not even to realise where she was.

But finally they stopped at the roadside to give their legs a stretch. They had been driving along the edge of a valley, which ran for some miles far below. Presently they walked from the car, to the lip of a wide plateau that hung up over the ground.

The valley was filled with green. Above it hung a great red sky, spotted with thick white clouds, through which there shone great shafts of bright yellow light.

“What’s there?” Embie asked, pointing into the distance.

“What’s where?” returned Cassie, squinting her eyes.

“There,” said Embie. “What’s there at the end of the sky?”

Neither of her companions could reply. For themselves, they each saw something very different, at that place to which Embie was pointing; just as no one does see the very same thing, when they look upon a painting.

Embie asked many of such questions – but Nessa learnt quickly that she did not really expect an answer to any of them. In that way, then, they managed to get along very well.

And each night, as the sun passed away, and the moon came to call, the occupants of Dog’s Hill all three went out to the porch, and sat down together in a pool of silver light.

Behind them loomed a house that stood with its back nearly pressed to the side of a large hill. This house was truly beautiful, and truly splendid; and perhaps a little more of both, than any other house for miles about. There was nothing around it but a wide and open place of field and meadow, filled with tall grass that blew in the winter wind.

THE END.