The Changes Trilogy (18 page)

“But Jo,” whispered Margaret, “won't they start hunting for him when they see it's sawn through? They'll know someone's got him out.”

“That's what the petrol's for.”

He was already sawing, slowly but firmly, making as little noise as possible. Margaret and Tim labored on, lift, stoop, lift, stoop, lift, stoop. No single stone seemed to make the cairn any smaller, but soon they had cleared the body up to the waist. Tim had stopped his bubbling and was working with increasing urgency now that he could see enough of the witch's body to know what it was; he cooed once or twice, a noise which Margaret hadn't heard him make before. The witch had sheltered his head behind crooked arms, but these were now stuck to the mess of clotted blood and clothing and hair around his face; when Margaret tried to move an arm to get at a stone which had lodged in the bend of the elbow he groaned with a new, sharp note.

“He ought to be dead,” whispered Jonathan. “Perhaps he's wearing some kind of armor under his clothes.”

Tim knelt down beside the bloodied head and with slow tenderness, cooing like a distant pigeon in June, lifted the wincing tangle and cradled it against his dirty chest while Margaret picked out the last stone and eased the arms down into the man's lap. Jonathan sawed with even strokes, as though he was in no hurry at all.

“Oak,” he whispered. “About three minutes more. Watch out up the lane, Marge, just in case.”

The last tough sliver gave beneath the sawteeth and he lifted the imprisoning timber from the man's ankles. Then he fetched the hurdle and laid it beside the body. Tim, without being told, eased the wounded man on.

“We'll each take a corner in front, Marge. Tim can carry the back.”

The weight was heavy but manageable. As soon as they were well clear of the rubble Jonathan lowered his corner to the ground so that Margaret and Tim had to do so too. Then he tipped the contents of the sack out and arranged them carefully around the stocks—straw and kindling and a few small pieces of plank. He opened the can and poured its contents over his bonfire and the surrounding stones. An extraordinary smell rose into the night air, and all at once Margaret remembered the seaside, which she'd completely forgotten about for five years—a smooth sea, hot sun, sand crawling with people, and behind it all a road where just such a smell came from, because a lot of machines were waiting there for three ladies in white coats to—she remembered the right words—fill them up. She hadn't thought of petrol, or the sea, or machines as things which took you to places, for ages—not since she was how old? The Changes were five years back, she and Jonathan were fourteen now, so not since she was nine. Now this smell, sharp, rather nasty, filling your nose like chopped onions, brought all the pictures back.

“We'll let it soak while we get him down to the barn,” whispered Jonathan. “I'll come back with a lantern to light it. People will run out if they see the flames now.”

“Why do you want to burn the stocks?” said Margaret as she picked up her corner of the hurdle.

“Burn the saw marks. Then people might think he got away by witchcraft.”

They didn't talk again as they carried the witch through the alley, along the stretch of road at the bottom, down through the farm gate and yard and along the steep path behind the pigsties to the big barn where the wicked machines stood in their rusting rows. Jonathan seemed to know his way about and led them unstumbling through the blackness to a place where there was a little hut inside the barn. He pushed a door open, and another forgotten smell lifted out into the night, more oily than petroly this time.

“I think he'll be safe here,” he said. “There's a big engine without wheels in the middle; I don't know what it was for but it drove a big fan and pushed air into those towers outside. Marge, you'll have to climb up the ivy to my room and get some coverings to keep him warm. Straw, Tim. Straw. Straw. Good boy.”

Tim bubbled his understanding and slouched out. Jonathan was shuffling around in the blackness, making a sweeping noise. Margaret waited, jobless, to help shift the witch. Then the faint square of lighter blackness in the doorway was blocked and she could smell fresh straw—Tim must have robbed the stack by the pigsties.

“I've cleared a place here,” said Jonathan. “Hurry, Marge—we can move him.”

The ivy was harder to climb than Jonathan had implied, but she managed it on the third go. She whisked the blankets off his bed, threw them out of the window, and went slowly down the stairs. Aunt Anne was still sitting in tragic stillness by the ovens, but this time she looked up when Margaret came in.

“Pete should be back in ten minutes,” she said. “He's talking to Mr. Gordon. You must be hungry after all that riding—there's mutton and bread in the larder if you want something to keep you going.”

“Oh, yes, please,” said Margaret. “I've just remembered I didn't check whether the ponies had enough water. I won't be out long.”

She found what she wanted in the larder: two fresh rolls, apples, slices of mutton, and one of the little bottles of cordial which Aunt Anne had brewed last March. She took the bottle from the back of the shelf and hoped it wouldn't be missed. As she was going out through the porch she had another thought and picked up one of the half-dozen lanterns which were always there. Aunt Anne didn't even move her eyes when she crossed the kitchen and lit the wick with a spill from the fire. Jonathan met her just outside the porch.

“Bit of luck,” he whispered. “I thought I'd have to sneak in to light mine. Put it down—I've got a bit of dry straw. Shield the light as you go down the path, Marge.”

He knelt in the moonlight and flipped the little doors open; deft and sure he lit his straw and moved the quick flame into the other lantern in time to light the wick before the straw was all burned. Margaret carried her lantern around the corner of the house where the pile of bedding lay, picked the blankets up and hid its light among them.

The witch was moaning on his straw. His face in the yellow lantern light was an ugly mess of raw flesh, his lips fat with bruising, his eyes too puffy to open. Margaret tucked her blankets around him, put the food where he could reach it, opened the bottle and tried to push its neck between his lips. With a jerky movement the man's hand came up and grabbed at the bottle, tilting it up until the yellow stuff was pouring out of the corners of the hurt mouth. He swallowed four times and then let his hand fall so that Margaret had to snatch at the bottle to prevent it from spilling all over him.

“Thanks,” he whispered.

She started to sponge the cordial from his jaw with a corner of her skirt, but stopped in a welter of panic—someone was moving out in the barn. She knelt, quite still, then realized that the lantern was more betraying than any movement—rats scuttle, but they don't send out a steady gold glow. As she was moving to blow it out she heard the man in the barn make a different noise, a faint bubbling, Tim.

The big zany shambled through the door, carrying more straw and an indescribable mixture of old rags. He walked toward the wounded witch as if he was going to dump his load on him, then stopped. He stared at the blankets, then at the lantern, then at Margaret. Then he cooed and added a quiet little cluck of satisfaction before he took his bundle over to another corner of the hut and began to spread it about. Margaret realized that he'd brought his own bedding to keep the wounded witch warm, and now he intended to spend the night there to look after him. She decided to leave the lantern; Lucy was such a lazy slut that she'd never notice there was one missing when she cleaned and filled them in the morning.

As she stood up she looked for the first time at the other thing in the hut, the hulking old engine, bolted down into the concrete floor, streaked orange and black with dribbles of rust and the ooze of oil. She fitted her lantern into a nook where a lot of pipes masked it from three sides, in case there were cracks in the outside wall where the light could shine through and betray them. Then she left.

Uncle Peter was in his chair, and Aunt Anne and Lucy were putting supper out on the table, home bread and boiled mutton and turnips. The steamy richness filled the kitchen.

“Where you been, Marge?” he said.

“I'd forgotten to see if there was enough water for the ponies.”

“Good lass, but I can't have you traipsing about the farm at all hours of darkness. You must learn to do things while it's still daylight. But never mind this time. Where's that son of mine, though?”

Feet clattered on the stairs and Jonathan rushed into the room, flushed and bright-eyed.

“Sorry I'm late,” he said, “but I was looking out of my window and a great big fire started up suddenly in the lane. It doesn't look like an ordinary fire. One minute there wasn't anything, then it was like sunrise. What do you think's happening?”

Uncle Peter jumped to his feet, picked his cloak off the settle and his cudgel from behind the door, and strode growling out. Aunt Anne stood with the ladle in one hand, the other clutching the back of a chair, her face as gray as porridge. Then she sighed, shrugged, and began to spoon meat and gravy and turnips into bowls. Lucy took the big cleaving knife and hacked off clumsy chunks of bread, which she handed around. Aunt Anne mumbled a quick grace and they sat down.

At once Jonathan was talking about a bird he'd seen that afternoon, which he thought might be a harrier. He held a piece of mutton on the point of his knife and waved it over the table to show how the bird had spiraled up out of the valley; then he popped the meat into his neat little mouth (which looked too small to take it) and settled down to chewing. Nobody else said anything. Margaret knew that she ought to be hungry after all that misery and riding and excitement, but the excitement was still buzzing in her, making her blood run too fast through her veins to allow it to settle down to anything so stolid and everyday as eating and digesting. She dipped a morsel of bread into gravy and watched the brown juice soak up through its cells; she ate that slowly, and then picked up the smallest piece of meat on her plate with the point of her knife and managed to swallow that too. Lucy had gobbled, and was already giving herself a second helping. Aunt Anne ate almost nothing.

After twenty minutes Uncle Peter flung through the door, his cheeks crimson above his beard. He tossed his cudgel into the corner.

“Gone!” he cried.

“Gone?” said Aunt Anne, shrilly.

“Gone to his master the Devil!” shouted Uncle Peter. “I tell you, the stones were burning!”

“What does that mean?” said Jonathan in an interested voice.

“They were burning,” said Uncle Peter solemnly. “Not much, by the time I came there, but I could see where they'd been blackened with big flames. And they weren't honest Christian flames, neither—the whole lane reeked of the Devil—the stink of wickedness—you know it when you smell it. And the little flames that were left, they were yellow but blue at the edges, not like mortal fire.”

“Were the stocks all burned too?” said Margaret. Uncle Peter was too excited to notice how strained her voice came out, but Jonathan glanced sharply toward her.

“Burntest of all,” said Uncle Peter. “Roaring and stinking still.”

“Oh dear,” said Aunt Anne. “I don't know what to think. We've kept your supper warm for you, Pete.”

“We'll know tomorrow,” said Uncle Peter, “when I've done milking Maisie. I reckon the witch has gone home to his master, and she'll be carrying a full bag.”

He sat down and plunged into the business of eating, tearing off great hunks of bread and sloshing them around his platter before stuffing them into the red hole in the middle of his ginger beard, where the yellow teeth chomped and the throat golloped the lumps down. Margaret, who did not like to watch this process, looked away and her eye fell on Lucy. Lucy was a house servant, so she did not speak unless she was spoken to, though she sat at the same table with them all. (Where else was there for her to sit, if she wasn't to share a shed with her poor mad brother?) Now her black eyes sparkled above her plump red cheeks as she drank the excitement, looking from face to face; but the moment she saw Margaret watching her she dropped her glance demurely to the table. She was a funny secret person, Margaret thought, just as much a foreigner as the witch, really. Four years back she'd led Tim into the village—she'd been twelve then, she said, and Tim must have been about fifteen, but nobody knew for certain—and asked for shelter. They'd stayed ever since, but Margaret knew her no better than the day she came.

The moment Uncle Peter had speared his last chunk of mutton and thrust it into his mouth, Lucy was on her feet to take his plate and bring him the big round of cheese. He was swilling at his mug of rough cider when the door was racked with knocking. Aunt Anne started nervously to her feet and Uncle Peter shouted, “Come in!” It was Mr. Gordon, the sexton, his broad hat pulled down to hide most of his knobbly face, his shoulders hunched with rheumatism, but his blackthorn stick held forward in triumph like an emperor's staff.

“The Devil has taken his own!” he cried.

“Off to bed with you, children,” said Aunt Anne, with a sudden echo of the brisk command she used to own before she became so silent. “I'll clear, thank you, Lucy.”

Lucy curtsied and said good night in her soft voice and slipped up the stairs. Margaret kissed her aunt on the cheek, bobbed to her uncle and went too. Jonathan came last, and above the noise of his shoes on the bare stairs Margaret could hear Mr. Gordon and Uncle Peter settling down to excited talk over the meaning of the magical fire. As she undressed she saw how extraordinary it was that they shouldn't even think of petrol—they'd been grown men before the Changes. Then she remembered that she'd only found the picture of the seaside in a dark cranny at the back of her mind—a place which she knew she was supposed to keep shut, without ever having been told so. And Jonathan was a funny boy, treating the adventure so calmly, knowing just what to do all the time, thinking things out all the time behind his ugly little cat-face. He must have remembered about petrol and machines long ago, if he'd been exploring in the barn enough to know his way through it in the pitch dark.