The Ice King (A Witch Ways Whisper) (3 page)

She was sinking deeper still. She was level now almost with the end of her fishing line, could see above her where the float that bobbed on the surface, where now, suddenly the fishing line, balanced on its forked stick jaggered downward. In that moment Vanessa realised what had happened, where she was, that there was no breath to be taken down here. Her body, panicked, twisted around, trying to find which way was up but there was no up, only down. Vanessa opened her mouth, bubbles carried her cry to the surface where there was no one to hear. Her arms flailed, her feet kicked but there was nothing to hang onto or kick against. Or was there? From below her a deep sound rose, water shifted and coursed, the current pulling her down towards it. Vanessa looked into the blackness, saw the flex and curve of the flanks of the monster pike.

The pike loomed out of the shadows of the water, dense, muscular, arcing as it slid beneath her, shored her up. She felt the impact, her drift halted as the body of the pike turned and glided beneath her, carrying her and she forgot about breathing, about air. Her net, she saw, looked different down here, the knots and twists were tighter and more organised, the way they had seemed in her head as she was making it, rather than the way it had turned out; slightly matted and knotty. The pike nosed into it, its eye looking out at her from the hatching lines of twine. She looked into the eye, curious. It was like a miniature globe. Her hand reached out to touch the pike’s skin, speckled, green and bronze and black, she noted the colours.
Esox Lucius
, she reminded herself and, as the words came into her head the pike’s long head turned slightly, his teeth sinking into her skin like pins. It didn’t hurt. He held her up close to the orb of his eye so she could look into it.
Observe.
It was odd, instead of a pupil or an iris she saw a landscape, and the sky was blue cold and the snow was deep white and oh…she was there, walking, walking, walking in the snowglobe of the pike’s eye, and the sky within it was darkening and lights flickered and blurred above her head.
Aurora.
The word swam into the fluid of Vanessa’s head.
Borealis.
What was that? Watching? Waiting? There at the farthest reach? A wolf? Vanessa breathed in the cold of the lake, it cleaned her lungs, made her chest feel free. The pike’s teeth held her as they rose to the surface and as he flipped and dived so Vanessa gasped and, feet kicking, reached and found the algaed stones beneath her, the pike’s dive creating a wave that pushed her swiftly to the shore.

She ought to have been afraid, that she had been careless and fallen in, that she might have drowned, but Vanessa understood there was no time for that. Where she had been underwater and out of her element, now the Pike had beached himself beside her and was out of his.

She took up her notebook, shivered as she worked quickly, her clothes and hair and skin dripping droplets of water that puddled onto the pike’s skin. The colours were different on land, made of earth, so unlike Beneath where they had been made of water. She measured him quickly, marking on paper, drawing quickly the patterns of his skin, the shape of his head. Counted the number of his teeth and the shape of them as he opened his mouth and let her fingers touch his jawbone, understanding how it locked here, unlocked there. His eyes were black and greeny liquid now, no longer holding an image of herself walking with an aurora above her. Those eyes watched her studiously and Vanessa knew, she was being measured, drawn and memorised too.

It was mere moments, she had recorded the breaths that his gaping mouth had taken, before she finished and with a touch of his side she pushed at
Esox Lucius
and with a sudden powering movement he slithered back into the water. The surface closed over his spine leaving ripples rolling inward, sealing.

Vanessa sat for a long time watching the water, a breeze blew her dry, flapped a little at her notebook. She thought of the pike, of the gull, of the heat from her mother.
There is nothing more cruel and powerful than this wood
, her mother’s words echoed in her head. She felt the stone beneath her, the warmth it held from the sun. She was uncertain now about what strange results her experiment at Pike Lake had shown her.

She took up her pencil and began to draw in a way she’d never drawn before, as if the pencil knew what was hidden inside its core and could guide her hand to extract it.

*

They were setting the table for dinner and her mother lifted Vanessa’s bag to move it onto the sofa. As she did so the flap opened and Vanessa’s notebook not only slid out onto the floor, but opened itself up to the double page she had taken to draw the pike. Her mother looked at it for a moment, read the caption ‘ESOX LUCIUS’.

“When did you do this?” she asked. Vanessa expected there might be some small hell to pay for her plan and was prepared for it.

“Today. I wanted to help… I thought if we put up a notice saying it had been caught and this is all the information about it and so no one need bother anymore and also saying PRIVATE because…”

She watched her mother look over the drawing and say nothing. Vanessa ran out of words. Her mother closed the book and put it into the schoolbag, out of the way.

“It’s very good.” was her comment as she moved into the kitchen. They went about their tasks in a strange silence, Vanessa unsure what to say. Her plan had seemed so certain and assured and now, after everything that had happened, it was a jumble in her head.

“Do not do this ever again.” her mother’s voice was cool and clear, like the water. It would have felt better to Vanessa if it had been a cross voice, angry words. This was much worse. They did not speak through dinner, passing bowls and plates without a word. The food should have tasted good, it was Vanessa’s favourite, macaroni cheese with broccoli. It tasted of mud.

Starlight sparkled the water of Pike Lake as Hettie Way, feeling chill in her black waxed raincoat, rowed out. She halted at a particular spot and the boat, far from drifting on the slight waves, stayed put, Hettie pulled up the oars and waited. The moon was only three quarters full but it would be enough.

After several minutes she reached her hand into the water, let the liquid chill her skin and pinch cold into her bones until she almost couldn’t bear the pain of it, her hand up to her wrist ringing with cold like a note. The note sounded out beneath the lake.

Esox Lucius rose up through the water, monstrous, and his teeth bit down so that his jaw and her fingers were interlocked and Hettie’s mind opened up. She could see her daughter walking away, the landscape was white with snow and very far to the north. The aurora borealis lit the sky with shimmering green and Vanessa was walking away, away, away. At the edge of this landscape Hettie Way saw a wolf, watching, waiting for her by a frozen lake, until the wind turned and with a yawn the wolf shucked his skin and, dressed now as his man self, walked back across the ice towards her.

After she took her hand from the water Hettie Way sat in the boat for a long time, her head bowed.

It was nearly dawn before she put the oars back into the rowlocks and rowed back to the jetty.

PART TWO

The Goose Fair

Lachlan Laidlaw: age 18

Lachlan Laidlaw would not be taking up an administrative post in the nearby city because he was destined, his mother said with something like a sneer, ‘For greater things.’ She did not have ambition, not since his father had died young and left them partly penniless. Mrs Laidlaw had turned the glasses over on the draining board and rattled the knives into the cutlery drawer. She was disappointed with her offspring, he was going to university, which, it seemed, was something like treason.

Lachlan liked the village where he had grown up. There was nothing wrong with it, except that it was small and it wasn’t Elsewhere. Now that he had an escape route, that his trunk was packed for his undergraduate studies at Oxbridge University, Lachlan found the place itched at him, from the peeling paint of the Post Office to the sawdust outside the waxy red step leading into the Stafford Bros Butchers shop.

His mother could not complain, he had, in fact, worked the last two summers with the Stafford brothers and been trained in butchery. He had enjoyed the task, the precision and the skill he’d acquired but his heart lay, as he insisted, Elsewhere.

Olivia Dashford was very beautiful, but in the way of a porcelain statue. She was delicate and shiny and the light shone through her because, as Lachlan had discovered, there was nothing much inside her. Her voice was a tinkling bell, except when crossed, at which point it became a snarling growl. Her eyes were soft with fluttering eyelashes except when crossed, when those same eyes stared out, hard as stones. She was manipulative and devious, willing to let Lachlan Laidlaw put his hand here, his mouth there, for as long as he would do what she wanted.

What she wanted to do today was go to the Goose Fair at Hedgeley. The last evening had been spent down under the willow on the river bank where Olivia had let Lachlan ‘go so far and no further’ inside the lacy confines of her underwear, borrowed from her sister; this meant that Lachlan was paying out the fare for the short bus ride. It also meant Lachlan was paying out for the admission fee to the Goose Fair, handing over more coins for drinks that were sticky and fizzing, for sweets that were also sticky and fizzing, for a ride on the Waltzer that left him feeling sick, head whizzing.

“Oh… A fortune teller…” Olivia took his hand “Don’t you want to know your fortune Lach?” Olivia’s lips brushed at his cheek, hinting at what his fortune might entail if he would just fork out a few more coins to consult the Fates. Lachlan looked at Olivia and then at the fortune teller’s tent. It was a raggedy affair, a sort of turreted tower in striped canvas that Lachlan thought might have been camped out in by Richard the Lionheart at some point in its history. A pennant flew from a carved finial at the top, a black wolf on a white ground.

“It’s nonsense.” Lachlan reasoned. “No one can read the future, Liv. It’s a con.”

“It’s fun.” her voice had that insistent tone and she squeezed his hand. Sometimes, in company with Olivia, Lachlan felt like a bullock being switched disobediently through a field. It was a brightly sunny day and he was feeling hot and out of sorts.

“It’s not.” he matched her insistence.

“Lach…what is the matter with you? It’s the Goose Fair it’s all nonsense that’s the point of coming, to lose yourself in the fun of…nonsense.” she was snuffling at him again and he found her twinkly tinkliness was like broken glass. He was realising that he wanted to get away from Olivia Dashford, lacy knickers or not. He reached into his pocket for the last of his money.

“We’ll have to walk home” he looked at her. Walking home was not one of Olivia’s favoured pursuits, in fact, as Lachlan thought about it, she would prefer to ride home in a golden carriage driven by white horses.

“You can give me a piggy back” she giggled and kissed his cheek. He felt the tug of her hand as she led him towards the fortune teller’s tent. He pulled back.

“Aren’t you coming in?” Olivia pulled her displeased baby face. Lachlan felt an urge to slap it.

“Only enough cash for one of us. You want to know the future, I’m going to…”

Olivia was not dismayed and before he had finished the sentence she was ducking in through the grubby tasselling on the slightly frayed doorway. Lachlan paused a moment, he had been going to sit on the gate and wait, but that seemed like a bore, and he soon wandered off.

He meandered around the Goose Fair, the sounds clashed at him, each stall and ride seemed to have a different tune playing from it and the effect was a cacophony. The colours of the paintwork on the signage began to nag at him, the distressed gilding, the blood red, the vein blue and bilious green. There seemed to be weapons everywhere from the shooting galleries to the dart games, it was, somehow, a small war zone. Lachlan felt his discontent rise. Roll on Oxbridge, he was no longer part of this, there was something else waiting for him and it was Elsewhere.

It appeared that Olivia Dashford had an epic future ahead of her as it took her a very long time in the fortune teller’s tent. Lachlan walked the entire Goose Fair and returned to find her still inside. He waited, impatiently, sitting atop the farm gate.

At last, she emerged, at least, he thought it was Olivia, this young woman seemed smaller somehow and drawn in, her face a pale cross oval. She stepped towards him and offered a wan smile.

“Shall we head back?” her voice was not tinkling and, he noticed, she did not take his hand.

They walked through the fair, their silence at odds with the clatter and whirl around them.

“Was it fun?” Lachlan ventured at last. Olivia turned a harsh glare on him, her eyes like black glass.

“You think you are very clever don’t you Lachlan Laidlaw. So very, very clever…” there was bitterness and spite in her tone. He shrugged it off.

“I said it was nonsense.”

She said nothing, her glare intensifying.

“Nonsense? Hm. She knew about you.”

Lachlan could imagine the spiel that Olivia had been spun about her future with her boyfriend.

“You’re pretty Liv, anyone could guess you had a boyfriend…” Lachlan dug his hands into his empty pockets. Oh, not quite empty, a coin left.

“Called Lachlan Laidlaw?” Olivia challenged him, folding her arms tightly across her chest, her foot tapping. Lachlan considered this evidence for a good long moment.

“It’s the Goose Fair Liv, everyone knows everyone around here…” his argument was shaky. The Goose Fair was a travelling fair and none of the stallholders and fairground people were local, but he stuck with his only logic, his possible reasoning. Olivia unfolded her arms and looked impatient.

“Yes. Well. Whatever you say, clever clogs. Shall we go for the bus?” she managed a sham smile. Lachlan shrugged.

“I said…if you went in to see the fortune teller…we’d have to walk home.”

“What?”

“I’ve no more money, Liv. No bus fare.”

The furious scream she let out silenced all the fairground clatter and, at the nearby Hook a Duck stall, killed one prize goldfish of a particularly nervous disposition.

She flounced off and, Lachlan realised, he was rather relieved. He stood for a few moments watching her stride through the stalls, pushing small children out of her path. At the far end of the Goose Fair he could see Doug Kittredge trying his luck at the shooting gallery and Olivia was very careful indeed to barge into him. Doug Kittredge had a motorcycle.

Lachlan, suddenly, did not want to wander home. He needed to clear his head and so a further round of the Goose Fair seemed a good option. His plan was to look nonchalant and carefree but leave by the far gate near the fortune teller’s tent. This route meant he could cut across the field at Five Bar Farm and avoid the road and any chance of Doug Kittredge’s motorcycle buzzing past him with Olivia riding pillion. Was he hiding? Was he skulking? Yes, Lachlan admitted it to himself. Elsewhere, that was where he needed to be.

The fortune teller was sitting outside her tent smoking a cheroot. The aromatic smoke curled across Lachlan’s path. She was ordinary looking, dressed in old black clothes, a long skirt and a jumper riddled with holes. Her only concession to classical fortune telling attire seemed to be a black linen scarf that sparkled with beads. Lachlan was aware that she was watching him as he approached. He nodded greeting because she was staring so hard.

Lachlan put a foot onto the bottom of the five bar gate, his hand reaching, ready to lift himself up and over to freedom.

“John of Gaunt.” the fortune teller said. Lachlan halted his ascent, one foot on the gate the other still in the Goose Fair. He looked around. The fortune teller puffed out cheroot smoke.

“John of Gaunt…” she repeated and waited for a response. Lachlan was not much of a historian, his studies had been mathematics, physics, chemistry.

“I’m sorry?”

“The tent. It didn’t belong to Richard the Lionheart…” she spoke in a matter of fact voice, pinched out the cheroot before putting it into her skirt pocket. “You were wrong…it belonged to John of Gaunt.” she paused, then ducked back into the raggedy tent. Lachlan Laidlaw stood by the gate for several minutes, his hand on the crossbar, his foot perched, ready to go. He could not go. He stepped back from the gate, his mind replaying the fortune teller’s comments and after about five minutes he turned and looked at the tent, the pennant cracked a little in the rising wind. A black wolf. A white ground. Beyond him the fairground music was whiny and discordant.

Inside, the tent was cosy, a small table dressed with a green damask cloth and two neat fold up chairs. There was a small woodburner chugging out warmth, a kettle sat on the top and the fortune teller was stirring tea in a small, slightly chipped, brown earthenware pot.

“Are you going to read the tea leaves?” Lachlan asked, lashing out a little in defence of his own unease.

“No. I’m going to drink the tea.” the fortune teller said and poured two cups, she pushed one across the table to Lachlan. “Take the weight off…” she suggested. Lachlan’s stubborn resolve kept him standing for a few more minutes,

“Tea’s getting cold.” she advised with a glance to the untouched cup.

“Is that a prophecy?” Lachlan said. The fortune teller sniffed and reached for a small leather duffle bag. She dug around and retrieved a rather battered parcel of sandwiches. She offered him one.

“Hungry?” she asked. Lachlan’s stomach betrayed him, growling greedily at the scent of the ham and mustard and possibly, yes, a slice of cheese in there. Lachlan, defeated, sat.

“Did she go off with the motorcyclist?” the fortune teller asked picking a stray sliver of cucumber off the tablecloth and putting it back into her half of the sandwich.

“Hm?” Lachlan had never tasted such a good sandwich, he looked up at the fortune teller.

“Your girlie…she went off with the man on the motorbike I presume?” she sounded weary. Lachlan nodded.

“She’s not my girlie.” he said and sipped some tea.

“She’ll be killed on the back of that contraption.” the fortune teller chomped a mouthful of sandwich. “Sometime next week. Thursday I think.”

Lachlan felt the mouthful he was currently munching dry up in his mouth. The fortune teller stared at him.

“Oh yes. I forgot. ‘It’s nonsense’.” she said with a wry smile.

“What nonsense do you want to tell me?” he asked, putting on, he thought, a good show of bravado. “I haven’t any money.”

The fortune teller gave a short, wry laugh as she turned from the table and bent down. From a rough hessian sack she produced a crystal ball. Lachlan wanted to laugh, but, somehow, an instinct told him this was not funny.

“There’s a stand here somewhere…” the fortune teller glanced around at the sparse contents of the tent and when no stand became apparent she placed the crystal ball onto the cloth. It did not roll, it was, Lachlan could tell, very weighty indeed.

“What do you see?” she asked, her eyes glancing at the ball.

“Isn’t it supposed to be what you see?” Lachlan’s bravado surfaced once more. The fortune teller ignored it.

“What do you see?”

Lachlan looked at it, the globe of dense glass was about ten inches in diameter.

“Nothing much. It’s a good lensing effect on the cloth. I can see the fibres…magnified.” Lachlan sounded braver than he felt. His eyes were finding it quite hard to look into the ball itself. He chanced it, ha, nothing, he was right, except there was a slight flaw.

“There’s a flaw, look, in the top right here…” his eye was drawn to the flaw, a tiny black speck and then the speck moved, four legged until it became a black wolf walking across snow and more specks, white this time began to flurry and drift.

“It’s a snow globe?” Lachlan laughed and looked up to the fortune teller, she was not smiling, only waiting. Inside the ball the snow deepened. He could see the landscape now, it was very beautiful, lovely craftsmanship to capture the snowlight like that, the grey, the tinge of bronze “It’s a good one…well ma-.” he stopped talking. Walking across the snowscape, a man. Walking. Walking.

“Recognise him?” the fortune teller was matter of fact. Lachlan took his turn to stare her down.

“No.” he lied. The fortune teller shook her head, held her hands up in surrender. She reached a finger and rolled the crystal ball around to a different spot on the table. As she did so Lachlan could see that the only thing that changed within was his point of view of the snowscape. He could see the wolf in the far distance, see the man’s face now, not that he needed to.

“Know him now?” she sniffed. Lachlan got up from the table, knocking it as he did so that his cup toppled and tea spilled across the cloth.

“It’s a good trick.” he grinned, stretching his face as hard as he could “Really good…but…as I mentioned…I don’t have any money.” He turned out his pockets and winked before turning to the tattered doorway.

“You will be lost Lachlan Laidlaw.” the fortune teller said “But she will find you.”

Olivia Dashford’s funeral, two weeks later, was a bleak affair of black hats and, as he boarded the train for Oxbridge, Lachlan Laidlaw tried his best not to think of it. He tried his best not to think of the tattered tent and the scent of cheroot, of being lost and of being found.