Winter Wood (30 page)

This sounded alarmingly like a goodbye, and Midge was completely taken aback.

‘But we'll be seeing each other again, won't we? In a few days?'

‘Yes, of course, dear. Certainly. Now don't you worry. We'll see each other again, I promise.'

A last big squeeze of her hand, and Aunt Celandine sat back in her chair. She raised her voice again. ‘And when you find that old jewellery casket, you let me know.'

‘Yes. I will. Bye then, Aunt Celandine.'

‘Bye-bye, Midge.'

‘Ready, then?' Uncle Brian was zipping up his jacket.

‘Yeah.'

‘Cheerio then, Aunt Celandine. Take care of yourself.' Uncle Brian gave Aunt Celandine a smile and a wave.

‘Oh. Yes. Goodbye . . . er . . . Brian.'

As they stepped out into the hallway, Midge heard Elaine say, ‘Poo! What's all this stuff then, Miss Howard?' She meant the bag and its smelly contents.

‘Oh, it's just some herbs and things that I asked Midge to collect for me. I've been telling her all about plant remedies . . .'

Aunt Celandine's voice faded away as the door closed. She was a pretty good liar, thought Midge. For her age.

‘She doesn't look at all well to me,' said Uncle Brian as he turned the car ignition key. ‘
Much
thinner than she was last time. There's nothing of her.'

But Midge didn't want to hear that. ‘No, she's all right, I think. Just tired. She hasn't been sleeping very well.'

Well, perhaps Aunt Celandine would sleep better tonight, now that her mind was more at ease. And it
had
been a good day, Midge thought. A wonderful day in many ways, although the Orbis was still as elusive as ever. She realized with a jolt that there was one question that she hadn't even thought to ask: what did the Orbis look like? She still had no idea what it was that she was searching for! How stupid could you get? It could be sitting in the kitchen cupboard with all the food processor bits for all she'd know. And as for ever finding this jewellery casket . . .

‘What was all that about a jewellery casket?' Uncle Brian's question made her jump.

‘Oh! Well . . .' Midge couldn't see that there was any harm in telling him. ‘Aunt Celandine used to have this wooden box, when she was a girl. She left it at the farm, years ago. It was dark wood, she said, like a casket, about as big as a shoe box. And it had a key. It would be really nice if we could find it again, that's all. I don't suppose you've noticed anything like that, have you?'

‘Ha! No, love. And I think that a spare nineteen-twenties jewellery box is something that I
might
notice, if it happened to be kicking around. So what was in it?'

‘Oh, just bits of ribbon and hair grips and stuff. No jewellery. Nothing valuable at all.'

‘Ah.' Uncle Brian had obviously lost interest. He reached over to turn on the radio. ‘By the way,' he said, ‘that's probably my last trip to Almbury Mills for a while. Cliff and I have got everything listed now, and he's shown me how to do the online auction thing. I can sort the rest out on my home computer.'

‘Oh. Oh . . . right.'

Mum wasn't in a great mood when they got back. She was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by piles of paperwork, some of it stacked beside her, some of it spread out on the floor around her feet.

‘Brian, I'm simply not coping with all this,' she said. ‘And we can't afford for you to be playing around on the internet every Sunday. It's just not fair. You need to be here – and as for
you
, miss' – Midge had tried to edge past her mum in order to get upstairs – ‘you need to be doing your homework for tomorrow.'

‘Already done it,' said Midge. ‘And anyway we don't go back to school till Wednesday. There's two extra “inset days”, or whatever they're called, in case you'd forgotten. And Wednesday's only some rubbish school trip – that steam engine thing. So there's no need to take it out on me.
I'm
coping, even if you're not.'

‘Hoy! Don't you talk to me like that! If you had any
idea
of what I have to deal with . . .'

But Midge had managed to get past her mum, and was already stomping up the stairs. Yeah, she thought. And if
you
had any idea of what
I
have to deal with . . .

‘Listen, Chris, it's OK. It's OK.' Uncle Brian had put on his calm-and-soothing voice. It was actually very irritating. Midge could imagine him using this technique on some angry customer and getting a bop on the nose for his pains. ‘Listen. For starters, I don't need to go to Almbury Mills again. I've got all the stuff listed now. And as for the paperwork, well . . . I saw Pat again today. She said she's willing to give us a hand with it . . .'

Midge stormed along the landing and into her room, cutting off the voices below as she slammed the door behind her.

Drat the lot of 'em, with their stupid planning permissions and builders and . . . shrubs and wine merchants and . . .
paperwork
. She had more important things to worry about. What was she going to do about the Orbis? What . . . what . . . what . . .?

She sat on the end of her bed and tried to calm down, tried to think. Not rage, but think. The Orbis had been left here, in this very room, on that very mantelpiece. It was unbelievable. And yet Aunt Celandine had been quite clear: she had put the Orbis in her jewellery box, and as far as she was concerned it had never left Mill Farm.

Except that it must have done, because it certainly wasn't here now. An awful empty feeling began to fill Midge's heart. Her sole plan all along, she realized, had been to try and find the Orbis through Aunt Celandine. What other plan could there have been? And she had succeeded, that was the terrible thing. She'd done so well. She'd found her great-great-aunt,
against ridiculous odds, and had helped her as best she could to remember her past. And Aunt Celandine
had
remembered, at last. She'd left the Orbis here, in a casket, on the mantelpiece. Brilliant.

But eighty or ninety years had passed since then, and the Orbis certainly wasn't here now. So it could be anywhere. Anywhere in the world . . . buried deep under acres of landfill . . . lying at the bottom of an ocean . . . or just simply rotted away to dust.

That was it, then. This day had gone so well in so many ways, but now there was nothing else that Midge could think of doing that made any sense. She'd reached the end of the line.

Celandine's face glowed softly down at her, a pale shape, suspended among the shadows of the corner alcove. Midge leaned sideways onto one elbow, and in that shifting movement it seemed that Celandine's eyes briefly met hers. It was just a change of the light, a twinkling reflection upon the glass, but Midge felt that she had caught a glimpse of the real person behind the photograph, a flash of understanding from one who knew her well. Sympathy from a friend.

Silly. The faraway gaze was over her shoulder now, as always. But at least she knew now what that child was looking at, and something of what those eyes had already seen. There was some mutual understanding there, and they were friends, in a way.

‘And we did try,' Midge whispered to the empty room. ‘We did what we could.'

‘BROTHER . . .'

Ictor spun round at the sound – a familiar voice at his shoulder, low and rasping.

‘Sh!' He whispered. ‘Bist here again? And in daylight? I've told 'ee, 'tis too dangerous! Get back in there where none can sithee!'

The shadowy figure retreated a little into the dark mouth of the tunnel. Ictor looked quickly from right to left, making sure that there was nobody else nearby, then stepped onto a rock amid the trickling waters of the stream so that he was positioned directly in front of the wicker entrance.

‘'Tain't safe to keep coming here,' he muttered, still facing forwards. ‘All do reckon 'ee dead, brother, and 'twould be best kept so. Thee must wait till I can find a way of getting 'ee back in.'

‘Aye – and so starve.' The low voice behind him sounded wild, desperate. ‘Have 'ee got any food? For I be shrammed.'

‘Here.' Ictor pulled a crust of flatbread from his tunic and held his hand behind his back. He felt the
snatching fingers of Scurl, long nails that scraped against his palm as the bread was torn from his grasp.

‘What's the matter with 'ee?' Ictor grimaced at the animal sounds of Scurl attacking the chunk of bread. ‘Have 'ee forgotten how to hunt?'

‘Got no flint . . .' The words were broken by savage gulps and swallows. ‘Lost it and casn't find another. I can hunt . . . but I've no fire. I'd scarce dare light one anywise, wi' the Gorji all around me. Whatever I kill I've to eat raw . . . and it gives I the collies.'

‘Take mine, then.' Ictor took out his flint and passed it back. ‘And risk a fire. Better that than die.'

More sounds of chewing and gulping. Then Scurl said, ‘What news? When does Maglin go?'

‘He've changed his thinking,' Ictor replied. ‘He stays. And so all will now stay. 'Tain't no good, Scurl – thee casn't come back in. None of 'em are like to be going anywhere, as I can see.'

‘Then I be good as dead,' Scurl growled. ‘For I'll not last another moon out here. All my company be gone . . . Dregg and Snerk and Fitch . . . all starved . . . and I be next. I'll tell 'ee this, though – I s'll take that Gorji brat with me. Put an arrow through her, soon as I gets close enough.'

‘Aye, do that,' Ictor sneered. ‘And bring the giants down upon us all.'

‘Pah! What do I care? Let 'em come . . .' Scurl took another savage bite of food, grunting and snuffling like a furze-pig. Ictor turned away in disgust, his brother's last words still echoing in his ear . . . Let 'em come . . . Let 'em come . . .

Scurl was mazy in the head, that was plain enough. His scavenging life had turned him into something unrecognizable, a beast: slobbering, filthy, stinking of the very ditches he dwelt in. Ictor stared at the black waters of the stream at his feet. Poor Scurl. Driven half mad. And yet . . .

Had what he had said made some sense? Let 'em come . . .

Was there an answer to be found here after all? Ictor raised his head towards the grey skies. He had a vision, then, of yelling giants, swarming up the hillside, bursting into the forest and slaying all before them. Raging unstoppable monsters that tossed Elders and Stewards alike onto the bonfires of their vengeance. Aye, vengeance . . . outrage at the loss of something they held dear . . . such a fury against the Various as would drive them to kill every last one they found . . .

Ictor let the evening sounds of the forest settle around him as he pictured the scene, thought it through.

‘That maid,' he said, turning to glance into the shadows behind him. ‘The Gorji child that were the cause of all your trouble. Dost reckon 'ee could find her, then?'

‘Ptuh!' Scurl's voice spat at him from the darkness. ‘Find her? I knows where she be, and I'm hemmed if I don't put an arrow through her first chance I get. I've come close to it already – but not close enough. I bides my time, though. I s'll have 'er in the end.'

Ictor nodded. ‘Or I shall.'

‘Eh?'

‘I've heard rumour she may come here again, to the forest. Some blether o' the Orbis – this witchi thing they all be after. What'd happen, would 'ee say, if that maid were to enter these woods and never return to her own? Dost think the giants'd come looking for her? Would they come here?'

‘Aye. They'd come here. There's they other Gorji brats as know of this place. Why they ain't told of it already I casn't say. But if one o' their own were missing, they'd chelp up soon enough, I knows.'

Ictor took a few more moments to think about this. ‘And if she were found dead, wi' an arrow through her, what do 'ee reckon those giants'd do to all that were here?'