Lavender-Green Magic (23 page)

I did wait many days for H. to come to me as she had sworn, but she did not. Now I believe that that foul witch, who was no true sister to her, did so reft her from me. And thereafter I fell into a dire wasting sickness which Doctor Ashby could not understand. Nor have I ever been the same man since. H. being gone, I did follow my father's command and wed with Patience, though I have had no joy of that, nor ever will in this world, of that I am certain.

Slowly Holly copied it word for word. But this was wrong. Maybe Tamar had given the medicine, but Hagar had added something to it. And Seth Elkins had known that, only
he did not mention it. Was that because he could not—just as Holly herself had not been able to talk about Hagar until Judy found the plants? What had happened to Tamar and the house? Halloween—it had happened on Halloween. If they could get there first—warn her! They must! But this time they must go the right way, reach Tamar and not Hagar.

Grandma was busy most of Friday baking. She made doughnuts, and cookies cut out with cutters Mrs. Pigot lent her. These were in the form of bats with outstretched wings, pumpkins, and cat heads. Holly and Judy helped her finish after they got home from school, setting raisins in for the cats' eyes and using yellow frosting to cover the pumpkins.

Judy's cat costume was finished. Grandpa had wired the tail so it did not flop limply, but stood up the way Tomkit's did when he was setting out on his own affairs. Crock's costume was even more unusual. When he was fitted into it, and the square “robot” head placed over his own, he looked like something out of a TV program about outer space. He had to walk jerkily, too, because the pieces around his legs were stiff, and that made him seem even more a robot. There were curled wires standing up from his head, and he had small lights (red ones) for eyes (his own seeing through little holes beneath), which lighted up red, run on a little battery above
them. Mr. Lem Granger, who came to the dump for electrical throwouts, had become quite interested in what Crock and Grandpa were fixing up and put in those eyes, showing Crock how to turn them on and off.

Though Holly wanted very much to cut her hair and brush it out into a regular Afro, she did not quite dare. But she unbraided and combed and brushed, using a small bottle of hair spray, until it stood out in a big fluff. Her robe was of the brightest colors: red, orange, green. With it she wore big hoop earrings and a lot of long necklaces. Some were made of painted pieces of macaroni, others of beads. After all, no one in Sussex had ever seen a real African princess, and Holly thought she looked like one.

She was smoothing out the
djellaba
as Judy came in. When Holly saw what her sister held, she sat down a little hurriedly on the bed. Judy had the pillow, and behind her came Tomkit, mewing and making small jumps at her feet.

“Crock and me, we're willing for you to take it”—Judy held out the pillow.

Holly jerked back. “No! I don't want it. Maybe Hagar was right, maybe I'm like a witch. If I take it we'll go the wrong way again. You or Crock—you take it.”

“Crock says 'No,'” said Judy slowly. “He says he feels like he shouldn't try it. He's been keeping it an' when I asked just now, did he want a chance, he said ‘No.' So—so I guess I'll have to do it.”

She smoothed the upper side of the pillow. “I just noticed something, Holly. These funny lines, they're really like the path through the maze, with the breaks in them coming
where you make a turn. They're different, one side from the other. On this side”—she traced a way with a fingertip—“they go with the openings to the right, just like we went to find Tamar. But over here”—she flopped the pillow over—“see here? These open to the left, like when you went to Hagar. Maybe you had the pillow wrong side up when you slept on it.”

Holly took the pillow very reluctantly into her own hands to study those lines of stitching. It was true, she could see, as she reversed it once and then back again. Two ways through the maze. But she did not believe that it mattered which side was up when you slept upon it. What did—Holly had been thinking about this for a long time and was now sure—what mattered was how you felt your ownself. And she could not trust herself as she trusted Judy now.

“It's yours.” She dropped it hastily on Judy's bed. “Are—are you afraid, Judy?”

“Maybe, a little. But we've got to go, to help Tamar. I know that is true, Holly. I don't know how we can help, but I keep believing that we can.” She picked up the pillow, turning it carefully to the side where the paths all ran to the right, and settled it against her regular one.

Tomkit was purring so loudly they could hear him. He jumped to the bed, sniffed long and luxuriously at the pillow, and curled beside it, so his black nose just touched the very old and yellowed linen.

The girls climbed into bed as Grandma came for the lamp. “Big day tomorrow,” she said. “You get a good sleep now, you hear?”

Maybe Judy did go to sleep. However, Holly twisted and turned under her blankets and the big comforter. Tomorrow morning they were going to clear out three of the stalls, Grandma said, move cots down there. It was getting too cold to use the rooms above. Holly listened to the queer creaks and groans which were always a part of the barn-house, and thought once she could still hear Tomkit purring. But there was no sound from Judy, and Holly did not want to wake her if she was already asleep.

Perhaps it was because Holly was awake so long that she overslept the next morning. It was Grandma's bell ringing which brought her entirely awake. Judy's bed was empty, the covers neatly spread up. Holly hurried to dress and to fix her own bed. She could see no sign of the pillow. Had it worked again? Could they go into the maze before they left for the party? Time—would there be enough time?

“Holly, you feelin' all right, child?” Grandma greeted her. She was frying sausages this morning. The good smell of these made Holly know she was empty.

“Just fine, Grandma. And that smells so good!” She sniffed. As Grandma turned back to watching the sausages, Holly had a chance to meet Judy's gaze. Judy nodded. Which meant that the pillow had worked! Only how soon could they try the maze? Not this morning, with Grandma already lining up what each must do to help in the cleaning out of the stalls.

She and Grandpa had already done a lot, little by little, during the week. But there was still enough left for a busy morning. Grandpa had to go out several times when horns honked and people came to the dump.

The last time he came in he said to Grandma, “Looks like you'd better plan to take off for town a little earlier, Mercy—”

When Holly heard that, her heart sank. Would they have
no
time for the maze at all?

“Mrs. Winton,” Grandpa continued, “she sent a message by her boy Alex. They need extra hands to get things ready. Mrs. Pigot and Mrs. Eames, they is down with the flu. Mrs. Winton, she's going in 'bout one-thirty an' she'll pick you up—”

“But that's too early for the young'uns,” Grandma said. “ 'Course I'll go an' lend a hand. But they won't want to go so early to jus' hang around.”

“They can ride in with the Hawkinses. Mrs. Winton, she thought of that. Hawkinses'll come by 'bout a quarter to four an' pick 'em up.”

“All right. You be ready, don't keep Mr. Hawkins waitin' none. But then I don't think you will, the party's too special.”

Holly could hardly eat her lunch. Grandma said it was amazing how young'uns could get so excited about a party. However, she laughed when she said it. Holly wondered what she would think if she knew that it was not the party at all, but the chance to get to the maze, that made Holly feel as if she were perched on pins and needles and not her proper chair.

Grandma, with the boxes of cookies and doughnuts, left at a quarter to two. As soon as she had driven off, Holly turned to the twins. “We won't have much time later, and getting into those costumes takes time. Suppose we dress up now, and
then
go to the maze.”

Crock nodded. “Maybe you've got the right idea. I know it takes a lot of fixing to get into my robot suit.”

Grandpa had gone to the fix-it shed, to work on a table he was repairing, so they were free until the Hawkins family would arrive to pick them up. Judy seemed ready to accept Holly's suggestion also, and she did need some help in zippering up her cat costume. That had a pointed eared head with a cat mask that fitted in neatly over her face. The mask was black and Judy had decided not to try to paint it. She thought she looked like a mixture of Tomkit and a blue-point Siamese. Her tail swung jauntily behind her, and she slipped her hands into the attached paw-mittens, which could be as easily pulled off when she needed the use of her own ten fingers.

Holly put on her robe over her sweater and jeans. She had to roll up the sweater arms and pin them, so they would not show beneath the flowing sleeves of the robe. She had combed her hair out earlier, now all she had to add were the big earrings and the necklaces. But she decided on the final touches of making her lips very red with a lipstick Mom had thrown away and adding some blue dotted lines like tattooing on her forehead and cheeks. The figure that gazed back at her from the mirror was certainly very unlike Holly Wade, whether she was a true African princess or not.

It took both girls to fasten Crock into his square helmet. Then he complained that he could not see, except straight ahead. That was all he needed, Holly told him firmly, as they set out toward the maze.

This time Tomkit went with them. He was very much interested in Judy's tail, making jumps at it now and then. But, as they came closer to the maze wall, he left off playing to
trot ahead with a purposeful air, as if he realized exactly where they were going and why.

Holly knew that the mass of the entwined brush was ahead of them, but she was afraid to look up. What if there were no cats waiting there to watch them, but rather those monsters which had guarded the way she had urged upon them? Also both girls had discovered they had to suit their pace to Crock's, his robot costume making any walk over rough ground a clumsy one.

At last, almost defiantly, Holly looked up. She knew a vast relief. Though the cats of brush did not look green as they had the first time the children had come this way, yet they were unmistakably cats and not long-nosed and threatening monsters. This was Tamar's maze, not Hagar's.

Now time was pressing, they must go as quickly as they could. Tomkit had already flashed ahead into the first of the tunnels. Judy, her cat costume looking somehow even more real (as if she were a giant-sized Tomkit), was behind. Then Crock creaked on, and Holly brought up the rear, ready to help if her brother's awkward costume caught on any projections of bush.

As they went the walls did not grow greener, nor the air warmer, as had happened the other time. It must be October in the maze instead of summer. Those smaller flowers and bushes, the plants which had given off such a sweet smell when they trod on the old stones of the walk, were withered, with only a stalk here or there to mark where a heavy growth had been.

There were none of the evil-looking toadstools, nor gray
ghost plants, which had made the widdershins way so threatening and horrible.

“Can't you hurry, Crock?” Holly almost trod on his heels.

“Listen here, I'm going as fast as I can.” His exasperated voice sounded hollowly from inside the robot head. “This suit isn't made for running.”

Holly tried to curb her impatience. If they were not back when the Hawkinses came—what then? Judy was already out of sight. But they had only to remember to take each turn on the right. Just the same, it seemed to Holly that they went on for hours before they did come out at last, to see the house and the garden.

That was also withered and frost-touched, but the pool in its center was clear. And the beds had been worked, ready for a new planting. While there were a number of plants which still showed sturdily and had a touch of green. About the beehives there was no sign of life, and they were trussed in straw. The house itself had a snug, ready-for-the-winter look about it.

Though the door was shut, smoke came from the chimney. Judy was already speeding to the door. Who stood beyond: Tamar—or Hagar? Now that she had reached this point, Holly was afraid again to prove herself right—or wrong!

As she steered Crock through the herb garden, Judy reached up a paw-mittened hand to hammer on that door with a confidence Holly was certainly very far from feeling. However, when the door did open in answer to her knock, it was Tamar who faced them.

She wore a red-brown dress the color of an autumn leaf.
Around her shoulders was a cloak of the same color, as if she were about to go out. Sighting them, she stood still in amazement. Suddenly Holly realized that, of course, Tamar had not expected them in costume, if she had looked for them at all. Judy and Crock had masks on, but perhaps Tamar would know her.

“Tamar!” Judy cried that aloud, as Tomkit gave a loud wail. While Holly pushed past Crock—

“Tamar, it's us! Judy, Crock, Holly”—with a stabbing finger she named them all. “Truly it is!”

Then Tamar smiled. “So do I see the truth beneath the disguise. Come thee in! Blessed be, blessed be!”

The house was warm, spicy with smells. Tomkit leaped upon the table to nose into a basin sitting there. Holly was impatient. Tamar must know, understand as soon as possible—

“Tamar—” she began when Judy, fumbling with her cat mask so she could loose it on one side and show her face, interrupted.

“Tamar—Sexton Dimsdale, he is coming with men. They think you're a witch. They want to burn your house, hurt you! Tamar, you've got to get away! It's Halloween and they came on Halloween—” Judy was close to tears.