Moonlight and Ashes (16 page)

I am in a forest. It is not a dark forest but green and gold with sunlight filtering through leaves. The grass is lush and there are clumps of flowers growing at the foot of trees. It is a beautiful place, peaceful and quiet but for the rustling of leaves and water nearby. Drawn to the sound, I walk towards it and find a waterfall gushing out over a shelf of rocks into a sparkling pool. The water looks so good I cup my hands to drink it and as I do so, I feel a tap on my shoulder.

I turn – it is not my mother this time, but a young girl. I do not know her name and yet I recognise her at once, though she looks very different from when I last saw her. It is the moon-sister from the wagon.

She is smiling. For an instant we look at each other, then she turns and walks rapidly towards the waterfall, while I am rooted to the spot, watching her. She does not hesitate at the water's edge but walks right in, through the veil of water, and vanishes, and I am left alone in a dazzle of sunlight that is pouring onto my face.

I opened my eyes to a beautiful morning, a sky rinsed a clear blue by last night's rain, to find myself alone, lying curled up in a soft, dry tangle of straw, bracken and fern, under a roof long fallen in and open to the sky, held up only by a frail wooden skeleton of walls. Everything else was gone: the room, the furniture, the food, the outbuildings and all the animals. I'd been right. It had been a temporary glamour.

As rested as if I had been in a feather bed all night, I got up in search of the others and found them not far off, in the wildly overgrown orchard, picking apples from an old tree. Tomi, riding on Max's shoulders, plucked fruit from the higher branches. I watched them for a moment thinking what a peaceful scene it looked. I do not know if it was indeed the moon-sister's home, or more likely, some kind of safe house she knew from back in the old days, between the forest lands and the road to Ashberg. Whatever it once was, there was still a kindly spirit hovering, and I felt that nothing bad could touch us while we were in its warm, gentle, and oddly timeless hold.‘Thank you, sister,' I whispered to the air. ‘Thank you for taking care of us,' and then I went to join the others.

The apples were delicious, the flesh a meltingly snow-white, the skin rosy and fragrant. They made a perfect breakfast, washed down with fresh, clear water from the stream below the ruins of the house.

‘It's odd, but it's almost as perfect here this morning as it was last night,' said Max and we all knew what he meant.

Even Tomi, who confessed that he'd dreamed he was a frog sitting on a lily pad, but in the dream he didn't mind so much because, as he said, ‘I could jump so very high, like this!' And he jumped around in a pretty good imitation of a frog, and we all laughed. This was the first time, I thought, the very first time, I had ever heard him laugh.

By and by, we packed some more apples into our knapsack, filled the empty ginger beer bottle with water, and set off. We followed the stream up, and followed the sun, too, for Max wasn't sure he wanted to trust to the compass any more (though I was sure that the spell on the compass had faded like last night's magic and that it would point true, especially now we were doing what the moon-sister wanted us to do).

At first we were in open country but soon we entered the woods. This wasn't the forest proper, just its outskirts. The stream became a little brook, then a rivulet, which then turned into a spring bubbling from a rock, where we stopped to drink. At first, we had seen no-one, but just a short way into the woods, we began to pass people: woodcutters, charcoal-burners, herb-gatherers, a rabbit-hunter who sold us one of the skinned rabbits hanging from a pole over his shoulder. He looked surprised when we told him we wanted to go to the forest and told us that if we walked briskly in a certain direction, we should reach a hamlet called Smutny by nightfall, on the very edge of the deep forest. He told us he hadn't been that way in a long
while but believed it was possible we might find some form of shelter there. But why didn't we go instead in the other direction, which would be easier going and lead to the main road, not to mention one or two comfortable inns?

We thanked him but said we had to go this way.

He shook his head and said, ‘Well then, I'll be wishing you luck.' Then he very kindly gave us some dried, salted mushrooms, telling us that if we soaked them in a little water, they would make a fine sauce for the rabbit. He was a nice man – the only person we met that day who was anything like what you might call nice, or even civil. The other passers-by seemed surprised to be greeted with Max's cheerful ‘Good morning', and looked at him warily before scuttling away, so that soon he stopped doing it.

‘I thought that country people were supposed to be much friendlier than city folk,' he complained, when we stopped for a quick lunch of apples and water.

‘Oh no,' I said. ‘That's a city idea. We're used to strangers, they're not. They probably take you for an escaped lunatic to be got away from as quickly as possible.'

‘Well, thanks very much,' said Max, indignantly, when we all burst out laughing.

We kept walking and time passed uneventfully. Tomi grew tired and had to be carried again. Because we'd only had more apples and water for lunch, so as not to stop for too long, the thought of a roast rabbit dinner with mushroom sauce was beginning to seriously disturb my thoughts well before the shadows of afternoon had begun to lengthen, so that by the time we were within sight of Smutny, I was absolutely ravenous. And I wasn't the only one.

Smutny was a miserable sort of hamlet of about a dozen houses in various states of disrepair, and the welcome was about as warm as you might expect. In fact most people simply refused to talk to us at all. At last we were rather grudgingly sold some bread by the village headman, a wizened old fellow with sly blue eyes, who told us that we could spend the night in the village barn – a crumbling affair which smelt of mouldy hay – and gather some wood for a fire (both of which had to be paid for with the last of Andel's coins). But when Max tentatively asked him if he knew of anyone who might guide us to the border, or any maps to consult, he was flatly refused, with the door slammed in his face.

These were the forest lands. My mother's country. When I was little, she used to tell me such jolly stories about her village, Stromsa; about mushroom-gathering and berry hunts, feasts of roast boar and deer around the fire, and of course the tradition of giving honey, cream and roses to girls on their sixteenth birthday. It had seemed so beautiful and I had always wondered why on earth she had never wanted to go back. Now I thought I understood. She had painted a rosy glow over things because she had needed something to hold on to. Life in Ashberg had proved disappointing; but life in this region was hard, and hearts harder still. For my poor mother, there was no going back, and nowhere she could truly be at home, except in golden stories of once upon a time.

Yet maybe I was making too much of it. Smutny wasn't Stromsa, after all. I had no idea where exactly my mother's village lay in relation to this place, and it was no use asking these people, they seemed to think any bit of information
was too precious to let out of their mouths, certainly not without a coin in return.

I woke out of an uneasy sleep knowing at once that something was wrong. I lifted my head cautiously out of the straw. Everything was quiet and dark. It was the middle of the night and the waxing moon only faintly lit things so I could see, to one side, the soundly sleeping shapes of Max and Tomi, the little boy huddled up close to the young man. To the other, Olga was not lying asleep but had her back to me, she was over by our things and . . .

I realised it wasn't Olga at all! The shape and size were all wrong. Without even stopping to think I crept quietly to where the intruder was rummaging through our things. He was so intent on what he was doing that he didn't notice me until I was nearly upon him; then with a strangled gasp, he leapt forwards with surprising speed, making a dive for the ladder that led up to the hayloft. He scrambled down with me in hot pursuit and before he even managed to get halfway across the floor below, I had knocked him to the ground.

The wizened old man with the sly blue eyes looked up at me fearfully. I'd disliked him yesterday on sight; this certainly didn't improve that impression.

‘I can explain,' he quavered.

‘You'd better. What have you done to Olga – to my friend?'

‘Nothing, I swear it,' he stammered. ‘I saw the girl go a little while ago.'

‘Go? Go where?'

‘Into the forest,' he said, promptly.

I remembered the green glow of longing in Olga's eyes, as she had finished sucking on the last of the roast rabbit, and knew at once why she'd gone into the forest in the middle of the night. The rabbit had been delicious but not quite enough for four people, especially not for a werewolf who could hunt.

‘That doesn't explain what you were doing rattling around in our things.'

‘I was just looking,' he said, sulkily.

‘What were you looking for?'

He shot me a sly glance. ‘Nothing.'

‘Give me what you took.'

‘I took nothing,' he protested.

But I slipped a hand into the inner pocket of his greasy coat and took out first the compass, and then something small, hard and shiny.

‘My locket!' I said, without stopping to think. The compass had been in the knapsack he'd been rifling through, but not the locket. That had been in my jacket pocket. He must have taken it before he'd even started going through the bag. I saw the amusement in his eyes.
Yesterday, he hadn't seen through my boy-disguise; but now he knew I was a girl. My skin crawled at the thought of those hands on me. I wanted to hit him; but stopped myself in time. Instead, I said, menacingly, ‘Why did you take these?'

‘To sell, of course. Why do you think?'

His voice had a mocking edge now and it riled me.

‘You miserable thief,' I said, furiously, losing my temper now, and shaking him like a rat. ‘So help me God I'll teach you a lesson you won't forget.'

I saw the fear was back in his eyes. ‘Please,' he said, ‘please, Miss.' The mocking tone was quite gone from his voice. ‘I am sorry, I am very sorry. I am poor, I just –'

‘We gave you all our money already, you disgusting object,' I hissed. ‘We are homeless strangers – guests in your village. I was always told that the people of the forest were so hospitable. And yet look at you – look at this place! What is wrong with you people?'

He laughed bitterly. ‘
What is wrong with you people
?' he mimicked. ‘Why, my lady, would you ask the dead that question, too?'

I released my hold on him. ‘What?'

‘We are dead,' he said and sat up, painfully. He turned his pale gaze on me. It was no longer sly, but bleak. ‘Or we may as well be. Our villages are emptying, our women don't bear children, our crops fail, our animals don't thrive and our streams are drying up. Some say we are cursed.'

I remembered how the rabbit-man had tried to tell us not to come here.

‘Cursed? Why?' I whispered.

He shrugged. ‘Some say the heart of the forest is dying,' he said. ‘Nobody knows why.' He shot one of those ugly glances at me. ‘But you're from the city – from Ashberg – why do you care?'

‘My mother was from the forest,' I said. ‘From Stromsa.'

His eyes narrowed. ‘Was? She is dead?'

I nodded, sadly.

‘What was her name?'

‘Jana,' I said. ‘Jana Lubosdera.' I watched him carefully to see if he knew my mother's secret, but all I saw was a flash of recognition of the name, nothing more.

‘You are old Lubos' granddaughter?' he said.

‘Yes. I never met him or my grandmother. You – you know them?'

‘
Knew
them,' he corrected. ‘They're both long dead. Well, well, I heard old Lubos' daughter married a rich man from Ashberg.'

‘She did.'

‘They didn't like the match, but she wouldn't be told. Well, well! What are you doing, rich man's daughter, dressed in rags and sleeping in a barn?' he said, the mocking tone back in his voice, but this time it only made me sad.

I said, gently, ‘It's a long story and I don't want to tell it to you.'

‘Oh, like that, is it? I think I can guess. Your mother's dead, your pa's remarried and the new wife doesn't like you. Am I right?'

I said nothing but he must have got his answer from my face, for he said, ‘I see. And now you have come back here
to try and see if there's a welcome for you in Stromsa. Well, I'm sorry, my girl, but you'll be disappointed.'

I looked at his wizened face, curdled with misfortune, bitterness and malice, and marvelled at how the face of the moon-sister, all ravaged by illness and most likely more tragedy than he had ever known, could nevertheless be filled with a sweetness of spirit, a beauty of soul that he could not come close to. He'd said he might as well be dead, but the dead I knew – my mother and the moon-sister – were far more alive than he was. And suddenly, despite everything, I was filled with a queasy pity for him. On an impulse, I held out the compass to him. ‘Take it.'

His jaw dropped and his eyes widened.

‘Take it,' I repeated. ‘It's the only thing of value we have, take it and go. Leave us in peace.'

‘But . . . why?'

‘Because you need it more than we do, for you have lost your way,' I said, quietly, and shoving it into his unresisting hand, I turned on my heel and headed back to the ladder.

Before I could reach it, he came after me and said, wonderingly, ‘Who – who are you?'

‘I told you.'

‘What do you want?'

‘Nothing. Just for you to go away.'

He looked disturbed. ‘But I cannot just . . . you must want payment for the compass.'

‘You were ready to steal it,' I said. ‘Why the scruple now?'

‘This is different.'

I was going to tell him to begone when a thought came into my head. I turned. ‘Very well, there
is
something you can give me in return.'

He looked sideways at me. ‘I can't give you too much for it. It's not the newest of compasses, and see, there's a nick here where it –'

‘Spare me,' I snapped. ‘I'm not interested in bargaining. I want you to tell me how to get to Dremda.'

He nearly dropped the compass. ‘What?'

‘Simple question, I would have thought.'

‘Why do you want to go to –'

‘It's my business,' I said crisply.

‘Dremda is about a day's walk from here.'

‘Is it on the way to the border?'

‘No, the Dremda track does branch out from that road but –'

‘Is there a signpost?'

He laughed. ‘A signpost! Where do you think you are – Ashberg? Of course there's none.'

‘How will I know it, then?'

‘I heard that there used to be two silver birches at the entrance to the track. They're probably dead by now though.'

‘How far is the turning?'

‘Not for quite a long way. If you leave first thing, you won't reach the Dremda track before evening, I'd say. But I warn you, it will take you a long way out of your way, for it is a dead end. You'd have to go back on your tracks to get back to the border road. It would delay you at least a day, maybe more, if –'

‘If what?'

‘Nobody's been there in a long, long while,' he said. ‘The track is very overgrown so it's easy to get lost. And there'll be wild beasts, I'll be bound.' His eyes glinted. ‘I don't know what myths you learned at your mother's knee, but there's nothing left there. Nothing. It's dead, like everything else. If I were you, I wouldn't bother.'

‘But you're not me,' I said, tartly. ‘So thank you, but I don't need your advice. Oh, and by the way, you know my friend Olga – the one you saw going into the forest?'

He shrugged. ‘Yes. So what?'

‘She was hunting,' I said.

He laughed. ‘She won't have any luck. There's no game any more.'

‘Maybe not for a human,' I said calmly.

‘What?'

‘She's a werewolf.'

His face lost all colour. He didn't protest their existence as a city person might have done. He was from the forest lands, the heart of wolf country, where the werewolf memory was very close, and he knew at once I was telling the truth.

‘So if you don't want me to tell her how I found you sneaking around,' I went on, ‘if you don't want me to tell her how you came by that compass, you will not breathe a word of what I have asked you to anyone. This is what you will do: you will tell my friends you found out about my mother coming from the forest land and that you then felt bad about taking our money and that you decided to give it all back to us, plus some food for the journey tomorrow. And that I was so touched by this I gave you the compass in return.'

He looked at me. His chin wobbled. ‘You are the Devil,' he said, between bloodless lips.

I smiled thinly. ‘Do you agree? Or do you not?'

‘Very well,' he said, between gritted teeth. ‘I agree.'

‘Go and get it now,' I said. ‘The money and the food. I will say you came to me tonight and offered it.'

He shot me a hard look, but nodded. He scurried off and was back very quickly with the coins and a greasy parcel of stale bread and dried meat. I could have told him it wasn't good enough, but I was feeling oppressed by the whole thing now, so I just took it all without comment, and said, ‘Now go away and leave us alone. If you keep your promise, no harm will come to you.'

He gave me a glance in which fear and hatred mingled. He took a step back, then another. ‘I want you all – I want you all to be gone first thing tomorrow morning. And never come back,' he added, over his shoulder, as he scurried away.

‘You will not see us for dust, dear sir,' I called after him, and clambered back up to the hayloft where Max and Tomi were still sleeping soundly. I felt a strange mixture of elation and sadness. Yes, I'd seen off the old thief, and ensured at least some supplies for the next day; but his revelations had disturbed me deeply.

No sooner was I settled again in the hay when I heard Olga's soft footfalls below. I quickly closed my eyes and breathed softly, pretending to sleep. She was rummaging about for a while longer before silence descended again and I heard her soft, sleeping breath. I lay awake for a long time, thinking over things and by the time I finally fell asleep, not long before dawn, I had made my decision.