Secret Heart (12 page)

They stood watching through narrowed eyes. Two
bodies lay there in blankets by the fire. Corinna rested her hand on the tiger's shoulder.

“Do you have to believe in the tiger before you can be killed by the tiger?” she said.

“It won't kill them,” said Joe.

“It will. Kill!” she whispered to the tiger. “Kill!”

It didn't move.

“We could use rocks,” she said. “Just smash their bloody heads in while they're fast asleep. But mebbe that's too good for them. We could knock them out, then find their bloody knives and saw their heads off like the panther's.”

She spat and cursed in her frustration.

They tiptoed closer. They saw the pile of stones beyond the fire, the panther head set on top of it, the eyes catching the firelight. Corinna gasped. She stroked the tiger.

“Kill them,” she said. “Go on. Kill them.”

It moved away from them, began to prowl the ring of grass. At times—when it crossed the deepest shadows at the far side, when their eyes failed for a moment to hold it in the world—they lost sight of it. But it kept on reappearing, and when it passed close to them they knew its breath, its scent, and felt the deep disturbance it caused around them in the night.

“Kill,” whispered Corinna. “Go on. Kill.”

It prowled. It went no closer to the sleeping bodies. It traced circle after circle after circle with the sleeping bodies, the fire and the panther head at the
center. More creatures took wing from the crags above. Shadows shifted at the edges of the glade. The tiger prowled, prowled, its great tail held out behind, its head held high. At times it quickened its step and ran and leaped across the grass, then slowed and walked again. It was always there now, always in view, as if it became more certain of itself, grew more confidently into its new life. The creatures in the sky spiraled downward. Already several were silhouetted in the treetops. Animals stepped out from the forest, half-seen, half-understood things, things half in and half out of the deep darkness: beasts with four legs but with heads that seemed human; beasts that stood erect but with broad horns growing from them; small silvery beasts with single horns; great shaggy beasts as tall as young trees; small shy beasts as short as grass. They gathered there at the fringes in the moonlight. They whispered and whimpered and whinnied. Weird notes and songs escaped from their lips. The creatures high above with their huge beaks and folded wings leaned over and gazed down.

“You see?” hissed Joe.

Corinna trembled.

“You hear?” she said.

The tiger ran. It leaped. It clawed the air. And it began to roar, to hold its head back, open its huge jaws and roar. And its roars were like something from a deep dark cavern, that filled the glade and echoed round the glade and from the crags.

The sleeping bodies moved.

Joe and Corinna tiptoed closer, dropped to the grass, crawled, waited.

“Kill,” whispered Corinna. “Kill them!”

Stanny Mole sat up. He rubbed his eyes. He looked around the glade.

“Joff!” he said. “Joff!”

He shook the man's shoulder. Joff shifted, grunted, snarled.

“Joff!” said Stanny.

The man sat up and cursed. He held his arm against the sky.

“Bloody moon,” he said. “What's the matter with you?”

“Something…,” said Stanny.

He caught his breath, a sudden short sob or scream. He flinched.

“Joff!” he said.

“Get back to sleep,” the man said. He waved at the air. “Bloody moon!”

“Oh, God,” said Stanny. “Oh, my God!”

They saw how his head followed the steps of the tiger now, how he turned to keep it in sight.

“Can you not see?” he said.

“See what?” said the man.

“And there!” said Stanny. “Oh, and there, and there!”

Joff reached out, grabbed him by the collar.

“It's just the damn panther business,” he said. “I
told you to keep away if you weren't up to it. Calm down, will you? It's just the memory of it.” He turned Stanny's head to the panther head. “Look, it's bloody dead, boy!”

Stanny shuddered.

“Want to go home!” he sobbed.

He groaned and his arm swung as he pointed to the tiger.

Joff held him, then released him.

“Go on, then,” he said. “Damn kid. Damn stupid kid.”

He shoved Stanny.

“Go on, then, stupid boy.”

Stanny stumbled away from him. He sobbed as the tiger circled him. Joff cursed the moon and dragged the blanket across him.

“You'll soon be back,” he said.

Stanny fell. He found himself staring into the faces of Joe and Corinna: the trapeze girl, the tiger boy.

“Stanny,” whispered Joe. “It's me, Stanny.”

He wanted to reach out, touch his friend, comfort him.

“And me,” whispered Corinna. “Stupid Gyppo fairy tart.”

Stanny swiped his hand across his eyes.

“Oh, God,” he said. “Oh, my God.”

The tiger prowled.

“It's OK,” said Joe. “Just run. It won't f-follow.”

“Kill him!” breathed Corinna.

“Just r-run!” said Joe.

Stanny ran, and the beasts parted, and they heard the boy crashing through the undergrowth, through the trees, scrambling downhill.

The tiger was just a few feet from Joff. It held its belly close to the earth. It held its head straight out, level with its shoulders. Its eyes held the man in their grip. It stepped closer, poised to leap.

“Do it, tiger,” said Corinna.

Joe held his breath, waited, watched.

Joff sat up again, held his arm up to the moon, looked into the glade, reached into his blanket, took out a hatchet.

“Who's there?” he hissed.

The tiger growled softly.

“Who's bloody there?”

Rising fear in his harsh voice.

The tiger, low in the grass, crept to him.

“Look how scared he is,” Corinna said. She grinned. “Look how brave he is. Panther killer. Do it, tiger!”

She held Joe's hand.

“It won't kill, will it?” she said.

“Don't th-think so.”

Joff held the hatchet shoulder high, backed toward the trees, swung his head as he scanned the glade.

“Bloody moon,” he said. “Bloody shadows. What's there?”

He beckoned toward himself with his hand, as if he beckoned the glade, the forest, the moon, the night.

“Come on,” he said. “Show yourself. Come and try it.”

“Lost soul,” sighed Corinna. “Stupid puny man.”

The tiger closed on him, stood directly before him, so that its breath must fall across him, its scent, the sound of the sighing in its lungs. It growled. But the man saw nothing, heard nothing, smelt nothing. He knew nothing but his own great fear and scorn of what was there before him and all around him. And he started to shudder and gasp and curse like a lost thing. He backed away toward the trees, and again the beasts parted to let him through, and he stumbled away into the forest dark.

Corinna held the head in her hands.

“So beautiful,” she said. “So heavy. So wonderful. How could they do this?”

They looked into the dark forest that surrounded them. They imagined Stanny and Joff stumbling stupidly through the trees, losing all sense of where they were, losing all sense of who they were. They imagined the creatures of the forest regarding them coldly from their nests and dens and hiding places.

“Stupid man,” said Corinna. “Stupid, stupid boy.”

She held out the panther head to Joe. He took it into his hands. He felt the dense velvety fur against his palms and fingers. He felt the dried blood and ripped flesh of the awful wound. He gazed down into the empty eyes, imagined the brain behind the eyes, beneath the skull. Was that empty? Nothing in there, ever again? He stared. He dreamed himself into the
eyes, into the brain. He felt the panther dreaming into his own brain, and beginning to run again.

“How could they do this?” Corinna said again.

Joe shook his head.

“Just what people… do.”

“People!”

Joe laid the head back on the stones.

“What should we d-do with it?”

“People,” she breathed again. “People!”

She turned away from Joe. The tiger lay nearby, watching. She stepped toward it, raising her knees high. She held her face to the moon. She stretched her arms out, the fingertips stretched and straining into the night. She cooed and gasped and whimpered. She sang slow intertwining notes. She started to dance in the grass before the tiger.

“Take my hand, Joe.”

He went to her, took her hand, stepped with her, sang with her. They danced around the tiger. They danced in slow circles on the grass.

“People!” she said. “Forget people, Joe!”

And the other beasts stepped further from the shadows of the forest into the moonlit glade. The shifting and shuffling of their feet and hoofs, the sounds of their weird voices: snuffles and snorts, whistles and gasps, breathy whispers and melodies. The sky was filled with creatures wheeling across the great round moon. The trees and the Black Bone Crags whirled around the glade. The tiger stood and raised its head
and roared. Joe and Corinna ran, danced, cartwheeled, moved faster, faster, and they laughed and gasped as they lost themselves in the delight of it. They disappeared and came back again, disappeared and came back again, time and again.

Then slowed and stopped and crouched together at the center. Looked together at the moon. It paled as the world turned, as day approached again. The creatures stepped back into the trees, flapped back toward the crags. The tiger prowled. Leaves rustled in a predawn breeze.

“It's just like the t-tent,” said Joe.

They looked about them: the walls of crags and trees, fading moon and galaxy above. The tiger. The memory of weird beasts. Two children, hand in hand, dressed in satin, filled with dreams.

Corinna nodded. Yes. It was just like the tent.

“We disappeared,” she said.

“And c-came back again.”

Corinna smiled.

“We'll tell Hackenschmidt. We chased the evil people. We saw the unicorns. We danced with the tiger. We disappeared and came back again. And parts of the world are just like the tent.” She giggled and clapped her hands. “Parts of the world are just like the tent!”

Joe lifted the panther head.

“What should we do with it, Joe?” she asked.

Joe looked around him.

“We'll hide it,” he said. “Give it some p-peace.”

They started to walk uphill again, toward the crags.

They looked back. The tiger stayed in the glade, in the grass, watching as they left.

At the foot of the crags a small waterfall splashed into a mossy pool. Behind it was a narrow opening in the rock, tall as a boy, a girl. Joe went first. The water sprinkled him. The floor at first was loose wet pebbles, then firm dry rock. There was weak light from the entrance, and from weak beams that fell from somewhere high above. The air was icy cold. The space widened and became an echoing empty chamber. Corinna came to Joe's side. The sound of tiny water drops, of their breath. Their eyes ached as they accustomed themselves to the light.

“Oh, horses,” whispered Joe.

“Wolves and bears,” said Corinna.

They leaned closer to the rock wall, to the pictures they were sure they saw there. They traced the outlines with their fingers.

“And deer,” whispered Joe.

“Tigers!”

Joe's heart raced. He pointed to the other beasts, winged and horned. The pictures came, merged with the rock, appeared again. And all around they began to make out handprints, human handprints. Joe and Corinna searched, found handprints that fitted their own, and they leaned to the rock as the owners of those prints once had.

They moved further in. Joe held the skull before him, as if the eyes in it might see, might guide them. There was a chest-high shelf in the rock at the far side of the chamber, with a deep dark niche behind. More pictures on the walls, more handprints. Joe lifted the head and set it on the shelf, and as he did so he felt the other things that were there. He lifted some, held them to his eyes in the semidark: bones, fragments of bones, horns, fragments of horns, fangs and teeth. He shuddered as he slid his fingers into the niche. Yet more bones, horns, fangs, teeth. He reached further, reached to arm's length, but the niche stretched beyond his fingertips into total icy dark.

Joe and Corinna stared at each other.

“Like N-Nanty's b—”

“Yes. Like Nanty's box,” said Corinna.

They stared at the panther, into its sightless eyes. They saw the day when the fur had fallen from it, when the flesh and skin were gone, when the eyes were empty sockets, when the brain was gone and there was only the skull of bone and it still rested on
the rock shelf and stared into the chamber. They gazed at the rock around themselves, and they saw that the rock was like bone, and that the chamber was like the inside of a skull of bone. And they held their breath as they thought this thought, and felt it moving gently through the soft folds of their brains. Then breathed, and moved backward across the chamber, bidding farewell to the panther skull.

The scrape of their feet and the sighing of their breath echoed from the walls. They backed out through the narrow passageway, through the sprinkling water. They stood beneath the Black Bone Crags, above the Silver Forest. The world turned and the sun began to show itself above the eastern horizon. From far off came the grumble of the motorway. Joe and Corinna trembled with the delight of being in this place, seeing it, touching it. They trembled with the delight that their minds could think their thoughts, and that they could know such wonder and astonishment.

And the sun rose and the moon faded and the stars went out, and day came back again.