The Riddles of Epsilon (14 page)

At the very top of the pole, holes were carved deep into the wood, like so many tiny caves. For ribbons to be threaded into—and sure enough, some of the women were uncurling long coils of ribbons from their pockets and reaching up.

I turned to the old man standing at the door.

And suddenly I fancied I saw him—Sebastian Wren, standing just behind Jerry C.

A little boy, wearing hot, itchy knickerbockers and a thick jacket. A boy who dressed differently and sounded too refined to the islanders. A boy who didn't fit in. An outsider, like me.

Then I blinked, and Sebastian was gone. There was just the old man, Jerry C., smiling down at me.

Instantly I knew that this was the very same cottage Sebastian had come to, to sit at the hearth. This man was a descendant of Sebastian's Master Cork.

Jerry C., the doc had called him. C for Cork. Both men were carpenters, sculptors; both men carved the Coscoroba,
each in their own time. Before I could think, I'd blurted it out.

“You are Jerry Cork,” I said weakly. “And one of your ancestors carved my swan bed. He carved the Coscoroba, too.”

Jerry Cork reached for my hand and shook it. Arthritic fingers curled over my own.

“That he did, young lady. That he did. There's his carvings all up and down this island. But only this family know the design for the Aroundy pole, for the pole gets burned every year and never copied down, so it's all kept up here.”

He tapped his head proudly.

But even as I smiled up at him, I started to feel dizzy. The doctor came up and took my arm. He made me sit down, and they brought me a drink of water, very cold and pure from the well, and I began to feel like I was in a long, long dream. I went on chatting somehow—the village women all said hello and called others from their cottages until there were too many people to talk to at once. Then, inexplicably, I started on a long series of massive yawns. Once I started, I couldn't stop.

The doc bundled me back into the car and—incredibly—I fell asleep. I was passed out all the way back to his house. I woke up only when the doc dropped my bike when he was putting it in the backseat and bashed one of the panniers. Then he drove me home, scolding and tutting and
saying I needed iron (“Iron, young lady! You tire far too easily—good thing I have some in my bag!”) until we bumped our way back past the lake.

No sign of the swan, but I twisted round to look at the Miradel.

“Doctor. Who built that tower thing?”

“Mmm?” (He was avoiding a pothole.)

“Back there. I mean—no doors, no windows—who on earth built it?”

“Oh, that! That's just a folly. Our ancestors were very fond of follies. Had more money than sense, some of them. It serves no purpose.”

“Is it true that there's no way in and no way out?” I asked.

“Way in? There's nothing inside it to get
into
. It's solid. I've investigated every inch of it. Had to—it used to be on my land. Couldn't risk it falling down on someone's head—they'd have sued me for every penny I've got.”

“Who built it?”

“Mmm? My great-great-dunno-how-many-greats-grandfather.”

“Really? What was his name?”

“Milton. Milton C. Parker. He built it as ‘a place of rest,' according to family legend—but how you rest in a solid building is beyond me. Some say he was buried nearby. Maybe that's what he meant.”

“Milton! So your house was named after him?”

He nodded, then slowed the car down to negotiate the turn into our front gates.

“Awfully interested in history all of a sudden, aren't we?”

“Me? I just like old things. So who does it belong to now?”

“The Miradel? Why—all of us, I suppose!”

“The whole of Lume?”

“The whole of Lume. Here we are then! I'll just pop in—have a word with your mother, give her these iron tablets, and make sure you
take
them.”

But just as I said 'bye and started to push the bike round the back, he stopped me and held out something. Something small and grubby and curled up at the edges.

“Jessica? You dropped this.”

It was Mrs. Shilling's little card, with the picture of a bird on it.

I reached out to take it. But he didn't let it go. We each hung on to one end of it, and a familiar look came over his face. That casual look—overcasual—like he had in my room that day when he'd first seen the bucket.

“By the way, Jess,” he said, “how did you know that the Aroundy pole was called the Coscoroba?”

I stared at him, blushing beet red. I'd given myself away.

“What?”

“You said it to Jerry Cork. You called it the Coscoroba. But that's a very ancient name for it. An old island name. However did you come to hear of it?”

I racked my brains. He still wouldn't let go of that card.

“I . . . read it. I read about it somewhere. In an old book—the house is full of them. The same word is on the map, too.”

“The map?”

“Coscoroba Rock. It's a rock that sticks out. At the end of Long Beach. Everyone knows about it—you must have heard of it?”

“Of course I have. That's where we'll burn the Coscoroba pole tomorrow. It's an old custom, to cast it into the sea from Coscoroba Rock.”

“Well then,” I stammered, “that's how I heard the name.”

There was an uncomfortable pause.

“Jessica. Are you . . . worrying yourself about anything?” he asked.

I stared up into those crinkled, kind eyes. Longed to tell him everything. Longed to trust someone with all this.

“Worrying about anything? No.”

For some reason, I let the card held between us go.

He glanced down at the bird picture and I swear he did a double take. Then he flipped the card over onto its information side. He read quickly, his frown deepening. Finally he
looked up again and smiled at me.

“This is a small island, Jessica. It's full of old stories, old legends. But that's all they are—legends. It wouldn't do to get scared and all upset about legends now, would it?”

“Upset? Why . . . no. It wouldn't. That'd just be silly.”

“You would come and tell me, wouldn't you? If anyone had been upsetting you at all? You can trust me, you know.”

Unexpectedly, a huge lump rose up in the back of my throat. I could have sat down then and there and cried my eyes out. But something stopped me.

“I'm fine, Dr. Parker. Really I am. I'm just not feeling very well. That's all. But thanks anyway.”

Finally he nodded and handed me the card. Then he strode away to go and find Mom. I stared down at the tiny picture in my hand—the bird card.

Not just any bird, I saw now as I stared down at it. I flipped the card over and read the back.

 

LATIN:
TROGLODYTES TROGLODYTES
.
Common name: The Wren. A very small European bird, much loved for its loud, melodic song.

 

What had Mrs. Shilling said?
“Pretend it's a boy.”

A wren. A boy. A boy called Sebastian. Sebastian Wren.

She knows.

THERE IS ONE MEMBER IN THE CHAT ROOM:

J
ESS

JESS:
Are you there, Epsilon?

E:
I'm down here at the cottage. I'm waiting for you.

JESS:
Will I . . . I mean, will you . . . Will I
see
you? Please don't do that thing with your eyes again.

E:
I won't harm you.

JESS:
I'm scared of you.

E:
I know. But I won't harm you. Come down and open the last box. Then I will appear. There is much to tell you before tomorrow. Will you come now?

JESS:
I don't know. I'm
scared
!

E:
Bring your whole file. It's time we started putting some of the puzzle pieces together.

JESS HAS NOW LEFT THE CHAT ROOM

MY DIARY

The cottage looked peaceful, nestling in its corner of garden, surrounded by the singing of early-evening blackbirds. But looks are deceiving.

As soon as I walked in, I felt it—a sort of crackling in the air. An energy, an expectancy. The sound of my footsteps seemed amplified as I climbed the stairs. Epsilon's room was empty and still.

I stood at the door a moment, looking at the round picture in its square frame. The golden O. Behind it, I knew, was that round black snake, about to devour its own tail. Taking nourishment only from itself. The thought of it hanging there, hidden, was horrible. Hurriedly, I lit a candle.

I crouched by the desk and opened the drawer. As I took out the third and last box, I wondered if I was about to discover what Sebastian had found that night when he finally opened the library door—that night of the storm, when he heard someone creeping down the corridor toward him. I stared down at the box, my mouth dry. I wasn't sure I was up to any of this. Wasn't sure I wanted to find out. But what choice did I have? None really. None at all.

The third box unlocked easily. Inside it were three different things.

Five pages of Sebastian's diary, hastily written in his spidery scrawl.

A letter from Martha to Sebastian.

And finally, a yellowed newspaper cutting, folded into a neat square.

First, I read Sebastian's diary papers. This is what he had written:

 

I stared at the door for an age, willing myself to open it. Finally I turned the handle and pulled.

Someone
was
standing there, pale in the lamplight. But I almost did not recognize her, those eyes . . . 

“Mama?”

Her feet were bare; she wore the thinnest of nightgowns. She held it gathered before her, and held in the gathers were many shells. They chinked together softly under her fingers. She chose a shell and held it up.

“Look, Sebastian—this one was me, all coiled up!”

“Mama!”

She chose another shell.

“And this one, this one, look! Your smallest fingernail when you were born. And the same tiny pink!”

“Mama, what are you doing?”

But she put her finger to her lips and bent down. She placed the little pink shell delicately on the floor.

“Look what I have made!” she said.

She turned and pointed away, back into the dark corridor.

I raised my lamp and stared.

The lamplight shot along the corridor. Hundreds of tiny gleams lit up along the floor; they ricocheted away into the darkness. A long, single row of shells, each one set agleam by the lamp! And suddenly, a memory leaped from nowhere—last summer, high on the west cliffs, watching the fishermen hurriedly light the beacons, one by one, all along the coastline.

A beacon of shells. A path, to light the way through fog. For what? For something approaching; something coming nearer.

“Mama—what have you done?”

She leaped up and tugged at my sleeve.

“Come with me, Sebastian—let's follow it!”

“No, Mama.”

“But you can hear the sea in it! Come, you'll see.”

She would not stop tugging, her fingers plucking at my sleeve.

“Very well, Mama. But you are shivering. Come, we will follow it—but only back to your bedchamber.”

But they did not just lead to her chamber. They meandered all over and split into two roads, then three.
At every turn, more and more, leading into every corner of the house. But the one she wanted to follow—she was adamant, there was no stopping her—led to Papa's door, and there she stopped and stood as if waiting.

Sure enough, Papa's door flew open. He saw it all in a glance—the hair loose, the wild look of delight, the path of shells leading away.

“What in the name of . . . ?”

But Mama leaned forward and pressed her cold finger to his lips.

“Shhh!” she said. “It's too late, Edmond.”

He went still.

“Too late? What is too late?”

“She has already stepped on them.”

“Who has? Stepped on what?”

“On her stepping-stones. You cannot stop her.”

“Stop whom? Who the blazes are you talking about?” said Papa. But in his eyes a quick, keen look.

“The One Lady.” She gave a little laugh. “
My
lady.”

At that, Papa began to roar at me. I must get my crazed mother back to her bed—I must clear up these infernal shells instantly—he would write to the asylum in the morning—she was just like her mad mother—get her away from his door—he detested the very sight of her wild, mad face and her hair all over like a common Gypsy!

But I had the sudden suspicion that he was
acting
. That he was pleased with what she had said. But . . . he could not be. Could he?

Mama only smiled as I led her away. Back along the shell path. Back to her bedchamber, where I rubbed her poor bare feet and covered her over with an eiderdown.

She closed her eyes and was asleep instantly.

But I still had to collect the shells. I borrowed her blue fruit bowl and set off.

She must have been laying her trail for hours! All around the house they took me. To the unused rooms and around their white shapes of sofas and chairs, draped in sheets. Down the back stairs and into the kitchen in a wobbly line. Into the scullery and over the shelves, as if a great snail had meandered there.

Bending, bending, and each little shell chinked prettily into the dish, but there were always more. Into the drawing room, over Papa's books and back onto the floor. Up onto the pianoforte, a shell on each key of the piano. Hundreds of shells. Thousands of shells!

I got angry then, and swept them into the dish a handful at a time, careless of the noise. The piano keys plinked, a pretty fa-sol-la, rising up the scale.

It echoed on and on as I backed out the door, up the main stairwell, along the corridors.

Until, at last, I was left with only one trail—up my attic stairs. A shell on each step, leading to my door.

My bed was stripped bare. On its mattress ticking, she had arranged the shells not in a straight line but into a pattern.

A strange pattern. I grabbed my pen quickly, drew it, stabbing the marks into the paper, then flung it aside.

Then I scooped the last of the shells up and carried the dish—heavy now, very heavy—back to the scullery. I wrenched open the casement and poured all the BLASTED shells out of the BLASTED window.

When I returned to Mama, she was still asleep, a little frown between her brows.

Everything was exactly as I had left it.

Except that something had been placed on her pillow.

Something that had not been there before, I am certain of it.

There—just by her hand—one black feather.

 

I stared at the pattern Martha had left. It struck me as being familiar. Something tugged at the back of my mind, then leaped out. I grabbed my file and turned to my sketch of Epsilon's fossil floor. Compared the two.

The fossils sat snugly in the same pattern. Dotted erratically, they nevertheless followed the very same lines as the ones Martha had traced in shells on Sebastian's bed. But what exactly were these strange patterns? I shook my head at last and sat thinking.

So the night before the Greet, more than a hundred years ago, Mama had laid a trail of shells—“her stepping-stones,” she'd called them, for “the One Lady.”

Yolandë again. But who exactly is she? The carved stone up by the castle had suggested she wasn't just one person but represented several.

 

ONE LADY she be,

ONE LADY we be,

ONE LADY be he-without-trace.

For he be ONE LADY

And she be ONE LADY

And we see the ONE LADY's face.

 

And straight after reading that stone, I
had
seen a face. The face of the black swan. What did the black swan signify? And who was she summoning to gather, up there on the Crags?
The faithful.
Whoever they were, their arrival was imminent. That gathering in the air. That expectancy.

As to Sebastian's papa and his
acting
—why would he be? But I was sure Sebastian had been correct. For some reason, Papa was pleased his wife was acting like this. It was all beyond me.

Then I turned to the second document. A letter, scribbled fast—a note from Martha to Sebastian.

 

Such wild sounds, Sebastian! Her voice is louder; she beckons me to Crag Point. Or to the shore. I am drawn to the sea. She is waiting there; she calls my name. She sings.

Did you know that I studied music in my girlhood? Of course, you must, for we have sung together often! I forget so many things. Yet never will I forget this music from the shores. It pulls me apart, it sews me back together.

At the forthcoming Greet, she will come. I
fear for her sweet face. She has many enemies—I have sensed them near. I will protect her all the days of my life. I will protect her with my life.

I have to go soon, dear Sebastian, into strange places—you must not follow me, not there. I am looking for a thing that was lost long ago—lost in the sea. But this I know: What the tide takes away, the tide brings back. Has that not always been the way of the sea? I will find it for her; my own hand will dry her tears.

Her enemies, however, are also nearer. How I despise them! They whisper lies into the ears of children, they confuse the elderly with their distortion! What cowards they are, and she so brave.

They reverse all things. I shudder at it.

Their lies are ludicrous, yet people believe them. It is like calling the eagle more lovely than the swan. That brown bird with its ugly talons, built only to kill! The swan's foot steers calm waters—what harm does she do? Her plumage is brilliant, she does not tear flesh, not she. Her neck is full of grace, it carries her eye deep into the calmest of waters,
it is her very nature to be serene.

If they were to be believed, these enemies with death in their talons—what woe would come upon us then. Flesh would tear and bleed—our music would be silenced, the cry of the sea dry up. Meanwhile, she shows me that one of them has poisoned your mind, Sebastian. His kindness to you is a lie—you must not believe it; he is one of the Dark Beings. He has bewitched you with his riddles and his music. Yet I cannot help you. It is all too late.

I pen this and ask that you not let the shake of my hand distress you; it is only that I am so very cold tonight. If I should take my leave of you at the Greet, my fine son, you will see—you will ALL see—that maybe I am not so deranged after all.

Master Cork is a gifted man—he has finished carving the swans on the Coscoroba pole. There is a small space hidden behind one of the swans—I have been meaning to mention this for many a week now; did I mention it? I forget so many things—but I will never forget you.

Mama

Swans again. Swans, swans, swans. Martha's letter made me sad. But it also scared me. Here she was, warning her son about someone who was poisoning his mind. With his riddles and his music. I remembered that haunting flute tune, the one that had drawn me to the cottage, that night of the mirrored dreams.

Epsilon. She warned Sebastian that he is a Dark Being. She certainly thought that the One Lady—Yolandë—was on the side of the good. Was she right? Is Epsilon a Dark Being? I remembered his eyes, staring at me, many faceted, when the rest of him had vanished. Those eyes that looked unearthly. What sort of place has he come from? A dark place? How would I really know who to trust?