Winter Wood (29 page)

Aunt Celandine put her hand inside the bag. Her
movements were slow, and shaky. Midge struggled to contain her impatience.

‘Oh . . .' Aunt Celandine drew out what looked like a handful of old leaves. She lifted them to her face and sniffed at them. ‘Oh yes,' she said. ‘Feverfew. I used to use this a
lot
. And lavender, of course . . . groundsel . . . and here's a bit of silverweed. Very good for the kidneys, is silverweed, and also, well . . . ladies' problems.'

Midge wriggled in frustration. Was that it? Just a bunch of smelly old plants? No, Aunt Celandine's hand was in the bag again, and this time she seemed to have got hold of something more interesting.

‘Ooh. What's this?'

She held up a round object, about the size of a small coconut. At first glance it looked like a scrunched-up bundle of oily canvas. But there was apparently something wrapped in this material – the thin strips of it, wound round and round.

‘Oilskin,' said Aunt Celandine. ‘Yes, I remember they had a kind of oilskin. It does go a bit rancid after a while, though.' She picked at the end of one of the strips and began to pull it away, unwinding it, slowly and carefully.

There seemed to be an awful lot of it. Midge was agog, wondering what could possibly lie at the centre of all this stuff. But then Aunt Celandine stopped pulling at the material. Her face looked puzzled. ‘I've seen this happen before,' she said. ‘I
know
I have. It's . . . oh, it's . . .' She resumed her work, untwisting the lengths of oilskin. It reminded Midge of a
black-and-white film she'd once watched, where somebody was unwrapping the bandages from somebody else's head, and then in the middle there was nothing at all. Something about an invisible man.

But this wasn't invisible. Aunt Celandine pulled the last bit of oilskin away, and held up a . . . pine-cone.

Midge couldn't have been more surprised. Or disappointed. A
pine
-cone? She stared in disbelief at the thing, and was then startled as Aunt Celandine let out a hoot of laughter.

‘A
piney
-cone!' she squealed, and for a moment she sounded just like a little girl. ‘
I
remember now! They all thought it was going to be the Orbis, and it turned out to just be an old pine-cone! Oh, you should have
seen
Corben's face. Ha! He was
furious
. And that's when I fell out of the tree, and had to start running. And of course, it was me that had the Orbis all along, though I never knew it till later. Yes, a pine-cone, just like this one.' Aunt Celandine rocked back and forth in her chair, gurgling away, and fumbling in the sleeve of her cardigan until she found a hanky. She wiped her eyes, and tucked the hanky away again.

Midge just gawped at her. ‘You remember that?' she said. ‘About having the Orbis and everything? It's really true?'

Aunt Celandine had calmed down a bit. ‘Yes,' she said, and now there was surprise in her voice, as though she'd only just realized what this meant. ‘Yes, I
do
remember. Isn't that funny? The Orbis was in my bag – a bag just like this one. They'd put it there without my knowing. It was the cave-dwellers who did that.
They wanted me to carry it away and keep it safe for them.'

‘You took it away with you? Well, then . . .' Midge asked the big question. ‘What did you do with it?'

‘What did I do with it?' Aunt Celandine was looking horribly blank again. Her dark filmy eyes moved around the room, as though searching for clues. ‘I . . . don't know. It's gone.'

Midge had suffered so many setbacks in this quest that she had almost grown used to it. And she had learned that there was no point in getting upset, or in trying to push Aunt Celandine along any quicker than she was able. Nevertheless it was very hard to have come so far only to fail. She desperately wanted to move forward, but for the moment there was no alternative but to take a step back.

‘Oh well. Perhaps it'll come eventually,' she said. ‘Is there anything else in the bag?'

Aunt Celandine sighed and shook her head, obviously confused and disappointed with herself. She rummaged around in the leather bag, pulled out a few
more leaves, or herbs, or whatever they were, put them back and rummaged some more. Midge watched her and thought how tired she looked. Perhaps it was time to give up and call it a day. They really had made some progress, and so this visit could hardly be written off as a failure.

Something else had appeared from the bag. Midge couldn't quite see what it was . . . feathers?

‘Oh . . . oh my word . . . I
never
imagined I'd see this again! Oh but this is wonderful. Just wonderful! Look, Midge.' Aunt Celandine held out her cupped hands. Midge peered at the object in front of her. It was a little homemade toy, a walnut-shell boat with a tiny figure sitting in it. The figure looked as though it might be made of wax. It had wings – two feathers sticking out of it – although perhaps these were supposed to be oars. The figure might be flying or it might be rowing. Either way it was beautiful.

‘Oh, that's so
sweet
,' said Midge. ‘It's lovely.'

Aunt Celandine pressed the object to her chest for a few moments, but then she had to search for her hanky again. ‘This means so much to me,' she said, and this time she was really crying. ‘So much. I just can't tell you.' She dabbed at her tears, and cradled the strange little toy to her.

Midge sat and looked at her, dumbfounded. What should she do?

‘I lost it years ago, you see, just after I'd left home. They made it for me as a leaving present – the cave-dwellers. It meant so much to realize that they cared about me, when I thought that they didn't care at all.
And then I lost it. All the other things I just put in my jewellery box and forgot about, and I'd meant to put this in there too, but I didn't. I kept it with me, just for a little while. And then it simply disappeared, somehow, as things do. And I suppose I must have missed it at first, of course.' Aunt Celandine wiped her nose on the hanky. ‘But since then I've forgotten all about it, the way I forgot about everything else, and haven't given it a thought. But I remember now that this was one thing that really mattered to me at the time, and I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see it again. Oh dear.'

Midge felt her own eyes prickle with tears, and she wished that she had a hanky too. But she quickly drew her sleeve across her face, and then said, ‘I'm really glad, then, that it's come back to you. And it
is
lovely.' At the same time she couldn't help wondering how this could possibly be the same little toy. Perhaps it was better not to point this out, or question it.

‘Tell me about the cave-dwellers,' she said. ‘Is that where you stayed, in the caves?'

‘I read stories to them . . .' Aunt Celandine was staring into the distance again. ‘And we had singing. I wrote letters on the walls, with chalk. The alphabet. And songs. I showed them how to make words from the letters . . .'

Midge remembered something. ‘Was there one called Lor . . . Lorril . . . Loren?'

‘Oh . . .
yes
! Loren. Of course . . . Loren! He was so clever. But how did you know about him?'

‘I've got something he wrote,' said Midge. ‘And a
drawing he did – of you. But it's in my other jacket. Next time I'll bring it, though.'

‘Little Loren. Oh, he was a marvel. I wonder what happened to him.'

Midge thought of Tadgemole, and the sad expression on his face. Loren had died young, so Tadgemole had said. But again it might be better not to mention this. Instead she said, ‘I've met his brother – Tadgemole. Did you know him?'

‘Tadgemole . . . Tadgemole. Yes! He was the baby! A
tiny
little scrap. Is he really still there?'

‘He's the leader of the cave-dwellers now. He looks pretty old.' Midge was thinking of something else as she spoke. She wanted to ask so many questions about Celandine's life among the Various, but there was something more important niggling at her . . . yes, she'd got it.

‘Aunt Celandine, you said that you'd kept the little toy boat, but that you'd put everything else that they'd given you into a box . . . a jewellery box?'

‘Yes, I did. I
called
it my jewellery box, although I can't remember that there was much jewellery in it. It was mostly ribbons and hairgrips . . . one or two little bracelets, perhaps . . .'

‘But' – Midge tried to stay on track – ‘the Orbis. Did you put
that
in there too?'

‘Um . . . yes, that's right. I did. Yes, the Orbis . . . and a letter. A little wooden comb, I think. But I kept the boat with me, for a while.'

Midge took a breath, and tried to keep her voice steady. ‘And what happened to the jewellery box? What did you do with it?'

‘Oh, that's easy enough.' Aunt Celandine's voice was confident. ‘It stayed on my mantelpiece. I'd always kept it there, because there was a mirror above it. I never opened it again, though, not after what happened.'

‘Oh.' Midge's heart was beginning to sink again. ‘So you didn't take it with you when you left home?'

‘No. I liked to know that it would always be safe, you see, in my old room. No, the jewellery box never left Mill Farm.' Aunt Celandine smiled. Her eyes had come alive and she no longer looked so tired. ‘Do you know, Midge, so much of it is coming back to me now. Those little horses that they used to milk . . . I knew I was right about that . . . and how I cut all their hair . . . and the time I helped Micas put the pine-cone into the hollow tree . . . I haven't got it all in order quite, but it's there now. At least it's there.' Aunt Celandine was obviously far less interested in the fate of the Orbis than in her own returning memories. ‘And after a while it seemed almost
normal
. They
were
normal, really. Just people. It was only when those others came . . . the ones that had . . . wings . . .'

Midge listened, but she was trying to think at the same time. ‘What did it look like, the jewellery box?' she said.

‘Oh, it was nothing very special, that I can remember. Dark wood. Yes, about the size of a shoe box . . . and the sides sloped inwards. A casket. It had a key. Oh . . . I've remembered about that game, now, that the children used to play . . . Blinder . . . yes, they flicked these little stones . . .' Aunt Celandine was off again.

Midge was mentally running around the rooms of Mill Farm. Had she ever seen a dark wooden casket that could once have been a jewellery box? She didn't think so. And what were the chances, really, that it would still be around after all these years – and especially since the recent upheaval? It just wasn't possible. So what was she going to
do
?

‘You had to try and get the stones to land inside the sheep's skull. Ugly-looking thing, it was . . .'

There was a soft knock at the door, and Elaine put her head into the room. ‘Mr Howard's here,' she said, and there was Uncle Brian, standing out in the corridor, all muffled up in his thick winter jacket. He looked a bit embarrassed.

‘Sorry, Midge,' said Uncle Brian, over Elaine's shoulder. ‘I need to get back a bit earlier today. I made sure that you had your mobile, then realized I'd forgotten mine, so I couldn't ring you. Hallo, Aunt Celandine. How are you?'

‘Oh. Who's this?' Aunt Celandine was trying to turn round in her chair. ‘Is it the doctor?'

‘No, it's me, Aunt Celandine. Brian Howard. I'm your, er . . . I'm Midge's uncle. We've met before.' Uncle Brian came a little further into the room.

‘
Have
we?' Aunt Celandine didn't seem entirely convinced.

Midge exchanged glances with Uncle Brian and shook her head. She stood up. Far easier to be on her way than get into lengthy explanations as to who was related to whom.

‘I'd better go, Aunt Celandine,' she said. ‘I hadn't
realized how late it was. But listen . . . it's been a lovely afternoon, and I'll, um . . . see you soon, yes?'

‘Oh . . . must you go?' Aunt Celandine held out her hands. ‘Midge, come here. Come here a moment, dear. There's something I want to say to you.' She grasped Midge's fingers, and then glanced across at Elaine and Uncle Brian. It was plain that she wanted to speak privately, and Midge bent closer. ‘I'm so grateful . . . for what you've done.' Aunt Celandine's voice was a low whisper. Midge was aware that Uncle Brian and Elaine had discreetly moved away. She was aware also of a deep warmth beginning to spread through her fingertips, a strange sensation. As though something was being passed from her great-great-aunt to her.

‘Yes,
thank
you.' Aunt Celandine was focused now, squeezing her hand tight, seeking her full attention. ‘Thank you for coming to see me, and for putting my mind at rest. Today has been a
wonderful
day. You've helped me to find so much of what's been missing, and I don't think I could have even begun without you. You're a very special girl, and you've made me very happy. I was told when I was young, Midge, that I had a gift. A gift to be given. And perhaps it was true. I held many hands, just like this, and I did what I could.' Aunt Celandine's eyes closed. ‘And whatever this gift was, I would sometimes recognize it there in others – in their hands too. Just occasionally. And I've recognized it in yours. Yes, right from the very first time. I know that it's there. No . . . no . . . don't be frightened . . .' Aunt Celandine opened
her eyes, as Midge instinctively drew away. ‘It's nothing to be frightened of. Just do what you can, dear. It's all we can ever do. There now. That's all I have to say.'