Winter Wood (52 page)

‘My God, Midge . . .' Her mum looked at her, clearly shocked. ‘But that's like . . . I don't know . . . it's like clairvoyance or something.'

‘She used to see me too. When she was young she saw me lots of times. I never told you that. She said she knew what I'd look like and everything, before she even met me.'

‘Whaaat? But Midge . . . that's very
strange
. Are you sure? I had no idea that she was . . . that way.'

‘They used to call her Witch, when she was at school. She wasn't a witch, though. Not how they meant it anyway.' Midge snuggled further into her mum's warm winter coat. It was good to be cuddled. ‘I think she got happier in the end.'

‘Well, that was something that Carol Reeve was very
keen that you should know. She said that you'd brought such a light into that old lady's life. Those were her actual words, Midge, and it made me very proud to hear them. Very proud. And a little bit ashamed for not making more of an effort myself. She said that she thought that there was a very special bond between the two of you. Something almost magical, she thought. And she said that Aunt Celandine was happy and peaceful at the end, and in no pain. Maybe they tend to say that whatever the case, but I got the impression that she really meant it. Elaine was with her when it happened, so Carol said. Anyway, it's clear that a lot of her happiness was due to you, and that's a truly wonderful thing to know. You're a very lovely girl, and I'm proud of you.'

‘Thanks,' Midge whispered. ‘I'm proud of you too.'

They sat together in silence for a while, cuddled up together on the bench, in that warm mother-and-daughter closeness that always lies waiting to be
rediscovered, no matter how long its absence.

‘Come on, then. What do you want to do? Are you still up for lunch, or would you rather go home and just be quiet for a while?'

‘Um . . . could we go over to the mall at Almbury Mills and have lunch there?' Midge looked up into her mum's face. ‘I don't mean actually go to Mount Pleasant, but just so that we're sort of nearby. I'd like to be close, if I could. Just for a while.'

‘That's a very nice idea. We'll do that. And then perhaps we could go and buy some flowers.'

‘Yes.'

They got up from the bench and walked out of the station, still with their arms about one another.

SHE'D NEVER FLOWN,
and that was one thing that she regretted. Not such a big regret, perhaps, in a lifetime so full of other amazing experiences, but still. It would have been nice to have known what it felt like to be in an aeroplane. To fly.

Miss Howard looked out of the window of her apartment for a few moments before closing her eyes again. Spring. It was already here, so they told her. The crocuses were apparently out, and soon it would be the daffodils. A shame she couldn't see them. But she could barely open her eyes in any case. Everything had become such an effort.

‘I'm just going to give these bookshelves the once-over, Miss Howard, and then I'm done. That's unless there's anything else you want.'

Elaine, fussing around as usual. The bookshelves didn't need any ‘once-over'.

‘Yes. Thank you, Elaine. Would you mind making me some toast before you go?'

‘Toast, Miss Howard? It's not long gone breakfast time – not that you've managed to eat anything. But
yeah, OK. I don't mind, if that's what you fancy.'

‘I do. Thank you.'

Speaking wasn't easy, and she knew that she certainly couldn't cope with eating toast. But she did like the smell of it. Elaine nearly always managed to burn it somehow, and the smell of burnt toast brought back so many memories . . . the kitchen range at Mill Farm . . . her mother, flustered, never able to quite get the hang of the English way of making toast. This very room, of course, was brought back to memory by the smell of fresh bread toasted on an open fire. And railway stations were also in there, curiously. Burnt toast reminded her of railway stations.

Not that her memory needed much prompting now. Thanks to Midge, she could bring to mind whole sequences of events that she thought had been lost to her for ever. Fin, and the little forest people . . . reading to them from Aesop's fables . . . chalking the alphabet on the cave walls. So wonderful that had been, before everything began to go wrong. School, and Freddie, and the Ickri and the Orbis. But it had come right in the end, and nothing else mattered.

It had all come right in the end. All that had needed to be done was done, and it was time to go. She'd better get her bag packed.

‘Did you want to hold the fork, Miss Howard?'

No, she didn't want to hold the fork. Not today.

‘Not today, thank you, Elaine. I need to get to the railway station.'

‘What?'

Her Uncle Josef and her Aunt Sarah were waiting to
walk her down to the station. So kind they had been to her. They understood her in a way that her own mother and father never had. They asked no questions, nor anything of her. They only gave – and what they gave was opportunity, the means to change her life for the better.

She had choices now, and either choice was a good one. She could go to school with Nina, or she could go and work with her uncle at the clinic. How wonderful. How wonderful it was to be a girl, thirteen years old, and with so many good things to look forward to. And how wonderful to feel that she had something to offer in return. Gifts to be given.

It was good to be walking down through the town in the sunshine, her aunt and uncle to either side of her, and she was very happy. Train journeys were still a treat to her, and she was looking forward to this one.

Market days were always cheerful, and Station Road was a bustle of drays and wagons and handcarts, all piled high with boxes of fruit, live chickens, beer barrels and clothes racks.

‘
There is something about a railway carriage compartment that clears the mind. Marvellous! Quite magical.
'

That was what Uncle Josef said, and it was true. Celandine sat in her compartment and looked out of the window at her aunt and uncle. They stood beneath the station clock, waving to her as the train pulled away. Smiling faces.

And then the girl appeared, there in time to see her off, just as she knew would happen. Midge. A mystery child no more, but one with a name and with gifts of her own. A beautiful girl. Most intelligent, most perceptive.
Her face was alight with sudden recognition, her arm raised in farewell. Goodbye, my dear, goodbye. I'm only sorry that there wasn't more time. Another small regret.

The platform rolled away and disappeared, to be replaced by white fence posts that ticked past the compartment window . . . one . . . two . . . three, four. Too fast now and too many to count.
Ba-dum . . . ba-dum . . . ba-dum
. The rhythm of the wheels, picking up ever greater speed.

And such a speed! The fence posts became a white blur, hedges, telegraph poles, gateways all flashing past.
Barradum . . . barradum . . . barradurrr . . .
the sound of the wheels rose to a crescendo . . . a continuous rumbling roar of metal upon metal . . . faster . . . faster . . .

. . . and then nothing. No sound. The hedges dipped downwards, tilting away from the compartment window, and the open fields became visible, farm buildings and orchards forming themselves into a receding patchwork, a marvellous quilt of browns and greens, all stitched together by rhynes and roads and rivers. A map of the wetlands, far, far below. A map of England. A map of the world.

So this was flying.

The world shrinking into the distance, changing colour . . . purple . . . violet . . . red. Red like a cricket ball . . . red like the Stone . . . red like Goppo's tiny pebble in a game of Blinder. And gone.

Higher and higher, speeding into the blue. So peaceful. A shimmering blue silence, and then nothing at all . . . nothing but the faint aroma of toast . . .

THE HEAT OF
the summer sun streaming through the sitting-room windows was drowsy making, and so Midge was doubly surprised that it should be Katie, of all people, who suggested they go and have a look at the woods.

‘Blimey,' said Midge. ‘You
must
be bored.'

‘I am.' Katie threw her book across the sofa. ‘But that's not the reason. Not really. You were very weird, you know, after Aunt Celandine died, and after all that . . . all that stuff you told me about. And George wasn't much better. Nightmares and everything. I was all for telling Mum and Dad what was going on, but of course I couldn't because then they'd think we'd
all
gone off our heads.' Katie picked absently at the stitching on her trainers as she looked out of the open window. ‘I just think it'd be a good thing to do. I heard somewhere that if you really want to forget about something you should take it out of its box and have a look at it.'

This didn't sound like her cousin at all, and Midge stared at her in surprise. Perhaps she'd changed. Katie
had been reading more lately, Midge had noticed – actual books rather than the usual magazines and TV guides. And she didn't seem to be quite so continually bothered about her appearance.

‘It's you, isn't it?' said Midge. ‘It's you that wants to forget about it. I thought . . . well, I thought that you never
did
think about it. That's what you told me.'

‘Yeah, I know. I was lying. And you're right, it does bother me. Sort of. I feel like I need some . . . proof. Something to make it real, and then that would make it go away. It's like that little cup thing you showed me, you know? You've got something to hold onto to say that it really did happen. So you know you're not crazy. I just remember, that's all. Or I think I do. Then I wonder if it's all some . . . like I'm going to . . . wake up or something.' Katie's fingernail picked rapidly at the seam on her trainers.

‘Yeah,' said Midge. ‘You're right. That's just what it's like.' She thought about this for a bit. Was it time to face up to what she knew she would have to do in the end – find out whether what she believed had happened was real? To see whether the Various had truly gone? ‘OK, then,' she said. ‘Let's go and take a look.'

‘What – now?'

‘Might as well be now. Any idea where George is?'

They found George giving directions to a couple of the weekend guests – a young man and woman, both neatly kitted out in new hiking boots and backpacks.

‘You just keep heading that way,' he said. ‘And when
you get to the rhyne turn right and carry on till you come to a weir. Cross over the weir, and it's just sort of straight on to Burnham Woods. You can't really miss it. Oh, but watch out for the planks on the weir. They wobble.'

‘OK. Thanks a lot,' said the man. He looked at his pocket map, turning it this way and that.

‘George.' Katie got his attention and beckoned him over. ‘We're going for a walk. Up the hill to the woods. Want to come?'