Winter Wood (9 page)

Midge stared down at the buildings of Mill Farm until her vision stopped pulsating and she was at last able to catch her breath. Stupid. Stupid, stupid. She'd been lucky not to break her neck.

MIDGE SAT ON
the corner of her bed, studying the pencil drawing that Tadgemole had given her. It wasn't a very good drawing, and that was part of the trouble – the work of an eight-year-old perhaps, or maybe someone even younger. The lines were sketchy and hesitant, and if she hadn't been told that this was a picture of Celandine then she would never have guessed it. Where was the long wavy hair, for a start? Hidden under that weird piece of headgear, presumably.

The figure
did
look like a nun, though, with that big cross about her throat. And so maybe this was what had become of Celandine. She'd joined a convent.

It didn't seem much to go on. Midge had looked at the drawing many times now, and had read the words on the opposite page over and over, but she could find nothing there to help her. And yet sometimes, just
sometimes
, she felt as though that rough little sketch had . . .

Had what? Had some detail in it that she'd seen before? Or something that she was missing? The
harder she looked, the more certain she felt that the image held no meaning for her. But then if she laid it aside for a while and looked at it again later, a brief flicker of recognition would sometimes flare up inside her. And instantly die away.

Midge shook her head. She got up from the bed and went and stood before the photograph of Celandine that hung upon her wall. She knew every detail of that photograph now, every shadow and highlight on that pale little face, every button that pulled and pinched, every strand of unruly hair.

‘But where are you?' she whispered. ‘And how shall I ever find you? Can you hear me?' Then she felt foolish, because of course there was nobody to hear her at all.

The eyes always seemed to be looking past her, concentrating on something just over her shoulder. What was it that they had seen that day, when the photo had been taken? Midge glanced behind her, as though the answer might be here in this room. Nothing but her own modern possessions: the little blue lamp at her bedside, the new office chair, the blank grey screen of her laptop. She sighed, and wandered over to plonk herself on the edge of the bed again. The bounciness of the new mattress threw her off balance, and Midge's hand jiggled the corner of the desk as she reached out to steady herself. This was enough to bring the laptop to life from stand-by, and after a few gentle whirrs and clicks, the screen brightened.

Midge looked at the wildlife scene that she had chosen for her desktop image: the magpie, perched
among the winter brambles. It was such a beautiful thing. She had always thought that a magpie's plumage was plain black and white, but here were electric blues and emerald greens that were just as startling as the colours in a peacock's tail.

The picture drew her into a trance, and after a while she was gazing through it and thinking of something else entirely. How and where to begin. How and where . . .

‘
Watch the birdie . . . quite, quite still
 . . .'

Midge sat upright with a jolt. What was that? What had she heard? She frowned at the computer screen. Had the sound turned itself on?

No. It took her a few moments to be absolutely sure, but the words had not come from the computer. They were more like a memory, a thing triggered inside her head.
Watch the birdie
. A half-familiar phrase. Something that somebody had once said, or used to say. But where could she have heard those words? A photographer . . .

Midge dragged her attention away from the light of the screen, and turned towards the photograph of Celandine, hanging in the shadows beside the wardrobe. The eyes were looking past her, as always. She followed the direction of that distant gaze, and found herself led back to the laptop. How weird. Again she looked at Celandine, and again at the laptop. There was no doubt about it: the girl in the photograph was looking straight at the magpie onscreen. Celandine was watching the birdie.

The room seemed cold, just for a moment, and the
brightness of the computer screen reminded Midge of looking through a window – sitting in a chilly room and looking out of the window, at a bird. Was this something she had seen before?

No, it was no good. She couldn't get it, couldn't quite bring it back somehow. But at least the experience had given her an idea. Or perhaps it was Celandine who had given her the idea, a place to begin. She sat herself on the blue swivel chair and clicked onto her home page. Then she moved the cursor across to the ‘Search' box.

‘Midge, are you up there?'

Her mum's footsteps on the stairs, coming halfway up and then stopping. Listening for her reply. Midge turned her head towards the door.

‘Yeah. I'm in my room, Mum.'

‘I'm just finishing off the ironing. Is your school uniform all ready for Monday?'

‘Um . . . yeah. It's in the wardrobe.' Go away, Mum.

‘Are you sure? What are you doing – homework?'

‘Yeah. I'm on the computer.'

‘OK, then. Katie and George have just arrived, and tea'll be ready in about ten minutes. We'll eat at Brian's tonight.' The footsteps receding.

Midge gave it another few moments more before clicking onto the Search box. She typed in ‘Celandine Howard', moved the cursor over to ‘Go' and hit the button. Then she rested her chin in her hands and waited.

Nothing. All that came up was ‘
no entries under this name
'.

Midge tried typing in ‘C. Howard' instead. This, at least, produced a few results. A doctor in Wisconsin, a logistics company, a paper manufacturer . . . Midge worked her way through the meagre list. She could find nothing that suggested even the remotest connection to Celandine.

This was useless. Midge didn't even know what she was looking for, or hoping to find. What had she expected – a handy record of her ancestor's life, together with a current address and phone number? A website dedicated to Celandine Howard? Not very likely.

And yet she couldn't escape the nagging thought that there was an answer waiting to be found in there somewhere, hidden deep in the ether, far beyond the window of her laptop screen.

Midge rubbed her eyes and rolled back her chair. She leaned across to the bed and picked up the drawing once more. A nun. A-nun-a-nun-a-nun. Was it really worth even
thinking
about trawling the internet for convents . . . monasteries . . .?

‘Midge, come on! Tea's ready.' Her mother's voice again.

‘OK, Mum. I'm coming.' Midge shut down the computer. It was a relief to be able to give up.

The five of them sat around the kitchen table: Uncle Brian, Katie, George, Midge and Midge's mum – Christine. It had become a loose arrangement, whilst all the building work was going on, to eat together in whichever room was the most habitable. Now that both kitchens were more or less complete, the two families still occasionally shared meals – and especially if Katie and George were staying over.

Uncle Brian ladled out five plates of stew and said, ‘Well, I learned something down at the Crown last night, Chris. Our family's part-German. Or it could be part-Austrian. Can you believe it?'

‘What? Who told you that?'

‘Albert Hughes – one of the old boys who plays crib on a Sunday. His grandad was the farm foreman here during the First World War. I already knew about that. Hadn't realized that Great-grandma was German, though. Apparently it caused some bad feeling locally. Not surprising, I suppose, considering that we were at war with Germany at the time.'

‘Hm. Funny that we never heard about it before, though.' Mum seemed to be taking this news with a pinch of salt.

‘Well, it's not so strange, if you think about it. We were back at war with Germany again just a few years
later. You probably wouldn't go broadcasting the fact that your family was linked to the fatherland, if you had any sense.'

‘Perhaps not. So what prompted this conversation then?'

‘Well, it was Midge really. She was trying to find out a bit more about Great-aunt Celandine. So I asked Albert Hughes and old Wilf Tucker if they knew anything. Like walking history books, those two are. Pass the pepper, George, would you? Thanks.'

‘And did they?' said Midge. ‘Know anything, I mean?'

‘No, not really. Nothing that we hadn't already heard, that is. “She were away wi' the fairies” and so on. No proper details. Wilf reckoned she might have ended up in an asylum, but it was only hearsay. Funnily enough, Albert Hughes thought that Great-grandma's brother
worked
in an asylum. Knew his name and everything – Wesser. Quite well known, apparently. That was what convinced me that it was probably true. But there was nothing about Celandine, I'm afraid. Sorry, Midge. Not much help.'

‘It's OK. I was just curious, that's all.' Midge looked down at her plate, and tried not to let her disappointment show.

Mum said, ‘Well, it probably wouldn't be too difficult to check up on. What was the name again – Vessar?'

‘Wesser – with a W.'

‘We ought to try and make up a family tree,' said Mum. ‘Go on one of those ancestry sites on the internet.'

‘Mm. Expect it'd cost money, though.' Uncle Brian no longer seemed particularly interested.

Midge pushed the remains of her food around her plate. Wesser, with a W. She was tired, and she didn't seem to be able to think straight, but that name stuck with her for some reason. It was visible. She could picture the way it would look on a page. Wesser, with a W.

Dr
Wesser. Yes, that was it. Dr Josef Wesser. Standing on the front steps of a building. The Butterfly Farm . . .

Midge scraped back her chair. ‘Can I get down?' she said.

Her first thought was to phone Kerry Hodge, but then she realized that she didn't have Kerry's number. There must be dozens of Hodges in the directory, and so there would be no point in trying there. She needed to have another look at that Butterfly Farm brochure now, though. Yes, but how? Maybe there was a website.

Midge ran upstairs to her room and restarted her laptop. She typed ‘Tone Vale Butterfly Farm' into Search, and up it came – with a web address. Good. She clicked on the address and after a few clicks and whirrs the site logo appeared. Midge looked at the menu:
Site Map . . . North American Species . . . European Species . . . History. History
– that was what she wanted.

She scrolled quickly down the history page, speed-reading little sections as she went . . . ‘built in 1858 to house a private collection . . . taken over during the
First World War and used as a recovery clinic for the military . . . Lewis and Wesser later becoming well-recognized pioneers in alternative therapies . . .'

And suddenly there it was – the same photograph that she'd seen on Kerry's brochure. This was much bigger and clearer, though. The two men and the nurse stood on the steps of the white building, gazing out at her. Dr Sydney Lewis and Dr Josef Wesser, founders of the Tone Valley Clinic. One of the men was quite stout, balding, with a big moustache and glasses. The other was taller and darker, bearded, with surprisingly long hair. Perhaps a bit younger. But which one was Dr Wesser? Midge peered closely at the two faces, trying to spot some sort of family likeness. Could one of these men possibly be related to her? She struggled to work out what that relationship would be. So, if one of them was her great-great . . . great . . . grandmother's
brother
, then that would make him . . . what? Celandine's uncle? Was that right? Maybe she could figure it out on a piece of paper.

But what then? Even if this Josef Wesser did turn out to be some sort of distant relative, how would it help her? Midge glanced at the clock in the corner of the screen. She ought to be thinking about getting her school stuff organized for the morning. Perhaps this would all have to wait.