Maddigan's Fantasia, page 12
Tane read aloud with a mixture of pride and uncertainty. ‘Here is the place of the …’ He fell silent.
‘Go on! Say it!’ shouted Goneril. ‘Don’t be a wimp! Witch-Finder! That’s what it says over the gate. Here is the place of the Witch-Finder.’
Tane made a gesture as if Goneril’s words were troublesome flies and he had to beat them away.
‘What’s that place up on the hill?’ asked Eden. ‘Some sort of lookout post?’
‘That place?’ cried a girl in the crowd, looking him over with admiration. Garland found she remembered that girl from last year. Her name was Sara. ‘That’s the tower, that is, and the tower’s full of ghosts,’ Sara said with a curious note of triumph in her voice. ‘That tower shines out at night. We’re a special place – because the Witch-Finder lives there, these days, keeping the ghosts from coming in at us and eating our souls.’
‘There’s one with snapping jaws,’ cried the boy beside Sara, holding up his hands, cupping them a little, then clapping them together, turning them into a greedy mouth, lunging and biting the air. ‘Snapping jaws …’
‘And claws …’ added another boy, and suddenly all the children close enough to hear these stories began imitating a curious swaying walk, holding their hands high and hooking their fingers forward as they did so.
‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ Timon asked Garland. ‘I don’t. Well, we don’t. Not in my time.’
‘That’s because you are ghosts,’ Garland said quickly. ‘Ghosts probably don’t believe in other ghosts.’
Timon laughed as if he might be agreeing with her.
‘Anyhow, we have worse things to worry about,’ said Eden a little gloomily as if the joking was somehow turning serious, and Garland immediately felt herself turn serious too.
‘I half-believe in ghosts,’ she said. ‘Every now and then I think I see one.’ Suddenly she felt she could, after all, tell Timon about her impossible silver ghost, partly because he was wanting her to believe something impossible about himself, and partly because she suddenly wanted to hear how her haunting would sound, turned into words and let loose in the outside air. ‘Sometimes I see a sort of silver ghost-girl … and she’s always pointing something important out to me. It’s funny, because she’s really weird, and yet I’m not frightened of her … well, not exactly frightened. I don’t know how to tell about the feeling she gives me. Anyhow you must altogether believe in ghosts too, because what about that Nennog of yours … the one Boomer saw?’
But Timon was shaking his head. ‘Boomer saw the Nennog through science, not a haunting,’ he declared. ‘That’s even worse, if anything.’
‘But maybe science and ghosts are part of the same thing,’ suggested Garland obstinately. She wanted to go on arguing about this, watching the way Timon’s fair hair was tumbling onto his forehead, catching the light and shining with hidden gold, but Maddie’s van had reached the edge of the settlement. Yves (with Lilith beside him) was already leaning sideways out of the window … waving … shouting … pointing.
The Community was a town of shacks and cabins built on green blisters of dry land, linked by curving bridges, with swamp mists rolling like constant unwelcome visitors down its narrow streets. The Fantasia frisked and danced over the first bridge, across the first island, over a second bridge and into a main street. The swamp deepened at that point, and water took over – spreading itself out into a little lake fringed with reeds.
On the edge of that lake a strange shape, a cumbersome seesaw of a thing, was squatting, stretching one of its arms out over the water. Garland had seen it before and it always filled her with suspicion and anxiety. There it sat, that one end hoisted high in the air, the other resting on a beach of slimy stones. The high end ended in a chair … a rather grand chair with armrests and what looked like a footplate with great iron boots welded onto it. It was hung around with silver chains and, for all its empty grandeur, looked particularly threatening there, squatting above the mists, but reflected darkly in the dark water below.
‘What on earth’s that?’ asked Eden, staring over at this strange machine with a troubled expression.
‘It’s for dunking witches,’ Garland said. ‘They’re worried about witches here in the Community. That’s why they have a Witch-Finder.’
‘Set up! Come on! Quickly! Set up!’ Yves was shouting. Then he swung down from Maddie’s van, and began walking the length of the Fantasia wagon train, still waving and yelling instructions. Lilith scrambled down too, and followed him, pointing and shouting like a squeaking echo. Garland saw her chance to have Maddie to herself for a few minutes. Tearing herself away from the boys, she swung herself up into the cab of the van only to find Maddie was preparing to clamber out. And before she had a chance to say anything much, Yves was back, looking in at the window on her side of the van, but talking past her.
‘We’ll do the rise-of-Solis act here,’ Yves was declaring. ‘There’s good flat ground, and now we’ve got fuel for the lamps. We’ll be able to make that bookshop part of the act really glow.’
‘Mum,’ said Garland. ‘He’s calling it a bookshop, but that act – well, it’s about a magical library, isn’t it … all that juggling with books that appear and disappear? It stands for dancing with wisdom. You told me it was old Gabrielle’s fancy back in the beginning.’
‘Yves knows all that. Right now he’s only joking a little,’ Maddie said. ‘Come on! We need a bit of light-heartedness. The last few days have been just so difficult.’
‘But he’s taking over!’ Garland cried, looking straight at Maddie, but pointing secretly at Yves. ‘He’s acting as if the Fantasia was his and it’s ours … it’s Maddigan’s Fantasia. And he’s taking you over, too.’
‘Look, darling girl! I just haven’t time …’ Maddie began with something of a deep impatient sigh in her voice. ‘Darling Garland – (that’s “darling” twice over – I hope you noticed – I know we need to find the time to talk, but right now there’s just too much to do. Look around you. We’ve just arrived in the Community. We’ve got to get organized – set up! It’s what Ferdy would have wanted. Just remind yourself about what you know already.’ As she spoke she was moving from side to side a little, looking and listening past Garland. Her expression changed. ‘Listen to that. What’s happening?’
It was hard to describe what was happening. It is usually shouting that makes people look around and wonder. Silence should be safe and peaceful. But this was a twisting silence, a dangerous one. The crowd, which had been cheerfully jostling and cheering only a moment ago, had grown suddenly still. The faces around them were poised and watchful. ‘I don’t know,’ said Maddie a little wildly. ‘We’ve never had a journey like this before. Every town seems to be having some sort of mad trouble. What’s happening to the world?’ Garland turned away from Maddie and looked out from the van. People were bowing their heads a little as if they were surrendering, and making way. A single shape, a woman, was working her way through the crowd, walking towards the Fantasia … towards Yves who was now advancing, rather quickly, to meet this newcomer. Maddie groaned softly, then slid down and marched around the front of the van. As Garland peered out of the window Eden suddenly rose up beside her, standing on the van’s running board.
‘Who is she?’ he asked, rather apprehensively.
‘The Witch-Finder,’ Garland answered, watching Maddie and the Witch-Finder meeting and greeting. ‘In a funny way she’s like the boss of the Community and she’s always suspicious of us, most likely because the people here love us. We make them laugh, which brings on a bit ofWitch-Finder jealousy. See that stick she is waving? That’s her wand.’
The Witch-Finder was dressed in layers of crimson and gold. Her shirts and skirts swirled around her as if worked on by a wind that nobody else could feel. Those skirts were clean and shining and yet they gave her a curious, ragged look, while the long, lumpy rod she was holding in one hand (she was waving it almost like a sword) resembled a piece of polished driftwood, forked at the top like a diviner’s rod, with a swollen knot just below the point where the arms of the rod divided, springing up and out as if the rod was warning the world of danger. The Witch-Finder’s long fingers were hooked around that rod like claws, while in her other hand she carried a whip which she cracked as if she were herding the wind ahead of her.
‘People here are a bit scared of her wand,’ Garland told Eden, looking at it rather uneasily herself. A curious buzzing sound began to echo around the town. First one and then another disturbing shadow flitted out of one street only to slide into another, not so much parting the visiting swamp mists as skidding across them.
‘What’s that?’ Eden cried. ‘What are those – those things?’
The woman cracked her whip again and suddenly they seemed to be surrounded by insubstantial yet somehow ominous figures flying around them and then dissolving out of the mist once more.
‘What are they?’ Garland cried.
A new voice cut in on them.
‘The Witch-Finder calls them “will-o’-the-wisps”, but outsiders like you call them “spirits”.’
Garland turned. She found she recognized, yet again, the girl who was speaking to them.
‘Hello, Sara!’ she said, pleased to see this friend. On other visits they had liked each other. Perhaps that was why Sara had come edging up to her. But Lilith was pushing in and interrupting in her bossy fashion.
‘Are they ghosts … those shadowy things?’
‘Sort of ghosts!’ Sara began, frowning doubtfully, but the Witch-Finder was really holding forth by now, and when the Witch-Finder talked even the gossipy Fantasia fell into careful, listening silence.
‘What’s she saying?’ asked Eden.
‘I can’t understand it all,’ Garland replied, ‘but I think she’s saying we – the Fantasia that is – are bringing something evil into their town. She says she can – I think she’s telling Yves and Maddie that she can sense evil … that she can detect it with her wand.’
‘Does she always do that?’ asked Eden, turning his head away from her as if she might not notice him if he didn’t look at her directly.
‘No way! This is the first time!’ Garland replied, feeling Eden’s uneasiness in her own head, just as if it were catching. ‘The first time like this, anyway.’
Now the Witch-Finder lifted the forked ends of her stick into the air. Holding it out in front of her as if she were indeed going to divine something – either water or wickedness – she touched Maddie then smiled and nodded. She moved on and touched Yves, looking at him seriously, before moving on to touch people and things as she moved by, using her wand to finger those members of the Fantasia who stood close to her. She also touched the ropes … touched Tane’s trumpet in its black case.
Suddenly the stick began to twitch. The Witch-Finder held it higher, pointing it towards Garland. It grew even more agitated, and Garland suddenly felt terrified as if she might, after all, be guilty of some wickedness she did not know about. For, after all, these days she had her private ghost. What would a Witch-Finder make of that? But suddenly the Witch-Finder was pointing her stick towards Eden and suddenly the stick was leaping away from her, flying through the air to lie on the ground, twisting as if it were in huge pain before turning back into an ordinary stick once more. Eden jumped down from the van’s running board and made for Timon, who flung an arm around him. They drew together while the Witch-Finder stared at them. She seemed frightened, and somehow the Witch-Finder’s fear was even more frightening to other people than her writhing wand had been. Then she began to shout and point, and, though Garland could not quite understand what she was saying, she was sure that the Witch-Finder was ordering the Fantasia to move on immediately. Maddie watched with some confusion, turning and talking rapidly to Yves, glancing across at the boys as she did so. Yves began frowning and shaking his head. And suddenly Timon leaned forward as if he were part of the secret conversation. ‘Don’t give in. Stay here!’ he was telling Maddie in a low voice. ‘Don’t move on!’
‘Right! I don’t see why we should be dictated to,’ Yves was saying. ‘Look at all the people around us. We need to give a show. They need to see a show. We’ve got what they want … what they need. What’s wrong with that?’
Timon nodded.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Garland heard him say, like a slow, low echo, underlining Yves’s question.
‘What does it matter to you?’ Garland called, tumbling out of the van as Timon straightened up once more. He frowned as if he wasn’t too sure of himself, then slowly walked across to her, sighing and shrugging. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It was just that I – for a moment there your Witch-Finder reminded me of the Nennog in some way. It’s as if she had some sort of darkness in her head, and when they have that darkness – when they lose the light – people stop seeing clearly. I think you have to stand up to them in some way.’
Eden had joined them. ‘Our parents …’ he put in, ‘they saw the light. I mean they kept on seeing it. They utterly absolutely refused to give in to the darkness.’
‘Your parents!’ said Garland, and felt once more that stab of grief that she was getting used to by now. ‘Won’t they be worrying about you? Won’t they wonder where you are?’
‘They’re dead,’ Timon replied. ‘I told you. Remember? Murdered I think. That’s how the Nennog became our guardian. Mind you, I think he wanted Eden more than he wanted me, because of Eden’s power, but he grabbed us both.’
‘They were scientists – physicists,’ Eden said. ‘They studied time. String theory! They were the ones that worked out a way of expanding the time pulses so that people could ride a pulse in the way we did.’
Garland did not have any idea what they were talking about, but she decided it would be better not to ask them to explain, for any explanation might only confuse her even more.
‘But you’ve escaped,’ she said. ‘Not that it’s totally safe here … the world’s still dangerous … but …’
Timon sighed, shaking his head as if he had a fly in his ear.
‘We haven’t absolutely escaped!’ he cried in a soft impatient voice. ‘There’s no total safety. And it’s not just us the Nennog wants. Remember? It’s something he calls the Talisman. He knows we’ve got it. We know we’ve got it. We’ve inherited it, but the weird thing is …’
‘… the weird thing is we don’t really know what it is,’ said Eden. ‘Our parents knew, but they never let on. They’d just look at each other and smile and call it the Talisman. “The Talisman will bring us luck” they’d say. We used to ask them what the Talisman was. “All in good time” they’d say.’
‘But the good time never came,’ murmured Timon. ‘Not for them, anyway.’
‘The Talisman! It sounds like – I don’t know – a magic lamp,’ said Garland. ‘Or like that medallion you wear,’ she added, looking at Eden. ‘Maybe that’s the Talisman and maybe your magic power comes from that.’
The two boys looked at each other.
‘His power doesn’t actually come from that,’ said Timon, ‘It’s something from deep inside him. But we do think that medallion might be the Talisman. We do think our parents might have melted powers into it in some way. And Eden wears it, because he’s got the power to protect it. Anyhow we’d do anything to keep it away from the Nennog.’
They had been standing there, guessing and gossiping, almost forgetting the dark looks of the Witch-Finder but suddenly she was striding across the circle of vans more like a wizard than a witch. Garland realized, as she watched, that she had always imagined a witch slinking in the full light of day, but the Witch-Finder swirled and blazed in her coloured skirts as she held out her wand once more – not at Eden this time, but at old Goneril. Once again the rod twitched madly. Then the Witch-Finder spun around and pointed it at Eden again, and once more it writhed.
‘Demons!’ she shouted. ‘A witch and her demon familiar.’ And, as she shouted this, there was a sudden flood of angry, hot light. A nearby barn had burst into flame. ‘Demons!’ shrieked the Witch-Finder again. ‘I recognize them! I can feel them! I know them!’
There was confusion as people, including the Fantasia crew, ran to put out the fire. But a few Community women closed in on Goneril, sitting there with little Jewel on her lap – some accusing, some apologetic – while others grabbed Eden, and yet more stepped forward to keep other Fantasia people at bay. One of the women drew a knife.
‘Stop!’ cried Timon, ignoring it, though it looked extremely pointed and sharp. ‘Don’t touch him! Let him go!’ But Yves, coming up behind him, seized his arm.
‘We won’t desert them,’ said Maddie, closing in on Timon’s other side. ‘But we’ll just take it easy for a few hours. We don’t mind an argument, but we don’t want a battle. Look! Goneril knows what to do. You know what a scolding old thing she can be, but right now she’s going gently. Just look how calm she is and try to copy her. Be calm too.’
The Witch-Finder had now closed in on Eden, staring down into his face. Suddenly her hands shot out and clasped him around the back of the neck.
‘The medallion!’ cried Timon. ‘She’s taking the medallion!’
‘I promise you,’ Maddie muttered in his ear. ‘We’ll get it back. But if you fight now – if we fight now – we could all come to harm. And look at those people watching us. None of them are in a playful mood and our animals are out there – our jugglers and performers … we need to get them closed in and safe once more. Then we’ll get Eden and Goneril back again. Promise!’
The little Jewel, now in the arms of an acrobat called Amy, began to cry, and Amy ran towards them.
‘They say they’re going to duck Goneril and Eden!’ she cried. ‘The Witch-Finder and her friends say she is a witch, and tomorrow morning they are going to lock her into that ducking stool by the swamp and duck her. They say it will wash the witchery out of her.’
‘To the jail! To the jail!’ a chorus of voices began to cry. ‘We find them! We find them! We bind them! We bind them!’
