The Puzzle Ring

by Kate Forsyth

  Everyone clustered around, cheering and clapping. Suddenly Hannah heard behind them the dreadful howling of the hounds. Her stomach lurched.

  ‘They’ve followed us through to this time!’ Scarlett cried. ‘What shall we do?’

  Hannah’s mind moved like lightning. She remembered the first time she had climbed this hill, with Donovan at sunset on her first day at Fairknowe. He had broken off a bare twig from the blackthorn tree and told her some of the stories about its powers. That twig was back in her bedroom, kept in her wooden box with all her other treasures, but the blackthorn still grew on the crown of the hill above them.

  ‘Dad, my dagger!’ she cried.

  He hesitated, but when she gestured wildly, passed it to her, hilt first. ‘Hannah . . . ?’ he began uneasily.

  She wasted no time on explanations. She thrust the knife through her belt and desperately clambered up the rock, grazing her knees and her palms. Panting, her hair all over her face, she reached the hill’s crest and swiftly cut another twig from the ancient tangle of thorns. She scrambled back down, sliding half the way on her bottom.

  The howls were very close now. Hannah glanced wildly into the cleft in the hillside. Irata was running towards her, her wand glowing green in her hand, a host of malevolent fairies at her heels. Black hounds, eyes glowing madly, raced before her.

  ‘Run!’ Hannah shrieked.

  Everyone took to their heels. Hannah gulped a deep breath, clutched the hag-stone tight in her left hand and flung the blackthorn twig over her left shoulder. As soon as it touched the ground, an impenetrable hedge of vicious thorns sprang up, barring the entrance to the cave. She heard faint screams of rage and pain from behind the hedge, and howls, and shouts of despair.

  Hannah smiled and ran down through the winter-bare trees, her red hair flying. Below her, warm lights spilt from the kitchen windows of Wintersloe Castle and smoke drifted from the chimneys. Her father turned back and waited for her, smiling gladly.

  ‘We’re home!’ Hannah cried. ‘We’re home at last!’

  The Rose Of The World

  The door to the kitchen was still unlocked, just as Hannah had left it, eight hours and four hundred and forty-odd years earlier. Even though she had grown used to the mental flips and cartwheels needed to calculate the differences in time, it still made her feel very strange coming back into the kitchen and knowing little had changed here, in her own time, when so much had happened to change her.

  Linnet was sitting by the fire, the toad crouched on her lap. The lines in her old, wrinkled face were driven in deep, and she looked older and smaller than Hannah remembered. She jumped up as Hannah eased open the door, letting the toad spring to the floor, and held out both her hands. ‘Oh, my lamb, you’re safe home again!’

  Hannah leapt across the flagstones, and into Linnet’s arms, her eyes smarting with tears. She had to stoop to embrace the old woman, and felt the tiny hands patting her all over as Linnet said brokenly, ‘My lamb . . . my chick . . . you’re safe . . . you’re home again . . . och, I’ve been worried!’

  It felt so strange to see Linnet as a stooped, white-haired old lady when Hannah had grown used to seeing her young and lissom. Hannah hugged her as hard as she dared—for this Linnet seemed so frail and breakable—and managed to say, ‘We’re home, yes, all of us, home again!’

  Then Linnet drew herself up, tears running down her face, as she saw the others piling in through the door—Donovan, Max and Scarlett, all filthy, tousled-haired and very oddly dressed—and then behind them, the tall figure of Robert, his red hair and beard wilder than ever, dressed in the motley of a court jester.

  ‘Bobby!’ Linnet cried, her voice breaking. ‘Bobby, you’re home!’

  In two strides, he was beside her, lifting her up in his strong arms and swinging her round as if she was a child. A babble of voices broke out as Linnet asked questions and demanded explanations, all the time patting Robert’s shoulders as if she could not believe he was really there in her kitchen. Then Donovan burst out laughing and pointed to the toad, which was leaping and jumping and croaking with joy underfoot, in grave danger of being squashed. Hannah went down on her knees and gathered the old toad close.

  ‘Angus, Angus, I’m so sorry,’ she said, nearly as croakily as the toad. ‘I never realised . . . so long trapped as a toad . . . we missed you so much!’

  The toad croaked complacently.

  Scarlett was down on her knees too. ‘We did, we did!’ she cried. ‘We wished you were there the whole time.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Donovan said in his grave way, bending down to touch the toad’s head lightly. ‘The tale is almost all told, the spell shall soon be undone. We promise.’

  Angus the toad leapt high on his springy back legs.

  ‘I knew last night was the night,’ Linnet said, wiping tears away from her cloudy green eyes. ‘I dared not say anything, unless I changed history somehow . . . oh, but I watched you sneak out, my chick, and I’ve stood vigil all night, so afraid for you . . . I knew the whole story, you see, right up until the time you and Max and Scarlett disappeared into Black Rock. But I had no idea what happened after that. More than four hundred and forty years I’ve had to wait to hear the end of the story . . .’

  Helter-skelter they told her, and she gasped and sighed and covered her eyes with terror and laughed out loud. Before the story was done, though, Robert was already looking towards the swinging door.

  ‘You’ll be wanting to see your grandmother,’ Linnet said. ‘And Roz, of course!’

  ‘She’s here?’ Robert asked, starting forward, and then casting an anguished eye towards Hannah. ‘But . . . she must hate me . . . thirteen years gone . . . how can I explain it?’

  ‘Leave that to me!’ Hannah cried. ‘You go see Belle and I’ll sort Mum out, don’t you worry.’

  ‘And I’ll whip you all up something to eat,’ Linnet said, seizing one of her copper pans from the rack. ‘But you must all wash first, you’re filthy!’

  ‘Hot running water!’ Scarlett sighed, clasping her hands together above her heart. ‘Flushing toilets! Oh, it’s so good to be home!’

  Linnet gurgled with laughter. ‘I must admit, running water and flushing toilets almost made the long wait worthwhile. Not to mention supermarkets!’

  Hannah paused only long enough to avail herself of the running water and flushing toilet, before making her way to her mother’s bedroom.

  ‘Mum! Wake up!’ Hannah stood at the foot of her mother’s bed.

  Roz stirred and stretched. ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Mum. I need you to wake up. Guess what?’

  ‘What?’ Her mother sleepily opened her eyes.

  ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’

  ‘Look at you! You’re all in a mess. Look at your hair. You look like you’ve been dragged backwards through a thicket! Hannah, what have you been doing?’

  ‘Never mind that now. Come on, I’ve got a surprise for you. You’ve got to get up.’

  ‘But it’s still so early . . . what surprise?’ Even as she spoke, Roz threw back the bedclothes and sat up, reaching for her shabby old dressing-gown.

  ‘You can’t wear that,’ Hannah said. ‘Here, I’ve brought an old one of Belle’s for you. See, isn’t it pretty? All silky, with roses on it. Just let me brush your hair, it’s sticking up all over the place.’

  ‘Hannah, what’s this all about?’ Roz submitted to her daughter’s fussing, but with a worried frown between her brows.

  ‘Can I put some powder on you? And some lipstick? Why do you wear such a boring brown? It makes you look old.

  ‘Hannah! What’s this all about? Hannah!’

  ‘Oh, you are going to be so surprised. You won’t believe what I’ve found for you. Who I’ve found.’ Chattering all the way, Hannah led her mother down the stairs.

  ‘Who? Hannah, what do you mean? Is someone here? I don’t want to see anyone when I’m in my nightie . . .’

  ‘He won’t mind,’ Hannah said and flung open
the door to the drawing room.

  Robert turned quickly and started forward, his hands held out. He had spent the last ten minutes washing and brushing himself up as best he could, but it was still a rather wild-haired, oddly dressed man who came towards his startled wife.

  ‘Bob!’ Roz screamed, and flung herself into his arms. They hugged each other for a few minutes, patting each other, murmuring each other’s names. Hannah and her great-grandmother watched happily, holding each other’s hands tightly. Lady Wintersloe was not at all her usual elegant, stylish self, sitting in her chair in an old bathrobe with her white hair falling down onto her shoulders and her broken leg sticking out from underneath her flannelette nightgown. She was laughing and clapping her hands together with joy.

  Roz suddenly drew back. ‘But . . . Bob! This is unbelievable. You’re alive! I thought you were dead, we all thought you were dead. Where have you been?’

  Robert took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. ‘I know you may find this hard to believe, Roz, but . . .’ His words ran dry.

  ‘He’s been trapped in the Otherworld, Mum,’ Hannah cried, dancing about in excitement. ‘I went there and found him and brought him back!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘It’s true. All the stories are true. Fairknowe Hill is a gateway to another world, and to other times too. We’ve been back in time, Mum, back to the time of Mary, Queen of Scots! I met her! She was beautiful. We sang for her. And I swam through a whirlpool, and rode a kelpie, and—’

  ‘She’s ill,’ Roz said, feeling her forehead. ‘Delusional.’

  ‘It’s all true, Roz,’ Robert said.

  ‘Don’t you dare go filling her head with all your nonsense!’ Roz flared. ‘Where were you all the years I had to raise her alone? Where were you when I—’

  He seized her hands. ‘If I could I would’ve been with you both, you must believe me!’

  She snatched her hands away. ‘Believe you? When you tell me such rubbish? Where were you really, Bob?’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ Hannah said. ‘And you a scientist! Can’t you trust the evidence of your eyes? Look at what we’re wearing! Are these what people normally wear in the twenty-first century?’

  ‘You’ve been to a fancy-dress party?’ Roz said weakly.

  For the first time, she really stopped and looked at her daughter, and her eyes grew wide with amazement. Hannah was not the same girl she had been yesterday. She was taller, and her body was thin and wiry and strong, as if she had spent days walking and running and riding. Her mass of curly red hair was longer and wilder than ever, and her blue-grey eyes seemed much larger in her thin face. Most surprisingly, her face had lost its sulky defensiveness and was bright with humour and self-assurance.

  Hannah laughed. ‘Come and listen to the others! They’ll tell you.’ She flung open the doors and called her friends in. They had all been waiting in the kitchen with Linnet, drinking hot tea and eating drop scones. They came in, wiping the jam and cream off their chins. Linnet came in too, pushing the laden tea trolley, hunch-backed, cloudy-eyed, and more than four hundred and sixty years old. She smiled fondly at Roz, saying, ‘Och, now, it’s all been too much for you, my lady. Sit you down and I’ll pour you a nice hot cup of tea.’

  The others clustered around Roz, looking as wild and filthy as Hannah. Words flew around the room. Phantom hounds. Fairy princesses. Men turned into toads.

  Roz sat and accepted a cup of tea, looking dazed. ‘Collective madness?’ she murmured. ‘Doesn’t bad bread send people mad? Maybe you’ve all eaten something . . .’

  ‘You only get ergot poisoning from bread made from infected rye,’ Max said cheerfully. ‘I read an article about it on the net.’

  ‘We haven’t been eating rye,’ Hannah said impatiently.

  ‘We haven’t eaten much at all for an awfully long time,’ Donovan said, grabbing another drop scone dripping with honey.

  ‘You all ate dinner here last night,’ Roz said firmly. ‘Haddock and potato soup and roast chicken with oatmeal stuffing.’

  ‘No rye,’ Max said. ‘Though you can get poisoned from eating green potatoes . . .’

  ‘We’re not poisoned!’ Hannah cried. ‘We’re all quite normal and sane.’

  ‘Though very, very hungry,’ Donovan said, through a mouthful.

  ‘You look so thin, my poor lambs,’ Linnet said. ‘I’ll have to cook you all a feast to celebrate your safe return.’

  ‘They were all here last night!’ Roz cried.

  They ignored her, bombarding Linnet with requests for their favourite food. Roz sighed, and drank some tea.

  ‘Please believe me,’ Robert said, taking away her cup so he could hold her hand. ‘I know it’s hard for you. It defies all logic. But some things are illogical! Like love, or faith, or trust, or . . .’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Roz said wearily. ‘It doesn’t help the fact that you’ve been gone from our lives for thirteen years!’

  ‘I’d give anything to have those thirteen years back again,’ Robert said, and kissed Roz’s hand. She blushed and snatched her hand away, smoothing her sleep-ruffled hair as she glanced anxiously at herself in the mirror.

  ‘You’re as beautiful today as the day I met you,’ Robert said.

  Her cheeks reddened. ‘I’m thirteen years older,’ she said caustically. ‘I have grey hair and wrinkles, while you! You don’t look a day older!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘I never meant for this to happen. I promise you, I love you as much as I ever did. More, because I thought I had lost you forever.’ He seized her hand again, and this time she let it lie in his, though her look of worry and puzzlement did not ease.

  ‘He couldn’t help it, he was cursed, you know,’ Hannah said to her mother. She was feeling rather giddy with relief and excitement and exhaustion. ‘He tried his best to break the curse. He found one part of the broken ring, and I got the other three!’ Her voice rose high in jubilation. ‘Look!’ She lifted her dress to show the bedraggled hem of her linen smock. Taking a knife from the trolley, she ripped apart the seam and three small loops of gold fell out into her hand.

  ‘You found them!’ Robert shouted. ‘Oh, well done, Hannah!’

  ‘It wasn’t easy,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet. Though we have been rather busy.’

  He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her close for a warm hug. ‘Oh, you clever girl, you brilliant girl! I can’t believe you found them.’

  ‘All we need to know now is where you hid the loop you found, Dad. I’ve searched everywhere. But there are so many roses in this place! Ceiling roses, roses on cushions and carpets, hundreds of roses in the garden. I just couldn’t figure it out.’

  Her father laughed. ‘But I thought it was clear enough. I left it safe with the rose of the world, my rosa mundi. . .’ He bowed towards Roz, who looked puzzled. ‘That’s one of the meanings of Rosamund,’ Robert explained. ‘From the Latin, meaning “Rose of the world”.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I knew that,’ Max said. ‘I take Latin at school. You’ve got to know it if you want to be a doctor.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Hannah demanded. ‘I practically dug up all of Belle’s rose garden!’

  ‘I didn’t know you wanted to know,’ Max said. ‘You just asked me if I knew anything about double roses. Though you should know I hate gardening.’

  ‘Rosamund Rose, my darling double rose,’ Robert said and smiled at Roz, who sighed and muttered, ‘Ridiculous name!’

  ‘So you gave the ring to Mum!’ Hannah said, torn between exasperation and excitement.

  ‘It was her wedding ring,’ Robert said. ‘I do hope you didn’t throw it out, darling?’

  Roz put her hand up to her chest in a familiar gesture, groping for the ring she wore on a chain about her neck. ‘No, I didn’t throw it out,’ she answered quietly.

  ‘I can’t believe it! It was under my nose all the time! Can I have it, Mum? Please
?’

  Her mother unhooked the chain and let her wedding ring slide off it. Hannah caught it up with a crow of delight. Then she placed the four loops together on the table. Instinctively she laid them at the points of the compass, north, south, east, west. Hannah’s voice shook as she clasped the hag-stone next to her heart, and said, improvising, ‘Hag-stone, help me break the bane, make the golden rose whole again.’

  From the hag-stone whirled a rush of wind, which caught up the four slender loops of gold and dragged them up and around in a spinning vortex. Then the tiny whirlwind retreated back into the hag-stone, leaving a single ring rocking gently on the table. The loops were now intricately woven together, forming delicate leaves and thorns about a simple five-petalled golden flower like a sweetbrier rose.

  Robert picked the ring up and turned it in his fingers. ‘More than four hundred and forty years it took us to find and mend this ring. Four hundred and forty years!’

  Hannah was too full of emotion to speak.

  ‘So much sorrow, so much suffering,’ Lady Wintersloe whispered.

  Robert turned to Roz, who was staring at the restored ring with a stunned expression. ‘Rosamund Rose, I promised you that one day you would have the whole ring to wear on your finger. I had no idea it would take thirteen years, or that it would mean I would miss so much of our lives together. I swear I’ll try to make it up to you. Will you let me give this ring to you again, as a token of my true love and my promise to never, ever leave you again?’

  Roz hesitated, biting her lip. She looked up at her husband, then at Hannah’s pleading face, then at the circle of expectant watchers. Then she laughed, shrugged and jammed the ring on her left ring finger. ‘You have a lot of making up to do,’ she warned, then at last her face broke into a broad smile and she leapt up and cast herself into her husband’s arms. He folded them about her, and buried his face in her soft brown hair.

  Hannah expelled her breath in a big sigh. Lady Wintersloe dabbed at her eyes, while Scarlett pressed her hands over her heart, turned her eyes up to heaven, and said, ‘So romantic!’