by B G Denvil
“Just explain roughly then.”
“Pointless,” Oswald told her.
The spoon and the toadstool persisted in saying they had been made as a threesome, and without the silver cup, they could not operate properly.
“I give,” said the spoon. “He,” pointing to the toadstool, “takes. And then the cup fills with the answer.”
“Bother,” muttered Rosie with a yawn. “You’d think two out of three would be useful at something. It’s most frustrating. And all I’ve done all day long is peep outside, shift my position a hundred times and eat.”
“And talk endlessly to yourself,” mumbled the toadstool.
After a supper of dead rats and roast pork with spinach in cream and sultanas, Dodger became excited and hopped happily from one foot to another while ruffling his feathers and combing out his wings. Clearly wishing to look his best, the owl admitted he was going to visit Cabbage, hopefully before she went out hunting for herself.
“I have plans,” he said. “Just you wait and see. We owls are very wise, you know.”
She didn’t want him to go. It had been boring enough while he slept, but now to spend several hours entirely alone seemed like prison. From misery, she quickly moved on to greater despair, wondering how on earth she would manage to last several days like this. The thought of finding the silver cup was a wonderful hope, but she felt it most unlikely. But she smiled and waved Dodger goodbye and good luck. “Have fun,” she told him. “And don’t kill too many sweet little animals.”
With the contempt it deserved, Dodger ignored this last remark and flew off into the night. The stars had not yet found the path through the clouds, and the sky remained misty and without drama. Rosie, with no other option, moved to the back of the nest, curled up again, shut her eyes and wondered if some nasty old witch or wizard had cursed her.
Curses weren’t easy, even for the shadow kings, but there had been stories of shocking curses laid on both the guilty and the innocent in the past. Hard things to lift as well, except by a good witch or wizard of somewhere in the eighties or nineties. Edna would be a valuable witch to have around, Rosie decided, and Peg was not too far behind. Yet Whistle, a wonderful ninety-one or more, had been the first to die.
Still thinking of such matters, Rosie eventually wound her head into boring loops and gradually fell asleep. She was dreaming of comfy mattresses, nice clean tables and warm blankets when she woke suddenly.
Two owls, huge-eyed were gazing down at her from the opening. Behind them was a vast shining silver moon, and in Dodger’s beak was a shining silver cup. Rosie sat up in such a hurry, she bumped her head and twisted her ankle but could hear Oswald complaining from beneath her chin.
“You found it? Miracle upon miracles. Oh, you wonderful marvellous beautiful birds. Thank you, a million times over.”
Dodger and Cabbage seemed to think Rosie had gone a little mad, and both stared down at her.
“Your directions were excellent,” Dodger informed her. “I made the acquaintance of this admirable lady Cabbage, and explained the situation. She quite understood since she had been a friend of your early wizard-loss and told me about the recent chaos. She explained it had been unwise to enter the house for days, and therefore she was content to accept my company. I then recounted your need for a silver cup, which might be in a chest under the bed of your estimable parent, the official owner of the establishment. We were able to enter her room through the window, and since she was still in the kitchen, we were quick to pull out the chests from below the bed. With both beaks together, we had little trouble except on the second, which was too heavy. But, in any case you declared that the probable chest was at the end, and we were quick to open it.”
“Really? I couldn’t find the spell. What did you say?”
“Oh, the usual rubbish,” Dodger said. “Clearly this woman is no great spell-maker. Just that twaddle stuff. ‘Tie me up tight and hide me from sight, Open at your leisure, there’s nothing to measure. Just say please and I’ll open with ease.’”
Rosie actually felt a little annoyed with herself for not having remembered this age-old spell, but she leaned forward eagerly and took the cup from Dodger’s beak. It was surprisingly heavy. Leaning back down again, she rubbed her hands carefully across it, thrilled to have it at last. It seemed doubly precious. Finally, she set it down between the spoon and the toadstool, and was delighted all over again when they all seemed to wake and began to dance together, bobbing and bouncing up and down, whirling around and generally welcomed the newcomer with silent glee.
Leaving her to her own business, which both owls thought most peculiar, Dodger and Cabbage flew up into one of the higher branches and chattered together. It appeared to be love at first sight.
Rosie meanwhile took a very deep breath, “Have you a name?” she asked the cup, trying not to start her own questions too abruptly.
The following silence echoed, but eventually the cup began its own discussion. “I have no name,” it announced. “A pointless accessory. You are girl. I am cup. This is spoon, and that is toadstool. Outside are female owl and male owl. What more do you need? It is true you all claim names, since you value your individual identity, but I have no wish for such childish nonsense.”
Hurrying past all this, Rosie asked, “Do you know of the recent terrible problems at The Rookery? You must surely know your wonderful maker Whistle was brutally killed by someone we haven’t yet discovered.” She leaned very close, as if frightened the essential answer might escape her. “Do you know who killed him?”
“Yes,” said the cup.
A trifle disappointed at receiving just that one word, Rosie asked, “Who?”
“Man,” said the cup with the same refusal to use names. “Not too tall. Not too fat. Not too slim. Not too intelligent. A red doublet beneath a red and gold coat over blue knitted hose. Not a pretty sight. Brown boots, heavy and unclean. Dark shadows within.”
“His hair?” she asked, already worried.
“Short, off the ears, nondescript. Not pale. Not dark.”
“And how did his boots fasten?”
“Old cords. Pale in colour but grubby.”
The cup’s answers were clear and concise, but he had described her father, and Rosie had to gulp and bite her lip to stop the tears. She sank back and regarded all three of the silver items which evidently Whistle had made himself and had regarded as important. Perhaps essential. “I have to explain something,” she said, trying to hold back the sniffs. “I was told I was in danger and had to come and hide. Is that true?”
“Which?” said the cup.
Now she wanted to hit it. “I know it’s true I was told this,” she said patiently. “But is it true I was in danger?”
Here, the spoon interrupted. “I hate to interrupt,” it said, unmoving, “but talking to cup alone is not in your best interests. As the giver, I should give a little good advice. We need water first. A little lubrification will bring cup to his senses and he will be far more explanatory.”
“But,” Rosie said, feeling even more dismal, “it isn’t raining.”
“No, no,” said the toadstool with a small snort. “Just water.”
“Clean water,” the cup insisted. “Streams around, no doubt. Rain water collected in pots. As you wish. Then fill the spoon and drink it. Fill the toadstool through its etched holes and drink it. Then fill me with nice sparkly water and finally drink it. Have a belch or whatever you wiccan folk liked to do after gulping water, and then you can ask whatever comes into your small head. Depending on the question, toadstool will take, spoon will give, and I shall collect and explain the answer.”
Then Dodger poked his head back in to see what was happening. “Sun up in a few moments,” he pointed out. “Dear Cabbage and I will now return to the thatched home you call The Rookery, and I shall stay with my dear Cabbage for the day’s sleep. I’m very fond of thatch and even more fond of Cabbage. You may stay here in peace. Do you wish me to carry a message to anyon
e at your home?”
“What a wonderful idea,” she told him, brightening at once. “Yes, please. Two witches, one short, one tall. Peg and Edna. And tell them where I am. But please, oh please, don’t tell anyone else. Don’t even tell Peg or Edna if other people are listening. If the message can’t be utterly private, then I’d prefer you to say nothing at all.”
He nodded with a bristle of feathers. “I shall indeed. And, dear friend, do pop up to the nest in the thatch one day. Darling Cabbage and I would love to meet you again.”
The faint line of promised sunshine had painted the horizon. The few stars blinked out. The great round moon, an important symbol to the wiccan folk, was westing behind the hills. The barely visible crack between sky and land widened as the sun attempted to slide further up.
Rosie watched as the two owls, great wings spread wide but utterly silent, flew out into the streaks of pink and lilac. Then as the owls disappeared into the distance, the pink turned scarlet and the lilac turned golden. A vast parade of colours lit the eastern sky, and Rosie leaned back. She knew without words that everything was going to be alright.
For a moment she closed her eyes, then opened them again and stared down at the three silver objects on the moss beside her. “Do you know,” she asked softly, “where there’s a stream or a pond? A lake? A river? I don’t know any around here.”
With a small rattle, the toadstool shook its spots. “No idea, lady,” it said. “You want answers, you’d best go and look.”
Disappointed, she realised that at risk of being seen and spoiling everything, she had to go back in the direction of The Rookery and visit the well. But then she realised she had nothing in which to carry the water once she’d brought it up. She could, perhaps, take all three objects with her and fill them with water while actually beside the well, but this would be an even greater risk. She could not only be caught by the killer himself, but would lose her three precious silver items.
There was no answer in her mind, and she stared around, could not think of a thing, wondered if she could make something out of old wood, doubted it and, feeling stupid and helpless, began to cry. The beauty of the sunrise after the sight of the full moon had brought her a shiver of magical happiness. Now she felt the absolute opposite, for she knew herself to be ridiculously powerless, could not use the silver objects she had wanted so much, even though she now had them. What was more, the affectionate hugs from her father blurred back into her mind.
Yet he was not her father at all. What was more, he might well be the murderer.
A faint call interrupted her depression. “My dear Rosie, are you there?”
“Can you see us, dear?”
She knew both voices and rushed to the opening, leaning out with a huge smile down at the two little faces staring up from so far below. One short woman with a tiny white cap and a few straggles of white hair beneath. The other’s face had disappeared beneath a richly feathered hat.
“I’m coming,” Rosie called. “Oh, thank you and bless you, and you’re both just wonderful. I’m coming.”
Chapter Eighteen
“And we still don’t know who, why or even a proper what.”
“We shall sit in a circle, my dear, here in my room, just where dear Whistle sat to create his wonderful spells and devices. What better place?” Edna had set up three chairs around her small table, and on the table sat the silver cup, the toadstool and the spoon. Between them was a large earthenware jug full of cool clean water.
Rosie, sitting on the middle chair, had moved Oswald to a more visible position, still pinned to her tunic but now on the loose belted waist. There were three huge smiles around the table, and only Oswald was complaining. “No drink for me, I suppose?”
The sunshine spun its own web through the window mullions, and the light was a glitter of promise.
“Right,” said Peg, through her grin. “Let’s begin.”
“You first, dear,” Edna told Rosie.
Rosie shook her head, a little embarrassed. She had been flown from the tree nest all the way to her father’s tree house and had been shocked at the ruin there. It gave her comfort now believing her father could surely not be the killer, although that was not yet positive. Yet why? Nothing made the slightest sense to her.
Rosie had then been flown directly in through Edna’s window, and was now sitting comfortably in Whistle’s old room. Yet after a day and two nights in the owl nest, she was aching all over and kept sneezing with feathery scraps of down up her nose. The headache had eased, but every other ache was vibrant and seemingly had no intention of leaving. Rosie’s mind was certainly not functioning as clearly as she would have liked. Although the misery of self-pity had flown with her own flight, she still remained horribly conscious of being so weak in the presence of others so considerably stronger.
“You first, Peg,” Rosie said. “I’m not really feeling clever this morning.”
“I am not surprised,” Peg answered her. “But I do feel we should grab this glorious opportunity as quickly as possible, in case something else goes wrong. And I couldn’t possibly do this without you beside me, dear.”
“And,” Edna looked up, her hand on the water jug, “I do think it should be you, Rosie, my dear, who should do this little water trick.”
Rosie sighed but took the jug and carefully poured some water through the holes in the toadstool. She spilled half the water, but no one seemed to care. Then she lifted the toadstool to her mouth and drank back the water she had just poured in. She then copied the same procedure with the spoon, and this time spilled even more. But she drank and felt remarkably refreshed. “Last one,” she said, and poured water into the cup. After all she had spilled, there was only just enough. But the cup was brimming as she picked it up between her palms and drained it.
The tiredness disappeared. Then, as she sat forward, one by one, every single ache in her body faded away. Gradually her entire body felt joyously young. She wanted to dance. She almost wanted to sing.
Edna was watching her with considerable interest. “You want to ask the questions after all, don’t you, my dear? Then, please, go ahead.”
She didn’t know how brightly her eyes were shining, but Rosie smiled at the three silver items on the table, rubbed a small finger over Oswald and said quite loudly, “Who is my real father?”
“I take away Alfred Scaramouch,” said the toadstool.
“And I give the proper name,” said the spoon,
The cup tipped up and then settled. It spoke even more loudly and said, “Whistle Hobb.”
Rosie’s delight and energy dropped. “That’s impossible,” she whispered. Peg and Rosie were staring, but Rosie noticed Edna was not.
“We cannot ever be wrong,” the cup pointed out. “But it is your choice whether to believe it or not.”
“Then,” Rosie said, this time after a great exhale, “who is my mother? I cannot believe that Mamma was ever Whistle’s wife.”
“I take away Alice Scaramouch,” said the toadstool.
“And I have nothing to give,” said the spoon.
So the cup said, “You do not have one.”
After a very short and shocked silence, Peg and Rosie both spoke together. “Impossible.”
Peg hurried on. “We are witches, and Whistle was a great wizard, but we must all still have a mother. Without a mother, no baby can be born.”
Rosie was shaking her head in bewilderment. “I’m glad it’s not Alice. So very, very glad. But all this is so hard to take in. And I have to have a mother. Emmeline is always so sweet to me,” she suggested. “It has to be someone, even if she’s not living at The Rookery.” She turned to Peg. “I wish it was you, Peg. I’d be so proud to call you my mother.”
But the cup simply repeated its previous statement. “You do not have a mother.”
After the initial excitement, the following disappointment – and now this, Rosie wasn’t sure she could believe anything else the cup told her. She leaned back in the chair, close
d her eyes and asked, “Who killed Whistle and Kate?” She was sure if the cup told her it was her father, who wasn’t her father, she would throw the cup through the window and go to bed in tears.
But after the usual taking and giving, the cup said, “Boris Barnacle.”
And once again everyone stared at everyone. Even Edna no longer seemed complacent.
“He’s close to the last person I’d have expected,” Peg frowned. “A very weak magical power, and a funny little man who usually speaks rubbish, either bored or just too stupid.”
Sighing, Edna reached out, smoothing her fingers around the top of the cup. “But we cannot simply dismiss everything we’re being told. These beautiful objects are Whistle’s own creations. How can we possibly believe we know better than this, when we actually have no idea?”
“I thought,” Rosie said, turning to Edna, “that perhaps you did know something. When the cup said my father was Whistle, which is just preposterous, you didn’t even look surprised.”
“It’s the one thing about you I do know,” Edna said, eyes suddenly large. “I have no idea who this Boris person might be. And I find it hard to imagine a child being born without a mother. However, my dear, I came here to do justice to Whistle, who was once my greatest friend in all the world, and I am inclined to trust his magical inventions.”
“I think I want to go to bed,” said Rosie.
“Then I think,” concluded Edna, “you should sleep in my room, dear. Indeed, I insist. I think you are still in danger. Sleep here, and I shall put spells on both the door and the window. You will not be disturbed.”
“I’ll be disturbed anyway,” she mumbled. “I feel like a mouse in a trap. And none of this is supposed to be about me. I just wanted to find who killed Whistle, and then Kate.”
“Perhaps Boris after all?”
“Anything is possible,” frowned Edna. “But apart from putting a spell on the door and the window, I feel I should put a spell on you, my dear. You must sleep long and deep.” And she raised both hands. “Climb into bed, dear.”
