Oblivion

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  The Nothing sneezed. The tears were still rolling down her cheeks, but her eyes were happy.

  “I’d like that very much,” she said and looked as if she had been given ten years’ worth of birthday presents all at once.

  Shanaia, however, didn’t want to come home with us.

  “I am home,” she said. “I’m not leaving Westmark again!”

  “You’re not strong enough to live on your own for the time being,” Aunt Isa protested. “You’re not well enough. Please come with us – I promise I’ll help you get back here when you’re better.”

  Shanaia just shook her head. “I’m staying where I am,” she declared.

  Aunt Isa didn’t like it, I could tell from looking at her. But she also knew that both my mum and Oscar’s were going out of their minds with worry.

  “I’ll come back to see you soon,” Aunt Isa said. “As soon as I can.”

  A pale Shanaia nodded.

  “You don’t have to be so nice to me,” she said. “I know exactly what I did.”

  “If we can forgive you,” Aunt Isa said, “then don’t you think you might consider forgiving yourself?”

  Shanaia just looked down and whispered something I couldn’t hear.

  “What did you say?” Aunt Isa asked her.

  “I just said yes.”

  But I was pretty sure she hadn’t. She was far from ready for easy excuses and quick forgiveness.

  We left her there, on the stone steps outside the main entrance to Westmark, but none of us liked to see her so alone.

  “If only she could find herself a new wildfriend,” Aunt Isa said. “She definitely hasn’t recovered from the death of Elfrida yet.”

  The moment she said it, the kestrel took off from the weathervane up on the roof and came swooping in a sharp arc over our heads towards Shanaia. Startled, she held out her arm and the kestrel landed on her wrist. I couldn’t help smiling.

  “I think that’s being taken care of,” I said softly.

  CHAPTER 26

  Excuses

  “Woofer ran away and I had to find him,” Oscar told the police officer.

  We hadn’t even discussed what to say when we came back. To be honest, I don’t think any of us had thought that far ahead, not even Aunt Isa. She was clearly much better at fixing broken bird wings and healing fevers than inventing convincing excuses for mums and police officers.

  Oscar’s excuse was a good cover story because it was simple, easy to remember and even true – in parts. Nevertheless, some aspects stretched credibility.

  “For over forty-eight hours?” the officer said with raised eyebrows. “And at no point were you able to phone home or contact an adult?”

  “Eh… I was… ahem… out of reach,” Oscar said, pulling down his sleeves to conceal the shark bird bites. “I mean, my phone had gone dead. No battery. No coverage. Both, in fact!”

  The officer looked hard at Oscar. Then at Oscar’s mum. And then back at Oscar. He clearly suspected Oscar of having run away from home to get into the kind of trouble teenage boys shouldn’t get into. Glue sniffing, joyriding or live action role-playing. Something along those lines.

  “And you, young lady? What have you got to say for yourself?”

  The young lady was me. I stared at the toes of my wellies and cleared my throat a couple of times.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Or that is… I was just helping him. To find Woofer.”

  The police officer heaved an exasperated sigh and snapped shut his notebook.

  “Very well,” he said. “Seeing as you’re both home safe and sound. And no crime appears to have been committed. But don’t let it happen again. Do you understand?”

  We both nodded so vehemently it must have looked as if our heads were about to fall off.

  The officer said goodbye to Oscar’s mum, scowled at Woofer, whom he clearly felt ought to be held partly responsible for the upheaval, and trudged down the stairs muttering into his radio. That was the police dealt with, I thought. Now only Oscar’s mum was left… and mine.

  We’d gone to Oscar’s first because he’d been gone the longest. I texted my mum so she knew that I was all right and on my way home. But even so, I was dreading what she had to say.

  Nor did Oscar look as if he fancied a one-on-one with his mum. It was glaringly obvious that she wouldn’t be fobbed off with the “I had to find Woofer” story.

  Her face was very tight, as if she was making a great effort not to start screaming and shouting and throwing furniture about.

  “You. Home. Now,” she ordered me. Then she pointed at Oscar with an unbelievably sharp index finger. “You, into the shower. And afterwards, I expect to get a very good explanation.”

  As I made my way to my own front door, I wondered what he would say. The truth was so… implausible. His mum didn’t have a sister who was a wildwitch. The wildest thing anyone in her family ever got up to was probably a trip to the zoo. If he tried to explain what had really happened – wildways, shark birds, blood arts and the whole shebang – she would undoubtedly conclude that he was lying. Or had lost his marbles. But what else could he say?

  Perhaps I was lucky in that my mum would actually believe me.

  “Hi,” I called out from the hall.

  There was no reply, though the light was on and I could hear the muffled sound of some news channel on the television.

  My mum was sitting at one end of the sofa. At the other end was my dad. He pressed the remote control and turned off the television when I walked in.

  “Where have you been?” he asked. “Clara, what on earth happened?”

  I just stood there with my mouth hanging open, not knowing what to say. I hadn’t thought about my dad for a second. I was so used to him not being around, or rather, I’d filed him in a box labelled Chestnut Street and Holiday Dad. It hadn’t even crossed my mind to wonder what I would say to him.

  I sent my mum a desperate, sideways glance. Had she told him anything about Aunt Isa and the wildworld while I’d been gone? Or was my dad still as ignorant as Oscar’s mum?

  “Oscar’s dog ran away…” I began pathetically.

  “You left a note,” Mum said, and her voice was trembling. “Clara, you left a note, and then you disappeared.” She took a deep breath. “Try to imagine for one moment that I had done the same to you. That I had slipped out of the flat one evening and just left a note telling you not to worry. And then stayed away for thirty-six hours without even a text message. How do you think you would have felt?”

  But mums don’t do that, I thought instantly and I nearly blurted it out loud.

  “My phone wasn’t working,” I tried.

  “Were you with Isa?” Mum wanted to know. “Was that where you were? Is this her fault?”

  “No… or I mean, yes, in a way. Aunt Isa was there too…”

  My dad looked from one to the other as if he were watching a tennis match. He frowned.

  “What’s all this about Isa?” he said. “I didn’t think the two of you were that close?”

  I could tell he was reassured that at least another adult had been involved.

  “Aunt Isa has helped us a lot,” I said. “Mum, you remember. Last autumn, when I was ill… if it hadn’t been for Aunt Isa…”

  I could see Mum battling with herself. If wishing could make it so, I think she would have made Aunt Isa and all the wildworld disappear in one big puff of smoke. There had been times, mostly last year, when I would have done the same. But now I wouldn’t want to be without Aunt Isa. And Cat. And Bumble and Star and The Nothing, and the kestrel and Lop-Ear and…

  In fact, I didn’t want to be without any of it. Well, possibly Chimera. I could have done without her.

  “I like Aunt Isa,” I said firmly.

  “Well, that’s a good thing,” Dad said, somewhat confused. I think he could tell that there was more going on than he knew about. “Perhaps I ought to meet your Aunt Isa soon. So I can find out a little more about what you… experience… when y
ou’re with her.”

  “Isa lives quite a different life from ours,” my mum said.

  “How do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well, she lives… deep in the countryside. More like… in tune with nature.”

  “So what?” my dad said. “Where’s the harm in our daughter learning that life can be lived in more than one way?”

  I watched Mum fight the temptation to explain to him exactly what made Aunt Isa so different, but I also knew that she wouldn’t do it. Not after devoting years of her life to making us look like ordinary, normal, non-witchy people, and for just as many years had concealed the fact that she had a sister who could only be described as a witch. It wasn’t a secret she intended to reveal now.

  “I’m sorry if I made you worry, Dad,” I said, hugging him. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Yes, yes, Munchkin,” he said, kissing my hair somewhere above my right ear. “Just don’t let it happen again. Promise?”

  The discussion didn’t finish there. I could hear them talking quietly in the living room when they thought I’d fallen asleep. Dad simply couldn’t understand why Mum was so opposed to Aunt Isa.

  “So is it because she’s completely irresponsible?”

  “No,” Mum said. “That would be unfair. Just very… alternative.”

  “Earth toilets and wickerwork?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Clara likes her, and it sounds as if she benefits from being with her.”

  “You don’t get it. I know my sister better than you do. You don’t understand…”

  “No, so you keep saying. But I understand this much: I think it would be a huge mistake for you to ban Clara from seeing her own aunt. Give her your blessing. That’ll put an end to the panic and the disappearing acts and heart-breaking little notes.”

  Mum said nothing. She was silent for a long time. I yawned, turned over and could feel sleep getting ever more tempting. But whenever I closed my eyes everything would go dark red, and red shadows with sharp claws and teeth would close in on me.

  “Cat?” I whispered into the darkness. “Cat, please would you come and… be with me for a little while?”

  “What if I were to tell you…” It was my mum’s voice from the living room, a little too loud and strained. “What if I were to tell you that what Clara does with Isa is dangerous?”

  “Dangerous. How?”

  “Just… dangerous.”

  “Mind-altering drugs? Wild car chases? Juvenile delinquency?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that.”

  “Then what are you so afraid of?”

  “That… that Clara will change. That she might have some kind of accident. That…” Mum took a deep breath. “That she’ll turn into someone else.”

  “Milla. She’s not a little girl any more. Growing up is always dangerous. But it’s necessary.”

  Suddenly I could feel something warm against my back. Cat was purring so much that my whole body was humming.

  Sleep, he said. I’ll look out for you. For a little while longer.

  I never heard what my mum said, or if she even replied at all. Nor did I manage to ask Cat what he meant by “a little while longer”. I fell asleep, and if I had any dreams, I’d forgotten them by the next morning.

  CHAPTER 27

  Cat Smiles

  It felt totally insane to get up to go to school the next day. I’d expected it to feel normal. After all, it was what I did most mornings, but somehow normality and witchery had traded places. These days it seemed quite reasonable and normal to wonder if The Nothing would enjoy living with Aunt Isa, and if more of Viridian’s words would appear in the books of Westmark, now that the oblivion curse had been lifted. Instead, I couldn’t even remember what day it was and what my first lesson would be, and even if I’d been able to, it felt completely pointless and irrelevant.

  “Are you tired, Mouse?” Mum asked when she pulled up outside the school gate. We were late – much too late – so there wasn’t the usual traffic jam.

  “A little,” I said.

  “Perhaps you should have stayed at home after all.” She let go of the gearstick and rested her hand against my cheek for a moment. “I don’t want you getting ill again.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes. Like last autumn.”

  “But I won’t.” And yet I couldn’t help touching the claw marks on my forehead. I knew now that the business with the claws, the blood and Cat Scratch Disease had been necessary so that Cat and I could communicate, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t seemed terrifying and dangerous back when I had no idea what was going on. “Mum, it was only so that Cat…”

  “Yes, yes, Clara Mouse,” she said quickly, as if she would rather not talk about it. “But promise me you’ll take care of yourself and come straight home from school, won’t you? Particularly if you start feeling ill.”

  “I won’t get ill again,” I said. “But… OK.” After all, she was only trying to take care of me. Except that we’d both started realizing how many things in the world she couldn’t protect me from. I gave her a quick peck on the cheek, very much not my usual bah-I-have-to-go-to-school way of saying goodbye to her. Then I jumped out of the car, and waved as she drove off.

  I was looking at the car and so didn’t notice that I wasn’t the only kid to turn up five minutes after the bell had gone. However, one of the stragglers had noticed me.

  “Watch where you’re going, loser,” said Martin the Meanie from Year 10, though I wasn’t about to bump into him this time; then he punched my shoulder and positioned himself right in the middle of the school gate. He looked a bit like a goalkeeper who wasn’t going to let the ball get past him. With me being the ball.

  “Right,” he said. “Are you going to apologize then?”

  “What for?” I said.

  “For being a pathetic loser who’s always in my way. That’s what for.”

  His eyes were tiny, glittering cracks. He had a red, angry scratch on one cheek, near his ear, and his hand also looked bruised and swollen. Had he been in a fight? Few boys at school would dare to pick a fight with him, but then again, there was a world outside the school gates.

  I sized him up. He hadn’t grown any shorter. But then, he didn’t have sharp, triangular fangs either, nor metre-high wings created from stolen bird lives, and it was quite remarkable how harmless that suddenly made him look.

  “I’m sorry, but I really haven’t got time for this,” I said abruptly and marched straight past him.

  I think he was too shocked to react. Or perhaps there was just enough wildwitch in me to stop him. At any rate, he didn’t touch me.

  Cat strolled along by my side. He hadn’t been there a moment ago, but he was here now.

  If you want me to claw him, I will.

  I looked down and met his yellow cat’s eyes. I wasn’t sure that I’d forgiven him yet for leaving me in the lurch with the wild dogs and Chimera.

  “Why are you being so helpful all of a sudden?” I said sourly.

  He just looked at me and flashed me a bright white-fanged cat smile.

  I shook my head. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve got this one.”

  His cat smile broadened. Smugness radiated from him like heat off a radiator. I had a strong feeling that I’d finally passed a test he felt I ought to pass. He purred loudly.

  That’s why, he said, and disappeared in a cloud of wildways fog.

  Have I mentioned that Cat usually gets the last word?

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  Copyright

  Pushkin Press

  71–75 Shelton Street

  London, WC2H 9JQ

  Original text copyright © Lene Kaaberbøl, Copenhagen 2011

  Published by agreement with Copenhagen Literary Agency, Copenhagen

  Translation © Charlotte Barslund, 2016

  Illustrations © Rohan Eason

  Wildwitch: Oblivion was originally published in Danish as Vildheks: Viridians Blod by Alvilda in 2011

  This translation first published by Pushkin Children’s Books in 2016

  ISBN 978 1 782691 13 6

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