by Janeen Brian
“Yeah, tell us, tell us, tell us!” Polly joined in.
“She will if you’re quiet,” said Wilfred, his voice just audible over the faint rustle of falling leaves.
Eloise thought frantically. “Once upon a time,” she began, “there was a bright flash of light in the sky –”
“Lightning!” burst out Polly.
“A star,” said Mamie.
“Perhaps it was, and perhaps it wasn’t.” Eloise added a tone of mystery to her voice.
Three pairs of eyes fixed themselves on her.
And then words flew from Eloise’s mouth. “Perhaps,” she whispered, “perhaps it was a unicorn.”
“What’s that?” Mamie whispered back.
Eloise told them about the creature, and as she wove her own story, she saw it all taking place in her mind.
“And the most wonderful thing of all,” she paused, her voice soft as butterfly wings, “was that the unicorn landed right here –”
“Where we’re sitting?” Polly gasped, her hands clapped to her mouth.
“Right here, in the town of Whittering,” said Eloise.
“Will we see it one day?” Polly looked around.
“Who knows?” said Eloise. And they all looked around.
Wilfred ran his hands across the grass as if to feel any dents where hooves might’ve landed.
“Sister Hortense!” Mamie sprang from the grass as if she’d been catapulted. She rushed towards the nun, who was walking up from the garden patch. “Eloise just told us a story.”
“Yes, Sister,” chimed in Polly. “About a unicorn! And, and, and,” she tumbled over her words. “And it landed here!”
Wilfred looked down at the grass again.
Sister Hortense pinned her eyes on Eloise. Spoke only to her.
“Did she? Fancy that. Off you go now, Littlies. Storytime is over. Eloise doesn’t need to bother you again.”
The three shambled off, occasionally peering over their shoulders.
Eloise rose. She clasped her hands behind her back and waited. It was as if Sister Hortense had been struck dumb. She said nothing. A leaf fell from a nearby tree. Eloise blinked at the movement, but her mind’s voice called to the lions to help her keep as still as a statue.
Without another word, Sister swept back inside.
The icy space left behind made Eloise so stiff she felt she could snap into pieces. And the bits would scatter and maybe make little marks in the grass. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t swallow. Her feet wouldn’t move.
For the first time ever, Eloise wished she had a friend. But then as quickly, she dismissed the thought. She didn’t know what you did with a friend.
During the night a fierce wind lashed at the windows as if trying to shake them loose. Eloise tried to shush several Littlies who cried in the dark. Lying there, trapped in her bed, Eloise retraced her unicorn story and came up with an idea. She would ask Sister Genevieve for paper, pen and ink and she would write it down.
She murmured it over and over, loving the taste of the words in her mouth. Seeing it real in her mind. Her fingers stroked the sheets, pretending it was the soft sheen of the creature’s coat.
Eloise hugged her story close to her as she leaned into the wind next morning, her tunic and pinafore flipping and flapping, the loose tendrils of hair flicking wildly across her face.
As she neared the water pump, a cacophonous clang of metal met her ears. Puzzled, she took a few steps closer to the forge. Mr Jackson was tying bits of metal to the branches of a tree. “Seems I got too much time on me hands, little filly!” He roared at his joke. “Found these bits buried in Dancy’s field. Been there awhile, I ’spect. That be a puzzle in itself, who put ’em there, but the wind loves them.” He chuckled again. “It’d be quieter up at your place.”
Eloise nodded. “It is, Mr Jackson.” There was singing on Sundays, in the church next to the orphanage, and singing practice for their monthly performance in the market. Other than that, silence was the rule at the table and in bed. And over time any bottled-up thoughts became voiceless. Useless when buried, like the metal bits. How chaotic would they be if ever let loose? Sister Hortense’s continued silence after the Littlies’ exclamation of her unicorn story set Eloise on a tightrope. The nun had not said another word about it. That was odd. Unnerving. Its absence became a shadow that followed Eloise around.
“Oh, well, back to work for me,” declared the blacksmith, after standing back to admire his noisy handiwork in the tree.
“Mr Jackson,” blurted Eloise. Already her cheeks felt warm at the thought of asking another personal question of a grown-up.
“Yes?”
“Have you ever been outside? I mean, outside the town wall?” The tips of her ears now burned.
The blacksmith brought one large hand to his mouth and then wiped it down over his beard. “I have, young filly. I have. But not for a long time. No point now, you see.”
Eloise didn’t see. Until he spoke again.
“I do once have a lady friend, one I was wooing. And she do live in the next town, up the track away. So each month Dancy and I rode there to pay our respects. Then one day,” he paused, raised his hands and then lowered them, “then one day she told me she was to be married. To another.” He coughed. “So, I don’t have no reason to go out nowadays.”
“Oh,” Eloise said in a voice that only just reached the big man’s ears, “so, you’ve . . . never had a family?”
Mr Jackson smiled. “Just Dancy. ’Cept, it seems he only has eyes for you these days. Look at him now, waiting for his pat.”
Eloise glanced over and smiled. “When I patted him the other day, I felt a lump on his forelock.”
“Oh, that. Had it since the day I got him. It’s never grown and never bothered him. Do it bother you?”
Eloise flinched. The old man’s words arrowed too close to her confused thoughts. “No, no. It’s nothing. I’ll give Dancy a pat and –” She pushed her tongue hard into the slight space between her teeth. “When you rode outside the town, you saw the pond, didn’t you?” Her voice rose.
“I did. Beautiful it was. Birds. Lots of birds, I remember.”
“So the water was all right? Not bad?”
“Not since I came into the world, bawling and waving my big baby hands. Why the questions, young filly? You not be letting those old stories get under your skin, are you?”
“No,” mumbled Eloise. “I’d better go. Thank you, Mr Jackson. Goodbye.”
But the blacksmith’s words left her troubled. Was he right? Were they simply old, useless stories? It took until the wind settled down and allowed the clouds to drift at their will before she shook her head. The stars listened to her. Eloise knew they did. Why couldn’t a shooting star be a unicorn lighting up a gleaming trail in the sky? Why couldn’t there have been creatures that lived way back in time that were unlike the animals in the town today?
“Eloise!” called Sister Genevieve from the garden patch. “Would you bring me one of those buckets for the spinach plants? They were doing well, but I think the wind has upset them. Perhaps an extra drink might help.”
While Eloise waited for the bucket to be returned, she turned her gaze to the tree. Its spreading branches looked as if they were waiting, ready to welcome her. She felt the tug. Curled and uncurled her toes.
“Sister. When will you be teaching the Littlies?”
The nun looked at Eloise and raised her eyebrows. “Before lunch. Is there a reason you ask?”
“No.” Eloise shrugged.
“Then off you go. Maybe you’ll need to fetch more water. What is your next chore, dear?”
“In the kitchen.” Thinking quickly, Eloise said, “Sully said something about turnips.”
“Well, there’s plenty still ready to pick.” The nun gestured at the row.
Sister’s remark gave Eloise the excuse she needed.
Once in the kitchen, Eloise peered in the large wicker vegetable basket.
“Excus
e me, Sully,” she said, wincing at the sound of the cook’s singing.
“What?”
“Do you want more turnips? From the garden?”
Sully stuck her bottom lip forward. “Well,” she said, “that’s a first, you asking about turnips. And just as I was thinking they’d do nicely with tonight’s tripe, as well.”
Eloise kept her expression blank. Tripe again. Thick, spongy stuff that needed more chewing than a bit of leather, and with less flavour.
“But I need them spuds peeled first,” said Sully. “Soup for lunch.”
Just as Eloise picked up the first potato, a soft, withered lump, there was a tramping of small feet in the hallway. Heading for the schoolroom. With the knife poised, and trying to keep the urgency from her voice, she said, “Sully, shall I go and get the turnips now?”
Sully turned from peering into a pot on the fire, her face in a cloud of steam.
“Think on it, lass. What comes first, lunch or dinner?”
“Lunch.”
“That’s your answer then.”
With her lips pressed tight, Eloise went at the potatoes as fast as she could. A faint chorus of alphabet chanting drifted into the kitchen. It urged her to work even faster, without slicing off a piece of knuckle along the way. The peelings went into a pot of boiling soup water. The remainder of the yellowing potatoes went in a bowl for another meal. At some other time.
That done, Eloise raced to the garden and pulled out five turnips. “Tripe don’t need much more,” Sully had said. “Just a hint.”
Clods of dirt fell from the vegetables as Eloise ran, crouching along the edge of the wall, to the tree. She left the turnips at the base and in a flash she was on the branch. Like drawing back a magic curtain, she shifted some leafy twigs. And there it was.
An eye to the outside. Eloise let her chest fill with it all. And Mr Jackson was right, though she wouldn’t be able to tell him. There were still lots of birds by the pond. More than she could count. And a hare stood, ears like tall flags, until it bounded off, startled perhaps by nothing more than a shadow.
Her eyes then followed the track that led far away. The memory of a family for Mr Jackson was little more than a pinpoint on a distant horizon.
Eloise’s feet felt their way down the tree. Clutching the turnips to her chest, she then ran hard and arrived, huffing, back in the kitchen.
I saw it. I saw the world outside.
“Turnips in the basket,” said Sully, with a nod towards the bench. She stared at Eloise. “You’re as red as a beetroot, you are. Turning into a vegetable yerself, are you?” she cackled.
Eloise forced a smile, but the kitchen smell gagged in her throat and her mind was elsewhere.
“Sister Bernard wants you in the laundry.”
I don’t care what I have to do next. I have the outside world inside me.
The nun, whose low brow was furrowed with concentration, was counting sheets and towels on the shelves and writing numbers in a thick ledger. She murmured to herself.
Eloise gave a small cough.
Sister Bernard swung around, a number still seemingly hanging on her open mouth. “Don’t come up on a person like that,” she said in a cross voice. “Now I’ve lost count.”
“Sorry, Sister. Sully said you wanted me.”
“Not here,” she said. “Sister Hortense wants her office dusted.”
“Oh.” Eloise nodded but her heart pounded. “Will . . . Sister be there?”
“She’s up in the nuns’ room, meditating. Well, don’t stand there gawping and wasting time.”
Eloise grabbed a clean rag from a tub in the kitchen. By the time she’d crossed the hallway and stepped into the office, she’d folded and unfolded it several times.
And then there she was, back in the room with the book. This time she was safe. Eloise could hardly believe her luck. First, the chance to spy through the hole in the wall. And now this.
She shot a glance at the door behind her and closed it. But not shut. She’d hear more clearly that way. The room was the same as before. The sour smell. The dim, closed-in appearance. Nothing out of place. A shell of a room.
Where would she start? Eloise folded the rag into a squished rounded shape and began to dust the shelves.
But soon she edged towards the desk. And then she was at the book. Turning pages with shaking fingers. Checking once more the dates and names, blinking hard, in case, through nerves, she’d made an error the first time.
Again, nothing.
But what if Sister Genevieve had been greatly mistaken? It seemed unlikely that her favourite nun would’ve accidentally made a mistake with dates. But Eloise seized the possibility. Frantically, she scanned the columns much earlier than her supposed date of birth. And much later.
Nothing.
Not even a line inked over. Not even a name crossed out. And yet, Eloise whispered, “I am here.”
With the half-used duster hanging limply from one hand, she sank into Sister’s chair. So deep was she in her own thoughts, Eloise didn’t feel its soft padding or leather covered arms, nor think it wrong to have her bottom on the patterned seat.
If she wasn’t listed in the Family Register, did she even belong at this orphanage? Did she belong elsewhere?
Did she dare creep out of bed that night to speak to her stars? They would listen. They would understand. She made a decision to risk it. And with that done, Eloise glanced at the paper, pen and inkwell on Sister’s desk. Slowly an idea unravelled in her mind.
Her unicorn story.
If she hurried, she could write it down now. She knew it by heart. Thanks to Sister Genevieve she knew her letters and she’d still have time to finish the dusting.
A blotter lay beside the paper, but she only glanced at it. She wouldn’t be so foolish as to blot the work and leave a telltale story for Sister Hortense to trace.
As Eloise wrote, dipping her pen into the bottle of ink and wiping the nib carefully against the lip of the bottle, she also blew on her words to dry them. Softly and quietly, with butterfly breath. She wrote and wrote and her heart sang at seeing the words on paper. They would be hers forever. She’d roll the paper and hide it. Where, she wasn’t quite sure yet. But that would be another secret. Eloise was almost finished when she heard the clump of footsteps.
Seized with panic, she rolled the paper and shoved it down the front of her tunic. She wiped the pen with the rag and went to replace it in the glass holder. It slipped from her fingers. Clunk! Eloise gasped. Heart thudding in her ears, she leaped to her feet.
And saw the lid of the inkwell. It still lay upside down on the desk.
‘Oh!’ she cried. Eloise fumbled with it, trying to screw it back on, but it stuck. She tried again. This time it jammed to one side. Eloise’s mouth dried. Her tongue pushed against her teeth. Come on. Please! Come on.
“Eloise,” said Sister Bernard, suddenly at the open doorway, “have you finished in here?”
Eloise’s head shot up. Her hand felt around for the dusting rag and snatched at it. She hit something. Over went the inkwell. Off came the tilted lid.
Ink spilled out.
It ran out faster than Eloise’s flustered thoughts, its blackness spreading towards the paper, the Family Register, towards the edge of the desk.
Horrified, Eloise clapped her hands to her face. “No!” she cried. “No!”
“Use your brains, girl!” barked the nun. “The cloth! The cloth!”
Jolted into action, Eloise swiped at the mess. Folding and refolding the cloth, her hands staining in the process. Her mouth open, making small cries.
“I’m sorry, Sister,” she said, when the nun had wiped the last of it clean with a piece of blotting paper. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yes, yes. It was an accident. I saw that. Now, have you finished in here?”
Red-faced, Eloise shook her head. “Not quite, Sister. I’ll go and get another rag.”
“Do that and be quick. After that, go to Sister Genevieve in the s
choolroom.”
When Eloise rushed into the kitchen, Sully stared and shook her head.
“First you come back from the garden red as a beetroot. Next your hands are black as the belly of a cow. What next, I wonder, lass. And don’t put that rag in that tub. Put it in the other one.”
Eloise couldn’t see the difference, but she did as Sully said and dashed back to finish the dusting.
On the way, she placed her hand on her heart. It still pounded like a drum, but it was the crinkle of paper that quieted her breathing.
A short time later, she walked towards the schoolroom to meet up with Sister Genevieve. The grandfather clock chimed the afternoon away. Its sound was as deep and rich as a birdsong and Eloise took it as an omen. With Sister Hortense still nowhere in sight, perhaps the meeting meant another chance for lessons. And, in that case, should she show Sister her story?
I think she’d like it.
With a lightness in her step, Eloise walked into the schoolroom. Sister Genevieve was sitting in a chair, away from her desk. There was another chair alongside.
“Eloise, dear, sit down,” began the nun.
Eloise sat, full of anticipation.
“I have some news.” Sister Genevieve paused and her bad eye shifted from side to side. In a quiet voice, she continued. “I’m afraid, Eloise, it’s been decided that your lessons, our lessons, are to come to a complete end.”
The smile that had trembled at the corners of Eloise’s mouth froze. Then faded. Sister’s words were wrong. They made no sense.
“I’m sorry, dear.” The nun leaned forward and placed a hand on Eloise’s shoulder.
The back of Eloise’s eyes began to burn. A knot sprang up into her throat. And her stomach cramped as if she was about to throw up.
“No,” she cried in a voice hoarse with disbelief. “No!”
Sister went to take hold of one of Eloise’s hands. But Eloise pulled away.
“But why, Sister?” she sobbed. “Why?”
Eloise felt the room darken as if the light had been sucked out of the windows. Muffled sounds rang in her ears but where had the air gone? She couldn’t breathe.
She looked at Sister, wiped her tears and looked again.
