by Livi Michael
When the pig stops squealing, we look out cautiously. Griff and Gwern are scraping its bristles off with a knife. They will take out the insides and hang it in a tree. My mother catches sight of us watching.
‘Take the others to play, Keri,’ she says. ‘But come back before it gets dark.’We wander off slowly, kicking stones. Once the hog is butchered there will be good meat right through the winter. Every part of it will be used, the heart and liver and tongue, and Bryn will blow up the bladder for us to play with. Still, none of us likes losing a pig.
Arun wants to play by the river again, but I want to go into the forest.
‘We’re not allowed to go into the forest,’ Arun says, but I say that no one is watching. ‘Anyway, it’s my turn,’ I tell him.
I lead the way, going from one tree to another, further and further in. The paths are made by animals, not People, and they soon disappear, then another one starts. We’re not supposed to follow the tracks because they don’t lead anywhere, but it’s easy to forget that. It’s easy to forget everything in the forest.
Just in time, Digri says, ‘I’ll make a mark on the trees,’ and he scrapes at one with his new knife.
We’ve all been taught how to leave a trail, though we’re not supposed to cut the trees. Digri only scratches them so that it doesn’t hurt. And it’s better than getting lost. Already the light has changed and the air too. You can almost hear the forest breathing.
Things I can’t see scuttle away from my feet. The floor of the forest is all tangled ivy and roots, great twisted roots that will seize you and drag you into the earth. I’ve never been so far in before. We’re allowed to pick sticks just from the edges, and sometimes we dare one another to go further in, but never this far. This is where the faeries live. And the raiders.
I know I should turn back. I should take the others home now, before all the light fades. If anyone finds out we’ll be in trouble, especially me, because I’m the oldest. But Digri’s still making his marks, and besides, I feel as though something’s calling me, further on and deeper in. Then I stumble over a long root, and when I look up I see it, a great, thick tree, about a thousand years thick, with a big hollow space in its trunk. As soon as I see it, I know what it is. It’s a story tree.
Inside it’s dark and beetly – lots of little beetles gnawing away at the cracks and creases in the wood. When I peer out I can see the great branches sweeping the ground, and nothing else, and I know, I just know, that no one would ever find us in here, not raiders, not even the faeries. It’s the best hiding place in the world.
‘I don’t like it,’ Peglan says, but everyone hushes her as they crawl inside.
It’s a bit cramped, but Ogda sits on Digri, and Peglan sits on Arun till he elbows her off, so she sits on me.
Here we all are then, huddled inside the story tree, and everyone’s waiting for me to say something.
I start by telling them the story of the tree.
‘A long, long time ago,’ I say, pinching Peglan to stop her wriggling, ‘the story tree used to be a man. He went from one village to another, telling stories for his supper. One day he knocked on the door of a roundhouse that stood alone, and a woman answered, dressed like an ordinary housewife, but all in green. And she was only three feet tall.
‘“Come in,” says she, “come in and tell us your tale.” But when he looked past her the man could see a great table, spread for a feast, and just one empty place, and all the folk at it staring straight at him.’
I have to push Peglan’s head out of the way because her hair keeps getting up my nose. It’s dark in the tree, but I can just make out Ogda, her nose running as usual, staring at me as though I’ve put a spell on her. I love telling stories.
‘Then, though he was very hungry, the poor man stood frightened and rooted to the spot with his mouth open, staring, until the woman got angry and said:
Rooted as a tree you’ll be
No more to tell your own story.
And before he knew it, the faerie hut had vanished and the little woman along with it. Then the man tried to move and couldn’t, for his feet were turning into roots, and his arms to branches. More branches sprang from his shoulders and hair, and he stood alone and fixed and couldn’t even cry unless the wind blew.’
‘Could he pee?’ Arun says, and Digri laughs.
‘It’d all turn to sap,’ I say sternly. ‘But time passed, and the little ash keys fell to the ground, and seedlings grew, and soon the forest grew up around him, swallowing him in. And birds and squirrels and rabbits made their home in him and kept him company. But he can’t ever be changed back,’ I tell them. ‘Not until someone comes who can tell his stories for him.’
Peglan shifts round to look at me, with wide round eyes like Ogda. Digri says, ‘Well, that’s his hard luck then. ’Cause no one can tell what he’s saying.’
‘I can,’ I say.
‘No, you can’t.’
‘I can,’ I say, and I make out like I’m listening. And just then the wind moans and Peglan jumps.
‘What’s he saying now then?’ says Arun, like he doesn’t believe me.
‘He’s not saying owt,’ says Digri. ‘It’s the wind!’
‘How else is he supposed to speak then?’ I say sharply. The great boughs creak again and I hush everyone up. ‘He’s telling a story,’ I say. ‘Listen!’ And I frown and cup my ear, as though I’ll be able to hear it.
‘What is it?’ cries Peglan, and little Ogda says, ‘Tory!’
‘It’s the story of the Cally Burr,’ I tell them. Digri snorts, but he’s listening.
‘The Cally Burr is a blue-faced hag,’ I say, as though repeating the tree’s words. ‘All summer long she sits by water like a great grey stone, then, on the first day of winter, she comes alive, and goes wailing through the darkness. Water drips from her and she’s covered in wet moss and has wet mossy teeth like stones. You can hear her going drip-drip-drip through the forest, looking for children –’
‘Why does she?’ says Peglan fearfully.
‘So she can eat them,’ says Arun.
‘She needs their blood to turn the berries red,’ I tell them. ‘And others she gives to the Underworld, so she can stay out of it herself. And then there’re the others…’ I let my voice sink low. ‘She turns them into tolly stones.’
I can hear everyone breathing in the crack of the wood, the snuff-snuff-ripple of Ogda’s nose, and Peglan breathing through her open mouth.
‘They look just like ordinary stones, on the hillside,’ I tell them, ‘but in the night they move. They creep up on huts, trying to get back to the homes they’ve lost, reaching out with blind, blunt fingers. And if they touch you – bam! – that’s it! You’re one of them!’
Everyone jumps when I say bam! Then, in the darkness of the tree’s insides, Arun grabs Peglan’s leg, and she screams and kicks and elbows us aside. Then she’s off, running as fast as her fat little legs’ll carry her, into the heart of the forest, where all paths end.
I swear and scramble out after her, and Digri follows, giving me a look that says now look what you’ve done.
She’s disappeared, fast as that. Nothing but trees all around.
‘Peglan!’ I shout, and the others join in. But now we’re all running in different directions, though Digri’s got Ogda clamped to his back.
This’ll be like the time I took us all paddling in the river, and Peglan got covered in leeches and wouldn’t stop screaming. Or the time I got Digri to eat some different-looking mushrooms and he was sick for a week.
‘Peg-lan!’ I howl, and hear a sudden scurrying noise, but it’s only a squirrel. Then I burst into a clearing and see her, standing absolutely still. I open my mouth to roar, and at the same time see why she’s standing still.
A wolf.
Thick shadowy pelt, and eyes like old yellow moons, staring.
None of us moves.
My tongue’s stuck rigid in my mouth. All I can see are its eyes, looking at me, not her. Ke
en and wary, not frightened. Something in them I’ll never know.
Maybe the light does it, falling in silver patches around the wolf, but suddenly those eyes aren’t wolf eyes any more. More like human eyes, but more wild, more strange than anything human ever got to be. Just for a moment I see myself through those eyes. I can see me, not leaf, not tree, pale and hunted, scared, and I hear its voice in my head. Keri, it says, and I can’t move.
Then in a quick movement, Digri’s bending at my side. He picks up a pine cone and flings it to the far side of the wolf. Arun does the same with a stone from the other direction. The look in the wolf ’s eyes is startled, still not scared. I can’t move, staring back at it. Then, as more pine cones fall around it, the wolf turns, flicking its tail, and pads away, disappearing quickly into shade.
Not hungry then.
I step forward and grab Peglan.
‘I seed a wolf !’ she says.
‘I know you did,’ I manage to say. I can still see the eyes of that wolf, but all I can think about is getting back home. And me not getting into trouble. I take her hand and start pulling her along. ‘But best not tell anyone, eh? They’ll only worry.’
Then of course we can’t find the way back. We can’t find any of the marks Digri made on the way in; we’ve run away from them now. We stumble into one clearing after another, and everywhere looks the same. Patches of moonlight fall through the branches, and holes in the tree trunks look like mouths. Don’t know how we’ve stayed in here so long, but the forest is like that. Feels like it’s been waiting for this to happen.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ I say to my mother in my mind.
Digri and Arun want to split up, I think we should stay together, and we all fall out. Then, just as we’re getting really worried and grumpy, I hear a voice calling ‘Ke-ri! Dig-ri!’
It’s Bryn’s voice, and Griff ’s follows. Someone’s banging the calling drum that summons us together at meal times, and I can hear my mother’s voice joining in.
‘Ke-ri!’ she cries, sharp and high. ‘Ke-ri!’
We run towards the voices, glad they’ve found us, even though I’ll definitely get into trouble now. Just before we come to them I give Peglan a little shake and say, ‘Remember now, don’t go talking about wolves!’ And she shakes her head solemnly.
Then she sees her mother, who runs towards her with a cry, and she breaks free from me and trots forwards, holding her arms out.
‘I seed a wolf !’ she cries.
Orla looks horrified. ‘A wolf ?’ she says.
‘It weren’t any trouble,’ says Digri. ‘It ran away when we threw cones at it.’
But Peglan’s mother is glaring at me. ‘She was supposed to look after them!’ she says to my mother. ‘She does nothing but lead them into trouble! She knows they’re not allowed in the forest – they could all have been lost – or – or –’
And she bursts into tears. And Peglan joins in, as though only just realizing that she could have been lost or eaten.
‘They’re not lost, Orla,’ my mother says, mildly enough, though her face is very pale. And Bryn says, ‘No harm done,’ which is just like him – always trying to keep the peace, and not succeeding.
‘No harm?’ says Peglan’s father, red-faced. ‘They’ve been gone for hours and us all looking for them. Anything could’ve happened.’
‘But it didn’t,’ Bryn tries again.
‘No thanks to her!’ Gwern looks as though he would like to hit me. ‘How many times have they been told not to wander from the pathways? The others are too little or too daft but she –’ he jabs a finger in my direction – ‘she is old enough to know better! And you’ll let her get away with it – you always do. If she was my daughter she’d have a good whipping!’
And he looks as though he will do it now. My mother takes hold of my shoulders, half rough, half protective. ‘She is not your daughter,’ she says.
‘More’s the pity,’ says Gwern, but he turns away. ‘If Lu were here he would do something about it,’ is his parting shot.
Lu was my father. Bryn stares after Gwern, white-lipped. He knows that whatever he does, he does not live up to his brother. My mother steers me towards the huts. ‘Come away, Bryn,’ she says. ‘Leave it. We are all tired.’
And Bryn does as she tells him, as he always does. He will not fight Gwern, and if he did, he would not win. Anyway, he is no fighter. No stomach for it, Myrna says.
One by one we all return to the huts. No one speaks, but I can tell from their faces that their thoughts are like Gwern’s. It isn’t fair. It was Arun who grabbed Peglan and made her run away, and got us all lost in the first place. We could’ve found the way back from the story tree. But no one says anything to Arun, and he goes off, sly and dark, into Mabda’s hut. Myrna stands there in the doorway, peering out anxiously with her old, blind eyes.
‘They are all safe, Mother,’ Mabda tells her, and Myrna says, ‘Thanks be.’
My footsteps are dragging as they enter our hut. I expect a huge row, but all my mother says is, ‘Go to your bed, Keri.’
I want to explain to her, to tell her what happened, and that it wasn’t really my fault, or not all of it, anyway, but something in her face forbids it, and I go to bed without any supper. I lie awake a long time, hungry, thinking about the eyes of that wolf, and how it called to me, and knew my name. I can’t even think about what my punishment will be in the morning. When I close my eyes I can still see those other eyes, staring, wolf and not-wolf, something looking out at me, through those old yellow eyes.
My punishment is that I have to stay in the hut all day and look after Lu, while the adults work and all the others play. This would be bad enough on an ordinary day, but today is cold and sunny and beautiful. Frost touches the plums and the grass is just starting to crackle. I have to watch while Dillon and Arun and Peglan and Little Ogda are allowed to pick berries.
And Lu is a pain all morning. His right cheek is flushed and my mother says he must be cutting a tooth. Then she says he might have griping pains in his stomach. Whatever it is, he won’t play. He strikes at the corn dollies when I hold them out to him and kicks at the scatter-stones. He holds his arms out to be picked up, then, when I pick him up, he pushes me away.
Then he chases all the hens when I try to feed them, and Myrna cackles from the doorway of her hut. ‘He was born running, that one,’ she says.
Well, he wasn’t born running, but he learned fast. And to climb in and out of the ditch, and get into the storehouse and knock over all the piles of apples and turnips. And because he has not yet learned to look where he is going, the air is filled with his cries. In just one morning, though I watch him all the time, he falls into the briar patch, and burns himself on our pot, and is run over by our pig.
‘Sit still, Lu,’ I tell him, but he doesn’t want to sit still at all, even while I count to five on my fingers. Myrna cackles again and suggests tethering him to a post. I’m tempted, but my mother wouldn’t hear of it. So I pick him up and sing to him. And Lu cries and whimpers and tugs at his ear.
‘Likely he’s teething,’ Myrna says. ‘He’ll be fine when the tooth comes.’
I can hear the sound of Dillon and Arun playing and laughing and splashing further up the river. They have forgotten me already, I think, and tears prick my eyes.
I’m fed up of looking after Lu, and fetching water, and feeding hens and spinning wool, just because I’m a girl.
I wish there was another girl here, my own age, that I could play with.
I hate my ordinary life.
In the afternoon, my mother takes Lu and goes with the other women to scrape lichen from stones for dye. Digri and the others will gather berries for the same purpose. I have to stay with Myrna, helping her.
I can’t play in the forest, or by the river. I have to stay in the dim hut all afternoon, mashing berries and spinning wool. I can’t even go to the storehouse because that would be going out of her sight. And Myrna is near enough blind.
&
nbsp; I argue with Bryn about this at the midday meal, but I don’t get anywhere.
‘I don’t want to go to Myrna,’ I say.
‘There’s nothing you can do here,’ says Bryn.
‘But I want to stay with you,’ I say to my mother. ‘I want to help. I can look after Lu.’
‘Do you not think you’ve done enough damage already?’ says Bryn, his face dark with anger. ‘The best thing you can do is stay out of the way.’
I stare at him, my mouth open, then look at my mother. But she doesn’t stand up for me. She turns her face into the shadows. So I push my bowl away and leave.
My steps drag, thinking about Myrna, hating Bryn. He is only angry because of what Gwern said to him, and now he has to prove he can be tough. If Mabb was here now, I think, I would ask her to turn Bryn into a great spotted toad, and watch the heron come and eat him up.
Myrna is sitting in the doorway of her hut as usual. A large dribble of juice runs down her chin, and I wonder how it is that someone who can see everything can’t find her own mouth.
‘So you have come to keep me company,’ she says as I stand in front of her. She waves her hand towards a little stool in the hut behind. ‘Sit,’ she says.
Myrna holds a distaff and I wind the wool round the spindle over and over, twisting it into thread.
I can hear Digri and Arun and Peglan outside somewhere; the sound of their playing is loud and clear. I shift myself on the little stool, and rub my nose and tell myself it could be worse. At least Lu’s with my mother. Myrna says nothing, just leans over the thread until her long nose almost touches it, humming to herself.
After a short while my neck aches, and my nose and eyes are itchy from the wool. It always makes me itch.
‘I hate spinning!’ I burst out, and Myrna cackles softly.
‘You know what happened to the spider who hated spinning?’ she says, nodding to where one is hanging from the doorframe, and I wonder how she knows. ‘No,’ I say sulkily.
‘It fell off,’ she says, and I can’t help laughing.
Then Digri arrives with a basket of berries and stares at me. I make a face at him and he goes away again. Myrna gets up slowly and says, ‘Time for mashing.’ She cuts the thread I’m holding and hands me the basket. I have to drain the juice into a bowl for dye, and mash the berries for a long time, until they turn into a thick pulp. Myrna sits in the doorway, her face turned to the sky. She grinds seeds into a paste that we will bake in the fire later on, but she chews just as many as she grinds.
