by Livi Michael
‘Lu!’ she screams. ‘Lu!’
There’s a noise like a high wind howling through my head. The whole world turns itself over then shakes itself down.
‘Lu!’ she squawks again, and the old man comes running.
‘What is it?’ he cries. ‘What’s happening?’
But he isn’t Lu – he can’t be called Lu, I’m thinking, over and over.
His eyes are wide open, though of course he can’t see. I can see, though. I’m looking right into his eyes. And they’re greenish, and filmy now, but there’s a brown speckle in the left one.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no!
‘Boggarts’ve been in – boggarts –’ the old woman’s gabbling. ‘The hens – and the eggs – and the stew!’
The old man can’t see the mess. He gropes for his wife’s arm. And the next words he says send my stomach tumbling over and my world crashing to the floor like the stew.
‘Settle down, Ogda,’ he says. ‘What is it that’s happened?’
Then all the horror and protest I feel comes bursting out of my mouth. ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’ I howl.
The old man and the old woman clutch one another in dismay, but they’re looking at each other, not at me. ‘Did you hear that?’ the old woman says, and the old man tries to calm her, though he’s shaken up himself.
‘It were only the wind, creaking the gate,’ he says.
I can’t stand this any more.
‘Only the –? Hear this, you great lug-eared lump!’ I cry, and I step out right in front of them.
But neither of them even looks up. The old man guides the old woman over to their bed in the corner, and she sits on it, shaking. ‘Oh, Lu – everything’s smashed and broken – and there was no one in the house. It wasn’t you, and it wasn’t me –’
‘It was me – me!’ I shriek, dancing about in front of them, but the old woman only wipes her eyes. ‘Whatever’s happening to us, Lu? We’re boggartspooked for sure.’
‘Stop calling him Lu!’ I yell, right in front of them, then I have an idea. I rattle all the remaining pots, and jiggle the table about and pick up the stool and hurl it at the wall. The old man looks terrified, scrambling backwards on the bed and still holding on to his wife. And she just covers her face with her apron and cries.
Then I notice something else. A cord round his neck. My stomach lurches horribly, and I stride straight towards them. It’s so strange to see him looking straight through me with Lu’s eyes, wide and terrified and unseeing. I put out my hand and grab the cord. He gives a short yell as I yank it away from his shirt. Then I look at it, and what’s left of my world comes tumbling down.
It’s my amulet. The one my father carved for me. The one I gave to Lu.
I sink down then, with a groan that seems to come up through me, right from the middle of the earth. I crumple up on the floor and cover my face with my hands, and for a short while there is only silence.
After a while they start whispering to one another in low, worried voices.
‘Has it gone yet?’
‘Well – it’s gone quiet.’
‘Might be waiting for us to move.’
‘It grabbed me, round my neck.’
‘What was it?’ And so on.
I’m hardly listening, grappling with the thought that these two old people might be Little Ogda and Lu.
How long can I have been in the forest?
Nothing makes sense any more. I still feel as though I’m in some dark, terrible dream. But if I am, it’s going on longer than any dream I’ve ever had. And I can’t seem to wake up. I lift my head wearily, and look round at the smashed and broken hut.
‘Is everything broken?’ the old man says.
‘Everything,’ says the old woman. ‘We’ve lost everything.’
‘What’ve we done to deserve this?’ says the old man, raising his voice now, though the old woman shushes him. ‘Have we not had misfortune enough?’
Then they have a short discussion, about whether they should get up and look around to see if I’ve really gone, but neither of them moves. I’ve scared them both to death, I think, and for the first time I feel ashamed.
‘If only we could’ve had children,’ the old woman says wearily. ‘A fine son, to help us with the work of the farm. Or a daughter to look after us in our old age.’
Where is everyone? I think suddenly. Why are these two left here on their own? What happened to everyone else? To Digri and Peglan, and Arun? What happened to Tilse’s baby? Or to Tilse, for that matter.
‘Whoever would’ve thought there’d only be the two of us left, out of all our People?’ the old woman says. ‘Oh, Lu, Lu – whatever’ll become of us?’
The old man tries to comfort her then. ‘Nay, Ogda, Ogda, don’t take on so,’ he says. But I’ve heard enough. Shame wells up in me like a big dark pool, and tears press like little stones at the back of my eyes. I should help them, I think suddenly. I should help them to clear everything up and start again. But that would only scare them even more.
I slink over to the door and lift the latch, glancing back briefly to the bed, where they’re still holding on to one another. Just for a moment I see them as they were when I left. Little Ogda with her two short plaits and her runny nose; my brother Lu, with his round face and sunny smile. It’s like looking at the sweet kernel of a withered old nut. But I can’t ask them what’s happened – they won’t even hear me.
Neither of them looks in my direction. I open the door just a chink, and slip outside, closing it gently behind me.
In the bright light the huts look even more deserted than before. The hens are pecking and scrabbling about again on the hard ground. There’s a fluttering movement in the corner of my eye. Digri’s charm, stirring in the breeze.
Somehow, the sight of that brings home the full horror of where I am. I can’t stand it any more – I can’t look at these deserted huts where everyone I once knew used to live and play. I set off, walking away from them, not even knowing where I’m going, just that I’ve got to get away. Faster and faster I go, away from the huts, away from the forest, picking up speed till I’m skimming over the earth and stones and grass, running downhill towards the river.
It’s in the river that I first catch sight of myself. I scramble on to a large stone and lie there, face downwards and gasping for breath. Thoughts are whirling in my head like thistlefluff in the wind, and I can’t grasp hold of any of them.
The water’s calm and clear, I can see little fish swimming about near the bottom like brown shadows. I can see the shadow of my head, hair sticking out all over like a bird’s nest. Then the sun shifts, or something happens, and for a moment I see myself clearly – a little fey, wick thing, greenish in the water, grinning up at me with glittery eyes. I only catch a glimpse of it before the water breaks everything up, but I start back in fear. It doesn’t look like me – not like any me I recognize, and I glance back in case anyone or anything’s looking over my shoulder. But nothing is, of course. Cautiously, I peer back again.
There it is again, with its little pointy features and horrible urchin grin.
I’m not grinning but my reflection is.
I scramble back and look at my hands. Nut brown, with pointy fingers. I stare at them like I’ve never seen them before.
My toes are the same – thin and pointy.
Not human.
Terrified, I peek in the water again. There it is – the wild hair all tangled in leaves and twigs, the greeny-brown face and strange, glittering eyes.
Only this time it’s taking no notice of me at all. It’s eating an apple.
And I feel sick – sick to my stomach.
‘Boggartspooked’ that old couple said they were. They called me boggart. And they couldn’t see or hear me.
I look again at my tattered clothes. They’re greyish-green, like the old man said, as if I’m stuck all over with leaves.
I open my mouth and yell at it. It’s a yell like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It whips
up the water and spins it round. When I can see my reflection again, it’s got its mouth open too, but it isn’t yelling. Just looking at me like it’s wondering what all the fuss is about. I stamp in the water, breaking the image up, and it shakes its fist back at me. And that’s when I start to run.
I run and run away from the water. Back up the hill, shouting and waving my arms about like a lunatic. Then I stop, panting for breath.
Before me are the huts, where the old man and the old woman are. Can’t go back there.
Beyond that’s the forest. Can’t go back there.
There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere at all.
Don’t want to go back to the river either. But I do want to see my reflection one more time. Hoping and hoping that I’ll see myself the way I used to be. Steps dragging, I make my way back.
But there I am again, a little pointy goblin, or elf, or – well, I don’t know what I am any more.
I keep on peering back into the water, willing myself to change into something I recognize, but however often I look, the reflection’s the same. Or not the same – sometimes it’s looking away from me, sometimes sideways on, like it’s doing its own thing. But it’s still got the same pointy features, and bird’s nest hair, and horrid grin. Somewhere in it I can still recognize the girl I used to be, but something’s changed me. I feel all over my face with my hands but that doesn’t tell me much. I go on looking at this reflection that seems to have a life of its own, until I get tired, and fling myself backwards on the stone, staring upwards into the high blue sky.
Nothing seems real.
Nothing’s right.
Feels like nothing’ll ever be right again.
Why aren’t I old, like Ogda and Lu?
Something happened to me in the forest – that’s for sure. Something got hold of me and changed me.
But how? And why?
And that’s as far as I get. Because, try as I might, I can’t remember a single thing about the night I spent in the forest. Nothing between running in and coming out again. My head starts spinning when I try to think of it, or it fills up with mist, like a cloud rolling over a hill. But until I know that, I’ll never know what’s happened to my mother, and Bryn, and Myrna, and Digri, and Peglan and Derry, and Arun and Griff and Tilse, Arval and Mabda and Gwern.
And naming them all like this in my mind makes the pain come. Swelling and bursting in my chest.
If they’re all gone, really and forever gone, I can’t take it. My heart’ll crack like a hatching egg.
Then the pain comes bursting out of my mouth, in a great howling cry. But the sound I make isn’t human at all – it’s a great jumble of noises. Like wind and rain thrashing the bushes, branches creaking, wolves howling and the high lonely call of a bird. And it goes on and on, longer than I knew I had breath, until finally I shut my mouth and the noise stops, and I fall back on to the stone and shut my eyes.
I must’ve fallen asleep because the next thing I know, I’m opening my eyes, and the light’s fading. The first faint stars are overhead, and through the babbling of the river I can hear a woman’s voice singing, sweet and low.
It’s the most beautiful singing I’ve ever heard – like leaves in a summer breeze or the wind rippling through grass. Seems like it’s calling the stars out because while I lie there, enchanted, more of them appear, deeper and brighter in the sky. And the whole world’s hushed, listening, the willows bent over the water and the reeds moving to the sound of the song. For there’re words in it, but when I try to remember them, they don’t make any sense. Something like this:
Neither sleep, neither lie
Years like leaves go fluttering by
Years like bones on the forest floor
Summer rain on an autumn door…
Seems like nonsense, but at the same time it makes perfect sense. And I get up, as though in a dream, and follow the singing:
Has the goose gone to its nest?
Has the fox gone to its rest?
Only the forest knows…
I’m wading through the river, and I can’t even feel the cold. I follow the bank round a curve, and the music seems now near, now far away. But while I listen to it I seem to forget everything, all my hurts and problems. I forget what I look like in the water, or that no one can see or hear me any more, and even that I’ve lost everyone I love. All I can do is follow the low sweet sound of that music, round one curve of the river, then another. And there, in the dusk, in the fading light, I see her. All wrapped in grey, and dipping her cloth into the water. The Peggotty Witch.
The Peggotty Witch? Making that sweet music? Never knew she could sing. I heard that she could only make animal noises, like grunts and brayings and droning. But here she is, singing sweeter than the sweetest bird, so that all the fish swim to the surface, listening.
I start to wade through the water, when suddenly I remember what’s said about her. If you get right up to her without her seeing you, and catch hold of her washing, she’s got to answer three questions. So I duck down low and creep out of the water and along the bank.
Didn’t know I could move so fast or so quiet. Closer and closer I get to the little shrouded figure, and as I creep towards her, her song changes:
There was an old woman
And her name was Peg,
And her head was of wood
And she had a cork leg.
Pitch her, pitch her into the water
She’ll tell you no lie
She’s the river’s daughter.
Then, when I get right up to her, still creeping like a snake, she says:
Pixie in the moonlight
Pixie in the dew,
Fly away, pixie
Where the wind never blew.
So now she knows I’m here. I’m scuppered then. Can’t ask her my questions. I’m so disappointed, I almost turn away.
On the other hand, here’s this witchety old woman I never even knew could talk before. She might’ve seen something, or heard what’s happened to me. So I slide down the bank towards her and stand at her side, but not so close that she can reach me with her washing.
She doesn’t turn round, just keeps washing the clothes. After a minute I say, ‘So much washing, old woman – where’d you get all these clothes from?’
It’s not what I meant to say, and not very polite. But she only shoots me a look, sly-like, and says, ‘One.’
‘One what?’ I ask her.
‘Two,’ she says.
I look at her, baffled, but she just goes on pulling out more washing from beneath her shawl. ‘How is it you can talk?’ I ask her. ‘I heard you can only grunt or squeak.’
‘That’s the third,’ she says, pulling out yet more washing. And suddenly I know what she’s talking about. I’ve asked her three questions – only none of them were the questions I meant to ask.
I feel a stab of rage then. Curse myself for being stupid. Feel like pushing her into the river, but all I say is, ‘Well – you haven’t answered any.’
She turns to me then, and I feel a pang of fear when I see her face. One nostril in her broad squat nose, a single tooth in her mouth and glassy, milk-pale eyes. I look down, away from her face, and there are her red, webbed feet, but all she says, mildly, is, ‘Give us a hand for washing with.’
‘Why should I?’ I say, even more rudely than before, but she only cackles and dumps a bundle of washing at my feet.
‘Questions, questions, questions,’ she says, shifting about on her funny feet. ‘More questions than washing. Can you wash them clothes – that’s my question.’
I glare at her, then look down at the clothes. Doesn’t look like much. ‘What if I do?’ I ask her. ‘Will you answer my questions then?’
She rolls her lidless eyes. ‘Questions, questions all the time,’ she says to herself. ‘Don’t do questions, do washing. Got to do the washing before the moon’s up full.’
I glance up at the moon. The rim of it’s just appearing over the ridge of Mabb’s Hill. Well
– I haven’t got anything better to do. Haven’t got anything to do at all. And if I help her, maybe she’ll help me. I bend down and pick up the first item from the bundle.
It’s a woman’s smock, all covered in stains of one sort or another – meat and berries – I can hardly make them out in the dusk. I turn it this way and that, and even sniff at it, not sure what to do. But finally I copy her and hold it in the water.
Instantly, all the stains stream away from it. I laugh in astonishment. Never knew washing was this easy – we never did much of it at home. I try to hand it back to the Peggotty Witch, but she shakes her head.
‘Let it go,’ she says, letting her own garment flow and billow away in the water.
I do as I’m told, and the smock billows out for a moment in the stream, just as if there’s someone inside it, then it turns round slowly and drifts away. I have a funny feeling, like I ought to remember what the washing is. Feels creepy, and at the same time the most natural thing in the world. Like I’ve always been doing it.
‘There’s another,’ she says, handing me a piece of dirty grey linen that looks as though a baby might’ve been wrapped in it. I hold it in the water again, and all the dirt streams away from it so it’s snowy white. Then I let it go, and once again it billows out, then takes on a baby’s shape before it folds and turns and drifts away.
It reminds me of something I don’t want to remember, so I hold my tongue and dip the next piece in, and the next. Bundle’s bigger than it looks. Just when I think I’ve come to the end of it, there’s another piece in the tied-up cloth.
‘Why do you do so much washing?’ I say at last, pulling out yet another piece. I’ve forgotten she doesn’t answer questions, but this time she says, ‘Washing, washing’s all there is.’ Then she adds, ‘Terrible dirty folk, humans.’
Well, it’s not really an answer, but it’s the only one I’m likely to get. And there’s no time for talking because there’s so much washing, and the moon’s rising steadily over that hill. So I carry on, dipping each piece in the water and letting it float away. Can’t help wondering if it’ll ever find its owners again. And if it doesn’t, then what’s the point?
