Only the memory of what Bastian had been when I first saw him – black, almost mad, and more animal than human – stopped me from telling him crossly that I was glad Cassandra had bespelled him.
“In a hurry, little witch?”
I allowed the change in subject. “It’s Gwendolen’s birthday party tonight, and I know Akiva won’t let me go if I haven’t learnt to see the energy lines with my eyes open by the time I get back.” With a burst of rueful self-knowledge, I added: “I should have been done weeks ago, but I was too lazy. And there was a stream bed that cut right back into the forest, beneath all that wild ivy, and then there wasn’t any more time.”
“Why are you so set on this party?” enquired Bastian, eyeing me narrowly. “You don’t care for ‘em.”
“Apple pie,” I said promptly, ignoring his cool assumption that he knew what I cared for. “And cream pastries and stuffed duck. Oh, Bastian, please will you help me?”
Bastian looked up at me lazily. “Are you sure you want to learn?”
“Of course I want to learn!”
“I meant, are you sure you want to learn from me?” Bastian said, grinning wolfishly. He leapt to his feet in a single movement, startling me. “Very well, you’ve been warned.”
“Warned of what?” I demanded, and then squeaked in surprise when Bastian casually swept me off my feet.
“Put me down! Where are you taking me?”
“Where is not as much fun as how,” Bastian said.
“Put me down!” I said again, in my fiercest tones. “I am not a sack of potatoes!”
Bastian’s grin widened. “I’m counting on it, little witch. You have no idea. Close your eyes.”
“Stop telling me what to do! And put me down!”
“Suit yourself,” Bastian said, with his most charming smile. He shifted his weight as if he were about to take a step, and the forest blurred around us in impossibly fast motion. I clung round his neck for dear life as the forest flew by, then Bastian’s foot jolted down again, completing the step; and the forest stopped its mad, dizzying rush.
I loosened my death grip on Bastian, who grinned more broadly still and said: “I told you to close your eyes, little witch.”
I glared up at him, snatching my arms away from his neck, and opened my mouth to demand again, in no uncertain terms, that he put me down. Much to my discomfiture, he did so before I could spit out the words. But instead of dropping to solid ground, I was tossed, willy-nilly, into a slow moving stream that had appeared at the end of the thread. I had only time to give a short yelp before icy cold water closed in a rush over my head; and when I emerged, gasping, it was to the sound of Bastian’s laughter.
“Just you wait!” I promised him wrathfully, surging up from the stream with violent shivers and dark thoughts of revenge. “I’ll get you for this!”
“But first,” Bastian said, his eyes laughing wickedly; “First, you have to catch me, little witch!”
He waited, tantalizingly, until I had sloshed laboriously up the bank toward him, then took a negligent step backwards and disappeared from view.
“Cheat!” I cried indignantly, stomping forward heavily in my wet skirts.
When I closed my eyes I could see the thread that Bastian must have gone down, still quivering, and I stepped down on it gingerly with my eyes shut. It didn’t carry me swiftly and seamlessly as it had carried Bastian and I: it was an exhausting effort to lift each foot, and a kind of entropy dragged heavily on my legs for each step forward. It felt as though I was walking through thick mire.
I continued with a dogged tenacity, determined to show Bastian that I could do it just as well as he could, but with my eyes closed to see the glitter of the forest threads, I didn’t notice I had come to the end of Bastian’s trail until I tumbled off it into soft, sweet smelling grass. I opened my eyes to the familiar sound of Bastian’s mocking laugh, and picked myself up with all the dignity that a smudged face, dangling petticoat and dripping skirt would allow.
“What took you so long?” enquired Bastian’s most sarcastic tones. He was lounging on the grass and playing idly with a stray, flexible twig of greenery that was oddly out of place now that I had time to gaze about and notice that I was somewhere in the middle of a huge, grassy field without a tree for miles around. In contrast to the greenery, wide swathes of purple wild-flowers made scything sweeps of brilliant colour through the lush grass. As the wind swept languidly over the field, the patches of colour swayed and sent up a heady perfume. It didn’t look like forest, but it somehow was; soaked in the last warmth of the triad and sheltered from the slice of the stronger autumn winds.
“The forest’s gone squiggly,” I said in surprise, gazing my fill at the view and basking in the out-of-season warmth of the sunshine. I had an idea that Bastian and I might have travelled further than it seemed: the triad didn’t seem to be so far sunk over the horizon here.
Bastian cocked an eyebrow and sat up.
“Trying to change the subject, little witch? You are not here to admire the view; this is practice. Catch me if you can.” He rolled sinuously to his feet, and in the same movement disappeared down a thread. I swiped a few, damp, straggling hairs out of my face crossly, and closed my eyes to find the new thread, regretful that I must leave the strange warmth.
This time it was a little easier to drag myself along the thread after Bastian, but I was panting by the time I stumbled off at the end of the trail. I managed to catch myself before I fell over, with a wild flickering of my eyelids that showed a mad mix of forest-line glitter and swelling, grassy field.
“Too slow, little witch,” said Bastian chidingly, sauntering around from behind me. He was just out of reach, twirling the twig between his fingers; then a step back, and he was gone. I sensed him behind me, a quick, smooth slide of movement, and the twig of greenery switched mockingly across my rump. I whirled, molten anger churning in my belly: I may not be Gwendolen’s equal in flirting, but I knew that a slap on the backside went far beyond what was allowable. Bastian twirled the stick again, one eyebrow raised at my wrathful face, and I dashed at him with renewed vigour. He let me get close before he slipped away, but I blinked my eyes shut and darted right after him, more quickly again this time, and I emerged swiftly enough behind him to considerably startle him.
Bastian narrowed his eyes. “I can see I’m going to have to change tactics,” he remarked, dodging my unheeding rush with a swift, casual turn and a swish of the twig. I rubbed my stinging rump and glared at him.
“Just you wait until I catch you!”
“I’m waiting, little witch, I’m waiting! I’ve been waiting this past half hour and more!”
He slipped down a thread before I had a chance to do more than take one step forward. I’d just blinked my eyes closed when a familiar swish behind me and another stinging pain across my misused backside told me too late that Bastian had only travelled a few feet. I spun swiftly, snatching at Bastian, but only caught a pinch of bare skin before he disappeared again. My eyelids fluttered uncertainly open and shut as conflicting instincts urged me at the same time to give chase, and not to stir. At last I closed my eyes in despair and stepped blindly after Bastian. As before, he had removed only a few feet from where he last stood, and my stinging behind received another blow before I could turn to meet Bastian’s onslaught.
“You’ll have to do better than that, my little witch,” he said chidingly.
He slipped away on a thread, blinking in and out of sight, close and then distant by turns; never in the one place for more than a second, and exiting the forest lines to tiptoe sneakily behind me and pull my hair if I closed my eyes for more than a second to find which line he had taken. When I changed tactics and kept my eyes open, Bastian used the forest lines with abandon to appear and disappear, plying his switch of greenery with careless mockery until I was wild with rage. With the heat of my anger came a subtler, deeper sense of the forest, and in a moment of cold rationality, I realised that my emotions were spurring the forest on to he
lp me. Of course! My first real spell had happened when I was frightened to death.
Now, I thought exultantly, my anger fierce and joyous, now I was getting somewhere. I let the rage simmer, reflexively rubbing my sore backside and brooding on my wrongs, and gradually, a glitter of gold net spread itself out at my feet. In the midst of this delicate operation, Bastian nipped in behind me and tweaked my hair, inducing a fresh snap of irritation that made the net of forest lines leap and grow in intensity. I darted around, snatching at Bastian again, and caught the tips of his fingers as he turned, chuckling, down another thread. In a blaze of triumph, I saw the thread flare with my eyes open; and then, with a chuckle of my own, I seized it and turned it back on itself. An instant later Bastian stepped lightly from it, and when I punched him in the nose my fist connected with an entirely satisfying solidness.
Bastian made a startled sound, his eyebrows flying up. He stumbled backwards over a swell in the ground and sprawled on his back in the grass. I pounced on him with a gurgle of glee, bouncing my weight down on his exposed stomach with an exuberance that caused him to expel his breath in a surprised groan, and crowed shamelessly.
“You’re dripping on me, little witch,” he panted, recovering his breath with an effort. Water ran down his nose, mixing with the blood, and I inspected my handiwork with appreciative wonder.
“I hit you, Bastian!”
A gleam of amusement lit Bastian’s eyes. “Oddly enough, I did notice. Just what did you do to that thread?”
“I turned it round!” I declared triumphantly. “I could see it! I can see them all!”
Horned hedgepigs, but it was stunning! The grass showed through faintly beneath the glitter as if the lines were real and the grass merely illusion, but when I blinked carefully, the bright gold became less prevalent; more at one with the greenery. I turned my gaze back to Bastian with all my forest sight, looking past the mingled blood and water he was wiping away, and caught my breath in wonder.
“Bastian! You’re beautiful!”
The threads leading to him were too numerous to separate: they swirled in huge skeins around him, forming a glowing ball of glittering gold around him. Tones of rich amber and dark gold made shadows in the skeins, and I had to blink several times over before I was able to see Bastian through the gold.
I studied him, and he looked back with a smile playing about his lips at my fascination. Then the threads enveloping him burst with an explosion of brilliance that even the lines in the field had not equalled, the air around me rippling with the power of it. When my vision returned to normal Bastian was in his wolf-shape, and the forest threads were a faint suggestion in the corners of my eyes.
“You shook the forest lines,” I said accusingly.
“Interesting.” Bastian sat on his haunches, but his muscles were bunched, as though ready for sudden action. “That gives me some little hope, after all. Now, little witch; now that you are content, I’ll race you home.”
We each picked a different thread, and skimmed effortlessly through the forest, laughing like children. Everything was so new, so beautiful. We leapfrogged at the intersection of the threads, Bastian soaring high above my head in one of his great leaps, or my flying feet just barely clearing his huge, shaggy back. Miles flew by in seconds, and I was disappointed to find myself tumbling back onto the path just before the garden gate. Bastian sat on his haunches by the side of the path, sides heaving and tongue lolling, and I rested my hands on my knees, panting.
“I’m too old for this,” Bastian groaned, but there was a laugh in his voice and I rather thought he was having a joke to himself. “Go in, little witch. Enjoy your party.”
I waved carelessly, too light in my elation to care about the mocking note in his voice, and scrambled back into the garden. Akiva was waiting at the front door, arms folded, when I opened the gate.
“It’s about time,” she said.
“I can see them, I can see them, Akiva!”
She eyed me somewhat grimly. “So I see. I repeat: it was about time.”
I ducked my head partly to display proper contrition, and partly to hide the grin I couldn’t prevent from spreading across my face. Akiva eyed both the grin and my token of contrition with the same, amused eye.
“Be off with you; go to your party. I’ll come for you a little before midnight.”
I bolted before she could change her mind, snatching up my boots from beneath my bed and darting back out the gate without stopping even to change my clothes. The evening was now darkening to real dusk, but the forest lines called me off the path very quickly, promising adventure and magic, and I followed heedlessly. Gwendolen and her party could wait a little longer.
Chapter Four
The buzz and noise of Gwendolen’s party annoyed me. We were out on the dancing green, canopied by strings of lights that had been gaily hung between the trees, but after the quiet hum of the forest the mixed laughter and chatter was bothersome, even loose in the night air. Besides, I was wearing my boots again, and the additional discomfort had soured my temper. I was beginning to dread the onset of winter as the autumn drew on, because unless Akiva had a spell to keep feet warm, I would be wearing shoes continually for the next three months. Even I didn’t try to brave winter barefoot.
I stifled my annoyance by application of a large plate of mixed good things, and observed the general throng. Gwendolen was dancing with one boy while sparkling demurely at another over her partner’s shoulder, which didn’t at all surprise me: Gwendolen has always been a flirt. Almost every other boy watched her as she danced. While she was thus occupied I escaped to the matron’s trestle bench, where Mother was sitting by herself and smiling indulgently at the festivities, a fluffy blue shawl spread loosely over her shoulders.
“Gwen’s looking beautiful,” I said, seating myself beside her. I was fully aware of the amount of time it must have taken to set Gwendolen’s hair.
Mother turned her smile on me. “Hallo, Rose! You look beautiful, too.”
I crossed my ankles and regarded the black tips of my boots. “No.”
“Well, perhaps I should have said presentable, then. What are you hiding in your pockets this time? Not a frog again, I hope?”
I grinned, recalling more interesting times, and showed Mother the silken ribbons I had bought for Gwen’s birthday.
She touched them with an expert finger. “Expensive, Rose. I hope you’re not spending all your money on fripperies for Gwendolen.”
I shook my head and tucked the ribbons back into my pocket.
“Akiva isn’t much of a talker, is she?” Mother said, and I wasn’t sure whether or not it was a change of subject.
“It’s peaceful,” I said, and she laughed.
I found myself telling her about Bastian and his curse, making an effort to speak, and discovered as I did so that there was only so much I could say about the curse, and no more. It had attached itself to me as much as to Bastian; and, like Bastian, there were things it wouldn’t let me say. I found myself crosser still: I didn’t care to have an interloper in my head, censoring what I could and couldn’t say.
To my surprise, Mother seemed more concerned about Bastian than about the magic I was practicing.
“Be careful, Rose,” she said. “Some people are so set on what they want that it leaves no room for what is right. Mind that you do as Akiva tells you to do.”
I leaned my head against her shoulder and nodded, allowing her to put an arm around me. It was companionable and . . . different. I didn’t feel like the child who had left home half a year ago, muddy and tangled and wild. For an odd, unbalanced moment, I felt old and distant and sober.
I shied away from the feeling instinctively, and from the sense of loss and isolation it gave me.
When Mother kissed my head in farewell at the end of Gwendolen’s party, I hugged her tightly, afraid that I was losing her. But her arms were tight and comforting; and when she left me at the outskirts of the forest with Akiva, she said: “Mind you we
ar your socks to bed tonight,” and I knew that nothing had really changed. At least nothing important.
I fell asleep in front of the fire when I got back, my head leaning against the arm of Akiva’s armchair and my tea mug sitting on the floor before me. Akiva had settled down, most unusually, with a rather proficient bit of knitting. She purled away fiercely with no sign of going to bed, nor of shooing me off to mine, though it was past midnight. I was too sleepily content at being back home to want to take myself off to bed.
Consequently, I woke quite some time later to a darkened room. Soft firelight was dancing with dark shadow, and Akiva wasn’t in her chair. My sleepy ears caught the sound of her voice through the front door just as I felt the slight, cold draught of night air on my cheeks. I murmured protestingly.
It seemed to me that she was in the front garden, talking to someone outside the gate, but the back of the chair prevented me from seeing who it was. I settled back down to the business of sleep. The voice murmuring from outside was nigglingly familiar, however, and curiosity eventually chased away sleep. I listened vaguely until Akiva’s voice cut in on the other voice, sharply negative despite hushed tones.
“Absolutely not! I won’t have it. If you try anything of the sort, I will do a lot worse that Cassandra ever did, wolf.”
Bastian, I thought sleepily, mistily uncertain as to whether I was awake or dreaming, since it didn’t make sense for Bastian to be talking to Akiva over the fence in the middle of the night.
There was the sound of Bastian’s voice murmuring again, and then Akiva said firmly: “On no account. Two years at the very least.”
This time Bastian’s snarl was loud enough for me to hear. “By that time one of the village idiots will have stolen a march on me! I found her first!”
“May I remind you that Rose is nobody’s property?” inquired Akiva acerbically. “She is still a child and I won’t have you poking your long hairy nose in before she has learned to defend herself!”
There was an indignant but softer growling, and Akiva said absolutely: “No. If I sense you within a hundred furlongs of Rose in that period, you will have more than a curse to regret. Her sixteenth birthday, and not before. Count yourself lucky that I’ve given you less than three years, and be off with you.”
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