Red Leaves

by Sita Brahmachari

  The three of them stood around and watched the orange, red and purple sparks fly between the sticks as the flames zipped this way and that, searing into the wood. It took some time for the fire to give off any real heat, and when it did a sleepy, contented silence settled on them, as if the fire had warmed them through from the inside out. Red snuggled up between Iona and Aisha. It seemed that the world had shrunk to the three of them and the dog gathered together around this flame. They could be living in any time period. How many people in generations before us have sat like this around a fire in a wood to keep warm? Zak wondered as he looked up at Iona’s face, noting that even she looked softer in the amber glow. At least she’d made an attempt to say sorry.

  Aisha was staring into the fire, her mind miles away. She must have felt Zak looking at her and she glanced up, caught his eye briefly and then followed his embarrassed gaze up through the trees. The moon lit the high branches sending sliding shadows down towards them, though never quite reaching the earth.

  A spark jumped out of the fire and landed on Aisha’s jeans. Zak leaped up and swatted it out.

  ‘You’re quick on the draw!’ Iona laughed.

  Zak wished she wouldn’t keep up this jeering, suggestive chat. It would have been so much better if Iona had never found them. They had been getting on fine on their own. Her constant hints that something was going on between them clearly embarrassed Aisha. The problem with Iona being here was that her eyes darted everywhere. She missed nothing. She was like a random spark: you never knew when she would leap out and singe you.

  Iona rummaged in her bag and brought out a bar of chocolate. She unwrapped it and broke it into three. ‘Treat!’ she said, handing a chunk to Zak and Aisha.

  ‘Thank you,’ they chorused, both as surprised as the other at the girl’s generosity.

  After Aisha having a go at Iona about real starvation, Zak had attempted to stop himself thinking about the constant empty rumbling of his own belly. The thought had crossed his mind that he would only be able to stay in the wood as long as there was plenty of food. One of the feelings he hated most was being hungry and not knowing when he would next eat. He felt pathetic. These were the situations that his mum reported about. People having to uproot their lives because they could find no food or water, because of drought or famine or civil war that lasted, not hours or days or even weeks, but months and years. His stomach cramped in pain as he gulped the chocolate down too fast. What would it be like, day after day, to never know when you would eat again? The chocolate melted in his mouth and coated his throat in a velvety sweetness.

  ‘If you could have anything you wanted to eat right now, what would it be?’ Iona asked. ‘It’s a game I sometimes play to pass the time . . . You could call it torture!’

  ‘Shalini’s sambal curry and home-made naan.’ Zak smiled as he summoned the smell of chilli, coriander and coconut.

  ‘Spaghetti with tomato, basil and garlic sauce!’ Aisha licked her lips as she imagined her favourite dish.

  ‘Chocolate sponge pudding and custard!’ laughed Iona, patting her stomach. ‘Ooooh, that was good! I feel so full I can hardly move!’

  Iona was licking her chocolate so that now it was just a tiny flat slither against the silver wrapping on the palm of her hand. ‘Well, it’s one way I have of getting by!

  After she’d licked her hand clean of chocolate she started tapping her foot and clicking her fingers as if a music track was playing through her head.

  ‘Now we’ve had our imaginary banquet, how about some entertainment? Shame I haven’t got my guitar,’ Iona said, then burst into song anyway. ‘In this fair city, where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Aishaaaaaa and Zak, as they wheeled their wheelbarrow . . .’

  She was mocking them, and Zak hated it. Iona was nothing like any girl he had ever met. Her voice was gravelly and strong, filled with a hard survival strength. Even her singing seemed like an act of protest. When she came to the end of her verse she turned to Zak.

  ‘Your turn! It’s not a campfire without a song!’

  Zak shook his head. ‘I can’t sing!’

  ‘Coward!’ Iona laughed.

  ‘No, really, I can’t,’ Zak insisted.

  ‘Neither can I,’ laughed Iona. ‘But it’s never stopped me. Except maybe that once when I was busking with a mate of mine and this bloke comes up to us and says he’ll pay me to stop!’

  Aisha laughed and Red wagged her tail and jumped at her in excitement.

  ‘How about you, Aisha? Got any tunes?’ Iona asked.

  Aisha met Iona’s eyes steadily; there was a definite challenge in their exchange. Then she bent her head forward and began to hum. It was as if she was drawing the music slowly up through the earth. Is this the same song that drew me to the shelter, Zak wondered. Then the words came. Red placed her head on Aisha’s knee as her even voice rose up through the night. Zak was mesmerised. How does this work? You listen to a song in a different language, and you don’t understand a word, but the singer still manages to make you feel what they feel? As Aisha sang she looked into the flames and her face turned golden in the fire’s glow.

  He would never have the guts to tell her but Zak thought she was beautiful. Not just her features and the way she looked, but in the way she held herself with such pride and strength. He wished he could be more like that himself.

  Red’s eyes grew heavy, as she was lulled into a blissful sleep. When Aisha’s song was over, the leaves swaying gently on the breeze seemed to be dancing still. Eventually it was Iona who spoke, and when she did, the hard edges had melted from her voice.

  ‘What do the words mean?’ she asked.

  Aisha thought for a while and then began to translate, singing the lines again under her breath as she went. ‘It tells of . . . a kind of deer . . . an antelope that’s travelled a long way from home. Every person the animal meets on the way, they ask this antelope, “What are you looking for?” And he answers, “I am searching for my father and my mother.” Then the passer-by asks, “But why have they left you all alone?” The antelope paws at the ground but cannot answer. For years the antelope searches, until the day it comes across an old woman walking with a stick. “Why are you always roaming?” the old woman asks the antelope. “Don’t you think it’s time to let your parents go?”’

  There were tears in Aisha’s eyes as she spoke, and she waved her hand across her face and laughed at the emotion that had caught her unawares. ‘I don’t know! It’s hard to translate this sort of song-poem. It’s just something my Aunt Lalu used to sing to me.’

  As Aisha spoke Zak had the oddest sensation of having been here before and then he remembered his dream. How weird that both Aisha and Iona had appeared in that dream of the children fleeing and his mum had been the one leading them to safety.

  ‘Where are your family anyway?’ Iona asked Aisha.

  Zak flinched at the memory of what Aisha had told him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Aisha whispered, but didn’t offer any further explanation.

  ‘Well, I like that about songs – how they can take you so far from where you are; sometimes it’s good to get away.’ Iona sighed.

  Aisha nodded. ‘Singing that song took me home.’

  Zak pretended to be following the tiny bright flames that licked the fire, but he was listening intently to the girls talking.

  He wondered whether Iona had got out of the habit of being with people, because now he was beginning to see glimpses of softness and kindness in her. She was not all bad, but he couldn’t help feeling cautious, in case she ridiculed him again.

  Iona leaned backwards and closed her eyes to listen as Aisha began to sing another song full of chords of longing and wishing. When she had finished, Iona whistled. ‘Now there’s a haunting song to wake the dead! I’ll take you with me next time I go busking. We could make a fortune with your looks and your voice!’

  Aisha laughed. ‘Why did you say that, about waking the dead?’

  ‘It’
s Halloween!’

  Then it’s my birthday, Aisha thought.

  ‘Aye, the spooks will be out all over the place tonight!’

  Iona jumped up and clapped her hands and Red leaped on to her back paws and danced with her around the fire. The older girl looked demented with her dreadlocks swirling and piercings glinting. Zak reached up to his neck and swallowed hard. His throat felt rough and sore. Iona’s not a devil, any more than Aisha’s an angel. She’s just a girl who’s had a rough time. Zak held his chilled hands closer to the fire to warm them.

  ‘Cold hands, warm heart.’ His mum’s voice echoed through his mind as he remembered how she used to rub his hands together and place them inside her coat. Zak placed his own hand on his heart and felt its rhythmic beat. Let her be alive, let her be alive, let her be alive.

  Aisha had lost track of how many days and nights she had spent in the wood since she’d scattered her day-counting conkers. So this had been her thirteenth birthday and she’d not even known it. She thought about telling Zak and Iona, but what would be the point? It had not exactly been a party, but it hadn’t been a terrible birthday either and, if it felt different to other years, maybe, just maybe, tonight she would be granted the only thing she had ever wished for on this special day since arriving in this country.

  No one had made the conscious decision to sleep under the moon, but the fire held them together – as long as it remained dry none of them wanted to leave its heat and comfort. Zak thought of the old house on Halloween, the warm glow of the lit pumpkin on the table. Of him and Lyndon trick-or-treating, greedily gathering sweets and then legging it home and storing their collection in giant jars. He thought of how he would gobble the whole lot down in one go while Lyndon eked out his store, torturing him with it for the rest of the week. Zak smiled at the memory of his dad going so over the top dressing up for Halloween. It was a much bigger deal in the States.

  Now Zak’s mind tipped back to this same night only a year ago.

  ‘Dad, it’s embarrassing how much you’re into this!’

  ‘Keeping the ghosts from our doors is a serious business, Zak!’

  ‘It’s a load of rubbish. I don’t believe in any of it, apart from the sweets!’ Zak joked.

  Then, as he walked out of the house, his dad sprang out at him wearing a plain, expressionless white mask. Zak had jumped practically out of his skin.

  ‘Hah, got ya! You look mighty scared for a non-believer!’

  Zak wondered if his dad was thinking of him tonight too in New York. As these thoughts filled Zak’s mind he noticed Aisha’s eyes grow heavy with the heat of the fire. Iona grabbed handfuls of the leaves that had dried out and stuffed them inside her sleeping bag for insulation. His own clothes had finally dried and he began to pile the layers back on, including his coat. Then he snuggled down inside his thick padded sleeping bag, lay on his back and stared up at the giant tree shadows.

  The kind of spirits that hovered around this wood were entirely different from the fake ones trailing around the streets tonight. Zak closed his eyes and thought of the first time he’d seen Aisha, standing in a shaft of sunlight; of old Elder dropping breadcrumbs on their heads; of running away from her den and following Edwin to the air-raid shelter. Even though Zak was caught up in something he didn’t understand, it felt as if real spirits had guided them all to the same place.

  Red whined and came to sit by his side. Zak stroked the dog’s silky coat over and over. He threw another big stump of wood on the fire and watched it smoulder and then catch into flames. He stared up at the moon as silvery wisps played over it. The more he stared, the more the shadows seemed to form into the shape of his mother’s face.

  Zak closed his eyes and felt the glow of the fire on his cheeks as he sank into a deep sleep.

  Elder’s face loomed out of the darkness.

  ‘Elder knows where ivy grows, uncover the ivy, back through time, strip back the vine . . .’

  She grabbed his hand and began pulling him through the wood. ‘Cold hands, warm heart, cold heart, warm hands, isn’t that what they say?’ The reds and rusts of autumn blurred as she propelled him forward.

  ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ she asked.

  He turned around, but he was alone again. Slumping to the ground, he felt in his pocket for a photograph. He took it out and looked at it. Heavy booted footsteps approached and a man in uniform called out to him.

  ‘Here you are. I’ve been looking for you!’

  Edwin placed a comforting hand on Zak’s shoulder and peered at the photo in his hand. ‘Oh, I remember that!’ He sighed. ‘A happy day. We didn’t get so many together after that.’

  ‘But yours is alive, isn’t he?’ Edwin asked.

  Zak nodded.

  ‘And your ma?

  Zak shook his head. ‘I don’t know. She’s gone missing.’

  Edwin hugged Zak close to him. ‘I tell you what, I’ll make you a deal. You find where I’m rested, and I promise you your ma will come back safely.’

  ‘What do you mean, where you’re rested! Why do you want me to find you?’

  Edwin picked up the photograph, smiled sadly and handed it back to Zak. ‘Why do you think? You’re not the only ones to shelter here from your battles. My ma, my sister Peggy and my pops and young Maisy and Eddie . . . Albert Bainbridge – he’s not just a name in the plasterwork, you know. I gave my life, my brothers’ too. Don’t you think we deserve to be remembered?’

  A woman appeared between the trees. She looked as if she had been crying forever. Edwin stood up and walked towards her, his arms flung open wide. Just before he reached her, he turned back to Zak. ‘This is Hannah, my ma, you see, she can’t rest until her boys are remembered!’

  Edwin’s voice seemed to fade away. Zak looked around but he was alone again. It was Elder’s voice that now whispered through the trees.

  ‘Hush now, Hannah. Rest yourself, rest. Let your spirit rest.’

  Iona closed her eyes before she was ready to sleep. She’d felt Zak watching her. I’m well out of all the Halloween nonsense, she thought. It was a bad joke that this was the only night of the year that she could appear on a stranger’s doorstep and be offered a warm welcome and sweets. Last year she had knocked at someone’s door and they had complimented her on her ‘outfit’.

  ‘Teenagers don’t usually bother dressing up!’ the woman had said cheerily as Iona took a handful of chocolates.

  She had often wondered since what the woman would have said if she’d told her that she’d made no effort at all to look scary. Though her mates on the streets had found the story hilarious, the truth was that inside, every time she thought of it, Iona wanted to cry. Am I becoming as wild, and frightening as Elder? She cast her mind back over the journey that she’d made from Elder’s den to this place. She saw herself standing at the top of the slope screaming at Aisha and pictured her own face morphing into the Ogre’s. She hated herself for becoming like him and hated the fact that Aisha and Zak had witnessed her like that. It was so long since she had spent any proper time with people younger than herself. Come to think of it, it was ages since she’d spent this amount of time with anyone. Zak and Aisha were probably more terrified of her than of any ghosts or ghouls wandering the wood.

  Staying with Elder, watching her sleep, listening to her chanting, had given Iona the worst jolt of all. But no matter how mad Elder was, Iona still found it easier to be with her than these two, even though once or twice tonight she had started to feel that she could be friends with them. But who am I kidding? Two’s company, three’s a crowd.

  The sound of the Ogre’s voice came blasting into her mind as he hammered on her door bombarding her with insults: ‘You’re a waste of space . . . We’d be better off without you . . . The day you finish school is the day you’re out of here, you little leech!’ Iona packed her rucksack and walked out, past her mum sitting at the table with her head in her hands.

  ‘It’s better you go,’ she’d whispered. ‘But wait �
�’ Her mum’s hands shook as she unclasped her cross and handed it to Iona without meeting her eye. ‘May God bless you.’

  Two’s company, three’s a crowd, Iona reminded herself. If she hadn’t learned that by now, she never would. If she could persuade Red to leave with her, she would head off in the morning. Iona lifted her face to the heat of the fire and breathed in the earthy wood scent.

  The Ogre was sitting by her side. He took her elbow in his huge hands. She held her breath, her back tensed, every nerve in her recoiling as he loomed closer.

  She felt a hot spark jump from her stomach and a flame begin to kindle inside her. It travelled up through her throat and out of her mouth and began to quicken and flare into the image of Elder; her flame-red hair formed an arching canopy over the whole woodland. The old woman reached out and took Iona’s hand, pointing down to far below them where a thimble-sized Ogre cowered.

  ‘He can’t hurt you. He’s nothing. Not worthy of the dust on your feet. No more fear, Elder’s here. Rest now, dear, rest. Let your spirit rest.’

  Aisha’s mind meandered between the branches, in and out of the saplings with their singing leaves, and travelled deep down among the labyrinthine roots of the ancient trees.

  Elder blinked and stepped off the shelter wall. She carried with her an ancient stick which she raised, beckoning Aisha to follow. Aisha obeyed and climbed into a huge hollowed-out trunk almost large enough to walk through. Aisha took a step and then another and felt the heat on her face. She was standing on the red earth of home.

  ‘Wait!’ Elder called to her. She took her stick and swirled it around the base of the tree.

  ‘Earthstars falling, death cap waiting, spirits calling, heat rising.’

  Elder reached around her neck, took off her leather lace of amber beads and untied the knot. She rubbed one of the amber eggs in her hands. Aisha stared as smoke rose from it, then a spark, then a flame. Elder’s skin was coated in a golden-coloured, resin, sticky as honey.