Shaman of Stonewylde

by Kit Berry

  Sylvie was surprised when Miranda ushered her upstairs into her rooms in the Tudor Wing later in the day. She’d been about to leave the Hall for the Village for a quick supper and to collect Celandine, having promised her eldest daughter that they’d moondance up at Hare Stone tonight for the Hay Moon of July. This year it fell very early in the month, which meant that there’d be a Blue Moon right at the end, on Lammas Eve. Sylvie had arranged with Leveret to take Bluebell up to the tower for the evening so she wouldn’t feel quite so left out, as there’d been tears at the breakfast table that morning. Sylvie had no idea whether Yul would turn up at Hare Hill or not, but she was determined it wouldn’t make any difference to her plans either way. He’d been avoiding her since the Solstice and she wished he’d get over this silly sulking about the painting. It had got to the point where if he bumped into her, he’d actually avoid looking her in the eye. She thought sadly of her hopes for reconciliation; this seemed further away than ever.

  ‘I can’t stay too long, Mum,’ she said as Miranda sat her down in an armchair and quickly made a pot of tea.

  ‘Just a cup of tea and a brief chat,’ promised Miranda. ‘Rufus is down with Maizie and the girls I believe, so at last I’ve got you to myself.’

  ‘They do love his visits – it’s funny how they’ve all become so much closer since we moved down there, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sylvie, I need to tell you something,’ said Miranda, pouring their tea and setting the two cups and saucers on a little table between them. She looked across at her daughter and thought how much better she seemed recently – brighter eyed and in much higher spirits.

  ‘Sounds intriguing!’ laughed Sylvie.

  Miranda hesitated and almost decided not to proceed.

  ‘I want to ask your advice. It’s . . . the thing is, I’ve received a letter from my mother.’

  Sylvie’s eyes widened with shock and she carefully placed her cup back on the saucer.

  ‘Your mother?’

  Miranda nodded, and Sylvie saw the strange conflict of emotions in her eyes.

  ‘After all these years, she’s got in touch with me. I can’t believe it either.’

  ‘But you haven’t had any contact with her since . . . I don’t know when. My birth? How did she know where to find you?’

  ‘When we lived in the flat in London, she – both my parents – had that address. We moved there when you were tiny and I made sure they knew where I was. Not that I wanted to see them, but from a sense of duty really. Stupidly, I thought that one day they may want to apologise. I’d hoped to give them the means to make it possible.’

  ‘But they never did.’

  Miranda shook her head, and Sylvie saw very clearly the bitterness in her expression, even after all this time.

  ‘I’ve neither seen nor spoken to them since they told me in the hospital, in no uncertain terms, that unless I gave you up for adoption and pretended to all their friends that you’d never even been born, they’d never see me again.’

  ‘It really is unbelievable,’ said Sylvie sadly. ‘How anyone could treat their daughter that way . . .’

  ‘Well, they were the sort of people who cared more about their standing in society than they did about a sixteen-year-old daughter who’d been unlucky enough to get pregnant. It was the sort of scandal that would’ve been so humiliating – they’d never have been able to hold their heads up again in their social circle.’

  ‘I don’t know how they could sleep at night, kicking you out like that with a newborn baby.’

  ‘They supported me financially until I was eighteen, all arranged through their lawyer so they need have no direct contact. I suppose they thought by giving me money – and it wasn’t much – until I reached adulthood, they’d done their duty.’

  ‘As if you were able to cope alone at eighteen with a toddler!’

  ‘I know, but they were completely unrelenting. I remember in the hospital when I said that I couldn’t give you up, my father saying that I’d made my bed and now I could lie in it. I can picture his face now, as he said that . . .’

  ‘So you told them we were moving here?’

  ‘Yes, I thought I should. By then, of course, I knew they’d never want to be reconciled and I didn’t want that either, so many years on. But I thought they should know where I was . . .’

  ‘Have they ever been in touch?’

  ‘No, and they don’t even know Rufus exists. Nor their great-granddaughters. But that’s their loss – and now it’s too late.’ She gazed out of the window and sighed.

  ‘What’s happened, Mum?’ Sylvie asked gently.

  ‘My father’s dead. He died a couple of years ago apparently, and now my mother’s been told she doesn’t have long to live. And guess what? She wants to see me! I expect she’s terrified of the reception she’ll get at those pearly gates she believes in so fervently.’

  ‘Oh, Mum!’

  Sylvie rose and sat next to her mother on the sofa, putting her arms around her. Miranda’s deep red hair, now a little silver at the temples, fell onto her chest and Sylvie felt her shudder with silent sobs.

  ‘Don’t be upset, Mum,’ she said. ‘It’s just not worth it.’

  ‘I know,’ whispered Miranda. ‘Why it still hurts, even after twenty-nine years, is beyond me. But it does. It’s the thought that all those shallow, braying friends of theirs, all the philanthropic charity dinners and lunches and cocktail parties and golf tournaments – all that ghastly social life and their holier-than-thou friends meant more to them than I did. Stupid, I know.’

  Sylvie held Miranda close for a moment, and then released her to look into her face.

  ‘So are you going to see her?’

  Miranda shrugged and took a deep breath. She picked up her tea, sipping it thoughtfully.

  ‘I just don’t know, Sylvie. I don’t know what to do. I wanted to tell you and get your reaction. I’m completely torn. I’d love to just ignore the letter as she’s ignored me since I was sixteen. But this is probably my last chance to see her again. What if one day I regretted not having made up with her? I just don’t know . . .’

  ‘I need to think about it,’ said Sylvie. ‘I can’t give you any advice until I’ve had a think. There’s nothing else is there? No hidden agenda? She’s not about to leave you a fortune or anything?’

  ‘No!’ smiled Miranda. ‘The letter was short and formal, and actually came from her lawyer. He sounds like some stuffy old codger – just the sort of family lawyer they’d have. He said he was writing on behalf of my mother, at her instruction – that my father had died almost three years ago and my mother had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and was anxious to make her peace with me before she died. He made a point of saying that their Wills and Estate had been successfully tied up long ago, and I should be under no misapprehension that I’d be a beneficiary. It was only on that understanding that my mother wished to see me. In other words, if I were just gold-digging, forget it!’

  ‘How very rude!’ said Sylvie. ‘As if you’d want their money anyway.’

  ‘Exactly! But that’s the sort of people they are, always imagining the worst of everyone. So, my dilemma is – do I go to London and see my mother, or don’t I?’

  Whilst Celandine and Sylvie prepared to go up to Hare Stone to dance with the hares, Leveret spent a lovely evening with Bluebell and Magpie. Clip had gone to the Dolmen as usual, but had been particularly quiet for the past few days. Leveret was worried about him as his appetite seemed to have withered to nothing, but as ever he brushed her concerns aside. He took the remedy she’d prepared for him with good grace, but she knew he was only humouring her.

  During the warm evening Leveret had taken rugs, cushions and a little picnic up to the roof of the tower, wanting to make it special for Bluebell. Sylvie had explained that she was feeling very hard done by at being excluded from the moondancing. The three of them sat on the roof, watching the swifts and the swallows arcing in the soft blue skies, and drinking “magic”
strawberry elixir. Leveret told Bluebell she’d made it so that they’d all be able to see the moonbeam faeries later on, when they walked back to the Village. The three ate some little white-currant tartlets that Marigold had baked when she’d been told about Bluebell and Magpie coming for the evening – they were meant to look like little full moons, and Leveret explained that they helped your magic wings to grow new feathers so that your moondream flying would be better.

  Hare lay on the rugs with them and Bluebell wriggled happily against her cushion, trying to feed a bit of her tartlet to the unreceptive creature. She hoped that perhaps Hare would grow magic wings too, and they could fly together in their moondreams.

  ‘Actually, Auntie Leveret, this is better than going to Hare Stone,’ she said, sipping at the sweet strawberry drink and licking her lips in delight. ‘Poor Celandine’s only got dancing and all that long walking. I’ve got this magic feast and Hare too!’

  Leveret smiled at her and patted her little arm. Bluebell laid her blonde curly head against Leveret and sighed.

  ‘And I don’t like the man up there.’

  Leveret frowned at this and glanced down at her niece, who was picking white-currants out of the tartlet.

  ‘What man?’

  ‘The one who was watching us last time.’

  ‘There wasn’t a man there, Blue. Only Magpie.’

  ‘Oh Auntie Leveret! You know who I mean. He’s the same man from our rooms in the Hall and I don’t like him. I don’t like his eyes and his staring at Mummy.’

  ‘Is Starling coming back tonight?’ whined Vetchling.

  Both crones sat in their chairs by the dead hearth. In the kitchen the range was out so they couldn’t even make a hot drink, but they had a bottle of mead and shared this in their filthy mugs.

  ‘ ’Tis not likely, sister. She were here earlier when you was sleeping and she’s left us some bread and cheese, but ’tis Hay Moon tonight.’

  ‘Dratted girl don’t care for us no more,’ said Vetchling. ‘Now she’s got her man, she can’t be doing with us old ‘uns. How will we live, Violet?’

  Violet took out her pipe and tamped a pinch of her herbal mixture into the bowl. Vetchling glared at her, the seams and wrinkles in her gaunt face black with grime. Violet ignored the look and, before lighting the pipe, hawked into the fireplace that bore evidence of much previous throat clearing.

  ‘I ain’t stopping me pipe just ‘cos you have,’ she muttered. She drew on the pipe and took a toothless sip from the mug, smacking her lips in appreciation. ‘Aye, that Starling o’ yours is no good. I told you a man were a bad idea.’

  ‘Aye, you did, sister,’ said Vetchling sadly, her voice rasping horribly.

  ‘Can you fetch the bread and cheese, my dear?’ said Violet. ‘I dropped the bread yesterday on account o’ my poor back. I just can’t stand straight no more.’

  ‘ ’Tis your old bones all bent up,’ said Vetchling sympathetically. ‘You’re like a sea-blown hawthorn, sister. Aye, I’ll get the supper in a minute when I got my breath. But I wish ’twere a nice, soft rabbit stew. I can’t eat that bread and cheese much with my sore mouth and no teeth.’

  ‘Aye, but that lazy good-for-nothing Starling can’t be bothered to cook for us no more,’ Violet mumbled. ‘She don’t care about us, now she’s with that Cledwyn and his kin. Forgot us she has, leaving us to rot.’

  ‘Maybe your Martin’ll drop by to help us?’ wheezed Vetchling. ‘He’s always been a good man, your Martin. Soon be his time, right enough.’

  ‘Aye, sister, you speak true. Time enough soon for our Martin. But not that Starling – oh no! She’ll rue the day she made me cast for her, you mark my words. Starling’ll be squawking loud by and by, and we’ll just laugh, you and me, for ’tis her own fault. Always was greedy as a weaned pig, that one, and now she’s got herself more than even she can swallow.’

  In a corner of the Jack in the Green, tucked into the ancient wooden settles with their tankards on the battered table between them, sat Kestrel and a group of friends. They’d long finished their exams for the summer and many had now finished college altogether. The freedom from study meant that they now worked on the farms and in the Village industries, even students such as Kestrel, who’d be leaving in the autumn for higher education.

  The talk was ribald, as it so often was at the Moon Fullness, and most of the lads were now drinking up ready to go for a stroll around the Village Green with a likely girl. The girls themselves were in huddle in the Great Barn, shrieking and giggling as they discussed the boys. They all could have stayed up at the Hall, and often did for the winter months when it was too cold for dalliances outside. But this very warm weather made the Village Green and surrounding woods, fields and haylofts a much more attractive option.

  ‘Are you coming then, Kes?’ asked Lapwing, a good-looking lad who’d recently turned sixteen. He had laughing blue eyes and a nice smile, and this, combined with his long legs and prowess at sport, made him popular with the girls.

  Kes regarded him moodily and downed his tankard of cider to the dregs, banging it down on the table. He let out a loud belch and stood up. Lapwing and a few others headed for the door. Old George watched them fondly, reminiscing to the group of old men playing dice that they reminded him of his younger self, all that moonlust and laughter.

  The wide wooden door stood open to the night and the lads ducked under the low lintel. But Kestrel hesitated and then turned back towards the table.

  ‘Kes!’ called Lapwing from outside. ‘Aren’t you coming?’

  ‘No,’ he muttered, ‘I can’t be bothered.’

  He got another tankard of cider and sat down again, staring at nothing, his shoulders drooping. Jay and Sweyn appeared in the doorway and were surprised to see their mate there. Soon all three were sitting together drowning their sorrows.

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about her,’ said Kestrel. ‘I wonder what she’s doing right now? Do you reckon she’s thinking of me?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Jay gloomily. ‘Why would she be? Living up in London with all them smart people and paintings and stuff. Why would she be thinking of you?’

  ‘I heard they’re coming to do a fashion photoshoot maybe,’ said Kestrel. ‘My dad was talking about it. She’s bound to be with them, isn’t she?’

  Sweyn shrugged and drank steadily from his tankard. The Moon Fullness was one of the times when Old George turned a bit of a blind eye to drunkenness, and didn’t chuck the younger ones out so early. Sweyn just wanted to forget everything. His recent encounter with Leveret had shaken him more than he admitted; she’d changed so much and he no longer felt he had the upper hand. He hated her more than ever, but could see no way of regaining his superiority over her. The lump on his head throbbed and he thought of what she’d said about getting it looked at. Much as he disliked the thought of taking her advice, he realised that perhaps he should.

  ‘Where’s Gefrin tonight?’ asked Jay.

  Sweyn shrugged again.

  ‘He’s up at the Hall watching a film,’ he said. ‘He don’t want to drink ‘cos he says it’s bad for his skin.’

  Jay roared with laughter at this.

  ‘Bloody hell! How daft is that? Who cares about his skin?’

  ‘He’s trying to sort it out before Lammas,’ said Sweyn and then suddenly remembered he was sworn to secrecy about this.

  ‘Lammas? Why?’

  ‘I dunno. Are you seeing Tansy tonight, Jay?’

  ‘Yeah, what happened to Tansy?’ asked Kestrel. ‘I thought you’d had a date with her a while back.’

  Jay scowled and looked at the table.

  ‘Didn’t work out.’

  ‘But you took her up the quarry, didn’t you?’ asked Kestrel. ‘How did that go? Did you crack the nut?’

  ‘It weren’t that simple. There was something . . . I hadn’t really planned it proper and we went to the wrong part o’ the quarry I think. I ain’t been back there since, but soon I’ll go there in daylight and really
explore the place. Then I’ll know where exactly to take a girl at the Moon Fullness.’

  ‘Will you take Tansy again?’

  Jay shook his head and laughed harshly.

  ‘She’d never go there again. She were shit scared. It is scary there, I’ll give you that, but it’s a good sort of feeling. Deep, exciting. I ain’t never felt like that before. She were so spooked that it ended up spooking me. But I will go there again at the Moon Fullness, I tell you. It’s the sort of place I’d take a girl for a good seeing to. Not a girl I liked – a girl I wanted to put in her place. A girl who’d been too clever for her own good and needed bringing down to earth again with a bang.’

  He laughed at this and took a long draught of cider, then stood up to get another round in.

  ‘You sound like you’ve got someone in mind, Jay,’ said Kestrel.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he grinned, his eyes bulging. ‘I have just the girl in mind. The time ain’t quite right yet, but as soon as it is I’ll know, and I’ll have her up there like a shot. And she’ll never be the same again, after I’ve done with her at Quarrycleave.’

  Harold sat at his lonely screen in near darkness, reading through the e-mail and attachments for the umpteenth time. He wished it had come through earlier so he could’ve shared it with Sylvie. Ideally he’d have shared it with Yul, but he’d seen him disappear upstairs earlier with some bottles, and Harold had enough sense not to disturb him now. It was the Moon Fullness tonight, of course, so the whole of Stonewylde was in mild upheaval as it always was on such a night; the old ways ran deep.

  Harold remembered back to when he was a lad, and Magus was the ruler. Then the Moon Fullnesses had held even more significance. All the girls in the servants’ quarters would be in a flutter about who he’d choose to spend the evening with, who was going to get lucky that month. And of course often it wasn’t one of them at all, but a Hallfolk woman or someone from the Village. Harold recalled laying the fire in the master’s rooms and how terrified he’d been of the man.

  Lately he’d found himself thinking of Magus often; the sinister flashing red message on all the computer screens at Imbolc had had a profound effect on him. Many a time Harold found himself looking over his shoulder, feeling the hair on the back of his neck prickle for no apparent reason. He didn’t really believe in ghosts but, like most members of the community, he had a healthy respect for the Otherworld and its inhabitants. The possibility that perhaps Magus had somehow returned – as implied in that flashing message – was something he tried not to think about too much, especially at times such as now, when he was alone in Magus’ old office almost in the darkness. He shuddered at the thought.