Lavender-Green Magic

by Andre Norton

  “The summer people, they don’t want to fuss when something goes wrong, they just throw it out. Why, you’d be ’mazed, all of you, at what they pitch out when they bring in some of those big plastic trash bags jus’ before they leave for back home in the fall. An’ since they got that new lot of houses built across the Run—well, someone drives up from there three-four times a week with a bundle.

  “Then there’s the old families. Ain’t many of them left now; when the last lone one dies they have a sale. What ain’t sold, that comes here—an’ we do get some strange things. There’s a nice young man—his name’s Correy—he an’ his wife have started up one of these here antique businesses down in th’ old smithy. He comes up huntin’ around. We keep a lotta the things from the old houses for him to see. He showed me about this china mendin’, now he says that I can do it better than even the lady that taught him.

  “We get in a mess of old books an’ we call Miss Sarah Noyes who runs the library. The Scouts, they come out for the toy shop—you young’uns’ll like a look around in there, I imagine. It’s the furtherest stall that way. Starting ’long about now they get to work on toys, fixing ’em up, paintin’ them an’ the like. Most of those go out to the Blazedale Farm where the young’uns without families live. Luther—he’s paid a little by the Selectmen for taking charge here. But, laws, we couldn’t scrape along on that! We has our garden, an’ the herbs, an’ what we make outta sellin’ what we sort out an’ patch up. That’s givin’ us a real comfortable livin’. We’re the lucky ones, I know that when I reads the papers an’ all the news about what’s happenin’ around the world right now!”

  Grandpa put his spoon down in a bowl so empty it looked newly washed. “Mercy, she’s a great one for readin’—has a regular library herself of books she found an’ took care of. An’ she’s always one for learnin’ somethin’ new—mostly what helps out, like this here dish mendin’!”

  “Now, Luther, I ain’t any more knowin’ than you be your ownself. Ain’t you fixed them tables an’ chairs an’ had Mr. Correy take ’em right away an’ sell ’em first off? A hundred dollars he gives us for that table, an’ ten apiece for the chairs, Luther did such a good job on them. An’ the kin of old Appleby had thrown them out for broken bits only good for startin’ a fire!”

  It seemed that a junkyard was not quite what Holly thought it might be. She was almost about to say that when Mom picked up the bowl she had said was “Minton” and began studying it closely.

  “I can’t see any mend at all, Mercy—it’s like magic!”

  “Magic, like witches do,” Judy broke in then. “Grandma, did you ever see the witch—the one Mrs. Pigot said lived here a long time ago?”

  Grandma’s hand had been raised to send her glasses back into place again, but she never completed that gesture.

  “Witch!” she repeated almost fiercely. “Them what has no work to keep them busy let their tongues wag a lot. There’s no witches here, me’n Luther, we’ve been here a good forty years an’ we ain’t seen ’em. Witches were in the bad old days—they don’t come botherin’ people now. There were some tales about ol’ Miss Elvery, ’cause she was one to keep herself to herself an’ didn’t take kindly to folks comin’ in to see how she was doin’. (An’ any time folks don’t tell all they know an’ throw open their doors to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, then they gets stories told ’bout them.) Miss Elvery was a good, God-fearin’ woman as had mighty bad luck most of her born days—she weren’t never no witch!”

  The force of Grandma’s voice silenced Judy. But Mrs. Pigot had not said that Miss Elvery was a witch, but that she—or her family—had been cursed by one. However, Holly decided, this was not the time to try to correct the story. It was too plain that Grandma did not want to talk about it.

  In fact, she bustled about after their supper as if she wanted to see them all in bed and out from under her feet as soon as possible. And she fairly hurried them upstairs to show them what she explained had once been the coachman’s quarters plus the old barn loft, but which had now been divided into small rooms, each of which was just about big enough to hold a bed, a chair, and a tall cabinet which Mom explained was called a wardrobe and which people used to hang their clothes in before closets were a regular part of the house. There was a washstand in each room, too—no bathroom. Holly regarded the basin and jug on the top of her and Judy’s washstand with a return of rebellion. A house without a bathroom—having to wash in water you lugged upstairs and then probably down again. She was almost ready to explode but when she saw Mom’s tired face, she remembered Crock’s warning and did not spill out her sense of outrage.

  She and Judy shared what must have been a larger room. It was shivery cold, so they undressed hastily and pulled on the warm pajamas Grandma had unpacked and laid out on the bed for them. There was a lamp on the top of a chest of drawers and Mom warned them not to touch it; she would come for it later.

  “I like a junkyard,” Judy said when they had finished their prayers and were settled under blankets which were old but soft. “I like Grandma and Grandpa, and I’m glad we came here.”

  Holly said nothing. She was listening, not to Judy’s voice but to the wind, which sounded far closer in its howling up here than it did down by the fire. There were strange creaks and rustles, too. She supposed that was part of being such an old house—barn—because this one was well over a hundred years old, Grandpa had told them. But she did not want to be sleeping in an old barn—she wanted to be home in her own bed—in her own bed—Then, in spite of wind, creaks, and all the rest, Holly went to sleep.

  Mom brought up a big copper jug of hot water in the morning and saw that they washed, but she told Holly that after today it would be her responsibility. Because Mom was leaving on the morning bus for Pine Mount. Holly tried to shove that out of her mind. She had known from the start that Mom would be away. But then that had been in the distance, a time she did not have to face. Now that time was here. She put on jeans and a sweater over her shirt, and then made her bed and helped Judy finish hers, hoping if she kept busy she wouldn’t have any time to think about Mom’s going.

  There were quilts for spreads, and Holly thought, as she smoothed hers up over her pillow, that they brightened up the room as the lamp had done the night before. Outside the window it looked as gray and cold as if time had skipped forward two months very fast and it was already winter—even though there was no snow.

  Downstairs Grandma stood by the stove, flipping pancakes over expertly.

  “Nothin’ like a soapstone griddle,” she was telling Mom. “All them new things runnin’ off’n ’lectricity—they’s always breakin’ up or down, or somethin’. You don’t get no trouble with a griddle like this one, no sirree!”

  The pancakes came away brown and just right. Grandma set them out along with a big glass bottle which had a slender handle to one side and a top cut to sparkle as if it were a diamond.

  “That’s real maple syrup,” she told them. “No store-bought stuff with just a smidgen of flavorin’ added to fool you. We get it straight from th’ Hawkins’s sugar bush. Luther goes over to give him a hand with the all-night boilin’ down.”

  There was no cereal or orange juice such as Holly always had—but bacon, and the pancakes, and a big glass of milk. Even with the thought of Mom’s going nagging at her, she ate.

  “No sense in your goin’ off to school till Monday. Two days at the week’s end won’t hurt you to miss,” Grandma continued. “Th’ bus’ll pick you up at the end of the lane Monday mornin’. Luther saw as how Jim Backus—he drives the bus—was told you would be here. But Luther, he’s got a job in town today when he takes your mom in, an’ you can ride along an’ maybe give him a hand. They had a sale at th’ Elkins’ place last Saturday. My, seems like all the older families are a-goin’ fast. Them Elkinses, they helped to found this town, along with the Dimsdales an’ the Pigots, the Noyeses an’ the Oakeses. It’s a mercy they ain’t gonna tear down the house. Folks from outside bou
ght it—gonna fix it up like it used to be. They got it listed as part of our history now.

  “Anyway what they didn’t want to keep in the way of furnishin’ they sold, an’ Luther, he’s got the word to go up an’ take the leavin’s, so he can just do that today.”

  She was beaming at them as if this was a treat. Holly wanted to scowl but didn’t quite dare. In spite of all Grandma had said last night about making things over and like that—this was a dump, a junkyard. And Grandpa rode around in an old beat-up truck to pick up stuff people threw out, like a garbageman back home. Now they were going to have to ride along with him—help out. And kids from school might see them. Holly squirmed, looking down at her syruppuddled plate. She wished she hadn’t eaten all that, now she felt a little sick.

  “That’s super!” Crock swallowed a last bite and then raised his voice to agree heartily that Grandma had good ideas about how to spend time.

  Judy caught at Mom’s sleeve. “I don’t want you to go!” Her voice sounded shaky, just the way Holly was beginning to feel. Mom sat down on her chair again and put her arm about Judy, hugging her close.

  “Now—a week goes awfully fast. Before you know it, I’ll be back. I’ll have a lot to tell you, and you’ll have ever so much to tell me. Remember, you write it down in your diary and then you won’t forget a single thing! And you can write letters, and I’ll answer them. You can use my red pen and that paper Lucy gave you for your birthday—that with the kitten on it.”

  “Speakin’ of kittens now—” Grandpa had gone out, now he stood in the doorway again. In his hand was a half-grown cat, its fur standing in wet points as if it had been in the rain for a long time. It lay limply in his hold, its eyes half closed. But as he brought it closer to the fire, it gave a small weak sound which was not quite a mew.

  “They done it agin!” Grandpa handled the cat so gently, as if he were searching for some wound or a broken bone. The animal was shivering but it did not try to scratch him.

  “I’ll get th’ basket, Luther. You hold him right there a mite to dry him off a little. I don’t get my dander up much—most people have a reason to make ’em mean. But meanness to critters, that I can’t abide, neither can Luther.”

  She had gone rummaging in the stall which held the shelves of broken china to bring out a large basket from which the topping handle had been broken long ago. Into this she folded some of the newspaper from her work-table pile, and then she settled a faded cushion on top, poking it well down.

  “People!” she said fiercely, snapping back her glasses twice, with such force Holly thought it might break the red frames. “They can be meaner than all them imps an’ devils old Satan is supposed to have workin’ for ’im. Because this is a dump, an’ in the country—why, there’s some as brings out poor animals as never done them any harm, an’ jus’ leaves them! We”—she glanced then at the children gathered around the cat basket to watch Grandpa settle the stranger in—“no, I ain’t gonna say ’fore children some of the things we’ve seen. Now, Luther, you just set him down here an’ I’ll put out some warm milk—then we’ll leave him be. If he don’t come ’round by himself I’ll fix up a doll bottle an’ give it to him thataway.”

  “Can I pet him?” Judy had always wanted a kitten but Mom had said that in the city, with all the traffic on the streets, it was better not to get one.

  “Not yet awhile.” Grandpa had arranged his find on the cushion. “He’s strange an’ likely he thinks all the world’s agin him. Rightly, after how he’s been treated. You got to make friends slow-like. We’ll leave him here where Mercy can keep an eye on him if he needs it. Maybe later he’ll be willin’ to trust us.”

  The rain had stopped by the time they left for town, but it was still very gray and cloudy. Holly and Crock shared a pile of bags for a seat in the back of the truck. Mom and Judy went up front again, with Mom’s two suitcases back where they could watch them. Now that Holly had a better sight of the lane leading to the highway, she could catch glimpses, through thin places in the bush walls along it, of clutter which indeed made up a dump and a junkyard. The more she saw the less she liked.

  They bumped up from the dirt and gravel lane onto the pavement of the road into town and went along seeing more and more houses. Some people had their lights on—the day was so dark. And the lights of Mrs. Pigot’s store were bright as they pulled up before it.

  Mom had her ticket, and the bus was supposed to be here soon. Holly hated to wait like this. You couldn’t keep on saying “good-bye” and “remember this and that.” You ran out of talk and then you began to hurt in your throat and you wanted to yell as loud as you could that Mom must stay, that you wanted to go back home and have everything as it was—She couldn’t even look at Mom now.

  It was good that they did not have to wait too long. The bus came to a stop. Grandpa and Crock took Mother’s suitcases over for her. She kissed Holly and Judy and went across the road, to climb up the steps quickly, as if she could not say anything now either. Then the bus snorted and it was gone. Holly raised her hand and waved, though she was sure Mom could not see her, then let her arm fall.

  “Freshenin’ up a mite.” Grandpa led them back to the dingy truck. “You young’uns get yourselves in the front now. Don’t want none of you to turn to ice ’fore we get there an’ back again.”

  Crock sat crammed in next to Grandpa, Judy perched on Holly’s lap. Most of the outer world was hidden by her body, and Holly was glad. She had not cried, but it was a battle not to.

  The truck swayed as it turned from one street to the next, then it pulled into a driveway and around to the back of a big dark house. They scrambled out as Grandpa shut off the motor. Here was a stable barn, not as big as the one at Dimsdale. The doors of it were all shut and the windows boarded over. But at the side of the large door were some barrels and boxes, and with them a couple of old and very large trunks with broken hinges and many dents.

  “Here we be,” Grandpa said cheerfully. “Lucky nothin’s too heavy to shift.”

  Crock was eager to get at that shifting, but Judy and Holly held back. Holly frankly did not want to touch the dusty, dirty stuff, and perhaps. Judy felt the same. But with Grandpa looking as if he expected their help, the girls moved in.

  It was when Holly found a much smaller trunk, behind the large one, and it broke out of her grasp (it was such an awkward thing to carry) that the pillow fell out on the ground. It was small (more a pillow for a baby, or maybe a large doll), and the slip which covered it was patterned all over with lines of stitching that did not even try to make a picture, but just ran round and round in broken circles. She picked it up hastily from the ground and a scent came from it, a strange smell which seemed—no, Holly was not quite sure what the smell made her think of. She tucked the pillow inside her windbreaker and the scent kept coming up into her face every time she moved. Such a queer thing—but, somehow, important. Why, she could not have told.

  3

  Tomkit and Dream pillow

  They had shoved the boxes and the two trunks into a shed, Grandpa saying that what these contained could be sorted later. From what she could see, Holly did not think there was much worth using. But both Crock and Judy seemed to believe that there might be treasure hidden under the top layers of trash, Grandpa having told them stories all the way back from town about things which he had found from time to time.

  “Folks,” he announced, “don’t rightly know what they’ve got sometimes. They want to clear out th’ attic, or th’ cellar quick so they just pitch out stuff without lookin’ ’cause they say they ain’t got th’ time or nothin’ good would be stuck away there nohow. Now you take that trunk—”

  “It’s all broken up,” Holly said. With Judy on her lap, leaning back against her, the smell from the pillow stuffed inside her jacket seemed stronger than ever. She was still uncertain whether she liked it or not. And she began to wish she had tossed it back into one of the boxes before they had driven off.

  “Yes, it sure is.”
Grandpa did not seem at all annoyed by her interruption. “But it can be fixed. An’ nowadays some folks pay good money for them old trunks—paint ’em up pretty—Mr. Correy, he’s sold three of them what we found, a couple lookin’ even worse’n this to begin with. Th’ Elkins, now they’s an old family, been ’round here ever since there was a town—them an’ th’ Dimsdales. So we’ll take care when we go over this here trash stuff—no tellin’ what’ll turn up.”

  “We can help, Grandpa?” Crock demanded.

  “You sure can. Need some sharp young eyes.”

  Even Holly felt a stir of curiosity.

  Then Grandpa continued: “We can’t git to it today, nohow. Mrs. Dale, she’s bringin’ out some o’ th’ Cub Scouts this afternoon. They wants to go through th’ toy shop—see what they can get fixed up for their fair next month. Always sell good at th’ fair, an’ then they’ll pick out what can be made up as good as new again for the young’uns over to th’ home.”

  So the trash, or treasure, from the Elkins place was stored in the shed, and they went back into the barn all very ready for the food Grandma was putting on the table. She had opened a small door set into the wall of the big fireplace to slide out, using a small shovel with a long handle, a big brown crock.

  “Sure gives a man an appetite, Mercy”—Grandpa stood unwinding a very long scarf which went several times around his neck and then had the ends tucked in under his coat—“just to go sniffin’ ’round in here.”

  “Beans an’ pork,” Grandma said briskly. “Fillin’ enough. You get it all in one trip this time?”

  “Yes. Seein’ as how I had some good help to hand.” Grandpa nodded at the children.

  “Water an’ soap waitin’, over there.” Grandma thumped her glasses into place and nodded at a bench to one side. There were three basins there and a dish with a queer lumpy bar of soap in it. A big can of water stood at the end.