by Donna Hosie
No. No. Not now.
“It’s working,” cries my mother. “Keep going, Mila.”
My father and Auntie Titch are calling out with encouragement too, but I can feel my head starting to pull back. My body starts to sway.
“MILA,” yells Rustin. “Not at any cost. You can pull away.”
“Get him out of here,” screams my mother.
“Can’t you see what this is doing to her?” cries Rustin. “What the hell is wrong with you people?”
Rustin and I are in the hang-out. We’ve been sharing a bottle of cheap cider that Rustin stole from his mother’s kitchen. It tastes like soap. You’re definitely not seeing this, Lilly, I think to myself, but the memory continues to unfold.
Lilly’s fingers move in mine. It’s more than a twitch, it’s a grab. I can hear her voice in my head.
Mila and Rustin sitting in a tree…
There’s a fight going on outside the hang-out. I can’t remember who it was between, but there were several kids involved from our school and the neighbouring village. That’s why I dragged Rustin into the pavilion. I didn’t want him getting involved. We’re huddled in a corner. Rustin strokes my long hair away from my face.
Mila and Rustin sitting in a tree…
But the image is starting to fade. Not into black, but white. The heat is building up inside me. I can feel my body starting to shake and fit.
“STOP THIS,” cries Rustin. “You’re going to kill Mila.”
“Merlin,” yells my father. “Stop this now.”
“But Arthur…” cries my mother’s voice, but she’s also fading away into white cloud.
“I’m not losing another daughter,” yells my father. “I won’t lose both of them.”
I can hear Auntie Titch crying in the background. She knows what it’s like to lose a child. What was my cousin’s name? Patrick?
“Keep going, Mila,” says a voice. “Hold on. Don’t let go.”
But I have no idea who the voice belongs to. It’s a male voice, a young boy’s.
Lilly’s fingers are loosening in mine. She’s letting go. In the distance, I can hear those in the tent starting to cry, but it’s background noise. A little boy appears before me in the cloud of white. The prelude to the purple flame.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“Patrick,” says the little boy.
Did I summon him here? At first, I think it’s the ghost of my dead cousin, but my aunt said her little boy died when he was two years old. The boy in front of me is older, at least six or seven years old. He has white blonde hair and big blue eyes, framed by the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen.
“Help me,” I beg.
“Let her in,” says the boy, Patrick. “You’re pushing Lilly out. She’s scared.”
“What?”
“She wants to see. Let her in.”
Mila and Rustin sitting in a tree…
“Are you kidding me?”
“Tell her all your secrets, Mila,” says the little boy with a sad smile. “Secrets make people scared and unhappy. Lilly is scared and unhappy. She wants to go home.”
“Who are you?” I ask again.
“Patrick,” repeats the little boy, turning away from me. He skips a few feet and then turns around. “Can you do something for me, Mila?”
“What?”
“Tell my sister she chose a good name. Tell my sister he is being loved until it’s her time.”
“Who’s your sister?” I cry out, but the little boy has gone. All that’s left is the echo of my last word.
Sister.
Sister.
Sister. My sister. Lilly.
“DON’T YOU LEAVE ME,” I scream, my fingers groping for hers.
The white landscape starts to swirl. I’m back on the stone bridge with Melehan, and my first reaction is to fight that too. These are memories I don’t want to relive again, but I capitulate my body to my mind, allowing a flood of images, repressed and otherwise, to scan through me like a copy machine.
I’m lying to my father about doing my math; I’m eating Lilly’s home-made garlic bread, even though she has used so much garlic it’s inedible; I’m talking to my sister through a night terror; I’m swapping Christmas presents with Lilly because Nana Roth gave me a jumper that my sister preferred…
…Rustin is taking a satsuma out of his pocket as we hide from the fight. We share the segments. I stick one between my teeth and he leans forward and snatches it with his mouth. And then we are…
“Mila and Rustin sitting in a tree,” says a whisper. “Gross, Mila.”
My eyes blink several times. Tears are streaming down my cheeks, but when I wipe them, the back of my hand is streaked with blood.
“That was the secret that brought you back?” I cry, as my sister smiles. “You nosy little…”
“I thought it was something interesting,” she replies. “It was behind a black door.”
“You just wanted to get me into trouble with mum and dad.”
But Lilly doesn’t reply. Her frail little body, weakened by the curse, is convulsing with giggles. Then she’s swallowed up in the tidal wave of bodies that crash onto her.
“That was exceptional, Lady Mila,” says Merlin, beaming. I wish he wouldn’t. His teeth are seriously disgusting. “You will be quite the healer and seer, under my tutelage.”
Rustin pulls me away from the bed. His face is white; his long gelled hair has taken on a life of its own. He looks like he’s received an electric shock.
“Tears of blood, Mila,” he chokes. “What the hell?” He starts to wipe my cheeks, but I lean into him, resting my head on his shoulder.
“Food, sleep, home,” I say. “And not necessarily in that order.”
It’s over.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Saying Goodbye
I fall asleep surrounded by questions. They relentlessly prod and poke my brain as I dream. It’s like being back at school. No. I am back at school. This isn’t a dream, it’s a nightmare. An enormous whiteboard covers the door, stopping me from escaping. It starts displaying questions for everyone in the class to see.
What happened to Melehan, Freya, Jalaya and Joseph?
Did the Lake of Avalon infect me as well as cure me?
Where is Nimue now?
Is the dragon still alive?
My friends - and Marty Carter - start calling me a freak. I look around for Rustin, but he isn’t in the classroom. Then my father’s red Ddraig roars past the classroom window, loops the loop, and the headmaster’s office explodes in a fireball of flame, shattered glass and metal.
As we all rush to see what’s happening, the last image that lingers is of Rustin, dressed in tight black pants and a brown tunic, doing a war dance around a pole on the school oval as the teachers bow down to him like he’s some kind of God.
I wake up – alone. My skin is still smarting, but I have my trusty Aloe Vera, which someone has left at the bottom of my bed, along with all of the other possessions from my backpack.
The backpack is gone.
I smother myself in cream, eat the bread and cake that has been left on a table, gulp down two glasses of water from a pewter jug, and get dressed into clean clothes. Two choices have been left out for me: a long satin red dress, or a pair of soft suede-like pants that are charcoal grey in colour. A dark purple velvet tunic with a gathered neckline is lying underneath the pants. It’s no contest. I clean myself, change my underwear and socks, slip on the tunic and pants and step outside into the hazy March sunshine, wondering if and when I’ll get the answers to my questions.
The dragon is lying on its side, right outside my tent.
The creature snorts, and dark grey smoke billows out of its two wet nostrils. They are the size of plates. Inky black pupils stare down at me as the dragon extends its red scaly neck.
I freeze in my tracks, swearing continuously as I look around for someone to help me.
“Mila Roth, I do not want to hear language like that
coming from your mouth, thank you very much.”
“DAD,” I shout. “HELP ME.”
“Help you with what?” calls my father, walking towards me. “My Ddraig won’t hurt you. It’s been keeping guard.”
“What? Why?”
But my father doesn’t answer. He isn’t smiling. No more secrets is running like a news banner headline across my retinas. I have to tell him the truth about what I’ve done. And it has to be the whole truth, my truth. We have to start trusting each other once more. The life we had before will never be the same again, and the thought terrifies me. I need him and my mother. And I need to explain. What I did as the prelude to the explosion seems a good place to start.
“Dad, when I was in the forest with the Gorians...”
But my father holds up his hand to quieten me. He looks away, and I see his shoulders slump as he sighs.
He already knows.
“I didn’t know what I was doing, dad.”
“It’s my fault, Mila,” he says wearily. “There’s so much I should have told you, and then to expect you to deal with everything once you arrived here… We didn’t see, your mother and I. We didn’t comprehend what this would do to you. We completely neglected you once you were here...”
“It’s okay, I understand. Lilly was more important,” I interrupt, with another nervous glance behind me. My father may be convinced his Ddraig isn’t going to eat me, but I’m not. I stare at its stomach for signs of injury, but it’s covered by a huge rippling wing.
“No, it’s not okay,” says my father. “And there’s still so much you need to know, Mila.”
“Dad, all I care about right now is if Lilly is well again.”
Finally my father smiles. A proper teeth-showing smile. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen him do that in Logres since we arrived through the Tor.
“You were astonishing, Mila,” he says, hugging me. “You’ve always been amazing to me, but what you did last night...”
Now this is like being home. I’m back being my father’s favourite again. I know parents shouldn’t have favourites, and I know it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love Lilly as much as me, but I like being a daddy’s girl.
My father steers me away from the tent and the dragon. Knights are packing up, getting ready to leave the shores of Avalon.
“When are we going home?” I ask.
“We’re going back to Camelot for a few days, and then we’ll all travel back through Glastonbury Tor together,” he replies. “Your aunt and uncle are coming too.”
I’m about to ask my father about my dead cousin Patrick, when I see Auntie Titch and Uncle Bed walking towards us. Rustin is with them. My question will wait. I don’t want to upset my aunt, but I’m still confused by that boy I saw in the white mist. He definitely wasn’t as young as two, which is the age my aunt said my cousin was when he died.
And then there was the message he asked me to give.
Tell my sister she chose a good name. Tell my sister that he is being loved until it’s her time.
But I don’t know who to give the message to.
“You’re looking human, for once,” says Rustin with a grin. He’s eating the biggest slice of cake I’ve ever seen. It’s the size of a book.
“You’re not supposed to break the fast until midday,” I say.
“She’s learning,” quips my aunt approvingly.
“I say it is the one custom the people of your time have got right,” says my uncle, rubbing his stomach.
“How is Freya?” asks my father.
“Weak, but thankfully still with us,” replies my uncle.
“You have to speak to Merlin, Arthur,” says my aunt. “He won’t let it rest.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Titch has convinced me that the Gorians were helping you, not kidnapping you,” replies my father. “And so I’ve removed the sentence placed on them, but Freya remains convicted of necromancy from years ago. Merlin wants her sentence carried out.”
“You’re the king,” I say. “Tell Merlin to sod off.”
“Language, Mila,” says my father. “I’ve said Freya’s not to be touched, even by these two -” he jerks his head towards my aunt and uncle, “- who seem intent on setting her free at every available opportunity.”
“We’re righting a wrong, Arthur,” replies my aunt, raising an eyebrow.
“Treason,” says my father. He’s joking, but my uncle visibly winces.
“But Freya and Jalaya definitely aren’t going to be punished?” asks Rustin thickly, spraying crumbs all over my clean tunic. “I’m going to need them.”
“What do you need them for?” I say quickly, too quickly. My aunt smirks at my uncle.
Rustin grins. Cake is stuck to his teeth.
“They’re going to help me build the church.”
Lilly still looks dreadfully ill, but she’s conscious. Merlin says it could be weeks, months or even years before she regains the strength and personality she had before. I overhear one of his young assistants say the curse may never fully be vanquished from my sister’s soul, but I don’t tell anyone. The little boy, Patrick, said that secrets make people scared and unhappy, but in this case, I don’t think knowing the full truth will help anyone.
My sister is sitting up in bed when I see her. My mother is gently brushing her long hair. It’s not tangled, it’s still too fine, and it hasn’t regained its blonde colour yet, but neither is it as thinning and white as before. It looks more silver now. Lilly’s skin is pale and mottled, and her blue eyes have dark circles underneath them. When she smiles, her teeth look too big for her mouth as her gums have shrunk back.
“You look beautiful,” I lie.
“You look like crap,” replies my sister.
“Lilly,” scolds my mother, but with no real intent in her inflection. She continues to brush the straight strands. I think my mother is looking for her kind of normal once more.
I’ll be glad when everyone is back home. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone who went through the Tor, including Rustin.
Build a church? How can he still be thinking of that after everything we’ve been through? The Gorians may have wanted the artisan, but I’ve saved what’s left of them from being thrown in dungeons, or worse in Freya’s case. She helped me; I’ve repaid it. We’re quits. They’re not keeping Rustin.
The problem is, Rustin wants to stay. He keeps talking about the history essay he wrote on the village we live in. Rustinian the Artisan was the name of the person that built the druid church where the cemetery now sits.
It’s a coincidence, I tell him. But he won’t listen. He says it’s fate.
The journey back to Camelot is slow. I have to travel in what only could be described as a luxurious enclosed cart, pulled by two enormous black horses with blinkered eyes.
The coach is like a wooden box, with small vertical slits for seeing out. It’s lined with padded silks and cushions. Only two people can fit inside, three at a squeeze, and because my mother is travelling with Lilly, I get to travel with Rustin. I don’t think my father wants the two of us in an enclosed space together, but neither is he cruel enough to put Rustin on another horse.
As we travel, the coach rocks from side to side like a boat in a storm. Because it’s lined with silk, it’s slippery, and it’s not long before Rustin and I are sliding about from one end to the other. It’s fun, like sliding around a deflating bouncy castle.
At one point I land on top of Rustin. He rests one hand on my lower back and uses the fingers of the other to tuck my hair behind my ear. Several strands break off. While my body has healed, my hair has not. Long, glossy and black has become short, dead and even blacker. Queen Guinevere suggested I wear a headdress, but that will happen on the same day I take my dad’s Ddraig for a walk on a leash.
But my dying hair makes me feel too self-conscious and so playtime is over. I roll off Rustin before more of my hair comes away in his hand, and peer out through one of the slits in th
e coach.
Uncle Bed, his brother Lucan, and his friends, Tristram and Gareth are riding alongside us. Talan is driving the coach, which probably explains why we’re all over the place. If he could do a wheel spin, I reckon he’d try.
“Do you reckon Talan will let us ride up top with him?” I ask Rustin.
“They’d let me, but you have to stay hidden,” he replies, pulling out a flattened slice of cake from a piece of white cloth.
“Because I’m a princess,” I say sarcastically, elongating the words.
“No,” replies Rustin gravely. “Because word will have spread throughout Logres that you can do magic. And not just any old magic either, Mila. I overheard some of the knights talking. There are people saying that with you as queen, Logres will be the greatest and most powerful kingdom in the world. They expect you to use your magic.”
“That’s just stupid and completely wrong, and it doesn’t explain why I can’t sit up top.”
“Because you’re in danger, Mila,” says Rustin. “There are villagers, like the ones we saw when we first arrived, who will want you dead because they think you’re a witch. Then there will be others, like those bandits that attacked us in the forest, who will try and kidnap you for a reward. Already word has spread about you. Why do you think we’re the ones surrounded by your dad’s best knights? Why do you think he had his dragon put outside your tent last night? I wanted to come and see you and the bloody thing wouldn’t let me come within twenty metres of you.”
“I thought it was to stop me from running away.”
“It was to stop people getting to you, Mila. People here don’t notice me, but I notice them, and I listen. I have done since we first got here. Your dad and the queen think you’re going to save Logres once they’re gone. You’re the heir. Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot have never been able to have kids, so it’s you that inherits everything.”
“But what if I don’t want to?”
Rustin looks away. The flattened piece of cake is crumbling between his fingers.
“Then you just say no, Mila.”
But the way he says it makes me think that this isn’t the kind of future that anyone says no to. Even a future that is set in the past. It’s a fate, a destiny.
