The Secret of Nightingale Wood

by Lucy Strange

  The cat trotted ahead of me, its dark fur camouflaged against the forest floor. Every now and then – when I felt most afraid – I thought I caught a glimpse of Robert darting amongst the trees, his honey-gold hair shimmering in the dappled sunlight. I felt better knowing he was close by.

  There were many paths through the undergrowth – made by forest creatures, I thought – and, although I had been this way before, I couldn’t have described the route or drawn it on a map. It was as if I was being pulled through the maze of trees by a kind of gravity. Even when I thought about turning back, my feet kept moving forward, following the cat. I thought of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, I thought of The Red Shoes. In stories, bad things happened to people who couldn’t control their own feet.

  Before long the trees started thinning and we came upon the clearing. The breeze blew a cloud of smoke towards me and I stopped, my hand flying up to cover my mouth. I felt my lungs cramping, trying to cough. It’s just woodsmoke, Hen, I told myself, my eyes watering. A campfire, a friendly fire . . . The cat strutted straight into the clearing and trilled a greeting.

  I hid behind a tree, unsure of what to do. I could hear someone moving around, muttering to the cat. Suddenly I felt very, very stupid. The last time I was here it had been quite clear that I had not been welcome; what exactly was I proposing to say to the witch – ‘The cat invited me’?

  The muttering stopped and then, from out of the thick silence, a voice said, ‘I know you’re there.’

  I don’t really know what happened next. I remember suddenly feeling very hot and not being able to catch my breath. I remember the forest becoming a green ocean that swirled sickeningly before me. I remember the back of my head hitting the forest floor, dark stars bursting in my eyes and – for a moment – the treetops turning like carousel horses around a circle of blue sky above. Then there was nothing but darkness.

  I awoke to the crackling of the campfire and the smell of cooking. I was lying on a blanket beside the fire and there beside me – so close I could almost have touched her – was the witch. She was singing some sort of chant or lullaby, so softly that I couldn’t make out the words.

  ‘You fainted,’ she croaked.

  She wasn’t looking at me and I had barely moved. How did she know I was awake?

  She spoke again. ‘You’re not well.’ Her voice was rough and smooth at the same time, like sandpaper on old wood. It had a strange lilt to it – an accent I couldn’t place.

  I could feel the heat of the fire on my face, but I couldn’t stop shivering. The witch got up, found another blanket and placed it over me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I managed to say.

  She didn’t reply; she sat back down and continued to gaze into the fire. She started singing her lullaby again. This time I could just make out the softly crooned words over the crackling of the flames:

  Asleep . . . O sleep a little while, white pearl . . .

  The cat was sitting between us, its paws neatly folded. It too stared at the fire. Then it rolled on to its side, stretched, and closed its eyes.

  My vision was not quite sharp, and there was still that strange feeling of pressure inside my head. I wasn’t entirely sure I was awake. The whole scene felt oddly familiar – as if I had dreamt it years before. And I wasn’t as frightened as I should have been. Despite everything Mrs Berry had said, I felt strangely safe sitting here next to the witch – deep in the middle of the forest, as night approached . . . Perhaps it was the fact that she had wrapped a blanket around me. Perhaps it was the peacefully dozing cat at my side . . .

  ‘You need looking after,’ the witch said. ‘A warm bed, hot food.’

  I looked at her and, when my eyes eventually focused, I saw that she was much younger than I had first thought. Her hair was wild and her nails were dirty – but she wasn’t an old woman at all. She couldn’t have been much older than Mama, in fact. And she was strangely beautiful. Her skin was ghostly pale. Her eyes shone brightly in the firelight. She looked more like a forgotten, fairy-tale princess than a wicked witch.

  ‘That was you the other night,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought it was the boys from the village, come to bother me again.’ She smiled a crooked smile. ‘I scare them off.’ And she suddenly raised her arms so they became twisted, prehistoric wings again. My heart pounded at the sudden reappearance of this nightmare.

  ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you,’ I managed to say.

  But the witch’s eyes had returned to the fire. ‘Go home now,’ she said. ‘Go back to Hope House . . .’

  I expected Nanny Jane to be waiting for me, but she was nowhere to be found. The gaslights glowed in the dining room and supper was on the table – two plates of lamb chops, vegetables and congealed gravy. One for me and one for Nanny Jane, but where was she? I took the glass of milk that had been set out for me and went to look upstairs. The unmistakable voice of Doctor Hardy drifted down from the landing, sticky and smug.

  ‘Yes, it’s worrying, certainly,’ he said. ‘And a fascinating case. My colleague – the doctor I mentioned to you previously – is particularly interested in female neurosis. He is currently making a study of chronic—’

  And then they saw me.

  ‘Oh, Henry,’ said Nanny Jane, walking purposefully towards me. ‘I’ve told you before about losing track of the time like this. You’ve been out there for hours and hours—’ She broke off and looked at me closely. ‘Are you all right, Henry?’

  ‘I – I think so,’ I said. Why was she looking at me like that?

  She put a hand flat on my forehead for a moment and then felt the heat of my cheeks with the backs of her fingers. She frowned at Doctor Hardy.

  ‘Let’s have a look at you, young lady,’ he said, and I was shepherded into my room. Nanny Jane unlaced my boots as I sat on the bed. Doctor Hardy took my temperature and listened to my heart. I wondered if it was behaving normally; it seemed to do nothing but pound and panic these days. I squirmed underneath the doctor’s cold stethoscope. I hated him being so close to me.

  ‘A summer cold, probably,’ he said (to Nanny Jane, not to me). ‘She has a slight fever. Keep her in bed for now. Don’t want her getting ill too, do we?’

  ‘Of course,’ Nanny Jane said, wetting a cloth with cool water from the jug at my wash-stand and pressing it to my forehead.

  Then the doctor spoke more quietly to her, as if I wouldn’t hear him if he lowered his voice. ‘The fever might be psychosomatic, of course – if she’s worrying too much about Mummy . . .’

  Nanny Jane frowned again.

  ‘I’ll prescribe some Soothing Syrup – the morphine sulphate is excellent for treating anxiety in children.’

  ‘Morphine sulphate?’ Nanny Jane started. ‘But—’

  The doctor ignored her. ‘Best to keep her away from Mrs Abbott for the time being,’ he said. ‘For both their sakes . . .’

  Nanny Jane saw my frightened face, politely ushered the doctor from the room and took him downstairs. I finished my milk, used the damp washcloth to wipe my face, neck and hands, and then crept to the top of the staircase.

  ‘About a week, I should think,’ Doctor Hardy was saying. ‘They should be ready for her then. I’ll write to my colleague – he’s really very keen to make Mrs Abbott part of his study. And I’ll write to Mr Abbott again. As next of kin, he’ll need to give his permission for the whole thing.’

  For what whole thing? What study? Ready for what in about a week?

  ‘I see,’ Nanny Jane said. ‘And what about the pills?’

  ‘Morning, lunchtime and evening,’ he replied, passing her a brown bottle from his bag. ‘Mrs Abbott must be kept sedated for now . . .’ He trailed off and there was a pause.

  ‘I wish there was more we could do,’ Nanny Jane said, quietly.

  ‘We’ll persist with the rest cure,’ the doctor replied. ‘Absolute peace and quiet. I will come over in a day or two to check on her. Please watch her closely. And when you’re not with her
, you must keep her door locked, Miss Button. Keep. It. Locked. It’s for her own good. And do keep Henrietta and the baby away from her. Good night.’

  The front door slammed.

  I went back to my bedroom, wrapped the curtains around me and stared out of the black window.

  There we were – Mama, Nanny Jane, Piglet and I – all under the same roof, but as separate and distant as four stars in the night sky. Each of us burning alone in the darkness.

  Keep her door locked. Keep. It. Locked . . . Doctor Hardy’s command was cold and clanging – like a key bouncing down the stone walls of a well. It rang in my ears all night and into the following morning.

  I wanted to go and sit with Mama. I remembered long evenings in London, cuddled up in my bed as she read to me – the smell of her face cream and the warmth of her arms around me. I wanted to feel her arms around me now, but she was locked in her room and I was not allowed to leave my bed.

  Through the bedroom wall I could hear Nanny Jane singing to Piglet as she put her down for her morning nap – something about frogs jumping into ponds; it sounded far too jolly to be a lullaby, but it was just Piglet’s sort of thing. When I heard Nanny Jane’s footsteps on the landing, I called to her. She put her head around the door.

  ‘Yes? Do you need anything?’

  ‘Can I see Mama tomorrow, Nanny Jane?’ I said. ‘If I’m better?’

  Nanny Jane sighed. ‘Your mother really isn’t well enough for visitors at the moment.’

  ‘Not visitors – just me. I know she’s ill, but I – maybe I could help . . .’

  Nanny Jane shook her head.

  ‘I just want to talk to her, Nanny Jane.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Henry. She isn’t – I don’t think she has the strength for a conversation.’

  My chest was aching now, as if something was swelling up inside me. I felt as if my ribs might crack with the pressure. There had to be something I could do, something I could say.

  ‘I could just sit with her, perhaps. I promise I won’t tire her out. I’ll just hold her hand and sit with her.’ Tears were rising up in my eyes. I swallowed hard and blinked them back. ‘Maybe later in the week?’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Nanny Jane came into the room and rearranged the blanket on my bed. Then she gave me a spoonful of Doctor Hardy’s Soothing Syrup. It tasted disgusting. ‘The doctor has given strict orders,’ she said, ‘and he knows best.’ She looked at me, and something seemed to soften a little. ‘I’m not saying no, Henry. Perhaps next week. If she’s a bit stronger.’ Then she headed for the door.

  ‘Back to sleep now, please,’ she called over her shoulder.

  But I didn’t want to sleep. I opened my book of fairy tales and gazed at the picture of Rapunzel, locked in a lonely tower in the middle of the forest. The trees were much taller than the tower, so no sunlight could reach her window. I found myself sinking into the picture . . . And then I was there, standing in the forest below the tower, looking up at poor Rapunzel. But she wasn’t Rapunzel any more, she was Mama. I called and called to her, but no sound came out of my mouth. Mama pounded with both fists on the door of her cell and the sound boomed through the forest like a giant heartbeat. I watched helplessly as she look a pair of huge scissors and cut off her own hair in thick, jagged handfuls until there was nothing left . . .

  My pillow was wet with tears. I sat up, on the verge of screaming. I gasped and steadied my breath. The curtains were open, and a ray of late afternoon sunlight made a golden blur on the wallpaper. How long had I been asleep for? The sunbeam shimmered and danced, and then it became Robert. He sat down on a chair by the window and swung his legs back and forth.

  ‘Robert,’ I said gratefully, throwing off the blanket.

  ‘Hello, Hen.’ He smiled. He opened the window and leant his arms on the sill.

  I could smell woodsmoke on the warm air that drifted through the window, and I thought about the witch beside her fire, stirring a cauldron of bubbling stew. I wondered if I would be brave enough to visit her again. I wanted to thank her for looking after me, but – I stopped myself – maybe it had all just been a strange dream . . .

  ‘I want to go back into the woods,’ I said. ‘I need to see the witch again.’

  ‘Let’s go tonight,’ he said, and his eyes gleamed at the thought of the adventure. ‘You don’t really think she’s a witch, though, do you, Hen?’

  ‘I think she’s a good witch,’ I said. ‘She’s very beautiful, Robert. Weirdly beautiful – like a ragged, long-ago princess, lost in the woods. Maybe she was cursed or enchanted somehow . . .’

  Suddenly I realized that my bedroom door was open and someone was standing just outside it, staring at me through the dark gap. It was Nanny Jane.

  ‘Who are you talking to, Henry?’ she said sharply. ‘I thought I heard you say—’

  ‘No one,’ I said. ‘I’m not talking to anyone. I’m talking to myself.’

  ‘Well, don’t,’ she snapped.

  I glanced back towards the window where Robert sat, as still as a figure in a painting. Nanny Jane scanned the room. Her gaze slid straight over him.

  ‘I was going to bring your sister in to see you,’ she said, still frowning, ‘Would you like that, Henry?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, please.’

  Nanny Jane went to the nursery and came back with Piglet in her arms. My sister beamed at me and reached out with her fat little hands.

  ‘Please could I take her outside and push her around the garden for a while?’ I begged. ‘I’m sure the fresh air would do me good . . .’

  Nanny Jane shifted Piglet on to her hip, felt my forehead, asked me to stick out my tongue and then looked closely into my eyes. (I had no idea what she was looking for. Deceit, probably – she was eerily good at spotting that.) She hesitated, then made up her mind.

  ‘No, Henry,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m sorry. Doctor Hardy said you were to rest today. I’ll leave the baby with you, though – just for a few minutes’ company.’ She left the room still frowning, leaving the door ajar.

  I stood at the window next to Robert, with Piglet nestled against my chest. The evening air was fragrant with flowers.

  ‘What’s that lovely smell?’ I whispered. ‘Stocks? Phlox? Mama would know . . .’

  Robert gazed out of the window. ‘Mama would know the Latin name too,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly.

  Mama had studied Classics and she would sometimes help us with our Latin prep in the holidays.

  ‘Have you learnt your vocab?’ she would ask, and Robert would answer, ‘A pedibus usque ad caput!’ – From feet to head!

  I remembered Robert writing jokes and silly poems in Latin just to make Mama laugh. It was like their own secret language . . . I couldn’t stick all that dry old grammar, or my dry old Latin schoolteacher either for that matter.

  Piglet grumbled and wriggled in my arms. ‘Shhh,’ I said, stroking her hair.

  Piglet’s tufty hair promised to be like Robert’s – soft and honey-coloured, rather than my thick, mousy tangle. And she had Robert’s eyes too, with Mama’s long, dark lashes.

  ‘What will she be like when she gets bigger?’ I wondered out loud. ‘Will she be like me, do you think? Like Mama, or Father? Or like you?’

  Robert studied Piglet. ‘It’s too early to tell,’ he said, as if he were an expert in these matters.

  I watched him looking at her and my throat hurt as I swallowed hard. The real Robert had never met his baby sister. Piglet had arrived just hours after Robert’s funeral. I remembered Mama’s hands tightening around her belly as the pains started, as if she wanted to keep the baby in. I think she knew then that she couldn’t take care of her, that she was better off safe in the darkness inside her. I had heard the nurse whisper to Nanny Jane that Mama barely made a sound when the baby came. I wondered if Mama ever thought of Piglet, or if she even knew that she existed.

  ‘I think she’s a strong little thing,’ Robert said at last.

  He
was right. Piglet was ready to fight for her own corner in life. In a strange sort of way I envied her. She was her own little being: clean and new and blissfully unaware of all the sadness she had been born into.

  ‘Will she love stories like me, or maths, like you?’

  ‘Perhaps both,’ Robert countered with a smile.

  I considered the possibility. Lewis Carroll had been both a writer and a mathematician. Perhaps it didn’t have to be a battle between words and numbers, as it had so often been with Robert and me.

  ‘Were we really so different, Hen?’ Robert asked.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ I said, after a moment. ‘But we weren’t always very nice to each other, were we?’

  I thought about that terrible argument we had had – the shouting, the name-calling, being sent to bed without supper . . .

  ‘All brothers and sisters argue,’ Robert said.

  ‘But I said such horrid things.’ And that was the night you died . . .

  Robert sighed softly and looked out of the window again. An evening breeze shivered through the room, carrying my last words away from me, out of the window, and down the long garden, towards Nightingale Wood.

  ‘Stories don’t always have happy endings, Hen,’ he said quietly.

  I waited until Nanny Jane had gone to bed, then I crept from my room, closing my door as softly as I could, and tiptoed down the dark stairs.

  Mrs Berry had baked a pie before going home for the evening and it was cooling on the kitchen table. I cut a warm, fat wedge and wrapped it in paper. It was polite to take a gift when you went calling.

  I walked through the garden, past the rose bushes. I thought dizzily of the white roses in Wonderland, and the gardeners frantically painting them red for fear the Queen of Hearts would chop off their heads. I knew it was supposed to be funny, but I always felt too anxious for the poor gardeners to enjoy the silliness.

  These roses smelt gorgeous, though – like honey and oranges. I thought how lovely it would be to take Mama a rose from the garden . . . If Nanny Jane won’t let me see Mama, I thought, I’ll just have to find a different way. Maybe the witch will help me . . .