by Lucy Strange
My feet took me where I wanted to go, twisting through the dark trees as if following a trail of moonlit stones or breadcrumbs only they could see. I came at last to the witch’s clearing.
She was sitting beside her fire, wrapped in a cloak of old blankets. My memories of her song and her pale, beautiful face were all steeped in the strangeness of a dream, but she was here in front of me now and she seemed perfectly real.
She didn’t take her eyes from the campfire. It was as if the fire itself burned in her eyes – the reflected flames danced dangerously. ‘Shhh,’ she said, as I took a step towards her. I froze. Suddenly she swung around and fixed me with a terrible stare. She pointed her finger, as if she were about to put a curse upon me. I held my breath. But then the finger curled, and beckoned me. I sat down obediently on a pile of blankets near her. Near, but not too close.
Her cat was there. It rubbed its face on my knee and then sat between us. It sniffed at the wrapped slice of pie I had placed on the ground, and licked its nose. ‘Listen,’ the witch hissed, and my heart thudded. She pursed her lips and whistled a long, low whistle. ‘Listen,’ she whispered again.
At first I heard nothing at all. I listened harder than I had ever listened before. I started to hear the impossible sounds of trees growing, leaves rotting and worms tunnelling through the soil. Then quite suddenly, and all in a rush, birdsong poured through the warm summer air. It was a beautiful sound – liquid and sweet.
‘What is it?’ I breathed.
‘A nightingale,’ the witch whispered. ‘This wood belongs to him, you know. Nightingale Wood.’ And I thought I saw her eyes smile – just a little.
I thought of the nightingale in the Hans Christian Andersen story – the faithful little bird that returns to sing to the dying Emperor . . .
‘A miraculous creature,’ said the witch softly. ‘Nothing much to look at – just a modest little brown bird, and yet there is nothing more beautiful than the nightingale’s song.’
‘I’ve never seen one,’ I said, ‘or even heard one before, but there’s a lovely fairy tale about a nightingale . . .’
The witch nodded. I lay back in the blankets, gazing up at the perfect circle of starlit sky above.
‘I wish Mama were here,’ I whispered. ‘I wish she could hear this too . . .’ I thought of her alone in her room. ‘But her door is locked. She couldn’t get out even if she wanted to.’
‘Locked?’ the witch repeated.
‘I’m not allowed to see her at all now . . .’
‘Who says so?’
‘Doctor Hardy.’
The witch’s face seemed to twitch, and she muttered something under her breath. Then she said, ‘Nobody has the right to do that. Especially not an old quack like Hardy . . .’
‘You know him?’
Her face twitched again. ‘If you need to see your mother,’ she said, ‘you must find a way of seeing her. I’m sure she needs to see you just as much.’
There was another burst of song from the nightingale, and the woods seemed to fill with a beautiful silver light. It was as if the stars had fallen into the forest, or the forest had risen up into the stars. I curled into the swan’s nest of blankets and felt the fear and sadness in my heart melt away.
‘You must find a way to see her,’ the witch whispered thoughtfully. ‘Old houses like that one, there’s bound to be a spare key to her room somewhere . . .’
At this, I felt a tiny spark of hope and determination in my heart.
‘Who are you?’ I said.
‘No one,’ the witch replied. ‘I’m not anyone. Not any more.’
‘But – you must be someone . . .’ Then a terrible thought struck me. ‘Unless – unless I’m imagining you . . .’
The witch looked at me for a moment, and something in her face seemed to soften. Then she reached into a pocket concealed beneath one of her blankets and pulled out a tiny book – it looked like a bible. She took a piece of paper from between its pages and leant towards me.
‘You’re not imagining me,’ she said.
I saw that it was not a piece of paper at all, but an old, torn photograph – a picture of a young woman in a smart nurse’s uniform. Instead of smiling directly at the camera, she was smiling at a little boy sitting beside her. I took the photograph and studied the young woman’s face. It was her – the witch.
‘You used to be a nurse?’ I said.
She nodded. ‘A lifetime ago.’
‘And the little boy?’
She didn’t say anything, just smiled sadly.
‘What’s this?’ I asked gently, pointing at the picture. She was wearing a badge – a sort of cross.
‘It means I trained at St Thomas’s Hospital,’ the witch said. ‘The Florence Nightingale School of Nursing. I gave it up, though, not long after that photograph was taken.’
‘Perhaps that’s why the nightingale sings when you whistle to him,’ I said, smiling. ‘He knows you’re a nightingale too.’
‘Ha.’
As I gave the photograph back to her I saw that someone had written something on the back: 1907, me and Moth.
‘Moth?’ I said out loud. ‘Is that you?’
‘I suppose so,’ she said. Then she repeated the word: ‘Moth.’ Her voice crackled like a flame and I couldn’t tell if it was angry or sad.
As she sat in the darkness, with her fragile, white face illuminated by the moon and the faint glow of the fire, and her torn woollen wings folded around her, I thought it was a name that suited her perfectly. Moth, the forgotten princess, banished to the dark forest . . .
‘I’m Henrietta Abbott,’ I said, and I held out my hand towards her. She took it and gripped it firmly. Her hand was strong and warm. ‘How d’you do?’ I said.
‘How d’you do?’ she echoed strangely, as if the words belonged to a different language.
‘And what’s the cat’s name, please?’ I asked.
‘Bright Star.’
I looked at the bedraggled little creature, and couldn’t help laughing. ‘He doesn’t look much like a Bright Star.’
‘Ha!’ she replied, and for a moment her eyes shone. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t, does he?’
I wasn’t frightened as I walked back through the dark forest. Robert would be proud of me, I thought. Perhaps I’m getting a little bit braver. Somewhere high above me, a small brown bird fluttered through the treetops, watching me safely home.
Nanny Jane and I were having supper the next evening when something very disturbing happened.
Through the dining-room window, I caught sight of a shadow sweeping through the garden. My skin prickled. The brightness inside the dining room made it difficult to see, but I saw – or thought I saw – a shape near the trees. There was a sweeping movement, a glimpse of wings, perhaps. An owl? It moved again and I struggled for a moment to separate the shapes from the reflections on the glass . . . Then I saw it perfectly clearly. It was a ghostly figure, and it was walking, quite quickly, across our garden. I gasped and my hand flew to my mouth.
‘Whatever is it, Henry?’ Nanny Jane asked, staring at me. She turned around to see what had startled me, but the figure had vanished.
‘Are you all right? You look as if . . .’ She faltered.
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I said, swallowing hard. ‘I just . . . I just thought I saw something.’
‘Saw what, exactly?’
‘Just a . . . an owl or something, I think.’ My face burned.
‘Oh. Well, there are lots of owls out hunting on these summer evenings, I should think,’ Nanny Jane replied, smiling faintly. ‘That’s the countryside for you.’ But there was a peculiar expression in her eyes as she looked away from me.
I woke early the next morning, and my bedroom seemed to be filled with the scent of roses from the garden. I thought of Mama straight away. Moth’s words circled in my mind like a phrase from a song – ‘There’s bound to be a spare key to her room somewhere . . .’ I went downstairs to the kitchen and inspect
ed the hooks beside the back door. One key didn’t have a label attached to it. It hung from a length of white ribbon and glinted in the morning sunshine, larger than the others and more beautiful, with an intricately patterned bow. I stared at it. Had it been there before? I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t be sure . . . Blurry half-thoughts of the elves and the shoemaker swam about in my half-asleep head – supernatural beings, characters from stories who visited houses while you slept . . . Then I remembered the ghostly figure sweeping across the garden and shivered. Something very strange was happening at Hope House.
I heard Nanny Jane’s footsteps coming down the stairs and I panicked. I looped the ribbon over my head like a necklace, and tucked the key inside the collar of my nightdress. It hung there, cold as guilt against my skin. I breathed quickly. Nanny Jane’s footsteps paused in the hallway, then went into the dining room. I pressed the icy key against my breastbone until it hurt. I knew exactly which door it would open.
I waited until after breakfast, when Nanny Jane took Piglet out for a walk in the pram. They were going to the village and back. It was Mrs Berry’s day off, so I would have the house to myself. Nanny Jane would be half an hour at least. As soon as she had gone, I ran out into the garden and cut a single white rose. Then I sat on the bottom step of the stairs clutching the rose in one hand and my book of fairy tales in the other. I made myself wait for exactly three minutes. ‘One Rumpelstiltskin, two Rumpelstiltskins . . .’ I counted each second aloud, in time with the grandfather clock, until I reached one hundred and eighty Rumpelstiltskins. Nanny Jane would be well on her way to the village by now. I raced up the stairs and along the landing to Mama’s room. I tried the door. Locked. My heart pounded, making the heavy key vibrate against my breastbone. I drew it out slowly from beneath my pinafore, pulling the ribbon. The key had been cold early this morning, but now it was warm from my skin – almost hot. It slid into the lock. I turned it slowly. Click. The door creaked open.
The room was flooded with sunshine. A million dust motes drifted in the light, and Mama was lying on her back, with the bedclothes pulled tightly across her chest. Her eyes weren’t closed though – they were wide open, as if they were painted on – and her arms were straight at her sides. I was reminded of an Egyptian sarcophagus – and for one horrible moment I thought Mama was dead, but then she tilted her head towards me.
‘I’ve come to see you, Mama,’ I said.
She stared at me. ‘You’re not real,’ she whispered darkly. ‘I know you’re not real.’ Then, quite suddenly, her glassy eyes filled with tears.
‘Mama,’ I said. ‘I’m real. Of course I’m real . . .’ My eyes were full of tears too now. I didn’t know what to do.
‘Oh, you’re not, you’re not real,’ she gasped. And then she was sobbing hard and a strange, agonized moaning came from her open mouth.
I ran to the bed and hugged her and stroked her hair and pressed my face to hers. ‘It’s me, Mama – it’s your Hen – I’m here, I’m real, I promise.’
‘You’re here?’ Mama sobbed faintly, and her whole body started to relax. ‘You’re really here. My Hen . . .’ She breathed deeply a few times, smiled with relief and closed her eyes. A few moments later she was breathing steadily.
I placed the white rose on Mama’s bedside table. I imagined her breathing in its heavenly scent while she slept, giving her sweet dreams.
She seemed to be falling into a deeper sleep now, although her eyelids fluttered like white butterflies and, sometimes, her hands moved in a similar, fluttering way. It looked so helpless.
‘Wake up, Mama,’ I said gently, holding her hands fast between my own. ‘Mama?’ Why couldn’t she wake up? There was a bottle of pills on her dresser. A big jar with a bright yellow label: COMOBARBITAL – SEDATIVE. Doctor Hardy, I thought. Doctor Hardy has given her these pills to make her sleep. I wondered what Mama would be like now without the pills. Perhaps she might simply wake up, and be just like my old Mama again. But then I had a different thought: perhaps the real world would be too much for Mama now. Too much, and too empty all at once . . .
No, I couldn’t let myself believe that.
I closed my eyes, pressed her pale, thin hands tightly and tried to pour all my strength into her. I thought of how I had felt when I heard the nightingale’s song, and I tried to imagine its magic flooding from my fingers into Mama’s. I wanted Mama to fight, not just for her own sake, not for Father’s or even poor little Piglet’s, but for my sake. For me. I knew it was a very selfish thing to wish, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted my Mama back.
Mama had read to me so many times when I was little; now it was my turn to read to her. I knew exactly which story I should read: Little Briar Rose, the Grimm brothers’ tale of Sleeping Beauty. I knew every single word; I knew the patterns the words made in the air as they rose and fell together. I told Mama the story of the much longed-for princess, little Briar Rose, and the curse of the wicked old wise woman – that Briar Rose would die after pricking her lily-white finger on a spindle. As Mama slept, I told her about the deep sleep that claimed Briar Rose and every other inhabitant of the castle – a sleep that lasted for a hundred years.
My favourite illustration was on the last page of this tale – a view of the castle seen through the hedge of thorns. Through every window you could see the different characters fast asleep – cooks snoozing, dogs dozing, ladies-in-waiting, waiting to be woken . . . The prince was a silver silhouette in the foreground of this picture, dwarfed by the gigantic hedge of thorns.
I read the ending to Mama: the cruel hedge blooming into beautiful roses and parting before the prince; his lonely walk through the silent castle; his discovery of the beautiful Briar Rose beneath a canopy of cobwebs . . .
I kissed Mama gently on the forehead.
And left her sleeping.
It was only the next day that I realized how confused Nanny Jane and the doctor would be when they found the white rose in Mama’s room. I decided to sneak back in to retrieve it that morning, but I didn’t have a chance. Nanny Jane had made plans.
Mrs Berry’s husband, Archie, owned a pony and trap, and Nanny Jane had asked Mr Berry to drive us to the seaside for the day. Mrs Berry was given strict instructions on when to check on Mama and deliver her meals and medicine, and she gave us an enormous picnic basket filled with sandwiches, pork pies, sausage rolls and bottles of lemonade.
At about nine o’clock, the little old-fashioned trap rolled into the driveway, pulled by a sturdy brown pony. Down hopped Mr Berry. It was the first time I had met him properly. Nanny Jane had told me he had fought in the war and been injured. He had a stammer too, she said. Mr Berry hadn’t worked since coming back from France. He just did odd jobs in the garden at Hope House and he usually brought Mrs Berry to work in the mornings and collected her each night. He nodded and smiled when Nanny Jane introduced me to him. Then he spoke to the pony very gently, stroking its thick, woolly neck.
‘Steady there, Bert old boy,’ he said.
I helped him heave the bulging basket into the trap and he added armfuls of the seaside things Nanny Jane had managed to assemble. The sea was walking distance from Hope House. From the attic window, it had looked like it would take about an hour or so, walking straight across the fields – but not with the baby, and not with all the paraphernalia Nanny Jane insisted on bringing . . . Mr Berry packed in the blankets, towels, changes of clothes, hats and bats and balls and painted tin buckets to make sand castles. I had no intention of making sandcastles. I wanted to stay at home. I wanted to see Mama again. I climbed up into the trap with what Nanny Jane called ‘a face like thunder’. Unfortunately, the sky looked nothing like thunder – it was a deep, summery blue, strewn with fluffy white clouds.
Doctor Hardy arrived in his motor car just as we were leaving. Mr Berry’s pony stamped and shied away from the growling metal beast. Nanny Jane was locking the front door and she opened it again for the doctor to go in.
‘Not up to anything too exciting, I
hope?’ I heard him say. ‘The child really ought to be resting, like her mother.’
‘Just a quiet drive to the seaside,’ Nanny Jane replied steadily. ‘I thought the sea air might do her good. She can sit quietly and do a little . . . embroidery.’
‘Excellent, excellent,’ he said. He patted his bulky doctor’s bag: ‘I’ll be able to carry out a few more tests on Mrs Abbott while you’re out.’
Tests? What sort of tests?
Then he lowered his voice and said something I couldn’t hear to Nanny Jane, looking straight at me as he spoke. Nanny Jane nodded and looked straight at me too.
‘Perfect weather for a trip to the seaside,’ Nanny Jane said cheerfully as Mr Berry flicked the reins and we set off.
‘Where exactly d’you fancy, Miss?’ called Mr Berry. ‘A p-peaceful sort of spot or somewhere with deckchairs and ice cream?’
‘Peaceful, I think,’ Nanny Jane called back (just as I was about to vote for ice cream), ‘though we’ll need – hygienic facilities.’ She clutched Piglet tightly as we turned the corner on to the road.
‘I know just the p-place,’ Mr Berry replied.
The drive took about a quarter of an hour. We trotted through the flat farmland – vast fields of crops on both sides and an enormous blue sky above. There was a breeze, and my hair blew around my face. I closed my eyes for a moment. We must have driven past a row of tall trees, as the sunlight flickered on my closed eyelids like a cinema projection. I breathed deeply, smelling the clean, salty air of the sea and, as we passed a field of cows, the warm, farmy smell of animal dung. I wrinkled my nose and Nanny Jane laughed. It was pointless sulking when Nanny Jane was determined to have fun.
I was imagining piers and promenades, brass bands, noisy crowds and the shriek of hungry seagulls. What greeted us as we climbed from the cart was something altogether more beautiful: a copse of pine trees, a little hotel, sand dunes tufted with blue-green grass, a broad white beach – and the sea. It shone like a jewel under the summer sun, stretching into the distance until you couldn’t tell where it ended and the sky began.
