Halfmen Of O

by Gee, Maurice

  ‘I’m not blind.’

  ‘You are unsighted. The yellow smoke did that. Nick was unsighted too, but I gave him Shy. Now he can see.’ She opened her fingers and Susan saw a plain little grey flower lying on her palm. It was shaped like a snowdrop. Susan was disappointed. She had expected something wonderful; although, she thought, the name Shy should have warned her. She wondered how this dull little flower could help her.

  ‘Take it,’ Breeze said. ‘We found a patch of ten, and said the prayer and made the apology. Now it is yours.’

  Susan took the flower. She laid it awkwardly on her palm. ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Hold it in your fingers. Smell it the way you would smell a rose. The Shy will release its scent. It lasts only a moment. Breathe in deep.’

  Susan was nervous. She remembered the yellow smoke and wanted no more magic of that kind. But she trusted these people. Breeze had healed her. So, with an uncertain smile, she lifted the flower to her nose and breathed in. For a moment nothing happened, she smelt nothing. Then something seemed to break in the flower. A waft of perfume rose about her face. It was cold as snow and delicate as a breeze, sweet yet astringent, like lemon blossom. It raced through her quick as water, reaching through her brain and through her body. It set everything singing and vibrating. The world in front of her sprang out like a darkened room when the light goes on. Susan gave a cry of wonder and delight. Wildwood stood before her in its colours. The sun rolled yellow in the sky. The trees were like green and golden cities. Bright birds fluttered in their upper levels. The stream was transparent blue, the grass was green, and berries bright as lipstick clustered on the bushes. She looked at her palm – her own pink palm – and the Shy lay there, bright blue as the sky.

  Nick was grinning at her. ‘Better than colour TV.’

  ‘Oh, Nick, it’s wonderful. I never want to leave.’ There were colours she had never seen and could not name. And when she looked at Breeze and Verna she saw their skins were a beautiful muted colour, like red copper. Their hair, their fur, had folds of gold and green and bronze, and their eyes shone with a mysterious colour – violet or blue? ‘You’re both so beautiful. And I thought you were grey.’

  Breeze smiled. But she looked sad. ‘See the Shy is dying. It has given scent and now its life is done.’

  Susan looked. The flower in her palm was fading, wilting. Its petals began to curl. Breeze untied a small green bag from her throat. She took the dying flower and put it inside. It was these bags, Susan guessed, that the Woodlanders had used to overcome the Halfmen.

  ‘The Shy has uses,’ Breeze said, ‘even when it withers. It is too much for Halfmen.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Susan said. ‘I’m sorry it had to die.’

  ‘I’m sorry too. We do not pick the Shy unless the need is great. I hope you will not fail us, Susan.’

  Susan did not know what she meant by that. But she shook her head, knowing she had to make a return – the colours, the scents and sounds of Wildwood still overwhelmed her.

  ‘Eat your fern root,’ Nick said.

  Susan looked at it. It was golden-brown. She put it to her mouth and took a bite. The taste was delicious. Nick was right – bananas, but vanilla too and walnuts. She ate greedily.

  Brand said, ‘Now she will travel better. Let us move.’ His fur had the same copper colour as the women’s. His eyes were a deep blue. Everything had changed – the robes were a shadowy green and earthy brown. She looked at her own. She looked at her birthmark. A brown teardrop, a plum-red drop, folding into each other, as though they were lovers – or enemies. She looked at them and felt afraid.

  The little band set off again at a steady jog-trot. Nick and Susan ran side by side, following Brand, with Breeze and Verna at their backs. They went on through the afternoon, moving easily. Susan felt she had the strength to run to the ends of the forest and over the mountains. Brand led them on a way that climbed. From time to time they came out of the trees and moved across the tops of grassy knolls. Looking back, Susan saw the forest shimmering and breathing under the sun. Further off, an oily iridescent haze marked the lowlands where the Halfmen lived. She wondered where Odo Cling was. She pictured him and his guards following along their trail, sniffing like dogs.

  ‘What does Odo Cling look like?’ she asked Nick.

  ‘Black and grey. He doesn’t change.’

  At nightfall they ate and drank again and Susan lay down on a bed of fern Breeze made for her and slept without dream or movement till dawn. She went to the stream beside the camp and washed. She was anxious to be away. Something told her Odo Cling had come much closer in the night. But when she told this fear to Brand he laughed. ‘No. He is far away. Cling and his men have followed our false trails.’

  All day they travelled at the same hard pace. Now and then a view of mountains opened up ahead. But the forest went on, even though patches of snowgrass grew in the clearings. At midday Dale and Walt climbed into trees – ran up them like monkeys – and came down with fruit shaped like butternuts, and baked them in the embers of a fire. They had the taste of sweet potatoes. Verna brought Susan a handful of blue berries that tasted like guavas. She shared them with Nick through the afternoon.

  The sun was a red ball in the Darkland haze when they came to a high rock wall blocking their path. But Brand made no hesitation. He climbed a dozen steps, pushed through some brambles, and vanished. Nick and Susan followed and found themselves in a narrow passage set with mosses and small flowering plants. Brand beckoned them. They went along a track between walls and after several minutes came out into a valley shaped like a cup, with a grassy floor and trees growing down the sides. A wide-mouthed cave opened at the side of a trickling stream. By the cave an old woman in a blue robe stood and waited.

  ‘That is Marna,’ Brand said.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Marna. Wife of Freeman Wells. She is the one who knows. Come, Susan. She is waiting for you. She has waited many years.’

  They crossed the stream and walked over the springy grass to the cave. Marna watched them. Her deep eyes made no sign of welcome, but burned with emotions that set her trembling – fear, Susan thought, and exultation, and something like love, devotion – was it worship? She stopped, confused.

  ‘Come, child. Close to me. Do not be afraid.’

  ‘I’m not afraid.’

  ‘No, you are not. I see. But you have many questions. I have answers. It is time for you to know what you must do. Show me the Mark.’

  Susan went forward slowly. Nick kept at her side and she was glad. She reached out and held his hand. Marna was strange – strange in some hidden unnatural way – stranger even than Odo Cling; and though she was not afraid she felt a deep unwillingness to hear what it was the woman had to say. She felt it might simply be a cry of love or anguish.

  She came close to Marna. Cautiously she raised her hand and showed her wrist. The birthmark seemed to glow in the fading light. And Marna’s eyes burned bright. She bent close to the mark. She raised a stick-thin finger, brought it close, just as Odo Cling had done. But in a moment she stopped and drew it away.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said in a strange light voice, ‘it is the Mark. You are the one. I have seen it before and will never forget.’ Tears ran from her eyes and dropped on Susan’s wrist. There was a sadness here deeper than any Susan had ever seen, and she felt an urgent desire to comfort Marna and make her happy. She did not know how.

  ‘You can touch it,’ she whispered.

  ‘What?’ the old woman said.

  ‘Please touch it if you want to. If it will help.’

  ‘Help?’

  ‘Don’t be frightened. It won’t hurt. It only hurts the Halfies.’

  Marna laughed. It was a sound soft and calm but infinitely sad. She touched Susan gently on the brow. ‘Thank you, Susan. Thank you, child. But no, I cannot touch. I am not a Woodlander. I am not like Brand and Breeze and Verna. Ah, no. Darkland is the place where I was born. I am like Otis Claw and Odo Cling. I am
a Halfie.’

  5

  Marna

  The children and Breeze and Brand ate their meal in Marna’s cave. She fed them soup ladled from a pot bubbling on a fire. They drank water flavoured with berry juice. Nick and Susan looked about curiously as they ate. The cave was deep and high-ceilinged. It was lit by flames burning in frosty globes. Alcoves ran off to the sides, curtained with woven cloths.

  ‘It is my hospital,’ Marna said.

  ‘She is healer to the Woodlanders,’ Breeze explained. ‘When we have broken bones or pains or fevers, or one of us has been mauled by a cat, our friends carry us here and Marna heals us. It was Marna who discovered the Shy.’

  The old woman smiled. ‘I found it, and my husband, Freeman Wells, discovered its use. It was Shy that opened the passage between the worlds. When you go back Shy will make your path.’

  ‘I thought it was the yellow smoke,’ Nick said.

  ‘Ah yes,’ the old woman looked unhappy. ‘The yellow smoke. That is the invention of Otis Claw. Otis Claw was a pupil of Freeman Wells. It was Otis Claw who broke the balance. But eat and drink, then I will tell the story. I must look at my patients.’

  She went off into the alcoves and soon her voice came murmuring out, and once she sang a lullaby so sweet and restful that Nick and Susan felt their eyes begin to close. Marna came back. She had a happier look, as though caring for the sick had lifted her troubles. Her white hair lay in braids upon her back. Her skin had a red-gold glow.

  She said to Susan, ‘One of my patients wishes to talk with you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Come and see. He has been close to death. He wishes you to know that he is sorry.’

  ‘Nick?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll come. It can only be him.’

  And it was Jimmy Jaspers, lying on a low bed in one of the alcoves. He seemed to be shrunken to half his size. Bandages covered the wounds in his chest. His hands lay at his sides but when he saw Susan he held them out. He tried to twist his lumpy face in a smile.

  ‘Sit down, girlie. No? Well, I don’t blame yer. I done some bad things in me time but that was the bloddy worst. You too, younker,’ he said to Nick, breathing painfully. ‘Guess I would’ve done the same to you. Sent the pair of yer off to the works like a couple of bobby calves.’

  Susan stopped clear of the reach of his hands. She did not know whether she was glad to see him or not. ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘I woulda been. They stuck me like a pig. But them little sheilas in green dresses give me some stuff to swaller. Saved me life, I reckon. Carried me down on a kind of stretcher. Give me to old nursey here.’ He waved at Marna. ‘She knows a thing or two. Give me some bloddy flower ter sniff and I seen what a ratbag I am.’

  ‘Is he going to be all right?’ Susan said to Marna.

  ‘Yes. The wounds were deep. But Breeze was there in time. He nearly died, but by tomorrow evening he will be well.’

  ‘Then I’m headin’ orf after Odo Cling. I’m gunner twist ’is lyin’ head orf ’is shoulders.’

  ‘I thought you might like to come back with us – to our world,’ Susan said.

  ‘Sure I will. When I’ve stomped ’im into the ground.’

  Marna sighed. ‘I have never known good and evil to battle so in a man. Jimmy Jaspers, do you not see, revenge will not bring you happiness? You will let the evil triumph in you.’

  ‘Just fer five minutes, I will. That’s how long it’ll take fer me ter settle things with ’im. Then I’ll be good. Promise yer, nursey. I’ll even stop lickin’ me plate.’ He coughed and a spasm of pain crossed his face. ‘Wish I ’ad some whisky. Or else a cuppa tea. This blackberry juice yer feedin’ me tastes like lolly water.’

  ‘It has kept you alive. And you have had enough talk now. I will give you something to make you sleep.’ She shepherded Susan and Nick back to the curtain.

  ‘Girl,’ Jimmy Jaspers said. Susan turned. ‘I’m sorry. I done some pretty hairy things in me time. Jumped a claim. Stole a horse from me mate. Smash-an’-grabbed a jeweller’s shop once. Did time for that one too. But sellin’ kids. That’s the bloddy worst. I’ll never do that again.’

  ‘All right,’ Susan said. ‘We’ll see you in the morning.’ She still did not like Jimmy Jaspers. She had no doubt he was more bad than good. But somehow seeing him gave her a feeling that in the end everything would be all right. She supposed it was because, like Nick, he came out of her own world. Dropping the curtain on his alcove, she suddenly felt sick with longing for home; the farm, the house, her bedroom and her bed, and especially her parents.

  ‘Nick,’ she whispered, ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Me too. Trouble is, I want to stay here as well.’

  They sat down with Brand and Breeze at the fire. In a moment Marna joined them. ‘He has gone to sleep. Do not be frightened of him, Susan. Shy has helped him find the good in himself. He will not harm you.’

  ‘He’ll harm Odo Cling,’ Nick said.

  ‘Ah yes. He is full of rage and hatred, and turns it all on Cling. But it will not be enough. Next to Cling he is a child. He does not understand what evil is.’

  Susan shivered. Coldness seemed to slide into the cave. She hunched close to the fire. ‘Who is Odo Cling? And Otis Claw? And this mark on my wrist? What is it? And the man who came when I was born? I know it seems impossible but I remember him.’

  Marna smiled sadly. ‘That was a beginning for you, but for him it was the end.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘Freeman Wells. My husband. He has never returned. Perhaps he wanders lost in your world still.’

  ‘No,’ Nick said. Then he wished he had not spoken. Marna and Breeze and Brand had fixed him with looks on which he felt himself squirming like an insect on a pin.

  ‘What do you know, Nick?’ Brand said quietly.

  ‘I heard my uncle and aunt talking about the night he came. There was a storm. He put the mark on Susan and ran away. Uncle Ted found him after the storm. He was – dead. He’d fallen down a cliff and broken his neck. At least, that’s what Uncle Ted thought. But Jimmy Jaspers said the Halfies killed him.’

  ‘Yes,’ Susan said. She was close to weeping. ‘I waited all my life – and all the time he was dead.’

  Marna sighed. For a moment her eyes had burned; now they grew dull. ‘I have told myself he might be living, but it has never been a real hope. I felt his death in my heart. He would have found some way to return.’

  Breeze took her hand. In a soft voice, she began to sing. It was a slow song, full of falling notes. Soon Brand joined in, and at last Marna added her voice. Even the fire seemed to darken. Grief trembled in the air. Then from out of those heavy notes a melody began to grow. Grief remained, but resignation held a place there too; and in the end gladness moved as lightly as a bird, soaring away from the sorrow and darkness of the earth. Listening, wiping their eyes, the children knew that Freeman Wells had found his rest.

  The voices fell silent. The singers let their joined hands fall apart. Brand put wood on the fire. Breeze poured berry juice in the cups.

  ‘That song will be sung while Wildwood lasts. Don’t be unhappy, Susan. He lived a life that gave hope to us all.’

  ‘Yes. But – I wish I could have met him.’

  Marna stirred. ‘You did meet him.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘And Nick. Thank you for your news. Now I can put away my hope and go on with my task.’ She turned to Susan. ‘That is to tell this child what she must do.’

  ‘Can’t I go home?’ Susan said.

  ‘Let me tell my tale. Then you will decide.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I shall have to go back to the beginnings. You have seen our world? You have seen O? How beautiful it is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Humans have always lived in Darkland – though once it had another name, Manhome. And Waterfolk in the rivers and seas. Woodlanders in Wildwood. Birdfolk beyond the mountains, and S
tonefolk under them. That is the way it has been from the beginning. So the story goes. Each folk has its history. And each its dispensation. There have been troubles. And trouble now – greater trouble than the land has known -comes from Humankind.’

  ‘The Halfies,’ Nick said.

  ‘We have not always been Halfies. Only for nineteen turns of our globe. In the beginning, in the ancient days, Humankind tore themselves apart. There was no law, only chaos. Nothing comes from that time but a memory in the blood. Then a wise one came. Some call him Firstman, some Freeman. He found law in chaos. He looked in Man and saw there Good and Evil, and he gave them names and understood them. Then there was a moment when knowledge gave him powers that some would call magical, and others call divine. Some say there is a Creator who used him as an instrument. I cannot say. But Freeman, Firstman, made the Motherstone, and laid the Halves on it, and put Humankind in balance. Chaos stopped. History began. And Humankind lived for many thousands of years free to choose the evil or the good. Alas, there have been countless evil times, vile ambitions dressed up in great names. War and oppression stain the centuries. But the Balance held. The Halves lay on the Motherstone and Humankind stayed in tune with Freeman’s Law. Light and dark contended and held each other in a deep embrace. Yes Susan, that is it, you have the mark on you. There, on your wrist. See how the light bends into the dark, see how dark leans into the light. They hold each other, good and evil. And see, if you look close, in the light there is a spot of dark, and in the dark there is a spot of light.’

  The children looked. ‘I see,’ Nick whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ Susan said. ‘And together they make a perfect circle.’

  ‘That is Man. That is Freeman’s Law.’

  ‘Who broke it?’

  ‘Ah. We come to that. Who robbed the Motherstone? Who broke the Balance?’