The Riddles of Epsilon

by Christine Morton-Shaw

They leaped up and ran, skidding sand from their sandals back to where she sat. The sand scattered all over her skirts and the back of her head. She just flicked it away and stood up slowly, leaning heavily on her stick. From nearer the big fire, one of the children shouted back at her, a rhyme she’d obviously heard before and hated:

  “Mrs. Shilling—smelly hag!

  Teeth need filling—makes you gag!

  Mrs. Shilling—always willing—for a killing—mad old bag!”

  She glared their way, but it was far too dark to see the culprit. Instead she brushed a small shower of sand out of her hair.

  “Tsk. Hardly poetry,” she sniffed. “Nevertheless, I am right. You should be thinking of going back to your bed!”

  “Me? But Mrs. Shilling! I’m fourteen!”

  She sighed down at me tiredly, shook her head.

  “How very shortsighted you are.”

  Then she hobbled off, back toward the big fire where the Coscoroba pole was being raised.

  It wasn’t until she had gone that I saw it in the sand.

  She had been drawing with her finger, all that time.

  A pattern. One I’d seen before. One laid in fossils in Epsilon’s kitchen. One that Mama had laid out in shells on Sebastian’s bed.

  A breeze came from the sea as I stared down at it. It stirred the grains of sand, wiped some of the pattern away.

  I bent closer, afraid it would all get blown away.

  But then I suddenly remembered where else I’d seen it before—why it was already oddly familiar to me. I’d seen it before on a wall! Which wall?

  Epsilon’s? Yes . . . something on the bedroom wall in Epsilon’s cottage! But what? Maybe . . . the star charts?

  But as soon as I realized this, Mrs. Shilling’s voice spoke in my head, low and urgent. You need to think about going back to your bed, Mrs. Shilling had said. To your bed.

  Sebastian’s bed. My bed. The swan bed.

  “Master Cork is a gifted man . . . . There is a small space hidden behind one of the swans . . . . I forget so many things . . . .”

  Master Cork hadn’t carved just the Coscoroba, I remembered. He’d carved my bed. My massive old bed, with four swans carved into the headboard.

  I turned and ran, all the way back up the cliff path.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  MY DIARY—BACK HOME, 10 P.M.

  It wasn’t hard to find, not really.

  I ripped the pillows off, stared at the swans on the massive headboard. Touched them gingerly. Pressed and fumbled at the wood. Found it at last.

  It was the left-hand swan, the lower one. As I pressed it, there was a very small click. The whole of the body of the swan slid out and revealed a space hidden behind.

  In the space was a parchment, but this one looked very, very old. Fragile. It was faceup. I could see the symbols clearly—but when I took hold of one corner of it and tugged it out, it started to crumble between my finger and thumb.

  Quickly I grabbed a pen, a scrap of paper from my desk—copied down the symbols written there. The symbols Sebastian—who else?—had hidden.

  Then I ran to my file and turned to where I’d written the whole code down. Quick, quick, translate it! My hands shook as I wrote the words down, one by one, agonizingly slowly. At last, I had it all.

  The Riddle of the Two

  At the feathered head,

  I hang my bed.

  At the feathered breast,

  An ancient rest.

  At the feathered wing,

  The whale doth sing.

  Whale. Something else mentioned a whale. The document called “The Key”—the one that tells me to where to go and find the map. The map that will lead to the tooth.

  In the space below the well

  A map to the tooth lies hidden.

  The space is marked by an infidel

  Whose hand reveals what’s bidden.

  Through merrow hair

  In Neptune’s lair

  Past thirty fingers pale—

  Then hark for a river

  In the dark

  And reach for the spout

  Of the whale.

  It all seems to be describing a cave. A cave below a well.

  So. Time to be practical. If Epsilon is right and Mom decides to wander off into a cave, then I’d better take a flashlight. Even though the very idea of wandering in and out of caves at the dead of night makes my flesh crawl.

  But first I needed to go and look at the star chart.

  I yelled for Domino.

  “Come on, boy! Time for another walk!”

  The cottage is eerie at the best of times. It’s even worse seen by flashlight!

  But my trusty barometer, Domino, seemed okay. In fact, he bounded up the stairs and leaped straight up onto the hammock.

  Anyway, there were the star charts. Two of them. One with the usual stars on it—Orion and the Big Dipper and the Pleiades and stuff. All recognizable patterns. But the other held different constellations. Different stars. Tau and Sadr and Gienah. And sure enough, there was the pattern—the one that was laid out in fossils on Epsilon’s floor. The one Mama had drawn in shells—and Mrs. Shilling had drawn in the sand.

  The patterns were separate constellations.

  But both of them sit side by side in the summer sky.

  This time, I copied it down with all the little blobs in place, representing the different stars. The top shape is (surprise surprise) called Cygnus. The second shape is called Aquila. As to the meaning of that word, your guess is as good as mine.

  It was a quarter past ten when I left, according to Epsilon’s funny little chiming clock. And according to Doc Parker and the other villagers, whatever they did at the Greet really began at midnight. Dedication of the island or something. But what was I supposed to do now? The only person who seemed to be prodding me along right now was Mrs. Shilling. I’d have to go back and ask her.

  I felt like a yo-yo as I set off back to the beach. Up and down, up and down. Domino bounded around my heels. But the closer I got to the beach, the more nervous I felt. Giddy and sick inside, like I needed to throw up. Another feeling grew, too—that every step I took back along the cliff path, I was walking not just into my future, into the next few hours, but I was walking back into the past. Like the past and future were all mixed up, and here was I in the present, lost in the middle of it all.

  Looking down from the top of the cliff path, I could see the fires clearly, strung out along Long Beach. The breeze picked up from the sea; I could taste salt in the air. As I looked outward, there was a wildness in the water—a choppy sea, frothing up into madness. And very faintly, in the gaps between the gusts of wind, I thought I could still hear it. That singsong voice, calling over and over.

  “Jess-i-caah! Oh, Jess-i-caah!”

  Domino didn’t seem to be scared at all, though—he barked down at the waves, then yapped at the rushing clouds. He was fine, my furry little barometer.

  But as I started the climb down the cliff path, I realized how stressed out I was. I knew something would happen to Mom tonight, something I had to try to prevent.

  Inside me there was no knowledge of how to do it. There was nothing but a growing dread.

  “Kitten! Where’ve you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  “Sorry, Dad. Went to get Domino—didn’t see why he should miss out on the fun.”

  “You and that dog! Come on—the kids are having a ball with the Aroundy pole. I’ve got some lovely black-and-whites.”

  “Where’s Mom? Is she okay?”

  “Seems fine! Look, there she is.”

  She was by the big fire with Ely Fingers. It seemed that everyone on Lume was there, too! Mom turned my way as I walked up but looked right through me. Ely didn’t, though. He turned those forget-me-not eyes on me and smiled.

  “Are you all right, Jessica?” he asked.

  “Fine. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “Then why are you panting? Have you been running? You oug
ht to slow down a bit.”

  Why was I panting? It was the very same question I’d asked him, that night when he’d turned up at the lake. He gave me a crooked little smile before he turned away.

  “I notice things,” he said. “Just like you do.”

  Shadows fell everywhere, cast by the fire. Figures danced in the sand, and someone took out a fiddle and began to play. Mom just stood still and stared out to sea. I watched her, and that dread came and knotted all together in a small ball in my stomach. Was I going to throw up? I needed to walk, to breathe deeply, to get away from them all.

  So I slunk away from creepy Ely and went to the shore, calling Domino all the time. But he’d run off somewhere, farther down the beach. (And yep, I was right. I was going to be sick. Oh, great!)

  Around the gossip fire, women still sat, rocking infants in their arms. They smiled and waved at me as I passed. I waggled my fingers at them, but to tell you the truth, I was hurrying like crazy. If there’s one thing I hate doing, it’s throwing up in front of anyone else. And that ball in my stomach grew harder and harder until I rushed out of the last flickering light of the gossip fire, bent over, and threw my barbecue up all over the sand. I retched and retched until there was nothing left but a sour taste. I scooped sand up over the mess with my foot. Then I went shakily on to the last fire, wiping my mouth.

  Mike in the red beret sat there—with Domino curled up on his knee!

  “Domino! Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

  “I think he was too comfortable to care,” said Mike.

  “Well, you should be honored. He’s normally so fussy.”

  To tell you the truth, I didn’t really fancy yakking to a half-tipsy man so far away from the main fire. But just then he reached out his hand to me. In his hand there was a crisp white handkerchief.

  “Here. It’s okay. You can keep it, I don’t want it back. Go on, take it!”

  I took the hankie and stared down at it, puzzled. He spoke again.

  “Er . . . excuse my impertinence, but you have vomit in your hair. Your nose ring, too. It’s all a bit of a mess.”

  I almost died with embarrassment. Imagine that horrid, horrid man, pointing it all out! I turned away, blew my nose. I struggled to take the nose ring out, wrapped it in the hankie. Stuffed the whole mess into my pocket. Sniffled and snorted and died ten thousand times.

  Then he stood up and began to stride back.

  “Come on, Jess. It’s time for the dedication.”

  I didn’t really want to walk back with him—he made me nervous. But Domino, with a guilty sideways look at me, slunk off and trotted at his heels.

  “Traitor!” I said, and ran to catch him up.

  The dedication started off quite normally. Toasts were drunk, thank-yous said. Why on earth do adults have to laugh so loudly at everything? Hyena laughs, the women worse than the men—except for the times the men were worse than the women. Of course, the punch was flowing freely. Dr. Parker made sure everyone had a full glass before the toasts began.

  As to the toasts—well! They drank to Dr. Parker and all he’d done for them through the year. They drank to the tides that had brought them fish. They drank to Luke Lively, for reminding them all to slow down. They drank to Ely Fingers’s fingers, for mending the best nets to catch the fish. (Are they going to drink to the fish? I wondered. Here they go, drinking to the fish.)

  So they drank to the mackerel and to the schools of herring and to the black-headed greedy gull for not eating the lot. They drank to the evening star for guiding the fishing boats back home. They drank to the fishing boats themselves. By name. I kid you not.

  “To Swift Molly!”

  “To Skipper Jack!”

  “To One Lady of Lume!”

  One Lady again. But there was no time to think—the singing began. They sang sea shanties and toasted the ocean through every song.

  After a while, it all got very silly. I realized it was just fun—just a kind of play they were making up on the spot and then screaming in delight at their own wit. And it was funny—and anyway, I’d managed to snag one of the glasses of punch, so I was starting to giggle a bit myself. Then they called for Fingers. “Let Ely Fingers step forward and toast us all!” they yelled. So Ely Fingers was pushed forward—a bit unsteady on his feet—and began:

  “We drink to the Lemon Squire, the great, useless lump!”

  “To the Lemon Squire!” they cackled. And they lifted their glasses up to Dr. Parker!

  “Here’s to the hand that carves the wood!” (Jerry Cork, who else?)

  “Here’s to the Coscoroba!” (The Aroundy pole, still stuck in the sand, ribbons snapping in the breeze.)

  “Here’s to the Lord of the Inverted Rule!” (What did that mean? I wondered.) They raised their glasses vaguely—to the moon? the sea? It was hard to tell, but the next toast was already beginning.

  “Here’s to the innocent who welcomes him back!”

  Some of the villagers were looking a bit puzzled now, uncertain whom to toast. But Ely raised his glass to Mom, and everyone laughed and joined in.

  I stared across at Mom. Ely Fingers had identified her as the innocent, even if most of the villagers didn’t know what on earth that meant. The innocent who welcomes him back. Poor, innocent Mom, drawn in somehow to something she doesn’t understand.

  Just like Seb’s mama.

  It grew colder, the wind from the sea picking up, bringing the sound of the surging waves. So more wood was piled on the fires, more drinks were poured, the fiddle was struck up again. But every so often, someone else would stand and raise a toast, and the toasts got stranger and stranger.

  “Here’s to the porpoise with its ancient song!”

  “To the porpoise!” they all cried.

  “Here’s to the swan with the sharpest eyes!”

  “To the swan!”

  “Here’s to the snake with its tail in its mouth—here’s to the Ouroborus!”

  “To the Ouroborus!”

  But because there were so many people, they didn’t all get the timing right saying the toast. Some finished a little behind the rest so I heard it a bit staggered: “Ouroborus-borus-borus.” Suddenly I remembered a fragment from Sebastian’s first diary entry. The bit when he was describing me. “In her nose, she wore a silver ring! In ancient times followers of the ’Borus also wore this ring, as a sign to each other. This sign has alarmed me greatly.” Could his word “’Borus” be the shortened version of the word Ouroborus? What did my nose ring have to do with all that, though? So the ancients who revered the ’Borus wore nose rings—big deal.

  Just as I was wondering about it all, Mrs. Shilling came up.

  “What would happen, girl, if a snake were to swallow its own tail?”

  “Er . . . um. Dunno. Why on earth can’t you call me Jess?”

  “It would eat itself, girl. It would get smaller and smaller until it had reduced itself to a single point. Then it would vanish.”

  “So?”

  “Like someone else vanished. Here, on this beach, long ago.”

  “Sebastian’s mama?”

  “Shh! Not so loud. Follow me.”

  I followed her silently all the way to the last fire. She pointed to where the tide frothed and foamed around a huge jagged rock sticking out into the sea. I noticed now that the rock had a sort of thin long bit stretching out—a bit like the neck of a swan. At the end of it, a stone beak was open as if eternally calling.

  “That is Coscoroba Rock,” said Mrs. Shilling.

  She passed me a small tattered card—another of her bird cards. This one was of a swan. I angled it so I could read it in the firelight—read it out loud.

  “LATIN: COSCOROBA COSCOROBA. Common name: The Coscoroba swan. A short-necked swan normally found in South America. Plumage white but occasional examples of black. This species appears to be somewhere intermediate between the swan and the goose.”

  Mrs. Shilling put another bit of wood on the fire. Sparks flew up, then subsided.
I sat down next to her, thinking about where I’d heard about geese.

  “The skipping song!” I said. “The song the children were skipping to, earlier today!”

  “Well, I’m glad you pay attention to some things, at least,” she snapped, and she started to recite the song, softly, looking into the fire the whole time.

  “Winken, Blinken, and Sharry-arry-odd!

  Who is our devil and who is our god?

  Is it a swan or a goosey goosey gander?

  IN jumps the one we call Yolandë!

  “How many feathers does Yolandë bring?

  One-two-three-four-five, we sing.

  OUT jumps the devil and IN jumps god!

  Winken, Blinken, and Sharry-arry-odd!”

  She kept looking out to sea, and when I glanced way down the beach, there was Mike with the red beret. He was standing alone, staring outward.

  “Are you all waiting for someone? For something?” I asked.

  “Not all of us,” said Mrs. Shilling. “Most of them don’t know what’s going on—even less than you do. To them, this is just fun, a garden party, a barbecue.”

  “But to others—just a few—this has a different meaning? A hidden meaning?”

  Nod.

  “So. The Ouroborus is a symbol of . . . someone vanishing.”

  “People say it means many things. Some use it for other evil purposes. On this island, it has always represented the inverted rule. To me, it also represents the innocent.”

  As she spoke, she looked immensely sad. I wondered if she was about to start crying. The thought horrified me.

  I still didn’t know whether to trust her. I mean, here she was prodding me to work things out—but why? What motive? Whose side was she on? I decided I had nothing to lose. Inside me, that ticking, that growing sense of time running out.

  “What am I supposed to do, Mrs. Shilling?”

  She looked back to the main fire, where the children had started their Aroundy dance. As they danced, they sang that chant. Even from here, we could hear the words clearly. “ . . . goosey goosey gander? IN jumps the one we call Yolandë! . . .” Only they were singing both verses together, the children with blue ribbons going one way, the children with gold ribbons going another. So all the words were mixed up.