The Enchanted Flute

by James Norcliffe

  ‘I must get to Johnny,’ she announced to the fauns, casting all thoughts of the motorcyclist to one side. The longer she left off warning him or somehow extricating him, the more likely it would be he might suddenly find himself turned into a pot roast and washed down with beer.

  The three little creatures exchanged worried glances.

  ‘You must take me to the cottage of Silenus,’ she insisted, ‘or at least put me in its direction.’

  ‘But …’ protested Sylvester.

  ‘But what?’ demanded Becky.

  ‘But it is very dangerous,’ said Figaro. ‘Just last week my own brother …’

  Becky glanced at Sylvester, who gave a warning shake of his head. She had been on the verge of anger, of accusing the little creatures of unnecessary caution. Time was critical. She had no idea how long it would take to get to Silenus’s cottage, but she knew instinctively she would need to leave at once.

  At the same time, the thought that Figaro’s brother had ended up in the stew that she had inadvertently eaten gave her pause.

  ‘I do understand,’ she said, far more gently than she meant, ‘but my friend Johnny must be rescued before it’s too late. Surely you see that?’

  Again the three shuffled and exchanged glances.

  With an effort of will, Becky remained patient. ‘I’m not asking you guys to actually rescue him,’ she said. ‘All I want you to do, is set me in the right direction. You must let me try.’

  It was so frustrating. Becky felt a growing agitation. She did not feel especially courageous and had no idea how she could go about extricating Johnny Cadman, but she knew she could not possibly live with herself if she had a chance to help him but flagged it away.

  ‘Please!’ she implored.

  ‘What if you are caught yourself?’ asked Damon.

  ‘I won’t be caught!’ Becky insisted, with a confidence she did not really feel.

  ‘If you are caught, you could lead the hunter back to this place,’ argued Figaro.

  ‘I would not!’ Becky remonstrated.

  ‘You might not have a choice,’ said Figaro flatly.

  Becky saw where he was coming from. Self-preservation was all. He had no sense of the danger to Johnny, or even of the danger to Becky herself. His only worry was the danger to himself and the other fauns. Suddenly Becky realised what she should have realised earlier: that having been brought to this place, she herself was a threat to the fauns.

  Suddenly their shifty indecision took on a new and sinister complexion. Had she been taking the fauns at face value, too? They seemed to be such slight and harmless creatures. Were they? What if they saw Becky as a threat? Had they brought her to this place not to protect her, but rather to protect themselves?

  The only way they could avert this threat was to keep her in this grotto. Was this why they were so reluctant to let her go? According to this logic, would they ever be able to let her go?

  Becky glanced up at the fringed circle of light dizzying metres above. It seemed as far away and as inaccessible as any possible solution to her problem.

  She glanced again at the three reluctant little fauns. She was far bigger than any one of them. Could together, though, they overpower her? If it came to that, did they have powers she did not know about?

  She felt suddenly helpless. She needed their help and they were loath to give it. Even were she to push them aside and make her way down the corridor to the waterfall cave she would have no idea where to go.

  Time, too, was running out. Already it must be late afternoon.

  It was an impasse, and Becky felt suddenly lost and afraid.

  And then to her huge relief, her galloping fears were put to rest.

  ‘Do not feel distress, girl-child,’ whispered Sylvester. ‘We will help you.’

  Becky, who had looked away and was dabbing at her eye, looked back in some surprise. The little faun who had led her to the grotto was looking at her gravely and with some concern.

  ‘We have little to give except timidity. Forgive us if we seem heartless, it’s just that since our master left we have been bereft and buffeted …’

  Becky waited. This was not a promising beginning.

  ‘So we have had to learn stealth and disguise and learnt to avoid danger, not to provoke or tempt it.’

  Becky nodded.

  ‘It is now beyond our nature to confront the likes of the hunters. Because of this, Silenus and his ilk make mincemeat of us.’

  Literally, thought Becky. It was not a pleasant thought.

  The little faun’s explanation was so touching she felt uncomfortable.

  ‘We can lead you to the river flat, but no further,’ said Damon.

  It seemed a huge concession. Figaro, though, still looked troubled. He glanced doubtfully at his fellows and Becky sensed he had misgivings still.

  ‘It is not a good idea,’ he whispered.

  Becky could understand his fears. She considered the situation and then proposed a compromise idea she hoped would allay his doubts.

  ‘Why couldn’t I be blindfolded?’ she suggested. ‘That way I’ll have no idea where I’m going or where I’ve been. It doesn’t matter what Silenus does then, there’s no way I could lead him back to this place and your secret will be safe.’

  This suggestion seemed to placate Figaro and he turned to the others with some relief, a small nod and a confirming smile. There was another exchange of glances, conspiratorial nods, and then Sylvester hurried across to a large wicker basket and returned with a sprig of leaves.

  ‘Take this,’ he said. ‘It may be of use.’

  Becky took the sprig curiously and then asked, ‘But what is it? How can this be useful?’

  ‘If you crush one of these leaves and slip it into the hunter’s beer, he will sleep long and deeply. Otherwise he is ever alert, despite appearances and escape will be impossible …’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Becky, slipping the sprig into her shirt pocket. Having tried to sleep through Silenus’s violent snoring she doubted the little faun’s claim that the creature was ever alert, but she was beginning to distrust her judgement. She had made too many mistakes already.

  The journey down the mountainside was a strange disorienting experience for Becky. A black scarf had been wound and wound around her eyes and face, and securely bound behind her head. She had been gently led like the centrepiece in a daisy chain, with Sylvester leading her by her right hand and Damon steadying her by taking her left. Some parts of the journey were painfully slow, especially where there were streams and rocks to negotiate.

  The trip seemed to take forever, and Becky began to fear that if and when she finally reached the cottage of Silenus, she would be too late. Strangely, too, much of the going seemed to be uphill rather than down, so much so that Becky began once more to think that she had misplaced her trust yet again and that the fauns were engaged in some elaborate act of betrayal. Were they in fact leading her away from the cottage, not towards it? This was almost enough to make her want to pull the mask from her face. Somehow, though, she managed to maintain her trust, and this was encouraged when finally they seemed to be making their way down a sustained slope, stopping and starting at times but ever descending.

  Eventually, the party came to rest on what was clearly level ground. Becky felt fingers at the back of her head fumbling with the knot. She presumed they had reached the valley floor, so instead was a little surprised to find herself once again in the grassy glade where she and Johnny had found the basket of fruit.

  As Becky blinked in the last of the late afternoon light, Sylvester whispered, ‘This is as far as we dare go, girl-child. You will no doubt remember the way from here. Follow the slope down the hill to the plain below and then turn right. Eventually you will come to the hunter’s house.’

  Becky nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

  Figaro gave her a little smile and said, ‘Rest here until dusk. Then descend. It will be safer for you to travel the remaining distance in the moon
light, staying close to the trees.’

  It was good advice, Becky thought. She smiled back and again murmured her thanks. Then nodding and bowing with courtly courtesy the three little creatures backed away from her, into the trees, and disappeared.

  The sun was now low in the sky and Becky guessed she would not have long to wait until dusk set in. The grass was soft and inviting. Somewhat less plagued by troubles and fears than she had been in the grotto and also considerably more tired, Becky lay down and gratefully closed her eyes.

  She must have slept, for when she awoke the sky was a steel blue with the first stars twinkling and there were tiger-stripe shadows stretching across the glade from the trees on the far side. Becky climbed to her feet, yawned and stretched. The forest seemed alive with birds calling and echoing. She thought it best to make her way down to the valley floor before the light deteriorated further, and so without hesitation she hurried across the glade and plunged into the forest’s more shadowy depths.

  The slope was deceptively steep and Becky at times had to launch herself from tree trunk to tree trunk to avoid falling and sliding. Night was descending ever more quickly and in the mossy gullies visibility was sometimes very poor. The bird noise gradually gave way to a deeper silence that was not reassuring. Becky remembered Sylvester’s constant apprehension as he had led her to the waterfall, an apprehension that had not disappeared until he was in the safety of the cave.

  He had refused to explain this fear. It could not have been just the possibility of Silenus. Were there other hunters? What of wild animals? This was a strange and mysterious land, far from the innocuous countryside she was familiar with. These forests could still be the haunt of bears, of wolves or of lions. There could well be other creatures she had no knowledge of. Serpents, perhaps. Silenus had hinted at centaurs. She had spent most of the day in the company of fauns. This could well be a world of wild creatures, of fractious gods and demi-gods.

  Now every creaking tree seemed to harbour menace of some unspeakable sort, every snapping branch seemed to scream a message to some unnamed predator. Becky forced herself to slow down so that her progress was not so clumsily noisy. She remembered how the fauns were able to glide silently, imperceptibly from point to point. She remembered how she imagined Sylvester must have thought her an elephant. In the deepening shadows she paused, listening, looking fearfully around. She felt like an elephant now in the deeper grey elephantine gloom. What a target she must present, she thought. Her legs great clumping things, her arms like a swaying trunk, every breath a rasping trumpet summoning danger.

  It was very hard to convince herself that she was imagining things when creatures of her imagination loomed so large and there were mysterious noises everywhere suggesting menacing presences. Her progress now was stilted. She would make for the dubious safety of a large tree, stop, listen, and when she was confident nothing was about to leap out at her, she would make a mad flurry for the next large tree lower down. In this stop-start manner she made slow but erratic progress, so that when finally the slope levelled, the trees thinned, and the valley floor was just beyond, darkness had all but fallen, stars glittered in the sky and a white gibbous moon hung in the sky just beyond the river.

  The moonlight and the clear night meant that her path was clear, but Becky remembered Figaro’s sound advice. Instead of crossing the valley floor she stayed close to the hillside and followed the line of trees, hidden in the shadows. Although still a little worried about what strange beasts might be lurking in the forest, Becky was now more concerned about being seen out in the open.

  The ground beneath was rough and filled with pitfalls and stretching, treacherous roots. Despite the moonlight, her progress was little faster than it had been on the forested slopes.

  After a few hundred metres of halting progress, another problem presented itself: she estimated that Silenus’s cottage was perhaps a kilometre or so down the valley from the point where she and Johnny had descended the hillside. Even so, she remembered the distance being deceptive. Distances in the darkness would be even more deceptive, but this time she was travelling between the cottage and the hills and there would be no tell tale smoke to guide her. It would not be at all easy to locate the cottage from this rear angle. It might not be possible at all.

  What could she do?

  Becky felt tears welling up again. It was all so frustrating and so horrible. She had not asked for any of this. Why had she stopped outside that sleazy little pawnshop with its sleazy little owner with his stained armpits and ingratiating manner? She remembered part of her resisting the flute even as her mother yielded to the temptation to buy the bloody thing. Had something warned her even then? The whole purchase was an elaborate game: Donna had been given the opportunity to do something sacrificial and wonderful for her daughter, something she needed somehow desperately to do. Becky, sensing that desperation, yielded to it.

  In that sense, Becky was not buying a flute; she was accepting her mother’s love.

  It was confusing.

  And it was horribly ironic. For the flute was not the gift her mother would have given had she the slightest inkling of what it all meant. Had her mother known she was not buying a flute, but a first-class ticket to a nightmare, she would have marched out of that shop leaving that awful man to wallow in his armpits and cheap aftershave.

  And yet …

  Had there been a choice?

  Since seeing the vision of the maid Syrinx in the dark waters of the enchanted wellspring, Becky had lost a lot of her certainty. Whatever it meant, whether she were somehow a Syrinx reborn or a human vessel the spirit of Syrinx had taken over, perhaps she had been fated to find and acquire that flute. If this were the case, both she and Donna were simply puppets dancing to an age-old design and could have done nothing to prevent it, just as Becky could not play anything on the flute but that one mysterious melody.

  And where had that design, that choreographed dance led?

  Inexorably to Arcady House and the decrepit figure in the wheelchair on the lawn.

  That figure had been the magnet and Becky had been nothing more than an iron filing.

  She remembered doing Twelfth Night with Gingernut McDonald in English the previous year. If music be the food of love, play on … Music had been the food of something for Dr Faunus. The food of life? Certainly her playing the flute had brought about an amazing change. Each time she’d stood by the trees and played that Debussy piece, the music had wafted across the lawn like some life-bringing vapour. Strange.

  The first time she’d approached the old man his flesh had seemed like paper. Dry, desiccated, like an autumn leaf that could crumble into dust if you squeezed it in your hand. But after she’d played the music a few times … Johnny Cadman had seen it. It was as if the flute were some kind of bicycle pump and the music were pumping life into the old man. Not life, really, no — vitality, youth.

  The thing was, she’d had no choice in any of this. She was just an iron filing.

  She and Johnny Cadman had been so puzzled by how this was happening, they hadn’t paused to ask why it was happening.

  Now that she had seen herself reflected as Syrinx, Becky was beginning to suspect she knew the answer.

  And it was not a pleasant answer.

  Not pleasant at all.

  As the evening ever deepened, Becky eventually considered she must be within a relatively short distance from the cottage of Silenus. Accordingly, she left the shadowy margin of the hillside and cautiously made her way across the valley floor in the direction of the river. She felt there would probably be enough moonlight for her to see the white smoke from the chimney, and if not, she might be able to see the flickering yellow lights of the lamps from behind Silenus’s mullioned windows.

  All the same, she felt quite disoriented in the darkness and unable to estimate distances. Her progress, because of the need to take care over the uneven ground, was slow. Every now and again, too, the darker shape of a bush or scrubby shrub loomed before her
and she had quickly learnt to avoid these, as often they bore sharp thorns that pricked her flesh or snagged at her jeans.

  Eventually she figured that she was perhaps halfway between the hillside and the river, and so she turned right to trudge carefully down the valley in the direction of the cottage.

  Now and again she paused to listen intently, not just for the sound of danger, but also for the sound of wild concertina playing and the braying singing of a drunken Silenus.

  At such times, she found herself lost in an eerie silence except for a far off whisper that may have been the wind in the forest or the susurration of the distant river as its braided streams tumbled over the rocks and gravel washed down from the mountains. There was no accordion, no crazed singing.

  Whenever she paused, too, she would peer into the distance, scanning left and right for any tell tale gleam that might suggest the light in the cottage. All was generally dark, although as she now had a certain amount of night vision, she could make out the humped shadows of bushes nearby and the silhouettes of the hillsides near and far. The sky itself was now a spangled bowl and the moon a sliced circle of white in the sky.

  Finally, almost as she was despairing of finding it and fearing she had missed it altogether, Becky felt sure she could see a faint flickering to her right in the distance.

  With a small gasp of relief she hurried forward, hoping against hope that she was not mistaken. She stopped more regularly now to check the distant flicker, and each time felt more and more sure.

  Gradually the flicker turned into a gleam and then there could be no mistake at all.

  At this point, Becky paused to consider her options. Silenus was a huge man. She had no wish to knock on his door and present herself to him like some glad-wrapped package. Somehow, she would have to alert Johnny to the danger and try to get him out of Silenus’s clutches without the big man being aware of what was going on.

  This could be very tricky.