The First Book of Calamity Leek

by Paula Lichtarowicz

  ‘What do you mean?’ Dorothy said quick.

  I thumped her. ‘We said on no talking, Dorothy.’

  Annie looked at me something funny. ‘Your torch, Clam? Well, Dorothy, it’s just that everything I thought I knew has been turned inside out. Nothing fits right. Like—’ she stopped. ‘Why are you all staring? Is it these clothes? Or is there bad news – is that why you’ve come?’

  ‘We came for you,’ I said.

  Annie frowned and looked quick round us all. ‘That’s nice, I suppose. Shall we poke up the fire, and I can tell you everything I found out? Then we can decide what to do.’

  And for one second, it seemed it was plain-baked Annie, throwing back her curls and chattering on at us. For another second, I was watching her skip to the fire saying, ‘What’ve you brought all that rope for, Nancy? Pig got loose?’

  So Nancy looked at me, and Annie looked at me. And right then and there my heart seams ripped apart in me and cold water poured in the emptiness. So I didn’t need Emily whispering, ‘Stay strong, sister Leek, this is just Him working in her,’ to see it clear as cleansing water – He’d been working in Annie for weeks.

  Ever since Truly fell. He’d got in the Garden then. When Truly lay on that Boule bush and spoke into Annie’s ear, He must have ridden that breath and jumped in and started cooking up Annie then. It was clear in everything she said, and everything she had made us do, even though it weren’t ever right. And who wasn’t to tell me, that rip down my heart wasn’t Him jumping out of her and starting in me?

  Truth be told, I ain’t the clearest memory of what happened next, but I think Emily took over my limbs for me. My sisters say I leaped at Annie, shoving my torch in her face and throwing a fur over her head. ‘Devil-in-Annie be silenced!’ they say I screamed.

  Together we crashed on the ground by the fire.

  The Devil-in-Annie lay unmoving beneath me – happen He’d banged Annie’s head in falling. Off in the orchard an owl screeched. My sisters stood gorming above. And Annie started to groan.

  ‘Sisters, come on,’ I cried. ‘Are you Emily’s Army or are you useless worms? Look at Annie’s clothing, she is drenched in Outside ways. Nancy, bring the rope and tie her quick, before she starts to wriggle.’

  Nancy stared as Annie’s white shoes started to kick about under me.

  ‘Nancy, you worm! Emily commands you to get over here now!’

  And then, thank Emily – because who’s to say whether she didn’t give Nancy’s fat bottom a shove – Nancy came. With a scowl that didn’t want it, but with her feet waddling to Goddess service, Nancy came. Nancy bound Annie’s ankles, and Emily fetched Mary to help me bind Annie’s arms down beneath the fur. Sandra helped me wrap her mouth quiet. Dorothy ran off and was sick in the bog, but never mind, because we got the Devil-in-Annie strung up tight and dumped in the barrow next to Eliza. Though He was making Annie shake and moan, so as Dorothy wondered whether Annie could breathe proper under the fur, I listened for a bit and then I stood up tall and said, ‘It is Devil’s breath, Dorothy, and yes, it looks good enough to Emily and me. Eliza, shine your torch out in front, Nancy, take up this barrow, and let’s get going.’

  We set our steps back for the Sacred Lawn.

  Entering under the Crème de la Crèmes, Annie’s snorts grew worse than a knife-frightened pig.

  ‘Can’t we calm her somehow?’ Mary’s voice whispered in my ear. ‘She sounds awful scared.’

  But there was only one way now to calm Him in her, I told Mary. And He should well be scared of it. And here we were, about to do it, stepping our cold feet on Out of Bounds grass, one after the other in the black night. And me walking up front of everyone. And eighteen-year-old Emily waiting in the Lawn centre, like she’d always been waiting for just this moment, her kindly smile fixed on us, her sisterly army, below.

  I turned back at Mary, white-faced and quivering in the torchlight. ‘Do you know, Mary, I can’t feel the cold in my feet,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that something peculiar?’

  Mary’s face wobbled. ‘Please, Clam, can’t we say one thing soothing to Annie?’

  ‘Emily’s taken all the cold out of the Lawn grass,’ I said. ‘That’s what she’s done. Thank you, Emily. You can say thank you, Mary, if you want.’

  But Mary’s mouth just fell to blubbering.

  And shivering in her fur lump, Annie let off a moan.

  I looked down at Annie, and funny thing was, Emily was heating me so much, I felt strong as a steel blade now. And certain of my aim.

  ‘Halt,’ I said to Nancy. And I walked to the petal bin and checked the water was high and cool. Then I walked up and knelt in front of eighteen-year-old Emily and felt the heat pouring from her kindly blue eyes.

  ‘Never mind me, best get a shift on yourself,’ a voice buzzed in my ear.

  ‘Best get a shift on,’ I said loud and clear, looking round my sisters who were mostly looking at their toes. ‘Eliza, you can stay in the barrow, but shine the torch steady on the bin. Everyone take a piece of Annie. We’ll do it just like we said.’

  In the barrow next to Eliza, the lump of Annie thumped about. My standing sisters shuffled and stared at their toes.

  And whether it was Emily doing it, I don’t know, but I stretched my hand down to Annie’s lump and watched her quieten to my touch. ‘I feel how she wants it,’ I said. ‘She’s ready, sisters,’ I said.

  And I trapped every one of my sisters’ shifting glances, and let the steel in my stare make them strong. ‘Longer we hang about, more of her He heats up,’ I said. ‘Hotter she gets, more heat He spreads to us. More heat He spreads to us, more of us are going to need Him drowning out of us,’ I said.

  Mary was shaking. But when I put her hand under Annie’s shoulder, she kept hold and didn’t let go. I put Nancy on the other side. Sandra went down by Annie’s knees, and I got Dorothy out of being sick in the Crèmes, and placed her opposite.

  Annie kept on moaning. All my sisters were sobbing.

  ‘I’ll take her head,’ I said. ‘We step up on the buckets together. Everyone ready?’

  No one spoke. Except Annie, course, with her moaning.

  ‘How about a song?’ Emily whispered in my ear. ‘How about my song?’

  ‘Let’s sing, sisters,’ I said. ‘Let’s sing out Emily’s song to soothe her. A-one, a-two, a-one-two-three and—’

  My heart is not the first heart broken,

  My eyes are not the first to cry.

  ‘Come on, sisters!’ I shouted. ‘Join in with me.’

  And they did. Slow and mumbling, but they did join in singing. And together we raised our voices to Heaven, and lifted the wriggling, moaning lump of Devil-in-Annie out of the wheelbarrow and up and over the edge of the petal bin, and dropped her deep in cooling water.

  I fastened the lid down. It quietened some of the sloshing.

  ‘Verse one!’ I called out.

  We stepped back off the buckets onto the Lawn, and sang on,

  But there’s nowhere to hide, since you pushed my love aside –

  FISHED OUT TOO SOON

  WE HAD MADE a good start on the second chorus, when a tall body came bursting from the Glamis Castles, roaring like the Devil Himself was burning out its throat.

  Our singing died off.

  The body came charging up the Lawn in a blur of fur, its hair smashing at the night like the wings of an angry bird.

  My sisters jumped down off the buckets.

  The roaring body jumped on them and threw back the bin lid.

  Bone-white arms shot down into the water.

  ‘Wait!’ I shouted. ‘It’s not time yet!’ I shouted. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  But the figure didn’t answer, and Eliza had dropped her torch in fright, so I couldn’t see.

  ‘Halt!’ I screamed at the crazy sploshing sounds. ‘Stop right there!’

  But they didn’t, and it didn’t matter no more, because all my sisters were jumping up on the buckets now to join in the fish
ing.

  ‘Careful!’ Dorothy said.

  ‘Quick!’ Nancy said.

  ‘Easy with her head,’ Mary said.

  And like that, a wet lump of Annie was fished out of the bin, long before we could have drowned the Devil out of her.

  ‘Well, thank you very much, that’s just about ruined that—’ I said, scrabbling about for Eliza’s torch and switching it on. And I turned to glare at whatever sister thought it was a fine game to come and interrupt our Goddess-given work.

  But my mouth dropped wordless. Because stepping back from us, with her face lowered, it weren’t none other than our slowbrained sister, Maria Liphook.

  Must be twenty blinks my eyes did, looking on Maria, staring at her white face, at her black hair, dangled feathery and long. Old as eighteen-year-old Emily, Maria looked, but smileless. Maria’s face was utter smileless. There wasn’t one lunatic grin about her lips no more.

  Dorothy unknotted the ropes, and unwrapped Annie from wet fur. Annie fell in a gasping ball on the grass. Mary ran to the yard to fetch a smock and furs, and Eliza went for hot milk. Annie coughed out water. Dorothy rubbed Annie warm. Mary dressed Annie in must be ten old furs and another for her head. Then Annie hunched herself up and flinched everyone off her, and coughed and coughed and coughed.

  Maria stared at Annie’s heap of wet Outside clothes and shoes.

  We others stood about.

  And there was nothing to be heard but an owl keeping watch on the Wall, Annie coughing, and our cold hearts battering in their boxes.

  Maria looked from Annie’s clothes to us sisters. Her eyes were shining black.

  Mary burst into tears. Dorothy puked. Nancy spat on the Lawn and glared at me. And Eliza curled up in the barrow and pulled her fur over her head.

  ‘We were only—’

  ‘I didn’t want to—’

  ‘Clam said it—’

  I looked over their jelly hearts and I thought, well and good, I’ll be the one who speaks the bone-marrow truth, shall I? ‘We were drowning Annie of the Devil, that’s all, Maria. She weren’t never going to be killed proper. We were going to fish her out when her heart had cooled down. Emily said it was the only way. And now you’ve stopped it, Maria, the Devil is still cooking her up, and soon He will cook us all. And furthermore to everything, it’s a rotten old trick to go being dumb for years, and then start up roaring for Annie, after it was me that tried so long to progress you. Even though Nancy said I shouldn’t have bothered.’ I sniffed back snot. ‘It so ain’t fair, Maria Liphook, it ain’t.’

  Maria didn’t look to have heard me. She turned and started walking off north, towards the yews. Like that was that. Like no manner of explanation was needed.

  ‘Wait up!’ I shouted. ‘You can’t just go off, Maria, that ain’t fair neither. And that ain’t the path for the yard, Maria. That’s the wrong way.’

  But her feet weren’t stopping.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me, Maria? Or are you turned slowbrained again, is that it?’

  ‘Maria, please.’ This was Annie’s voice, calling out behind me. Annie’s voice, shouting strong. ‘Will you please come back, just for a minute?’

  And Maria stopped then, she did, straight off she stopped and she turned. And truth be told, I couldn’t see one drop of slobber on her lips. And I looked up at eighteen-year-old Emily smiling on her plinth, and I had to wonder about miracles then.

  ‘Will you come and sit with me?’ Annie said, flinging back her wet hair, her eyes gleaming on Maria, but not on us. ‘Will you come back and keep me safe from them?’

  Course, Dorothy sobbed at that, and so did Mary. But no one said nothing.

  And this Maria, who both did and didn’t look like our slowbrained sister, turned to Annie and she nodded. Stepping careful like a sleepwalker, Maria did come back.

  Annie opened her furs and tried to wrap them both inside. We others stood about watching. Watching so hard and silent, that after a bit Annie sighed all cross and said, ‘Well, all right, don’t just stand there gorming. You can sit down, you know. Only not too close. I don’t actually want none of you touching me. Never again, you hear? And I don’t want to speak to none of you, never again neither.’

  ‘Oh, Annie,’ Dorothy sobbed. ‘Oh, Annie, I’m sorry.’

  Mary let out a wail.

  Nancy thumped me.

  Annie turned her head from Dorothy’s words and Mary’s tears, but never mind, we did go up and sit near them, we did.

  For a good while no one said nothing.

  Annie huddled into Maria and shivered. Maria kept her eyes on Annie’s Outside clothes pile. A bat spun a circle about the Lawn border. And we others sat about staring into the cold grass or over at the rose bushes or up into the inky night, and we said nothing.

  And truth be told, it got to seeming no one would talk to no one else ever again. Except that then Maria started talking.

  Yes, Maria looked down at Annie’s clothes and she started talking.

  Now, I should say, first off, the words came out of her as soundless as smoke. But after a bit they began to grow stronger and harder, and after a bit more they hatched themselves into full and proper meaning. And what Maria said was this.

  ‘I wasn’t cheating you, sisters. Not on purpose, I wasn’t—’ She stopped to rub her ears, like the sound of herself was something strange to her. ‘Dumb. Being dumb—’ she said and stopped to rub her throat.

  Out of nowhere, that Kathy Selden cat appeared, and jumped into Annie’s lap. We others inched closer to hear Maria easier. Eliza’s torch shone down from the barrow, spreading our shadows behind us like rotten petals from a rotten bloom. Kathy Selden began to purr. And Maria started up again.

  ‘I did – I did lose my senseful voice. For years I did. Locked in blackness Maria got lost to Maria. So – so how was a lost Maria ever to find herself?’

  Maria stared at the Lawn and shook her head. ‘So much in me is fog. Like it’s one lonely day, rolling over and over. All fog.’

  ‘What do you remember that isn’t?’ Annie said all quiet, her eyes on her hands that were stroking the cat. ‘You must remember something clear.’

  Seemed Maria looked up then and smiled for a second, seemed so. Then her eyes dropped down. ‘Trees.’

  ‘Plum trees?’

  ‘Not plums. Outside. The smell of trees Outside. I remember them.’

  Mary gasped. ‘You went Outside?’ And for sure, Mary weren’t the only one boggle-eyed at this. ‘You – Loonhead Liphook – went Outside?’

  ‘The Wall wasn’t high then. The bees went over easy. I was six. I went over easy. Grey stone is easy to climb. The smell of the trees, I liked that best. Sweet and sharp as a scratch on your nose. I think about that smell. I think about where the bees still go.’

  ‘What about injuns?’ Dorothy said. ‘Did you see any injuns Outside?’

  Maria shook her head all slow, like moving was new to her and she had to go at it careful.

  Dorothy looked at Annie. Annie shrugged.

  ‘So you never hit sense from your head on the bricks?’ Mary said.

  ‘Not on the Wall to Outside, no.’

  ‘But that’s what the Appendix said happened to you,’ I said. ‘The Wall bricks damaged your brain, Maria. That’s what happened. It’s down in the Bs.’

  She gave her head the slowest, saddest shake.

  Annie laughed sudden and bitter. ‘That ain’t the only question about the Appendix, believe me.’

  I threw her a look. She flung back her wet curls and stared back steady at me. Steady and hard and iced all over.

  ‘Mother said Maria was a disappointment,’ Maria said. ‘No Spitting Image of her daughter. A waste of face and space. If Maria was trying to run away, she should be shut up good and proper. Once and for all. It was Aunty kept Maria hid. Said, “Shush, little niece. Call me soft-hearted, but I can’t do it. Mother will change her mind one day. You keep safe down here a while.”’

  ‘But things can’t grow without
daylight,’ Dorothy said. ‘How were you to grow in the Hole?’

  ‘Some things do. If they learn to. If they have to.’

  ‘Slugs do,’ I said. ‘Earthworms and millipedes do. Woodlice, beetles and earwigs like the dark best of all. Did you know you were eating them, Maria?’

  Maria smiled so sad it made me wish she hadn’t bothered.

  ‘And you did grow tall, didn’t you, Maria? Even in the dark.’

  ‘Maybe a body wants to live more than you think it does. I don’t know. But me, I couldn’t think of never smelling them trees again. One time when the memory came strong, when you were all playing noisy in the yard, I decided on killing myself. I reckoned the Devil’s Bowels that Aunty told me about would at least have other bodies in the flames to play with. Least it was not the lonesome black that I hid in.’

  Maria stopped and rubbed her throat. An aeroplane roared above us, flashing its night eyes at the sky lid. A horned snail snuck along eighteen-year-old Emily’s toes.

  Maria’s eyes moved over our faces. Black as coal balls, them eyes rolling over us. ‘Course we slaughter pigs and cockerels no problem. But see, sisters, self-killing ain’t easy. A fly could go mashing its face on a window. A dog might bite its own leg off and bleed away slow. But there ain’t a thing on a sister’s body to do it for her. And they say we’re cleverest in the Garden.’

  ‘So you stopped trying,’ I said. ‘Well, good, Maria, that’s good.’

  ‘I screamed for Aunty to help me do it.’

  ‘Well, she wouldn’t, Maria,’ I said. ‘You being an asset to her, like us all.’

  She looked at me, and this time her eyes didn’t move off. ‘You weren’t going to drown the Devil out of Annie. Because He ain’t in there. No, far as I know it, He’s in lonely bits of time where there ain’t no laughter, nor any light to see by. This is what I know about the Devil.’ Her voice was rusting away. ‘But enough, sisters. I saw the look in Annie’s eyes when she came back through the Wall. I want to go Outside. I want to touch them trees. That’s what I want.’