The Little Country

by Charles de Lint

  At low tide there could be seen, scattered here and there beyond the quay, the hulls of rotting boats and broken spars‌—a miniature graveyard for that part of Bodbury’s small fishing fleet that had fallen victim to the last great storm to hit the town, twenty years ago.

  Bodbury’s harbouring business was carried out in New Dock now, situated in that part of the town where Market Street opened onto Market Square, and the Old Quay lay abandoned to all but wharf rats, some few old-timers who strolled the stone walkway in the afternoons, reliving memories of other days, and the children of the Tatters who considered the entire area their own private domain.

  When Jodi arrived, Ollie asleep in her jacket, a small gaggle of the latter were busily arguing over a game of Nine Men’s Morris that two of their company were playing. They had scratched a board on one of the quay’s flagstones and were using pebbles and shells for markers. As Jodi approached, they turned grubby faces in her direction.

  “Hey, granny,” one red-haired boy said, giving her a lopsided grin. “Have you come to throw that ugly babe into the sea?”

  To them, anyone over the age of twelve was too old and fair game for their teasing.

  “Lay off the poor old woman,” another said. Jodi glanced in his direction and recognized Peter Moyle, the son of one of her aunt’s working girls. “Can’t you see she’s got enough troubles as it is, all bent over and ancient as she is?”

  A chorus of good-natured laughter spread among them.

  “You see?” Jodi asked her sleeping burden. “I’m the low rung on every ladder. Denzil’s assistant. Black sheep of the family. Too much the girl to be a boy, too much a boy to be a girl. Relegated to carrying beasts around in my jacket instead of breasts.”

  “You’re not so ugly,” another boy said.

  “Not like your babe.”

  “Best drown him quick.”

  “Time was,” Jodi continued to Ollie, “I’d thrash the lot of them, but I’m much too dignified for that now.”

  “Too old you mean.”

  “Ah, don’t you listen to them,” Kara Faull said.

  She was a thin gamine, barely eleven, dressed in an assortment of raggedy clothes‌—shirt and trousers with patched sweater and a skirt overtop the trousers. Her feet were bare, her thin features only marginally less dirt-smudged than her companions. Getting to her feet, she ambled over to where Jodi stood, and reached out to pet Ollie.

  “Can I hold him?”

  Jodi passed the now-awakened monkey over to her, whereupon Ollie immediately began to investigate the pockets of Kara’s skirts.

  “Fancy a game?” Peter asked.

  “What’re the stakes?”

  “Ha’penny a man.”

  “Don’t think so, no. I don’t feel lucky today.”

  “Too old,” someone remarked. “No time for games.”

  “Is that true, granny?” another asked.

  Jodi laughed at the lot of them. They stood in a ragged circle around her and Kara, eyes twinkling merrily in their dirty faces, hands shoved deep into their pockets. She was about to return their quips when the group suddenly fell silent. They backed to the edge of the quay’s low stone wall, studiously not looking in the general area behind Jodi, two of them whistling innocently‌—separate tunes, that were hopelessly off-key, on their own and with each other. Upset by the sudden shift in mood, Ollie pulled free from Kara’s grip and jumped into Jodi’s arms.

  When Jodi glanced casually around and saw who was approaching, her own days of running wild with the children of the Tatters returned in a rush. For no accountable reason, she felt guilty, certain she was about to be accused of some dreadful crime that she hadn’t committed, but would suffer for all the same.

  The Widow Pender tended to foster such fears in the children of the Tatters. They were all convinced she was a witch and more than one Tatters mother had threatened to punish misbehaving by “sending you to the Widow, just see if I don’t.”

  Silent as the children, Jodi joined their quiet group as the tall, hawk-faced woman dressed all in black went slowly by, walking stick tapping on the quay’s stones, back stiff and straight as a board, grey hair pulled behind her head in a severe bun. She gave each of the children a disapproving look, fierce grey gaze skewering each of them in turn, lingering longest on Jodi.

  The Widow frowned as Ollie hissed at her. For one long moment Jodi thought the old woman would take her stick to them both, but then the Widow gave her a withering glance and continued on her slow way.

  Not until she was well out of hearing did the children relax, loosing held-in breaths in a group sigh. Then they filled the air with whispers of brave talk to take the chill that the Widow had left behind her out of the air.

  “Fair gives me the creeps, she does.”

  “Oh, she doesn’t frighten me.”

  “Didn’t see you playing smart with her.”

  “Someone should give her a shove in.”

  “Her friends’d just shove her back out again.”

  It was said that she had caused the storm, twenty years ago, that had drowned the Old Quay and sunk the fishing boats. Called it up because her husband, a fisherman himself, had been gadding about town with a barmaid from the Pintar. Fifteen men were drowned that day, trying to save the boats. The barmaid had left town, though there were those who whispered that she hadn’t so much left as been killed by the Widow and buried in a secret grave up on the moor.

  Every child in the Tatters knew that the drowned dead were hers to command.

  “Ratty Friggens says she’s got a Small in that old house of hers‌—a little wee man that she keeps in a jar.”

  Jodi turned to the last speaker. “A Small?”

  “It’s true. Ratty saw it himself‌—a little man no bigger than a mouse. A Gypsy brought it ’round her house in a wooden wren cage and handed it over right before Ratty’s eyes. Told me so himself. Says she’ll be using it to creep into people’s houses and steal their valuables‌—once she has it trained.”

  “She doesn’t need valuables,” Peter said. “Her whole cellar is loaded with treasure.”

  Kara nodded. “My da’ said that one night, talking to his mates.”

  “A Small,” Jodi repeated.

  She looked down the quay to where she could see the Widow, a stiff figure in black, gazing out to sea. Her heart beat quicker. Sensing her excitement, Ollie made a querulous sound. She stroked his head thoughtfully.

  Could it be true? If the Widow did have a Small, hidden away in that old house of hers . . .

  Wouldn’t that be something?

  And if it was true, did she herself have the nerve to sneak in for a look at him?

  Not likely.

  She didn’t have the nerve.

  Nor would there really be a Small.

  But what if there was?

  The Widow turned then and it seemed that, for all the distance between them, her gaze settled directly on Jodi’s. The old woman smiled, as though reading her mind.

  I know secrets you can’t begin to dream of, that smile said. Secrets that will cost you your soul if you’d have them from me. Are you still so willing to learn them?

  Jodi shivered. Visions of drowned corpses coming for her flashed through her mind. Bloated white skin, bestranded with wet seaweed. Reeking of death. Dead things lurching into her room while she slept. . . .

  Before the Widow returned to walk by them again, Jodi gave the children a vague wave and hurried off, back to Denzil’s loft.

  The Sailor’s Return

  I would that I were where I wish,

  Out on the sea in a wooden dish;

  But if that dish begins to fill‌—

  I’d wish I were on Mousehole Hill.

  ‌—OLD CORNISH RHYME, collected from Don Flamanck

  The old smuggler’s haunt of Mousehole in Paul Parish is in the Deanery and West Division of the Hundred of Penwith in southern Cornwall. Its crooked narrow streets and stone-built cottages climb from the western sho
re of Mount’s Bay up the steep slope of Mousehole Hill at a point approximately a quarter of the way from Penzance to Land’s End, following the coastline west.

  Janey Little’s grandfather loved the village, and delighted in regaling his granddaughter’s visitors with snippets of its history and folklore that he’d acquired over the years. The source of its name alone could have him rambling on at the drop of a cloth cap.

  Some historians, he’d explain, think the village acquired its curious name from the Mousehole, a gaping cavern‌—now collapsed‌—that lies south of the village, or that it’s a corruption of Porthenys, the Port of the Island, meaning St. Clement’s Island, which lies close to the village. Others cite a reference to an old Cornish manuscript that speaks of “Moeshayle,” getting its name from the small river that flows through it‌—“moes” probably being an abbreviation of “mowes,” meaning “young women,” and “hayle” meaning “river,” for a translation of “Young Women’s River.”

  The most dramatic event in Mousehole’s history happened in 1595 when the village was sacked by troops from three Spanish ships; it was a Mousehole man who first spied the Spanish Armada seven years earlier. The only surviving building of that period is the Keigwin Arms, which perches on granite pillars above the courtyard where Squire Keigwin killed six Spaniards defending his home. That event is celebrated annually to this day, every July, with a carnival and festivities that end in a commemorative dinner at the Cairn Dhu Hotel where the names of the various dishes serve to tell the story.

  Mousehole’s other historical claims to fame are far less dramatic. The same back street that houses the Keigwin Arms was also the birthplace of Dolly Pentreath, the last-known native speaker of Cornish whose tombstone is a part of the stone wall of St. Paul’s Church overlooking the village, and whose funeral, it’s said, was interrupted for a whiskey break. South of the village, along Raginnis Hill overlooking St. Clement’s Island in Mount’s Bay, stands the Wild Bird Hospital begun in 1928 by two sisters, Dorothy and Phyllis Yglesias, which manages to survive to this day on private donations. Against a mossy wall is a bell with a sign that reads, “Please ring the bell if you have a bird.” Each year the hospital tends to more than a thousand sick wild birds brought in by the public.

  Mousehole was once the center of Cornwall’s pilchard-fishing industry, but though it still retains the flavour of an old Cornish fishing village and there are still fishing boats to be found in its harbour, its principle industry is now tourism. There are few fishermen left, and the only smugglers who remain are in the memories of the older villagers.

  Thomas Little remembered the smugglers, though he wasn’t thinking of them as he came down Mousehole Lane from the King’s Arms in Paul to the home he shared with his granddaughter on Duck Street. A pint of Hick’s bitter sloshed comfortably in his stomach. In a brown paper bag he carried a takeout of two brown ales.

  The Gaffer, as everyone referred to him, was thinking of Janey at that moment. He’d wanted to show her off to his mates at the local, but she was in one of her moods and hadn’t wanted to come. But tonight. . . well, there was a session up at Charlie Boyd’s, at his farm on the road to Lamorna, which was the rambling house of the area where the musicians and storytellers would often gather on a Friday night.

  Boyd’s farm was on a headland near Lamorna with a good view of the bay. The flat clifftop was bright with the cries of stonechats and gulls that rang above the dull pounding of the surf on the rocks below, the air sharp with a salty tang. The constant pounding of the waves had eaten away at the granite cliffs, but the farm would stand at least a century or two longer before the rock on which it stood completely eroded.

  Until then it remained home to Charlie and his family‌—brother, wife, daughter and two boys, musicians all‌—and a welcome place to visit on a Friday night for those interested in such entertainments. There weren’t that many anymore, not these days‌—even with the revival of interest in traditional music in other parts of the country‌—but they usually had a fair crowd, with folk dropping by from as far away as Lizard’s Point, across the bay.

  Some fine musicians could be counted on at the session tonight, but, the Gaffer thought with pride, his granddaughter would likely still be the best. Hadn’t she made two professional recordings to date? Wasn’t she always on tour‌—on the Continent and in America, if not in England?

  He continued up the street, a short, round man with a balding head and the ruddy features of a fisherman, dressed in old corduroy trousers and a tweed jacket patched at the elbows, smiling to himself, a jaunty lift in his step, brown ale bottles clinking in the paper bag he carried at his side.

  Oh, yes. He was looking forward to showing her off tonight.

  When he reached the door to his house‌—owned outright, thank you, and maintained with his pension and what money Janey sent him while she was on tour‌—he was whistling one of Chalkie’s tunes in anticipation of the evening to come.

  “Janey!” he called as he stepped inside. “Do you have a spot of tea ready for an old man?”

  For a long moment there was no answer.

  2.

  Janey had heard an author describe his writing process once as seeing a hole in the paper that he could step into and watch the story unfold, and that was just how she felt with this new Dunthorn novel. It was like being at a good session when you forgot who you were, where you were, the instrument in your hand, and just disappeared into the music. When the tune finally ended, you sat up and blinked for a moment, the sense of dislocation only momentary, lasting just so long as it took the last echoes of the old tune to fade and a new one to start up.

  She looked up from the book now, only vaguely aware of the dusty attic she was sitting in and the book on her lap, her thoughts still wandering the world she’d found within its pages. Then she slipped Dunthorn’s letter in between the pages to keep her place and rose from the floor, the book under her arm.

  “I’m up here, Gramps!” she called ahead of her as she started down the narrow stairway that would take her to the second floor of the house.

  Her grandfather was waiting for her in the small vestibule, the door to the street still open behind him. He looked up to where she came down the stairs. At twenty-two she hadn’t yet lost the enthusiasms and energy of a teenager. Her auburn hair hung free to just past her shoulders, except for the bangs in front, and was redder than its natural colour because she’d recently hennaed it. Above her hazel eyes, her brows maintained a slight arch giving her a constant look of questioning surprise that never quite left. Her skin was a good English peaches and cream, nose small and slender, while her smile came so easily and often that it had left dimples in her cheeks.

  She was wearing a black leotard under a yellow skirt and a baggy black sweatshirt overtop. Yellow hightop sneakers matched her skirt. Presently the knees of her leotard were dusty and there was a smudge of dirt on her nose. Her cheeks had a healthy ruddy flush of excitement.

  “You’ve got dirt on your nose, my flower,” he said as she bounded down the last few steps to join him.

  His round Puck’s face broke into a smile as she leaned forward to kiss his cheek. But then his gaze alit on what she was carrying under her arm and the smile faltered as he recognized it for what it was.

  “Found it then, did you?” he said after a moment.

  Janey had the sudden sense of having overstepped her bounds.

  “I didn’t mean to go prying,” she began. She remembered Dunthorn’s letter. Its existence must remain secret. . . . “You’re not cross with me, are you?”

  The Gaffer shook his head. “Never with you. It’s just. . . ah, well. I meant to give it to you sooner or later, so why not now?”

  “It’s a marvelous book, isn’t it just?”

  “Halfway finished it already, are you then?”

  “Hardly!”

  “Funny you should find it now, though. There was a woman came knocking on our door not three days ago, asking after it. First tim
e that’s happened in years. There were lots of crows, circling about when Billy first died, but as the years went by, I’d only see one every year or so, and then not for, what? Five years now? Until this woman came to the door.”

  “How did she know about the book?”

  “Well, she wasn’t so much after it in particular. She wanted any unpublished writings of Billy’s‌—writings or artifacts. Were hers by right, she said. She was an American woman‌—about your age‌—and as unpleasant as Americans can be. Claimed to be the granddaughter of some cousin of Billy’s that I never heard of before.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Well, nothing, my robin. I had a promise to keep, didn’t I? Besides, she rubbed me wrong, she did, making some crant the way she was. Offered me money straightway‌—as though money can buy anything. I sent her packing. Still, it bothered me, her asking like that. It was like she knew there was something. Maybe not so much the book itself, but something, and didn’t she just want it?”

  “What was her name?”

  “She didn’t say. Though she did say she’d be in touch‌—once she’d spoken to her lawyers.”

  “And you never told me?”

  “Janey, my beauty, what was I to tell you? Some daft American comes knocking on my door asking about a book I can’t admit to owning. . . . I wasn’t ready to tell you about it yet, but I wasn’t about to lie to you either. There’s no lies between us, am I right?”

  Janey nodded.

  “Well, there you go.”

  “And you haven’t heard from her since?” Janey asked.

  The Gaffer shook his head. “What’s to hear? There’s nothing she or her lawyers can do. The book doesn’t exist.”

  Janey looked down at the very real book in her hand.

  “Yes, well,” the Gaffer said. “In a manner of speaking, it doesn’t.”

  “When were you going to tell me about it?” she asked.

  “Well, that’s the funny thing, my love. I had the feeling the book would choose its own time‌—and now didn’t it just do that very thing?”