Celandine (50 page)

‘You mean – come and
work
there? But . . . aren’t I too young?’

‘Yes, you are.’ Josef gave a grim little smile. ‘You are far too young for all this – but then many of my patients are also far too young for all this. We are living through times where the young must carry burdens that they should never be asked to carry. Ridiculous times. But what can we do? When an Austrian doctor is asked to treat soldiers who are at war with his own countrymen – so that those soldiers may then return to fight with his countrymen some more – then we live in ridiculous times indeed. Nevertheless, that is my job. I cannot stop the war, and nor can you. We can only help where we may, with whatever small skills we possess. None of this is your responsibility, Celandine, but perhaps there is a role for you to play – if you wish it.’

‘I . . . don’t know. This is such a . . . a . . .’

‘A shock. Yes. And too much to decide all in a moment. You don’t have to decide anything – but think about what I have said, and talk to your mother and father about it. They want only what is best for you. They love you, and they will help you. Listen to them. But listen to yourself also. You could go to school with Nina, or you could leave your schooling and work at Hart House. You are of a legal age to do so. Either choice would be good, yes?’

‘Yes. Oh
yes
– it would. Thank you. I’m just . . .’ Overwhelmed was what she was. And utterly confused.

‘Try not to worry. There is plenty of time. But . . .’ Uncle Josef glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece
‘ . . . not
much time before your train leaves. Come, we should go to the station. Sarah! Are you ready?’ Uncle Josef rose from his seat. ‘A railway carriage compartment is a good place for thinking,’ he said as he walked towards the door. ‘There is something about a railway carriage compartment that clears the mind. Marvellous! Quite magical. Of course, there will be a proper psychological explanation for this, but I cannot think what it is – possibly because I am not in a railway carriage compartment.’

Celandine sat in the corner seat and looked out of the window. There was nobody else in the compartment, and nobody but Uncle Josef and Aunt Sarah on the platform, waiting for the train to leave. Aunt Sarah was saying something to Uncle Josef, and he was looking down at his feet, nodding and smiling.

How kind they had been to her, and how understanding. They had never questioned her about her mysterious absence, or her sudden reappearance. One day she might try and explain it all . . . but not yet. It was still too muddled and confusing. Here she was, in her railway compartment, and yet her thoughts seemed as cloudy as ever.

The whistle blew and her aunt and uncle looked up from their conversation. They smiled at her, and as the carriage shuddered into life, they raised their arms to wave.
Thud-thud-thud
 . . . the couplings took the strain and the platform began to slowly roll by. Aunt Sarah and Uncle Josef walked beside the train for a few paces and then stood together beneath
the
station clock, still waving. Goodbye, goodbye . . .

And this time, Celandine knew that it would happen, a split-second before it did. She looked beyond the figures of her aunt and uncle, beyond the flash of Roman numerals on the overhanging clock, and saw the girl standing at the back of the platform. That extraordinary girl. Their eyes met and she saw the look of sudden puzzlement on the girl’s face, the fleeting half-smile of recognition and the bare arm beginning to rise, hesitantly returning her own wave. Goodbye . . .

Then the girl was gone, and her aunt and uncle were gone, and the station clock was gone. The rolling platform disappeared abruptly, to be replaced by white fence posts which ticked past the compartment window, lazily at first, and then faster, as the train picked up speed. Tick tick tick went the white posts, and the 10.25 was on its way.

Celandine leaned back against her seat and thought about the girl. Who
was
she, this person who seemed somehow connected to her? And why did she keep appearing?

‘
 . . . there is an explanation for everything – although we shall never
know
the explanation for everything, or understand. Not everything in this world can be understood by us, nor should it be. It is not necessary
.’

Her uncle’s words. It was a comforting idea – that it was not necessary to understand everything – but she did want to understand more about the ghost-girl. She couldn’t just ignore something like that, or help but wonder about it. Although she should try not to worry about it, perhaps.

And what about the Various? Should she worry about them? Their troubles were not her fault, any more than the troubles of the outside world were her fault. She would keep their secret, as she had promised – and perhaps someday their lives would cross again – but she would not go looking for them.

Would they come looking for her though? She didn’t think so. Corben’s archers had made it very clear that they were unwilling to leave the forest again.

But then an image came to her, of the scrap of material that lay in the mud near the farmyard gate. Blue-spotted it had been, torn and stained. Now she remembered where she had seen it before. It had been tied about Corben’s neck . . .

Another flash of memory – the sound of Cribb’s rasping snarl, and the cry of terror in the dead of night.

Were those two things connected? Had Corben come searching for her after all, perhaps alone, as she lay ill in her room? Celandine pictured herself waking in the darkness to find such a nightmare perched at the foot of her bed, leathery wings outstretched, bow and arrow pointing at her. Ugh. She shuddered at her own imagination. It could have happened, though . . .

No. Put that thought away. Perhaps Corben had escaped from the dogs, and perhaps he had not – but either way, she didn’t think that he would ever trouble her again.

She looked up at her canvas bag, perched on the netted rack overhead. The Orbis was in there, and Micas’s letter, and the Skye boat, and the little wooden
comb.
If it weren’t for those things, she would struggle to believe that any of it had ever happened. Whenever she had been away from the forest for any length of time, she had begun to doubt what she had seen.

Then she understood something. Nobody really believed in the little people, and that was how they managed to survive. They were there, right under everyone’s noses, and sometimes they were glimpsed, by accident. But those who had seen them would soon forget that they had done so, because they would not believe it. The Various were protected by disbelief. It made them invisible. That was their magic.

Even she, who had seen so much of them, might cease to believe and so forget. Already it was becoming difficult to picture the faces of those extraordinary beings. They were slipping away from her, disappearing. And everything that had happened to her was beginning to feel as though it had happened to someone else, in a story that she had read, or heard somewhere.

She would put the Orbis and the letter and the Skye boat in her jewellery casket at home, and she would turn the key. And some day she would perhaps open the casket again and look inside, and wonder how she had ever come by such things.

Micas, Elina, Pato, and Loren, and even Fin seemed hazy beings to her now, characters that she had imagined. It was the strange and wonderful Maven-the-Green, the one she had seen the least of, who still appeared to her most clearly. And Maven’s was the voice that she could still hear.

You have the Touch, maid . . . Aye – the Touch. And ’tis a gift to be given – mark it well
.

The Touch. A gift to be given.

And her Uncle Josef had said the same thing. A gift. Perhaps it was so, and perhaps that should be the choice that she made – to help at the clinic, in any way that she could, and with whatever ability she had. Or perhaps she should wait a little, until she was older, and in the meantime go back to school, with Nina. A happier school than Mount Pleasant.

Either prospect seemed equally exciting, equally wonderful, and she felt a sudden shiver of anticipation, a little burst of gladness inside her – something that had been absent for so long.

She thought about the Orbis, that unfathomable device, and Maven’s voice came back to her again.

 . . . thee’ve another gift, and this must be hid – ’till better times than these. Thee shall know the day, when it comes
.

Thee shall know the day . . .

Would she? And would that day come? It might, and it might not. But of one thing she was certain – she would never climb Howard’s Hill again, not if she lived to be a hundred.

The late summer countryside came back into focus as the train began to slow down on its approach to Withney Halt. Here were the familiar fields of home, with their ancient orchards and their withy beds, their rhynes and ditches – poppy-bright – and their curtseying lines of willow trees. And there stood the forest on
the
distant hill, unchanged, as innocent looking as ever against the bright horizon. She could gaze upon it now. She could take it out of its box and look at it, and then put it away for another day. The day that might or might not come.

Celandine pressed her cheek against the window – looking for Robert. Yes, there he was, calm reliable Robert, patiently waiting for her with the pony and trap, ready to take her back to Mill Farm – and to the beginning of all that lay ahead.

All that lay ahead . . .

A picture appeared before her, of herself in that future place. She thought that she could see, now, where she would be, and what she must do.

She picked up her walking sticks and heaved her canvas bag down from the luggage rack. Uncle Josef was right. There
was
something marvellous about a railway compartment. It had worked its magic upon her and her thoughts were suddenly as clear and as cloudless as the blue September sky.

Celandine glanced around the empty compartment one last time, and then swung her bag out into the narrow corridor. She drew the sliding door across, so that it closed behind her with a firm and satisfying click. Her mind was made up.

A
BOUT THE AUTHOR

S
TEVE AUGARDE
was born in Birmingham but spent most of his life in the West Country, before moving to Yorkshire. He has written and illustrated over seventy picture books for younger children, as well as producing the paper-engineering for many pop-up books. He also provided the artwork and music for two animated BBC television series.

Steve is married with two daughters.
Celandine
is the second title in his acclaimed trilogy about the Various.

Also by Steve Augarde:

THE VARIOUS

Praise for THE VARIOUS

WINNER OF THE SMARTIES BRONZE AWARD

‘A children’s classic’
Sunday Telegraph

‘The narrative pace never falters, the writer so confident and respectful of his creation that the reader is drawn gladly into the enchantment’
Guardian

Praise for CELANDINE

‘Quality fantasy writing with a fine feel for the past’