The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (104 page)

And she, Sophie, should know all about that. As a child, she too had had a morbid streak. She’d lived in terror of duppy trees, and had never been without her sprig of rosemary or Madam Fate.

She froze.
Duppy trees.

A snatch of conversation came back to her.
Did you ask a duppy tree?
Belle had asked at Parnassus, as she gazed intently at Sophie with her big dark eyes.
Did you give it an offering?

Suddenly, Sophie knew. Belle’s ‘secret mission’ had nothing to do with Fraser’s grave. She’d gone to make an offering to the great duppy tree on Overlook Hill. She was up there right now.

A cold wave of dread washed over her as she realized what that meant. As she stood here beside Fraser’s grave, Cameron was somewhere to the north, hard at work with his men to burn a firebreak all the way from Greendale Wood to the crossroads and beyond. His aim was to block the fire’s eastward march, so that it had nowhere to go but south.

South to Overlook Hill.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Belle wasn’t at the duppy tree.

But she’d been there recently. Sophie was sure of it. There was a half-full bottle of proof rum propped up against the trunk, and around its neck a scarlet hair ribbon tied in a neat, crisp bow.

‘Belle?’ she shouted. ‘
Belle!
It’s Aunt Sophie! Where
are
you?’

Nothing. Ash pattered down into the undergrowth. To the north she could hear a distant roar. The roar of the fire.

Ahead of her the track wound on through the trees towards the western edge of the forest. Surely Belle wouldn’t have gone that way? But where else
could
she have gone? If she’d been anywhere near the track leading up from the crossroads, Sophie would have found her.

No time to think about that now. She put Frolic forwards, heading west.

It was hard going, for the path was overgrown, and she was forced to dismount and lead, stopping often to untangle the stirrups from the undergrowth, and talking to the mare to calm her. But Frolic would not be calmed, for she’d scented smoke. Her ears were flattened against her skull, and she kept tossing her head and tugging the reins, making progress agonizingly slow.

Ben, reflected Sophie, would have had the mare trotting calmly at his heels like a retriever. She pushed the thought aside. She didn’t want to think about him now.
Fever Hill all ablaze, Missy Sophie
. But he’ll have got out all right, she told herself. There can’t be any doubt about that.

A parrot flew over the canopy –
ah-eek, ah-eek
. A pulse beat in her throat. Was she imagining things, or was it getting hotter? Certainly the stink of burnt sugar was stronger, and the air was becoming hazy. And still she could find no sign that Belle had been this way. No snapped branches, no horse droppings. Nothing.

After ten minutes’ hard going she caught a glimmer of dirty white sky between the trees. She quickened her pace, dragging the reluctant Frolic after her.

She reached the edge of the forest with startling suddenness, and the stench of burnt sugar hit her like a wall. Frolic squealed and jerked back, nearly pulling Sophie off her feet.

The fire was terrifyingly close: a roaring, crackling wall of fierce-burning orange, only half a mile distant. Behind it the cane-pieces of Orange Grove had disappeared in a dirty grey pall of smoke.

Tugging Frolic after her, she picked her way between the boulders and the thorn scrub, and round the flank of the hill. Somewhere on the south-west slope was a track that wound down to the bridge at Stony Gap.

On this side of the hill, the fire wasn’t quite so close. But through the bitter blue haze she could only just make out the giant bamboo that marked the Martha Brae, little more than a mile from where she stood.

‘Belle!’ she shouted. ‘Belle!’ Her voice sounded weak and ineffectual in the roar of the fire.

‘
Here!
’ yelled a voice, so close that she nearly fell over.

Belle was about twenty feet below her on the track. She was filthy, her face and riding-costume covered in dust and soot. ‘Aunt Sophie, I’m
really
sorry!’ she cried. ‘I was trying to get round to see how far it had gone and I slipped and bumped my knee and then I tried to find another way up and sort of got lost.’

She seemed exasperated rather than frightened, and after the first shattering upsurge of relief Sophie was tempted to run down and give her a good shaking. Then she noticed that Belle’s shoulders were hunched up around her ears, her fists clenched at her sides. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, raising her voice above the roar of the fire. ‘Are you all right?’

Belle gave a tight nod. ‘What do we do now?’

Sophie licked her lips. ‘Stay where you are. I need to think.’

From where she stood, the path wound steeply down the bare western slope of the hill towards Belle. It was loose stony ground, with a steep drop on the left of about fifty feet into a thorny defile. But if they could make it down to the bottom of the hill, they might reach Stony Gap before the fire closed off their escape, and then cross to the safety of the cattle pastures on the other side of the river.

The alternative was to head back up the track and into the forest again, retracing their steps past the duppy tree, and down to the crossroads.

Every nerve in her body cried out for the primeval shelter of the forest. And yet, she thought, what if we can’t make it through in time? As she was setting out from Eden, she’d heard the shouts of Cameron’s men, hard at work burning the firebreak. There’d been no time to ride down and question them, but they hadn’t sounded that far off. What if, by the time she and Belle reached the crossroads, they found themselves cut off by the very firebreak intended to protect Eden?

Or what if they never got that far, but were overtaken by the cane-fire while they were still in the forest? With terrifying clarity she saw herself and Belle wading through the tangled undergrowth. She saw burning branches crashing down on them. The heat and smoke becoming unbearable. Overwhelming.

‘Stay where you are,’ she told Belle. ‘I’m coming down to you.’

Belle looked horrified. ‘But what about Muffin? We can’t leave her!’

‘What?’ shouted Sophie, intent on picking her way down without losing her footing. Behind her a reluctant Frolic snorted and tugged on the reins.

‘I tied her up!’ cried Belle, jumping up and down. ‘She won’t be able to get away! She’ll be burnt!’

‘No she won’t,’ said Sophie unconvincingly. She slipped on a loose stone and nearly lost her footing. A trickle of pebbles rattled and bounced down the slope and lost themselves among the boulders at the bottom. She licked her lips. The track was steeper than it looked. God, she thought, I hope this isn’t another of Aunt Sophie’s mistakes. ‘I didn’t see Muffin as I was coming up,’ she called down to Belle, ‘so she must have broken free and run away.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Belle doubtfully.

‘Absolutely.’ Again Frolic tugged on the reins.

‘Aunt Sophie—’

‘
What?
’ she snapped. Yet another tug on the reins. Dust and pebbles rained down on her. ‘Frolic, come
on
,’ she shouted without turning round.

‘Aunt Sophie!’ screamed Belle. ‘Look
out
!’

A rock struck her shoulder with bruising force. She glanced back just in time to see the mare going slowly down onto her knees – slowly, slowly, as if in a nightmare – then tumbling neck over crop, and sliding down the track towards her.

Ben reached the crossroads before Cameron Lawe’s men, but with not much time to spare.

He could hear them through the thickening haze of smoke, a few hundred yards to the north. The air was acrid with the stench of burnt sugar. To the west he could hear the crackling roar as the fire engulfed Orange Grove and swept towards them.

The men didn’t stop working when he rode up, nor did he expect them to. It wouldn’t be much longer before the fire reached them, and if the break didn’t hold the flames would burst through and engulf the great house, the works at Maputah, and the rest of the estate.

To his dismay, none of them had seen either Sophie or Belle. But they told him that Master Cameron was further down towards Romilly, so maybe he should ride over and talk to him in person?

No time, thought Ben as he yanked Partisan’s head round and galloped back towards the crossroads. No time to get into an argument with Cameron Lawe. Besides, Romilly was on the Eden Road, and Sophie hadn’t come that way. She’d ridden cross-country through Greendale, as he had himself.

Don’t make the wrong choice again
, Miss Clemmy had told him. Why hadn’t he listened to her at once, instead of wasting time riding back to the wagon? Maybe those few minutes’ hesitation would mean the difference between finding Sophie and Belle, and – not. Maybe he’d already made the wrong choice all over again, and there was no going back. Always the wrong choice. Christ, did it never stop?

In his mind he saw Sophie as she’d looked that day in his study – no, that was this morning, wasn’t it? Only this morning. She’d been angry with him, but there had been tears in her eyes. He told himself that that must mean something – that maybe she still cared about him.

But even if he was wrong – even if all her feelings for him had died years ago – it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he still loved her, and she needed his help.

He reached the crossroads and skittered to a halt in a shower of dust and ash. Which way? Which
way
?

According to Miss Clemmy, Belle was heading for the cave near Turnaround. But what if Miss Clemmy was wrong? Or what if Belle had gone one way, and Sophie another?

He dismounted and started circling the crossroads, looking for tracks. Partisan threw down his head to cough, then plodded wearily after him.

He knew that Sophie had been at Eden great house, but after that the trail had gone cold. And the only reason he was so sure about Eden was because of a fluke.

At first when he’d got there, he’d had his doubts that she’d even reached it, despite what the men from Simonstown had said when he’d overtaken them. But then he’d remembered what Miss Clemmy had told him about the little boy’s grave. And when he’d finally found it, he’d also found, lying on the smooth white marble, a sprig of cockleshell orchids. Sophie had been there, and no more than an hour before. The broken stem was still oozing sap.

In the dust near the crossroads he spotted a hoofmark: a mare’s, by the size of it. A few yards further on he found the small, neat crescent moon of a pony’s print. He kept looking, but the ground was too dry and stony to find any more. And from the little he’d found, it was impossible to tell whether Sophie and Belle had been together, or which way they’d gone.

Come on, Ben, which way? Turnaround? It had to be. Where else would Belle have gone?

He got back into the saddle and was heading east when a terrified squeal behind him pulled him up short. Partisan pricked his ears and gave an answering whinny.

Belle had hidden her pony with care, tethering her securely to a young guango tree in a clearing just off the track which led up the wooded eastern flank of Overlook Hill. The fat little chestnut had long since smelt smoke, and was white-eyed with terror and tugging frantically at the reins. A bundle of wilted herbs on her browband was tossing wildly.

Ben’s heart sank. Wherever she was, Belle must be well out of earshot. She’d never leave her beloved pony squealing in terror.

‘You must be Muffin,’ he said as he jumped down, tethered Partisan, and advanced towards the pony – forcing himself to go slowly, so as not to panic her further. ‘Where’s your mistress gone, eh, Muffin? Where’s she gone, then?’

The pony sidestepped and rolled her eyes, but her ears swivelled round to listen to him.

‘Rosemary and Madam Fate,’ he remarked to the pony, as he unbuckled the girth and slipped the saddle off the broad, sweaty back. ‘What did she want with that lot, eh, Muffin?’

Talking continuously, he unbuckled the cheekband and slipped off the bridle, keeping the reins looped over the pony’s neck so that he could still control her. Then he led her – or rather dragged her – back onto the open track. ‘Go on, then,’ he said, slipping the reins over her head and giving her a slap on the rump. ‘And don’t hang about!’

Muffin didn’t need to be told. She flicked up her tail and clattered off down the road towards Maputah.

Rosemary and Madam Fate? thought Ben as he got back into the saddle and started once again for Turnaround. What did Belle want with that? Was she warding off duppies? But what duppies? And where?

Suddenly he remembered Sophie’s childhood terror of duppy trees, and the pieces fell into place.
One of her secret missions into the hills
. Duppies. The duppy tree on Overlook Hill.

Oh, Christ. Christ. Straight into the path of the fire.

He turned Partisan round and galloped back to the crossroads, and put the gelding up the track to Overlook Hill.

He crouched low against the hot, sweaty neck as the gelding heaved through the undergrowth. Branches whipped at his face. Memories crowded in. Sophie’s expression as she’d stood in the glade of the duppy tree, seven years before.

It’s over, Ben
, she had said.

No it bloody well isn’t, he told himself grimly. There’s still time. There’s still time.

Another parrot flew screeching over the canopy.
Ah-eek! Ah-eek!
Belle and Sophie exchanged taut glances and ran on through the forest.

Surely, thought Sophie, the duppy tree can’t be much further ahead? Did you do the right thing, going back into the forest? Or is this the last of your about-turns to go catastrophically wrong?

The breath rasped in her lungs. Her forearm throbbed where she’d fallen on the rocks and scraped it raw. She was tired. She was beginning to limp.

The roar of the fire was closer now – she could hear branches crackling somewhere to her left – but how close? At the foot of the hill? Halfway up the slope? Fifty feet away? She felt as if they were being stalked by some great cat that might leap out at any moment.