The Dubious Hills (29 page)

She realized Mally had stopped breathing only when
she started again. “He must have been there,” Mally said, quite
calmly.

“
We started later than he did,
Mally, and we were a long time getting there,” said Oonan. “We
probably missed him.”

“
But he’s sleeping there,” said
Mally.

“
Did he tell you so?” said
Oonan.

“
No, of course not,” said Mally.
She sat down rather heavily next to Oonan. “I knew he was there,”
she said.

“
I thought you did,” said Oonan.
“That’s why we walked so far.” His tone was not reproachful; it was
even soothing; but it hurt Mally even more than what Arry had
said.

None of them said anything for some time. The night
breeze lifted the hair stuck to Arry’s neck and breathed the scent
of the hawthorn into her dusty head. The stars stared down as they
always had. A few bats skittered across the sky. It was so quiet
that Arry could hear the faraway streams running over their rocks.
Then something small rustled in the pine needles not far behind
them, which made Mally jump; and Arry spoke.

“
Oonan, I have to go. Mally, I’ll
come for the children in the morning.”

“
Oonan will take care of me,” said
Mally.

Arry got up, creakily, and walked away. Behind her
Oonan said, “There’s nothing
wrong
with
you.”
Mally laughed, and Arry walked faster. Mally was in Arry’s
province, well and truly in the very heart of it; and Arry was
walking away. She broke into a run for a few steps, but she was too
stiff and tired. She went on as fast as she could.

Niss’s house was not dark. Niss liked to work at
night, Mally had often said so; Vand, she said, could sleep through
anything, and often did. What if that’s wrong, too, Arry thought
suddenly. But no, that’s from before; it should be all right. She
walked up to the open door, from which was issuing a less than
pleasant red light. They had all been taught from a very early age
never to interrupt Niss when she was working. One was to stand
there until one was noticed; she would notice eventually.

Arry stood in the doorway, straining her eyes to see
what was happening inside. She could not make the light and shapes
mean anything, but presently she heard Niss singing. “What wondrous
life is this I lead. Ripe apples drop about my head; the luscious
clusters of the vine upon my mouth do crush their wine; the
nectarine and curious peach into my hands themselves do reach:
stumbling on melons, as I pass, ensnared with flowers, I fall on
grass.”

It sounded better than the hag and hungry goblin.
Arry arranged herself comfortably against the doorframe. She had
run through several arrangements and was wondering if sitting down
on the threshold would be too distracting, when Niss said, “Who’s
there?”

“
It’s Arry.”

“
Come in,” said Niss, and the red
light went out. Niss added absently, “Look, the dawn in russet
mantle clad,” and the fire in the fireplace woke like a cat
stretching, gathered itself and slowly fluffed up into a strong
blaze.

Arry went in.

“
Why abroad so late?” said Niss.
“Sleep charms?”

“
I need to borrow the wolfskin
coat,” said Arry.

“
I can hardly keep Beldi’s from
you,” said Niss slowly.

“
In fact, I’d rather have Tiln’s,”
said Arry. “Beldi’s slept under his once, and I don’t want him near
it.”

“
Who should want you near either
of them?”

“
Halver, by the look of it,” said
Arry. “Might this be a way to find him? Could the coat summon him,
after somebody had slept under it three times?”

Niss regarded her steadily in the flickering light
of the fire. She had to tilt her head back to do it. I must have
grown again, thought Arry. Niss sighed, and went to a chest in the
corner, and opened it and took out the wolfskin coats. She said
briskly, “Do you think I am easier to be played upon than a pipe?”
Nothing happened, but after a moment Niss said, “The coat could
summon him, certainly; but on what occasion I know not.”

“
I’ll find out for you,” said
Arry, holding out her hands.

Niss dropped one coat back into the trunk and came
across the room with the other one bundled in her arms. She looked
reluctant. “It does seem,” she said slowly, “that people ought not
to go turning themselves into wolves without consulting me.”

“
I don’t mean to turn myself into
a wolf,” said Arry.

Niss looked at her steadily. “Dying’s not my
province,” she said, “but I don’t advise it.”

“
I don’t plan on it, any time
soon,” said Arry.

“
Do you know what you’re
about?”

“
Learning about pain,” said
Arry.

“
Let me tell you a spell,” said
Niss, still holding the coat. “Don’t say it unless you mean it. I
can say them with or without intent, but I can’t teach you that in
five minutes.”

“
I understand you,” said
Arry.

“
Listen well, then. Here it is.
Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim, hound or spaniel, brach or lym,
or bob- tail tyke or trundle-tail, Tom will make him weep and wail;
for with throwing this my head, dogs leaped the hatch, and all are
fled.”

She repeated this several times, until Arry assured
her that she would remember it. Arry said, “Must I throw my
head?”

“
No,” said Niss,
laughing.

“
There’s no wolf in the rhyme,
Niss.”

“
I well know,” said Niss, not
laughing at all. “But I think the mongrel grim will
serve.”

She piled the wolfskin coat into Arry’s arms. Arry
thanked her, and went out. Halfway across the water meadow she
finally put the thing on; it was much lighter to wear than to
carry. The cats were milling about the front door when she got
home, though this was usually their hunting time. They bounded into
the house, complaining loudly, as soon as she had opened the door.
The house smelled stale and stuffy. Arry opened windows, and gave
the cats some milk, and heated some for herself, with peppermint in
it for her stomach’s sake. Three times, she thought, not three
nights. And a good thing, too, now that Halver’s found ways to make
people want to be wolves without being a wolf himself. He must be
in a hurry.

She sat down in the largest chair, with extra
cushions, and laid the coat across her lap. She was afraid of it,
though she did not really know why. At the worst, after all, she
could let Halver turn her into a wolf, and then she could see her
parents again. He was the only way she could think of to get to
them, whether he turned her into a wolf or not. He also really
could not be let to slink and plot all over the hills, tempting
half the children and biting the rest, which was the way he seemed
to want to go on. Or if Mally were right after all and this was
just a lesson on a strange and grand scale, then she must do what
she could. Halver always told them to attack a problem, not to
stare at it and wait for it to resolve itself.

She stroked her hand down the sleeve of the coat,
and Sheepnose leapt into her lap and settled down, kneading the fur
and purring hugely.

“
Well,” said Arry. “Once can do no
harm, in any case.” She blew out her candle, wriggled further under
the coat, rubbed the affronted Sheepnose behind the ears, and shut
her eyes.

She fell asleep almost at once. She woke at dawn,
when the birds were shouting their loudest. Sheepnose had retreated
to sleep on a fold of the coat that had fallen to the floor, and
Woollycat was stretched out on Arry’s thigh, head laid flat along
the coat like a sleeping dragon.

Arry moved her arm, which had gone numb, from under
her head, shoved a cushion there instead, and tried to remember
what she had dreamed. Nothing. “Oh, doubt!” she said suddenly,
sitting up with a jerk and dislodging the indignant Woollycat.
“Keep the wolf far hence.”

That meant she would have to sleep under the coat
outside. She got out of the chair and moved blearily to the window.
The sun was lining everything with gold; the birds were as loud as
a waterfall. Not now, she thought; she must have some real sleep
before walking anywhere else with the heavy coat. She stumbled
through the washing room to her own bed and went back to sleep on
top of the quilt, with all her clothes on.

She dreamed she was Sir Patrick Spens, set upon a
golden bough to sing to lords and ladies of Byzantium of what was
past, or passing, or to come; except that she could not really sing
at all and was concerned only with the fact that there was going to
be a dreadful storm, whereupon the three sons of the Wife of
Ussher’s Well would come back with bark in their caps and find
Melusina splashing the bath water about with her fishy tail. This
would make the lords and ladies unhappy. She used her golden beak
to pluck the bark from the cap of the youngest. “Look!” said
everyone. “From the far side of the tree that grows in Paradise!”
“Nonsense,” said Frances. “Paradise is a Unicornish word for an
orchard or park.” Arry dropped the bark onto Frances’s head.
Frances smiled and thanked her. The lords and ladies began to
harangue her for not singing. They sounded remarkably like Con and
Beldi. After a while Arry realized that they were Con and Beldi.
She opened her eyes.

Woollycat stared back at her from the pillow. Con
and Beldi were not in the room, they weren’t trying to wake her up
at all. They were in the kitchen.

“
You can’t make pancakes out of
the blushful Hippocrene,” said Beldi; he sounded a little
desperate. “You use buttermilk.” There was a pause, punctuated with
clattering and splashing noises. “Everybody says so.”

“
I don’t,” said Con. “I hate
buttermilk.”

Arry rubbed Woollycat’s nose. “You probably could
make pancakes out of the blushful Hippocrene,” she told the cat.
“It’s acidic, I think. But I can’t imagine what they would taste
like. Con really oughtn’t to waste all that flour and milk.”
Woollycat jumped off the bed at the last word and sat on the floor
making impatient noises. Arry got up. She was still dressed,
however dusty and sweaty the garments might be, so she stopped only
briefly in the washing room and then went into the kitchen.

They had not made much more mess than she might
have, if she had been in a hurry. They had built a small fire of
pinecones on the hearth, to boil the kettle, and were heating the
griddle on its remains. The main fire was burning much too briskly
to cook pancakes, but Con could presumably deal with that. The only
alarming thing was the batter itself, which was a faint pink and
suffered from an uprush of huge bubbles, as if it were being boiled
itself.

“
We were going to surprise you,”
said Con.

“
You have,” said Arry, peering
into the bowl. It looked worse close up, though it smelled
pleasant. She retreated to the table and poured herself a mug of
tea.

“
I told Woollycat not to wake you
up.”

“
She didn’t.”

“
I told you you were talking too
loudly,” said Beldi.

Con gave this remark no attention whatsoever. She
said to the fire, “In thee I see the twilight of such day, as after
sunset fadeth in the west.” It shrunk itself into a bed of coals,
and Con moved the griddle onto that. Arry bit her lip on a number
of remonstrations. Con had protected her hand with a towel; and
she was at this moment remembering to try the griddle with a drop
of water. She dropped rounds of batter on it. They were of wildly
differing sizes, but it didn’t really matter. It was the pinkness
that most required comment, but it was too late for that. As the
pancakes cooked, they got pinker, as pink as Con’s cheeks. The
little bubbles that broke their surfaces were as red as
raspberries.

Arry could not bear to look at them. She went down
into the cold cellar and got a crock of apple butter and the honey
Derry had given her. That had not been long ago at all; most of the
honey was still there; but it seemed as if it happened in some
other spring.

When she came back up Con had put a whole plate of
pancakes on the table. Beldi was serving himself, looking glum.
Arry got plates for herself and Con and served pancakes onto both.
Con, she was astonished to see, was cleaning the griddle while it
was still hot, a proceeding earnestly recommended to her by
everybody in her family but never once followed before. Arry looked
long and hard at her, but she had no fever, nor any other complaint
of flesh. Of spirit it was harder to tell, but the kinds of pain
Arry had found before did not seem to be present.

Beldi had taken a spoonful of pancake and was
looking at it as one might regard a piece of good rotten bark, to
see what might crawl out. Arry felt much the same.

They both watched Con. She hung the griddle back on
the wall, which she had certainly never done before, and sat down
in her chair. She grinned amiably at her siblings. “You forgot to
put any honey on,” she said. She spread honey liberally over her
own pancakes, cut off a spoonful, and crammed it into her mouth.
She chewed and swallowed it, and cut off another. Arry followed
the progress of the first mouthful as if she were studying the
action of poison on her dearest enemy. It went down like
pancakes.

She knew what Con was going to say, but felt
compelled to wait and hear her say it. Con finished her plateful
and took three more pancakes. Arry was relieved to see her use her
fingers instead of the fork. Con put apple butter on the pancakes
this time. She looked at Arry, at Beldi, and back at Arry. “Why
aren’t you eating?”