Where the Stones Sing (12 page)

‘And they all sang in the cathedral, through all those times, didn’t they?’

‘They kept singing all through the dark times. The
cathedral
was their shelter. It always protected the people of Dublin, especially children, and the sick and poor and all those who really needed help. There has been a church here for so long, and people have prayed here and sang for so long, it’s as if the feelings they left behind have somehow got into the walls,
into the stone. The walls have soaked in all the hope and faith and love and goodness. Does that sound stupid?’

Kai thought for a moment.

‘No, I think I kind of understand. It’s as if the cathedral is like the boat Brother Albert talked about, holding things safe.’

‘Yes, like the boat, but like the sea too, or a part of it. Did you ever hold a shell to your ear? You know that way that you can hear the waves? You can hear it singing, as if it was holding the sound of the whole wide ocean. That’s what the cathedral is like. It holds a little part of the big sea.’ 

Secrets and Spies

om was very lonely. He missed Jack badly. He was so fed up sometimes, that he found
himself
spending time in the company of Roland, something he would never have dreamt of doing a month before. He wished with all his heart that he could be back at home with his family in Kilmainham. But the plague stopped any movement between the village and the city. When he thought of his mother mourning little Edith he felt as if his heart would break. And he wondered what might be happening out there in the mill. Perhaps someone else in his family had got sick and the news had not reached the priory. He prayed every day that the plague would not spread to his mother and father or his other sisters and
brothers
. He missed them all so much. And he missed Kai too, even though he was still at the priory. But his friend never seemed to be around now. In fact, it almost seemed as if Kai were trying to avoid him. So many times, Kai disappeared off on his own, refusing to say where he was going or what he was doing. Tom suspected he was going to meet his father, and he was afraid one day he would wake up and find that Kai had gone away completely. Then he and Roland would be left in the priory, just the two of them. It didn’t bear thinking about.

So he set himself to watch. But Kai seemed to have a sixth sense about being watched. Any time Tom followed his friend, he would find that Kai was going to Dame Maria’s or somewhere else equally innocent. It didn’t help that Brother Albert didn’t want him to leave the priory; he fussed over him all the time, even though Tom himself knew he had completely recovered from the plague. He just wanted to get back to the mill. He tried to talk to Kai about his longing to get back home:

‘With all the sickness in the village, they will need me there. I should be there to help my father. Would it be alright with you if I left the priory?’

Kai looked at him in shock.

‘What do you mean? You can’t do that and leave me alone with just Roland!’

‘I want to help my family run the mill. I think I should go back. My family are there.’

Tom is so lucky, thought Kai. At least he knows where his family is. She had had no word from her father or Edward since the night her brother had fled from the city.

‘I can see why you want to go – but please, please don’t go
yet. It’s already so lonely without Jack.’

‘But you are never around anyway. You sneak off and you don’t tell me where you are going.’

Kai was silent. Then she drew a breath and said, ‘Tom, do you remember when you were sick? Do you remember how you talked to Edith?’

Now it was Tom’s turn to be silent. He did vaguely
remember
the feeling that Edith had been close by him, talking to him, but that must have been just his fever. He didn’t even want to think about it. Only mad people heard voices. And why was Kai asking about that now? Was he just trying to change the subject?

He said, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about, Kai. Roland’s mother is the only person I know who hears the voices of people who are not there! And we all know she is a crazy woman. You are so strange, sometimes, Kai. Now, are you going to tell me where you go off to, or not?’

Kai sighed. She had thought that perhaps if Tom
remembered
Edith he might be able to believe what she told him about the voices in the cathedral, perhaps even be able to hear them. But it was hopeless. There was no point trying to make Tom understand. She didn’t want to be thought of as mad, or worse, as some kind of witch. To be accused of magic could mean that you would end up in a court, with the threat of torture or even death hanging over you. She was so tired of being told she was strange. Strange because of her strange
name. Strange because she was a stranger. Strange because when she was acting as a boy she seemed girlish. Strange because during those times when she had been allowed to be girl she had been so used to acting as a boy she had been boyish. Strange for too many reasons.

She started to speak but was interrupted by a noise behind them. They had not noticed Roland sneaking up to where they sat talking on the wall by the river. He had been
listening
in to their conversation.

‘Tom speaks the truth. You do sneak around. I’ve seen you too. Do you go off and do magic with your familiar, that demon cat?’

Kai, tired and frustrated, decided that this evening she was not going to sit and listen to Roland’s malicious words.

‘Oh stop with your rubbish,’ said Kai. ‘If you won’t be quiet, I tell you, I will push you into the river, I swear I will. Look, there’s duckweed, just there. Greenteeth Jenny must be lying in wait. I’m sure I can hear her calling!’

Tom gave Kai a strange look and Kai wondered if she had gone a bit far. She hoped he wouldn’t think she really could hear the voice of the spirits in the water – or perhaps even summon them up. She also felt that she was being a little too mean to Roland as she knew that he was really terrified of Greenteeth Jenny. But she was tired of him creeping around and listening in when it was none of his business.

Now Tom took up the tease.

‘Greenteeth Jenny, down in the dark waters of the Liffey. She will catch you as soon as look at you and pull you down into the sludge and the slime.’

Kai had mercy. Roland was looking very pale.

‘Oh Roland, don’t be silly. You know that Greenteeth Jenny is a story for the superstitious, to frighten people.’

But now Roland had become angry.

‘No she is not. We all know that there is evil magic out there. And you seem to know an awful lot about spirits and ghosts and witches – an awful lot.’ Roland stared at Kai hard as he said this, as if he knew something she didn’t. He went on, ‘Sorcery is everywhere, and demons are always out to get us if we are not protected from evil. My father …’

The children exchanged glances – not another story about Roland’s father!

‘My father has been involved in witch hunts in the king’s court, and he knows all about the evil things they can do. He has told me all about them. They use cat’s blood and cut up …’

‘Stop it!’ Kai put her hands over her ears. ‘We don’t want to hear your horrible stories,’ she continued, though Tom looked as if he might have listened.

Now Kai noticed that Tom was looking at her as if he was surprised at her reaction to what Roland was saying. She said quickly, ‘It’s just that I’ve seen horrible things done to people, because they have been suspected of being witches
or sorcerers.’ Her voice shook as she remembered what she had seen.

‘We were in Chester once, and there was this old woman there, that we had met in the market. She was very cranky and she had a big wart on her nose and nobody liked her. The children used to tease her and she had a stick that she would shake at them. She wasn’t a nice old lady at all, but she didn’t deserve what happened to her … Anyway, it seems one of her neighbours got it into her head that the old woman had cast a spell on her cows. They wouldn’t give milk. And she had the old lady, Maggie was her name, she had Maggie brought up before the court. I saw her being dragged out of her house and being pricked and prodded in front of
everyone
. You could see that she was really terrified. My da tried to help her, but then
he
ended up being brought up before the court. In the end he got off, but the old lady was held in a freezing, filthy prison while she was waiting for the trial and she died there. It was dreadful.’

Tom said nothing. He was afraid if he said anything
sympathetic
Kai might cry, and he knew his friend would hate to show
himself
as weak in front of Roland. Roland himself merely raised an eyebrow as if something had suddenly clicked into place in his mind. Kai stood up and began to walk away, determined to find somewhere where she could cry in secret. She would never forget that horrible time in Chester, the fear that her father would be imprisoned or
worse, the cruelty people had shown to the poor old woman. They had gathered in the streets and screamed again and again ‘Kill the witch!’ as she was being dragged to prison.

From what she had heard, it seemed typical of Roland’s father to have been involved in a witch hunt. He sounded like the type who knew he was always right and loved to catch out other people doing wrong. Just so he could
lecture
them and punish them and feel completely virtuous about inflicting pain and humiliation on other people. Just like Roland, in fact. At least people like her father, tricksters though they might be, did not stand on judgement on other people.

But Roland couldn’t let it go. He shouted after Kai, ‘The woman probably
was
a witch! And we all know that your father is involved in some strange things too – magic and the like! He certainly has more than one trick up his sleeve! How else did he manage to win all that money from the sheep farmers last August? Oh, you didn’t know that I knew about that, did you?’

Kai said, ‘I’m not listening to any more! Let me go!’

For now Roland had caught up with her and was pulling at her sleeve as she tried to walk away.

He began pushing her, saying, ‘You should listen to me when I speak! You have no respect for me! I tell you, you will be sorry when my father gets here!’

Kai hated to be pushed, so she pushed back. Perhaps it was
because the push was a little harder than was necessary, or perhaps it happened just because the ground near the river was very muddy and slippery. For whatever reason, there was a scream and Roland slid into the green slime that covered the river. Tom and Kai looked at each other and burst into shocked laughter. But now Roland was screaming that he couldn’t swim. The river was deep at this point, and Roland was out of his depth, and already becoming tangled in the green river weed.

‘Here, catch my hand,’ called Kai, but by now Roland had been pulled away from the shore. Kai and Tom kicked off their shoes and dived in. It was a difficult job to get Roland back to shore, mainly because in his panic the boy kicked and hit out at the two children who were trying to save him. But they finally crawled onto the bank, and lay gasping there, Kai trying hard not to think of the trouble they would be in when they went back to the priory soaked, with their clothes covered in mud.

Roland was the first to pull himself upright. He stood looking down at Kai, his face full of fury.

‘You tried to kill me,’ he gasped. ‘You can be sure I won’t forget that. You are evil, like your father, like your thieving brother, like all the vagabonds who bring trouble and disease to Dublin.’

But by the time he had finished speaking Kai was already gone, racing towards the priory to get out of her wet clothes.
Roland raced after her. Tom was left alone on the riverbank, thinking of a time when the three of them – Jack and Kai and himself – would have sat there giggling at the sight of a sodden Roland making his way home, his fine clothes ruined, his fur hood lost in the slime that covered Greenteeth Jenny’s bed.