On the Shoulders of Giants: in memory of Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

 

I read my first Le Guin in late childhood, when I was in my first flush of Sci Fi discovery, moving on from fairy tales and fantasy to stuff that had more meat to it. She has been my favourite living author ever since. Until today.

She stands head and shoulders above all others in my personal pantheon, so what is it that I value so much about her? What is so special?

For a start, as a female writer, I owe her an immense debt. Growing up I didn’t consciously gravitate to male writers. I read whatever I could find that looked good to read, and in the arena of science and Sci Fi the writers were virtually all men. But at age 14 or so, back in the mid 70s, I was astonished to discover that some of my favourite writers were in fact female. Women who’d had to disguise their sex under initials or gender-neutral names in order to get published at all. And as for the hubris of daring to write science-based fiction? Andre Norton, C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, L Taylor Hansen, and most of all U K Le Guin: I salute you. You changed the world. According to Wikipedia, six women have been named Grand Master of science fiction by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Andre Norton was named in 1984, and Le Guin, at last, in 2003.

I do know that the sex-bias of early Sci Fi publishing is disputed, and there were plenty of writers who didn’t hide their sex under gender-neutral names, but it was and remains my perception that it was much more difficult for women writers to be taken seriously, particularly if they were writing ‘hard’ Sci Fi.

She’s been a vociferous and challenging voice up until very recent times, outspoken in her advocacy of books and writers and the universe of words. In 2014 she made a passionate speech about the value of writers to society, at the National Book Awards in New York after accepting the 2014 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters .

“Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom – poets, visionaries – realists of a larger reality.”

One of my favourite Le Guin novels is Rocannon’s World. It begins with a myth, Semley’s Necklace, which tells the story of the lost treasure of the Angyar, and the young woman who enters a dark cave to retrieve it, only to return home a few days later to be greeted by her baby daughter, now a grown woman. It cleverly takes a well known fairytale trophe, and explains it in terms of relativity. In fact, when I later came to study Einstein’s thought experiments and the Theory of Relativity, Semley’s Necklace was the strand on which I strung the precious (and elusive) beads of my understanding.

In Rocannon’s World the hard science of space travel, and of relativistic effects on aging and communication, rub shoulders with a generous and perceptive assessment of humanity and a convincing portrayal of alienness. Le Guin’s own invention of the ansible (enabling instant communication between star systems, although physical travel could take a generation) has spread throughout all the universes of Sci Fi, and we hardly remember a time when it wasn’t taken for granted.

She made magic wonderful again. I have my favourites (I’ll always be a Tolkienophile) but their worlds are distant from ours. We are shut out. Even those worlds (such as Narnia) which connect with ours are open only to a few. But in Earthsea, and the arch-mage Ged who began his life as a goatherd on the isolated island of Gont, we find a world that is open to all of us. The reason Earthsea’s inhabitants seem so accessible, so human, is that its mores and philosophies are taken from the Tao. I didn’t come to study the Tao until quite late in my life, but when I did it felt like coming home to an old friend, its cadences were so familiar.

Le Guin creates a philosophy of story-telling in one of my personal favourites, The Telling which was first published in 2001. Here the human perspective, the Haining Universe in which so many of her books are set, comes up against a peculiar military dictatorship, the prime focus of which seems to be to bar literacy, to destroy books, and to wipe out learning. In travelling this world, human envoy Sutty gradually begins to understand what motivates the people of Aka, and opens a doorway into her own soul. At heart, all Le Guin’s stories are about the individual’s search for meaning, for stories that help us to make sense of our lives, and The Telling shows that in a particularly wonderful way.

In Always Coming Home, Le Guin changed the rules again. Part memoir, part half-lost history – she calls it an archaeology of the future: an imagined California in which everything has changed, but people find ways of living that are meaningful and rewarding no matter how hard the environment. Gentle, elegiac, deceptively simple – a series of moments like beads on a string; you can read the book from cover to cover, or dip into it, or pick only the poems or only the narrative, as you please.

But here too we recognise the scholarship, the scientific basis for her work. See all that stuff in the news at the moment about the effects of plastic microbeads on the oceans? Le Guin predicted it in 1985.

Perhaps her most famous work, The Left Hand of Darkness, is a more difficult beast. I didn’t enjoy it as a teenager. I needed to live life a bit before I was ready for its politics, its difference. I sometimes feel now that Le Guin overdid the gender-bending aspects of her stories, and the peculiarities of Winter and its non-gendered natives is a particularly strong example. But creating a world in which everyone is of the same sex (or no sex, most of the time) and then dropping a lost and as usual confused earthman into the middle of them, enables her to play mindgames with us and she challenges our expectations. I expect I’ll still be reading this book into old age, and it will always have something new to tell me.

RIP Ursula Le Guin. Rest, of course – you’ve earned it. But don’t expect us to stop arguing about your stories. Long may that continue.

Serendipity – and storytelling

Serendipity. Sometimes it’s all you could possibly ask for. This week I’ve had three unexpectedly inspiring experiences. Firstly, one of my fellow Crooked Cats came to the island on Monday – we visited beaches and art galleries, ate icecream on the waterfront, and spent the day talking about our writing. It’s wonderful to be in the company of another writer. That evening a parcel arrived – a paperback copy of Lauren Sapala’s book ‘The INFJ Writer’, which is full of useful exercises and helpful advice. I learned that my messy, bitsy, disorganised method of writing (which is neither pantsing nor planning, but more like patchwork) has a name. It’s called the mosaic technique. How nice is that? (Despite my best attempts at cheating, I always code out to INFJ. It’s a nuisance, but there we are.)

And then another friend gave me a wonderful thing. It’s a booklet and pack of forty ‘storytelling’ cards. I was messing around with them today, shuffling and dealing out a handful of cards, then using them to make up stories. It was just a bit of fun, until suddenly a story started to tell itself. ‘The Blanket of Stars’ is the first piece of extended writing I’ve done in over three months, and here it is. Small, and whole and perfect. And all thanks to Jennifer, Lauren and Carol. Here’s to serendipity – and to friends!

The Blanket of Stars

Once there was a king: the usual kind, strong and rich and wilful, dispensing judgement from his great carved throne and overseeing the running of his kingdom. He was not a happy man, for he was troubled with poor sleep, and nightmares. Not so many nightmares, at that, for it was not often that he slept long enough for dreams to come.

He sat on his throne, which come to think of it was rather hard and not very comfortable, and stared down at his servants and companions in the great hall. His brow was deeply furrowed, his shoulders high and tense, and he tapped one boot on the flagstones of the floor as he sat there. His chamberlain came forward, rather reluctantly, bowed and enquired after the king’s health.

The king glared at him. “I’m tired of having no sleep,” he grumbled. “I’m sick of these poor quality dreams. Fetch the Keeper of Dreams.”

The servants reported that no-one had seen the old man for a very long time, and they weren’t even sure if he was still alive.

“Of course he’s alive,” roared the king. “If he’d died someone would have told me.” This sounded quite logical, and anyway everyone was too afraid of the king to argue with him.

“Search high and low,” said the king, “from the deepest, darkest dungeon to the highest, most windswept tower and find the Keeper of Dreams. I want to sleep.”

So the king’s servants spread out through the castle. They searched from the deepest, darkest dungeon to the highest, most windswept tower, and at last they found the Keeper of Dreams where he’d been all along: in his own bed, fast asleep, with a dreaming smile upon his face.

The old man came before the king, sitting on his high throne, and he bowed. “Your Majesty is looking well,” he said.

“Never mind that,” said the king. “This is no time for platitudes. Anyway, I don’t believe I am looking well, because I haven’t slept for weeks. I need to sleep, Keeper. I want some pleasant dreams. Open your box of tricks. Make it happen.”

The Keeper of Dreams eyed the king for a moment, noting his frowning brow, the unsatisfied twist of his lips, and the distinctly red tinge of his eyes. “Your Majesty,” he said, “the solution to your ills is the Star Blanket. If we can get you settled into bed with the Star Blanket tucked around you, you’d soon find yourself snoozing peacefully, awash with pleasant dreams.”

“Oh,” said the king wistfully. “That does sound good.” He mused for a moment, then his shoulders, which had relaxed, drew up again either side of his ears and he shouted, “Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and find me the Star Blanket.”

So the Keeper of Dreams packed a small bag of his most essential possessions and set off into the world. He took with him a tiny casket, containing his favourite and most beloved dreams. As he walked through the streets of the city, he observed the daily lives of the king’s people, and spoke with many as he passed by. But none had heard of the Star Blanket, or knew of its whereabouts. One old, old woman gazed at him, her face creased with thousands of wrinkles, and spoke.

“You might as well ask the beasts of the fields as the people of this city,” she said. “For they are too busy and too worldly to pay any attention to something as old and well-worn as the Star Blanket.”

“That’s good advice, ma’am,” the Keeper of Dreams said, for he was nothing if not polite, and he remembered his own old mother, dead this many a long year, and treated the old lady with courtesy on behalf of his mother’s memory. He set off out of the city gates, on his way to ask the beasts if they had seen the Star Blanket, since the people of the city had been no help to him.

The old woman watched him go, her eyes bright and far-seeing in her old, old face. She smiled, and the wrinkles doubled, as she noted that the kind and charming man was not much younger than herself. “Good luck to you, my fine fellow,” she said. “I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you again.” She closed her eyes and her head nodded upon her breast, as she fell into the quick, easy sleep of the very old.

The Keeper of Dreams got no help from the beasts of the field: cows, sheep and llamas have no use for the artefacts of dreaming. They simply lay down with the coming of darkness and the Star Blanket fell over them quite naturally so that they slept till morning, and dreamed the dreams of contented animals. Perhaps he would have more luck in the dark forest. He stumbled his way into the deepest, darkest part of the forest, tripping over tree roots and extricating himself from bramble patches, until at last he found himself faced by a fearsome looking beast, half-human and half some wild creature of the wilderness.

“Halt,” cried the beast. “I’m hungry and you’ll do for my dinner. Stand still and let me kill you.”

The Keeper of Dreams replied that he would sooner not be eaten, if possible, as he was on an urgent errand for the king. He delved into his small bag and pulled out a heel of bread. The beast seized the bread and ate it in a few bites, washing it down with water from a nearby streamlet.

“Why should I care about the king?” he said. “Once I lived in that great city of his; I was a respected member of society. But I began to have bad dreams, and then I couldn’t sleep, and at last I was so maddened by lack of it that my neighbours turned me out into the woods to die. It’s a bad season – too early in the year for fruit and grains. I’ve eaten nothing but meat for weeks. There’s not much meat on your bones, old man, but I’ll have what there is regardless. It will keep me going until tomorrow.”

He lurched towards the old man, but stumbled to a halt as the Keeper of Dreams drew out his tiny box and opened it. A warm, golden light filled the clearing.

“Oh.” The beast leaned forwards and gazed into the box. “Oh, I see.” He sank to his haunches and bowed his head, closing his eyes and falling into sleep. A little golden dust settled on his head and shoulders as he began to snore. The Keeper of Dreams patted the sleeping beast’s shoulder companionably, tucked his box back into his bag, and walked away.

On the other side of the dark forest the Keeper of Dreams spotted a young lad, watching over a flock of sheep. The sheep grazed peacefully on the green grass, a rainbow flickered into being as a shower passed across the ground, and then the sun shone again as the shepherd lad pulled a pipe out of his pocket and began to play. The old man smiled, and he felt a little of his burden lift at the joyful sound. Surely a boy so contented must know the secret of peaceful sleep and quiet dreams.

“Lad,” he cried as he started forwards. “Please help me. I am on an urgent errand for the king, who is troubled in his sleep and suffers unquiet dreams. I am seeking the Star Blanket. Please tell me you know where it is.”

“I’m not sure I can help you,” said the boy. “Each day I bring my flock in from the pasture and put them into the barn. My sister brings me food, and then I curl up with the sheep to sleep in the warm straw. Sometimes a star looks in the high window of the barn, and even though the wolf howls I know that I am safe. But I remember that when I was very young my mother would sing me to sleep, and I always had good dreams. Maybe she can help you.” And he gave the Keeper of Dreams a little bread and cheese from his satchel (for he was a good boy, and his mother had taught him to be kind to strangers) and directed him towards the mountain path that would lead him to the village in the valley below.

The Keeper opened his small box and offered it to the boy, who reached inside and pulled out an amber honey chew. This he ate with every evidence of enjoyment. The Keeper made his way across the meadow, wondering what sweet dream the young shepherd would receive when he lay down in the barn that evening.

By this time the Keeper of Dreams was very tired, and he wondered if he would ever manage to find the Star Blanket for the king, or if perhaps he was fated to walk until his legs dropped off, or his poor old heart gave out. But at last he reached the outskirts of the village, and saw a wee white cottage with a carving of leaves and flowers over the lintel. In the doorway of the house stood a woman – a very ordinary looking woman, in a peasant’s black dress and grey shawl, but her face was kind and her eyes a warm brown as she gazed at him.

“Sir, you look tired,” she said. “Will you sit awhile and take a sup of ale with me?”

The Keeper of Dreams was very pleased to take the weight off, so he dropped onto the bench beside the door and sighed as he stretched out his aching legs and sore feet. The woman brought two tankards of ale, cool and frothy, and sat beside him, sipping her drink and gazing out across the yard where a couple of chickens were hopefully pecking the ground.

“Mother, I thank you. This was just what I needed.” The Keeper of Dreams raised his tankard to the woman, who nodded but didn’t reply. For a long moment they sat there in the warm sunshine, enjoying the moment of rest, however brief. Then the Keeper of Dreams stirred and turned towards her.

“It seems to me that I met your son, up in the high pastures,” he said. “I told him I was looking for the Star Blanket, and he said that he couldn’t help me, but he remembered that when he was very young you would sing him to sleep and he had pleasant dreams. I wonder if you would mind coming with me to the city to sing to the king. He is troubled in his sleep and has unquiet dreams.”

The woman gazed at him wonderingly. “They are very ordinary songs,” she said, “and I have only a very ordinary voice. Of course, he is my son and I love him. That makes a difference.” She thought for a moment, then stood. “Wait here,” she said, and disappeared back into her cottage.

The Keeper of Dreams was content to wait. It was pleasant sitting in the sun after a mug of ale and a day of hard exercise. He may even have dropped off for a moment, but came fully alert when the woman emerged from her house, holding an old, scruffy, many-times-patched blanket. It was the faded pink of the washed out evening sky, and every square of its patchwork bore a cloth star. Some of the stars were bright and colourful, but others were faded or torn, and a few hung loose where the stitching had come undone.

The woman bundled the blanket into a bag and pulled it onto her shoulder, along with a pouch of cheese and apples. “Come on, then,” she said. “I can’t be away long, because the sheep will soon be shorn and then I need to get busy with my spinning. But my housework can wait a day or two, if the king’s in need of a sleep.”

On their first night of travelling the Keeper offered her his little box. She peeped inside, her face warmed by the golden light, but she shook her head and he closed it again. “An early start, plenty of hard work and a job well done – those will bring me rest at night. No need for any golden toy to charm my sleep.”

The two of them trudged through the great gate of the castle a couple of days later. They’d eaten all the cheese and apples along the way, and the Keeper had traded a dream for a loaf of sour bread on the second day, but they were both footsore and hungry, and very glad to have arrived. The castle kitchen was bustling with preparations for the king’s dinner, but the second cook sat them down at a table in the corner and served them soup and bread, and a fruit compote for dessert, for the ordinary people of the castle ate the same good food as the king, only that theirs was not served on silver platters or accompanied by the best Rhenish wine.

After the meal the Keeper of Dreams spoke quietly to the cook, and she allowed the woman to use her kitchen, although she insisted first on a thorough wash and a change of clothing. Luckily one of the housemaids was a similar shape to the woman, and loaned her a grey dress and white apron, and a white scarf to cover her hair. The woman set to work in the kitchen, and before long doors were opening and servants peering in to discover the source of the appetising aromas that were issuing from the oven.

At last the Keeper of Dreams brought the woman before the king. He sat as before on his high, hard throne, with a frown of bitterness on his face and his tired head on his hand. The doors opened and the Keeper strode into the hall, bringing with him a wholesome smell of cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves. The king sat up and breathed deeply. “What is this?” he demanded.

The woman curtseyed, and placed her items on a nearby table. She poured him a simple pottery mug of cinnamon milk posset, and offered a plateful of spiced cakes, still hot from the oven. The king took the drink, not without a slight curl of the lip at the plainness of its container, but after one sip he drained the mug and turned his attention to the cakes. He ate three. The Keeper took advantage of the king’s distraction to help himself to a cake. They were really very good.

The woman sat on the step below the throne and stretched out her legs in front of her, pulling down the housemaid’s skirts which were, truth to tell, slightly short and displayed a pair of nicely turned ankles and two neat, stockinged feet. The king gazed at the shapely ankles and munched absently on another cake. She leaned her head against the side of the throne and began to hum.

There was nothing much to the song – a low, swaying melody, a word or two and some fal-la-lals. Nothing much to listen to. Nothing to excite, or interest, or…

The king’s eyelids drooped and he let go of the pottery mug. The Keeper swooped forward and caught it before it could shatter on the flagstones. The king’s head fell forward and he began to snore. The woman stood and regarded him for a moment. The Keeper of Dreams began to speak, but she put her finger to her lips.

She turned and beckoned to the chamberlain, who was peering in through the double doors of the great hall. The chamberlain pushed the doors open and in came the king’s huge, wheeled, four-poster bed, so heavy that it took twenty footmen to manoeuvre it. They rolled it into the centre of the hall, and then the Keeper ushered the servants and retainers away.

The woman went to the throne and gently nudged the king.

“Whassam?” he muttered, his eyelids flickering. She put one hand under his elbow and encouraged him to stand. With the woman on one side, and the old man on the other, the king climbed down from the throne and lay down on the clean white sheets of the bed. The woman pulled up the eiderdown as the king turned on his side and mumbled sleepily.

Opening the bag she still carried over one shoulder, the woman pulled out the Star Blanket and draped it over the king. One hand came up and pawed at the blanket, but she took it and laid it down by his side, and tucked the blanket around him. She stroked his cheek gently and the frown cleared from his face. After a moment his breathing deepened again, and she gestured to the Keeper to precede her into the corridor.

“That was a kind thing you did,” said the Keeper. “Being as how that’s no magical object in there, but only an ordinary ratty old blanket of the kind that any peasant woman might make for her babies. Still, there was surely magic in the song, anyway.”

The woman smiled and touched the Keeper’s cheek. He leaned into the touch, feeling again the long distant warmth of his mother’s hand. “Every boy needs his mother from time to time,” she said. “And every mother knows the secret of the Blanket of Stars.”

She spoke to the chamberlain, who was hovering outside the doors to the great hall, clearly wanting to go in to his master. “I will return in the spring when my first grandchild is born. I’ll want the Star Blanket back then, and he won’t need it anymore.” She shouldered her empty bag and walked out of the castle, without a backward glance.

The Keeper stood watching after her for a few minutes. Behind him the chamberlain slipped quietly into the hall. The Keeper’s forehead bore its own frowning mark as he thought, rather slowly since he was tired after his journey. Then his face cleared and his eyes widened. Nodding to himself he walked out of the castle and down into the town.

As he crossed the marketplace the old woman was there, sitting on her doorstep, taking in the late afternoon sun. She looked at him without speaking as he sat on the doorstep beside her, and turned to look into her face. Her back was bowed and her face old, but her expression was as young as springtime and her eyes were bright. The Keeper took one of her gnarled, arthritic hands in his and rubbed it gently.

“When I was young, and new in my job, and I thought that I was soon to hold all the secrets of the dreaming world in my hands, I had a dream.” He paused and looked at her, and she smiled at him. The wrinkles on her face doubled, but her eyes were clear and shining and fixed on his face.

“I dreamed that I walked far, far from my home, until I came to a valley between two peaks. There the grass was green and the streams fresh and clear. The trees bore blossom, green leaf and fruit all together, and in among the fruit bushes deer grazed in the company of wolves, rabbits scampered between the paws of a lion, and an eagle screamed overhead but did not disturb the hens which searched for worms amongst the strawberries.”

The woman gazed at him serenely. Her smile deepened, and the wrinkles tripled, but she made no sound. She patted his hand comfortingly, and he continued.

“In this valley was a small white house with smoke coming from the chimney. And on the threshhold stood an enchantress, young in years and strong in the use of her power. She led me into her garden and fed me on the sweetest fruits. And as the sun dipped behind the mountains, I realised that her eyes were the precise colour of the sky at the moment when all the light has gone, but the first star has not yet begun to shine.”

He stopped, and for the first time looked uncertain. He looked again into the old, wise face and was drawn into two deep pools of smoky blue. He began to tremble.

She smiled, the smile of a woman who is taking pity on a man when she knows he has floundered into deep water. Despite the wrinkles, the Keeper suddenly saw a woman who, in her own mind, was as young and powerful as ever she had been. She stood and pulled him to his feet.

“Some dreams are not meant to be shared,” she said, “and others wait a lifetime within us.” She pulled his head down and brushed her lips over his. “But now you have found my garden, and you will find that the fruits are still sweet.”

***

Cards used:

The King

The Keeper of Dreams

The Enchantress

The Wild Beast

The Youngest Son

The Mother

The Star Blanket

Dressing for (Fantasy Worlds) Success

There are some things everyone would choose. Who wouldn’t want a magic ring? Although maybe not the One Ring; I don’t think any of us have enough darkness to handle that. Of course, if the ring possesses the right properties then it might not matter what you wear. But there are lots of things you can’t do when you’re invisible – so here are my wardrobe choices for those times when you need to look just right, whatever doorway might open.

Newt Scamander’s suitcase, obviously. It beats Mary Poppins’ carpet bag hands down. I’d also like one of those wee bottomless purses; that could be very useful. I probably first encountered this type of magic bag in Andrew Lang’s The Grey Fairy Book, since I worked my way through all the colour fairy books when I was still in primary school, but apparently the object appeared in print as early as 1509AD (fairytalez.com) and it was just as effective when J K Rowling wrote about Hermione’s purple beaded bag almost five hundred years later.

Kell’s coat (A Darker Shade of Magic). Whatever situation presents itself, whatever disguise is required, simply take off the coat and turn it inside out. Sometimes you have to do this several times to get the right coat for the occasion. “Kell wore a very peculiar coat… the first thing he did when he stepped out of one London and into another was take off the coat and turn it inside out once or twice (or even three times) until he found the side he needed.” In my case, one of the sides would be Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak (assuming I didn’t have the Ring) and another would be one of Lothlorien’s elven cloaks. And, of course, one side would need to be The Doctor’s coat, complete with sonic screwdriver. Which doctor? Well, I was going to go for Jodie Whittaker’s new look – I do love a hood – but I’ve realised she’s actually wearing a hoodie under a coat (not a long hooded coat) so I’m going for Peter Capaldi’s elegant scarlet-lined coat.

Vanastalem. I don’t think you can go wrong with the spell Agnieszka is forced to learn in Naomi Novik’s Uprooted. Vanalem – Vanastalem – the simplest form of the word conjures up a straightforward working outfit. The more complex the word, the fancier the clothes, until with a mouthful of syllables you can clothe yourself as befits royalty in full court dress. That’s a lot easier than transporting a wardrobe suitable for all occasions – maybe I won’t need that suitcase after all. “Power shuddered out of me. Crusted pearls and whalebone closed up beneath his hands like armour, and he jerked his hands off me and stepped back as a wall of velvet skirts fell rustling between us.”

Wherhide trousers and vest. Vanalem is all to the good, but for everyday wear I can certainly see the sense in a fabric which is resistant to pretty much everything except threadscore (Anne McCaffrey, Dragonflight etc). They’d look good with the coat, and after all I will be riding a dragon of some kind. Or, at least, something huge and disturbing and not altogether easy to see, which people’s minds will tell them is a dragon for want of a better label to pin on the phenomenon (Sheri S Tepper, Grass).

Footwear. I favour soft, low-heeled boots myself. Comfortable for walking – good for running away (always a better plan than fighting, if possible). A pair of Hermes’ cast-offs would do nicely, for those time when flight is required and one’s dragon is otherwise engaged. I’m sure Percy Jackson could get me a pair. Shoes seem simple, but stand for a lot. I’m not even going to get started on the social, or sexual, symbolism of footwear. But my bottom line is that comfort is more important than looks. I plan to journey – and I don’t intend to get blisters!

If you were running away into a fantasy-world adventure, what’s the one object or item of clothing you couldn’t do without?

And here’s the list of books I’ve just referenced:

J R R Tolkien                       The Lord of the Rings

Seanan McGuire               Every Heart a Doorway

J K Rowling                          Fantastic Beasts (screenplay)

P L Travers                          Mary Poppins

Andrew Lang                      The Grey Fairy Book

J K Rowling                          Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

V E Schwab                         A Darker Shade of Magic

J K Rowling                          Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

BBC Television                   Doctor Who (the 12^th and 13^th Doctors)

Naomi Novik                      Uprooted

Anne McCaffrey               Dragonflight

Sheri S Tepper                   Grass

Rick Riordan                       Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Telling Tales Slant – Something Wicked

This one’s not so much twisted as updated, and brought back to the level of nastiness I remember from reading translations of Grimm. By name and by nature – the endings of folk and fairy tales were once much darker. For this one I have in mind the wonderful Cloris Leachmann (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001458/) , who is currently owning the small screen in ‘American Gods’. Who would you cast in the role of Malva?

Something Wicked, Something Pink

So many people. They must have invited everyone. Malva inserted herself into the stream of partygoers pouring in through the great doors, flung open to the cool air of early evening, and peered through the throng. Everyone except me, that is. She stamped her foot. A startled footman glanced in her direction and she plastered a pleasant smile on her face and accepted a vol-au-vent from the tray he proffered. Now, where is that blasted baby?

She shouldered through the crowds, working her way into the heart of the building. Security was easy to spot – black suits, mirror shades, the whole stone-faced thing – but she had nothing to fear from them. Out here no-one was checking invitations (after all, everybody had one) and a little sleight of hand and misdirection should see her past anyone who took more than a casual interest. As for getting into the christening party itself… “Hello, dear.”

The sharp-suited man startled as the frail elderly woman greeted him. He drew himself up, preparing to send her on her way, but she grasped his elbow with surprisingly strong fingers. “I don’t…”

The words died in his throat as she administered three brisk taps to his wrist, neck and temple. All intelligence drained from his face and he gazed at her, open-mouthed, as she took charge and led him away. “There’s a good boy. Just keep walking. Now, take me to the family.”

He nodded, and escorted her through the crowds, all the way to the golden cradle. Malva relinquished her hostage as soon as she passed through the security cordon (her sibyllic ID – slightly psychic – and a pet security agent were all she needed to baffle the guards) and he wandered back to his post, none the worse for his experience, apart from a baffling tendency to scream whenever small, elderly ladies approached him.

The cradle was mobbed. All the invited bigwigs were offering their well wishes to the family. Malva wormed her way to the edge of the cradle. Some simpering fairy was offering up a pitiful wish. “May your days be merry, and your heart full of cheer.

Pathetic. The parents were lapping it up. The father stood grasping a glass of fizz, while the mother was practically festooned in ribbons and shiny paper from the gifts she was unwrapping. A teddy bear. Pink. A doll’s house. Pink. A satin dress with three layers of frills. Pink, what else? It was enough to make you sick.

“Darling child, your lips are like rosebuds, your eyes as bright as stars. May you marry the handsomest man in the land and live happily ever after.”

For heaven’s sake, is that what it’s come to? A chubby ball of fat, barely out of the womb, and it’s already being wished into a life of painted boredom? It had better hope it didn’t have much of an intellect, because otherwise this promised life was going to be nothing but a disappointment. Malva could stand it no longer. She stepped forward, sharp elbows at the ready.

“If you exchange your identity for invisibility in a pink shroud, you might as well be dead. So be it. At sixteen, you will come of age and die.”

So… why Treacle?

Treacle  ˈtriːk(ə)l

noun: treacle; plural noun: treacles

1. a. British: a thick, sticky dark syrup made from partly refined sugar; molasses.

         b. syrup of a golden-yellow colour; golden syrup.

2.  cloying sentimentality or flattery.

“enough of this treacle—let’s get back to business”

Origin: Middle English (originally denoting an antidote against venom): from Old French triacle, via Latin from Greek thēriakē ‘antidote against venom’, feminine of thēriakos (adjective), from thērion ‘wild beast’. Current senses date from the late 17th century.

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According to various online sources, the word treacle goes back to a borrowing from Old French triacle, a word referring to the sugar-syrup base into which apothecaries would decant whatever nasty-tasting cures they wished their patient to take. The word derives ultimately from a Greek word thēriakē, meaning an antidote against venom, which suggests that its early applications were topical (i.e. slather it on the outside, rather than apply it to the inside).

This dark, viscous product of sugar refining thus gained its name due to its association with apothecaries and their products. All the syrupy by-products of sugar refinement were known as treacle, but later the British firm Lyle perfected the refining process to produce that other, more popular, sugar syrup known as golden syrup. You can still buy treacle – these days it’s often called black treacle (or, in the US, molasses), to distinguish it from its golden cousin.

While sugar can be produced from beets as well as sugar cane, only the latter produces a pleasant tasting treacle.

The 17^th century seems to mark the time when treacle made the jump from a medicine to a foodstuff. https://britishfoodhistory.wordpress.com/tag/treacle/ suggests ‘bread tart’ and ‘sweetmeat cake’ as early recipes using treacle, and the earliest recipes for ‘treacle tart’ in the 1870s precede Lyle’s development of golden syrup, even though most modern recipes call for golden syrup rather than black treacle. Gingerbread, which has been around at least since the 1400s, switched to using treacle as an ingredient during the 18^th century. But the popularity of ‘Mary Poppins’ suggests that the association of sugar syrup with medicines remains as strong as ever.

I’m rather drawn to the idea that a substance famed for being sickly sweet (as in the famous treacle tart of my story – the favourite dessert of Harry Potter – and the treacle wells mentioned by the dormouse in Alice in Wonderland) ultimately derives its name from medicines which were so bitter that they required a sweet coating. That seems a good metaphor for this story collection.

In Treacle and Other Twisted Tales I take some well-known tales and retell them with a twist, a difference, or a wee flicker of darkness. There are new stories, too, some drawn from imagination and others from experience. There are no entirely happy endings – I don’t really believe in them – but some at least come to satisfactory conclusions. If there’s a moral in the story, it’s that beneath sweetness there is always a small, sharp tang of bitterness, and sometimes the sugar coating is very thin indeed. Life isn’t fair, and nothing ever turns out exactly the way we want it to. These aren’t fairy stories, you know.

As for the second meaning – sentimentality or flattery – isn’t that the business of we fiction writers? I employ my words as the appetising coating to encourage some unpalatable suggestions to go down. Did I sweeten the mixture enough?

And am I genuinely channelling my East End ancestors, or merely mocking Eastenders the soap, when I say to you, “Don’t worry, treacle* – if you don’t like this story, maybe the next one’ll suit you better”?

*Treacle (tart) = sweetheart

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Maryika’s Christmas

Today’s story for https://www.facebook.com/christmaswithcrookedcats is full of magic and wonder – with a modern twist.

Maryika’s Christmas

Christmas Eve, 2016.

“It’s not fair.” Andre ran from the room, slamming the door as he went. Maryika followed, more slowly. At twenty-two she should be above her brother’s adolescent rages. She agreed with him, though. It wasn’t fair.

Their mother had made it all sound so reasonable. “We have so much. All our needs are met. Christmas is just one more occasion to give each other gifts that we can give at any time of the year. And it’s such a worthy cause.”

It was. That was what made it so hard to object. Their parents’ decision to donate to the charity War Child all the money that they would usually have spent on Christmas gifts was a harsh surprise for their children. But their mother was also right: they had so much, and it wasn’t a terrible idea to give some of what they could spare to help children to go to school, or get the medicines they needed, or keep themselves warm and safe in this winter season.

Christmas was a time for giving. Of course they should give as well as receive. Even Andre had to admit it was selfish to argue otherwise. He hadn’t lost the plot until Mama had told them she had asked all their relatives to donate the money they would have spent on gifts to the charity. This Christmas no-one would be giving any gifts at all.

Which somehow made the generous gift to the charity feel like robbery. Especially to Andre. At sixteen he was still half a child, and the thought of Christmas without mounds of presents under the tree, and cupboards full of treats to raid when he thought Mama wasn’t looking – well, it wasn’t surprising he’d lost his temper.

Maryika wandered into the kitchen, where Baba was making vatrushka, one of Maryika’s favourites. “I thought there weren’t going to be any treats this year,” she said.

Baba glowered. “Simple peasant bread,” she said, folding the delicious doughy mass over and over with her hands, kneading it gently until smooth and ready to rise. Once cooked, the sweet, soft bread rolls would be perfect with stewed fruit and cream, or just as pleasurable to eat by themselves with a cup of coffee. The old lady sniffed. “Nobody told me we were not to eat,” she said, covering the rounded shapes with a muslin cloth. “No point everybody dying of hunger to save some children we don’t even know.”

“Baba!” Maryika was shocked. “There are children who can’t even go to school, or buy medicines if they have conditions like diabetes. Their families have lost everything. We’re just trying to help them as much as we can.”

Baba looked her over, black eyes shining in the heat of the kitchen. She poked Maryika in the arm and made her yelp. “I thought you didn’t like the idea?”

“It’s a good idea. There’s a real need. It’s just… I think Andre’s afraid it won’t feel like Christmas. And so am I, really.”

Baba’s face softened. “It will still feel like Christmas,” she said. “I can promise you that.”

She turned back to the stove. Maryika sat down at the table and watched her grandmother bustle around the kitchen. Upstairs there was a muffled concussion as Andre banged another door.

Baba turned back and pushed a mug across the table towards her. Maryika sipped the hot milk, smelling of nutmeg and cinnamon. It tasted like childhood. She closed her eyes, lulled by the sound of Baba’s voice. “Tonight you will dream a wonderful dream. You will be part of the miracle of Christmas.”

Maryika opened her eyes again to see Baba gazing at her, al the wrinkles of her face deepening as she smiled. “Now go talk some sense into your brother, before he knocks the whole house down in a rage.”

…

Maxim Lyotov stood at the window, looking out over the landscape but seeing nothing. Sonya was crying again. He couldn’t bear it. He had to bear it.

She had received the news yet again of her failure to conceive. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. The doctors had done their best, but for no particular reason it seemed that she could not bear a child, or he could not engender one. Their bodies produced sperm and egg as required, and the two seemed perfectly happy to merge and produce embryos, but one by one each implanted pregnancy failed.

Worst were the attempts which seemed to be working. Sonya would begin to bloom, trying all the while to deter conversation about the baby, superstitiously behaving as if talking about the pregnancy could be fatal, only for it to end in blood and pain, long before the child began to properly grow. This time had been easier – no sooner begun than ended – but she was still devastated. She was exhausted with the process, and he couldn’t stand to see her distressed any longer.

Today he’d told her that there would be no more attempts. He forbade it. They were not meant to have children, and that was an end to it. Now she was crying over his cruelty. Maxim clenched his fists in his pockets, by long habit concealing his emotions. He’d learned from experience that success came more readily to a man who seemed steady and controlled, free from passion.

He was the last, and now anonymous, prince of a tiny principality once swallowed up by the great Soviet, and now released into the grasp of one of the new countries: shaky, half-imaginary nations invented by Stalin, peopled with incompatible tribes and ethnicities, struggling to find cultural identities of their own. There was no room for princes, or titles, in the new reality.

Old blood still counted for something, though. It had got him into a good English-speaking school. He’d worked hard at the school, where the other pupils knew him as Max Winterson. They’d guessed, some of them, that he was from somewhere to the east of the European continent, but he’d never discussed his roots. ‘High born family fallen on hard times’ was a label that could have been applied to many of the boarders, and it didn’t make him stand out.

Brains and hard work had got him into Oxford, and out again, with a double first: into the diplomatic service and eventually to the post of UN Special Envoy to S___. The post was not without its rewards, including a generous salary which paid for the flat in Vienna with its floor-to-ceiling windows, and for the repair and upkeep of his family’s dacha.

Maxim peered out of the window of the dacha at the forest edge a few metres away. Winter wasn’t the best time to be here, despite the comforts of a roaring fire and a bed heaped with furs, but Sonya had wanted to get away for Christmas. Somewhere they could be alone. He understood it, he supposed. Her emotions were too raw to expose to Vienna’s party season, and the night of the Christ Child’s birth was bound to be difficult for her, with its extra reminder of a baby, both loved and unloved all at once, crying out in a need that Sonya yearned to meet.

The stars were blurring as cloud blew in. At some point tonight there was going to be snow. Maxim turned away from the window and went to comfort his wife.

…

The night wind was cool off the water and Zander shivered, drawing his thin cardigan around his shoulders. Zoe crouched at his feet, feeding the baby. Hana was a tiny child, hardly strong enough to bear the weight of such a portentous name. Hope. The flower of their happiness, if they could only escape. The foundation stone of their new life, or so he told himself, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders as befitted the head of a household.

Father had given the last of his money to the traffickers, staying behind to face his own likely death at the hands of the fighters of one side or the other; they were all as bad as each other. Why they were fighting, no-one knew any more. Only that each side believed they had God on their side, and were therefore ultimately unbeatable.

Life everywhere had degenerated into survival, and then incarceration in a prison the size of a city. Getting out of the country, getting to Europe, was the only way to ever escape the violence. The family’s life savings had paid for their freedom.

It had only got them as far as the border, though. There the traffickers dumped them into a locked room in a small house; two dozen or more children, thrown together by their common fear of the men to whom they had been sold. The traffickers said they needed more money. They let the children use a mobile phone, to contact their families. Some must have paid, because those children were removed from the house and not seen again.

Often it was the older girls who were taken, and, once, one of them was brought back. She hid in the corner until the traffickers left, and the younger girls went to her. Zander could not hear the story she whispered to Zoe, and when he asked his sister told him it was not for boys to know. The daily mobile phone calls continued. Zander’s father was trying to raise the money. He asked Zander to tell the traffickers that he would get it; they were to be patient.

The next day the men took Zoe. When they brought her back, Zander could see a terrible thing had happened, but Zoe turned her face to the wall and refused to speak to him. One of the traffickers had formed an attachment to her, and took her out again and again for a few weeks. One day, however, he pushed her back into the room with her face cut and bruised, and he did not come for her again. By summer it was obvious she was with child.

Zander knew he was supposed to reject her. She was unclean. She had lain with those men, those monsters. But it was clear that she had not had a choice. And besides, she was his sister, and he was responsible. At last his father had provided the money – borrowed or begged or stolen, Zander did not know – but it was enough for the next stage of the journey. They waited, on the darkest night of winter, for the boat that was to take them at last to safety and a new home.

…

Maryika lay snuggled into the warm depths of her bed, sinking slowly into sleep. She sighed, and burrowed deeper, as she closed her eyes.

She opened them on a vista of fields and forest, under a sky sprinkled with stars. Everything was dark except, with true dream-logic, the thing she was looking at. To begin with, it was three horses, grazing at the far edge of the field. It was night, and she couldn’t make them out clearly, but somehow she knew that one was white, one a fiery bay, and one golden as the sun with flaxen mane and tail. As she watched, Flaxen Mane lifted his head and came trotting towards her.

A movement caught her eye, and Maryika glanced to the left, into the face of a boy… a man… no, definitely a boy. He had the kind of ageless face that could belong to a male of twelve, or twenty-two, but surely no older. His eyes were brown, deep as peat bogs, and looking into them Maryika somehow knew that here was the oldest person she had ever met. “I am Nikolai,” he said, nodding to her. “Your grandmother told me you would come.”

Behind him was something that glimmered. Maryika focused on it, and saw that the boy was standing in front of a troika, harness in hand. Flaxen Mane trotted up to Maryika and pressed his nose into her palm, then moved towards the boy and stood before the troika. The boy fastened the harness, and the horse stood quietly until he was finished, whereupon he shook his head and a merry tinkling of bells rang out.

The boy whistled, and the white and bay horses came in their turn to be tied into the harness, either side of Flaxen Mane. The bay shook his red mane and snorted at Maryika, in a not-altogether-friendly fashion. The white stood calmly, its eyes fixed firmly on Flaxen Mane, taking no notice of the harness or the boy. Nikolai removed a scarf from around his neck and held it out to her. He wore another, identical – beautifully woven in patterns of multicoloured snowflakes out of some fine, silky material.

Maryika took it, expecting it to feel cool, but it warmed immediately in her hands. Only when she wrapped its warmth around herself did she realised how cold the wind had become. Its strength was rising, and there was ice in it.

The boy clambered aboard the troika and held out his hand to her. “Please,” he said. “I have a difficult task ahead of me, and I cannot complete it without you.” Maryika climbed up beside him, and he pulled a fur wrap over their knees and flicked the reins. She gripped the seat tightly, not expecting such a burst of speed, as they galloped over the frozen ground and into the air, over the trees, the fields, the tiny, scattered houses, far below, and out over a vast expanse of black water.

Up here the air must have been icy, and fat flakes of snow whipped towards them like a blizzard, but the wind was drawn aside as the three horses shouldered into it, leaving the boy and girl sitting comfortably in a calm, sheltered space. The troika dipped lower, and Maryika began to see movement in the dark waters below. The boy leaned his head towards her.

“There is a boat on the winter sea tonight,” he said. “A poorly made boat, owned by evil men whose only thought is to milk their victims for all that they can give before disposing of them. There are children on the boat; children who believe they are going to a safe haven, who do not know they are going to die.” Nikolai frowned, and for a moment an ageless light shone out of his eyes. “It is in my nature to want to change such things, if I can. Are you with me, Maryushka lisichka?”

Maryika ignored the endearment (he wasn’t the first to comment on the hint of red in her hair, and being called a fox by a stranger of indeterminant age was not something she wanted to draw attention to). But the thought of children, in danger, in the middle of the vast cold sea below them filled her with horrors. “Let’s do it,” she said, before she could change her mind.

She gasped as the troika dropped, hauled in the wake of the three straining bodies before them. In the inky darkness above the water the three horses shone with an inner light, white and red and gold, like a sudden sunrise. Below she could see a little boat, half swamped by the waves. There were already people in the water.

Nikolai snapped the reins and they went lower still, until they hung in the air just above the sinking boat. He leaned out and hauled a man into the troika. Maryika got down on the floor and reached towards a woman who was in the water. Their hands touched, but instead of grasping her, the woman thrust a bundle into Maryika’s hands and fell back, her head going under. The bundle wriggled, and a small child climbed out and disappeared into the back of the troika, which seemed larger than she’d first thought. There were already a half dozen or so people back there, and they were hauling others up to join them.

The woman who had sunk under the water suddenly shot up again, and Maryika grabbed her. She could see that the woman was being pushed aloft by hands and arms made of water. As the woman scrambled past her, Maryika saw that the water was alive with the bodies of women, all dark, all beautiful… all made of the same black water as the sea. Rusalkas. In Baba’s stories, they were figures of sorrow (drowned maidens) or fear (they would drag a traveller beneath the surface of their watery homes and keep him forever). She had never heard of them rescuing drowning people before.

Before her, some of the older and more able-bodied passengers were clambering onto the backs of the horses. Strangely, the horses’ bodies were growing, elongating, like the troika. No matter how many climbed up, there was always room for one more. With a frisson of fear, Maryika recognised another of her childhood nightmares: the water horse, able to carry its prey upon its back deep into the dark tarns and pools of the steppes, there to suck the flesh from their bones. As she thought this, the fire-coloured horse turned and grinned at her, pinpoints of red deep in its eyes.

She screamed, but the white horse glowed suddenly brighter, and Flaxen Mane shouldered the bay and bit its flank. The bay stood still in the air, its skin shivering, but tolerating the people on its back, who looked as frightened as Maryika felt. Those on the back of the white horse seemed to have fallen asleep.

Maryika reached again, to a young man whose white face was turned up to hers. The arms of the watery women were already around him, but instead of lifting, they were pulling him down. He struggled in the water, fear etched on his face. “No,” Maryika shouted, and reached again. Her fingertips touched his – they were warm, and very human.

One of the fluid forms drew up to the troika and hissed, “My sisters have claimed him.” Maryika shook her head and reached again. One shapely arm reached up and caressed her cheek. “This one has done great evil. He is ours now. Let him go.” The troika rose suddenly, and the young man’s form dropped away.

Maryika curled up around her distress as Nikolai snapped the reins and they began to move. She stayed that way as they galloped over the deep waters and up onto the shore. All she could see was that pale, terrified face sinking below the water, drawn ever deeper as the rusalkas put their hands on him, and she wondered what would have happened if only she had reached further, tried harder. They said he was a bad man, but perhaps he might have done some good, someday, if only she’d been able to hold on to him.

They landed as lightly as a feather, on a field adjacent to a great array of tents. The place didn’t smell very nice, but the people seemed glad to be back on solid ground, and stumbled away towards shelter. Nikolai held the reins in one hand and wrapped the other around her, pulled her into a hug. “The rusalkas saved many, tonight,” he said, “but they have the right. They will always take some.”

Maryika gulped and wiped her tears on her sleeve. The horses had returned to normal, trotting delicately across the air, glowing only slightly, and the troika had almost returned to its original size as well. But when she turned and looked she realised that there were still two children, clinging together and staring at her with huge eyes. Three children… she noticed that the girl was clutching a tiny baby, which had begun to wail.

Nikolai guided the troika down to a gravelled driveway beside a large house. There were still one or two lights lit, and there was smoke coming from the chimney. He jumped down and lifted the children onto the porch, leaning forwards to rap loudly on the door, before turning away. He leapt back into the troika and with a jingle of harness bells they were away, sweeping to the treetops as he gave the horses their heads.

…

“What is it?” Sonya crept down the stairs behind Maxim, who had lifted his old gun down from its stand behind the door. “Who would come at this hour?”

The front door creaked open and her hands went to her mouth. “Oh, the darlings.” She reached out and swept the boy into her arms. He was thin, and trembling with the cold. “Who are you?” she asked.

The boy spoke, and she did not understand a word, but her husband twitched in recognition. He spoke back, musical syllables falling from his lips. Then he turned to her.

“The boy is Zander,” he said. “He speaks Arabic – they are refugees, from across the water. He says their boat sank. There is more, but I don’t understand it.”

“Oh, hurry, get them inside. It’s too cold for a child to be out.”

Zander stumbled into the warmth of the hallway and sank to the floor. Behind him, Zoe flinched as Sonya reached for her, clutching her bundle tightly in her arms. The baby began to cry. It was cold, and hungry, and wet and, unable to decide which was the most distressing, decided to wail in earnest about all its miseries at once. Zoe deigned to allow Sonya to place her dressing gown around her thin shoulders, and walked on her own into the house, where she stood, clutching her daughter and looking around herself in wonder.

Maxim hung up the gun and went to poke the fire. Sonya paused for a moment, looking up at the sky, snowflakes melting on her face as she listened to the very far, very faint sound of harness bells. “Thank you,” she whispered, putting her hand over her mouth to quell her words as she closed the door and went in, but her heart went on saying it, silently. “Thank you.”

…

There was a flurry of wind in her face, and a soft rush of snowflakes brushed across her cheek like a windblown mane which was, perhaps, the pale gold of dawn that now brightened the sky. A single warm huff of breath redolent of straw and stables warmed her ear, and was gone. Maryika became conscious that she was standing on her own back doorstep, barefoot in the snow. The warm, bright scarf was still around her neck, and she held another in her hands.

The door opened, and Baba stood there, both hands wearing oven mitts, holding a steaming tray. Maryika slipped gratefully into the warmth. It didn’t seem strange that Baba was not at all surprised to see her. She lifted the scarf in her hands. “Look, I have a present for Andre.”

Baba nodded and turned away, to lift the next tray from the oven. She spoke over her shoulder to Maryika. “I told you it would feel like Christmas when it came. Now, put your apron on, babushka. You can crush the walnuts for the korolevsky cake.”

The End

The picture is a palekh-style illustration of a Russian troika (winter carriage drawn by three horses). You can get news about my writing at https://www.facebook.com/TheCalgaryChessman/

or follow me @alayanabeth on Twitter.

Palekh Painting

For me, as a child growing up in the 1960s and ‘70s, the Palekh painting style was as synonymous with Russia as Cossack dancing and Matryoshka dolls. It’s been a pleasure to come back to it as an adult and understand a little more about it, from an adult’s point of view.

Palekh is a little town about 200 miles east of Moscow, which was famous as long ago as the 17^th Century as a centre for the painting of religious ikons. Ikons were a characteristic part of Eastern Orthodox Christianity; and the church at the time was at the heart of the cultural and political life of Mother Russia.

With the October Revolution in 1917, suddenly there was no market for religious iconography, and Palekh’s painters turned to the decorative arts to make their living.

According to http://www.russianlacquerart.com/cnt/Palekh the painter Ivan Golikov saw a black lacquered box in Moscow, and developed a technique for producing lacquered papier-mache which could be decorated in bright, enamel-like colours. This painting style has become synonymous with the town. Artists used the technique on a variety of objects, from flat panels to boxes, brooches and jars, and the Palekh Art School was opened to teach the techniques.

I remember some gorgeous books from my childhood (I bought the one illustrated here recently on the second-hand market, although it’s not one I’ve read before) and the Palekh painters thrived by illustrating well-known stories (The Firebird, The Swan-Geese, Vasilisa the Wise), folk wisdoms, and  revolutionary themes.

The technique, and the town that shares its name, saw a renaissance during the second half of the twentieth century, and there are still workshops producing Palekh paintings to this day.

Of course, I’m primarily a painter with words, and as usual opening up a new box in my mind produced a new story. This one will appear in my upcoming book of stories, Treacle, and Other Twisted Tales, which I hope will come out in the summer, but here it is for your enjoyment. I’d love to hear what you think of it. https://www.facebook.com/TheCalgaryChessman/?ref=bookmarks https://twitter.com/Alayanabeth

Maryika’s Journey

She’d promised herself the trip of a lifetime. While waiting for her visa to be granted she’d brushed up on her schoolgirl Russian, pored over travel brochures and websites, and scoured the internet for information on the museums and historic buildings she wanted to visit. With her itinerary and accommodation booked, all that remained was to board the Aeroflot flight and give in to the pleasure of anticipation.

The only reading she’d brought with her was a battered copy of Russian Folk Tales, a present from her grandmother. Baba had filled her childhood with firebirds and cossacks, matryoshka dolls and waterwitches, the dark, smoky interiors of yurts, and the wide, cold spaces of the Siberian wastes. But Maryika had been more interested in Tolstoy’s Napoleonic shenanigans than the adventures of Beautiful Yelena and she’d forgotten most of it. She’d dozed off with the book on her lap, open to a Palekh style illustration of the Swan Maiden, the plane droning its way across a continent and into a different time. She was looking forward to it so much.

***

Now things were very different. It was getting darker. The sky had completely clouded over and the wind was beginning to pick up. Maryika whimpered to herself. She might have to spend the night outside, and she still didn’t have any idea how she’d managed to get here, wherever ‘here’ was.

She’d got off the train along with all the other travellers, hundreds of them streaming along the platform and out into the intricate series of tunnels that linked Moscow’s Metro stations with the outside world. Being in the Metro was a frankly hallucinatory experience, the screech and roar of the trains and gunmetal scent of the track vying with the gorgeous, over-embellished eighteenth-century-ballroom vibe of the décor. If she looked up at the ceilings, she could fantasize that at any moment her comfortable tee shirt and trousers would metamorphose into a sumptuous silk-and-satin gown, and some minor dvoryane would be bending his lips over her hand and sweeping her into the mazurka. A moment later, another train would come rushing into the station, its hot breath swirling across the platform like the wind under the Firebird’s wings, conjuring a completely different flurry of images.

For a little while, in the Metro, she could pretend that her dream of Imperial Russia was still alive, but the reality was that the much anticipated trip had been a disappointment. Moscow was cold, grey and monumental – admittedly, as advertised – but the expectation that she would be able to dig beneath its intimidating surface and find the colourful, exhilarating Russia of her grandmother’s stories had turned out to be a childish fantasy.

If she hadn’t been convinced by the miserable faces at the airport, the grey sleet blowing across the streets and the taciturn grumpiness of the cab drivers, this morning’s mugging had done it in spades. Her flight home was tomorrow. She only needed to get through one more night, and then she could go to the airport and let modern technology whisk her home, safe and a little more worldly-wise. But the mugger had taken more than her self-confidence; he had taken her wallet, her tickets, her passport – she was lost in the middle of Moscow with nothing but the clothes she stood up in and her inadequate Russian to fall back on.

There was enough cash in her trouser pocket to pay for a cab ride back to the run-down hotel she’d been staying in. There she intended to take refuge in her room (already paid for) and somehow find out how to phone the embassy and ask for their help. But the counter staff at the hotel had changed shift, and the new floor manager didn’t know her. She tried to explain about the mugging, but he wasn’t interested. No ID – no passport – no room. She had the feeling he might respond to a bribe as she stumbled, with increasing desperation, through her stock of Russian phrases, but unfortunately the mugger had the rest of her money. In the end, she backed out of the hotel and wandered the streets, frozen and miserable, until at last the cold forced her into the Metro, where at least she could keep warm for a while.

She looked up. The crowd off the last train had rushed past her, a small island in a sea of commuters, but then the corridor had fallen quiet. The pedestrian tunnel branched ahead, and she had to choose between two exits. One smelled fresher than the other: a whiff of snow and, oddly enough, pine needles. All right, then. She’d go up to street level and try to find a police station. Sooner or later, surely someone would understand what she was saying?

Instead, she’d stumbled out of the tunnel into a forest. And, turning, she found that the tunnel entrance was no longer behind her. She was truly lost, somewhere in the middle of a forest of conifers with lichen-coated trunks and dense, aromatic foliage, and she’d been stumbling across the mossy ground for hours.

There was light ahead, a break in the canopy, and Maryika pushed towards it. The trees thinned and she saw that she was on the edge of a clearing. The late afternoon sun glinted off a field of grass and wild flowers, and there were horses grazing. Beautiful horses; one white, one dark bay, glowing in the sun, one pale chestnut with flaxen mane and tail. Their limbs were slim and elegant, their manes long and flowing, their haunches well-muscled and their conformation perfect. Maryika had never been one of those girls who go through a horsy stage, but she knew pretty when she saw it. The closest horse (Flaxen Mane) lifted its head from grazing and looked at her. Its enormous eyes glowed with intelligence.

Maryika pinched herself. In the midst of the horses, whirling and dancing across the ground, was a house – a hut, really – spinning as if caught in its own miniature whirlwind. It seemed to have legs. The pinching hurt, but the hut was still there. It came nearer, and the branches above her began to move in a wind she couldn’t yet feel. She clung to the trunk of her tree and stared in disbelief. The horse took a step or two closer.

“Are you in need of assistance?”

Maryika felt the last scraps of her sanity shredding away. Her pulse thudded in her ears, as her heart rate rocketed. Her knees shook; only the tree was holding her up. The horse nudged her.

“I said, do you need help? You don’t look very well.”

Ye gods. As hallucinations go, this was a doozie. Maryika gave up. At least the horse didn’t look as though it was going to mug her again.

“I’m cold, tired, and lost, and I haven’t eaten anything all day. Also I’m in a forest in the middle of a Metro station, with a talking horse, looking at a dancing house. I’m not exactly coping here.”

The horse snorted. It sounded surprisingly like a human laugh. “I can help you there,” it said. “I’ll tell you what to say to make the house stop. You have to say it exactly right, though.”

“What?” Maryika’s subconscious mind had decided to take what was in front of her at face value, but her intellect was still struggling to make sense of things.

“I said, repeat these words after me. Say them exactly as I do.” The horse leaned forward and blew into her ear. The sound it made burbled at a very low pitch, just at the edge of Maryika’s hearing, and she could make no sense of it. The horse’s breath whooshed past her face, stirring her hair. It smelled of haybales and buttercups and sunshine.

Maryika stared at it, bemused and silent. The horse shook its head, danced sideways a step, and stood on Maryika’s foot.

“Ow, what the fuck?”

The house abruptly ceased whirling. It turned until its door faced her, then sank down on its legs which, at close quarters, turned out to be rough and scaled. Each ended in a giant, three-toed foot. Maryika glared at the horse.

“I thought I had to repeat what you said, exactly.”

The horse moved its shoulder in what could only be described as a shrug. “Close enough,” it said.

The door creaked open and the horse put its head in. “Good oh,” it said. “Up you go.”

Maryika gingerly approached the hut and put her foot on its bottom step. The wood creaked and the hut vibrated as the chicken-legs shifted a little. Maryika put her hand up to her mouth and backed away. The horse whinnied.

“Oh, all right then.”

Maryika let out an involuntary squeal as the house spoke, in a voice that was a mix of creaking door, shifting roof-tile and a bit of hen’s cackle. It shuffled on the spot, and then the legs bent a little more and the bottom step thumped down squarely on the earth, sending up a puff of dust. The horse edged behind Maryika and nudged her forwards.

A skirl of wind sent snowflakes into her face as the sun vanished into a purple mass of cloud that was rapidly climbing the sky. Maryika took her courage in both hands and climbed into the hut. She had no idea what she was doing, really she didn’t, but that was an iron stove she could see in there, and there was a samovar on it. Fire and coffee spoke a language that went straight to her hind-brain and overrode the screaming whisper of panic that was governing all her higher functions.

The hut was not unoccupied. On a worn rug in front of the stove lay a scrawny cat. It eyed Maryika over its dinner, a piece of greenish fishskin. In the hut’s gloom, Maryika peered at it. The piece of fishskin seemed to have a button attached.

The horse poked its head in through the doorway and made her jump. “That’s a very thin cat,” it remarked, conversationally.

The hut creaked. “That one gets plenty to eat,” it rumbled. “She just never gets any fatter.”

The cat regarded them with baleful yellow eyes, then retrieved its dinner and carried it away into a dark corner. Maryika strained her eyes after it, but either the shadows were darker than they appeared or the corner was deeper than it should be. Either way, the cat had disappeared, and for some odd reason this was reassuring. She stroked the horse’s nose. “Thank you,” she said.

“He didn’t do it for nothing, you know.” She jumped as the house spoke again. It was extremely disconcerting to be inside the thing that was talking to you. Maryika’s Baba had given her a fund of half-remembered Russian folktales from her own childhood, and Maryika recognised the Hut with Fowl’s Legs, though she didn’t remember it talking. Still – this was her hallucination; she could hardly argue with the details. She was only pleased that the hut’s owner did not appear to be in residence.

The house creaked. The horse shuffled its hooves. Maryika looked enquiringly at it. The horse nodded its head, in a reassuringly horsy gesture, then whuffled at her again. “There is something you could do for me,” it said, tentatively.

“Oh, anything you like.” Maryika was beginning to warm up, and as she’d already given up on her sanity there didn’t seem any reason not to be helpful.

“Well, it’s just that…” The horse paused, and gestured with its nose towards a small lidded pot on the edge of the hearth. “See that pot?”

Maryika pulled the pot towards herself and opened the lid. The pot was about half full of poppy seeds. The horse breathed out, and a small cloud of seeds rose into the air. A few of them clung to Maryika’s skin.

“Please scrape up the dust from the floor and put it into the pot.”

The floor shuddered under Maryika’s bottom as the hut let out a grumbling sound. She squeaked in fright, but the hut subsided again. “Are you sure?” it said to the horse.

“Sure as Koschey’s overcoat,” said Flaxen Mane.

The hut grumbled again. “Koschey doesn’t have an overcoat,” it said. “The witch ate it.”

“Do you mean Baba Yaga?” Maryika summoned up a vague childhood memory, but nearly dropped the pot of seeds as the house shuddered. The horse danced backwards from the doorway, but shoved its head back in again as soon as the house calmed down.

“Please don’t say the name,” it said. “She’ll come for her name, and you really don’t want to meet her. Believe me.”

The house groaned. “Don’t even think it,” it muttered. The window shutters opened and banged shut again, letting a cold draught and a flurry of snowflakes into the room.

The horse ignored it. “Please scrape up as much dust as you can. Put it in the pot and stir it in well. Don’t worry. You’re doing the right thing.”

“Why?” Maryika brushed her hand across the floor. Sure enough, there was a layer of dust. It coated her palm and she rubbed it against her trousers.

“One day Vasilisa the Wise is going to come, and when she wins me we will ride like the wind across the great steppe and rescue the prince.” The horse spoke these words with a rhythmic, poetic cadence that gave them great significance. Maryika could almost hear that each word was capitalised. “Ride Like the Wind,” it said again, happily. “The witch will give her three tasks to do. One of them will be to separate poppy seeds from dust. It’s meant to be impossible.”

Maryika tipped the pot, watching the tiny seeds flow from one side to the other. “I can see how it would be,” she said.

“But there’s a problem with his plan.” The hut shifted slightly, and Maryika put out a hand to brace herself against the floor. It let out a henlike squawk, “Boccoc!” and settled down again. “Can’t separate the dust from the seeds without mixing them in the first place.”

The horse bowed its head to her. “And I can’t collect dust without hands,” it pointed out, reasonably. Maryika nodded. It made sense, she supposed.

She swept up the dust with the side of her palm and collected it, a bit at a time. Once she’d started adding it to the pot she got into the swing of the task and scraped dust out of all the corners. When she got to the place where the cat had slunk into the shadows, there was no sign of it. She did pick a greyish mother-of-pearl button out of the dust. She put the button in her pocket.

When she finished, she put the lid back on the pot and set it neatly back in its place. Then she stood up and lifted the samovar, pouring the sweet, strong, black liquid into a cup she took down from a shelf. She sat on the rug in front of the stove, sipping the coffee and slowly warming up, inside and out. The horse nudged her a final time and backed out of the hut, which banged its own door shut, almost catching the horse’s nose. Maryika sank down on the rug, suddenly sleepy, and the last thing she heard as she closed her eyes was the deep, burbly voice of the horse. “Your part in the story is small, Maryushka, but you are more important than you know.”

***

The sun in her eyes woke her. For a moment she felt disoriented, trapped by the seatbelt across her lap, frightened by the strange, white-and-grey plastic world that surrounded her. Then the rushing of wind in her ears resolved itself into the sound of an aircraft’s engines, the glowing heat of the fire transmuted into the ‘Fasten Seatbelts’ sign, and the smell of coffee was the cabin attendant leaning over with an offer to fill her cup.

Maryika took the proffered brew – a thin, watery disappointment after the coffee in the Hut with Fowl’s Legs – along with a poppyseed breakfast roll, and turned to look out of the tiny window of the plane. Beneath her the white-and-grey tops of the clouds rushed past like the rolling backs of running beasts. The sun shot into her eyes again, blinding her, but just as the stewardess reached past her to close the blind Maryika thought she saw, amidst the clouds, a curling, flowing, misty trail of flaxen and gold. It didn’t surprise her at all when she pulled the button from her pocket.

Illustrations: Russian Fairy Tales: Palekh Painting by Alexei Orleansky; Vasilisa the Wise, Palekh lacquered box, seen on http://www.russianlacquerart.com/cnt/Palekh

 

 

Aurora in Tatters, an alternative fairy tale

My writing friend Kim Walker https://nutsandcrisps.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/my-lovely-blog-hop/ has tagged me in this blog hop. My current work-in-progress is a novel with fairy tale aspects, so I thought it might be nice to post this short story, also based an a traditional story that we all know.

Aurora in Tatters

(A well-known fairytale in new clothes)

Deep in the long-ago, when days were long and the rivers were full of fish, there lived a reindeer herder, who spent the days running with his herd over the wide tundra. The joy of his life was his wife, Anushka, and their baby daughter, Aurora, named for the flickering curtains of light that hung in the midwinter sky.

In the summer, Anushka rode alongside her husband and shared the work, and the baby was wrapped in richly embroidered garments and lashed to her cradle, which hung from the back of the largest reindeer, so that her earliest memories were of snow and trees and the yellow grass and tiny flowers of the tundra, all swaying and moving in a rhythm of hoofbeats punctuated by the sound of harness bells. But one day, when Aurora was still a young girl, Anushka sickened and died. A reindeer herder cannot manage his herd alone, so Aurora’s father took another wife: a strong woman with half-grown daughters of her own.

The woman was a good worker, and handled the reindeer well, although she preferred not to sully her hands with domestic work. Her daughters were spoilt and idle, and the lazy girls would beat and pinch Aurora until she agreed to do all their chores for them. When Aurora tried to speak up, her stepmother scolded her for her wicked lies. Her father looked at her with sad eyes and said, “Aurora, it’s not like you to complain,” and for his sake she tried not to respond to her sisters’ spite.

Not long after, Aurora’s father also died and she was left alone in the world apart from the stepmother and the wicked stepsisters. Now the work really began. There was mending and weaving to be done, and the dense, colourful woollen embroideries of the Sami, until her fingers bled and ached. There was cooking, and collecting fuel, to keep her sisters warm and fed while they lay before the fire and gossiped about this one, or that one who had caught their fancy. And of course there were always the reindeer. Aurora’s strong, young fingers were ideal for teasing out burrs in manes and coats, for reaching deep into straining bodies to ease the birth of calves, or just as a comfort for youngsters to suck on when they were first weaned.

The mother could not run the herd alone, and the sisters had learned nothing about the beasts, so it was for Aurora to check hooves and antlers, soothe sore joints and groom hides, comfort the weanlings and gut and strip the carcasses of mothers that had not made it through the dangerous hours of birthing.

There was no new clothing for Aurora, no footwear when her feet grew, no rich, decorated holiday coat or fur-lined hood to comfort her days. Her clothing grew grey and ragged with use, and her breath froze on the lining of her hood, so that on winter days the icicles jangled and rattled against her face. The sisters spoke of nothing but the coming summer gathering, when all the herds come together and there is feasting and dancing. This year the son of the most powerful herder would choose his bride at the solstice celebration. There would be a great dance, all day and all night, to find out which of the young women had the strength of body and will to make the best match, and both sisters fancied themselves as the chosen one.

Come the day, Aurora was exhausted. She had been up all night, sewing through the long, long hours of midsummer half-light, and had completed her sisters’ festival coats with moments to spare. They had shown their thanks with a pinch and a kick as they left the tent, swept away by their mother to enjoy the day. Aurora lay on the floor, too tired to move, and closed her eyes – just for a moment. Her eyes shot open again at the sound of a voice. She scrambled to her feet and turned to face the woman who had just pulled open the flap.

Her figure said she was young, but her face was lined and full of experience. She was dressed from head-to-toe in embroidered finery, white on white, and the absence of colour was somehow more beautiful than the colourful work Aurora had spent her best talents on that morning. Her mukluks and hood were made of a sumptuous, buttery-white fur. Her eyes were black, and bright. Aurora had never seen her before.

She held out her hand and Aurora took it, bemused. “I am Anelka,” she said, “and you are my sister-daughter. I have come to bid you join the dance.”

“No, no,” Aurora protested. “I can’t go to the dance. I have nothing to wear.” She pulled her rags around herself and hung her head.

Anelka gestured to a bag that lay at her feet. “I had thought you younger,” she said, “but you are thin enough. I think these will fit.”

Aurora upended the bag and out poured the most gorgeous embroidered garments, made of finest wool and bearing her own family’s sigils and designs – the narwhal, the tundra lily and the great ice bear. The clothing fitted her perfectly. At the end her aunt slid her own feet out of the beautiful ice-bear fur mukluks and passed them over to Aurora, along with the bear fur hood. Aurora’s fingers, tired to the bone, ached as she tried to tie the laces and her hands shook.

Anelka knelt and tied the laces for her. Then she handed Aurora an otterskin bottle. “Drink it,” she said. “It will help.”

Aurora tipped the bottle to her lips. She tasted lichen, herbs and the strong, harsh spirit the reindeer herders brewed, distilled over ice in the bitter winter nights. She drank. The concoction worked like magic – dispelling her fatigue and filling her with confidence. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes brightened. Throwing her arms around her aunt, she hugged her hard, then ran as fast as her legs could carry her to join the dancing.

It took half the night for her to work her way in to the central group. All round her, the older members of the gathering were failing, one by one, and settling down to drink, and talk, and watch the young ones dance on. At around midnight, her elder stepsister gave in, stumbling to the side and sinking to the ground. Groaning, she clutched her ankle and moaned, “if only I had not worked so hard today. I am sure I could have lasted the night.” Her sibling lasted scant moments longer. Her complaint: “I am sure the ungrateful child has made my mukluks with a wrinkle in the sole, and now I have a blister.”

Aurora danced on, blissfully unaware, shaking out her plaits and stamping the ground down under her strong, long, never-tiring legs, shedding her layers of beautiful clothing as the hot summer night wore on. As dawn fluttered across the sky, the half-light broadening into the golden glow of a new day, she raised her head and at last everyone could see her face as she met the eyes of the man for whom they were all in competition. They were the only dancers still standing. He was tall, not a youth but in the first strength of his manhood. His grey eyes warmed as he looked on her, and he held out his hand. “So, it is to be you,” he said as he lifted Aurora’s hand above her head and turned her in a full circle, so that all the people could see her.

Aurora dipped and twirled in this final step of the dance, but as the drums thudded into silence and the singers’ voices fell she stepped away. Her voice rang out clearly over the heads of the gathered crowd, although her words were directed to the man who stood before her.

“I thank you for this dance – I will always remember it. I am sure you would make a wonderful husband, but I am not ready to marry. I am going with my aunt into the deep north to hunt the great ice bears. Perhaps when I come back we can dance the summer dance again, and we will see who has the strength to finish.”

Her partner gave no sign that he was disappointed. His face was grave as he bowed his head to her, although a smile quirked the corner of his lips. “I shall look forward to it,” he said. His hand rested, briefly warm, in the small of her back as he escorted her to Anelka’s side, and he bent and scooped up the pile of her discarded clothing and handed it to her.

His father joined him, and the two reindeer herders, old and young, stood and watched the women walk away. They moved lightly, like wild animals themselves, through the reindeer and the herds closed around them. As they disappeared from sight, the younger man bent to pick up something lying at his feet. He laughed. In his hand he held one, beautiful, ivory-coloured bear-fur mukluk.

A rose by any other name

A snippet of my work-in-progress. It’s running under several titles at the moment, and I just can’t make up my mind which is the right one. Should I be straightforward (Rose Cottage) – referential (The Briar Wood, a painting by Edward Burnes-Jones) – tangential (The Ties that Bind) ? I don’t know yet – it’s fun to leave it hanging.

Dad pulls the car in to the kerb and parks neatly in front of her front gate. ‘My front gate,’ she says to herself. The frenetic excitement of the auction has faded, and now she just feels nervous.
Over the last twenty-four hours her imagination has been working overtime – she’s pictured everything from the perfect cottage, with a lamp glowing in the window, to an enormous hole in the ground with a glimpse of wreckage at the bottom of it. She knows these extremes are ridiculous – it’s just going to be a house with a few issues. She doesn’t mind issues. She knows what she’s letting herself in for, right? After all, it’s what she’s always dreamed of doing. Not many people can say that they’re truly following their dream.
She gets the key out of her purse. She’s slightly disappointed that they won’t need the bolt cutters. The handover yesterday had been fairly straight forward. She’d read some more paperwork, written her signature several times, and handed over the money after a brief visit to the bank. Now her savings account is £12,000 poorer, and at the moment all she has in return for it is a slim receipt from the auction house and the key. It opens a huge padlock, linking two halves of a chain that holds the gates closed. They are proper industrial gates – two sheets of corrugated iron on rusty hinges. She wonders what the original gates were like. It’s a broad gateway, in keeping with the high stone wall with its flint border. Much too impressive for ‘Rose Cottage’. She wonders if she should change the name.
‘Come on, love, stop dreaming. It’s perishing out here. Let’s get in and find out what we’re dealing with, shall we?’
Dad’s the practical one in the family. She’s glad that he’s with her. Mum couldn’t come – she has a hair appointment over in the town, and anyway she says she doesn’t want to see it until it’s finished. She’s not wildly excited that Laura spent her inheritance on property. She thought Laura should get a complete makeover and maybe take an overseas holiday.
‘You’re never going to meet anyone in that office full of girls, unless one of the accountants decides he wants a bit on the side, and you know what I think about that sort of thing. You should put yourself out there, enjoy life while you’re young. It won’t last forever, you know.’
Laura is never sure whether Mum would like to see her safely married with 2.4 kids, or out there partying forever. Mum’s party life came to an abrupt end when she became pregnant at seventeen, although now that Maisie’s left home and Laura is working, she can see the fun-loving side of her Mum finding its way out again. Dad would rather stay at home and potter in the garden (he’ll be exactly the same at eighty as he is at forty-five). Mum’s the outgoing one.
It occurs to Laura as she fumbles to fit the key into the padlock that Mum would have enjoyed the suggested overseas holiday much more than Laura herself. She wonders if she can send Mum away for a few days, and if Mum would accept it. A week on a party island would put the spring back in her step. She tucks the thought away for further consideration.
The padlock snaps open and the chain tumbles to the ground. Dad gathers it up and stows it in the boot of the car. Laura waits for him. Now that it comes down to it, she doesn’t want to take her first step into the unknown by herself. Together they push on the gate. It doesn’t move. At least, it moves a little, and then springs back, as if there is something slightly yielding behind it. They try pulling it. No, that doesn’t work. It’s definitely the kind of gate that opens inward.
Laura puts her shoulder to the corrugated metal and shoves hard. Her feet skid backward on the gravel. She bends her legs slightly and really leans into the gate and, grudgingly, it moves inward a couple of inches and stops. There’s a dark mass blocking the space beyond. Laura pushes one hand into it, and jumps back, swearing. Her arm is marked by several long scratches where thorns have torn her skin. The area inside is a dense mass of brambles.
Dad leans on the gate for her, so that she can get a better look. She’s none the wiser, though. All that can be seen at the moment is ropy stems and giant thorns. There aren’t even any blackberries.
‘Get in car, love,’ says Dad. ‘We’ll go home and get t’ladder.’
In times of stress, Dad always reverts to his Yorkshire roots. Laura hugs him – he’s the best Dad in the world. In no time at all they’re back with ladder, pruning saw and two sets of secateurs and gardening gloves. She’s changed into some old clothes – there’s no point in looking like Office Girl today. There’s serious work to do.
Dad holds the ladder as she climbs to the top of the wall. As she goes, she notices that fat tendrils of bramble vine are already spilling over the top; she helps herself to a couple of blackberries that have ripened in the sun. She could have guessed there would be a bramble problem, if she’d paid more attention. At the top, she leans forward to peer into the space beyond. All she can see are brambles. Everywhere. It’s as if the whole space is filled with them. Towards the middle, the brambles rise into a sort of dome. A huge dome. If there’s a house in there, it’s massive – and completely covered in brambles. She can’t tell whether to laugh or cry.
She’s still in shock when she gets to the bottom of the ladder. She grabs it, and offers Dad the chance to climb up and take his fill. ‘Bloody Norah.’
The ladder starts shaking, and she realises that he’s laughing. He takes a minute to calm down, before making his way back to level ground. He has tears in his eyes, he’s laughed so hard, and for a moment Laura is furious. This is the end of her dream. Instead of Rose Cottage, there’s just this monumental mound of thorns and stuff. And now Nanna’s money is gone. She’ll never have another chance. Dad gathers her into his arms as she bursts into tears, and pats her lovingly as she cries into his shoulder.
‘There now, pet. It’s not so bad. Your old Dad knows how to deal with a few bramble bushes. We’ll be through them in no time.’