because he’s in heaven,’ Tallis protested, ‘doesn’t mean to say he’s dead.’
Her father straightened up again, smiling and resting his hand on her shoulder. ‘It must be a wonderful world in there …’ he tapped her head. ‘Full of giant elks, and knights in armour, and dark castles. A hundred years ago they’d have burned you as a witch …’
‘But I’m not a witch.’
‘I don’t suppose any of them were. Come on. Suppertime. And you can tell us another story before you go to bed.’
He laughed as they walked from the room. ‘It’s usually the parents who get pestered to tell the bedtime stories to their offspring, not the other way round.’
‘I’ve got a good one,’ Tallis said. ‘It’s about a man whose son goes for a walk in the woods, and the man is so certain that his son has been eaten by wolves that he can no longer see the boy, even though he’s right there, in the house.’
‘Cheeky little devil,’ her father said, tugging her hair before racing her down to the parlour.
(iv)
Some of the tension in the house faded, after that. James Keeton seemed a little brighter, more cheerful, and Tallis imagined this was because he had finally expressed his feelings about Harry to her. She remained puzzled by his apprehensive behaviour outside the wood, but her mother said simply, ‘He thought he
needed
to see the place where Harry went; now he realizes he doesn’t
want
to.’
It was a confusing and unsatisfactory explanation, but it was all she got.
Nevertheless, Tallis herself felt considerably more at ease, now, and after school she continued to explore and to name the territory around the farm. She also developed her skills in carving the masks and small wooden dolls which had become an obsession. She was continually aware of the fleeting figures which pursued her when she journeyed across the meadows, but they no longer startled her, nor worried her. Whenever she was close to the enclosed pasture known as Stretley Stones, her peripheral vision seemed to have a life of its own, a flowing, quivering world of movement that could never beobserved directly, but which hinted at strange human shapes, and lurking animal forms.
And there were sounds: singing, from the field known as The Stumps, but whose secret name now became Sad Song Meadow. Tallis never saw the source of the singing, and after a while stopped searching for it.
More dramatically, one day, sitting and daydreaming in the field by Fox Water, she woke to find herself in the mouth of a wide, windy cave, staring out across a lush, dense forest towards high mountains where a blazing wall of fire and smoke could be glimpsed distantly. The strange dream lasted for a second only, and thereafter she was aware of the windy cave only fleetingly, the merest touch of an alien breeze on an otherwise perfectly still, hot day.
She soon established that there were three of the cowled, female figures which seemed to haunt the edge of her vision, hovering in the denser woodland thickets, watching her through painted wooden masks. Tallis began to get an idea that the strange things happened to her whenever one of these women was close by. When White Mask was hovering her mind filled with fragments of stories and the land seemed to speak to her of lost battles and wild rides. When the woman with the green mask was around she got ideas for carving, and about carving, and saw odd shadows on the land. The third figure, whose mask was white, green and red, made Tallis think of her own ‘Hollower’; this figure she associated with such strange glimpses as the windy cave and the sad song.
It made little sense beyond the idea of being ‘haunted’, and for a while she was not concerned by it. But she fashioned masks to copy those of the ‘storyteller’ and the ‘carver’. As she did so, so names came to her …
The white mask she called
Gaberlungi
, an odd name, but one which made her smile as she said it. Gaberlungi was
memory of the
Her father straightened up again, smiling and resting his hand on her shoulder. ‘It must be a wonderful world in there …’ he tapped her head. ‘Full of giant elks, and knights in armour, and dark castles. A hundred years ago they’d have burned you as a witch …’
‘But I’m not a witch.’
‘I don’t suppose any of them were. Come on. Suppertime. And you can tell us another story before you go to bed.’
He laughed as they walked from the room. ‘It’s usually the parents who get pestered to tell the bedtime stories to their offspring, not the other way round.’
‘I’ve got a good one,’ Tallis said. ‘It’s about a man whose son goes for a walk in the woods, and the man is so certain that his son has been eaten by wolves that he can no longer see the boy, even though he’s right there, in the house.’
‘Cheeky little devil,’ her father said, tugging her hair before racing her down to the parlour.
(iv)
Some of the tension in the house faded, after that. James Keeton seemed a little brighter, more cheerful, and Tallis imagined this was because he had finally expressed his feelings about Harry to her. She remained puzzled by his apprehensive behaviour outside the wood, but her mother said simply, ‘He thought he
needed
to see the place where Harry went; now he realizes he doesn’t
want
to.’
It was a confusing and unsatisfactory explanation, but it was all she got.
Nevertheless, Tallis herself felt considerably more at ease, now, and after school she continued to explore and to name the territory around the farm. She also developed her skills in carving the masks and small wooden dolls which had become an obsession. She was continually aware of the fleeting figures which pursued her when she journeyed across the meadows, but they no longer startled her, nor worried her. Whenever she was close to the enclosed pasture known as Stretley Stones, her peripheral vision seemed to have a life of its own, a flowing, quivering world of movement that could never beobserved directly, but which hinted at strange human shapes, and lurking animal forms.
And there were sounds: singing, from the field known as The Stumps, but whose secret name now became Sad Song Meadow. Tallis never saw the source of the singing, and after a while stopped searching for it.
More dramatically, one day, sitting and daydreaming in the field by Fox Water, she woke to find herself in the mouth of a wide, windy cave, staring out across a lush, dense forest towards high mountains where a blazing wall of fire and smoke could be glimpsed distantly. The strange dream lasted for a second only, and thereafter she was aware of the windy cave only fleetingly, the merest touch of an alien breeze on an otherwise perfectly still, hot day.
She soon established that there were three of the cowled, female figures which seemed to haunt the edge of her vision, hovering in the denser woodland thickets, watching her through painted wooden masks. Tallis began to get an idea that the strange things happened to her whenever one of these women was close by. When White Mask was hovering her mind filled with fragments of stories and the land seemed to speak to her of lost battles and wild rides. When the woman with the green mask was around she got ideas for carving, and about carving, and saw odd shadows on the land. The third figure, whose mask was white, green and red, made Tallis think of her own ‘Hollower’; this figure she associated with such strange glimpses as the windy cave and the sad song.
It made little sense beyond the idea of being ‘haunted’, and for a while she was not concerned by it. But she fashioned masks to copy those of the ‘storyteller’ and the ‘carver’. As she did so, so names came to her …
The white mask she called
Gaberlungi
, an odd name, but one which made her smile as she said it. Gaberlungi was
memory of the
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