Maddigan's Fantasia, page 3
‘How long is it until the power begins to fail in Solis?’ Yves was asking.
‘The summer solstice is a deadline,’ Maddie said. ‘Ferdy promised we’d deliver the converter by then. That’s why we’re setting off in the winter.’
‘How could he promise anything like that?’ cried old Shell. ‘You know what Fantasia life is like. Everything’s uncertain for us.’
They argued on and on, frowning, discussing, nodding and shaking their heads.
Maddie did not know – Garland did not know – none of the Fantasia knew – that they were being watched and followed.
3
Secret Followers
Not far behind them, standing on a tussocky rise, the boy Eden was watching the Fantasia.
‘What are they doing?’ he asked his older brother, Timon, who was changing the baby’s nappy, and frowning as he did so. ‘Why are they spending all this time talking?’
‘Wake up,’ said Timon. ‘They were attacked. Their ringmaster has just been killed – maybe some others along with him. Didn’t the book mention someone called Bailey? And they’ve had some stuff stolen. They have to decide what to do next.’
‘Let’s try them out,’ said Eden. ‘Let’s see if they will make room for us. Give us work! Because I’ve got the power …’
He made a gesture with his closed fist … then spread his fingers. Flowers fell from his opened hand. ‘Zaaa!’ he cried, and made a triumphant gesture.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Timon. ‘You know you have to pay for every trick. You’ll get too tired to carry on.’
‘If we go down there and try to join in with that lot I’ll be able to do my spells and then ride in a van,’ said Eden. ‘And maybe the Nennog won’t know where we are or what’s happened to us. We might just – you know – blend in with the rest of them.’
‘The Nennog will know all right,’ said Timon. ‘But he can’t travel the way we can. He’s made himself powerful in a lot of ways, but he’s made himself too – too specialized I suppose. He can send his ghost back. He can haunt us through other people I think, but, really, he’s pinned into our own time, even if he can put out feelers. And anyhow when you travel the way we do, things change. We’ve proved that. The words on the page all altered, didn’t they? And the Nennog doesn’t want alteration.’
‘He wants some alterations – the alterations that suit him,’ said Eden, and Timon sighed.
‘Well, sure, he wants more power. He wants the Talisman.’ Timon sighed again and shrugged. ‘But OK! Let’s go down there and see if we can melt into that lot … see if we can’t get things to work for us, not against us …’
‘… and save the world!’ said Eden eagerly.
‘Right! We’ve got to save the world,’ Timon agreed, grinning rather reluctantly. ‘Mind you, I don’t think that lot over there will be able to help us much. Right now they look as if they need help even more than the world does.’
‘But we’re going to need help in some ways,’ said Eden, ‘Like, we’ll run out of nappies for Jewel and she’ll get a sore bum. And there might be frost or even snow. And I’m starving. Let’s close in on them and see how we go.’
*
Garland could not stand it any longer. She could not bear to see Yves holding the ringmaster’s whip or to see Maddie standing there beside him.
‘Listen, you lot!’ she was shouting. ‘I’m the one in charge now. I married into the Maddigans. I took the vows. I’m a true Maddigan, and I say we support Solis. So that means we must press on to Gramth and stock up on food, which is what we were going to do anyway, and then on to Newton.’
‘We’ll need to stock up on food before that,’ said Yves.
‘Right!’ said Maddie. ‘So we’ll have to call in on one of those little communities and trade what we can. Where’s Bannister? Bannister! You must be our mapmaster until Bailey gets better.’
‘If he does get better,’ said Yves. ‘Goneril says …’
‘I say, and I know,’ said Goneril, interrupting him. ‘I’ve seen it all before. For years now I’ve been loaded with the sick ones and the babies … for years my van’s been treated as a dumping ground for people who can’t look after themselves. And I’ve kept quiet about it for years, but …’
‘Kept quiet? You’re always on about it,’ cried Nye. ‘Moan! Moan! Moan!’
‘Shut up, Nye,’ said Tane. ‘A woman’s got a right to express herself.’ He sounded rather sarcastic though.
‘Well – we’ll see about all that,’ Yves was saying, ‘the thing is, I know the way to the nearest community. At least I think I do. No one can be sure of anything in this neck of the woods but they may have a bit of spare food to trade. It’s worth a try. So! Let’s go!’
‘Let’s go!’ said a piping voice – his bossy little daughter Lilith, her looped pigtails sticking out like handles. She would be delighted to see her father there in the centre of the circle, telling everyone else what to do.
These voices chased after Garland like hunting hounds as she moved quietly away. She had to break away from all the discussion and argument. Garland thought she had heard enough. She loved the Fantasia but she needed space … she needed silence.
However, she was only a few steps away from the parley circle when strangeness seized her. The air in front of her billowed and twisted as if something were trying to break through from the other side. At first Garland thought her tears were changing the shape of the world, as tears do. Then she saw – there was no doubt about it – those silver marks on the air once more, but this time they were taking on a definite shape … something that could be recognized. Suddenly Garland was looking at a silver girl, a girl round about her own age, who seemed to be looking straight back at her and beckoning her forward.
Garland stared. The silver lines moved, as if, like smoke in the wind, the girl might break up and vanish. But it wasn’t just the air that was moving. That silver girl was beckoning and pointing to the right. Her lips were moving, though no sound, no silver voice, came through them.
All the same there was a sound. Somewhere a baby had begun to cry and Garland now saw, a little to the right of the silver girl (the fading silver girl for the shape was already trembling and dissolving as if, having given some message, it was free to fade), the shapes of two boys, advancing out of the wild scrub, one of them strung with mysterious boxes, the other one (the bigger one … the one with the golden hair) carrying a crying baby in front of him.
‘Friends!’ cried the smaller boy, waving at her over his boxes. And then he added, ‘Are you Garland?’
The bigger boy nudged him as if he were commanding him to be quiet.
‘Who are you?’ Garland asked. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘Guessing. Only guessing,’ the younger boy said quickly.
But how could anyone just guess a name like ‘Garland’?
‘Go on guessing!’ Garland shouted. ‘And leave me alone. We’ve just buried my father and nobody really cares but me.’
Then she wheeled around and ran back towards the parley she had just left. It seemed so unfair that she should be so unhappy and frightened at the same time. It seemed unfair that she should have to cope with strangers, and such strange strangers too. Her mother saw her darting for cover, and moved quickly to cut her off.
‘Garland!’ shouted Maddie. ‘None of your runaway games. We’re on the road again.’
‘I saw her again. And I saw them,’ Garland cried back, knowing as she heard her own words that what she was saying sounded like nonsense. ‘I mean …’
‘You’re not to wander away,’ yelled Maddie, taking no notice whatever of what Garland was saying. But then she grabbed her and hugged her, yelling all the time. ‘Back then … back then … just for a moment or two I thought I’d lost you too. I thought … oh my darling girl. You’ll have to give up on your runaway habits. Don’t keep vanishing! It makes me feel that someone somewhere has pulled out a black plug in the world, and all the precious things in my life are draining away into nowhere. It makes me feel I’m losing everything.’
‘Let’s get going,’ Yves was calling impatiently. ‘It’s just down the road – not a town so much as a crossroads. But it’ll still take time to get there. And if we are going to trade we’ll have to perform. And you …’ he pointed his finger at Garland … ‘you might have to be one of the performers. We mightn’t be able to rig the tightrope or the trapeze, so we’ll probably need a magician. Your dad taught you a few tricks, didn’t he?’
‘But I’m really a tightrope walker!’ cried Garland.
‘Tonight you might have to be a magician as well as an acrobat,’ Yves said. ‘We’re going to have to do the best we can.’
Garland looked up at her mother. Maddie nodded.
‘The best we can,’ she repeated. ‘It’s what Ferdy would have wanted. Right?’
And hearing her mother talk about Ferdy in the past tense suddenly made Garland feel she was losing him all over again.
It did not take long for the Fantasia to get going once more. After all, they had not even turned the horses and dogs loose. Mounted on her own white horse Samala, Garland rode beside the leading van, feeling that she was the one who was guarding it.
The road they now followed was nothing more than a line of dirt with weeds and grass growing down the middle of it, and potholes so large it seemed as if the whole Fantasia might tumble into one of them and be lost forever. They crept on, wheels turning as, little by little, the dirt track vanished under mats of wet grass. Every now and then Samala put her head down trying to snatch a mouthful.
‘Keep on!’ cried Bannister, who was also riding on horseback beside Maddie’s van, frowning as he peered down at the unfolded map, trying to read it and ride at the same time. ‘Keep on … I think.’ Which was something Bailey would never have said. But, after a mile or so of grass and tussock, with forest closing in around them, the road came to life again, shrugging off the grass and looking suddenly much more sure of itself, crossed with wheel marks and edged with footprints. Within another mile they had arrived at a crossroads very much where Maddie had told them it would be. Here was the timber town of Milton. Houses and huts rose nervously over the scrub. Gardens, little straggling orchards and small fields of sheep and goats spread out between the four roads. Green sheds, filled with long racks of timber, linked houses and roads together.
‘Get the band going,’ Garland heard Yves commanding. ‘A bit of music sets a good mood.’
And it seemed strange to see Bannister flourishing his trombone, Tane getting out his saxophone, Nye his pipe and Boomer struggling into the shoulder straps of his great drum when Ferdy was not there to hear them. It was almost as if the music would never be complete again without Ferdy as a leader and listener. Nevertheless the old songs began and they marched along, singing those songs just as they had always done.
The Fantasia found it was expected. Someone had seen them and had run on ahead to tell the crossroads people, and the crossroads people had all turned out to see them arrive. Whenever it came to a big town the Fantasia was always greeted with cheers and cries of welcome but places like Milton often greeted them with silence, uncertain just who was calling in on them – uncertain if it was the same Fantasia that had visited them the last time around or some treacherous imitation. People were curious but guarded, waiting to see what would happen next. Yves now jumped from the front of the leading van and began to beckon the Fantasia around him, shouting and waving his arms. ‘Here we are! Here we are again! The show of wonders! The amazement of the world.’ The acrobats cartwheeled beside him. Tane the clown passed his saxophone to a young man called Lattin, then leapt and tumbled and somersaulted. Bannister reluctantly slipped a book into his belt and began showing off his muscles. Children from the crowd and even some of the men tried lifting the weight at his feet. Bannister let them try, watching and smiling, then lifted that weight high, almost casually, using only one arm. Wonder began to work on the watchers as it always did. The blank and sometimes challenging faces began to soften and change. The head man came forward. Maddie moved to Yves’s side. They were going to bargain. The Fantasia would perform, but the Milton must pay for a show of wonders … pay with food this time … pay with goats’ milk, bread and cheese. Pay with apples? Maybe, though perhaps there were not many apples left at this time of the year. However Milton could afford a ham or two and some fresh greens. And they had eggs to spare.
‘Not the whole show,’ Maddie said, reporting back to the Fantasia people. ‘The tumblers, the horses, the clowns and the dogs. They remember the magician … they’ve asked for him.’ And then she stopped because Ferdy had been their magician and he had vanished as magicians do – but this time he was gone forever. ‘They’re almost demanding a magician,’ she said helplessly.
‘I know a few tricks,’ Garland reminded her.
‘Right! We’ll try you,’ Maddie said, but looking very doubtful. ‘No choice.’
‘I’ll go and practise,’ Garland cried. I remember the tricks Ferdy taught me, she was thinking. And now I’m actually going to be Ferdy. He’ll come alive again through me. Even though it was only a small show this time, the Fantasia began its usual seething … partly with its own people, partly with Milton people wandering around and wondering, staring at the vans … at the coloured tents, unfolding and rising. Garland drew away from the crowd and set up her father’s magician’s table, laid out the boxes and the scarves, the coins in an orderly fashion. The cabinet of vanishment had been unloaded and stood, slightly tilted, beside her, but she did not know its secrets well enough as yet to make people disappear. (‘How do you do it?’ she had nagged Ferdy, but he had only laughed and had told her he must keep a few mysteries to himself.)
‘You telling me you’re going to be a magician?’ someone asked behind her. ‘That’s a boy’s thing to do.’ Garland did not need to turn her head to know who it was. Boomer! There he was, fair, freckled, winking at the world with those bright green eyes as if he was trying to work out just what was driving it along. But Boomer was always trying to work out how things worked … clocks and watches … his noisy little motorbike … and of course the Fantasia vans. When something went wrong with one of them and Tane had to bend into them or slide under them Boomer was always beside him, sometimes being helpful but quite often simply getting in the way.
‘Go and practise your drum,’ Garland told him. ‘It’s simple just hitting something – boom, boom, boom! A ten-year-old can do it. Even you can do it. Right now I need to concentrate.’
‘I’m eleven,’ said Boomer indignantly. He hated it when Garland pretended to think he was only ten. ‘I can almost do magic tricks. Hey, I’ll help you,’ he offered. ‘Maddie helps Ferdy – she used to help Ferdy that is …’ his voice trailed away.
‘Get out!’ cried Garland. ‘Leave me alone.’
‘It won’t work,’ said another voice. A childish one! Lilith again! ‘You’re not good enough yet. You need to practise for years. Years and years.’ She pranced beside them, black-haired, brown-eyed, trying to be cleverer than Garland as she always did.
‘Get out of the way, you kids! I’m going to practise for an hour!’ cried Garland. ‘Just leave me alone to do it.’
She did not think they would leave her, but (perhaps because the Fantasia was struggling there at Milton) they did. After all, they were all children of the Fantasia and when the Fantasia succeeded, they succeeded themselves. Garland struggled on, palming the coins, shuffling the cards. Deep down she knew she was not really good enough – but she might – she might (if things went well enough) be good enough for a timber town at a wild crossroads.
‘What are you doing?’ asked someone beside her, sounding almost like Boomer, but not quite like Boomer.
‘Leave me alone. I’m working at it!’ she cried.
‘Working at what?’ asked the voice. She understood the words easily, but found she still did not quite recognize the voice itself … and not just the voice. There was a strange quality to it as if the speaker were somehow breathing a different air. Garland turned.
And there they were. There they were again – the same two boys she had seen on the hillside. One (the taller of the two) balancing that little child on his hip this time, the other smaller one, a thin rather delicate-looking boy, was still strung around with those boxes including a curious black box … a camera perhaps. Garland had seen cameras in the museum in Solis and knew that, once upon a time, those boxes had somehow been able to blink and that pictures of the world would peel up out of them. The boy’s jacket bulged as if he had something hidden in the front of it. And, back there, when they first met, these boys had known her name even though they had never met before.
‘Are you following us?’ she asked.
‘Listen! Just listen!’ said the older boy in a soft, urgent voice. ‘My name is Timon. My brother is called Eden and the little one here is Jewel. We’re …’ (he seemed to stop and think what to say next). ‘We’re friends of Solis,’ he said at last as if he were experimenting with words. ‘And we’re – we’re lost – well, half-lost. We’re hungry. We need food. But we’re not just begging. We’ll work for it.’
Garland hesitated. They did look tired and hungry … and of course the Fantasia always needed workers, to load and unload, to haul on the ropes and, later, to help with the folding, the lifting, the stowing, and the checking of the wheels. And they needed trackers to guide the vans over the rough pieces of the road or places where the road vanished altogether. She was about to suggest they talk to Yves or Bannister … when the older boy, glancing sideways, suddenly stiffened.
‘Oh no!’ he said softly, and nudged the smaller one. ‘Maska and Ozul!’ He turned to Garland. ‘We’ve got enemies following us. Can you hide us?’
The world was unreliable. It always had been and always would be. There it was, up to its tricks again. Garland shook her head, not understanding what was going on, but, even as she shook her head, she was opening the door of Ferdy’s cabinet of vanishment with one hand and pointing into it with the other.
