Tamsin

Twenty-one

Spring came the way it does in Dorset, like a really small child hiding behind a curtain to pounce out at the grown-up world for a moment, and then dash right back into cover. Tony’s mustache actually took hold, and Julian quit sleeping with the stuffed turtle that was Elvis’ successor. The first no-till crops looked promising—although Evan kept warning us and the Lovells that there’d probably be a yield hit this year, until the soil got used to the new regime. But when he spaded up a chunk of black dirt, it crumbled pretty easily in his hand, and there were a lot of earthworms, which even I know is a good sign. Evan said it was too stiff by half, wouldn’t be proper for a couple of years yet, but he looked happy.

The April nights were way too cold to go walking with Tamsin, so I mostly went to her room (which was cold enough—we didn’t have any heating in the east wing then), or in Tony’s studio, where she used to watch him practicing and sigh now and then: a long, liquid, three-hundred-year-old adolescent sigh that used to embarrass me even more than it made me jealous. Tony never heard it, never noticed it at all, and tried really hard not to notice me. I envied him his gift and his devotion, and I envied him Tamsin’s worship; but for once that seemed to be happening far away, in some other region of myself. I had bigger, scarier fish to fry.

She didn’t remember a single word that Judge Jeffreys had said to her on her deathbed. She didn’t even remember a lot of the things she’d already told me; that’s how hard she shrank away from thinking about that man, three centuries later. I made things worse because I kept asking her if it could have had anything to do with Edric Davies. Because I couldn’t get rid of the idea that Judge Jeffreys might have met him at the cow byre on his way to the Manor to make his awful proposal to Tamsin. And Edric might have been younger, and maybe even stronger, but he wouldn’t have stood a chance. I knew that much.

It took me a while to understand that what she did remember was her desperate anger at Edric for not being there when she scrambled up that rainsoaked path, not coming to protect her when those hands were pinning her arms. She felt it still, that anger, but by now it was all mixed up with three hundred years’ worth of regret and confusion and fear—three hundred years of never knowing. Guy Guthrie says that there are ghosts who go mad after their deaths. I don’t know why Tamsin didn’t.

That cow byre isn’t there, of course—nothing left but a kind of impression of the floor. I’d never have found it if Tamsin hadn’t guided me out there one afternoon when I should have been helping Sally in her garden. There wasn’t anything to look at, but I stood still for a long time, trying to see into the past the way Tamsin did. But I couldn’t find a foothold, a place to begin imagining… except maybe one thing. The wild grasses had long since taken the place back comphetely; all but a single small area, about the size of a bath mat, bare and bald as a brick. I pointed it out to Tamsin, and she said it was right where the door had been— maybe a few inches inside and to the right. Some things she remembered like a photograph after all the years. I just couldn’t ever be sure which they’d be.

“Seems weird, the grass not growing in that one place,” I said. “I wonder what would cause that.”

“My mother says—” Tamsin began. She stopped herself, and then she said it again, very deliberately. “My mother says that nothing will grow where a murderer lies. Or where a virgin has been martyred—for she inclines just a bit to papistry on some points, does my mother. Or where the Wild Hunt has set foot.”

I froze on the spot—it actually felt as though hands had reached out of the tall grass and grabbed my ankles. The whole notion of those mad, laughing horsemen wheeling down from the night sky, leaping to earth, stalking this ground where I stood, where Tamsin Willoughby had come running desperately to find her man… to find what? You’d think seeing the Wild Hunt close to would be something that stayed with you, but Tamsin went completely blank on that—all she remembered was Edric’s absence and the Pooka carrying her home. But I kept standing in that empty place, staring at the patch where nothing grew.

On the first halfway warm weekend Meena and I went on a picnic. Julian wanted to come, but he also wanted to go to a big football match in Dorchester, and football won. Meena brought an Indian box lunch for the two of us, and I chipped in Sally’s stuffed mushrooms, which Meena adores, and a thermos of iced coffee. We got started late, because Dr. Chari had an emergency to handle at the Yeovil hospital before she could bring Meena, so Sally told us not to worry about getting back, as long as we were home for dinner. She did want to know where we’d be picnicking, and I told her probably around the Hundred-Acre Wood. Not in—not after that first time—but somewhere around.

It’s a good hike to the Hundred-Acre Wood: uphill, pretty much, but not too uphill, and the path mostly runs through land that probably hasn’t been cultivated since Roger Willoughby’s time. All kinds of berries growing wild, and some elm and ash trees that look even older than Tamsin’s beeches, and a lot of snug little dells just perfect for spreading out the tablecloth and unrolling the mats. Meena sang songs from Indian movies as we walked. She says they’re incredibly silly, but I’m getting so I like them. After that we sang practically the entire score of My Fair Lady.

It was a nice picnic, maybe the best we ever had. We took our time about everything—didn’t even start eating right away, but dozed in the sun a bit, “like bears coming out of hibernation,” Meena said. She’d brought a book of poems with her, and we took turns reading a few aloud. I can’t remember which ones now, but it was fun.

We’d skirted wide around the Hundred-Acre Wood when we came up to find a picnic spot; but by the time we were ready to start home, the late sun was shining on it at an angle that made the young new oak leaves glow like emeralds, and the forest itself look golden and sleepy and magical. Meena kept glancing over at it while we were packing up the picnic stuff, and all of a sudden she said, “It would be so much shorter to go back straight through the Wood. Let’s do that, Jenny.”

“Let’s not, how about that?” I said. “You hated the place—we all did. Very bad idea.”

Meena scowled. She doesn’t do it well, but it’s cute. “I was scared,” she said. “I don’t like being scared. It’ll bother me until I do something about it.”

When Meena gets locked in on something, that’s the end of it. She’ll always listen, she’s always polite, but you might as well not bother. Even Chris Herridge would have found that out, sooner or later.

We were halfway to the Hundred-Acre Wood, making good time on the downhill walk, when I saw the Black Dog.

He was flanking us on the right, keeping between us and the Wood. Daytime or not, he looked just as black as he’d looked in moonlight, and maybe even bigger. Not a sound out of him—no bark, no breath, no footsteps in the grass—nothing but those red, red eyes fixed on me. I stopped where I was. I said, “What do you want?”

Meena was walking a little way ahead of me. She turned around, blinking. “What? Did you say something, Jenny?”

The Black Dog had stopped walking when I did. I asked again, louder this time. “What the hell do you want?”

“Jenny,” Meena said. She came up to me, partly blocking my view of the Black Dog. “Jenny, who are you talking to?”

“The Black Dog, for God’s sake. Don’t you see him?” Because Tamsin’s one thing—I can imagine how some people might not notice a wispy, transparent ghost, even if she’s practically sitting in their laps, the way she always was with Tony. But the Black Dog looks like a solid chunk of midnight that somebody hacked into the shape of a dog. Other people have seen him, I know that, there are books. I still don’t understand how it all works.

“The Black Dog,” Meena said. She turned to look where I was pointing, and then back at me. “Jenny, I don’t see anything.” She was keeping her voice as even as she could, the way people do when they’re really worried about you. “I don’t see a dog.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll explain.” I moved her out of the way, very gently, and I asked the Black Dog again, “What? What is it?”

Nothing. I don’t know what I expected—he’d never made a sound, even to Tamsin, or told her anything useful, except to watch out for some aggravation or other. But when I started walking again (with Meena sticking close and looking anxious), so did he, always edging us away from the Hundred-Acre Wood, like Albert steering those idiot sheep. I’m not quite that dumb, so I told Meena, “The Black Dog always comes as an omen. He’s telling us to stay out of the Wood.”

Meena stopped studying me as though I were crazy and just started to laugh, standing there with her hands on her hips. “And that’s it? That’s what all this is about? You don’t want to cut through the Wood, so—voilà!—here comes the Black Dog to warn us off. Really, Jenny.” She was trying to look stern and severe, but she was giggling too much to pull it off. She said, “Well. You and the Black Dog will just stay out of the Wood, and I will be waiting for you at the Lightning Tree,” which was a storm-splintered alder where we’d veered away from the oak forest on the way up. “Just don’t take too long. I want my tea.” And she started straight off into the Wood, walking right past the Black Dog. He didn’t move to follow her, or block her path again—didn’t even look after her, any more than she looked back to see if I was coming. Just at me.

Well, there wasn’t any damn choice, obviously. I met the Black Dog’s red eyes, spread my hands, lifted my shoulders, mumbled, “Yeah, I know, I know,” and followed Meena. I looked back once, and of course he was gone. He’d done his job.

I walked a little way into the wood, along the path Meena had taken. Tamsin had only made me promise never to walk in an oak forest after sundown, and we still had plenty of daylight left. But oak forests are different from pine woods. Under the pines it’s dark and cool almost from the moment you step into their shadow; but with oaks, at first you still feel that you’re walking in sunlight. For a while. Scuba diving’s like that, I remember: warm and sparkly near the surface, with the light drifting down through the water; but the deeper you go, the scarier it gets, until it’s icecold night and going to be night forever. That’s the way the Hundred-Acre Wood is, once you’re inside.

Meena was already half out of sight, bending to duck under an overhanging branch, when I saw the red cap.Just the one, with no face under it, no body. It looked like a toadstool—no, more like a fat red thumb bobbing up from behind a scrubby berry bush and disappearing so fast I wasn’t even sure I’d seen it. I stopped in my tracks—still just on the edge of the wood, and I called to Meena, but she didn’t hear me.

I couldn’t tell if the second red cap was the same as the first or different: It popped out of a rotten log—bloodred, sticky blood just starting to dry—and gone again. I yelled then, as loud as I possibly could, “Meena! Get back here! Meena!”

To me it seemed as though the oak trees were swallowing up my voice, but a moment later Meena reappeared around a bend in the narrow path. “What? Did you call me, Jenny?”

She hadn’t seen the red caps at all. I didn’t want to scare her, so I lowered my voice a little. I said, “Come back here. Please. Now.”

Meena stared at me. “Oh, don’t tell me the Black Dog has made another appearance? Jenny, you can do what you like, but I am walking straight through this wood and out the other side. That’s all there is to that, I mean it.”

My throat was dry and tight, and I was shaking, going burning hot and then absolutely icy by turns. I told her, “Meena, if you take another step, I will drag you back out of this place by the hair. And I mean that, and you know I do.”

She did know. I spotted another red cap over her shoulder, flirting through branches, quick as a squirrel’s tail, no chance to get a fix on it. I was frantic for Meena to move, but she only stood looking at me for what felt like hours. Then she started back along the path toward me, walking slowly, not saying a word.

“Move!” I said, but she wouldn’t come any faster. I was afraid she’d stop altogether if I pushed her any more, so I just stood waiting until she reached me and stalked on past. When her hair brushed my face, she jerked her head away.

Just before we came out of the Hundred-Acre Wood, I turned and saw a face. It looked like melted candlewax, the color of bacon fat, except for the blobby red nose. The eyes were round as a doll’s eyes, and they watched us from a hole in a hollow tree with a no-color hatred that made me stumble against Meena. There was a smell, too, I remember, all around us, like a refrigerator that really needs cleaning out.

Meena saw the face, too. We didn’t say anything to each other. We just got out of there. When we looked back at the forest, we didn’t see a single red cap anywhere, but the branches of the oaks were lashing as wildly as though a storm were on the way. Beyond the fence, where we stood, the air wasn’t moving at all.

Meena and I did start running then, and we didn’t slow down until we were completely out of sight of the Hundred-Acre Wood, and we didn’t talk for a while after that. The sun was setting fast, but I could have gotten us home in the dark. Finally I said, “I’m sorry I talked to you that way.”

“Well, you had to, didn’t you?” Meena said. She stopped walking and turned to face me. “You knew we shouldn’t go into the wood,” she said. “A thing came to warn you—a Black Dog, or whatever it was. You tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen.”

“It’s hard to believe stuff like that, first off.” I couldn’t tell if she was still mad at me or not—and with Meena you know—but I had an uneasy feeling, looking at her.

“But what you aren’t telling me is how you knew. And you haven’t been telling me for a long time now.” She was mad, all right, but mad in a different way than I’d ever seen her, level and cold. She said, “Talk to me, Jenny.”

I can’t remember what I answered, and it doesn’t matter—I’d probably be ashamed to recall whatever I tried to get away with. Meena just stood there looking like that, saying, “It’s been going on for months—even Julian’s noticed the way you’ve been behaving. How stupid do you think I am, Jenny?”

So, at last, I told her about Tamsin.

I would have told her—I was planning to, whenever the right moment came up—but the fact is I hadn’t, and she was my best friend, and she had every right to do what she did, once I was through, which was to chew me up one side and down the other in that same flat, un-Meena voice. I took it without a word, not looking at her, until she ran out of gas, and then I just said in the silence, hoping I wasn’t going to cry, “Meena, I’m sorry.”

Meena said, “You could have trusted me. I don’t mean just to keep your secret—I mean to believe you. Of all people, do you think I don’t know about ghosts? About night creatures? About spirits, fairies, things that can change their shape?” Her eyes were getting brighter and brighter, and I was afraid she was going to start crying, which would have been even worse than me. “You know I would have believed you, Jenny.”

I couldn’t say anything. We stood still, the two of us, both twanging like fiddle strings about to go, and me wishing I were dead. Only time in my life so far I’ve ever wished such a thing, but I’ll know it if it happens again. Then Meena began to smile, just a little bit, brushing the back of her hand very quickly across her eyes. “But you went after me,” she said. “You followed me into the wood, even though you were warned not to. You brought me back.”

“Well, I’m not all dork,” I mumbled. “Not all the way through.” So then we both cried, and we hugged each other, and we went on home together, not saying much. With the lights of Stourhead Farm in sight, Meena suddenly turned to me and asked me, “Jenny, what do you think they wanted with us, those things—what did you say she called them?”

“Oakmen,” I said. “I think those were Oakmen, but I don’t know what the hell they are, or what they’d have done. I don’t know anything about this place, Meena. I thought I did, but I don’t. You remember that if I ever start saying I know.”

The first time I brought Meena to Tamsin’s secret room, Tamsin wasn’t there. I was starting to get as jumpy as the billy-blind about all her roaming around—because it was my fault, I’d started her doing that—but Meena was fascinated by the hidden lock, and by that little closet with the one dark window, and I was too busy explaining everything to her to worry much then. But later we sneaked a glance into Tony’s studio and didn’t see Tamsin there either, and that’s when it started to get to me. I kept thinking about Judge Jeffreys—the Other One, whatever that really meant—and all the bewildering things the Pooka had said about me being the only one who could help. I told Meena all that stuff, too.

But Tamsin did show up, just before Meena had to go home. We were sitting in that double swing Evan had made, waiting for Mr. Chari to arrive—and like that, there she was, perched between us on the back of the swing, smiling at me in that way that always turned my insides to chocolate syrup. I said, “Meena, she’s here.”

Meena whirled around, her face actually flushing with excitement. “Where, Jenny? Show me!”

I pointed grandly and made my introduction. “Mistress Tamsin Willoughby, this is my dear friend Meena Chari. Miss Meena, I have the honor to introduce Tamsin Elspeth Catherine Maria Dubois Willoughby, of Stourhead Farm.” And I bowed and waited for them to discover each other.

But it didn’t work out like that. Tamsin was shaking her head sadly, and Meena was looking wide-eyed in all directions, still asking, “Where, Jenny? Where is she?” I’ll never forget the sound of her voice right then. Like a little girl growing more and more afraid that the parade or the show or the party has already started without her.

She hadn’t seen the Black Dog. She didn’t see Tamsin. I didn’t know what to do. I asked, “Can you smell her?”

Meena nodded. In the same small voice, she said, “I know she’s here. I just…” She let it trail off. Tamsin leaned forward and put her hand on Meena’s cheek. Meena stiffened where she sat, and her eyes got very wide. She looked at me, and I nodded, and Meena said, “Oh,” but not so I could hear it. I had to turn my head away for a moment. I didn’t think I ought to see her like that.

“It’s not fair,” I said. “It should be you.”

That snapped Meena out of it fast. “What? Why? Because I look right?—because you think I look like someone who should be able to see ghosts? You have to stop that, Jenny, right now. It’s degrading to you, and it makes me feel really bad. She chose you to talk to, when she’s never spoken to anyone else, and if that doesn’t tell you something about yourself, then I don’t know what will. I think that’s my father coming.”

It was. Meena stood up and turned toward where she thought Tamsin was sitting—I had to move her just a little. She said clearly, “Good-bye. I’m happy that you speak to my friend Jenny. She’s the best person you could have on your side, you can take my word for that.” She stopped for a moment, touching her cheek, and then she said, “If you can hear me—I’m on your side, too.” Then she ran to meet Mr. Chari, and I stood with Tamsin, watching her go.