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  And now the Gorji were hovering nearby, talking of things that were incomprehensible to them. Seasides. Ice creams. What were these? Eventually the sound of the voices faded away as the giants walked back across the cobbles to the house, and a sleepy quiet fell once more upon the yard outside.

  Spindra, tired almost beyond caring, lay back amongst the hay and gazed dully at the walls of their prison. Here were hung strange objects, unfamiliar to him for the most part – ancient metal hoops from long gone cartwheels, gin traps, horseshoes, a wheel brace, a small bow-saw (which he did know the purpose of, and which, moreover, he considered to be well worth stealing) and various straps and bits of chain, hanging from the rusty nails that were hammered into the rough-rendered walls. One particular object – a horse’s bridle – was so familiar to him that he barely glanced at it, being more interested in guessing the possible uses of the other things. However, the bridle finally claimed his attention as he began to realize what a good one it was. The leather, although old and mildewed, was intricately tooled and embossed, and there were three little bells, green with age, mounted on the headpiece. A fine piece of work. And yet there was something odd about it, something wrong. The answer came to him, suddenly, and he sat up. The bridle was only familiar to him because it was of Naiad design and construction. It was not Gorji. To Gorji eyes it would be a tiny thing – far too small even for one of their hounds, let alone one of their horses. What was an old Naiad bridle doing in a Gorji byre?

  He stood up and walked over to the wall to take a closer look, brushing the hay from his tunic, and squinting up at the long neglected little object, shading his eyes against the dusty sunbeams that fell through odd chinks in the sagging roof of the stable. The others watched him, mildly curious as to what he had seen.

  ‘What be looking at, Spindra?’ said Tod.

  Spindra didn’t reply. A strange feeling was slowly creeping over him – a feeling of revelation, and certainty. He turned to face the others, a puzzled look on his brown lined face.

  ‘Pegs is back,’ he said. ‘Back home, in the forest. He’m there, I knows it.’ A few moments of silence, then a general rustling of hay as his three companions sat up.

  ‘How do ’ee know that?’ Tod said, moving his head to one side in order to get a better view of the thing that Spindra had been looking at. It was a bridle. What did that mean?

  ‘I just knows it,’ said Spindra, puzzled himself as to how this should be. ‘I knows he ain’t here – knew that all along. But now I knows he ain’t nowhere else, neither. Not in the Far Woods, not lost between here and there. Not nowhere ’cept where he should be. He’s back.’ And the little horse breeder scratched his balding head, perplexed at his own words, yet sure of his feelings.

  Pegs had been born into Spindra’s small herd some four years previously – an object of wonder and great pride to the Naiad, and as precious as a child to the herdsman. Pegs had been cared for as no other horse had ever been cared for, and none knew the magical creature better than Spindra. The animal was witchi, moreover, and could communicate in ways that were beyond their fathoming – perhaps even at this distance, for all they could tell. The other three were inclined to believe Spindra, then, when he said that Pegs was come home. If he knew, then he knew – as a father might know. Such things were possible. In the end they believed it to be so because they wanted it to be so.

  Their decision was clear to them, then – for it had been Spindra who had been the most anxious to continue the search, and it was Spindra who was now satisfied that there was no need. All ideas of pressing on to the Far Woods were finally abandoned. They would return to the forest at nightfall – but they would not return completely empty-handed. They would take the opportunity to profit a little from their ordeal, and justify an otherwise fruitless expedition. A bundle of bean sticks was propped up in one corner of the stable, and, as the light grew dim, they used the longest to reach up and quietly unhook some of the objects that hung on the wall. The small bow-saw they took – for this was real treasure – along with the horseshoes, four of them, which were useful lumps of metal – and although none could guess their original purpose, they might be fashioned by the Tinkler smiths into usable implements. The bridle Spindra lifted down and slung over his shoulder, sniffing curiously at the stiff fusty leather, and shaking the tarnished bells very gently. He would clean it up and it would be a fine adornment for one of his herd.

  If Pegs were truly home then they would be glad, and if Spindra were wrong then at least another expedition could be planned. This thought comforted them somewhat, yet the sum total of their gain seemed a poor exchange for the life of Lumst, and it was a sombre little foursome who later peered out of the stable doorway to watch the moon rise over the hill. Their efforts, their fear, suffering, and ultimate loss, had largely been pointless.

  One quick glance around the dark yard reassured them that the dreaded felix was nowhere to be seen, and they silently made their way round the corner of the stables, Pank supported between Tod and Spindra. They slipped through the bars of the gate into the Field of Thistles, and in a little less than an hour they were home.

  Grissel’s respect for his fellow woodlanders had grown, and though he smiled at the sly remarks of Benzo and Flitch upon his return – who were quick to suggest that he had fallen beneath his station by acting as guard to the likes of Troggles and Tinklers – he declared his travelling companions to be ‘braver ’n most, and better company too’ – an act of bravery on his part which was equal to any amount of renard-fighting.

  Pank felt that he had had the adventure of a lifetime, notwithstanding the loss of poor Lumst and his own injury, and that he was unlikely to scale such heights again. His fellow cave-dwellers never tired of hearing about the terrible encounters with the renard and the felix, and thought little Pank an awesome being in consequence. Many a timid soul wondered how they might have coped themselves under similar circumstance, and were glad enough to remain ignorant of the answer.

  Tod simply added the experience to his growing knowledge of the Gorji and their ways: the more he learned, the better protected he felt in his regular excursions onto Gorji territory. Spindra was also left, ultimately, with few regrets. He had gone because he saw that he must, and his own strange insight – joyously justified upon his return and subsequent reunion with his beloved Pegs – had saved his fellow searchers from any further danger or needless deprivation.

  The little bridle he kept to himself, and carefully restored to original condition – finding it to be a deep red, beneath the mildew of years, with tinsy-metal bells, and as clever a piece of work as you could wish for. Whoever had originally fashioned the thing had known what he was about – though what it was doing in a Gorji byre would remain a mystery for the time being. Spindra didn’t use it on his own horses after all, but, in another moment of insight, decided that he must keep it safe for some future purpose, as yet undefined, ready and waiting upon the day.

  Chapter Fourteen

  IT SOUNDED AS though someone was dragging a coffin along the landing – a heavy scrape of wood on wood – and Midge, who had been lying half-awake, gingerly exploring the scratches on the back of her neck, opened her eyes at last and gave up all hopes of a long and peaceful lie-in. The sun was already streaming through the gap in her curtains, and she narrowed her eyes against the glare in order to look at her wristwatch. Five past nine. Thump scrape thump. What was all that racket? She heard George’s voice – ‘Give us a hand, Kate,’ and Katie’s muffled reply – ‘Can’t. I’m doing my hair.’ More puffing and heavy scraping.

  Midge sat up with a sigh and pulled back the duvet, swinging her legs out over the side of the bed – but quickly realized that she was going to have to stay where she was for a moment or two. She didn’t feel good. Her whole body ached and her skin prickled in a hundred places from the cuts and scratches of yesterday’s thorn bushes. It all came back to her in a rush – the fear, the pain and the shock of it – and she just wanted to lie ba
ck down on the bed, curled up in a ball, to sleep forever. She missed her mum.

  ‘Ow!’ She could hear George, cursing now beneath his breath, as he walked quickly up and down on the landing outside. Her curiosity and natural resilience overcame her desire to sink back down into the pillows, and she pushed herself up from the bed. She moved stiffly over to the door, turned the loose brass handle and peered out into the corridor. George was walking in a tight circle, red-faced, both hands tucked beneath his armpits

  ‘Sugar!’ he hissed under his breath. ‘Sugarsugarsugar . . .’ He caught sight of Midge, still in her pyjamas, and realized that she must have heard him. ‘Oh. Hullo. Er . . . sorry. Dropped it on my fingers.’ He pulled his hands from beneath his armpits and blew vigorously on his fingertips. Midge rubbed her eyes and looked at the long wooden box that blocked the landing. It wasn’t much smaller than a coffin after all.

  ‘What is it?’ she said.

  ‘Ammo box,’ said George. ‘Found it last Easter.’ His face was returning to something like its normal colour, and he had stopped walking in circles. ‘Weighs a ton.’ He sucked his fingers and blew on them again, his thick curtain of hair falling forward over his knuckles.

  ‘What’s in it?’ said Midge. The box was made of rough planking, and painted army green. There was a broken bit of rope attached to one end – the remains of a carrying handle.

  ‘Oh, everything,’ said George, with a flick of his head. ‘All my tree house stuff.’

  ‘Well, can’t you unpack some of it?’

  ‘S’pose I’ll have to,’ said George gloomily. ‘I thought that if I got it to the top of the stairs, it could make its own way down, more or less.’ An exciting idea, but Midge didn’t think it a very sensible one. And Phoebe, sound asleep as usual at the foot of the stairs, would doubtless have agreed with her.

  ‘Hang on a tick,’ she said. ‘I’ll get dressed.’ She went back into her room and quickly put on the relatively clean clothes she had been wearing the night before, wincing as she raised her arms to wriggle into her T-shirt – everything seemed to hurt.

  Outside in the corridor, George was already unpacking the long wooden crate. Midge found him kneeling amongst piles of tins and books, as well as other objects that were barely recognizable to her – a stack of old gramophone records, a folded up metal contraption that may or may not have been a cooking stove, an oil lantern, something that looked like a bomb or a rocket (but turned out to be a metal Thermos flask) and an oblong box finished in dusty black leatherette that said ‘The Academy Nippy’ on its lid. There were also various tools, a collection of battered old pipe-tobacco tins and a huge plastic water cannon – a brightly coloured and fearsome looking object with ‘WaterBlaster’ emblazoned along the side, that seemed very modern and out of place somehow. Midge knelt at one end of the crate and happily helped George to unpack his strange possessions, starting with the tobacco tins. Eventually the landing resembled a car boot sale.

  Katie floated along the corridor at one point, dressed for cocktails apparently, in a little black outfit and sparkly tights, her blonde hair done up in an immaculate French plait. She picked her way disdainfully through the jumble, muttering ‘Oh God, not all this rubbish again,’ and began to descend the creaky stairs, her graceful appearance slightly at odds with the high pitched squeaks of the bare planking beneath her clunky heels.

  ‘Hey!’ said George, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Hollywood Bowl,’ said Katie, over her shoulder. ‘Dad’s dropping me off.’

  ‘You don’t bowl,’ said George.

  ‘Who said anything about bowling? Sho long shuckers!’

  ‘She’s probably off to chat up the shoe-spray boys,’ muttered George. ‘How desperate is that?’

  Uncle Brian’s voice came up from below. ‘Everything all right, you two? I’m off to Asda. Katie’s going to come with me. I’ll pick her up on the way back – shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours. And George – I want to see all that rubbish gone by the time I get back. Place looks like a damn rubbish tip.’ He didn’t sound as though he was in a very good mood.

  ‘ ’Kay, Dad. See you later.’

  George carried ‘The Academy Nippy’ and Midge struggled with an armful of tobacco tins on the first of several journeys to the tree house. This turned out to be built in the crook of a curious cedar that dominated a small copse at the end of the back garden. Midge had spent very little time around this side of the house and had barely noticed the copse, let alone thought to explore it. The trunk of the cedar divided – in fact it was actually two trees, growing so close together that the stems had combined at ground level – and the platform base of the tree house was fixed among the strong jutting lower branches of the twin trunks, perhaps ten or twelve feet up. It looked more like an open-sided shed than a tree house, there being but three walls and a roof above the platform. There were no windows, and Midge could see that the walls, dark brown with creosote, were probably garden fencing panels. It looked good, though.

  ‘What do you think?’ said George.

  ‘I love it!’ said Midge. She allowed the heavy tobacco tins to slip gently to the ground, and then stepped back a little in order to get a better view. ‘You are lucky. Wish I had a tree house. Or even a tree. Do you really sleep up there? Doesn’t it get cold?’

  ‘Gets a bit cold sometimes, but I only use it in the summer so it’s usually OK. Dad wouldn’t put a fourth side on it. Says I’d probably get locked in and burn it down with me still inside it. But I reckon he just couldn’t be bothered to make a door.’

  ‘Uncle Brian built it? Gosh. How do you get up there?’

  ‘Rope ladder – look.’ George walked round to the other side of the tree. ‘Mind your head,’ he said, and pulled on a knotted length of yellow washing line. A rope ladder tumbled down from the branches above, suddenly and rather alarmingly, bouncing and swinging in all directions. It looked as though it had once belonged on a child’s climbing frame. The rope was blue and made of nylon.

  ‘This is great!’ said Midge. ‘Can we go up and have a look?’

  ‘OK. You go first. I’ll hold the ladder – it swings around a bit.’

  Midge clambered up the ladder as George tried to hold it steady – it did indeed swing around a bit – and hesitated as she got to the top.

  ‘Put your hand on that branch there,’ said George. ‘No not that one, the other one. That’s right. Now if you put your foot – that’s it – you’ve got it. OK?’

  Midge had managed the slightly tricky manoeuvre of getting from the ladder to the platform without, she hoped, showing how nervous she felt, and was now walking around inside the three-sided house, stamping on the firm planking of the base. ‘This is great!’ she said again, as George swung himself up to join her.

  Together they sat on the edge of the platform, their hands tucked beneath their knees, and looked out over the view. Through the blue-green foliage of the cedar, they could see beyond the garden and over the end of the old stable block that jutted out past the corner of the farmhouse. Here lay the lagoon – the abandoned muck pit – now an oddly discoloured area of greenish earth from which sprouted clumps of dark reeds. To their left they could see the flat patchwork of the wetlands, stretching for miles in the heat haze, to the faint hills beyond. A few jackdaws circled the cedar tree, cawing noisily, disgusted at having been so rudely invaded.

  ‘Can you do this?’ said George. He put both hands to his mouth – two fingers in each corner – and whistled, really loudly. His face looked funny, pulled apart.

  ‘No,’ said Midge. ‘I can whistle all right, tunes and that. But not that sort of whistle.’

  ‘I’ll teach you, if you like.’

  ‘OK,’ said Midge, not particularly interested. ‘Thanks. What do you sleep on?’ The sharp edge of the platform was hurting her hands a bit, and she drew her knees up to her chin with her arms clasped about her shins.

  ‘Folding camp bed,’ said George. ‘It’s an army one. Come on, let
’s get the rest of the stuff, and I’ll show you.’ He stood up, hands thrust into the worn pockets of his khaki combat trousers.

  Midge sighed. ‘You are lucky,’ she said again. George hesitated.

  ‘Well . . . you could stay out here too. I mean if you wanted to.’ He paused. ‘Don’t think Dad would mind.’

  It was a slightly awkward moment. ‘What about you?’ said Midge, looking up at him. ‘I mean it’s your tree house and everything . . . would you mind?’

  ‘No,’ said George, sounding faintly surprised at having his feelings considered. ‘I don’t mind.’ He took his hands from his pockets and the stump of a blue birthday cake candle fell onto the planking. It bounced and rolled over the edge of the platform. ‘Damn, I needed that. Anyway,’ he continued, ‘I bet there’s an airbed or some cushions or something. Or you could have the camp bed. I don’t mind.’ He stood at the edge of the platform, wondering what had become of the candle stump, and said, ‘See that big root down there? I broke my wrists on that. Both of them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Bungee jumping.’

  ‘You bungee jumped? From here?’

  ‘Well, I thought it’d be OK. There was some elastic rope stuff I found, and when I asked Dad what it was, he said ‘bungee cord’, so I thought I’d have a go at it. I mean, I assumed that was what it was for – bungee jumping. Pretty stupid calling something bungee cord if you can’t use it for bungee jumping. I had it double thickness and everything – it should’ve been all right. I was in plaster for about a month.’