Beyond the Gyre

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

BirchLut’s blond head popped from below the rim. “What?” Then, seeing her stricken expression, he added, “Are you all right, Poppy?”

She hurried forward until she reached the break. Her relief at the sight of him standing unhurt on a wide ledge just a few feet from the edge made her shriek crossly. “Am I all right? I thought you had fallen down the cliff, you ass!”

Lut seemed not to notice her irritation. “Good. Give me a hand, will you?” He had hold of the lamb’s back leg, as it dangled over the two hundred foot drop to the rocks below. “I’ll pass it to you. Mind you hang on to it, eh? I don’t want to have to run another race with that one. Once is enough.”

Poppy did as he instructed. She handed the wriggling lamb back to Lut once he had scrambled out of the cut and he draped it across his shoulders, holding its feet in the front. The lamb relaxed, and lay on its side. Lut trotted across the field towards home.

Poppy cried, “Wait for me! What’s your hurry?”

“Got to get this little one back to the house. It is probably dehydrated — and hungry, too. Ma’s got some special mix she makes for the foundlings. We’ll bottle feed it for a few days and it should be fine.”

She smiled at him, much impressed. “You are full of surprises, Lut.”

He blushed. “What do you mean? I am just Lut, the quiet one. Jakob gets all the attention around here.” He stared at her for a moment, and Poppy thought she saw a flicker of jealousy in his eyes. Then he looked away again.

“I just meant that you know so much — about sailing and sheep herding, and...”

He gave her a shy grin. “Just because I don’t talk doesn’t mean I don’t know things.”

The high green roof of Ikora Gwenn’s house came into view. Several goats cropped the sod on the top, crossing back and forth on the steeply sloping sides.

Gwenn was blond and rawboned, like her sons. She stood when she saw Lut approaching with the lamb, and Myrie, who had been sitting on a stool at her feet, scampered away. “Myriadne!” she called, exasperatedly, but the girl had already left the yard, running towards Gwillam’s house. She threw the comb and scissors down in disgust.

“Shall I catch her, Ikora?” Although Gwenn was, in one sense, her adoptive sister, Poppy felt uncomfortable with the idea that the huge, ex-warrior before her could be as closely related as that. Ikora, for the fact that Gwenn had married Patre’s brother, seemed so much safer.

“No, thank you,” said Gwenn in resignation. “I was almost done. She doesn’t care what her hair looks like, anyway.” She took the lamb from Lut. “What happened here?”

Poppy explained about the dead ewe. Gwenn burst into a torrent of colorful cursing, a relic from her days as a Fynäran raider. “If I find out which dog is responsible, I will tie a stone to his neck and throw him off the cliff!”

“Ikora Gwenn!” Poppy stared at her unhappily.

She growled unrepentantly, “Those sheep are our main livelihood, Poppy. Without them, we would not be able to trade for all the things we need from the mainland. Do you understand?”

Poppy sighed and nodded.

* * * *

“Gwenn came over here earlier,” said Katkin to Huw, trying to break the uncomfortable silence between them.

“Oh? Why is that, my Queen?” Huw stopped eating and looked over at Katkin, frowning.

“She thinks Jolly has been after the sheep. Jakob said he saw him on the tops.”

Poppy threw down her fork and cut in hotly, “Jolly didn’t do anything! Jakob is a liar.”

Huw smiled at his daughter affectionately. “Now, Poppy, calling people names will not remedy the situation.” He asked Katkin, “Has Jolly been running free?”

She shook her head. “Not as far as I know, Huw, but I can’t watch him every minute. But Gwenn insists we should get rid of him anyway, since he is not needed for the herding.”

Gwillam choked on his food. “No! He’s mine. You can’t...”

Katkin said, automatically, “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Gwill.”

He quickly chewed and swallowed. “I won’t let you do anything to Jolly, Patre.” He lifted his tear-filled eyes to meet Huw’s.

“I will have a talk to Gwenn after supper,” said Huw. “Now,” he said brightly, “How were your studies today?”

Gwillam cheered somewhat. “I am learning trigonometry. Ikor says I have a great mind for mathematics.” Katkin smiled and patted his head.

Poppy sniffed. “He would never say that about me. I can barely add two and two.”

“But you are learning Secunian, are you not? Your gift is for languages, Poppy. How is the translation going, anyway?” Katkin’s eyes were bright and sharp.

“Well, I am trying, but it is difficult. Lut said he would help me though.”

Huw and Katkin both spoke in astonishment. “Lut said?”

Poppy nodded. “I had quite a long talk with him today. He really is very nice, just shy.”

A look passed between her parents. “Well, isn’t that something?” Katkin said, after a moment. The talk passed to other subjects, and then Huw left the table, saying he would walk across to Gwenn’s house. Poppy and Gwillam did the dishes, while Katkin mended one of the fishing nets. Once the sun sank below the level of the cliffs, she got out several oil lamps, made from large whelk shells, and hung them from the ceiling.

Poppy thought Gwillam still looked troubled, and when he went outside, she followed him. She found him sitting in Jolly’s pen. “You didn’t do it, did you boy?” he asked, and Jolly whined in return.

She sat beside them. “Don’t worry, Gwill. Patre will sort it out. I don’t think Jolly would hurt a sheep, and neither does he.”

But Gwillam shook his head. “He’s doing it to get back at me.”

“What on Yrth do you mean? Who is?”

“That sneak, Jakob. Because I told Ikor Gunnar that Myrie saw him on the Able Drake.”

“Gwillam, you don’t know that.”

“Yes I do,” he said stubbornly, as his hands rubbed Jolly’s thick fur. The dog licked his face. “Yes, I do. And I won’t let anything happen to Jolly. You’ll see.”

* * * *

The next day, Katkin, Huw and Poppy sat around the supper table, all staring at Gwillam’s empty place. That morning, he had not been in his room, nor was Jolly in his pen. Huw and Katkin had hunted all day for him without success. Poppy picked at her fish and potatoes as they discussed plans for a more extensive search in the morning. She looked up when a curious noise drifted through the open windows. It sounded like the keening wail of some discontented beast.

Huw jumped from his chair as the sound grew louder, crying, “What in the gods’ names is that?”

The door flew open and Myrie entered, dragging her breathless father by the arm. Her deafening wails subsided as she gazed around the room, and then started again as soon as Myrie realized that Gwillam was not there. Arkady shrugged hopelessly.

“I am sorry. She has been like this ever since this morning. Gwenn brought her to me when she couldn’t stand it any more. Then Myrie made me come over here.”

The girl’s screams continued as she crawled into a corner, rocking back and forth with her eyes tightly closed. Katkin had to shout to make herself heard.

“We have been looking for him all day, Kadya. I don’t know what else we can do.” She frowned. “If Gwenn had not made such a fuss about that sheep, this never would have...”

Huw broke in. “It does not matter, my Queen. We must do something to help poor Myrie.” He squatted before the girl and patted her hand awkwardly, which made her howl even louder.

Poppy said, “Patre, let me try.” She grabbed her brother’s oldest toy, a stuffed floppy-eared rabbit. It had been living on the mantelpiece since Gwillam abandoned it, five years earlier. She knelt beside Myrie and gently tucked the rabbit into her arms. Myrie hiccupped a couple of times, clutched the rabbit to her chest, and fell asleep.

Arkady gave a sigh of relief as Katkin explained what Poppy had done. Then he asked, “May she stay here tonight? Now that she is quiet, I don’t want to disturb her.”

Katkin said, “Of course. And tomorrow we will find Gwillam and then she will be happy again.”

* * * *

Sleep eluded her, though Poppy closed her eyes and forced herself to lie still. Finally, with a frustrated groan, she rose from her bed and crept down the ladder, then tiptoed into the kitchen, thinking a cup of milk might help to settle her nerves. Myrie still lay by the fireplace, with the rabbit clutched in her hands. She sighed, and muttered in her sleep, “Click, click, click...”

Poppy crossed the stone floor to check on her. Myrie had curled into a ball, hugging the rabbit to her chest. The room felt very chilly, so Poppy found a blanket and draped it over the sleeping girl’s shoulders.

Myrie turned over and thrust her arm up, as her clicks became both mournful and more insistent. Poppy did not want her to wake in a strange room, alone and frightened, so she grabbed another woolen blanket and some pillows from the settle and stretched out beside Myrie. Her presence seemed to be a comfort, for Myrie’s clicks subsided and she began to snore. A few moments later, Poppy slept too.

Poppy had a dream, and Myrie was in it. They both stood before a vast mirror, ornately framed in silver, and their reflections stared back at them. Myrie’s reflection spoke, and she used real words. “When are you coming? We need your help!”

The real Myrie clicked questioningly. The mirror spoke again. “The Infirmarie. You must hurry, or there will be no one left to save.”

The sparkle that flashed from the glass blinded Poppy, as though the sun had just come out from behind a cloud. It left an afterimage on her retina — bright green and shaped like a flower. Her reflection cried, “Watch for us, in the mirror,” as a second reflection joined the first. Suddenly Poppy looked down a long tunnel, with ever-smaller images of her and Myrie disappearing into its depths. She grew dizzy and then she fell, plummeting past her reflected selves, twisting and turning. At the end of the tunnel, she stopped, caught fast by some unseen hand.

Now she saw a room, dark and dank. A box, something like a coffin, lay in the center. The chill air smelled like decay, and Poppy felt very afraid. But her legs insisted on carrying her closer to the box, though she somehow knew the noisome stench issued from it. She looked down.

What she saw made her scream and scream, and then she woke.

Myrie patted her hair.

“I had a dream, Myrie,” Poppy whispered. “It frightened me very much.” She stared at the girl who lay at her side. Myrie’s deep blue eyes were dark and opaque, like a pool of turbid water.

Myrie said, “Clack, click,” sympathetically, and closed her eyes. Poppy, strangely comforted, did the same. After a little while, she slept again.

In the morning, Myrie pressed herself close to Poppy’s side as Katkin said, “All right, is everyone ready? Today we are going to look all along the water’s edge, and on the tops by the tors. We must not stop searching until Gwillam is found.” She could not keep the worry from her voice.

Huw added confidently, “We will bring him home today, my Queen.”

Katkin sighed. “I will never forgive myself if something has...”

He shook his head and looked towards Myrie, who stared vacantly at the rabbit still clutched in her fist.

Poppy took her hand. “Myrie and I will look on the south side, over by the old fishing shack.”

“Good. We should meet back here at midday for a meal. By then we will have him, I am sure.” Huw headed out the door, leaving Katkin standing in the kitchen. Her hands twisted her apron strings.

“Be careful with Myrie. Don’t let her wander. I am going to the beach to meet with Gwenn and Gunnar. Just shout if you need help.”

Poppy nodded and left the cottage, with Myrie trailing behind her.

They crossed the yard, and the chickens crowded around them, expecting their morning ration of grain. Poppy shoved them out of the way with her boot. The path to the south side of the island wound across the tops. They did not get far along it before Myrie stopped. She clicked at Poppy urgently, and tugged at her hand.

“Myrie? What is it? We have to go to the fishing shack. Gwillam may have slept there last night. If we get to him first we can help him hide Jolly.”

“Mmmm...”

Poppy stared at her in surprise. “What are you trying to say?”

“Mmmm...” the girl said again. “Mirrr...”

“Mirror? Is that what...”

But Myrie was already running back towards the house.

When they reached the door, she flew straight in and up the ladder to Katkin and Huw’s room. Poppy wondered how Myrie had known about the mirror. Her mother took it out of her keepsake chest only once or twice a year.

Myrie found the chest, and tried the lid, then clicked a few times in a thoughtful way. She closed her eyes and placed her hand over the keyhole. The next click came from within the box. She smiled and flipped the lid open.

Poppy stared at her, very quizzically. She forgot to whisper. “Myrie, how on Yrth did you do that?” But Myrie only clicked happily, as she retrieved the mirror.

Poppy peered down, and saw her reflection right next to Myrie’s, just as she had in the dream. Myrie blew a stream of moist breath on the glass, and it fogged. “Myrie!” said Poppy impatiently, and made to wipe it away. But the moisture evaporated on its own, and when the mirror cleared, their faces had disappeared.

Now Poppy could see Gwillam, huddled in a dark hole, with Jolly at his side. He held his arm close to his chest as though it were injured. She could see the tracks of tears on his grimy face. Poppy gave a cry of alarm and snatched the mirror from Myrie.

The scene in the glass changed. Jakob, or perhaps Lut, strode across the tops, followed by a rough-coated brown dog that Poppy had never seen before. He took the dog to the highest paddock and let it run amongst the sheep. Poppy watched in alarm as the dog caught a young lamb and shook it, as the other sheep fled in terror. Lut, or Jakob, smiled triumphantly and picked up the body.

Poppy sputtered, “That... That stinking liar! He owns the dog that has been getting after the sheep and he blamed it all on Gwill. Look, Myrie!”

She turned to show Myrie and then gasped in horror. Myrie had dumped out the rest of the contents of Katkin’s chest on the quilt. A silvery robe lay in her hands, and she clicked excitedly. Poppy forgot her wonder at the strange mirror pictures, and hurried over to Myrie.

“You can’t have that! Katkin will be very angry if she finds out we went through her things.” She tugged at the robe, but Myrie held on to it. Poppy dared not pull too hard, in case it tore, or Myrie started to scream. Desperately, she grabbed Gwillam’s rabbit and held it before her. “Look Myrie, here is the rabbit. We must find Gwillam and give it to him. He will be sad without it.”

Myrie clicked agreeably and reached for the rabbit, so Poppy took the robe from her. The silver fabric felt smooth, almost uncannily so. It was warm to the touch and the warmth made it feel almost like a living thing. A tingling calm filled her, along with the deep, earthy scent of patchouli. Poppy could not imagine where her Matre could have gotten such a strange garment.

Azothe...

Poppy looked at Myrie. “Did you say something just then?”

Myrie clicked vacantly. Poppy shook her head. “Of course you didn’t. I must be out of my mind.”

Quickly, she folded the robe and put it back in the chest, then gathered the other small objects that Myrie had scattered about on the quilt. Several amulets lay there, including one made of some bright red, soft stone. But the image of Gwillam, hurt and alone somewhere, drove all curiosity from Poppy’s mind. She dumped them unceremoniously into the box and then shut the lid.

“Come on, Myrie! We must find Patre and tell him about Gwillam.”

* * * *

Later, as all the residents of Asaruthe crowded into the small sitting room at Ruthecombe, Poppy told the story of Gwillam’s rescue. “Myrie made it work. She breathed on the mirror and then I saw Gwillam. I didn’t know where he had fallen, but Myrie recognized the cave right away, I guess because she and Gwill used to play there. And then I saw...”

Huw spoke. “Is there more to this story, my little flower? You must tell us if there is.” Poppy’s eyes filled with tears as she stared at Lut. He looked away from her. “I saw one of the twins — I don’t know which one — on the tops with a strange dog. He killed the sheep that Lut and I found.” Jakob’s head snapped up.

“What is this rubbish? Poppy is just trying to protect that brat, Gwillam. Where would either of us get another dog from, anyway?” He stood, waving his arms. “You can’t prove it was one of us.”

Lut twisted the bracelet on his wrist. “It... It wasn’t me,” he said, finally, and no one doubted that this was the truth.

“Well it wasn’t me, either,” Jakob blustered.

“So,” said Gwenn, intractably. “That leaves Jolly. Now, if we have finished here we can get on with...”

A high-pitched wail made them all cover their ears. Myrie ran to the center of the room. “Wait,” said Gwillam. “Myrie has something to say first.” Myrie subsided into clicking again. She went on for some time and then Gwillam translated. “She says that there is another dog on the island, named Dagger. A wild dog that belongs to Jakob. He brought it back from Everruthe.”

Jakob could hardly speak at first. A muscle in his jaw worked rapidly as a bright red stain crept from his throat to his face. Everyone else in the room kept silent. At last he growled, “He is making it up. Myrie’s as crazy as a blind magpie, anyway. Look at her! Her stupid clicks don’t mean anything. I don’t...”

Everyone started speaking at once, asking questions, making accusations. Arkady’s voice rose over the din as he thumped his cane hard on the floor. “Let me speak! I heard a strange dog barking a couple of weeks ago. I told you about it, remember, Gwenn?”

Katkin raised an eyebrow at this. “You already knew of another dog on the island, Gwenn?”

Gwenn looked chagrined. “Well, I just thought, you know... Kadya can’t see and he must have made a mistake.”

“But his hearing is excellent,” Huw commented dryly.

Jakob, forgotten in all the excitement, tried edging out the door. His frowning father rose and limped towards him. “Tell me the truth. Is there another dog?” Jakob stood, eye to eye with Gunnar, and he could not look away. After a tense moment, he nodded and Gwenn swore in disgust. Gunnar said to his son, “Go and fetch it and then wait for us in the woodshed. Your mother and I will be along presently.” Jakob opened his mouth to argue and Gwenn stood, shaking her head.

“We had better go with him now, to make sure nothing else happens, Gunnar.” She looked over to Gwillam. “I am sorry,” she said stiffly. “Jakob will be punished for this.”

Gwillam buried his face in Jolly’s fur and did not say anything in return.