His Name Was Walter Read online

  ‘Bedrooms clear, Sarge!’ someone called from the front of the house.

  ‘I told you!’ the cracked voice shrieked. There was an exasperated sigh, and above Walter’s head the lid of the window seat creaked as the witch plumped herself down.

  The curtain rings rattled again. Boots tramped around the kitchen. The back door opened and closed. The witch muttered curses and banged the floor with her stick. Bang, bang, bang …

  ‘Sorry to have troubled you, madam,’ said the rumbling voice, with strained politeness, ‘but we had to be sure. These runaways are nothing but gutter rats, and you’re all alone up here.’

  ‘Hmph!’

  ‘Don’t get up. We’ll let ourselves out.’

  ‘Hmph!’

  The back door opened again, closed again. There was the thudding of tramping feet, becoming fainter. Then, suddenly, there was silence. It went on for a long time — hours, it seemed to Walter, lying sweating and half suffocated in the window seat, but it was probably only minutes.

  Then the timbers above his head creaked again, as the witch heaved herself to her feet. Walter planned furiously. She would probably hobble back to the front of the house now, to slide the bolt back in place. That would be his chance …

  He cried out as the lid of the window seat was flung back. A jeering, wrinkled face looked down at him. Amber eyes glared through a tangle of brindled grey hair. A gold locket hanging from a thin black ribbon gleamed on a scrawny neck.

  ‘So, that’s got rid of them,’ the witch hissed. ‘Now, little gutter rat, what have you got to say for yourself?’

  She beckoned with a bony finger. And Walter, cowering in the window seat, honestly thought he might die of fright.

  CHAPTER

  7

  ‘Hey, don’t stop!’ Grace exclaimed, when Colin looked up. ‘It was just getting good.’

  Lucas gave a small snort of laughter and shook his head.

  ‘Go on, Colin!’ Tara urged.

  Colin glanced at Mrs Fiori but she had her back to him, so he turned the page. The illustration opposite the next section of text showed a wild-haired old woman standing by a wood stove on which a black iron pot was bubbling. Wreathed in steam, the woman was just turning away from the pot, holding out a dripping tin mug with a witchy grin. Her orange eyes glittered.

  ‘Oooh!’ Colin heard Lucas jeer softly.

  ‘Shut up, Lucas!’ snapped Grace.

  Colin made himself look away from the picture to the page of text, cleared his throat, and began:

  Walter did not die of fright, of course. Inside its cracked shell, his heart went on beating as strongly as ever. Still, terror was surging through him as he crawled stiffly out of his prison, and he stood before the witch, shaking in every limb.

  ‘What’s your name, boy?’ the witch croaked.

  Walter opened his mouth to tell her the name he had always been called, the name that was on his identity papers. Then he remembered.

  ‘Walter,’ he said. It was the first time he had said his true name aloud, and somehow it steadied him. His trembling eased. He stood a little straighter. ‘My name is Walter,’ he repeated.

  The witch cackled. ‘Very good! Well, Walter, don’t you know what happens to foolish boys who trespass in a witch’s house?’

  Walter only knew the stories Ginger had told him in the laundry room, and they were so horrible that he did not feel like repeating them, so he said nothing.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’ asked the witch, and laughed again, this time for much longer.

  Then, to Walter’s astonishment, she turned her back on him and hobbled to the steamy stove, her stick tap-tapping on the floor. She took a tin cup and scooped something out of the black pot. ‘Here!’ she said, holding the cup out to Walter. ‘Drink this!’

  When Walter did not move, she pounded her stick on the floor impatiently. ‘Go on!’ she ordered. ‘It’s only soup. I didn’t save you from the King’s men just so I could poison you, did I?’

  ‘Why did you save me?’ Walter blurted out.

  The witch scowled. ‘Let’s just say I’ve got no time for the King, or his soldiers — or for rules, if it comes to that. Now, are you going to have this soup or not? If you’d rather droop round the place half starved than drink it, I’ll pour it back in the pot. Waste not, want not.’

  Walter took the cup. The soup smelled very, very good. He sipped cautiously, then sipped again. It was the best soup he had ever tasted. A delicious warmth spread through him as he tipped the cup and drained it.

  ‘Ha!’ cackled the witch, rubbing her hands. ‘Now you’re in my power!’

  ‘No I’m not,’ Walter said boldly. ‘It was only soup, just as you said.’

  He was just about to add that he did not think she was a real witch at all, but only pretended to be to keep the villagers away, when he caught a dangerous glint in her amber eyes and remembered the cat. The words dried in his throat.

  ‘Yes,’ the woman muttered, as if she had read his mind. ‘Be careful.’

  Walter swallowed. ‘If I were in your power, what would you ask me to do?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d ask you to go out and chop some wood for the stove,’ the witch said at once.

  So Walter chopped wood for the stove, and carried it inside. Then the witch asked him to sweep the kitchen floor, so he did that, too. Then he weeded the vegetable patch and dug some potatoes. And then he saw that the sun was going down.

  ‘I’d better be on my way,’ he said to the witch, who was sitting at the table with the sketchbook, painting a picture of the stem of mint.

  ‘You might as well stay the night,’ she said, putting aside her brush and taking up a finer one. ‘You’ll be safe here. Those soldiers won’t be back. They’ve had enough of me.’

  So that night, after a bowl of the delicious soup, which had been made even better with tender chunks of potato, Walter slept in the witch’s little spare bedroom.

  He meant to leave in the morning, but he thought he should chop some more wood first, as payment for his night’s lodging. Then, as he was filling the wood basket by the stove, the witch looked up from her painting of an orange nasturtium and mentioned that the duck house needed repair. Any night now, she said, a fox was going to creep in through one of the holes and murder Betty, Dulcie and Maisie lickety-split. So Walter took a hammer and some nails, and mended the shed as best he could. And by the time he had finished the job to his satisfaction, the sun was going down again.

  There seemed to be a lot to do the next day, too, and the next. Every morning Walter thought of leaving, but somehow every night he found himself snuggling down in the witch’s spare-room bed. And with every day that passed a strange, warm, tingling feeling of lightness and energy was growing inside him. He started to think he really was under a spell. He did not realise that what he was feeling was happiness.

  ‘I think you must have me in your power after all,’ he said to the witch, when he had been in the house for a week. ‘But I must be on my way. I left the city to seek my fortune.’

  The witch cackled, mixed some blue and green colour with her brush and went on with her painting of a sprig of rosemary. Her work was exquisite, Walter thought, though he had never told her so. He thought she might sniff at his praise.

  ‘Have you considered that this could be your fortune, Walter?’ she asked, without looking up. ‘For now, at least?’

  Walter had not, but he considered it then and there. He thought of the vegetable patch, the wood pile, the good food, the sweet air, the comfortable bed, the witch’s paintings and her calm company. The more he realised that he might not have to leave these things behind, the more his tingling feeling of lightness grew.

  ‘If meeting you is part of my fortune, can you tell me the rest?’ he asked.

  The witch raised her eyebrows. ‘Are you sure you want to know?’

  When Walter nodded, she sighed. ‘Give me your hand, then,’ she said.

  So Walter held out his hand and the witch took
hold of it in both her own and studied the lines on his palm intently.

  ‘You’ve been through a lonely, empty time, which finished at a crossroad,’ she muttered. ‘Ahead is a time of healing. When that ends, you’ll find yourself at another crossroad. You’ll choose to follow your heart, but the shadow that looms over this land is growing in strength, and it will darken whichever path you take.’

  ‘What shadow?’ asked Walter, but the witch only shook her head.

  ‘You’ll never be rich in gold, but your life will be rich in other ways,’ she went on rapidly, tracing the marks on his hand with a bony fingertip. ‘You’ll protect a friend. You’ll find true love. You’ll free a prisoner. You’ll champion the weak. You’ll save a life. You’ll keep faith. You’ll …’ She paused, scowled, and abruptly dropped Walter’s hand. ‘That’s all.’

  Walter knew she was lying. ‘What else did you see?’ he urged.

  The witch pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  ‘Please!’ cried Walter. ‘Please tell me the rest! I have had enough of people knowing more about me than I know myself!’

  The old woman shrugged irritably. ‘Well, if you must know, you’ll die young, by an enemy’s hand,’ she snapped. ‘Satisfied?’

  Walter was not shocked. He had expected her to say something of the sort. He met her angry eyes calmly. ‘If it had not been for the kindness of strangers, I would have died the night I was born,’ he said. ‘So, in a way, every year I live now is a bonus. And if before I die I can do all the things you promise, I will think myself very lucky.’

  ‘Fine words!’ the witch jeered. ‘You might feel a bit differently when the time comes! And what would you say if I told you that after you were dead you’d be slandered and disgraced?’

  Walter felt a pang. ‘I would be very sorry,’ he answered in a low voice.

  The witch sniffed and picked up her paintbrush again. ‘The truth will come out in the end, if that’s any consolation,’ she remarked. ‘Not that it’ll matter to you. You’ll be dead and know nothing about it.’

  ‘Somehow I’ll know,’ said Walter, and he was so convinced of this that he actually smiled.

  ‘You’re a most peculiar boy,’ said the witch, glancing at him. ‘But then, I’m a most peculiar woman.’ She moistened her brush and looked down at the sketchbook. ‘Well, stay, if you like, and we’ll see what comes of it. Three years should be enough.’

  Walter wanted to ask what she meant by ‘enough’, but thought it best not to press her again.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, instead. ‘You’re very kind.’

  ‘No I’m not,’ said the witch, her brush streaking the page before her with tiny, blue-green spikes. ‘You’ll be useful to me. My old bones aren’t what they were, and I don’t use magic any more — except in a few small ways.’ She looked up at Walter and shut one of her amber cat’s eyes in a sly wink.

  Walter shivered a little, but did not change his mind.

  ‘Then I’ll stay,’ he said.

  ‘Very good,’ said the witch. ‘Now, it smells like rain. You’d better get the washing off the line.’

  Walter went to the door.

  ‘My name’s Magda, by the way,’ he heard the witch say behind him. He turned quickly, his hand on the doorknob, but she was bent over her work and did not look up again.

  Grace folded her arms and pressed them against her chest. ‘I’m not going to listen to any more of that story,’ she announced. ‘It’s going to have a bad ending.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen,’ drawled Lucas. ‘Fairytales always end with everyone living happily ever after.’

  ‘Well, that shows what you know, because they don’t!’ Grace snapped, grabbing her crutches and sliding off the bench. ‘When Mum read me The Little Mermaid I cried so much I was sick! I wouldn’t even watch the movie till someone told me they’d changed the end.’

  Colin was only dimly aware of the argument. His mind was still in the witch’s steamy kitchen. He felt as if he were still watching a fine brush marking paper with blue-green streaks and listening to a cracked old voice offering sanctuary.

  Quietly he turned to the next page. He saw a picture of Magda working in her sketchbook, which was longer and narrower than he had imagined and seemed almost full. The light of an oil lamp shone down on the exquisite little painting of a purple violet that was growing under the old woman’s brush. Her face was mostly in shadow, but Colin could see that she looked frailer, and that many white streaks now mingled with the grey and black in her hair.

  The painting was drawing him in when a voice very close to his ear jolted him back to reality. Grace had limped around to his side of the table and was leaning over his shoulder, frowning down at the picture. ‘See? It’s just going to get more and more depressing now,’ she said irritably. ‘Why do you want to keep on with it?’

  ‘Leave Colin alone, Grace!’ Mrs Fiori ordered from the sink, and, sighing deeply, Grace clumped away.

  Colin felt a movement beside him and saw that Tara had slid closer and was trying to read the text beside the picture. He pushed the book across to her a little so she could see it as easily as he could. Then, without saying a word that might attract attention to what they were doing, they silently read on.

  CHAPTER

  8

  So Walter stayed at the house in the clearing as spring became summer and summer mellowed into autumn. The vegetable garden thrived under his care, the apples on the old tree swelled and reddened, and berries plumped on the hedges. By the time the winter frosts came and the violets that grew wild beneath the bare apple tree were filling the air with sweetness, the wood pile was high, there were rows of preserves in the pantry and the house was spruce and weathertight.

  Magda sang as she worked in the kitchen and painted in her sketchbook. Sometimes she left the house without a word, and later Walter would see the big grey cat stalking around the garden, sleeping among the violets or sitting watching the ducks, the gold locket that hung around its neck glinting in the sun. The birds, butterflies and lizards were safe from it because it never took food of any kind. Perhaps, Walter thought, it could not. That would explain why, though Magda always seemed refreshed after these episodes, they only ever lasted a few hours at a time. She could take the form of a cat, but could not live as one for long.

  ‘It’s times like this I’m very glad you came, Walter,’ said Magda, as they sat by the glowing stove one cold night. ‘I’m getting too old to chop wood.’

  Walter seized his chance to ask her something that had been puzzling him.

  ‘Why didn’t you use magic to chop the wood, Magda?’ he asked. ‘Or even make the stove heat by itself? I know you could do it. You use magic for other, much harder things.’ (To change yourself into a cat, for example, he thought, but did not dare to say aloud.)

  Magda frowned. ‘Certain things are in my nature,’ she said. ‘I can’t suppress them without damaging myself — they’re part of me. But years ago I made a promise to myself not to use magic for anything else. It was … a kind of penance.’

  ‘Penance,’ Walter echoed, bewildered.

  ‘Punishment — apology — sign of bitter regret — what you will!’ Magda shrugged impatiently. ‘My powers once brought me a lot of grief, Walter. For seven days and nights after it happened I painted in a dream of misery, using colours mixed not with water but with my own tears.’

  She sighed, staring straight ahead as if looking at something Walter could not see. ‘The pictures formed like magic beneath my brush. Well, of course! There’s no ingredient so powerful as a witch’s tears. But when the work was done I made my vow, and for better or for worse I’ve kept it ever since.’

  She fell silent, and for a while Walter thought she would say no more, but then she stirred in her chair and went on.

  ‘I wasn’t always alone here,’ she said slowly. ‘Once I had a son and a daughter — Aidan and Abby. They were twins, and very alike, except for one thing. Abby had inherited my gift, an
d Aidan hadn’t.’

  ‘Did Aidan mind?’ Walter asked.

  ‘Oh, no.’ Magda shook her head, faintly smiling. ‘In fact, it was the other way round. Abby didn’t want the magic my blood had given her. She feared its strength. She was a dove — a gentle soul like her brother, and like their father had been. She didn’t want power over other people, even to protect herself. I, on the other hand …’

  She sighed, and again stirred in her chair as if, despite the warmth of the stove, her bones were aching.

  ‘When they were nineteen, the King began raising an army to fight in the Great War across the sea. You’ve heard of the Great War, I suppose?’

  ‘My father fought in it,’ said Walter. ‘That was how he died.’

  The witch nodded, unsurprised. ‘Most of the young men in the village by the river answered the call and went off to fight. Aidan didn’t. He hated the thought of killing any living thing, and the idea of killing other people, people he didn’t even know, made him sick.’

  Walter had never thought about war in that way. He had never really thought about it at all. He had just accepted it as a fact of life. Certainly, he had never raised his hand against the bullies in the hive and the warren. Ginger had urged him to stand up for himself, but he never had. He had just kept out of the bullies’ way as best he could, and withdrawn into himself when they tormented him. But this was not because he hated fighting. It was because the shell around his heart had armoured him against all strong feelings, good and bad.

  Would it be different now? He did not know.

  ‘I agreed with Aidan, and so did Abby,’ Magda went on soberly, ‘but still he felt guilty because so many others had gone into danger while he stayed safely at home. So time went on. Then one afternoon, when he had been down to fetch our supplies, he came home with three white feathers in his hand. Three of the village girls had given them to him in the street, one by one, as a sign that they thought he was a coward. That was quite a fashion, then, in the city. Out here it wasn’t so common, but Aidan knew what it meant.’