His Name Was Walter Read online

  The corners of her mouth tightened. ‘The next morning, Aidan went to the city and joined the King’s army. Nine months later he was dead. The day I got the message I went down to the village. It was a beautiful spring day. I found those three girls who had given Aidan the white feathers and … I gave them some feathers of their own.’

  She glanced towards the back of the house, as if she could see through the door. To the duck house.

  A chill crawled up Walter’s spine. ‘Betty. Dulcie. Maisie,’ he whispered. ‘Are you saying that they’re … and after all this time you still keep them …?’

  The witch scowled and shrugged. ‘What’s done can’t be undone. While I live, the spell holds. The people by the river think the three just ran off to the city — they were silly, flighty girls. And they’re happy enough here, eating, sleeping, thinking of nothing. Their lives weren’t much different before, when they were human.’

  Walter stared at her in horror.

  ‘Ah, I knew I shouldn’t have told you,’ Magda said crossly. ‘Now I suppose you’ll leave me, too.’

  Her harsh voice cracked on the last word, but Walter heard it and knew what it meant.

  ‘Abby left when she found out what you’d done,’ he said.

  ‘Think you’re clever, don’t you?’ Magda snarled. ‘Yes, Abby went that same day. She said she was going far away, where no one knew her, where she could bury her gift and try to forget who and what she was. I haven’t seen her since.’

  Her face was set in hard, angry lines, but Walter was not deceived. ‘Do you know where she is now, Magda?’ he asked gently.

  Magda sniffed. ‘A messenger crow told me she was far to the west of here, in a place called the Vale of Thunder. A rich nobleman had made her his wife and carried her off to his palace there to live happily ever after.’

  The last words were a sneer, but it sounded like a happy ending to Walter — for Abby at least. Cautiously he said so.

  Magda regarded him coldly. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? No witch can be happy when she rejects her birthright and hides her deepest nature. To a shape-changer, in particular, the gift is like food and drink. If the girl continues to reject it, she’ll wither and die.’

  She banged her stick on the floor and heaved herself to her feet. ‘I’m going to bed. If you’re still here in the morning, good luck to you. If you’re not, you’re not.’

  ‘I’ll be here,’ said Walter.

  And he was. He had been horrified by what the witch told him, certainly. He knew that never again would he be able to pass the duck pond without a shudder. But for some reason he wanted to stay in the clearing now more than ever. Perhaps it was the aching sadness he had seen behind the anger in Magda’s eyes. Perhaps it was a kind of fascination at her strangeness. Or perhaps it was simply that the shell around his heart was now so crazed and brittle that love had found its way through.

  Colin’s sight blurred. As he wiped the film of tears away with the back of his hand, hoping that Tara would think his eyes were only tired, he wondered if it had been Walter’s decision to stay in the cottage that had made her sigh so deeply earlier. Probably, he thought.

  Colin had always been a slow reader, so usually hated reading anything at the same time as anyone else, but for some reason he wasn’t minding it at all this time. Tara certainly read much faster than he did. Every time he glanced over to her to see if she was ready for him to turn the page, she was always waiting to nod. Yet he felt no pressure to hurry or skip on her account. If anything, he felt that their reading the book together was right — absolutely right — and that Tara felt the same way and was happy for him to read at his own speed.

  Eagerly, he went back to the story.

  Walter and Magda never spoke again of her lost children, or the enchantment of the three white ducks. At night, when the curtains were drawn to shut out the darkness, Magda talked of the herbs in her garden, their many uses and her plan to paint them all. Walter talked about his last day in the city, and the discoveries he had made about his past. They told old stories, made lists of tasks to be done, and chatted about the small things that happened every day. Magda grew more frail, but she still sang the same strange little songs as she pottered about the kitchen, and the grey cat still prowled the garden now and then.

  So the world turned, the seasons came and went, and one morning in spring, when breakfast was finished, Magda told Walter to dig a trench by the old apple tree. ‘The hole must be longer and deeper than you are tall,’ she told him, ‘and just a little wider than your shoulders are wide. Take the violets out before you begin, with plenty of soil around their roots. Then they can go back in place when the hole is filled again.’

  She saw the questions in Walter’s eyes and shrugged. ‘I don’t trust those louts in the village by the river,’ she said. ‘And what better place can there be to hide something than under the earth?’

  So, wondering what Magda could own that she prized so highly, Walter did as she asked. He dug all day, whistling one little tune after another to the birds that piped and twittered above his head. The three white ducks paddled in their pond, paying no attention to him. The grey cat watched lazily from a patch of sunlight, its eyes like narrow chips of amber.

  By nightfall, the trench was as deep, long and wide as it had to be, and Walter heaved himself out, wiping his muddy brow. The birds no longer sang in the trees. The ducks had retired to their shed. The cat had gone. Only Magda stood in the dim clearing, watching him.

  ‘Thank you, Walter,’ she said. ‘Come inside now.’

  ‘What about the treasure you want to hide?’ asked Walter, though in truth he had had enough of digging for one day.

  ‘Tomorrow will be soon enough for that,’ said the witch.

  The evening passed pleasantly enough, though Magda was thoughtful and in no mood for talking. After dinner she painted while Walter read, and for a full hour the only sounds in the kitchen were the whispers of turning pages and the sighs of embers settling in the stove.

  Then Magda put down her brush and stretched her cramped fingers. ‘So that’s finished,’ she said. ‘Right on time. Walter, tomorrow your three years are up. It’s time for you to go.’

  Shocked, Walter went to look over her shoulder. Sure enough, the last page in the sketchbook had been filled. He felt an overwhelming sadness.

  ‘But I don’t want to go,’ he said.

  ‘It can’t be helped,’ Magda replied, firmly but quite gently for her. ‘I don’t need you any more, and you have to go on to find the rest of your fortune. Pack tonight, Walter, and mind you don’t stay up too late. You should get an early start in the morning.’

  Walter watched helplessly as she cleaned her brushes and put them back in their tin. She blew on her last painting to make sure it was dry, and closed the sketchbook.

  ‘Take this with you if you like,’ she said carelessly, pushing the book across the table. ‘I’ve done with it. Take anything else you need or want as well. I’m going to sleep now. I’m very tired. Goodnight, Walter.’

  She rested her hand briefly on Walter’s bent head and hobbled away to her room, her stick tap-tapping on the floor.

  Walter fell asleep that night determined to make Magda change her mind, but when morning came he found what he should have expected all along. The witch lay lifeless in her bed, her brindled hair spread out on the pillow, the wrinkles that scored her face smoothed out by the death she had known was coming and had welcomed as a friend. In one hand she held a folded letter. In the other hand was the locket she always wore. The locket was open to show two tiny oval paintings side by side, joined by a little gold hinge. A portrait of a young woman was on the left, a portrait of a young man on the right. The gentle faces were very alike, and looked so real that they seemed almost to breathe.

  Walter recognised the delicate brushstrokes. He imagined Magda painting her lost children from memory after they had gone, mixing the colours with her magic witch’s tears.

  He closed the
locket. Then he slid the letter from between Magda’s fingers, unfolded it and read it. It was not a last message for him, as he had thought. Or perhaps, in a way, it was. He sat looking down at Magda’s peaceful face for a long time, thinking about crossroads. Again he felt the touch of her hand on his head as she said goodnight. Then he heard the birds outside the window announcing the dawn, and went to let out the ducks.

  But the duck shed was empty, and three pairs of human footprints led away from it, trailing over the dew-wet grass, round to the front of the house and on to the bush track that curved down to the village by the river.

  Now Walter understood why Magda had warned him to leave early. He wondered how long it would be before Betty, Dulcie and Maisie’s tale was believed, and raging villagers surged up to the witch’s house, looking for revenge.

  CHAPTER

  9

  Colin tried to swallow his feelings of sadness and anger, but they stuck like a bitter lump in his throat. He’d known, really, that Walter wouldn’t be able to stay in the peace of the witch’s clearing forever, but the end had come too suddenly, too … finally. He’d wanted Walter to leave when he felt like leaving, when he was ready and knew the time was right.

  But it often doesn’t happen like that in real life, Colin thought. Change just happens. We can’t always choose. And he thought about leaving the farm, and the lump in his throat began to ache.

  Tara stirred beside him. He glanced round and saw that her mouth was drooping and her green-brown eyes were sombre. She didn’t look as if she felt angry, though. She just looked … resigned. Hoping she hadn’t noticed how near to tears he’d been, Colin quickly turned the page. He’d just caught sight of a beautiful river scene when Mrs Fiori announced that food was ready and told him to put the book away — well away from the table, please — in case it got messy.

  He hadn’t realised how hungry he was until he began eating. He quickly finished his share of the muesli bars, sultanas, processed cheese and little cracker biscuits that Mrs Fiori had unearthed from her bag. Tara, he noticed, hardly ate anything. She kept looking anxiously over to the old dresser, where the book lay out of harm’s way.

  Colin found this very irritating. He wanted to read the rest of the story as much as Tara did, but there was no point in getting all worked up about things you couldn’t change. He saw that Lucas was watching Tara with the same curious attention he’d given to the tow-truck driver’s mate. Why didn’t she realise she was making a fool of herself?

  At last Colin couldn’t stand it any more. ‘We’ll be able to read again after this, Tara,’ he said to her in a low voice, under cover of Grace’s envious prediction that Mr Simon would take the others to McDonald’s for dinner, and Mrs Fiori’s cross retort that even if Grolsten had a McDonald’s, which she very much doubted, Mr Simon wouldn’t do any such thing.

  ‘But what if the taxis come and we have to go?’ Tara whispered back.

  It was as if she’d punched Colin in the chest. His heart seemed to stop, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe or speak. He’d actually lost sight of the fact that at any minute their time in the house might end, and there would be no more reading.

  He swallowed. His mind was a confused mass of conflicting thoughts and feelings. Of course there was nothing he’d like more than to get out of this disturbing, uncomfortable house, but not if it meant abandoning the book. He had to finish Walter’s story. He just knew he had to. But why? Why did he care so much? It didn’t make sense!

  ‘If the taxis haven’t come by now, maybe they won’t come tonight at all,’ he found himself saying hopefully, and much more loudly than he’d meant.

  ‘I’ve been thinking the same thing, Colin,’ Mrs Fiori said, raising her voice over Grace’s protesting wails. ‘It’s getting so late that Troy — Mr Simon — could have decided to leave us to sleep the night here. He knows we’re all right. We’ve got our sleeping bags and so on. We’ll be no worse off here than they’ll be at the camping area. Better off, really, because we didn’t have to pitch tents in the rain!’

  She was trying to sound bright and confident, but Colin could tell she wasn’t feeling it. Her lipstick had worn off. A biscuit crumb was clinging to the collar of her shirt. She looked very tired. Colin couldn’t remember ever feeling sorry for a teacher before, but at that moment he felt sorry for Mrs Fiori. This excursion had been her idea — she’d spent weeks organising it, she’d written a long list of questions about Grolsten for her students to answer, and now everything seemed to have fallen in ruins around her.

  ‘We can’t stay here all night!’ Grace gabbled, looking so panic-stricken that Colin knew she hadn’t been able to make herself forget her fright near the staircase after all. ‘I mean — I hate the smell of this kitchen!’

  ‘Well, we won’t be sleeping in the kitchen, will we?’ Mrs Fiori said. ‘We’ll find somewhere better. And we’ll sleep in our clothes, so we’ll be ready if someone comes for us after all. Right, everyone, get your torches and we’ll go exploring!’

  She sounded as if she was talking to a bunch of pre-schoolers, and Colin wasn’t surprised to see Lucas looking disdainful.

  They left the kitchen in a straggling group, their torch beams criss-crossing in front of them, their shadows leaping on the corridor walls. The house was full of sounds — creaks and taps, and the soft whistling of the wind. As they came to the end of the corridor, and the shape of the staircase loomed ahead, Colin felt his stomach tense as he saw the dining-room door to his left.

  ‘Not there!’ Grace said sharply, shrinking against the stairway as Mrs Fiori turned aside to open the door.

  Mrs Fiori froze, her hand on the doorknob, but Colin was pretty sure it wasn’t because of anything Grace had said. Mrs Fiori was standing on the stained tiles. He watched, fascinated, as she raised her free hand and pressed the knuckles to her mouth. Then she shook her head and threw the door open so violently that it crashed back against the wall.

  Grace squeaked in fright. The sounds of tinkling crystal and soft whistling gusted out of the empty room.

  ‘No!’ Mrs Fiori said loudly, turning away from the doorway and walking on. She glanced over her shoulder, saw everyone staring at her, and cleared her throat. ‘I — don’t like the look of that chandelier. I wouldn’t want to sleep under it. It’s probably quite safe, but you never know.’

  She moved on a little shakily. Quietly Lucas took her place in the open doorway and stood for a moment shining his torch around the room and then letting it play on the stained tiles at his feet. His curious, observant expression didn’t waver. There was no tremor in the hand that held the torch.

  ‘He doesn’t feel anything,’ Colin whispered to Tara.

  She shook her head. ‘People like him don’t.’

  Lucas became unnaturally still, and Colin had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d heard what they’d said. Lucas didn’t turn round to look at them, though. He just flashed his torch beam around the dining room one last time, then prowled on after Mrs Fiori and Grace.

  ‘I think he heard us,’ Colin muttered.

  Tara shrugged. ‘He wouldn’t care if he did.’

  Colin wasn’t so sure about that.

  Mrs Fiori had ruled out sleeping upstairs, so they trailed around the ground floor, looking into one room after another. The grand double sitting room on one side of the big entrance hall was swathed in drop sheets and full of ladders, planks and paint tins. The room on the other side of the hall had been a library, by the look of the shelves that lined the walls, but there was a huge hole in the floor where some of the old boards had been taken up. Because of white ants, maybe, Colin thought.

  ‘There’s mess everywhere!’ Grace complained as they picked their way along the short corridor that branched off the entrance hall behind the library. Crossly she dodged a ladder and used her crutches to whack a path through the curling sheets of wallpaper that had been stripped from the walls and left lying on the floor. ‘It’s all been left half done!’

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; ‘The owner’s son said he had trouble keeping tradesmen out here,’ said Mrs Fiori, who’d been looking more and more depressed with every room they tried.

  ‘They’ve been off the job for quite a while, too,’ Lucas volunteered unexpectedly. ‘The stuff they left is covered with dust.’

  Colin ran his finger over a rung of the ladder he was passing and found that Lucas was right. The rung was filmed with dust, as if no one had set foot on it for weeks or even months. He might have noticed the dust on his own eventually, but if Lucas hadn’t mentioned it, he mightn’t have realised what it meant.

  Not for the first time, Colin thought how observant Lucas Cheah was. Lucas’s give-away-nothing eyes took in everything there was to see, and he seemed to forget nothing.

  Including a candle on a sink. Including dust that had settled on abandoned tools. Including people getting cold shivers at a certain doorway. Including two individuals who seemed to have become obsessed by a fairytale in an old book.

  All noted and stored away in separate little compartments of Lucas’s brain like ice cubes in a freezer tray, till he felt like looking at them again.

  Fighting down a feeling of paranoia, Colin hurried to catch up with the others. They were standing in front of a door that seemed to be locked. Grace was pushing at it, twisting the brass knob impatiently.

  ‘Don’t!’ Tara burst out, then seemed to shrink as Grace looked round at her scornfully and returned to rattling the doorknob.

  ‘Leave it, Grace,’ said Mrs Fiori wearily. ‘Look, we’ll just sleep in the entrance hall. It’s clear, at least, and it’s right at the front, so we’ll be able to hear if anyone drives up the hill.’

  ‘But why is this door locked?’ Grace exclaimed. ‘None of the others are.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure there’s a good reason. Come on!’

  Mrs Fiori began shepherding Grace back to the entrance hall. Colin heard Tara give a shuddering little sigh and turned to her quickly. Tara’s eyes were very wide. She was staring fearfully at the locked door.