Celandine by Steve Augarde Page B

voice was bitter.
    Pato snapped back at him. ‘What would ’ee have I do, then, Emmet? Keep ’un tethered? ’Tis more work to look out for Fin than one pair of eyes can hold a sight of.’
    ‘Well, it still ain’t your say-so to let ’er go.’ Emmet sounded more subdued.
    ‘Oh? Be it thine? Go on, maidy, get away from yere.’ Pato looked meaningfully at Emmet. ‘There’s none as’ll stop ’ee.’
    ‘Pato, this needs more chewing on. We casn’t just let ’er go.’ This time it was the one with the feather necklace.
    ‘Do ’ee not see, Rufus – and
all
of ’ee – ’tis done. ’Tis over and
done
. We allus knew that this day’d come, and now ’tis yere. Perhaps ’twere my blame. But ’tis done, and casn’t be undone. How can us not let ’er go? What should us do? Hobble the maid to Fin and have an end to it? Put her in the ground and wait for her own to come looking for her?’ Pato sounded tired. He turned towards Celandine and studied her, looking up into her eyes, making sure that his meaning was plain. ‘This maid must do as she will. If she do tell and they giants believe her, then ’tis all up wi’ us. They’ll come wi’ hounds and dig us out like moles. They’ll come wi’ fire and snares and never let us bide till every last one o’ us be skinned and skewered. For thass the Gorji way. Go on, chi’, away with ’ee – what’s done is done. And we s’ll see how long this vow o’ yourn do hold.’ He jabbed the trident towards her.
    Celandine felt her eyes prickle with tears. There was nothing she could say. She put her hand in the pocket of her pinafore and felt her bracelet catching on the calico hem as she did so. The bright colours of the beads sparkled through her tears as she drew out her handkerchief. She blew her nose and saw the company jump back in alarm at the sound. It might almost have been funny, but she didn’t laugh. She put her handkerchief back in her pocket and then, on an impulse, undid the clasp of her bracelet. The glass beads shimmered and glittered in the sun. She extended her arm, very slowly and deliberately, and gently hung the bracelet over one of the prongs of the trident. It felt like a gesture of friendship and, as she saw the lines on Pato’s determined face soften into puzzlement, she thought that perhaps it might be accepted as such.
    Nothing more was said. Celandine looked up once more at the crowd of little people that lined the ridge, then pushed her hair back over her shoulders and turned towards the tunnel, stooping in readiness for her uncomfortable return to the world she knew.
    Her shoes and stockings were soaked through and stained with mud – something else to add to the list of crimes that she would be held to account for when she got home. Perhaps her muddy things would look better when they had dried out a little. Celandine shifted her position slightly, altering the way she sat, so that her legs were in direct sunlight on the grassy bank of the gully. The breeze would help.
    She would go soon – she must – but not just yet. There was so much to think about, and she didn’t feel at all well. Her head was pounding, aching with the confusion of everything, and everything, and
everything
 . . . and the inside of her mouth was dry and sore. She tried to work up some saliva, but there was nothing there.
    The mowing machine still clanked away in the distance and the lapwings still called to each other across the moor –
peeeeewit . . . peeeeewit
. So far away they all were, yet so clear on the soft breeze. She could almost pretend that nothing had changed.
    And nothing
had
changed, really. The mowing machine clanked, and the lapwings cried, and the grasshoppers sang – and the little people lived in the woods, just as they always had done. Nothing had changed.
    Except that she knew about them. That was what had changed. She knew something that nobody else knew, and if she were to ever tell . . . well, then