The Spellcoats

“No,” I said. “We’d better get it into the woodshed.” The woodshed is a room that joins the house, and the house is on the rising ground beyond the bank. Hern groaned, but he agreed with me. We got three of our last remaining logs to make rollers, and we rolled that heavy boat uphill, just the two of us. We had it at the woodshed when the woodshed door opened and Duck came out.

“You did arrive quickly!” I said.

“Sorry,” said Duck. “We’ve been putting Gull to bed. He went straight to sleep. It’s awful having him like this. I think there’s nothing inside him!” Then Duck began to cry. Hern’s arm tangled with mine as we both tried to get them round Duck.

“He’ll get better,” I said.

“Sleep will do him good,” Hern said. I think we were talking to ourselves as much as to Duck.

“Gull’s head of the family now,” Duck said, and he howled. I envy both boys for being able to howl.

Hern said, “Stop it, Duck. There’s the biggest ever flood coming down. We’ve got to get things inside.” The River was hissing by then, swish and swish, as it began to spread and fill. The bad smell of winter was mixed with a new damp smell, which was better. I could feel the ground shaking under us, because of the weight of water in the distance.

“I can smell it,” said Duck. “But I knew there was time to be miserable. I’ll stop now.” And he did stop, though he sniffed for the next hour.

We jammed the boat into the woodshed. I said we ought to bring the hens in there too. Hens are funny things. They seem so stupid, yet I swear our hens knew about the floods. When we looked for them, they had all gone through the hedge to the higher ground above Aunt Zara’s house and we could not get them back. They would not even come for corn. Nor would the cow go into the garden at first. Usually her one thought was to get in there and eat our cabbages. We pushed and pulled and prodded her, because we were sure she was not safe on the Riverbank, and tethered her where she could eat the weeds in the vegetable patch.

“She’ll eat those cabbages somehow,” said Duck. “Look at her looking at them.”

We were pulling up all the cabbages near her when Robin came out. “Oh good,” she said. “Pull enough for at least a week. I think the floods will be right up here by tomorrow. They feel enormous.”

We ran around picking cabbages and onions and the last of the carrots and dumped them on the floor of the scullery.

“No,” said Robin. “Up on the shelves. The water’s coming in here.”

She is the eldest, and she knows the River best. We did as she said. By this time it was getting dark. The River was making a long, rumbling sound. I watched it while Robin milked the cow. There was brown water as strong as the muscles in your leg piling through between the banks. The mud was covered already. I could see the line of yellow froth bubbles rising under the bank as I watched. The colour of the water was yellower and yellower, as it always is in the floods, but it was a dark yellow, which is not usual. The air was full of the clean, earthy smell the floods bring. I thought it was stronger than usual, and sharper.

“There’s been different weather up in the mountains where the River comes from, that’s all,” Hern said crossly. “Shall I wake Gull up and give him some milk?”

Gull was so fast asleep that we could not wake him. We left him and had supper ourselves. We felt strange – half excited because of the rumble of the water outside, half heavy with misery. We wanted sweet things to eat, but when we had them, we found we wanted salt. We were trying to make Robin cook some of the pickled trout when we heard an odd noise. We stopped talking and listened. At first there was only the River, booming and rushing. Then we heard someone scratching on the back door – scratching, not knocking.

“I’ll go,” said Hern, and he seized the carving knife on his way to the back door.

He opened it and there was Uncle Kestrel again, half in the dark, with his finger to his mouth for quiet. We twisted round in our seats and looked at him as he limped in. He had neatened himself up since he was last here, but he was still shaking.

“I thought you were the Heathen,” Hern said.

“They’d be better company for you,” said Uncle Kestrel. He smiled. He took a jam tart from Robin and said, “Thanks, my love,” but that did not seem natural any longer. He was frightening. “Zwitt’s been at my house,” he said, “calling your family Heathen enchanters.”

“We’re not,” said Duck. “Everyone knows we’re not!”

“Do they?” asked Uncle Kestrel. He leant forwards over the table, so that the lamp caught a huge bent shadow of him and threw it trembling on the wall, across shelves and cups and plates. It looked so threatening with its long, wavering nose and chin that I think I watched it most of the time. It still scares me. “Do they?” said Uncle Kestrel. “There are men in Shelling who have seen Heathens with their own eyes, and who remember your mother – lovely girl she was, my Robin – looked just like the Heathen. Then Zwitt says you dealt ungodly with the River—”

“That’s nonsense!” Hern said. He got angrier with everything Uncle Kestrel said. It was good of Uncle Kestrel not to take offence.

“You should have gone over to the old mill by night, lad,” he said, “like I do when I go for mussels. And it’s a pity neither you nor your cow got the sickness the River sent.”

“But we all got it!” Robin protested. “Duck was sick all one night.”

“But he lived when others his age died,” said Uncle Kestrel. “There’s no arguing with Zwitt, Robin, apple of my eye. He has the whole of Shelling behind him. If Duck died, they’d have thought up a reason for that. Don’t you see? Do none of you see?”

The huge shadow shifted on the wall as he looked round the four of us. I saw that we seemed to be strangers in our own village, but I had known that before. So had Robin from the look of her. Duck looked quite blank. Hern almost shrieked, “Oh, yes, I see all right! Now my father’s dead, Zwitt’s not afraid of us any more!”

The shadow shook its head and bent across two shelves. “But he is, lad. That’s the trouble. They’re frightened. The Heathen beat them. They want to blame someone. And spells have been cast by the Heathen. Hear the River now!”

We could all hear. I had never heard such rushing. The house shook with it.

Uncle Kestrel said softly, “He’s coming down like that to fight the Heathen at the Rivermouth. That’s where they set their spells, I heard.”

“Oh!” said Hern. He was going to be rude.

“I understand,” Duck said just then. “Zwitt wants to kill us, doesn’t he?”

“Now, Duck!” Robin protested. “What a silly idea! As if—” She looked at Uncle Kestrel. “It’s not true!”

The shadow on the wall shook. I thought it was laughing. I looked at Uncle Kestrel. He was serious – just shaking in that new old-man way of his. “It is true, my Robin,” he said. “Zwitt was at my house to blame me cruelly for not killing young Gull while I had him. Gull carries the Heathen spells for you, it seems.”

Nobody said anything except the River for a moment, and that rushed like thunder. In the midst of it Robin whispered, “Thank you, Uncle Kestrel.”

“How are they going to kill us?” Hern said. “When?”

“They’re meeting to decide that now,” said Uncle Kestrel. “Some want to throw you to the River, I hear, but Zwitt favours cold steel. They often do who haven’t seen it used.” He stood up to go, and to my relief the huge shadow rose until it was too big for the wall to hold it. “I’ll be off,” he said, “now you understand. If Zara knew I was here, she’d turn me out.”

“Where is Aunt Zara?” I asked.

“At the meeting,” said Uncle Kestrel. He may have seen me look. As he limped to the door, he made me come with him while he explained. “Zara’s not in an easy position. You must understand. She’s afraid for her life of being called one of you. She had to go. It’s different for me, you know.” I still do not see why it should be different for Uncle Kestrel. Even Robin does not see.

I opened the door for him on such a blast of noise from the River that I put my hands to my ears. It was louder than the worst storm I have known. Yet there was barely any wind and only a few warm drops of rain. The noise was all the River. The lamplight showed black silk water and staring bubbles halfway to the back door.

Uncle Kestrel bawled something to me that I did not hear as he limped away. I slammed the door shut, and then Hern and I barricaded the doors and windows. We did not need to discuss it. We just ran about feverishly wedging the heaviest chairs against the doors and jamming benches and shelves across the shutters. We wedged the woodshed door by pushing the boat against it. We made rather a noise blocking the window just over Gull’s bed, but Gull did not move.

All this while Duck was standing leaning his head against the niches of the Undying, and Robin was still sitting over supper. “I can’t believe this!” she said. Another time we went by, she said, “We’ve only dear old Uncle Kestrel’s word for it. He’s not what he was. He may have misunderstood Zwitt. We’ve lived in Shelling all our lives. They wouldn’t—”

“Yes, they would,” Duck said from the niches. “We’ve got to leave here.”

Robin wrung her hands. She will be ladylike. “But how can we leave, with the River in flood and Gull like this? Where should we go?”

I could see she had gone helpless. It annoys me when she does. “We can go away down the River and find somewhere better to live,” I said. It was the most exciting thing I have ever said. I had always wanted to see the rest of the River.

“Yes. You can’t pretend you’ve enjoyed living here this winter,” Hern said. “Let’s do that.”

“But the Heathen!” Robin said, wringing away. I could have hit her.

“We look like the Heathen,” I said. “Remember? We might as well make some use of it. We’ve suffered for it enough. I suppose Aunt Zara thought we were Heathen when she told us to go away.”

“No,” said Robin, being fair as well as helpless. It makes a maddening combination. “No, she couldn’t have. She just meant we look different. We have yellow, wriggly hair, and everyone else in Shelling has straight black hair.”

“Different is dead tonight,” Hern said. Clever, clever.