Kit's Wilderness Read online

  long ago.”

  At home, we turned the heat higher and higher. We prayed that Grandpa would be well again. Inside ourselves, we prayed that if he was to die, then he shouldn’t be made to bear great pain or a deepening of his confusion. When we visited him in the hospital we found him frail and small. Sometimes he knew us and he whispered our names and touched our faces with trembling fingers. At other times he stared past us through empty eyes into the immense absence that surrounded him.

  We returned home in silence to Stoneygate and sat beside our Christmas tree and whispered stories of the man he had been. I lay at night with my head close to the wall, remembering him beside me as he arranged his souvenirs and sang of being in his prime. I clutched the ammonite, I ran my fingers across the fossil tree. I wrote of the pit children playing at dusk beside the river. I gazed out there, squinted, saw them there, little skinny things at liberty in the wilderness. I stopped squinting; they disappeared. I wrote my story about Lak and his wilderness, and sought a way to bring Lak and his sister home. I read about the great convulsions of the earth, of the continents shifting away from each other, colliding with each other. I wrote of ice that was powerful enough to move mountains. I wrote of ancient seas whose sediment lay a hundred feet and a hundred million years beneath Stoneygate. I dreamed of Silky, who led me through endless tunnels before leaving me alone in the dark. I dreamed of magicians who danced in darkness, storytellers who whispered through flames. I felt the hand of Lak’s mother gripping mine, felt brightly colored pebbles in my palm. In the deepest night I heard a frail voice singing—When I was young and in me pri-ime—but I woke to find it was nothing but illusion.

  Allie was engulfed by The Snow Queen. She sparkled with the joy of it, so intensely that it seemed there truly were ice and frost in her eyes. She practiced before me, raised her claws, hissed her lines, prowled delicately and dangerously across the snow, exploded into laughter and kicked a storm of frozen snow around us. Burning Bush told me how brilliant Allie was, what a natural she was. She was right to set her dreams on acting. She winked. We’d have to watch it didn’t go too much to her head. As the first performance approached, Allie’s change into the ice girl quickened. She switched instantly from being who she was in life to who she was in the play.

  “Who’s me?” she asked one day as we walked home from school. “Who’s Allie Keenan? This almost-nice one, or this truly bad one?” She laughed. “That’s why I love it, Kit. It’s like magic. I don’t just have to be me. The world doesn’t just have to be the way it is. You can change it, and keep on changing it.”

  I nodded. I knew that from my stories and my dreams.

  There was no sign of John Askew. Posters were stuck to walls and telegraph poles. They asked: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY? They carried a photograph of his face, a description of his clothes—black jeans and coat and hat, T-shirt with “Megadeth” on it—of his black dog Jax. Policemen searched the wilderness and the banks of the river. They spread wide, opened the abandoned sheds and warehouses downstream. They peered into little kids’ dens. They floated in little boats on the river, peered down into the murk, reached beneath the ice below the banks. They walked into the hills beyond Stoneygate, carrying maps of old mines and pitshafts. There was much rumoring and whispering: he’d slipped on the ice, tumbled into the bitter river, he’d been drowned and washed toward the sea. He’d thrown himself in there, he’d been driven to it by an evil drunken father. Or he’d fallen into an ancient pitshaft, or the dog had turned on him and killed him, or he’d be found frozen in the deep snow when the thaw came. The worst tale was whispered behind cupped hands, spoken in quiet corners: it was the father himself who’d done his son to death.

  One day the police took Askew’s father away, and Stoneygate was filled with the story that the body had been found, that murder had been done, that the father had at last been arrested. But there was no truth in the tale. The father was brought back home, and that night I heard him calling through my dreams. I got up, went to my window and saw him at the fence. He stood there with his arms outstretched. He howled into the empty wilderness:

  “Johnny Askew! Johnny Askew! Oh, come back home!”

  I passed near the Askew house with Allie one bitter afternoon. Closed curtains. No Christmas lights. The mother came to the door as we stood there. She had the baby in her arms.

  “What you two looking at?” she yelled.

  “Come on, Kit,” whispered Allie.

  “Come to get your eyeful?” she yelled.

  “Kit,” whispered Allie.

  “You! You and your kind! Why can’t you bloody well leave us alone?”

  Allie tugged me.

  “Just a minute,” I said.

  I went into the cul-de-sac, toward Askew’s garden.

  The woman glared as I approached. I saw the baby’s thick dark hair, her broad face, saw how her brother’s features were held in hers in gentler form. She cried and squirmed in her mother’s arms. I stood before the low wicker fence.

  “There’s no news yet?” I said.

  The woman scowled at me. “News! What’s news to the likes of you? Nowt but bad news you’re after. Nowt but doom and death’ll satisfy you.”

  The baby bawled.

  “I was John’s friend,” I said.

  She watched me, suspicious.

  “I was. I talked to him. He gave me one of his drawings.”

  “You!” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “But there’s no news?”

  “Nowt.”

  “I think he’ll be all right,” I said. “I think he’s just run away and he’ll come back again.

  She watched me.

  “I do,” I said. “He told me that’s what he wanted to do.”

  She clicked her tongue.

  “Aye,” she said. “He threatened many times. What’s your name?”

  “Kit Watson.”

  “He mentioned you.” She rested her knuckle on the baby’s lips, allowed it to suck. “She misses him,” she said. “The big daft brute. She misses him like Hell.” She sighed, then started to glare again. “You don’t know nothing, do you? This isn’t some stupid game you’re playing with him?”

  I shook my head.

  “Aye. Well. It’ll turn out somehow, there’s no doubt.” Her husband appeared in the doorway behind her. His eyes met mine.

  “What’s he after?” he said.

  She shook her head.

  “Concerned for our John, that’s all.”

  “Come back in,” he said. “You’ll catch your death.”

  She started to turn away. “If you hear anything,” she said. “Anything at all.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Askew’s dad stood aside to let her in. His eyes met mine again.

  “Heard about your grandpa,” he said. “A good man. Not like the rest of the rabble. Give him me best.”

  I opened the door a few inches and slipped into the hall. I stood there in the darkness, facing the lighted stage. I thought I’d not be seen, but Burning Bush turned in her chair and saw me there. She narrowed her eyes, pretended to be angry, but she grinned and pressed her finger to her lips. Eerie music played: violins out of tune, squeaky tin whistles. The Snow Queen sat in her white furs on her throne of ice. Behind her, snow-clad mountains filled the world. A pale sun hung low in the pale sky above them. A boy backed toward the Snow Queen from the wings. He was dressed in red and green. He held his trembling hands before his face. The Snow Queen smiled coldly, watched him, as Allie the ice girl entered the stage, calmly following her brother. She was all in silver, her hair was stainless steel, her claws were blades. Her eyes were bitter and her voice was cruel and sharp as ice:

  “Here’s evil sister come for good kind brother. Here’s icy cold and frost to freeze his heart. Here’s bitter winds to freeze his soul. Touch this finger, feel the frost there. Touch this cheek, feel the snow there. Look into this eye, see the ice there.”

  The boy backed away from her.


  “Sister,” he begged. “Sister. What’s happening to you?”

  Allie grinned and continued to tiptoe toward him.

  The boy bumped into the Snow Queen’s throne and fell to the ground in fright.

  “Sister,” he said. “Sister!”

  “What shall we do with this creature?” said the Snow Queen.

  Allie touched him with the toe of her silver boot.

  “What shall we do to such a silly boy?” she said.

  “Shall we put ice in his eye also?” said the Queen.

  The boy cowered, covered his face. “Sister,” he said. “Come back to me.”

  Allie laughed. “He could never be an ice boy,” she said. “He doesn’t have the courage to be an ice boy.”

  The Snow Queen reached out and stroked Allie’s claws.

  “Not like you, my dear,” she said. “Then tell me, little evil courageous one: What shall we do with him? What shall we do with good kind brother?”

  Allie hissed. She sighed. She wondered.

  She knelt down and stroked her brother. “I’m tired of him,” she said.

  “Then lose him,” said the Queen.

  Allie closed her eyes and smiled, and hissed and sighed again.

  “Lose him?”

  “Yes,” said the Queen.

  “Yes,” Allie whispered. “Yes.”

  “Let us lose him,” said the Queen. “Let us send him to oblivion. Let us send him to where there is nothing and no one. Let us send him from our sight.”

  Allie grinned. “Yes,” she hissed. “That is the answer.”

  The boy scrambled away from her.

  “Now?” said Allie.

  The Snow Queen gazed upon her.

  “I have taught you what you need to know. Do it now, my clever girl.”

  Allie pointed to her brother. “Begone!” she called.

  And there was a flash of brilliant light, a crack of lightning, and the boy was gone.

  “Wonderful!” called Burning Bush. “Much better, everyone! Now, let’s look at scene thirteen again.” She turned in her chair again, pointed at me. “And you, Christopher Watson,” she called. “Begone!”

  I laughed, and slipped back into the corridor.

  “How d’you do it?” I asked Allie that afternoon.

  She grinned. “With great talent, Mr. Watson.”

  “No. I mean, how do you make him disappear?”

  “Ah. That’s secret, I’m afraid. It’s magic, that’s all you need to know.

  I looked at her.

  “And it’s magic when I bring him back again,” she said.

  “You,” I said.

  She grinned again. “Me what?”

  I laughed. “Nothing.”

  Allie danced in the frozen snow. “Go on,” she said. “Say it!” She giggled and stamped the frozen snow.

  “Say what?” I said.

  “Hahaha! Say what? Say I do, don’t I? I drive you wild!”

  Sundays were the worst days to see Grandpa. The sunlight that poured into the ward made his face more pale, his eyes more empty. We sat around him sipping tea. We touched his arm. We called him Grandpa, Dad. We murmured our names to him.

  “It’s me,” I’d say. “Grandpa, it’s me. It’s Kit.”

  Sometimes he smiled weakly and seemed about to speak to us, but it was as if he lost all energy and he didn’t know how to break out of his cinfusion. He simply gazed through us, through the windows, through the world. He worsened as the winter deepened. Deeper silence. Deeper lonliness. It seemd he was lost to us, he’d never get back to us. We left him there, traveled home through the bitter dusk in our own deep bittter silence.

  Then that Sunday I pressed the ammonite into his fist. He held it with his fingers.

  “Remember?” I whispered. “You gave it to me, from a million years ago.”

  We watched his fingers awkwardly touching the indentations on the ancient shell, tracing its spirals.

  “It comes from the sea,” I said. “From the coal a hundred feet under Stoneygate.”

  He raised his eyes and stared at me, through me.

  “You were young,” I said. “You were in your prime.”

  Mum stroked my back. I heard her fingers telling me: Don’t, Kit. Don’t make it more difficult for yourself.

  “Remember,” I told him. “Grandpa. Remember.”

  He closed his eyes and touched the ammonite.

  “Kit,” Mum said. “Don’t, Kit.”

  “Grandpa,” I carried on. “You told me the world was engulfed by memory. You told me you kept on seeing everything you’ve ever seen. You told me all my stories. You told me memory was the most precious thing.”

  I pressed the ammonite hard into his palm.

  “Grandpa. Grandpa.”

  He sighed, his fingers loosened, I caught the ammonite as it spilled toward the floor.

  Mum put her arm around me, pulled me to her.

  “Drink your tea, love,” she whispered.

  I sipped the tea. There seemed nothing more to do. Then I tried again. I leaned close to him again.

  “Grandpa,” I whispered. “Listen. Once upon a time there was a boy called Silky. We called him that ’cause of the way the lamplight fell on him, ’cause it made him shine like flickering silk as he flashed through the tunnels before our eyes. A glimpse, and then he’s gone . . .”

  I watched him. Nothing.

  “A little lad in shorts and boots that many of us seen down there, sometimes just looking at us from the deepest edges of the dark, sometimes slipping past our backs as we leaned down to the coal. If ever a lamp went out or a pitman’s bait was pinched, that’s Silky’s work, we used to say . . .”

  Grandpa’s face softened. Something like a smile on him. Then a voice, a murmur, his lips hardly moving. Distant, frail, ancient.

  “Little mischief,” I whispered.

  His voice echoed the sound and rhythm of my own. “That’s right,” I said.

  That smile again, that frail voice again. “Little Silky,” I whispered.

  The echo again.

  “Some said he’d been trapped down there after one of the disasters,” I said. “One they’d never been able to get to. One of those that never got taken out and buried. Not scary, though. Something sweet in him. Something you wanted to touch and comfort and draw out into the light.”

  That smile again. He opened his eyes. His eyes met mine for a moment. I saw the depth of wondering in them.

  “Little Silky,” I said. “Ask any of the old blokes round here and they’ll tell you about our Silky . . .”

  Grandpa hissed the word, “Silky.”

  “That’s right,” I whispered. “Silky. You remember. He took the water and biscuits we left him. Little mischief.”

  A tiny laugh, deep inside his throat.

  “A thing of brightness,” I said. “Deep down there in the dark.”

  He lifted his hand, trembling, touched my face, gazed into my eyes.

  “It’s Kit,” I whispered.

  He blinked, and looked, and blinked again.

  He smiled, ran his tongue across his lips.

  He said the word: Kit.

  Then looked at each of us, then closed his eyes. We let him sleep.

  “Find Silky in your dreams,” I whispered. “He’ll keep you safe until they come through the tunnels with the lamps.”

  We sat there looking at each other, didn’t dare to speak our hopes. We sipped tea for a while, then went out together into the midwinter night.

  Silky came again that night. Just a glimpse, from the corner of my eye. A shimmer in the corner of my room. I closed my eyes, ran after him through endless tunnels, headed deep into the earth. I smiled when our eyes met, when I knew that he was waiting for me, that he was leading me. I smiled as we ran, with nothing to be seen but his flickering before me, nothing to be heard but the thundering of my heart and the gasping of my breath and the thumping of my feet. We ran an age, a million years, until his final flickering and he was
gone for good.

  I stretched my hands out, tiptoed forward, touched Grandpa.

  “Grandpa,” I whispered.

  “Kit,” he said.

  We held each other tight for hours, until at last we heard the footsteps in the tunnel, saw the distant lights of the lamps, heard the voices of the men who’d come to find us.

  “Here they are,” I whispered.

  “Here they are,” he said. “We’re okay, son. Here they are.”

  The baby woke him, sobbing against his chest. Light filled the entrance to the cave, the endless ice outside. Lak reached into the bearskin and touched his sister’s lips.

  “Hush, my sweet,” he whispered.

  He stared at his family on the cave wall, heading south. He turned his eyes away, stood up, and went out to the ice. He clawed ice into his palm, let it melt there, dribbled water into the baby’s mouth, dribbled water into his own. He squeezed the last of the berries and fed her with them. The dog crouched by him, licking ice. Lak stroked him, whispered comfort to him. He went back into the cave. He cut the bearskin into two pieces with the axe, flung one into the corner of the cave, wrapped the other around himself and the baby. He lifted the flint, gripped his grandfather’s axe, stepped out into the valley, didn’t turn back.

  He headed south.

  He climbed away from the ice, onto the crags, where he found bitter plants to feed them with. He gave the only sweet part of the plants, the blossom, to the baby. He cast his eyes across the wilderness, seeking a sign. A mammoth lurched across the valley. A pair of tiny deer leapt away across the rock. Tiny skylarks rose, hung over him with their brilliant song. Much higher, huge dark birds circled slowly, biding their time.

  Lak called: “Ayeeee! Ayeeeee!” hoping to hear at last some call that was not just the echo of his own.

  As they moved on, the baby whimpered and wept. He whispered to her, caressed her, but felt how she was becoming thin, heard how her voice was already becoming frailer. He found more bitter plants for her. He melted ice in his palms and dribbled it into her mouth. Then they came upon a hollow in the rocks, a patch of scrubby earth where two deer nibbled at the meager grass. Lak crouched, gripped Kali at his side, held Kali’s mouth tight shut. Edged closer, saw that they were- male and female. The male lifted its head, pricked its ears, sniffed the air, looked nervously around the crags. Bent its head again, nibbled again. Lak prayed to the Sun God, to the spirits of his ancestors. The baby began to whimper, the deer stirred. Lak stood and flung his axe. It struck the female. She staggered, tried to move away, but then Kali was upon her, his teeth at her throat, then Lak, who ended her life with the crack of a rock at her skull.