"Now then, that's no way for youngsters with all their life afore them to be speaking! Just a little rain it is and isn't the earth glad, her being so thirsty after the suns of ripening? And the wind running free like a 'prentice let out early . . . And can't you smell the salt of the sea and the pines and the black rocks and the heather and curving downs that he brings with him?" The voice was high, light and ran on like a stream over small stones.
At the first words I had sprung to my feet, knife at the ready, and of course all my friends were now clustered under my cloak, hampering any footwork I might need. But as the voice went on and on soothingly, a hand holding a flickering lantern appeared from beneath the stranger's cloak, was held steady for a moment and then moved slowly up and down so we could see who was speaking.
A tall, tall man, seeming almost as tall as a tree in that flickering, smoky light, and as thin as a shadow seen sideways. Clothes all browns and greens, like the earth and the grass and the leaves, and then a merry red cap atop an untidy cluster of black curls, all twisted and gnarled like the potbound roots of a youngling tree. A face round and guileless as a child's, full red lips and rosy cheeks, but skin tanned and seamed like leather; a pair of snapping black eyes, by turns bright and shy.
The figure bowed and set down a covered basket.
"Thomas Herrilees Trundleweed at your service, Missy. Commonly known as Mushroom Tom, by'r leave. On account of my tasting 'em and treasuring 'em, and gathering 'em and selling 'em, too. Out in all weathers I am, best to find my little darlings and talk to 'em and tickle 'em awake and pluck 'em and eat 'em raw, or cooked in a little butter, or added to a stew, or even dried at a pinch . . . And whom may I have the honour of addressing?"
His flow of talk was having its soothing effect on me, and apparently on the others as well: Moglet's fur flattened again. "Seems all right, Thing dear . . ." Corby rearranged his feathers. "Hmmm . . . Harmless enough, I reckon; still, keep a hand to that knife." Puddy snorted: "Mushrooms!" while Pisky rushed round and round, dislodging the disgusted snails: "My great-great-great-aunt on the paternal side told me of the efficacious properties of fungi . . ."
All this communication took but a moment, then I bowed in return.
"My name—my name is Thing, and these are my friends," and I introduced them.
"Thing? A Thing is a thing is a Thing—and there's more to you than a name, I'll be bound, you and your friends . . . Still, a merry meeting, masters and mistresses all!" He hesitated a moment then smiled, showing strong, long teeth rather like a horse. "None of my business why you are all out in the wet on a night like this, but Tom fancies company and has a pot bubbling and a fire burning just a little-ways ahead. Perhaps you travellers would do me the honour to share both, and perhaps a tale or two to brighten the evening?"
It would have been churlish to refuse, but anyway I had the feeling it would be all right, especially as Moglet needed no second invitation but was curling herself around his ankles, while Corby gave an approving "Caw!" So we followed him down an almost invisible trail to the right to find a ruined cottage with half its roof sagging to make the inside like a cave, and the aroma of a stew, that smelt like pigeon and hare and onions and turnip and mushroom, hit me like a blow to my empty stomach. A fire burned brightly in the old fireplace and a trickle of smoke rose from the hole in the turved roof.
We crowded in and Tom let down a flap of hide to make us enclosed and cosy.
"There, now! That's something like, isn't it?" Without waiting for an answer he had my wet cloak hanging over a rail near the fire, stoked the fire with more peat and wood till it blazed high, tasted the stew, brought forward a bundle of heather for me to sit on and with a wave of his hand invited us all to sit round the fire. "Now, who's hungry?"
Some half-hour later I leant back and licked my wooden platter clean. "Mmmm . . . That was the best meal I've ever tasted. Thanks!"
"Best till next time as you're starving and cold! That's one of the best things about food: every much-needed time is the best. Like love . . ." He stared at the fire. "All warm and cosy, now?"
I glanced round at the others: Puddy had earlier found some disgusting scuttling things in a corner and was nodding happily; Pisky burped round the remnants of the paste from the bread that had accompanied the meal; Corby was perched on a stack of logs, already half-asleep, and my little cat, her creamy black-barred stomach as tight as a barrel, was stretched out on the hearth, paws and eyes dream-twitching.
"Seems so," I said. "I don't know how to thank you. We—or I at least—had come to the end of my tether, I think. We all started out with such high hopes, but it's so slow, and winter's coming on and there is so far to go—" I shut my mouth with a snap, realizing I had said too much.
But Tom didn't seem to notice, stretching behind him for a flask. "Perhaps you'll join me in a little nightcap? Very thing to settle the stomach, soothe the nerves, dissipate the ill-humours that a soaking may bring and avert the chills: you don't want to be sneezing and coughing and shivering tomorrow, now do you?"
It was the last that decided me. I didn't want to catch cold, and the liquid looked innocuous enough. I had heard of drugs and suchlike, but if I were to watch him drink some first . . . I accepted the little horn cup he offered, and pretended to sip.
He laughed. "Nay, it's not poison, little Missy, and 'twill do you no harm. See, I'll drink some first," and he swallowed half his cup. I took a cautious sip: it tasted of honey, sunshine and herbs and ran down my throat like hot soup: unlike hot soup the warmth seemed to spread into my stomach, chest and limbs till I felt warm to my toes. I took another sip: definitely more-ish.
"Nice," I murmured.
He topped up my cup. "Drink up, then: plenty more where that came from." Leaning forward he appeared to throw some dust onto the fire: immediately it flared up then died down again and now appeared to shimmer like silk, all colours, red, blue, green, purple . . . In its depths I saw great trees as high as hills, hills as tall as mountains, and mountains touching the clouds . . . Little faces peeped out of the corners, cheeky mischievous faces which thumbed their noses at me and giggled. A fiery snake coiled itself into a knot and interlaced itself with another. Great molten rivers ran, earth shifted, winds blew, seas came and went, sun and moon and stars ran together in a mad dance . . .
"And where did you say you were going?" said someone.
"To find the owner of the pebbles, somewhere in the southwest. But maybe first a wise man, a sage, to show us the right path . . ."
"And where do you come from? And why? And how?" The voice seemed to come from the fire and dreamily I answered it, dreamily I told the fire the whole story.
"There now," said the fire. "There now . . . Finish your drink and lie down by me and rest till morning. There's nothing to fear and you are safe and your friends are safe and travelling will wait till later . . ."
I felt the spring of dried heather and bracken beneath me, a cloak over me, heard the rain pattering harmless on the roof, had Moglet curled up against my chest and I was warm and full and safe and so, so tired . . .
"You told him everything!" accused Moglet. "Every single thing!"
"All about the pebbles," added Corby. "And about the Mistress and Shape-Changing and her manikin."
"And about trying to find someone to take this great lump out of my mouth so I can eat again properly: I've never heard so much talk since my great-great-aunt on the maternal side came back from—"
"And about losing our memories and not knowing where we came from," added Puddy.
I had awoken some five minutes past. It was obviously well on into the morning, though no sun shone; it was not raining either, though the air was damp. Beside me the fire was damped down, a thin wisp of smoke curling up with its acrid, peaty smell. Swung over the fire was a small pot, contents simmering, and on a rack above my small sacks of flour and salt were drying.
"Did I?" I couldn't remember. I only knew that I felt rested as I had not in years, warm and comfortable, and extraordinarily well-disposed to the world in general.
"It was that drink that done it," said Corby. "Loosened your tongue something frightful!"
"My paternal grandfather's cousin twice removed—no, thrice times—told me sometimes men fell into the waters and drowned because of strong liquor," added Pisky, unhelpfully I thought, seeing there was nothing but his bowl for me to fall into.
I took refuge in indignation. "Well you lot didn't try and stop me! You were all flat out and snoring like pigs, as I remember . . . And, after all, what harm did it do?"
"Why, none at all, none at all," came a voice from the doorway. "Old Tom's got more than one secret tucked away in his noddle, and no one the wiser." And he came in, smelling of falling leaves and earth, in his hands a flat basket of mushrooms. "Mind you, there's not all of it I understood: 'tis a long time since you've used proper speech, aren't it, my flower?"
At his last words something flashed into my mind and was gone again, as swift as a blink. "Proper speech?" I said. "And why did you call me your flower?"
"Manner of speaking," he said easily, and bent over the pot to stir it. "As to speechifying: well, I understand a lot of what the birds and the trees and the creatures says, being as I've lived here and abouts many, many years, but though I reckon you can understand me well enough, some of your words come out like a man with the runs, all anyhow and in a hurry. Now then, 'tis breaking-fast time." And he held out his hand for my bowl. Thick gruel, nutty and sharp, with honey on mine, but none on Moglet's. Corby had a strip of dried meat, Puddy found something to his satisfaction in the hearth, and a small gobbet of the same, squashed, satisfied both Pisky and the snails. I had a second helping.
When we were all satisfied, Tom squatted down on his heels and tickled Moglet under her chin. "Like to come a-mushrooming, then? We've some six hours of daylight, and—"
"We really should get on," I interrupted, getting to my feet. "Thank you all the same."
"—of those perhaps two, two and a half will be fine," he went on, as though I had not spoken. "'Twill rain heavy again tonight, but clear by midnight and wind'll veer southeast for a day or two's fine weather. So, there's no point in you a-setting off till the morrow, to get wet again. 'Sides, then I can put you on the road to another night's shelter and a lift partways, if'n I can get my baskets full. So, how do you say you help a man out for an hour or so?"
I learnt a lot in those two hours, about both mushrooms and fungi. I learnt to recognize the poisonous ones, especially the most dangerous of all, Death-Cap, deadly even to touch; I learnt that the prettiest—Red-Cap, Yellow-Belly, Blue-Legs, Blood-Hose and Magpie, the latter little white stars on black—were harmless but tasted foul, but that some that looked disgusting, like the tattered Horn of Plenty, the wavy-wild Chanterelle and the Oyster, the dull Cob and the Green-Nut, can all be cooked or eaten raw. Tom also gathered some he would not show me—" Later, Flower, later" —and with Corby's keen eyes and Puddy's ground-level view we had two baskets full before it started to spit with rain. We must have covered at least four or five miles, but had circled and were within easy distance of the ruined cottage, so did not get too wet. Moglet and Pisky, left behind at their own request, had obviously been idling away the day in sleep for they were both lively and hungry when we returned; I pointed Moglet to a rather large and hairy spider with short legs—the sort that go plop! when they drop off a shelf—and told her to cull it for Puddy and Pisky, but she pretended she couldn't see it: I think she was frightened of spiders. Tom set me to making oatcakes and getting a good blaze going, then fished around outside for a crock containing fat. He produced a large pan and some slices of smoked ham from a flank hung in the rafters and fried these up with a handful or two of mushrooms, including the raggedy Chanterelle we had picked and before long the insidious good smells were making us drool.
I fetched a jug of water from a stream some two hundred yards away and we feasted like kings, forcing me to say with a grin: "You were right: every much-needed time is best! I shall know how to find those mushrooms again and they will help our diet on—on the way . . ."
"Mind you, most of those we saw today you'll only see in woods: a tree-mixture, with some oak and some birch thrown in, is best."
"Well, I suppose we shall find plenty of woods: it's safer travel that way, rather than trying the roads . . ." I hesitated: I still couldn't remember, but the others had said—" I believe I told you all about us last night?"
He chuckled. "A goodly tale, and one to keep old Tom a-thinking on cold, dark nights!"
"It wasn't just a tale, it was true, all of it! At least, so the others say," I amended. "I don't really remember what I said . . ."
"Didn't say as how it wasn't true, just said it was the kind of tale to keep a man awake at night and wondering . . . You did say as you were a-looking for the party as those—pebbles, as you call 'em—belong to, and thinks your way might lie southwestish: well, I think as you are travelling in the right direction. As for finding a wise man or a magician to help you on your ways—well, there's plenty of magic still left in this old world and your direction is as good as any, especially as I heard tell a while back that a venerable sage lived near the sea thataways . . . But that, as I said, was a while ago, when the land was full of battle and surmise, and the beacons flared from down to hill—Why, what's the matter, Flower?"
"Beacons," I murmured, feeling strangely uncomfortable. "I seem to recall something about beacons . . ."
"Memory is a thing that can play strange tricks: it seems yours is buried deep and will only be dug up piece by piece. Don't try too hard, 'twill all come in good time."
I was silent for a while, staring into the fire: ordinary pictures now. "How can we ever thank you?" I said at last. "Not only have you housed and fed us, but taken us at our word and kept our confidence . . ."
"And who else would there be to tell, youngling? 'Sides, Tom's always kept his own counsel since—Never mind . . . You've all been good company, and worth your keep, for Tom gets lonely, sometimes."
"Do you live here all the time?"
"Here? Why, bless me, no! Tom has homes all over the place: he has another ruined cot like this, an abandoned charcoal burner's place, a hollow tree six feet across, a cavelet, even the corner of a derelict cell that once held an eremite—my home is everywhere and nowhere! Meadowland, ditch and hedgerow; pine forest, oak wood; heath, fen and bog, wherever my little darlings grow! And they may be found in the most unexpected places, too: halfway up a tree, under a turd, in among the ashes of last week's campfire . . . And they all have their uses, wet or dry, oh yes!"
And for a moment he looked sly and crafty and I did not like him so much—but then, like sun in and out of cloud, he was his normal, jolly self again.
"And does he live off his mushrooms, you ask yourselves, and the answer is yes: he gathers them and he eats them and he markets them, too. Tom's patch is a hundred miles all ways, give a league or two, and stretches north to where the hills begin and south to the great river; west to the farmlands and east—why, east as far as here, and lucky you are to find him this late, for winter comes and he should be working south now, to fetch up a moon or two hence in a snug little nest he knows."
"It sounds an interesting life," I ventured. "But don't you ever get . . . well, lonely?"
For a moment his face darkened, shadowed, then again he laughed. "No, for I see those I sell to when I have a need for company—and there, my friends, is where you can help me out. I have three baskets of mushrooms here, including those dried, which I would be obliged if you would deliver on your way tomorrow. Then I can stay here a further two-three days and look for some old Tough-Trunks: haven't seen any round here for a couple of years but they makes excellent eating, and if I try a couple of the larger clearings there might be a few left. They likes a bit of air and sun, see, but the shelter of the trees to run to if'n they wants. Left more'n a day or two 'twill be too late, for they're coming to the end of their season. Then, if I'm lucky, I can travel the way you go and pick up goods in pay to see me on my way. The folk I'll send you to will travel the next day to sell in the town, for mushrooms is best fresh, and so they'll carry you in comfort a mile or ten nearer your goal . . . How long is't since you laughed, Flower?"
It seemed such an odd question, coming after all that talk of mushrooms, that I gaped.
"Laughed?"
"Aye, laughed. Rolled around on your belly and held your ribs till they ached, and howled with merriment and joy? Laughed till tears ran from your eyes and your ears hurt?"
I could still only gape at him: I didn't know what he meant. The only laughter I had seen was the wild cackling of our Mistress when something pleased her, and sometimes I had seen young men and girls from the village laughing in the fields at harvest, as they chased each other in and out the stocks of corn, teasing with chaff, dried milkweed or poppy-heads . . .
I didn't know what it was to laugh.
I stretched my mouth as I had seen them do and gave an experimental "Ho-ho-ho, Ha-ha-ha" as I remembered the sound, but it didn't seem quite right and certainly felt very silly. It had an unexpected effect on Tom, too, for it sent him off into paroxysms of giggles that sounded strange coming from a grown man.
"I don't believe you know how!" he accused, and giggled again.
"Can't remember," I said crossly. "What does it matter, anyway? I'm not missing anything."
"Don't be too sure about that, then! All folks feels better after a good laugh: almost as good as a—Never mind: you're too young. Like to try some of Tom's magic?"
"You can do magic?" I gasped.
"Oh, not your old spells and suchlike, only the magic what's in my little friends here," and he opened his pouch and took out some more mushrooms, a large red one with white spots on it and some tiny brown ones with a little knob on top. "This one here, the big fellow, is what they call the Magic Mushroom. Why there are folks overseas who worship this one like a god on account of it gives them pleasant dreams if they take it in moderation, and kills their enemies for them taken in larger amounts: I reckon enough of 'em died finding the right doses . . . I ain't going to give you none of him 'cos you has to think of size and weight and age and tolerance to make the dose right for dreams and wrong for t'other, but these little fellows—Fairies Tits when they're fresh and Mouse-Dugs dried—these fellows I can measure out for you and give you nothing more'n a good laugh or two. Not that they ain't bad when taken too much, but I'll only give you a tickle.
"Well? You looks doubtful: then I'll take 'em too, like the drink last night, but I'll take twice as much . . ."
In the end he persuaded me, not so much from his words as from a mutter from Puddy: "Seen 'em before: not poison in small quantities. No more than the number of my toes, mind . . ."
And that is exactly the number he gave me, lightly cooked in the fat remaining in the pan-juices: fourteen tiny little mushrooms. I tasted one: nothing special. I waited till he had eaten half his—double my quantity—before I started on the rest.
Then I waited for the laugh. Nothing.
He read my mind. "Oh, you has to linger awhile for them to work . . ."
"How did you come to know so much about mushrooms?" I asked curiously, while I waited.
That darkening of his face again. He seemed to hesitate, then shovelled the rest of his mushrooms into his mouth and drank the pan juices. When he looked at me he was smiling.
"A tale for a tale, then? 'Tain't much, when all's said and done, not really . . .
"Well, see, once Tom loved a fair lady and they lived in a fine house in a town many miles from here. Now Tom had a good living then and they were both happy, this beautiful lady and he, and their happiness was crowned when she told him there was a child on the way. And as is the way with ladies in that condition she came to have strange tastes, wanting things out of season and difficult to come by. But Tom, he kept her satisfied, going miles out of his way for strawberries in April and brambles in June. Then came a time, and she was near her lying-in, when of all things she wanted mushrooms, some of those wood mushrooms that grow best near pines. And Tom knew where he had seen some, near to a clump of fir trees, so off he went and picked them and rushed back and tossed them in a pan and carried them in to her on a silver planer, and she cried with joy when she saw them and kissed her Tom and turned to scoop them to her mouth . . ."
He stopped, and I knew, oh I knew, what was to come next and tried to stop him, but he shook his head.
"Better out than in, Flower . . .
"I should have known that smell: smelt of sleep, smelt of death." Now there was no third-person Tom, it was himself . . ." They was Destroying-Angel, all white in their purity, all black in their intent, and my lady died in agony and the child with her. After that I was a little mad, I think, for they shut me away . . .
"But I had time to think, there in the darkness of soul, and when they finally let me out and I found the business sold and all moneys gone I didn't care: it was the mushrooms that had taken from me all I held dear and by my own ignorance and I swore to spend the rest of my life learning about the little devils until I was always one jump ahead and could fair say I had beaten them at their own game. And so I have.
"So, old Tom's a mushroom expert, you might say . . ."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"No need to be, no need. 'Tis time past, and if there is one thing I did learn then it was to look to time present . . .
"And, talking of the present: how do you feel?"
Now he came to mention it, I was beginning to feel different, as if my stomach had a pleasant little fire chuckling away all warm inside it. The fire light seemed stronger too, making all colours brighter, but a little fuzzy round the edges.
Nice . . .
Then it happened. Tom got up to throw more wood on the fire, slipped, and for a moment, trying to regain his balance, stood on one leg like a heron, lanky and ungainly, arms flapping like wings, and such a comical look of surprise on his face that I felt a little tickle of amusement jerking my tummy, then another and another, till I was like a pot waiting to boil, bottom all covered with bubbles. I couldn't help it: I came to the boil, slowly but surely. Snorts, spasms, gasps all accompanied these completely new feelings till, with a painfulness that only those who laugh out loud but seldom could appreciate, merriment rose to the surface and, once there, wouldn't stop, and I was boiling away like a pot of forgotten water, salted by the tears of laughter that coursed down my cheeks. At first I thought I was dying, for I could not laugh and breathe and cry at the same time and got the hiccoughs, but in the end everything sorted itself out, except that by that time my ribs ached and so did the bones at the back of my ears.
The trouble was that once started, I couldn't stop: Moglet's studied aversion and turned back and Corby's offended stare only set me off worse than ever.
Tom poked me in the ribs: he too was laughing fit to burst, his arms hugging his ribs, knees up to his chin. "Tell—tell me: why—why do you wear that terribly tatty little flap of—of leather? Oh, dear me, what with a fringe of hair like a taggley pony and that flap of hide there's nothing but eyes like post-holes to be seen—oh, dear me!—all across your face."
I giggled helplessly. "'Cos—'cos I look like a fright without! I've worn it ever since—ever since I could remember! Our Mistress made me, so I didn't frighten the villagers to death! Got a face like a—like a cross between a pig and a snake without it . . . Oh, dear: how do you stop laughing? It hurts . . ." And I doubled up.
"How—how do you know what—what you look like, then?"
"Mistress showed me—in a mirror of polished metal . . . Ha! Ha! Ha! You should have seen me! Oh, dear, I shall die if I don't stop this . . . Said I was too ugly to go abroad without a mask, so I made—tee-hee!—this. Ho! Ho! And if any ask—He! He!—I say I am marked bad with the 'pox!'"
"You don't mind looking like that, then?"
"Can't, can I? Always have, s'pose . . . Oh, mercy, mercy! Stop making me laugh!"
"What with that mask and walking around doubled up with that—stone—in your stomach, you look—you look much like a hobgoblin!"
"A hob—hobgoblin? Oh dear, yes, I must do! How—how hilarious! What a fright! Enough to scare the children, and the old folk from the chimney-corner . . . He-he-he . . ."
And thus was changed in my mind the hidden hurt of the day when our Mistress had found me trying to gaze at my reflection in a pail of water—just to see whether my fingers lied when they felt a straightish little nose, a wideish mouth and long lashes—and, muttering a few words, had shown me what a horror I really was, in that polished mirror of hers: jutting brow, little snake-like eyes downturned at the corners, a crooked nose, squashed like a pig's, uneven, jagged teeth, and a drooling, loose mouth. The whole face, from brow down, was covered in skin-blemishes: blue scars, pocks and a web of red like a spider's which had spread up from the red pebble in my navel like the plague . . . After that I had begged a piece of soft leather from her and hung it on a thong threaded through the top over my nose and across the rest of my face.
And she had laughed even more when she had seen it.
But now it was I who was laughing, and far harder than she had ever done.
After that I fell suddenly asleep, exhausted by the strange thing called laughter, but the others told me in the morning that even in my dreams I had been giggling happily, though when I awoke I could not recall a single thing.