Maddigan's Fantasia (5 page)

‘But she offered to look after her!’ exclaimed Timon.

Then he and Eden walked on, looking ahead of them. Garland grinned sideways at Boomer, and Boomer, encouraged, started his bike once more, zoomed around in a wide circle, closed in on the boys and began again.

‘What’s that
necklace
you’re wearing?’ he asked, and Garland noticed, for the first time, a glint of silver metal at Eden’s neck. He was wearing a chain, most of which hung down under his shirt.

‘It isn’t really a necklace, is it?’ she called after them.

It was Timon who answered, looking back over his shoulder.

‘It’s a good luck charm,’ he said. ‘We all need good luck, don’t we? Well, we do. We can do with heaps of good luck.’

From somewhere ahead Yves shouted. Time for a break! There were trees in front of them so there would certainly be shade and probably dry wood. Grass too. Maddie’s van began to swing to the right in a wide curve. Other vans and riders on horseback followed her.

‘Looks like a great place to stop,’ Maddie called down to them. ‘Was it here last time? I don’t remember?’

Garland shook her head. She did not remember either, but there was nothing surprising about that. Since the Chaos the world shifted continually, even though their own time (the Remaking) was becoming more and more reliable, which was a good thing, particularly when Bailey was still lying, unconscious,
in Goneril’s wagon, back behind them. Garland hoped that the baby Jewel was not distracting Goneril from what she should really be doing – caring for Bailey and getting him well enough to read the maps once more.

It was a wonderful relief being able to stretch and run around. And after stretching, after running and jumping (just to remind herself that she could still run and jump) Garland did what she always did. She turned a few cartwheels, then she collected her bow and arrows from the slot beside the door of the van and set off on her own, making for the trees. Carefully choosing an angle which meant that even a misfired arrow would not fly off sideways into the camp, she stood back from one particular tree and chose a target – a pale streak where the bark had peeled away. It was almost as if the tree were
challenging
her by flashing a secret inner skin.

There was a great pleasure in fitting the arrow to the string and drawing it back. When she let it fly it seemed that part of her flew along with the arrow, cutting the air and biting into the tree with satisfaction.

There was an exclamation at her elbow.

Garland spun around.

Timon and Eden had followed her … but Eden was
stumbling
a little as if he was not sure just which foot to put forward next. Timon held his arm, trying to straighten him out.

‘Come on!’ he was muttering. ‘Come on!’ He looked apologetically at Garland. ‘He feels things most people don’t,’ he said. ‘It’s part of his gift … part of his magic.’

‘But I didn’t hit
him
,’ Garland cried, suddenly anxious on Eden’s behalf, yet cross with herself for caring. ‘I wasn’t anywhere near him.’

‘Your arrow,’ Eden muttered. ‘It struck home. It’s twisting the lines of power.’

Garland felt her own face twisting with puzzlement.

‘What lines of power?’ she cried impatiently. ‘What are you on about?’

‘The tree,’ murmured Eden. ‘You hit the tree.’

‘But it’s only a tree,’ said Garland. ‘It’s not a person.’

‘It’s not a person, but it is a bit like a person,’ said Eden, straightening, and looking, as he often did, like some sort of mysterious creature, half-tree himself. ‘It has power flowing through it. It connects with the great soup …’

‘Shhh!’ hissed Timon in his ear. ‘Don’t start on all that great-soup-of-existence stuff. Just shut up.’

Garland stepped back. She took a breath.

‘Look!’ she cried. ‘Who are you? What’s going on? I mean life is getting a bit too weird. First I start seeing silver in the air, which turns into a weird silver girl … and then I see you coming out at me through a sort of fiery crack in space. And
then
you actually turn up, doing magical tricks – which was great – but who are you
really
.
What
are you? I mean you might be some sort of ghosts left over from times before the Remaking. You might be …’

‘We’re not ghosts,’ said Timon. He looked sideways at his brother. ‘Well, not exactly ghosts!’ And then a thoughtful expression crept over his face. He looked like someone playing with a new idea: he pinched himself and laughed a little. ‘Though I suppose we might be half-ghosts in one way. But we have been following you. Because we’re travellers.’

‘There are a lot of travellers on these roads,’ Garland said. ‘But you don’t feel like ordinary travellers – you feel too weird to be ordinary.’ Her words seemed inadequate, but Eden raised his head.

‘We
are
travellers,’ he said. ‘And I suppose we might feel weird because we
are
weird. We’re travellers in time. We come from somewhere on ahead of you. We’ve had to fight – really fight – to get back. And it’s all mixed-up because we’ve had to get back
here
to save ourselves in the future.’

Garland stared at them
… at their solid boots, their jackets, at the scratch on Eden’s hand and the smudge on Timon’s cheek which might be dirt or might be a bruise.

‘Time travellers!’ she exclaimed derisively, turning away from Eden to look at his brother once more. ‘Yeah right! I suppose that’s why you’re called Timon. Tick! Tick! Tick! Tock! Time off!’

‘No! Listen!’ said Timon. He shrugged and then his shoulders relaxed. ‘I might as well try to explain, even if you don’t believe me. You set out from the city of Solis, didn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Garland. She couldn’t help boasting about Solis. ‘It’s the greatest city since the Remaking. We set out from Solis … and we’re going back there. We’ve come and gone over and over again, but this time we’ve got a mission.’

‘So have we,’ said Timon, ‘because we come from Solis too, only not
your
Solis … Listen! Eden’s told you, so I have to tell you too. I can put it better than he can.’

‘She still won’t believe you,’ put in Eden.

‘Our Solis is in your future,’ said Timon. ‘There! It’s the same city and it’s not the same city. You’d recognize a lot of it mind you … some of the buildings that is.… the street corners
… but it’s not your Solis. It’s ruled by the Nennog and our Solis belongs to him in most ways.’

‘The Nennog?’ cried Garland incredulously. ‘What Nennog? What are you on about?’

‘He’s our great great-uncle,’ said Eden, ‘and he was probably all right once upon a time. He began by being the Duke of Solis.’

‘The Duke of Solis!’ Garland exclaimed, but Timon flapped his hand at her.

‘He began in
your
time,’ he said. ‘But he
did
change. He somehow learned to drain energy out of the world. And he went on and on and on and turned into a monster. And he wants …’

‘He wants to eat the whole city. He wants to eat the whole world,’ interrupted Eden. ‘And he wants to eat us! We’re all energy, and a man who wants to live forever needs energy.’

Timon flapped his hand again, but this time it was Eden he was flapping at, telling him not to interrupt. Then he turned back to Garland again.

‘We escaped him. We were helped. We rode a time pulse and travelled back because we …’

‘OK! Stop there,’ said Garland. ‘I just don’t believe any of this. I can’t!’

‘We came back to save your father … to save Ferdy Maddigan,’ said Eden desperately. ‘We thought that would displace the flow of things … alter our own time … because you see we worked out that if Ferdy had lived he would have brought back the converter from Newton to Solis. And then he would have grown in power in Solis, and somehow replaced the Duke and then – well, I can’t explain it all but …’

‘… but the calculations were wrong,’ said Timon rather wearily. ‘We got here too late and now we’ve got to wait for another time-slot so that we …’

Garland leapt to her feet.

‘Just shut up!’ she cried, furious because, though she did not quite believe them, she so very nearly did. ‘It’s all rubbish!’ she shouted. ‘It has to be.’

‘No! We can prove it!’ Eden cried back, but Timon grabbed his brother’s arm.

‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘She won’t believe us, and it’s not her fault. No one will believe us. They can’t understand. It’s … it’s … too hard for them.’

Garland’s fury grew.

‘We’re not stupid!’ she said, yelling now. ‘You’re the mad ones … making out you could have saved my dad … making out you’re so great! Making out you can feel what trees feel.’

She fled, determined to get out of the range of these two peculiar strangers who, for some reason, were making out they were even stranger than she had imagined them to be in the first place. In her mind she could see her own hand with the pencil in it moving across a page in her battered blue diary.
They must think I’m a real idiot – telling me a story like that and thinking I’ll just gasp with amazement and then begin worshipping them. Time travellers! Rubbish! Rubbish! Rubbish!

But as she imagined herself writing this down and underlining the last word, she was being careful to run alongside the winding progress of the Fantasia. And suddenly, as she jumped wildly over the tussock, feeling the cold bite of the wind as it struck her face and twisted in her red curls, she saw the air ahead of her writhe and shine and there – there once more – was the silver girl.

Garland came to a standstill so sharp her teeth rattled. Just as she was telling herself, over and over again, that there was no such thing as magic, something very like magic was happening in front of her. But this was nothing to do with two strange boys, claiming to come from another time. This was her own magic.

The silver arm rose … it gestured. The silver girl certainly seemed to be trying to tell her something but there was no way of knowing what she was trying to tell. Was she warning her off … or beckoning her on? As Garland stared, fascinated and
confused
, the silver girl played her usual trick. She rippled, broke up, faded and vanished.

A little ahead of her Garland suddenly heard a bell ring out. She knew what that bell meant. Maddie and Yves must have decided to have a Fantasia parley. Garland took a deep breath. Whatever mad tales the strange boys might have to tell her, no matter what the silver girl’s strange gestures might mean,
Garland
was a Maddigan. That was the one thing that must hold true. She must not run off into the wild when the Fantasia was struggling. And then she found herself thinking yet again of that first great Maddigan, Gabrielle, and imagining that she might pull Gabrielle out of the past air and somehow put her on like a wonderful cloak. Gabrielle would not believe
rubbishy
, time-travelling stories. Garland began to weave back across the tussock, back to the Fantasia, which also meant facing up to stories as wild as the twisting roads that the Fantasia followed, as it struggled to make its fortune.

Everyone else was there already, the mothers holding the little children, the older children lined up in the front row. Panting slightly, Garland edged herself in beside Maddie (for after all Maddie was her mother), Timon and Eden joined in too, standing hesitantly behind everyone else, like people who have arrived late and must stand patiently in a queue. Their little sister Jewel looked back at them from the front row, peering over Goneril’s shoulder, shouting and laughing, waving her hands as if she were casting a spell.

‘Why is it I’m the one that gets stuck with babies?’ Garland could hear Goneril grumbling her usual grumble. ‘Babies and
sick ones. I’ve got no time for babies and yet if there’s a baby within spitting distance it’s me that has to look after it.’

Timon must have heard her. He began winding quickly towards her, but she must have seen him from the corner of her eye. She flung out a hand, palm outward.

‘Just leave it!’ she shouted at him. ‘I’m not complaining, just asking a question. How is it that people always think I’m the one to baby-sit their kids? But I’m resigned to it.’

Many parleys had a pattern to them. In the past Ferdy had talked first, laying out the argument. Then the leaders of the Fantasia … Maddie, Yves, Bannister, Tane, and others would speak out. Old Goneril would give nagging opinions, criticizing everyone and, following this, other people would offer ideas and opinions. Now Yves led the parley once more. He praised Ferdy (‘He was a Maddigan of Maddigans!’) then said, glancing
modestly
down at his feet, that Maddie and Tane and Bannister had asked him to take over the work that Ferdy had always done.

This was what everyone expected. Garland looked at him darkly but did not argue. Yves was the tallest … he had a head full of words … could reason and deal and make
announcements
. And Yves’s first official announcement was a sad one.

‘Bailey!’ he said. ‘Our mapmaster …’ He looked around at them, and suddenly everyone knew why he had called them together. ‘Bailey’s dead!’ he said. ‘Well, we knew it was
probable
, didn’t we? All the same there’s the shock of it being made so final. Ferdy one day! Bailey the next.’

Garland did not know what to say … perhaps there was nothing that could be said. She looked around and saw the bowed heads, felt the new wave of grief edging through the Fantasia.

Maddie began to talk. ‘It’s hard,’ she said, her voice quivering, ‘but we are who we are. We move on.’ Direction, she told them. They must have direction. Back at Milton they had been
paid with food – they had enough for a few days. But now they must make for Gramth. They must perform and build up their stores so that they would have enough to carry them all the way through to Newton … and enough for any emergencies as well. After all there were always emergencies. Above all they must make for Newton where (with a little bit of luck) they might be able to wheel and deal and trade what they had to trade for that solar converter and even some of the solar cells for which Newton was so famous. If they could bring a converter back to Solis they would win new respect … new stores … money and fame. However, Newton was a long way off. First they must bury Bailey. And then they must … they
must
… get to Gramth.

People sighed and nodded. The parley was about to close when a voice was raised – old Shell. He was pointing at Timon and Eden.

‘And what about them?’ he was asking. ‘What about those ones, what crept in just after our Ferdy was done in? I reckon they stand for bad luck … strangers breaking in on us at a strange time.’

Yves hesitated, frowning at Shell.

‘But don’t forget they stepped in and saved us back there!’ he said. ‘And what a show! I’ve never seen anything like it. Well … have you?’ Shell was silent. Yves went on. ‘Just think! We were all struck down a bit, weren’t we? I think that crowd was going to sling us out. And then the smaller one –’ he nodded in Eden’s direction ‘– his act was amazing.’

‘You say he saved us,’ said Shell. ‘But think about what he did? That magic of his – it wasn’t natural magic, was it? I’m not saying we should punish them in any way – but we should think twice about letting them travel on with us.’

The whole Fantasia began to argue with itself, and only fell silent when Yves shouted.

‘They
saved
us back there,’ he repeated. ‘What sort of a Fantasia would we be if we turned away from the wonders?’

‘Yves is right!’ cried Maddie. ‘We’ve lost –’ she hesitated, swallowing ‘– we’ve lost two treasures. We need something to balance things out, and that boy is amazing.’

Garland leaped to her feet.

‘How can we trust strangers? How do we know they didn’t run with the Road Rats? How do we know where they came from? We’ve never taken on strangers before. Outside of Solis, how can we trust anyone?’

Maddie looked at her with a sort of annoyed astonishment. The Fantasia began to chatter again, all staring at the two boys, some frowning, others smiling, some suspecting them, others willing to take them in. ‘Listen to
her
,’ cried Shell, pointing at Garland. ‘She’s a Maddigan, isn’t she?’

‘Ask
them
,’ said Tane the clown, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder in the general direction of the boys. ‘Do they
want
to come with us? Let them have their say.’ And everyone turned to stare towards Timon and Eden. Timon cleared his throat.

‘We’re not Road Rats,’ he said. ‘We’re just wanderers. We’ll wander off, if there’s no room for us here …’ (he hesitated and looked at Eden and then over at Goneril holding the baby Jewel) ‘… though we’d like to stay.’

Goneril hoisted the little Jewel high in the air.

‘Road Rats!’ she screamed. ‘Whenever did Road Rats weigh themselves down with babies? Road Rats have too much sense to waste their time changing nappies. I’m the one who gets stuck with all that stuff.’

‘Let’s stick with the old ways. Let’s take a vote,’ said Yves. ‘And then let’s move on. Those in favour – right! Those against – left!’

The Fantasia began with shuffle and flow … some going left, some going right.

‘Garland!’ said Maddie, watching Garland make for the
left-hand
group. ‘Garland! What’s wrong with you?’

‘I don’t trust them,’ said Garland. ‘I can’t.’

Lilith went right, looking up at Timon as she moved – staring with admiration, Garland thought. Well, Lilith was only a little squirt. Of course she would be impressed by someone tall with golden hair and blue eyes like the hero in some old fairy tale.

Boomer sidled up to Garland’s side.

‘You’re right,’ he muttered. ‘We shouldn’t trust them.’

Yves and Bannister counted the heads.

‘Fifty-fifty!’ Yves said at last.

‘Not quite!’ said Maddie. ‘I haven’t voted … and I am going to vote the way Ferdy would have voted. When did we ever shut a great act out of our show? I don’t care if it’s talent or trickery … that boy’s great. I want him, OK? I want him to become part of Maddigan’s Fantasia.’

And saying this Maddie moved right.

‘OK! You’re in!’ Yves said, holding out both hands towards the boys. ‘Come on in and make yourselves part of us.’

‘We’re really grateful,’ said Timon, nudging Eden forward. ‘I don’t blame you for being careful about strangers, but we’ll be as useful as we can. We’ll be true members of your circus.’

‘We’re not just a circus,’ shouted Garland. ‘We’re a Fantasia.’

‘That’s right,’ said Boomer. ‘We’re more than a circus.’

Timon looked towards Boomer and Garland.

‘Eden and Jewel and me – we’re nothing but wanderers … and wanderers in a strange country,’ he said. ‘We’ll be glad of the company and we’ll be glad of the safety. Because it’s a rough world out there, isn’t it? But I promise you wonders – I mean that’s something we
can
do. Isn’t a Fantasia a true home for wonders?’

‘Your mum just wants to be the boss of everything,’ said Lilith, frowning at Garland.

‘She’s allowed to be boss. She’s a Maddigan! And this is Maddigan’s Fantasia. OK?’ Garland replied.

‘And now that’s worked through, we’ve got to be on our way,’ said Yves. ‘In and up and forward. And quickly.’