Shamanka (19 page)

The warehouse fills with smoke; the flames spread. Kitty jumps out of the window. Candy escapes through the back door and is followed home by Lola, who climbed out of a window with Sam in her arms. Everything is destroyed except for a silver rattle – leading the newly-wed Mr and Mrs Tabuh to believe that their baby had perished in the fire.

Unable to find Kitty or confront Candy, and prevented from getting into the flat because it's boarded up, they leave the country without their trunk, which remains in the attic. If only we could put them out of their misery and tell them that their daughter is alive and living on a barge, and is desperately trying to find them both. Right now, Sam is doing her best to persuade Kitty to ask the ancient spirits where her parents are.

I wouldn't believe in automatic writing but for the fact that this book is the work of someone else entirely. I'm scribbling away like a slave, but who put the thoughts in my head? My muse? The spirits? Who knows. The real author refuses to take any credit, but, believe me, I don't have time to invent all this stuff. I'm merely a conduit, like Kitty.

For some reason, Kitty is reluctant to contact the spirits on Sam's behalf. She says her pen has run out of oink. When Sam offers her a pencil instead, she says she has a hat ache.

“A headache? Poor you. When the pain goes, will you try for me then, Kitty?”

“The pain never goes.”

Kitty's trying to wriggle out of it, so Sam goads her. “You can't do it, can you? You're not the reincarnation of an Egyptian priestess at all.”

“Yes, I am.” Kitty's insistent in a way that's wholly believable. Reincarnation could be proved, she says, if the dates and facts of her past life could be linked to a genuine historical character – it's just that no one's done it yet.

“But how do you
know
you're the reincarnation of an Egyptian priestess, Kitty?”

“Get dressed and I'll tell you.”

Sam's outfit needs a wash. Kitty takes her clothes, which are folded neatly at the end of the bed, and gives her a robe. It's too large, but it will do until the green trousers and sparkly blazer are dry. Having changed, Sam goes up onto the deck to find Kitty doing the washing in a bowl. Lola has her own bowl and is dunking her woolly monkey up and down in the suds. It's an unusual sight – an orang-utan, a masked woman and a girl in a ringmaster's hat washing their smalls – but it's a homely scene; the ideal opportunity for Kitty to tell Sam about her childhood – which I will now relate.

Kitty's real name was Katy. Her mother was a fortune-teller, her father trained horses, and they lived in a caravan. Being poor and having two other babies to feed, they were delighted when a rich, childless couple – Mr and Mrs Jones – asked to adopt their youngest daughter.

Katy Jones had a normal, happy childhood until the age of nine when she had an accident which changed her life. She tripped over a cat on the stairs, landed on her head and, when the doctor arrived, was pronounced dead. It was a terrible shock for the Joneses, but nothing like the one they were about to receive.

When the doctor returned to lay out Katy's body, he found her sitting up in bed, laughing merrily as if she had never died. Thrilled as Mr Jones was to see his adopted daughter alive, he was furious with the doctor for making such a callous mistake and demanded an explanation.

Either the doctor had been mistaken or there was none – he swore on his mother's life that the last time he checked, Katy's breathing had ceased. It was a miracle; he gave up medicine and entered a monastery where he took a vow of silence.

However, the accident on the stairs wasn't without side-effects. Although Katy remained well, a trip to the British Museum revealed that all was not as it seemed. For the moment she entered the Egyptian Gallery, she went wild. Normally a quiet child, she now clung to the mummy cases and screamed that she wanted to be “with her own people” in a voice that her adoptive mother didn't recognize. At first Mrs Jones thought Katy must be referring to her real parents – but no.

In the middle of the gallery there was a model of a temple dedicated to the goddess Bastet. Katy sat down in front of it, declared that
this
was her real home and refused to move. To calm her down, Mrs Jones gave her a pencil and paper and suggested that she made a drawing of the temple. Katy began to sketch with great concentration. Suddenly, as if her hand was being moved by some unseen force, she scribbled down a series of hieroglyphics. She couldn't understand them at first and insisted on showing them to the curator who translated:
Welcome, Fey Ra! Welcome high priestess, handmaiden to Bastet; we are your servants
.

Katy never forgot the experience and, ever after, insisted on being called Fey Ra. The Joneses didn't like it, but as she refused to answer to “Katy”, they nicknamed her Kitty Bastet, partly because of the goddess and partly because the episode had been triggered by tripping over the cat.

The automatic writing persisted into Kitty's teens. Mrs Jones took her to a neurologist, a psychologist, and finally, a psychiatrist, who suggested (as Bart Hayfue had) that Kitty had a split personality. He prescribed drugs, but Mrs Jones wouldn't have it; apart from periods of scribbling in a trance, Kitty was normal. Her antics upset nobody, so they left her to it, hoping she'd grow out of it, like acne.

She didn't though; she made frequent visits to the British Museum where she learnt to read hieroglyphics properly. The curator was amazed at how quickly she picked it up, but, as Kitty tells Sam, “I wasn't learning a new language, I was remembering my old one.” Sam can hardly dismiss this. Hadn't she picked up the witch doctor's notebook, chanted in Motu and understood every word?

Let's return to the present. Lola is hanging her monkey out to dry on the rigging. Kitty is emptying the soapy water. Sam is reflecting on Kitty's story and is prompted to ask: “But where does the automatic writing come from?”

According to Kitty, this universe contains psychic ether which stores information from the past, present and the future. Our ancestors could access it using natural energies that we have lost touch with.

“You haven't lost touch with the spirits though have you, Kitty?”

Kitty wipes her hands on her long, dark hair and falls to her knees. “They've
abandoned
me!”

She'd tried to contact them. She tried when she thought Sam had died in the fire; she'd asked the spirits if the baby's soul was at peace. But they hadn't replied.

“That's because I wasn't dead!” says Sam. “Ask them where my parents are … please?”

Kitty shakes her head. “If nothing happens, you'll think I'm a fraud. You'll be disappointed and cry.”

“The last time I cried was over a butterfly,” says Sam. “And that was a waste of tears because it was the start of something good, so I don't cry any more.”

“You shouldn't hold back your tears,” says Kitty. “They might set the magic in motion. Tears are strong stuff. They're full of comicals.”

“Chemicals? Then I'll save them for a special occasion.”

There's a pause and Sam is about to ask “What is magic?” but she surprises herself and asks a far more personal question. “Kitty, may I see your face?”

Kitty doesn't let her mask slip but her ears move up a notch, suggesting that her real eyebrows are raised in horror. She runs below deck and battens down the hatches. Sam feels bad for asking. “Was I rude, Lola? I didn't mean to be. Only I'm sure Kitty's hiding something from me.” She calls through the hatch. “Kitty, come back. I'm sorry. You don't have to show me your face.”

“I don't have a face. It melted in the fire.”

Sam calls to her again. “It can't be worse than Aunt Candy's. She wears a mask made from powder and lipstick, but I can see straight through it. Her real face looks like an unmade bed. Kitty, at least you have lovely hair!”

Flattery gets her nowhere; Kitty stays where she is for the rest of the day. Sam assumes she's gone to sleep, so, to pass the time, she practises making sailor's knots with Lola. By late afternoon the washing has dried. Lola fetches it down and folds it, then forages for foliage to build a new nest at the top of the mast. Sam climbs after her and they curl up together in the bowl of leaves and fall asleep.

Sam dreams again. She sees John Tabuh wheeling his magic box through a vast desert. He's being stalked by a sphinx, which steers him into an oasis. In the middle of the oasis, there's a man sitting cross-legged on a mat under a yellow stripy umbrella between two stone crocodiles. He holds a ball in his palm. In front of him are three cups; one red, one green, one black. He says to John Tabuh, “Oh, young magician (for I
know
you are a magician), watch as I place this ball under one of these cups. Now I will move the cups. If you can guess which one the ball is under, you may keep it; put it in your mouth, it will slake your thirst. If you guess wrong, one of my crocodiles will eat you and the other will eat your wife (for I
know
she's inside the box!).”

John Tabuh knows the cup and ball trick but, for some reason, he chooses the wrong cup and Sam, who also knows the trick shouts, “No, Daddy!” in her sleep.

Down below, someone is calling “Sam! Saaaam!” It's Kitty; she has come out of hiding. She's waving a piece of paper covered in hieroglyphics, which, loosely translated, say that they must visit a cross-legged man who sits in the shadow of the sphinx. It seems that the spirits have broken their silence.

Sam must go to Egypt.

ALOE VERA
For healing wounds and burns

ECHINACEA
Helps to prevent colds and flu

FENNEL
A tonic for the digestive system

FEVERFEW
Reduces fevers and headaches