The Binding (5 page)

Duncan asked the Page to open the door for us, wait until we were all inside, and then come in, closing the door behind him. Milo followed his instructions, and
when Duncan thanked him, he wriggled like a puppy, all waggy with pride.

The room was set out differently. The upturned fish-boxes were arranged in a semi-circle around the fireplace, where a bright fire of driftwood crackled in the hearth. There were candles placed on jutting-out stones in the wall all around it, and with all the light at one end, the other end of the bothy looked even more shadowy and dark.

The makeshift table was in front of Elspeth, to the left-hand side of the hearth, and Duncan sat opposite her on the right-hand side. He gave her the key and she unlocked the box. Then she delicately took out the black square of cloth they called the Judgement, and the big candle.

She put the candle in its candle-holder, and Hamish lit it. We didn't need it in order to see each other's faces because they were lit up by the fire. It was just the dance.

We waited for Duncan to say something. To our surprise, he looked at Milo and asked him, ‘Have you brought Nee-na?' Milo nodded into his chest.

‘Then go outside and stay there until I call you back in, and when you come back inside, don't bring him with you.'

I caught Tressa's eye.

‘What if he wanders off?' I said. ‘We're supposed to be looking after him.'

Duncan fixed Milo with his pale piercing eyes and said, ‘He will not wander off. He will stay on the grass right in front of the bothy.'

Milo's bottom lip quivered and his hand moved to put his thumb in his mouth, but he didn't.

‘B-but what if the seagulls take him?'

‘I told you not to bring him to the bothy,' Duncan said.

Milo went outside, shutting the door quietly after him. We sat there, looking at each other. I listened for the sound of him crying, but the only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the murmur of the sea.

After a few minutes, Duncan called Milo back in.

‘Have you left Nee-na outside?'

Milo said, ‘Yes.' It was weird, because he didn't look upset or cross—he just looked completely in awe of Duncan.

‘Then you can take your place.'

When Milo was sitting down again, Duncan told Elspeth to start a new document. She took a clean sheet from her pile of papers.

‘You will call it, “The history of the new members,”' Duncan said.

She wrote it down.

‘Now, I'll ask them some questions, we'll listen to their answers, and I will tell you what to write.'

He started with Milo.

‘Where have you come from, Page?'

‘London,' said Milo.

‘What kind of place is London?'

Milo immediately thought of all the things he loved about London. ‘It's got cars, all sorts of cars. They're parked in all the roads round us, and you can tell what sort they are by their badges.'

Duncan nodded encouragement and Milo went on.

‘It's got buses too, and ambulances and police cars. . .' He glanced wistfully at the door.

‘And what else?' said Duncan.

‘Trains and planes, lots of planes. . . And the tube!'

‘So the places you roam with the Joker and the Teacher are streets and stations?' asked Duncan.

‘We don't roam!' Milo looked surprised.

‘Why not?'

‘Because of bad people and getting lost and. . .and things.'

Duncan said to Elspeth, ‘Teller, write this down—“They came from a city choked with noise and fumes. It was a dangerous place full of bad people.”'

While she wrote it down, Duncan turned to me.

‘Joker, tell us, why did you come?'

‘Well, me and Milo were in the back garden building a summer-house. . .' I paused, expecting Tressa to butt in and tell him it wasn't much of a summer-house considering it was made of four poles and a sheet, and it kept falling down, but she didn't. So I carried on.

‘We heard Jean from next door calling us from the other side of the hedge. We couldn't ignore her, so we crawled through the gap to see what she wanted.'

‘Is that the same Jean who owns the house you're staying in? She lives next door to you in London?' asked Hamish.

I nodded.

‘We call her the birdwoman,' Elspeth whispered. ‘She comes up every year and just sits on the cliff with her binoculars.'

That made sense; my story was to do with birds too—the birds in Jean's garden.

‘She said the woodpecker had taken some of the chicks from her bird box, and she was trying to make
it woodpecker-proof. The problem was, the ladder kept wobbling, probably because she's a bit wobbly herself, so she wanted someone to hold it steady.'

‘Which was me and Jack,' Milo said.

‘And what a great job you did,' said Tressa, rolling her eyes.

‘Who's telling this story?' I glared at Tressa. ‘Anyway, the ladder suddenly tilted when Jean was half way up, and I thought she was going to land on Milo, so I made a grab for her and she landed on me instead.

‘She felt so bad about it that she offered us her house up here for the summer, considering she couldn't come herself, what with a broken ankle and everything.'

Duncan told Elspeth to write, ‘The birdwoman fell from a tree and gave them the key to her house in Morna.' Then, while she was writing it, he asked Tressa, ‘What did you expect to find here?'

Tressa said, to be honest, she thought it was going to be really boring. ‘I was dreading it—no offense!'

“‘They didn't know what they would find here.” Write that,' Duncan told Elspeth. “‘They were ignorant and afraid.”'

When she had finished writing, Duncan asked her to read the whole thing back.

‘The history of the new members,' Elspeth read. ‘They came from a city choked with noise and fumes. It was a dangerous place full of bad people. The birdwoman fell from a tree and gave them the key to her house in Morna. They didn't know what they would find here. They were ignorant and afraid.'

She gave the paper and pen to Tressa for her to sign and pass on so that we could all sign it to show we agreed it was true.

‘But this makes London sound horrible,' Tressa said, her pen hovering above the paper.

‘So London isn't full of traffic noise and pollution?' asked Duncan. ‘It's perfectly safe to roam around on your own? You feel everyone is nice?'

‘Well. . .' goes Tressa. ‘It's not true we were ignorant and afraid!'

‘You said you thought it would be boring here,' said Duncan. ‘Are you bored?'

Tressa frowned.

Duncan said, ‘You told us you were dreading it. You're the one who knows all the words. Doesn't dread mean fear?'

Tressa shrugged and signed the paper. She passed it to me and I signed it before passing it on to Milo.

‘Now you've heard our history, could we hear the history of the Binding?' I asked.

Duncan nodded to Elspeth, who sorted through her papers and took one out. She read it to us.

‘The secret history of the Binding. In the beginning, there were four. Duncan Fairfax was the Lawmaker, Hamish McFee was the Deputy, Elspeth Anderson was the Teller and Fin Anderson was the Warrior. They found the bothy and made it into a secret place. The Lawmaker made up the name and the ceremonies of the Binding, and the Teller wrote them down.'

‘Who's Fin?' asked Tressa. ‘Why isn't he here?'

Hamish said Fin was short for Finlay. ‘Finlay Anderson was Elspeth's cousin. He moved away when his dad got a job on the mainland last year.'

‘Why did you need a warrior?' I had to ask, I couldn't help it. I mean, maybe there was a rival gang on Morna, and you don't want to get involved in anything like that.

‘We didn't,' said Duncan.

Elspeth looked as if she was going to say something, but changed her mind. No wonder she always seemed so serious. She must be missing her cousin. They all must be missing him, considering how few people
there were on the island. I was glad Duncan had named me the Joker, because I wanted to do my very best to cheer them up.

Milo suddenly put up his hand and cried, ‘I want to tell on someone!'

‘Then we have to make the circle,' Duncan said, standing up. We all put our fish-boxes back in the middle of the room where they were before, and Hamish moved the table. We sat down and watched as Elspeth brought the box, the pen and papers, and the Judgement, and Hamish brought the big candle.

Away from the fire, it felt suddenly colder and darker, although we could still hear the wood crackling in the flames.

Hamish said to Milo, ‘If you want to tell on someone, you have to stand up and say, “I am the eyes and ears of the Lawmaker, and I wish to make a report.'”

Milo stood up and repeated it carefully.

‘What is your report?' asked Duncan.

Seeing his face, Milo wavered, but it was too late to change his mind.

‘Jack asked Mum about the berries—I mean, the fruits of Morna—and Matt said they were blueberries. . .and we had some today for tea!'

Hamish jumped up, picked up the black cloth of Judgement, and handed it to Duncan. Duncan slowly unfolded it and placed it on his head. He stood up, and gestured to everyone else to stand as well. He told me to stay where I was. Then he took a step back. One by one, they all copied him, until I was standing on my own in the middle. It was a horrible feeling, like I'd stepped off the edge of a cliff, with them looking down at me from the top.

‘Is this true, Joker?'

I nodded.

‘We judge,' said Duncan, solemnly, ‘that the Joker is guilty of talking about the secret business of the Binding outside the bothy. But because he did not know, at that time, about the Law of Secrecy, he will not be punished.'

He took off the black square of Judgement.

‘Now we reward the eyes and ears with gold.'

Elspeth took a pencil-tin out of the box and passed it to Duncan. It was full of little chocolate bars. He gave one to Milo and we all sat down again. We watched as Hamish blew out the big candle, and Elspeth carefully placed all the objects back inside the box, locked it and handed Duncan the key.

‘Now that we've named the new members, we should have a celebration,' he said. ‘Come back to the beach at the same time tomorrow, and wear warm clothes.'

Wear warm clothes? Couldn't we have a fire again? I felt disappointed.

‘Joker, we will ask you for a game,' Duncan said, standing up. We all stood up. The flickering tea-lights in the fireplace wall and the yellow flames of the fire meant we cast long shadows on the floor. We joined hands and walked slowly, one way and then the other, repeating after Duncan:

In the winding, round and round

What we wind can't be unwound

What we bind can't be unbound

The Binding

Outside, the sun had gone and the sky was streaked with red. We set off together up the beach. Milo was happy because the seagulls hadn't taken Nee-na, and now he had a chocolate bar as well.

Tressa asked Duncan if he had made up all the rituals himself.

‘We call them ceremonies,' he said. ‘But rituals is better. Is there a difference?'

Tressa said she thought the things they did every time they met, such as the key and the box and the candle, were rituals, and maybe ceremonies were more the things they did in a one-off kind of way for special occasions.

‘I like that,' said Duncan. ‘I chose the right name for you at the naming ceremony.'

Milo needed a pee, and me and Elspeth waited for him while the others went on ahead. We stood there, looking out to sea, listening to him clattering across the stones to find a private place.

‘That was quite a story he made up, about our history, with the birdwoman falling out the tree and everything,' I said.

Elspeth said sometimes, in the winter, they would light a fire in the bothy and all sit round, and Duncan would tell stories about his ancestors in Ireland. One of them became the first king of Morna; he crossed the sea from Ireland and rode across the battlefield at Mannon Moor on a magnificent white charger, up to its knees in blood.

‘Did Morna really have a king?' I asked. ‘Is any of it true?'

Elspeth shrugged.

‘I don't suppose it really matters,' I said. ‘I mean, he's so clever, you want to hear everything he has to say.'

She didn't answer, so I turned to look at her. She kept gazing out to sea. Her hair looked almost white against the dark cliff.

‘Duncan's all right so long as you don't cross him,' she said, in her whispery voice.

I laughed. ‘I've got a sister like that.'

‘I don't think so,' said Elspeth.

Chapter 7

Six candles

I soooooo wanted to tell Mum about the Binding! It didn't help that, when we told her we were going out after tea again the next day, she got all curious.

‘You must invite your new friends over. We'd love to meet them!'

Tressa said, ‘No-one goes to each other's houses here. They don't need to. They can go wherever they like.'

‘It reminds me of when I was a boy,' said Matt, going all wistful. ‘We used to play out all hours, and I don't think I ever brought anyone home for tea.'

‘Still,' goes Mum, ‘it feels a bit strange not even knowing who these children are.'

Matt said it was different on an island, like stepping back in time to a simpler way of life, when children could have more freedom to roam and families more time to sit around, chat to each other and play games.

Thinking about games, I remembered Duncan wanted me to organise one for the celebration. But what games could you play in a small space by candlelight? The only ones I could think of were animal-vegetable-mineral and charades, and I couldn't imagine Duncan, Hamish and Elspeth playing either of them.