The First Book of Calamity Leek (24 page)

I looked around the shivering bunch of them. ‘Now can we please get on, and get this bin filled up? Let's make a chain from the standpipe. Happen a spot of bucket-lugging will warm us all up.'

THERE HAS BEEN
a breakthrough, you tell me. ‘Well done, Calamity,' you say.

Mrs Waverley is smiling, near to cracking, the demonmale is smiling, near to cracking. You are sure and certain cracking, Doctor Andrea Doors.

Mrs Waverley rushes over and smothers me up. Ten long rabbiting seconds it lasts, all lard and a stink of lavender. And after her, the demonmale comes at me again. He squeezes me tight and everywhere, like he is feeling for a crunch of my bones, for an easy break.

And you wipe off a tear, Doctor Andrea Doors, to see it. But you don't do nothing to help me. No, you start to talk about ‘families' and what ‘home life' might be like. And Mrs Waverley and the demonmale get going on this too. You all talk and talk, till even Danny Zuko curls up under the mulch and dies from the boredom of it. And then you and Mrs Waverley think it might be a good idea if he comes at me again. To get used to each other. Closeness. To get used to that.

And I sit dumb and helpless under his grip. I am dumb as a worm gone and died.

WE SAT BY
the hole in the Wall, waiting for Annie.

The day went off. The Goddess Daughter blanketed the sky lid black and moonless. Down in the bog, we huddled about waiting, watching our breath blow out ice-white. The only noise about was busy bats and night birds, the only light came from the tiny holes in the lid to Heaven.

I stuck up my finger and thumb to pinch-measure them holes, thinking of Truly pinch-measuring and whispering with Annie the night she fell down. And as I trapped them up, seemed like a Polperroey whisper flew in my ears. ‘Do you reckon when you get up close they are touchable, sit-on-able, climb-through-able?'

‘I don't know, Truly.'

‘Well, what do you reckon, Clam? Want to climb with me and see for yourself, Clam? Want to come too?'

And for just one rabbiting second, I thought it. Yes Truly, yes I would like to see how our Garden looks from the lid to Heaven. I really would.

‘You OK, Clam?' Sandra's voice said. ‘You stretching off the cold?'

And I stopped my fingers and brought them down quick, and I sat them under my bottom, and I waited like that, watching the bog, till that whisper of Truly faded off.

Nancy and Mary fetched branches from the orchard and started a fire to warm us.

Sandra dropped pieces of battered Desiree Armfeldt in the embers to cook.

Two jackdaws flapped down on a fern stump. Emily buzzed me to say they brought down a message from the Goddess Daughter – ‘Good luck.' So I gave them a message to fly back up – ‘Thanks.'

Eliza couldn't feel her feet, so we put her in the barrow and drove her close to the fire. We all huddled close to the fire. Nancy grew the flames high and hissing, and Sandra turfed up bits of roasted Desiree Armfeldt and passed them round. But no one was rightly hungry. Dorothy poked her head in and out the Wall hole more times than a woodpecker. But Annie didn't come.

We waited.

Moths stopped by to dance in the fire's green and yellow flames. The smoke went worming up into the night. Our eyeballs grew big and white. All about the bog was quiet.

Mary Bootle said, ‘Do you think it's true you can see the bodies of Bowel-burning females twisting between the flames?'

‘Truly would have said so,' I said. ‘Truly would have said just that.'

Nancy snorted, ‘Truly said turning cartwheels made you taller. Truly said burping would start a pig growing inside you. Truly said you could live off plums forever like the wasps do.'

‘She tried that,' I said smiling. ‘I remember.'

‘Till her farts blew her out of the tree!' Nancy blew a raspberry on her elbow.

Mary started singing all soft and low, ‘Truly Fartus, she's truly, truly fartus, Fartus as a plum upon a tree.'

And we looked into the twisting flames, as Mary kept on, and we all smiled. And our smiles grew fat, and our giggles rose up with the smoke. That was Truly Polperro for you.

All sudden, Mary stopped. Flames jumped in the black of her eyes. ‘What if Annie doesn't come back? Golly, what do we do then?'

No one said nothing, but an owl off in the orchard. We were all watching Nancy heave another log on the fire, her shadow beetling and big on the Wall.

I looked at the fire, and I looked round my huddled sisters. ‘She has to.'

‘She definitely promised me she would,' Sandra whispered. ‘Definitely.'

I kicked the log.

Wham.

‘She has to.'

The wood cracked open and a nestful of earwigs ran out, and ran away to the end and shrivelled up.

Mary bit her lip. ‘Well, golly, I'm awful sorry, Clam, but I've just thought, even if she does come back, I don't know if I can do it. Not to Annie. I mean, I understand why Emily says it's necessary. But it ain't a demonmale we're doing it to, is it? It's Annie. It's Annie St Albans, our sister. So, golly, I don't know if I can.'

Nancy sat down heavy and stared into the fire. ‘I agree with Mary.'

I watched the spitting log. I watched a tiny red spider rush out and die. I watched the smoke shift strangeness over my sisters' faces. And then I looked up and fixed my eyeballs on theirs, one by one. ‘Listen up good and proper, sisters, because I ain't saying this again. It doesn't matter whether you say you can or not, you will do it. You will do it for Annie's sake, to get her brought back to us before it's too late. You will do it because the Devil is deep inside her. He is sloshing about in her blood. He is heating her up like stew in a pan. Remember this, sisters, it ain't Annie we are doing it to, but Him.'

Mary's bottom lip wobbled under her teeth. ‘It ain't Annie.'

‘It ain't Annie, sisters. You will do it, you will do it to Him.'

Must have been hours into the night, a scratching noise woke me. I had been dreaming of being swung in a chair by my demonmale, and it took a second to shake his nasty laughter from my ears. I sat up and screamed to my sisters to wake. I turned my torch at the hole, where, sure enough, Annie St Albans was scrabbling back to us. With a grin on her face hot enough to burn up the Garden.

‘Goodness, good evening, sisters,' she said, shaking her hair of brick dirt.

I shone my torch at her head. She wasn't wearing her headscarf.

I shone over the rest of her. Instead of a warm winter smock and thick fur coat, she was covered up in Outside clothing – a black jumper and blue trousers.

And I am sorry to say it, but she looked about as right
in our Garden as that demonmale did in our yard. She had white laced shoes on her feet.

Annie grinned. ‘Goodness, Calamity, you look ever so stern behind that torch. Were you all waiting for me? Well, good, sisters, because I have such things to tell you. Is that you, Eliza Aberdeen, here as well?' Annie shaded her eyes. ‘That's nice of you, I hope you're warm enough. Clam, would you mind lowering that torch? Well, I tell you this, sisters. Either I am turned loonhead or this Garden is, it sure is.'

‘What do you mean?' Dorothy said quick.

I thumped her. ‘We said on no talking, Dorothy.'

Annie looked at me something funny. ‘Your torch, Clam? Well, Dorothy, it's just that everything I thought I knew has been turned inside out. Nothing fits right. Like—' she stopped. ‘Why are you all staring? Is it these clothes? Or is there bad news – is that why you've come?'

‘We came for you,' I said.

Annie frowned and looked quick round us all. ‘That's nice, I suppose. Shall we poke up the fire, and I can tell you everything I found out? Then we can decide what to do.'

And for one second, it seemed it was plain-baked Annie, throwing back her curls and chattering on at us. For another second, I was watching her skip to the fire saying, ‘What've you brought all that rope for, Nancy? Pig got loose?'

So Nancy looked at me, and Annie looked at me. And right then and there my heart seams ripped apart in me and cold water poured in the emptiness. So I didn't need Emily whispering, ‘Stay strong, sister Leek, this is just Him working in her,' to see it clear as cleansing water – He'd been working in Annie for weeks.

Ever since Truly fell. He'd got in the Garden then. When Truly lay on that Boule bush and spoke into Annie's ear, He must have ridden that breath and jumped in and started cooking up Annie then. It was clear in everything she said, and everything she had made us do, even though it weren't ever right. And who wasn't to tell me, that rip down my heart wasn't Him jumping out of her and starting in me?

Truth be told, I ain't the clearest memory of what happened next, but I think Emily took over my limbs for me. My sisters say I leaped at Annie, shoving my torch in her face and throwing a fur over her head. ‘Devil-in-Annie be silenced!' they say I screamed.

Together we crashed on the ground by the fire.

The Devil-in-Annie lay unmoving beneath me – happen He'd banged Annie's head in falling. Off in the orchard an owl screeched. My sisters stood gorming above. And Annie started to groan.

‘Sisters, come on,' I cried. ‘Are you Emily's Army or are you useless worms? Look at Annie's clothing, she is drenched in Outside ways. Nancy, bring the rope and tie her quick, before she starts to wriggle.'

Nancy stared as Annie's white shoes started to kick about under me.

‘Nancy, you worm! Emily commands you to get over here now!'

And then, thank Emily – because who's to say whether she didn't give Nancy's fat bottom a shove – Nancy came. With a scowl that didn't want it, but with her feet waddling to Goddess service, Nancy came. Nancy bound Annie's ankles, and Emily fetched Mary to help me bind Annie's arms down beneath the fur. Sandra helped me wrap her mouth quiet. Dorothy ran off and was sick in the bog,
but never mind, because we got the Devil-in-Annie strung up tight and dumped in the barrow next to Eliza. Though He was making Annie shake and moan, so as Dorothy wondered whether Annie could breathe proper under the fur, I listened for a bit and then I stood up tall and said, ‘It is Devil's breath, Dorothy, and yes, it looks good enough to Emily and me. Eliza, shine your torch out in front, Nancy, take up this barrow, and let's get going.'

We set our steps back for the Sacred Lawn.

Entering under the Crème de la Crèmes, Annie's snorts grew worse than a knife-frightened pig.

‘Can't we calm her somehow?' Mary's voice whispered in my ear. ‘She sounds awful scared.'

But there was only one way now to calm Him in her, I told Mary. And He should well be scared of it. And here we were, about to do it, stepping our cold feet on Out of Bounds grass, one after the other in the black night. And me walking up front of everyone. And eighteen-year-old Emily waiting in the Lawn centre, like she'd always been waiting for just this moment, her kindly smile fixed on us, her sisterly army, below.

I turned back at Mary, white-faced and quivering in the torchlight. ‘Do you know, Mary, I can't feel the cold in my feet,' I said. ‘Isn't that something peculiar?'

Mary's face wobbled. ‘Please, Clam, can't we say one thing soothing to Annie?'

‘Emily's taken all the cold out of the Lawn grass,' I said. ‘That's what she's done. Thank you, Emily. You can say thank you, Mary, if you want.'

But Mary's mouth just fell to blubbering.

And shivering in her fur lump, Annie let off a moan.

I looked down at Annie, and funny thing was, Emily was heating me so much, I felt strong as a steel blade now. And certain of my aim.

‘Halt,' I said to Nancy. And I walked to the petal bin and checked the water was high and cool. Then I walked up and knelt in front of eighteen-year-old Emily and felt the heat pouring from her kindly blue eyes.

‘Never mind me, best get a shift on yourself,' a voice buzzed in my ear.

‘Best get a shift on,' I said loud and clear, looking round my sisters who were mostly looking at their toes. ‘Eliza, you can stay in the barrow, but shine the torch steady on the bin. Everyone take a piece of Annie. We'll do it just like we said.'

In the barrow next to Eliza, the lump of Annie thumped about. My standing sisters shuffled and stared at their toes.

And whether it was Emily doing it, I don't know, but I stretched my hand down to Annie's lump and watched her quieten to my touch. ‘I feel how she wants it,' I said. ‘She's ready, sisters,' I said.

And I trapped every one of my sisters' shifting glances, and let the steel in my stare make them strong. ‘Longer we hang about, more of her He heats up,' I said. ‘Hotter she gets, more heat He spreads to us. More heat He spreads to us, more of us are going to need Him drowning out of us,' I said.

Mary was shaking. But when I put her hand under Annie's shoulder, she kept hold and didn't let go. I put Nancy on the other side. Sandra went down by Annie's knees, and I got Dorothy out of being sick in the Crèmes, and placed her opposite.

Annie kept on moaning. All my sisters were sobbing.

‘I'll take her head,' I said. ‘We step up on the buckets together. Everyone ready?'

No one spoke. Except Annie, course, with her moaning.

‘How about a song?' Emily whispered in my ear. ‘How about my song?'

‘Let's sing, sisters,' I said. ‘Let's sing out Emily's song to soothe her. A-one, a-two, a-one-two-three and—'

My heart is not the first heart broken,

My eyes are not the first to cry.

‘Come on, sisters!' I shouted. ‘Join in with me.'

And they did. Slow and mumbling, but they did join in singing. And together we raised our voices to Heaven, and lifted the wriggling, moaning lump of Devil-in-Annie out of the wheelbarrow and up and over the edge of the petal bin, and dropped her deep in cooling water.