The Game (3 page)

“Nothing much does,” Hayley told him, rather dryly. “Grandpa works and Grandma makes rules.”

Flute frowned and shook his head slightly. The green scarf fluttered. His eyes stared into Hayley's, green and steady. “I know you,” he said. “You were with the Russian lady and the shoes.”

“Martya. She left,” Hayley said.

“That doesn't surprise me,” Flute said. “This house isn't for the likes of her. Why are you in it?”

“I'm an orphan,” Hayley explained. “They bring me up.” Flute nodded, taking this in, and then smiled at her, with some little doubtful creases beside his mouth. Hayley found herself adoring him, in a way she
never adored even Grandpa. “How did you get in here?” she said. “Over the wall?”

Flute shook his head. “I don't do walls,” he said. “I'll show you, if you'll just follow me for a few steps.” He turned and walked, with a soft clatter of leaves, in among the laurel trees.

Hayley sprang up from her rock garden – it was finished anyway – and followed the swishing and the glimpses of green scarf among the dark leaves. There had to be a gate in the wall that she had never found. But she never saw the wall. She followed Flute out of the laurels into a corner of the common. Really the common. She saw cars on the road in the distance and Grandpa's familiar red house in the row beyond the road. “Good heavens!” she said, and looked up at Flute with respect. “That's more magic, isn't it? Can you show me some
more
more?”

Flute thought about it. “What do you want to see?”

There was no question about that. “The mythosphere,” Hayley said.

Flute was rather taken aback. He put his hands into his baggy pockets and looked down at her seriously.
“Are you sure? Someone
has
warned you, have they, that things in the mythosphere are often harder and – well – fiercer than they are here?”

Hayley nodded. “Grandpa said the strands harden off when they get further out.”

“All right,” Flute said. “We'll take a look at some of the nearest parts then. It'll have to be just a short look, because I wasn't expecting to see you and I have things to do today. Follow me then.”

F
lute turned and strode back among the laurels, green scarf streaming. Hayley pattered after him in the greatest excitement. Not much happened at first, except that they came out into proper woodland where paths seemed to run in several directions. Flute looked this way and that and finally chose a path that was lightly strewn with brown and yellow autumn leaves. After a short way, the leaves were in thick drifts and the trees overhead were yellow and brown and apricot, and rattled in a sad, small autumn breeze. Hayley – and Flute too – began to
enjoy shuffling the leaves into heaps and then kicking them, until Flute put a hand out for Hayley to stop.

Someone was coming along a path that crossed theirs, whistling merrily.

Hayley stood nearly knee deep in leaves and watched a splendid young man go striding past, crunching coloured leaves under his sandals. He was obviously a hunter. His main clothing was a big spotted leopardskin that draped over one shoulder and fastened around his hips to make a sort of skirt, and he carried an enormous longbow almost as tall as himself. The arrows for it hung in a long leather box over his left shoulder. His muscles bulged and gleamed. Grandma would have called him a dirty savage, but to Hayley he looked neat and crisp, like an actor dressed up as a hunter for a film. She could see that his neat little beard and his chestnut curls were shining and clean.

“Who is he?” she whispered.

“Orion,” Flute whispered back. “He's a hunter.”

There seemed to be a group of ladies in long dresses suddenly, in among the trees. The hunter stopped whistling, peered, and whipped an arrow, long and
wickedly sharp, out from his arrow-holder. Then, holding it ready beside his bow, he broke into a fast, striding run. The ladies all screamed and ran away.

Hayley did not blame them. “Can't he
see
they're not animals?” she said.

“Not always,” Flute said, as hunter and ladies all disappeared among the trees.

Flute and Hayley turned a corner and came out beside a lake then, where it seemed to be nearly winter. All the trees and bushes around the bleak little stretch of water were brown and almost empty of leaves. A young lady in a white dress came down the bank towards the shore. When she was right beside the water, she looked around, grinning mischievously, and crouched down. Her white dress melted into her all over and she was suddenly a swan. Off she launched, white and stately, and sailed across the lake.

Hayley saw a hunter then. She thought he was not the same hunter as the first one, but it was hard to be sure. He was in dark clothes, but he had the same sort of huge bow and a case of arrows. He was coming stealthily down to the lakeside with an arrow ready
beside his bow. When he saw the swan lady, he put the arrow in the bow, raised it and, very slowly and carefully, drew the arrow back until the bow was a great arc.

Hayley cried out, “Oh no!
Don't
!”

The hunter did not seem to hear her. He let the arrow fly. Out in the lake, the swan collapsed into a white, spouting turmoil.

“Let's move on,” Flute said sadly. He took Hayley's hand and pulled her away from the lakeside. But before the bushes hid the lake, Hayley
had
to look back. She saw the hunter wading in the water, dragging the white floppy shape of the lady to the shore. He seemed to be crying his eyes out.

The next part they went through had swans in it everywhere. Three swans with crowns on their heads glided on a sudden sea. A group of young women ran down to the beach a bit further on and then took off as swans in a white beating of huge wings. More wings beat and some swans came in to land beside a big bonfire. As they landed, they turned into young men. This happened several times. Sometimes there was
just one swan, sometimes a whole flock. Then Flute and Hayley arrived at a place where a young woman timidly held out her hand to a huge swan, as big as she was. There was something about that big swan that Hayley did not like at all.

“I think,” Flute said, “that we'll take another strand now. All right?” When Hayley nodded, he turned off along a way that was greener, where the sun shone among forest trees that seemed to be putting out new spring leaves.

They passed through a sunny clearing where golden midges circled under a big oak tree. When Hayley looked at the midges closely, they were very small winged people. She cried out with pleasure.

“More like it, eh?” Flute said, grinning.

The midge people all flew away as he said it. They seemed to have been frightened by a growing noise, over to the left. It was a sound of yelping, pattering and panting. Shortly a whole crowd of dogs burst into the clearing, excited, long-legged hunting dogs with their tongues hanging out. Hayley could see that they were all little more than puppies. They saw Hayley and
Flute and rushed towards them, so that in seconds they were surrounded by curved, waving tails, big floppy ears and wide panting mouths with long pink tongues draping out of them. One puppy reared up to put both paws on Flute's stomach. Flute laughed and rubbed its ears. Hayley, a little timidly, stroked the head of the nearest hound. This caused all the rest to clamour for attention too. Hayley had to laugh. It was like being in a warm, boisterous bath, full of excitement and affection.

A boy came panting into the clearing, trailing a long whip. He stopped and laughed when he saw them surrounded in happy dogs. “Sorry,” he said. “I'm trying to teach them to follow a scent. You wouldn't believe how easily they get distracted!” He was a good looking boy, not much older than Hayley, and he seemed as happy and excited as his dogs. He cracked his whip in the air. “Down, Chaser! Come
on
, Snuffer! Bell and Doom, get away, get
on
!” He cracked his whip again. Hayley saw that he was careful not to hit any of the dogs. “Come
on
, all of you!” he shouted.

It took a while, and a lot more shouting and whip
cracking, but at length the dogs turned away from these interesting new humans they had found. One or two put noses to the ground. One gave an excited yelp. And finally they all rushed away into the forest with the boy running and bounding behind them.

“Oh, I
liked
him!” Hayley said. “Who is he?”

“Another huntsman,” Flute said. “One of many. We're on the hunters' strand here. But I think we ought to be getting back now. I've got a busy afternoon and I suspect that your grandmother will be wanting you by now.” He strode off through the sunlit forest in the same direction that the boy and his dogs had gone.

Hayley said, “Bother!” as she trudged after him. The midge people had come back again to circle in the sun and she had wanted to watch them.

Just as she caught up with Flute, the boy came racing back towards them. He was older now, with a little curl of beard on his chin, and he ran as if he was running for his life. If he noticed Flute or Hayley as he tore past them, he gave no sign of it. His eyes were set with terror and he just ran. Behind him came all the dogs, older too now, and a bit gaunt and grizzled. They
were all snarling. One or two had foam coming from their mouths and all their eyes glared. As the boy crashed past Flute and Hayley the foremost dog almost caught him and then lost ground because it had a bloodstained piece of the boy's trousers in its mouth. The rest chased on furiously.

Hayley clutched Flute's hand. “Do they catch him?”

Flute nodded. “I'm afraid so.”

Hayley was horrified. “
Why
?”

“He managed to be really offensive to a goddess,” Flute told her. “Things like this happen on every strand, you know. The mythosphere is not an entirely happy place.”

“But it looks so beautiful!” Hayley protested.

Flute laughed a little. “Beauty isn't made of sugar,” he said. “Through this way now.”

They pushed their way through some thick laurels and came out into the common again. Hayley stared from the bushes behind to her to the still impossible sight of her grandparents' house beyond the road,
over there
.

Flute said, “Do you think you can find your own way back, or do you want me to take you?”

“I'd rather stay with you,” Hayley said. She felt raw with sorrow over the fate of the nice boy.

“Not possible, I'm afraid,” Flute said. “But I'll show you some more magic quite soon if you like. See you.” He plunged back among the laurels and was gone.

Definitely gone, Hayley knew. She stood and wondered what Grandma might say if Hayley simply went across the road and rang the doorbell, and Grandma opened the door. It hardly bore thinking of. No, she had to get back to the garden somehow.

She pushed her way dubiously in among the laurels. And pushed and rustled and plunged and rattled, and for a while wondered if she was going to have to just stand there and yell for help, or even stay in the bushes for ever. Then she was quite suddenly through them and into the garden, almost treading on her rock garden. She was about to kick it moodily to bits – it was only a heap of stones with wilting ferns stuck in it, and that nice boy was being ripped apart by his own dogs – when she heard Grandma calling her. At which Hayley forgot that she was not supposed to run and rushed frantically up the path to the garden door.

“I think Flute is an ancient supernatural being,” she panted unwisely to Grandma.

“Oh, just
look
at you!” Grandma exclaimed. “How
did
you get so untidy?”

“In the bushes. Flute is just what I call him because I don't know his real name,” Hayley babbled. “He has a green scarf and hair like Martya's.”

Grandma stiffened. “Will you stop romancing this instant, Hayley! Uncle Jolyon's here. He wants to see you for tea in the parlour. If it wasn't for that, I'd send you to bed without supper for telling stories. Go and comb your hair and put on a clean dress this moment. I want you back downstairs and looking respectable in ten minutes! So hurry!”

Hayley sobered up. She saw she had been stupid to mention Flute to Grandma. Flute was – if ever anyone was – a person who overflowed Grandma's boundaries. Flute didn't do walls. And Grandma did walls all the time, Hayley thought as she scurried away down the passage to the stairs. She was halfway up the stairs when she heard Grandpa and Uncle Jolyon coming out of the map room, arguing. It was funny,
she thought, peeping over the banisters, the way unusual things always seemed to happen in clusters. Uncle Jolyon only visited here about once a year and when he did, Grandpa was always very, very polite to him. But now Grandpa was shouting at him.

“You just watch yourself!” Grandpa bellowed. “Any more of this control-freak nonsense and I shall walk away!
Then
where will you be?”

As Hayley scudded on upwards, Uncle Jolyon was making peace-keeping sort of noises. She took another peep at them on the next turn of the stairs. They were both big, stout men, but where Grandpa was grey, Uncle Jolyon had a fine head of curly white hair and a white beard and moustache to go with it. He backed away as Grandpa positively roared, “
Oh yes, I can do it
! I did it before and you didn't like it one bit, did you?”

“Hayley!” Grandma called. “Are you changed yet?”

Hayley called out, “Nearly, Grandma!” and pelted on up to her room. There she flung off her grubby dress, flung on a new one and managed to make her hair lie flat by pasting it down with the water she scrubbed her muddy knees in. Then she went
demurely down to the parlour, where Grandma was pouring tea and Grandpa and Uncle Jolyon were drinking it, all smiles, as if neither of them had just been quarrelling in the hall.

Nobody took much notice of Hayley. She sat on an embroidered chair nibbling at a hard rock cake – which made her feel like a rather small squirrel – and listened to the three adults talk about world affairs, and science, and the stock market, and some prehistoric carvings someone had found in a cave near Nottingham. If Uncle Jolyon had specially wanted to see Hayley, he showed few signs of it. He only looked at her once. Hayley was struck then at how dishonest the crinkles round his eyes made him look. She thought it must be because she had just seen Flute. Flute's green eyes looked at you direct and straight, without any disguising of his feelings. Uncle Jolyon's eyes calculated and concealed things. Hayley found she distrusted him very much.

When the tea was drunk, Uncle Jolyon leaned over, grunting a little, and pinched Hayley's chin. “You be a good girl now,” he said to her, “and do what your grandparents say.”

The way he smiled, full of false kindness and hidden meanings, truly grated on Hayley.
And
the pinch hurt. “Why are you so dishonest?” she said.

Grandma went stiff as a post. Grandpa seemed to curl up a little, as if he expected someone to hit him. Uncle Jolyon, however, leant his head back and laughed heartily.

“Because I have to be,” he said. “Nobody expects a businessman to be
honest
, child.” And he shouted with laughter again.

Uncle Jolyon went away after that – with Grandpa seeing him into his waiting taxi in the friendliest possible way – and Hayley was left to face Grandma's anger.

“How
dare
you be so rude to poor Uncle Jolyon!” she said. “Go up to your room and
stay
there! I don't want to set eyes on you until you've remembered how to behave properly.”

Hayley was quite glad to go. She wanted to be alone to digest all the things she had seen that afternoon. But she could not resist turning round halfway upstairs. “Uncle Jolyon isn't poor,” she said. “And he orders Grandpa around.”

“
Go
!” Grandma commanded, pointing a strong finger upstairs.

Hayley went. She went into her room and sat there for a long time, staring at the photo of her parents on the mantelpiece. So happy. That was what Hayley had expected the mythosphere to be like, full of happiness, but it seemed to be full of tragic things instead.