The White Horse of Zennor (11 page)

‘Do you think he'll live?' Kate asked. ‘He looks so
weak, and he must have lost a lot of blood.'

‘Oh he'll live, child,' Miss Marney said bustling her towards the door. ‘Jasper will live. I have my ways you know. There's not a lot I can't cure if I put my mind to it. Now off you go Kate, and come back tomorrow.'

‘But how do you know my name, Miss Marney?' Kate asked, turning by the front door and facing the old lady.

Mad Miss Marney began to chortle and then broke into her witchy cackle.

‘Thought you'd want to know that,' she said. ‘I'm not the only one that talks to herself around here. I've heard you talking to yourself up here in the mist. You should be more careful. Voices carry a long way up on the moor. “Kate Trelochie,” you said one day, only a few weeks back I remember. “Kate Trelochie, you're a genius, a genuine genius. Who else do you know who is only ten years old and has a zoo of her very own?” So you see we are two of a kind you and I. We are mad as hatters Kate. We love all God's creatures and we love this place with a passion no-one else would understand. You are the first person I've had in my house for fifty years and more.' She seemed anxious all of a sudden and leant closer to
Kate. ‘You won't tell anyone you've met me will you?' Kate shook her head vigorously. ‘I don't like people. Don't understand them, and they don't understand me. It's our secret then, just between the two of us.'

‘Course, Miss Marney,' said Kate, and the old lady patted her on the head and went indoors.

It was a difficult promise to keep that evening with the zoo open as usual and all her friends around her. She longed to tell them all about Miss Marney and her amazing house of books, and she would have done but for a powerful feeling of affection for the old lady. She had been welcomed into a house where no other person had gone in fifty years, and she had been trusted by the old lady to keep their meeting a secret. Tempted as she was she could not and would not tell anyone, but she did go so far as to promise that tomorrow she might have a very special new attraction in the zoo.

‘Where will you get it from?' they asked.

‘What is it?'

‘Can we pick it up like the grass snake?'

‘Aha,' she said mysteriously to everyone. She knew she had said enough to bring them all back the next day
with money in their pockets and so she said no more.

‘I saw you up on the moor again this afternoon,' said her father that evening after supper. ‘See you a mile off clambering around in that yellow shirt of yours. Find what you were looking for?'

‘Sort of, Father,' she said and she smiled to herself.

‘Nowhere near that house was she?' her mother asked sharply.

But to Kate's great relief no reply came from her father who was hidden again behind his newspaper.

‘You keep away from there like I told you,' said her mother. ‘From what I hear, and I wouldn't be surprised, there's some people say she's a witch.'

‘I don't believe in witches,' said Kate.

‘Never you mind what you believe in,' said her mother. ‘You just mind what I say. There's things I could tell you my girl.'

The next morning she was up at first light to prepare a home for Jasper in the old stable that no one used any more. The greenhouse was already over-crowded and anyway she knew enough to know that Jasper and her
creepy crawlies would not get on together. She cleared out the old rusty chains and plough shares, the rotten corn sacks and fertiliser bags, and swept it all clean. The hay-rack would make a perfect perch for Jasper when he was better and he would have room to spread his wings. Meanwhile she made a mattress of soft hay for Jasper to lie on.

The mist had come down again as she climbed up into the clouds towards the lost house. Even before she knocked on the front door she heard the old lady talking and laughing to herself at the back of the house.

‘Come in, Kate,' she heard, and so she pushed open the door and went through into the kitchen.

Miss Marney was sitting in her rocking chair by the stove and sitting on her shoulder was Jasper who cawed unpleasantly at Kate as she came closer. Kate stood astonished. She could see no trace of his wounds. He seemed totally recovered.

‘Don't mind him Kate, it's only talk. Come in, come in – he won't hurt. You didn't tell anyone you'd been up here did you?'

‘No, Miss Marney,' Kate said quite unable to take her
eyes off Jasper. ‘But I don't understand,' she said. ‘He was almost dead yesterday. How do you do it?'

‘Almost dead, but not quite,' said the old lady. ‘He'll need some care, some rest and some good food – meat mind you. He likes his meat, don't you Jasper? Then he'll be righter than rain in a few weeks.'

‘But how did you do it, Miss Marney?' Kate asked reaching out cautiously to smooth Jasper on the head.

‘Oh, I have my ways,' Miss Marney said chortling. ‘I have my ways. I'm quite pleased with him really. To be honest with you I was quite worried when you brought him in, but there's not a lot I can't do if I put my mind to it. Would you have a cup of tea, child? I've only one cup. I've only ever had need for one cup, you understand. But I've had mine so I'll wash it up and let you have a fresh cup. Jasper will go to you, won't you Jasper? He can't fly yet, so come a little closer so that he can hop onto your shoulder. That's right.' The raven put its head on one side and looked warily at Kate, who looked back just as warily. ‘Go on Jasper, don't be silly,' said the old lady and she jerked her shoulder to get him to move, and Jasper hopped obediently across onto Kate's shoulder.
‘Quite a weight, isn't he?' said Miss Marney. Tea won't be long. I've got the kettle on the boil.'

With Jasper balanced on her shoulder, Kate sipped her sweet strong tea and listened intently to the old lady as she sat back, rocking gently in her chair and talked and talked. It seemed as if she was making up for all those fifty years in which she had spoken to no-one. She talked of all her animal friends on the moor and of her beloved books. She had read every one of them several times over. She dreaded the cold of the winters she told Kate, for there was never enough money to heat the room and keep the damp away from her bones and the mildew away from her books. Her greatest desire in the world, she said, was for a great warm woolly coat and a hat to cover her ears. Every question that Kate wanted to ask she answered before she could even ask it. Miss Marney was a writer, she said, not a good writer, but not a bad one either. She wrote stories about all the people who lived below the Eagle's Nest, about all the farms she could see from her house, and about the animals and the birds and of course about her moor. But no one would ever read them, she said, because no one would
believe them. ‘They would think they are just made-up stories, but everything I write I have seen with my own eye, my mind's eye perhaps, but I see it just as clear as day.'

Several cups of tea later Kate felt she knew and loved the old lady better than anyone else in the whole world, but one thing still troubled her about Miss Marney.

‘Miss Marney,' she said. ‘It's about the bird . . .?'

‘Jasper,' said the old lady smiling. ‘Jasper. You must call him by his name – it's only polite you know. All right Kate, I know what you want to know. And you are my friend so you shall know. But you must never tell anyone what I am about to tell you for it is something that people do not understand, and what people cannot understand they fear, and when they fear they hate.' She sat back in her rocking chair and sighed sadly. ‘I have a gift,' she said. ‘I do not know where it comes from, but I have the gift of healing.'

‘You mean,' said Kate, ‘you mean that you can heal anything you want to? Then what they say is true, you are a kind of witch, a good witch.'

The old lady's eyes were closed and she nodded.

‘I suppose so,' she said quietly. ‘If it lives I can heal it, that's all there is to it. So now you know my secret. Guard it well my little friend, for if anyone were ever to find out that Mad Miss Marney really did have strange powers, then you know what they'd do, don't you?'

‘No, Miss Marney,' said Kate.

‘They'd put me away, Kate, like they did to my old mother. She had strange powers and they didn't like it so they sent her to a home and she never came back to me. That's why I have never trusted anyone before, why I have never told anyone of my gift, except you. And that's why no one else must ever know.'

It was a slow walk back over the moor with Jasper perched heavily on her shoulder. The warm sun had dispersed the mist and the sea was there again. As Kate came down the track towards home she could see that her usual customers were already waiting outside the greenhouse. She managed to dodge around the back of the house without being seen and lifted Jasper up onto his perch before going down to the bottom of the garden to face her clamouring friends outside the greenhouse. She took their money and put it in the
biscuit-tin she used for a bank and then led them back into the stable-yard.

Once outside the stable with her back to the door she proudly introduced her new exhibit.

‘He's the biggest bird in the world,' she said. ‘I found him yesterday, wounded up on the moor, shot to pieces he was – didn't think he'd survive the night. But I brought him back and I nursed him and now he's righter than rain. 'Course he can't fly a lot yet, but he will as soon as he's strong again. He's called Jasper and he's a raven and if you want him on your shoulder it's a penny extra, like the grass snake.'

And then she let them in. His size and his presence overawed and fascinated them totally. He was an immediate success. They could not take their eyes off the enormous black bird that sat glaring down at them from the high hay-rack; and once they had seen him perching on Kate's shoulder everyone wanted a turn – at a penny a time.

The biscuit-tin bank weighed a lot heavier that night. Kate knew now exactly what she would do with the money, but wondered how she could ever save enough.

It was little Laura Linnet's mouse that gave her the idea. The next morning she was taking a handful of purloined minced meat into the stable for Jasper's breakfast when Laura Linnet came running into the yard, her face red and smudged with tears. She had a box in her hands, a brown cardboard box with holes in the top.

‘It's my mouse,' she cried. ‘The cat was playing with it and I shooed it away but it's hurt and I think maybe it's dead. It's not hardly moving but I thought if you could mend that big black bird then you could mend my mouse.'

By this time all Laura's brothers and sisters and cousins were filling the yard, all of them good zoo customers. They were all watching and waiting for her decision. Kate lifted the lid of the box and saw that the mouse was still living. Its eyes were open and it was lying in one corner of the box its heart beating frantically. Kate's mind was working feverishly for she could see already the opportunities but had yet to work them out. She thought for a full minute, appearing to examine the mouse minutely as a doctor would a patient. Then when
her plan was fully formed, she announced to everyone that she could indeed cure it.

‘It takes time though,' she said. ‘Always does. I'll have to keep the mouse until tomorrow afternoon. By that time it'll be better.'

‘How will you do it?' Laura asked, sniffing back her tears.

‘I have my ways,' Kate said mysteriously. ‘I have my ways. There's not a lot I can't do when I put my mind to it.' And then she added, ‘It'll cost you five pence though.'

Miss Marney was not sure if she would ever see Kate again. She had lain awake all night wondering if her secret might have frightened the little girl away, so she was delighted when she saw Kate opening the gate from the moor and running up towards the house; and she was only too pleased to take in the injured mouse for it meant she would be seeing more of her new friend whose company had become suddenly very important to her after all the long years of loneliness.

‘Laura's very upset, you know,' said Kate, ‘and seeing as how you've got the healing powers, I thought, if you
don't mind – I thought maybe you could cure it.'

‘Do you know, Kate, I really don't like mice. I don't know why. But I'll do what I can for anything you bring me,' said the old lady setting the box down on the kitchen table and peering anxiously inside. ‘But no one must know about it. No one must ever know.' And she poured out a cup of strong sweet tea again and sat down in her rocking-chair smiling happily. ‘Do you like stories, Kate?' she said leaning forward. ‘Shall I read you a story that no one's ever heard before?' She did not wait for an answer, for she knew she did not need to. ‘I've called it “The Giant's Necklace”.'

It was a ghostly little story and Kate sat enthralled throughout; but the tea and the story came to an end too soon, as all good things do; and with the promise that she would be back tomorrow to collect the mouse, Kate ran back down past the Eagle's Nest across the road and back home to Wicca.

Kate had absolute faith in Miss Marney's healing powers and so she was not a bit surprised that when she went back to pick up the mouse the next day it was running round its box fully restored. She stayed for her
tea and her story, this time a strange one about a crippled boy who went to live with the seals, before she made her way back home with the mouse-box.

Laura Linnet and her friends arrived at the greenhouse soon after she got back and when Kate opened the box there was a gasp of admiration and amazement from everyone around her.

‘That'll be five pence,' said Kate, and then she made her announcement. ‘I'll be setting up an animal hospital,' she said. ‘It'll be in the old chapel – in secret. My powers will only work if it's in secret. And I don't want anyone else ever to know. If they do all the animals I have healed will just roll over and die. Bring along any sick animals, any bird, any creepy-crawly. I'll cure anything you like for five pence a time.'