Three Bags Full (23 page)

“Who?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say. It was an old story, he said, and he laughed a little.”

“Right.” Rebecca disappeared up the steps of the shepherd’s caravan and came back with a scrap of paper.

“‘Received from Lilly Thompson, the sum of three hundred euros for woollen goods.’ And the phone number’s on there too.”

Lilly happily stuffed the paper down her neckline, and looked gratefully at Rebecca.

“Now get out,” said Rebecca. “And if you meet anyone else on the way here, tell them to turn back. Because the next person who disturbs my sleep gets shot right away.”

Lilly nodded, alarmed. Then she tottered back toward the gate. When she was halfway over the meadow the sheep heard one of her sharp little screams again. Lilly had trodden in a pile of sheep droppings.

The sheep thought it best to go back into the hay barn. Who could tell what might make Rebecca feel that her sleep had been disturbed?

“What about Mopple?” asked Zora. “We can’t just leave him standing all alone in the meadow.”

There was still no waking Mopple, but the sheep discovered that he could walk in his sleep. It worked if Othello and Ritchfield pushed him with their horns from behind, while the rest of the flock struck up a bleat of “Fodder!” in front of him.

Before they went to sleep they thought a little more about Europe.

“It will be lovely,” said Maude. “There will be apple trees everywhere, that’s for sure, and the ground will have mouse weed growing all over it.”

“Nonsense,” said Zora. “Europe is on the edge of an abyss, and everyone knows mouse weed doesn’t grow in an abyss.”

“How big do you think Europe is?” asked Cordelia dreamily.

“Oh, big,” said Lane with conviction. “A sheep would have to gallop like the wind for a day and a night to cross the whole of Europe.”

“And there are apple trees everywhere?” asked Maisie, marveling.

“Apple trees everywhere,” Cloud confirmed. “But with real apples on them, red ones, sweet ones, yellow ones, not like ours here.”

They were in a mood of happy anticipation. Impatiently, the sheep bleated for Europe.

Othello spoiled their fun.

“It’s not that simple,” he snorted. “Not even in Europe. It’s not like that anywhere. It will be dangerous and strange too. A sheep will have to be as watchful there as anywhere else in the world. Maybe even more watchful.”

Sir Ritchfield agreed with him. “There’s nowhere in the world where only apple trees grow. You always have prickly gorse and sorrel too, thistles and spew weed. There’s a cold wind in your wool and sharp stones under your hooves everywhere.”

Ritchfield was wearing his official expression as lead ram and looking sternly round. The sheep lowered their heads. Their most experienced rams were probably right. No apples without bitter sorrel. Nowhere without danger.

When Ritchfield saw all those disappointed faces, he thought it his duty as lead ram to add a word of encouragement.

“We can look forward to Europe, all the same,” he said. “Only not as a lush dream meadow, but like a …a…” Ritchfield couldn’t think of a comparison.

“Like being shorn?” asked Cordelia. “It twitches and nips you and everything goes round. But afterward you feel light and cool.”

Sir Ritchfield looked gratefully at Cordelia. “Exactly. Like being shorn.”

The sheep fell asleep, one by one, with pleasantly cool thoughts of a summer shearing in their minds. Mopple did something he had never done before: he made snorting, snoring noises in his sleep.

Gradually these snoring sounds became more rhythmic, more metallic. Now and then there was a little bang. Miss Maple tore her eyes open with difficulty. Gray light fell into the hay barn through the skylights. It must be early morning. The snorting suddenly turned to rattling and clattering. Stones sprayed through the air. These sounds were strangely familiar to Miss Maple. She had heard them every morning, almost all her life, when George’s car turned off the road and into the path across the fields.

When she had made her way through the door of the hay barn, George was already sitting on the steps of the shepherd’s caravan. Miss Maple trotted closer, curious. On seeing her, George raised his head and grinned.

“Get to work, you lazy creature!” he said.

Miss Maple obediently put her head down in the grass. Now that George had so unexpectedly come back to them, she was happy to do as he wanted. But George didn’t seem to be pleased with her.

“Get to work,” he repeated. This time it sounded more serious. Miss Maple realized that he didn’t mean the work of grazing this time, but something else. She flapped her ears, at a loss.

George saw that she wouldn’t get any further on her own, and let out a long-drawn whistle. “Round up the flock” was what that whistle meant. But instead of Tess, the spade suddenly shot around the corner of the shepherd’s caravan. As spades go, it made a very good sheepdog. It came quite close to Maple and then put its nose down in the grass. The two nails fixing the blade to the handle suddenly looked very much like eyes: lively, watchful eyes. Maple bleated uneasily, but the spade would not back off. It inched its way closer, bit by bit, with those nail eyes always turned on Miss Maple.

The spade was scenting the air in a terrible, noseless way, its thin wooden back bent as if to spring. Suddenly Miss Maple was afraid. She made for George in search of help, but he was cold as frozen ground.

“Why are you dead, George?” she asked. Her words rang out over the meadow, loud and echoing like human language. George would understand every one of them. Miss Maple thought it was wonderful to be understood like that by a human.

“I cannot live without my soul,” said George.

It wasn’t a satisfactory answer, but it was the only one she was going to get from George now. As he spoke, George changed, though you couldn’t really see what was different. But a sheep could smell it. When the last word had left his lips, dragging along like a lazy wave, there was only an empty husk left on the steps of the shepherd’s caravan.

At that moment the spade leaped up in a single, perfect arching movement, its metal nose making straight for Maple…

Suddenly Miss Maple was wide awake.

“I know!” she bleated at Cloud, who had snuggled close to her in her sleep.

“You know what?” asked Cloud sleepily.

“All of it!” said Miss Maple. “I know all about George’s murder!”

20

What Maisie Knows

A little later all the sheep except for Mopple were on their hooves again, still half asleep but in good spirits. Miss Maple was the cleverest sheep in all Glennkill. And now she knew all of it! The sheep would rather just have been told the murderer’s name; but Miss Maple didn’t seem to know where she should begin.

“I’d never have thought of it if it hadn’t been in the book,” she said. “What a good thing George said in the Last Will and Testament that she has to read to us.”

The sheep couldn’t make head or tail of this. They were getting worried: Maple really did seem to be very worked up.

“She’ll read aloud to us again,” said Cordelia soothingly. “She must. It says so in the Last Will and Testament.”

“But we know enough already,” said Miss Maple. “She read just the right bit out loud. Do you remember what she read to us? Exactly, I mean?”

In search of help, the sheep looked at Mopple the Whale. But he was sleeping a rock-solid sleep. When Zora nipped his rear end quite hard, he didn’t even twitch his ears.

Miss Maple waited patiently until all attempts to wake Mopple had broken up in frustrated bleating.

“Think about it,” she said.

The sheep obediently thought about it.

“There was something about resting,” said Maude. “She read that aloud.”

“And there was the bit about the abyss,” said Zora.

“And about the way the murdered
do
haunt their murderers,” said Cordelia, with a shudder.

“Exactly,” said Miss Maple. “It’s like a trail through the grass, do you see? Why the spade, we wondered, if George was dead already? What was it for?”

Miss Maple let her flock think about that for a little while and then, losing patience, answered the question herself.

“The murderer was afraid of being haunted. The idea of the spade was to prevent that. How could George haunt his murderer if the spade was pinning him to the ground of the meadow? That’s what the murderer must have thought. But”—and she paused for effect—“but he was wrong.”

Things were getting exciting now. The sheep crowded closer together.

“Because the murder victim can haunt his murderer in
any form
. It says so in the book. George didn’t need his own form anymore, so he could choose anything he liked. And we all know what George liked.”

“Us,” said Heather proudly. “He liked us better than human beings.”

“Quite right,” said Miss Maple. “That means George is haunting his murderer in the form of a sheep. So now we just have to think who is being haunted by sheep.”

That was easy.

“God!” bleated Lane, Cordelia, and Cloud in unison.

“Quite right,” said Miss Maple.

“But,” said Zora hesitantly, “wasn’t that Othello?”

Maple nodded. “Once, yes. In the graveyard. But he mentioned a gray ram too. Imagine George in the form of a sheep—he could easily look like a gray ram.”

“I’d love to see him like that,” said Cordelia.

Miss Maple shook her head. “I don’t think it would work. Probably only the murderer can see him.”

The sheep sighed. They would have been so happy to welcome George into their flock.

“But why?” bleated Heather.

“That’s just the way it is,” said Cloud soothingly.

“No!” Heather obstinately shook her head. “I mean why did the long-nosed man murder George?”

All eyes were turned on Miss Maple. Yes, why?

“The book tells us that too,” she said. “It says, ‘I
cannot
live without my soul!’” She looked at her flock with sparkling eyes.

“So what?” bleated Heather.

“That reminded me that dying and souls have something to do with each other,” explained Miss Maple, concentrating much too hard to mind about Heather’s interruptions. “When you’re dead your soul has to leave your body. Because the body smells bad after death, and the soul’s sensitive nose can’t stand it. And then the soul is vulnerable. We heard about the Devil’s hounds. Someone wanted George’s soul before it fell into the jaws of the Devil’s hounds. The murderer wanted George’s soul for himself.”

Miss Maple took a deep breath. You could almost see her thoughts galloping through the hay barn, out into the meadow, up to the dolmen, on to the abyss, and back again, to and fro, following mysterious patterns.

“We heard how scared God is about his own soul. Dreadfully scared. So it would be only logical for him to try to get hold of a replacement soul…”

The sheep thoughtfully put their heads on one side. They hadn’t looked at it that way before. Feeling sure of herself, Miss Maple waggled her ears and went on.

“The spade itself gave something away. What do you think of when you think of a spade?”

“A spade, of course,” said Cloud.

Maple sighed. “What else?”

“Mouse weed!” said Maude at once.

The others looked at her.

“Why mouse weed?” asked Zora.

“Why not?” said Maude. “I often think of mouse weed.”

“But mouse weed has nothing to do with it,” said Heather.

“She didn’t say it had to have something to do with it,” said Maude, offended. “I can think of mouse weed whenever I like.”

“But it doesn’t mean anything,” said Heather.

“It means a whole lot!” Maude looked at her flock with eyes that sparkled angrily. “I’m going to think of mouse weed all night now! Just letting you know!”

Maude closed her eyes and thought very hard about mouse weed. The other sheep went on wondering about the spade.

“A vegetable garden!” bleated Zora.

That was obvious. George had dug the vegetable garden with his spade. He used it to dig up weeds and trace straight lines on the soil. He drew narrow furrows with the handle, and scattered seeds or planted seedlings in the furrows. The spade and the vegetable garden belonged together.

Miss Maple nodded, pleased. “Exactly. I was sure the spade meant something. God’s garden—do you remember about that? It was a clue. The vegetable garden where dead people are planted with a spade. The long-nosed man dug holes with a spade and shut the souls up in them. He didn’t want just one extra soul, he wanted a large supply of them.”

The sheep were amazed. Suddenly it all fit together the way chestnuts fit perfectly into their husks. Miss Maple really was the cleverest sheep in Glennkill.

“But…” someone in the back row bleated shyly. The sheep turned their heads. Maisie! Maisie, of all sheep! Curiously, and with just a touch of malice, the sheep pricked up their ears to hear what Maisie knew.

“But it can’t have been God,” bleated Maisie excitedly. “He said George was a lost soul. If he thought George had already lost his soul anyway, there wasn’t any point in taking it away from him.”

Maisie twitched her ears.

The other sheep looked at her crossly.

But Miss Maple was not offended. After all, what mattered to her was the truth, and it seemed that she didn’t know the truth yet.

“I’m sure it’s about his soul,” she said. “It must all fit together somehow or other.”

“Beth doesn’t have a soul,” Maude suddenly bleated. She had quickly got bored with thinking of mouse weed.

Although the sheep had never thought about that before, it immediately made sense. No one who smelled as dead as Beth could have a good nose. If you had a good nose you couldn’t stand it.

Miss Maple stood perfectly still for quite some time. Not even the tips of her ears twitched. She stood the way very old rams stand, lost in thought and completely motionless.

“But Beth wanted a soul more than anything,” she said at last. “Because you can’t really live without your soul. It says so in the book.”

Othello raised his head. The other sheep could see from his eyes that he had understood something.

“She came to George’s caravan year after year,” Miss Maple went on. “She brought him books, because she knew George liked books. She hoped George would begin to like her so much that in the end he’d give her his soul.”

“But George didn’t do it,” said Rameses. “George burned those tract things.”

“Exactly,” said Maple. “That was clever of him. Then Beth started saying something about good works and how George’s soul was in danger. She wanted to take it away with her to somewhere safe, where the soul could do good works.”

“She wanted to take it to God?” asked Heather curiously.

“That was just an excuse, of course,” said Miss Maple. “Beth wouldn’t really have taken the soul to God. She’d have kept it, and George would never have seen it again.”

“But George didn’t go along with that,” said Lane, relieved. “George began working in the vegetable garden. With the spade.”

“That was clever too,” said Miss Maple. “Because that way he could do his own good work. Beth had no excuse for taking his soul away anymore.”

The sheep remembered: Beth had turned up in front of the caravan steps so often, talking about George’s soul. They’d always fallen for it, never suspecting anything. “Like a fox,” said Cordelia, “a fox who finds an injured lamb. And prowls around it in smaller and smaller circles until it’s so weak that it doesn’t defend itself anymore.”

“But George wasn’t weak,” said Othello proudly. “He kept defending himself.”

Miss Maple nodded. “And Beth kept waiting. Sometime or other, she thought, sometime or other …And then—do you remember what I told you? It’s all to do with the spade! I just didn’t understand how it all fits together at first. The spade means the vegetable garden. It means that George defended himself. It means that Beth couldn’t get at his soul.”

Miss Maple paused for a moment.

“But then she found out that George was going away to Europe, taking his soul with him. She’d waited all those years, like a spider in its web. She had to do something if her waiting wasn’t to have been in vain. And we all know what she did.”

Impressed, the sheep said nothing. Except for Zora.

“But what about the murdered haunting their murderers?” asked Zora. “Beth wasn’t haunted by a sheep.”

Maple thought.

“That’s what it looks like,” she said after a while. “But it wasn’t really like that. We’ve even seen Beth being haunted twice, with our own eyes.”

The sheep thought, but for the life of them they couldn’t remember anything. And Mopple, the memory sheep, uttered nothing but snoring sounds.

“You have to remember that we probably can’t see the ghostly sheep,” said Miss Maple. “Only the murderer can see it. But we were watching Beth when she saw the ghost. Once at that picnic. Remember how Beth looked at the place where George died? She was so scared she couldn’t even eat anything.”

The sheep did remember. Lack of appetite in view of all the delicious things on the brightly colored picnic cloth was an infallible sign that Beth really had been scared.

“The second time was when Rebecca opened the door of the shepherd’s caravan. We were all waiting for something to come out. But Beth
saw
something come out.”

They remembered how Beth had stared at the door wide-eyed with horror.

“You think…?” asked Cloud.

Maple nodded. “Beth saw George’s ghost. She almost gave herself away once. Remember how she said she couldn’t live here again until that black sheep had left the flock? What could Beth have against Othello? She must have been talking about George’s ghost.”

This time there could be no doubt about it. Miss Maple had found a watertight solution to the mystery. The sheep, much impressed, were silent.

“Do you think she got it?” asked Cordelia after a while.

“Got what?” asked Zora.

“George’s soul,” said Cordelia.

“Well, if she did, she’ll have to give it back again,” said Sir Ritchfield sternly. A soul was the opposite of a Thing. It was something that helped you to discover the world. Something very valuable and very important even if, as in the case of humans, it was only a very small soul.

Miss Maple shook her head. “She hasn’t got George’s soul. Just look at her. She looks like someone who’s lost something that mattered to her and will never find it.”

She was right. The sheep breathed a sigh of relief because George’s soul had escaped Beth. But did they have justice yet?

“Justice!” the winter lamb suddenly bleated into the silence. No one chased him off.

“Justice!” Othello agreed.

“Justice!” bleated the other sheep.

“But how?” asked Lane.

“It’s her fault George is dead,” said Cloud. “It would be justice for her to be dead too.”

That sounded like good sense.

“It wouldn’t be difficult,” said Othello. “Maybe we can’t do it just the way she did, with poison and a spade. But we could push her off the cliffs, for instance.”

“Not the cliffs,” said Zora.

“But she said she wasn’t afraid of death,” bleated Heather. “Remember? She kept saying so. And we want her to be afraid!”

The sheep bleated. They wanted Beth to be afraid! That would be justice. These last few days
they
had been afraid of the terrible things happening in the meadow.

“We could pretend to be ill again,” suggested Cordelia. “It worked well with Gabriel.”

But somehow it seemed to the flock as if the diseases of sheep were not the way to frighten Beth.

Miss Maple trotted up and down in the dark. “It must get out. They’re
all
afraid of that. We must make sure it gets out. Not out of the shepherd’s caravan, out of our heads. All the humans have to know. That’s justice.”

“But they don’t understand us,” said Cloud.

“It’s difficult,” Miss Maple admitted. “We could get them to understand something if they’d only pay attention to us. The only thing they pay attention to is the caravan.”

“Except for the butcher,” Sara objected. “The butcher pays a lot of attention to sheep now.” None of them, however, wanted to communicate with Ham.

Lost in thought, Miss Maple trotted up and down for a long time.

Then she stopped. “There
is
one thing that makes human beings pay attention to sheep!” Miss Maple looked around her, beaming. But the only sheep who seemed to be pleased with her brain wave was Miss Maple herself. During her long period of cogitation the others had fallen asleep, one by one.