A Hat Full Of Sky

Chapter Six The Hiver

Thunder rolled across the Chalk.

Jeannie carefully opened the package that her mother had given her on the day she left the Long Lake mound. It was a traditional gift, one that every young kelda got when she went away, never to return. Keldas could never go home. Keldas were home.

The gift was this: memory.

Inside the bag was a triangle of tanned sheepskin, three wooden stakes, a length of string twisted out of nettle fibres, a tiny leather bottle and a hammer.

She knew what to do, because she’d seen her mother do it many times. The hammer was used to bang in the stakes around the smouldering fire. The string was used to tie the three corners of the leather triangle to the stakes so that it sagged in the centre, just enough to hold a small bucket of water which Jeannie had drawn herself from the deep well.

She knelt down and waited until the water very slowly began to seep through the leather, then built up the fire.

She was aware of all the eyes of the Feegles in the shadowy galleries around and above her. None of them would come near her while she was boiling the cauldron. They’d rather chop their own leg off. This was pure hiddlins.

And this was what a cauldron really was, back in the days before humans had worked copper or poured iron. It looked like magic. It was supposed to. But if you knew the trick, you could see how the cauldron would boil dry before the leather burned.

When the water in the skin was steaming, she damped down the fire and added to the water the contents of the little leather bottle, which contained some of the water from her mother’s cauldron. That’s how it had always gone, from mother to daughter, since the very beginning.

Jeannie waited until the cauldron had cooled some more, then took up a cup, filled it and drank. There was a sigh from the shadowy Feegles.

She lay back and closed her eyes, waiting. Nothing happened except that the thunder rattled the land and the lightning turned the world black and white.

And then, so gently that it had already happened before she realized that it was starting to happen, the past caught up with her. There, around her, were all the old keldas, starting with her mother, her grandmothers, their mothers… back until there was no one to remember… one big memory, carried for a while by many, worn and hazy in parts but old as a mountain.

But all the Feegles knew about that. Only the kelda knew about the real hiddlin, which was this: the river of memory wasn’t a river, it was a sea.

Keldas yet to be born would remember, one day. On nights yet to come, they’d lie by their cauldron and become, for a few minutes, part of the eternal sea. By listening to unborn keldas remembering their past, you remember your future…

You needed skill to find those faint voices, and Jeannie did not have all of it yet, but something was there.

As lightning turned the world to black and white again she sat bolt upright.

‘It’s found her,’ she whispered… ‘Oh, the puir wee thing!’

Rain had soaked into the rug when Tiffany woke up. Damp daylight spilled into the room.

She got up and closed the window. A few leaves had blown in.

O-K.

It hadn’t been a dream. She was certain of that. Something… strange had happened. The tips of her fingers were tingling. She felt… different. But not, now she took stock, in a bad way. No. Last night she’d felt awful, but now, now she felt… full of life.

Actually, she felt happy. She was going to take charge. She was going to take control of her life. Get-up-and-go had got up and come.

The green dress was rumpled and really it needed a wash. She’d got her old blue one in the chest of drawers but, somehow, it didn’t seem right to wear it now. She’d have to make do with the green until she could get another one.

She went to put on her boots, then stopped and stared at them.

They just wouldn’t do, not now. She got the new shiny ones out of her case and wore them instead.

She found both of Miss Level was out in the wet garden in her nighties, sadly picking up bits of dreamcatcher and fallen apples. Even some of the garden ornaments had been smashed, although the madly grinning gnomes had unfortunately escaped destruction.

Miss Level brushed her hair out of one pair of her eyes and said: ‘Very, very strange. All the curse-nets seem to have exploded. Even the boredom stones are discharged! Did you notice anything?’

‘No, Miss Level,’ said Tiffany meekly.

‘And all the old shambles in the workroom are in pieces! I mean, I know they are really only ornamental and have next to no power left, but something really strange must have happened.’

Both of her gave Tiffany a look that Miss Level probably thought was very sly and cunning, but it made her look slightly ill.

‘The storm seemed a touch magical to me. I suppose you girls weren’t doing anything… odd last night, were you, dear?’ she said.

‘No, Miss Level. I thought they were a bit silly.’

‘Because, you see, Oswald seems to have gone,’ said Miss Level. ‘He’s very sensitive to atmospheres…’

It took Tiffany a moment to understand what she was talking about. Then she said: ‘But he’s always here!’

‘Yes, ever since I can remember!’ said Miss Level.

‘Have you tried putting a spoon in the knife drawer?’

‘Yes, of course! Not so much as a rattle!’

‘Dropped an apple core? He always—’

‘That was the first thing I tried!’

‘How about the salt and sugar trick?’

Miss Level hesitated. ‘Well, no…’ She brightened up. ‘He does love that one, so he’s bound to turn up, yes?’

Tiffany found the big bag of salt and another of sugar, and poured both of them into a bowl. Then she stirred up the fine white crystals with her hand.

She’d found this was the ideal away of keeping Oswald occupied while they did the cooking. Sorting the salt and sugar grains back into the right bags could take him an entire happy afternoon. But now the mixture just lay there, Oswaldless.