The Fabulous Beast Page 15

  Again the Council were undecided. They requested support. The elephant’s child turned to the human’s child.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t give it to him,’ said the human’s child, without a blink of his eye. ‘He’s got enough already.’

  Midnight showed in the heavens. The Council disbanded for the last time, thanking each other, saying how well they had done to populate the Earth with such multi-hued creatures of fur, feather and scales.

  ‘A mobile work of art,’ said the fox-spirit. ‘It lifts your heart to see it in motion. And how well everyone fits! All good creatures in all the right places. No one of them lording it over the other. A good job, indeed!’

  The elephant’s child and the human’s child were left alone. The human began to walk away from the rock, or perhaps strut might be a better word. The elephant called after him, ‘You cheat! You betrayer!’

  The human flexed his new opposable thumbs, knowing his intricate brain was capable of inventing fantastical devices. He lifted up his hands, closed one eye and sighted along a pair of lined-up index fingers. The elephant felt very uncomfortable under this squint-eyed scrutiny and backed away. Then something appeared on the features of the human. It was that other thing which had been requested by the two-legged creature and was unique to him alone out of all the creatures on the Earth.

  ‘One day you’ll regret you made those remarks,’ said the human, the smile on his face. ‘You’re a big target.’

  La Belle Dame Sans Grâce

  There are few ways left to us to reach that Otherworld, the land of Faerie, in this age of technology. The creatures who live in that strange time-place which has always existed alongside ours do not like machines. They actually despise the wheel, let alone anything that followed it. These days we have cars, aeroplanes, mobile phones, computers, televisions, and all the rest of the modern junk. This ensures they want very little to do with us. It’s a sad state, but that’s the way it is.

  Indeed, since the industrial revolution fairies and mortals have, for the most part, gone their separate ways.

  However, there are one or two people – myself included – the name’s Jack by the way – who still seek ways of crossing over. Explorers of Otherworld. The rewards can be well worth the risk. And there is a risk. If you’re caught over there the chances of spending the rest of your life as something bulbous and loathsome, covered in warts, are pretty high. It follows then, that prolonged searches for fairy gold should not be one of your expedition goals. One should enter, snatch whatever is lying around, and get out quickly. Believe me, whatever it is, it will have value: some wonderful use here. A pebble, feather, leaf, or twig – anything. You will discover it has amazing powers.

  I make it sound as if I’ve done it a hundred times. I haven’t. It’s incredibly difficult to cross over. God knows I tried a thousand times since that first visit, and failed every one of them. Except the last. That’s how I know it’s still there. You only need to go once to feel the power of the place. Awesome is a much-used word these days, but that’s what Faerie is – awesome. It overwhelms you with its fragrances, its scintillating atmosphere, the clarity of its sounds. The environment is charged with high magic: it crackles like static electricity. You touch a tree and sparks of magic jump to your fingertips. There are also unnamed strangenesses in the air: many, many strangenesses. They flit through your mind or touch your spirit, too flimsy to hold onto, leaving faint uncomfortable tinges of enchantment behind.

  So, how does one get there?

  First, I told Charlotte I was going sailing on Loch Tay, in the Highlands of Scotland.

  ‘I won’t be gone long,’ I said. ‘Back next week at the latest.’

  Charley didn’t ask to come with me. She’s not very good at physical activities, being unusually clumsy and uncoordinated. Not her fault, of course, but she can’t kick or bat a ball without losing her balance. It doesn’t matter. She’s just made that way – or was. If I took her on a boat she’d fall in the water stepping into it.

  No, I certainly didn’t want to take Charley on such an expedition. She’d probably trip up was we fled for the boat with a dozen angry fairies behind us, itching to bewitch our backsides. She’s beautiful and I love her dearly, but she is a hindrance sometimes. And the one thing you don’t want to bring out of the Otherworld is an unwanted spell. I think I’ve said that before, haven’t I? It bears repeating.

  So I went alone, as usual, as planned. I hired the same ancient clinkerbuilt rowboat from a creased old Scot named Tam who lived in a croft on the edge of the loch. The older the boat, the better. It was one of those craft that had been built by the grandfathers of grandfathers. They last centuries, if maintained. Then I waited for the right ambience. I needed a swirling early-morning mist, no wind of course, in which I could drift and hope for a landing. Such mornings are not uncommon and in the late autumn I duly found myself on the placid waters of Loch Tay, the plash of my oar the only sound in the world.

  One such grey dawn I was drifting idly through the mist, hardly even touching the surface of the water with my oars. My head was full of things other than expedition goals. Like an angler who has not had a bite in a long long time, I had drifted in my mind too, and was thinking about Charley’s birthday and the gift I needed to buy. Suddenly a dark wedge of land loomed out of the Scottish mist to starboard. It seemed to speak to me immediately, without words, without any sound at all.

  My heart leapt and started beating faster. I knew success was nearby at last. I had only visited that land once before, in my childhood, quite by accident. But I knew it when I saw it. I felt it. These were the shores of Faerie. At last, after scores of such expeditions, I had found my way back to that wonderful place. The last time I had come, after being lost on a Yorkshire moor, they had caught me – and let me go. A child who has crossed over by accident is not regarded as a threat. However, I was now an adult and fully responsible. Scottish fairies are packed with menace and especially vicious towards Sassenachs: I could not afford to be caught this time. In and out. I had to be there and gone.

  ‘Here I go,’ I cried, the fear in me quite real. ‘Something quick and easy to reach . . .’

  The boat’s prow crunched on a gravel bottom. I leapt over the bows and ran up a sandy beach to a mossy bank. Looking around me quickly, all I could see in the mist was a single tree. I ran to it quickly, trying not to panic. First I looked up into its branches, hoping to see something there. Nothing . . . nothing . . . Next I tried to reach a branch, to break it off, but twist and turn as I might the damn tree would not give up so much as a twig. Finally I searched the ground around the base of the trunk, and YES! there was an overripe piece of fruit, not unlike a peach, lying nestled in exposed roots. Just as I snatched it up I heard a sound to my left, and turned to see a creature there.

  At first glance it appeared to be a scarecrow made of glittering tin foil folded into and around crisp brown paper. But I knew it was a fairy. Amazingly lean and angular it stared with wide, sparkling, magenta eyes at this audacious mortal, stealing from its orchard. I believe we were both so shocked neither of us moved for a second. Then I was away, my feet flying, leaving the fairy screeching like a wounded tropical bird.

  I fairly flung myself into the rowboat, thus shooting it out onto the waters of the loch. I had always promised myself I would not panic in such a situation, but of course I did. It took me twice as long as it should have done to get the oars into the rowlocks, but I managed it, and was soon cutting through the water and parting mist. Once I knew I was safe I collapsed in a heap at the bottom of the boat, still clutching my prize. I had done it. I had been into Faerie and come out with treasure!

  The lump in my hand felt mushy. When I was able to inspect it, I saw that the actual fruit had fallen away, leaving just a brown, dimpled stone. That was fine. There was no way I was going to eat food taken from the Otherworld anyway. My mind is quite capable of imagining what horrors of transmutation might lurk in the side effects of swallowing fairy fr
uit. What I had left though, was the kernel of that fruit. I did not know what this nut would produce for me, in the way of magic, but it would do something amazing of that I was sure.

  Charlotte seemed delighted to have me back.

  ‘Did you enjoy your sailing?’ she asked. ‘I hope you didn’t drink too much whisky up there – I know you and your single malts.’

  ‘I drank some whisky,’ I replied, kissing her lightly and then smiling. ‘Not too much.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to have you back. I missed you. I was getting lonely.’

  ‘I’m glad about that. I missed you too.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Charley, her face twisting into a mock grimace, ‘by the way, I broke your inkstand – I’m really really sorry. We’ll get it mended.’

  My heart sank. ‘My antique inkstand? Oh, Charley. You can’t mend something like that.’

  ‘I know. Oh dear. I’m very very sorry.’

  I forgave her of course, but cursed her clumsiness.

  That inkwell was a prize I won for one of my articles in the press. Did I tell you I write? Usually about wildlife. We live in Glasgow because I like city life, but I get away most weekends to the countryside, both north and south. The English lakes aren’t far away, and of course Scotland has acres of open space. Last week I did an article for Natural World about motorway kestrels – you must have seen them hovering over the verges? Why does a raptor choose a motorway verge to hunt its quarry? But I don’t want to bore you with my conclusions here – read the article if you’re at all interested in such matters.

  I put the pip, or kernel, whatever, on the blotter inside my writing bureau and left it there for days. At first I was very excited, opening the bureau every five minutes. Nothing happened. Was it just an ordinary peach stone after all? I couldn’t think so. I didn’t want to think so. And the truth was, when I held it in the palm of my hand it felt very much like an egg that’s about to give birth to a chick – I could feel something pulsing lightly within. But it actually didn’t realise my hopes of producing magic, not at that point in time. It wasn’t until I thought about it and said to myself, ‘Of course!’ remembering it was actually a seed. What I had to do was plant it and see what came out of the earth.

  So I planted it at the bottom of our small garden and tried to forget about it, since autumn had almost matured into winter.

  The damn thing shot up like a – well, like one of those quickened plants you see in a fast-frame movie, under a sky where the clouds race each other. Fortunately Charlotte had gone to her mother’s way down south in Hampshire and wasn’t witness to this astonishing phenomenon. By the time she came home the tree was there in its full maturity.

  She did of course express a great deal of surprise.

  ‘Where the heck did that come from?’

  ‘I – er – I bought it. Cheap. They thought they’d never get rid of it. The nursery guys planted it for us.’

  ‘But it’s winter! What did they use, pickaxes? Jack, for heaven’s sakes, it can’t possibly survive. This is the wrong time of year.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t cost much, so nothing lost.’

  ‘Didn’t cost much, but they sent a gang of men to plant it?’

  I shrugged and changed the subject.

  Christmas came and went. New Year – or Hogmanay as they say up here – followed suit. I watched the tree with keen eyes, waiting for something to happen. Charlotte had to go down south for a long time. Her mother had reached that point in life when her mind was failing. Charley was a dutiful daughter and had decided to spend some time with a parent who was rapidly deteriorating into senility. It gave me time to observe the tree, find its secret, and use that knowledge. And find it I did, once spring arrived and showed me the tree’s special powers.

  The fairy tree was shunned by the bees, but not the birds.

  What I witnessed astonished me – I was happy to be astonished at last – but the sight also sent icewater down my spine.

  Birds that come into my garden are in the main sparrows, starlings and the occasional blue tit or robin. Just ordinary garden birds that twitchers call lbjs – little brown jobs. Nothing very exciting at all. I was watching through the kitchen one bright morning as I sipped a cup of tea when a starling landed on the bough of the fairy tree. It seemed to become glued there, its claws stuck fast by a blob of sticky amber sap. But then I nearly choked on my tea. The bird began fluttering wildly, trying to escape, as the fairy tree absorbed it whole.

  That’s exactly what happened. The starling landed on an adhesive patch of oozing sap and was then gradually drawn lock, stock and tail feathers inside the branch on which it was trapped.

  The fairy tree swallowed it.

  When I rushed out I could find no trace of the starling on the bough. Not a mark or stain. I went back into the house and observed other birds landing on the tree. It was always the same. They stuck, they struggled, flapping their wings and presumably trying to wrench their little claws from the branch, all to no avail. Each tiny sparrow, every oily starling, and the occasional robin, was sucked into that tree.

  Perhaps this tree lived on blood, bones and feathers? A carnivorous plant? There were such things in the wild, though not quite so startling as this tree, with its insatiable appetite for garden birds. But not just birds. I witnessed a silly cat which had climbed up into the branches slowly disappearing into an invisible maw. One moment the terrified creature was pulling and tugging and making a terrible racket, then its legs were gone, next its furry torso spiked with fear and rage, and then finally only its head rested in the crutch of the tree. This part too slowly sank from view with a final meow of despair.

  ‘My God, it’s a bloody monster,’ I said to myself. ‘It’s a flesh eater!’

  This was not what I expected from a fairy peach stone. I had imagined riches, or some special magic which would lead to fame and wealth, something of that sort. A tree which grew diamonds or rubies. A tree which would give me magic green fingers that would enable me to become a famous gardener. A tree that grew silver and gold leaves. A tree that would bloom with incredible fairy fire, so that people would come from far and wide to see new colours, new flames.

  Not a tree that ate things. Gobbled up birds and cats.

  Of course I was disappointed.

  Shortly afterwards I had to go down south to spend time with Charley and her mother.

  When I returned ahead of Charlotte the first thing I did was inspect the fairy tree, to find there were blossoms, some of them huge. I watched closely over the following period, during which the real magic of the tree was gradually revealed to me. As the petals fell away, the fruit ripened not into peaches or anything like – but into exotic-looking birds. Birds of fantastic hues and plumes and magnificent crests. They emerged from their membranes fully fledged, rising into the air with majesty and grace. Never had I seen creatures move so elegantly They were striking in appearance and wondrous in flight as they soared away. The tree took in little brown jobs and turned them into birds of paradise.

  I was in raptures, but by the time Charley came home, all the fruit had ripened and the enchanted birds had flown.

  Even the common housecat had emerged, like a small jade tiger, its claws glinting silver, its eyes flashing emeralds, its coat with a sheen that would have brought envy to the heart of the most glorious of panthers in the wild. It came down from that tree and loped away into the autumn sunset with infinite poise Where that cat went after leaving the tree, I have no idea, but I imagine the fairies came to reclaim their own. Truly that feline did not belong in this mundane world.

  ‘So what’s been happening, up here in the north?’ asked Charlotte, the moment she was through the door. ‘Ought or nought?’

  ‘Not much,’ I lied, for the plan was already forming in my mind as Charley threw her walking boots into the hallway, knocking over the hatstand.

  How I got through that winter, I’ll never know. It seemed endless. But finally spring arrived. One day while Charley was
out power-walking in the park I purchased a kite. I took it home and managed to toss it up, so that it became entangled in the branches of the fairy tree. Then I waited for Charley. As she walked through the door I made sure I was in the middle of cooking a meal.

  ‘Hi sweetheart,’ I said. ‘Look, some kid’s kite has caught in our tree. Any chance you could climb up and get it? I’ve got my hands full here and the boy keeps ringing the bell.’

  ‘Can’t he get it himself?’ said Charley, reasonably.

  ‘Well, truth is I don’t want the tree damaged. You know what these kids are like.’

  Charley sighed. ‘Oh, all right then – but it’ll bring out the tomboy in me. I thought you liked me to be a lady.’

  I didn’t answer. She went outside and I hid in the bathroom, waiting. I didn’t want to witness her struggles, even though this was all for her sake, her own good. When I came out of the bathroom, there was no Charlotte in the garden, or in the house. The tree had absorbed a hoyden and would regurgitate a ballerina.

  She would emerge, as the birds and cat had come forth, light of foot and full of grace. She was pretty enough for me already, though the fairy tree would undoubtedly make her even more beautiful. But it was not that aspect of Charlotte I wanted enhanced: it was her deportment, her co-ordination, her dexterity and harmony with the earth.

  My Charlotte would dance through life now, not plod through it.

  She would float where before she tramped.

  My Charlotte was going to be a fairy princess.

  ~

  It hasn’t happened that way, of course. Things never do. You plan and you plan and what comes off is not what you wanted. The tree took my Charlotte, yes, fine up to then. The blossoms came. All well and good. But just as the blossoms arrived, he returned one last time, one final, intense, harsh sweep over the landscape – my namesake.