Ali - Seven For a Secret

Virginia stood with her father on the path into the swamp.

“What now?” she asked.

Tony threw up his hands and shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I mean, half the time I don’t even know if it’s me talking or not. It’s awful, I feel violated.”

Virginia looked around to see if she could see any clue as to what they were supposed to do. She remembered this dark, tree-lined avenue, and she shivered. It was still dark, as sinister in the cold, blue ice as it had been in the over-ripe greenness of summer. Behind them, on the ordinary road, the carriage waited. The red-caparisoned horses snorted into their nosebags, steaming under their blankets. The coachman was already warming his hands on the tiny brazier-fire he had built and was taking nips from a chunky black bottle that he had taken from his pocket. The sky was heavy with purple-grey clouds.

“Well, whatever we’re supposed to do we’d better do it soon before it snows, “ she said, eyeing the sky.

“Look,” Tony said, “lets just go down the path a little way and see if we can see ... anything.”

“Is that you or the Oracle speaking?”

“Me. I think.”

Virginia sighed and shrugged her coat closer to her swollen belly, missing Wolf so much already it was a thin pain under her breastbone. “Well, okay, but I’m not really up to long treks right now, Dad. So I hope the Oracle’s listening in.”

Tony grimaced, shoving his gloved hands into his pockets. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

They trudged glumly into the swamp. It was very quiet, except for the crunch of the snow underfoot. But the last time I was here, it was summer, Virginia thought, and now everything is hibernating.

“It’s almost pretty,” she said, trying to break the silence. And it was. Ice glittered across the edges of the brackish ponds, snow lay like runny icing on all the trees, and red berries peeped out of the frosted leaves of the evergreens.

“So...” they both said at the same time.

“You.”

“No, you.”

Tony said, ”I was just wondering, Virginia, if you’re happy? Back in New York?”

“Yes!” She knew she’d answered too quickly. “No. Yes.”

Her father looked at her quizzically. She avoided his gaze, keeping her eyes on her boots - one, two, one, two - crunching through the drifts. Snow began to fall, softly.

“Come on Virginia, is it Wolf? Isn’t he looking after you properly?”

“No! I mean, yes! Dad, that’s not it. I love Wolf and he loves me, but ... I worry. ”

She felt tears rising. “I worry about what’s going to happen when the baby comes. You know Wolf, Dad. Sometimes he’s so capable and sometimes you can’t trust him to walk down the street without getting himself into trouble.”

“And you’re afraid of the trouble that hasn’t come yet?” Tony’s voice was gentle. “Virginia, sometimes you can plan it all out in advance and sometimes you have to take a day at a time and just trust. Remember that.”

Virginia stopped in the middle of the path, watching with astonishment as her father thumped himself on the side of the head.

“Awwww, I HATE that. What kind of greetings card crap was that? ‘Just trust’? Couldn’t they get an Oracle worth listening to? ‘Sorry, all out of meaningful prophecy, but hey, we got a great line in gnomic moralising. Sheesh.”

Virginia turned around. “Come on, Dad. We’ve walked far enough and whatever it was we were supposed to come here for, it was NOT worth freezing while listening to Christmas cracker morals.”

For the second time she stopped dead. “Ohmigod!”

“What!” Tony turned too and saw the same thing.

The path had disappeared. With rising anger, Virginia looked the other way. The path ahead had gone too.

“I HATE this place!” she yelled, stamping her foot. The snow fell, silently and swiftly; it was getting darker by the minute, now she had no sense at all of which direction they should go. She thrust a quivering finger under her father’s nose.

“‘Just trust’ ? I TRUST I’m gonna get an opportunity to slap your oracular face. I’m PREGNANT and stuck in the snow-bound, trackless, WILDERNESS.”

Tony backed away, “Hey! It’s not me remember. I’m lost too!”

Virginia sat down on a snow-covered log, not caring it would soak straight through her coat. She was suddenly frightened.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

Her father sat next to her and put a comforting arm around her. “It’s alright honey, the coachman will come find us.”

“How? It’s not like we left a trail of breadcrumbs - which he wouldn’t be able to follow anyway because of all this SNOW!”

Tony just hugged her.

“Oh, if only Wolf were here,” she moaned, missing her husband’s eternal optimism keenly, “he’d be able to follow our scent back the way we came.”

Tony snapped, “Well I’m sorry I’m not your precious husband. I guess you’d rather be with him than me anyway.”

Virginia felt the bitterness in the words bring tears to her eyes.

“Dad! He’s my husband and the father of my child, of course I want to be with him! It doesn’t mean I love you any less.”

Tony’s stubborn expression faded and he rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry honey, I didn’t mean that ... I guess, I’m just worried too.”

They sat huddled together. Virginia couldn’t stop shivering. Now they’d stopped walking, the icy, rising wind bit into her bones.

“Me too, Dad. Me too.”

She stared into the growing snowstorm. She couldn’t even see a few feet in front of her. Suddenly, she caught a flicker out of the corner of her eye. She rubbed the snowflakes out of her eyelashes and snuffled her runny nose on the back of her glove.

“Did you see that?”

“See what?”

She lifted her head off his shoulder, looking again for that flickering movement.

“I don’t know ... there!” She pointed excitedly.

Out of the blizzard, one magpie hopped, head to one side, regarding her with a dark, mocking eye. It flared its wings at her, hopped forward, then back and then forward again.

“A magpie!”

“Where?” Tony looked around wildly.

She stared at him, incredulously. “Right by your foot!”

The magpie blinked comically at her and let rip with a loud ‘ack-ack-ack’ right under her father’s knee. Tony looked concerned.

“Virginia, are you feeling okay?”

“Yes! Can’t you see ... look there!”

Two more magpies came tumbling out of the storm to land in a line evenly spaced from the first, leading away into the dark. The furthest called, ‘ack-ack-ack-ack-ack’ imperatively.

“Can’t you see them?”

“Them?! Them?! Virginia, I can’t even see you, my eyelids are frozen together!” Tony put one gloved hand on her cold cheek, “Sweetheart, are you sure you’re not ... seeing things?”

She jumped up. “No Dad, they want us to follow them.”

“You want me to follow invisible magpies through a snow-storm? Why not? If you see pink elephants we could follow them too!”

“Shut up, Dad.” She dragged him through the whirling snow to where the last magpie was barely visible, like a piebald marker buoy. She heard above her head the flurry of wings, and then the other birds landed ahead of them. She raced on, pulling her father with her into the uncertain dark.

Virginia was tired, wet and very cold. She didn’t know how long they’d been following the magpies, but time seemed to stretch endlessly into a segue of snow. She managed only to walk, scanning the dark ahead of her with screwed up eyes for the flicker of black and white wings. Her father had long ago given up trying to dissuade her, and merely followed, his hand in hers, but she could feel his anxiety as clearly as if he were shouting it aloud.

What if I am hallucinating? she wondered, putting a hand on her ‘bump’ with an instinctive, protective gesture. I’m risking our lives and my baby’s life.

Just then, she stumbled, coming unexpectedly to a structure looming out of the snow. In chorus, the birds called their guttural challenge and flew off, too swiftly to be seen anymore. She cried, dismayed, “Oh, NO!”

“What? Virginia?” Tony blundered to her side through the snow that reached up his calves. “What’s wrong?”

“They flew away.”

“Flew away!? Where are we?”

She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

“Well that’s just dandy, Virginia. Here we are and ... what is that?” He didn’t wait for her to answer, but went up to the structure and tapped on the walls. It was tiny, barely one room, with an oddly pointed roof. It began to look terribly familiar to Virginia.

Tony cackled delightedly, “The cottage! That’s great! Well done, honey! We can have a hot drink with Acorn!” He surged forward with renewed energy, feeling round the cottage for the door.

Virginia paused, troubled by a feeling she couldn’t place. “No Dad,” she murmured. “I’m not sure it’s so great.”

“Virginia!” her father’s voice floated out on the storm, “Come on in here, you’ll catch your death out there.”

She followed him reluctantly, ducked in the door and then stood inside blinking and disoriented. Outside, the blizzard raged on; she could hear the shrill note of the wind, and the windows were storm-dark, but in here a fire burned low in the grate and an iron kettle swung above it and it was warm and brightly lit by half-melted candles. She stiffly stamped the caked snow off her boots at the threshold, feeling her chilled muscles begin to relax. But she could not shake off that non-muscular tension, an itch of not-rightness, that had given her pause outside. Acorn the Dwarf - who had occupied this cottage and helped her last time she had become lost in the Swamp - was nowhere to be seen.

Her father was already ransacking the store cupboard, rummaging through the bottles and jars stacked up on the shelves. He unstopped a bottle and sniffed.

“Mmhmm. Some kind of cordial I think, maybe elderflower?” He tucked it under his arm and shrugged, “Whatever. There doesn’t seem to be any brandy or anything like that, so this is the best I can do to warm us up.”

He poured a measure each into two crudely formed pottery cups and picked up the pot-cloth so he could move the kettle without burning his hands. When he filled the cups full of steaming water, Virginia thought she could see tiny pink sparkles in the steam that rose from the surface.

“Dad, do you think we should be in here drinking ... that?”

He looked up at her in astonishment. Hot water spilled out of the cup he was filling onto his fingers.

“Wha...? Damn, ow, that’s hot.” Hurriedly he put the kettle back on the hook over the fire and the pot-cloth on the spill, shaking his burned fingers. “Sure, why not? I mean, Acorn helped you before when you were here in the summer, I’m sure he’d help us now. If he were here that is.”

He picked up one cup and settled himself in a rocking chair, putting his booted feet to the fire and sighing contentedly. Snow from his boots melted into puddles on the hearthstone, almost at once. “You did good to find this place honey, even if your methods were a little ... ah ... loopy.”

Virginia flexed her shoulders, trying to shake off her unease, and walked around the room, touching furniture.

“Where is Acorn, Dad?” She waved one hand as outside the wind shrieked. “Listen to it out there. It’s wild. No-one would go out in that.” She came up to him and lifted the cup out from under his lips. “This used to be the Swamp Witch’s cottage. Who knows what that stuff is you put in there? And what if that’s swamp water?”

Tony made a face, and scrambled to his feet practically toppling the chair over in his eagerness to put some distance between him and the innocuous seeming cup. “Oh no, I’m not drinking that stuff again.”

Virginia put the cup down on the table with a decisive ‘chink’ . Impelled by the same sense of adrenaline-taut anticipation, she walked over to the slanted celler doors.

“No, come on Virginia.” Her father came up behind her. “Don’t go down there.” He dropped his voice to a whisper and hissed, “That’s where you said the Swamp Witch was!”

“It is. I need to go down to the cellar; I can’t be comfortable unless I do. I mean - do you think we’re here by accident? Oracles? Magpies? Come on Dad, we were led here.”

Tony mumbled, under his breath, “You were led here. I didn’t see any magpies.”

Virginia ignored him and opened the doors determinedly. “Are you coming?” She walked down the stairs, not waiting for him to answer.

The chamber was dark and dank. It smelled of foetid water and of things that grew in slime, without light. Virginia knew as soon as she set foot on the last step why they were here.

“Dad!” she yelled over her shoulder.

Tony came skidding down the damp steps “What?!”

“The Witch. She’s gone.”

Tony edged up to the empty bier that still lay in the centre of the room and patted it redundantly. A coil of water-spotted grey silk lay in the centre like a snake’s shucked skin.

“Oh no, we’ve got to warn Wendell.”

A green light flared from the corner of the chamber and illuminated an ornate, black framed, mirror. The surface shivered, like a breath of wind on the surface of water. She couldn’t stop herself; she knew the Witch’s magic was centered on mirrors but she still went closer.

She saw herself, a slight woman wearing a long jewel blue coat that met awkwardly over her ‘bump’, her short hair damp and spiky from the snow, her gloves sticking out of one pocket. Her eyes seemed as big saucers, as big as the stars, as the moon ...

There was another woman in the mirror.

“Hello, Virginia,” the other woman said, and her voice was cool.

Virginia didn’t recognise her. The woman had long straight black hair and a regal bearing. Her face was proud and cruel and young. She wore a long green dress. She was as beautiful as a cobra.

“I’m glad you came, my dear,” the woman said.

“Who are you?” Virginia breathed, caught in the woman’s dark gaze.

The woman smiled, thinly, showing the merest hint of teeth between her red lips.

“I am the Swamp Witch, of course. But you may call me ... Your Majesty.”

Virginia wanted to back away, but found she couldn’t. Instead she went closer and put her hands on either side of the mirror frame.

“How did you get into the mirror?”

“I have always been here. I will always be here. I am in all the mirrors.”

“But you’re dead. It’s impossible.”

The Swamp Witch curved her lips into a real smile and it made Virginia’s heart leap into her mouth. “Yes. But so was Snow White and you met her, too, didn’t you?” Virginia nodded, speechless. “In fact, my dear daughter, one could say you encounter a great many impossible things.”

The Witch moved closer, swaying with languorous grace and put her hands, on the other side of the mirror, exactly where Virginia’s were. Virginia swallowed past the lump of her pulse in her mouth.

“I’m not your daughter.”

Virginia didn’t even think she’d blinked, but now it was her mother, Christine, in the mirror. Virginia jumped, but still she couldn’t move her hands.

“Aren’t you? But I bore you close to my heart. I see you are a mother now, Virginia.”

Virginia whispered, “Mommy. You’re dead.”

Christine leaned so close Virginia thought she could feel her breath.

“Am I? How did I die?”

Virginia shook her head. “No. No. You can’t be here.”

“How did I die?”

Virginia yelled, “I killed you!”

Christine leaned back and put one delicate hand to her red surprised mouth.

“You did? What kind of person does that make you?”

Virginia began to cry. “Mommy, I didn’t mean to, you tried to strangle me, I didn’t want to.”

Christine’s look was fond and strangely proud. “Are you really any different from me, dear daughter? You kill when you need to, as I did.”

“You were sick, Mommy, you hurt me.” Virginia hardly knew what she was saying, every part of her yearned to cross the threshold of the mirror and be folded in her mother’s arms.

“Virginia, Virginia.” Christine’s voice was soft. “You saw Snow White, you’re talking to your dead mother, you were led here by magpies only you could see. My darling, my sweet girl, how can you be sure you aren’t sick? I think you must be imagining me.”

Virginia jerked back involuntarily, “What?”

Christine said, caressingly, “And your baby?”

Virginia struggled to protect her belly, but she couldn’t move her hands. She sobbed, “Stay away from my baby!”

Christine licked her lips, stroked her hands lingeringly down her green silk gown, and crossed them over her stomach. “The offspring of a madwoman and an animal? My sweet girl, I rather think I won’t need to do anything. It will be a monster all on its own.”

“NO!” Virginia screamed. Stuck fast to the mirror frame, she tugged futilely to free herself.

Christine faded away and the Witch took her place, “My daughter, why do you struggle so? Give up now, I promise you peace, I promise it won’t hurt anymore, if you just give your will to me. I will make all the pain go away.”

“No,” Virginia sobbed, “I can’t.” She forced herself to look directly at the Witch’s bottomless, green eyes. “What have you done to Acorn?”

The Witch shimmered and Wolf snarled at her out of the mirror. “Goodness me,” he said, showing his canines in a vicious, feral grin. “He must have hopped away.” He threw up his head, howling like the wind outside howled, and the cords of his neck stood out. “Now, my succulent morsel, you know how much I like you to run...” He growled and snapped at her face, his teeth meeting in the soft flesh of her cheek. Virginia screamed, terrified, the sudden pain shocking her to herself. Wolf growled, his voice menacing. “So run, my little lambchop. You’d better run.”

Virginia tore her hands from the mirror, feeling the skin come away. She was hardly aware she was sobbing hysterically till she heard her father’s voice and felt his hesitant touch on her face.

“Virginia?”

“Daddy!” She clung to him, crying brokenly, hiding her eyes in his coat and clutching her face where Wolf had bitten her.

“Honey, what’s wrong?”

She felt him lift her face firmly and she struggled out of his hands, panting, wild. “We’ve got to get out of here.” She felt hunted; her heart was racing. She grabbed his hand and practically dragged him up the stairs. He tried to prevent her from going back outside into the storm but she fought him, scratching at his eyes and face when he tried to stop her and eventually he let her have her way and followed her back out into the snow.

The storm had died, but the snow was inches deep. She stumbled as far away from the cottage as she could, following her instinct, Tony at her heels. Then she saw again the flicker of black and white wings. Three magpies were sporting, flying in a circle, chasing each other’s tails. She leaned against a snow-covered tree and let her father catch up with her.

“Sweetheart, please, come on, let’s go back to the warm.”

“No,” she breathed and grabbed hold of his hand. The air shimmered in the circle the magpies made. She took a breath and ran into the circle, pulling her father with her.

“Virginia!”

Noise, lights, the world flew past her.