Alys Clare: The Way Between the Worlds

I fetched the piece of vellum on which we’d listed my family and friends and spread it out. ‘Most of the people I know live in or near to my village,’ I said, staring down at the names. ‘I’d better start there.’ I let go of the ends of the vellum, and it rolled itself up again. ‘It’s still early. If you can spare me, Gurdyman, I’ll set out straight away.’

The spring day was overcast but mild, and I made good time. On the road out of Cambridge, a young ginger-haired lad driving a cart loaded with logs stopped and gave me a lift, offering to take me as far as Wicken. There he would go straight on for Ely and I’d set off to the north-east, to Aelf Fen. He was inclined to be flirtatious, obviously wondering if a quick fumble behind a hedge might be his reward, but I put on my most demure demeanour and told him I was going to visit my sister in her nunnery. When I got down, I felt bit guilty and gave him half the meal I’d packed for myself. He seemed happy enough with that instead and gave me a cheery wave as he clicked to his horse and drove off.

When I reached the village, to my great joy the first person I saw was my father. He is an eel fisher, and he was busy on a channel that was full of water after the spring rains. On seeing me, he leapt right over the slowly sliding, green water and embraced me, breaking off almost instantly to look anxiously into my face.

‘Is anything wrong?’ he asked. ‘You are well? You’re not in any trouble?’

‘I am fine, Father!’ I said, laughing. ‘I’m very well, working hard but enjoying it, and as far as I know not in trouble of any kind.’

He let out his breath in a phew sound. Then, grinning, he said, ‘Don’t know why I should assume the worst, just because you’ve come home on an unexpected visit. I’m right glad to see you, Lassair.’ He hugged me again, this time bestowing the gentle kiss on my forehead which he has been doing ever since I can remember.

I felt bad that I hadn’t told him straight away about the dreams and the summoning voice. In that moment of reunion, I just wanted to enjoy being with my beloved father, without spoiling it with matters of so dark a nature. ‘Is all well with you?’ I asked him.

‘Aye, as you’ll observe, it’s a good season for the likes of me.’ He indicated his lidded wicker basket, and I could see through the gaps in the weave that it was full of writhing eels. ‘After the cold and the endless rain last autumn, and that terrible storm we had at the equinox, it’s a great relief to have good catches again.’ He grinned. ‘The eels kept themselves safely tucked up deep down in the mud, but they’re emerging now that spring’s here and there’s a bit of warmth in the air.’

‘And everyone else? How are they all?’

‘Your mother’s well, praise the good Lord, and the family too.’ For a moment his face clouded. ‘That is to say, Alvela’s been poorly again.’ Alvela is my father’s sister, Edild’s twin, and she lives up in the Breckland with her flint knapper son Morcar. Alvela is one of those women poorly equipped to deal with life’s hardships, and she frequently suffers from bouts of ill health.

Had the summons come from her? Was it she who had put those urgent words into my mind?

‘Is she very sick?’ I asked. Sick enough to send out that desperate plea? I added silently.

But my father smiled. ‘No, child, she’s not. She’s had a congestion of the lungs and was finding it hard to get her breath, but Edild’s gone up to Breckland to care for her and she’ll soon be on the mend.’

Oh. Not Alvela, then.

‘Come on.’ He bent down and slung the leather handles of his basket over his strong shoulder. ‘We’ll get on home, and you shall see for yourself that the rest of them are thriving.’

My mother greeted me with her usual loving smile, apparently unsurprised to see me. I wondered if that could mean it had been she who summoned me, and I was about to ask her when she said, ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Lassair, there’s something I’ve been planning to ask of you when next I saw you.’

So it had been my mother! Feeling the relief flooding through me, I said with a smile, ‘Well, you managed to get your message through to me!’

Her face went blank. ‘My message?’

I knew I was wrong. Just to make quite sure, I said, trying to speak lightly, ‘You haven’t been calling out to me, then? Saying, come here, I need you ?’

My mother gave me quite a stern look. ‘Now why,’ she said, ‘would I do that? Silly lass, you’re far too far away in Cambridge to hear me, even if I shouted at the top of my voice!’

I forget, sometimes, how very literal my mother is.

My baby brother Leir came up to me, his arms opening in a silent plea to be lifted up and cuddled, and I readily obliged, burying my face in his silky fair hair. I shouldn’t really refer to him as a baby any more, for he is five years old now and, as my protesting arms were informing me, growing into a well-built and strong boy. ‘Did you summon me, little brother?’ I whispered to him.

He gave me a soggy kiss and said, echoing my mother, ‘Silly lass!’

I put him down.

The long working day was drawing to its close now and presently there came the sound of footsteps outside. The door opened and my other brothers came in, the elder one, Haward, with an arm around his wife’s expanding waist, the younger, Squeak, trotting behind but pushing them out of the way when he saw I was there. He rushed at me and, in a thirteen-year-old’s version of Leir’s greeting, flung his arms round me and swirled me round in a circle. He, too, was growing strong.

They all asked what I was doing home, and I found ways to ask all three if they had any reason for wanting to see me. Squeak looked puzzled as he answered, and merely said, very sweetly, ‘I always want to see you, Lassair. I miss you when you’re away.’

Haward, with a glance at his wife, said that they’d needed advice from Edild a couple of weeks ago because Zarina had fallen and they’d feared for the baby, although all was well. Zarina took my hand and said, ‘I’d have been just as happy to consult you, Lassair, but you weren’t here,’ which I thought was very nice of her.

As we all sat down to the evening meal, I remembered that my mother had said she had something to raise with me. ‘You didn’t tell me what you were planning to ask me,’ I reminded her.

‘Didn’t I?’ Her smooth-skinned, plump-cheeked face creased briefly into a frown. ‘No, I didn’t. It was just that I thought, next time you were here, you might tell us a story. It’s half a year now since Granny Cordeilla died, and we haven’t had a tale since.’ She looked at me worriedly. ‘It’s not too soon?’

Slowly, I shook my head. I had known since Granny died that sooner or later this moment would come, for she had passed on to me the role of the family’s bard, the one whose job it is to memorize the family bloodline and to learn all the tales in its long history, retelling them regularly so that nobody forgets who they are and who their ancestors were. Granny knew perfectly well that, of all her children and grandchildren, I was the one with the God-given facility to remember the stories. She knew, too, that I loved them and that repeating them whenever I was asked would be no hardship.

‘It’s not too soon, Mother,’ I said to her with a smile. ‘I’ll tell you what: if I am excused clearing up the platters and mugs, washing them and tidying them away, I’ll tell you all a story this very night.’

I went to stand outside in the warm spring night. Inside the house, the family were busy arranging seating for us all, and I knew the best place for the storyteller, beside the fire, would be reserved for me. My mother had promised to prepare a cot for me; although I lived with Edild now, and could easily have slipped across the village to sleep there that night, Edild was away and I would be alone. Normally, I would not have minded in the least, but just then I feared my powerful dreams. If I found myself back in that nightmare landscape of mist and blood and I was all by myself, I was not sure how I would endure it. When my mother had said why don’t you sleep here tonight? I had willingly accepted. But now, in the immediate future, there was a very important task ahead of me. I turned my mind to storytelling.