David Almond - Skellig

“You’ve got to come and help me,” she said.

Dad nodded.

“I’ll come for you this afternoon,” he said. “When the operation’s over. Go with Mina.”

She took me to her garden. She gripped Whisper tight. On the rooftop, the blackbird started yelling its alarm call.

“Bad boy,” she said to the cat, and she went to the open front door, threw him in, pushed it shut behind him.

“The fledglings are out,” she said. “Stay dead still and quiet. Watch out for cats.”

We sat on the front step and didn’t move.

“Under the hedge,” she said. “And under the rose tree by the wall.”

I started to ask what I was looking for, but then I saw the first of them, a little brown feathered ball with its beak gaping in the darkness beneath the hedge.

“This is how they start their life outside the nest,” she said. “They can’t fly. Their parents still have to feed them. But they’re nearly all alone. All they can do is walk and hide in the shadows and wait for their food.”

The parents came closer, the brown mother to the lowest branch of the tree, the jet-black father to the top of the hedge. Worms dangled from their beaks. They called softly to each other and the fledglings with little clicks and coughs.

“First day out,” whispered Mina. “Think Whisper’s had at least one of them already.”

The parents waited, wary of us; then at last they dropped into the garden. A fledgling tottered out from beneath the rosebush, let its mother drop the worms into its beak, tottered back again. The father fed the one beneath the hedge. The parents flew away again.

“They’ll be doing this all day,” said Mina. “Flying and feeding all the way till dusk. And the same thing tomorrow and tomorrow till the chicks can fly.”

We stayed watching.

“Cats’ll get them,” she said. “Or crows, or stupid dogs.”

Dad came out of our house. He came into Mina’s garden. Mina pressed a finger to her lips and widened her eyes in warning. He tiptoed to us.

“The fledglings are out of the nest,” she whispered.

She showed him where to look.

“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes. Yes.”

He crouched beside us, dead still.

“Aren’t they lovely?” he said.

He cupped my cheek in his hand and we looked deep into each other’s eyes. Then he had to go.

“You just keep believing,” he said. “And everything will be fine.”

He went to the car and drove from the street as quietly as he could. Mina and I watched and waited as the brown mother and the jet-black father flew in and out of the garden, feeding their young.

MIDMORNING. MINA’S MOTHER BROUGHT cups of tea for us. She sat beside us on the step. She talked about the fledglings, the flowers that were bursting into bloom, the air that every day became warmer, the sun that every day was a little higher and a little warmer. She talked about the way spring made the world burst into life after months of apparent death. She told us about the goddess called Persephone, who was forced to spend half a year in the darkness deep underground. Winter happened when she was trapped inside the earth. The days shrank, they became cold and short and dark. Living things hid themselves away. Spring came when she was released and made her slow way up to the world again. The world became brighter and bolder in order to welcome her back. It began to be filled with warmth and light. The animals dared to wake, they dared to have their young. Plants dared to send out buds and shoots. Life dared to come back.

“An old myth,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “But maybe it’s a myth that’s nearly true. Look around you, Michael. Fledglings and blooms and bright sunshine. Maybe what we see around us is the whole world welcoming Persephone home.”

She rested her hand on my arm.

“They can do marvelous things, Michael. Maybe you’ll soon be welcoming your own Persephone home.”

We thought of Persephone for a while in silence. I imagined her struggling her way toward us. She squeezed through black tunnels. She took wrong turns, banged her head against the rocks. Sometimes she gave up in despair and she just lay weeping in the pitch darkness. But she struggled on. She waded through icy underground streams. She fought through bedrock and clay and iron ore and coal, through fossils of ancient creatures, the skeletons of dinosaurs, the buried remains of ancient cities. She burrowed past the tangled roots of great trees. She was torn and bleeding but she kept telling herself to move onward and upward. She told herself that soon she’d see the light of the sun again and feel the warmth of the world again.

Then Mina’s mother broke into my thoughts.

“I’ll watch the birds,” she said. “Why don’t you both go and wander for a while?”

And Mina took my hand, and led me away.

It was like walking in a dream. The houses tilted and swayed. The sun glared over the rooftops. Birds were ragged and black against the astonishing sky. The roadway glistened, a deep black pond. Invisible traffic roared and squealed.

She held my arm.

“Are you all right, Michael?” she kept asking. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

We made our way toward the DANGER door. She led me through the gate, through the long garden, through the door, into the dark and dusty interior. We went up in silence. She held my arm, like I was an old man, or an invalid.

On the final landing she told me,

“He’ll be waiting for us, Michael. He’ll be so pleased to see you again.”

She turned the handle, we went in, sunlight poured through the arched window.

We stood there staring.

He wasn’t there.

Mina ran back down through the house. I heard her feet on the bare boards, doors swinging open. I heard her calling for him.

“Skellig! Skellig! Skellig!”

I heard her coming slowly back up to me. Her face was paler than ever. There were tears shining in her eyes.

“He isn’t here,” she whispered. “He just isn’t here at all.”

We went to the window and gazed into the empty sky above the city.

I found myself falling forward. I gripped the windowsill tight. I touched my heart.

“Oh, Mina!” I said.

“What is it?”

“My heart’s stopped. Feel my heart. There’s nothing there.”

She caught her breath. She touched my chest. She called my name.

And then there was just blackness.

“DON’T CALL DR. DEATH,” I MURMURED. “Don’t call Dr. Death.”

I was slumped on the floorboards. Mina was kneeling over me. She stroked my brow, whispered my name.

“Not Dr. Death,” I said again.

“No,” she said. “Not Dr. Death.”

I struggled to sit up. I leaned against the wall beneath the window.

“Touch your heart,” she said.

I did this, and I felt the beating there.

“See?” she said.

“But it’s only mine. It’s not the baby’s.”

“Oh, Michael.”

I felt my strength coming back to me. I swallowed, squeezed my eyes, tightened my fists. I felt my heart again.

“It’s only my heart, Mina. Not the baby’s. The baby’s dead.”

“You can’t know for certain,” she said.

I pulled myself to my feet.

“I think I can, Mina.”

She held me as we went out of the room and into the darkness of the house.

“Where is he?” I asked as we went down.