Peter Beagle - Tamsin

About then Julian caught sight of me, and started waving his arms and bellowing, “Jenny, Jenny, come on, it’s cock-a-leekie!” He knows that’s my favorite soup, ever since Evan’s sister Charlie taught Sally how to make it. He came running and threw his arms around me, and started dragging me toward the house, telling me about some experiment he’d been doing with sliced cucumbers, sugar, and three snails. I’d gotten so I could usually feel it when Tamsin left me, but I never felt it this time. I think she stood there in the shadows and watched us go.

After dinner, Tony and I washed up, and then I went outside and sat in the double swing that Evan had rigged to a branch of the old walnut tree near the tractor garage. The evening was still warm, practically balmy; we hadn’t had one of those since the sweltering night when I first walked with Tamsin. I was looking around for her without really expecting to see her, and I was keeping an eye out for other things, too—maybe the Pooka, maybe the billy-blind. I still wasn’t sure he was right about bangs.

Evan made that swing with a nice high back, so it’s really easy to fall asleep in it. I dozed and woke a couple of times, and the second time I had a bad dream. I was still in the swing, in my dream, and it was still night, only now the Manor was really far away, practically on the horizon. There was someone walking toward me, slowly, his face half in shadow, half in moonlight. I tried to jump off and run, but the swing turned into the Pooka, and I was on his back and couldn’t get down. The Other One came right up to the Pooka amd mounted right behind me, wrapping his long arms around me. I screamed, and Sally said, “Shush, baby, it’s me, it’s just me. You were looking so adorable.”

She was in the swing next to me, with my head bumping on her shoulder. My skin was really cold, my mouth was dry, and my neck hurt. Sally said, “You looked so much the way you did when you were little, I just couldn’t help giving you a hug.”

I mumbled something and sat up, trying to straighten my hair. The moon was high, which always makes the night darker here, I don’t know why. Sally told me Meena had called, and I said I’d call her back tomorrow. We stayed in the swing for a time, not saying much, but Sally kept trying to cuddle me and look at me at the same time, and you can’t do that, not the way Sally looks at you. Finally I said, “What? Say it already, and let’s get some sleep. What’d I do?”

Sally got all indignant. “Nothing—you haven’t done anything—why are you so suspicious ?” She went on like that a bit longer, and then, without missing a beat: “It’s just that you’ve become so—so solitary lately. Going off by yourself so much, not asking Julian or anyone to come with you. Julian’s feelings are really hurt, did you know that? And Meena—Meena’s been noticing it, too. She asked me about it when she was over the last time.”

I felt horrible. I said, “I’ll talk to her. I’ll do something with Julian, we’ll play croquet or something. It’s just that I’ve been sort of needing to be alone these days. To work a few things out.”

She didn’t immediately ask, “What things?”—Sally’s much cooler than that, and much trickier, too. She nodded, and didn’t say anything right away; but when I started to get up out of the swing she said, “Could I help? Is it something I could maybe—I don’t know… just tell me, Jenny. If it is.”

These days I have a pretty good idea why Evan fell in love with my mother. Norris, too, for that matter. Back then… back then, what the hell did I know about love and grown people? But I did have my moments, once in a great while, and that was one of them. I looked at her for a change, staring hard through the darkness, seeing the dead leaf in her hair and the motheaten collar of that gray cardigan she’ll never give up on, seeing that her eyes were as wide as Tamsin’s, and brighter in the moonlight. I flicked the leaf away, gave her a kiss on the cheek, took her hand, and we walked back to the house.

“I just love that swing tree,” she said. “I always feel it’s holding me in its arms, and I’m safe as long as I stay there.”

“It’s the last one of those old walnuts,” I told her. “There used to be a dozen. Roger Willoughby planted them when his first daughter was born.”

Sally opened her mouth, closed it again, and went inside. I stayed on the doorstep a moment longer, wondering if Tamsin might still be near. Even with the moon, and with lights in the Manor windows, I couldn’t see much past the barns, except for the bulk of an old sprayer Evan had told Wilf to get rid of a month ago. Just beyond it, two golden glints could have been a lot of things besides the Pooka’s eyes. Tamsin had told me I had friends in the night now, and I went up to bed telling myself that, over and over.

A couple of nights later, half an hour after his bedtime, Julian came padding into my room to say he couldn’t sleep and would I tell him a story? Sally and Evan were in Dorchester for dinner and a movie (no infants wanted, thank you very much), and in those days you’d get a bedtime story out of Mister Cat faster than you would out of Tony. But Julian’s always had my number—and anyway, it wasn’t much payback for a passing grade in maths and a stinky stuffed gorilla when I needed one. I made him get back into bed first, though, and promise he’d go to sleep after one story. He’s as crafty as a boggart about the small print, but he keeps promises when he makes them.

Between Sally and Norris, I know a lot of stories—I even know some Indian fairy tales that Meena’s told me. But that night I couldn’t get started, and I knew why right away. My mind was so full of Tamsin’s shadow world that I’d been dreaming about her and the Pooka almost every night—and about the Other One, too—and I couldn’t get into witches and princesses and dragons, even for Julian. So just on an impulse, I did something really dumb. Even for me.

“Okay,” I said when he got settled in. “Once upon a time there was a girl who lived at Stourhead Farm, right in this house where we live now. Her name was Tamsin Willoughby.”

Because suddenly I wanted to talk about her. Not to tell anyone, exactly, not to try to explain that she was still here with us in the Manor, but more like Tony telling me about James II and Judge Jeffreys—real people, a long time ago, but still real to him. I guess I thought if I made Tamsin someone in a story for a child like Julian, it might be all right.

“Is this a true story?” Julian demanded. “How do you know?” He was big on how-do-you-know? that summer.

“Somebody told me about her,” I said. “You want to hear this or not?” Julian pulled the blankets up over his face, leaving just his eyes peeking out. I said, “Her father was Roger Willoughby, the guy who started this farm. Her mother was called Margaret, and she had an older sister named Maria. Two brothers, too, but I don’t remember their names. But it’s all true, and if you even think ‘How do you know?’ I’ll shove those blankets down your throat and leave you for the vultures. You got that?”

“Mmmph,” Julian said, but he nodded.

“She was the youngest child,” I said. “The farm was too small for her family to be really rich, but they were a lot better off than most people in Dorset three hundred years ago. They had servants, and there were a lot of farm workers, and Tamsin had a tutor and a horse named Elegance. The worst thing that happened was when her sister Maria died of the Black Plague—that was terrible for her, for all of them.” Julian was staring at me, and I realized I’d better slow down, rein in, or there’d be too many questions waiting the moment I stopped for breath. I said, “This was her room, matter of fact.”