Margaret Mahy - Alchemy

MARGARET MAHY

Cover

Title Page ALCHEMY MARGARET MAHY

Dreaming

Waking

1. Three Pens, a Pie and a Notebook

2. An Alarming Proposition

3. The View Across the Schoolyard

4. Unexpected Difficulties

5. A Complicated Pursuit

6. Remembering Midnight Tears

7. Looking Into an Invented Darkness

8. Saturday

9. Edging Past Medusa

10. An Unnatural Stillness

11. Reporting In

12. Alchemy

13. The Flicker in Mr Hudson’s Eyes

14. Dream or Memory

15. A Proper Answer

16. Putting Things in Order

17. The Third Time

18. Something Worse Than Fear

19. On a Riverside Bench

20. Family Histories

21. A Dangerous End to an Ordinary Day

22. Inner Silence

23. Meeting in the Museum

24. What the Lions Heard

25. Sunday

26. Confessing

27. The Dark Tower

28. Climbing With Closed Eyes

29. Spells

30. Down the Stairs

31. Jess’s Story

32. A Hook in the Head

33. A Call From Beyond

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So here it was again… coming through the dark at him – the dream, the nightmare that had haunted him for years. OK, he’d been through it all before. He already knew what was in store. He already knew there was no way of waking out of this particular dream until it had run its course. It would end in terror – as it always did. And yet that terror seemed to be necessary. He felt himself dividing like a cell, becoming two, then three people – the dreamer, the child in the dream and someone outside it – watching the dreamer dream… watching the child move innocently towards the coffin… and feeling the familiar panic as he watched it happening yet again.

Look! There they go, moving through the fairground, side by side, Roland and his father – hand in hand, yet apparently joined in other ways as well. And, in spite of the reassuring way his father’s hand curls around his fingers, Roland – the watcher – knows that Roland – the dream child – is becoming more and more alarmed with every step. He is being warned… warned from inside. I’m frightened, he is thinking. I am going to change. Everything is going to change. There’s no escape. Here it comes!

Yet there is not one single frightening thing to be seen in the world around him. There is nothing he can reasonably shrink from. Hand in hand with his father, the child walks forward.

I’ve been here before, he finds himself thinking – finds himself knowing – as they idle along through the fair. People in the jostling crowd point things out, waving hot dogs, or ice creams, or balloons as they do so. Looking at the bright, bobbing shapes against the yellow-green of new spring leaves, Roland thinks , There they are again, and walks on beside his father – the very father who will disappear on the day that Roland’s youngest brother, Martin, is born. (How can I possibly know that? Roland is wondering. Look! That’s me walking along! I’m only about four years old. Martin won’t be born for years.)

Standing on the edge of a small circle of lawn, the man and his son listen as a girl sings a folksong, Then they watch a juggler juggle, and an acrobat flop-and-flip. And now, through the applauding crowd, comes a figure enveloped in a black cloak, with a black crown on his head, and pushing a long black box in front of him.

Beneath his black crown, this man is wearing a wig of black braids which frames a face so thickly covered with white paint that it seems almost featureless. It is easy to believe there is no face at all under all that blank whiteness. Roland finds he is imagining that this man might be young and handsome, perhaps because of his eyes which cannot be painted out. There they are – ginger-brown in colour – sharp and lively, dancing within the still mask. Two helpers advance, shaking out a banner and holding it high in the air.

The magician turns to face his audience. His eyes slide over Roland, then shift to his father. And here they pause. The magicians’s gaze sweeps around the attentive circle. “I am Quando the Magician,” he cries, his mouth a black gap in his face. Then his gaze comes back to Roland’s father and hesitates before focusing on Roland once more. And from then on it seems as if everything that is said is directed at Roland alone. “I work enchantments,” Quando is telling him, “but never forget, it is also my job to trick you. And it is your job to work out just where the trick leaves off and the true magic begins.”

Someone carries a small table set with cards and boxes and brightly-coloured scarves on to the lawn beside him. The show begins.

“ Where did it go? Where did it come from? How did he do that?” Roland cries. “Magic? Is it magic? ”

“ Trickery,” his father replies, grinning as he speaks. “It’s trickery. Fun, though! Fabuloso!” “Fabuloso” was something he often said when he was taken by surprise. “That’s enough! Let’s move on. How about an ice cream?” Roland is enjoying the show but he likes the idea of an ice cream even more. The trick they are watching ends triumphantly. Hand in hand, they go on their way.

“You!” Quando cries. He is pointing at them commandingly. “One moment, sir! Yes, you, sir! You’re longing for adventure! Don’t deny it! I know you are.”

“ Me?” Roland’s father replies, startled at being singled out in this way. “No, I’m all for a quiet life!” Magician and man stare at each other. Then, once again, Quando’s gaze drops to Roland.

“ Well, what about your little boy, sir? He looks adventurous? Let’s ask him?” And he sinks on to his haunches in front of Roland. “You’d like an adventure, wouldn’t you?” he asks playfully.

Roland understands that the magician is not playing. Nor does he fancy an adventure without knowing, beforehand, more or less what sort of an adventure it is going to be. But he does like the thought of being part of a magical trick. Besides, he is always anxious to impress his father with his cleverness and courage. He grins and nods his head.

At first, his father seems to be holding him back. Roland can feel the fingers around his own fingers tightening… tightening until the grip is actually painful. But then they relax, and, laughing a little, his father pushes him forward. (He is being betrayed!)

“ All right, go on then!” he says. “Rites of passage! ”

Quando is opening the lid of the long box. “You’re not scared, are you? No! Not a brave boy like you!” He asks a question then answers it before Roland can reply himself. Brave! Yes, I’ll be brave! Who said that? Not Quando, because Quando is still talking. “You’re going to amaze everyone. Won’t that be fun?”

Roland glances at his father who is nodding and smiling on the edge of the crowd. Then Quando helps him climb a short blue stepladder, lifts him and settles him in the box (the coffin). It is padded inside and quite cosy. (How can a coffin be cosy? And how do I know it’s a coffin? Does any kid of four or so recognise a coffin when he sees one?)

Quando adjusts the box on its trolley, tilting it so that Roland can look at the crowd, and the crowd can look at Roland. Then the lid (its inner surface black… black… black) closes over him. Outside in the sunny fairground, someone – Quando! It must be Quando – knocks three times on the closed lid. The sound rings in the embracing darkness, twisting through the tunnels of Roland’s ears and spiralling into the very centre of his head. The wooden walls around him vanish. He has lost himself.