Quest for the Faradawn - страница 27

‘Nab, I’ve brought you something. It’s for you, to keep.’ She produced the large gaily coloured shawl and handed it to him. He took it and, standing up, held it so that it hung straight and the pattern of the colours could be clearly seen. His eyes widened in amazement the more he looked and he began to feel it, running his fingers up and down the soft silk and through the long fringes that hung down all around it.

‘It’s for me,’ he said, ‘to keep? I’ve never seen anything like it before. Where did you find it?’

‘It’s for you because it belongs to you. When you were left in the wood you were wrapped in many layers of cloth because, as Brock has told you, it was a cold night and the snow was heavy on the ground. When Brock carried you back to me I took the outer layers of cloth off until I found, next to your skin, this shawl, and I buried it in one of the walls of the sett, ready to give to you when the time was right. So you see, it was given to you by your mother and father; it belonged to them and they gave it to you. It is a link with your parents.’

Nab sat down clutching the shawl tightly against him and he began to cry softly to himself. Tara went up to him and put her paw on his shoulder.

‘What were they like?’ he asked. ‘Brock saw them, didn’t he?’

‘They were good Urkku. Brock felt no sense of danger or fear when he was near them.’ She described the events of the first night as Brock had told them to her. At this moment he was out with Warrigal walking round the boundaries of the wood; it was a pity he wasn’t here now to tell Nab at first hand but the boy could talk to him later.

When she had finished, Nab put his arm around her shoulder and buried his face against her neck. He stayed like that for a long time and when eventually he raised his head he smiled and there was a sparkle in his eye. He removed the layers of bark which formed his clothing and, before replacing them, tied the coloured shawl around his waist.

Summer in Silver Wood seemed to last for ever. The days became too hot for the animals to do anything except lie in the shade around the edge of the wood where there was a breeze. In the centre of the wood there wasn’t a breath of wind to relieve the intensity of the heat and the stillness hung so heavily one could almost touch it. The only sound was the constant buzzing of the insects as they hovered and darted over the tall canopy of green bracken that filled the wood. Sometimes, as Nab lay under it staring up at the sky, he would see the topmost branches of the tallest silver birch trees waving gently in a breeze that only existed in heaven and he would stare at the movement of the leaves until he fell asleep. Occasionally something would startle a blackbird and it would chatter loudly as it flew off to settle on another branch. Nab would then wake up and decide to go for a little stroll; it was impossible to walk through the bracken so he would crawl on all fours beneath it until he found another spot where he felt secure and there he would again fall asleep. Under the ceiling formed by the interlaced bracken leaves there was a different world, a cool subterranean jungle where the green stems of the bracken were like trees and the floor was of rich dark brown peat under a light brown carpet made up of the sharp and spiky remains of last year’s dead bracken. As Nab made his way through this jungle he would find his hands and knees criss-crossed with their imprint and he had to be careful not to let them cause splinters. He would see spiders scurrying about their business and metallic green beetles walking slowly along the bracken branches. As he moved he could feel the bracken dust which he had disturbed catch in his throat and he could smell and touch the damp peat, still moist under its covering of dead bracken. Sometimes he would come across a cluster of wood sorrel with their delicate white flowers and would pick a leaf and chew it to refresh himself.

Eventually Nab began to notice the first harbingers of autumn; although the sun still shone and it was hot during the day, the evenings grew damp and chill where before they had been balmy, and now there was a dew on the ground. By the stream, meadowsweet appeared with its tall stalks and clustered heads of creamy white flowers which scattered as they were knocked, and in the wood the autumn toadstools made their way out of the mat of damp decaying leaves on the floor; the blusher with its scarlet cap covered in little rough skin-like flakes and the great orange boletus which felt shiny and shone in the dew but whose flesh, when the spongy gills had been removed, was one of the treats of autumn. In the mornings and evenings the hollows filled with mist which disappeared as the sun fought its way through to light up the golden leaves; Nab would lie on his back in the warmth of the midday sun under the great beech and watch the leaves gently floating down; if they appeared to be drifting near he enjoyed trying to guess whether or not they would land on him, and he was always surprised at how few, out of the hundreds that fell, succeeded.