Page 33 of The Moon Sister
While I was in front of the computer, I wrote a short email to my contact at Servion Zoo about the European elks and asked him for a convenient time to book a telephone call, then I went into the kitchen to find it deserted. Presuming that Beryl was busy serving the guests, I spooned some kedgeree into a Tupperware box and set off to see Chilly.
‘Where you bin hidin’ yourself, Hotchiwitchi?’ a voice from the leather chair demanded as I opened the door.
‘Happy New Year, Chilly,’ I said as I decanted the kedgeree into his bowl. ‘I’ve been helping Beryl up at the Lodge.’
‘Have you now?’ He eyed me as I handed him a spoon and the bowl. ‘That place holds things you like, don’t it?’
He cackled then, like the old witch he was.
‘Which year is it now?’ he asked as he guzzled the food down.
‘2008.’
His spoon paused below his mouth as he looked into the woodburner.
‘Those rich fellas are in for a reckoning this year,’ he said then carried on eating.
‘Which rich fellas?’
‘Never you mind, you’re poor like me, but them has been greedy . . . they all get found out in the end. You heard from the Laird?’
‘I got an email from him today.’
‘He got big problems. You take care around him.’
‘I will,’ I said.
‘Around all of them up at that house. Winter comes before spring . . . You remember that, Hotchiwitchi.’
‘What is a “hotchiwitchi”, Chilly?’ I asked him.
‘You a hedgehog, is your name in Roma language.’ He shrugged as I stared at him in shock, wondering how he could have known . . .
‘You come from long way away.España. . .’ My ears pricked up at this. Again, how could he know?
‘My father said that too, in a letter he wrote me before he died. He told me I should go back there and . . .’
I looked at Chilly, but he had nodded off, so I took the opportunity to go to the cave next door and bring in some firewood. The sun had climbed above the mountains, its delicate fingers of light reaching down to illuminate the pure whiteness of the glen. It was a mystical sight, a place in which it was very easy to become disconnected from reality. As I stood with the basket of logs looped over my arm, I was thrown back again to an image of a rough whitewashed ceiling above me, and the sound of a voice I was sure I recognised.
‘Come, little one, I will take care of you until you’re grown.’
‘Bring her back home to us . . .’
I was being lifted up towards the ceiling, but I wasn’t frightened because I knew the pair of arms that held me was safe.
I staggered slightly as I came to and realised my feet were planted firmly on the ground and I was standing alone in the icy-cold cave.
As I walked back into the cabin, I knew for certain that one of the voices I’d heard had been Pa Salt’s.
*
‘I have some news for you, in fact two bits of news,’ Cal said over supper that night.
‘What?’
‘Well, the first is that last night, me and Caitlin named the date. It’s to be in June.’
‘Wow, Cal!’ I smiled at him. ‘That’s fantastic. It doesn’t give you a long time to plan though.’
