Amber and Willem Read online

  ​“Is there a Land of the Geese too?” Willem asked.

  ​“Of course not! What a ridiculous idea!” said Garnet.

  ​Willem laughed some more because Garnet was so outraged. Garnet did not care at all for geese. He and Gilly loved each other, they were life partners. Gilly was happy enough to talk to the geese and to do what ganders are supposed to do when it was needed, but Garnet wouldn’t go near them as a rule. And both of them agreed that the lack of ganders in the world was a tragedy, for they were outnumbered twenty to one.

  ​“So how do you know for sure that there is a Land of the Ganders?” Willem asked.

  ​“We do, and that should be enough for you,” said Garnet. “I can tell you what it’s like there too. There are beautiful ganders everywhere for a start, and all of them can fly, even the little ones.”

  ​“Most ganders die when they are very young,” Gilly said. “In the Land of the Ganders they can grow up if they like; they can be any age they want to be, but some of them choose to stay little.”

  ​“How do you know that?” Willem asked. He didn’t suppose he believed the ganders really, but he knew they would tell a story if he could entice them into it.

  ​“That’s a secret,” said Gilly. “But there was once a gander who went there by mistake, so he had to come back again.”

  ​“It’s quite true,” said Garnet. “His name was Happy and he was a very lucky gander. He was not chosen to be the gander and live when he was hatched, but somehow he escaped being drowned with all the other little ganders and grew up. The humans thought he was a goose! Imagine!”

  ​“The thing is, he was not a goose,” Gilly said. “And so he had to pretend. He pretended like anything, the geese helped him, but he worried all the time that he would be found out.”

  ​“In the end he got tired of worrying and he decided to run away,” said Garnet. “He ran over the moors and into the forest where it was very dark and there was no grass. He got lost in there of course; he was rather a silly gander.”

  ​“And I suppose you would have done better?” said Gilly. “I’m sure it’s very difficult to find your way in a dark forest!”

  ​“I wouldn’t have given up like he did though,” said Garnet. “He ran around and around in circles for days and days with nothing to eat, and finally he could run no more, so he lay down and waited to die.”

  ​“I’m not sure that’s what he meant to do,” said Gilly. “But anyway, he lay down, and when he did, his soul stood up and walked right out of his body.”

  ​“What’s a soul?” Willem asked.

  ​“The part of you that’s you. This one looked like a thin, see-through version of Happy the gander, and it was him all right, because as his soul he was able to look down at the body lying there without him in it, and he shivered in fear.”

  ​“And this is where he got it wrong,” said Garnet. “He saw his body and he thought he was dead, but he wasn’t.”

  ​“But he wasn’t hungry any more, or the least bit tired, so he set off to look for the Land of the Ganders because he thought it was what he was supposed to do,” said Gilly. “He had no idea where to look though and he tried asking, but no-one, no goose or gander, seemed able to quite believe he was real, so they would not talk to him. He wandered the whole of the Earth looking, never getting hungry or needing to sleep, and I don’t know how long it took, but one day he found a narrow, twisting path that seemed to lead up into the sky.”

  ​“As he climbed the path,” Garnet said, “he realised that he wasn’t walking any longer, he was flying, and he’d never flown before in all of his life. He flew through the clouds and there below him was the most beautiful land filled with green grass and deep, clear pools and shady trees and meadows of wild corn.”

  ​“The sky and the land were crowded with ganders of all sizes, talking to each other, telling jokes and stories and having scintillating discussions, but when they saw Happy they stopped talking and stared,” said Gilly.

  ​“He was so pleased they could see him that he cried out for joy. But his joy did not last. ‘You can’t come here!’ the ganders said. ‘You are not dead. You must go back!’” said Garnet.

  ​“And he found himself slipping away,” said Gilly. “Flying back the way he had come without willing it, back through the world and all around it and back to the dark forest, into his old body once again.”

  ​“That’s when he woke up,” said Garnet.

  ​“So it had all been a dream, had it?” asked Willem.

  ​“Well it might have been,” Gilly said, with a dip of his bill that was something like a smile. “Except his body in the wood had grown old while his soul had been away from it.”

  ​“His soul was old too, after all that time,” said Garnet. “He went back to his gaggle and the humans he knew, and found they were also old. Some of them had even died, but those that were left remembered him.”

  ​“Even the young ones knew who he was,” said Gilly. “‘You are Happy, the clown-goose,’ they said. ‘Tell us a joke, go on!’ Happy was bewildered for he had never thought of himself as a clown and he did not know any jokes. He told them his story instead and they laughed and laughed as if it was the funniest thing they had ever heard.”

  ​“That’s the part I can never understand,” said Garnet grumpily. “Those were a peculiar lot if they thought that story was funny. It isn’t funny at all, it’s tragic! Now if you want a funny story…”

  ​“How can you stand to have these old ganders in the house?” Amber demanded.

  ​Nobody had noticed her come in, since the door had stood open all along and the three of them were so absorbed in their conversation.

  ​“It stinks in here. Come out for a walk in the fresh air.”

  ​Willem scowled at her and he fumbled for words in human speech. “I can’t walk,” he said.

  ​“You could if you tried,” said Amber. “You’re just being lazy, like always.”

  ​The ganders looked at each other and waddled over the window sill and down their branch.

  ​“Where are you going?” Willem called after them.

  ​“Seems your soul is returning to your body,” said Gilly. “We’ll see you tomorrow. Wait for me Garnet, you old fool!”

  ​Willem looked after them as they went, and he wondered if he could ever love anyone the way he loved those ganders in that moment.

  Amber dragged Willem out for walks most days after that. “You’ve got one leg that’s perfectly good,” she said. “You don’t even need the other.”

  ​It was true in a way. Amber had grown taller and stronger over the year that had passed, where Willem had faded and become thinner. She could pick him up and carry him if she wanted and was easily able to support him as he limped along.

  ​And it was a joy to get out into the world again, to move about and to see the sky properly. Even to see the horses. Amber took him to visit Arrelestravandias in his enclosure.

  ​“He says he’s sorry,” she said.

  ​“Why should he be? He took me where I wanted to go, even if he didn’t do it for my sake. Anyway, you’re lying. He doesn’t say anything of the kind!”

  ​Willem learned to walk by himself eventually, but he never walked straight. His hips developed a tilt and his back curved to the side to compensate, so he was always crooked and hobbling, slow most of the time, but he could go fast when he needed to. He could ride too, despite what Jessa had said all that time ago, just as he always had. Except now no-one expected him to be able to ride well; no-one expected anything of him at all.

  Amber rode Merch, her favourite horse, and Willem rode Theoline. Theoline was more comfortable to ride without a saddle and Willem lay along her broad back with his bad leg straight and his good leg bent, looking up into the sky for birds, like usual, as they swayed along. But he watched Amber too, when she wasn’t looking. He loved to watch Amber, for she was so beautiful and so alive with energy and ideas. She never stopped, and Wille
m knew he couldn’t expect that he would always be able to keep up with her. But he was allowed to ride Theoline now. He was allowed to look for birds and to climb trees to find them; nobody cared what he did. His leg only hurt sometimes, and not like it had. The absence of pain is a wonderful thing, like heaven, if you didn’t know from your own experience.

  ​But then a tiny movement caught Willem’s attention. A bird so far away he could hardly see it, miles and miles up, circling. He closed one eye against the sun to watch it. It was a Great Eagle. And Willem felt a different kind of pain stab at his heart. He had flown once, perhaps. It was so hard to remember! But he knew he never would again. He was not a bird and he never would be.

  Part Two

  Chapter Six: Yuli Skyrider

  Something is wrong. The thought repeated itself over and over in Alexander’s mind, ticking away like a grasshopper.

  ​“Nothing is wrong.” He spared what breath he had to say it out loud in an attempt at exorcism. Nothing was wrong. Everything was set and safe, triple checked like always. It was just ordinary fear. Alexander could never get away from fear; all he could do was choose between one kind and another and use it to his advantage. That was how it had been for the whole of his life that he could remember.

  ​Shallia went up the ramp; he didn’t even need to guide her. She gathered speed without any signal too, and Alexander bent his knees as he stood up on her back, feeling every movement. The crowd was silent, so they could hear her coming, but they could not see her, not yet. Alexander had done this trick a thousand times, probably; the movements for it were in his muscles and his bones, and in Shallia’s too. But despite that, he still had to focus on what he was doing, implacably.

  ​There was no time, or there shouldn’t have been, but time had a way of stretching itself at moments like these. Shallia increased her speed and the crowd gave an involuntary collective gasp as the horse and its rider suddenly appeared above them. And then Shallia leapt, taking off into thin air and truly flying, and Alexander pushed up from her back to grab the silk and swing away.

  ​It had all worked just as always; nothing had gone wrong, but Alexander could not help looking down, just in that second as he flew over everyone’s heads, as the crowd roared in amazement. The ramp looked higher than it really was and the landing place was built up, so the mare didn’t actually fly as far as she seemed to, but it was still far enough. Shallia had taken off square, and she jumped true too, but her landing was wrong. Alexander saw her crumple on to her shoulder and roll, and his breath was suddenly snatched away, along with the breath of the crowd, now silent once again.

  ​But he had to continue his flight, arm outstretched, smile in place, because some of them were still looking at him, and when he came round again the mare was on her feet and moving out of the ring supported by Bell and Tjeika and a couple of the others, the strong men more or less dragging her. And it was the end of the show. The audience were on their feet, applauding, and the white horses swept in with their fliers. Alexander glided down his silk to the floor.

  ​By the time he could get away to find the mare, she was dead; mallet to the head. And Bell was arguing with Finnan the best way to cook her.

  ​Alexander reeled away, right away from everything. He ducked under branches and vomited in the dark, then leant back against the tree’s trunk and waited for his head to stop spinning. He was shaking. It was all right to feel like this sometimes. He breathed in the cool night air and felt his heart begin to slow its frantic rhythm. It was all right to be a small, scared nobody for a few moments once in a while, but no longer than that. And he gathered himself together because it was time to go and see Yuli.

  ​Lida let him in with an accusatory glance.

  ​“I know what happened already,” the old man said. He didn’t need to say anything else.

  ​Yuli was wrapped in blankets and furs, sat in what Alexander thought of as his throne. The old man had always been small, but now he was barely a thread of a person, weak and thin and always cold, his voice like the whisper of a ghost.

  ​“Nothing went wrong, but…”

  ​“Nothing?” the old man said, his eyes boring holes wherever they rested.

  ​Alexander looked away.

  ​“Then how is my Shallia dead, boy?”

  ​Alexander hated to be called boy. He was not a boy, not any more. He looked up and caught his master’s glare, held it. “It was an accident,” he said.

  ​Yuli laughed, but without any warmth or any joy. “And what will you do now?” he asked.

  ​“It isn’t…”

  ​The flying horse was Yuli’s trick, and all the long time the old man had been sickening away and dying, Alexander had done the trick for him, that one and all of the others as well. Yuli was small, light and quick where Alexander was tall and strong, slower, an entirely different type of acrobat, but that didn’t matter. “There is only one thing stopping you doing anything you desire to do,” the old man had always said, “and that’s your will. Break it.”

  ​“I can do it with Livia, or Orchid,” Alexander said.

  ​“I know you can,” said Yuli, “but will you?” He pulled in a long wheezing breath and began to cough.

  ​Lida got up and poured him a drink; handed it to him, looking at Alexander again the same way she had before.

  ​Alexander could not blame her. He stumbled out of Yuli’s van and back to his own, sank thankfully into his bed and into oblivion.

  Woken by frantic banging at his door and shouts, Alexander swam to consciousness as Lida burst in.

  ​“Alexander, he’s gone. Yuli’s gone!” Lida cried, grabbing hold of him and pulling him up.

  ​Alexander was wearing all of his clothes from the night before still, and the sweat too; he stank. He got up and gathered Lida to him. There was nothing to say. Lida was young. She had not been Yuli’s wife very long, but she loved him unquestioningly. Alexander led her out of the van and into the sunshine of the summer morning. It was a beautiful day, bright and clear.

  ​Yuli had been so long dying, Alexander had begun to believe he never would. Now it was suddenly as if a great weight had been lifted and a new day had dawned.

  ​“What will we do now?” Lida asked. “What will we all do?”

  ​Oh God, Alexander thought. We can do anything we desire, can’t we? He looked around at the vans and the canvass houses, the big house, the horses. And there were people everywhere too, spilled out all over the day, standing still and stupid with the thunder of bad news ringing in their ears. What would they do without their master? Lida pulled away from him and went to Hargri and Yoosh, two of the older women, who folded her into their arms. There were fifty-six people altogether in the company, no, fifty-seven, Alexander remembered, since Scassia had birthed a child just days ago, a screaming boy she had named Yuli. Of course she had! They weren’t all there, but it seemed as if they were, and it seemed as if they were looking at Alexander, every one of them, expecting Alexander to have all the answers.

  ​Why should it be me? Alexander wondered. There were many older, wiser, and yet they stared at him with round eyes as if they were children and he was their father. He had been playing the part of Yuli all this time for the crowd. Perhaps they were confused. But he knew different really.

  ​“What are you all doing standing around?” he asked, his voice as harsh as he could make it. “You know your work. Get on with it!”

  Chapter Seven: Amber’s Horse

  Solie snored. Amber turned over and tried to get back to sleep but it was no use. As well as the noise, her mother also smelled of beer, leaf-smoke and sweat and besides, she was taking up almost the entire bed.

  ​It was beginning to get light anyway, enough to see the mess her mother had made when she came in, her things tossed everywhere and the end of a loaf of bread left out to go stale. Solie was supposed to be old now, but she didn’t look it; her hair was still golden brown and her face pretty as it had ever been, just in a dif
ferent way. It was impossible to dislike her, even though she never did anything but care for the geese after a fashion, and stumble over the moor to town, to go drinking with her friends there. Amber couldn’t help getting caught staring at her mother’s sweet, sleeping face. Solie smiled in her sleep. She smiled almost all the time, but her smile always looked sad somehow.

  ​Amber struggled to find the space to move inside the house and was glad to get out, even though the air was cold and sent her shivering. The geese were waking themselves up. One of the ganders honked and flapped his wings at her as she passed, as if he was trying to send her away. The truth was, those ganders gave Amber an uneasy feeling. It always seemed as though they were laughing at her.

  ​She climbed the hill and turned to look down at the little house sat nestled there. It was such a little house, barely big enough to fit two grown-up people inside it. Amber was tall now, strong and filled with energy. Sometimes she dreamed a dream where she grew and grew inside her mother’s little house until the walls cracked and the roof broke into ruins, and the geese all flew away as well. It means I won’t stay here always, she told herself. And she turned and headed along the track to the horse-makers’ houses.

  ​The buildings appeared out of the early morning mist, ghostly and quiet. There were two houses; Galen’s grandmother’s old house and the new, bigger one, and barns and horse-houses besides. The feel of the place around her, the smell, was almost too much, so familiar and somehow right. There were only a few horses in. The one Amber wanted was out, so she went through the yard without stopping and on to the moor where most of the horses ran loose at night.

  ​He was there almost at once, as if he’d been waiting.

  ​“How did you know I’d be up this early?” Amber asked.

  ​“You were in my dream,” said Arrelashantia. “The wind blew you away and I was lost without you, so I came looking.”