The Ocean at the End of the Lane(31)

And then she stopped reeling it in. ‘Doesn’t want to come out,’ she said. ‘It’s holding on.’

There was a coldness in my heart, as if a chip of ice were lodged there. The old woman gave an expert flick of her wrist, and then the glistening thing was dangling from her needle (I found myself thinking now not of mercury, but of the silvery slime trails that snails leave in the garden), and it no longer went into my foot.

She let go of my sole and I pulled my foot back. The tiny round hole had vanished completely, as if it had never been there.

Old Mrs Hempstock cackled with glee. ‘Thinks she’s so clever,’ she said, ‘leaving her way home inside the boy. Is that clever? I don’t think that’s clever. I wouldn’t give tuppence for the lot of them.’

Ginnie Hempstock produced an empty jam jar, and the old woman put the bottom of the dangling thing into it, then raised the jar to hold it. At the end, she slipped the glistening invisible trail off the needle and put the lid on the jam jar with a decisive flick of her bony wrist.

‘Ha!’ she said. And again, ‘Ha!’

Lettie said, ‘Can I see it?’ She took the jam jar, held it up to the light. Inside the jar the thing had begun lazily to uncurl. It seemed to be floating, as if the jar had been filled with water. It changed colour as it caught the light in different ways, sometimes black, sometimes silver.

An experiment that I had found in a book of things boys could do, and which I had, of course, done: if you take an egg, and blacken it completely with soot from a candle flame, and then put it into a clear container filled with saltwater, it will float in the water, and it will seem to be silver: a peculiar, artificial silver, that is only a trick of the light. I thought of that egg, then.

Lettie seemed fascinated. ‘You’re right. She left her way home inside him. No wonder she didn’t want him to leave.’

I said, ‘I’m sorry I let go of your hand, Lettie.’

‘Oh, hush,’ she said. ‘It’s always too late for sorries, but I appreciate the sentiment. And next time, you’ll keep hold of my hand no matter what she throws at us.’

I nodded. The ice chip in my heart seemed to warm then, and melt, and I began to feel whole and safe once more.

‘So,’ said Ginnie. ‘We’ve got her way home. And we’ve got the boy safe. That’s a good night’s work or I don’t know what is.’

‘But she’s got the boy’s parents,’ said Old Mrs Hempstock. ‘And his sister. And we can’t just leave her free as a daisy. Remember what happened in Cromwell’s day? And before that? When Red Rufus was running around? Fleas attract varmints.’ She said it as if it were a natural law.

‘That can wait until the morrow,’ said Ginnie. ‘Now, Lettie. Take the lad and find a room for him to sleep in. He’s had a long day.’

The black kitten was curled up on the rocking chair beside the fireplace. ‘Can I bring the kitten with me?’

‘If you don’t,’ said Lettie, ‘she’ll just come and find you.’

Ginnie produced two candlesticks, the kind with big round handles, each one with a shapeless blob of white wax in it. She lit a wooden taper from the kitchen fire, then transferred the flame first to one candlewick and then to the other. She handed a candle to me, the other to Lettie.

‘Don’t you have electricity?’ I asked. There were electric lights in the kitchen, big old-fashioned bulbs hanging from the ceiling, filaments glowing.

‘Not in that part of the house,’ said Lettie. ‘The kitchen’s new. Sort of. Put your hand in front of your candle as you walk, so it doesn’t blow out.’

She cupped her own hand around the flame as she said this, and I copied her, and walked behind her. The black kitten followed us, out of the kitchen, through a wooden door painted white, down a step, and into the farmhouse.

It was dark, and our candles cast huge shadows, so it looked to me, as we walked, as if everything was moving, pushed and shaped by the shadows: the grandfather clock and the stuffed animals and birds (were they stuffed? I wondered. Did that owl move, or was it just the candle flame that made me think that it had turned its head as we passed?), the hall table, the chairs. All of them moved, and all of them stayed perfectly still. We went up a set of stairs, and then up some steps, and we passed an open window.

Moonlight spilled on to the stairs, brighter than our candle flames. I glanced up through the window and I saw the full moon. The cloudless sky was splashed with stars beyond all counting.

‘That’s the moon,’ I said.

‘Gran likes it like that,’ said Lettie Hempstock.

‘But it was a crescent moon yesterday. And now it’s full. And it was raining. It is raining. But now it’s not.’

‘Gran likes the full moon to shine on this side of the house. She says it’s restful, and it reminds her of when she was a girl,’ said Lettie. ‘And you don’t trip on the stairs.’

The kitten followed us up the stairs in a sequence of bounces. It made me smile.

At the top of the house was Lettie’s room, and beside it, another room, and it was this room that we entered. A fire blazed in the hearth, illuminating the room with oranges and yellows. The room was warm and inviting. The bed had posts at each corner, and it had its own curtains. I had seen something like it in cartoons, but never in real life.