After Southampton, we went through the New Forest, which didn’t look anything like the way I’d thought a real forest would look. There weren’t even that many trees along the road—it just seemed like more of the cows-and-sheep country we’d been driving through forever. Sally was just starting to talk about the Knightwood Oak—how it was practically the biggest, oldest tree in England, and how oaks were always supposed to be magic—when all of a sudden Julian grabbed my arm and said, “There! There’s one!”
I pulled away from him, hard, because he was hurting my arm, and I said, “Quit it!”, and then I saw what he was pointing at, just up ahead. There were two of them, actually—a couple of shaggy little ponies standing right by the road, almost in it, one of them eating grass, the other just looking at things. Evan slowed down to go around them, and the one who wasn’t eating lifted his head and stared right at me, looking me over with his big, wild black eyes. And I can’t explain it, but I think that was maybe the first time I knew I was really in England, and not going home.
Tony said, “They’re supposed to be descended from the Armada horses.” I guess I blinked, because then he said, “The Spanish Armada. Some of the ships broke up in a storm, and the horses swam ashore. In 1588.”
“I know about the Spanish Armada,” I said. Tony nodded and didn’t say anything more. Evan caught my eye in the rearview mirror. He winked at me, but I didn’t wink back. He said, “Jenny, you want to be very careful if you see a black one—all black, like your cat, without a white hair on him anywhere. It might be a pooka.”
I wasn’t going to say a word, but I couldn’t help it. I said, “A pooka?”
Evan grinned at me. “Very magical creature. The country people say it can change into almost anything—an eagle, a fox, even a man, if it wants to. But mostly you meet it as a fine black pony, absolutely black, inviting you to get on its back and take a ride. Don’t you do it.”
And he didn’t say one thing more, just to make me ask. Evan does that. I held out all the way through the New Forest, before I mumbled, “Okay, why shouldn’t I?” And when he just raised his eyebrows and waited, I said, “Why shouldn’t I go for a ride on a pooka?”
“Because it’ll toss you right into a river, or into a bramble patch. That’s a pooka’s idea of a good joke. They aren’t as dangerous as Black Annis or Peg Powler or the Oakmen, but you don’t ever want to trust one. Very warped sense of humor, pookas have.”
Julian giggled. He said, “Maybe our house’ll have a boggart, wouldn’t that be splendid?”
Tony punched his shoulder lightly. “We’ve already got one, thanks very much.”
Julian got really pissed then. You couldn’t ever tell what’d get to him in those days. He hit Tony back, hard—he could get in a good shot because there was a lot less stuff piled on him than on either of us—and he started yelling, “I’m not a boggart, I’m not a boggart, don’t you call me a boggart!” He’s a lot better now, but you still have to be a little careful with Julian. Don’t ever tell him he’s got curly hair, for instance. He hates having curly hair.
Sally handled it pretty neatly, considering she was just learning how to be a stepmother. She leaned into the backseat and caught both of Julian’s hands, very gently, but really quickly. Sally’s got big hands for a woman—she can reach tenths on the piano, and she can do card tricks and shuffle a deck like Maverick or somebody. She asked him, “Tell me about boggarts. What’s a boggart?”
Tony answered her. “It’s a sort of brownie. Lives in your house and plays stupid tricks.” Julian lunged for him again, but Sally had him. “Julian,” she said. “I’m a Yank, I don’t know anything, you tell me. Why is it so terrible if someone calls you a boggart?”
Julian wasn’t exactly crying, but his nose was running and he had to swallow a couple of times before he could talk. He said, “Boggarts are ugly—that’s why he’s always calling me that. They’re small, and they’ve got warts and bumples and all, and they like to live in the cupboards and under the floor. But they’re not always mean—you can make friends with a boggart if you’re really nice to him. You leave milk out for them, and things. I just thought it would be funny if we had one.”
Tony started to say something, but Evan caught his eye, and he shut right up. Evan said, “Well, if it’s not a boggart, it’ll be something else, likely enough. Dorset’s full of ghosts and hobs and bogles, and things that go boomp i’ the nicht. And Stourhead Farm’s been around long enough that we’ve probably got a grand mob of them already settled in. Some of them probably knew Thomas Hardy and William Barnes.”
(This is probably going to come up again, so I have to put in that I didn’t know who he was talking about then. I do now, because Meena’s made me read all her Thomas Hardy books. He’s all right. I can’t stand William Barnes.)
Evan told us stories the rest of the way down, as the land got steeper and greener and the poor little Escort kept overheating. I can’t remember all of them, but he talked about bullbeggars and Jack-in-Irons, and the Wild Hunt, which was scary, and about the Black Dog, and a weird thing called the Hedley Kow. With a k. He was good, better than Norris even—he did the different accents, depending on where the stories came from, so Julian kept sniffling and giggling all the time, and Tony forgot to be superior and just sat there glued, I could tell. That’s the thing about Tony. He really thinks nobody can read what he’s feeling—he really works on it—but everyone always knows.
I dozed off a third time in the middle of a story about someone called The Old Lady of the Elder Tree. I was actually trying to stay awake, because it was interesting, but I fell asleep and dreamed about Mister Cat. In the dream the quarantine was over, and I was coming to get him out of his cage, and he stood up and put his paws on my face, the way he does. It was so real and sweet that I woke up, but it was just Julian asleep on my shoulder with his hair brushing my cheek, and we were at Stourhead Farm.
Six
So far, the hard part about writing a book isn’t telling what happened, even if it happened a long time ago—it’s trying to call back, not just the way you felt about the thing that happened, but the entire person who felt that way. Writing about the early days at Stourhead Farm is like that.
After six years, Stourhead’s just ordinary, I guess that’s the only word. When I’m here I can wake up in the morning and look out my bedroom window, and if there’s an old floppy cow named Lady Caroline Lamb looking back in at me, that’s as ordinary as the sound of Evan’s old floppy Jeep on the far side of Spaniards Hill, or the way the air around the kitchen well sort of trembles, because of the electricity from the pump. As usual as Tony dancing between the cabbage rows, when he’s not off touring somewhere, practicing his entrechats or whatever in the South Barn with Mister Cat and a bunch of chickens for an audience. Natural as hearing Julian, who’s the only one of us home now, bugging Eflie John or William or Seth to let him drive the baler. Ordinary as not feeling Tamsin anywhere in the house, ever again, when I wake.