‘These could do with putting somewhere safe,’ the man unintentionally interrupted as he pointed to the large jugs he’d placed against the caravan’s wheel. ‘It’s the spirit; for your little friends,’ he added nonchalantly, grinning up at Carey.
‘Friends?’ said Carey, taken aback. ‘Oh, er, you mean lamps; spirit for my lamps!’
After swapping a knowing glance with the man, the woman said, ‘Don’t you worry Carey; if you’re not ready to introduce the others to us just yet, we understand. They’ve been a secret for so long, a few more minutes or hours won’t make any difference now, will it?’
‘I think she means us, Carey,’ Dougy said, crawling out with relief from beneath a pile of costumes, where he’d been getting hotter and hotter with every passing second.
‘Ah, Dougy!’ the woman said with obvious delight. ‘See Carey, I said we’d understand.’
‘I don’t understand!’ Carey exclaimed in exasperation. ‘I don’t understand how you know so much about us! How you seemed to be expecting us!’
‘Well, because of the Illuminator, of course! He somehow sees so much of what’s going on in the world. He doesn’t tell us everything he sees, naturally; but he does keep us informed of things he believes might concern us, such as your arrival in town.’
‘Then he knows we’re here?’ Carey glanced back over her shoulder, almost as if she could somehow see through the caravan’s roof and see the gleaming palace towering over them. ‘He knows why we’re here?’
‘Of course he knows; there’s little he doesn’t know, you ask me.’
The others had all cautiously stepped out of their hiding places, blinking, stretching, smiling stupidly, as if they had all just woken up from a dreamy sleep. It was so unusual to be revealing themselves to someone other than Carey, a totally new experience for them.
They looked to Carey, waiting for her permission to step outside.
Carey nodded, smiled. She and Grudo stood aside, leaving the way towards the door clear.
The woman stepped back, clearing the doorway.
Being the bravest, Peregun was the first to approach the open doorway. He paused on the top step, looking out over the assembled crowd.
‘Peregun! It’s Peregun!’ someone cried out excitedly.
As one, as if it were a vast living creature, the crowd audibly breathed in before erupting in cheers, clapping and joyful laughter. It rippled and swayed too, as people moved to get a better view.
‘Neris! Neris is there too now!’ the cry went up as Peregun began to nervously descend the steps and Neris took his place.
‘Ferena!’
‘Durndrin!’
‘Dougy!’
The crowd shouted out their names as they each appeared in the doorway. Each also received a fresh, excited burst of clapping and cheers.
On reaching the bottom of the short flight of wooden steps, they were immediately surrounded by people wanting to touch them, hug them, or drape silk or lace scarves and neckerchiefs about them. Everyone stared at them with the awe of disbelieving children. The children themselves chuckled when they saw that, for once, they weren’t the smallest people in the crowd.
Carey laughed too when she saw how bewildered her friends were. They were edgy, enthralled, amazed, like children experiencing a dip in the sea for the very first time, being both incredibly scared and yet also ridiculously exhilarated.
And every one of them giggled with happiness.
*
Grudo was the next to peer out of the door, bending low and edging out slightly sideways to get his massive bulk smoothly through the door frame.
‘Grudo!’ everyone yelled in a mix of joy and wonderment at his size.
As he stepped down he looked just as bewildered as the others. He had, of course, walked and moved amongst living people many times, but he had never been greeted in such an ecstatic fashion. So, just as for the others, all this was an entirely new experience for him.
Children rushed towards him, almost treating him like a playground climbing frame in the way they reached up for and swung off his massive arms, or sat astride his feet so that they had a ride as he walked.
Finally, Carey appeared in the doorway, pausing as everyone else had done so far to take in this wonderful sight of a massed crowd cheering their every appearance and move. The clapping and cheers for Carey were the loudest of all, however.
With a smile, the woman and her companion began to step away, taking their now empty cart with them.
‘Wait, wait – I didn’t thank you enough for everything,’ Carey said just in time to the woman before she disappeared into the crowd. ‘I mean, I’m sorry, I’m so rude; I never asked you your name, even though you brought me all these free supplies.’
‘Veraiconica,’ the woman replied; then she turned, walked off and became one more person in the vast tide of love and joy surrounding Carey and her friends.
Ferena was showing a group of astounded children how her wings flapped, jumping up in the air as if about to take off, then shrugging sadly as she explained they no longer worked as well as they used to. Peregun was charming an excited gaggle of young women, even though every one of them was at least twice his height. Neris was being as equally seductive, the men surrounding her entranced by her beauty and elegant moves, though even women were clamouring around her, asking for all manner of advice on controlling their husbands’ wayward ways. Durndrin was smoking a pipe, regaling his own admirers with some tales or adventures that seemed to involve an awful lot of hand twirling, swift leaps, and spins. As Carey looked around, Grudo appeared to have mysteriously vanished until she saw him seated on the floor, quite happily acting as the adventure playground the children had taken him to be. As for Dougy, well, he really was nowhere to be seen; Carey could only assume that, like any other dog, he was tearing around in-between people’s legs and feet, and he was wherever the crowd appeared to flow, shiver and abruptly laugh out as if unexpectedly disturbed.
Carey walked amongst everyone as if in a dream, unable to take it all in. She couldn’t hear what they were all saying. They moved in and out of her vision without her really registering their presence.
Her mind was on the show they would have to put on.
How could they put on a show that wouldn’t disappoint the high expectations of all these people?
What show could it be?
It couldn’t be The Porcelain Kingdom. How many times must they have seen that? How many times had they heard the story?
How could you possibly put on a play that would be all about them? They’d spot flaws in the story. They might even be insulted. After all, every story needed a slight retelling to become a play; you added lines of speech, or bursts of action, all things that might only be implied in the original but were necessary to tell the tale accurately. Unfortunately, there was always someone who disagreed with the changes you’d made.
No no; it couldn’t be The Porcelain Kingdom.
‘Ferena!’ she shouted, spotting her running amongst the crowd, leading a line of children. ‘The show; what play should we put on?’
‘We don’t need to put on a show, Carey; we could just fall down and they’d all cheer!’
As Ferena and her group snaked off into the crowd, Carey looked anxiously around for one of the others.
‘Durndrin! The show!’ Carey cried out.
‘Yes, yes!’ Durndrin yelled back enthusiastically. ‘We must put on a show for them; without fake strings too!’
Neris was already putting on a show, a dance of twirls and low bows. Peregun, spotting Carey heading towards him, was too excited to give her time to speak.
‘Isn’t all this amazing Carey? We don’t have to hide away in secret anymore! It’s like…it’s like we really are alive Carey! You did it girl, you did it; you’ve given us a life, of a kind!’
‘But the show Peregun; we need to prepare for the show!’
‘Yes, yes, we’re all prepared Carey! All the costumes are ready!’
‘No no; it can’t be The Porcelain Kingdom. Not here!’
Neris glanced up from her dancing, instantly understanding Carey’s dilemma.
‘How about The Caliph’s New Lace-maker?’
‘No, no Neris; not even one by the Illuminator, I think. They’ve probably heard it too many times. We need something else; a tale from one of our other books!’
‘But Carey, we haven’t rehearsed!’ Ferena insisted apprehensively as she snaked past the others once more.
‘Rehearsed? Oh come on girl, we know most of these tales off by heart!’ Neris replied dismissively.
‘That’s right; I could do them in my sleep!’ Durndrin agreed.
‘You do do them in your sleep, dear,’ Neris pointed out.
‘The Lion who Refused to Roar has always been my favourite!’ panted Dougy as he suddenly appeared from between everyone’s legs. ‘Look, I’ve finally admitted I can’t help it,’ he added, noticing Neris’s admonishing glare as he began to hungrily lick the hands of the giggling children. ‘And you know what? I’m having fun!’
Carey had never felt so confused, so unsure about what to do.
She looked around at the happy crowd, wondering how she could ever hope to please them when they had all gathered so early and waited so long.
The sun was rising but still low in the sky. Its rays played along the sides of the looming palace, the stone glistening as if it were the finest glazed porcelain, apart from those areas still aglow with a flickering scarlet and crimson, as if set aflame.
‘I know,’ Carey suddenly said, ‘I know the show to put on.’
*
Chapter 15
The Porcelain Doll
Like any other child, Kilita always looked forward to and enjoyed the bedtime stories that her mother and father would read to her. They were almost always fairy tales, of course, but that didn’t matter to Kilita, as these were her favourite stories.
The favourites amongst her favourites, however, were the tales of the Porcelain Princess. So much so, in fact, that her parents found that they were having to make up their own tales of the Princess, adding these stories to the many legends that had already grown up around her. Fortunately for the girl, her mother had a lively imagination, while her father was exceptionally good at putting on the gruff voices of ogres or the tinnier tones of fairies, bringing everything to life for her.
Throughout the day, Kilita would repeat these stories to her enthralled friends, varying them slightly by taking out the parts of tales that seemed even to her to be obviously ridiculous and unbelievable. For, unusually for her village, Kilita didn’t think these stories were fairy tales at all, but were descriptions of a kingdom that really existed.
‘Oh, she’ll grow out of it, you’ll see,’ Kilita’s mother would reassure her father. ‘All children do after a while; let’s just leave her believing in magic for a little bit longer, eh?’
As Kilita’s group of friends grew up, the older ones gradually stopped believing in the magic. They began to secretly find it amusing that Kilita continued to believe in such obviously silly stories.
‘This is going on too long,’ her father said to her mother. ‘Perhaps I should tell her that, even though I’ve travelled just about everywhere selling our pottery, I’ve never come across anything that resembles this magical kingdom.’
‘No no, dear; she’s still so young. It might break her heart to learn the truth. I have a better idea; let’s buy her a book, in which she can see for herself that the story isn’t real but just a fairy tale.’
Now books were expensive, particularly the original books illustrated by the Illuminator. Even so, Kilita’s parents loved her dearly, and wanted the best for her that they could afford. Naturally, they couldn’t afford a book by the Illuminator, but slightly less expensive copies were available.
Kilita’s eyes opened wide with wonder when her parents presented her with the book. They widened even farther as she opened the book and took in the beautiful illustrations.
The Princess was far more beautiful than Kilita had ever imagined. The palace, too, was far taller, much whiter, and sparkled with more light than she would have guessed.
She touched one of the pictures of the Princess, having heard in many tales that if you touched the illustrations, the people portrayed seem to move, even to come alive, beneath your fingers. In some rare cases you could find yourself somehow transported to the kingdom itself.
Nothing happened.
She could have been disappointed, but she wasn’t.
She realised that the book must have cost her parents a ridiculous amount of money.
‘It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever owned,’ she said, before telling them how much she loved them.
‘Now I know what it looks like, I’ve even more chance of finding her kingdom,’ she added proudly.
‘Finding her kingdom?’ her mother repeated in disbelief.
‘Oh, I know it won’t be easy,’ the girl replied, having misunderstood her mother’s bewilderment. ‘I’ve been trying to work out where it might be for so long now, but it’s difficult because there are so many stories; and I’m not sure which are true and which have just been made up.’
‘Kilita,’ her father said suddenly, seeing this as an opportunity, ‘have you ever thought that it doesn’t seem quite believable, does it, that a princess made of porcelain could be alive?’
‘But father, I’ve often heard you saying that porcelain is the most magical substance in the world!’
Her parents sighed resignedly. They had indeed said this, and many many times too.
Being potters, they had been seeking the secret of making porcelain for years. They experimented almost daily with exotic chemical mixtures, the addition of strange ingredients, the changing of oven temperatures. Yet still the secret eluded them.
‘If she still won’t grow out of this strange belief,’ Kilita’s mother said to her father later, ‘then perhaps we should combine our own obsession with hers to help take her mind off it; because by giving her her own piece of magic, perhaps we can shake her out of this nonsense once and for all!’
Now they practised finding the secret of porcelain every spare moment of the day, because their love for their daughter was now involved. At last, they achieved their goal, their first creation from this magical substance being a delicate face, a fine pair of hands and arms, the lower legs of a child. The rest they created from material stuffed with rags, hiding it all behind a dress made from the best lace they could afford.
As soon as she saw the porcelain doll, Kilita loved it more than anything else in the world, apart from her parents. Straight away, she refused to be ever parted from her doll, whom she called Tiko.
Tiko would sit up alongside Kilita in bed as they listened to the bedtime stories, wide eyed in amazement at what she was hearing, never daring to interrupt. She would go to sleep as soon as Kilita fell asleep, but would already be awake when Kilita woke up. Sitting at the table for meals, Tiko would never eat, as she was impatient for Kilita to finish, so they could begin playing together once more.
When they went out together, no one thought it unusual. After all, there was nothing strange about a girl of Kilita’s age having a doll; it was just her belief that certain fairy tales were true that people found odd.
For once, her parents weren’t worried about her. For when she realises her doll can never, ever come to life, they told themselves – despite it being made of the magical porcelain, and despite all the love that had been poured into it during its creation – then, finally, Kilita would come to realise that tales of the Porcelain Princess couldn’t possibly be true.
Now when she was out with her friends, Kilita would tell them tales of Tiko. Of course, such tales should have been
immediately taken by her listeners as nothing more than made up stories, yet Kilita told them all with such incredible detail, and without changing them in any way each and every time, that some people began to wonder if there wasn’t some truth in them after all. More amazingly still, Tiko would sit alongside with a knowing smile on her face, as if proudly listening to the retelling of her adventures. The younger children especially would giggle and chuckle, and gawp in wonder or horror depending on which point the stories had reached.
Every child had already decided on which was his or her favourite story.
Many preferred the stories where Tiko was a little mischievous, a little uncontrollable, such as the time she accidently let a nearby farmer’s pigs loose from their sty (an event that everyone knew had actually happened). She tried to round them up, running after them across the fields, only to finish up in such a filthy state that she had to have three very hot baths before she gleamed like a princess once more.
Others always wanted to hear how both Kilita and Tiko had once fallen asleep by a small pool, not realising that it was inhabited by water sprites. Those who knew of the water sprites quite rightly feared them, for they would kidnap unwary children and make them forget all about their parents and friends, their past lives, by taking them down into the watery depths, where they would eventually become water sprites themselves.
And so, as if sleep walking in a powerful dream, Kilita rose to her feet and started walking towards the pool, unknowingly entranced by the evilly giggling water sprites. But, of course, the water sprites weren’t to know that Tiko was also alive, thinking she was nothing more than a rather pretty but useless doll. Realising the danger Kilita was in, Tiko chased after her, tugging hard on her dress to pull her back from the water’s edge.
But Kilita kept on walking, firmly under the control of the water sprites, and stepped into the pool. Tiko next tried climbing up Kilita’s dress, sitting on her shoulders and shouting as loudly as she could in her ears to try and wake her; but it was all no use. Kilita was now up to her knees in the water. At last, the triumphant water sprites rose up from the waters, surrounding poor Kilita as they prepared to drag her down with them back towards the very bottom of the pool.
‘Stop, you can’t take her,’ Tiko cried. ‘I feel it’s only right that I should warn you that she will be of no use to you, and will bring you only bad luck!’