The little girl nodded as he left, though she still wasn’t sure what he meant. ‘My pa,’ she said uncertainly. ‘That’s where my pa is.’
The cry of ‘Land!’ went around the deck and as people became busy around her the little girl took the white suitcase to a spot by a pile of barrels, a nook to which she was unaccountably drawn. She sat down and opened the case, hoping to find some food. There was none, so she settled instead for the book of fairytales lying on top of the other contents.
As the boat drew nearer to shore, and tiny dots in the distance became seagulls, she opened the book across her lap and gazed at the beautiful black and white sketch of a woman and a deer, side by side in the clearing of a thorny forest. And somehow, though she could not read the words, the little girl realised that she knew this picture’s tale. Of a young princess who travelled a great distance across the sea to find a precious, hidden item belonging to someone she dearly loved.
12
Over the Indian Ocean, 2005
Cassandra leaned against the cold, rough plastic of the cabin and looked through the window, down to the vast blue ocean that covered the globe for as far as the eye could see. The very same ocean little Nell had traversed all those years before.
It was the first time Cassandra had been overseas. That is, she’d been to New Zealand once, and had visited Nick’s family in Tasmania before they were married, but never further afield. She and Nick had talked about taking off to the UK for a few years: Nick would write music for British TV, and there had to be plenty of work for art historians in Europe. But they hadn’t made it and she’d buried the dream long ago, beneath the pile of others.
And now here she was, aboard a plane, by herself, flying to Europe. After she’d spoken with Ben at the antique centre, after he’d given her the picture of the house, after she’d found the suitcase, it turned out there was room for little else in her mind. The mystery seemed to attach itself to her and she couldn’t shake it off, even if she tried. Truth be told she didn’t want to, she liked the constancy of preoccupation. She enjoyed wondering about Nell, this other Nell, the little girl whom she hadn’t known.
It was true that even after she’d found the suitcase she hadn’t intended to travel directly to the UK. It had seemed far more sensible to wait, to see how she felt in a month’s time, maybe plan a trip for later. She couldn’t just be jetting off to Cornwall on a whim. But then she’d had the dream, same as she’d been having on and off for a decade. She was standing in the middle of a field with nothing on the horizon in any direction. The dream had no sense of malevolence, just unendingness. Ordinary vegetation, nothing that excited the imagination, pale reedy grass, long enough to brush the ends of her fingers, and a light and constant breeze that kept it rustling.
In the beginning, years ago when the dream was new, she’d known she was looking for someone, that if she were only to walk in the right direction she would find them. But no matter how many times she’d dreamed the scene, she’d never seemed to manage it. One undulating hill would be replaced by another; she’d look away at the wrong moment; she’d suddenly wake up.
Gradually, over time, the dream had changed. So subtly, so slowly, she didn’t notice it happening. It wasn’t that the setting changed: physically all remained as ever. It was the feeling of the dream. The certainty that she would find what it was she sought just slipped away, until one night she knew there was nothing, no one waiting for her. That no matter how far she walked, how carefully she searched, how much she wanted to find the person she was looking for, she was alone . . .
Next morning, the desolation had lingered, but Cassandra was used to its dull hangover and went about her life as usual. There was no sign that the day was to be anything other than ordinary, until she went to the nearby shopping centre to buy bread for lunch and wound up paused by the travel agency. Funny, she’d never really noticed it was there. Without quite knowing how or why, she found herself pushing open the door, standing on the seagrass matting, a wall of consultants waiting for her to speak.
Cassandra remembered later feeling dull surprise at that point. It seemed she was a real person after all, a solid human being, moving in and out of the orbits of others. No matter that she so often felt herself to be living half a life, to be a half-light.
At home afterwards, she’d stood for a moment, replaying the morning’s events, trying to isolate the instant in which her decision had been made. How she’d gone to the shops for bread and come back with an airline ticket. And then she went into Nell’s room, pulled the suitcase back down from its hiding spot, and took everything from inside. The book of fairytales, the sketch with Eliza Makepeace written on its back, the lined exercise book with Nell’s handwriting scrawled across each page.
She made herself a milky coffee and sat up in Nell’s bed, doing her best to decipher the god-awful handwriting, transcribing it onto a clean pad of paper. Cassandra was reasonably good at unravelling handwritten notes from previous centuries—it went with the territory for a second-hand dealer—but old-fashioned writing was one thing, it had a pattern to it. Nell’s hand was just messy. Purposely, perversely messy. To make matters worse, the notebook had suffered water damage at some point in its history. Pages were stuck together, wrinkled blotches were laced with mould, and to rush was to risk tearing the pages and forever obscuring the entries.
It was slow going, but Cassandra didn’t need to go far to realise that Nell had been trying to solve the mystery of her identity.
August 1975. Today they brought me the white suitcase. As soon as I saw it, I knew what it was.
I pretended casualness. Doug and Phyllis don’t know the truth and I didn’t want them to see that I was shaking. I wanted them to think only that it was an old suitcase of Dad’s that he’d wanted me to have. After they’d gone, I sat looking at it for a time, willing myself to remember: who I am, where I am from. It was no use, of course, and so, at length, I opened it.
There was a note from Dad, an apology of sorts, and beneath it other things. A child’s dress—mine I suppose—a silver hairbrush, and a book of fairytales. I recognised it immediately. I turned the cover and then I saw her, the Authoress. The words came fully formed. She is the key to my past, I’m sure of it. If I find her, I will finally find myself. For that is what I intend to do. In this notebook I will chart my progress, and by its end, I will know my name and why I lost it.
Cassandra turned carefully through the mouldy pages, filled with suspense. Had Nell done what she set out to do? Found out who she was? Is that why she’d bought the house? The final entry was dated November 1975 and Nell had just arrived home to Brisbane:
I’m going back as soon as I’ve tied things up here. I’ll be sorry to leave my house in Brisbane, and my shop, but what does it compare with finally finding my truth? And I’m so close. I know it. Now that the cottage is mine, I know the final answers will follow. It is my past, my self, and I have nearly found it.
Nell had been planning to leave Australia for good. Why hadn’t she? What had happened? Why hadn’t she written another entry?
Another look at the date, November 1975, and Cassandra’s skin prickled. It was two months before she, Cassandra, had been deposited at Nell’s place. Lesley’s promised week or two had stretched on indefinitely until it turned into forever.
Cassandra set the notebook aside as realisation hardened. Nell had taken up the parental reins without skipping a beat, had stepped in and given Cassandra a home and a family. A mother. And never for an instant had she let Cassandra know of the plans her arrival had interrupted.
Cassandra turned from the aircraft window and pulled the book of fairytales from her carry-on, laid it across her lap. She didn’t know what had made her so certain that she wanted to bring the book onboard with her. It was the bond with Nell, she supposed, for this was the book from the suitcase, the link with Nell’s past, one of the few possessions that had accompanied the little girl across the seas to Australia. And it was something about th
e book itself. It exercised the same compulsion over Cassandra that it had when she was ten years old and had first discovered it downstairs in Nell’s flat. The title, the illustrations, even the author’s name. Eliza Makepeace. Whispering it now, Cassandra felt the strangest shiver tiptoe along her spine.
As the ocean continued to stretch below, Cassandra turned to the first story and began to read, a story called ‘The Crone’s Eyes’ which she recognised from the hot summer’s day long ago.
THE CRONE’S EYES
by Eliza Makepeace
Once in a land that lay far across the shining sea there lived a princess who didn’t know she was a princess, for when she was but a small child her kingdom had been ransacked and her royal family slain. It so happened that the young princess had been playing that day outside the castle walls and knew nothing of the attack until night began its fall towards earth and she set aside her game to find her home in ruins. The little princess wandered alone for a time, until finally she came to a cottage on the edge of a dark wood. As she knocked upon the door, the sky, angered by the destruction it had witnessed, broke apart in rage and spat fierce rain across the land.
Inside the cottage there lived a blind crone who took pity on the girl and determined to give her shelter and raise her as her own. There was much work to be done in the crone’s cottage, but the princess was never heard to complain, for she was a true princess with a pure heart. The happiest folk are those that are busy, for their minds are starved of time to seek out woe. Thus did the princess grow up contented. She came to love the changing seasons and learned the satisfaction of sowing seeds and tending crops. And although she was becoming beautiful, the princess did not know it, for the crone had neither looking glass nor vanity and thus the princess had not learned the ways of either.
One night, in the princess’s sixteenth year, she and the crone sat in the kitchen eating their supper. ‘What happened to your eyes, dear crone?’ asked the princess, who had wondered for a long time.
The crone turned towards the princess, skin wrinkled where her eyes should be. ‘My sight was taken from me.’
‘By whom?’
‘When I was but a maiden, my father loved me so much that he removed my eyes so I need never witness death and destruction in the world.’
‘But dearest crone, you can no longer witness beauty either,’ said the princess, thinking of the pleasure she gained from watching her garden blossom.
‘No,’ said the crone. ‘And I would very much like to see you, my Beauty, grow.’
‘Could we not seek your eyes somewhere?’
The crone smiled sadly. ‘My eyes were to be returned by messenger when I attained my sixtieth year, but on the night ordained, my Beauty arrived with a great lashing storm on her heels, and I was unable to meet him.’
‘Might we find him now?’
The crone shook her head. ‘The messenger could not wait, and my eyes were taken instead to the deep well in the land of lost things.’
‘Could we not journey there?’
‘Alas,’ said the crone, ‘the way is far, and the road paved with danger and deprivation.’
By and by, the seasons changed, and the crone became weaker and paler. One day, when the princess was on her way to pick apples for the winter store, she came upon the crone, sitting in the fork of the apple tree, lamenting. The princess stopped, startled, for she had never seen the crone upset. As she listened, she realised that the crone was speaking to a solemn grey and white bird with a striped tail: ‘My eyes, my eyes,’ she said. ‘My end approaches and my sight will never be restored. Tell me, wise bird, how will I know my way in the next world if I cannot see myself?’
Quickly and quietly, the princess returned to the cottage, for she knew what she must do. The crone had sacrificed her eyes to provide the princess shelter and now must this kindness be repaid. Although she had never travelled beyond the forest rim, the princess did not hesitate. Her love for the crone was so fathomless that if all the grains of sand in the ocean should be stacked up end to end, they would not run so deep.
The princess woke with the first dawn of morning and wandered forth into the forest, stopping not until she reached the shore. There she set sail, crossing the vast sea to the land of lost things.
The way was long and hard, and the princess was bewildered, for the forest in the land of lost things looked vastly different from that to which she was accustomed. The trees were cruel and jagged, the beasts ghastly, even the birds’ songs made the princess tremble. The more frightened she became, the faster she ran, until finally she stopped, her heart thundering in her chest. The princess was lost and knew not where to turn. She was about to despair, when the solemn grey and white bird appeared before her. ‘I am sent by the crone,’ said the bird, ‘to lead you safely to the well of lost things where you will find your fate.’
The princess was much relieved and set off after the bird, her stomach grumbling for she had been unable to find food in this strange land. By and by, she came upon an old woman sitting on a fallen log. ‘How fare you, Beauty?’ said the old woman.
‘I am so hungry,’ said the princess, ‘yet I know not where to seek food.’
The old woman pointed to the forest and suddenly the princess saw that there were berries hanging from the trees, and nuts growing in clusters on the ends of branches.
‘Oh thank you, kind woman,’ said the princess.
‘I did nothing,’ said the old woman, ‘except to open your eyes and show you what you knew was there.’
The princess continued after the bird, more satisfied now, but as they went the weather began to change and the winds grew cold.
By and by, the princess came upon a second old woman sitting on a tree stump. ‘How fare you, Beauty?’
‘I am so cold, yet I know not where to seek warm clothes.’
The old woman pointed to the forest, and suddenly the princess saw brambles of wild roses with the softest, most delicate petals. She coated herself with them and was much warmer.
‘Oh thank you, kind woman,’ said the princess.
‘I did nothing,’ said the old woman, ‘except to open your eyes and show you what you knew was there.’
The princess continued after the grey and white bird, more satisfied now, and warmer than before, but her feet began to ache for she had walked so far.
By and by, the princess came upon a third old woman sitting on a tree stump. ‘How fare you, Beauty?’
‘I am so tired, yet I know not where to seek carriage.’
The old woman pointed to the forest, and suddenly, in a clearing, the princess saw a shiny brown fawn with a gold ring around his neck. The fawn blinked at the princess, a dark, thoughtful eye, and the princess, who was kind of heart, held out her hand. The fawn came to her and bowed his head so she might ride upon his back.
‘Oh thank you, kind woman,’ said the princess.
‘I did nothing,’ said the woman, ‘except to open your eyes and show you what you knew was there.’
The princess and the fawn followed the grey and white bird further and further into the dark forest, and as days passed the princess came to understand the fawn’s soft and gentle language. As they spoke, night after night, the princess learned that the fawn was in hiding from a treacherous hunter sent to kill him by a wicked witch. So grateful was the princess for the fawn’s kindness, that she undertook to keep him safe from his tormentors.
Good intentions pave the way to ruin, however, and early next morning the princess woke to find the fawn absent from his usual place by the fire. In the tree above, the grey and white bird twittered in agitation, and the princess jumped quickly to her feet, following where the bird led. As she drew deeper into the nearby brambles, she heard the fawn weeping. The princess hurried to his side and saw there an arrow in his flank.
‘The witch hath found me,’ spoke the fawn. ‘As I collected nuts for our journey she ordered her archers to shoot me. I ran as far and as fast as I could, but when I reached t
his spot I could go no further.’
The princess knelt by the fawn and so great was her distress at witnessing his pain that she began to weep over his body, and the truth and light from her tears caused his wound to heal.
Over the next days the princess tended the fawn, and once his health was restored they continued their journey to the edge of the vast woods. When they broke finally through the rim of trees, the coastline lay before them and the glistening sea beyond.
‘Not much further north,’ said the bird, ‘stands the well of lost things.’
Day had ended and dusk thickened into night, but the shingles of the beach shone like pieces of silver in the moonlight, marking their way. They walked north until finally, at the top of a craggy black rock, could be seen the well of lost things. The grey and white bird bade them farewell and flew away, her duty discharged.
When the princess and the fawn reached the well, the princess turned to stroke her noble companion’s neck. ‘You cannot come with me down the well, dear fawn,’ she said, ‘for this must I do alone.’ And summoning up the bravery she had discovered on her journey, the princess jumped into the opening, and fell and fell towards the bottom.
The princess tumbled in and out of sleep and dreams until she found herself walking in a field where the sun made the grass glimmer and the trees sing.
Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a beautiful fairy appeared, with long, swirling hair that glistened like spun gold and a radiant smile upon her face. The princess felt instantly at peace.
‘You have come a long way, weary traveller,’ said the fairy.
‘I have come that I might return to a dear friend her eyes. Have you seen the globes of which I speak, bright fairy?’
Without a word, the fairy opened her hand and in it were two eyes, the beautiful eyes of a maiden who had seen no ill in the world.
‘You may take them,’ said the fairy, ‘but your crone will never use them.’