The violinmaker was with him, holding a tray of the most delicious-looking pasties Luna had ever seen.
It was such a shame, in a way, that she wasn’t the slightest bit hungry.
The violinmaker’s beaming smile changed to one of puzzlement, perhaps even frustration, when both Luna and Rouger refused his offer of the gloriously prepared pastries.
‘So white, so light,’ the baker said in admiration of Luna’s beauty, his hand caressing the air around her as if wishing yet too scared to touch her. ‘Like the very whitest, lightest of flours!’
The violinmaker nodded in agreement.
‘Such lightness of tone!’ he said eagerly.
‘And the boy,’ the baker said, his attention moving on to Rouger. ‘Unique, individual: a definite hint of the wild berries of the wood!’
‘A rare wood!’ Like the baker, the violinmaker seemed to be having to forcibly hold himself back from stroking Rouger. ‘A living wood; what resonance could come from such a rarity?’
As the baker and violinmaker talked, they politely showed Luna and Rouger to a small, private corner of the shop, where two small chairs were set around a small table. The table, like the violinmaker’s tray, was piled high with the most incredibly tempting cream cakes and succulent pastries.
‘Come, come,’ the baker said jovially, ‘there must be some of my delicious wares I can tempt you with?’
‘Surely you wouldn’t insult him by refusing his generosity?’ the violinmaker added with a wide smile as he placed his own tray on the table.
Suddenly, his pleasant expression changed to one of both amazement and horror.
From beneath the table, everyone could now quite clearly hear the rushed whisperings of terrified children. Although she was safely held in Luna’s comforting hands, Natalie shivered.
‘Please, at least take a seat?’
While indicating the waiting chairs with a wide wave of an arm, the baker spoke loudly and nervously as he tried to drown out what sounded more and more like the warnings of many terrified children.
‘I remember!’ Natalie suddenly cried out, her voice that of a young girl – a very frightened young girl.
‘It’s a trap!’ she screamed. ‘Run!’
*
Chapter 28
Before Luna and Rouger could run, the baker furiously pulled back a large lever hidden behind a curtain in the small alcove.
The table flipped to one side, spilling its load of cakes and pastries.
The floor where it had stood opened up, a trapdoor leading down into a dark chute. The chairs tipped forward on hinges towards the hole: anyone who had been sitting on them would have been thrown down into the pitch-black tunnel.
Luna and Rouger were so astonished by what they were seeing, they didn’t realise the violinmaker had moved behind them. With a hard, violent push of a hand on each of their backs, he pushed them towards the waiting hole.
They stumbled as they tried to resist the hard push. Unfortunately, they were too close to the trapdoor’s edge to have any hope of stopping themselves from falling down it. They slipped down through the hole, plummeting into a complete darkness.
They slid uncontrollably down the long winding chute, fruitlessly searching with their hands for anything to grab onto that would slow their careering descent. Luna was clinging on tightly to Natalie, trying to protect her from being damaged by their tumultuous fall.
The warning cries of the children were now louder, more urgent, than ever. The pummelling of the water by the churning water wheel was also now cacophonic, particularly as it had become mixed in with the grinding and harsh clunking of the great cogs and wheels it powered.
At last, Luna glimpsed a dim light at the end of their fall down the meandering chute. But she immediately wished she hadn’t been able to see where they were irresistibly heading for.
For it was the cogs and grinding stones themselves that they were about to fall amongst.
Where they’d be broken, pounded and mashed in seconds.
*
Chapter 29
The only thing drowning out the pummelling and pounding of the massive cogs now was their own screams of fear.
Natalie was also shrieking with fear. She’d remembered how to talk once more, but her last words it seemed would be ones of agony and terror.
Just when it seemed there was nothing to stop them falling amongst the whirring wheels, however, there was a noisy clunk towards one side of the chute.
Abruptly, a thick wooden pole swiftly slid across the chute. It didn’t entirely block their way: it was too high up to automatically stop their fall. But both Luna and Rouger urgently reached up with outstretched arms to grasp the pole as they threatened to shoot unhindered beneath it.
Their hands gripped the pole, Rouger using one of his own hands to help steady Luna, for she only had one hand to spare as she gripped onto the screeching Natalie.
Unfortunately, the halting of their fall was too quick. Natalie was unavoidably jolted out of Luna’s hand. The violin flew on, hurtling farther down the chute towards the whirling wheels.
Natalie landed amongst the gigantic cogs. The wheels crashed down hard on her, crushing the edges of her fragile body with a loud crack, a pained strain of snapping strings, the shriek of a badly injured girl.
‘Natalie!’ Luna screamed. Her eyes wide with horror, she uselessly stretched out her free hand, even though she knew the violin was too far out of her reach.
Catching only the edges of Natalie’s rounded body, the ravenous cogs couldn’t draw her farther into their clutches as they might have hoped: rather, they unintentionally briefly spat her back out, such that she flew into the air again, now a mess of splintered wood and flaying, broken strings.
Luna’s urgently grasping fingers found the end of one of those loosely waving strings. Her fingers slipped around the string, gripped it: and Luna jerked back her hand, causing Natalie to come flying back towards her once more.
Rouger grasped the poor, smashed violin with his own free hand, even though he wondered if it would be too late to do anything more for her.
Besides, he thought; how much longer could their rapidly tiring hands cling onto the wooden bar?
How much longer would it be, in fact, before they all ended up being ground into a mush beneath the rotating cogs?
*
Chapter 30
With another harsh clunking of wood, the wall of the chute just to Rouger’s side moved.
A large hatch slightly opened up there: and the face of the old woman from the cottage appeared in the opening.
‘Quickly,’ she hissed urgently, reaching in with a withered yet surprisingly strong arm, ‘take my hand and clamber out of there!’
‘Quickly, quickly,’ the children whispered. ‘Before they come! Before they come!’
The old woman helped first Rouger and then Luna clamber out through the hatch.
It wasn’t at all a tight squeeze, but their exiting of the chute was made more difficult by their careful attempts to ensure Natalie wasn’t damaged any further during their confused efforts to scramble to safety.
‘They’re on their way, they’re on their way,’ the children warned.
The whispering of the children came from flowers planted on the edges of the bridge support that the mill and its vast, still noisily churning wheel had been built upon. The old woman had used an inspection hatch on the outside of the chute to rescue Luna and Rouger. She closed it behind them, even as she directed Luna and Rouger to board the small rowing boat she’d moored alongside the support.
The old woman also recovered the broom handle she’d forced through a large knot in the grain of the wood making up the chute.
‘They’ll have realised you haven’t gone into their mill,’ the woman began to explain as she got into the boat and took up the oars, instantly pulling away from the small island, ‘so hide quickly under those old sacks.’
‘Quickly, quickly!’ the flowers hissed as the
old woman gave a sharp nod to indicate the sacks lying in the bottom of her boat.
As Luna ducked beneath the covering of sacks, she saw why they had to hide; the baker and violinmaker were also urgently rowing towards the outside of the mill, doubtlessly to use the chute’s inspection hatch to check why she and Rouger hadn’t ended up being crushed beneath their mill’s cogs.
‘My children told me you were in danger,’ the old woman whispered to Luna and Rouger as they lay beneath the damp, smelly sacking. ‘Your bones would go into the baker’s flour, your insides stretched into strings. Boiled down, you would have become glue and varnish.’
‘Is there no way to stop them?’ Luna whispered back.
‘I’ve never had the chance before, but…’
Beneath the sacking, Luna and Rouger exchanged frowns of puzzlement as they felt the old woman change the boat’s direction. It seemed that she was rowing back towards the small island formed by the bridge’s support.
Sensing that the old woman was hurriedly yet silently clambering from the boat, Luna took the risk of peeping out from beneath the sacking.
The baker and the violinmaker were both half hanging in, half hanging out of the inspection hatch. They were arguing over where the blockage in the chute must have occurred; much farther up, or somewhere down amongst the wheels.
Quietly sneaking behind the arguing men, the old woman gave each of them a hard push: and both men disappeared with a surprised yelp into the chute.
The shocked yelps were instantly replaced by screams of fear. Then shrieks of agony.
Then, suddenly, there was absolutely nothing to be heard from them.
The great wheel relentlessly churned at the splashing water.
The massive cogs ground their teeth in satisfaction.
And the children sang for joy.
‘They’ve gone, they’ve gone!’
*
Chapter 31
‘Well, I won’t be buying any flour from that baker’s for a while.’
The old woman grinned as she helped Luna and Rouger clamber from the boat she had now moored alongside her own garden.
‘They’ve gone, they’ve gone,’ the children in the garden all cheerfully sang.
‘I used to buy whatever flour I could, of course,’ the old woman continued as she bent down to tenderly caress the nearest clump of the happily singing flowers. ‘Naturally, I could afford only one violin.’
She stared forlornly at the smashed and silent Natalie, who was still being carefully held in Luna’s arms.
‘She could talk, you say?’
The old woman shook her head sadly. Luna and Rouger had explained as much as they could about themselves, and about Natalie, as the old woman had unhurriedly rowed between the two islands.
‘It’s not unusual,’ the old woman continued, needing no answer to her rhetorical question, ‘albeit not intended. The violinmaker wanted the children for their melodious voices; but he obviously didn’t want them to remember who’d they’d originally been, let alone remember how to talk! That might allow the children to warn others about what was going on! Some children, however, couldn’t forget such things.’
Luna concernedly stroked Natalie’s shattered body.
‘Perhaps the Devil simply made Natalie forget to talk once more; only for her to remember when she found herself back in the bakery.’
Rouger was curiously observing the singing flowers as he knelt amongst them. Each one, he’d noticed, when you sat closely by them, had an individual look, voice and character, almost as if each child had been brought back to life within each flower.
‘We saw you making the gingerbread men and planting them out here,’ he said, looking up with a puzzled grin towards the old woman. ‘But the flour you buy is just a mingling of god knows how many children; what on Earth separates them into single children once again?’
‘The earth itself, of course; it helps them decide who they each are, singling them out from the mass they originally arose from. I couldn’t possibly hope to sort them out on my own. It’s the shared, early memories of them all, burgeoning once more into the unique characters still stored within each violin you–’
‘Wait!’ Luna blurted out, as it suddenly occurred to her that there might be a way of helping Natalie after all. ‘Does that mean…’ she paused, fearing a negative answer, ‘that there’s also a flower for Natalie?’
‘Of course; and very beautiful she is too!’ the old woman answered brightly, blissfully beaming with pleasure.’
*
Chapter 32
Natalie wasn’t a single flower, growing in the beds, as Luna had expected.
Rather, she was a gloriously amber bloom, just one of many roses spreading over an arching frame adorned with climbers of every description.
‘Oh; does this mean…mean she’s not a complete child?’ Luna asked disappointedly.
‘A bloom, a single plant; it doesn’t matter either way – they’re each a missing child.’ The old woman lovingly touched the amber petals. ‘As for a complete child; well, I’m afraid that none of them could be remotely called a complete child.’
‘Oh, is that me?’ the rose asked forlornly, seeing the shattered violin that Luna was carrying.
‘I’m afraid so my dear,’ the old woman answered honestly.
‘How…how did you know it was you?’ Luna asked unsurely.
‘A slight connection remains between us: I felt her pain. Felt her slipping away.’
‘Then she…?’
Luna looked sadly at the violin she was holding. She had been hoping that there was still some life left in there, a spark of her soul at the very least that might at some point have been revived.
The rose fluttered and moved, as if possibly nodding.
‘There’s little of me left in there: I’ll soon be entirely gone.’
‘But you…?’ Again, Luna asked her question edgily, fearing the answer.
‘I…I presume that when she finally goes, I will follow on too.’
The rose shrugged, as if steadying herself.
‘Which means I have to tell you something she’s been wanting to tell you for ages! Something to do with the magical mirror she overheard you and Rouger talking about. For she says it’s so dangerous, it has been stored in a room that no one dares go in anymore.’
*
Chapter 33
The Room of Youthful Delights
There once lived an extremely beautiful queen – the emphasis here being on the once.
For like any great beauty, she found that she was aging.
Her renowned beauty was slowly fading, as even the most perfect rose must one day wither, droop, and fall away.
Once so imperious – again, the emphasis on the once – she found herself envying those she had once looked down upon.
What was beauty when compared with youth? Even the most average of young girls can somehow appear far more vibrant and exciting than even the most beautiful woman born to an earlier age.
Her daughters, far from being a delight to her, caused her only the greatest pain. For although their father was ruddy and boorish – naturally, she had married him for the extent of his lands rather than any physical attributes – they had inherited some if not all of her previously legendary beauty. Combined with their unattainable youth, these indefinable elements of beauty ensured they sparkled vivaciously at court, during processions, or watching duals in the tiltyards.
Delving into the dark arts, the queen believed, could be her only solution.
She conversed with demons.
She read the great tomes promising riches to those who follow the Devil’s creed.
She practised the drawing of certain mystical symbols, the lighting of candles in precise positions near infamous wells, where it was said spirits lived and unwary fools died.
She bathed in the blood of virgins, for many claimed this granted eternal youth. The poor girls were told they would be serving the queen, excited and thr
illed until they realised exactly how they would be serving her, how they were expected to fulfil her will.
The queen’s blacksmiths and carpenters were set to constructing the most elaborate devices. Machines involving Iron Maidens, meandering channels for the blood, and vast, marble pools fit for a goddess.
Of course, none of it worked.
The queen, despite earlier bouts of wishful thinking, had to admit that she was still aging, despite the deaths of so many innocent young girls.
Her beauty was waning, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Of course, she was furious with this totally unfair state of affairs.
*
Within the many books she read on magic, the queen had come across references to a magical bed. A bed in which you went to sleep as an old woman, and awoke as a young maid.
She sent envoys across all the kingdoms, asking wherever they went if anyone had any proof that this fabulous bed actually existed.
She offered to pay whatever the present owner demanded (although secretly determined to have them killed if she felt they were taking advantage of her needs).
The envoys increasingly became terrified of sending back bad news to the queen, her anger against them growing with every setback. They began to make up reports of more positive news, to the extent that there suddenly seemed to be a surfeit of magical beds across the kingdoms.
The queen had all her envoys executed for their treacherous lies.
She sent out new, more trustworthy servants in their place.
Soon, of course, she was furious with these new, even more ridiculously useless envoys.
At last, however, a fairy appeared at court who promised her that he could provide her with this magical bed she sought.
In fact, he declared pompously, so magical was his fabulous bed that its power would gradually affect the whole room it was placed in, until the room itself became a veritable fountain of youth.
So certain was he of the bed’s remarkable powers, he further added, that he felt obliged to advise anyone intending to sleep in the bed to ensure they had a fresh set of clothes to change into in the morning: for the more youthful waker would only scorn the poor tastes of the older person they had only recently been. Moreover, they would only feel comfortable in garments more suited to their newly discovered litheness and their wish to engage in more energetic pursuits.