CHAPTER 22
A short rap sounded on the door, immediately followed by the door being pushed open.
Ouska entered the room carrying a lantern. She cast a brief look at the faces around the table. Her eyes fell on Sepp, and her whole face lit up in a look of pure joy. But all she said, in a curt tone, was, “So you’re back, are you?”
“Good evening, Aunt,” the young man replied meekly, his eyes dancing in response to her unspoken pleasure at his return. He got to his feet, as did Guy, strugglingly.
“Sit,” the older woman told the potter, “I’m just as well off on the bench.”
Guy gratefully sank back into the chair, while Sepp moved around to the back of the table.
“Move over a bit, will you,” he said to Cat, pushing his way onto the back bench. She obligingly scooted a foot sideways, closer to Guy, who had his foot up on the front bench again. Ouska got a mug from the shelf, then settled herself on the table and poured a cup of mintbrew. She took a slow sip, letting her eyes travel over the three young faces across the table from her.
Cat felt as if she was supposed to do something, pass some test, sit up straighter—as if she was being evaluated. She desperately wanted the wisewoman to approve of her, but she swallowed her self-consciousness and met Ouska’s gaze with a steady one of her own. Two pairs of brown eyes locked for a very brief period; then the older woman gave an infinitesimal nod, as if she was pleased with her. Cat released her pent-up breath, as Ouska’s gaze moved on to Sepp beside her, then down to the bowl shards on the table.
“So you’re back,” she repeated. “When? About an hour back, two?”
“Yes,” Sepp and Cat replied at the same time, then looked at each other and laughed.
“In the Wald,” Cat continued. “The same place where I first landed.”
“Yes, I felt it. And just exactly where was that again?” asked the older woman, with an intent look in her eyes.
“There’s a little clearing, a space—”
“The Arbour,” interrupted Sepp. “They were there, waiting. Come to think of it, I still don’t know why.”
“Guy went there,” Cat said, looking at the potter. “I followed him. It was something to do with a tree?” She waited for him to pick up the thread, but he remained silent, his face shuttered as if he was trying to prevent his thoughts from being seen.
“Oh,” said Sepp, “the tall one, with the blue bark? Behind the screen?”
“The Septimus Tree,” stated Ouska matter-of-factly as if none of this came as a surprise to her.
“What?” cried both the men together, Guy shaken out of his silence. They looked at their aunt in consternation.
“Did you not know its name? It is your family’s tree, planted by your ancestor, the last Septimissimus, nearly seven hundred years ago. It has always had special significance to your family and very special powers for the Septimus, and I have been suspecting that it is concerned in much of this. There was your wound,” she laid a gentle hand on Guy’s lower leg, resting on the bench beside her. “You were far more ill than you should have been with an injury of this kind and recovered much more quickly than would have been expected after such a grave illness. I believe it was due to this.” She reached into a little pocket on the waistband of her skirt and brought out a small bundle wrapped in a handkerchief. She unfolded the cloth and held the contents up to the light.
Cat recoiled. Held up in Ouska’s hand, grasped in the handkerchief, was the sharp splinter she had removed from Guy’s wound the morning before. But then Cat leaned closer, intrigued. Even in the low yellow light of the candle she could make out something unusual. This was no ordinary wood—it had a distinctly turquoise-blue sheen. She looked from Guy to Ouska and back again.
“That’s the stick that was stuck in your leg, Guy,” Cat said, slowly, putting the pieces together in her head as she spoke. “It was in the clay pit, in the hole where, you said, you had dug the clay to mix the glaze for the blue bowls. And the stick is blue—it’s a piece from that tree, isn’t it?” She looked at Ouska for confirmation, who nodded at her to continue. “And it was the ashes from the tree that made the other part of that glaze. The splinter in your leg, it made you so very ill. The glaze on the bowls, made from that wood and the clay it soaked in, it makes people leave, or come back just by that tree. I think it was even your touching the tree, trying to break off some branches, that drew Sepp back home.”
She fell silent for a moment, then continued.
“But one thing I do not understand: why is it Guy’s pottery, even if it does come from the Septimus tree, which has that special power, when it is Sepp who is the Septimissimus?”
At this, Ouska nodded again, like a teacher pleased with a pupil who had made all the right connections and had arrived at the hub of the matter. Then she drew a deep breath, as if readying herself for a difficult task, and spoke.
“But he is not,” she said. “Sepp is not the Septimissimus—Guy is.”