CHAPTER 4
Cat took a deep breath. Okay. She was stuck in a cottage without power or running water, in a magical forest, with a small girl who didn't speak English (much), an unconscious injured man (she realised she didn't even know his name), and no cell phone to call 911. And the one person who seemed to know what was going on had disappeared, possibly never to come back. Panic rose again in Cat's throat. This was crazy! What weird and unexpected thing was going to happen next? Who was to say that if she picked up the brown pottery cup on the table she wouldn't suddenly be whirled off into yet some other dimension? Why did this have to happen, why, why? Perhaps being whirled off to somewhere else wouldn't be such a bad idea; it couldn't be much worse than the fix she was in at that moment, could it? Maybe it would take her back to where she had come from—you never could tell.
Cat dropped the clothes she was holding onto the bench by the table, snatched up the cup, took yet another deep, determined breath, and stared fixedly into the depths of the vessel. There was some dried-on milk at the bottom of it. And nothing whatever happened.
"Gah?" said Bibby.
Cat sighed, and looked up from the cup. It appeared that her attempt to hypnotise the pottery dish into transporting her back to twenty-first century North America was a failure. So she might as well make the best of the situation she was in. She put the pottery cup back on the table, noticing as she did so how well it fit her hand. It was just the right shape and weight to be pleasant to hold, and the lip looked smooth and round. It was a nicely made piece; whoever the artisan was who had made it had a lot of skill. Cat smiled at Bibby, to reassure herself as much as the little girl.
"Well, Little Bibby (is that your actual name? Seems a bit odd to me), it's you and me and your daddy, isn't it. I hope he doesn't wake up, or die, or do anything else that I don't know what to do about."
Bibby climbed off the chair she was on, and toddled over to Cat. "Gah!" she said again, and patted at the clothing that Cat had piled on the bench.
"Oh, quite," said Cat, "I guess I might as well." She picked up the clothing—a skirt, tiered in earth-brown and a dark green, and a tunic blouse in a lighter brown—and turned around in a circle. Where could she change? There wasn't even a cupboard to hide behind. Ah, whatever. It was not like a really small child would care, and the man was unconscious. Just the same, Cat turned her back to the bed, then took off her poor muddy blouse and coloured skirt. The brown tunic slipped on over her head and laced up at the neck; the skirt had a drawstring and came down to her ankles. Both were loose and long enough to fit comfortably, as Ouska had predicted. Cat chuckled at the thought of what Ryan would say if he could see her now. She draped her muddy, damp clothes over the bench to dry off; time enough to deal with them in the morning.
It was getting darker in the cottage as the daylight was fading outside. The candles on the mantelpiece would soon be the only illumination left. Cat was wondering how Ouska had lit them. It would be too much to expect there to be any matches or lighters around, probably—what had she used, a tinderbox? That's what people usually used in places like this, wasn't it? And Cat had no clue how to use one of those. Well, there was some light in the cottage now. She just hoped the candles would last until Ouska got back.
Cat looked around the cottage. She had hardly had any time to take in her surroundings; they had been much too absorbed looking after the man on the bed. Cat gave him a quick glance. He was still lying motionless, apart from his chest gently rising and falling with each breath. Keep breathing, Cat thought, just keep breathing! For the first time, she noticed the furniture in the room. In the corner beside the bed stood what was surely a kind of chair—Ouska had piled the blankets on top of it, obscuring most of it, but Cat could see the outline of a high back, and a part of a carved armrest was showing. Going over to take a closer look, Cat scooped up the pile of blankets, and gasped in surprise.
It was a rocking chair, a fantastically beautiful piece, utterly unlike the plain simplicity of the table, bench and chair on the other side of the room. Fashioned out of a dark, shining wood (black walnut, perhaps—if they had walnuts in this place), the high back was pierced and carved in an intricate pattern. Cat saw roses, lilies, daffodils, and honeysuckle, twining up the sides, curving around the top and winding themselves in a riot of shapes and motions around a medallion in the centre. The small oval held a bird, a tiny songbird (though how Cat knew it was a songbird she could not have told), its bright little eyes and tilt of its head reminding Cat of nothing so much as of Bibby's little face. In fact, the bird was Bibby.
"Dair!" said the little girl, who had toddled over and stood clutching Cat's skirt. Cat hadn’t even noticed her from being so absorbed in admiring this marvellous piece of furniture.
"Yes, that's some chair all right!" she replied, looking from the baby to the chair again. The armrests were supported by more pierced carvings of the same flowers, leading down to two smooth rockers resting on the floorboards. Taking the blankets off the chair had set it very gently in motion; it was softly swaying back and forth. Cat was suddenly seized by a desire to sit down on this chair, to rest, to let it soothe her into peace. Bibby let go of Cat's skirt and patted the highly polished, smoothly curving seat.
"Dair. Yit." she commanded.
"Yes, sit!" replied Cat; it was just what she wanted herself. But first she had to find a place for all those blankets. She carried them over to the other side of the bed (the man was still softly breathing), and dumped them on top of the chest against the wall. Being across the room from the chair, its pull seemed to have lessened just slightly. She still wanted to try the chair, but there were a few other things that needed to be looked to first.
"Just wait a few minutes, okay? We’ll sit in the chair really soon," she told the little girl. She tore a chunk off the bread and a piece off the cheese that were still on the table, then wrapped the rest in the cloth they were sitting on. (Oil cloth, it was. Cat was proud of herself for recognising it.) She carried them over to the shelves which were mounted under the window on the opposite side of the door from the rocking chair. They held a number of brown glazed pottery dishes—bowls of various sizes, plates, and cups, like the one that had failed to transport Cat back to where she had come from. There was an unglazed earthenware jug with a cloth draped over it, which stood in a dish of water; and an empty spot with some crumbs scattered on it which told Cat that this was where the food belonged.
She quickly ate the bread and cheese she had taken, then went outside to find the privy Ouska had mentioned. There was barely enough light to see by, but she did find it, clear around the back of the house, in the corner where the side building jutted out a bit further into the back garden than the house did. It was just like the outhouse on the campground she'd been to with her friend Monica the previous summer, Cat thought. Well, she had wanted adventure—and she had got it, with a vengeance. A rustic, magical adventure. Where would this all end up?
Cat rinsed off her hands under the pump, shook the last drops of water off her hands and dried the rest on her skirt. When she stepped back into the house, it was almost entirely dark inside; the candles cast soft globes of a yellow glow into the darkness. Bibby had climbed into the rocking chair, and sat quietly with her thumb in her mouth. Her eyelids were drooping over those big turquoise eyes; she raised one little fist and rubbed it at her eye. What a cutie, Cat thought. Better get her to bed.
Oh, but wait—the baby wasn't wearing a diaper, was she? What had that been about a potty? Oh dear. This was all so complicated. Thank goodness she had done some babysitting in her teens, at least she had had a little bit of experience with handling small kids. Sure, that was almost ten years ago, but things did come back to one, didn't they? Or so she had read. Cat picked up little Bibby from the rocking chair, leaving it softly swaying behind her, and stood her on the floor. Yes, she still knew how to pick up a toddler.
Now, this potty—ah yes, there was something in the corner beside the clothing chest, where Ouska had
made up Bibby's bed. It looked like a large pot-bellied bowl with a handle, and a pouring spout. A pouring spout? Eew! But, yes, Cat supposed you rather needed that. You had to dump the stuff somehow. And come to think of it, she had seen chamber pots like this, in pictures, and even once, she remembered now, in a museum. Except there it had been white, and enamelled, not just clear-glazed pottery. But this one seemed to have a lid, which was propped against the wall beside it; quite a useful idea, that. It was getting so dark out Cat was not sure she would be able to find her way to the privy again, and who knew what roamed around out there in the dark; she was glad to be able to cover up the, ahem, pot over night.
Very well. "Go potty, Bibby?" she asked in a high-pitched voice. Good grief, why was she talking like that? Silly. "Do you need to go potty, Bibby?" she repeated in a more normal tone. "Bo-be," said the baby sleepily, and tugged at her tunic. Her drawers were a simple drawstring affair, easy enough to slip down (thank goodness). After Bibby was done, Cat just pulled up her drawers again and tied them up; she had yet to figure out what one did for toilet paper in this place. Perhaps she would steal a few of those rags for the privy later on.
The little girl was barely able to keep her eyes open any more; her head was beginning to nod and she was knuckling both her eyes now. "Gah…" she said softly and sleepily. Cat pulled back the blanket on the top of the little pallet, then picked up the baby and gently laid her down on it. She knelt on the floor beside the makeshift bed, tucked the blanket around the little shoulders, and gently stroked the little girl's hair.
"Good night, sweetie," she said. Bibby had her thumb in her mouth, and her long eyelashes were fanned out on her cheeks. Deep breaths showed that she was already most of the way to dreamland. Adorable.
Cat sat back onto her heels. Now what? It was completely dark, except for the little globes of light the candles were casting around them. The rocking chair in the corner was still pulling at her, and at any rate there was nothing else she could do but wait. Cat fished out a blanket from the pile on the chest and wrapped it around herself; it was some kind of wooly material, softer than it had looked. She walked around the quietly breathing man on the bed, and sank back into the rocking chair.
Once again the chair surprised a gasp out of her—in spite of the intricate carving of the back, it was the most comfortable thing she had ever sat on. It cradled her back like a smooth, comforting hug. Its gentle swaying motion was soothing, peaceful.
Cat leaned back her head against the chair, and softly rocked to the rhythm of the breathing of the man and his little girl.