Night Gate

  It was slow going over the uneven, brambly ground. Every time they came to a rusted barbed-wire fence left from the days when this was farmers’ land, she propped open the strands with the stick she had picked up to smack at the grass and frighten snakes away. The darker it got, the harder it was to walk, and she kept tripping over blackberry runners.

  She began to worry about what she was going to do with the dogs when she got to Hopeton. They would stay if she told them to wait just outside the town, but after a while they would come looking for her. It wasn’t disobedience. It was just that their minds weren’t made to hold orders for very long.

  She felt like crying again. It was too much, having to worry about the dogs as well as about how she was going to find the hospital and convince the nurses to let her visit Mam. She knew from listening to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson talk that the nurses were very strict about visiting times and about how many people could visit. They were sure to make a fuss about Rage being there without an adult.

  You must get in, Rage told herself fiercely. She found herself remembering the awful night when no one had come to pick her up from school. She had sat in the headmaster’s office and listened to him phoning the police. From the way his shoulders hunched she knew that it was bad news.

  She made herself concentrate on watching the dogs. No matter how bad she felt, that always made her feel better. Elle was rushing ahead and coming back every once in a while to walk a few steps beside her. Mr. Walker ran round and round her in circles, covering double the distance of the others. Billy Thunder trotted at her side, behind his mother. Mrs. Johnson was right about him being the sweetest dog that ever lived. Billy was pure honey and sunlight, which was a wonder when you thought how near he’d come to dying almost as soon as he was born.

  He was the only one of the dogs born on Winnoway Farm. Mam had been amazed to discover that Bear was pregnant because Bear was so old. When her puppies were born too soon, Grandfather said they were too small to feed and ought to be drowned. He might even have done it if he hadn’t been so ill by then. Mam called the vet, who said he could not come until the following evening and that they must milk Bear and feed the puppies all through the night. Mam only managed to get a small cup of milk from Bear.

  “It is not enough for all of them,” she said. “We have to choose one.”

  She stood looking at the five puppies for the longest time, until Rage knew that she could not bring herself to choose. But if a choice was not made, then all of the puppies would die. Sometimes Rage thought that was the worst moment in her life: looking at those puppies and knowing that she must choose, and that whichever puppy she chose meant choosing that the others would die. Billy had begun to wriggle then, and she had picked him up because she had thought he might be stronger than the others and have a better chance to survive.

  They had carried him inside, leaving Bear nuzzling and worrying at the other puppies. Mam heated Bear’s milk and watered it down, then she told Rage to put her finger into the mouth of the puppy so it would suck, and she would dribble the milk into its mouth with an eyedropper. Rage obeyed and was horrified to feel that the inside of its mouth was cold. She had not wanted to touch him after that because she thought death had already got into him, but Mam said death did not always win.

  Billy had lasted the night, but the other puppies died. Bear had moved them out of the garage and under the house, and that was where they found her with the poor things in the morning. Mr. Johnson came and took the bodies away, but Bear kept scratching under the house as if she thought the ground had swallowed her puppies up. Then quite suddenly she seemed to realize that Billy was inside. She howled and sniffed at the door, but they couldn’t give him to her because he was too small and sickly.

  It took them a long time to make him well, and when they did let him outside as a gangling, floppy boy dog, Bear had sniffed at him with disinterest.

  “Perhaps she doesn’t know Billy is her son,” Rage said.

  But Grandfather had said Bear knew all right but that she didn’t care. “Love can end,” he had added malevolently.

  Rage tripped over a furrow. Picking herself up, she was startled to notice how dark it had become while she was daydreaming.

  Now that she and the dogs were all still, she could hear something rustling through the grass behind them. Fear poured through her veins, but Elle seemed not to scent whatever was making those soft noises. Rage told herself she must be imagining things. But still she could hear twigs snapping, the sound of creeping movements through the grass. A rabbit, then, or birds?

  What sort of animal would creep after a human and four dogs? she wondered with a shiver. Wouldn’t a wild creature run away as fast as it could from such a strange procession?

  She remembered the dazzling flash of orange in the orchard and wondered if a cat or another dog was following them. But if so, why wasn’t Elle barking?

  A branch cracked as loudly as a gunshot, and she whirled, catching Elle by the collar.

  It must be a person, Rage thought. Someone following and hoping she had money or something valuable to steal.

  There was another rustle, and this time something big and white emerged from the dark tangle of foliage. Rage gave a little sobbing laugh of relief when she found herself looking into the strange, square-pupiled eyes of Mrs. Johnson’s goat. It shook its curls and gave a loud, plaintive bleat. Of course none of the dogs had barked. They had recognized the strong smell of the goat’s wool. Elle, who liked the goat especially, trotted over to it and snuffled at its long white ringlets.

  It occurred to Rage that the goat could only have followed them if the Johnsons’ gate was open. Except she distinctly remembered closing it. Shutting gates was one of the important rules on Winnoway Farm. That meant someone else had opened it.

  “Don’t be silly,” she told herself, fighting panic. “Why would anyone deliberately let the goat out?”

  There was a snicker of sound somewhere behind her, and Elle leaped up, barking frantically.

  “Elle!” Rage cried, but it was too late. The bull terrier had plunged away with Mr. Walker at her heels. Bear stayed by Rage, growling softly, while Billy sniffed the air in a puzzled sort of way.

  Rage stood there stupidly, indecisive, until Billy gave an urgent bark.

  Spurred by the thought that Elle and Mr. Walker would head back to the farm, Rage began to run and stumble after them, pushing brambles aside and ignoring the jagged thorns scratching and tearing at her bare skin.

  It was full dark now, and Mrs. Johnson would have begun to worry. Bear and Billy trotted at her heels, the goat skittering along behind them, but the others were too far away to see. “Elle,” Rage yelled. “Mr. Walker!”

  Rage completely lost her sense of direction as the ground began to slope suddenly down into a fold where the undergrowth was even thicker and more tangled. She could hear Elle and Mr. Walker barking ahead, but it sounded as if they had stopped running. Maybe they had treed a cat or bailed up a fox in its hole. She was scratched to pieces, even through her jeans, when at last she broke through a wall of blackberry bushes and into a small clearing.

  Right then the bright crescent moon that had risen behind a cloud bank slid out into the open, bathing the world in a silvery light.

  Rage stopped dead in astonishment. Right in front of her, looming far above her head, was a high, wild wall of brambles, and in the midst of the tangled branches was a perfect archway, like the gate in the hedge at home. Spiders had spun their webs, tying all of the leaves together with a silvery lace that glimmered in the moonlight, but not a single cobweb stretched across the opening.

  Elle and Mr. Walker growled at the strange gate. The goat trotted up to stand behind them. Beside Rage, Billy Thunder whined. When she dropped a hand to his head, she found that he was trembling all over.

  “What is it, Billy? What do you smell?” Rage asked, trying to understand who had created such a thing in the middle of the wilderness, and why. It was far too perfect to be an ac
cident of nature.

  Then came another of the snickering chitters. Elle began to bark again, inching closer to the bramble gate.

  “Elle!” Rage said sharply. To her relief the bull terrier came to heel, Mr. Walker following. She ran her hand along Elle’s back and found all the hair standing up on her spine, stiff as bristles on a toothbrush. What was it about the strange gate that had got the animals so upset?

  Studying it, Rage saw that it offered a clear path out of the brambles. But why would someone make a gateway here? Nothing could be kept in or out by it.

  “Who made you? I wonder,” Rage murmured aloud.

  “Wizard making bramble gate,” answered a purring voice out of nowhere. “Is enchanted gateway.”

  Rage froze in shock. “Who said that?” she whispered.

  “Am being firecat, Ragewinnoway,” the voice responded, soft and rough as a cat’s tongue licking the evening air.

  Rage’s heart gave a nervous jump as she looked around, but she could see no one. “Wh…who is that?”

  “Am firecat,” the voice repeated.

  Rage licked her lips. “How do you know my name?”

  “Am knowing many things,” the firecat responded, its voice beguiling, but with a hint of teeth in it. “Am knowing Ragewinnoway is thinking about sleeping mother.”

  Rage gasped in fright.

  “Not hurting Ragewinnoway,” the voice said hastily.

  “What do you want?” Rage wondered if someone was using ventriloquism to play a nasty trick on her. Except who could know so much about her?

  “Firecat helping Ragewinnoway wake mother,” the voice said.

  “I…I don’t need any help,” Rage quavered.

  There was a hissing laugh. “Mother of Rage being far away…and even if finding her, daughter-calling not powerful enough for waking mother from such deep and dangerous sleeping. Ragewinnoway needs waking magic.”

  Even through her fear, the sneering words cut Rage. She had been a fool to think she could wake Mam when the doctors had failed.

  “Come through bramble gate, Ragewinnoway,” the voice invited. “Wizard will conjure waking magic.”

  “How do you know about Mam?” she asked, blinking hard to stop herself from crying.

  The firecat ignored her question. “Ragewinnoway must forget being careful if wanting to save mother. Must become Ragewinnoway whose name is Courage and enter bramble gate. All questions being answered on other side.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” Rage stammered. “My name isn’t Courage. It’s Rebecca Jane Winnoway. Rage for short.”

  “Naming something hidden can bringing it out of its hiding place. Firecat can smell boldness hidden in Rage Winnoway. Firecat smells that Rage Winnoway can become Courage Winnoway,” the firecat said slyly. “If wanting to helping mother.”

  “Of course I want to help her,” Rage said.

  “Then coming through bramble gate,” the firecat said eagerly. “Wizard helping.”

  Rage shivered and wondered if she could be dreaming. But when she pinched the inside of her wrist, she did not wake. “How do you know the wizard will help Mam?” she called out.

  “Waking magic being payment for service to wizard,” the voice said briskly.

  “What service?”

  “Wizard needing something delivered to him. Something small. Very, very small.”

  “Why don’t you take it to him?” Rage called. There must be a microphone somewhere because she was sure no one was concealed in the brambles. The voice appeared to be coming from the bramble gate itself.

  Again the speaker ignored her question. It said, “Come through, Ragewinnoway, before too late for sleeping mother.”

  “Who are you?” Rage called again. “What has this to do with you?”

  There was no answer.

  Rage stared through the bramble gate. Who would play such a trick on her, and why? And most of all, how?

  She thought of Mam lying in the hospital bed, and a tear trickled down her cheek. She had left Winnoway Farm to help Mam. The slinky voice had made her see that she had behaved as if she were in a fairy story about a girl going to save her mother, with happily ever after waiting around the corner.

  But what if it really was an enchanted gateway? “Oh, don’t be such an idiot,” Rage cried, dashing away the tear. Of course there were no such things as magic gates and powerful wizards. Any more than daughters who could save their mothers.

  Rage drew closer to the gate, and the air fizzed against her skin. Startled, she looked down at her arms. All of the hair was sticking up. Rage told herself it was only static electricity. They had done experiments with torn-up bits of paper and combs in science class at school. She was determined to expose the trick. Entering the gateway, she found herself wishing that the animals were human so that she didn’t have to face this alone.

  But as she passed through the gateway, the air began to glow. A slit of darkness opened under her feet like a greedy mouth, and she screamed as she fell into it.

  She fell and fell.

  She was in the living room, a fire burning in the small, deep hearth. Mam was on the couch with her feet curled under her, reading a thick book. Rage was on the floor, making some plasticine dinner for her plasticine fairies. Grandfather Adam was in his chair, staring into the flames just as he always did. Outside, the wind whined and rattled the glass in its frame.

  “Mam, could I have a sandwich?” Rage asked.

  “The girl did not eat dinner when it was offered,” Grandfather said, never taking his eyes from the flames. His words were like stones set in the center of the room. A fierce coldness came off them.

  “We ate early tonight,” Mam said.

  “The girl is not to run wild under my roof,” Grandfather answered. Then he began to cough. His whole body shook with the force of those coughs. Rage waited for them to shake him to pieces, but he closed his mouth and forced them back down his throat.

  Then there was nothing but the sound of a heavy, raspy breathing full of sharp points and edges.

  Rage woke to find herself lying on her back and staring up into the night sky. Only a few stars and a misty sliver of moon were visible. She sat up. There was no fire, no Grandfather (because, of course, he had died), no Mam (because she was in the hospital, lost in her dreams).

  Rage’s head hurt, and she guessed she had hit it. The last thing she remembered was running after the dogs in the darkness. Then there had been a dream about going through a magical gate. Fingering her head for the bump, she looked around. She was on a grassy slope hemmed on all sides by a dense forest. The faint moonlight made long shadows that striped a dark patch of brambles to one side of the clearing. There was no sign of a gateway, enchanted or otherwise.

  “It was a dream after all,” Rage said aloud. The animals were nowhere to be seen. Had she also dreamed of taking them away from Winnoway Farm? She heard something making its way through the trees toward her, and opened her mouth to call out. Then she closed it, because whatever was pushing its way through the trees was a whole lot bigger than any dog.

  A huge, shaggy black bear pushed its way out into the open.

  Rage froze. She had read that bears have weak eyesight, and she prayed it was true.

  The trees rustled again, and a barefoot teenager with straight, toffee-colored hair stepped into the clearing. One lock of hair flopped untidily over his left eye. He brushed it aside with a dirty hand. His other hand rested on the bear’s flank.

  Rage almost laughed out loud. Seeing the bear, she had thought for one second that she really had gone through a magical gateway. But the bear must belong to a circus and the boy was its keeper. Before she could call out, the bushes rustled again and out stepped a man the height of a large cat. He looked quite human but for his size and two soft, furled elf ears sticking up out of his pale golden-colored hair, which perfectly matched a silky-looking tail.

  “I can’t find her,” the little man told the boy.

  Rage cou
ldn’t believe her eyes. “I must still be dreaming,” she whispered.

  “I suppose she’ll smell her way to us.” The boy sighed.

  The bear creature gave a deep groan and sat back on its haunches in a weary way. Rage saw that it was not a bear after all. Or not exactly. It was the right size but the wrong shape. It was like a bearish dog, or a doggish bear. “I hurt!” it said huskily.

  Rage gaped to hear it speak.

  “I don’t see what you have to complain about,” the little man told it querulously. “You’ve hardly changed at all. Look at me! I’m completely misshapen. All my lovely fur is gone, my bones hurt, and my nose has shrunk.”

  “You don’t look horrible,” the boy said kindly.

  “I think a person ought to be asked before they are changed,” the little man said, casting an accusing sideways look at Rage.

  She took a deep breath and made an effort to stop her mind from reeling. Dream or not, she had to say something. “Hello. I…I’m Rage Winnoway of Winnoway Farm.”

  The trio stared at her.

  “Did you hear that?” the little man demanded of the other two in his sharp little voice. His ears twitched in agitation.

  “She must have hit her head,” the boy said. “A hit on the head can make you very confused. I remember once when a man threw a stone at me and I forgot my name for ages.”

  “Amnesia!” the little man said triumphantly, then he gave Rage a severe look. “Have you lost your memory?” he asked loudly, as if he thought loss of memory also caused deafness.

  “I’ve not lost anything. I told you, I’m Rage Winnoway of Winnoway Farm,” Rage said, thinking she might as well behave as if the dream were real until she managed to wake up. “What is this place?”

  “You must know where we are. You brought us here!” the little creature said indignantly. “You even wished for us to be human.”