The Girl Who Came Out of the Woods Read online

  She walked barefoot to the shack and looked at the three shelves of books, reaching out and stroking the spines of a few of them. Her job was looking after them. Exactly a year ago today, she had been appointed librarian. Keeper of the books. It was a job she adored, though it was very easy. She sorted them quickly now, putting the picture books on the bottom shelf so everyone could reach them, the paperbacks in the middle, the hardbacks and reference books on the top shelf. She arranged them by the colours of their spines. Every day she changed the way they were presented.

  Her bear lived down here too. It was the library bear, but it belonged to her. Venus had given it to her when she was very, very small. It was a white teddy, a bit grubby because it was due a wash, and it was holding a red heart with the words ‘Love You Loads X’ embroidered on it. Arty loved her bear, and used it to watch over the books.

  She had everything she needed. Those books were her window on to the world beyond these trees and that was enough. Venus sometimes told her that she should write a book about their life here, and Arty would always say she couldn’t, that she wanted to read about other places rather than write about the few things she already knew.

  She picked up a book and the bear and went to sit down back in the pit beside the ashes. This book, The Lorax, was one of her favourites of the easy ones because it was the book that taught her to read, more than ten years ago when she was very small. She remembered the way the words had clicked into place when she worked out how to decode them, and she remembered that her universe had flashed bright because it had a new thing in it. She didn’t need to read the words now, so she just flicked through and looked at the pictures, and the way the sunlight changed the colours, and the fact that the marks on the page could put a story into her head. The poor little Lorax spoke for the trees. Arty stroked its face. The book was battered, because it was loved.

  When she was very little Arty used to dream about the Lorax. In her dreams he would step out of the forest and visit her. Arty had loved her Lorax dreams. She used to have them quite often, until they stopped. She wished she could still have them now; she loved the idea of the spirit of the forest coming to the clearing.

  ‘ARTY, IT IS KOTTA DAY!’

  The Lorax flew out of her hand and landed in the ashes, as someone hot and determined launched himself on to her back. She jumped down to grab it. It was dusty; she shook it out, then held it carefully and brushed it, getting ashes all over her hand.

  ‘Oh, seriously, Hercules?’ she said, and he giggled and danced around. He didn’t understand that the books were fragile and precious, because he was so small. Hercules was wearing only a pair of red pants that he said were his lucky pants: Arty knew he saved them for special days. ‘You have to be careful with books,’ she told him. She lifted up the bear and made it speak to him. ‘Be careful with these books as they are very precious,’ she said in her bear voice.

  ‘Soz, Arty,’ he said. ‘Sorry, bear. But it’s Kotta day! It’s the day of the Dairy Milk!’

  She grinned and reached out to ruffle his hair. ‘I know it is. My sixteenth Kotta. Your fifth. Pretty cool. Still, though.’ She went back into making the bear talk. ‘Books are important, Hercules! That’s my job and you’re making it harder. Is anyone else up?’

  ‘I waked up Zeus. We went to look for you, and Luna was still sleeping. You wasn’t there. I don’t know about the grown-ups.’

  Arty put the bear down. ‘Where’s Zeus?’

  ‘Getting some cuppa tea.’

  ‘He’s boiling water on the fire?’

  ‘Just pretending.’

  She pulled her brother on to her lap and read the book to him, brushing ashes off the edges of the pages as she went. Zeus came and joined them, leaning on her, cuddling up. Both of them settled into dozy happiness until Monica appeared in the treetops and hooted and shrieked and threw a seed pod at them.

  ‘Monkey! Monkey! Monkey!’ Hercules yelled. ‘I am going to be a monkey like you tonight,’ he told her, pointing, and threw the seed pod back at her.

  Zeus leaped up too, and the boys danced round the pit, making Arty laugh. They jumped up and crouched down, making monkey noises. Their hearts pumped blood around their bodies. They grew imperceptibly, but in a real way, every moment. Their bodies grew a tiny bit bigger. Their smiles were wide. They were filled with joy.

  ‘Why don’t you two go and collect the eggs?’ said Arty. ‘Carefully.’ And they ran off. The boys collecting the eggs didn’t always go well, but they loved it.

  ‘Here you go,’ said Venus, some time later, and she handed Arty a cup of tea. Arty stretched her legs out and took it. It was lovely not to have to do any chores. She was going to play the guitar instead, the way Inari had taught her.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. She loved tea. They made it with whatever was handy, and at the moment it was mint because they always had a lot of mint growing. It was hot and strong. Arty could happily have drunk tea all day long and sometimes she did. All of them did. The stream water boiled gently over the fire for most of the day, and then they just added things to it to make it into any kind of tea.

  ‘You’re welcome, sweetiepie.’ Venus sat next to her, her hair blowing around in the warm breeze. ‘Excited?’

  Arty looked into her eyes and smiled. Her mother would always be her favourite person. Venus was everything Arty wanted to be herself. She was feeling lately that she wasn’t sure how to get from being about sixteen, as she was now, to a proper adult, without knowing the outside world. She knew she should just do the things that her mother did, but it felt weird, because her mother had come from a family home thousands of miles away, and knew all about aeroplanes and electricity and money, and Arty only knew the clearing. She felt like a child and she wasn’t sure how and when that was going to change. She planned to live her whole life here, and she couldn’t imagine anything else. The rest of it sounded so scary.

  She didn’t want to see what was out there at all.

  Sometimes she did. Mainly she didn’t.

  ‘Very excited,’ she said, her voice quiet. She was a little embarrassed by how happy she was. ‘I’ve been up for ages. Has Hella got …’ She finished the sentence with a smile.

  ‘Of course! It’s going to be the best one we’ve ever had, darling. Twenty years! This needs a big party.’

  ‘So it is a party?’

  ‘It definitely is.’

  Arty smiled and leaned on her. Venus put an arm round her shoulders and kissed her head.

  ‘We do OK here, don’t we?’ Venus said, as Hercules and Zeus came back with their hands filled with eggs, and delivered them carefully to the cooking shed, only dropping one as far as Arty could see. ‘You’re all right?’

  ‘Yes. You know I am.’

  Arty looked back at her mother’s clear eyes, her pale skin, her freckled face. Venus was wearing a blue vest and a skirt made from a knotted piece of orange cloth.

  ‘You know you can go out with Hella.’ They had said this to her a few times lately. ‘You can go and see what she does. Look at the world out there. See it for yourself.’

  Arty shook her head. ‘I don’t want to, though,’ she said. ‘I’m happy here, Mum. I don’t want to go out there. I have everything here. Everything I need. This is my home.’

  Venus looked at her. Arty could see she was troubled.

  ‘It might be good for you, though,’ she said. ‘Give you some perspective on what we do here. You could have an adventure and come back. You need to know a bit of the rest of the world.’

  ‘Jesus, Mum! I don’t want an adventure!’

  Venus sighed. ‘All right, crosspatch,’ she said. ‘But there are lots more books out there. You could go just to see a bookshop.’

  Arty didn’t reply.

  Later, Arty said, ‘Tell me about the treehouse.’ That was part of the story of the clearing and she loved to hear it. Luna was sitting beside her now, holding Arty’s hand.

  Venus laughed. ‘The treehouse? Oh, all right then.’ She
sipped her tea. This was their second cup. ‘When I was a girl, about your age, Luna, my brother and I used to climb a tree in our parents’ back garden. We didn’t have a very happy life at home for lots of reasons, and we’d sit up there and pretend like mad. I appointed myself the goddess of our world, and he was everyone else. We made our own rules. We were gods and goddesses. There was no school in our universe, and nobody was allowed to shout or be mean. There were monkeys, in the form of our neighbour’s cat Gizmo, though of course we had no idea what a pain real monkeys can be. And I would sit there, with a blanket wrapped round me, and say that I was going to be queen of our world in the trees. I was going to make a space in which everything was always lovely.’

  ‘Always lovely,’ said Luna.

  ‘Yes,’ Arty said. ‘And you did it.’

  ‘We did.’

  ‘What about your brother?’ Arty asked this even though she knew. This mysterious brother was her uncle, and she was interested in him.

  ‘Poor Matthew,’ said Venus. ‘He had a terrible time and he made life hell for everyone around him. He was a heroin addict, like in that book, Arty, but he got through it. I’m proud of him. He was reborn when he came off it all. I hope he’s still well.’

  ‘I do too.’

  ‘Addiction isn’t a rare thing out there,’ said Venus. ‘It’s horrific. There’s a lot of it.’

  ‘I wish Matthew lived here too,’ said Arty. ‘Like when you were in the treehouse.’

  ‘Yes. It was complicated. Bless him. This has been an experiment, but look at you, Arty.’ She took Arty’s face between her hands, and then Luna’s. ‘Look at you both. You wonderful girls.’

  They spent the rest of the day getting ready, and singing and dancing. Everyone had their turn. Arty took the guitar and managed to strum and sing ‘Everybody Hurts’, and they all applauded as if she’d given a magnificent recital. Then she held Luna’s hands and they danced around in circles while Inari, who was the proper guitar player, played ‘Yellow Submarine’. That was a huge thing for Luna and it made Hella, her mother, cry. The boys put on a gymnastics display. Diana recited Titania’s speech about the forgeries of jealousy from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Odin and Hercules danced together. Hella performed some martial arts. Everyone did their bit, and everyone else watched and clapped. Sometimes it was boring, but Arty knew that didn’t matter so she cheered and applauded and joined in no matter what.

  By the evening they were exhilarated. Everyone but Hella was sitting on the second step, waiting. They had all brushed their hair so it gleamed and shone all over their shoulders. Arty’s had become a frizzy cloud. The fires were lit, and the mosquitoes were staying away because of the burning potions. The pit was brown, and around it the world was tinged pink by the setting sun. The sun set behind the hill in an instant. It was there, and then it wasn’t.

  Arty was next to Luna, as she usually was. The two of them were holding hands. In fact, Luna squeezed Arty’s hand so tightly that it kind of hurt, but Arty would never have told her that. She never criticized Luna.

  ‘Hella!’ shouted Hercules. ‘Hella, can you come right now please.’

  ‘Shut up, Herc,’ said Odin. He was Herc’s dad, and Hercules made a face at him, but he did shut up. They all knew they had to be patient.

  Venus stood up. She was wearing a long skirt with a football shirt (RONALDO 9, it said on the back). She raised her hands up and everyone watched.

  ‘Hella is about to bring the feast to us,’ she said. ‘But first I’d like to talk about our twentieth Kotta day. Twenty! This is a special one, all right. Twenty years ago, eight of us arrived here seeking refuge from all the wrong turnings the world out there – and we ourselves – had taken, believing we could do better. Four years after that, Artemis arrived. Only one person found us over the years, and they left voluntarily and kept our secret. One other decided to leave and take her chances in the world outside. Luna, Zeus and Hercules joined us and now we are eleven. We have no violence.’

  ‘No violence,’ everyone repeated.

  ‘No crime.’

  ‘No crime,’ they all said, though Arty was not really sure what crime would be like in real life.

  ‘No war.’

  ‘No war.’ She knew what war was, but couldn’t imagine such a thing.

  ‘No pollution.’

  ‘No pollution.’

  ‘We are all gods and goddesses.’

  ‘We are all gods and goddesses.’

  ‘We will never take our health for granted. We will all of us work for the greater good. We will move into the future with happiness and solidarity. Taking the best of the old to make the whole of the new. What happens to one happens to all.’

  Venus said variations on these words every year and Arty savoured them. Everyone joined hands around the pit and closed their eyes for long minutes of silent agreement. Then Arty heard Hella – wonderful Hella, the shaman – beginning to sing. They dropped hands. Inari pulled his guitar on to his knees and started to play along with her, and Luna rushed off to help her mother carry the feast. This was also a big moment for Luna.

  The Kotta song was called ‘Respect’. They sung it every Kotta day, and no other time. It made Arty tingle. She wanted to cry then, because she was so happy. She was with all the people she loved. She belonged, and her world was good.

  They always ate the food Vishnu made, and it was always vegetable curry. Only once a year, on this full moon, did they get the magic food. And here it was. Arty’s mouth watered when she saw that Luna was carrying the tray with twelve bars of Dairy Milk on it. Luna was beaming, delighted with herself, and Arty’s heart swelled with love for her sister.

  Hella brought out the drink in the big green bottles for the adults, though now, for the first time, Venus prised a metal cap off one and handed the bottle to Arty.

  ‘You’re old enough for this now, I’d say,’ she said. ‘I was certainly knocking them back at your age. Cheers, darling.’

  Arty read the label, even though she knew exactly what was written there.

  ‘Kingfisher.’ She looked at her mother.

  ‘You’re giving her beer?’ asked Vishnu.

  ‘She’s sixteen,’ said Venus. ‘And she’ll probably hate it.’

  ‘All the same. Do you actually want it, Arty?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ How could she know, when she didn’t know what it was like?

  ‘It’s once a year,’ Venus said, and Vishnu smiled and said, ‘Fair enough. Give it a go.’

  Arty hesitated. What she really wanted was the Dairy Milk. It made her head spin and her mouth tingle. It was brown inside purple. It was chocolate, but she knew she couldn’t have it yet.

  She held the bottle tight. Drinking this would be something new. There was almost never a new thing. Something was changing for her.

  Everything shimmered. She was excited.

  It shimmered again and she was scared.

  Venus clinked her bottle on Arty’s, like the grown-ups did, and Vishnu reached across and did the same, and then so did Diana and Kali and Odin and Inari and finally Hella. Arty lifted the bottle slowly and let the new thing drip into her mouth.

  Then she spat it out and reached for a half-finished cup of tea from earlier to get the taste away. Kingfisher was disgusting, like poisoned water downstream from a dead monkey. It tasted the way she would have imagined something from out there to taste, something that had been infected with corruption and badness. She hated it. She hated it more than she could possibly say.

  When she managed to speak again, she said: ‘That tastes like the plague.’

  ‘You think?’ Venus laughed at her. The other adults were laughing too. ‘You say that now. Everyone hates it at first.’

  ‘It’s horrible. Oh my God. You drink it like it’s … like it’s gorgeous. Is it because it tastes like … Well, is that what things used to be like? Out there? Does it remind you of the best of the old?’

  She thought about books in which people drank beer.
They loved beer usually in books. They liked wine too, and if they were feeling shocked they needed brandy.

  ‘Yes,’ Venus said. ‘That is definitely a taste from out there. When life was out of balance people used alcohol, which is what you don’t like in that Kingfisher, to make them happy because they didn’t know how to be happy otherwise. It made them forget what their life was like. It made them do different things. Matthew loved it too much before he moved on to worse things, but so did everyone else. I suppose we all had a taste for it then. We were out of balance as much as anyone. We have it now once a year, and that’s all. That’s OK. It’s just fermented hops, or something.’

  ‘Did people drink this every day?’

  ‘They did. Lots of people did. I’m sure they still do.’

  Arty wrinkled her nose and put the bottle down. ‘That’s disgusting.’

  She looked around at everyone waiting to start the feast. Hella was the only one who was different, because she always wore purple like the Dairy Milk wrapper. Hella was tall and her hair was grey and reached all the way down her back. She had been from Norway once. Hella knew the secrets of the Wasteland, and she was the only one who insisted on calling it ‘the Wasteland’ all the time. They were supposed to say ‘the outside world’ because it was less judgemental.

  Everyone used to say that Luna would learn all Hella’s skills when she was older. When she was born they all said that she would take over being shaman herself one day, but now everyone knew that wouldn’t happen. Luna wouldn’t do it. Arty knew they wanted her to be the next shaman instead, but no part of her wanted to go out into the corrupt world. She wanted to wait until Hercules was bigger, and give him the job. He would like it. Probably.

  The food was arranged in the middle of the pit. There was rice, roti and three different vats of vegetables. Hercules and Zeus were getting into their monkey suits. That part of things didn’t really make sense, but it had become a ritual and they loved doing it. The monkeys got very excited when the clearing had a celebration. Arty could hear them in the trees now. Keeping them away from dinner was a consideration every night these days, but keeping them away from Kotta had evolved into its own part of the ceremony.