“It’s massive,” the newcomer breathed in awe, becoming more enthusiastic now. From the waterfall at his right, the craggy cliff continued as far as his eye could see. He inched closer to the edge, feeling the fine spray from the plummeting water, cold against his face.
“It’s straight down, all the way,” said Hugh. “How far, do you think?”
“A thousand feet.”
“More like two thousand,” Hugh corrected him. “It’s like the earth broke itself in two and pushed one half straight up into the sky to make these highlands.”
The boy looked out over the cliff’s edge to the enormous plains below. They seemed to flow in a shimmer of midday heat all the way to the horizon. “Perhaps I come from down there,” he whispered, too softly for his companions to hear. Then he asked, more loudly, “How do you get down into the valley?”
“There are paths down the rock face in places,” said Hugh.
“Or you can jump!” Dominic laughed at his own little joke but a shudder ran through each of the boys all the same.
They headed back through the stand of oaks and then Hugh and Dominic left him so they could catch up on their chores. The boy drifted aimlessly through the orchard to a place where the ground disappeared under a wild mess of brambles and blackberry canes. There was a well-worn path at the edge and an opening large enough to crawl through. He dropped to his hands and knees and found himself under a tightly woven archway of thorny vines that formed a sort of cave. The ground had been hollowed out, except for a few small boulders, to form a snug hideaway. Best of all, it was peaceful and he could be alone. He found a seat on a rounded granite boulder.
“You can’t remember, can you?” said a voice.
The boy stood up sharply, bumping his head on the thick canes that formed the roof. He looked around him but he couldn’t see anyone. “Who said that?”
“You’ve lost your memory,” the voice said again.
“Who is it? I can’t see you!” He whirled around frantically, stopping to stare at the place where the voice seemed to come from. To his amazement, a figure emerged from the shadows where it had been standing unnoticed even as he gazed at it. It was one of the little girls, the one who had smiled at him.
Her face was bordered by swirls and ropes of brown hair growing wild, like creepers around a statue. Her skin was dark, which helped her stay unseen in the shadows. Perhaps she kept her dress dull and dusty for the same reason. But she wanted to tell him something, and while the eagerness gripped her, her eyes sparkled and he could see her clearly.
“Who are you? And why were you hiding there?”
“I wasn’t hiding,” she said defiantly. “Not on purpose, anyway.” She hesitated a moment then seemed to make up her mind. “Your name,” she said softly. “It’s not Robert at all.”
“What do you mean, not my name? But Mrs Timmins, she called me…” He didn’t say it. “If my name’s not Robert, what is it, then?”
The girl hesitated.
“Tell me, please!”
At last she spoke. “Your name is Marcel.”
“What did you call me?”
“Marcel,” she said again, more confident now.
He felt his heart leap at the sound of this name and he braced himself to remember who he was and all that had happened in his life to this day.
Nothing came.
“You’ve told me my name, but… but who am I?”
She shook her head sadly. It was a simple thing to tell him his name, but the rest…
“You must know. Why did I think I was called Robert?”
“It came from a book.”
“A book?”
The girl told him then of all that she had witnessed the night before, of the old man in the dark robes and the heavy book he had brought to the room at the end of the hall, of the voice and its story and how it couldn’t be stopped. He listened, wide-eyed. Finally she told him how she had plugged his ears with wax.
“You saved me,” said Marcel, for he had no doubt now that this was his name. “You’re much braver than girls are supposed to be. How can I thank you? If there is anything I can do for you, you only have to ask. That’s a promise,” he added slowly. But the girl just smiled uncomfortably.
A hundred questions were swirling through his head. “Do you think my real life is still inside that book? If I could get hold of it, maybe my life would be in there for me to find.”
The emptiness he felt round his heart was swept aside by a sudden fury. “Who was this man? Where did he come from?”
“I’ve heard them call him Lord Alwyn, but I can’t tell you any more than that. He just arrived one night, while we were all asleep, like you did. He lives in the tower above us. There’s a door across the stairwell now. It has no lock, not even a doorknob.”
Marcel’s eyes widened. “Mrs Timmins pointed the door out to me, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. Have the other children seen him?”
“No, he never comes out. But we… hear things.”
Marcel didn’t like the sound of that, especially the way she had said it. What things? he was about to ask, when a voice echoed faintly through the little hideaway. “Robert, Robert! Come and eat.”
It was Dominic, calling him by a name that meant nothing to him any more.
“I have to go,” said the girl. “It’s my turn to set the table.” She was already on the move and again so hard to see that if he hadn’t known she was there he would have missed her.
“Quickly, tell me your name.”
She spoke a single word, softly, so softly that he could barely make it out. It sounded like “bee”. Had he heard right? But before he could ask her to repeat it, she had disappeared altogether.
He crawled under the archway of thick vines and out into the light. As he blinked and straightened up, he found himself facing the house. There was the tower, brooding and ominous, staring down at him. For an instant he thought he saw a hand and part of a face at one of the windows, but when he looked again, they had gone.
“A book,” he murmured to himself. “A sorcerer’s book.”
MARCEL WAS STILL THINKING about the strange little girl when he entered the kitchen with Dominic, and even after Mrs Timmins had given him his first job. “Robert, would you take those jugs of milk into the dining room?” she asked.
Hearing that false name made him hesitate, but he wasn’t sure what to do about it yet. Dominic was carrying a tray laden with freshly baked bread and the aroma reminded him of how hungry he was. He followed Dominic into the dining hall, where other children were already busy setting out plates and arranging a motley assortment of chairs around the long table. He looked for the girl among them but couldn’t see her. Had he imagined the whole thing?
The dining room was dark and cool after the sunny courtyard. A fireplace, freshly cleared of last night’s ash, was built into the far wall. Its homely scent of wood-smoke hung in the air. The high ceiling and bare stone floor made the room rather noisy, but it was the happy noise of children eager to fill their growling bellies.
All the children seemed to have their own place to sit around the table and Marcel was left out until Hugh and Dominic made room between them. Mrs Timmins took her place at one end of the table and Albert at the other. They all lowered their