The Birch Bark Coil

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Childhood

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October 1910

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"Charles, we shouldn't be here."

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Rosalind's voice sounds small against the noise of the wind in the poplar trees that line the East Garden. She wraps the shawl, borrowed from the dressing up box in the Day Nursery, around her thin shoulders and lifts her head to see where her brother has gone. He is seven years older than her and often does things that Mother would be angry about. Father doesn't seem to mind – 'Boys will be boys' he says when Mother complains. At fifteen, Charles is nearly a man and he so rarely includes her in his escapades nowadays that she is pathetically grateful when he does, and she hates herself for it. But Charles always has the bravest plans, the most daring adventures. It is he who tells the funniest stories, and best of all, encourages her to be herself.

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"Charles, where are you?" she shouts into the darkness.

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Her feet are soaking from the long grass. It is no longer raining, but the darkened sky is crossed by even darker clouds promising more downpours to come. The moon struggles to find a space to send down its beams - when it does, black shadows appear fleetingly on the ground mirroring the tall trees. Is Charles hiding behind a broad trunk waiting to jump out at her, hoping to make her scream? Rosalind clamps her lips together and leans into the wind. She would like to stride forward confidently as Father or William would do but her skirt twists around her legs and hobbles her. She fights the billowing fabric, threading her way through the trees. There is no sign of Charles, but a small light flickers off to her left – the summerhouse.

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Wisps of dark hair sting her face as she turns and makes her way towards the ornate wooden pavilion. She approaches cautiously. Charles will have laid a trap - a string to trip her, a fresh cowpat gathered earlier from the water-meadow, a hole disguised with carefully arranged foliage. It is his aim, when they play these games, to make her cry out, or startle or run away. An eerie voice comes from the summerhouse.

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"Rosy!" The sound echoes as from a megaphone. "Beware Rosy, the witching hour draws near."

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Rosalind's heart hammers in her chest but she continues her hesitant approach. She knows how late it is, it may well be nearly midnight. She clenches her fists and takes another step.

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"There are no such things as witches, Charles," she shouts. "You won't frighten me that way."

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She has seen the illustrations in the fairy tale books – old women with black hats and cats with arched backs; ugly women with warts and hooked noses and hob-nailed boots. In Father's library she has seen other witches, ordinary women in everyday clothes tied to posts and burned, strapped into chairs and drowned. There may have been witches once, she decides, but no longer.

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A dark shape appears over the summerhouse and swoops towards her. It has the form of a person and it sits on a besom, a broomstick. She clamps her hand to her mouth and jumps back from its path. The moonlight catches the wire that stretches from the top of the summerhouse to the ground and she understands. The hat is not pointed but is a rounded shape – the old bowler hat that she begged from the gardener, Richards, for the guy. The legs that straddle the broom are trousered not in skirts. This is their Guy Fawkes, completed yesterday and adapted to scare an eight-year old girl. But Rosalind Howard is made of sterner stuff; she laughs out loud.

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"What's a-going on here, then?" a deep, rough voice asks from the gloom and Rosalind nearly wets her knickers in terror.

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Charles' figure appears in the doorway of the summerhouse. He leaps down the three steps in one bound and grabs Rosalind's hand.

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"Run!" he hisses and they dash across the unmown grass and through the trees. He pulls her through the gap in the hedge and across the smooth turf of the South Garden. Here the trees are widely placed, shady spots in summer, and they negotiate a path easily; another hedge and their feet are on gravel. Just as Rosalind is sure that she cannot take another breath, Charles stops.

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"Quietly," he says softly. "Father may still be in his study."

"I thought he'd found us," she pants. "It was Richards, wasn't it? What was he doing out there? Will he tell Father?"

"He doesn't know it was us, Rosy," Charles shrugs. "What can he say?"

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Rosalind considers this. She can dry her skirt in the Night Nursery, stuff newspaper in her wet shoes. No-one will know she has been out on this wild night, this All Hallows' Eve, her eighth birthday.

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"I didn't scream," she says as they let themselves in through the kitchen door.

"No," says Charles, his grin wide in the light of the single candle they left burning, "No, you didn't."

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Rosalind's chest swells with pride and she grins back at him. She is as brave as any boy; she can hide her fear and smile in the face of danger.

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Two years earlier

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The door of the Night Nursery creaks open and Rosalind is awake instantly. She lies motionless, keeps her breath in her lungs and her ears alert. The bed dips with someone's weight and she is immediately upright.

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"Aren't you asleep yet, Rosy?" William begins. "Are you afraid to sleep?"

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The candle he carries glimmers on his chin, giving him an eerie appearance.

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"Are you afraid of the witches?" Charles takes up the taunt. "Afraid of the ghosts?"

Rosalind looks at them. "Ghosts are only in stories," she says firmly.

"Oh no, they are real," William intones, "and tonight is the night they roam."

Her curiosity is piqued. "Why?" she asks. "Why tonight? Because it is my birthday?"

"Because tonight is All Hallows' Eve – did you not know?" William's voice sneers at her ignorance.

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They tell her how the day of her birth is dedicated to the dead; a chance for the unsaintly, soulless forms to walk and witches to ride the skies on their broomsticks. She sleeps that night buried deep under the covers and dreams of cats tangled in her hair.

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"Mother, I need the big encyclopaedia and it is too high," Rosalind says as they sit at breakfast.

"You and your books!" Mother says. "What are you studying now?"

Rosalind hesitates. The true subject of her study may not be approved. "Today is a new month, I must discover something about it," she says, as if this is a task set by her tutor.

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Mother reaches the book down and leaves Rosalind to her discoveries.

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Rosalind has no awareness of the fact that she is far better educated than most of her contemporaries. Being his only daughter, Father has decided that a governess is not necessary and she, at four years old, joins her brothers with Mr Vyse, their tutor. It is fortunate that this young man is more forward-thinking than most and takes pains to make sure that she is as challenged as his two older students. With a curiosity that encompasses all subjects and a fierce competitiveness, especially with Charles, she quickly learns to read and eagerly devours every book in the schoolroom. It is not long before she discovers the delights of the library; that is when Mother decides that she may only go in there when supervised.

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On the evening of her seventh birthday Rosalind is armed with knowledge. When she hears noises outside the door she throws it open, startling her brothers.

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"Have you come to celebrate with me?" she asks in her best imitation of Mother's hostess voice. "Please, come inside."

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The boys exchange glances, unsure of what to expect. Their planned tales of seeing undead roaming the grounds lose their excitement as their sister sweeps a cover off the cupboard-top. Laid out on a pristine white cloth is an arrangement of candles around a crucifix, and a plate of biscuits baked in the shape of crosses.

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"Shall we perform the blessing?" she asks and hands the taper to sixteen-year old William. He dutifully lights it from the fire and returns it.

"Bless this house and all inside its walls," Rosalind chants as the boys sit on her bed. "Protect us from the passing spirits. Send them on their way without harm."

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She has no idea whether there is a specific prayer for this occasion but neither will the boys. She ceremonially lights the candles.

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"May the consumption of these soul cakes keep us from harm, for ever and ever, Amen," she concludes and stifles her laughter as the boys both parrot her affirmation. She solemnly offers the biscuits to each in turn. Cook has assured her that they will be edible but not pleasant and she swallows hers without a word. William takes a bite and gags.

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"Are you trying to poison us?" he coughs and she smiles serenely.

Charles is more perceptive. "Well done, Rosy," he says through a dry mouth, "but I'll get you next year. I'll make you scream."

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Rosalind determines that such a thing will never happen. And despite a year of being inveigled into situations designed to scare her and being taken on adventures as frightening as he can contrive he has yet to succeed.

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Mr Vyse is replaced by Mr Goodson who is a less liberal man and relegates Rosalind to a corner of the schoolroom with tasks that bore her. Consequently she spends more and more time in the library in an effort to understand the world. Father's newspapers raise more questions than they answer and there are some things on which she can find no information at all. A lectern in the corner of the library holds the Family Bible, a large leather-bound volume with a metal clasp and hand-tooled cover. By the age of ten she can heave this tome onto a table, and in the midst of the close-printed pages and occasional tissue-covered illustration she discovers a more personal story.

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Several pages, lined like a schoolbook, are covered in tiny writing in faded ink. The most recent page to be filled is in Mother's handwriting and details her marriage to Father followed by William and Charles' births. Expecting herself to be next, Rosalind is confused by three unknown names, their dates of birth followed closely, and in one case identical to, the dates of death. Three children, who have been born and died between Charles and herself; her mind assimilates the information and she recognises that here is another subject of which she knows little – the facts that lead to the births of children.

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1914

The war comes and their lives are turned upside down. Father, now in his early forties and still fit and healthy served in the Navy during the Second Boer War and has held a position in the admiralty ever since. Charles follows him into this service, but William joins the Army, eager to prove himself in a different sphere.

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Charles has been gone a week, his basic training completed, and William, three months. Rosalind sits in a dim fire-lit drawing room on a rainy January afternoon when the doorbell rings. She hears Father murmuring in the hallway, indistinct conversation. Mother enters the room.

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"Do we have a visitor?" Rosalind asks and Mother sits by her side and takes her hand.

"It is a telegram," Mother says and Rosalind's hear beats faster. She looks at Mother's face but her expression reveals nothing.

"William will not be coming home," she says as her hand grasps Rosalind's painfully and Rosalind understands the words that Mother is unable to speak.

Her chin trembles and tears escape her closed eyes. "When will the funeral be?" she asks and Mother loses her hand.

"He will be interred in France," she replies. There will be a short ceremony here but…"

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Rosalind wonders at Mother's poise in the face of such news. She barely registers that Mother is speaking about strength and resilience and bravery.

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When she finds the blood the following evening she thinks it must be the shock of hearing the news that makes it happen. But it continues and she wonders if it is some kind of rupture from all the way she sobbed most of the night.

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"Mother, something is wrong. I must see Doctor Warren," she says as Mother sits at breakfast, uneaten food congealing on her plate.

"Then ask Ford to call him," Mother says.

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Rosalind watches Mother's eyes drift to the window and waits for her to ask about the need. But Mother is elsewhere, her awareness of Rosalind already gone.

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So it is that Rosalind learns some basic facts of life from an elderly bachelor who speaks of readiness for children then refers her back to Mother. But it is to Mother's maid, Ethel, that she turns; it is she who teaches Rosalind how to manage the situation and provides her with the necessary items. Ethel must tell Mother too, as every month a brown-paper wrapped parcel is left on her bed. It is never discussed, but her lessons with Mr Goodson cease and a governess is employed.