Tyrant Spell

Issue Six

Late Lammas & Autumn Equinox

EDITOR’S PAGE

TYRANT SPELL!! Hi! Welcome to the sixth edition of Tyrant Spell.!! There has been a reprieve! Tyrant Spell will continue, but will be shorter for a while.

! The theme story celebrates the festival of the Goddess Pomona, and is about recognising true love and the importance of teamwork.

! Saviatona episode four and the third part of the serialised novel, THE BOY WITH THE SNOWSTORM will be in the next edition. Clio part five appears in this edition, but the conclusion to the story will now appear in the Hallowmas issue, which will see Tyrant Spell come full circle.!! Please like, or comment about the magazine on Issuu, or email me. !! Poems, articles and stories, artwork and photos are still welcome as long as they reflect a theme or the general tone of Tyrant Spell. All previous Issues will continue to be available on issuu.com.This time, I would like to have reader contributions regarding The Devil. Stories, poems, artwork or non-fiction on this topic.! The deadline for contributions for the Hallowmas edition is October 6th. Just email. The address is on the back cover. Contributions should be in the form of attachments and all will be considered for publication and all emails answered. All suitable submissions received after this date will be held over for a future issue.! ! Alix

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INTRODUCTION TO THE THEMES OF ISSUE SIX

Lammas, the festival of first fruits, the disseminating Moon, the festival of Pomona, Roman Goddess of Fruit, and Autumn Equinox.

! Lammas is when the return begins. Did you feel it as the full moon in all her glory came and slipped away leaving a sense of bereavement, heralding the harvest, but also Equinox, equal day and equal night again.! Persephone returns to the underworld, and her mother Demeter mourns, the earth begins to cool, the winds of change to blow as we move towards the stillness of winter and its dormancy, until Spring Equinox, when her reunion with her mother is spectacular!! The theme story Dark Fruit pays homage to Pomona, Goddess of Fruit. Her festival is celebrated each year on August 13th. ! It also reflects the blessings of Lammas and links Pomona’s story to that of Persephone travelling through the underworld, but finding love in her new role.

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;Lengthen night and shorten day;Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;I shall sing when night’s decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

..A.. A..

! ! ! ! ! !! ! ! ! ! ! Emily Jane Brontë !

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Contents

Editor’s Page!! ! ! 3

Introduction to this issue’s themes! ! ! ! 4

Contents! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 5

Serial The One and Only, part six ! ! ! ! 6

Dark Fruit! ! ! ! ! ! ! 25 Serial Clio, part five! ! ! ! ! 82 ! ! !! Mystery Poet ! ! 91

IN THE HIDDEN HEART 92

Contacts on the back cover

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Serial, THE ONE AND ONLY, part six

Resume of Parts One,Two, Three, Four & Five:

Daisy bumps into someone she can’t see in the woods

and wakes up feeling and behaving reckless and

ruthless. She asks her cousin Charlotte to go to The

Bridge, the club where Daisy’s boyfriend Kieron plays

with his band, Lonely Little Bleeding Hearts. They are

regular performers there.

At the club, Charlotte meets Ed, the quiet but

gorgeous looking boy who serves the non alcoholic

drinks that The Bridge sells to its teenage patrons.

Daisy sings with the band as their guest vocalist

and is really very good. She also seduces the

keyboard player Declan, even though she loves Kieron

and knows that her friend Cheryl fancies Declan.

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Charlotte sees Daisy kissing Declan and is

disturbed by her cousin’s behaviour and by the evil

look that she glimpses for a moment in her eyes.

Daisy has no intention of going to America with

Declan. Cheryl finds out about Daisy and Declan

seeing one another behind everyone’s backs and

doesn’t tell Kieron, but falls out with Daisy.

Meanwhile Charlotte is watching her cousin and is

spooked by her increasingly reckless behaviour.

On a sixth form trip to Kelvingrove Art

Gallery in Glasgow, where Daisy has arranged to

meet the band who are doing a gig in the city,

something terrible happens. Will, the band’s

drummer, who has always lusted after Daisy, is

overcome by a fit of jealousy, somehow

7

precipitated into a fury by Daisy, or something to

do with Daisy...

And tragedy occurs when Will rips a medieval

sword from its case, which transforms from a

rusting relic into the shining lethal weapon that it

once was.

Will then uses the sword against a defenseless

Declan.

He is eaten up with guilt and remorse after

Declan bleeds to death, there on the gallery floor.

Although he was jealous of the attention Daisy was

paying Declan and despite his being very hot

tempered, he can’t believe that he has done what he

has done. Was he really responsible?

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Daisy convinces the police that Declan took

the sword from the case and that it was he himself,

who, while larking about with it, sliced his own

arm off.

She goes to the doctor because she is

becoming convinced that she is going mad. She

feels guilty about Declan’s death and not just

because he and Will were fighting over her.

Somehow, she knows that she is responsible, even

though Will wielded the sword, it was she who

killed Declan with it.

Daisy can’t stop herself being unkind or rude

or cruel and one night she sees a strange boy/girl

in the bathroom, who disappears, but then she sees

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his eyes looking at her from her own face,

reflected in the mirror!

Charlotte would like Daisy to confide in her,

but knows that she won’t. She is suspicious that Daisy

and Will are not telling the truth about what

happened to Declan, but daren’t think about what

the alternatives to their story might be.

Ed, the boy who works at The Bridge, joins the

band after kieron hears how good a musician he is

and asks him to play with them.

Then, in the middle of the night, Charlotte

sees Daisy floating in the air, outside her bedroom

window.

In the morning she goes to the graveyard.

Unable to face Declan’s funeral on the following

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day, she takes a wreath to his elder sister’s grave,

where he is also to be interred and sees Will

sitting nearby. Charlotte hides and hears Will

talking to Declan, telling him that he is sorry for

killing him.

Now Charlotte knows his secret!

Martin is introduced into the story. He lives

alone in a bedsit and is lonely too. At night he

goes to clubs and strangers are his friends. He

hides behind a disguise, wears a mask, which he

creates with make up, white and black and red!

He has a recurring nightmare in which he sees

a severed head and a girl with very blue eyes. He

doesn’t know who she is.

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Another girl, someone he has met in one of

the clubs, he also sees at the cafe where she works,

but she doesn’t recognize him without his mask.

No one knows him. Only the authorities know

his name.

Meanwhile Charlotte is enjoying a new

notoriety, as Daisy’s friend and as the almost

girlfriend of a member of the band. She is,

however, still concerned about Daisy, who,

Charlotte observes, is growing thin and tired

looking.

She sees a strange vision of a snake inside

Daisy. It seems like a part of Daisy crying out for

help, but Daisy sees her looking and smiles in a

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smug way, as though she doesn’t care and there is

nothing that Charlotte can do anyway.

Daisy is still playing cat and mouse with

Will. He is being driven crazy. He wants Daisy so

much, needs her, as she is the only one who

knows what really happened to Declan and shares

the secret with him - so he believes, not knowing

that Charlotte overheard his ‘confession’ in the

graveyard.

Will wants Daisy to make it all better,

knowing that, somehow, she is responsible for

what happened to Declan, not he. Besides which,

he is and always has been, besotted with her.

Daisy has asked Will to meet him at her

school. She has a key to the shed, used as a green

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room by the cast members of Oliver, which is being

staged at the school with Daisy in the role of

Nancy.

Will feels that Daisy is going to allow him to

usurp Kieron’s place in her life, anytime now, so

blinded is he by his passion for Daisy that he is

prepared to be her slave - or partner in crime...

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THE ONE AND ONLY

A tale of possession

Daisy

i waited for Will, after the others had all gone

home and thought about Kerry. She kept upstaging

me. She can sing. She’s not as good as me, but she

can dance better and the dance teacher, our

choreographer, Miss Winters, was giving her all the

best steps, even a ballet sequence with Daniel or

Del, the twins sharing the role of Oliver.

The thing is, i knew why Kerry was Miss

Winters favourite really and it had nothing to do

with her being a good dancer and everything to

do with the cute boy that she made as the Artful

Dodger!15

Oh, they thought no one knew, but i had

noticed when Kerry started smiling at Miss Winters

in a different way, not just pleased to be given so

much attention, to be given the ballet with Oliver,

although she was well pleased about that, smirked

about it all rehearsals, the week before.

I thought Miss Winters was a bit pervy, flirting

with Kerry, but Kerry was flirting right back and she

had blushed like crazy when Miss Winters danced

Oliver’s steps with her that night, to show Del how to

do it. There they were arm in arm, thought it

should’ve been obvious to everyone what was going

on, but it didn’t seem to be, so...

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Will

I went running. I went to the gym and did weight

training, when it was raining hard and I couldn’t

run by the canal, and I boxed, knocked a guy who

usually beats me spark out and then I rammed a

Supermarket window at Kingcross on my Yamaha,

for the hell - I didn’t take anything. I can afford

groceries, but I got no relief, not until Friday

night when I kissed Daisy and she asked me to

meet her outside the school gates.

“Hi,” I smiled. Daisy looked great. Pumped up.

Excited. In the shed at the back of the school, it

was all fitted out as a dressing room, with mirrors

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and counters and seats for the actors. As dressing

rooms go, it was pretty cool, I guess.

“Got the paint?” was what she said, not Hi Will,

straight to the point, well, once that part was over

with and we’d written

KERRY SMITH AND DIANA WINTERS

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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all over the mirrors and the walls, I was just glad

to be alone with Daisy. We both got a rush from

trashing the place a bit, then Daisy sat on a counter

and opened her coat. She had a short school skirt on

and bare legs and ankle boots. She looked so hot. I

walked over to her and just stepped into her arms

and kissed her and she was hot for me! Her hands

were all over me and pulling me in. I pulled away

and kicked my boots off and got rid of my jeans as

well. She watched and smiled and hitched her skirt

up.

I went to her and she leapt off the counter and

legged it. I ran after her and then remembered I

was half naked. I put my jeans and boots back on

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and I saw a stick of red lipstick or something on

the counter and I wrote on the mirror DAISY DID

THIS DAISY DAISY DAISY - then I smeared it off

again with my fist, smashed it into the glass and

left.

I went over to see Tatum. I fell in through the

door as she opened it, I was in such a hurry.

“Shh,” she said with her finger to her lips, “Billy’s

asleep, just got him off again. Wet. Hi babe, ok? No, I

can see you’re not.”

Tatum made me forget about Daisy. Tatum was

everything to me that Daisy wouldn’t be. Afterwards, I

lay next to her in bed and listened to her quiet

breathing as she slept and to Billy’s over in his cot

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and wondered about every damned thing. Why I

wanted Daisy and not Tatum; whether Billy was

mine; where my sister was? Where had she gone

after we were separated and Rosy had been

adopted? Was she even called Rosy anymore?

And - how and why had I ended up murdering

my friend Declan?

Tatum woke up and smiled at me sleepily

at around dawn. I knew I had to tell her what

had happened. I knew that she would forgive

me and I needed to be forgiven. I took a deep

breath and sat up. Tatum sat up too. I faced her.

“Tattie, I’ve got something I want to tell

you,” I paused...

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Daisy

“Dad, someone was hanging around the

school when I left tonight and followed me I

think. I had to run to get away from them.”

Dad looked at me with concern.

I continued, “Yeah, I’ve been followed

before. Once someone followed me through the

woods, but I didn’t tell you. This was last year.

Do you think, maybe, I’ve been wanting to ask,

but I was afraid you’d say no, do you think I

could have a car? Just a small one? I did pass

my test last year after the lessons Mum paid for.

I’m sure I’d feel safer.”

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I could see that he was thinking about it. I

added the last card to the stack.

“Dani was attacked last year, but she kept it

secret.”

I watched the cards fall, like Alice.

Alexandra Lesley

To be continued.

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24

DARK FRUIT

A blur of pink and white hovered in front of her eyes

and brushed her nose, tiny fingers scratched gently

against her face. They were spiky twigs of the

Hawthorn pricking as its blossoms caressed her. The

petals tickled her lips and nose and she raised her

hand and brushed them away, while loving their

touch. She narrowed her eyes as the sun broke

through the branches and shone on her face and as

reluctant as she might have been to leave a

comfortable bed on a Sunday morning, she got up off

the grass.

Her dress was damp and she shivered a little

now as the breeze had fingers as well and placed

them cold against her neck, ran them through her

hair and patted at her through her thin dress. She

retrieved her jacket, which had been her pillow on

the wet grass and tugged it on, the fleece lining

dragging on clammy skin as she pushed her arms

into the sleeves.

The May blossom is later every spring thought

the keeper as he too appreciated the stunning white

flowers on the numerous Hawthorns in the park and

he unlocked the gate and made his way to his shed, 25

rubbing his hands together, as at this hour there

was chill, despite it being June.

No such thing as blazing June anymore he

mused, as he filled his kettle from the tap in the

wall and went back to the shed.

“Here you are Strahan, hot, and sweet as

your self old man,” he said, loud enough to wake

the sleeper, but not to startle him. He placed the

mug on the ground below the bench in reach of the

old tramp’s hand where it already trembled a few

inches above the soil.

A second mug was in his hand. He looked

round for the girl. Sometimes she wasn’t near.

Then he saw her emerging from the shelter of the

dazzling Hawthorns on the park’s Northern

boundary and gestured with the mug, slopping

milky tea onto the path, extra milk in hers, extra

milk, because she might need it.

She came towards them and he thought, not

for the first time, What a beauty and again, not for

the first time, under lock and key she’d have been

if she were mine, under lock and key but he said

nothing of this, and smiled as she reached the path

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and Strahan sat up, bleary, but as dazzled as he

was himself.

“Here she is Barry, Creirwy, herself, or is it it

Cerridwen, the mother, watch out or she’ll steal

your soul, ah, but she’s a darlin.’ Good mornin’

Cherry.”

She smiled.

The two old men basked in the glow of the

light from the young girl, with her amber eyes, and

amber hair and pale amber freckled skin, she

seemed like a human embodiment of the early

morning sunshine to them.

Someone younger than them, only a little

older than the girl, had also been enraptured by

her and he was partly responsible for her being

here with them and not waiting out her time at the

home, before going off to university in the autumn.

She had not been happy at the home,

however, except when her great grandmother

came to see her, which she did regularly. They

would wander about the garden and Great

Grandma would make Cherry laugh like a maniac,

with her tales of her own ‘mis-spent youth’ as she

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called it, in the early part of the previous century,

when she had been a flapper.

“A Flapper! A flapper, my dear, you young girls

don’t know how to live, these days!”

“What was a flapper, Great Grandma?”

“A flapper was a young woman who lived for

the day, but mostly for the nights! Then she danced

and she flirted and went about with whomever she

liked. She wore her hair short and in a bob and had

her dress above her knees and wore pearls. She

wore feathers in her hair and she knew how to fly!”

Great Grandma went off into peals of laughter and

they both laughed until they couldn’t breath.

“Before that time”, Great Grandma had

confided “I had been very shy,” she said, “and

mistrustful of boys and men.”

Now she saw that they were human like

herself and not the strange animals she had once

assumed that they were.

“I met a boy,” Grandma had said one day, “and

I loved him so, William was his name, William

Jardine. He wanted to marry me, but he was poor

and a commoner from Glasgow and my father was a

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Laird and we stayed in the countryside in a grand

house on an estate not far from Edinburgh.

My father said he would disown me if I

married William, but I married him and I gave

William a baby boy, your Granddad, also named

William, Billy to his friends.”

“I don’t remember him very well. I was only

little when he died. Mum told me about him,” Cherry

said and confided, “I wish she hadn’t died too.”

Cherry’s mother, Billy’s daughter, Billie, had

been a singer and had acquired a recording contract

and made a record before she got married and

became pregnant with Cherry. Jonno, her husband,

John McKendrick, manager of a rugby team hadn’t

wanted her to carry on singing then and she gave

way to him.

“Dad used to bring men, rugby players back to

the house, to drink with him. I had a lock put on my

bedroom door and hid myself away, because they

came on to me and Dad took no notice.”

Cherry’s dad died on one of these occasions;

went to bed and never woke up.

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“His blood was probably ninety percent whisky

by then, Cherry and I don’t think he meant to hurt

you. He loved your mother and you, but he was

weak,” Grandma had said, shaking her head.

“I was fifteen and they wouldn’t let me stay in

the house and made me come here. Why wouldn’t

they let me live with you?”

“Ah, they didn’t have my address sweetheart,

but I came to see you as soon as I could, didn’t I?

I’m afraid I can’t have you to live with me, you see,

it’s against the rules.”

From this remark, Cherry deduced that Great

Grandma, must live in a home too.

“Why didn’t I know you before?” she had asked.

“Well, your father didn’t have the right

environment for me to be able to visit you, and -’’

she seemed to drift away, but Cherry knew that her

dad wouldn’t have thought to take her to see her

Great Grandma. She wondered why her mother never

had.

But then when Cherry was only seven and her

mother had been thinking of taking up her singing

career again, she had got cancer and had slipped out

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of Cherry’s life quite quickly. She had been only

thirty two.

“You know, not all men are like your dad, or

like mine,” Great Grandma had said, “your dad was

like his dad before him and he would have done

anything for your mother. He encouraged her when

she wanted to become a singer and when she was

successful, he was as pleased for her as she was

herself and proud of her achievement. I don’t think

he wanted her to marry your dad, but he knew that

he was your mother’s choice and so it had to be. He

was worried when your dad turned to drink,

though; he told me,” she had shaken her head

sadly, “just before he died.”

“You must have been so sad at losing your

son, Grandma,” Cherry had patted Great Grandma’s

cold hand.

Great Grandma had shaken herself, as though

to shake off her sadness and had told Cherry, “He

was old, Cherry and ill,” then she had said, “I knew

him all his life, but he knows me better now. Where

he is, everyone knows all that there is to know

about their dear ones, if they choose to know. He

watches over you Cherry, and Billie does as well.”

Suddenly, Great Grandma was comforting

Cherry, for her words were comforting, Cherry

realized, even if she wasn’t sure whether they were

true and how could Great Grandma be sure?

Pomona had looked into her great

granddaughter’s eyes and saw all her thoughts in

those expressive amber irises and more besides as

her pupils suddenly widened, sparkled, as the sun

went down on the home and the garden grew colder

still in the late autumn air, that day, sparkled with a

light of their own, and she had cried out and took

Great Grandma’s hands, even colder now, “I’m nearly

eighteen and when I leave here Great Grandma, we

can live together and I can get a job and we can

watch over one another!”

“Yes, I’d like that, but don’t you think, you

should study first, Cherry, go to college or even to

university?”

“But I don’t know what to study. I don’t know

what I want to do.”

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“You will, Cherry, you will; soon you’ll know

just what to do. By next summer you’ll have it all

clear and laid out before you, don’t worry. I never

had the opportunity to study like girls can today, to

have a career, but you will.”

“You had Great Granddad and Granddad didn’t

you though, Great Grandma?”

“I did and your Great Granddad was like a

strong tree that I could shelter in. From the top

most branches of that tree I could see a rosy future

and he never let me down. A wonderful husband he

was to me and a wonderful father to our son. I was

so lucky!” Great Grandma’s eyes had then shone.

“You will be lucky too Cherry, you’ll see. You’ll leave

all the unhappy times behind you.”

When Great Grandma had gone that day,

Cherry tried to remember her words and to believe

them when the other teenagers at the home

sneered at her and called her Cherry fruitcake. She

went upstairs to the room she shared with Fat Sam.

She had been singing to herself again, a habit she

had inherited from her mother and they laughed at

her. Somehow her face didn’t fit. She was pretty,

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34

but she was quiet and somehow different from the

others and they despised her for it - despised her.

Even Fat Sam, a fellow victim, wasn’t her friend and

called her by her nickname.

“Oh, hello Fruitcake,” she had said as Cherry

closed the door on the jeers of the others and Sam,

who had been lying on her bed, listening to the ipod

she had stolen, had turned over and faced away from

Cherry.

It was Halloween and all the teenagers at the

home were going trick or treating, accompanied by

members of staff.

Cherry had been persuaded to go along by her

house-mother Dawn and the boys had all been

standing at the gate with the house-fathers waiting

for the girls who had taken longer to get ready.

Witches and vampires poured from the front

door and Cherry after them, who had also been

persuaded to wear a mask, or rather, a half-mask,

like a cat’s face with holes for her eyes, leaving her

nose and mouth free below its glittery fox coloured

contours, that somehow fit her perfectly.

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So much so that when Carmelo saw her

appear from behind the other girls he saw a cat

who had turned into a half girl, half cat, with long

golden hair and a long blue coat that didn’t hide

the fact that she was slim and walked with a cat

like grace. He had dawdled at the gate, waiting for

Jay who had been his best friend at the home

before he left to go to live with foster parents four

years earlier. Jay came out, last as usual, wearing a

skeleton suit on his gangly six feet and sloping

down the path. He grinned at Carmelo, brushing

past Cherry as though she were not even there, as

the others had and punching Carmelo on the

shoulder, greeted him with his voice that was as

gawky as his body.

“Great you came mate,” he had said, slinging

his arm around the other boy’s shoulders and

sweeping him into a hug, “Trick or treating!” he had

whooped and pulled Carmelo down the road after

the others who were disappearing around the

corner. Carmelo had glanced back as the cat girl

had slowly followed, looking as timid as a cat can.

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Jay, who was another misfit, who yet seemed

to fit right in, protected by the staff and the other

kids alike said loudly then, so that the cat girl must

have heard. “Never mind her, that’s just old

fruitcake, batty as a bat, crazy as a cat,” he had

cackled, but not unkindly, just repeating what

others had called Cherry. He was not malicious;

however, some of the other teenagers definitely

were.

Carmelo, had shaken his head at his friend

and pushed his head, told him off.

“Its rude to call people names mate. You

don’t like it - can it it Jay, ok?”

Cherry had followed the others, feeling pretty

miserable, and found herself tagging along after

some of them who had given the house-parents the

slip in the dark streets, during a momentary

diversion when another group of teenagers, boys

and girls, tried to start something by setting off a

banger just behind the kids from the home and one

of the girls had begun screaming hysterically. This

took the house-parents attention and the rear

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guard didn’t notice some of the boys and a few of

the girls as well, sloping off.

Cherry had gone with them to get away from

the others and Carmelo and Jay were among

them.

She had followed three or four of them up a

long driveway to a large detached house, where

an old man told them to clear off after they had

repeatedly rung the doorbell dozens of times.

“Trick, trick!” the boys had yelled, although

Carmelo hadn’t joined in. He was eighteen and

mature for his age besides.

That was when it had happened, first the

boys had thrown eggs at the old man and the

windows of his house and then stampeded down

the driveway and Cherry had turned and ran and

as they sped by and around her she had stood on

a stone and turned her ankle and fell, putting her

hands out to break her fall, but before her hands

could be grazed by the gravelly path, she had

been caught and pulled upright by two strong

hands. Once she was standing, the hands had let

go, but a very soft and concerned boy’s voice

had spoken behind her.

“Are yeh all right? The idiots nearly

mowed you down.”

Cherry had then turned to face Carmelo.

She had seen a tall boy with dark blonde hair,

showing in curls on his forehead beneath a

blue beanie hat. His hair was a little darker

than her own, but it was his eyes, even in the

lamp-light, warm, mirroring the concern, that

she had heard in his voice, that had taken her

attention.

“I’m fine thank you,” she had said and

shy, unused to talking with the others, had

turned to go down the path and as she did so

had stumbled when her ankle failed to hold

her and pain shot through it.

A hand had been immediately under her

elbow and Carmelo had spoken to her again

with the same concerned tone.

“I must help you,” he had said sincerely,

“Do yeh think yeh can walk on it?”

Cherry had put her weight on her foot

again and this time the pain wasn’t as bad.

38

“I think I’ve sprained it, but I think I can

walk on it,” she had turned to Carmelo, “Thank

you, I’ll be all right now,” she had said self-

conscious still and had tried again to walk, but

had to hobble, wincing a little with each step.

Carmelo had caught her arm again.

“I think I’ll have to help you, that is if yeh

don’t mind?”

Cherry had looked at the boy. He had

smiled and she had found herself smiling back

and leaning on his arm they had moved off.

The door of the house behind them had

slammed and they had turned to see a face

peering at them through the window in the top

half. It had seemed to smile, though the

textured surface of the glass made it difficult to

tell, before the light had gone off and the face of

the old man had disappeared.

Cherry and Carmelo walked off down the

street back towards the home and Carmelo had

introduced himself and Cherry had taken off her

mask and told him her name and Carmelo had

39

thought how much nicer that was than fruitcake

and how pretty she was, even prettier without

the mask hiding her beautiful eyes.

He had told her that the mask was like

those made in Northern Italy, in Venice, where

he came from, or rather where his parents had

lived, but they had been killed in a car accident,

when he was only seven, soon after they had

come to Scotland, where his father had come to

manage a small art gallery.

He had been looked after by his

grandmother, but she had died and so he had

been taken into care when he had been eleven

and had spent three years at the home and had

also been to stay with two sets of foster parents

until he had gone to live with the people he now

called Mum and Dad. He had been with them for

four years. In fact, they had recently applied to

adopt him, because, they had told him, he felt

like their own son and that was how he felt too.

Cherry had told him about herself, and

especially about her great grandmother.

“She sounds cool,” Carmelo had said.

40

When they had reached the home and gone

in. Cherry had called out to the receptionist who

was in her office and they had glimpsed her

through the open door, sitting with her eyes

closed, listening to an MP3 player through

headphones, singing to the music and oblivious to

their entrance.

In the TV room, the house-mother left in

charge had been sitting dozing in front of the t.v.

with a glass of something in her hand, that looked

about to spill, so they had crept past.

Cherry, feeling unexpectedly bold and not

wanting Carmelo to leave had said, “Help me

upstairs to my room,” and added, “I- I have photos

of my mother when she was on stage, if - if you’d

like to see them,” she had stammered, shy again.

She had been struck at once by his eyes, in

the hall light she had been able to see that they

were not brown as she had expected them to be,

but hazel, with hints of blue and green amid

brown.

41

In the bedroom she had sat on her chair. Fat

Sam’s had been piled high with clothes, but

Carmelo had knelt to examine her ankle. It was

swollen, she had noticed.

“But, I think you will live,” he had said and

laughed and she had found herself laughing with

him in the way that she only laughed with Great

Grandma. She had taken off her coat and

Carmelo had thrown off his beanie.

They had to sit together on Cherry’s bed

while Carmelo and she had looked at the photos

and Cherry had asked him if he was at university.

“No, I’m over in Edinburgh. I, I work there,”

he had said, not wanting to tell her that he was

an apprentice gardener at The Royal Botanic

Gardens, in case she didn’t think that was cool.

She had looked up from the photo album

then and caught a slightly evasive expression in

the up till now very frank eyes and felt unsettled.

She had moved away, but Carmelo had caught

her arm and suddenly she had done what she had

felt like doing since she had looked into his eyes

42

for the first time. She had kissed him, gently, shyly.

Carmelo, eagerly had kissed her back and all

at once the joy of being close to someone her own

age, her dancing hormones, and the fact that he

was obviously attracted to her too, had gone to her

head and she stood up suddenly.

Carmelo had looked startled, had started to

say sorry, but she had caught his hand, explaining

as she pulled him to the door that she shared the

room with another girl and didn’t want to have this

moment spoilt by the arrival of Fat Sam.

“You don’t have to go yet, do you?” she had

asked him, sounding she had suddenly thought to

herself pathetic, but Carmelo hadn’t noticed, just

assured her that he didn’t need to be home yet and

she had limped up another flight of stairs still

towing him along and taking a small key from her

pocket with a flourish had said, “I’m in charge of

the washing this week and I have the key to the

laundry room.”

Inside the small room were a large airing

cupboard, a washer, a drier and a spare single

43

mattress leaning against the wall. Leaving the

light off they had still been able to see with the

glow of the street lamp outside and dragging the

mattress onto the floor to sit on, they kissed

again and again and Carmelo shrugged off his

jacket. Cherry took the lead and soon it was

impossible for either of them to stop and

suddenly their clothes had been in the way.

Carmelo had undone his belt and Cherry,

unafraid, though nervous, had pulled off her top,

tugged open the cupboard near them and taken

two duvets from the cupboard, then had begun to

take off her own jeans.

Carmelo had stripped quickly and when they

were both naked they had crawled inside the

duvets, shy until they were cocooned in the

bedding.

It had been wonderful, the most wonderful

thing that had happened to her since she had

come to stay there, the only wonderful thing that

had happened to her since she had been at the

home!

44

Carmelo had matched her passion, but

with a gentleness that meant that she was not

hurt. Even the slightest touch of his skin against

hers had set her own alight it seemed, like

sunburn without pain and his breath was so

sweet and his mouth like the flesh of the juiciest

fruit. Then his touch between her legs had made

her gasp with intense pleasure and when he had

taken his fingers away, replaced them with a

firm, vibrant and more substantial part of his

flesh and had slid into her, she had felt as

though she would faint, it was so good! And

after a long time and something that felt like

going to heaven and back, they had known,

when it had seemed only moments had passed,

that they could go on and on and so they had,

until noises downstairs had told them that the

others were back and they had lain quietly

together then, hot and sleepy and yet Cherry

had felt more awake than she had ever felt

before.

45

They had slept then and woken when the

house was quiet and kissed again and then

dressed and stealthily gone downstairs, both

starving, to the dining room.

There had been voices coming from the

kitchen and Cherry had recognized them as

belonging to the house-mother who had been

asleep in front of the t.v. and one of the house-

fathers, though she hadn’t been able to hear what

they were saying.

Carmelo had noticed a single fruit in a dish

on a sideboard and had scooped it up.

“Let’s take this into the vestibule!”

Cherry had followed Carmelo into the

vestibule, where they had sat on the telephone

seat there.

“How are we going to eat that?” asked

Cherry, looking at the hard and seemingly

impregnable fruit. It was hardly like eating an

apple or even an orange, which could be peeled.

“Here’s how,” Carmelo had accompanied his

words by taking a knife from a sheath on his belt

that Cherry had not noticed earlier. She was

46

surprised now that Carmelo carried a knife. He

hadn’t seemed the kind of boy who would carry

one.

Carmelo had used his pruning knife, one of

the tools of his trade, to slice the pomegranate in

two and then he had pierced one of the glistening

cherry coloured seeds with the tip and brandished

in front of Cherry.

Gingerly, she had leaned forward and taken it

in her lips. It was sweet and almost spicy, but there

had been nowhere to dispose of the little hard pip

within its juicy casing.

Carmelo had held out his hand and half-

smiling half grimacing, Cherry had spat the pip into

his palm. Carmelo had pierced one for himself, but

this was all taking too long. Cherry had a badge on

her sweatshirt, a blackbird and she removed this

now and used the pin. Some of the pips they spat

into a handkerchief from a box next to the

telephone and some they had spat at one another

and when the fruit had been emptied of all of its

tiny sparkling rubies, Carmelo had said half

seriously.47

“Now we have eaten a pomegranate

together we’re as good as married yeh know,”

then he had quipped as Cherry had looked

quickly up at him, all seriously, “well, engaged at

any rate.”

He then had leaned towards her and they

had kissed and Cherry had spoken without

thinking.

“I love you,” she had whispered, so softly

that Carmelo had wondered if he had really heard

the words and without thinking he had answered

straightaway “I love you, Cherry.”

Before he had slipped out, Carmelo had

asked Cherry for her mobile number. Cherry had

told him that she didn’t own a phone at all, so

Carmelo had written his own number on a scrap

of paper and given it to Cherry.

On the next day disaster had struck.

Cherry’s house mother had asked another girl, a

younger girl called Lucy, who at least was not

one of the older girls who bullied and taunted

Cherry, to assist her and the two girls had

chatted while they loaded the machine.48

Later, however, when Cherry had unloaded

the machine, she had pulled out her own jeans,

the jeans she had put on last night before

Carmelo had left, the jeans that had a scrap of

paper in the pocket with Carmelo’s number on.

On the day after the afternoon of this

discovery, Great Grandma had arrived and she

had seemed distracted and Cherry wondered if

what she had done had somehow showed in her

face and whether Great Grandma had

disapproved. After all she was old and from a

more repressed age, despite her having been a

flapper. She had probably not slept with her

husband until after they were married, Cherry

thought.

When she didn’t come on the following day,

Cherry had been concerned, but on that night,

she had awoken momentarily, feeling reassured

and had fallen asleep feeling sure that Great

Grandma would come to see her in the morning.

She hadn’t turned up then, however, nor on the

next day.

49

Cherry had begun to wonder if she had truly

been offended or, Suppose she‘s ill, she had

thought, then, has something happened to her?

She shuddered when she imagined the worst

and on the next day she had gone to look for her.

Cherry had visited several homes, but she was not

a resident in a care home nearby. Cherry then had

rung the local council. None of the most local care

homes had heard of her, nor any in Edinburgh.

Cherry persuaded Jay, after bribing him with

chocolate, to tell her Carmelo’s address. He didn’t

have a phone number or, like Cherry, a phone of

his own either. That evening she had gone to

Carmelo’s house, a large house in the West End of

the city.

At the gate of a long driveway, she had

almost turned away, but had plucked up her

courage after shivering in the cold winter wind for

half an hour and had opened the gate, followed the

winding drive and climbed the steps in front of a

wide front door and had rung the bell.

50

51

An old woman had answered the door and

peered suspiciously at Cherry from behind a

chain, with the door open only a crack.

“Yes, what do you want?” she had asked.

“May I speak with Carmelo?” she had

timidly replied.

“He isn’t here just now, he’s in Edinburgh,

which you would know if you were one of his

friends. Good Evening.” the old woman had said

and had shut the door firmly, before Cherry

could say anything further.

She had wandered slowly back to the

home and found that Fat Sam was out and she

had their room to herself. She had sat sadly on

the edge of her bed where she had sat with

Carmelo, only a few evenings before and

sighed. Then she had begun to cry.

The soft sound had been heard, however,

by a member of staff walking by on the landing

and she had peered through the almost closed

door at Cherry.

What she saw, in the lamplight shining in

from outside in the street, into the otherwise

dark room, were Cherry and a young woman in old

fashioned clothing sitting together on Cherry’s bed.

The older girl’s arm had been around Cherry’s

shoulder, but even as she had wondered who the

strange girl might be, she had seemed to fade

before her eyes and merge into Cherry’s own dark

figure, sobbing still and now obviously quite alone.

Kahleen knew that she was drinking too much

and had shaken her head, firmly believing that she

had now begun to hallucinate. She would heed her

colleague Jim’s advice and seek professional help,

before she got any worse, she had resolved.

Cherry had felt abandoned and when her

aunt, Jonno’s sister had invited her to stay with her

for Christmas she had gone, especially as her aunt

lived in Edinburgh. She had hoped as she walked

around the German Market or in the shops that she

might bump into Carmelo and that he would be

pleased to see her, but it hadn’t happened.

When she had got back to the home she had

found herself wandering about the garden in any

weather, talking to Great Grandma, half-convinced

52

that she would somehow hear her, even though she

wasn’t there with her as before.

The others had called her more names and

would have nothing to do with her and Cherry had

grown more and more hopeless.

Then she had started to feel bloated all the time

and dizzy in the mornings. She had felt very hungry

and would eat her breakfast voraciously and then

long for lunch. Jam and cheese sandwiches were

delicious to her or honey and bacon!

The other girls in particular were convinced that

she was crazy when they had seen her eating her

toothpaste - “and it wasn’t even strawberry flavour,”

said Lucy, mystified.

Then Cherry had discovered that she couldn’t

zip up her jeans without a struggle and on the same

day the older sister of one of the other girls had come

to see her, bringing her toddler and with a very

pregnant belly and as Cherry gasped as the pain of

heartburn attacked her again and she watched the

two of them, the three of them, really, waving

53

goodbye to Morag, the realization that she herself

was pregnant had hit her.

The garden had been full of daffodils by then

and spring was definitely on its way and the nights

were a little warmer, the dark Scottish winter

relinquishing its hold as Cherry had pondered on

what would happen if they found out that she was

pregnant. The test she had bought had confirmed

this.

Probably, because she was in care herself and

had no means of supporting herself, let alone a baby,

the baby would be taken from her and she might

even be encouraged to have it adopted, Cherry had

thought.

Cherry had rung her aunt, who was the most

scatter-brained person Cherry knew and Cherry didn’t

know at that time whether to be glad that her aunt

was like that or whether she wished that she was the

sort of person who would have taken Cherry in, given

them both a home. She had told her aunt that she

was going to stay with an old friend of her mother’s

for a while, so when her house-mother had,

54

predictably ring her aunt she had been told by

an adult of Cherry’s whereabouts, so she

thought. Cherry’s aunt had even elaborated on

Cherry’s story, with an inherent sense of

secrecy and a need to withhold the truth from

the authorities.

Cherry was by then eighteen, and

although legally still in care, of an age to leave

the home, so no one had gone looking for her.

She had taken an old back pack that had

been left in the laundry room and one of the

lighter duvets from the cupboard, one she and

Carmelo had snuggled into she was sure, for it

had a blue label, and all the others were white

and she remembered it.

Packing as many of her clothes and shoes

into the ruck-sack, and other things she might

need and her old photo-album, and Carmelo’s

blue beanie, which he had left in her room all

those months before, she had crept away from

the home one morning before it had even

grown light.

55

She had caught a bus to the other side of the

city and wandered into a park that had just opened

its gates as the early morning sun brightened the

spring flowers and the grass.

Needing to use the loo, which she had to a lot

more by then, she had found the park toilets and

on the path approaching them had seen a long

silver key. It had turned out to be a key to the

disabled toilet, that someone had dropped and

when she had let herself in, Cherry had discovered

that it was big enough to shelter in at night and

another discovery, that of a mattress dumped over

the park railings, obviously recently because it had

been bone dry, had ensured that Cherry had a bed.

Behind a store for gardening equipment

Cherry had spied some large green sacks just

delivered for park use and had used these to cover

the mattress where she had hidden it against the

wall at the back of the toilet block.

Until recently Cherry had used the mattress

every night and then it had been detected by one

of the council gardeners and taken away as

rubbish. Fortunately, it was now warm enough to 56

sleep outside under the Hawthorns or the fruit trees

and so Cherry did.

Her friends, Barry and old Strahan looked at her

this morning as though she were an angel who had

just appeared to them and she asked them both,

jokily, “Do I have two wings or a halo this morning?”

“Ah, no, sure aren’t yeh your own sweet beautiful

self Cherry,” said Strahan.

The park keeper, Barry, had discovered Cherry

early on in her new home in the park and had gone on

from initially being a little hostile to become like an

adoptive uncle to her, especially after Strahan, often a

resident there himself had intervened.

It was Strahan who had seen Cherry come out of

the disabled toilet one morning in late March with her

mattress, when she had been there for a week and

had watched her stash it behind the toilets.

He had seen her wander then around the park,

marvelling at the new plants coming up and especially

at the buds on the trees, singing and taking such an

obvious delight in her surroundings and when Barry

had later found Cherry taking some more sacks to

protect her mattress and a teabag and some biscuits,

57

he had said as the keeper had threatened Cherry

with the police, “Ah, look around yeh man, Have

yeh ever seen these sheds so tidy?”

Barry had looked about him, still crossly and

said “No, I have not, what about it?”

“Do yeh think the fairies have done it?”

“No, the junior gardeners,” Barry snapped.

Strahan had raised his eyebrows.

“I tidied up a bit to pay for what I took,”

Cherry had said, “I’m sorry, I have to find a job,

but when I do I’ll pay you for the food and the

sacks, I promise.”

Barry had looked at Cherry’s earnest

expression and had not doubted her sincerity.

Now all three of them were firm friends.

Cherry had recently noticed that her

namesake fruit was beginning to appear and other

fruits as well that the park grew in a small orchard

area and a fruit and vegetable garden, sometimes

staffed by volunteers and student gardeners.

Strawberries were also ripening and this area was

kept locked, except when work was being done,

however, it didn’t keep out the birds. Cherry had

58

freed several blackbirds from the netting already

this year.

As she was tending the beds, late that

afternoon, a boy walked up to her and stood

watching.

“Do yeh work here?” he asked.

Cherry looked up to see a dark haired boy,

wearing a peaked cap. He had blue eyes and a

lightly freckled face. He also had a nice smile.

“Sort of,” she replied. She smiled, but then

went back to her work.

Strahan had warned her about the drug

addicts and the perv’s, as he called them, who

haunted the park, especially in the early evening

before the gates were locked, sometimes dossing

down in the park as Cherry and he himself did.

“Josh,” the boy said and held out his hand.

Cherry took it and the boy’s handshake was

firm.

“Actually,” he confessed, “I’ve seen yeh

around.”

59

Cherry decided that she liked the boy, who

was about her own age.

“I’m Cherry.”

Josh offered to help Cherry in the fruit garden

and the other gardeners and volunteers seemed to

like him too.

Barry and even Strahan liked him and he

began after that to come to the park often.

As summer wore on Cherry’s pregnancy was

obvious to all and her well being of most concern

to Strahan and Barry and Josh.

Cherry had taken to leaving the park on

regular afternoons by herself and her friends

believed she was attending check ups at the local

clinic.

“Scans and stuff,” said Barry who wasn’t

married, but knew a little, after all his sister had

three children and grandchildren as well.

“I’ll go to stay with my aunt soon, before the

baby is due,” she told Strahan and Barry, but

confided in Josh that she had no intention of this.

60

61

“Come to the squat, Cherry, I’ll look after you,”

Josh entreated.

But Cherry had heard from Josh himself about

the others at the squat and she didn’t want to go

there. They were the sort of people - and Cherry

didn’t judge them, but was sorry for them - the ones

that Strahan had warned her to keep away from,

some of them.

Cherry was worried. Once or twice, pains that

were a little bit like her period was on its way had

made her feel quite ill, but she had bought a book

with the small wage she received from Barry and

realized that these were her body practicing for the

birth of her baby, but she was becoming scared.

She began to wonder if she aught to go to her

aunt’s after all, but thinking about her aunt’s

character and her probable attitude, she changed

her mind. She knew that Aunt Kate wouldn’t want

her, or the baby. She knew that Kate would panic

and inform the home.

She thought about going with Josh to the

squat. They had mattresses there. Her own mattress

62

had been found by the gardeners some time ago

and had been taken away.

Sleeping out was never a worry to her. She

was always warm. If it was chilly, she had her

duvet and the disabled toilet was still her refuge

when it was wet.

One morning she sat under the Cherry trees

and cupped her hands around her tummy. There

were shiny cherries above her and one on the

ground at her foot. She looked at its delicate ripe

skin, split and spilling juice. She thought about the

baby’s skin, so fragile too and her thoughts of the

baby became mixed up with memories of Carmelo,

of his skin. She still thought about him and about

that one wonderful night. How easily she had

rushed into something so short and sweet, but

with such long-lasting and bitter tasting

consequences. She had trusted him, trusted her

own feelings. She couldn’t trust them now, nor

anyone else either. Josh was sweet and so

genuinely worried about her, but he had no home,

nor work either. He had been abused and had run

away from his own father and mother.

She knew that he was gentle himself, but

she couldn’t bring herself to trust him entirely.

As she sat under the tree, she came to a

final decision. It was a painful one, but she had

thought of nothing else now for weeks and she

still believed this was the right decision.

So when the pains came one late afternoon,

later than she had expected them, and she knew

they were the real thing; it was as if the baby had

been waiting until she was ready herself and knew

what to do, she told no one and soon Barry went

home. Strahan had gone to visit his son in

Ireland. She hadn’t realized he had a son, but he

picked up letters from him at a local post office

and now the son was in trouble and Strahan, who

couldn’t look after himself, but, Cherry realized

that of course he could and did, despite his

vagrant lifestyle, was going to help his son.

“I’ll be back soon Colleen,” he had said, “you

don’t need to go to your aunt’s yet do yeh?”

And Cherry had lied and said that she was

sure that the birth was weeks off. Strahan had

been obviously worried about his son.

63

Cherry wandered about the park as the pains

began to come closer together, contractions, thats

what they were called. She wished that she had

asked Josh to stay with her, but she had sent him

away, without telling him that the pains had begun,

before they began in earnest to trouble her,

besides, he had found evening work in a cafe where

no questions were asked and he would be sacked if

he didn’t go, she knew.

Very late, after darkness had come, Cherry

locked herself into the disabled toilet, where she

felt safer. She had light, though it was dim and

water to drink and hot water to wash herself with

and the baby, when it came and she spread her

duvet on the floor and paced about her small room

in between the contractions, which were coming

closer and closer now and suddenly a flood of water

cascaded from Cherry. She had read about this and

had thought it might happen, but it was still scary.

She stood, panting and sweating in the hot August

night, until she had calmed down. At last she dared

to do what she had been afraid to do so far and felt

between her legs.

64

She could feel the baby’s head! Another

searing pain engulfed her body and this time

Cherry, bracing her self against the wall with her

hands, began to push.

Soon, as the pains had intensified and there

was now hardly any space between them, she

had got onto all fours on the duvet and gritting

her teeth at the pain for as long as she could, at

last with a scream that was more a hiss because

her energy was focussed on pushing, the baby’s

head appeared, the pain momentarily stopped

and Cherry could feel the tiny face of her child!

The pain gripped her again and with an

almighty push the baby girl landed in her waiting

hands and she guided her onto the duvet.

There was silence.

Cherry bent over the tiny person below her

and put her fist to her own mouth, a huge wave

of fear, of tsunami like proportions washed over

and then the baby sneezed and began to cry.

Cherry, shakily, relief now flowing through

her, laughing and crying herself, picked up the

65

66

baby and sat with her back to the wall with the

little thing at her breast.

The baby stopped crying as she cradled her,

and Cherry found herself gazing into deep blue

eyes that seemed to be looking into her own, and

she had the strangest feeling that it was not for

the first time, though of course it was. Then

Cherry took and unwrapped the pruning knife she

had scalded earlier for this purpose and cut the

umbilical cord.

Now the child was a separate human being

from herself.

Suddenly there was more pain, but only a

little and Cherry knew what it was as she laid the

baby down, wrapping her in the duvet, where it

was still dry and she delivered the placenta, the

baby’s former home within her body, in just a few

minutes, compared to the labour.

She put it into one of the green sacks and

cleaned up as much as she could, flushing paper

away in the toilet.

When the baby and she were clean, finally

Cherry dropped onto the floor with the baby in her

67

arms and undid her blouse and fed her tiny

daughter.

All the while the baby looked up at her with

her blue stare. So intently did she keep up her

steady gaze into Cherry’s eyes, with her own never

straying away and while she fell in love with her

Cherry was thinking at the back of her mind, how

strange it was that the baby should focus so

unwaveringly.

She dressed the baby in one of the newborn

nappys, which she had bought and the tiny white

baby gro.

In the apple orchard, as the sky began to

grow pink in the east, though it was not yet dawn,

Cherry put the baby into one of the baskets, which

were being used for the first crop.

It was August 13th, her baby’s birthday and

she loved her so much that she almost ached with

the way it felt, which was why what she did next

would have seemed strange to anyone observing

her, if there had been anyone watching.

68

She caught an early morning bus and travelled

across Glasgow and got off near the place that she

had chosen a few weeks earlier.

It was a very smart health centre on the edge

of a residential area with large houses and gardens.

Cherry crept up the drive in the dawn sunshine,

hoping that she would not be seen. The drive was

tree lined so she thought it was unlikely.

She went up to the front door, knowing that it

would be more than three hours before the place

opened.

Cherry put the basket holding the baby on the

step, she kissed her little face and stroked her cheek

and then unable to bear the child’s frank gaze, she

looked away. Almost, it seemed to Cherry now,

though she felt that this was her imagination, the

baby was questioning her.

She left her there - with no note.

At the tube station she got on the train for

Edinburgh and sat in the almost empty carriage and

thought about the baby.

She hoped, as she longed to get off the train

and go back, that the baby would have a happy life

69

and that she would find loving parents who would

give her everything she could possibly want or

need.

She knew babies were sought after for

adoption, by childless couples.

She thought about Carmelo too and what he

also had lost, but it had not been meant to be. He

had never looked for her or even rung her at the

home and now their child would begin her life

without either of them.

Eventually, she fell asleep, exhausted and just

over an hour later was woken by the sounds of the

Edinburgh underground and she left the train. She

had someone to visit. She knew where the place

was and found the right bus, one that took her

almost to the gates.

It took her longer to find the right grave, but

Great Grandma had told her where to look and she

recognized the large and fairly ornamental marble

headstone, as Great Grandma had described it.

Her mother had been buried here, interred in

the family plot that her great great grandfather

had arranged all those years ago.

70

Her father was not here. He had been

cremated and Cherry’s aunt had scattered his

ashes on his favourite rugby pitch.

Cherry had not attended her mother’s

funeral. Jonno had wanted to spare her from the

ordeal of seeing her mother lowered into the

grave and she hadn’t even known where her

mother was buried, had believed that she had

been cremated perhaps, until Great Grandma

had told her of the family plot here, not very far

away from her own parents and grandparents

even grander one.

Cherry walked up to see the names

engraved on the white marble. Her eyes flew to

her mother’s name first and then to the others,

her grandfather, her great grandfather -

Pomona, Pomona, Great Grandma, oh,

Great Grandma!

Great Grandma was buried here too, but

not recently. The first name on the stone was

hers.

71

Pomona Jardine, nee Blackwood-Coutts, Beloved

wife and mother,

b. 1907 d. 1933

Great Grandma had died when her son,

Cherry’s grandfather, had been born, in 1933!

So she had never known her son, was the

first thought that entered Cherry’s mind, followed

by the realization that she had been visited for -

for over two years - by a ghost!

Great Granddad too, had lived a long life and

had never remarried and brought up her granddad

alone, Cherry now also realized and then

Granddad had to bring up his little daughter alone.

Cherry thought about what Great Grandma

had said about how they had cared for their

children and was suddenly sure that she was

wrong. She felt ashamed. She had just abandoned

her baby!

With tears streaming down her cheeks she

ran from the graveyard and back to the tube

station, where she composed herself a little more,

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but hurried onto the platform for the train back to

Glasgow.

Oh why wouldn’t it come?

On the hour long journey back Cherry was

agitated, but she began to realize an even more

amazing thing about her baby.

Oh, Great Grandma, Pomona.

She closed her eyes and prayed.

Please be still there my little one, please be all

right and, Oh, God, don’t let them take her away

from me!

When Cherry reached the health centre, she

was so tired that her legs felt like iron bars as she

ran up the drive, but adrenalin and some other

strength, more powerful, still kept her running.

She stopped when she had almost reached the

door and the paved patio in front of it had no basket

and no baby on it.

Oh, where is she?

“Where are you, my baby, my baby?” Cherry

said aloud now and sobbing, she began to bang on

the door of the health centre, for she had seen

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someone moving about inside, though it was still

half an hour off the time that the centre opened

to its patients.

Someone was moving towards the door now

and Cherry waited, gasping and shaking, for

them to reach it. As the person reached the glass

doors and turned the key, Cherry at first didn’t

believe her eyes, for it was -

Carmelo! How could it be?

He opened the door.

“Cherry, Cherry its you!”

Cherry fell into Carmelo’s arms.

“Carmelo, oh, I left my baby here. Is she

here?”

Carmelo supported Cherry to a chair in the

waiting room.

“Your baby? Sit down. Oh Cherry where

have you been? You look terrible, I mean, you

look wonderful. I thought I’d never find you

again. Oh, where did you go?”

“My baby?”

Carmelo pulled himself together.

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“Yes, she’s here. She’s with my mother.”

Cherry leapt to her feet.

“Oh, where, where?” she looked wildly about

her.

“I’ll take you,” Carmelo said and tender arms

were about Cherry and Carmelo’s eyes met Cherry’s

and behind the consternation she saw the same

concern for her that she had seen once before in

his eyes.

“Mum,” Carmelo called out, then, “Mum its

Cherry, I mean, its the baby’s mother.”

A woman came out from a door at the side of

the reception desk.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she said.

She led Cherry and Carmelo into a room

behind the reception, where on a table, was the

apple basket.

Cherry ran to it. Her daughter looked up at

her, her eyes serene, but earnest and held out her

arms and Cherry gathered her up and sat down on

a chair next to the table because she had to,

because now her legs felt about to give way.

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Carmelo’s adoptive mother was the practice

manager and Carmelo had come along with his

mother that morning, while he was still on holiday

from his apprenticeship at the botanic gardens,

before he went off into the city for the day, but

Cherry was still bemused, knowing nothing of

these facts.

She was almost on the verge of passing out

and Carmelo’s mother could see this and while she

wondered at her son’s obvious concern for this girl

who she had never seen before and realized that

he knew her, there were more important matters

to attend to.

Jane Gillespie asked Cherry some medical

questions and then she told her that when one of

the doctors came she would examine her and then

she should go home and rest.

“Where do you live Cherry? Do your family

know about the baby? Does the baby’s father

know about her?”

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Cherry found herself telling the truth to

Carmelo’s mother, except who the father of her

baby was.

“I think we had better leave these two alone

for a while, Carmelo, until Doctor Fraser has seen

them, Oh, here she is now.” Jane looked up as a

car pulled up in one of the spaces reserved for the

doctors, immediately outside.

While Cherry and the baby saw the doctor,

Jane Gillespie grilled her adopted son about the

girl that he couldn’t stop grinning at and who

smiled shyly, all the time, now that she was

reunited with her baby, at him. And - her baby,

the baby that Carmelo kept stealing surreptitious

fascinated and eager glances at, though the truth

was beginning to dawn on her, even before

Carmelo told her, hanging his head one moment

and then looking at her with a fierce expression in

his warm latin eyes. He made the truth, which

dismayed, if it didn’t shock her, sound romantic

and he finished with a note of unmistakable pride

in his voice.

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“I, I think the baby is mine, Mum.”

Consequently, when the doctor had finished

with the two of them, and while Cherry waited

outside in the corridor, with the baby, Jane did

some explaining as well. Then she escorted the girl

back to rest room at the back of the building,

where Carmelo was waiting and made herself

leave them alone together, for a while at any rate.

Carmelo is nineteen. It is his mess. He must sort it

out.

Carmelo sat on a chair while Cherry lay with

the baby on a bed against the wall under the

window with the sun glinting on her hair, which still

dazzled him.Cherry listened as Carmelo told her he

had rung to speak to her at the home at Christmas

and was told that she was away.

“I thought you didn’t want to see me again

when you didn’t ring me.”

Cherry explained what had happened to the

piece of paper and Carmelo looked relieved, then

sad.

“I came to the home at Easter, hoping to see

you and Jay told me you had gone, left for good he

thought.”

By now he was holding Cherry’s hand and still

looking quickly now and again at the baby.

Cherry told him all about her life in the park and

he told her about his work and Cherry asked if there

were courses available in orchard management and

Carmelo said that there were.

“It’s what I want to do, one day,” she looked at

the baby, “when I can.”

“Jay and the other boys at the home told me

you were mad, but I saw straight away that you were

special, special to me, Cherry, that we were the

same,” Carmelo said and there were tears in his eyes,

“I’m sorry you had to go through all this,” he

gestured at the baby, “alone.” Then he gulped visibly

and said, “The baby, she’s mine, isn’t she?”

Cherry nodded and held her out to him even as

he reached for her and suddenly they were all three

huddled together and crying, even the baby, at last,

but then they were almost squashing her.

Carmelo sat by the bed holding his little

daughter then, who stopped crying and regarded him 78

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with an expression of something like wonder on her face,

he thought and realized that his own face must look the

same way to her.

“My so called mates told me how you would wander

about the garden, talking to yourself, that you were

crazy,” he told Cherry.

“Then you forgot all about me,” Cherry whispered.

Carmelo freed one of his hands and reached for

hers, “I did not, I came to look for yeh.”

“When did they tell you about me talking to

myself?”

“I told you at Halloween. Jay told me and then some

of the others told me to leave you alone, unless I fancied

having a laugh, unless you were willing to have a laugh

with me,” he saw Cherry’s look of horror, “I told you, I

knew you were special. I knew you were the girl for me,”

his eyes told her once more that he was speaking the

truth, “They said you wouldn’t have anything to do with

any of them, so I was blown away when yeh liked me,

when, we,” he looked at the baby now, “we made her, we

made her together,” he laughed and Cherry did too.

“We did didn’t we? She’s special too, Carmelo, she-”

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“May I come in?” Jane asked, peering around

the door, noticing that Carmelo was now cradling the

baby in his arms.

The girl, Cherry, was glowing and Jane

suddenly felt a rush of love for her son and for the

girl too, They look so right together, she thought.

Later that day she asked them what they were

going to call the baby.

Cherry looked at Carmelo who had looked at

her straightaway and said, “I thought we might call

her after my mother, my birth mother?”

Cherry’s breath stopped in her throat and she

couldn’t speak, for she knew what her daughter’s

name should be, in a way, what it already was.

“If you like the name?” Carmelo looked at

Cherry and then at the baby, who was lying between

them on Jane’s sofa, “Pomona,” he breathed.

Cherry sighed and Pomona looked up at them

both, her blue eyes twinkling, perhaps she would

have another lucky life this time, maybe even luckier

than the last one!

Alexandra Lesley

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CLIOResume of Parts One to Four:

Callum is going nowhere, well, heʼs going home on the bus from his dead end job one summer night, when he misses his stop and has to get off in a dark lane to walk back. He meets a girl, singing and dawdling in the lane, a very strange - but drop-dead gorgeous - girl." Much to his surprise and absolute rapture, she seduces him! She agrees to see him again too! " When he gets home and sees his face in the bathroom mirror, all his spots have gone!" It is Saturday and he decides to go into town. At the bus stop he meets a girl he sees every morning, but has never had the balls to speak to. Today he introduces himself!" The girl is called Clio. On the way into town they get on like a school thatʼs been the target of an arsonist. Clio tells Callum, who used to be in a band, about the choir that she is in and suggests that he joins. Callum agrees to go to the next rehearsal, but when he sees that his spots have all come back, he doesnʼt go." Instead, on the next day, he gets off the bus on his way home from work, in the spot where he met the strange girl two nights previously and she is there again.

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" When she sees that his spots have returned, she somehow knows that he has met Clio and is as cross as a box of frogs about it." Like a pet lamb, Callum follows her up the track that leads onto the moor." After the inevitable and enjoyable, Callum asks the girlʼs name, feeling that they now know one another well enough to disclose intimate details such as names! ʻSheʼ, says the girl, ʻyou may call me She.ʼ Callum thinks that ʻSheʼ doesnʼt want to tell him her name. He asks her out on ʻErʼ a proper date, but She refuses, saying that she is happy to see him just there in the lane and that she is there most nights." On the way home Callum thinks about Clio and feels guilty for not turning up at the choir practice." His spots disappear and reappear and when he sees Clio on the bus on Monday morning he is embarrassed, but Clio challenges him about missing the practice and somehow when he has explained that his spots make him embarrassed, suddenly Clio is friendly again and tells him that what she noticed about him was his smile. There is an extra choir practice, and Callum finishes work earlier that night and finds that his feet take him to the community centre and when he has sung for the choir mistress, suddenly he is asked to sing a duet with Clio at the choirʼs next gig. The Elemental Voices is a rock choir and theyʼre good and Callum is chuffed! Better still he sits with Clio on the bus ride home and

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every morning and is really looking forward to the choir practice on Saturday." On Friday night, as he is riding home on the bus, Callum looks to see if She is at the bottom of the track, hoping that she isnʼt! He is horrified when he sees as the bus passes the bottom of the track, a large black dog attacking She and hears her screaming as she tries to protect herself. He yells at the driver who stops the bus and Callum flies back along the lane and up the track, like the gallant idiot that he is!" When Callum had got into the lane, however, the dog turned away from She and attacked him instead!" “...we were only playing!” She had said." And once more Callum rolled over to have his tummy tickled, kind of, if you know what I mean." The summer rolled on and apart from Clio somehow intuitively realizing that Callumʼs disappearing and reappearing spots had something to do with another girl, it was amazing, as they were growing closer to one another more and more each day it seemed." To add to their general feeling of being high on life, Clio and Callum were the rising stars in the choir. " Autumn was looming and Clio was going to attend a short course at a music college and they were going to apply for university the following year for courses in music and after that form a band - together!

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" Callum did his best to avoid going anywhere near the track near where She lived, but one night, near his home, hearing She singing Clio and his song, Callum turns in the lane off which She lives and she is there in the lane and tries to seduce him again." Despite feeling like a candle wick engulfed by a laser beam, Callum resists Sheʼs efforts to persuade him to follow her up the track and what that will inevitably lead to and runs on up the lane, past the track and down Clioʼs drive." Clio invites him in through her bedroom window. Her Dad is asleep and Callum discovers that Clio is every bit as good at seduction as She is. " With Clio, however, love making is different and Callum realizes that he is in love with Clio and that, amazingly, Clio is in love with him!" Callum then discovers that Clio has another talent that he thought belonged to She, when they see that his spots have disappeared!" Then they find out that the choir is going to be on TV the following summer! Everything in life is like birthday and Christmas rolled into one!" Then! Clio goes off to college and tells Callum in a moment of madness to hang out with whoever he likes while she is away." Callum is confused by her attitude.Then suddenly Clio hasnʼt called and doesnʼt answer his texts. On the next night Callum has a drink, falls asleep on the bus home and asks the driver to put him off at the bottom of the track, where She is of course waiting.

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" This time Callumʼs heart is absent and he is wracked with a grief like Niagara Falls in full spate! He is gutted by his betrayal, despite what Clio had said to him before she went to college, he feels that he has been untrue to their love." Clio has her own demons to deal with, however, having slept with a boy from college, which is why she hasnʼt been in touch." At half term, which coincides with Halloween, Clio comes home and she and Callum make up." Then Callum confesses that he has agreed to go to dinner with She and meet her family and Clio realizes that somehow she herself is to blame that Callum has seen She again and agreed to this, so doesnʼt go ballistic as he had thought that she might." On the day of the dinner, however, Clio tells her dad all about it." Sean then realizes the truth about Sheʼs identity, that she is one of the Sidhe, who are faerie people, who live in the hills." He tells Clio the truth about herself as well, that her own mother was one of the Sidhe, that she isnʼt dead as he had maintained, but had left Clio with him as a baby back at home in Ireland and gone back to her people, who had wanted to harm or use Clio for their own ends." Sean realizes that the Sidhe is trying to lure Callum into her world from whence he may never return and urges Clio to follow him as soon as possible, which she does." When Clio catches up with them on the hillside, She throws a dagger at Clio, who screams as the blade reaches her heart!

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"

CLIOPart Five:

The dagger had stopped its flight and was suspended in front of Clioʼs heart, the tip just making an imprint in the fabric of her coat. She had screamed, but not in pain, with fear, mingled with rage and now abruptly and seemingly of its own volition, the dagger flipped around and with frightening speed flew back at the Sidhe, but only to stop in mid air before it reached her and fall harmlessly at her feet. Callum saw her amazement." Equally fast she retrieved it and flew at Clio with the dagger in her grasp, before Callum could even move. To his own amazement, Clio rushed to meet her and then they stopped only about a foot apart from one another, seething and heaving and then as he ran towards them, something even more amazing happened." The Sidhe glared at Clio at first and Clio glared back. She struggled to move. How had Clio frozen her to the spot? It was practically impossible that a human being could wield such power. She stared at Clio, into her eyes. No. Yes. Yes. OH! And the world was suddenly a warm place once more and her heart felt like a glowing coal, a feeling she had never thought to feel again, and she knew as well, the girl, she knew." Clio did know. A great surge of feeling had passed between them seconds after they had looked each other in the eyes. The moment of recognition had been at the same time for her as for - suddenly they

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were clasped tightly together, clinging like mother and daughter reunited, which of course is what they were!" Callum caught up to them just as they flung themselves at one another and at first thought that they were wrestling, then he stood there even more amazed as Clio sobbed on Sheʼs shoulder and more amazed, when he saw tears running down Sheʼs face as well!" She held Clioʼs face in her small hands and brushed away her tears with her fingers in a gesture so tender that Callum felt as though he shouldnʼt be there.Though slighter and a little shorter than Clio she seemed and looked older Callum thought now, but this didnʼt explain the way that they were behaving toward one another. Perhaps She was sorry for attacking Clio, but wow, was she sorry. Suddenly Clio and then She as well seemed to remember him. They both looked at him. She looked at Clio." “Your boy,” she said and Clio smiled and nodded and was still crying. “ I have so much I want to tell you,” she hesitated, “Clio, I like that name. Will you stay a while to talk with me now, to let me talk?” she asked. Clio nodded again and turned to Callum." “Callum, go home and tell Dad where I am and tell him, tell him, Iʼll be home in a while and that Iʼll be safe with my, my mother - my,” she broke off seeing the look of astonishment beginning to break out on Callumʼs face, “my motherʼs people,” she amended, but Callum was beginning

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to guess the truth as he looked from one to the other of the two girls smiling at him through their tear filled eyes and realized, not for the first time, how alike they were. Although one was as dark haired as the other was fair, they had the same glittering green eyes and delicate fairy like faces, though Clioʼs mouth was not so wide, nor her nose so turned up as Sheʼs, but still, they looked like family." They hugged one another. Callum blushing a lovely shade of pomegranate and still looking from one to another in wonder, and then looking back at them, as they began walking up the hill together, ran down the path, until reaching the trees and the lane, they disappeared from his view and he from theirs." When he got to Clioʼs house, he discovered that his mother was there. Two concerned faces turned to him as he rushed in to through the back door and then from the hall into the kitchen. Sean and Ellie were sitting together at the table and both stood up and rushed to him." “Callum, is everything all right?” Ellie said, pulling him into the room to sit at the table, but before he could, Sean, looking paler than his usual ruddy self, grasped Callum by the arm." “Clio, where is she? Is she safe?”" “Yeah Sean, sheʼs fine, Sheʼs, sheʼs with her mother.”

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" Seanʼs face was such a mixture of amazement, followed by relief, wonder and finally concern again." Callum realized that Sean was afraid for Clio, although he couldnʼt guess why." “Itʼs ok, itʼs cool, theyʼre just talking,” he said quickly, then." “Where are they?” Sean asked." “On the moors above the river, on the way up one of the hills. I donʼt know its name, but -” Callum was interrupted by Sean grabbing first his coat and hurtling towards the door, then turning back to grab Callum." “Take me there!” he yelled and pushed Callum out through the door." Alerted to danger, Ellie, without her coat, chased after them both.! ! ! ! !! ! ! ! ! Lavinia Hinde

The final part of Clio is now in the next issue.

" "

" "" " In dungeons dark I cannot sing! ! In sorrow’s thrall ‘tis hard to smile: What bird can soar with broken wing?! What heart can bleed and joy the while?

There will be a poem from this poet in every issue of Tyrant Spell. There is a prize for guessing the identity of the poet, but if you know please donʼt tell anyone but the editor. The first person who guesses correctly will receive a book of poems by the mystery poet.

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IN THE HIDDEN HEARTHidden in the heart of thingsA secret singsLike the wren in the hawthorn,hidden, with folded wings

On the bed, in the day, she wakes.An invitation of her body makes,Yet a demon lies behind her eyes that may not hesitateTo slake its taste for blood upon the hovering fingersThat would her breast caress

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At night, she burns.With prey in sight.The inscrutable face of the huntress she turnsOn my pillow, at rest, her most candid gaze.Then her tongue with rough tenderness kisses my face.She purrs.She stirs,Cradled in my thighs she sleeps at last,Whimpers sighs.

In the hidden heart of things, like the butterfly in its chrysalis,The secret flexes its wings.

Behind the door to the secret gardenMystery...

Alexandra Lesley

To contribute to Tyrant Spell please email the editor first at ruby.brooklyn@btinternet.com