There was a tune stuck in my head. I always seemed to have a tune stuck in my head these days.
my ship sailed from China with a cargo of tea all laden with presents for you and me
I didn’t know where China was, but it sounded interesting.
‘Where’s China?’ I asked Ma.
‘Don’t know, never heard of it,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s part of Rome. Where did you hear the name?’
‘I dreamed it,’ I said.
‘Oh.’ Her smile vanished and she thrust her hand down into the sack of chicken feed. She bought out a fistful and sprinkled it in the little saucer in the chick box. The chicks scrambled over each other in their eagerness to get at the food, pecking at their toes and at each other’s eyes and heads by mistake. Watching them, Ma’s smile came back, but it was a little thin around the edges.
I put down the dish of clean water, and smiled as the chicks rushed around my hand. ‘They’re like water,’ I said, wanting the waver of Ma’s smile to go away. ‘You know, when you put your hand in water and move it and the water moves as well.’ I looked up hopefully.
She did smile, then, a proper smile, like she used to do. She put her hand on my shoulder, and I could feel the bones of her fingers through the fabric of my dress. The warmth from the fire washed over my face, and I closed my eyes, seeing the strange purple flashes that it made against my eyelids. Like the ghosts of real light, I thought, or the echoes of it.
‘Can light ever die?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Ma said. ‘That’s a silly question.’
‘Why?’
‘Because what does it matter?’ She squeezed my shoulder and got up; her skirt brushed against my face and left me with an echo of her scent: smoke and flour and herbs. She went to the table and, after wiping her hands on the cloth, tipped out the ball of dough from the mixing bowl and began rolling it out on the table. I watched her; my hand was still in the box but the chicks were busy in the dish of chick crumbs and my fingers lay limp and alone in the sawdust.
‘Dara, can you finish washing the hearth stones?’ she said. ‘We’ve got to finish the cleaning before it gets dark, and you know Pa doesn’t want us to waste the candle.’
The bucket was by the door, the rag lying like a twisted brown worm over the side. I looked in, saw the bottom of the bucket and my stomach lurched. ‘There’s no more water,’ I said.
‘There’s the wash basin,’ Ma said quickly.
‘That’s empty.’
There was a pause that seemed to go on forever, but all too quickly, Ma said, ‘I’ll go get some more water, then. You stay here and—’ She looked at her dough-covered hands, at the sunset outside, and her mouth clenched tight like a fist.
‘I’ll go get it,’ I said.
‘Dara—’
‘I’ll get it,’ I said lightly. ‘It’s only a little walk. It’s not like anyone’s going to bite me. The Saltmans have their dog tied up now.’
‘Dara, I said—’
‘I’m a tiger, Ma.’ I grinned at her white face. ‘I’m a tiger defying the laws of gravity.’ She looked as though she were about to cry. I stretched my grin even wider, snatched the bucket and pushed open the door.
It was cold outside, and the mud squelched between my toes. I lifted my dress, the bucket banging against my knees, and my ankles looked white and bony in the gathering twilight. I could feel people watching me; children in doorways stared at me as I passed, and the occasional shutter creaked as someone behind it stuck out a curious nose for a look.
‘Like Lady Godiva,’ I murmured, but that was the wrong tune, it wasn’t the one still running through my head.
my ship sailed from China with a cargo of tea all laden with presents for you and me
I passed the Saltmans’ cottage and saw their dog lunge against its rope, barking a million curses in my direction. I stopped, rocked forward on my toes and stuck my tongue out at it, smiling what I hoped was a successful sneer at it, and at any of the Saltmans who happened to be watching. ‘No presents for you,’ I said pleasantly, and the dog’s growls became hoarse and frenzied.
I could hear the discordant boil of its thoughts, a growing storm of red get you, kill you, grab your guts, you’re not right, not right, not right, crush your bones until you piss your stinking blood.
‘You’ll suffocate,’ I told it, and danced a few steps in the mud. ‘And then who’ll bark at me and eat my ankles? I hope you know, it’s almost healed up now. It only bleeds when I pick at the scabs.’ The dog’s ears snapped back on its head and the whites of its eyes rolled up at me with ferocious hatred.
I smiled at it, did a curtsey to the watching Saltmans and carried on down the path. There was a knot in my throat that confused me; I wanted it to be anger, because it was easy to be angry at the Saltmans, and at Esther Saltman, who had been my friend and now threw stones and mud along with all the others; but I kept on thinking of Ma’s tight, white face, stretched thin like a bed sheet, and then the knot grew tighter until it hurt and my blanket of anger wavered.
There was no one at the pump, and it looked a little lonely, a dark little island surrounded by houses whose windows glowed warmly gold in the dusk. When I touched the handle, it sent a chill all through my body and down my back and I shivered. I balanced the bucket on the edge and looked up at the sky. The tops of the houses blocked the best of the sunset, and all I could see of it were a few streaks of rosy gold stretching up above the smoking chimney pots into the darkening navy of the sky. A few stars pricked their way through and twinkled like sunlight on water. That must be what gems look like, I thought, God’s gems. The thought was a pretty one and it loosened the knot in my throat so I could swallow again and take a proper breath.
Crows coughed like old men in the bare trees in the fields around the village, and as I watched, one of them took off from its branch, a black blot of ink dribbling across the beautiful sky. I stuck my hand into a fold of my dress and made the sign against evil before sucking down a lungful of air so cold it hurt my teeth. My toes were suddenly freezing in the clinging mud and I heaved the bucket up and dumped it in the water trough.
I heard the squelch and suck of bare feet on the path, and looking up, saw a girl coming out from between the houses. She swung a bucket in her hand and was looking at the ground, and the sound of her humming carried clearly through the still cold air. I froze in spite of myself, and my hand clenched on the bucket handle.
She came closer and the tune in my head grew louder, as though to combat the one that she sang.
my ship sailed from China with a cargo of tea all laden with presents for you and me they brought me some shoes just imagine my bliss as I tapped my toes gaily like this like this like this
I realised my fingers were drumming against the bucket’s wooden sides and forced myself to stop. The rhythm only went deeper, throbbing inside my head like a pulse.
my ship sailed from China with a cargo of tea all laden with presents for you and
It was Enid Strahan and it was only now that she looked up and saw me. She stopped and the bucket thudded against her thigh. ‘Oh!’ she said, and puffed out a gasp.
I bared my teeth in a grin. ‘Hello, Enid.’
‘I—Dara, I—’ She darted a glance around her.
I was suddenly conscious of faces pressed against windows, of the creak of opening doors, of Murdo and Pwll Lang creeping forward out of their doorway and standing with their fingers in their mouths, staring expectantly.
‘You can go first,’ I said, and took a few steps back from the pump.
‘N-no, I—You go, you finish, you were here first.’ She ducked her head and stared at the ground. She was like a cat, poised at the sight of a dog, ready to turn and flee if the dog suddenly bared fangs and sprang.
The knot was back in my throat, hard and bony. ‘Oh no,’ I said, and my smile hurt my cheeks. ‘Sensible people before the mad ones, please.’
‘Dara, I don’t...’
‘Of course you do,’ I said pleasantly. ‘Everyone does, and you never were one to swim upstream, Enid.’
Her head snapped up and she glared at me. ‘What do you know about me, Dara Redfield? You don’t know anything, you don’t know what I’ve said, what I’ve—’ She bit off the rest of her sentence.
‘And what have you said, Enid? Do tell me, I’d love to know. What have you said about Dara Redfield, the mad girl of Encotte?’ The tune was pounding in my head, words and music getting muddled up with other words, other music, words and music that didn’t exist with Enid’s song and couldn’t exist here. I didn’t hear what she said; I clenched my teeth tight together and struggled to keep my anger back. The knot was choking me, I couldn’t breathe.
my ship sailed from China with a cargo of tea all laden with
‘Where is China?’ My voice sounded hoarse.
Enid was staring at me, and her face reminded me of Ma’s, pale and frightened. ‘China?’
‘My ship sailed from China with a cargo of tea.’ The words leaked out of my mind and into my mouth and I couldn’t stop them. ‘Where is it, Enid? Where’s China? Is it anywhere except in my head?’ Enid took another look at my face and turned and began to walk quickly away.
I dropped the bucket back in the water trough, and the clang it made sent her scurrying into a trot. I gripped the cold pump handle, feeling the metal dig into my palm and crush the blood in my fingers. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, the only words running through my head were the words of the song.
my ship sailed from China with a cargo of tea all laden with presents for you and me they bought me a fan just imagine
Please no, I managed to think. Not here. Ma’ll be so cross.
Slowly, painfully slowly, the pounding died away. I was hanging over the water trough, gripping the pump handle so tightly my hands hurt. My eyes were scrunched shut, and I opened them self-consciously. I was shocked by how dark the sky was. Pa would be home soon, and Ma still wanted the window cleaned. The song was still lurking in the back of my head, but there was room for my own thoughts now. I took a deep breath and lifted the pump handle and water gushed into the bucket, making dark and mysterious depths inside the old and stained wood. My face made a pale blur in the swirling water as I lifted the bucket up and rested it on the side of the trough. It was heavy and the handle dug into my palms.
‘Mad girl!’
The shout was shrill and sudden. It hit me like a fist in the stomach and I jumped like a shot rabbit, my hand jerking the bucket so it fell, drenching me in freezing water and rolling away on the ground. Murdo and Pwll had come out of their doorway and been joined by more children, dark nameless shapes that loomed up out of the dark like demons. I ran after the bucket and as I caught it, a clot of mud hit me in the face and they all yelled like hunting dogs.
‘Mad girl! Mad girl! Mad girl! Mad girl!’
I began to run, the empty bucket seeming huge as a house and getting caught between my legs. They sprang at me out of the shadows, hands grabbing at my dress and tripping me up, their faces and hands fluttering and blurring in front of me like waving handkerchiefs and their voices rang in my ears until I couldn’t hear anything, only the tune beating in my head until it spilled out of my mouth and into the world where it didn’t belong.
Somewhere I thought I heard Ma screaming for them to leave me alone, that I didn’t mean any harm, I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t know what I was doing.
‘Mad girl! Mad girl!’
A foot caught my ankle and I fell. The bucket rattled away and I curled into a ball, my arms wrapped around my head. My face was wet and I could taste blood on my tongue.
‘Mad girl!’
my ship sailed from China with a cargo of tea all laden with presents for you and me they brought me a fan just imagine my bliss as I fanned myself gaily like this like this like this like this like this
The world faded, the children vanished, and I saw nothing, heard nothing except the songs in my head.
Comments on everything, please, but especially the characters, whether this works as a first chapter and makes you want to read more, and whether you understand what's happening, lol.
I'm assuming you saw my way of reviewing. Maroon=Likes Purple=Questions/suggestions Red=Grammar errors and then whatever, though I probably won't use much of that with thing.... 
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