The very next morning--Ma would not allow them even a day to rest up from the festivities--they were off to Grandmother Wallace's place. She had owled her Muggle mother several days before to warn her of their coming and quelled her husband's misgivings with a look in her eye that would brook no argument.
They took the family sledge and their pair of winged horses--white Arctureans-- which Minerva loved almost as much as she loved her broomstick, though the sled was nothing like so maneuverable as a racing broom. They only flew as far as the east end of the village though, as the rest of the way would be through Muggle farm land.
On the way, Ma reminisced about her father, how she used to watch him sketching in the woods in his free hours. He wasn't particularly good at it, but he loved his subjects: plants and trees... mosses, ferns. This lent his work a meticulous care that was beautiful in its own right.
Then he went off to the war and spent four years dodging Muggle bullets in France and Belgium. He came home severely burned in his side and gassed and spent eleven months in hospital, recuperating. Even after his wounds seemed healed, he could not talk above a croaking of single words for long after that, and spent a lot of time in his room alone, even locking the door against his wife and daughter at night. Ma speculated that the horrors of the war yet haunted him in those days.
They arrived at the cottage past the village of Blair Atholl, by the River Tilt. It was small and neat, on the lee side of a small rise, with two trees and two rows of flattish, round stones flanking its path. There was a face at the window as they pulled up to it. A woman with iron-gray hair, tied back in a bun, came out of the house and motioned Jupiter to pull the sledge around to the barn at the back.
When they got inside the cottage, Minerva got a good look at her Wallace grandmother, whom she had never met, but recognized from a picture at home on her mother's bedside table. They looked not at all alike. Ma was slender and tallish; her mother squat and bosomy. Grandmother Wallace called her daughter 'Iphigenia'. People rarely spoke her mother's given name, perhaps because it was so complicated to say correctly. You had to get the accent just right, on the next-to -last syllable. It sounded mysterious and elegant that way, Minerva thought, like her mother herself. She made up her mind at that moment, that she herself would always insist on being known by her full name, not 'Nerva' or the execrable 'Minnie' her dorm mates occasionally tried.
They sat at a low table in a tiny parlor. Grandmother served them tea and scones, which were every bit as tasty as Goodie Gudgeon's, though flavored differently, and not nearly as sweet. Minerva's eyes wandered to the walls and particularly to a picture of a farm, very like her grandparents' own, on the wall. She stood up and walked over to it, leaving the adults to their farm-talk: the weather, the harvest, the animals. They wouldn't get down to serious matters, like Ma's health, and the cause of her condition, for some time yet. In fact, they might never get to it. Ma's face had taken on an odd closed look, as if having arrived at the place where it all happened, she was afraid to finish the job--afraid to face the truth, whatever it might be.
The focus of the picture was the farmhouse front, which was lit by the setting sun. Minerva could tell because of the long shadows cast by a tree in front of it. There was a chair under the tree, an empty chair, and it reminded her of something.
"Och, Minerva, do you like that picture?"
"Aye, Grandmother."
"It was your Grandda's favorite. He kept it in his room, and stared at it for some time every day. There's an interesting story about how he came by it. Would you like to hear it?"
"Aye, I would." Minerva walked back to the table and stood beside her grandmother, looking gravely into her face. It was a pleasant, lined face, with more smile wrinkles than frown wrinkles, and more worry wrinkles than both combined. She thought she knew where the painting came from. It was all in a letter in a dusty knapsack under her bed, but she wanted her grandmother to tell her about it. She had an inkling that her words would bring them to the painful subject of her grandfather's death, the reason they had come, and the subject her mother could not bring herself to broach.
Grandmother Wallace put an arm around her waist and drew her closer. "You know how yer grandfather fought in the Great War and was injured?"
"Aye, he was gassed."
"And he was in hospital a whole year before they would let me touch him. Aye, the doctors did the best they could for him, but finally they admitted they'd done all they could." There was a note of triumph in her voice. "And I was ready for him. I'd had the house painted, and the boys over the Tilt helped me keep up the farm, and Iphigenia helped me get his room ready." She put her mouth close to Minerva's ear, although her whisper was so loud, it made her jump. "And I wouldn't let her use any of her mumbo jumbo to do it." She chuckled and Minerva could hear Da shifting uncomfortably in his seat behind her. Then Grandmother continued in a normal voice, "Oh, it's not the reason you think. I've nothing against you folk, much as you may think I do, Jupiter McGonagall. But wizards have rules too, do you not? No underage magic outside school. No magic allowed in front of us mundane folk. And I agree: the two worlds should be kept apart. And I didna want my daughter to forget her roots, what made her what she is, under all that hocus-pocus and flummery. So we had a rule, even after she came of age: no magic on the farm."
"It was a good rule, Mama," her daughter murmured softly.
"Aye, if you'd kept to it, things might have been different." There was no meanness, no accusation in the words, but Minerva saw a flicker of pain cross her mother's face. "But I was telling you about that picture. Yer grandfather got it in France, his mates told me, before the last battle. I found it in his knapsack and went to hang it in his room. Poor man, he couldna talk for almost three years, but when he saw me with that picture and a hammer, he said plenty. I thought he was going to have a fit. He grabbed it from me, gibbering and cursing. I think he thought I was going to smash. But he calmed down right enough when I pounded a nail into the wall and hung the picture right in front of him."
"Did he tell you what it was all about?"
"Why no, child, it was just a pretty picture he picked up. Reminded him of our place I suppose. After... afterwards, I had one of the boys hang it in here. Haven't really looked at it much myself. My eyes aren't so strong as they once were."
"Do you have a thought about it, Minerva?" asked her mother.
"I--I think the farm...it's a peaceful place. But it looks lonely. The chair needs someone to..." She was looking for words to jog her grandmother's memory about the empty chair without revealing her knowledge of its origin. For surely, if the letter were true, her grandfather would have told her about it right away. Or at least, as soon as he got his voice back. About its name, La Chaise Vide, and its connection with the war. Or he would have shown her the letter he'd written, but not had a chance to send, where he'd addressed her as my own Gladys.' But Grandmother Wallace showed no sign of remembering any of this.
There was a skittering and then a creaking sound overhead. "That'll be the squirrels," said the old woman. "Red devils! They're always getting in the eaves and rafters. Jupiter, I imagine we could use one of your spells to patch up the holes in this auld place." She laughed and gave Minerva a little squeeze.
Just say the word, Mother Wallace," said Jupiter, and he too chuckled.
Over her shoulder, Minerva caught a glimpse of a bright red can on the mantel. "What's in there, Grandmother?"
"Oh, that? Yer grandfather's favorite tobacco--Auld Beechmast. His pipe's there too. Funny, he never smoked before the war. But he loved a pipe and a pint down at the local pub--in his later years."
"Does it make you sad--remembering him, Grandmother?"
"It's funny. I miss more the man he was before the war. When he came home, he was much changed."
"How so, Mama?" said Iffie.
"Aye, you weren't here much, dearie, with yer wedding plans and then helping out yer new husband. The wife of a Highland Laird, busy setting up yer household. And as I remember it, winning over a host of female relatives."
"My sisters," said Jupiter. "Yes, they took some winning." Especially Aunt Charlamaine, thought Minerva.
Gladys Wallace shifted in her seat and addressed her daughter's question. "At first, you'll remember, when yer father came home, he couldna speak a word. And he was still somewhat addled in his mind."
"I remember. He didn't even recognize me. It was such a shock."
"Aye, nor me, when I first saw him on the ward, but it came back to him gradually, in bits and pieces: first his voice, then words, and at last the memories, though he and the dog never did get along."
"You mean our Tessie?"
"Aye, when he first came home, she didna recognize him, nor he her. She just kept barking and growling at him and wouldn't let up. It was the stink of the hospital as set her off, I think. She ran the ambulance attendants right off the grounds. We finally had to give her away, to a family over the Tilt. And yer father didna miss her, not one whit. But by the time yer wedding came around his mind was almost clear--he asked after her--but she was long dead."
"And he was still bed-ridden at the time of the wedding."
"Aye. He was most grateful to you, Jupiter, for having the ceremony here at the house. Excited, you know. He was always taken with wizarding folk. He'd met some of Iphigenia's teachers, of course. But he wanted to know all about his daughter's magical young man. I'd told him a bit in my letters to him in the field, but he was eager to meet you and your kin."
"Aye, it's just as well we could only have a few people in the wedding party. My sister Charlamaine would have turned him off wizardkind quickly enough."
"Was she much put out at not being invited?"
"Oh, that was all right. They all understood about his condition, needing quiet and all that. And you know my sisters. They had a big party for us a few days after. Invited the whole glen I think."
"And the gifts," said Iffie. "There are still some things we've never even used."
"Speaking of presents," said Jupiter, relieved to have an opportunity to change the subject. He brought out a bag he'd smuggled in under his cloak.
Grandmother was delighted by the thoroughly unmagical gifts, especially the knitted wool bedspread Goodie had made, supposedly by hand, but helped by occasional charming of the needles. Minerva gave her a journal and memo book from Scrivenshafts, and also a pen, which did have a mild memory-jog charm on it. She hoped it would help her grandmother when she had to write lists of things she needed to do, or if someday she decided to write her memoirs.
Now Grandmother brought out a selection of liqueurs for her guests to enjoy, with apple juice for Minerva. And there were lots of sweet treats: oatmeal cake, mint jelly tarts, biscuits flavored with anise, and Minerva's favorite, gingersnaps. For a time it seemed her mother had forgotten the reason that had brought her here. The evening should have settled into convivial reminiscences. But by the time the third round of drinks was poured, Minerva sensed a gloom overtaking the company.
Her mother seemed to need to dwell on Grandfather Wallace's behavior, and asked more and more questions about his deterioration. Grandmother was able to tell her that he recovered enough to be able to make his way to the pub in town most evenings, where he would engage the locals in tales about the war, especially the worst he had seen of German treatment of the conquered. "The Huns--they're animals," he would mutter, or "swine" or "a pack of wolves." His hatred seemed to grow with each night's harangue. One of her friends, whose husband was a regular at the pub, mentioned it to her. "I believe, Gladys, if a war started up tomorrow, your Bill would be at the head of the line to join up. He's that lathered up about it. And my boy Angus and the lads from the mill would be right behind him."
Indeed, by his wife's reckoning, the worst of it was Bill's effect on the young folk who gathered at the pub at the end of a day's work. They listened raptly to his stories, and came away wanting to do terrible things to "those stinking Huns." But she wouldn't speak of it to him; he had suffered enough, more than enough. And what was the harm of mere ranting? It simply let off some steam.
But it didn't stop there. If any politician started making noises about letting up on the onerous reparations levied on Germany and its allies by the Treaty of Versailles, Bill Wallace and his friends would voice their dissent loudly to anyone who would listen. Word of his feelings had even gotten round to the local newspaper, and its editor had been planning to interview several injured war heroes, including Bill Wallace--"before, you know..." said Gladys.
"Before he died," finished her daughter. "Mama, I know we've never talked about that day."
"Best leave it unsaid, dearie." Grandmother used the last word out of habit, Minerva could tell. She was not now in a 'dearie' mood.
"I must know. There has been so much said... well not said... intimated..."
"You were ill all those years. There was never a good time to speak of it." She looked her daughter square in the eye. "Are you sure you're strong enough to hear it now?"
Ma's face took on a rigid quality. She stared back. "If you're strong enough to tell it."
"It's soon told. One morning I left the house to do the day's shopping. You evidently came in while I was gone, to visit your father. When I arrived home, you were lying on the bedroom floor, and your father was sprawled out on the bed. That--stick--your wand--lay between you. I couldn't rouse your father; he was beyond help. But when you woke, you started shrieking about him--changing--attacking you--and other things I couldna understand. Then you fainted. I sent one of the neighbors for your husband. Then those folks you call Healers took you away. They did some kind of test on--your father's corpse--and said there was some terrible curse laid on it as killed him. Abracadabra--it sounded like--I almost laughed. Abracadabra--a child's play word! I must have misunderstood him..."
"Mama, I'm so sorry."
"Whatever for?"
"If I--I did this thing..."
"Nobody knows what happened, child. And if you did it, it could only have been because you really did believe he changed into a monster or something like. That's why you weren't prosecuted. No motive. Everyone knows you loved your father, child. I asked a doctor about it once. He said such things do happen."
"What things?"
"People going off their head and seeing visions...they call it skits--skitso--some long name."
"Schizophrenia."
"Yes, a Muggle illness, isn't that right?"
Ma nodded. She looked drained, and Minerva wanted to whisk her right away from there. She couldn't blame her grandmother for her frankness, and she didn't understand all that had been said, but she knew her mother could never hurt anyone, no matter who Skitz O'Freenia was, and what he might have done to her.
Da seemed to agree. "We thank you for your honesty, as well as your hospitality, Mother Wallace. The Healers were not very forthcoming when I asked them what they'd found. And the newspapers...och...they made it seem like there was some kind of cover-up. This does answer some questions for me."
"But not for me," said Ma in a small voice, as she was helped into her cloak. Minerva, at Da's directing, gave her grandmother the smallest of hugs.
Gladys Wallace seemed to sense her reluctance, and she said softly, "Perhaps you'd like to have that picture, Minerva, the one your grandfather loved so well." But Minerva shook her head. She didn't want any souvenirs of this night, not at least until she was sure it hadn't hurt Ma, hadn't made her regress. "Ah, that's all right," continued her grandmother. "Someday, we'll look at it together and you tell me if you don't think the man in the chair looks a wee bit like your grandfather."
And with that impossible pronouncement ringing in her ears, Minerva hurtled out onto the lawn. She almost tripped over one of those round stones, which seemed somehow to have been dislodged from the neat lines marking the path from the front door. She had a sudden feeling of overwhelming dread. The visit answered few questions and raised many more to her agitated mind. She was packed into the sled next to her mother, whose cold hands she tried to warm with her own, as her father gave the Arctureans their heads to make for the safety of home.
Childhood's End by spiderwort
Chapter Notes: There is an disturbing question in Iffie McGonagall's mind. Only her own mother can answer it.