9. Wally Pierrepoint

15 DAYS LEFT

She flipped the final hay bale onto the roof.

A chorus of clapping came from The Cutler Family, who had assembled to watch her rebuild their house. Sylvia just wanted it to be over. The weather today was a rough kind of pretty where the sky was river-blue, but the sun came burning. Just perfect for back-breaking work. Sylvia wrenched herself a few feet back to admire the shack. She scratched her forehead. The Cutler family's pile of straw resembled a house again.

All it needed was a door.

She went over to a wood board jumble. The unfitted doorway stood upright facing the trees, looking out to where door boards had been sliced from trees in the Kidston forest. Sylvia picked up a door, her arms aching with hard-earned satisfaction. After the Cutler family, the house-building was done before summer's end and it had been easy: shacks were nothing but straw and mud.

Through the doorway, the gap was a clear view of the forest.

Out of the trees, came rustling sounds. Leaves sifted. The branches parted. Someone walked at a fast pace, storming into the open. He marched out of the trees and into the sunlight where his tall-but-stick-thin physique could be seen by all. In his right hand, he wielded a mandolin.

She pushed the doorway into the dirt, propped her elbow up, and watched.

He came close, attempting intimidation, but his-pudgy boy-face twinkled.

Nobody else paid attention. If anyone looked, they despaired and looked the other way. But the boy kept on marching, right through Sylvia's upright doorway. He passed her without a glance and walked up to the church entrance.

By the steps, the squire chatted about the day's training where they had been whacking each other with planks and were now feeling the bruises.

Louis rubbed his shoulder.

'To be honest, I'd like combat training a lot better if the wooden swords weren't so tough.'

'You weakling, they're soft as feathers,' Zair said.

'Would you prefer we used real swords?' Azra asked.

The tall boy marched to the front of the steps, out where everyone could see. He held his mandolin, stuck his hand down, and caused a vicious twanging sound. Sylvia wondered if it was music. He leaned his head back and made another noise, this time with his mouth.

'I'M BAAACK!'

There was silence.

The boy took a bow. 'Thank you, everyone.'

Though no heads turned in his direction.

'Thank, thank you,' the boy kept on saying, bowing, swinging out his arms, his mandolin; 'I am not worthy of your applause but please if you insist —'

Louis shot him a petrified glance.

'What do you want Wally? Why have you come back? We all thought, well, we thought the Scots had killed you. Whispers were going around that you were gone for good —'

The boy wagged his finger. He had a dry voice.

'Oh no, I've been in the wilderness, listening to the spirits, letting them flow through me and teaching me how to play the greatest music —'

'Did you bang your head again?' Louis asked.

Everyone looked grim watching his hand lower down to the strings. He was going to do it again. Sylvia lifted the doorway, dragged it over, and shifted the thing into the Cutler family home. She was attaching the door when it came, that sound.

He was singing again.

'Listen to Me-me-me-miii!'

Sylvia listened for the screaming animals he sometimes drove insane with that thing coming from his mouth. Poor, innocent Wally, he meant well — it was sort of a curse. Kidston had just been given another stroke of bad luck. First the Scots, now this. Somewhere dead birds were dropping from the sky.

She had a nice clicking sound coming from the door and its doorway, the entrance sealed. The Cutler family hurried over murmuring thanks. The response wasn't rapturous but then again, it had been Sylvia who had knocked down the house in the first place.

Mr. Cutler nodded. 'Good job, girl.'

She walked away, her hands covered in nips and scratches. Behind, the Cutler family's straw shack stood firm. The place did not wobble in the wind like before, its foundations sprung out sturdy. Work is done. Glory. And even better, it was only August.

10 DAYS LEFT

Sylvia lay in the shack with her eyes open.

Whenever she closed her eyes, there she was in a long emerald gown, walking past huge stained-glass windows.

She pulled out of bed.

Awake, Bobby made a noise.

'I'm going for a walk,' she told him.

She strode out the door and into the night where the shacks hung around and the moon glowed pearl-like in the dark. Too-large. Too-bright. She wiped her eyes and took a path through the huts, over to the main road. Hooded figures pushed loaded carts. Inside were white cloth bundles. Wrapped-up bodies. Dead people. The men shoved, but the wheels slammed rigid into the mud. Sylvia walked closer and saw the ghoulish bird masks over their mouths, ones that warded off the plague.

'Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!'

She walked a healthy distance from the carts. However, others observed in a large crowd by the church.

The carts passed.

Doctor Malloy stalked about the darkness in his long dark coat and hat, holding an iron lantern, peering into open-door shacks. The good doctor searching for victims. He was his usual light-hearted self.

'Hello there, Sylvia Wheeler.'

She frowned, though raised a hand.

Wally Pierrepoint stood alone. He leaned against someone's shack and took out his mandolin. He cushioned it to his chest, cradling it with genuine care as if it were a cat or some other screeching animal. When the carts passed, the hooded figures turned their heads to acknowledge him. Without a pause, he attacked the mandolin strings.

'You've got the plague/I'm sorry, I just hate to say/ I hate to go away,' he sang, then plucked out more punished squeaks from the mandolin. 'Because you've got the plague/ yes, I've got to go away/ I'm afraid I can't stay/ I've got to say yesterday was great/ yes darling lady, last night we loved and it felt like fate/ but today you've got the plague/ I can't stay in your house anymore/My throat will grow stiff and my hands very sore/ I'm going to paint a red cross on your door because today you've got the plague.'

His hand went mad on the instrument, pulling and plucking all over, creating awful noises.

'Plague, plague, plague/ hey, hey, hey/ plague, plague…'

Then, even stranger sounds.

A procession of interlinked carriages swung down the main street. The first one was led by a chain of black horses so dark you had to squint to see them at night. Their hooves ran at full speed. The noise on the main road became intense. Everyone anticipated a horrific accident. The hooded figures heaved their carts off the road. Collision avoided. The horses staggered past, grunting. And then the slowing carriages drifted along. The driver was wrapped in a heavy grey fur cloak. He tossed his head up, glaring at everything he saw.

He gave the whip another crack and then blam, the horses ran again. They took a left by the castle and swerved out of view.

Doctor Malloy walked into the road. 'My goodness.'

The crowd broke into whispers. The plague carts emerged. Wally returned with his mandolin.

Sylvia backed away between the shacks.