The Treasure Beneath the Hill, chapter 8

Grandpa Jack sat down to get his breath back amongst the flowering grasses on the verge at the side of the road. The others hurried away. The sun was starting to get warm; and he was just starting to feel as if he might be going to sleep, when a shadow fell across him. He looked up, expecting to find that Pan and the pig had returned; but instead of that, he found himself looking at Bill.

'Bill!' he said.

'Jack, my dear fellow!' said Bill. 'Hallo hallo hallo!'

'What on earth are you doing here?' said Jack. 'Don't tell me you got lost in the floods as well.'

'Lost in the floods? Not exactly. Although a chap in a punt did bring me across a river.'

'Aren't you meant to be in hospital?' said Jack. 'Has your leg got better?'

'Yes, actually, it seems to be fine. I thought it was getting worse, but then I woke up this morning, and bless my soul, it was completely better. It's the most extraordinary thing. And it’s such a lovely day for a walk.'

'Well, it's marvellous to see you up and about again,' said Jack. 'When are you coming back to work? We've got some serious sorting out to do.'

'Ah,' said Bill, 'as for coming back to work, my dear, I'm not exactly sure about that. I can't say, my dear, I really can't say.'

'Oh Bill!' said Jack. 'You're not going to retire or resign, are you? You're not going to let us down?'

'Now now now,' said Bill. 'Of course I wouldn't want to let you down, Jack, you know that. But what I need to do just at the moment, you see, is follow this white road. That seems to be the most important thing.'

'Follow this white road?' said Jack. 'What do you mean? Where to? What for?'

'I'm afraid I really can't tell you that, my dear, because I simply don't know. But that seems to be the most important thing, just at the moment. That seems to be the thing I need to do, before I do anything else. Follow this white road. In fact I can't really stand here chatting to you any longer, delightful though it is. I need to be getting along.'

And so saying, with an affectionate twinkle of his fingers, he walked off up the dusty white road.

Pan and the pig hurried onwards; but although the woman was still walking at the same pace, neither fast nor slow, they couldn't seem to get any closer to her.

'We're not catching her up,' said Pan.

'Ride on my back,' suggested the pig.

'All right,' said Pan.

He climbed onto the pig's back, gripped as hard as he could with his knees, and threw his arms round the pig's neck.

'Here, what's all that about?' said the pig. 'There's no need to strangle me.'

'I don't want to fall off,' said Pan. 'Can I hang onto your ears instead?'

'All right, but don't rip them off my head.'

Pan got hold of the pig's ears, which were leathery and floppy and more difficult to grip than he had expected; and the pig broke into a trot. It was as much as Pan could do to stay on. But they still weren't getting any closer to the woman.

'I wish she'd stop a minute so we could catch up with her,' said Pan.

'She'd stop if you called her by her name,' said the pig.

'But I don't know her name,' said Pan.

'This is the land of magic,' said the pig. 'It's all riddles down here. That means you've got to guess.'

'I can't just guess somebody's name!' protested Pan.

But then he did guess.

'Brigid!' he shouted. 'Stop! Wait for us! Brigid!'

Immediately the woman stopped and turned towards them; and at the same moment they found that they were no longer on the white road; they were still surrounded on all sides by fields of stubble, but they were under a huge oak tree with enormous spreading branches, and Grandpa Jack was with them.

'Would somebody mind explaining to me what's going on?' said Grandpa Jack. 'I was sitting on a grass verge at the side of a road just now, and all of a sudden here I am under an oak tree. I can't get used to all these peculiar things happening.'

'This is the lady we saw on the road, Grandpa,' said Pan. 'We couldn't catch up with her at first. She's called Brigid.'

'All it needed was for someone to call me by my name,' said Brigid.

'How do you do, Brigid,' said Grandpa Jack politely. 'Very pleased to meet you. My name's Jack.'

'How do you do, Jack,' said Brigid.

She had long black hair, a calm oval face and dark brown eyes. She sat between two of the roots of the tree, with her back resting against the trunk.

The pig, as soon as they arrived, had started munching on the acorns which lay plentifully all around.

'Nice acorns,' he remarked.

'You used to eat them many years ago,' said Brigid.

'Did I?' said the pig. 'Are you sure you're not thinking of one of my ancestors?'

'Am I?' said Brigid.

'Well, are you?' said the pig.

Brigid smiled. 'Perhaps I am. But do you remember what to do if you find a gold or silver acorn?'

'Here's one now,' said the pig, and pushed a golden acorn towards her with the end of his nose.

Brigid held up the acorn for Pan and Grandpa Jack to see.

'What we do with these,' she said, 'is drop them into the snake hole, so that the snake who lives beneath the roots of the tree can keep them.'

She reached across the root to her right, and dropped the acorn into a hole on the far side of it.

'Is there really a snake down there?' said Pan.

'Yes, there is.'

'A real live one?'

'A real live magical one.'

'Well I hope it doesn't come out,' said Grandpa Jack. 'I don't like snakes. Creepy crawly buggers. They give me the willies.'

'There's a snake in your world as well,' said Brigid. 'In fact it's the same one, or an emanation of this one. In my world, she is awake, and if I sing to her she comes out of her nest and climbs up into the branches of the tree.'

'Then don't sing to her, whatever you do,' said Grandpa Jack.

'In your world,' said Brigid, 'although the tree has been cut down, its roots are still in the ground, and the snake sleeps among them, with her tail in her mouth. In that way she makes a circle: her end is joined to her beginning. Magic has almost been drained out of your world, but the snake sleeps that way to keep the seasons going round, so that summer leads to a harvest every year, and winter leads to a new spring. But if she is ever dug up, and dragged out of the ground into the daylight, she will stop being a living serpent. She will turn into a carved serpent of gold and silver. She will be immensely valuable, and the hoard of gold and silver she sleeps on will be immensely valuable too, but it will all be dead, nothing but precious metal, and the last of the magic will be gone from it. The roots of the tree will dissolve and disintegrate in the ground. The crops will die in the fields, there will be no birds in the sky, no bees or butterflies in the air, and the fishes will die in the rivers.'

'So we've got to stop them digging up the treasure,' said Pan.

'We knew that already,' said the pig.

'Yes, but now I'm going to help you,' said Brigid. 'I'm going to lend you my purse.' She held up a small leather pouch.

'Ah,' said the pig. 'That's more like it.'

'How's that going to help?' said Grandpa Jack.

'Magic, if I'm not mistaken,' said the pig.

'I can't cope with all this magic,' said Grandpa Jack. 'It's making me feel funny.'

'What do we do with it?' said Pan.

'You must take it to Abner Brown and Sylvia Pouncer,' said Brigid, 'and tell them to spare you enough treasure to fill it.'

'That won't take long,' said Grandpa Jack. 'It's tiny. It wouldn't hold more than three of four of those golden acorns.'

'But what if they won't?' said Pan.

'If you say the rhyme to them, then they'll have to,' said Brigid. 'That's how the magic works.'

'What rhyme?' said Pan.

'You know the rhyme,' said Brigid. 'Just as you knew my name.'

'But I don't know any rhymes!' said Pan. 'Apart from nursery-rhymes and things. Oh - wait a minute - is it the rhyme from that book?'

Brigid said nothing.

'Why does everything have to be in riddles?' said Pan.

'This is the land of magic,' said the pig. 'That's how it works round here.'

'Well, it's very difficult,' said Pan. 'I suppose it must be the rhyme from that book, but I can't even remember it properly. Something about "Spare ye enough" - only it wasn't "enough", it was some old fashioned word.'

'Probably "enow",' suggested Grandpa Jack. 'That's the old fashioned version of "enough".'

'Yes, that was it,' said Pan. '"Spare ye enow the bag to fill, Of she who walks both fast and still".' He looked at Brigid. '"She who walks both fast and still" - that's you, isn't it?'

'Do you think it's me?' said Brigid.

'Oh, I wish you could just tell us!' exclaimed Pan. 'Yes, I think it's you. All right, so if we can remember that rhyme, we take the bag to Abner Brown and Sylvia Pouncer and say that rhyme to them, and then what happens?'

'Then you'll find out what happens,' said Brigid.

'Except we probably won't,' said Pan, 'because I probably won't be able to remember that rhyme. You'll have to help me, Grandpa.'

'Me?' said Grandpa Jack. 'I've forgotten it already.'

'There's one more thing,' said Brigid. 'I can't let you have the bag until you give me something in exchange.'

'That's how it works,' said the pig. 'This is the land of magic.'

'I wish you'd stop saying that, you bugger,' said Grandpa Jack.

'All right,' said Pan, 'what do we have to give you?'

'You have to bring me an ear of corn from one of these fields,' said Brigid.

Pan looked around. The oak tree was surrounded by fields of stubble on all sides.

'That shouldn't be too difficult,' he said. 'There's bound to be some ears of corn left over on the ground.'

'I should warn you,' said Brigid, 'that the mice pick most of them up.'

'Oh, do they?' said Pan.

'It couldn't just be straightforward, could it?' said Grandpa Jack.

'That's how it works,' said the pig. 'This is the -'

'Yes, all right, land of magic, we get the idea,' said Grandpa Jack. 'Come on, let's go and look in the fields.'

They went out into the fields - Pan, Grandpa Jack and the pig - and started to search between the rows of stubble: but nowhere could they find an ear of corn. The sun was up properly by this time, but still fairly low in the sky. Their elongated shadows stretched across the rows of stubble, and when they stooped down they could see that the whole field was covered in a shimmering network of gossamer, draped across the stubble-rows, the work of thousands of tiny spiders.

'My eyes are terrible for this,' complained Grandpa Jack. 'These bloody shadows aren't helping. I've got the wrong glasses on. I can't see anything down at my feet. I can't bend down properly, because I've got a bad hip. And looking down all the time is giving me a headache.'

'Well, I haven't got any of those problems,' said the pig, who was nosing his way efficiently down one row after another, 'and I can't find an ear of corn anywhere.'

'Neither can I,' said Pan.

Eventually, exhausted from the strain of looking and not finding anything, they went back to the oak tree.

'We couldn't find a single ear of corn,' reported Pan.

'We looked everywhere,' said Grandpa Jack.

'Well, we didn't look everywhere,' said the pig. 'Not everywhere.'

'But we did look for ages,' said Grandpa Jack. 'It's given me a terrible back ache.'

'So now what do we do?' said Pan.

But just at that moment, he half-saw and half-felt something moving next to his foot; and when he looked down, there was a mouse carrying an ear of corn in its mouth. It put the ear of corn on his shoe, then turned with a rapid flick, and vanished into the nearby stubble. Pan bent down, picked up the ear of corn, and presented it to Brigid.

'Are you friends with the mice?' said the pig.

'I did make friends with one the other night,' said Pan.

'Well done,' said Brigid, taking the ear of corn, and she gave him her purse.

But as soon as he got hold of the purse, Pan felt a spasm of nervousness. When he tried to remember the rhyme, it wouldn't come back to him.

'I've forgotten the rhyme,' he said. 'Grandpa - can you remember it?'

'Remember what?' said Grandpa Jack.

'The rhyme.'

'What rhyme?'

'The rhyme to do with this purse. The one I told you to help me remember.'

'Did you?' said Grandpa Jack.

Pan clutched his head. 'Oh, this is awful! It's completely gone. You remember, Grandpa - it had a funny old fashioned word in it, an old fashioned version of "enough".'

'Enow!' said Grandpa Jack. 'Yes, I remember it now: "Spare ye enow the bag to fill, Of she who walks both fast and still".'

'That's it!' cried Pan.

'Once you reminded me about "enow", the rest of it came of its own accord,' said Grandpa Jack. 'So you just remember "enow", and I'll remember the rest.'

'All right,' said Pan. But he still didn't feel very confident.

'Now,' said the pig to Brigid, 'can you tell us how to find Uta-Napishti?'

'Uta-Napishti,' repeated Brigid. 'The Distant One. Why do you want to find him?'

'Ur-Shanabi told us that we couldn't go back in his ferry, but his twin brother Uta-Napishti might be able to help us get back another way.'

'Well, it's easy to find him,' said Brigid. 'He's in the distance. Look into any distance, and he'll be there. Reaching him is more difficult.'

'I don't understand,' said Pan.

'Look at the horizon,' said Brigid.

Pan, the pig and Grandpa Jack all did so.

'Now pick a spot on the horizon, and imagine walking to that spot. When you get there, you will have reached the place you were aiming for, but you won't have reached the horizon. When you look around you, you will be encircled, just as you were before, by a new horizon, or a new distance. That's because the horizon and the distance aren't fixed places, they are the edges of your perception. They are part of how you see the world. They are the point at which the world you think you know changes into the world you don't know: the point at which things that seem fixed shed their chains and turn into possibilities. This is why magic is draining out of the world up above: because people distrust the unknown and refuse to venture beyond their little circles of familiarity. They want to dig up the live snake and turn it into a snake of silver and gold. They prefer money to existence. They travel all over the world, but everywhere they go, they turn it into just the same place they were in before. They can never get into the distance. In order to get into the distance, you have to be prepared to let go of where you are now.'

As she finished speaking they discovered that they were no longer under the oak tree. They were in the distance. It was blue; and in front of them was someone who looked exactly like Ur-Shanabi.

'Is that you, Ur-Shanabi?' said Grandpa Jack.

'Ur-Shanabi?' said the man. 'Absolutely not.'

'Oh!' said Grandpa Jack. 'Pardon me - but you do look exactly like him.'

'I most certainly do not,' said the man. 'Have you met him? He looks nothing like me. He's the exact opposite of me.’

'Then you must be Ur-Shanabi's twin, Uta-Napishti,' said Pan.

'I am he,' said the man, placing his hand on his chest. 'The Distant One.'

'Is this where you live?' said Grandpa Jack.

'Of course,' said Uta-Napishti. 'This is the distance.'

'What do you do for food?' inquired the pig.

'I collect mussels from the sea shore,' said Uta-Napishti.

'What sea shore?' said the pig, looking around.

'There are many different kinds of distance,' explained Uta-Napishti. 'Some of them have got sea shores in them, with mussels.'

'Can you help us to get home?' said Pan.

Uta-Napishti stared at him. 'Why should I help you to get home?'

'Ur-Shanabi said you might be able to. He took us across the river in his punt, but he said we couldn't go back the same way. He said you might be able to help us.'

'It's true that Ur-Shanabi takes people from the world above and transports them to the world under the hill,' said Uta-Napishti. 'He cannot take them the other way. Whereas I can sometimes bring people from the distance back to where they belong.'

'Does that mean you'll help us?' said Pan.

'Perhaps I will,' said Uta-Napishti. ‘But if I return you to the land above the hill, you must do something for me in exchange.'

'Here we go,' said Grandpa Jack. 'It can't ever be straightforward, can it? There's always got to be a catch.'

'That's how things work down here,' said the pig, 'because this is the land of magic.'

'Oh, bugger off,' said Grandpa Jack grumpily.

'What would you like us to do in exchange?' said Pan.

Uta-Napishti held up a coin. 'You must take this coin,' he said, 'and give it to the first person you meet.'

Pan took the coin. It was a small copper coin with a picture of a bee on it.

'Oh,' he said, 'this is like the one the bat brought for me.'

'An obol,' said the pig.

'Wait a minute,' said Pan. 'If we give this to someone, does that mean they've got to come down here and cross over the river with Ur-Shanabi?'

'Not necessarily,' said Uta-Napishti.

'Because if they did that, they wouldn't be able to go back again.'

'If I help you, you must give that coin to the first person you meet,' said Uta-Napishti. 'What happens after that is up to them.'

'But if we don't do it,' said Pan, 'then we can't go back ourselves. And we've got to go back, otherwise they'll dig up the treasure under the church.'

'There might be some other way of going back,' said Uta-Napishti.

'Is there?' said Pan.

'Not that I know of,' said Uta-Napishti. 'But there might be. All things are possible.'

Pan stared suspiciously at the obol in the palm of his hand.

'Come on,' said Grandpa Jack. 'We might as well get on with it. We can't stay here for ever. And what harm can it do, giving somebody that little coin?'

'All right,' said Pan. 'We'll do it.'

As soon as he spoke, they found themselves standing in the rain next to the sink hole in Tesco's car park; and the first person they saw, when they looked around, was Henry the pig man walking towards them.

'Was that the old pig I saw just then?' said Henry.

'Henry!' said Dora. 'What are you doing here?'

'I see you managed to find your grandpa, then,' remarked Henry. 'I knew he'd be all right. Dora didn't know where you'd got to, Jack. She said you never came home last night. She thought you might've got lost in the floods, so she did; but I always knew you'd be all right.'

'I bloody nearly did get lost in the floods,' said Grandpa Jack.

'Oh yes? Where've you been, then?'

'It's a bit difficult to describe,' said Grandpa Jack. 'Now that I'm back, I'm not at all sure I didn't dream it all.'

'No, well, we're all feeling a bit that way,' said Henry. 'The way things are going, it's getting more and more like a dream every day. Did Dora tell you part of the old school house fell down?'

'Did it?' said Grandpa Jack. 'The old school house? Fell down? What do you mean?'

'Collapsed,' said Henry. 'Fell down in a heap. Nothing left but a pile of old bricks. Didn't she tell you?'

'No, she didn't,' said Grandpa Jack.

'I was going to, Grandpa,' said Dora.

'There you are,' said Henry. 'She was going to.'

'Henry, what are you doing here?' said Dora.

'Well,' said Henry, 'I came down to have a look and see if Tesco's was open again, because I could do with a bit of shopping for supper. Not that I expect I'll be going back to my own place any time soon, because the last time I saw it there was three feet of water in the downstairs, and it was getting deeper. That's why I spent the night in the primary school, the same as you, Dora, and the same as all them other people. Lots of homeless people there are, with their houses full of flood water, sitting there in the primary school and the community centre and what have you, wondering when they'll be able to get back home. I suppose it makes you think how lucky we've always been. But anyway, I thought I might as well come down here and see if Tesco's was open again, and have a look at this here sink hole, because everybody keeps telling me about it. And then as I was coming into the car park, I thought I saw the old pig trotting across in the rain. Trotting across from one side to the other, he was. I was dead sure I seen him, plain as anything; but then the next thing I knew there was no sign of him, not a hide nor a hair nor even a glimpse of his curly tail: he was gone, and here you were, standing here instead. I don't suppose you happened to see him yourselves, did you?'

'Of course we did,' said Grandpa Jack. 'He's been with us. We've been with him. I never knew he was a talking pig, Henry.'

Henry stared at him. 'Talking?' he said. 'He's been talking to you, has he? That old pig?'

'Yes,' said Grandpa. 'All the time we were under the hill.'

'Under the hill?' said Henry. 'You been under the hill with that old pig, and he's been talking to you? Is this true?' he said to Dora.

'Yes, it is,' said Dora.

Henry's mouth formed itself into a silent whistle. He took off his cloth cap and scratched the top of his head - whereupon the rain immediately drenched his hair and ran down his face in little streams. Then he put his cap back on again.

'So the old pig's been talking,' he said. 'D'you know something? In a way, I'm not even surprized. He always did look full of words, that pig. He used to look at me with those old eyes of his, and I used to say to myself "You're full of words, you are. If you was to speak, I bet you could tell me a thing or two", that's what I used to say. Because he always did look full of words.'

'I've got to give this to you, Henry,' said Dora, and gave him the obol.

'What's this, then?' he said, looking at it.

'It's an old coin,' said Dora. 'It's called an obol. We got it under the hill.'

'Under the hill?' said Henry. 'You mean, when you was with the pig.'

'Yes, that's right,' said Dora.

'And he was talking.'

'Yes, that's right.'

'Well, I've got to go there,' said Henry decisively. 'If you've been under the hill with that pig, and he's been talking, then I've got to go there. I can't not go there. Is it down this sink hole?'

'That's how I got there,' said Dora.

'Well then, down I go,' said Henry.

'There's a river,' said Grandpa Jack. 'But there's a funny chap called Ur-Shanabi who runs the ferry, and if you give him that coin he'll take you across.'

Henry looked at the coin again. 'Oh right,' he said. 'I give him this, and he'll take me across.'

'Henry, are you sure you want to go?' said Dora. 'What if you can't get back again?'

Henry just smiled at her. 'If you've been under the hill with that pig, and he's been talking, then I've got to go there,' he said. 'I've got to. It's as simple as that. What're you two going to do?'

'We've got something to do up at the church,' said Dora.

'Oh right,' said Henry. 'Well, I'd better warn you, if you're going up the church, you might notice something funny on your way up there.'

'Something funny?' said Grandpa Jack. 'Funny in what way?'

'Well, tell me this,' said Henry. 'What day is it?'

'I haven't got a clue,' said Grandpa. 'I've completely lost track. Is it a Thursday?'

'It's Hallowe'en,' said Henry. 'I'd lost track myself, but then I saw 'em, and I remembered it was Hallowe'en.'

'Saw who?' said Pan.

'Lots of ghosts,' said Henry.

'What?' said Grandpa Jack.

'The town's full of ghosts,' said Henry. 'I thought I'd better warn you.'

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