Blackberry Blue Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Preface

  Epigraph

  Blackberry Blue

  The Purple Lady

  The Golden Carp

  Emeka the Pathfinder

  Oddboy

  The Night Princess

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Jamila Gavin

  Praise

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Here are six magical stories to thrill and enchant you. Watch Blackberry Blue rise from the bramble patch; follow Emeka the Pathfinder on his mission to save a lost king; join Princess Desire as she gallops across the Milky Way on her jet-black horse.

  These beautifully written and original stories will delight readers of all ages, and the stunning illustrations by Richard Collingridge will take your breath away.

  For Jessica, Benjamin and Stanley

  J.G.

  For Sawaran and Jaswinder R.C.

  PREFACE

  Fairy tales were my greatest passion as a child. I could never enter a wood without imagining magical characters: princes and princesses, sorcerers and demons. Even in the cities, I would suddenly see a character who, among all the teeming crowds and traffic, seemed to have stepped out of a fairy tale.

  Fairy tales are often stories that have evolved over hundreds of years, and appear in many different cultures, but it is the European tradition of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen that I grew up with. And so many children are now ‘European’, even though they may have originally come from many different parts of the world. So when I decided to write my own collection, without departing from the themes of traditional European tales, I wanted to create stories which extended the European image, so that more diverse children could look at the heroes and heroines and say, ‘That could be me.’

  Jamila Gavin, 2013

  Stolen sister, brambly babe,

  A Night Princess grieves for her love.

  Oddboy’s fiddle, golden carp

  A lost king waits: the pathfinder comes.

  BLACKBERRY BLUE

  Who is most likely to be happy: the king in his castle, with all his lands and wealth, or the woodcutter living in his little cottage in the forest? The Giver of Life and Death treats everyone equally, and Happiness is like a butterfly. Who knows whether it will settle on you? But although there are butterflies to bring joy, there are dark forces that watch, waiting to bring grief – like the Raven Witch and her Wolf Son, who had their eye on a certain king.

  This king thought he was the happiest man alive. His queen, whom he loved so dearly, gave birth to a son. Now he had an heir to take the throne, and the whole kingdom rejoiced. The baby prince was called Just. But even before the celebrations had ended, the young queen died, and the king was heartbroken.

  In the forests where he often went hunting lived a woodcutter and his wife. They longed for a child, but the years went by and no baby was born to them.

  Some people would have said that the woodcutter and his wife were very, very poor, but they felt rich enough and, though they yearned for a child, they accepted their fate and didn’t let this sadness cloud the happiness of their lives. Every day they went into the woods to look for food: they knew all the fruits and herbs of the seasons – they ate wild garlic in the spring, apples and plums in the summer, mushrooms and hazelnuts in the autumn and, before the winter set in, blackberries.

  The wife’s favourite time of year was blackberry time. She knew just when to venture out with her basket. She knew just where the blackberries were fattest, juiciest and shiniest black. Everyone for miles around said that no one baked better blackberry pies than she did, and she even sold them to the royal kitchens at the castle. That autumn, she heard the kitchen gossip about how the sad king, thinking his son, Prince Just, should have a mother, was going to remarry. As the woodcutter’s wife sighed and commented that happiness was a gift that even kings could not buy, somewhere on the parapets above her head, a great black raven cawed loudly.

  One fine autumn day, the woodcutter’s wife drifted deeper into the woods. It was further than she usually went because, strange to say, although the brambles were thick and thorny – for it had been a warm summer with plenty of sunshine – there were very few blackberries. After many hours of foraging her basket was still only half full, and the blackberries she had collected were certainly not black, but reddish, small and hard. She couldn’t possibly put them in her pies.

  She sat down on a grassy bank, exhausted, realizing that she had wandered far from her usual paths, and was a little bit lost. But she wasn’t afraid, because the sun was still high, and she had never been seriously lost in the forest before.

  She lay back, her face upturned to the sky, wondering at the flocks of rooks that circled and cawed, and then she fell asleep.

  It was a cry that woke the woodcutter’s wife: a thin, plaintive, hungry cry; a sad, abandoned baby’s cry. She sat up with a shiver. Everything was deathly still. All she could hear was the sharp clipped caws of the rooks, and the high-pitched squeak of bats. The baby’s cry had been a dream, she reassured herself.

  She scrambled to her feet, feeling wobbly and chilled to the bone. She scooped up her basket, ready to go home, when she saw a huge rambling, shambling, prickly, thorny wall of brambles, positively glistening with the fattest, juiciest blackberries she had ever seen.

  The woodcutter’s wife rushed forward. How could she have missed it? She began to pick as fast as she could; so fast that the thorns pricked her fingers and tore at her arms, and her blood ran into the juice. There seemed no end to the profusion of blackberries, and soon her basket was full to the brim. Her fingers were quite purple, her legs were scratched, and her skirts were all tangled in the thorns. When at last she tried to scramble out, she found that she was trapped.

  She struggled this way and that in her efforts to get free, but seemed to be caught fast. She was beginning to despair when she heard a faint cry. It was the same sound which had awoken her from her dream: a thin, plaintive, hungry cry; a sad, abandoned baby’s cry.

  ‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed the woman. ‘What’s this?’ She pushed her way deeper into the thorns.

  And there, right in the very middle of the prickles and blackberries, cradled in the briar, was a tiny little baby girl.

  Her skin was as black as midnight, her lips like crushed damsons, and her tightly curled hair shone like threads of black gold. When the baby looked up into the woman’s face, her eyes glistened like blackberries.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ exclaimed the woodcutter’s wife. ‘You poor little thing!’ And she scooped up the infant and popped her into her large apron pocket. Miraculously, the thorns didn’t scratch her as she turned to find her way out, and the brambles seemed to part as she backed, unhindered, into the open. Although she looked about her and even called out, no one appeared to claim the child. ‘Well, my little berry, I’ll just have to take you home,’ she murmured.

  The woodcutter and his wife loved their foundling child, and named her Blackberry Blue.

  The years went by, and Blackberry Blue grew into the most beautiful girl anyone had ever seen. The woodcutter enjoyed making wooden toys for his little daughter, and the woodcutter’s wife loved plaiting her black curls, and twisting them with acorns and leaves, and Blackberry Blue grew up the happiest of children; so loved and nurtured, becoming more lovely with every day that passed.

  Each year the woodcutter’s wife took Blackberry Blue back to the great bramble patch where she had found her. And, as if to say thank you, the brambly bush was always covered in blackberries, which they collected till their baskets were ove
rflowing. Then they would go home and bake blackberry pies to sell in the market and take to the palace.

  Meanwhile, the sad king had indeed married again, and his second wife already had a son of her own called Wolf, who had also come to live with them in the palace. Although the new queen was certainly beautiful, the woodcutter’s wife heard whispered gossip that she was a witch. Why did every room seem to grow chill when she entered it? Why did flowers die which were placed in her chamber? Why had a black raven been seen flying out of her bedroom window at night?

  As for the queen’s son, was there any boy so mean and cruel? He seemed to relish nothing more than causing pain – both to animals and servants. Whereas the king’s own son, Prince Just, suited his name and was growing up to be noble and good, his stepson, Prince Wolf, seemed to be the opposite. Some said he was indeed a wolf, and had been seen prowling around the palace at midnight. But somehow, the king was so besotted with his new queen, he indulged the boy. Even when there were fights between Prince Just and Prince Wolf, he always supported his stepson.

  The years passed, and one day Prince Just and Prince Wolf were out hunting. They passed the woodcutter’s wife and her daughter on their way to sell their home-baked blackberry pies.

  ‘I’ll have one of those,’ declared Prince Wolf, reining in his horse.

  And he snatched more than one from their basket, without any please or by-your-leave, let alone a payment.

  Prince Just asked if he could buy one, and held out a silver coin. When Blackberry Blue lifted up her basket for him to choose, he looked into her shining black eyes and his heart leaped for joy.

  But before the prince could even ask her name, they heard the hunting horn, and were off.

  ‘Was there ever a more handsome and noble man than Prince Just?’ murmured the woodcutter’s wife softly, as Blackberry Blue watched him till he had disappeared from sight.

  It was midwinter when the woodcutter fell ill and died; very soon after, the woodcutter’s wife also took to her deathbed. But before she died, she said to Blackberry Blue, ‘Dear child, I am not your real mother, though no real mother could have loved you more than I have. I found you in the great brambly bush where we go every year, and I believe your mother’s soul lies somewhere within it. So be sure to go back as we have always done. I’m certain she will help you.’ Then she breathed her last.

  Now Blackberry Blue was all alone, and she wept. For the first time she felt deep sorrow.

  Sadly she went into the forest till she came to the great brambly bush. She sank down onto the snowy ground and cried out:

  ‘Oh my mother, mother mine, how shall I live?’

  And a voice from the brambly bush murmured softly,

  ‘Dearest daughter, sweetest born,

  Make a cloak of briar and thorn.

  It will keep you safe and well

  And save you from the witch’s spell.’

  So Blackberry Blue began to weave a cloak of brambles, and though she picked long arching canes with piercing thorns, never once was she scratched.

  All through the spring and summer, Blackberry Blue mourned the woodcutter and his wife, and when autumn came round once more, she took up her basket and went back to the great brambly bush. Then her mother’s voice said,

  ‘Dearest daughter, daughter mine,

  Go forth to the castle fine.

  Bake your pies, but be aware:

  The queen is cruel beyond compare.’

  Blackberry Blue filled her basket with the juiciest blackberries and, covering herself in her brambly cloak, went to the castle kitchens. The chief cook gave her a job helping the pastry cook. All through the winter, she baked the king his favourite blackberry pies. She soon picked up the palace gossip, and heard how everyone feared the new queen.

  They would have been even more afraid if they had known that, in her deepest dark heart, the queen wanted her son, Prince Wolf, to be king one day, and that she hated Prince Just.

  Now Prince Just had never forgotten the lovely maid who had sold him the blackberry pies, and he longed to see her again. But no matter how often he rode into the woods, he never came across her, even though he and his father still got their favourite blackberry pies to eat; surely she couldn’t be far away.

  It was nearly time for the Spring Ball, to which every girl in the land was invited, and it was hoped that both princes would find a wife. Prince Just wondered if perhaps the maid who had sold him the blackberry pie would hear of it and come.

  ‘I wish I could go to the ball, but I’d look very silly in my brambly cloak,’ whispered Blackberry Blue to her brambly mother, for ever since she had laid eyes on Prince Just, she had fallen in love with him, and longed to see him again.

  ‘Come to me, my daughter true,

  When the woods have spring flowers blue.

  I will make you such a dress

  Fit enough for a princess.’

  Every day, Blackberry watched for the moment when snowdrops pierced the dark winter ground, when aconites burst into blossom, and wild daffodils grew in glorious clusters in the dells. But it was when the bluebells flooded the woods that she went to the brambly bush. There, laid out before her, was a dress woven with spring flowers: a skirt of bluebells, trimmed with forget-me-nots and with a bodice of daffodils; a dress fit for a ball.

  She put it on. How lovely she looked, the blues and whites and yellows enhancing her black-berry-black skin, and making her eyes shine like the ripest of berries. She plaited and twined her curly black hair with creeping jennies, and fronds of fresh curling ferns. ‘How do I look?’ she asked.

  ‘Dearest daughter, daughter mine,

  Nowhere is there one so fine.

  But before rose dawn lights the sky,

  Leave or your dress of flowers will die.’

  Full of joy, Blackberry Blue covered herself in the brambly cloak and returned to the castle kitchens.

  All day, hour after hour, she cooked and baked, and was sent scurrying this way and that. Evening fell, and the ball started. They could hear the merry fiddlers and drummers all the way down in the kitchens. At last, the excited maids rushed off to have their moment of glory at the ball and, all alone, Blackberry Blue secretly slipped off her brambly cloak. She looked like the Queen of the Flowers: her eyes glistened, star bright.

  Whereas the maids entered the ballroom by the servants’ stairs, Blackberry Blue went up the great flight of stone steps and in through the front door. From the minute she entered, every head turned, from the footman to the king. Prince Just thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful, yet she looked familiar, and he immediately went to her side.

  ‘May I have the pleasure of the next dance?’ he asked with a bow.

  Blackberry Blue nodded, radiant with joy.

  But no sooner had he taken her hand than Prince Wolf leaped between them. ‘This dance shall be mine!’ he insisted, and whirled her away. And it wasn’t just the first dance, but the waltz, and the minuet, and the tarantella. Every time Prince Just reached out to take her hand, he was pushed aside. In fact, as if to spite his brother, Prince Wolf danced with her all evening.

  Suddenly, Blackberry Blue glanced out of the window. The night sky was becoming pale. Any moment, pink-fingered dawn would break through the crack, and her dress of flowers would wilt and die. How she had longed to dance with Prince Just, but it was no use. She must get out of the palace or be humiliated. ‘I must go, I must go!’ she cried, and ran from the ballroom.

  Prince Wolf chased after her. ‘I command you to come back!’ he bellowed. But he couldn’t see her any more; there was only a small figure wrapped in a tattered brambly cloak scurrying along the edge of a ditch. He tried to grab her, to ask if she’d seen anyone pass by, but his hands were pierced with thorns, and he pulled away in pain and strode angrily back to the palace.

  Prince Just had rushed out too; he’d seen a shadowy figure hurrying towards the forest, leaving behind a trail of fallen petals, yellow, white and blue. He had to follow.
r />   The trail of petals led him deep into the woods, and he remembered it was near where he had bought a blackberry pie from the woodcutter’s daughter. He followed the petals further, but came to a halt by a huge brambly bush, and though he searched all around for hours, he found no trace of her.

  Summer came, and there was to be another ball.

  Blackberry Blue’s mother made her a dress of summer flowers: roses, irises, lilies and campion.

  ‘How beautiful you look, my darling,’ sighed the brambly bush.

  ‘But, Mother, I’m so afraid Prince Wolf will force me to dance with him, and I won’t be able to dance with Prince Just, whom I love.’

  And the voice in the bush replied:

  ‘Let the seasons run their course,

  Goodness will be the greater force.’

  On the day of the ball, Blackberry Blue worked in the kitchens, covered as usual by her brambly cloak. But as soon as all the other servants had finally left to peep at the celebrations, she threw it off and entered the palace by the front steps, looking as radiant as a summer’s day.

  As she had feared, Prince Wolf was waiting for her, and as soon as she entered, he grasped her hand, and wouldn’t let anyone else dance with her the whole night long. Prince Just watched with an aching heart. If only he could have just one dance with her and find out who she was.

  But once more, Blackberry Blue saw the night sky turning grey with the onset of dawn.

  ‘I must go, I must go!’ she cried, tearing herself away from Prince Wolf.

  ‘I command you to stay!’ roared Wolf, grabbing her arm.

  But Prince Just challenged him. ‘Let her go. How dare you insult a lady!’

  With a snarl, Prince Wolf turned to face his brother, and immediately a fight broke out, which was only stopped by the king himself.

  Blackberry Blue sped from the palace.

  Once again, a shuffling brambly figure scuttled along the ditch as the sky turned blood-red with the rising sun.