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  Grandfather Petamenghi, who had been relaxed with his head thrown back, leaned forward eagerly, a smile on his face. ‘Marvellous, Oddboy! Oh, what a joy you have been to me ever since you came. I hope you will never leave. This is your home now.’

  When Remus heard those words, all his jealousy returned. He wanted to shout, ‘It’s me playing, Grandfather. Me! See, I play so well now, you don’t even know the difference between him and me. And this is not his home!’ But he didn’t say a word. His feelings rushed into his fingers. The notes became edgy and angry; the music harsh and agitated. A fierce, insistent rhythm took over.

  ‘Stop, Oddboy!’ cried Grandfather Petamenghi, alarmed. ‘What’s the matter?’ But Remus couldn’t stop playing.

  ‘Remus, Remus!’ the old man called out. ‘Has Oddboy been upset by anything today? He’s playing differently.’

  But there was no reply. The bow bounced on the strings and played even faster; grating, raucous music with an insistent rhythm. Not because Remus wanted it to, but because he no longer had control of his hands, and found he had no voice. Like Oddboy, he had become dumb. His fingers scampered up and down of their own accord, and his foot tapped furiously.

  Grandfather Petamenghi wriggled in his chair. ‘Oddboy, Oddboy! What’s up with you? Calm down – you’re making me feel upset.’ The old man’s feet were tapping uncontrollably.

  But no matter how hard Remus tried to play quietly and appease his grandfather, he found he could no longer make the violin do what he wanted, and he couldn’t speak.

  ‘I’m too old for this!’ panted the old man, who had now leaped from his chair and begun to dance.

  He jigged and jogged and bounded and twirled, bumping into chairs and tables. But Remus couldn’t stop. The violin seemed to be welded beneath his chin, and his fingers had a mind of their own. On and on he played, though his arm now ached and the tips of his fingers began to bleed.

  ‘Stop, I beg you! You’ll be the death of me!’ cried the old man, and he grabbed Remus’s arm. ‘You are not Oddboy!’ he cried in a voice of horror. ‘Who are you? Is it you, Remus? Have you tricked me?’ His sightless eyes stared, as if he could force himself to see. ‘Stop, stop!’

  ‘He came into our home,’ Remus howled through the notes of his violin. ‘You think he plays better than I do. You love him more than me. I hate him.’ And the bow hit the strings with such savagery that his grandfather whirled around and fell to the floor.

  Remus was horrified. Had he killed him? He opened his mouth to cry, ‘Grandfather! I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ but no sound came out, and anyway, it was too late to be sorry. He wanted to fall on his knees and beg forgiveness, but the violin wouldn’t let him.

  Then there came such a tapping, pecking, knocking and banging all around the house, and such a beating at the doors and windows, and a voice cried out, ‘Give me back my fiddle.’

  The door sprang open in a flurry of snow and feathers and, unable to prevent himself, Remus danced through into the cold, cold night. Behind him lay his grandfather. Remus was sure he was dying, and he desperately wanted to turn back. But he couldn’t; and with his fingers scampering up and down the strings uncontrollably, he danced away.

  He danced into the dark forest, stumbling and tripping, but his fingers never ceased playing. All through the night he danced and fiddled, and the next day too. Day after day, night after night, he fiddled, and wondered if he must fiddle till he dropped down dead. His feet carried him to a rushing river, and joyfully, he thought, If I can dunk myself in the river, perhaps the water will drown the fiddle for ever and free me from this curse. ‘River, river, drown my fiddle,’ he cried out in his innermost soul.

  But though he went in up to his neck, the fish in the river leaped and mocked him: ‘Fiddle away, fiddle away. We don’t want you,’ and he danced out again.

  Another day, Remus saw some charcoal burners stoking up a fire, and for a while the fiddle danced him up to the flames. ‘Fire, fire, burn my fiddle,’ his soul wept and pleaded.

  But the fire seemed to taunt him. It sizzled and fizzled as if ice had been thrown on it; it spat and crackled and turned blue and orange, but it wouldn’t burn him or his fiddle. ‘Go away, go away!’ the flames shrieked. ‘You’re no use to us. You can be no fuel for this fire.’ And not one hair of his head was singed and his violin wasn’t even scorched by the heat.

  ‘Go away,’ shouted the charcoal burners, certain they had seen the devil himself.

  After dancing through another day and night, Remus came across a church where a gravedigger was turning over the earth in a freshly dug grave. Would he find mercy here? he wondered. The fiddle carried him right to the edge of a deep, deep grave, where they had just laid the coffin. Perhaps it was a grave for his grandfather. Full of remorse for all he’d done, he longed to throw himself in. If only the gravedigger could bury me and this accursed fiddle, then surely I’d find peace at last, he thought.

  Dancing to the very edge, Remus toppled into the grave. But even though the gravedigger shovelled and shovelled, the earth flew out again, as if it too were dancing, and out leaped Remus, fiddling for all he was worth. The gravedigger ran away, howling in terror, thinking the corpse must be a wild and unrepentant spirit.

  ‘Ahhh! ’ shrieked Remus with his whole being. ‘What kind of fiddle is this? The river won’t drown it, the fire won’t burn it, and the earth won’t bury it. I’m not wanted by God or the devil himself. Who can save me?’ And still he danced on.

  Another dawn was breaking, and suddenly, as he passed a wide-spreading yew tree, he heard a mumbling. An old man lay huddled at its base, murmuring in his sleep. ‘It’s all my fault,’ he moaned. ‘Why did I take in that odd boy? Why did I let that violin enchant me, and make me think that music was more important than my own flesh and blood? Now I’ve lost both of them. Oh Remus, dear boy, will I ever find you?’

  ‘Grandfather, Grandfather!’ How Remus tried to shout, to scream, to call out. ‘I’m here, alive! You’re alive! I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ But no sound left his throat and he couldn’t stop dancing. Then, suddenly, the violin was playing the melody his grandfather loved so much. Remus hadn’t meant to play it, but the violin made him, and even as he danced away, the old man, with sightless eyes, sat up, murmuring the words to the tune he could hear:

  ‘I sing of a land

  Where roses blow,

  And lemons grow,

  And orange trees float in a deep green shade.’

  And with a broken-hearted voice, Grandfather Petamenghi cried out, ‘Oddboy! Give me back my grandson!’

  It was then that Remus looked up towards the mountain and saw a great bird wheeling around in the sky. ‘You can have your fiddle back, Oddboy,’ he whispered through his battered fingers. ‘Take it.’

  Immediately, his feet led him to the mountain. Higher and higher and higher he jogged, along the trail where he and the village boys had driven Oddboy; skimming the edges of precipices, along thin paths fit only for tiny hooves, springing from rock to rock like a mountain goat; and still his fingers flew up and down, and the bow clawed at the strings, producing the wildest of sounds.

  Remus came to the edge of the mist, as he knew he would, and entered its wafting coils. Even the roar of a cataract couldn’t drown out his frantic playing. He danced towards the boiling waterfall, thinking, Now is my end. But there in the greyness, perched like a bird on a rock jutting out over the waterfall, with spray flinging all around him, was a figure. It was Oddboy.

  Remus stopped; his fingers stopped. His bowing arm dropped to his side, and the violin hung loose in his hand. The playing and dancing had ceased.

  He stood on the edge with the river churning below, and held out the violin. He felt words rushing up his throat: I’m sorry for what I did to you. I’m sorry I took your violin. The boy didn’t move. Then, because he wanted to, Remus lifted the violin back to his chin and raised the bow. He began to play, ‘The Song of Home’.

  Oddboy got to his feet and turn
ed towards Remus. He spoke in a foreign tongue, yet Remus understood. ‘I only wanted to join in. I used to listen to you from up here and wished I belonged down there with all of you.’ In a sudden movement, he snatched away the violin and, with a great cry, flung it, spinning, into the spray of the waterfall.

  There was a mighty crack, like a tree being struck by lightning, and the magician appeared, as huge as the evening shadows beginning to envelop the mountain. ‘Is this how you repay me for the wonderful gift I gave you?’ he roared and, throwing his arms wide, uttered a dreadful incantation. Oddboy teetered to the edge of the plunging waterfall and fell, down, down, down, twirling and whirling like a falling leaf. He spun as if caught in a vortex, and vanished into the watery mist of the pool churning below. The magician looked at Remus and stretched out a long-fingered hand. ‘Come.’

  Remus staggered backwards, away from the waterfall, away from the magician. But just as he felt himself surrendering to the spell, an amazing bird hurtled upwards through the spray; a bird with green and yellow plumage, and blue under-feathers, and a white breast that glistened like snow. It flew into the magician’s face, beating its wings and plucking at his eyes.

  ‘Away, away!’ it cried. ‘Away, away!’ It flapped and pecked, while Remus threw himself out of the curtain of mist and back to the other side. As he scrambled and slithered down the mountain, eyes fixed on his home below, he heard the cry, ‘Away, away!’ and saw the bird rising free above the mountain and then turning towards the south.

  The villagers were preparing for the May Day celebrations and the arrival of summer. No one ever spoke of Oddboy again. It was as though he had never come among them. And, besides, what need had they these days for anyone other than Remus, who played even better than his grandfather ever had?

  But when the trees had burst into leaf, and hedgerows glistened with hawthorn, and violets strewed the paths, Remus played, the villagers danced, and old blind Grandfather Petamenghi listened with a contented smile on his face. And from out of an azure sky came a bird with green and yellow plumage the colour of oranges and lemons, with sky-blue underfeathers, and a breast of snowy white. The old man couldn’t see it, but he tipped his head skywards, humming under his breath as it warbled, ‘I sing of a land where roses blow,’ and he remembered.

  THE NIGHT PRINCESS

  A gift is not always welcome, and not all wishes can be fulfilled. Beware the desire that may require a sacrifice.

  When the Queen of the Night knew she was going to have a baby, she whispered to her husband, the king: ‘I wish for a daughter whose skin is as dark as night, whose eyes are as silver as stars, and whose hair is as curly black as storm clouds.’

  In due course, the baby was born, and she was exactly as her mother desired, so they named her ‘Desire’. They held such a party up there in the night skies, and everyone from the Night Kingdom was invited: star maidens and comet princes, night fairies and shooting-star warriors. And all the night creatures from the earth below were invited too: cats and bats, and foxes and badgers, and nightjars and owls; all spangled and bangled, and glimmering and shimmering, and glinting with jet and coal and iron, all went to the party to celebrate the birth of Princess Desire.

  And what a party it was. Each guest brought the little baby a present: the nightingale gave her a beautiful voice, the fox gave her cunning, the owl gave her wisdom, the night flower gave her fragrance, and others bestowed goodness, happiness, compassion, courage and a long, long life.

  At last it was the turn of the oldest night fairy; she was a grandmother comet who roamed the universe and only made an appearance every one hundred and fifty years. Everyone was happy that she could attend. They saw her zooming through the night sky with her fiery tail, arriving just in time for Desire’s party. The Night Queen was thrilled, and hoped that the grandmother’s gift would be very special.

  Grandmother Comet bent over the star-spangled crib and murmured, ‘Oh beauteous child, to you I give the gift of sacrifice,’ and three drops of blood fell from her finger onto the sleeping child.

  Those present pondered the strangeness of this offering. They knew it would be stronger than any of the other gifts – but what did it mean?

  Now someone else in the universe was watching. It was the Sun King. He was furious that he hadn’t been invited. He threw his eclipse cloak over his great shining body, and decided to attend anyway. This vast dark-cloaked figure arrived at the palace and demanded entry. The star night watchmen quaked with fear and gave way. He was led into the banqueting hall and stood before the King and Queen of the Night, glowering and terrifying beneath his shadowy cloak.

  ‘I think you forgot to invite me!’ His voice crackled like a forest fire.

  Everyone shrank away, as a terrible burning heat emanated from him.

  ‘We beg your most humble pardon, kind sir,’ said the Night King. ‘Please forgive our oversight, but I fear it is because we do not know you.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ sizzled the Sun King. ‘You know me all right. Am I not the Giver of Life? Am I not the Ruler of the Universe?’ He came before the infant’s cradle. ‘Nonetheless I have brought a gift for the Night Princess. It is the gift of fire.’

  He drew out a burning brand of flame from under his cloak. Screams echoed around the heavens as, before the horrified guests, the Sun King tossed the brand high into the air above the cot.

  Then he vanished in a blaze of light. Everyone cringed in terror, blinded and scorched. The flaming brand was about to plunge downwards onto the baby, when Grandmother Comet immediately flung herself over Desire with open mouth and swallowed it.

  ‘Thank you, thank you!’ The Night Queen wept as she realized how she had nearly lost her beloved child.

  ‘You may thank me now,’ said Grandmother Comet, her voice bubbling like an undersea volcano, ‘but I warn you: if one single ray of sun ever touches Princess Desire, she will be burned to ashes. Guard her well.’ Then she sprang upwards and continued on her long orbit, her burning tail stretching for thousands of miles behind her.

  Year by year, the little girl grew up, and the whole universe knew that she was brighter and more beautiful than any star in the firmament.

  Every night she was to be seen galloping along the Milky Way on her black mare, Midnight, racing the wind demons.

  Never far behind was her groom, Dark. It was his duty to protect the princess and make sure she returned safely to the palace before even the thinnest crack of dawn. But the princess was a difficult person to keep up with. She was always so full of curiosity, so daring, playing tricks and sometimes hiding from him. Worst of all, Princess Desire wanted to see the whole world from the ground instead of from the sky. She courted danger by coming down to earth. Every night she rode out on her horse, and landed in a different place; she roamed deserts and jungles and meadows and mountains. She went trotting through silent sleeping villages, through vast cities of towering skyscrapers and office blocks, of domes and steeples and minarets, where the lights never dimmed; lights which, it seemed to her, were even more marvellous than the stars in the firmament.

  Dark was nervous and would say, ‘Princess, Princess, we shouldn’t come here; the lights of the city might deceive us; here, we may not distinguish night from day – we might be caught out by the coming of dawn.’

  But secretly, Desire longed to see the world by daylight.

  She discovered that people worshipped the sun: they built temples to him, drew pictures and carved statues to him. So great and all powerful was the sun; he was nameless, but people called him Ra, Surya, Helios, Khepri, Oriana or Khorshid. There were names for his rays at dawn, for making the skies and the oceans blue by noon, and names for his golden, purple and orange colours as he faded at evening. She saw great standing stones arranged so that the sun would rise through the arch of one, and descend through the arch of another; the altars of churches always faced east, where the sun rose, and imams in their mosques climbed up high, towering minarets so that they could always see the firs
t rays of the sun in the morning, and the last rays at night. She heard songs and hymns and prayers to the sun; music and dance were devoted to him for every time of day. All life came from the sun, and some said that he was God himself. More and more, Desire longed to see this glorious celestial body; to see it rise and set. But, with a sigh, she accepted her parents’ rule that on no account must she ever let one ray of sunlight fall upon her.

  One night, as she and Dark were galloping across the heavens, she noticed a light bobbing in the darkness somewhere below on earth. ‘What’s that?’ she asked Dark.

  ‘Just some human carrying a lamp,’ he replied.

  ‘Let’s go and see,’ cried Desire, and turned her horse earthwards.

  The land was strangely bright, but not from sunlight – otherwise Dark would never have let her descend. No, the land was covered in shining snow, and struggling through the drifts was a young farmer holding a lamp, hurrying to attend to one of his ewes, which was about to give birth. All night long, he protected the ewe with his cloak, and soothed her as tenderly as a mother would her child – until at last, a slippery, leggy, wobbly lamb slid out into the world.

  Its high-pitched bleats rang through the sky.

  When Desire saw how devotedly the farmer looked after the mother and her offspring, she fell in love with him. Each night she descended to earth and followed him across the fields to tend to his flock, and later, as he stumbled home and fell into bed. Each night, Desire dismounted and crept up to a window to watch him. Never had she believed such a man could exist: his body was as pale as dawn, his hair as golden as the rays of the sun, his long limbs flowed from him like rivers, and she called him Day, and thought that she could bear never to see the sun or the light of day so long as she could be with this farmer.

  All night long she hung in the ivy and honeysuckle that grew up the walls; all night long she pressed her face to the window, just gazing upon him, till Dark cried, ‘My lady, we must go. The night is fading. We must leave now before the rays of the sun pierce the sky.’