China Garden Read online
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Gallery 41 Books
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Copyright © 2005, 2018 Liz Berry
All rights reserved
Liz Berry has asserted her right
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988 to be identified as the author
of this work
ISBN 978-1-84396-490-2
Also available in paperback
ISBN 978-1-98121-456-3
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THE
CHINA GARDEN
Liz Berry
Gallery 41 Books
Contents
Cover
Copyright & Credits
Praise for The China Garden
Dedication
Author’s Note
Title Page
Map of the China Garden
The Legend of Demeter and Persephone
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12
Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15
Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18
Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21
Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24
Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27
Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30
Praise for
The China Garden
‘Like a jewel box with hidden drawers and compartments, this finely crafted, multilayered novel holds many secrets. Berry builds a setting and atmosphere richly laden with mystery and suspense, in which the ordinary often masks unexpected inter-connections and the extraordinary is natural to the story’s wildly imagined terrain.’
Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
‘There are hidden mysteries, concealed relationships, visions and dreams. Tense, convincing, powerful.’
Bookchat
‘A tense, gripping thriller. The story is a dense mixture of realism and romance, magic, mystery and history, which altogether makes an exciting read.’
Children’s Books in Ireland
‘A lushly romantic tale that unfolds in layers and is firmly grounded in mythology.’
Booklist
‘Great stuff this, strong, sexy, emotional.’
The Junior Bookshelf
Awards
The China Garden received the pewter award from the Virginia State Reading Association, for ‘best book’, voted for by 90,000 high school pupils of that State.
Selected for New York Public Library’s Best Books for Teenagers Exhibition and List
Chosen by the Young Adult Library Association (TAKSA) of the American Library Association Select list: Best Books for Young Adults.
This book is dedicated to
my readers – the new generation
of Earth Guardians – and to
Debbie Lewis, who went through the
Seventh Gate as I completed this book.
Author’s Note
The reader may be interested to know that the idea in this book came from customs and legends in the English countryside. There is, alas, no Ravensmere (that I know of), but there are numerous healing stones and standing stones that are reputed to go down to the water to drink at certain times.
There are customs like Turning the Stone (the whole village takes part) and Washing the Stone in holy well water, which continues to be done each year. And there are, of course, many stone circles, healing springs, mazes, and strange and enchanting gardens and houses, like Stourhead, Studley Royal at Fountains Abbey, Lacock Abbey and Calke Abbey – all National Trust properties, which I visited when researching this book. There are also China Houses-but the octagonal China Garden with its Moon Gates is my own invention.
The reader is recommended to any of the books by Janet and Colin Bord—in particular, Sacred Waters and Mysterious Britain, and Labyrinths by Sig Lonegren.
The Legend of
Demeter and Persephone
Demeter, Goddess of grain and fertility, the Great Earth Mother, searched for nine days for her lost daughter Persephone, who had been carried off by Hades, God of the Underworld. Demeter, full of grief, wandered the Earth, pretending to be an old woman. When she came to Eleusis she cared for Demophoon, the infant son of the king. She was seen placing him in the sacred fire to make him immortal. She was recognized and a famous temple was erected to her at Eleusis.
Demeter, grieving for Persephone, made all the vegetation die—trees, plants, corn, rice, vegetables, everything died, and the earth lay desolate and barren. At last Hades promised Persephone that she could spend two-thirds of each year on Earth, and every year Persephone, Goddess of Spring and Rebirth, comes home to the light of the sun, the wind and the rain, and her mother bestows abundant food upon the Earth.
The legend symbolizes the cycle of human life—rebirth in Man as in nature. Human life is like corn, it grows with the season, ages, dies—and is reborn.
Chapter 1
Dark of the moon. Near dawn. Starlight shimmered along the dragon walls. Nothing stirred in the China Garden. No breeze. No night sound. The only waking creature was a tortoiseshell cat sitting on the step of the First Moon Gate like a creature from a pharaoh’s tomb, watching and waiting.
It was many years since anyone had walked here, but now the grass was bending in the still air. Invisible feet were passing to and fro, leaving a winding track.
There was a drift of sound, ancient pipe music, then a strange shifting, something coming alive, and a whisper, like a breath, moving through the shadows,“She’s coming ... She’s coming ...”
On the great hill that rose above the Garden, a tall figure detached itself from the darkness of the ancient standing stone. The starlight gleamed on the wide shoulders of his leather jacket, as he stretched, stiff from his long wait. Sometimes it seemed he had been waiting for her forever, but now at last he knew she was coming. He stared down at the darkened house. There was a light burning in a big window overlooking the terrace. Was the old man waiting too?
The clock clicked onto the hour loudly.
“Stop. Put down your pens now.”
There was a muffled groan from the students.
Clare Meredith leaned back, added a final comma to the sheets she had been reading, checked her name and clipped them together. Finished. Her last A-level paper. All over at last.
She could hear Sara behind her, muttering to herself and dropping her papers on the floor.
No more worry, panic and effort. So why was this ball of anxiety and tension in her chest getting bigger all the time, as though something unpleasant was about to happen?
“You all right, Clare? You look a bit odd.” Sara tucked her arm through Clare’s as they left the room.
“I’m fine.” Impossible to explain this eerie feeling even to Sara.
“Listen—I’ve got plans for us this summer! Come on, I’ll stand you a coffee and a burger. Let’s live it up!”
“You’re late, Clare. Where on earth have you been?”
Clare’s fingers tightened on her house key. She glanced at the hall clock.“It’s not half-five yet!”
“I’ve been waiting for you to get home. I’ve got to talk to you.”
“We all went to Macdonald’s.”
“With dear Adria
n, I suppose.”
“With Sara, actually.”
Her mother’s taut shoulders relaxed.
“Oh, Clare, I’m sorry. I forgot you had another exam today.”
“The last one. We were celebrating.”
“How did it go?”
“Okay,” Clare said, shortly.“All topics I’d revised.” She threw her book bag, strangely light now, into its usual corner by the front door, for the last time. She felt flattened, still hardly able to take it in.
“I can’t believe it’s finished.”
“When will you get the results?”
“August sometime.” Not quite out of the woods yet, she reminded herself. Not enough to pass. She needed three good grades for university.
She watched her mother in the hall mirror. Frances was getting ready for work, stabbing pins nervously into her dark gold French pleat to go under her Ward Sister’s cap.
“Well, it’s done now, thank goodness,” Frances said.“It’s been a strain on both of us. You’ve been hard to live with, Clare.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” But it came out too stiffly. They both knew that the tension of the exams was only part of the trouble between them. There was her choice of career. And there was Adrian.
Until she had started to date Adrian they had always got on well together—joking, sharing, talking things over.
They went shopping, poking about for bargains in the street markets, having a Chinese meal, wandering around the London museums on Sunday afternoons. They hadn’t done that for a long time, Clare thought, with a sense of loss.
And it wasn’t all on her side. Lately her mother had been unreasonably irritable and tense.
She said, embarrassed,“I...er... wanted to say thanks for everything. Letting me stay on into sixth-form college.
Giving me a chance at university. I really do appreciate all you’re doing for me. I wish you didn’t have to work all the extra hours.”
Frances looked at her in the mirror.“I haven’t got anybody else, Clare. And, besides, you’re worth it. You haven’t wasted your chances, or taken them for granted. You’ve worked really hard.”
Her mother was a good-looking woman, Clare thought. No, be honest. She was beautiful. High cheek bones, pale translucent skin. But there was something strange about her face that sometimes had people turning around in the street to take a second look.
They stood shoulder to shoulder staring into the mirror, feeling closer than they had for weeks. Clare was the same height as her mother, but she favoured her father’s family. She had a mass of wiry black hair which she tamed by plaiting it back lightly from the crown of her head.
This afternoon though, as they stood in a shaft of sunlight from the small window next to the front door, Clare was suddenly struck by their likeness. It’s our eyes, she thought. Wide and silvery, tilting slightly upwards.
Her mother laughed aloud.“We’re alike, Clare. Something weird about us. Look at those strange witchy eyes! You know they’d have burned both of us five hundred years ago.”
Clare was not surprised Frances had picked up her own thought. Telepathy. It happened so frequently it wasn’t worth mentioning.
Frances had stopped laughing and was staring into her own eyes in the mirror. The closed, shuttered look came over her face, her heavy eyelids drooped.“Perhaps they would have been right.”
Clare felt a cold shiver run down her back. What was she seeing? Her mother’s strange psychic ability disturbed and worried her. Although Frances rarely spoke of it, it was always there, ever present, a dimension of her mother’s personality that Clare preferred not to think about.
She tried to draw away, but Frances’ arm lay heavily on her shoulders.“I’ve got something to tell you, Clare. It’s not the best time really, but I mustn’t put it off any longer. I’m going... Well, I’ve got another job.”
“You’re leaving St Joseph’s?” Clare was shocked. Her mother had worked at the hospital as far back as she could remember, even before her father died.
“It’s a private nursing job. Looking after one elderly man. The salary is very good.”
“B-but...” Her mother had often expressed her views on people who did private nursing in order to get a higher salary. “You said you might be in line for a Sister Tutor’s job. I thought you liked it there.”
“This job is residential, down in the West Country ...”
“You mean we’re moving!”
“Stoke Raven in Somerset.”
“You mean we’re leaving London? Leaving all our friends? Selling our house?”
“No-o. Not selling the house. Too difficult just now. But I’ve been incredibly lucky. I’ve been able to let it furnished to a bone specialist and his wife who are on exchange from the States for a year. It’s just as if it was meant to be. They want to move in in two weeks.”
Two weeks! Had her mother gone off her head? Clare said, dazed,“We’re actually leaving, going to Somerset? Suppose I don’t want to go? What about me? I was born here!”
“You’re leaving home anyway. You’ll be going to university in a few months. Until then I thought you’d want to stay in London. I’ve spoken to Sara’s mother and she says she’ll put you up in her spare room.”
The significance of what Frances was saying hit Clare hard. She suddenly felt like a chick that had just been pushed out of its nest, cold and lonely and too frightened to fly yet. She wanted her freedom and independence, of course she did. She had looked forward to going to university. But this was too strange, too sudden. She wasn’t prepared.
“I don’t want to stay in London on my own.”
“Hardly on your own. What about Sara and Adrian and ...”
“I’d rather come with you,” Clare said in a small voice.“Isn’t there any room for me?”
“Well, there is, of course.” Frances sounded reluctant and doubtful.“I’ll have my own place. But I’m sure you wouldn’t like it. There’s nothing there, Clare. Just the big house, Ravensmere, and the village, Stoke Raven. It wouldn’t suit you at all. I mean, there’s no public library or swimming pool, or anything ... There are no young people ... And I’ll be working all the time ...”
“You don’t want me,” Clare said, blankly.
She couldn’t believe that her mother was simply turning her out and going off to a new life in the country without her.
“Don’t you have to give notice?”
“I already have.”
“I don’t understand what’s gone wrong with us,” Clare said desperately.“We always used to decide everything together, ever since Dad died. But you let our house without saying anything. You could have told me.”
“I could—if I’d wanted endless rows and arguments. And upsetting you in the middle of the exams.”
Her mother looked at her steadily, her eyes brilliant.“I’ve got to go back, Clare. I should have gone before. But you’ve been in the middle of all your exams the past few years, so I waited.”
“Back?” You mean you’ve been there before?”
“I lived there once. I went back for your grandfather’s funeral three years ago.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“You were in France.”
The school holiday paid for by putting money weekly in the china cat on the kitchen shelf.
“I thought you’d always lived in London.”
Clare was upset. She had thought they were so close that she knew everything about her mother. But a big part of her life had been missing. Not just missing—deliberately concealed.“What about relatives? My grandmother—is she still alive?”
“Of course not. I told you, my mother died when I was a child.”
“But my grandfather was alive until three years ago, and you never said. Never let me see him.” Clare’s disappointment and sense of loss was so acute it was an actual pain in her chest.“You know I always wished we had some family and now it’s too late. I’ll never see him.”
“He didn’t want to know us,
Clare. He wouldn’t see me. He told me never to come back. It’s no good digging up the past.”
And yet she had cared enough to go back for his funeral, Clare thought.
The closed look was back on her mother’s face, and Clare was convinced that there was a lot left out of what she was saying. Lying by omission they called it. She realized now just how little her mother had said about her early life.
“Look, we’ll talk about it sometime. But I’ve got to go now. I’ll be late.” Frances avoided Clare’s eyes.“You’d better start sorting out your things.” She buttoned her navy cape, and started towards the door.
“So why go back now?”
The question sank into Frances’ back like a knife and stopped her dead. There was a long silence. At last she said,“I haven’t taken the decision lightly. I have to go back, Clare. I have no choice. I owe.”
Clare’s eyes widened.“Money?” Wild ideas of gambling and blackmail chased around her head.
Frances shook her head.“Big debts you can’t repay with money.”
Clare could hear the tiredness and strain in her voice, and knew suddenly that her mother was desperately worried, frightened even.
“There’s something wrong, isn’t there? You’re not telling me the truth.”
“I don’t want to get you involved. You’ve got your own life ahead of you.”
Clare stared at her, and suddenly heard her own voice sounding high and clear, echoing in her head,“I’m coming to Ravensmere with you.”
Frances spun round.“Look, honestly, it’s not a good idea, Clare. Oh, of course I want you with me! You’re my daughter. I’m going to miss you dreadfully. We’ve gone through a lot together, but no.” Her hands were shaking. She said abruptly, hoarsely,“I can’t protect you there.”