Changing Heaven by Jane Urquhart Read Free Book Online

young woman mused, “why do one’s demons stick to one?” She looked at Arianna closely. “Because,” she answered herself, “one has created them, after all, one way or another, and so to them, whether they like it or not, one is mother , one is home.”
    After uttering this last word the woman sat on a rock and looked rather sadly towards the village where Arianna had slept the previous night. “Home,” she said again, but much more quietly.
    Arianna began to feel vaguely afraid. Her childhood, which had begun to nag her the day before, now made a reappearance. She remembered witches and how they were reputed often to live out on the moors, where they collected poisonous herbs and chanted weird words. They had also lived, she now suddenly remembered, in the wardrobe at the south end of her bedroom. Or at least, one had. She could recall every leathery line on the creature’s face, every wart. She resembled Aunt Agnes, who came to tea on Thursdays and who disapproved of children’s laughter. She resembled this woman not in the least.
    Witch , whispered the wind. It appeared to have calmed down somewhat, but, in fact, it was merely taking a rest so that it could gather strength.
    From this one witch, this one cupboard, Arianna’s childhood bedroom, in its entirety, recreated itself in her mind. The papered walls, the shelves for picture books and dolls. Six pennies hidden in a drawer. Five small white dresses where the witch was. A parasol, much loved. The hobbyhorse, a friend during the day, a terrifying enemy at night when he turned from white to grey. The whole world as it existed before her mother died and her father took to drink. Arianna began to visualize a little silver locket that she had forgotten until now. One that, to the child’s sorrow, wouldnot open because it was not made to. Just a solid, shining heart to hang, bright, against white cotton.
    “I had one that opened,” said the woman, “with a lock of my mother’s hair inside, but it wasn’t as pretty as yours.”
    Arianna was startled out of her pleasant reverie. “What was that?” she asked.
    “I said that my locket opened but didn’t have such pretty engraving.”
    “How do you know?” Arianna approached the woman now and scrutinized her pale face. “How did you know what I was thinking?”
    “It was perfectly clear. Your little bedroom and then you, small, trying madly to open the tiny silver heart. It was all right here.” And the woman pointed to a boggy area vaguely to her right. “And, I suppose you’ve been trying to open an impossible heart since then, haven’t you? We always do these things at least twice. If at first we don’t succeed we become obsessed. It’s very simple. What’s your name?”
    “Arianna Ether.”
    “Oh, no, it’s not.”
    Arianna confessed. “It used to be Polly Smith but now it’s Arianna Ether.”
    “No, now it’s Polly Smith again. You were having some very strong memories. Arianna Ether had very few memories, n’est-ce pas? Hard at work in the here and now picking away at some closed heart. Where are we, by the way, these days in the here and now? What year is it?”
    “How can it be that you don’t know? It’s 1900, the turn of the century.”
    “Well, even that’s debatable. Maybe it’s the turn of the last century, or maybe it’s the turn of the next century, or maybe the centuries have stopped turning altogether. Who cares? Why did I ever bother to ask? Curiosity, I guess. Good thing you are out here. You might have still been picking away at that closed heart at the turn of the century after the next.”
    “That heart,” said Arianna/Polly with dignity and pride, “is open now.”
    “Really?” asked the woman with more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “Black hair? Perfect profile? I have my doubts.”
    “How do you know?” asked Polly, “What are you?”
    “I am exactly the same as you,” said the woman, “Look, I’ll have a memory and you tell me what it