By cutting out the middleman, both she and the beekeeper would get a better price, and she could guarantee a constant ready market.
She walked along beneath a sky of bird’s-egg blue, past fields of ripening barley, beets, turnips, and beans; small herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, and geese. The river rolled away to her right, its long, slow currents barely ruffling the quiet jade-green surface. Mother ducks surrounded by a flotilla of half-grown ducklings paddled among the weeds growing long at the banks, the little ones dibbling for insects and bits of edible flotsam.
A dairyman walking beside his donkey cart approached on the lane that ran along the bank; he tipped his hat as he passed. The air was momentarily filled with the slightly sour, milky scent of the dairy, and Wilhelmina was instantly plunged back into a time and place she scarcely remembered ever having been: a farm in Kent when she was barely six years old. It was a school trip, and her class had visited a farm that produced the milk she and her classmates drank every day from little bottles. The farmer had shown them into the separating room to see the huge machines at work dividing the raw milk from the cream; the smell of the room—strongly pungent and steeped in the sharp rancid odour of fermenting cheese—had so overwhelmed her young senses that it remained with her ever after.
She greeted the farmer and then paused to watch him on his way, breathing in the scent as he passed. Mina was still thinking about that school trip, so long forgotten but vividly revived, when the lane turned to follow a bend in the river and passed into a beech wood copse. The sunlight through the trees threw dappled shadows on the path, and she was looking at the pattern as she walked. She happened to slip her hand into her pocket and brushed Burleigh’s device. To her surprise, it was warm to the touch.
She looked down and saw a deep blue light burning through the fabric of her smock. The thing was glowing.
She stopped and with trembling fingers drew out the brass-encased device. A strong blue light streamed through the little holes that lined the curve of one side, and through the central half-moon aperture as well. Something had stirred the instrument to life, but what?
Mina gazed around her. She noted the trees, the leaf-shadowed lane, the wide sweep of the river, and even the cloud-spotted sky above and the birds soaring there. She regarded everything, yet saw nothing she supposed might trigger the sudden awakening of the curious little gismo that was even now filling her hand with an appreciable warmth.
Slowly, keeping her eyes on the object, she began walking again. The lane curved as it followed the river, and gradually the light in Burleigh’s object faded. She kept walking until the last little glimmer of blue light died. She turned and retraced her steps. As she half expected, after a few steps the glow rekindled . . . a few more steps, and the glow grew brighter.
She marched a dozen swift paces along the lane, moving out from the shelter of the copse. The softly glowing blue light slowly faded once more, and the device cooled in her palm.
She stopped and, certain that she stood on the brink of discovery, made a slow about-face and moved once more into the copse. The deep indigo light returned, and this time she imagined she heard a small squeaking sound—almost like the chirp of a baby bird. Still walking slowly, she held the device to her ear and confirmed that yes, indeed, the thing was speaking to her. Instinctively, she put her finger to the tiny knurled nub on the surface of the device and gave it a twist: the peeping sound grew louder.
“’Hello!” she muttered to herself. “It’s a volume knob.”
Still walking slowly, she noted when the blue glow began to fade once more, then instead of waiting until it went out altogether, she spun on her heel and headed back the opposite way, still holding the instrument out in front of her. At the exact place where the light was brightest and the sound the loudest, she stopped.
Burleigh’s mechanism was obviously marking the place, but try as she might she could not see why. She stood perfectly still and gazed at the little woodland glade around her. What was different or special about this place? What was the gismo trying to tell her?