Alan Goodspeed is an ordinary teenage boy with all the hopes and dreams of any other teenage boy. Except for when he was a teenage girl. And then there was the whole pixie parenthood thing. That's fairly normal... right?
Pixie's
1 Pell (1 is a Pell number)
2 Savitskaya (2nd woman in space) aka 'Sky'
3 Sunflower (3rd wedding anniversary flower gift)
4 Zia (4 was a sacred number to the Zia people of New Mexico)
5 Pandora (5th moon of Saturn)
6 Snowflake (A non-aggregated snowflake often exhibits six-fold radial symmetry)
7 Rainbow (Newton's 7 colours of the Rainbow)
8 Callisto (8th moon of Jupiter) aka 'Cally'
9 Cloud (as in 'Cloud Nine')
10 Canada (there are ten provinces and three territories in Canada)
11 Ocean (as in the film Ocean's 11)
12 Lysithea (12th moon of Jupiter)
13 Lunar (13 month lunar calendar)
14 Sonnet (14 lines in a sonnet)
House Goodspeed
Jeffrey Goodspeed - Direct descendant of Captain Sir Alan Godespeed and Chairman of the Council of House Goodspeed
Angelika Goodspeed (nee Grimm) - German, married Jeffrey Goodspeed and has lived in England since.
Alan Goodspeed aka Alannah Goodspeed - Alan also has a sister and brother
Seditious Court
Breakaway court formed in opposition to the Golden Court. In the 5th Century AD at St Mary Buckland, Somerset the Seditious Court defeated the Golden Court in battle and drove them from our realm. Through a series of wards they keep the Golden Court from returning. The bulk of the Seditious Court resides in a neighbouring realm of á†lfhá¡m.
Queen Joan I aka Queen Joan the Wad - Co-Regent of the Seditious Court, Queen of the Pixies, Lady of the moors, the forests and the gardens, Lady of the dance and Keeper of the Golden Torch (Addressed as her Royal Highness). She conceived a child with Sir Alan Godespeed, an ancestor of Alan's. Alan is descended from that child.
King Jack I aka King Jack o’ the Lantern - Co-regent of the Seditious Court; King of the Pixies, Lord of moors, forests and the gardens; Lord of Tupelo, Memphis and Las Vegas; Keeper of the Shoes of Azure Leather; and Guardian of the Golden Light (Addressed as his Royal Funkaliciousness)
Princess Alannah Louise Goodspeed, Heir to the Sundered Thrones
Queen Joan's (QJ) Pyskies - Aelfwyn, Arden.
King Jack's (KJ) Pyskies - Tate, Felice, Ealhwyn
Golden Court
The faerie court of myth and legend. Driven from our realm (Middangeard) to the realm of á‰sageard
Queen Mab I - Ruler of the Golden Court
Prince Oak - Eldest son of Queen Mab's 7 sons and killed at the Battle of St Mary Buckland
Prince Hawthorn - Second son of Queen Mab and killed at the Battle of St Mary Buckland
Prince Rowan - Youngest son of Queen Mab and believed killed at the Battle of St Mary Buckland by Queen Mab. In actuality he survived and fled injured from the battle. He would a century later marry and have faerie blooded human children in Germany.
Alan Goodspeed is an ordinary teenage boy with all the hopes and dreams of any other teenage boy. Except for when he was a teenage girl. And then there was the whole pixie parenthood thing. That's fairly normal... right?
Fair warning, this is Chapter 1 in a series that I've not finished yet, though Chapter 2 is 5,000 words into it. That being said, for those who do decide to proceed, it's all plotted and I do intend to finish this, even if it is at the normal Jemima pace of things and will be woven around producing chapters of 'We are Family'. Thanks for reading this far and I hope you enjoy this first chapter! *big hugs*
Chapter 1
I was a man with a plan or I guess more accurately a boy with a ploy.
It was a meticulously laid out plan that even had a colour coded wall chart setting out each objective. I would study hard and party lite. When I wasn't studying I'd be cramming in as many extra hours of paid work and chores as possible to earn money for my savings account. And in roughly fifteen months time at the end of the next academic year, grades permitting, I'd be off to pursue my dreams at the university of my choice, or second choice, or third choice, or whatever institution I could get into through 'Clearing' depending on how good or bad my grades were. Regardless of which university I ended up attending, although my preference was for one a considerable distance away, I'd be living my dream and enjoying three years of freedom to live my own life away from the pull of the Family business.
I had a plan. A perfect plan. What could go wrong?
As it turned out, a lot of things.
My ordered, planned life had descended into a life of weirdness and calamity during the previous summer. Despite all of that I was just about hanging onto my goals, flexing the plan as needed on the hoof and it was mostly working until today. As I sat in the Headmasters office, soaked to my skin in what I really hoped was water and covered in masonry dust and little bits of ceramic, I saw the plan finally slip from my grasp.
"So let me get just summarise your story Mr Goodspeed to make sure I've got it down correctly... the explosion in the second floor boys’ toilets wasn’t caused by you. This is despite the fact that Mr McCormack entered the toilet only seconds after hearing the explosion and found no one else there other than you. Is that an accurate summary of your statement?"
The combination of his bushy eyebrows, his roman nose and the look of disapproval on his face oddly reminded me of Sam the American Eagle and I had to work hard to suppress a nervous giggle. I cleared my throat before speaking, edging backwards in my chair in response to the questioning gaze of the Headmaster as he peered at me over the edge of his half moon reading glasses.
"Yes sir."
"It may interest you to know Mr Goodspeed that several thousand pounds worth of damage was caused by the said act of vandalism and I have been forced to call in the Police to investigate the matter. As I'm sure you are aware from the never ending stream of procedural police dramas on television, the police have very good forensics teams these days and take a very dim view on homemade explosive makers in this post 7/7 world. So, I would like you to take a moment to consider very carefully your answer to the next question that I ask you..."
"Yes sir?"
"Do you know who caused the explosion in the second floor boys’ lavatory?"
The vow I'd made to my mother echoed in my mind - 'I will speak no lies'. I know what you're thinking, a teenager who keeps his promises in a tight spot is a fairly rare thing but we take promises very seriously in the Family. Very seriously. And there were consequences if you broke a promise to a member of the Family. Consequences I wasn't in a hurry to experience.
I'd been made to make that vow to my mother after the most recent act of weirdness predating this one that blighted my life. Then, just as now, I'd been found at the 'scene of the crime' and I'd avoided telling a truth which would more than likely have had me sent to a place where the sleeves on the jackets lace up behind you. Instead I'd gone with a much more plausible story that falsely implicated another student. This left me to catch the lesser charge of doing nothing to stop him, which only resulted in a few days detention through collateral guilt. To be fair, my patsy was no saint and many a bullied kid had breathed a sigh of relief when he was expelled. As a consequence I only felt a little bit bad about framing him. I mean, he'd done a ton of stuff he should have been expelled for and wasn't, so really this was just him reaping his karma right? I was really just returning balance to the universe I told myself. Situational ethics are only bad if the outcome is bad right?
However, my mother didn't see it that way and there had been threats of sending me off against my will to my siblings’ boarding school which I only managed to dodge through my vow to tell no lies. My brother and sister might like it at boarding school but I'd seen the syllabus and there was no way it met my academic needs or did anything other than prepare me for a life in the Family business, which I wasn't going to join. Uh huh. No way Jose. Heck, no way Jack, Jeffrey or Jeremy either.
So there was my dilemma, my Catch-22 as it were. My options were to:
(a) Tell a lie that would get me in serious trouble with my mother likely leading to being sent to my siblings boarding school but would smooth things over with the headmaster; or
(b) Tell the truth which would keep the vow I’d made to my mother but would mostly likely end with my being sent for psychiatric evaluation or expelled on the spot as a liar.
I was damned whichever of the two options I choose. I'd completely discounted the third option of saying nothing because this is school, not a court of law. There is no right to remain silent and indeed nothing ticks off a teacher more than the silent treatment. Silence equals guilt in the blackboard jungle.
Ludicrous unbelievable truth or perfectly plausible lie. Pick one. Tick, tock... tick, tock... buzzzzzz! Thank you for playing and your answer is to the million dollar question is... I’d like to take option (b) please. My mother scares the crap out of me.
"Ummmm... could it have been pixies sir?"
"I'm glad you saw sen... what? What exactly do you mean by 'pixies' Mr Goodspeed?" he asked leaning forward.
"Pixies sir."
"As in the small blue mythological creatures from Cornwall, Mr Goodspeed?"
"Yes sir. Cornwall sir. Sort of Bluish fur sir. Not mythological in the sense that you mean sir."
Removing his glasses, the Principal rubbed his eyes briefly before looking back at me.
"Pixies... I'll give you your due and admit that it's the first time in my twenty years here as Headmaster I've heard that excuse... You're sure you wish to stick with that story Mr Goodspeed?"
"It's not a story sir. It's the truth sir."
I nervously ran my fingers through my hair, never more grateful for dad's insistence that it be kept short than now given how wet it was. The absence of cold wet hair against the back of my neck was about the only good thing going for me right now.
"Fine," he said putting his glasses back on. "I'll be sure to remind the police to round up members of the local pixie community for questioning."
I desperately resisted the urge to point out the inherent unfairness of his last statement. Just because some pixies blew up the toilets doesn't mean all pixies were guilty. I'd have thought the sort of educated man who read The Guardian would have been against 'species profiling'.
"However, until such time as the pixie or pixies behind this come forward to assist the police with their enquiries I will be suspending you for a period of three weeks. At the end of which a meeting will be held with your parents to discuss what future, if any, that you have with this institution. I must confess to be very disappointed in you Mr Goodspeed. Your excellent GCSE grades and enthusiasm for sports had led us to have high expectations for you. This incident may well end up significantly limiting the university offers you receive in the next academic year. I wonder if you bothered to think about that 'eh? Frankly, I don't know what happened to you during the summer holiday but since you returned you have been nothing but a magnet for trouble Mr Goodspeed."
"But sir..."
"No 'but sirs' Mr Goodspeed," he interrupted, handing me a piece of paper. "Please take this note to Miss Bradbury. She will contact your parents and make the necessary arrangements for them to come collect you. I would also expect a visit from the local constabulary in the near future Mr Goodspeed and you may wish to consider changing your story from 'pixies'."
"Yes sir..."
His gaze softened slightly as I took the paper from him.
"I'm very disappointed in you Alan," he said with a sigh. "I hope you take this opportunity to reflect on where your life is going and find a way of turning this around. If this is about problems at home or you need someone to talk too, Mrs Fitzwilliam's a trained counsellor and even on suspension she will meet with you if you ask. Either way, if you are still with us after Easter, I hope you can knuckle down and get back on track to achieving the sorts of grades we expected from you in your 'A' Levels."
"Yes sir, I would like that too sir."
"You are dismissed Mr Goodspeed. I will see you and your parents in three weeks," said the Headmaster, his expression hardening as he rose to his feet. "I should warn you though, if you are found to be guilty of causing the damage to the toilets, you will more than likely be expelled."
"Yes sir."
"Alan, I've already called your mother and she will be here shortly," said Miss Bradbury, leaving her desk to take the seat next to mine.
Well that solved that one. No trial, straight to execution. I wonder if I’ll be allowed to stop at McDonald’s for a last meal?
“It’ll be alright Alan,” said Miss Bradbury quietly, placing a hand on my shoulder.
Despite the fact she was only in her early thirties, Miss Bradbury had a easy going charm and elegance to her that reminded me of old style Hollywood stars and I was the envy of most of the boys, and some of the girls, in school whenever she stopped to speak to me in the halls. She was actually a close family friend who I'd known since, well forever. She'd baby sat for me when she was a teenager. It was difficult to keep secrets from a woman who had changed your nappies and had been a childhood confessor and substitute mother. I remembered being devastated when she'd moved away after university and later got married. I was quietly elated when she returned to live amongst the Family again six months ago following her divorce. It was a source of great pride that she would ask me to babysit her young kids now and then and I hoped that her kids might regard their time with me as fondly as I did my time with their mother.
"Dawn... I didn't do it you know," I whispered, unsuccessfully trying to fight back the tears behind my hands.
"I know sweetie," she said, her tone softening to become almost maternal and she rubbed my back. "But if you can't control them it does amount to the same thing..."
"It's not my fault! I'm not even old enough to vote for a nearly another year and yet I'm expected to be responsible for a litter of pixies? How is that fair?" I asked sparing her with a plaintive look.
"Well, if you didn't want the responsibility..."
"I was PUSHED!! PUSHED into the nest!! By my bastard of a younger brother."
"There's no need for that sort of language young man."
"Sorry," I replied, blushing a little at the rebuke.
"Well either way, you imprinted on them and vice-versa. On the plus side, they are sort of cute."
I snorted at that, burying my face back in my hands.
"It could have been worse. I attended the Institute with a girl who had accidentally bonded with a litter of gremlins," she giggled, the sound reminding me of a young Doris Day. "The number of times we'd come back to our dorm rooms to find they'd dismantled all the furniture on a whim was frustrating. I shouldn't laugh but I remember once in class they'd removed every screw from the chair and desk of this boy who'd been trying to chat her up for weeks and wouldn't take no for an answer. As you can imagine when he sat down..."
I couldn't help but smile a little as I imagined the scene. Wiping my eyes, I looked around the room for the cause of my problems.
"Where are they?"
"Oh, it was so cute! They were working on an apology. At least, I think that was what they were trying to say."
Yeah, pixies are real if you hadn't guessed. Seriously, I'm not making it up. They were about the same size as a small cuddly toy, maybe fifteen or so centimetres tall, and covered in soft light blue fur. At least they were now, I was told they would eventually get a bit bigger and more human looking. Right now though they were more a cross between a 'Gizmo' and 'Stitch' than 'Tinkerbelle', with disproportionately large saucer shaped eyes, large sort of mouse-like blue ears, cat like teeth and completely covered in fur all over, yet they still somehow managed to convey cute in an anthropomorphic way. Unfortunately or fortunately, I'm never sure which, most people could not or would not perceive them. You needed either a seriously open mind, or to be in possession of the Talent, to be able to see a creature of The Golden Court. Do you ever see the hint of movement just out of sight that when you turn to see, there is nothing there? That's probably a pixie. Or a sprite. Or a peri. Or a faerie. Or... well you get the picture.
For those of us who can see them though, communicating with them is a whole other problem. They have at best a rudimentary form of spoken language although to human ears nearly every word sounds the same. They can speak a little English but what they do speak is mostly mimicked from something they've heard or seen and repeated back when they think it's germane. I guess their poor language skills are because their primary method of communication is a form of telepathic empathy. I'm not a telepath though so I can't really control what I think and therefore by default unintentionally broadcast random feelings and thoughts to them. I can however mostly understand the emotions they broadcast to me.
What makes it even worse is that pixies have no concept of the abstract and neither do they understand the concept of lying. As a result they can't distinguish between fiction and reality. After all fiction, aka pretending, is basically organised lying. If this was a movie trailer, this would be the moment where a forced jovial voiceover would chuckle "resulting in hilarious misunderstandings". For the record, when it happens to me I generally don't find the misunderstandings hilarious.
"Girls are you ready?" called out Dawn looking towards her desk.
Oh yeah, that's the other thing. Pixies are always girls. Always. Don't ask me why and don't ask me about the pixie version of the birds and the bees because that's their business. All you need remember is pixies are girls and that's important for reasons that are about to become clear.
"Tikka! Tikky tikka tikka tikka!" sang out a soft lyrical voice from behind the desk.
A gentle fluttering sound announced the presence of the pixies and I looked over to Dawn's desk to see 'Sonnet' and 'Pell' rising from behind it on their gossamer like wings, unfurling a banner made from what looked like school headed paper. In cut out newspaper letters stuck on it were the words "sorrey momma".
I brushed my long wet hair out of my face as I felt a brief tingling sweep over me and slid my feet out of my now slightly too large shoes. I was also very glad that a jumper was part of the school uniform given how my wet clothes were sticking to the new curves of my body. A wet shirt on its own would do little to cover my modesty right now.
"I know you are," I sighed. "It's okay, you're forgiven. You can come out now."
Even after just over six months I still couldn't quite recognise my 'new' voice. Holding out my hands, I was quickly surrounded by a small litter of pixies. To be precise the small litter of pixies I imprinted on, which from their point of view makes them my children. In accordance with what passes for pixie logic, if they are all female and I'm their parent then I must also be female. Evidently for magical beings my biology is childishly simple to correct, something that my bastard of a brother thought was hilarious. So every time I interact with them on anything approaching a mother - child basis, and being contrite for misbehaving obviously felt like a parental rebuke to them, I undergo a forced crossing of the gender divide.
"That is soooo cute," cooed Dawn as they enveloped me in fourteen tiny hugs. "They really do love you."
"Yeah..."
And heaven help me I loved them too at moments like this. It's hard not to when fourteen tiny empaths are broadcasting their completely unquestioning love for you. I gently lifted Sonnet up in the palm of my hand so that I could look her in the eyes. She was surprisingly light even given her small size.
"Let's go out front and find grandma," I said, trying to hide the feeling of impending doom. Running a finger across the top of her furry little head I listened to her soothing purr in response. I found myself cooing softly as she nuzzled against my finger tip.
"Don't worry about the police," said Dawn as she picked up my now slightly too large shoes. "The Family will take care of that."
"Yuh-huh," I scoffed. "Good luck with that. They totalled an entire boys lavatory. I can't see how the Family can make that go away. Are they going to pretend it's the 1950's and blame it on a weather balloon?"
"Something like th--"
"Miss Bradbury," called the Headmaster, interrupting our conversation as he stepped out of his office. "I'd like you to..."
He stopped taking in the sight of a bedraggled teenage girl dripping onto the carpet for a second.
"And you are?" he asked, canting his head slightly.
"The explosion in the boys’ toilets caused a problem in the girls’ toilets Headmaster," said Dawn, gently pushing me towards the door. "I was just taking her to change into her PE kit while her parents brought her some dry clothes in."
"I know every one of my students Miss Bradbury and I don't know this one," replied the Headmaster advancing towards me with an increasingly stern visage. "This student who seems to have an uncanny familial resemblance to Mr Goodspeed and is wearing a boy’s uniform for some reason. Are you a co-conspirator perhaps? Hmmm?"
Yeah, we're that sort of school where the girl’s uniform is different from the boy’s. Before I could respond however 'Sunflower' swooped up in front of him and literally puffed herself up to look bigger like a cartoon puffer fish, raising her hands above her head and roaring at him. In hindsight letting them watch Monsters Inc. was probably a bad idea not least because very few people could actually see her which made her even more frustrated and angry.
"Aaaargh!" shouted the Headmaster, physically recoiling from the pixie.
O.M.G... he can see her. "Oh shi--"
Miss Bradbury stepped forward, pointing her left hand towards the Headmaster.
"Befuddle!" she exclaimed, the large sapphire blue ring on her finger flashed as she said it. Although when she said it it sounded less like 'befuddle' and more like 'be-food-e-ly'. "Vos Obtemperare!"
I noticed her ring flash once again, although this time a similar sapphire colour washed over the Headmaster in synch with it. Magick - with a 'k' - spells are cast using Latin because the first recorded Families date from ancient Rome and they wrote the first spell books. It wasn't actually necessary to use Latin but it was the magical equivalent of learning your ABC's so all those with the Craft cast in Latin. It was the same with the ‘ring’ or the ‘wand’ that warlocks used (nothing phallic about that right?). Magick needed a focus to be channelled through and while in theory this could be something as simple as a plastic rubber ducky, over time witches and warlocks had become so indoctrinated into using rings or wands that their perceptions prevented them from using anything else.
Oh, and for those like me whose Latin was pretty no existent, 'vos obtemperare' was an instruction for the Headmaster to obey her.
"You will return to your office and take a short nap. When you awake you will have forgotten everything that you have seen here."
In reply the Headmaster yawned and like an automaton stiffly turned and returned to his office. We both cringed as we heard him fall heavily to the ground shortly after closing his door.
"In hindsight I should probably have been more specific about where he was to take a nap," she said, tiredly rubbing her forehead.
"Ya think?"
"Less of the backchat young lady... Huh, I'd never have thought he would have had an open enough mind to have seen the girls."
I bristled a little at the young lady comment before my anger deflated when I remembered how I appeared to others at the moment.
Oh yeah. I should probably have mentioned this before but the Family business is magick. With a 'k', not that stage illusion crap. Dad's a warlock. Mom's a witch. In fact, about a good third or more of the people living in Ackholt are either witches or warlocks themselves or the mundane related by marriage to one. Collectively, we make up what is known as 'The Family'.
"Are you going to get into trouble for using the Craft on the Headmaster?" I asked, trying to change the subject.
In reply she shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. I'll have to report the destruction of school property and the pixie incident just now that's for certain."
"I guess you'll probably be okay. Dad's Chairman of the Family Council after all and mum and a couple of my aunts also sit on it, so you'll have friends."
"Of course it's not just me that will be before the Family Council, Alan..."
"Oh that's going to be just... peachy," I groaned. "The one group of people I'm not going to get a fair hearing out of are my blood kin! I'm an embarrassment to them. The black sheep. The first member of the House of Goodspeed to turn his back on the Craft in ten generations. I'll be lucky if they don't throw the grimoire at me. Destruction of property involving the Craft in a public setting and allowing a normal person to see the existence of mythological creatures under my care are serious matters to them."
"There are thirteen people on the Family Council and you're only related to four of them."
"Like the other nine are any fonder of me. Beside it would need to be a lot more people than that if you think it's going to stop mum making a scene."
"If you offered to try to learn some of the basics of the Craft it might appease them a little and who knows you might find you like it? You really are turning your back on so much."
"Yeah, I'm missing centuries of persecution from the mundane majority, abuses of the Craft and blood feuds between the great Covens... oh I'm sorry, 'the great Houses' because we never miss an opportunity to sound like pretentious arses. I'm sooooo going to miss that," I mocked. "No way. I'm turning eighteen next year and then I'm off to university. I'm getting free of the grip of the Family and the Craft. Assuming they will let me..."
"Why wouldn't they? A lot of us leave to get an education. I've never known the Family to force anyone to stay. The only grounds I could think of would be in the case of those whose use of the Craft makes them a danger to others," said Dawn, her face creased in confusion. "I moved away after university after all."
"Yes, but you never broke your ties with the Family or the Craft and you moved back when you got divorced."
"Which was my choice."
"Of course it was. I'm sure no one ever tried to sell the benefits of moving back to Ackholt and living amongst the warmth and support of the Family again. No one ever talked about being with others who practice the Craft or how the Family would help you find a job, assist with childcare arrangements and always be there for you..."
"No. It's a good thing. A generous thing. When you twist it like that, it sounds... almost Machiavellian..."
"Just when I thought I was out..." I snarked in my best Pacino impression.
"That doesn't sound the same when you do it as a girl," giggled Dawn.
"Yeah, I know," I said with a sigh. Again. It's been a real morning for sighing. "I'm serious though. Don't take everything the Family does unquestioningly. The great Houses rule with absolute power in the affairs of the Craft and we know what people say about absolute power..."
"I always thought you weren't as stupid as you looked," said Dawn, smiling as she reached out to ruffle the top of my head. "And it's been a few years since I could do that to you without getting arm strain. How tall are you now?"
"5 foot 7 inches in my bare feet," I replied. "I really liked being 6' 4".
The school basketball team kind of liked it as well.
"Well that explains why your hands have disappeared under those sleeves..."
"Ta da!" I laughed, waving my newly revealed fingers as I bunched my long wet sleeves up at the elbows.
"So... if you leave the Family what happens about the girls?" asked Dawn, her face becoming more serious.
My expression softened as I looked at my pixie companions fluttering around the room.
"As I understand it, this is a life bond that only ends with the death of them or me. I'm told that they draw on my magical Talent for part of their sustenance. It's one of the reasons they were able to bond with me in the first place after all, so I know I can provide for them. Other than that they mainly eat cat food and Lion Bars, so whether I'm a member of the Family or not they'll be fine as long as I'm within easy access of a Tesco's."
Dawn laughed before reaching to affectionately mess with my hair again.
"You always were different even as a small child," she said, smiling at me. "Knowing you and how determined you can be, I'm sure you will get to live your dreams even if I can't say that I understand why you would want to turn your back on something that has been a great source of comfort to me in my life."
"Thanks," I replied, my voice hitching a little with emotion that this woman who I admired so much would have such faith in me even if she didn't understand why I was doing it. "You know you are just about the only member of the Family who doesn't look upon me as some sort of freak."
"Let's get your stuff and then wait out front until your mother gets here."
She waved off my attempt to hug her, grimacing at how wet I was.
"This is a clean wet right?" she asked, looking at her wet hand from where she had touched my hair.
"I hope so. I really do hope so," I sighed pulling a small piece of blue urinal cake from my hair. "But given the way my day has been..."
"I'll get some wet wipes," she replied, pulling a face as she held her hand out away from her. "You wait out front."
"Thanks Dawn. I really mean it. I've never been able to talk to anyone in the Family before about this. Most of the 'discussions' I have with my parents end up in screaming matches."
"No problem," she giggled. "And thanks for the flowers."
"Flowers?"
Dawn moved slightly to reveal one of my pixies hovering beside her with a collection of freshly picked flowers in its arms.
"Lysithea!" I hissed. "Tell me you didn't just pick those from the flower beds in front of the school!"
"Tikka?"
"Well I think it's sweet that you wanted to give me flowers," said Dawn, smiling as she accepted the offering. "See you around Alan."
*sigh* Uncontrolled 24/7 broadcast empathy.
"Bye, Dawn."
I waved farewell to Dawn as she passed through the doors back into the school and braced myself for what was to come. Staring at the car, I briefly contemplated running away and joining the navy. A life of swashbuckling adventure on the high seas with a girl in every port sounded quite exciting in theory, though knowing my luck the girl in every port would be me.
"Alan! I'm not waiting here all day for you!" shouted my mother from the car, shaking me out of my daydream of freedom.
"Tikka! Grandma! Tikka!" called out Sonnet, swooping around my head and then off towards the car closely followed by the others.
"Yeah... tikka grandma tikka," I snarked, picking up my backpack and following them.
"In the back on the plastic," ordered my mother with a scowl. "And make sure you keep your little familiars with you. I don't want them playing with the climate controls again."
"Yes mother."
Her dark haired bob flicked as she quickly turned her head away, underlining how angry she was with me. Opening the door I slid onto the plastic, which turned out to be some hastily ripped dustbin black bags, and I gestured to my litter to follow me.
"And make sure they stay down out of sight will you. You're in enough trouble as it is young lady."
"Sit down please girls," I instructed, trying to mentally project an image of them sitting down on the back seat of the car. I couldn't help but smile as I watched Sonnet shoo some of the stragglers onto the back seat. She'd always been a little bossy and had sort of become the de facto leader of the group.
"I trust you'll keep them there until we get home?" asked my mother as she pulled out of the school car park.
"I'm sure between Sonnet and me we can keep them in order mum."
"Sonnet? Which one is that?"
"Fourteen mum. She's number fourteen."
"Well if you had kept the little collars with the numbered tags on them I'd be able to tell them apart."
"The fur patterns are slightly different on each of them mother, you just have to make the effort to learn them. Anyway, they don't like the collars. It makes them feel like pets."
"That's part of the problem right there," said my mother shaking her head. "If you give them names without the binding ritual it just encourages them to act up. It makes the relationship one of equals. It's a basic rule of the Craft. Names convey power and if you actually took an interest in your heritage then you'd understand that. I mean, what sort of name is Sonnet anyway?"
"There are fourteen lines in a Sonnet. They all have names that are in some way linked to the numbers you insisted on giving them."
And you wouldn't believe how difficult it was to come up with interesting names linked to fourteen numbers.
"Alan," snapped my mother. "You needed to be able to control them, directing them to individual tasks as required. They are tools. Your life might even depend on it one day. That's why I suggested the numbers. It's the main reason why those of us who do have proper familiars try to keep the relationship to that of mistress and servant."
"I never really thought of Moondust as a familiar," I murmured in a small voice. "She was just the family cat."
"And that was cute when you were a small child but as an adult you must see them for what they really are. They are your protectors when you can no longer protect yourself and conduits through which additional magical energy can be conjured to augment your own. Pure magic, that is magic harnessed through the old races like pixies, is far more powerful and unpredictable than that tamed by humans through the Craft. Properly controlled and bound to your will their magic would make you a very formidable opponent. You know all this."
"Bound to my will, mother. Bound. I would be taking away part of their free will in exchange."
"You are being melodramatic. Again. It's not enslavement, it's housetraining. Taming. They would not suffer any more than working animals do. A familiar is also a responsibility for the master or mistress and in return for your mastery over them you would be expected to care for them."
"Well it's a shame it is too late for that then isn't it?" I replied, a sly smile playing at the corner of my lips. "If only you could have found them when the bond was still fresh enough for a binding ceremony..."
"You know very well why we couldn't find them," said my mother, sparing me a withering glance in the rear view mirror. "Don't think I didn't notice that they mysteriously vanished for that entire first moon."
Actually, they'd gone no further than my sock draw but I'd managed to convey the need for them to hide themselves from the rest of my family through a series of drawings and a slightly awkward game of charades that wasn't helped by the fact neither of us spoke the others language. The signal for 'sounds like' in charades is no use if in one players language 'ride' and 'hide' don't rhyme.
"Well, what's done is done..." I tried hard not to look smug as I said it.
My mother let out a disgusted snort in reply and turned her attention to the road. I gently tickled 'Canada' on her tummy where she lay next to me. I felt a genuine smile form as she alternately squirmed and purred next to me.
"You will be appearing before the full Family Council at 7.30pm tonight to explain yourself," said my mother after a few minutes of uncomfortably loud and pointed silence. "I expect you to be dressed appropriately."
"Muuuuuuum, the cloak is so hot and heavy," I whined.
"Fine. If that's how you want to be then I will lend you a smart dress instead."
I could see my mother's raised eyebrow in the mirror daring me to call her bluff.
"Errr... On second thought, the cloak is fine."
"Good. Then that's decided," said my mother, rather too smugly for my liking. "Make sure you find your father or I before we leave tonight if you are still a girl and we will change you back. We don't want a repeat of what happened with the neighbours do we?"
"No mother," I said, blushing slightly at the memory of that incident.
I'd been not long after my transformations started and I was sorting the recycling, which was one of my punishments... sorry chores... for staying home from the Institute. My regular recycling buddy was old Mrs Gentry from next door who I helped out now and then with some of her sorting when her arthritis was playing up. We had struck up a firm friendship even if it was mostly that sort of stereotypically English way where you say a lot about nothing. I'd continued a conversation we had been having the previous day and was half-way through telling her about my winning try for the school rugby team when I realised I'd forgotten that I didn't look like Alan at that moment. Luckily, mum had spotted the whole thing and come out to 'introduce' me as my cousin Alannah visiting for the weekend.
I'm not sure what Mrs Gentry made of it, I think she suspected that I was one of those ladettes she read about in the Daily Mail but regardless she clearly never suspected the involvement of the Craft and that was all that mattered. Revealing the existence of the Craft to a non-Family member was a serious matter and as long as she never suspected that I was a magically transformed Alan, I was still golden with the Family Council. Or at least silvery or bronzy given my black sheep status. However, ever since then mum kept insisting on reminding me about how careless I was whenever she wanted to put me in my place. Was it any wonder I couldn't wait to leave home at the end of the next academic year?
Maybe I wouldn't wait that long. I could runaway and join the circus right now. I could visualise my act - the Amazing Alannah, Queen of the Pixies. Not that the majority of my audience would be able to see the pixies thinking about it but then flea circuses in the 19th Century didn't seem to stop the public turning up to watch something they couldn't see and at least my pixies could genuinely ride a bicycle.
"Alan? Do you need any help?" called my mother through my bedroom door. I swear that woman was psychic sometimes and I could hear the hint of smugness in her voice. She knew I couldn't tie my own knot properly and wanted me to go cap in hand for her help.
"I'm fine mum!" I yelled, unable to stop an edge of teenage petulance creeping into my voice.
"There's no need to take that tone with me young man. Your father asked me to check you were ready as we're leaving in five minutes."
"I'll be down in a minute."
"We'll be expecting you. You know your father has to be there early as the Chairman of the Family Council."
As I heard her footsteps receding down the stairs I let out another squeal of frustration. Looking across my bedroom to the tailors dummy with the long royal blue hooded cloak hanging from it. I knew there was no way I'd get away with hiding a normal knot. The clasp holding the two sides of the cloak together was designed to show the area around the base of the neck. I was sooooo screwed.
A fluttering noise from beside the bed drew my attention, and I turned to see Sonnet hovering next to me with a broad smile on her face.
"Momma?"
I felt my body tingle as she spoke and I shifted a little uncomfortably as my body changed.
"Yes baby girl?" I asked, cringing slightly when I realised what I had said.
The flow of love through our empathic connection washed away much of my tension but also resulted in my lapsing into more maternal mode. One of the Family Elders had suggested that this was a self-defence mechanism in the bonding to ensure that I would not harm my newly acquired offspring. To be honest at moments like this I didn't care, the warmth and strength of the feeling of the love I received from my litter was almost giddying.
"Tikka! Hay-ulp Momma! Tikka!"
"How can you hay-ulp? I mean help," I asked, sitting up slightly.
"We can do it, we can do it! We can help our Momma!" she sang, tugging at one of my hands. "We can make her dress so pretty."
"I'm cutting back the amount of Disney Channel time you guys get," I laughed, letting her pull me to my feet. Around me other members of the litter buzzed.
"There's nothing to it really, we'll tie a sash around it," sang out Sunflower and Canada grasping opposite ends of my tie. To my side I noticed Pell holding up the instructions for the knot that I'd dropped which Sonnet proceeded to demonstrate like some imaginary Tie Airways stewardess going through the in-flight safety demonstration.
"Put a ribbon through it," sang Sunflower and Canada, checking periodically back with Sonnet as they worked. To my amazement the two pixies, swooped and looped around each other tying a perfect knot.
"Yessssss!" I exclaimed, clenching a fist in victory.
"When dancing at the ball, Momma will be more beautiful than all, in the lovely dress we'll make for Momma!" chorused the remaining members of the litter as they lifted my robe off the dummy and lightly draped it across my shoulders. Sonnet zipped back and forth directing minor adjustments to the positioning of the cloaks oversized hood which was currently draped over my shoulders and down my back. Once satisfied she signalled for the clasp at the front to be closed in position, locking with a delicate 'click'.
"Perfect," I beamed at my reflection in the mirror. Well perfect apart from the fact my trousers pooled around my ankles and my sleeves ended well past my hands due to the loss of 9 inches in height as a result of my transformation. The tie and cloak however were both perfectly positioned though. "Thank you all so much for your help."
I received a flurry of small kisses on my cheek in response before the litter flew back their converted cat basket bed.
I wiped a small happy tear from my eye. "Damn empathic connection."
"Tikka! Momma! Prit-ty!" sang Sonnet as she landed on my shoulder.
I turned slightly to look at myself in the wardrobe door mirror, my long wavy fair hair framed my heart shaped face with its high cheek bones. If I had to say so myself my eyes were my best feature, a beautiful hazel colour with long thick lashes that were underlined by a smattering of freckles. I had my mother's nose, which I had to say wasn't her best feature and my lips were a little narrower than I normally liked in a girl. I wasn't beautiful but I wasn't plain either.
"Pretty? Maybe..." I said, a smile on my face as I bit my lip slightly and flirted with my reflection. Was I pretty? I wasn't a 10 or a 9 but I was definitely a 7... in the right light, maybe an 8? I could live with that.
I could... what? Where the hell did that thought come from? Okay, I'll admit I was quite used to the gender change after over half a year of flipping and I wasn't freaked out by it anymore but I never embraced it. I'd clung desperately to the belief that I was the same regardless of the packaging and made no attempt to make any gender related adjustments. I wonder if it could be the empathic connection making me feel like this?
"Sonnet, sweetie, I need to turn back to Alan again."
"Tikka?"
"Alan. I need to look like Alan again," I said, carefully scooping her into my hand. I pointed to a picture stuck to the side of my mirror taken last year during our annual family holiday. "I need to look like that."
"Tikka?"
"Me," I said pointing to myself. "Look like that." I pointed to the picture of my male self.
"Tikka!"
A feeling like goosebumps surged across my skin and I watched with tears of joy as my reflection morphed from my girl form back to my normal male form.
"Finally! I got you to under--" I clamped my free hand over my mouth at the sound of my female voice.
"Tikka?" asked Sonnet, who with a push rose from my hand.
"Testing?" I whispered before clearing my throat.
"Testing?" I repeated more audibly. "Damn it."
I let my fingers tentatively touch my throat, noticing the absence of my Adam's apple. As I did so I felt my forearm brush against something that wasn't supposed to be there and indeed, looking down there was no sign of. Despite what my sense of touch told me my eyes kept telling me I possessed a flat male chest.
"Of course," I groaned. "It's a glamour. I said 'look like Alan' not 'be Alan'. Just great."
I'd been around the Family long enough to recognise some aspects of the Craft. I remember my older sister using an enhancement glamour before a date to hide spots and other imperfections. A very good glamour could even fool other members of the Family if they weren't actively looking for it.
"Tikka?" asked a smiling Sonnet as she floated in front of me.
Great. I can just hear my mother telling me it served me right. She wouldn't miss the opportunity to gloat over how if I embraced my heritage I'd be able to undo this on my own. I so need this on a night in which I'm going to be roasted - figuratively I hope - by the Family Council.
I squealed in anger, kicking at the waste paper basket under my desk. I had no choice but to try and brazen it out and hope no one noticed the glamour or even worse that it wore off while I'm speaking to the Family Council.
Noticed... damn. The height difference is going to be an immediately obvious sign.
"Sonnet, sweetie, please undo this," I begged again.
"Tikka?"
"Alan Lewis Goodspeed! Will you get a move on!" shouted my mother from the bottom of the stairs.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
"Alan! Answer your mother! Do you hear me?" bellowed my father, joining in. This was bad in that it meant he'd got fed up waiting and come back in from the garage.
"Sonnnnnnet?"
"Tikka?"
"Alan!" That last shout from my father was accompanied by the sound of him stomping up the stairs. Great. Now he's got a cob on as well.
"Sonnnnnnnnet? Please, for me?" I begged, my hands pressed together in prayer. "Pretty please?"
"Tikka! Momma prit-ty," sang Sonnet.
"Alan!" shouted my father, throwing the door open. "If you aren't dres--"
"Oh... you're ready," said my father, stopping in mid-tirade. "Why didn't you answer me?"
"Da--" I stopped and cleared my throat, trying to lower the pitch of my voice.
*Ahem* "Dad. Problems with my tie."
"Sore throat son? You sound very hoarse."
Oh my god, it's actually working. Although I think I sound more like Christian Bale's batman but with a less monotone delivery. Yeah, evildoers beware, I'm Pixie(wo)man.
"Tikka! Grandpa! Tikka!" cooed Sonnet, fluttering to him in greeting and saving me the need to speak. In reply my father gently but firmly waived her away from him.
"I can make your sore throat go away you know. I just wish you'd let us use our Craft skills to help you. Your brother and sisters have never had a day off sick in their lives and yet all you do is suffer unnecessarily," said my father, a weary tone in his voice. He was a good man and I knew it hurt him to watch me suffer when he could help me. He held his hand up to silence me when I started to reply. "I know. I know. You want to be 'normal'. It's overrated if you ask me."
I stifled a snort at that. I'm a girl wearing an illusion of my true self about to be hauled before a coven of witches and warlocks because of something done by my adoptive pixie children. From where I was standing in boxer shorts that were riding uncomfortably, normal looked like the promised land.
"Don't think for a moment that most of your normal friends would accept you if they knew about the Craft or the Family..." said my father before shaking his head in resignation. "Okay, let's go son."
He signalled for me to follow him. As I took a step forward I felt my feet slipping in and out of my shoe.
"Errr..." *Ahem* "I need to change my socks dad. These have a hole in and its cutting into my toe," I muttered. That and keep Gotham safe from crime.
"Oh for the love of... you've got one minute. You better be down stairs by the time I reach the car. You understand me?"
I nodded my head in response, not wanting to risk tripping up by speaking any more than I had too. Not least because my Christian Bale voice was actually beginning to make my throat genuinely hoarse.
My father canted his head to the side for a moment, staring intently at me.
"There's something different about you," mused my father with a frown. "I just don't know what it is."
I shrugged in response, feeling a trickle of sweat run down my back.
"I think it's seeing you in that suit and cloak for the first time in ages. You are starting to become an adult. A man," he said as his frown softened.
Nervously fidgeting with my collar I couldn't help but pray that he didn't discover how far from the truth that statement was right now.
"I... it seems like only yesterday you were so small, now look at you. I just wish that you would learn to take some responsibility in respect of your heritage. The world isn't always as kind on people like us as it is here in Ackholt and living in denial of your birthright isn't going to help you, as much as you might wish it too. I'm not trying to stop you from chasing your dreams whatever you may think, I just wish you'd work with us so that we could do it in such a way as to be compatible with the needs of the Family. I probably don't say this as often as I should son, but I do lo... care... about you. Very much."
My heart skipped a beat as he took a step towards me, arms starting to reach out for me. In a state of abject panic I was repeating the mantra 'please don't try and hug me' over and over in my mind. The glamour might be masking my appearance but my true state would be revealed by the contact of a hug. After a half a step he hesitated and instead of hugging me placed a hand on my shoulder.
"I'll see you down stairs. One minute remember."
I deflated like a balloon as he left the room, letting out a loud exhale. The steady trickle of sweat running down my side was a demonstration that my anti-perspirant was 39% nice smell, 60% outrageous marketing claims about my irresistibility to women and only 1% science. Thank heaven for that old fashioned slightly awkward English reserve my father had about hugging anyone other than my mother. The more pressing question was how he failed to notice the changes in me even with the glamour.
"Some sort of perception filter or trust spell to make him not question my height difference?" I mused aloud. "It must be a powerful one too for dad not to notice it at a conscious level."
"Tikka?"
"It was rhetorical," I replied, wearily massaging my temples with my hand. Slipping out of my shoes I grabbed a couple of pairs of sports socks from my draw. It would be uncomfortable as hell but worth it if it kept my shoes on and got one over on mum. Let her see how little I needed her help.
Pulling a couple of pairs of my thickest sports socks over my existing socks I squeezed my now thickly cotton padded feet back into my shoes.
"Hmmm... bit tight now if anything," I said to myself, taking a few test steps. "Still can't be helped."
After folding my trousers up enough so that I wasn’t standing on them, I carefully scooped Sonnet out of the air and put her down in the converted faux fur lined cat box on my dresser that was serving as their nest.
"Be good," I said to my litter. "Remember no internet and if I'm late, no tv after 9.00pm and no eating after midnight. Do you understand?"
"Tikka?"
"I'll take that as a yes. Be good and don't wait up!" I called as I closed the bedroom door behind me.
"Master Alan Goodspeed... the Council requests your presence," he said with a slight bow.
Taking a deep breath I carefully wrapped my headphone cable around my iPhone, using the time it gave me to compose myself, before sliding it under my cloak into my suit pocket. Clearing my throat to affect my 'male' voice, I tugged at the edges of my cloak trying to ensure it hung correctly.
"Do I look okay Jenkins?" I asked.
"You like fine Master Goodspeed. Every inch the future warlock."
"Don't get your hopes up," I snorted as I strolled past him into the Council Chamber. "I turn 18 and I'm never setting foot in here again."
"Think what you like Master Goodspeed but mark my words. Blood will out," replied Jenkins. The patronising tone in his voice really got my hackles raised.
"Mark my words Jenkins, this blood is out of here."
As the double doors squeaked closed behind me I slowed my walk a little in order to allow my eyes adjust to the gloom and tried to ignore the sound of Jenkins footsteps following behind me. Up ahead was the raised horseshoe shaped podium on which the thirteen members of Family Council were usually seated, although I noticed there were only twelve members of the Council present. The backlighting combined with the raised hoods of their cloaks shrouded their faces in darkness making it impossible to see which member of the Council wasn't seated. Glancing upwards I spotted a dark cloth embroidered with small golden stars. It gave a limited impression of the roof being open to the stars while not actually being outdoors. Modern witches and warlocks preferred the comforts of the indoors over meetings on Shakespearean style blasted heaths.
I came to a halt in front of the Council at a small chest height lectern, trying to suppress a smile as I noticed the lines of the centre circle of the indoor netball court running under my feet. In typical English fashion the Family Council Chamber was a multi-use facility, doubling as a sports hall at other times. The overall impression of the Council Chamber was that of a nice homely feel rather than the intimidating environment I suspected it was supposed to be. I dare say that it would have invoked more reverence if I'd actually been bothered about the Craft and the Family.
"Merry we meet, Master Goodspeed," intoned a deep voice from beside me. Flinching slightly in surprise I turned to see a figure cloaked in the navy blue robes of one of the many different Chapters of House Goodspeed. Personally, I thought my own royal blue robes were a more flattering colour.
"Jeez Uncle John," I squeaked before remembering to lower my voice. "Uhhh… what's with the sneaking up on me?"
He wasn't a blood uncle but rather an honorary one as he was a close family friend who I'd known all my life. Despite the lack of blood ties he was always my favourite uncle. In response to my question he raised his right hand slightly to show me the wand in it.
Yeah, there's absolutely nothing phallic at all about the tradition of women using rings but men using wands to cast magick. Technically all the wand or ring was, was a focus for the craft. I thought the ring was a much better approach as it saved having to carry a separate wand in a pocket but y’know, ‘tradition’.
"What? Seriously?" I asked, my voice rising in pitch a little in anger. "You think I'd come in here carrying? I don't even have a wand!"
"I'm sorry. I know in your case it's a formality but everyone who comes before the Council now has to undergo it," he replied, having the decency to look a little embarrassed.
"Since when has the Council been doing this?" I asked, raising my arms as if to be pat down.
"Magica abscondita revelare!" exclaimed Uncle John, waving the wand around me much like an inspection at an airport. "Since things have taken a turn for the worse between the feuding Great Houses on the Continent."
"What do you mea--"
"Wait... I've got something..."
Uncle John pointed to the folds of my cloak's hood with his wand. A bright golden glow emitted from deep in the hood, slowly rising and emerging in the air behind me. Behind me I could hear Jenkins' heavy footsteps as he rushed towards me.
"Tikka?"
"Whoa!" I called out, interposing myself between my uncle's raised wand and the stowaway pixie floating in a ball of golden light. "Everyone calm down! She's one of mine! Chill!"
Reaching out with a finger, Sunflower burst the ball of golden light like it was a soap bubble and spun to face the red faced and rapidly closing figure of Jenkins who had drawn his own wand and had started to utter the first words of a spell.
"Tikka Tikkety!" she growled as Jenkins was swallowed up in a similar golden ball of light to that which had imprisoned Sunflower. I gently reached out and pushed the floating ball of light away from me, smiling as it gently tumbled away with an immobile Jenkins inside.
Turning to Uncle John, I gestured for him to lower his wand which he did after a moment's hesitation.
"How dare you insult this Council by bringing that... that... creature... here!" screeched a voice from the podium.
I turned to see one of the Council members rising to her feet. I think it was Mrs Dorian from the shrill sound of her voice and her aquamarine coloured robes. I'd never particularly liked her but didn't feel too bad about it as the feeling was mutual. I stepped back to the lectern, gently ruffling the fur on Sunflower's belly. She rolled over on the slope where papers normally were placed, squirming and purring under my ministrations.
"Which one is that?" asked a voice that could only be my mother. The hood on her cloak was slightly tilted to one side and I couldn't help feel that I was being intently studied by her.
"Hi mum," I said waving to her seat on the podium and forcing as jovial a tone into my Christian Balesque voice as I could. "It's Sunflower."
"John step back and return to your seat if you will," said my mother in an even voice. "Sunflower and Canada are Alan's main guardians. Sunflower will interpret any threatening move towards my son by anyone other than immediate blood family as a hostile act and will react accordingly. I'm guessing that my son's feelings of goodwill towards you are the only reason you aren't like Jenkins right now."
Actually, I had no clue if that was the case but pressing my advantage I smiled genially towards Uncle John and nodded my head slightly in acknowledgement of what my mother had said. His eyes fixed on the golden ball of light that held Jenkins as he slowly backed away towards his seat on the podium.
"Merry we meet Master Goodspeed," intoned my father in a formal voice from the centre seat of the podium. "I don't suppose you could see your way to asking Sunflower to release Jenkins?"
"Merry we meet dad," I replied, the slight nod of deference ruined by the smirk on my face. "I'll try but I can't guarantee anything."
"Sunflower, would you please release Jenkins?" I asked as I continued to rub her tummy trying not to convey any mental sincerity to my words. In response she just giggled and purred. We all watched as Jenkins bounced off the back wall of the room and started to gently spin upwards towards the ceiling.
"Erm... no. I guess not. Not to worry though as their magic usually wear off after a couple of hours. Maybe you could tie him to something until then?"
I tried not to smile as I heard Uncle John suppress a laugh that earned him what I'm sure would have been a dirty look from Mrs Dorian had we been able to see her face. A faint groan from my father attracted my attention and I noticed that his head was tilt forward into his hands. If I had to guess I would say he was probably having one of his headaches. I'm sure it was coincidental that he seemed to have so many when I was about.
"Let's get this over with," my father said out loud. "We've heard from Miss Bradbury her version of events at the school. Would you be so kind as to furnish us with yours?"
"What?" bellowed Mrs Dorian, rising to her feet yet again. "You ask him to give evidence before the Council when he has yet to be placed under the 'Geas of Truth'?"
"He is already under a 'Vow of Obligation' so there is no need," said my mother. "I will know if he speaks a lie."
As I said earlier, we take our promises seriously in my Family. Unlike a geas which has a physical consequence for breaking it, a Vow of Obligation purely conveys upon the caster the ability to know whether the subject is, or has previously broken, the obligation of the vow. In my case this would be to speak a lie. I know some shall we say, less romantic, couples in the Family use them as part of their pre-wedding vows in respect of fidelity. My parents used them from time to time as punishments for us kids as they had the advantage of being non-binding thereby allowing us to break them if necessary for our or the Family's protection while still enabling our parents to know if we broke the vow. Try that with a geas and you might find yourself suffering twenty-four hours of boils or something equally unpleasant no matter how noble your reason for breaking the geas was.
"And we're going to accept that?" snapped Mrs Dorian, her hood turning slightly as she looked around the horseshoe at the Council members.
"Umm... yes?" replied the figure at the end of the horseshoe on my right. "I trust Mistress Goodspeed to appraise us if her son tries to lie."
"Yesssss!" I hissed under my breath. "Way to go Aunt Sophie."
Seeing no support from the rest of the Council Mrs Dorian rather petulantly slumped back in her seat causing it to creak slightly under her weight, which like her age was I'm sure something that was greater than she ever publicly admitted too.
"Master Goodspeed, your version of events please?" asked my father.
I kind of felt a little for him trying to hang onto the seriousness of the proceedings despite the fact that Jenkins' bubble was bouncing along the ceiling. This was compounded by the fact that I knew pretty much everyone on the Council thereby negating the whole reason for the cloaks in the first place.
"Well, as you know I've been trying to teach my litter about the differences between what's real and what's not and to understand the concept of consequences. So, I've been showing them tv programmes where they debunk urban myths through sort of DIY science."
"And?"
"Well, I think they decided to conduct their own DIY myth busting after watching a cartoon where one of the characters cherry bombed the school toilets causing water to spout out of them."
"Truth," announced my mother.
"I have a question," asked Mrs Dorian.
"The Chair recognises Mistress Dorian," sighed my father.
"Master Goodspeed. Is it true that you did not complete the binding ritual to control your little pes... familiars?"
"Yes."
"Truth," said my mother confirming my statement. Not that she needed the magic of the vow for that one.
"And why was that?"
"Because my parents were unable to locate them for the first moon," I responded. I knew she was going somewhere with this even if for the moment it escaped me.
"But you knew where they were during that first moon didn't you?"
So this was where she was going with this line of questioning. It was one thing for my parents and I to both know unspokenly that I had hidden my litter during that first moon but it was another thing entirely for my denials to be exposed so boldly as lies while surrounded as we were by other members of the Council. It was becoming clear to me now that Mrs Dorian's intent was not just to get her pound of flesh from me but to also make my parents squirm as well. I glanced a hastily at my mother, keeping my counsel to myself.
"Master Goodspeed? Please answer my question."
"Chairman, I don't see how this is relevant," interrupted Uncle John. "I move that Mistress Dorian confine her questions to the event for which Alan is before us for judgement."
"Ahh but I am," replied Mrs Dorian, sounding insufferably smug. "I'm attempting to establish that Master Goodspeed has previously been negligent in the command of his familiars and that such negligence led directly to today's incident."
"Alan... please answer the question," said my father.
I felt my shoulders drop in response to my father's words. "I... yes, I knew where they were during the first moon."
"And you deliberately withheld that knowledge from your parents with the intent to prevent the binding ritual from being performed?"
"Yes," I replied in a quiet voice, avoid the eyeless gazes of the Council's darkened hoods.
"Mistress Goodspeed?" asked Mrs Dorian, positively crowing.
"Truth and Truth," said my mother after a moment's hesitation. I could hear the pain in her voice.
"I put to you Council Members, that Master Goodspeed was negligent in the control of his familiars and that the direct consequence of this was the property destruction and the exposure of a creature of The Golden Court to a mundane," said Mrs Dorian, rising to her feet. "A fact further compounded before this very Council in respect of poor Master Jenkins!"
"Hey! He drew on us!"
"I move that Master Goodspeed be placed under a Geas of Agony compelling him to learn the Craft so that he may be better placed to prevent any such reoccurrence of today's events!" yelled Mrs Dorian, drowning out my further protests. A Geas of Agony was exactly what it said on the tin. I'd be wracked with unbearable pain if I didn't fulfil the conditions of the geas.
The sound of overlapping voices in argument from the members of the Council was brought to an abrupt end by my father banging his gavel on a small wooden block in front of him.
"Before I call for a seconder for Mistress Dorian's proposal, does anyone else wish to speak?" asked my father, scanning the podium. A raised finger from him silenced me.
"Excuse me Chairman, if I may ask a question of Master Goodspeed?" asked an accented male voice that I didn't recognise. His seat was that of Old Warlock Hargrove's who had died a few months previously. He had no blood kin to take his place and I tried to recall the Chapter represented by the newcomers Cambridge Blue cloak, the greener hue to it making him stand out from the other assorted more traditional blues.
"The Chair recognises Master Bonvitesse," said my father with a wave of his hand.
So the accent was French. He definitely didn't learn his English here as there was a sound to it that wasn't English-English if you know what I mean.
"Did you know they were planning to do this... experiment? Or otherwise indicate that they should test ideas in such a manner?"
"No."
"Truth," announced my mother with evident relief in her voice.
"Thank you Mistress Goodspeed," replied Master Bonvitesse with a nod to my mother. "Despite the comments of Mistress Dorian, I am satisfied your son's recollection tallies with the earlier testimony provided by Miss Bradbury that Alan had no hand in this matter. I do have one more question though..."
"You may proceed," said my father with a nod.
"Did it work?" asked Master Bonvitesse with a hint of amusement in his voice.
"I'm sorry?" I asked.
"Did it duplicate the cartoon with all the water spouting out of the toilets?"
"Ummm...no," I replied, a crimson blush spreading across my face. "I don't know what they used for explosives but it destroyed all four cubicles and ripped the water pipes out of what was left of the wall. And I mean destroyed the cubicles. And the other fixtures and fittings. The largest piece of porcelain left that I could see was no more than a few centimetres long. Ironically, the only thing that seemed to survive anywhere near intact was the casing of the explosive which is why I ended up in the Headmaster's office."
"Truth."
"Thank you Chairman. I have no further questions. I seek to move that Master Goodspeed not be held accountable to this Council for the events of today."
"Does that proposal have a seconder?" asked my father looking along the horseshoe.
Uncle John raised a hand in response. "I second the proposal."
"Thank you John. Now, do we have a seconder for Mistress Dorian's proposal that Alan be placed under a Geas of Agony so as to learn to better control his familiars?" asked my father.
I tried my hardest not to laugh at the unseen expression of outrage that I felt Mrs Dorian wore when no one on the Council moved to second her proposal. Receiving no indications of anyone wishing to speak in support of Mrs Dorian my father continued.
"On that basis, I call for a vote that we accept Master Goodspeed's explanation of events. All in favour?"
I watched with relief as my father counted the raised hands. By my count I had ten members of the Council, excluding my father who as Chairman rarely voted except to use a casting vote in the event of deadlock.
"All against?"
I snorted quietly as Mrs Dorian raised her hand.
"Abstentions?"
I was a little surprised to see my mother raise her hand at this point. Whether it was to preserve her neutrality in the matter of her own son or whether she just couldn't bring herself to side with Mrs Dorian remained to be seen.
"On that basis, it is carried and it shall be entered into the records as soon as the clerk stops bouncing off the ceiling."
Uncle John gave me a thumbs up from his seat. Letting out a sigh of relief, I felt my legs buckle slightly as the tension flowed out of me.
"Mister Chairman! This is outrageous!" cried Mrs Dorian. "Surely the boy deserves punishment for his actions!"
I silently wished for a tornado to drop a house on her to no avail.
"Chairman, if I may?" asked the hooded figure of my Aunt Sophie. "While not agreeing with Mistress Dorian's earlier proposal it would seem to be appropriate that some form of sanction be applied in the circumstances."
A small groan escaped from my mouth at that suggestion. The hoods of the other Council members bobbed up and down.
"Agreed," said my father, a stern tone in his voice. "Does anyone have any suggestions… other than a Geas."
"Chairman?" asked Master Bonvitesse, raising a hand. "I realise that I am new this Council but may I ask why your son is not studying at the Institute with the rest of the children of age and possessing the Talent? I could understand if he had no talent for the Craft but clearly if he is able to sustain those creatures he has it."
"He has declined the opportunity to learn the Craft from a very early age Master Bonvitesse," said my father, his hand disappearing into his hood I assume to massage his temples again. "We hoped it was something that he might grow out of as he got older like his dislike of peas--"
"-- or his insistence on dressing up as a ballerina," interrupted Aunt Sophie with a gentle giggle. "He was so cute."
"Yes, thank you Sophie for bringing that up," replied my father. I felt my face burn with embarrassment and studied the markings on the floor intently, unable to look anyone in the hood.
"Anyway, I hoped it would be a phase but if anything it's got worse. He won't learn the Craft and he still won't eat his peas."
"And as for the ballerina outfit?" asked Master Bonvitesse, struggling to hide the amusement from his voice.
At this moment I was glad of the darkened state of the room as it meant no one could clearly see my blush.
"Anyway, I agree with him on the pea issue," laughed Master Bonvitesse. "But could you not have sent him to the Institute anyway?"
"No. He's my son and while I don't understand or agree with it, I respect his decision to be his own man."
I looked up to unexpectedly meet my father's gaze, as he pulled his hood back. The simple nod of respect he gave me meant as much to me as a hundred thousand words. He was acknowledging my freedom to choose my own life publicly for the first time. I felt my chest tighten as the implications of those words sunk in. Maybe there was a sliver of a chance that I could leave the Family but not leave my family, something I had assumed until now would be impossible.
"I understand," responded Master Bonvitesse in a slow, measured tone. "However, there have been unintentional consequences to his lack of control. I have heard that there is a Family run group for those who have the Talent but either are not suited to or choose not to attend, the Institute?”
Oh no, no, no… this is so not good.
“You mean the Corrective Craft Group?”
“Yes. Would not your son be suited to attending that? He can still avoid the Institute while learning how to better guide his familiars. They are going to be together for a long time after all.”
A smile crossed my father's face before he slowly pulled his hood back up. "I like your thinking Master Bonvitesse. Does this suggestion meet with the approval of the Council?”
“Daaaaad, please not the Misfits…”
‘The Misfits’ was what the kids with the Talent called the Corrective Craft Group, an assortment of the inept, the incorrigible and the awkward. The thought of spending three evenings a week studying remedial Magick with them made what little street cred I had in the town want to curl up and die. However, a chorus of ‘ayes’ drowned out anything further I had to say on the matter.
“Then it is agreed. Master Goodspeed you are ordered to attend the Corrective Craft Group for a period of six months after which this Council will review your progress and determine whether further corrective measures need to be applied.”
“But daaaaad–“
“This meeting is now closed,” announced my father banging his gavel on the desk.
"He didn't seem to mind," said my father glancing back at me. "Someone had to do it and besides, he'd already said he'd stay and help clear up so that everything was ready for the netball league tomorrow night."
"Oh yeah. I'd forgotten they play Wednesday's."
I enjoyed most ball games with a passion but with my height, and by that I mean my real male height, I had an edge at games like basketball and netball. I wasn't good enough to consider playing professionally, not that there was any real money in playing basketball outside the US, but at a school level I was quite good. I'd made the difficult choice of giving up mixed netball when my schedule started to overload, opting to get my round ball fix through the school boys’ basketball team. I really did miss netball though.
"Alan..." asked my mother looking out her doors window as she spoke, her voice had a hint of something I couldn't quite place in it. “Why didn't you change into a girl when Sunflower defended you?"
Oh... shoot. It hadn't even occurred to me that in putting so much effort into looking like Alan that it might be suspicious if I stayed like Alan.
"Umm... well, I'm..."
"And what's wrong with your voice? It keeps creeping up in pitch."
"I'm..."
Fine? Can I get away with saying fine to my own personal human lie detector? I mean is it really a lie? I'm not freaking out about being a girl after all.
"I'm... not quite feeling myself," I answered, biting at the corner of my lip as I watched the sapphire ring on my mother's hand pulse slowly in affirmation of my statement.
"That throat still bothering you son? You still sound a bit hoarse," asked my father absently, his attention focused on checking his mirrors before turning the car into our road. "If you aren't going to let me help then the least you can do is take something for it when we get home. I don't want to have to listen to you coughing all night. I think we've still got some of that mundane cough syrup from the last time you were ill."
"Umm... yeah," I replied clearing my throat.
"You never answered my question, about why you didn't turn into a girl back at the Council," asked my mother.
"Ummm... because..."
A brief flash of colour caught my eye as I looked out of the car window.
"Wait... is that Mrs Gentry gardening in the dark?" I asked, squinting into the darkness.
"I think it is," said my father slowing as we approached the short concrete slope leading to our garage. "Do you think she's gone..." My father whistled a cuckoo sound to finish his words.
"Hush Jeff," chided my mother, gently slapping my father's arm. "She's a sweet old lady and she's a hell of a lot better neighbour than the Anderson's were."
"Mum, she's not wearing a coat," I said taking a good look at her. "She'll get wet and it's cold out there tonight."
The car bumped slightly as dad mounted the dropped kerb and coasted to a stop in front of the garage.
"Fine. Fine. I'll put the car away and go check on her," said my father, fumbling in the armrest storage space for the remote for the garage door. "I see her son's car in their drive, so if she seems out of it I'll speak to him. Okay?"
"You park the car. I'll go check on her," I said releasing my seatbelt. "She's my friend."
"I'll come with you. If she is... well, this could be a confusing and traumatic experience for her," said my mother, releasing her own seatbelt. "Just make sure your familiar doesn't come with us."
"She has a name," I huffed, turning to the pixie stretching out on the backseat next to me. I tried hard to project the image of her returning to the house with dad, hoping that once indoors she'd instinctively return to the others. "Sunflower, go inside with dad."
"Jeff, do you mind putting our cloaks away?" asked mum.
"What? Oh Yeah, that's fine Angelika," said my father looking up. "I think someone moved the garage remote from the car, so I've got to go inside and find it anyway."
That was my dad in a nut shell. Powerful and influential warlock to the world but, well a dad really behind the scenes - an embarrassingly bad dancer, a little awkward expressing emotions and always losing things but never admitting it. A favourite tactic of his was to put things in a quote 'safe place'. It was usually so safe we wouldn't find it again without one of them resorting to a Spell of Finding.
"Remember to take your cloak off before you leave the car," added my mother glaring at me as I was half-way out of the car. "I don't care if it's raining, there's no need to advertise the Family to a stranger and if she asks--"
"--we've been to a meeting of the Ackholt Civic Society," I intoned in a bored air. "I know the cover story."
"It was a presentation on crime and punishment if she asks," said my mother pointedly as she released the clasp on her cloak and exited from the opposite side of the vehicle.
I heard my mother fall into step behind me as we crossed from our drive to the neighbours. The small droplets of a light spring drizzle clung to my jacket and I pulled my upturned collar up around my neck as I hurried towards Mrs Gentry. Our house, like most of those in the road, was semi-detached with the driveway on the detached side paired with the drive of the adjacent property's detached side, creating rows of spaced out triangles. The front area to Mrs Gentry's house still in its original configuration, unlike many of the properties who had paved over the garden, and was dominated by a rectangle of lawn surrounded by a border of flower beds. In the eighteen months Mr and Mrs Gentry had lived in the house she'd thrown her life into creating a beautiful English country garden look.
"Why are you walking funnily?" asked my mother. "It's almost like you are walking like a g--"
I hurriedly glanced over my shoulder to see my mother shaking her head, the observation she had been trying to form had been lost due to the perception filter. The fact she had come so close to articulating it however, told me that I was running out of time. Quickening my pace I stepped over the border that lined the lawn side of Mrs Gentry's drive onto the small crazy paving path.
"Mrs Gentry?" I called out as we approached her.
Kneeling down next to her, I could see that she had been planting some flowers in preparation for the summer and she had her array of gardening tools neatly laid out next to her. She looked up at me, wiping some wet hair from where it had stuck to her forehead, her milky blue eyes struggling to focus on me for a moment.
"Mrs Gentry? Are you okay?"
Mrs Gentry blinked a couple of times before her face brightened with a smile.
"Hello Alan," she replied. "I'd hope to run into you. What brings you over? Is there a problem with the recycling again? Only I told George to be more careful with where he put our wheelie bin this time."
"No it's fine," I said returning her smile. "I came to check you were okay, being out here this late without a coat an' all."
She blinked a few times, her face creasing in puzzlement.
"Late dear?" she asked, looking up at the partially cloud obscured stars. "What time is it?"
"It's gone ten Agnes," said my mother from behind me. "How long have you been out here?"
"Not... I... I don't know," her head canted slightly in thought. "I don't even remember coming out here. It... it just seemed the right thing to do, to be gardening, I'm not sure why though."
"Why don't we gather up your things and we'll go inside? I'll go and nudge George to get you a towel and put the kettle on," said my mother.
Mrs Gentry nodded slowly in response. I couldn't help but smile. A cup of tea. The ultimate English solution to all ills.
"Alan, please could you help pick up all her gardening things?"
"Sure mum," I said gathering up lose flower pots and placing them on a plastic tray. "It won't take long."
My mother nodded, favouring Mrs Gentry with a sad smile as she stepped past us and heading for the house. She mimed the words 'I'll speak to her son' to me as she hurried towards their house.
"Thank you Alan," said Mrs Gentry, her voice hitching slightly with emotion. "I... I don't know what to say. I must seem so foolish."
I struggled to find the appropriate words. What do you say to someone potentially looking at the on-set of dementia? It's okay? Because with what little I know about the subject, okay seems to be the last thing it would be. Frankly if she wanted to scream at the moon right now at the thought of what was happened to her I would understand. I looked away briefly trying to get control of my thoughts and pulled my suit jacket closer together with my free hand in response to a tingle of goosebumps from the cold night air and the coating of rain running across my hands.
"The one thing I do know for sure is that you aren't foolish," I said, fighting the lump in my throat. "All that time we spent talking over the last year has proven that to me. I love listening to you talk about all the places you've been and the things you've done... and your wonderful garden."
She jumped a little as I reached out and placed my hand on hers in a gesture of support. Her hand was like ice and I wondered how she hadn't noticed how cold she was. The metal of her wedding band felt unnaturally warm in comparison to her skin. I couldn't help but wonder how Mr Gentry was going to take this news that his wife seemed to be losing it. He seemed so withdrawn at times as it was.
She met my gaze, holding it for a second a sad smile on her face.
"You've been a real friend Alan when I haven't had anyone else to turn too. I've treasured the time we've spent talking. I owe you so much..."
"Hey, hey... hush. Don't talk like that you're not going anywhere yet," I replied.
"You don't know how often I've longed for death," Mrs Gentry whispered. "To be free of this prison of a body. Don't get old Alan, particularly before your time."
"Please... don't say that," I replied, my voice softened to match her own whispered tones. "Let's go inside eh? I'm sure that George is wondering what's happened to you."
She smiled sadly at me and squeezed my hand in her hand sandwich.
"I think he's known for some time something was wrong. I just don't think he's known how to articulate it. I'm actually glad this is happening now you know. This is the year of his diamond wedding anniversary. I'd have felt such a fraud pretending I remembered his wedding."
I rested my free hand on top of hers, patting our hand sandwich gently. "C'mon, let's get in the warm and dry..."
Nodding in acceptance she extended a hand and as carefully as possible I assisted her getting on to feet. Quickly scooping up her gardening tools into the tray I offered her an extended elbow and she threaded her arm through mine.
"Knock, knock," I called as we carefully made our way into house through the open front door.
"In the kitchen!" called my mother. "There's a pot brewed."
"You can put those on the side in the kitchen," said Mrs Gentry, gesturing to a wooden door at the end of the hallway.
The door was slightly ajar when we reached it, so I gently pushed it open with my foot. Inside the small kitchen-come-dining-room I found my mother seated a square wooden table, a contented smile on her face as she savoured the warmth from a steaming hot mug in her hands.
"Alan, this is Aaron Gentry. Aaron, this is my son Alan."
Aaron Gentry rose to his feet as we approached the table and pulled out a chair for his mother, wrapping her in a blanket as he did so. Aaron was a tall, slim man, immaculately turned out in a smart but casual linen suit. His short blonde hair was messily styled giving him a rakish charm and when glanced over his mother's head at me and smiled I felt myself flush with warmth. Oh yeah, as a girl I'm definitely playing for the home team. It's one of those wonderful intangibles to the transformation that remind me that humans are more than just the sum of their intellect. Assuming this was me of course and not some side effect of being a pixie momma.
"You sit down and warm up mother," said Aaron, patting his mother's hand. "I'll make you a nice cup of tea."
Mrs Gentry mumbled a reply that I couldn't quite make out and sat with her head bowed staring at her hands resting in her lap.
"Just put those down anywhere on the kitchen counter," said Aaron with a wave of his hand at the trays I was carrying. "How do you like your tea Alan?"
"White with two if that's no bother?" I replied, dusting some loose earth of my hands after placing the gardening tray down.
"None at all Alan. As I was explaining to your mother... sorry, as I was explaining to Angelika..." he said favouring my mother with a smile. "I'd just brewed a pot anyway so an extra couple of guests is no trouble."
"Ohhhh... that's so good," I moaned, accepting the warming mug in my cold hands. I gently sipped from the mug, letting the warm liquid suffuse through my cold body. "What's that flavour to it? It's quite wonderful."
"Aaron was saying he has it blended especially for him in London," said my mother taking a sip from her own mug.
"I'd be happy to get a couple of packets put aside for you if you like it."
"Thank you. I'm sure Jeff would love it as well," said my mother, favouring Aaron with a wide smile. "I was always more of a coffee drinker but I have to say I've become a convert to tea since moving to England."
"You're not English?" asked Aaron with a surprised tone in his voice. "Scottish? Welsh?"
"Nein. Ich bin Deutscher."
"Huh. I would never have guessed. You have no trace of an accent."
"Thank you, though I've been speaking English regularly since my teens and lived here for over twenty years now."
"So what brought you to England? Your husband?"
I placed my mug carefully on the table and stiffled a yawn. My mother could wax lyrically for hours on how she met my father.
"We met at boarding school. It was love at first sight," said my mother, sighing slightly as her eyes shut and a faraway expression crossed her face. "We've been together since we were fourteen. Never been apart for more than one night since we married," said my mother, before hastily adding. "Which wasn't at fourteen, married that is. We married after we got our degrees."
"Are you okay Mrs Gentry?" I asked, turning to her. "Only you don't seem to have touched your tea."
"Sorry but I find that the asphodel in the tea gives me indigestion."
My mother nodded, covering her mouth to hide a yawn. "I know what you mean. I have a similar issue with garlic."
"Same here," I mumbled around a large yawn.
"You need to get to bed earlier young man," said my mother. "Though the asphodel in the tea isn't helping. If you mix it with wormwood it forms the base for a..."
I watched an expression of alarm spread across my mother's face as I fought another yawn.
"Alan... get your fathe--"
My mother's mug slipped from her hand, clattering against the wooden table top and spilling its contents in a rapidly expanding puddle.
"Runnnnnnn..." said my mother, her speech slow and slurred. Her eyes fell closed and after a few seconds of her head bobbling she slumped forward across the table.
"Mum? No..." I mumbled, blinking in an attempt to focus. Rising to my feet I stumbled a few steps towards the kitchen door before pitching forward onto the cold and hard tiled floor. The last thing I saw before my eyes finally closed was the pistol holster under Aaron's jacket as he knelt down in front of me and pulled some rope from his jacket pocket.
"As my Master wills it, so shall it be done."
I heard a door close as my eyes fluttered open to reveal nothing but whiteness. It took a few moments for my vision to focus enough to start picking out texture in the whiteness and as my head rolled slightly a bulbless light fixture came in view. The sounds of movement just out of the range of my vision confirmed that I wasn't alone and from the earlier conversation at least one of the voices I'd heard earlier was still in the room with me. I wasn't sure that I wanted to meet them though given the use of the phrase 'quiet kill'.
Oddly despite my predicament I felt very calm to the degree that I almost felt emotionally numb. I found it hard to concentrate on anything and I felt my mind start to drift. I giggled to myself, feeling a little light headed as the edges of my vision began to blur. My eyelids drooped closed as the welcoming comfort of nothingness embraced me once more. A grunt of pain from someone nearby caused my eyes to jerk open again and with a lot of effort I managed to roll onto my side to get a better view.
"Ahhh... good you're awake," said Agnes Gentry, kneeling a short distance from me. Her face was flushed red and her breathing ragged.
"What happened?" I asked, my dry throat reducing my voice to little more than a soft whisper. "How did I get here?"
"Some disorientation is to be expected," replied Agnes through gritted teeth. I noticed her hands clawing at the carpeted floor I was lying on.
"I remember we were drinking... tea? Something happened after... it was drugged?"
"Yes, it was."
"Why can't I get up?" I asked, giggling as I tried to rise but instead fell back against the floor. "And why do I feel so good about it?"
"It's what they call 'happy juice' that is doing it to you," said Agnes. "That combined with a heavy dose of the sleeping draught in the tea should stop you escaping if you came round before they were ready. You'll find in addition to your muscles being very relaxed you'll feel very light headed and have problems getting to... enthusiastic... about anything."
I tried to flex various muscles in my arms and legs only to be rewarded with small, barely controlled movements in response. Thankfully I wasn't in any pain, I just felt numb all over. The numbness in my body muted my sense of touch giving everything a fairly dreamlike quality. It was like I was watching a 3D movie. It looked real but you couldn't feel anything you when you tried to reach out and touch it, although there was the added benefit that real life wasn't making me feel queasey like a 3D movie did. I kind of wished it was a movie so that at least I'd know what genre it was and what it held in store for me. Was it a comedy? A horror movie? An action-adventure? Or a fantasy movie? Did it have a really happy ending? Whatever it was, given the only other occupant in the room as far as I could see was an octogenarian I was really, really hoping this wasn't going to be a porn movie.
"Where's my mother?" I asked, trying to move my head enough to look around the room.
"She's safe for the moment."
"But probably not for the longer term," I replied, catching the inference. "Why are you doing this to us? We've never done anything to you."
"I don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice," I giggled. "Just because you don't like it doesn't not make it a choice..."
"You've been a real friend Alan when I haven't had anyone else to turn too. I've treasured the time we've spent talking. I owe you so much," she replied with a grunt. I tried to ignore her as she pulled a strip of dry skin from her arm.
"My iPhone is in my suit pocket. You could call my father and ask him to bring help..."
I tried to point to the pocket but my arm just flopped around. The numbness was interfering with fine motor control, much like the feeling when you wake up after lying awkwardly on an arm. I found myself giggling from the sensation of pins and needles.
Agnes let out an almost feral grunt of anguish and as she clawed at the carpet I noticed her nails breaking off from her bloodied fingers.
"I wish I could Alan," she panted in-between growls of pain. "The trouble is I'm just as much a prisoner as you are."
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut as she ripped at her blouse, sending buttons rattling around the room. While I wasn't adverse to a free show, there were some sights that I wasn't in a hurry to experience. Naked octogenarians being one of them.
"What are you doing?"
"Changing."
Something heavy and wet hit the ground close by, splashing my face. I cracked open an eye to see a chunk of wrinkly flesh lying on the ground. Glancing upwards I saw Agnes ripping the bloodied skin from her torso to reveal fresh skin beneath. Where the old skin had been removed I could see that Agnes’ aged body was gone, replaced by a much younger female form.
"What are you?" I giggled, still struggling to put any urgency in my voice. I had a horrible feeling I was going to die but not end up being too bothered about it when it happened. At this rate my tombstone would read 'Here lies Alan Lewis Goodspeed. Age 17. He died. Meh.'
"A metamorph. What your people once called a changeling. They intend for me to replace you.”
“Pffft,” I exclaimed, suppressing another giggle. “We both know that while a changeling can fool a mundane, they can’t fool a Warlock or Witch for long. Those with the Talent have second sight.”
“True… unless I take your essence into mine.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“Bone marrow.”
“Where are you going to get a surgeon for that procedure at this time of night?”
“There’s no need for any surgeon,” she replied, the nails extending from her hand like talons. “If it’s any consolation you will probably pass out from the blood loss before I start sucking the marrow out of your bones.”
Oddly enough it wasn’t any consolation though on the plus side at least I knew what sort of movie I was in now. It was in a horror movie... with a cliff hanger. I couldn't help but wonder if it was too late to hold out for the octogenarian porn option?
End of Chapter 1
Alan Goodspeed is an ordinary teenage boy with all the hopes and dreams of any other teenage boy. Except for when he was a teenage girl. And then there was the whole pixie parenthood thing. That's fairly normal... right?
Fair warning, this is Chapter 2 in a series that I've not finished yet. That being said, for those who do decide to proceed, it's all plotted and I do intend to finish this, even if it is at the normal Jemima pace of things and will be woven around producing chapters of 'We are Family'. Thanks for reading this far and I hope you enjoy this second chapter! Fair warning, it is a little darker than the first chapter in places (see tags) but like any story it needs dark to sustain the light. And of course *big hugs* to everyone who took the time to kudos and comment on chapter one. It was genuinely appreciated. Thank you.
Previously in Chapter 1
"What are you?" I giggled, still struggling to put any urgency in my voice. I had a horrible feeling I was going to die but not end up being too bothered about it when it happened. At this rate my tombstone would read 'Here lies Alan Lewis Goodspeed. Age 17. He died. Meh.'
"A metamorph. What your people once called a changeling. They intend for me to replace you.”
“Pffft,” I exclaimed, suppressing another giggle. “We both know that while a changeling can fool a mundane, they can’t fool a Warlock or Witch for long. Those with the Talent have second sight.”
“True… unless I take your essence into mine.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“Bone marrow.”
“Where are you going to get a surgeon for that procedure at this time of night?”
“There’s no need for any surgeon,” she replied, the nails extending from her hand like talons. “If it’s any consolation you will probably pass out from the blood loss before I start sucking the marrow out of your bones.”
Oddly enough it wasn’t any consolation though on the plus side at least I knew what sort of movie I was in now. It was in a horror movie... with a cliff hanger. I couldn't help but wonder if it was too late to hold out for the octogenarian porn option?
Why do these things always happen to me?
I’m a pretty good guy on the whole, when I am a guy that is. It’s not like I’m a bad girl either. If my life had story tags it would be a ‘good boy to good girl’ kind of story. I care about people and try to be kind. I even sort my recycling properly. And what do I get for a reward? I’m about to be eaten alive by my changeling neighbour. All I can say is hope she realises how difficult it’s going to be to get the stains my blood leaves out of the carpet. I know it’s a bit passive-aggressive but the happy juice in my system is keeping me from getting anymore worked up about it.
*sigh* Why me?
Actually, that’s a good point. *giggle* Why me? I mean I know I should be freaking out big time right now but the happy juice is kind of making everything seem less urgent… calmer… and it’s actually giving me a chance to think things through a bit more easily rather than following my natural urges to start screaming and never stop. Still, there’s got to be a way out of this. I just wish I knew what it was.
I glance over at Agnes and immediately wish I hadn’t. Using her extended talons, she carefully slides them under the skin along her jaw line and with a horrible, wet ripping sound begins to lift her skin from her face. It’s almost like something out of the 1960’s Mission Impossible TV show disguises as she pulls off Agnes’ aged face and grey hair and casually discards it on the floor to reveal a much younger looking woman beneath it. A much younger woman who doesn’t look like me. Actually, even with all the blood over her face and hair that is masking her appearance a little, you’d have to be blind to think we even looked remotely alike let alone that she resembled Agnes — even a younger Agnes — in any way.
“Ahhhhh…. That feels soooooo wonderful.”
There’s a slight accent to her voice. It’s a little sing-songy. Not Scandinavian sing-songy but definitely European sounding. She tilts her head back like some sort of sun worshiper enjoying the first light of dawn and for a few seconds the only sound in the room is that of her breathing as she takes several lung clearing deep breaths.
“Who… who are you?”
The smile she flashes briefly before it clouds over is young and full of life but at the same time tinged with melancholy.
“Danique… my name, my real name, is Danique. Danique Goed. I’m sorry we get to finally meet under such circumstances Alan.”
Retracting her talons she reached over and squeezed my arm in an incongruously touching gesture from the woman who is going to kill me.
“I meant it when I said earlier that I had been grateful for your company these last few months. It wasn’t easy being Agnes and you… you made it easier than you will ever know. Being able to speak to someone so much closer to my real age meant a lot to me, even if I was under orders not to reveal my true nature... or to warn you of the danger you and your family faced.”
“You mean danger beyond that of having the marrow sucked from my bones?”
“Yes…” she replied, turning away from me. “What they will make me do when I’ve replaced you… you wouldn’t want to be around to see it any more than I want to do it. They will use me to destroy your House from the inside. So much blood will be spilt.”
“You keep saying ‘they’ and acting like you have no choice Ag… Danique,” I said, trying to reach out with numb fingers to grasp her hand. “Who are they? How are they making you do this to me? There is no one else here in this room but us… please, call my father…”
“The easiest question to answer is how they are making me do this to you,” said Danqiue, holding her blood stained but newly youthful hand up to show that Agnes’ wedding ring was still firmly attached to her finger. “I know you have no Talent Alan but have you ever heard of the ‘Ring of Servitude’?”
“No,” I replied with a happy juice inspired giggle. “Does it do the housework for you or something?”
“I wish it did,” said Danique, flexing the talons from her fingertips. “It’s one of a number of artefacts developed on the orders of the English Witchfinder General during the witch hunts of the 1640s. As I’m sure you know, whilst a mundane has great difficulty spotting a witch or warlock who isn’t actively casting magick, those with the Talent can see it in others through their auras. This ring and others like it, gave the Witchfinders an accurate way of hunting those with the Talent.”
“The Hounds…” I whispered, childhood nightmares being recalled unbidden.
I may have rebelled against my heritage and resisted going to the Institute with all the other good little warlocks and witches but I had heard the stories of our collective past at my grandfather’s knee. Witches and warlocks enslaved in the service of the mundane Witchfinders and forced to root out others in the Family. In all the tales I heard the nature of the enslaving artefacts always varied but the end result was the same whether it was mothers betraying children or lover betraying lover. The Hound would be forced to watch as each of the people they identified was hanged, hunting others until they had in the eyes of the Witchfinders paid their debt to God. Then and only then, would their time come at the gallows. For many of the Hounds, their death could not come soon enough, with tales of them thanking the hangman when the time came for them to die. The thought of being made to betray my own chil– my pixies– in such a way made my eyes sting with unshed tears. There were many sorts of monsters in the world but the worst weren’t always the ones from mythology.
“I see you’ve heard of them,” said Danique with a sad smile. “Then you know something of my fate.”
“But… there hasn’t been any Hound’s for hundreds of years. The Great Houses gathered up all the artefacts and destroyed them in the 18th Century. The Hounds are just stories now, ways of keeping errant Family members in line. Y’know, ‘wooooo… behave or the Witchfinders will come for you and make you a Hound’. They’re both as much history now as the black death or…”
I was going to say the bogeyman, but as I know they were real it undermined my argument somewhat to deny their existence.
“Or… other stuff form the past that’s no longer around like... kipper ties?”
At least I hope they aren’t still around. For all I know hipsters wear them ‘ironically’, thereby demonstrating they don’t know the meaning of the word ‘ironically’.
I watched Danique try to say something, her lips twitching and flexing, but the only sounds that she could make were unintelligible.
“The ring?” I asked, noticing the pleading look in her eyes.
“Yes… I tried to say something about…” she said, pausing as her lips contorted soundlessly. “About that which they don’t want me to. What you just saw is what happens when I try.”
“Can you say it without talking about it?” I asked, hoping that it made more sense to her than it sounded to me now that I’d verbalised it.
“I… I could tell you a story… legend says that the fabled artificer John of Sheffield made the artefacts by which the Hounds were controlled. Like all of those with the Talent he had tried to hide from the Witchfinders. Unfortunately, he didn’t hide well enough and they caught him. It is said that he was brought before the Witchfinder General himself where John was offered a deal, for his skill as an artificer was known even to the Witchfinders. The deal offered was that if John would forge artefacts that would enable the mundane Witchfinders to find those with the Talent, then he and his family would be spared.”
“He was a fool to even think about making that deal with a man like the Witchfinder General,” I giggled, rolling my eyes at the forced burst of happiness.
“You’d be surprised at how many people would do the most reprehensible things to others in order to save their own life or that of their family,” said Danique, staring at the ring. “Anyway, John set to work on forging the artefacts, hoping that an opportunity would arise for his family to escape if he took as long as he could to make them. The flaw in this plan was that John had failed to take into account that the Witchfinder General was a famously impatient man. When John told him that it would take at least a month to forge the artefacts, the Witchfinder General told him that if that were the case his family would not live to see out the week.”
“Driven by love and desperation, John worked the metal and enchantments night and day for five days. During the day, the Witchfinder’s finest blacksmiths worked gruelling shifts in an attempt to keep up with John but come the night only John would be left working. His only company would be the ringing of metal-on-metal, the constant hiss of air from the bellows and the crackling of the bonfires that lit the darkness to enable him to continue his work. On the fifth and final night, John stopped and announced to the Witchfinder General that the artefacts, his greatest works, were finished save for the final sealing of the enchantments under the first rays of the morning sun. In exchange for his work he asked for his family to be freed as he had been promised. ‘But they are free’ replied the Witchfinder General as he placed an arm around John’s shoulders and pointed to the bonfires that ringed the forge. ‘I’ve been so impressed with your work that I’ve been setting one free from their sins each night as a reward’. Realising his folly, John lashed out at the Witchfinder General gouging out one of his eyes before he was killed. As the Witchfinders were unable to incant the final enchantments when the sun rose, the artefacts set with a number of flaws. Flaws like the requirement that the Ring of Servitude be willingly accepted.”
“So… you’re saying that the ring makes you a Hound?” I asked, looking again at the non-descript golden band on Danique’s finger.
“I’m… so much more due to my metamorphic nature. I’m not just a tracker but through the Ring of Mastery, they intend to make me an assassin. I can assume 3 or 4 different appearances in the course of a year. You see the other ring gives its mundane wearer complete control over whoever wears a linked Ring of Servitude. It enables them to see through the eyes of those they control and instruct them as required.”
“I’m sorry. But I still don’t understand why you accepted the ring in the first place?”
“Because although you have to accept the ring voluntarily, you don’t have to know what it is you are accepting… and I was a stupid woman in love,” replied Danique, a sad smile crossing her face.
“Changelings can fall in love?”
I wished I hadn’t said it the moment the words left my lips from the pained look Danique gave me.
“Of course. Birds do it, bees do it… all intelligent life does it. Metamorphs aren’t evil. We’re not even creatures of the Golden Court. We’re an offshoot of humanity. Linneaus called us ‘Homo Mutato’, the ‘Changing Man’ in his catalogues. I grew up in Amsterdam and other than missing the odd school day a couple of times a year due to my need to shed my skin, I was like any other girl. I had a house, a family... even a pet rabbit.”
“You… you’re saying that you’re human?”
“Is it so surprising given you come from a family able to wield magick that there are humans who can shed their skins like snakes? Like some mammals lay eggs, so we evolved the ability to shed our outer skin 2 or 3 times a year. Unlike a snake though we can change our new skins appearance. How does that make us any less human, or you any more human, by virtue of us being different? You sound like a warlock.”
And she was right. It could have just as easily been my mother talking about my pixies. Danique’s differences had led me to classify her as different. To deny her in my mind the most basic of things. A home life. A childhood. Love. Wasn’t it the cry of every conquistador, every empire builder, and every bigot? To quantify those that were different in ways and terms that removed the common bonds of humanity to make them something else, something to be feared... or persecuted. I couldn’t help but wonder what Homo Neanderthalensis first thought of Homo Sapiens. Would they have recognised us as also being humans despite the differences in our appearance?
“I’m sorry. You’re right.”
“Thank you Alan. It means a lot to hear you say that.”
“So how… why did you accept the ring?”
“I was 24 and had recently taken a job with a large multi-national company based in Amsterdam as a junior lawyer. I’d just returned from a year of travelling the world and moved out of my parent’s house. That’s the house of my biological parents I should add as we aren’t the child stealers of legend. Anyway, I met a man through mutual friends at a bar. His name was Pieter and he worked for another law firm in the city. He was handsome, funny, charming and best of all he seemed to like me. We’d been dating for about six months and were getting really serious. Serious to the degree that I knew I had to tell him about myself soon. On our anniversary he surprised me by whisking me off to Paris for a romantic weekend.”
Danique blotted a single tear that had cleared a track down her blood stained cheek with the back of her hand.
“It… it was at dinner that night that he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I remember sobbing hysterically while repeating ‘ja’ over and over in answer to his proposal as he slipped the ring onto my finger. Then… then I don’t really remember much. Snatches of conversation, brief images of scenes and people until I regained my thoughts again on the floor of a small hotel in Brighton. I remember seeing a terrified old woman tied up on the bed in front of me and I remember the first and only time I met the wearer of the controlling ring in person. I couldn’t believe it was him at first. He should have been dead for centuries but there he was, looking just as the legends say.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say… the ring won’t let me. He instructed me never to reveal his identity. It was weird seeing a childhood nightmare in human form standing before me. A man of the past in modern clothes. That wasn’t the only contradiction in him either. He… he…”
I watched Danique wipe at more tears this time, smearing the blood on her face to reveal clear batches only to cover them up with more blood with the next wipe.
“He… he kissed Agnes on top of her head, like you would a small child, and he thanked her. He thanked her for living a good life. He thanked her for being a pure child of Adam, untainted by the Talent or knowledge of the Craft. He thanked her for her sacrifice. And then he walked to the door, only stopping to put his hand on my head like you would a faithful dog. In the same tone of voice you might use to tell someone the time of day he told me to take Agnes’ form, ensuring I took her very essence from her bone marrow into my being when I did so, and then if she was still alive at the end of the process I was to kill her.”
I felt some of my own tears silently running down my face at the thought of the way poor Agnes had died. Terrified and alone. It made my stomach churn a little at the thought. No one deserved to die that way.
“And I’m sorry I have to do this but the ring is reminding me that a timescale was set in my commands for dealing with you.”
With a flick of her wrist she raked her talons across my stomach, thin lines of red visible through my ripped clothing. I giggled in response to the searing pain.
Yeah, giggled.
It seemed by accident of wanting to keep me quiet, Danique’s masters had robbed me of the ability to summon by one asset, my pixies, to help me. Yes, I could feel sorrow but the happy juice quickly replaced it with a feeling of almost euphoric happiness. I couldn’t project alarm through the empathic link even under physical pain, so there was no way I could trigger a defensive response from Sunflower or Canada. Oddly though, part of me was glad that this was the case. Did I really want to endanger my chil–the pixies–in such a way? I couldn’t see a way out of this without someone dying. I would rather die than make my pixies, my… my babies… killers. I couldn’t summon them to help but I’m not sure I wanted to anyway. What a mess. Or to put it another way, my canoe seemed to be in the river but lacking an oar.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated again, before proceeding to suck my blood from the end of her talons. I hoped I was a poor vintage.
“I need your blood to start the transformation. While I can copy your form from a visual impression, blood enables a more perfect copy. If it’s any small consolation I look no more forward to becoming male than I did becoming Agnes.”
Two thoughts came to mind. One that I wish she’d stop constantly apologising to me and two, boy was she in for a shock when she started to change given my current female state under the glamour.
“Why Agnes? And why me?” I asked, trying to find a way to stall for as much time as I could.
The very end of my fingertips and toes had started to tingle in earnest suggesting there was a limit to the time the happy juice would keep me immobile. I just had to live long enough to exploit it and hope the mysterious ‘they’ hadn’t been intelligent enough to set Danique’s operational timeframe to the time it took for the happy juice to expire.
“Why Agnes? Because she was a mundane who had recently moved next door to the head of House Goodspeed. They have a particular grievance against your family line because of… of…”
I watched Danique struggle again trying to articulate words that never came out. With a sad shrug, she stopped and continued speaking.
“They knew she had already been vetted by the Family when she first moved to Ackholt and wasn’t under any suspicion. The timing of Agnes’ visit to Brighton to see her sister was perfect for their timetable so the decision was made to take her then. As for why you, well you were the only mundane in your family. I have no Talent so I couldn’t replace someone with the Talent, which ruled out others in your family.”
Ohhhh… now that’s got to be a bad joke. I’m going to die because I chose to reject the use of my Talent, which the mysterious ‘they’ have interpreted as my not having a Talent. Great. Peachy. Wonderful. I’m going to go to heaven hearing my mother’s “I told you so” ringing in my ears. Unless…
“Would it change anything if I told you that I had the Talent?” I asked, a hopeful note creeping into my voice. Maybe I could reason myself out of this mess.
“Please tell me that you aren’t lying?” she begged, grasping my arms firmly in her hands. I winced in pain as her sharp but partially retracted talons dug into my flesh. “You can free us both with your Craft!”
“I’m telling the truth but… but I might as well not be,” I replied, a moan dying on my lips as it changed into a giggle. “I have the Talent but know only the most basic ABC’s of the Craft. I couldn’t even cast a primary school level spell.”
“Why?” cried a visibly distraught Danique, her grip tightening on my arms. “Why would you not know your Craft?”
“There was an… incident... I witnessed when I was younger…” I said, my voice trailing off as I bit my lip to hold back the memory. Even now it had the capacity to reduce me to tears.
“There must be something you can do? I don’t want to do this, be this… puppet. I want to be me again. Can’t you try to do something? Even a badly cast spell might attract some attention!”
“I’m sorry but even if I wanted too, I just don’t have the knowledge to do so. I always said I would live or die by my choice. I guess that turned out to be true.”
“At least you get to die,” snapped Danique. “I would rather die than live through what is ahead of me. Damn you, Alan Goodspeed. Damn you!”
“Trust me, I don’t want to die,” I said with a giggle.
Yeah, that really should have been said more grumpily. It seemed my emotions were still zigging when they should be zagging. Danique let out a grunt of pain as her features rippled, her skin taking on a paler colour closer to my own.
“It’s started,” she hissed between clenched but reforming teeth. “What… it’s not changing…”
A confused look on Danique’s face suggested to me that she’d noticed the lack of some very specific changes as her face started to mirror that of girl me.
“Surprise?” I asked, letting a genuine giggle escape this time.
“You’re a… but how… that’s not possible…”
Concentrating on my right hand, I found that I could move my fingers into a clumsy approximation of a fist, in part thanks to Danique’s unintentional stimulation of my arm muscles with the points of her talons. The confused look on Danique’s, well actually I guess my, face at the changes she was undergoing told me that this was probably ‘the’ moment. That moment in a Hollywood film where things look their bleakest and then the action hero says a killer one liner before escaping and shifting the film into the third act. This was ‘the’ moment. This was my moment.
And I couldn’t think of a killer one liner. I’d make sure that they changed that in the movie of my life.
Clumsily and with a great deal of body twisting, I swung my arm upwards, my loosely clenched fist slapped hard against the underside of Danique’s jaw summoning just enough force to rock her backwards onto the floor. With a cry that Serena Williams would be proud of I pushed myself up and towards the door. Behind me I heard Danique snarl and knew she wouldn’t be stopped for long, the instructions from her ring master probably covering what to do in the event I tried to escape. Focusing on the door and freedom, I made it half a step before the rope tied around my numb legs pulled tight and my legs buckled under me causing me to crash to the floor.
A floor which oddly smelt of wildflowers and grass and tickled my nose as it waved on a soft breeze. I really needed to find out what carpet freshener she used.
“Let’s get her up. She hasn’t got all day,” said a voice from somewhere behind me. A voice with a strong Cornish accent. A voice that wasn’t mine or Danique’s or Danique’s copy of mine.
I felt two strong arms grasp me on each side and hoist me to my feet, causing my long hair to fall across my face. Another surprise was that my legs seemed to have found some of their strength again and I could see that they were free of the rope that had bound me. Carefully placing my weight on one leg I realised that my helpers were more bracing than carrying me.
“Did my father send yo–“
Any further words I might have said died in my throat as I cleared my hair from eyes. Instead of standing in the spare bedroom of Agnes and George Gentry, I appeared to be standing in a field overlooking a grassy plain. In front of me stood an imposing golden fabric tent, a row of banners gently fluttering in the wind in front of it. Each banner seemed to represent something or someone unknown to me.
“Queen Joan awaits an audience with you, Mistress Goodspeed.”
I crooked my head to get a better look at the voice to my left. I’m not sure what I expected to find but it mostly definitely wasn’t a tall blue skinned amazon, her athletic body marked with white painted Celtic tribal markings all over with the exception of her mane of long flowing white hair. Her torso and upper thighs were covered by leather armour and a large sword hung from her belt. In the hand not supporting me she held a large round shield. She made quite an imposing sight. A sight made all the more imposing by the gossamer like pixie wings protruding from her back at shoulder blade height. Turning my head the other way, I saw a similarly attired blue woman supporting me.
“Queen Joan?” I asked. The name seemed to be familiar to me but I found I couldn’t place it.
“Aye, her majesty will see you now.”
“Queen Joan of where?” I asked, leaning against the women as we slowly started walking towards the golden tent.
“Of everywhere. Though to her people she is known as Queen Joan the Wad.”
“Wait… Queen Joan the Wad? The Queen Joan who is Queen of all the Pixies?”
“Yes, which other Queen Joan do you know of?” asked my Cornish voiced rescuer, the hint of amusement dancing in her voice.
“I’m not in Ackholt anymore am I?”
“Yes and No. You’re still in Ackholt as well as being here. Here is Buckland St Mary in Somerset at the same time as being somewhere else that isn’t.”
“Well, that seems fine then.”
And then I passed out because it seemed the right thing to do in the circumstances.
My eyes shot open just in time to see a crystal pitcher of water being upended over my head. Coughing and spluttering, I rolled to my side gulping down much needed deep waterless breaths.
“Ah good, welcome back little one,” said a smirking blue face as it leant down to my field of vision. “If you would like to collect yourself quickly your audience with your Queen awaits.”
Slowly moving to an upright sitting position I saw that I was in some sort of anti-room in the golden tent. To one end of the room I could see through the tent flaps as they wafted on a light breeze to the grassy field outside and to the other end of the room stood two more tall blue women standing with crossed spears blocking entry to whatever was beyond. Accepting an offered hand I rose unsteadily to my feet, finding that I still needed assistance to remain standing.
“I have a lot of questions,” I said, leaning heavily against my companions as they guided me towards the guarded entrance.
“I’m not surprised. However, the one thing you don’t have right now is time. I’m sure the Queen will explain what she can though.”
In response to a curt nod from my more talkative companion, the guards uncrossed their spears and pulled back the flaps to let us through to the next room. In comparison to the well-lit ante-chamber, the next room was much darker with the only light source coming from a ring of small braziers dotted around the outside of the room that did less to illuminate than create a monstrous shadow puppet show against the golden canvas walls of the tent. At one end of the room were two golden thrones, identical in every way, seated next to each other on a small dais.
At the sound of our entrance an older blue woman who was wearing an ornately embroidered golden robe banged a long staff three times against the floor of the dais.
“All rise in the presence of Queen Joan I, co-regent of the pixies, Lady of the moors, the forests and the gardens, Lady of the dance and Keeper of the Golden Torch!” she proclaimed. As my legs were starting to ache I felt exceedingly grateful that I had no need to adjust my position.
Given the blue furred nature of my pixies and the blue skins of my new more humanoid companions, it would be fair to say that I expected Queen Joan to be similarly hued. It therefore came as an immense surprise when a woman with a deep golden tan and a mane of brilliant golden hair entered the chamber. If it wasn’t for the fact that she literally glowed, throwing a deep golden light across the room, and wore a crown encrusted with a myriad of gemstones I would have pegged her for nothing more than a well-tanned glamour model.
“Well met, Alan Goodspeed, scion of the Houses of Goodspeed and Grimm. We greet thee as one mother to another and proclaim to all who ask that as our daughter-in-spirit she is well beloved by our most royal self.”
Taking the hint as my companions pushed gently down on my shoulders, I shakily bent down to one knee to kiss the offered ring covered hand.
“Your majesty, you do me great honour,” I replied. I might not know what was going on here but it seemed a safe bet to say nice things to a queen, just in case she was an ‘orf wiv his head’ type of monarch as opposed to the ‘my government and I’ sort.
“No, you do us the honour Alan. Please sit with our most royal selves,” she replied, gesturing to a plump padded bench nearby. Royalty, the only way you could refer to yourself in the third person and not get committed to an institution.
“We are sure that you have many questions you would wish to ask of us.”
“That would be an understatement.”
“Then perhaps let us start with an easy one?” she asked.
“Where am I?”
“Excellent question. It leads to so many others. Such as why you are here. You should know that physically your body is in Ackholt still and once this meeting is concluded we will return you to it. Be assured that in Ackholt only a few seconds will have passed when you return. We regret having to meet in such a way but we are unable to meet in person at this point in time so we had your astral form summoned to us. We are on the astral plane at a place modelled on Buckland St Mary in Somerset as it was fifteen hundred years ago at the time of our peoples’ greatest victory. Given what you will face, we thought it fitting to show you the very place from which we defeated our mortal enemy.”
“Who?”
“The Fey. To be more precise faeries.”
“Wait… like Tinkerbelle faeries?”
I’ve seen Peter Pan and think I could handle that kind of threat. It certainly seems like I’d have a better chance against them as opposed to being eaten alive by a changeling.
“The humans’ ability to rewrite history never ceases to surprise me,” she replied with a dismissive way of her hand. “No. Ferocious carnivorous flying swarms that would devour a human caught alone in the woods in minutes, the flesh stripped from the bone before his remains could hit the ground. Tricksters leading humans to their deaths on the moors and in the marshes by offering false lights for no reason other than they could. Kidnappers who lure children away from their parents never to return. These are the creatures of darkness not Disney.”
“But this is history surely? Given that most of them left with the rest of the Golden Court?”
Yeah, there is this whole other history of the world you aren’t taught in regular school but that those in the Family are raised with, whether we like it or not in my case. Honestly, I could think of a few bestselling fiction authors who would give their right arms or a few other right things for the real history of the world. That being said, if I had a choice I’d live in ignorance like the rest of the mundane. It’s much better to live an A J P Taylor version of world history that makes sense than it is to know the Lovecraft / Stoker / Shelly version. Suffice to say when I was told the real story behind the assassination of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval as a small child it gave me nightmares for weeks afterwards. As part of this other ‘history’ every child with the Talent knows that the aristocracy of the Golden Court left our realm in the 5th Century, though nobody knows where to or why. Oh, there are lots of theories but I think at the time my ancestors were just glad that the Golden Court had gone and weren’t keen to question why in too much detail in case they came back.
“History? Not anymore. The Golden Court is planning to return from its exile in that other realm. We will need all our people and the allied races who stood against the Golden Court last time if we are to stop their advance forces establishing a foothold in this realm. Failure would see the return of the dark times.”
“So the attack on me is from the agents of the Golden Court?”
“Oh no, of course not,” replied the Queen, patting my hand affectionately. I felt like a small child who had just asked a silly question that amused an adult. “They do not consider you a sufficient threat to warrant that sort of attention. At least not yet anyway. As far as they are concerned you are just another human with the Talent. No, the attack on you is a human matter. It is of no consequence.”
“Of no consequence? I was about to be eaten alive!”
“We will deal with that in a moment my child,” she replied, placing a finger against my lips. “Please do not become distressed over the matter. Rest assured that we will not let our daughter-in-spirit come to any harm.”
“I… I don’t want to die…”
“Then you must learn to let go of human concerns. The humans played no role in our war against the forces of the mad Queen Mab last time and we foresee no role for them this time,” she said, placing an arm around me so that my head came to rest against her shoulder.
“But I am human.”
“Looks can be deceiving as you should know. Human? Once you were my dear,” she replied, tenderly stroking my hair. “Now though you are Pyskie, our daughter-in-spirit.”
“Pixie?”
“No Pys-kie,” she replied, emphasising the syllables. “Those who were once the human guardians of the pixies. The pixies are children of the wild magick. Did you not think it would have any effect on you?”
“I’m no Pyskie. I’m still human. I’m still Alan Goodspeed,” I said, flicking a strand of my long blonde hair out of my eyes.
“As were all the Pyskie once,” said the Queen, pointing to one of the blue skinned women in the room. “Aelfwyn for example was once known as Aelfgar. She was born in 425AD by your calendar, the second son of a blacksmith in a small Cornish village.”
“But she looks like at most she is in her mid-twenties.”
“Another blessing of being one of the Pyskie. You will have a life span on a par with that of the Elves. In normal circumstances Aelfwyn could expect to see another millennia of life easily.”
“I don’t want to be a Pyskie. I don’t want to be a warlock. I just want to be me. I just want to have a normal life.”
“And what of your children, our daughter-in-spirit?”
“I can have a normal life and still care for them, love them.”
“As every mother should,” she replied with an approving nod. “Yet without our assistance you will most certainly not see out the night. Unless of course you intend to use your Talent?”
“No… not that I could without knowledge of the Craft anyway.”
The Talent was just the ability to use magick. I had that and could do nothing about it. It was genetic. However, the Craft was the knowledge of how to use magick and that was what I had rejected, refusing to learn it.
“Suppose we could give you the knowledge of the Craft at the click of our fingers?”
“I would not use it.”
“Then your only other option is to embrace your Pyskie side. Pyskie’s do not need the Craft for physically they are stronger, more dexterous, and faster than a normal human... or a changeling.”
“I am not a Pyskie.”
“So what other options are left to you?”
“You could summon help for me from the Family?” I asked hopefully.
“We could but we will not. Such an intervention by us would not go unnoticed by the Golden Court.”
“So?”
“And by doing so it would alert them to your existence, our daughter-in-spirit. Do you honestly believe that you could protect your children against an Elf or a Troll?”
For Elves think less Legolas, and more Bruce Lee. Skilled in unarmed and armed combat with lightning fast reflexes. They couldn’t just kill you with a bow, they could kill you with a piece of paper given the chance. As for Trolls, think gamma radiated comic book characters on steroids with a taste for human flesh. As dangerous as they were during the night, they were even more dangerous during the day when their skin hardened to become as tough as stone. Against either of these creatures I didn’t stand a chance but luckily most of them had left with the Golden Court.
“No… but you could though.”
“Yes we could but to do so would cost us the coming war before it even began. Our husband and co-regent, King Jack, has a portion of our forces in your realm but not enough to win an outright confrontation with the forces of the Golden Court. We still need more time to organise the remainder of our forces and those of our allies, many of whom such as Brownies, Bluecaps, Pucas and Hobs are not by their nature warriors or of a warrior mentality. Our husband seeks to rally those of a warrior nature who have no love for the Golden Court to our aid but we simply do not have enough warriors now.”
“So where does that leave me?” I asked, fairly certain the answer was still in a canoe afloat on increasingly smelly water but lacking paddles.
“The same place you were before. If you do not wish to use your Talent then you must embrace your Pyskie nature.”
“I choose neither,” I replied, my contrary nature bristling at the forced options being put before me. I refused to believe that these were my only choices. That my continued survival was dependent on giving up something of myself.
“Then we will see you in the next life,” said the Queen, her voice heavy with sadness. “For you cannot triumph over a changeling alone.”
“You don–“
“My Queen,” interrupted one of the blue skinned Pyskies. “It is time.”
“We are sorry our daughter-in-spirit, but it is time for you to return to your realm,” said the Queen, gently cupping my face with a hand. “We wish that we could have spent more time with you for you are truly dearer to ourselves than you realise.”
“How do I do that? Return I mean?” I asked, as I was being helped onto unsteady feet by my former companions once more. “Do I click my heels together three times and say ‘there is no place like home’?”
“If that works for you then yes. However, it is more traditionally done by releasing the astral tether that holds you to this place and letting the spiritual anchor of your body pull you back to your own realm.”
“And if I don’t return?” I asked.
“Then time will continue to pass but at an equal rate here and in the physical plane. Your physical form will be consumed by the changeling, who will take your place while your spirit will forever be trapped on the astral plane unable to return or pass onto the next life. Meanwhile, your children will die of starvation, assuming that the changeling does not kill them first.”
When she put it like that, it didn’t seem much of a choice.
“Take a deep calming breath, close your eyes and feel the tether,” said the Queen placing a hand on lightly on my chest. “Breath slowly our daughter-in-spirit. Feel the tether.”
I closed my eyes as instructed and slowed my breathing as much as I could, taking in deep breaths and slowly exhaling through my mouth. Focusing on the sound of my breathing I tried to let go of the world around me and focus on my mysterious unseen tether.
“Can you feel it our daughter-in-spirit?”
I could feel it alright. I could feel a previously unnoticed soreness from the hours I had been walking around braless and the bruising from where I had fallen face first against the floor. I was fairly certain that was going to leave a mark. I could also feel where my underwear was riding and if that wasn’t enough I could feel how hot my multiple sock layered feet were. What I couldn’t feel, Obi Wan, was the force.
I shook my head, opening my eyes to look at the Queen.
“There is no shame our daughter-in-spirit,” she replied, reaching out to straighten my tie. “Very few can do it first time as most have difficulty letting go of the physical illusion around you.”
“So what do I do? You said I didn’t have much time left.”
“Aelfwyn,” said the Queen gesturing to one of my two companions. “Let Arden bear her weight while you help our daughter-in-spirit return to her realm.”
“As you command, my Queen.”
“We ask once more our daughter-in-spirit, will you accept your true nature?” asked the Queen. I shook my head in reply.
“So be it. While we cannot help you we can take steps to prevent your children from coming to any harm,” said the Queen. Reaching into a pouch hanging from her belt she sprinkled some sort of dust over my head.
“What did you do?”
“Fear not, we did nothing to you save for keeping your children out of harm’s way. We will ask you one more time our daughter-in-spirit, will you accept your true nature?”
“No. As the great philosopher said, ‘I yam what I yam’. I’ll live or die by that,” I replied with more bravado than I felt.
“Then we wish you well, our daughter-in-spirit. We will make you this offer once more today and it is our fondest hope that you are in a more receptive frame of mind on that occasion. You may proceed Aelfwyn,” said the Queen, with a click of her fingers. I felt a weird pain in my head much akin to an ice cream headache and let out a small grunt of discomfort.
“Mistress Goodspeed?” asked Aelfwyn, calling my attention back to my surroundings. “I will momentarily distract you which should be sufficient to release your tether to this plane. Are you ready?”
“I guess,” I replied, my voice not entirely hiding my scepticism over whether this would work.
“Look! A troll!” shouted Aelfwyn, pointing off into the distance. I glanced in that direction momentarily before turning back to her.
“I think you’re going to have to do better than tha–“
And then she punched me in the face.
Hard.
Reaching up…
Wiggling my fingers I realised that I had regained feeling in them and motor control had returned. While my head felt like it as full of cotton wool, my body seemed to be responding just fine and I rolled onto my back. I started to sit up only to be knocked back down by a snarling Danique, her taloned hand extended above me like a fleshy Sword of Damocles.
“Damn it!” I cursed, reaching out to lock my fingers in hers so as to force her taloned hand back. “Fight it.”
“Who are you girl?” said my newly formed twin. “What happened to Alan?”
Glancing down between us I noticed the glamour also seemed to have gone, revealing my current physical form for the first time to Danique. The physical form that she now wore.
“It’s me but it’s complicated,” I replied in understatement worthy of its own Guinness Book of Records entry.
“Before… that was a glamour?”
“Yes,” I grunted, the muscles in my arms stinging in pain as her superior strength started to press down on me. “As I said… it’s… complicated.”
“Then you really have the Talent?” she asked, hope creeping into her voice. It seemed she needed a physical demonstration to believe my earlier statement.
“Yes… but… I… have… no… knowledge… of… the… Craft…”
Her talons were inching closer and closer to me and I knew even using all my strength to resist that I couldn’t hold out for long. As my arm started to shake under the pressure, I felt a tear run down my cheek at the thought of all that I had yet to do in life, at the loss of my family and my chil–the pixies... my babies.
No.
They could take everything else from me but I wouldn’t let them hurt my babies.
With a scream I pushed with all my might against Danique’s hand, channelling all my will as well as my strength into one last desperate attempt to break free. As my fingers locked tighter against Danique’s I felt the warmth of the Ring of Servitude against my skin. A warmth that quickly rose to a burning sensation.
“What are you doing?” screamed Danique, her hand pulling back from me as sparks erupted in the air around it. Still despite this I kept my own fingers firmly locked against hers, not wanting to give her the chance to come back at me.
“I won’t let you hurt them,” I hissed, the light show around her hands intensifying.
As I pushed Danique’s hand further back my eyes briefly locked with hers and I saw the mixture of confusion, fear and hope in them. Yes, hope. The hope that I might be able to free her from her entrapment. Shifting my grip slightly, I tried to trap the ring between two of my fingers and slide it off her hand. For a moment it moved and I thought I might yet be able to free her. However, a searing heat that caused both of us to scream in pain locked the ring back into place on her finger.
“Try… try again,” whispered Danique through gritted teeth, the pain she was feeling evident on her face. “You moved it. Try again.”
Squeezing the burning metal between my fingers again I tried once more to slide it off her fingers. Just as I was rewarded my another slight movement I felt Danique’s hand press down against mine hard, forcing my grip on the ring to loosen as her razor sharp talons moved closer towards me.
“Damn it,” I hissed, “You have to fight it. Try and stop doing that or I’ll never get it off.”
“It’s not me…” replied, Danique her eyes wide with fear.
“Of course it’s yo–“
Anything further I might have said died on my lips as I saw a ghostly third hand pressing down on the back of Danique’s. Tilting my head to get a better look beyond her I saw a smartly dressed handsome man. Yet at the same time there was a brittleness to him that made him seem like some sort of male clothing model. Handsome but at the same time… plastic. Soulless.
“Who?”
“My… my master,” whispered Danique. “He’s using the ring to channel his presence.”
Turning my attention to the ring, I noticed that it had started to glow a deep red and as I once more tried to press my fingers against it the sensation changed from that of hard burning metal to something more akin to hot sticky marshmallow. It slipped out of my pincer like grasp each time I pressed against it.
As the tips of the talons started to brush against my clothes I pressed back with renewed vigour, trying to focus my very being into pushing Danique off of me. Once more the air around our locked hands seemed to spark but this time I felt something else, a tickling sensation in the back of my head that seemed to emanate from the Ring. I felt my whole body shudder as the tingling ran up and down my spine and then my world seemed to explode as image after image flashed through my mind. Images of Agnes’ life. Images of Danique’s life. Images of…
I screamed as something pressed back in my mind blocking the flow of new images. As I looked upwards at the figure behind Danique I noticed him shimmer and blur for a moment. Gone was the handsome smartly dressed man and in his place was a figure wearing the armour and clothing of a Civil War New Model Army cavalryman. Behind his lobster-pot helmet’s three barred visor I could see a face that might once have been called handsome were it not for the long jagged scar running up from the cheek and across the left eye. A left eye with a yellow animal like iris that was in stark contrast to his normal blue-grey right eye.
“So… a wolf in sheep’s clothing are you boy?” hissed the voice.
The accent had a strong East Anglian sound, with ‘you’ sounding like ‘yer’ and ‘boy’ sounding like ‘boi’.The accent seemed to come and go giving his voice an odd quality as it flipped between ‘BBC’ English and East Anglian.
“Like that bastard ancestor of yours, you hide your true nature from the world. Only this time ol’ Matty’s ready for you.”
With a flick of his eyes at my hand still entwined with Danique’s, I watched in horror as the squishy metal of the ring started to separate and part of it flow across to my own hand, wrapping itself around my finger like some sort of metal serpent.
“It seems that I’ll have you under the ring as well.”
“No! I… won’t… accept… it…”
“You’ll accept it boy, or I’ll kill your mother. Do you really want to be responsible for your ma’s death as well as your own? Accept the ring boy and you’ll both live, you have my word.”
Renewing his pressure on Danique’s hand I screamed as I felt the points of her talons start to break the surface of my skin and slowly sink into my flesh, coming to rest against the bones of my rib cage. Feeling the splash of something on my face, I peeked up at Danique to see that despite the snarl that possessed her face, the tears running from her eyes told another story.
“Accept the ring!” hissed the figure again.
“No-ooooooo!” I replied, my words again ending in a scream as the first of Danique’s talons pierced the flesh between my ribs, sinking deeper into me.
My eyes met Danique’s for what I thought would be one final time as the rest of her talons pushed deeper into my body and I watched a tear run down her nose and fall towards me.
And then stop, suspended in mid-air.
“So, our daughter-in-spirit you persist in denying your true self?” whispered a disembodied barely audible voice.
“Help me… please” I sobbed. The pain radiating from my chest was becoming unbearable and I was fairly certain one of Danique’s talons had punctured a lung.
“We are sorry but we cannot intervene directly our daughter-in-spirit for the reasons that we explained,” replied the Queen, her voice tinged with sadness. “It seems however that we have made a most terrible miscalculation for which we are truly sorry. However, you are the only one who can save yourself now. You are at a crossroads. Choose the Craft. Choose your true Pyskie nature. Choose to die. Choose to become a slave to the Witchfinders. These are the only paths open to you now. Whatever choice you make my daughter-in-spirit, you must choose wisely for your decision will have far greater repercussions than you may at first realise. You may yet be the first casualty of the coming war.”
“Help me…”
“Choose wisely my daughter. Know that I love you more than you will ever know.”
The tear splashed against my face as with a rush, the sounds around me returned. The grunting of Danique as she struggled both against her controller and the insane gloating noises coming from our ghostly companion.
I had a choice to make and no time with which to think about properly. It felt like I was being pressured on some game show - ‘we asked one hundred people what Alan would do in this situation and they said...’ kind of thing. Well, there was no way I was going to let Danique be made to kill me and by extension my babies. No way, no how was accepting the Ring of Servitude and the half-life of an existence that went with it. Those were both big crosses on my imaginary game show board. I dreaded to think would my new ghostly master would do with his control of my pixies through me. So, that left embracing the Craft which I had spent most of my life rejecting or take a leap of faith into the unknown and accept being a Pyskie with whatever that entailed.
It was no choice at all really.
“Accept the ring,” hissed the ghostly figure above me as I felt a talon pressing against my heart. “Accept the ring before it is too late.”
“Go. To. Hell!” I screamed, pushing back with the last of my strength.
“Been there. It couldn’t hold as pure a soul as mine!”
At first nothing happened but then slowly, inch-by-inch, Danique’s talons slid free from my body. I think the look of surprise on Danique’s face probably mirrored my own as I was watched blue skin spread out from under my sleeves up towards the tips of my fingers. As the blue skin came into contact with the squishy band of gold on my finger, it caused the metal to bubble and evaporate leaving a trail of golden sparkles in the air.
“No! Kill it! Kill it now!”
“Let her go!” I shouted, pushing Danique further off me as I started to rise to my knees but still keeping our fingers interlocked.
Focussing on the fading tickling sensation in the back of my mind I pressed hard against it, feeling the residual connection from the Ring of Servitude. I could ‘see’ a thread running from Danique’s ring to the hand of the ghostly figure who I assumed was the holder of the Ring of Mastery and tried to will the connection broken.
“No! I know not what you are foul creature but I defy you!”
A surge of feedback from the link rocked me backwards but I still fought to keep my fingers locked with Danique’s to maintain the connection now that my own ring was gone. I called out to Danique for assistance only then noticing for the first time why she had been so silent. With her mouth hung open and her eyes rolled back I wondered if she was even breathing for a moment but the residual link to the ring confirmed she was alive. I could only feel pity for her as the unseen battle of wills unfolding mentally tossed her around like a ragdoll.
“My… name… is… Alan… Goodspeed,” I grunted, pushing again at the fraying mental connection between the rings. “And I will not let you harm this woman!”
“No!” screamed the ghostly figure as the connection between the two rings finally broke. “She’s mine!”
Catching Danique easily in my now much stronger blue arms, I stuck my tongue out at the fading apparition.
“You can’t have her.”
“This does not end here bo–“
And then as silently as it had appeared the figure was gone.
“Alan?” whispered a faint voice muffled by my shoulder where her head had come to rest. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Ewww… well not on me,” I laughed, pushing Danique back in my arms to open some space between her.
And it was Danique. Free from the control of the ring, her features were rippling and returning back to those of the young woman I had seen earlier, Danique’s true form.
“Let’s get you cleaned up and get out of here,” I said, wiping some of the blood covering her face clear with my sleeve. “I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one night.”
I finally realised what the cotton wool feeling was in my head as it cleared. The Queen had placed some sort of filter on my empathic link to my babi– my pixies– following my return that had acted like the happy juice to stop me from alerting them to my situation. Whereas with the happy juice this had been an unintentional consequence, I knew the Queen had done so to protect my chil–my pixies from harm. While I understood why she had done this given that I had been conflicted about involving them in this myself, I made a mental note that royalty or not we would have words should we ever meet again given the danger it had placed me in. Not that I hoped we would be meeting again anytime soon. I wanted to be free of that craziness just as much as I wanted to be free of the Family’s craziness.
“Tikka?”
“Hello Sunflower,” I answered before looking up at the pixie hovering above me. “Please get my father and bring him here.”
“Tikka!” replied Sunflower, disappearing in a swirl of light. The connection between Sunflower and myself seemed oddly simple to use for once and I knew instinctively she had understood my request.
“I’m thinking there are a few things you were holding out on me about little girl blue,” said Danique, her voice heavy with tiredness. “For a start should I be calling you Alan or Alan-nah?”
“Alan. It’s Alan. Really,” I added at her raised eyebrow.
“Now let’s get you to your feet and your modesty better covered before my father arrives eh?” I said, gesturing to her torn blouse. Sliding my own torn and blood stained jacket off, I placed it around Danique’s shoulders.
“There, that should help,” I said, as she pulled it tight around her.
“Alan! Your shirt!”
Looking down at my now baggy shirt, I noticed the blood stains across the chest.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” sobbed Danique, covering the lower part of her face in her hands.
“Ummm… I think it’s okay,” I replied, lifting my shirt to look at the skin underneath. Running my fingers over the blood patches I found that I couldn’t even find a scar to show where Danique’s talons had penetrated my body.
“Alan?”
“Huh… I think my Pyskie transformation must have healed the damage.”
“You really are amazing Alan Goodspeed,” said Danique, relief flooding into her voice as she pulled me into a comforting hug. “If it wasn’t for you…”
In reply I squeezed her back, not needing any words. Danique started to speak again but I cut her words short by pressing a finger against her lips.
“It’s been a crazy night. I don’t know about you but all I want to do right now is go to bed.”
“Is that a proposition?” asked Danique with a smile. “Only I don’t normally swing that way but in your case Alan…nah I might make an exception.”
“What? No, I mean it wasn’t…” I yelped, pulling back from her. I wasn’t sure what colour blue people went when they blushed but I was pretty sure that I was doing it.
“Very funny,” I huffed, as Danique shook with laughter. “Oh, Ha… ha…”
Anything that Danique might have said was interrupted by the arrival of my father in a swirl of light accompanied by Sonnet, Canada and Sunflower.
“Al… Alan?” he asked with a frown as he looked over me.
“In the blue flesh,” I replied gesturing at my body.
“What? Who is that?” he asked, noticing Danique for the first time. “Why does she look like she showered in Ribena? What’s going on Alan? Is… is that human flesh on the floor?”
“Tikka, momma pretty!” exclaimed Sonnet as she swooped around me.
“Thank you sweetheart,” I said, rolling a sleeve up to reveal more of my blue skinned arm. “This is going to be a bitch to colour co-ordinate with though.”
“Alan! Language!” snapped my father, in what I’m sure what was a parental Pavlovian response more than conscious thought given the situation he found himself in.
“Sorry dad.”
“Where’s your mother? Where’s Agnes Gentry? Why are you blue? Will someone tell me what’s going on? And why am I standing in lumps of meat?”
“Mom!” I cried, slapping my forehead. “Girls! Find Grandma! Protect!”
In a chorus of ‘tikkas!’ the girls disappeared in little swirls of light.
“Where’s your mother Alan?” repeated my father. “Wh–“
The sounds of shots ringing out as a hail of bullets exploded through the bedroom door interrupted the conversation and I felt myself being pulled heavily to the ground by my father as items on the dresser behind where I had been standing shattered.
Kicking the door open, Aaron Gentry slowly entered the room training his pistol on each of us. In his other hand he held his mobile phone and I could hear a faint buzzing sound of someone speaking on the other end.
“Yessir,” said Aaron, bringing the phone back to his ear. “The changeling and the blue freak are here as you said sir. Also Jeffrey Goodspeed is here. Uh-huh… yessir… understood sir.”
“Message from the boss for you freak,” said Aaron, aiming his weapon at me. “See you in hell.”
Like in some dream I was dimly conscious of Danique and my father screaming as Aaron fired his weapon twice at me. The first shot went high to my right as Danique tackled Aaron. I could only watch in horror as the second shot fired into her torso causing her whole body to jerk. A third shot followed quickly into her body and Aaron pushed the limp form of Danique away from him. As her body hit the ground limply, he trained his gun back on me.
“Goodbye freak!” he yelled as he pulled the trigger.
I’m not sure who was the most surprised of us at the empty click noise from his gun but I was fairly certain though that he was the most surprised of us when my new wings ripped open the back of my shirt. As he turned and ran, I launched myself off the ground after him my new wings turning it into the sort of leap that the average superhero would be proud of. Emerging from the room, I watched as Aaron ran straight into the room on the opposite side of the hallway and leapt through the window into the night beyond.
Cursing the lack of double glazing which would have slowed his exit considerably, I swooped through the shattered glass and broken frame of the window into the night. As my eyes quickly, perhaps even unnaturally so, adjusted to the darkness outside I spotted Aaron ungainly climb-fall over the fence into the neighbour’s garden.
With the sort of bellow that Brian Blessed would be proud of, I dived towards Aaron hitting him with enough momentum to carry the two of us through a further set of wooden fence panelling and a small garden gnome infested rockery into the next garden. Despite being at the bottom of our tangled pile Aaron reacted first and hit me with a pistol butt to my face. As I rolled off him I heard the click sound that a thousand movies told me was a fresh magazine being inserted into the pistols grip.
Clearly in pain from our garden remodelling, Aaron let out a raspy chuckle-cough as he levelled the pistol at me.
“My fence!”
Distracted by Mr Parkinson’s distress at our impromptu remodelling of his garden, I leapt at Aaron grappling for his gun. Whereas before my transformation Aaron might have had the physical edge, my new form gave me the advantage and I quickly turned the gun away from me so that it was pointing between the two of us.
“You… will… not… stop... us!” grunted Aaron as we fought for control of the gun. “If it’s not me… it will be someone else.”
“I’ll… stop… you. My Family will stop you.”
“Like you stopped me killing Danique?” he chuckle-coughed again.
“You don’t know she’s dead!” I cried, pressing the gun down towards him. “My father is healing her as we speak.”
“Trust me boy… I know dead… and she was dead… before she hit the floor.”
“No! You lie!”
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a swirl of light and two pink fluffy bunny slippers appear.
“A-- Alan?” asked the new arrival.
“Yes it’s me, Aunt Sophie.”
“Uh… okay. Roger, would you go back indoors and get your wand and bring Margaret with you?” asked Aunt Sophie. “Alan, you need to move a little to the side so I can see the gun. Don’t worry, I’ve got the situation.”
“He has a gun,” I repeated, no longer actively pushing it back into Aaron but using my strength to hold it in position.
“I know. Your father said. Don’t worry I’m prepared. You don’t have to let go of the gun, just move back enough so I can see it and render it inert. Turning the bullets into chalk should do it.”
“How is Danique?” I asked, risking a glance at Aunt Sophie.
“Your father didn’t say.”
She didn’t need to say any more. The way she briefly closed her eyes and looked away told me all I needed to know.
“See boy. When I make them dead, their dead,” chuckled Aaron. “Fitting really that I ended her given I was the one that captured her in the first place.”
“You… you’re… you’re…”
“Pieter,” he replied, his voice taking on a Dutch accent before he broke into another fit of chuckle-coughing.
“No…” I whispered, my voice trailing off.
“Alan, let us handle matters from here on,” said Aunt Sophie softly.
“What will happen to him?” I asked.
“He’ll be taken to Mount Tartarus.”
Mount Tartarus. It wasn’t actually the mythical Tartarus but instead a combined court and prison located in the Bavarian Alps where the Great Houses sent those who could not be dealt with through the mundane courts. The majority of its population were witches and warlocks who had turned to the Black Craft but there were some creatures of the Golden Court and a few others held there. From what I understood it was all frightfully civilised these days, a far cry from the situation when it was first built in the 17th Century.
“What will happen to him?”
“If found guilty by the Board of Magistrates, which I think we can take as a given, he will be sentenced to spend the remainder of his life there or until such time as they deem he is sufficiently rehabilitated and can be released back into the world. Most likely the former.”
“Will someone get this boy off of me and get me a doctor?” said Aaron, his face creased in a dismissive sneer as he looked me.
“No…”
“Alan… move back so I can do what I need too.”
“You heard her. Be a good boy and do as you are told,” he said, breaking up into another bout of chuckle-coughing. “Go bury your little friend. Don’t worry, your time in the ground will come soon enough.”
“No.”
A single shot rang out in the stillness of the night.
“Alan!”
Slowly rising to my feet, I tossed the smoking gun away from me.
“Alan?”
“It went off. Accidentally. Probably.”
“He’s dead,” said Aunt Sophie, crouching down to check his pulse.
“Yes. I’m sure he is,” I said turning towards the direction of my house. “He knows dead after all.”
I groggily reached out and slapped at the front of my iPhone sending it into snooze. As I rolled back into bed a chorus of sleepy squeaks protested as the bed shifted under me.
"I know guys, I know..." I mumbled, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "I guess five more minutes wouldn't hurt. It's not like today is going to be any different from yesterday, or the day before..."
It had been a week since what we had taken to euphemistically taken to calling 'the incident'. The real elephant in the room was Aaron/Pieter's death, which no-one was prepared to talk about my role in.
The local paper mentioned the tragic death of Mrs Gentry due to a faulty gas fire leading to carbon monoxide poisoning. I'd assumed that it was simply a matter of placing a glamour on the body of Danique and then having our own coroner rubber stamp the story. Easy enough given that the paramedics who responded to the 999 call placed was also a Family member. The paper said Mrs Gentry's body would be cremated according to the wishes of her family, or I guess that should be in accordance with the wishes of The Family to ensure no one could follow up on it. Mr Gentry it turned out was fine, just drugged and asleep in his bedroom, and a couple of days ago he moved out of town to live with his real son. It turns out Aaron had used some sort of potion on Mr Gentry to make him think he was his son. It struck me as another oddity that a group of people so dedicated to tracking down witches and warlocks seemed so ready to use magick artefacts against us. Perhaps they rationalised it in some way but to be honest, I didn’t really care enough to think too hard about it.
In typical Family style, they had already put in a generous offer for the Gentry's house which had been accepted. All nice and neat with no loose ends. Organised crime could probably learn a thing or two from us.
Dad had avoided me as much as he could beyond checking me out to make sure I was physically fine on the night. Mum was just quiet. Uncle John had found her still in the Gentry’s kitchen, the sleeping draught had kept her unconscious during everything that happened but otherwise she was unharmed. When she looked at me it was with an air of great sadness and several times it looked like she'd been crying about something. I think I would have preferred her to scream and shout at me because at least that would be normal.
I’d tried to mention my weird eyed spectral assailant but the Family Council had been less than willing to believe me. Given all the weird things that existed in our world it was almost laughable that they refused to accept the return of the Witchfinders. I couldn’t help but recall the rhyme taught to little warlocks and witches:
“Say your prayers before you sleep,
Or else into your dreams he will creep,
And spirit you away from your comfortable bed,
To a place where the hangman’s noose lays upon your head,
And from his gibbet you will swing,
While to hell One Eyed Matty doth your soul to bring.”
They did however at least accept that Aaron was working for somebody, the remains of Danique’s Ring of Servitude convinced them of that. They just couldn’t agree if it was the Witchfinders, another House, practitioners of the Black Craft or some random mundane group.
I hadn't mentioned my trip to see Queen Joan or the coming of the Golden Court because if they couldn’t accept the truth in front of them it seemed unlikely they would accept the truth hidden from them. Besides, Queen Joan had said that the return of the Golden Court wasn’t a human matter. I was also worried that Mrs Dorian might use such talk as an excuse for having me packed off to the Institute. I was certain that my dad knew that there was more to what happened than I was saying but he had declined to press me on the matter beyond the most half-hearted attempt at questioning. Given the Vow of Obligation I was under it wouldn’t have taken long to get the truth out of me.
On top of that, I was still suspended from school and under what more or less amounted to house arrest by The Family for, air quote, 'my protection'. It had been made very clear to me that all talk of the ‘Witchfinders' returning was forbidden until such time as the Family Council could come establish the truth and that was fine with me. So I spent most of my time in my room with the girls, who had become a little clingy following 'the incident', which in turn meant I had spent the entire week in girl form. In fact, not once had I changed back since ‘the incident’. A new record for girl me. Well, girl Pyskie form me. It seemed my default look with the girls now was as a Pyskie, which was going to be interesting if I underwent a forced change in public. At least going from human boy to human girl meant that most people didn’t pay too much attention to me other than to stare at my ill-fitting clothes. Being blue and having wings was a whole new kettle of aquatic chordates.
Feeling playful, I turned to Sonnet who had been sleeping on my pillow and nuzzled into her soft fur causing her to let out a warm purr and roll into me. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite as soft and soothing as pixie fur. It makes kitten fur feel like sandpaper in comparison. Of course that sets the others off and soon I'm covered in thirteen other little furry bodies all wanting to get in on the fun. I couldn't help but start giggling as Rainbow crawled under my camisole pyjama top tickling my tummy as her fur rubbed against me. They thought that was hilarious and pretty soon I was crying with laughter as fourteen furry bodies and tiny hands started tickling me. During the last week my empathic link with my pixies was pretty much back to where it had been before but the love that my litter... my babies... was projecting was just so intense that I was almost ready to forget about my troubles and just be this girl, this mother, when a knock on my bedroom door pulled me back to the real world.
"Alan? Are you decent?" called my mother.
"I guess," I panted between gasping for breath as the ticklefest abated. I carefully sat up, making sure that no one was knocked over or fell off the bed as my mother entered the room and pushed the door closed behind her.
"Alan, I thought... I thought we might talk."
She seemed almost hesitant, like she was scared of something. I briefly meet her eyes and noticed how red they were before she turned away.
"I'll clear a space mum," I replied, smoothing down the end of the duvet and clearing it of pixies. I scooted up against my headboard, tucking my legs under me and taking the opportunity to flex my wings. That was the other reason for the camisole top. It stopped comfortably below my shoulder blades which was where my new wings joined my body.
"What's up?"
"You."
"I...." My jaw worked silently as I tried to find the words to articulate my confusion. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Alan... you really can't see it can you?"
"I... I don't understand. Is... is this about Aaron?"
"Yes. No. Maybe," she said, waving her hands in frustration. “You’ve changed Alan… beyond all… this.”
Taking ‘this’ to mean my new skin colour, I pulled one of my pillows tight to my stomach and took a deep breath.
"I'm still me mum."
"Truth," she whispered sadly, placing a hand on my leg. I noticed the ring on her finger briefly pulse. "But who are you now? Girl? Boy? Something else?”
I shrugged my shoulders in response. “I don’t try and pigeon hole myself as anything. I’m just… me.”
“My son was… is… a gentle soul. Obstinate, contrary and just plain like his mother at times but he was always a gentle soul. This… ‘incident’… I have trouble seeing my son in it.”
“He killed her mum. He killed a young woman with hopes and dreams. He deserved what I did to him.”
Smiling sadly, my mother nodded her head.
“It’s okay. I knew it when I looked in your eyes that night. I saw remorse over Aaron’s death but no regret."
“And she died saving me. Me? Why? I’m no-one. Why?”
“Because she felt you were someone worth saving. Because in those moments free of the ring she was finally able to show the person she truly was? Whatever the reason, I give thanks to her each night for saving you Alan.”
“I’m not special.”
"You are more special to your father and I, than you know sweetie. Just know that if you do feel the need to talk to someone other than your dad or me we can arrange for you to see someone."
"I'm not crazy.”
"I know that. I'm just saying that if you want to, we can arrange for someone for you to talk to okay?"
"I'll think about it," I sighed.
"Thank you," she sniffled.
I gripped the pillow tighter, resting my chin on top of it.
"What did you mean when you said about changes being beyond my skin colour?" I asked.
"You can't see it can you?"
"You know I've no knowledge of the Craft.”
"You know that auras are rainbow coloured right?"
"D'uh," I snorted. "You spent enough time hammering the colour wheel into us as kids. I also remember that each colour has a meaning sort of like a Green Lantern's ring but not."
"Almost. And less of the lip young man."
"Sorry," I mumbled, staring down at my feet. "Though you probably mean 'young lady' in the circumstances."
My mother frowned for a moment, as if she wanted to say something in response before continuing.
"As I was saying... normal auras are rainbow coloured but in addition there are two other colours, which are spots rather than bands. Experience can change our auras, as can physical or emotional trauma. The colours tint or shade in response. Blue doesn’t become yellow but the shade of blue can change. Your… transformation,” she said gesturing at my body. “In your case... it's your red aura that was affected."
"What about my red aura?"
"Well red auras are different in males from females. Men tend towards shades of red like crimson, while women tend towards tints of red like amaranth. We think that your… transformation… was the reason your aura changed, effectively lightening your shade of red."
“But I’ve changed gender regularly for six months since I bonded with my litter. No one said anything about changes to my aura then.”
“Because there wasn’t anything significant. Yes, in your girl form your red aura tinted but as soon as you became Alan again it reverted to normal. Now though… now it’s… changed.”
"Changed?" I asked, a lump forming in my throat as I recalled basic colour theory. I had a really bad feeling about where this was going. "You mean that I'm now a tint not a shade?"
"If it were only that simple," she sniffled. "You were never a deep shade in the first place Alan. Yet the lightest tint of red you will ever find in a woman's aura is a pale red, at most a very red rose and never a pink rose for example."
"And mine is?"
Turning away from me for a second, she pulled a screwed up tissue from her sleeve and blew her nose.
"Come. Let me show you," she sniffled. She moved over to the full length mirror on my wardrobe.
Still hugging my pillow tight, I uncurled my legs and nervously took my place beside my mother. My wings fluttered nervously in tune with my stomach as I nodded my assent to her. She placed her hand on my shoulder and I saw her ring briefly glow as she focussed her Talent.
"Videre!" she exclaimed.
I watched as the space around my reflection rippled and the faint rainbow of my aura appeared becoming brighter as my mother concentrated. A normal aura was red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Mine was all that except the red was most definitely a pink colour. Maybe a French Rose? If it wasn't so horrifying I might even laugh at the way the colour wheel information unwillingly hammered into me as a pre-teen came back so quickly.
"What does this mean?" I asked, unable to tear my eyes away from my reflected aura.
"No one knows for sure. The consensus of opinion seems to be that the feminine side of your personality will be more dominant in the shorter term. Some of the Elders think that it may pass with time and your natural shade of red will reassert itself."
"But you're not so sure are you?" I asked, noting the way she avoided making eye contact with me in the mirror.
"I... I spoke to your Aunt Sophie. She noticed some... other... changes to your aura."
"What changes?"
"May I?" asked my mother, holding her hand up to show the sapphire ring of her Craft. “I want to revert you back to your Alan again.”
“Knock yourself out.”
Taking a deep breath I closed my eyes and waited.
"Discute!"
I felt my skin tingle briefly, rippling out from where my mother touched my shoulder. Only once the feeling had receded did I dare to open my eyes. Reflected in the mirror in front of me was a tall, slightly plain, teenage girl standing in front of a woman who could only be her mother given the strong family resemblance that was as clear in this form as it was in my 'pixie momma' form. Turning slightly I could see my wings were now gone at least.
I dropped the pillow I had been clutching to my chest and tugged at my slightly lose camisole top. Glancing down I noticed that what I seemed to be smaller in the bust but there was still the unmistakable signs of womanhood there still that would probably have me labelled as a late bloomer for my age... if I was a girl. I seemed to have picked up some of my old height, gaining three or four more inches, and had even regained some of my old muscle definition. I was no Miss World but I was on the right side of athletic without being freakishly muscled which I was grateful for. I was momentarily surprised to see that my long wavy blonde hair had remained instead of my shorter male haircut although I guess I shouldn't have been so shocked as apart from a familiar feeling in my underwear there was very little to indicate that I was physically male in this form. Modestly endowed bean pole of a girl? Yup, plenty of evidence for that. Red blood English boy... not so much evidence while fully clothed. From the feel of things much evidence for it while naked either.
"This... this is my male form?" I asked, turning wide eyed to face my mother.
"Yes," whispered my mother as she dabbed at the tears running down her cheek. "Until your aura sorts itself out this is the closest you can get to your real self."
"No..."
"We'll find a way to reverse this Alan," said my mother, pulling me into an embrace. "Your father consulted the Goodspeed House library without any luck and left for Munich earlier today to speak to your Grandpa to see if House Grimm has anything in its records about your sort of transformation."
"Opa knows?" I asked, using the German term he preferred me to call him by. "What did he say about what I did?"
"You know your Opa. He attaches no blame to you. Family comes first and the fact we are both alive and well is the most important thing to him."
I frowned and turned to face my mother.
"Yeah, I know Opa. I also know that's not all he would have to say on the matter."
Grandpa Grimm was an old school warlock. So old school you probably wrote on a slate in chalk in his lessons. I heard him hammering the same message into my brother and sister every time we visited. Never let your guard down. Always assume that everyone is your enemy. Trust no one who isn't Family. Trust no one who isn't blood kin. Never stop at gingerbread houses.
I may have made one of those up.
"I didn't lie when I said he didn't blame you," replied my mother, wiping fresh tears from her eyes. "He blames me. I... I let my guard down with the Gentry's and... and almost lost you... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry Alan. I let you down."
I watched in stunned silence as my mother stopped speaking to bury her face in her hands. I'd expected many things from this conversation but I wasn't expecting that.
"Your Opa is right to blame me. I knew the lessons. I nearly... I should have..."
Dropping to her knees, my watched my mother's whole body convulsed in great body heaving sobs. I felt my jaw work silently as my mouth tried to find the words my brain couldn't.
"Mum no... don't do this to yourself," I pleaded, wrapping my arms around her drawing her close to me. "Nobody, and I mean nobody, suspected the Gentry's of being Trojan Horses. Things could have gone much, much worse. We're all okay."
"But for how much longer?" she sniffled. "Whoever they are they know we are here. Who knows what exactly they relayed about Ackholt? How many more like the Gentry's are planted here?"
"We're pretty entrenched here mum. A lot of the town is either Family or blood family and there can't have been that many people that moved to the town in the last year or so. Dad can get the Family to check on that."
"If these are the Witchfinders they aren't to be underestimated. That's another of your Opa's lessons," she said, wiping at her red rimmed eyes.
“You believe me?” I said, struggling to hide the surprise from my voice. “You believe me that it is the return of the Witchfinders?”
“You’re my son Alan. Of course I believe you,” she replied, before raising her hand to show me her ring. “Plus, I know when you are lying.”
I snorted with laughter at that, noting the small smile on my mother’s face.
"Opa fought the Witchfinders in the last Great Magick War didn't he?" I asked.
My mother nodded in response, wiping away her tears. She gently touched my arm to let me know to let her up.
"He was just a kid wasn't he?" I asked as she climbed to her feet and sat down again on my bed.
"You Opa was 14 when the Great Magick War broke out in '55. His father, my opa, had only just got House Grimm back on its feet after the Second World War and our numbers were quite depleted of warlocks and witches with experience. We'd pushed the Witchfinders almost to extinction in the late 1890’s but they'd used the time offered by the wars of the early 20th Century to regroup. They knew that many of the Great Houses were weakened following the turmoil caused by the two world wars so they gambled everything on a full frontal assault on House Grimm and the other major European Houses."
"But they failed though."
"Yes... though it was a close run thing and we lost many members of the Family but when the dust settled they were all gone. The Great Houses announced every last Witchfinder was dead. Since then for fifty years we’ve had no reason to doubt that."
“Until now.”
“Until now,” replied my mother. “I’d hoped that neither of us would ever live to see another Magick War. Now I’m not so sure and unlike last time with the discord between the Great Houses of Europe I don’t know if we could survive such a war.”
"I’m sure it won’t come to that again,” I said hugging my mother. "Thanks to Opa, House Grimm is stronger now. It's had two generations to rebuild after all, and then there is its alliance with House Goodspeed. The Great Magick War never reached England or its Great Houses, so we’re strong in numbers. Dad won't let House Grimm fight alone against the Witchfinders."
"Maybe..."
I released my mother from my embrace, cocking an eyebrow at her. "Maybe? What else is there that you aren't telling me?"
"Nothing," she replied quickly, wiping at her eyes as she stood. Her voice took on a more familiar tone as she addressed me. "You should get dressed. You’re going to a meeting of the Corrective Craft Group later and it will do you good to get out of the house."
"I'm freed from house arrest?" I asked, my voice filled with hope.
"It's not house arrest Alan, it's for your own protection,” she said with a sigh. Yep, mum was back.
“Anyway, the Council have said as long as you are accompanied they see no problem with you leaving the house. Aunt Sophie and Uncle John will be accompanying us for protection."
"Great," I moaned. "When are you fitting me with the ankle bracelet?"
"I don't like it any more than you do Alan but I won't risk losing you again."
"But muuuuumm..."
"No buts Alan," she replied, cutting me off with a wave of her hand. "Be ready to go in forty-five minutes or you can stay indoors or all day. I'll apply a glamour to make you look like your old self."
"Yes mum," I replied, my shoulders slumping in defeat.
The air was still cold and thick with moisture and I didn’t resist as Uncle John quickly spirited me into the warmth of the building. Aunt Sophie and my mother were a few paces behind talking in hushed whispers that I could only assume meant they were talking about me. Entering the impressive wood panelled lobby, I was steered towards the sexily dressed smiling young receptionist. She had the perfect figure, curving in all the right places and well-endowed enough that I was feeling a trifle neglected by the boob fairy. Her make-up was flawless and looked professionally applied. Part of me lusted over her and part of my felt deeply insecure just standing near her. I had no idea what she was on to smile that intensely but it was clearly good stuff.
“Good afternoon and welcome to Godspeede House,” she said in her lilting musical voice. “How may I help you?”
I was pretty sure that her ‘good morning’ could cause Captains to dash their ships against the rocks it was that enchanting.
“We’re friends of the Family,” replied Uncle John, producing a piece of cloth with his Chapter symbol on it.
“Why little Johnny,” excitedly squeaked the woman who looked far too young to be calling anyone over the age of 18 ‘little’ anything. “It’s been ages since I saw you last. How’s your mother doing?”
“She’s doing fine, thank you.”
“And your father? Still the same handsome devil he was in his youth? You get your looks from him you know.”
“Thank you, people say that. My father’s well too.”
“Well, it’s been lovely seeing you again. Please tell them both that Constance asked after them,” she said, pulling a bag of knitting out from its hiding place under the desk. The child’s jumper with a cute animal on it didn’t look to me like the sort of thing that a woman in a satin blouse should be knitting.
“Of course,” replied Uncle John as he leant down to kiss Constance on the cheek. “You must drop by and see them sometime.”
“I will do that thank you,” she said smiling. “Corrective Craft Group is down the hall to the left, Master Goodspeed.”
Taking our leave of her we headed down another echoey wood panelled corridor.
“Well, well… old Granny Constance eh?” chuckled Uncle John as we walked. “I wondered what she was up to these days. I’ve seen few with her strength of Talent and it’s nice to see her still keeping her hand in.”
Granny? Oh… I mentally slapped my forehead at that.
“Why was she wearing a glamour?” I asked. Perhaps the question should be ‘who isn’t wearing a glamour?’ I thought as I looked down at my own illusion.
“It’s to present a consistent face to the public and allow us to put anyone on reception duty. She’s not wearing the glamour per se, rather the chair is enchanted to project that glamour on anyone who sits in it.”
“So she’s not really 21 and hot?”
“With the draft coming through those main doors?” laughed Uncle John. “She’s 93 and probably wearing five jumpers to keep the cold out under that glamour.”
Great. First it’s fake octogenarians who were really twenty-something’s and now it’s fake twenty-something’s who were really nonagenarians. At this rate I’d never meet a nice girl my age who was really my age.
“Here we are,” said Uncle John coming to a halt outside a room with a colourfully painted sign welcoming me to Corrective Craft Group. “This building is secure so we’ve agreed to give you some space with the Misf–with the Group.”
“You mean the Misfits,” I said, throwing my hands heavenwards. “Let’s not beat about the bush here.”
“I meant the Group,” said Uncle John, emphasising the word ‘group’. “If you need any of us we’ll be in the coffee room down the hall.”
“Yay me.”
“In you go Alan,” said Uncle John, giving me a forceful nudge into the room.
I’m not sure what I expected the Misfits to be like, but on entering the room I was fairly certain that however bad I imagined it to be this was worse.
The walls were covered with regularly spaced motivational posters showing insufferably smug looking people achieving things accompanied by trite fortune cookie slogans. In the centre of the spartanly furnished room was a circle of a dozen chairs, about half of which were occupied by assorted teenagers whom I could only assume were the members of the Misfits.
Taking a deep breath I walked towards a small trestle table that had a large hot water filled urn on it and an assortment of biscuits on a platter. Scanning the biscuit platter I made a note of the last couple of Jammie Dodgers as I pulled out a tired looking Styrofoam cup from the dispenser and filled it with hot water. Forget the Witchfinders, these people were truly evil. Styrofoam — mankinds way of saying ‘suck it mother nature’ given the sun would go supernova long before these things biodegraded.
“Hi! You must be our newest member! My name’s–“
“Sally,” I interrupted, pointing to the label stuck on her baggy sweater dress.
“Oh you!” she said, playfully swatting at my arm.
“Oh me!” I sarcastically mimicked, though from her expression I think it was lost on her.
“And you are?” she asked, spiriting a clipboard out of nowhere.
“Roberts.”
“Is that you first or last name?” she asked, raising the top sheet to check the ones below.
“Last.”
“Hmmmm. I don’t see a Mr Roberts here… what’s your first name?”
“Dread Pirate. It could be under listed under ‘D’ or ‘P’ I suppose?”
“I don’t see a ‘dread pirate’ anywhere,” she said, flicking through the sheets on the clipboard.
“Maybe I’m in the wrong class then. How about I go back to reception and–“
“ALAN LEWIS GOODSPEED!” bellowed my mother from the doorway, cutting me off in mid-sentence. I swear that woman has bat hearing.
“Or it could be filed under that I guess?” I asked, noting Sally’s cocked eyebrow and cross expression.
“Take a seat Mr Goodspeed,” she snapped, slapping my name label on with far more force than I felt warranted. Grabbing the last two Jammie Dodgers she stormed off back to the seated circle leaving me to face a bleak future filled with Garibaldis and custard creams.
Foregoing any biscuit based succour, I took my cup of hot water and took a seat as far away from the other inmates as I could in the circle. Just being in the room was killing my street cred, let alone actually being associated with anyone through social interaction.
“Okay, I think as many of us are here as are going to be,” announced Sally from her seat at the notional head of the circle. I suppressed the urge to point out to her that circles didn’t really have heads.
“I’d like you all to join me in welcoming our newest member of the Corrective Craft Group’s ‘Untamed Familiars Club’. Let’s give it up for Alan Goodspeed!”
First rule of Untamed Familiars Club. There is no Untamed Familiars Club. Anyone asks you remember that right?
I wondered if it was too late to get a pass for the bathroom. Maybe I could use it to slip free of my 'protectors' and run away to join the Foreign Legion. I had an awful lot I wanted to forget after all.
Alan Goodspeed is an ordinary teenage boy with all the hopes and dreams of any other teenage boy. Except for when he was a teenage girl. And then there was the whole pixie parenthood thing. That's fairly normal... right?
Fair warning, this is Chapter 3 in a series that I've not finished yet. That being said, for those who do decide to proceed, it's all plotted and I do intend to finish this, even if it is at the normal Jemima pace of things and will be woven around producing chapters of 'We are Family'. Thanks for reading this far and I hope you enjoy this third chapter! I would particularly like to thank Melanie E. for her encouragement.This chapter should be less dark than the previous chapter and certainly we see the return of the lighter Alan after a bit of plot (see tags) but like any story it needs dark to sustain the light. And of course *big hugs* to everyone who took the time to kudos and comment on chapter one. It was genuinely appreciated. Thank you.I'm still overwhelmed by how popular this story has been.
Previously in Chapter 2…
“Okay, I think as many of us are here as are going to be,” announced Sally from her seat at the notional head of the circle. I suppressed the urge to point out to her that circles didn’t really have heads.
“I’d like you all to join me in welcoming our newest member of the Corrective Craft Group’s ‘Untamed Familiars Club’. Let’s give it up for Alan Goodspeed!”
First rule of Untamed Familiars Club. There is no Untamed Familiars Club. Anyone asks you remember that right?
I wondered if it was too late to get a pass for the bathroom. Maybe I could use it to slip free of my 'protectors' and run away to join the Foreign Legion. I had an awful lot I wanted to forget after all.
And now… Chapter 3
Electorate of Bavaria: The Year of Our Lord, Sixteen Hundred and Forty-Nine
Captain Alan Godespeed, Sir Alexander Tyneford’s Regiment of Horse
I disliked subterfuge but given the nature of our quarry and the merry dance that he had led us across Europe, I felt we had no choice if we were to catch him. Nodding to the two men sitting opposite me in the darkened booth, I released the clasp on my heavy woollen riding cloak. It had kept me warm during the long months of our pursuit but it would only serve to hinder me now in the final end game. While the roaring fireplace had warmed the room there was still a cold chill seeping in from outside and I hoped that I would be able to return to its warmth soon.
I nodded to a second group of my men as I scanned the tavern, my eyes only briefly alighting on our quarry. There was no mistaking him, the jagged scar and eye patch easily identified him as he sat at a table in discussion with a group of simply dressed men. Men who were in my employee, a few gold coins were all that was needed to bait the trap. These men cared not that the coin was an English Unite but just for the gold it was pressed from. As much as it pained me to profit from the sins of man, I found myself leaning forward in anticipation as their conversation came to an end.
“Barkellner! Ein weiteres getrá¤nk fá¼r unsere englischen freund!“ shouted one of the men with his hand raised to the barman, the signal loud enough to be heard throughout the tavern and hopefully outside it too.
My hopes were rewarded a few moments later as the door to the tavern was thrown open and led by my junior officer, Cornet William Brown, three of my men entered. They seemed to shine in the dimness of the tavern, the candle and lamplight reflecting off their distinctive polished lobster-tailed pot helmets and their left handed bridle gauntlets.
“Matthew Hopkins, I order ye to surrender in the name of Parliament and the Commonwealth!” demanded Cornet Brown, drawing his sword.
For a moment silence reined throughout the tavern, the sight of English New Model Army cavalry troopers surprising all present. Then with a bellowing roar, Hopkins overturned the table scattering the men seated around it in all directions and momentarily regaining the advantage over my troopers. Pulling a cocked dog lock pistol from his belt, he fired a shot that sent one of my men tumbling to the ground.
“HOPKINS!” I shouted over the sound of the pistol shot.
As the smoke from the pistol cleared, I jumped from my seat causing my riding cloak to fall away as I drew my sword. I could already see the other members of my troop fanning out, their own swords drawn.
“Godespeed!” he spat, noticing me for the first time. “I had hoped that ye had given up on this mad quest of yours. Be gone with you! Thy Commonwealth has no more authority over me here than you do. Be gone back to England with ye.”
“And let a ne’er do well such as thee go free? No, thou shall run no more but instead return with me to England to stand trial for thy crimes.”
“Crimes? What crimes does thou speake of?”
“The murder of over 300 people.”
“People? No. Witches... Yes. Each one undergoing trial in keeping with the law. I challenge thee to find one who swung from my gallows who did not deserve it.”
“One? I will give thee two for a start. Faith Prudence Godespeed. She was twelve days away from her fifth birthday when thou hung her,” I growled, tightening the grip on my sword. “Her mother, and my wife, Verity Anne Godespeed.”
“Ahhh,” said Hopkins with a sad smile. “This I understand. Revenge.”
“Not revenge. Justice.”
“Call it what thou will, it does not matter.”
“It does to me. It does to each of my men, all of whom lost someone the day you came to Ackholt.”
“So this is to be an execution?” asked Hopkins fidgeting slightly as he took in the angry faces of the soldiers around him for the first time.
“Not unless ye make it so. You will return with us to England for trial and I shall take great pleasure in watching thee swing from the hangman’s noose.”
“I think that I will decline your kind offer,” said Hopkins, reaching into his jacket.
What he withdrew made even members of my troop, hardened veterans of the English Civil War to a man, gasp out loud. The object was a withered hand and given its size it could have belonged at best to a petite woman, possibly even a child. On its ring finger it wore the simple ring worn by all witches to focus their Talent.
“Displodo!” bellowed Hopkins before throwing the hand to the ground in front of my men and myself.
The clear stone in the ring briefly pulsed blue before the tavern filled with a deafening roar of sound and burst of blinding light. Through the spots of light that danced across my vision I saw Hopkins charge through the doorway scattering reeling members of the troop and disappear into the night.
“See to the men and then follow me,” I shouted over the ringing in my ears as I grabbed my dazed Lieutenant by the collar of his leather coat. Sprinting out in the darkness I set out after Hopkins, his fleeing form still visible in the distance.
The forest was pitch black, with occasional shafts of dappled moonlight visible through the tree canopy high above providing what little illumination there was. A few times I had seen brief flashes of things pacing me that I could hope were only wolves or bears. I had seen no sign of either my men or Hopkins for several hours now. As I had gone deeper into the forest I had felt its mood change and more and more I would come across trees and hollows that seemed to radiate malice. These areas I avoided as best I could and when I had no choice but to traverse them, I did so warily but also quickly. I would have turned back to the tavern but had found myself so turned around in the forest that I knew I had no hope of retracing my steps until daylight. Tightening my grip on the hilt of my sword, I once more resumed my pursuit.
“Hopkins,” I warned as I approached. “Be still or I will shoot ye.”
I kicked his pistol away from where it rested next to him and slid my sword back into its scabbard. Around the edges of the clearing I could see several indistinct figures moving but whatever they were they never came close enough to the treeline for me to see them clearly.
“It’s against my better judgement but we will wait here until first light,” I said knowing for all my unease in this place it at least offered clear sight lines and a better chance to defend myself should this be something more than just wolves.
“I am sorry about your family,” said Hopkins, still staring down at the ground from his position resting against the tree stump.
I grunted in response, words of apology insufficient to quench the anger I felt at what had been taken from me.
“Did you know I trained as a solicitor?” he asked, his voice carrying on the chilled breeze around the clearing. “Had my businesses not failed I would never have even walked this road. It was when I was facing financial ruination that I overheard two women talking about their dealings with a man they likened to the devil. It was then that I recalled the words of my father, a Puritan minister, and with my legal training and knowledge of the little used Witchcrafte Acte of 1604 I realised I could earn a comfortable living as a Witchfinder in the chaos of war. A magistrate would pay up to 20 shillings per witch on a good day. Per witch. Think about that… I was lucky to earn 3 pennies a day doing manual work and here was a way of earning up to 240 pennies from each witch found guilty by a magistrate.”
“So that’s all it was about? The money?” I hissed.
“At the start, yes.”
“The blood of innocents was worth so little to you?”
“So little? I forget that you are a moneyed man Captain. To one with nothing, 20 shillings was a king’s ransom and it was there for the taking. I styled myself as the Witchfinder General to make it sound like Parliament had approved me, even copied the style of dress of the New Model Army. While the law did not allow me to gain a confession by torture, it was easy enough to gain a confession through simple acts like depriving the accused of sleep or keeping them walking for hours. If necessary, a little bit of trickery could let you prick the skin of the witch without drawing blood using a stage dagger with a retractable blade. If I was really lucky, the accused would give up the names of ‘other’ accomplices in the hope of sparing her life, turning 20 shillings into 40, 60 or more. I made more than 300 pounds in two years work.”
“Hanging is too good for the likes of thee, Hopkins,” I said, fighting the urge to just shoot him and end this now. “But I will still gain great pleasure in watching ye swing.”
“No one died at my hands directly Captain. Each and every one was convicted by a magistrate and executed by a hangman. I just collected my fee for finding them. At the start anyway…”
“At the start?”
“I believed in witches no more than I believed in God at the start. It was all about the money. That all changed though in the village of Market Appleby about six months into my career as the Witchfinder General. A neighbour dispute had led to accusations being made against a woman of being a witch, accusations that I took advantage of, figuring that by the time I was finished I could find 2 or 3 more convictions from others with axes to grind. When we went to arrest her, she screamed something and one of my men was turned to stone. Turned. To. Stone. It was then that I realised that not only were witches real but that God had a plan for me. That I was to be his instrument in finding the witches and bringing them to justice. Of course, real witches were hard to find and it took money and time to do so, requiring me to continue my less legitimate Witchfinder activities in tandem with my real quest. Given that I was doing God’s work was it not unreasonable to suggest that I should benefit from material comforts while doing so?”
I felt my pistol jiggle in my hand as my whole body shook with rage. Yet despite my evident anger Hopkins remained oddly unmoved.
“The more I learnt about real witches, the easier it became to find them but it was still a painfully slow process. I despaired that my true work would end uncompleted and then one day, I heard of the artificer John of Sheffield. The tools he made for me allowed my Witchfinders to find even more witches though the cost was high. He took my left eye in payment.”
“No more than you deserved.”
“Possibly,” he said with a sigh. “I should have continued on to greatness with my works but the trouble was that I remained weak and I would still continue with my less legitimate witchfinder activities. I’d like to say that it was just for the money but if I’m honest, it was as much for the respect people gave me, motivated I know in large part by fear but never the less still respect. My father was anything but an easy man and I never measured up to the standards he set of me. After seeing the scorn and distain of people when I failed as a solicitor it gave me great personal satisfaction to be treated with so much fear and respect as Witchfinder General.”
“Petty jealousy and greed do not excuse the mass murder of innocents.”
“Maybe… but who knows really how many of those I found were truly innocents? Besides, I would have thought one such as you would have had more sympathy for my… legitimate… work.”
“What? Why?”
“Because your reputation as an honest, God fearing soldier in the cause of Parliament is second to none. And then there is your fight against the very evil of witchcraft. Are you not the Captain Godespeed whose men fought and killed a Black Annis, the blue-grey skinned old witch with iron claws and a taste for human flesh that preyed on the wounded after battles? The same man who killed a warlock in the employee of Royalists during the Battle of Naseby? No, we should not be enemies but brothers united in the cause of righteousness.”
“The warlock was a practitioner of the Dark Craft and intended to use his Talent for unspeakable evil. His death was necessary though I took no joy from it. As for the Black Annis… it was a vile creature, a remnant from the time of the Golden Court.”
“I wish we had met under better circumstances. We could have achieved so much together.”
“No. I would never have been able to work with one so evil as thee.”
A noise from just beyond the treeline drew my attention, and I raised my pistol towards it.
“On your feet if you value your life, Hopkins.”
“I will need your help then Captain.”
“Why?”
“I cannot seem to move,” whispered the voice, once more carried on the breeze around the clearing. I looked down at Hopkins unmoving form more carefully this time, noticing for the first time the large gash that had split open his stomach and had ended his life.
“I realised when I entered the forest I was not alone but I never realised that I was being herded here until it was too late. Just before I entered this clearing I was attacked and I barely made it to this spot. Why it hasn’t yet come to finish me off I cannot fathom.”
“Because it does not need to,” I replied, realising that Hopkins was not aware that his physical form had died.
It was then that I recognised what this clearing was. It was a magical trap, known to many as a Devil’s Hollow, though it had no link to the Christian devil. Those that died within it would find their spirits caught in the service of the supernatural entity bound to it, unable to pass on to the next world. Hopkins body may be dead but his spirit still inhabited it unaware of his passing. More worryingly, wherever there was a Devil’s Hollow there were previous victims turned into creatures of nightmare whose task it was to bait the trap and feed the controlling entity.
A roar from the edge of the clearing drew my attention as a creature half-man, half-beast burst forth. I fired my pistol at it, hitting it squarely in the chest causing it to collapse to the ground. It lay there writhing in agony but making now further attempt to move towards me, blood being coughed up from its snout. As I discarded my now useless pistol and drew my sword, more howls could be heard from the edges of the clearing.
“For God’s sake man! Help me up!” called out Hopkins voice.
“I’m sorry. It’s too late for you,” I said, unbuttoning my jacket coat enough to reach inside it.
“What?! You can’t leave me here with those things!”
“Have you not noticed that you could see that creature even though your body is facing away from it?” I asked.
“I… what? I don’t understand…”
Twin howls screamed out as two monstrous shapes burst forth from the treeline.
“Retardo!” I yelled, drawing my wand from my jacket. A burst of light brought the movement of both creatures first to little more than a crawl then to a complete halt.
“You’re… one of them?!?” screamed Hopkins voice. “That means your wife was a… I was right! Your reputation is a lie! You’re one of them! Damn you! Damn you Godespeed!”
More creatures emerged from the treeline this time, spread out so as to make it harder for me to stop them. I immobilised one with a burst of magic from my wand before turning and sprinting away from the remaining creatures. As I disappeared into the tree line, I heard Hopkins voice cursing my name and begging me not to leave him to the mercy of the creatures in alternate breathes.
Crashing through the blackness of the forest I gave up any attempt to hide myself knowing that my only hope was to put enough distance between myself and the hollow so that it would not be worth the creatures’ efforts to take me back there before I died.
“If… if I’d wanted… to have… run this much… I’d have… joined a… regiment of foote,” I muttered out loud, gasping for breath.
When I finally felt able to breathe again I started to take in my surroundings for the first time. While around me the forest was dark it lacked the same sense of menace as it had earlier. Actually, mostly dark for squinting into the darkness I could make out a faint golden light through the trees. I felt my heart quicken at the thought of something as simple as a woodsman’s hut. Could it offer hope of salvation? A howl in the distant darkness reminded me that I really had no choice in the matter.
I started to slow to a jog as I approached the hut to better gain an appreciation of my surroundings. Something felt… wrong. Not threatening but wrong. It took me a few moments to realise that it was brightness of the light, which was far brighter than a few candles from a simple woodsman’s hut.
As I started to draw my wand from its pocket in my jacket, I heard a growl from behind me. Turning I just managed to bring the metal bridle gauntlet up in time to block the creatures attack as both of us crashed to the ground. I could see now that this creature was some sort of wolf-man cross, its elongated snout and sharp teeth locked firmly around the gauntlet; only the metal and thick padded leather jacket stopping it from having bitten deep into my arm. In my first piece of good fortune all night, its hands were more wolf paws than hand claws and it was clear that its mouth was its main attack. However, the pressure of its teeth as it pressed deep into the leather indicated that these would be sufficient to bite clean through to the bone if it got the chance.
Unable to reach into my pocket for my wand, I tugged at my dagger trying to slide it free from its scabbard on my belt. Just as the metal on my gauntlet started to crack under the pressure I felt the dagger slide free and thrust it up into the side of the creature. As it howled in pain I lashed out with my fist, knocking the creature off me. Clambering to my feet I drew my sword while the creature clumsily pulled my dagger free from its side. Turning to me its eyes briefly darted to my sword before meeting mine. In that instance we both knew what would happen it if attacked me and we both knew that it would still do so none the less. With a last howl it leapt for me, colliding with me like a ton of bricks. As we fell to the ground it snapped its mighty jaws at me once before its head came to a rest on my chest, revealing the bloodied blade of my sword projecting from its back. Pushing the now still creature off of me I lay on the ground drawing ragged breath.
“Hello,” said a woman’s soft voice, shortly followed by a smiling face as it moved into my field of vision. “You must be Alan. I’m Joan.”
It was then that I realised that the source of the light from the woodsman’s hut wasn’t from candles or lanterns. It was from the golden skinned woman looking down at me who literally glowed with light.
To underline the point he poked with a partially transparent boot at Hopkins’ guts where they had spilled forth from the stomach wound.
“I’m fairly sure those things are supposed to be inside it. And do they always smell like that?” he asked, covering his nose and mouth with his hand.
“The rituals would repair it and provide the form with the sort of strength and resilience that you are more used to my Lord,” replied the woman he had been addressing, her long dirty black hair obscuring much of her face allowing only small patches of grey-blue skin to be visible underneath. “As for the smell… my experience has been that humans smell even worse when alive. That being said when boiled in a stew with a nice selection of root vegetables the smell is more… appealing.”
“It’s hideously ugly. Is that normal?”
“You are an elf my Lord. All humans are ugly in comparison.”
“And this is the only suitable vessel available?”
“Yes my Lord. It has died in the appropriate setting with the necessary charms in place. However, if you want to wait another 50 years for another suitable vessel to be brought here…”
“And this is the only way that I can cross back into this realm?” he asked, the distain evident in his voice.
“The wards guarding this realm are still too strong to allow for one such as yourself to physically cross over without suffering serious ill effect my Lord.”
“And what of this vessel if I were to do as you ask?”
“It would be reanimated, its memories intact and its body repaired. It would be stronger, quicker and tougher than a normal human and have a life span akin to your own.”
“And what of me?”
“Your physical body would remain unharmed in the other realm while you spirit was housed with the vessel. This vessel itself would not have access to any of your memories directly and would still think of itself as the human it was before but you would be able to influence its actions to a sufficient degree so that you could prepare the ground for the return of the Golden Court. I do not believe it would be too difficult for one such as yourself to turn this vessels hatred of our shared enemy to include those creatures of the Seditious Court as well. Over time, should it live long enough you should also be able to exercise greater control in guiding this vessels actions until you reach the point of total control.”
“And when this realm is once more reopened to our return?”
“Then your spirit would return to its true body.”
“Then do it,” said the hooded figure. “And tell your sisters that the Golden Court will not forget their service when the time has come for our return. I also give you my personal word of honour that the Golden Court will grant the boon that you have requested.”
“I look forward to celebrating a mighty feast in Queen Mabs’ name come that day.”
“As do I. Who knows, I may even try some of that human flesh you and your kin are so partial to on that day.”
In many ways Joan had reminded me of her; in the way she fussed over the cuts and bruises from my chase through the forest and even in the food she had served me. If I had not known better I would have sworn that it was my wife’s own vegetable stew she had fed me. I would have been content had that itself been the end to the evening but she had led me to her bedroom insisting that she had to massage in some liniment to ease my aches and pains. Part of me knew that I should have drawn the line there and questioned her about her true nature but another part of me…
Another part of me longed to be with someone who cared for me. The death of Hopkins at a hand other than mine or the hangman’s had left me feeling empty, uncertain. Now that my burning need for justice and yes, revenge, was quenched I felt... nothing… and I had a powerful need to feel something positive after carrying so much grief and rage bottled up for so long. The love we made that night was tender and slow and at times we just lay holding each other in silence, both keeping our own counsel as we contemplated whatever thoughts we had. Now that the morning had come I felt hope for the first time in a long time as to what the day might bring me.
As I rolled over in the bed I noticed a folded piece of paper with my name written on it sitting on a small dresser across the room. Untangling myself from the soft sheets, I pulled on my breeches and quietly padded across the room to the dresser. Glancing at the start of the note I read that there was food for breakfast in the other room. Reading the note as I wandered into the next room of the small hut, I reached into the wicker bread basket on the table only to feel the touch of skin-on-skin rather than that of skin-on-bread. Peering over the letter in my hand I was rewarded by the happy giggle of a small child no more than a couple of weeks old swaddled in a blue blanket. As its little hand grasped at my finger I looked around the empty room for a moment before returning back to the note.
‘…bread and cheese are in the kitchen for your breakfast. I have also mended your clothes as best I can. You will find all you need for your journey home in the pack by the door, though the journey may be shorter than you expect.
Your men will arrive shortly after you read this letter and if you head north from this hut you will find yourself no more than an hour’s ride from Calais. While for you only a night has passed you will find that for your men you have been missing for several months. However, being Ackholt men I’m sure that they will be understanding as to your explanation.
Finally, I enjoyed our time together and will always treasure the memory. I hope that you may be able to forgive me for our actions and bear no ill will towards our son. Raise him as you would any child of your blood and tell him not of how he was conceived.
With love
Joan
PS. I hope you don’t mind but I borrowed your coin and sword.’
Placing the letter on the table I reached into the basket to lift the baby… my son… from it. As I held him in my arms, he smiled a smile full of trust and love up at me. I could see my nose in his and his ears definitely reminded me of my fathers, though his complexion was much more tanned than mine. Still, a lifetime growing up in the English countryside would take that from him. It seemed that I now had an heir to carry forth the Godespeed name.
A happy little giggle escaped from my son as a loud knock sounded at the door.
“Oh boy…”
Taking a deep breath, I bounced the ball once before rolling left past an imaginary defender. Racing towards the basket I made the jump listening to the thud of the ball hitting the backboard before rebounding to skitter across the rim of the basket and...
Bounce clear.
Slowing my momentum I came to a soft palm out stop against the wall at the back of the hall, the mocking sound of the basketball echoing as it bounced across the court before rolling away.
Perfect.
Even here on the basketball court I couldn’t shake my run of poor luck. That shot would have gone in clean 9 out of 10 times before all this weirdness in my life started. Now I’m lucky to get it in 1 in 10 times. My timing and judgement are shot to pieces and my body just feels… off. Maybe it’s the loss of 5 inches of height, maybe it’s the fact I’m like 95% girl under this glamour or maybe it’s just this is my life now.
I let out a squeal of frustration, slapping the wall. I need to get out from all this now more than ever. I wonder if anyone would notice if I ran away and joined the Harlem Globetrotters? I can see it now, Alan ‘Pixie’ Goodspeed, legendary Globetrotter. I’d tour the world playing exhibition games and urging kids to ‘just say no’ to magick. It sounded a wonderful idea. There’s just no way I’d get loose from my ‘protectors’ given everything that has happened in the last fortnight.
Yeah, can you believe it? It’s been a week since I attended my first ‘Untamed Familiars Club’ session here at Godespeed House. It feels much longer but that’s probably because a punishment that was supposed to last only a few hours a week has turned into pretty much a 24/7 thing. For once it wasn’t my fault, though my bad luck continues to run true to form and I’m suffering the consequences of it. This time the blame falls squarely, if not a little unfairly, with Warlock Arthur Haverstock.
I’d never met Arthur but I’d heard a few gossipy whisperings about him. Arthur was a bit of a celebrity in Ackholt but this had nothing to do with his ability as a warlock. Far from it as by all accounts he was a pretty mediocre warlock at best. Nor was it for his exploits in the ordinary world. Arthur was a slightly overweight, middle aged, middle management accountant working for a medium sized accountancy firm. No, the celebrity status he enjoyed had to do with his wife. Technically his second wife as the previous Mrs Haverstock, who had been a witch, had died two years earlier leaving Arthur to raise twin teenage girls. Anyway, seven months ago Arthur won an all-expenses paid Mediterranean cruise package for one.
He was expected to come back with a tan.
Instead, he came back with a beautiful wife who was twenty years younger than him. And no tan.
Amongst the other middle aged men of Ackholt with their equally as middle aged wives, Arthur became a celebrity, the guest of a hundred dinner parties. Everyone wanted to meet the beautiful young woman that Arthur had married to try and find out what it was that drew her to a man who if you were to describe him in a colour would be called ‘grey’. It turned out all those people who whispered behind Arthur’s back that it was too true to be good and that she was after his money were half right.
It was too good to be true but she didn’t want his money. What she wanted was his Family.
Or rather, the inside access to who was who within the Family he could offer her and he gave her everything she wanted. After all, she was a mundane married into the Family so it would have been strange for her not to have questions. Unfortunately, Arthur never managed to work out the difference between curiosity and soft interrogation. Nor was he suspicious when the new Mrs Haverstock suggested the twins spend some time away from the Institute so that she could get to know them.
Luckily for the Family, and as it turned out unluckily for me, Arthur was on the outer edges of the Family so didn’t have access to its inner circle secrets and gossip. There were some things he just didn’t know and some things he added 2 + 2 together and came up with 5. One of those it turns out was Arthur’s mistaken belief that because I wasn’t at the Institute and because I didn’t practice the Craft, I didn’t have the Talent.
We know how that mistaken belief worked out.
I’m sure Arthur would have unwittingly kept feeding them more information on the Family too if it wasn’t for my father, who before he left for Germany ordered that detailed follow-up checks be conducted on every new arrival over the last year in Ackholt in the light of the Agnes Gentry ‘incident’. I know there were some who thought he was overreacting and that the initial screening process was fine, one incident apart. However, those doubters were proven wrong the moment Mr & Mrs Haverstock and the twins vanished shortly after the checks started into her background.
Arthur Haverstock’s body was found floating in the River Ack two days later.
Uncle John was present when the ritual that summoned Arthur’s spirit back from the afterlife long enough to question him was held, which is how I know all this. Yet again the Family Council was preaching the mantra of silence in respect of possible Witchfinder involvement in order to ‘avoid causing panic’ while it established the ‘full facts’ of recent matters. Personally, I thought the Council’s Great Seal should be redesigned to show an ostrich with its head in the sand. It seemed more appropriate than what was currently on it.
What the Family Council couldn’t hide from was the disappearance of the Haverstock twins, which with the recent attempt on my life seemed to demonstrate that there was a very real threat to the Family children. I had a horrible feeling that the Witchfinders had gained two new Hounds with the disappearance of the twins.
So it was ordered that all those children of the Family who were not at the Institute should be educated at Godespeed House for safety until the facts of the recent incidents could be established to the Council’s satisfaction. Using the Craft and some contacts in government through House Pendragon, one of the great English Houses, they had the Godespeed Free School established and approved in a day. I know from Uncle John that the evil Mrs Dorian had made another attempt to have me sent to the Institute, this time ‘for my safety’, but as there were a couple of other children who were unable to attend the Institute for various reasons it was decided that at this point there was no justification for it, particularly given the Council had so recently passed judgement on me.
In sending the children of the Family to Godespeed Free School you had to take into consideration that there were in effect three sorts of children in Ackholt. The largest group was the ‘mundane’, the normal children without the Talent. Within the mundane however, there were two sub-groupings.
The first, and largest group, was those with no ‘Talented’ parents who were ignorant of the Family and mostly thought magick was spelt without a ‘k’. Basically, ordinary people. None of these children were sent to the Godespeed Free School as it was felt that they weren’t at risk.
The second, and smaller, group of mundane was those with one ‘Talented’ and one ‘Mundane’ parent who had no Talent of their own. They were treated like an extension of the Family, absent from its inner circle but still having a place. It was accepted that any warlock or witch who married a mundane had a roughly 1 in 3 chance of mundane offspring and it was fairly uncommon for someone from the Family to marry outside as a result, though not unheard of. The Family bore them no ill will due to their status in the genetic lottery of the Talent and they were considered at enough of a risk given their proximity to a Family member to be brought to Godespeed for ‘their’ safety. Personally, I thought it had more to do with the safety of the Family member but maybe I’m just a little jaundiced when it comes to the motives of the Family.
The second largest group in Ackholt was the Talented, those children born of one or two Talented parents into the Family and for whom ‘the blood ran true’. Some Family scholars suggested that the Talent trait played some role in promulgating its inheritance as the rate of occurrence where there were two Talented parents was virtually 100%. Very rarely a Talented child would be born to two mundane’s who had some Talented blood in the distant branches of their family tree and they would be welcomed into the Family once discovered. The majority of the Talented children were at the Institute but those few who were in Ackholt were considered at the greatest risk following the recent ‘incidents’.
The final group was the smallest and the most socially isolated of the groups, the children of two Talented parents who were themselves born without the Talent. You think I’m a social outcast? Try being the ‘Talentless’ child of a witch and warlock and not have everyone in the Family look at you with a mixture of embarrassment and ‘there but for the grace of god’ pity. It’s very un-politically correct and publicly discouraged from being said but the Family still behind closed doors called them the ‘Forsaken’. The most bigoted of the Family tend to treat a Forsaken offspring as if the absence of Talent is contagious and keep their own ‘Talented’ children as far away from them as much as they can. There are stories of desperate warlocks and witches trying, and failing, to magically imbue their Forsaken children with the Talent. You see the Forsaken are not mundane, rather they are the opposite of the Talented. They are an absence of magick, anti-magick if you will. No spell will work on them, no magick object works for them. There are even fantastically accounts from the middle ages of Forsaken sucking the magick out of Talented children. The stories represent the prejudices of simpler times and no one has ever proven there to be any basis to the stories but they only serve to further fuel the distrust of the Forsaken amongst the Family.
You’d think that they would be perfect company for me, kindred spirits of a sort, but far from it. As far as most of the Forsaken are concerned I’m either one of the Talented regardless of my choices or a fool who has the thing they desperately want but chooses to reject it. I’ve taken a few lumps in my time from them until I got big and strong enough to give them back. That being said I could say the same thing about the Talented children.
I may love* my family (*in principle and with a significant sibling exception) but I truly hate the Family at the same time for all its flawed, petty, superior-than-thou crap.
So, here I was an unwilling student at the Godespeed Free School, part of a group of 11 children of various ages with the Talent who were for some reason or other not at the Institute. There were a further 14 mundane children and 6 of the ‘Forsaken’ here who were kept largely separate from myself and the other Talented. I was in some ways grateful for the lessons given I was currently suspended from school. However, as they were running an Institute approved curriculum there were a couple of hours of Craft teaching classes each day that I refused to attend. Those I tended to spend studying in the small reference library or working out in the gym like now. At least this was the last period of the day and I could go home soon.
Retrieving the ball I lined up at the three point line and took what should be a better than even money shot for me. The moment it left my hand I realise it is a little overthrown but not by much. The arc of the ball looked good overall. It was going in I was certain. It hit the backboard where the basket joined and as the ball lightly skipped backward it was still going in. It’s…
Huh. The hoop just fell of the backboard. That’s not something you see every day.
I watch helplessly as the ball sailed through the air where the open top of the hoop would have been. As the hoop crashed to the ground it was quickly followed by the backboard as it came adrift from its bolts on the wall. As the whole thing tumbled to the ground with enough noise to wake the dead, and that’s not something to say lightly in Ackholt, I slumped to the ground with my head in my hands.
I just cannot catch a break.
A nervous cough from behind me indicated that I wasn’t alone.
“Hey, Tracey,” I said out loud. I hadn’t seen her come in but this had all the hallmarks of her being here.
“Um… sorry?”
“It’s not your fault Tracy… I guess,” I say with a sigh as I look up at the new voice in the room. Above me I heard the gentle tinkling sounds of two of my pixies appearing.
“I’m getting better with them. Honest. It’s just…”
Her words peter out into a few sniffles as she wiped her nose with the back of the baggy oversized sleeve of her homemade woollen jumper.
*sigh* As much as I want to be angry about it, I just can’t.
Getting to my feet I reach out to hug her. I felt her flinch for a second before grabbing me tightly and burying her face into my sweatshirt. It broke my heart a little that her first reaction to someone reaching out to comfort her was to pull back as it was telling of her experiences after these sorts of incidents to date. As I gently wrapped my arms around her she let rip with tears that were as much about the need for human contact as they were an expression of distress at what happened to the basketball equipment.
“Tikka?”
I nodded my head towards the broken backboard and Sky, aka Savitskaya, swooped off towards the pile of debris. Sky was the most technologically curious of my pixies and liked to understand how things worked, like some sort of mini flying engineer. Most of the time the things she dismantled still worked when she reassembled them. Well, except for our toaster which somehow seems to be receiving news and current affairs broadcasts from 1980’s BBC Radio 4 now rather than making toast but hey, who wasn’t interested in hearing how that whole Cold War thing worked out?
“Off! Off! Ours!” squeaked a little voice from the debris, leading to the second pixie, Sunflower, to let out a loud cat like hiss and move to a supporting position next to Sky.
From amongst the broken pieces emerged a handful of small humanoid figures, each one roughly the same size as my pixies at fifteen or so centimetres in height. They wore bright primary coloured miniature overalls, except for what I assumed were the girl ones who wore equally as colourful 1950’s style dresses, and they were each topped with a Viking style helmet with curly ram like horns. Oddly, it turned the helmets accessorised well with 1950’s dresses. In each of their b-movie style mad scientist gloved hands they held small tools and one of them was dragging a canvas sack filled with screws and bolts.
Gremlins.
A gremlin when properly bound in accordance with the rituals as a familiar and domesticated enslaved was a powerful tool for a witch or a warlock. They granted access to a form of wild magick related to technology which was very different from much of the wild nature magick possessed by the other creatures of the Golden Court. Even when correctly bound though they remained a group of creatures that only the strongest willed practitioners of the Craft could effectively harness. The experience of most young adults bound to gremlins was of a steep learning curve over the first two years before eventually establishing mastery. That degree of mastery was the make or break for a how effectively a witch or warlock could channel the wild magick.
Tracy Fairborn was most definitely a break rather than a make, though it wasn’t really her fault. When the clan of baby gremlins had been found, the Family had chosen her to be the recipient of them. She was probably the most naturally gifted of my generation in the Family and certainly had the required degree of willpower to control the gremlins. The result would have been a very powerful witch who after the requisite couple of years wrestling for control of them would be a formidable opponent.
The problem was that the binding rituals needed to be performed to the letter of the grimoire specifications and once started could not be stopped. Tracy’s ritual took place in a field in the middle of August with the correct astrological and ley line alignment. Unfortunately, Tracy had hay fever and a couple of sneezes and a few clogged up mispronounced words later and her binding ceremony was completed but flawed. She could channel the wild magic through her new ‘familiars’ but had absolutely no control over them and it was deemed unlikely that even with years of practice would she ever have anything beyond the most cursory control over them. She went from being touted as being one of the most promising witches of our generation to being suspended from the Institute due to repeated incidents caused by her clan of gremlins. The Institute was well prepared to put up with problems while students learned to master their familiars but even it drew the line at her untamed miscreants. In short, she was a walking disaster.
I couldn’t help feel a degree of affinity for her.
She had confessed to me over the last week that she had not asked for the bonding and had some misgivings about the binding ritual. Whereas I was an unwilling participant in my bonding having being pushed into the nest of pixies by my brother she had felt pressurised to go ahead with the bonding given the weight of Family expectation on her. Yes, she willingly entered in the binding ritual, which was a strike against her in my book, but she treated her gremlins well even in their improperly binded state.
That’s assuming ‘binded’ was a proper word. Meh. English is a living language after all.
Anyway, it would be fair to say that right here, right now she was rapidly becoming the closest thing I had to a friend amongst the children of the Family. A flash of light from the direction of the wrecked basketball equipment pulled my mind back to the present.
“Sunflower! Stop that!” I admonished as a gremlin floated into the air trapped in a golden sphere of light.
That was another problem. Pixies being predominantly helpful to man didn’t get on with the more capricious gremlins.
“Sky! Stop trying to eat that gremlin! You don’t know where it’s been! Spit it out! Now!” I shouted as Sky guiltily let go of the gremlin she had in her mouth. The gremlin scowled at Sky as it rubbed at its torn sleeve, little cat like pixie teeth marks dotted along it.
“Sunflower… what did I say?” I growled as I watched her wielding one of the bolts from the backboard above her head like a mallet.
“Tikka?”
“Tikka,” I repeated, pointing for her to put it down. With a sulky scowl she threw away the bolt and went back to staring down her gremlin opposite number. I wasn’t worried that anything would happen to my girls as each one was individually more than a match for a half dozen gremlins.
“How do you do it?” asked Tracy in a sniffly voice.
“Do what?”
“You never completed the binding ritual yet you can control them.”
“I… I don’t really think of it as control. It’s more… it’s more than I ask them to do things and sometimes, and I stress sometimes, they decide to do it.”
“Do you… do you think you could show me how you do it?” she asked, a hopeful note in her voice.
Oh boy. That the frequency of them doing what I asked had increased following my Pyskie incident wasn’t something I was really prepared to share with anyone at this point but if I said no I’d come off like a complete bastard.
“I… I don’t know if I can help,” I said, noting the big expectant eyes looking up at me and willing myself not to weaken. “I… I…”
Damn it. I was still basically in what was left of my male human form, in so much as it was just about technically male, which meant that I was still enough of a red blooded English boy under this glamour of my old self. An attractive, lost looking girl making those big helpless eyes at me… Must. Fight. Weakening. Resolve.
“I… don’t know if I can help… but…”
I let out a loud exhale as I looked once more into her eyes.
“But I’m willing to give it a try.”
I hereby do find the boy hormones of one Alan Lewis Goodspeed guilty of the charge of cowardice in the face of battle. In mitigation, they would like to make the case that they don’t get out much these days.
A loud squeal from Tracy indicated her happiness at my words and I nearly choked as she locked her arms around me in a bear hug.
“Ummm… Alan,” she asked from where she had her face buried in my chest.
“Yes?”
“Why do these feel like breasts?” she asked pulling back slightly too tentatively poke one of my glamour hidden breasts.
“I’ve no idea,” I reply, hastily disentangling myself from her. “So… uh, do you want to get together tomorrow and talk about your little problems?”
Must misdirect. The secret to all deception is misdirection.
“Um… okay,” she replied, canting her head slightly as she looked at me like a jeweller appraising a precious stone. “Is… is that… a… glamour?”
Freaking great. She would have to be one of the strongest witches of my generation. The conflict between her sense of touch and sight has enabled her to push at the perception filter that the glamour cloaked me in.
“I… I-I-I…”
“Hey, what the… what happened to the basketball hoop?” shouted a new voice from the entrance to the hall.
“Uh… what?” asked Tracy, shaking her head slightly as the distraction from the new entrants to the hall let the thought about my glamour slip from her minds grasp. “What were we saying?”
It’s a terrible thing to admit but I was mentally making little fist pumps in celebration at the perception filter kicking in.
“That I would try to help you with your gremlins tomorrow.”
“Umm… yes, I… guess that was it?” she replied, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Yes, yes, that was it.”
“Hello?” called the voice again, getting closer. “What is going on here? What happened to the hoop? Is this her fault again?”
“It was the gremlins,” I said turning to the newcomer. “And it’s not her fault.”
I felt the colour drain from my face as I got a decent look at the newcomer. Oh, my luck really is running bad today. Alexander ‘Xander’ Dorian and what must be two members of his goon squad. It had been a few years since I’d last had the misfortune to run across him but he’d been a general sod to me until I broke his nose when we were 13 years old. Unfortunately for me the puberty fairy had seen fit to turn him into the physical equal for my old self. It was just a pity I wasn’t my old self right now, glamour induced appearances to the contrary.
“We’ll it didn’t fall down on its own did it?” he snarled approaching us.
“I said it was the gremlins.”
“So it was her fault then.”
“I’m sorry, did I stutter? I said it was the gremlins,” I replied with more bravado than I felt.
“Her gremlins. And don’t push your luck girl,” said Xander as he came to a halt in front of me.
Girl. Damn. And the hits just kept on coming. Xander and his goon squad were, for want of a better term, members of the Forsaken. Which meant that magick didn’t affect them. They literally couldn’t see my glamour.
“Alan? We should go,” said Tracy, tugging at my sleeve. “It’s not worth it.”
“Alan?” laughed Xander. “More like Alan-nah.”
“I’m really sorry about the basketball stuff but we don’t want trouble,” said Tracy, nervously looking to the two other people with Xander. “Alan lets go. Please.”
“Why do you keep calling her Alan?” asked one of the good squad. I think her name was Ursa… Ursula... something like that.
“Because that’s Alan…” said Tracy, gesturing towards me.
Please don’t say it. Please don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
“Alan Goodspeed,” she finished.
She said it.
“Alan… Alan Goodspeed?” said Xander, giving the sort of smile that you don’t normally see outside of Shark Week. “Oh, this is too good to be true.”
“Actually, I can sort of see it now,” said Ursula, giving me an intense look. “She… he… definitely takes after her mother.”
The third member of the trio who had been silent so far grunted in affirmation to her comment. If Xander looked intimidating, this guy was like a walking commercial for steroids. I couldn’t remember his name for the life of me though I’d played against him a couple times in the inter-school rugby league. Whoever he was, he was a bit of a non-event personality wise. I’d met more interesting bricks.
“My, my, my little Alan… nah. How you’ve changed,” mocked Xander.
“Alan… what are they talking about?” asked Tracy.
“So the little witchy doesn’t know, does she Alan-nah?” laughed Xander, gesturing around me. “Some sort of glamour? Trying to hide your true self perhaps?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, squaring up as best I could to Xander. I really missed those five inches of height about now. 5’ 11” just wasn’t cutting it against these goons.
“No, I guess it doesn’t matter,” replied Xander. The look he gave me making it clear that he felt pretty much felt as if I was something he’d stepped in. “It just proves the point. Your breed are all liars. You even lie to each other.”
“I’m not like them.”
“Really? Then why don’t you tell her the truth Alan-nah?”
I silently met his stare, not willing to answer his question. That was one of the things I really hated about Xander, underneath that brutish exterior he could be quite perceptive. We’d even been friends once up until we were seven years old. Xander and I had been half of a group that called ourselves the ‘Musketeers’. Now we were the only ones left, though the consequences of that life changing night forever left its mark on the direction of our lives. Whereas I just wanted to escape the Family, Xander wanted to strike back at it in anger. In many ways he was a mirror to my life, the person I could have been had I let my anger consume me.
“I thought so. You’re as duplicitous as the rest of them. I had thought you were different once... but I can see now that you’re not...”
I felt myself bristle at Xander’s words. I wasn’t like the Family. I felt my fists clench as I took a step forward.
“You take that back.”
“You make me girly boy.”
“Alan… let’s go,” said Tracy, pulling at my arm again. “It’s not worth it.”
“Yeah, why don’t you make like a tree and leave?” said Xander, slowly stepping back from me. “After all… I don’t hit girls.”
“Alan! No!” yelled Tracy, pulling me back as I tried to lunge at Xander. Another reminder of my changed stature. “Chill. He’s not worth it.”
“Tikka?”
I looked up to see a concerned Sunflower swoop through the air above the goon squad. A ‘weakness’ of the Forsaken was that they couldn’t see the creatures of the Golden Court, such as my pixies. Oh, they knew they existed intellectually but just as Xander couldn’t see my glamour, he couldn’t see the pixies. Unfortunately, the same also held true in reverse and creatures of the Golden Court couldn’t see the Forsaken.
“Tikka?” asked Sunflower again. She could sense my worry through the empathic link but couldn’t see the source of my concern.
“Shoo! Be on your way little girl,” taunted Xander, waving me towards the doors to the hall.
Slipping free of Tracy’s grasp I lunged for Xander only be knocked to the ground my punch from Ursula.
“I said I didn’t hit girls,” said Xander. “I said nothing about her. Ursula, why don’t you teach little Alannah here a little lesson in respect.”
“Quiesco!” shouted Tracy, her ring pulsing.
Ursula hesitated for a moment as Xander sparkled with light and then as quickly as it had appeared the light disappeared.
“For-sak-en,” he laughed, pointing to himself, emphasising each syllable. “Your magick doesn’t work against me. Russell… if you please.”
“I know that!” shouted Tracy as the man mountain evidently called Russell pinned her arms behind her. “It was never about the spell affecting you.”
“Then why cast it?”
“Because for a brief moment the effect area of the spell provided a silhouette of non-magic in a field of magic… something creatures of the Golden Court would be able to see.”
“Tikka!” roared Sunflower as she charged into Xander’s midriff, briefly lifting him off his feet and sending him skidding along the polished floor of the hall.
“Familiars!” yelled Ursula, her head turning this way and that as she warily searched the air around her for any sign of my pixies.
“Relax,” wheezed Xander from where he came to a halt. “It was a one shot deal. Whatever it was only saw me due to the absence of magic for a brief moment. As long as she doesn’t cast another spell it can’t see us any more than we can see it.”
“You okay?” asked Ursula.
“Fine. Didn’t feel like a gremlin though,” wheezed Xander as he gulped down air.
“It was a pixie,” I said, climbing to my feet. “My pixie.”
“Get Alannah,” ordered Xander.
Shifting into my Pyskie form I leapt up from the ground, my wings carrying me over Ursula’s head and down to the ground behind her.
“Where did she go?” shouted Ursula, panic in her voice. “I didn’t hear her cast any spell! And even if she had of it shouldn’t have worked on us!”
“You can’t see me? Why can’t y--”
Anything more I would have said was cut off by a spinning roundhouse kick from Ursula that knocked me to the floor.
“Nope… but I can hear you.”
I knew my smart mouth would be the death of me one day. I rolled out of the way of a blind stomp from Ursula and pushed myself off the ground. Hovering above Ursula, I took my first good look at her since shifting to Pyskie form. While I could still see her she seemed less distinct than before, almost like I was looking at her through thinly frosted glass. But she should be normal looking shouldn’t she? I wasn’t a creature of the Golden Court so I should be able to see her. I was a human. A human with the Talent but still a human.
“Tikka?”
I turned to see a concerned Sunflower and Sky hovering next to me. I repressed a squeal of frustration. This would have been long over had I been able to call upon the girls to help me but it was useless if they couldn’t see the forsaken. And then it hit me in a classic light bulb above the head moment.
“I’ll need Canada,” I whispered. “Wait for my signal.”
“Did you hear that?” asked Xander, who had by now joined the others with Tracy. “It sounded like someone whispering.”
“Where is she?” asked Ursula leaning nose-to-nose with Tracy.
“Here I stand,” I said aloud as I touched down behind Ursula, making sure I stayed far enough out of kicking distance. Another roundhouse kick lashing out from her in my direction testified to the wisdom of that decision.
Shifting my position with a short hop, I came to a stop close behind Russell. “Look around… but you won’t see me…”
I dodged the punch that he swung in the air behind him. As he turned I repaid it with a swift kick between the legs that caused him to sag to his knees in pain. It was the sort of kick that had this been a comedy film might have been accompanied by the sounds of two small round objects hitting the floor.
“She’s not invisible… not if you concentrate!” shouted Xander, squinting hard in my direction as I grabbed the now freed Tracy.
“Do you know an illumination spell?” I asked as I pulled her towards the door. For a second she fought against me, a mixture of fear and confusion in her eyes.
“Tracy, it’s me. Do you know an illumination spell?” I repeated shaking her. In reply she nodded dumbly.
“Then use it now to light up the hall!” I yelled, pulling her to one side as Ursula lunged at where she had been moments before. I blocked the next punch aimed at Tracy and pushed back at Ursula, sending her staggering backwards. Yay for my increased Pyskie strength.
“You’re right. I can sort of see it,” cried Ursula. “If I concentrate hard enough I can see a blue blur.”
Ohhh… that is so going to be my superhero name I thought with a smile.
“Illuminare!” shouted Tracy, the room filling with a bright golden light.
“Now!” I cried, watching as three pixies charged at what to them would have been patches of darkness in a room full of light. Each one of the Forsaken slammed into the walls of the hall with enough force that when they slid to the ground none of them got up, although there was some weak moaning coming from them. As the girls swooped back towards me, I high fived each one in turn.
“Who da man!” I exclaimed throwing my arms wide in celebration.
“Um… probably not you… Alannah,” said a hesitant voice from behind me. “The wings are… a nice touch.”
I felt a shiver run down my spine as Tracy reached out and lightly ran her finger down the edge of one of my gossamer like wings. Actually, a surprisingly good shiver if you catch my drift.
“Please don’t do that,” I gasped, turning around to face her.
“I’m sorry, did it hurt?”
“I’m no… it just…”
“Are you blushing?”
“No! I mean no,” I said deepening my voice for the second ‘no’.
“Sooooooooooo…”
“Soooooooooooo?” I replied.
“So when are you going to tell me why you are a blue girl with wings?”
“The glamour?” I asked, hurriedly looking down at myself.
“It’s still there and I can sort of see it but also sort of not see it. I think your flying antics overloaded the perception filter in terms of my perception.”
“Oh.”
“Oh indeed. So the blue girl thing?” she asked.
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time. We’ll get a coffee in the old visitor’s tea rooms,” she said fixing me with a look that suggested this wasn’t a matter for disagreement.
“Ummm… what are we going to do with these three?”
“That’s a good question. It’s not like we can lock them in the basement or something right?” said Tracy with a laugh. A laugh that was met by a thoughtful silence from me.
“Right?” she repeated, the humour fading from her voice at my continuing silence. “Alan?”
“I’m thinking.”
I had a pet hamster once. He seemed happy enough in his cage. I think there was some disused exercise equipment down in the basement the three Forsaken could use. We could maybe borrow one of the water coolers and put down some newspaper for them to use. I wasn’t convinced Russell was housetrained anyway so he’d probably feel right at home.
“Alan!”
“Okay, okay! So what do you suggest we do?”
“They started it… so maybe we should speak to one of the Family? I’m sure they’d understand.”
“Did they start it? My pixie’s threw the first punch as it were. Even if the Family did understand for you they probably wouldn’t for me. Xander is the nephew of Councilwoman Dorian. As much as she might despise Xander for being Forsaken she won’t hesitate to use this as a chance to send me to the Institute,” I said with a sigh.
“So what? We run away and wait for them to visit their vengeance upon us at a time of their choosing? C’mon Alan,” said Tracy, the frustration evident in her body language. “It’s not like I can even cast a memory spell on them!”
“Even if you could I wouldn’t let you!” I said, grasping Tracy’s arms. “I only asked you to use that illumination spell because it didn’t affect them directly and we had no other choice that would have ended the fight without one or more of us getting seriously hurt. You do not use a spell that directly affects anyone without their consent while I’m around do you hear me?”
“Whoa! Where do you get off telling me what I can or can’t do?” snapped Tracy, shrugging free of my grip. “What is it with you and the Family anyway?”
“I…”
“What can you possibly have against the Craft given all the good it can do?” screamed Tracy, her face so close to mine that I could feel her spittle on my face. “You think I wouldn’t give my right arm to be back at the Institute? I had a future in the Family before all this happened! A good future! I was going to become a doctor using my Talent to help heal people! I’d be lucky to even be let in a hospital during visiting hours now! I lost all of that! All of it! I have nothing to look forward too except for being known as a walking disaster! Things break down around me all the time thanks to my Gremlins! Yet despite all of that I still don’t hate the Craft or my Talent! What could the Family have possibly done to you that’s worse than what they did to me?!?”
I slapped my hands over my ears, the sounds of Tracy’s shouting merging with that of a voice I last heard in person as a child. For a moment I was back there in the forest staring into the equally terrified face of a young Xander.
“Alan?”
“Panic… attack…” I gasped, stumbling for the hall doors. “Need… air…”
Still, the tea was nice. Not just a big urn of hot brown liquid there was actually a range of individual sachet teas and coffees. It wasn’t Starbucks but it was nice. Taking a sip, I slid back in my seat letting the warm liquid infuse me. The tea rooms were fairly quiet this late in the afternoon allowing us to find a quiet table away from others to talk. Even though I was still glamoured up, I had shifted back to my human girl form. I still couldn’t shift back to my approximation of a human male form on my own.
“Better now thanks,” I replied sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I… overacted.”
“Me too. I’ve got… issues.”
“Pfft!” I snorted. “My issues have issues bigger than your issues.”
Tracy laughed softly at my joke.
“Friends?” she asked.
“Friends… it’s been a long time since I could say that of one of the Family.”
“If it helps don’t think of me as one of the Family. Think of me as a Misfit… just like you.”
“Yay Misfits,” I replied, with mock enthusiasm. “We need t-shirts or something.”
“Yeah… though yours need little wing slots in the back,” she said gesturing at my shoulders. “What was that whole blue thing anyway?”
“Uh… I’m a Pyskie.”
“Pixie?”
“No, Pyskie. It’s complicated.”
“I bet. So is it always like this with you? Being attacked by the Forsaken… turning blue… turning into a girl…”
“It never used to be but lately… lately it has been though it’s more a case of being attacked by ‘insert opponent of the week’s name here’ than just being the Forsaken.”
“You think we’ll get into trouble for what happened?”
“You… probably not. Me… not so sure. I’m sure Uncle John will do the best he can to settle this matter quietly.”
Though while there was at least a chance he’d understand and not report me, well maybe anyway, he’d probably feel duty bound to tell my mother.
Urrrgggh.
I wonder if I could ask for transportation as punishment for my crimes against the Family? Australia seemed a lot nicer now than it did two hundred years ago. Well, maybe not Darwin. I understand they have big spiders. I’d happily serve my time in Sydney or Melbourne though.
“You think Xander is going to cause us problems?”
“Probably but if he does we’ll see him coming. If he has a problem with you he’ll tell you to your face.”
“You almost sound like you admire him.”
“Once we were friends. I can’t… I won’t… believe that none of the good guy I knew is in there anymore.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“So do I, So do I...”
Taking another sip of my tea, we both lapsed into a moment of companionable silence.
“Don’t even think it,” I said with a scowl as a faint noise came from my chair.
Looking down I saw a guilty looking gremlin with a small screwdriver in its hands. Gremlins were basically cowards so if you caught one doing something it was fairly easy to stop them assuming you caught them before they had done too much harm and you weren’t like in the air or somewhere else where physics was an issue.
“Hey Tracy, Alan!” called a voice in greeting. “Is it okay if I join you guys?”
“Hey George!” answered Tracy. “No problem with me. Alannah?”
“Fine with me,” I said, shooting Tracy with a look that a Basilisk would have been proud of. While she might not be seeing the glamour everyone else still was.
Placing his tray on the table, George spun the chair around and straddled it in that sort of effortlessly cool guy way. Like Tracy, George had been one of the Family’s high flyers and had been regularly talked of as a future member of the Family Council for his Solomon-like insight and pureness of heart. Puberty had only served to give him ruggedly handsome good looks and the sort of swagger that Harrison Ford brought to the screen as Indiana Jones. I remembered my sister talking about how he was considered the most desirable boy at the Institute, always fashionably dressed and exuding an uber-coolness.
At least until last year. Now he dressed like an unfashionable grandfather.
“Still rocking the tweed I see,” said Tracy, a hint of gentle amusement to her voice as she indicated towards his pre-war style tweed suit. And by pre-war I meant pre-Great War not WW2, with its stiff starched white collared shirt.
“Yeah,” replied George with a rueful smile. “But I’m making progress.”
To demonstrate the point he undid the button on his tweed jacket and opened it to show his shirt and bow tie beneath.
“No waistcoat!” exclaimed Tracy.
“No waistcoat,” agreed George with an infectious grin that even made me want to smile a little. “And I’ve managed to convince Mr Goodfellow to let me keep jeans now, though he does keep ironing creases down the centre like they are trousers but y’know from tiny acorns...”
“Not bad for what seven months?”
“Nearer nine but yeah, we’re really beginning to make progress now.”
“I understand that there are many in the Family and some on the Council that are critical of you for not taking a firmer line with Mr Goodfellow,” I said, speaking for the first time since George’s arrival. “It’s not like you’re bound to him, he’s merely a Hob in your service. You could easily dismiss him by offering him a new piece of clothing and resume your studies at the Institute.”
George canted his head slightly staring at me as if he had only just noticed me before replying.
“A scorned Hob or Brownie can sometimes become a Boggart, a mischievous or malevolent spirit. Given that all Mr Goodfellow is trying to do is help me and the running of the mill, it seems silly to dismiss him like that. Thanks to his efforts the restoration of the old White Mill has been progressing in leaps and bounds. That I have to spend a little while looking like a reject from Downton Abbey is surely a small price to pay.”
I could only nod in agreement.
“Besides, it was old Mr Emerson’s dying wish that I look after Mr Goodfellow,” said George with an air of finality that seemed to end all discussion on the matter. I could see why the Family Council had been courting him so earnestly before this had happened and part of me wouldn’t have been surprised if my father still had plans for him.
Even George’s involvement with Mr Goodfellow came from a noble act that was so typical of him. There had been a fire out at the old White Mill just outside of Ackholt and George, who had been on a woodlore course nearby, had rushed to the scene to help. He rescued old Mr Emerson from the burning timber framed White Mill at great personal risk. Mr Emerson had been trying to rescue a small stool from the kitchen of the windmill and in an effort to stop the already badly burnt man from going in again George had himself gone in and rescued the stool, suffering some minor burns in the process. Mr Emerson died at the scene as the Fire and Rescue Service fought to contain the blaze but before he died he bequeathed the stool and the windmill to George.
The stool however was no ordinary stool.
It was the stool that belonged to a kindly Hob named Mr Goodfellow and when George took possession of the windmill and the stool he took possession of the shy Mr Goodfellow’s services. Mr Goodfellow had kept the windmill neat and tidy in exchange for food and lodgings at the mill but he also acted as valet to Mr Emerson. As the new master of the mill, George inherited that service. Unfortunately for George, Mr Goodfellow had no concept of human fashions or the concept of changing fashion and before long George found his wardrobe being replaced piece by piece by the sort of outfit that an Edwardian gentleman would have felt at home with.
George could have abandoned the Hob and returned to the Institute but his sense of honour had led him to stay and oversee the restoration of the Hob’s home, the White Mill. While this work was being undertaken, Mr Goodfellow had assumed his role as valet to his new master which I had a feeling was another reason why George with his tweed suit, pressed shirt, bow tie and immaculately polished shoes that you could literally see your reflection in was home from the Institute right now. He looked like he’d stepped out of a steampunk cosplay.
“But enough about me,” said George favouring me with a bright smile. “How about we talk about why you keep changing appearance every time I blink?”
“Uh…”
“Boy,” said George closing one eye.
“Girl,” he added, switching the closed and open eyes.
“Alan,” he said going back to the first eye.
“Alannah?” he said, turning his head slightly to Tracy. She sort of shrugs in response.
“Uhhh… I’m not sure what you mean?” I ask, trying to buy time to plan an exit strategy.
“I have a very well developed third eye when it comes to glamours,” replied George. “I’m assuming this has something to do with your pixies?”
With a sigh I glance heavenwards for a moment before turning to George.
“Ummm… it’s complicated?”
“You keep saying that,” said Tracy. “Maybe you should start at the beginning?”
“I guess it’s as good a place as any,” said George taking a bite from the sausage roll on his plate. “And time is the one thing we all have right now given schools still in session for another half hour.”
My discussions with George and Tracy had gone surprisingly well given they were ‘Family’ and they seemed pretty accepting of my situation in the circumstances even if for them the Family was a force largely for good and they couldn’t understand my dislike of it. Not that I could tell them the real reasons why I felt that way. Even the thought of it made me feel ill. I splashed more cold water on my face as I fought to calm my breathing. Maybe Xander had the right idea. Maybe I should just give into the rage. It would easier. No, I chided myself. That wasn’t who I was. Alan or Alannah I was better than that. Though thinking about it, when did people start calling me Alannah? Was that something I did? Or is it just a thing now? Who knew, I certainly didn’t. Maybe this was my life now.
What I did know was that once the Family ended the Godespeed Free School Tracy, George and I would probably drift apart back to our respective social circles, or lack of in my case, but for now it felt nice to have a couple of… acquaintances? Friends? Whatever we were, as long as they stayed away from the Craft around me I felt we could at least hang out during the school day.
Pulling some blue paper towels with the consistency of cardboard from the dispenser, I gingerly patted my face dry. With a muttered affirmation of ‘once more into the breach’ I open the door to the toilet and stepped out…
…onto a lush green field.
“Please tell me you’re not going to faint this time?”
I spun around to see a grinning Aelfwyn behind me. The thought of our last encounter sprung to mind.
“You bitch! You punched me!” I snarled lunging for her, only for her to side step my charge like a matador.
“Ole!” she giggled as I collapsed in heap on the ground.
“Children!” called out a second sterner voice. “Behave! This will not do in our most royal presence.”
Emerging from her golden tent flanked my two guards was Queen Joan, who seemed to be trying her hardest not to laugh behind the fan she kept snapping open and shut. Even in the bright light of day her golden glow still coloured the area around her.
“Yes your majesty,” replied a contrite sounding Aelfwyn, dropping her head in a respectful curtsey. “I offer my most humble apologies for any offence I may have caused you.”
“Alannah…” warned the Queen, as I scrambled my knees. “There are many things we will tolerate for our most dear daughter-in-spirit but an unseemly fight with one of our royal bodyguard in our most august presence is not one of those.”
While Queen Joan had not proven to be an ‘orf wiv ‘er head type monarch I didn’t feel like pushing it at this point.
“As for you Aelfwyn, we would suggest that you may wish to be more… circumspect in the presence of our most dear daughter-in-spirit,” giggled the Queen as she gestured with her fan to a Pyskie guard to help me to my feet. “We suspect Alannah is the sort to bear a grudge.”
Damn skippy I was.
“I apologise for any offence caused Alannah,” said Aelfwyn, emphasising the ‘nah’ syllable of my apparent new name as she extended a hand to me. Accepting her hand I pulled her into what may have looked to the casual observer as a forgiving hug.
“This is still so on…” I whispered. “I’m going to take you to the house. The house of pain.”
“Never doubted it pink skin,” she whispered back, a hint of amusement in her voice. “Bring it on if you think you can. I eat little girls scared of their own wings like you for breakfast.”
“I accept your apology,” I said aloud for public consumption breaking the hug, both of us trying to squeeze the life out of the others hand as we parted. In response the Queen rolled her eyes.
“Walk with us Alannah,” instructed the Queen as she looped an arm through mine. “We have much to discuss and as always, too little time in which to do it.”
“Is this the same place as last time?” I asked as we walked out onto a lush green meadow. “Only I don’t remember all those tents.”
Ahead of us were neat rows of brightly coloured conical tents that matched the image of Native American tepees that Hollywood had given to me. The long militarily precise lines stretched off across the grassy plains in front of us giving the impression of a sizable force.
“We are assembling our remaining Pyskie forces on this other plain in earnest,” replied the Queen. “We have received most troubling news from your realm by way of our co-regent King Jack who commands our forces there. It appears more of the forces of the Golden Court have crossed into your realm than we had originally thought.”
“So I guess you’re worried that they will force the fight earlier than you wanted?”
“That is our concern, yes. Our forces in your realm are not yet ready to fight a significant engagement.”
“And this affects me… how?” I asked, turning to look at the Queen. “Last time you told me you wouldn’t get involved in human affairs and I nearly got eaten.”
“We apologise for our miscalculation in that matter,” said the Queen giving my arm a gentle squeeze. “While the business between the Family and the Witchfinders have no bearing on the coming war with the Golden Court we had miscalculated the strength of your opponent. The enchanted object was not something we had allowed for. However, did we not offer you a way to survive?”
“By turning blue and sprouting wings,” I grumbled. “And oh yeah, becoming a girl.”
“We are most perplexed at the way in which you fight your true self Alannah. The kingfisher does not think it is a raven. It knows it is a kingfisher.”
“You do realise that made no sense right?” I asked. I was beginning to worry if she started talking in these odd eastern sounding riddles that I’d end up waxing her chariot as part of my training. In response the Queen just shrugged and smiled.
“As lovely as it is to see you, I’m guessing I’m not here for an afternoon constitutional,” I said with a sigh.
“So much suspicion in one so young,” tutted the Queen as we approached the row of tepees in front of us.
“Wait… so you really did want to just spend time with me?”
“You are our daughter-in-spirit, why would we not want to spend time with you?”
“Oh,” I replied, feeling my face flush with embarrassment.
“But you are right,” said the Queen with a sheepish smile. “This is about more than spending time with you. This is about your birth right.”
“My Queen,” announced a tall amazon like Pyskie warrior with a curtsey as we approached the first tepee.
“And your Princess,” said Queen Joan gesturing towards me.
“Whoa… I’m a what now?”
“Forgive me Princess,” added the warrior quickly. “I meant no offence but I was confused by your attire.”
“Hmmm... we can see why you would be,” said the Queen stopping to take a good look at me. “Still, it is but a simple matter to resolve.”
With a wave of her hand, I felt a tingling sensation creep over my clothes, starting with my trainers and slowly rising upwards.
“Hey! Those were expensive!” I cried as the rubber and leather of my trainers reformed into an elegant scarlet coloured 3 inch heeled court shoe. I had to wonder if I clicked the heels together three times and said there’s no place like home would it send me back to Ackholt?
“Oh no…”
As the tingling rose, the fabric of my jeans unravelled and was quickly replaced by a scarlet and pink poufy skirt decorated with silk ribbons. A skirt that quickly morphed into the bottom of a dress as the tingling rose higher.
“Oh this is just peach–“
The rest of my words were cut off by a startled ‘eep!’ as my t-shirt reformatted into a corset that guaranteed me an appearance on Sesame Street if they ever needed to illustrate the words ‘lift and separate’.
Finally, I felt my long blonde hair being whipped up by invisible hands into what I was fairly certain was a simple yet elegant style even though I couldn’t see it. I didn’t want to ask what had morphed into the chop sticks that were holding it all up.
“Was this all really neces… why… no how, am I wearing make-up?” I asked tasting the sticky lip gloss on my lips.
“Magick of course,” replied the Queen favouring me with the look reserved for a dear but dim relative.
“Of course,” I replied rolling my eyes.
“May I say Princess you are quite beautiful even for one wearing her pink skin,” said the soldier, curtseying to me as she spoke.
“What-ev-er,” I sighed.
“And since when have I been a princess?” I whispered to the Queen. In response she just patted by hand.
By now a small congregation of Pyskie’s had gathered around us, each curtseying in the Queen’s presence and embarrassingly, mine. Around them I could see small pixie forms fluttering in the air.
“Not even one blue guy?” I asked, scanning the crowd in what even I accepted was a forlorn hope.
“All Pyskie are female Alannah,” replied the Queen patting my hand reassuringly. “Just like the pixies. You know that.”
“Peachy. Just… peachy.”
“Now hush if you will. There is something that we must do,” said the Queen.
“People of the Pyskie,” she called, raising her voice so it carried in a way that suggested she had experience of being heard in noisier environments than this. “Our most loyal subjects. Today we present to you our daughter-in-spirit, Princess Alannah. While she is still but a youth in years we have no doubt that when the time comes she shall lead our forces in battle with honour and distinguish.”
Wait… I’ll do what now?!?
“All hail Princess Alannah!” cried a voice from the crowd of Pyskie warriors. Soon the tented rows were resounding with the same cry all around us.
I turned my head to speak to the Queen only to be confronted by the sight of a pixie floating in the air between us. In its hands it held one end of a floral garland that was being lowered over my head.
“You’re not one of mine are you?” I asked in my best baby talk voice as it settled on my outstretched palm. Maybe it was because of their empathic nature but like with dogs and babies it was less about what you said and more about the tone of voice you used with pixies when you spoke to them. Anyway, the fur pattern was all wrong for one of mine for a start and there was an absence of the empathic connection I felt in the presence of my own children.
“Of course not,” it replied, giggling as I almost dropped it in shock. The voice wasn’t quite the same high pitched mogwai-esque cutesy voice as my pixies and the eyes held an altogether different level of intelligence.
“What did you say?” I whispered in a low voice.
“Tikka?” it replied innocently.
Then favouring me with a cheeky grin, it gracefully alighted from my hand only stopping to kiss me lightly on the cheek before soaring off into the air above the crowd.
“Did you…” I asked the Queen, before she cut me off with a stern glance. Turning back to the crowd of Pyskie she quietened the chants with a gesture.
“Our most beloved and royal daughter-in-spirit has much to do in the mortal realm so we cannot keep her here long,” said the Queen to the obvious disappointment of the crowd. Colour me popular I guess.
“However, we have no doubt that you will see her again before too many nights have passed.”
A small cheer went up around the camp in response to the Queen’s words. It wasn’t a sentiment that I shared.
“Come Alannah, we must return you to your realm,” said the Queen, once more looping her arm through mine and steering me back towards her golden tent.
“That pixie spoke to me,” I muttered, more to myself than the Queen. “Not just mimicking words or like a small child learning to speak. It spoke to me.”
“Yes, she was one of the ‘Old Ones’. It is very rare for them to speak to anyone. Even our most royal selves are rarely graced with such an appearance from an ‘Old One’,” said the Queen, the surprise evident in her voice. “We have cared for the pixies since the time of the early human civilisations and in all those years the conversations we have had with the ‘Old Ones’ could be fitted on the back of one of the human’s postcards. That an ‘Old One’ choose to place the garland on your head is a good, if unexpected, omen.”
“Uh… when you say early human civilisations?”
“About 14,000 years ago.”
“Just how old are you?”
“Older. Our people pre-dated the emergence of most of the creatures of the Golden Court. Our co-regent and we honour the legacy of the Great Dragons that walked the Earth while mankind struggled to walk upright. We personally remember what your people call the Aurignacian culture.”
“Who were they?”
“Nice people on the whole.”
“You’re not going to tell me how old you are, are you?”
“You should know better than to ask a lady her age,” said the Queen with a smile.
“So what does the pixie speaking to me mean then?” I asked, resigned to not getting a straight answer out of the Queen.
“We are not sure.”
“Wait… I thought you had all the answers?”
“Far from it our daughter-in-spirit,” said the Queen as we came to a halt outside her tent. “We have just become very adept at making it seem as if we do. We have had a long time to practice our bluffing skills after all.”
“Remind me never to play poker against you.”
“Pity. We do so love games of skill mixed with chance.”
“So why did you bring me here anyway?” I asked, picking at the elaborate silk decoration on my dress. “Other than to put me in this froufrou dress like your own personal Barbie doll?”
“Why to introduce you to your people of course our daughter-in-spirit. You are Pyskie now regardless of whether or not you choose to wear your pink skin like now.”
“Oh… okay?”
“And to give you this,” said the Queen.
On cue one of her royal bodyguard withdrew a velvet wrapped bundle from where it had been resting next to the Queen’s Golden Tent and passed it to me. I felt my arms sag a little under its weight. Whatever this puppy was, it was it was heavy.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to peer through the folds of velvet as I gingerly held it at arm’s length.
“A gift. Something to keep you safe. Though please do be careful of your fingers, the blade is exceptionally sharp.”
“Wait… it’s some sort of weapon?” I asked.
“Yes. To be precise a sixteenth century English mortuary sword. It doesn’t look a day over 1649 by the way.”
“And what am I supposed to do with this?”
“We thought that part was obvious our daughter-in-spirit. Keep thyself safe from harm and should the occasion demand, smite our enemies most vile.”
“Oookay… I’d like to go home now,” I said placing the velvet package carefully on the ground. “Please.”
“You know what to do our daughter-in-spirit,” said the Queen as she embraced me in a hug. She kissed both of my cheeks before turning and walking back to her tent. “Take a deep calming breath, close your eyes and feel the tether. Do not worry, we shall see each other again soon enough Alannah.”
Yeah. That was what I was worried about. Keeping a wary eye on where Aelfwyn was I moved a little away from the tent and closed my eyes.
“Feel the tether. Feel the tether,” I muttered under my breath. Unfortunately, all I could feel was the rustle of silk and the constriction of my bodice.
“Oh… this is just sooooo peachy,” I hissed. There was no way I was asking for help after what happened last time. Maybe I just needed to distract myself. Somehow. How you even did that I didn’t know.
“Having trouble,” asked a honey toned voice from beside me. Squinting between semi-closed eye lids I saw Aelfwyn’s smiling face as she twisted on the spot like some errant child. “Only the time by which you should be back in your realm is fast approaching. Do you need my help perhaps?”
“Everything is fine. Or at least it was until you interrupted me,” I replied. “So why don’t you do us all a favour and piss off?”
“Sorry. I’ll just stand here quietly.”
“Do you think I’m some sort of idiot? You’ll punch me again the moment you think I can’t do it.”
“How about if I give you my word that I won’t punch you? For this visit anyway.”
“I’m supposed to take your word?” I asked, not even trying to hide the incredulity from my voice. “Next you’ll be trying to sell me a bridge in Brooklyn.”
“Ah, with a human that may be the case,” replied Aelfwyn, a hurt expression on her face. “However, a Pyskie’s word to one of her own in is unbreakable. Feel the truth to my words.”
In response I felt… something… in my head. An acknowledgement of the truth of her words. Closing my eyes I tried once more in vain to feel the tether.
“You won’t punch me?” I asked warily. “If I admit that I’m having problems finding the tether… you promise that you will distract me through some other way than punching me?”
“You have my word that no part of my body shall come into contact with yours for the purposes of returning you to your realm,” replied Aelfwyn.
In hindsight I would come to kick myself for not having paid more attention the smugness in her voice.
“Okay then.”
“Close your eyes Princess.”
“And then you’ll distract me?” I asked closing my eyes.
“Yes. And then you will return to your realm.”
“And you will keep your promise?”
“Yes my princess. No part of my body shall come in contact with yours.”
“Okay. Let’s do it,” I said taking a deep breath.
“Alright then… pucker-up buttercup.”
“Wait… wha–“ I asked, opening my eyes just in time to see the flat circular underside of a frying pan coming towards my face. As it connected with my nose I staggered backwards and…
… crashed through the partly open door of the unisex staff toilets into the corridor outside. The sound of the broken lock rattling across the floor was the only noise other than my cursing as I tentatively touched my sore nose. The silence of the hall was broken moments later by the dull thud of a velvet wrapped package landing on the floor of the corridor having been launched through the open toilet doorway.
“It’s so on bitch,” I muttered between small gasps of pain as I prodded my sore nose. A small trickle of blood on my fingertips indicated that she’d at least hit me hard enough to draw blood. “She better not have broken my nose.”
Great. Now I needed to go to see the school nurse. I pulled a piece of silk from a bow on my shoulders and pressed it against the underside of my nose to staunch the bleeding.
Wait… silk bow? Looking down I saw that not only was the glamour gone but I was still wearing the scarlet silk froufrou gown that wouldn’t have been out of place on a wedding cake.
“Oh this is just… peachy,” I grumbled. It was so peachy I was thinking of opening a peach schnapps concession.
“And where the hell did she get that frying pan anyway? More importantly, where is the school nurses office from here?” I asked the empty corridor.
A noise from the far end of the corridor attracted my attention. The dimly lit, darkness shrouded, end of the corridor. Checking through the windows it seemed that darkness had fallen, though given this was only April it wasn’t necessarily that late. I’d have checked my watch except it was now a lovely set of bangles.
The noise sounded again. It almost sounded like… a howl? I should probably investigate.
“Forget that.”
I turned towards the other end of the corridor only to come face-to-face with a large wolf. A large snarling wolf with lots of large sharp wolf teeth dripping lots of hungry looking wolf saliva on the tiles of the corridor floor.
“Nice doggy?” I asked taking a step backwards. The wolf matched my step with a step forward of its own.
“You don’t want to eat me. You’d probably get diabetes given this dress,” I added helpfully.
In response the wolf just growled.
“Who’s a cute wolfie then? Yes, you is. You’se a cute wolfie,” I said trying the baby talk approach. If anything the wolf looked less pleased than before.
The gentle patter of paws announced the arrival of a second equally as grumpy looking wolf behind the first. Given that the wild wolf had been extinct in England for 500 years it was something of a surprise to find not one but two wolves. Even more surprising to find them indoors in a country house. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was something I could attribute to global warming. Melting ice caps, weird weather, indoor wolves…
I took another step backwards as the wolf’s plural advanced a step closer.
“Sonnnnnnet,” I sang in as non-threatening a voice as I could. “Come to momma.”
“Tikka?” asked Sonnet, appearing in front of me in a swirl of light. Swooping down she landed in my arms, letting out a soft purr.
“Sonnet… momma needs Lunar.”
“Tikka.”
A gentle chiming noise accompanied by a swirl of light heralded the arrival of Lunar. Of all my pixies, Lunar had the greatest affinity with the animals and in particular nocturnal ones. If anyone was going to stop Alannah Snacks ending up on the menu it would be her.
“Lunar sweetie can you help momma with the tw–three wolves,” I asked correcting myself as another wolf joined the pack advancing towards me. “Find out what they want.”
Making sure I kept facing them I took a hurried couple of steps backwards as the wolves advanced. I might not know a lot about country house wolves but I was pretty certain turning my back on them was a bad idea.
“Tikka momma,” replied Lunar as she flew down to the nearest wolf.
I watched as she buzzed around it, swooping over and under it, all the time making little clicking noises before coming to a hover in front of the wolf’s face.
“Tikka?” she asked the wolf.
“Lunar!” I yelled as the wolf’s jaws snapped closed in the air where she had been hovering swallowing her whole. Letting out a growl-wheeze that Muttley would have been proud of I could almost swear the wolf was grinning at me.
“Sonnet, call for reinforcements. I’m going to have a wolf fur coat made!”
The look the wolf shot back made it clear it was banking of having an Alannah skin coat. A sentiment it underlined with a ferocious bark that made me involuntarily step backwards. The wolf tried to make a second bark but that unexpectedly turned into more of a wolf belch.
“Tikka?” called Sunflower and Canada as they appeared in the air in front of me.
“Bad doggie!” I yelled pointing at the wolf that had swallowed my pixie whole. “It ate Lunar!”
“Tikka?” asked a voice from beside me. I turned to see a saliva covered pixie appear in a swirl of light next to me.
“Lunar!” I cried in relief as I hugged her. “And ewwwwww….”
Carefully releasing her from the hug I dabbed at the pixie sized wolf saliva mark on my dress with one of my silk bows.
“Momma… not doggie,” said Lunar floating up in front of my face.
“Not doggie? No sweetie, it’s not a doggie it’s a wolf.”
“Momma… not wolf.”
“Then what is it sweetie?”
Lunar pursed her lips in thought for a moment before with a snap of her fingers a plastic wristband appeared in her hands.
“What’s this?” I asked as she passed it to me.
“Tikka.”
“Team Jacob?” I said reading the writing on the wristband. “What does… oh.”
“Tikka.”
“New plan. RUN!” I yelled, turning on my heels as I sprinted away from the wolves into the dark corridor. Diving through the first unlocked door I came to, I slammed it shut leaning heavily against it. The door shook as a wolf body crashed into the other side of it and for a moment I thought it might even open. Fumbling with the key in the lock I was relieved to hear it click closed.
“Help me block it!” I shouted to the pixies. “Use one of those bookcases! Wedge it against the door.”
“We will find it, we will drag it, bring the bookcase and block, block, block,” sang my pixies as they slid a bookcase that was considerably taller than me against the door. “We will push it, we will wedge it, and the doggies it will stop, stop, stop.”
Great. They’d been watching Bagpuss reruns, I thought with a groan. This is what I get for limiting their Disney Channel time. Reruns of 1970s children’s animation. Still, it could be worse I guess. Say what you like about the mice on the mouse organ but at least they were helpful and efficient. Surprisingly so for a 1970s labour organisation actually given the prevalence of industrial action in the real world of the time. And helpful was definitely what my girls were as they wedged one of those old fashioned dark wood library stacks from the days when no one worried about libraries having high shelves, against the door. They’d have to be were-elephants to shift that.
Were-elephants. I was really hoping that wasn’t a thing.
Slumping against the wall I took the opportunity to look around as I caught my breath. I was in one of the libraries in Godespeed House, though from the looks of it this wasn’t one of the ones that was open to the public or used by the Free School. Thick leather bound volumes lined the shelves of the tall stacks that stretched for the length of several basketball courts easily. What light there was in the room was provided through an clear class octagonal dome above the room and from small pools of amber light thrown out from lamps dotted around the room on small reading desks.
“Tikka?” asked Sunflower as she landed on my shoulder.
“We need to find another way out of here before they find another way in,” I said, listening to the sound of the wolves clawing at the blocked doorway. “I’m guessing there must be another door or a secret passage or something in a house of this age.”
“Tikka!”
With Sunflower and Canada scouting ahead and Sonnet with Lunar resting on my shoulders, we set off down the long row of stacks. Before long the sounds of the wolves at the door had receded and the only noise that could be heard was the creaking of wood and the sound of my shoes on the tiled floor.
“Tikka! Not grandma!” said Canada as she flew back to me from where she had been exploring.
‘Not grandma’ was the girls’ expression for any old woman who wasn’t my mother. Not that my mother was an old woman being in her early 40s I mentally added. You never knew who was listening to your thoughts these days, so it was best to be safe.
“Show me,” I asked, jogging after Canada as she turned and headed back down the line of stacks.
Before too long the stacks came to an end and I found myself standing in front of a large octagonal shaped counter, the hollow inside of which was filled with tables piled high with various leather bound books. Picking one up I checked the spine label noting that it was ‘Merlin Argyle’s Big Book of Burping Spells’. Another book identified itself as ‘William Tucker’s Guide to the Great Family Houses of England’.
“It’s the old Great Library of House Goodspeed,” I said in a hushed voice, looking at the rows of stacks leading away from the octagonal centre. “This was supposed to have been destroyed by fire when I was little.”
I remembered how angry Opa Grimm had been when it happened. We were supposed to be transferring the Goodspeed House library to Munich to form a combined library between the two Houses, a centre of magickal excellence. In the end only a handful of books were sent to Munich and a new House Library was established in the back of the town library.
Someone had to have transferred the entire old library here. It certainly wasn’t the Family Council as dad had nearly lost his position of Chairman over it. Aunt Sophie and Uncle John had also been in hot water as the keepers of the library.
Wait… Aunt Sophie was my father’s sister. Uncle John was his best friend. This wasn’t organised by the Family Council, this was organised by my father and his closest friends. It had to be.
“What are you up to dad?” I asked aloud. “Does mum know about it? And who knows this is here?”
A noise from the centre of the octagon counter made me jump and for a second I thought Team Jacob was back. Grabbing one of the desk reading lamps I swivelled it towards the counter and the source of the noise. In the dimly lit environs of the library I had missed seeing a body slumped over one of the librarian’s desks.
“Hello?” I called, grasping a copy of ‘Harriet Hargrove’s Wonderful World of Warts’ as a weapon. “Who’s there?”
I mentally kicked myself for leaving behind whatever the weapon was wrapped up in that velvet cloth. It would have probably come in very handy right now.
“Alan?” asked a weak voice. “Alan Goodspeed is that you?”
“Yes…” I answered slowly advancing on the still form. “Who is that?”
“Granny Constance.”
With a relieved sigh I put down the book and approached the stirring form of old Granny Constance. Seeing her more clearly as I drew close to her I noticed her usual immaculately neat look was gone with her hair all askew and her tweed skirt suit marked with dirt and a few rips.
“What happened? Are you alright?” I asked helping her into a sitting position.
“I was attacked on my way here,” replied Granny, her voice sounding very frail in comparison to its normal strength. “Three of them ambushed me but I managed to fight them off and make my way here. Very few people know about it so I thought I’d be safe.”
“Well, you’re safe now and as soon as you feel up to it we’ll get you out of here,” I said glancing around the octagonal area. “I’m not sure how long we can wait here though. Do you feel up to moving?”
“Give me a few minutes and I’ll be ready to go,” said Granny after clearing her throat a couple of times.
“Great. Granny, is there another exit other than that one?” I asked pointing back in the direction I had come from.
“Yes… a secret entrance on the far side over there and another main entrance door down there,” said Granny pointing off to the left and then further down the way I had been heading.
“Canada, Sunflower, Lunar… please scout ahead and check the routes to the doors are clear.”
A chorus of ‘tikkas’ answered me as they flew off down the stacks.
“Sonnet, can you check the barricade is still in place?” I asked.
“Tikka!”
“So you know about this library?” I said to Granny as I examined the books scattered across the counter. There was an assortment of books ranging from centuries old first editions to books printed in the last few years. Picking up a polished silver bound copy of 'Winston Bourne's Magical Metals' I couldn't help but notice that wolf saliva really stained well from the mark on my dress. If I was really lucky this froufrou dress was ruined I thought happily.
“Yes, *cough* your father appointed me custodian*cough* when it was smuggled here.”
So it was dad. So why was he hiding the Great Library of House Goodspeed from my grandfather? It seemed the oddest thing to do given the closeness of our ties to House Grimm.
Wait… I can see my Alannah reflection so that meant the glamour was down... did she say…
“My father?”
“It’s *cough* alright Alan… or should that be Alannah?” said Granny with an amused smile. “I know all about your ‘problem’.”
“Oh.”
“You’re father wanted to *cough* see if there was a *cough* cure for your *cough* pixie form,” said Granny, her increasingly gravelly voice interrupted by repeated coughing bouts.
“Are you okay Granny?” I asked. “Only your voice sounds really husky.”
She certainly didn’t sound okay. Frankly, she’d have a profitable career as a Barry White impersonator if her voice got much deeper.
“I normally have quite a reedy voice,” replied Granny. “This husky voice is probably all the better for speaking to you with.”
“Tikka. Safe momma,” announced Sonnet as she flew back into the octagonal counter area.
“Are you ready?” I asked Granny. “And which way do you suggest going?”
“The other main door *cough* is the best route. The corridor it opens onto leads directly towards the main occupied part of the building.
Taking her ever present glasses off her nose she let them drop on the small chain that was around her neck. I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful her eyes were freed from the prison of her half-moon glasses.
“What’s the matter dear?” asked Granny. “Only you’re staring at me like you’ve never seen me before.”
“Sorry, it’s just… with the glasses gone… granny, I never realised what large eyes you had.”
“Well, it’s all the *cough* better for seeing a handsome man like you with,” said Granny as she rose unsteadily to her feet. I linked an arm through hers to study her.
“Tikka!”
“Shush Sonnet and keep an eye out for trouble,” I said to my pixie as I braced Granny’s weight as she stumbled slightly.
“They really did a number on you didn’t they,” I said with a frown as I looked at the blood stained tears in her tweed jacket. “As soon as we’re out of here, we’ll get you to a hospital and get those wounds cleaned up.”
“Thank you Alannah,” said Granny, patting my hand with hers as we slowly made our way out of the octagonal area. “And may I say that’s a lovely gown you’re wearing. Red really is your colour.”
“Alan’s fine really,” I replied, doing my best to try not to comment my own feelings on the scarlet monstrosity of a gown I was wearing.
“I think you *cough* shouldn’t rule out Alannah as a name though. It suits you.”
Yay me. Alannah suits me. That’s just… peachy.
“Are you cold?” I asked noticing her shivering. “Only this gown has a small cape attached that I could lend you.”
“It’s fine. Really,” said Granny, patting my hand again reassuringly. I noticed she had what my mother insisted on calling pianists hands — long, slender fingers.
“Do you play the piano?” I asked, the words escaping my lips before my brain could stop them.
“I used to,” replied Granny. “Why do you ask out of curiosity? It seems an odd question to ask in the circumstances.”
“Uh… I just wondered.”
“You’re a terrible liar Alannah,” chuckled Granny. “Out *cough* out with it.”
“Uh… I couldn’t help but notice how long your fingers were and I wondered if you played the piano.”
And actually getting another look at her hands, there seemed surprisingly hairy. That being said, I wasn’t convinced that wasn’t natural. People seemed to turn more into hobbits as they got older. They become shorter and hairier.
“I don’t think anyone’s ever said my fingers *cough* were long before,” said Granny. “If they are then it’s all the better for hugging you with.”
Awwww…. Soooooo sweet.
“Tikka!”
“Not now Sonnet.”
“Do you think you would recognise your attackers?” I asked Granny.
“I’m not *cough* sure. It was dark and they moved very quickly. The House has some CCTV installed in the corrifffir.”
“Corrifffir?”
“Sorry,” said Granny, with a pronounced lisp as she cleared her throat. “I meant to say the Hooooouuss…”
“Granny? Are you okay? You’re squeezing my arm,” I moaned as her fingers dug into me.
“Houusssfff.”
“TIKKA!”
“What is it Sonnet?” I hissed. In response Sonnet kept making some sort of fang gesture with a hand.
“What are you on about? Can’t you see that Granny Constance needs our help? We need to… OW!”
I screamed in pain as Granny’s vice-like grip seemed to squeeze my arm down to the bone. Wriggling my arm free from her grasp I turned to her.
“That really hurt! Why did you do tha…”
My words died as I took in the changes that had happened to Granny Constance for the first time. About the only positive thing I could think of was that at least it didn’t look like she was turning into a were-elephant. I had enough problems as it was without importing new ones.
“Granny… what big teeth you have,” I whimpered as her face elongated to form a wolf like snout.
“All the better to eat you with,” she growled in response, clearly having a better grasp of her new mouth now. The feral smile that crossed her new face was very un-granny like.
“This is usually where they run,” she added helpfully. I didn’t need to be told twice.
“SONNET!” I screamed as I sprinted in the direction of the doors.
The silence of the library was shattered by a howl from Granny that nearly made me lose control of my bodily functions. It looked like Alannah snacks were back on the menu. Glancing over my shoulder I saw the last changes take hold of Granny and her start to run after me with her new legs. There was no way that I could outrun her at the speed at which she was closing. Diving to the ground she leapt clear over me, landing with a scramble of claws. I rolled to my left as she lunged again at me, springing to my feet to block a raking attack with an old book.
Throwing the book at her I resumed my sprint for the door, only to hear the closing patter of claws after a few steps. With a howl she lunged again and I slipped falling to the ground as I tried to clamber out of the way. Closing my eyes I hoped at least death would be quick this time.
“Tikka momma?”
Cracking open an eye I saw Sonnet hovering above me. Behind her was the form of wolf-granny trapped in a golden sphere of light, much akin to the one that had encased Jenkins two weeks earlier.
“Oh thank god…”
Pushing the sphere carefully away I pulled myself to my feet and brushed my dress down. Some of these marks would be impossible to get out I thought happily.
“Okay, let’s get the others and–“
Any further words were cut off by a blood curdling howl from within the sphere as wolf-granny ripped at its surface, managing to get the tips of her fingers threw it. A series of cracks that ran from that spot suggested several possible fault lines from which the sphere might crack asunder.
“Old plan,” I said turning to Sonnet and the rest of the girls that had gathered around me. “Run away!”
I ran as if the very devil was behind me the sound of cracking from the sphere becoming ever louder. Reaching the double doors to the library, I grasped the handles throwing them open and then…
And then…
And then started to backpedal furiously. Standing in front of me was a figure in full plate armour. He towered above me, easily standing 7 foot tall and in his hands he held the biggest sword I had ever seen. The most fearsome part of the warrior wasn’t his sword though. Or the assortment of other smaller armoured figures behind him. No, the fearsome part was his helmet. The curved solid steel visor had no gaps save for two triangular eye slots and a terrifying jagged mouth cut into it. All of this was illuminated by a demonic glowing golden light from within that gave the impression of a Halloween pumpkin come to life.
“Alannah Goodspeed… It is time. I have come for you,” said the warrior, his deep voice rumbling around the library with the finality of death.
In the circumstances I did the only thing I could think of. I passed out.
Alan Goodspeed is an ordinary teenage boy with all the hopes and dreams of any other teenage boy. Except for when he was a teenage girl. And then there was the whole pixie parenthood thing. That's fairly normal... right?
Fair warning This is Chapter 4 in a series that I've not finished yet. That being said, for those who do decide to proceed, it's all plotted and I do intend to finish this, even if it is at the normal Jemima pace of things and will be woven around producing chapters of other stuff. Thanks for reading this far and I hope you enjoy this fourth chapter! I would particularly like to thank everyone for their kind comments and encouragement. It's really appreciated. And of course *big hugs* to everyone who took the time to kudos and comment on the last chapter. This chapter was slightly delayed due to catching a cold this week that really disrupted my ability to think clearly enough to write for a while. So without further ado:
Previously in Chapter 3…
Reaching the double doors to the library, I grasped the handles throwing them open and then…
And then…
And then started to backpedal furiously. Standing in front of me was a figure in full plate armour. He towered above me, easily standing 7 foot tall and in his hands he held the biggest sword I had ever seen. The most fearsome part of the warrior wasn’t his sword though. Or the assortment of other smaller armoured figures behind him. No, the fearsome part was his helmet. The curved solid steel visor had no gaps save for two triangular eye slots and a terrifying jagged mouth cut into it. All of this was illuminated by a demonic glowing golden light from within that gave the impression of a Halloween pumpkin come to life.
“Alannah Goodspeed… It is time. I have come for you,” said the warrior, his deep voice rumbling around the library with the finality of death.
In the circumstances I did the only thing I could think of. I passed out.
And now Chapter 4…
Owwww… my head.
It wasn’t an OMFG my head’s been split open but there was a dull throbbing from my forehead as if I’d head butted a wall or something. I guess in the circumstances I couldn’t really complain. I did pass out after all. That reminded me, mental note to self — as a girl I seem to pass out like the heroine in a Jane Austen novel. Please stop doing it.
I cracked open an eye to sneak a peek at my surroundings. I appeared to still be (a) alive (b) in the library and (c) alone. All things considered I probably couldn’t complain about that outcome from having faced off against some sort of demonic knight. At least that’s how I’d retell the encounter to others when asked. I’d tell how I’d faced down death and stood my ground bravely. I mean I did sort of face off against him… well, for the few seconds before I passed out anyway and I totally didn’t move from my ground, clearly someone else moved me while I was unconscious so I can still claim to have stood my ground bravely-ish… right?
Ahh… screw it. If I had a coat of arms it would be a chicken-trussed on a field of fries.
Reaching behind my head I found that whoever had moved me had thoughtfully placed some sort of cloth bundle under my head. Huh. Considerate demonic knights? Was that even a thing? And where were my girls? Concentrating on the empathic link all I felt back was… giggling?
“Sonnet?” I whisper-hissed.
Nothing. Not even a ‘tikka’. Ohhhhhh… someone was going to be sooooooo grounded soon. The loss of Disney XD was going to be the least of her problems if she didn’t respond soon. An Old Testament style grounding was on the cards.
“Sonnet!” I whispered a little louder. “Sonn--“
Anything further I would have said was interrupted by the sound of clanking metal accompanied by soft voices. I opted for the better part of valour and closed my eyes again.
“…look at her! Not only is she scared of her own wings but at the first sign of danger what does she do?!? She passes out! And she doesn’t even have the sword! It’d be like being led into battle by a… by a… by a tortoise!”
If I wasn’t lying on the floor faking being unconscious after having actually fainted I think I’d have been offended by that comment from whoever this unidentified woman was. I hadn’t heard from the voice of doom yet which I wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or a good thing. Still, at least no one was trying to eat or hit me so oddly this was probably the best first encounter I’d had in two weeks. And I still (so far) wasn’t dead yet… so yay me.
“The Queen speaks highly of her potential,” said a different female voice.
“Potential? Potential Darwin Award material sure but potential princess material? No way! The Queen did everything short of hanging a sign around her neck saying ‘this-is-a-red-riding-hood-costume-if-you-don’t-believe-me-look-at-the-hooded-scarlet-cloak-oh-and-by-the-way-remember-the-big-bad-wolf-that-ate-granny?’ and guess what, she left the sword lying around and very nearly died! And then when she meets us… she faints!”
“To be fair they did say she was prone to the fainting thing,” said the second voice. “Should we splash some water on her or something?”
“Do you have any water on you?” asked the first voice.
“Well, no. My canteen is in the van. You?” replied the second voice.
“Same here.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“I could urinate on her if it helps?” said a deep male voice.
“Ewwwww!” squealed both female voices before the first voice added. “Why would you even suggest that?”
My own mental ‘ewwwwwww’ added to that of the two female voices. I wasn’t sure if this counted as mortal danger but it wasn’t high on my list of things to experience that was for sure. And where were my pixies in all this? Being pee’d on by demonic knights sounded exactly like the sort of thing that they should be protecting me from. If it wasn’t, I’d sure as hell be adding it to that list of things that momma doesn’t like that Pell kept.
“Well, partly to hear you two squeal like school girls and partly to see if it would encourage the faker to admit she’s been awake for at least most of this conversation.”
“What do you mean she’s awake?” asked the second female voice. “She looks the same as she did when we carried her here.”
“Two reasons. One, she’s moved her left arm under the cloak you put under her head and two, she held her breath when I threatened to urinate on her.”
Ooooo… busted.
“Um… hey guys,” I said, cautiously opening first one eye then the other. The sight that greeted me caused me to let out a relieved sigh.
“Princess,” said the first woman, her blue Pyskie skin and white hair now visible where her helmet had been removed. “It is good to see that you are unharmed. I am Tate.”
As she curtseyed I noticed now what I had originally taken to be a shield on her back was actually armour covering her wings like the rest of her body. That, and the vicious looking axe in her hand, gave the impression of someone you didn’t want to mess with.
Huh. What do you know? It seems my ‘subjects’ were seriously kick ass.
“Princess,” said the second woman. Like the first she carried a fearsome looking hand weapon though in her case it was a Mjolnir like war hammer. Unlike Tate her plate armour was engraved with intricate rune patterns. “My name is Felice.”
Accepting a hand from each I was gently lifted to my feet.
“I’m guessing you know my name then,” I said, sheepishly ducking my head to avoid looking them in the eyes.
It’s one thing to be cowardly but an altogether different proposition to be caught being cowardly. Well, unless you make like the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz and own it. Probably not an option for a princess, however unwillingly I found myself one.
“Of course Princess Alannah,” replied Tate. “I would like apologise for anything that I may have said that caused offence.”
“It’s fine,” I replied. “Really.”
Well, maybe not fine but y’know noblesse oblige and all that. I really hated people that walked around with a sense of self-entitlement and if I had to be royalty was I determined to be more of the ‘bicycling monarchy’ sort than the ‘pomp and circumstance’ sort. Royalty for my money was about service rather than entitlement. I may not want to be a Pyskie princess but I was going to try my hardest not to be a stuck up Pyskie princess.
“Good. Now perhaps it is time for us to become acquainted,” said a deep rumbling voice from behind me.
It was the sort of voice that made James Earl Jones sound a bit girly. Deep, resonant and masculine with a little bit of an accent I couldn’t quite place. I turned to come face-to-chest with a towering wall of flesh and steel. He gave the definite impression that the sculpting in his armour wasn’t the lust filled fantasy of a sexually repressed blacksmith but rather a reflection of what was actually under the steel and chainmail. As ideal male physiques went, the armour was perfect apart from a small dent in the chest plate that was about my head height. As the rest of the armour was polished so perfectly that the armour shone I could only assume such an imperfection was recent.
Letting out a small whimper I slowly panned my head upwards from his chest to see the demonic pumpkin-like visor gazing down at me, its glowing triangular eye holes and jagged mouth seemingly beckoning me to hell itself.
“Grab her! She’s passing out again!” yelled Tate as I felt my legs buckle. “And for Goddess’s sake take that helmet off will you! You’re scaring the poor child.”
As my vision started to grey out I saw the armoured figure pull off his helmet to reveal a handsome golden skinned man who glowed with a warm amber light. Unlike Queen Joan’s long spun gold hair his golden hair was styled in a fashionably short razor cut with black tips. And yeah, it definitely looked like it involved styling and product but it really worked for him giving him a sort of rakish appearance. It might have been my light-headedness from impending unconsciousness but I could have sworn he looked familiar.
“Sorry Princess,” said Tate. “You have a task for tonight, so we’re a bit pressed for time.”
Before I could ponder the meaning to her words I felt a stinging open handed slap across my face that left my ears ringing.
“HEY!” I shrieked, reaching up to cup my cheek and shaking myself free of the Felice’s grasp.
“Annnnnnd… she’s back,” said Tate, rather too smugly for my liking.
“I’ll give you something back,” I hissed, shaking a fist at her in warning.
“*AHEM* the King…” said Felice, gesturing with her head from Tate to the armoured male figure.
“What? Oh… OH!” replied Tate, before curtseying to the ‘King’.
“Princess Alannah Louise Goodspeed, Heir to the Sundered Thrones, may I introduce you to his most royal funkaliciousness King Jack o’ the Lantern, co-regent of the Pixies; Lord of moors, forests and the gardens; Lord of Tupelo, Memphis and Las Vegas; Keeper of the Shoes of Azure Leather; and Guardian of the Golden Light,” intoned Felice.
I’m the heir to what now? I know my ears are still ringing from the slap but did she just say I was heir to the Thunder Dome? Though actually the ‘two men enter, one man leaves’ thing would be kind of easy to carry off bloodlessly if I was one of the contestants and was allowed to change it to ‘two men enter, one man and one woman leaves’.
Looking at my two Pyskie companions I could see that I was expected to say something.
“Um… it’s a pleasure to meet you your royal… funkaliciousness…”
Is funkaliciousness even a word?
“Thank you, thank you very much. I’m sure it is a pleasure for you,” he replied, lifting up my hand to lightly kiss it. “May I say that you look very beautiful princess?”
I shivered as his lips brushed my skin, goosebumps spreading from the back of my hand all the way up my arm.
“Umm… I guess?” I said with a shiver.
“In which case, you look very beautiful princess.”
“Ummm… thank you.”
Oooooo… he was teasing me. Yet I didn’t mind. There was just something about this guy. A sort of personal magnetism that made you feel like you were the only boy-transformed-into-a-girl in the world.
“So you’re Queen Joan’s co-regent and… husband?”
“Got it in one little lady,” replied King Jack, adding a clicking sound at the end as he pointed at me forming his fingers into a horizontal ‘L-shape’. “Though there’s more than enough King Jack left to go around if you know what I mean and King Jack likes to go around.”
If Queen Joan was regal class, King Jack was… something else. The only reason these two could have for being together was an arranged royal marriage. Well, either that or he was hiding a foot long that Subway would be proud of under that armoured codpiece.
Okay, deep breath. Ignore the very handsome golden man and focus on what got me into this mess.
“So what was with the whole demonic knight scaring the crap out of me thing?” I asked, pointing to his armoured helmet.
“It puts fear into my enemies,” he said, a slightly defensive tone to his voice.
“Helllloooooo?” I said waving my hands over myself. “Scared witless and not your enemy.”
“See, I told you it would scare her,” said Tate in a voice that reminded me of a small child proven right after an argument. All it lacked was a ‘neh-nah’.
“Tate did have a point Your Funkaliciousness,” added Felice. “Given that time is of the essence it perhaps wasn’t the most opportune moment to overwhelm the poor child with your magnificence.”
Felice exuded the same sort of obsequiousness that a career civil servant had in the presence of their elected masters, running the fine line between being a kiss ass and strangling them with a reel of government red tape.
“Well, I apologise if you’re all shook up,” said the King, punctuating his apology with a respectful bow. “A fool such as I should have known better.”
That was a trifle… unexpected. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as I first thought. What was it that dad always said? You shouldn’t judge people on first impressions. Maybe dad was right.
“Oh… well thank you.”
“And if you’d like to stop by my chambers tonight, I could think of some ways in which I could make it up to you,” said the King, wiggling his eye brows suggestively in a way that Roger Moore would have been proud of.
On second thoughts you know nothing dad.
“I think I’ll pass on the offer but thank you.”
“Your loss princess because King Jack’s a big hunk o’ love and let me tell you, there ain’t nothing that King Jack won’t do to give a lady satisfaction. And King Jack he ain’t had no complaints.”
Oh phul-eeze. It was all I could do from sticking two fingers down my throat and miming being sick. And what’s up with this third person royalty thing anyway. There was no way Alannah was doing that.
“Sooooooo…” I said, pointedly ignoring the come on and gesturing to the small assemblage of armoured Pyskies that had filed into the area around us. “Who are these?”
“My elite bodyguard and let me tell you King Jack’s body is certainly worth guarding. You won’t find a more perfectly perfect male physique than King Jack’s outside of a Michelangelo sculpture. And being impossibly handsome is just one of King Jack’s many virtues.”
We won’t mention that they had to remove his modesty and humility to make room for his impossible handsomeness because they clearly weren’t amongst his virtues.
“As for guardians of this magnificent body, they are as you would expect nothing less than the most drop dead gorgeous collection of amazons you will ever meet.”
And girl was that statement true. It was like the King was being guarded by those models that were in the Robert Palmer music video, ‘Addicted to Love’. Well, that’s assuming the models in the video were blue, winged, armour clad and were wearing a lot less make-up.
“My bodyguard leave a trail of broken hearts and broken bones in their wake. Heartbreakers one and all,” said the King before adding with a full on leer. “Though they pale in comparison to your beauty, princess.”
“Hey! I’m right here!” squealed Tate. “I’ll remember this when you’re feeling lonesome tonight.”
“Now Tate,” whined the King. “I know that you can be a hard headed woman but please don’t be cruel.”
“Cruel?!? I’ll show you cruel,” hissed Tate. “Let’s see if you’re feeling so clever when a part of you is far less golden than now and far bluer. How about that eh?”
“Taaaaaaaate… Baby, don’t make me beg. C’mon… let me be your teddy bear… y’know you want to.”
So that’s how it was with the King’s elite bodyguard. It seemed a lot more than guarding that magnificent muscled body that looked like it had been etched from marble was going on than the title bodyguard would suggest.
Wait… did I just think that?
“The King has a degree of personal magnetism that you will find hard to resist outside of your Pyskie form,” whispered Felice as she gently lifted my jaw closed with the tips of her fingers. “If you shift to Pyskie form you’ll find it doesn’t affect you.”
“But Tate…”
“Is… how would you say it in your idiom? Ahh…. Tate is taking one for the team,” said Felice. “More than once on most nights actually.”
“Wait… what?”
“The King and the Queen have been on separate plains of reality since the 1670s. The King has… needs. Needs that Tate… satisfies?”
“And the Queen knows this?”
“Yes. She even approved Tate.”
“Wait… so Tate is some sort of courtesan?”
“I’d suggest you never use that word in her presence Princess. If you value your wings that is.”
“I’m sorry,” I added hastily, trying to speak around the foot clearly wedged in my mouth. “I intended no offence. Y’know in Firefly Inara is one of my favourite characters…. After Simon and Kaylee because that’s an ‘awwwwww’ thing and y’know Jayne… because *tscha* Jayne… and obviously Mal… and River just for the kick ass awkwardness… and then who wouldn’t love Wash and Zoe…”
“Not helping,” replied Felice, amusement evident in the sing-songy tone of her voice.
“Sorry. Again. Sorry.”
“You caused me no offence Princess and I’m sure Tate doesn’t need to know of your misspeaking.”
“Thank you,” I answered gratefully. “Thank you… though…”
“Though?”
“I’m curious how she can…”
“How she can put up with him?” asked Felice with a cheeky smile. “Let’s just say that God choose to balance the shortcomings in the King’s personality with rather longer ones elsewhere…”
Oh?
Oh!!
“And what… she’s been playing hide the sausage with him since the 1670s?”
I at least had the good grace to blush when I asked that question. My imagination was working overtime on what size exactly the sausage in question was. I’m betting it wasn’t a cocktail sausage.
Wait… I did it again didn’t I?
“Pretty much though we did lose him for a few years in the 1950s and 60s but other than that, yes. Personally, rather her than me though.”
“Yeah,” I replied, watching him go through the usual motions of male apology to Tate while she stood with her back to him, her arms folded. I don’t know why he went to the trouble personally. Clearly that bitch wasn’t worthy of him. Now, on the other hand I wouldn’t… no, bad thought! Bad!
“Happening again?” asked Felice. I just nodded my head in reply, squeezing my eyes tightly shut.
“You could just shift to Pyskie form?”
I shook my head in reply. I was a Goodspeed and we were stubborn people. I can beat this. I was greater than the sum of my hormones. Or should that be wo-mones? Either way, mind over matter. As long as I avoided focusing on his bronzed golden skin and the armour that invited you to peel it off to view the rippling muscles and perfect set of abs underneath and… *groan* not again.
“Well don’t say I didn’t warn you. It takes a few minutes to take hold but once he’s under your skin you’ll find your body starting to react strongly to him like a drug. I’ve seen him turn hundreds of human girls into screaming teen groupies before. If you shift to Pyskie form it will purge that reaction from your system.”
“Why doesn’t Queen Joan have this effect on me?” I said, with a tone of voice even I would admit was whiney.
“Were you in male or female form when you met her?”
“Uhhh… female under a male glamour.”
“Then there is your answer.”
“Sorry?”
“You do know you’re a straight girl, right?” said Felice, reaching out to reassuringly touch my arm. “If you were a lesbian or bisexual in female form then the Queen would have affected you. I would therefore suggest from your reaction to the King, that in female form you are a very straight girl.”
Oh, that’s just… peachy. I knew I was straight in female form but very straight? Not even a little bi? Urrgh. Kill me now.
“Tikka?” giggled a voice from behind me.
“And where have you been Sonnet?” I asked, instinctively adopting that motherly grump of disapproval. I still didn’t dare to open my eyes either in case I got a case of the King Jacks.
“Tikka.”
“And that’s supposed to be an excuse?”
“Umm… tikka?”
“And what about the others?” I asked with a snort of disapproval.
“Tikka! Tikka!”
“To be fair princess, your daughters have been very helpful in enabling us to contain ‘not grandma’ and make sure she didn’t hurt herself or anyone else.”
“Ummm… how is Granny Constance?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could.
In my defence I’ve had a stressful day followed by a panic filled evening. That one or two small details may have escaped my attention, such as the werewolf formerly known as Granny Constance, should not be held against me.
“Still a werewolf if that’s what you’re asking.”
“She’s not roaming the library is she?” I asked, cracking open an eye to glance around the immediate vicinity.
“Between your pixies and ours we have her safely contained for now. I’ll be conducting the banishing ritual at dawn. If we’re lucky there will be enough of her left to salvage… something.”
“I could call upon the Family for help,” I offered. “They might not like it but they may be able to provide some experience in the matter? At the very least, they could lend their magick?”
I was reluctant to do it because admitting I needed help from the Family was basically handing them something to use against me but I couldn’t let a sweet old lady die just because of my pride.
“Thank you princess but you will find that you do not have anyone with more experience at banishment rites than we do given our long life spans. More importantly, the Family cannot know of our presence. I know that this business with the weres is a human matter but if the Golden Court was to become aware that our forces were nearby, they would mobilise their own against us.”
“I could hide your involvement?”
“Unfortunately, your pixies alone are not sufficient to contain the creature. No, this will come down to our experience and the strength of will and Talent of the possessed.”
“Uncle John said Granny Constance was one of the most powerful witches he knew of,” I added hopefully.
“Then there may yet be hope for her.”
“And if there isn’t enough of her left?” I asked. I had a horrible feeling I knew the answer to that question.
“Then she will be rendered unto God.”
Oh. That sounded very… final.
“Can… can I see her?”
“Of course princess,” said Felice, slipping her arm through mine. “Allow me to be your guide.”
Felice steered me through a maze of stacks until we came to what had once been a small reading section, the desks now moved to create a small clearing. A large opaque golden orb dominated the clearing with a dimly visible figure inside that could just be seen clawing at the inner lining.
“Wow,” I whispered as I gazed at the scene before me.
“Yes,” replied Felice, squeezing my arm. “Wow.”
It wasn’t the orb that caused my wow, I had seen more modest versions before after all. No, it was the figures floating in the air above it that took my breath away. There were easily at least a hundred pixies dancing in the air above the orb, maybe more. As they swooped and looped around it was impossible to accurately gauge exactly how many there were.
“It’s amazing… I’ve never seen so many in one place.”
“It’s a sight I never tire of even after 1500 years,” replied Felice, her voice heavy with a touch of reverence. “They are filled with so much joy and life.”
“Momma!” called Pell, swooping down to hug me. “Momma, play!”
“Maybe later sweetie,” I said returning the hug.
“If you want to change out of your pink skin and join them princess it will do no harm to the containment spell,” said Felice as what I assumed was one of her own pixies landed on her shoulder.
“That’s okay I nee–“
I was interrupted by another one of my litter dropping on top of my head.
“Tikka! Giddy-up momma!” squealed the pixie as she picked up handfuls of my long blonde hair and held it like reins.
“Snowflake,” I hissed, feeling my face flush with colour.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Felice moved a hand to cover her mouth in what I could only assume was an attempt to mask a traitorous giggle.
“Giddy-up momma horsey!” squealed Snowflake, gently kicking at my ears with her heels.
“Sweetie, we’re not at home now,” I said, singing the words to her as I tried to remove her from my head. “Ow. Watch the hair will you?”
“Momma!” sang out a chorus of voices.
Looking up I saw the rest of my litter swooping down from the giggling ring of pixies to envelope me in hugs. The feelings of love that they broadcast were so overwhelming that I couldn’t keep my eyes from misting up as I returned 13 tiny little hugs (and didn’t return one insistent giddy-up).
“So, ummm, the banishing ritual… do you think it will work?” I asked as casually as one could when covered in 13 small furry pixies while the 14th kept digging imaginary spurs into my ears.
“I have experience of conducting a few in the past. Given the number of pixies with us some of the older ones may well provide their assistance,” replied Felice.
“So you channel their wild magick like a familiar?” I asked, pondering just how euphemistically the word ‘assistance’ was being used in this case.
It was the sort of word that when used by the Family in the context of creatures of the Golden Court could be used interchangeably with the word ‘compelled’, for there was no choice involved. However, the way that Felice’s nose wrinkled in disgust gave testament to the fact that it wasn’t the case.
“No, of course not princess. You are not alone in viewing your litter as your children. We accept only that which is freely offered. It is the Pyskie way. The human witches and warlocks take from the creatures of the Golden Court much like the humans do Mother Nature, thoughtlessly and without care for the cost of doing so, but we of the Pyskie understand that all life is interconnected. It is that same understanding that allows us when in Pyskie form to manipulate ‘pure’ magick directly from the wellspring that all living creatures are part of rather than as the human’s do through the filter of their ‘familiars’.”
“Wait… you access the wellspring directly?” I asked.
I may have rebelled against the Family but there was a time once when I didn’t. One of the earliest lessons they teach little warlocks and witches was the story of the wellspring. Supposedly it was a tree, a great yew tree in fact, that had existed since the birth of the world. It was supposed to be the link between the creator and all life. No one, not even the Golden Court, knew where the tree was but that didn’t stop people searching for it. Supposedly even the smallest part of the tree could amplify the possessors Talent to incredible levels.
As you can imagine accessing the wellspring directly was a Holy Grail type objective for many witches and warlocks just as possessing a part of the tree was for the Golden Court. The closest any witch or warlock had come to it was the use of familiars. There were tales of illegal alchemical attempts to infuse the wellspring connected essence of animals and other creatures into witches and warlocks but that never ended well. For an example of this see: Weres, Wolf and Pires, Vam.
“Despite our human origins our Pyskie state is more than human. It is this that allows us to tap into the wellspring. The stronger our human Talent was, the stronger that link to the wellspring.”
Now that was a frightening thought. I’d been tested as a child by both House Goodspeed and by House Grimm and by all accounts I had an exceptional gift, greater even that that of my siblings or parents. In human terms I had the potential to be not just powerful but a legendary practitioner of the Craft. The sort that gets books written about their exploits. Direct access to the wellspring of pure magick with my level of Talent… the words of Pitt the Elder came to mind, ‘Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it’. I’d seen that first hand as a child and wasn’t about to go down that road however well-intentioned the paving of it was.
And then there was the Family.
I shuddered to think what the Family would do if they knew that my Pyskie form could access the wellspring directly. Given what they had done to Tracy Fairborn it seemed certain at the very least that they would be hunting down litters of pixies to bond their chosen witches and warlocks to so as to create more good little soldiers for the cause. I couldn’t help but think that it was a good thing that humans were so disconnected from the wellspring.
Thankful I had neither the knowledge of the Craft nor inclination to use it to make my potential come true. I just needed the Pyskie to understand this and let me get out of this whole royalty / coming war thing and let me get on with my life as normally as anyone subject to a pixie bonding was able to.
“Is the banishment ritual complex?” I asked, turning my attention back to Felice.
“It is challenging. It will depend on the physical and magickal strength of ‘not grandma’ if it has any chance of succeeding.”
I really hoped for once that my luck would hold and Granny Constance was saveable. God knows I could really use a break right now. I seemed to be responsible for the deaths of more old people than old age. The Witchfinders had killed Agnes to get close to me and I suspected that Granny Constance wasn’t just a random were attack. Weres weren’t creatures of the Golden Court, and only a witch or warlock could become a were-something due to its nature. The animal avatar needed to feed off the host’s Talent when it wasn’t dominant, something that it couldn’t do with a mundane.
During the day when the avatar’s influence was weakened it was still enough to prevent the possessed from seeking help but when the sun set the avatar was in complete control. The ability to shift to wolf form was dependant on the phases of the moon but suffice to say that when an unsuspecting lover said of their partner that they were an animal in bed they weren’t always wrong. So, with that in mind what were the odds that a little old lady would be randomly attacked by a were? I think that question pretty much answered itself. This had the hallmark of a targeted hit all over it. The real question, the only one that really mattered, was am I the mark? I had a feeling I needed to find that out pretty quickly.
“Wait… if you’re conducting the ritual yourself… does that makes you a cleric?” I asked.
I stopped as Felice pointed to the runes inscribed on her armour. That and the war hammer suddenly made sense. A cleric was basically a witch or warlock that had trained in a specialist version of the Craft. They had originally been a tool of the Church, the title cleric invented to distinguish them from the witches and warlocks that the Church was simultaneously and hypocritically persecuting. Raised as monks, they were fed a diet of Faith and Craft and over time they had evolved a very distinct form of the Craft. They were able to turn the undead, exorcise the possessed, that sort of thing. Their focus took the form not of a ring or a wand but of a symbol of their faith — the cross, the ankh, even runes. It was rare to find one now, the Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment had reduced their numbers until only a handful of monasteries remained that could train one. Some, but by no means all, Family Houses employed a cleric for their specialisms but most Houses had a few witches and warlocks who dabbled as amateur clerics focussing on those areas of the Craft. I knew that Opa Grimm had a several trained clerics working for the Family full-time as opposed to House Goodspeed who only had a couple of part-time amateur clerics.
“Yes my princess. I was inducted as a child during the reign of Pope Anastasius II and would serve the Church for 20 years until I found my own pixie children.”
I have no idea when that was but the name sounded old. Like Roman early church old.
“Where you there at the defeat of the Golden Court?” I asked.
Even with the small bit of information imparted by the Queen my knowledge of what actually happened to lead the Golden Court to leave our world was still largely lacking. If the Golden Court were truly returning and I couldn’t get out of this princess gig then I needed to know what happened. I had a feeling my life might just depend on it.
“No. I missed it by the smallest span of time as I did not become a Pyskie until the early sixth century. Perhaps I was fortunate in this as there are very few Pyskie alive today who were at the Battle of Buckland St Mary, not because of the length of time as 1500 years in well within our lifespans, but because of the casualties we took in driving the Fey from this realm.”
“Which is why we are so hesitant about showing our hand now,” intoned the deep male voice of the King.
“You were there? At Buckland St Mary?” I asked. If Queen Joan was, King Jack had to be.
“I was. At the head of 2,000 of the finest warriors I will ever lead into battle. By the end of the battle that evening I led just 52 warriors from the field. The Golden Court led none from the field at the end and left closer to 5,000 behind including 60 of note. Two of Queen Mab’s own sons were amongst that number.”
“The Golden Court had underestimated us and allowed Queen Joan to dictate the timing and location of the battle,” added Tate in a quiet voice. “Yet despite this were it not for the deaths of her sons and the loss of her much favoured third son, the Golden Court still had more than enough forces in reserve to have finished us in a second engagement.”
I watched as the King wrapped Tate in a surprisingly tender embrace, wiping away her tears.
“Queen Mab has seven sons… had seven sons,” said Felice, picking up the thread of the story. “Her eldest two, Princes Oak and Hawthorn, died in the battle but it was the loss of her youngest son, Prince Rowan that drove the Queen into a black grief that saw her accept defeat and withdraw the Golden Court from this realm.”
“Rowan didn’t die in the battle?” I asked, uncertain as to the use of the word “loss”.
“No. We had all assumed he had but when we buried the dead he was not amongst them,” said Tate in a low voice. “Yet I know he was there because I saw him in the battle.”
“So what happened to him?”
“No one knows for sure,” said Felice. “There are rumours that he fled wounded from the battle and upon learning of the withdrawal of the Golden Court from this realm and of the wards erected by Queen Joan to prevent its return or others to follow it, he fled the British Isles for new lands.”
“Actually, there are more than rumours,” said the King. “I met him a century after the battle in what is now Germany.”
“What?” exclaimed a shocked Tate, struggling free from the King’s embrace.
“This is only known to Queen Joan and now the three of you. If Queen Mab were to know of this she would throw her forces at the wards in such numbers they would not be able to hold, caring not for the losses to her forces would sustain in breaking them. And then this realm would fall quickly to the might of the Golden Court for we are not yet strong enough to oppose her.”
“So where is he?” I asked.
“I do not know where he is now but back then Prince Rowan took the name Caorthann, the Irish name for the tree he was named for, and had settled in a small village in the Black Forest. When I met him he had undergone a profound change in his attitudes to humanity, having experienced first-hand the kindness of humans in nursing his wounds after the battle. Unable to follow the Golden Court into exile he decided to spend time amongst the humans and had by the time I met him, taken a human wife.”
“Something that would have appalled Queen Mab,” said Felice.
“Yes,” said the King. “Which is why he begged me not to reveal that he still lived to the Golden Court. His human wife was pregnant with their child at the time. In return for my silence he promised never to return to these isles and to keep his existence hidden. To my knowledge he has kept his word.”
“So wait… that means her title isn’t just hyperbole. There really is a human line that does uni–“
Felice’s words petered out under the sharp glare emanating from the King towards her.
“A human line that what?” I asked.
“Nothing,” replied Felice, staring intently at her shoes. “An idle thought that has no consequence princess.”
No consequence my ass. As much as I was a princess to the Seditious Court, and oddly I don’t seem to remember applying for that position, it seemed there was another human prince or princess to the Golden Court running around out there. I just hoped the poor dumb schmuck had better luck than I did though knowing my luck it was probably Xander and we were destined to duel it out on Mount Doom or something. Mind you, if it was Xander at would be quite comical actually given he wouldn’t be able to see his own subjects. Not that I didn’t wish I couldn’t see mine at times given their propensity for hitting me.
“Your Funkaliciousness,” announced a new Pyskie as she approached us. Kneeling in front of the King she held out a familiar velvet wrapped bundle.
“You can keep that,” I said, moving away from the bundle.
I was 17 years old and had already killed my first person. I know in some cultures this would be celebrated as a rite of passage to manhood. I would be a ‘made man’ for want of a better term. I however had no intention of celebrating such an act and even less intention of adding a second death to that list. A small part of something precious died in me that night and I didn’t want to lose anything further.
“It is yours by birth right,” said the King, carefully drawing a long blade from the bundle.
As he turned the blade over in his hand I noticed the precious metals covering the basket hilt gleam in the reflection of his own internally generated warm light.
“The sword hilt is iron. However, the Queen had it coated with gold, silver and copper melted down from 16th Century coins. The blade itself is of the finest metal and has one edge coated in silver that you will find helpful against creatures such as weres.”
Yeah, it would have been really helpful if the Queen had highlighted that fact. A word, a text… maybe a link to a youtube tutorial… otherwise how was I supposed to know the stupid sword was for fighting werewolves?
“It is perfectly balanced for you despite its size thanks to modifications made by the finest Gnomish blacksmiths. It has also been enchanted as a singing sword fit for a princess. It will sing of your purity of heart in peace so as to inspire the good character of your subjects and in battle it will sing of your bravery to drive your warriors to victory. If you were to select a champion or the sword were to be held by a warrior of the Seditious Court, it would whisper to them a song of victory and glory everlasting so as to inspire them to greatness whenever they hold the sword and fight in your name.”
“And it’s singing to you now?” I asked the King, straining against the silence of the library and the sound of giggling pixies to hear anything.
“Carmina Burana. O Fortuna,” he said looking pleased with himself.
“And does it sing the same song to everyone?”
“Let’s find out,” said Tate, taking the sword from the King. “Ooohhh… Wagner. Ride of the Valkyries. Felice?”
“Julia Ward Howe. Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
“Figures with a religious girl like you,” replied Tate, mock rolling her eyes.
“Princess?” asked Felice, offering me the sword. “Are you not curious to hear the song that the singing sword finds in your heart?”
Curious? Hell yeah. Who wouldn’t be in such circumstances? It would be like having your own personal theme tune. Whatever mine was, I was hoping it was seriously kick ass.
“Only to hear the song,” I said gingerly grasping the offered hilt. “Don’t see this as accepting the sword or anything, okay?”
“Of course princess,” replied Felice with a maddening hint of obsequiousness.
“I’m serious. Let’s get this over with.”
As my grasp closed around the hilt and Felice released her grip of the blade I felt a hair raising tingling on the back of my neck. A tingling that quickly turned into a gentle humming behind my ears and then burst into a full orchestral score. Drums. Keyboard. Guitar… it certainly wasn’t classical which suited me fine. Who wanted the sort of soundtrack you got from an upmarket action movie? No mine was definitely… pop. In fact as the vocal track started it was definitely familiar.
♬ ‘…Not a word from your lips… you just took for granted that I want to skinny dip…’ ♬
Wait a minute… I recognise that song. It’s… oh… that’s just peachy.
“Princess?” asked Tate expectantly.
“Uh… something classical and uhhh… inspiring. I’m not a big classical music fan,” I said trying to pass the sword back to the King as the ‘na-na-nas’ started in my head. “It’ll come to me.”
Yeah, it’ll come to me after I google inspirational music and pretend it was that.
“Lots of big classical stuff going on,” I said gesturing to the sword and then my ears. Could I improvise the name of a classical music song in my moment of crisis? Nope.
I couldn’t help but notice that while I was speaking Felice was swaying slightly to herself and appeared to be mumbling something under her breath. I was fairly certain I saw her mouth the words ‘cherry wine’ before her face lit up like she’d just discovered that she had the winning lottery numbers on a double rollover week.
“OMG!” squee’d Felice as she wrapped me in a hug. “Everyone! She’s pure of heart!”
“Well, fuck me… seriously?” asked Tate. In response Felice just squee’d more.
“Whoa. Everyone! Rejoice! The princess is a virgin!” called out Tate to the crowd of Pyskie’s that had gathered a short distance from us.
“And frankly that’s probably rarer than meeting a Troll in this day and age,” murmured Tate sotto voce to the King.
All it took was for my mother to be here and for me to be only wearing my boxers and I’m fairly certain I’ve had this as a nightmare. I’d just been outted as a virgin in front of a bunch of complete strangers who just happened to be all gorgeous women. I think my poor, battered, often absent, masculine ego was just about ready to throw in the towel right now.
“What? No? Why… why would you even say that?” I called out, trying to prise myself free from Felice. “I’ve done lots of girls! Really! I’m a bad boy! Honest!”
“If that’s the case your virgin-ness, why did the sword sing Jermaine Stewart’s ‘We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off?’?” asked Tate smugly.
“How should I know? It’s your people’s freaking swo-- no, wait… you could hear that? How come you could hear that and I couldn’t hear yours?” I stammered.
“Umm… ‘it will sing of your purity of heart in peace so as to inspire the good character of your subjects and in battle it will sing of your bravery to drive your warriors to victory’ remember? And as for us, ‘if you were to select a champion or the sword were to be held by a warrior of the Seditious Court, it would whisper to them a song of victory and glory everlasting’. Emphasis on the ‘whisper’. I apologise your virgin-ness if we appear to have forgotten to mention that it wouldn’t sing to just you. Oopsie. Our bad.”
Oh great. This is really, really… peachy.
And no way, no how did that bitch not do that to me deliberately. This is game on. Tate is so going down to China Town. There would be revenging.
“I apologise for my earlier remarks Princess,” said the King, bowing respectfully to me. “I had not appreciated that you were of such pure heart.”
“What? No! Don’t apologise… it’s not…” I said, feeling my face burning in what I had no doubt was a similar shade of crimson to my dress. “Maybe it’s just referring to my female state? Wait… yes, that’s it. Because I obviously haven’t y’know… done ‘it’ in this form.”
Advantage Alan.
“Ummm… actually, the sword sings about both your forms your virgin-ness,” said Tate. “If you had been deflowered in either form it would have changed the song.”
Game, set and match sword.
“Well it’s wrong. What does it know? It’s just rusty metal… right? Am I right? Anyway, I can prove it to you. I’ve done ‘it’ lots of times. Let’s.. umm... do ‘it’… right now. On that desk over there. The King can drizzle me in uh… his… golden love… syrup and uh… butter my muffin? He could toast… my… teacake?”
Yeah… wasn’t really sure where I was going there. It turns out I can’t talk dirty to save my life. Or it seems to save my reputation which just goes to show how screwed up a world we live in when I’m trying to prove I’m not a virgin. Oh, and it appears I just propositioned the King for heterosexual sex with me as the girl. *groan* That damned personal magnetism of his again. This is just so… so…
Peachy.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
“Hush Princess. It would be wrong for your first time to be so… tawdry,” said the King, softly pressing a finger against my lips. “Your first time should be special.”
“Awwwwww,” squealed Felice again as she hugged me tighter.
“Will you stop doing that!” I hissed as I once more struggled to free myself from her grasp.
“Forgive me princess,” said Felice, releasing me. “It just fills this jaundiced heart with joy to find one such as yourself in today’s world.”
“It’s not that unusual,” I muttered, more to myself than Felice.
“Tscha!” snorted Tate. “Pound for pound you’re probably worth more than gold if we sold you to some rich Arab, particularly with those extra few pounds of puppy fat you’re carrying there.”
“Probably not helping here,” whispered Felice behind her hand to Tate.
“So uhhmm… princess. Have you asked the sword for your battle song?” asked Tate.
Ohhh… she’s just baiting me now.
“Yeah right.”
“No, seriously princess,” said Felice. “Remember the song to inspire in battle?”
“So how do I make it do that?” I asked, looking at the hilt for a hint of an Apple style iPod control without luck.
“You could ask the sword your virgin-ness,” said Tate.
“Oh… OH! Okay!”
Well this had potential. My battle song. The sword couldn’t really go wrong there could it? Battle song seemed fairly defining as a category.
“Sword… uh… play my battle song. Please?” I asked holding it out before me and willing it to play something inspiring and even masculine. I always like the theme to the movie Glory. That would be pretty kick ass. Right now, I’d even take the Magnificent Seven theme. Hell, the 60s Batman theme would be a step up from proclaiming my purity to the world.
And the song that I will lead my armies into battle with — or not lead them into battle with if I had my way — is…
Drums… that’s good… annnnnd… it’s turned into a pop song? What sort of battle song is a pop song? I guess I should at least be glad it’s not Waterloo by Abba. It’s actually familiar. I think I own it… female singer…
Oh. Oh, no.
Sara Bareilles. Brave.
♬ ‘…Honestly I wanna see you be brave…’ ♬
Great. Freaking sarcasm from a sword.
“Can I get this thing melted down?” I asked.
“Princess!” gasped Felice. “It’s an enchanted blade. That would be unthinkable.”
♬ ‘….Maybe one of these days you can let the light in, Show me how big your brave is…’ ♬
“How about having it repurposed? Maybe made into some nice garden rake? I mean who uses swords anymore anyway? No one, that’s who.”
“Princess! This is your ancestor’s sword,” replied Tate, an almost reverential tone to her voice. “This is the weapon of a Pyskie princess. Not as clumsy or random as a gun. This is an elegant weapon for a more civilised age. For over 5000 years, the Pyskie have been the guardians of peace and justice in this realm.”
I watched as Tate and Felice shared a quick fist bump. A deeply suspicious fist bump for my mind.
Waaaaaait a cotton picking minute now… I’ve heard that speech before somewhere… did they just quote Star Wars to me?!?
“Well this isn’t really a civilised age is it? Even if it was, as I said who would use a sword in this day and age? And for the record you are hardly Jedi knights.”
Yeah, so you can take your midichlorians and shove them where the sun don’t shine.
“If you were to face an elf you would soon see the value of your sword princess,” said Felice, her face set in a stern expression.
I mean seriously? I know elves are all ‘I know kung-fu’ and there is no way in hell I’d ever want to fight one but surely a gun would make more sense. No way, no how do I ever want to get close enough to an elf to be able to use a sword.
“Well that’s stupid. An elf would carve me up in seconds that close. No, the answer is guns. They got really big in the 18th Century. Look them up. That’s what you need to defeat the Golden Court. I doubt they have guns in this ‘other’ realm they’ve been hiding in.”
“You are mistaken princess if you think a gun will save you against an elf but this isn’t just about killing,” said the King, addressing me with the tone of voice a teacher might use for a child that kept missing the obvious. “Anyone can kill. No, it’s about honour as well. Facing your opponent in single combat with only your skill with the blade and the blessings of the goddess to see you to victory.”
Oh this is just peachy. It seems that I’m the Princess of the Luddites.
“Well that’s kinda stupid surely? They have trolls. Sword proof trolls.”
Yeah, skin like granite in daylight remember.
“Yes they have trolls but these aren’t just ordinary swords,” said the King drawing his own blade. “Every single one of us here carries an enchanted blade that is capable of cutting through the armour of one of the human’s tanks.”
“But–“
“This matter is not up for further discussion,” said the King raising his hand. “Nor is the matter of your accepting the sword up for further discussion.”
“Now listen here yo–“
“This conversation is over. Ealhwyn, please make the necessary arrangements for our departure,” said the King turning to one of the Pyskie’s gathered a short distance from us.
“Felice, you will need to brief the princess on her task.”
“Hey, I’m tal–“
“Princess, I’m sure it has been an immense pleasure beyond your wildest dreams for you to meet me,” said the King, taking my hand in his and brushing his lips across the back of it in a courtly chaste kiss. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head now little lady, you’ll get to see me again.”
He said something else after that but I was distracted by the sparkling golden light around him and the music that filled my ears.
♬…Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night, blinded by the light…♬
*Sigh* Our babies will be sooooooooo beautiful…
“She’s gone again,” I heard Tate say as she waved a hand in front of my unseeing eyes. “Felice, could you sheath the sword? I hated this song first time around in the 70s.”
I think three of each would be good. They’d have their father’s gorgeous looks, his dazzling smile, his sparkling eyes…
“She’s revved up alright. Feel her pulse,” said Felice as she removed the sword from my unresisting grasp.
And of course they’d have to be lots and lots and lots of practicing before we started making babies. Just to be sure that we were doing it right you understand… *sigh*
“Forced shift?” said Tate as she carefully checked my pulse.
“Probably for the best.”
“On three?”
In my blissful haze I felt a slight buffeting as the two Pyskies wrapped me in an embrace.
“One. Two. Three. Shift.”
I felt my whole body convulse as all the air was expelled from my lungs and something flowed into me, filling my whole being. Normally, the shift from human to Pyskie was something that barely even registered. A gentle all over tingling. This however was a shock. Not painful but definitely unsettling.
“Wha… what did you do?” I gasped as the air rushed back into my lungs.
“Detoxed the King out of your system,” said Tate as the two Pyskies released me. “If you shift back to human now you will find you aren’t in his thrall anymore.”
I pictured the King in my mind and was relieved to note the absence of any desire to procreate with him. That being said as I looked towards the door he had left the library through I couldn’t help but feel a little empty. As if something important was gone from the room. Maybe it was just the absence of the golden light the King generated but since he’d left the colours in the library seemed a little more muted than before.
“So what happens now?” I asked, shifting back to my human female state.
I still couldn’t shift to my male state on my own for some reason that no one seemed to understand. Aunt Sophie had even suggested that maybe I had been resisting the change to male using my raw Talent subconsciously which was one of the stupidest suggestions I’d ever heard.
“Felice and a couple of our detachment will stay to oversee the banishment ritual. The rest will regroup with the King.”
“And what about me?”
“You’ll go home princess,” said Felice.
“And what about the wolves?”
“They’ve already left. When they couldn’t break down the door they left the building, probably assuming that the old woman would finish you off.”
“And that’s it? Sorry you nearly ended up as Alannah Snacks but we’ll be going?”
“No one can know of our presence here princess,” said Felice. “We are in no position to engage the Golden Court yet.”
“You keep saying that,” I squealed in frustration. “Just how many warriors do you actually have in this realm?”
I noticed the glance shared between Felice and Tate.
“Oh my god… it’s a bad number isn’t it.”
Please, please may it be at least a four figure number.
“You have to remember princess that our presence here was never intended to be as an army. The Queen withdrew our forces to the realm of á†lfhá¡m during the early stages of human industrialisation when she felt that our time here in Middangeard was drawing to an end. Those that remained were left as watchmen under the King’s banner, intended to deal with any trouble from the scattered remnants of the Golden Court that were left behind when Queen Mab departed this realm for á‰sageard,” said Felice.
Great. Now it appears I’ve got to Wikipedia the crap out of Anglo-Saxon realms to work out what half of that meant. Only I could get involved in an adventure that has a homework component.
“So what are we talking? A legion?”
That would still be okay, right? A legion was like five thousand soldiers if memory served.
“Uhhh… smaller than that. More of a symbolic number for the Pyskie.”
“Exactly how small a number are we talking here?”
“Fifty-Two,” said Felice. She at least had the decency to look embarrassed about it.
“FIFTY-TWO?!?”
“Plus the King,” added Tate helpfully.
“Right, so fifty-three really,” said Felice. “Plus obviously yourself. So that’s fifty-four.”
“Well, fifty-one given we’re going to detail two warriors to pick her up again every time she passed out,” muttered Tate.
“So how many of the Golden Court’s forces are in our realm? Whatever you called it?”
“Middangeard. And they only have a modest force here right now. We estimate it to be about five hundred.”
Modest?!? We’re outnumbered 10-to-1. We are so fu… dged.
Wait, did I say ‘we’? I clearly meant ‘they’. No way, no how that I’m getting in the middle of someone else’s war. It’s not like I’m running for Prime Minister and I’m looking for a small war to pad out the middle sections of my autobiography to cover the crushing failures of my domestic policy after all.
“Pffft! Only five hundred? Silly me for worrying,” I laughed, trying to keep the creeping edge of hysteria from my voice.
“That’s the spirit princess,” said Felice cheerfully. “It’s not like we’re facing the full ten thousand we believe that Queen Mab has under her banner waiting to cross over when the five hundred have lowered the wards keeping her in á‰sageard. Besides, we expect further reinforcements from the Queen Joan’s forces soon.”
“How soon is soon?”
Today would be a good start…
“The Queen expects to make the crossing to Middangeard in a matter of weeks with two thousand Pyskie warriors plus whatever forces you are able to persuade our allies to bring to the field locally.”
TWO THOUSAND?!?! Oh god… I’m going to die horribly to a soundtrack of ‘If I die young’ by The Band Perry.
“Ummm… I’d like to abdicate please?”
“Ohhhhh… you kidder,” said Tate as she pinched my cheeks. “Besides you can’t. Royalty is in your very precious blood.”
“I don’t think I can do this…”
“You’ll be fine,” said Felice. “Once you’ve faced down your first troll in single combat you’ll be wondering what you were worrying about.”
“I was always more of a lover than a fighter…”
“Not according to the sword you weren’t your virgin-ness,” giggled Tate.
I’m sooooooo going to get my Pyskie subjects to build a tower I can send Tate too. Her and that other bitch…
“You don’t happen to know a Pyskie named Aelfwyn do you?”
“Why yes princess. She’s my sister,” replied a grinning Tate.
Great. That’s just peachy. My two most troubling subjects are related. That being said, something didn’t seem to ring true about it.
“Your sister? What are the odds of two members of the same family finding pixie nests?”
“When I say sister I mean my spiritual sister. The sister of my heart.”
“Spiritual sister?”
“I didn’t get to choose my blood relations but I do get to choose my family. Aelfwyn has been like a sister to me so she is the sister I choose to have.”
I could see in the words she didn’t speak and the expression on her face that there was more to it than she was saying, some sort of trauma in her past relating to her blood family. Something that time couldn’t heal just dull.
“I have full confidence in you princess,” said Felice, rubbing my arm in a show of support. “And if you do die I’m sure you will go out in a death worthy of a princess.”
“I think I’m going to need a lie down,” I said, slumping heavily into a nearby chair. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to die. I just want to live a quiet normal life.”
“Define normal,” said Tate as she lifted Snowflake from my head.
“No trolls. No country house wolves. No coming wars. No princess-ing.”
“You can run away from all of those bar one. You are a princess of the Pyskie. There is no avoiding it,” said Tate.
“We’ll I’m going to tr–“
I was cut off by a double clicking sound from a radio clipped on the back of Tate’s weapon’s belt that I hadn’t noticed before.
“The King has left the building,” she announced as she clicked the radio once in response. “And it’s time for you to go too princess.”
“What about Granny Constance?”
“We can do nothing until dawn, when the animal avatar will be in flux.”
“Can you… can you let me…”
“Know what happens to her? Yes,” said Felice. “I will leave a black stone for you if she dies or a white stone if she lives.”
“Or you could maybe text me? I could give you my mobile number?”
“…”
“Or I could do that,” agreed Felice, pulling a small hidden smartphone from her belt.
Yeah, they won’t embrace guns but they will use a walkie-talkie thingy and a smart phone. Can you say hy-po-crites?
“Well I guess I should say thanks for coming to my rescue anyway,” I said.
“You’re welcome your virgin-ness,” said Tate. “Though to be honest we weren’t here to rescue you.”
“Then why were you here?”
“We’re here with a task for you from Queen Joan.”
Great. It seems that I wasn’t saved. I was accidentally saved. That’s just sooooooo typical of the way my luck is running right now.
“The Queen has decreed that you shall act as the emissary of the Seditious Court in Middangeard,” said Felice. “The Golden Court does not know of your existence princess and even if they did it would be as nothing more than a human witch, someone their forces would not be concerned with. The Queen believes that this gives us the opportunity to use you as an emissary to build alliances with unaligned forces in this realm.”
“Hello? Have you forgotten I’m seventeen! What do I know about diplomacy?”
“The Queen thought of that princess. Tate and I have been assigned to assist you in your mission. We will brief you on the task at hand and provide tutoring for you in the art of diplomacy.”
“Ummm… won’t your presence tip off the Golden Court thereby defeating the point of my stealth emissary-ness?”
“That’s easily solved princess,” replied Tate with a wave of her hand.
I watched as her appearance rippled to be replaced by that of a delicately featured raven haired girl somewhere in her late teens to early twenties, looking much like I imagined Joan of Arc did in her armour. The smug look on her face was however disturbed by the crash of metal behind her.
“Ooops! I like totally forgot about my wing armour y’know?” she giggled.
“I on the other hand didn’t,” said the dirty blonde haired girl with the pixie haircut holding two pieces of armour in her hands. “Don’t worry, we have a supply of normal clothes as well princess.”
“Just think of us as your new BFFs!” squealed Tate clapping her hands.
“Or not, as the case may be,” said Felice noticing my expression. “She’s watched a lot of American High School dramas. Don’t disillusion her. This is sort of a dream come true for her.”
“Yeah well, how am I going to explain you?”
“Ve could be exchange stuuu-dents from Sveden?” said Tate in the sort of Swedish accent that would make the Swedish Chef cringe.
“Or not, as the case may be,” said Felice quickly. Clearly my face was being very expressive again. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Riiiiiiiight.”
“Besides, your first mission is an easy one princess,” said Felice, handing me a small strip of rolled up paper. “We need you to make contact with the most organised of the unaligned Faerie groups. Don’t worry, they will make the first contact. You just need to give them this message to initiate the dialogue once they do.”
“And how am I to do that?”
“I’m sorry about this princess,” said Felice. “But you understand, orders are orders.”
“Sorry about what?” I asked as I started to unroll the strip of paper.
This had the sort of ominous edge to it that most of my dealings with the Pyskie seemed to take on sooner or later. My sixth sense was metaphorically waving its arms madly screaming ‘Danger Will Robinson! Danger!’
“It’s time for the Goodspeed children to go home,” announced Felice with a clap of her hands.
“Tikka!” said Sonnet, kissing me on the cheek before disappearing in a swirl of light. Once the last of my pixies had disappeared Felice nodded to Tate.
“You need to wrap the message around your tooth when you place it under your pillow tonight. The tooth fairy will read the message when it collects your tooth,” said Felice.
“But I haven’t lost any teeth, so how would that work?” I asked. By this point my sixth sense was metaphorically hyperventilating into a metaphorical paper bag.
“We have orders for that. Suffice to say our solution while extreme isn’t permanent.”
“Whoa! What do you mean extreme?” I asked, taking a step back from Felice. In reply Felice pointed to my left, just outside the range of my vision. Turning my head, I saw Tate standing there, an evil looking smile on her lips.
“Batter up!”
The last thing I saw was an armour clad fist coming towards me.
I groggily opened by eyes to see Tracy’s concerned face looking down at me. As awareness started to come back to me I noticed I was slouched on a sofa in the school’s makeshift common room.
“Ohhh… that’s a nasty looking bruise on your face,” said Tracy, wincing in sympathy.
I gingerly touched my sore cheek while my tongue explored my mouth and did a quick headcount... well, toothcount. It was all going so well until I found that one of my molars was missing.
“That bitch hit me!”
My shout quickly turned into a whimper as the throbbing in my jaw started.
“George, could you get the first aid kit?” called Tracy. I noticed then that George had been hovering in the doorway to the common room. He nodded his head in reply and quickly left for the nurse’s office.
“So?” asked Tracy, expectantly as she sat down on the sofa next to me.
“So what?”
“This clearly isn’t just a random thing. This is more of your adventures isn’t it?” she squealed bouncing up and down. “Who was it this time?”
“What makes you think this wasn’t just a random attack?”
“This note,” she said, holding up an envelope with the ‘Princess Alannah Goodspeed’ written on the front in elaborate copper plate script. “And that potion.”
I looked in the direction that Tracy had pointed towards to see a pixie hovering in the air clutching a glass potion bottle. She was wearing a white apron with a tiny watch hanging from it. The contrast with her blue fur gave her a very nurse-like look. She wasn’t one of mine though, the fur pattern was all wrong. I think she was the one I saw with Felice.
“Tikka-Takk!”
I accepted the proffered potion and carefully turned it over in my hand. It was one of those fancy 19th Century style apothecary bottles. On the front was a label with more of the elaborate copper plate script on it.
“Drink me,” I said, reading the label aloud. “Well… that’s original.”
Whatever this potion did I had a feeling it wasn’t about to make me shrink. That being said it was given to me by a pixie so I was pretty confident that it wouldn’t do me any harm.
“I think there is more writing on the back,” said Tracy.
“Let’s have a look. Ahhh… ‘Dr Culpepper’s Tooth Serum. We guarantee you’ll grow a new tooth in 24 hours or less.1’. Well, that would be useful.”
Still didn’t make up for the pain of having one of my teeth knocked out though. Ah well, the sooner it’s drunk the sooner I get my tooth back. Removing the glass stopper, I tipped the contents into my mouth in one gulp.
“Hmmm… fruity flavoured,” I said to a shocked Tracy as I put the potion bottle down. “That was unexpected. I thought it was going to taste medicine bad in that way of only yucky tasting medicine working.”
“I can’t believe you just drank that… anyway there’s something written here in small print on the label,” said Tracy, examining the discarded potion bottle.
“What does it say?”
“1 Dr Culpepper’s Tooth Serum guarantees to grow you a new tooth in 24 hours or less or your money back!2 3”
“Well that’s good right? Nothing wrong in having confidence in their product.”
“Ummm… There are more footnotes.”
“2 Dr Culpepper cannot guarantee that the new tooth will be a human tooth.”
Oh that’s just peachy. How the hell am I going to explain a narwhale tusk or something?
“3 Side effects include: very occasionally none at all; a rash; headaches; your skin peeling off like slices of salami; death; nausea; death; hiccups; death; uncontrolled vomiting; death; diarrhoea; all your teeth falling out; death; the new tooth exploding, death; your existing teeth exploding; and the possibility of death. PS: Our lawyers insist we mention there is a chance of death.”
“Well let’s hope contraindication roulette goes in my favour hey?” I said with more bravado than I was feeling right now. If it wasn’t for the fact that it had been given to me by a pixie I’d probably be looking to make myself sick to get rid of it from my system.
“We can hope,” said Tracy as she edged back from me slightly. “You will give me a warning if you feel any of your teeth wanting to explode?”
“Trust me, you’ll know if I feel that my teeth are going to explode. The screaming will be a significant clue.”
“Soooo… should I be bowing or something ‘princess’?” asked Tracy.
“She’s a princess now?” said George as he returned with the first aid kit. “That’s got to be some sort of record. You were a guy a couple of months ago and now you’re a princess?”
“It’s complicated. Not that anyone gave me a choice about it,” I grumbled.
“Nice dress by the way,” said George as he opened the first aid kit. “It’s a bit… formal though isn’t it for school?”
I groaned as I remembered I was still wearing the froufrou nightmare the Queen had given me. Was it too much to hope that it morphed back into my clothes while I was out?
“You weren’t wearing that two hours ago,” said Tracy, pulling down a torn piece of the hem from where it had got tangled up in the many, many layers of petticoats underneath.
There was probably enough silk under the dress that I could safely jump from an aeroplane and act as my own parachute. That’s a thought… maybe I could run away and join a stunt sky diving team. I have my own wings after all if it all goes a bit ‘pete tong’. Alannah the Aerial Angel. It has a ring to it.
“So, the edited highlights?” asked George as he gently dabbed at my bruised cheek with something anti-septic smelling.
“Indoor country house werewolves which I guess is Family stuff? Pixie stuff I can’t talk about… princess stuff I don’t want to talk about… oh, and it seems I’ve got a meeting with the tooth fairy tonight.”
“Hence the tooth.”
“Hence the tooth,” I agreed.
“Are we going to have to alert someone about the weres?” asked George as he dipped a cotton bud into the antiseptic.
“No, they are gone for now.”
“But telling the Family would help strengthen your case about the Witchfinders.”
“Not without proof it wouldn’t. The Family Council wants to keep its head in the sand and ignore everything going on around it… or should I say, around me.”
“You need to tell someone. Next time the weres might not come back for just you.”
I glanced heavenwards for a second pondering George’s words.
“Okay, okay… I’ll speak to mum tonight. She can decide whether to tell the other Council members okay?”
“Good call,” said George as he dabbed with the cotton bud at my lip. “I could remove most of the bruising with the Craft you know.”
I felt myself wince as the cotton bud touched my bottom lip which knowing my luck signalled a split lip in addition to all my other problems.
“As much as it is cutting off my nose to spite my face, I’m going to decline. I drank the potion because my tooth was removed with the express intention of it being returned,” I said. “Everything else after that I can wait to heal normally.”
“Fine. Just make sure that no one kisses your lips too hard for a few days or you’ll know about it. The left side of your bottom lip has quite a nasty cut on it.”
“Trust me, that’s not going to be a problem.”
“If you stopped hiding behind that glamour of yours then maybe you’d have more people looking to kiss you. You are quite pretty, even with the cuts and bruises.”
“Well, the glamour is gone so I’m not hiding now but I don’t see anyone queuing up to kiss me,” I said gesturing to myself and then the empty room.
An odd look crossed George’s face that I couldn’t quite read before suddenly morphing into a lopsided smile.
“We can’t have that then can we?” said George. “So, I’m going to kiss you.”
A small gasp escaped from Tracy as George leaned forward to kiss me. I recoiled slightly but my head quickly came to rest against the back of the couch. My whole world seemed to revolve around George’s lips as I watched them in a mixture of horror and something else I couldn’t quite place. At the last moment, George lightly touched my chin and tilted my head enough that his lips pressed against the uninjured side of my mouth rather than full on. The kiss was soft but with a hint of strength and chaste in that it was closed mouth. A part of me couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to be properly kissed by George.
“Was that okay?” murmured George under his breath as his lips pulled away from mine.
Internally I was torn between laughing it off and engaging him in a very masculine conversation about sports or grabbing him by his shirt collar and bringing him back for a real kiss. If I had to guess that probably counted as ‘okay’.
“It wasn’t… awful,” I whispered back in response before feeling my face flush with embarrassment.
And it most definitely wasn’t awful. I just wasn’t really sure what it was as I reached up and touched my tingling lips. Would I like him to do it again? I… maybe… it wouldn’t be the worst thing… would it?
“I don’t know, you’ve only been a girl for a couple of months and you’re already a princess who has kissed the hottest boy in school!” giggled Tracy, causing me to blush even more.
“So you think I’m the hottest boy in school?” asked George, puffing his chest up like a proud peacock.
“You know damn well you are,” laughed Tracy as she slapped his arm. “Not that the school has much in the way of competition at the moment.”
“You can only beat the opponent before you,” said a grinning George. “And that doesn’t change the fact you think I’m hot.”
“What about you Alannah? Do you think he’s hot?” asked Tracy.
Her face looked like it would split in two if her smile was any wider. In contrast, I felt my skin burn so hotly that I was fairly certain I was about to set the furniture on fire.
“Now, now Tracy,” said George, gesturing to me. “You’re embarrassing her.”
“Sorry, I’m only teasing,” said Tracy.
“Let’s get you home eh?” said George as he slowly pulled me to my feet. “We can take my car if you want?”
“You’ve got a car?” asked Tracy.
“Yup, passed me test the week after my 17th birthday. First time and not a single lesson either.”
“So what are you driving? Some clapped out old wreck?”
“A 1967 English racing green Jaguar E-Type Series 1 Coupe.”
“How could you afford that?” I asked, feeling on safer ground talking about old cars than I did the effect of George’s kiss on me.
“I can’t. It came with Mr Goodfellow and the mill. One previous careful owner and only 2,000 miles on the clock.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, what she said,” said Tracy with a shrug of her shoulders. “I’m assuming that’s all good?”
“Let’s go find out shall we?” said a grinning George.
“I call shotgun!” yelled Tracy as she bounced up and down on the spot.
Bitch!
“Fine. I guess it’s only appropriate for royalty to travel in the back of the car,” I said with a mock dismissive wave. “Carry on Parker.”
“Yes milady,” intoned George in a passable imitation. “F.A.B.”
True to form for my luck, the lights were on in the house so that ruled out the easy way of getting home. I just had to hope I could make it past mum without her noticing the froufrou monstrosity. If not, I’d just have to take it like a man.
Yeah, maybe not the best metaphor… though knowing my luck it was probably a simile.
“Alan is that you?” called my mother’s voice from the kitchen as I closed the front door.
“Yeah.”
“Can you come here for a moment?”
“If it’s okay I’d like to just drop some stuff off in my room?”
Like the monstrosity I was wearing.
“This won’t take long Alan.”
“Muuuuuuuum…”
“Now Alan,” called my mother, using the voice of maternal doom. A voice that said that if I disobeyed not only would there be consequences for me but probably for my children and their children. Shoulders slumping, I followed the sound of my mother’s voice to the kitchen.
“Ahhh… good Alan. I wanted to speak to yo–“
The rest of my mother’s words died unspoken as she got a full look at me. She canted her head first one way and then the other before she spoke, her words formed with a deliberateness when she spoke.
“I… I’m fairly certain that you weren’t wearing that dress when you left for school this morning.”
“Yeah… surprise?”
“Somewhat… and my god, what happened to your face?”
“It’s nothing,” I said, covering my split lip with my palm. “It’s worse than it looks.”
“Is this to do with whatever happened between you and that boy today?”
“What?”
“I got a call from your Uncle John.”
Oh… the Xander business. And I’m guessing I’m the one that is going to carry the can for this. Fantastic.
“It’s not what Uncle John said mum!”
“Oh? So Xander didn’t try and start a fight with you and you never came to the aid of Tracy Freeborn?” said mum with an amused smile.
“I… wait… you believe me? You never believe me.”
“It might be more accurate to say I believe you when there are corroborating statements,” she said, motioning for me to step closer for a hug. “I am proud of you... of the person you are. I probably don’t say that enough.”
*blink* *blink*
So this is what going mad feels like? It’s oddly more comforting than I thought. Certainly less hard work involved. I’d always thought I’d have to take up one of the arts to really go mad.
“Ummm… thanks?”
“Your dad is proud of you too you know.”
Yeah… two sets of parental praise in a minute? This is where she tells me I’m adopted or something.
“Where is dad anyway?”
“He called today to say he expected to be in Munich at the House Grimm library for a few more days. He still hasn’t found a cure for you but he thinks there might be a few possible trails. You know what your father is like with books,” said mum, rolling her eyes for effect.
Yeah. I knew how he was with books alright. He has a whole secret library for goodness sake hidden in Godespeed House. The million dollar question though was should I push my luck and mention the secret library? Did mum even know about it? Maybe this was one of those moments where discretion was the better part of valour?
“Now go change out of that awful dress and when you’ve washed up you can tell me all about why you would even dream of wearing it.”
Dream? More of a nightmare.
“Okay mum,” I said grabbing my book bag. “I’ll be down shortly.”
“Good boy.”
It was only when I got to the top of the stairs that I realised she kissed me on the cheek before I left. If this was what Stepford Parents were like, you could sign me up.
“Tikka!” called Sonnet as I entered the room, swooping around me.
“She knocked out one of my teeth!” I hissed pointing to my jaw. “Pell, add that to the list of things that I don’t like. That and being urinated on by demonic knights.”
“Tikka?” asked Pell as she tugged at the corner of a journal book that was only slightly smaller than she was.
“No, not teeth… people hitting me!”
“Tikka... hugs?” asked Rainbow.
“No, it’s not something that hugs ca–“
Actually, screw it. I could really do with a hug right now. I didn’t want any of this. I didn’t want to be a princess on a secret diplomatic mission. Which has an oddly familiar ring to it now I think about it. I don’t want to fight anyone. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to kill anyone. So what do I do?
“Sonnet… hide the sword at the back of my wardrobe, okay?” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’m going to change and head down for dinner.”
And really hope that at the stroke of midnight my clothes change back. God, I really loved those trainers. I’d just broken them in so they were comfortable while still keeping that new look.
Unzipping the back of my dress I slid out of it before grabbing a set of jeans and a sweat top from where they were lying on the floor. A few moments later I was pulling on a battered pair of old trainers and feeling far less princess-y.
“That is so much better having changed,” I sighed looking at myself in my full length mirror.
“Tikka… change for dinner?” asked Sonnet.
“Tikka… Downton Abbey!” answered Pell, with an emphatic nod. “Tikka, dress! Tikka!”
“What? Wait… noooooooooo!”
In a swirl of light my clothes transformed from something comfortable and modern to a floaty floral dress right out of the pages of a Ralph Lauren collection. Tugging at the string of pearls that nearly hung down to my waist, I watched as my litter gathered expectantly around me.
“Tikka?” asked Sonnet.
“Pretty momma!” called out a chorus of small pixie voices.
“It’s… uhm… lovely,” I said gazing into each of their eyes. The level of eagerness to please that shone back stopped dead the idea of trying to explain how this wasn’t the outfit I wanted to wear. I just had to face it.
Fate was determined to stop me from ever wearing trainers again.
Clicking the torch twice towards the woods, the hooded figure pulled their heavy woollen cloak closer against the damp night air. Stamping their feet to keep warm, the figure didn’t have to wait long for a single point of light to flash back from the treeline.
“You’re late,” said the similarly hooded newcomer as he emerged from the treeline. “I was expecting you 30 minutes ago.”
“There were too many people about. I couldn’t risk being seen as it would lead to some awkward questions.”
“It may not matter soon.”
“Things are that bad?”
“Worse.”
“So what went wrong? Why haven’t you retrieved him?”
“He’s tricky.”
“We are talking about the same boy?”
“Apparently he has hidden depths.”
“Trust me, Alan doesn’t. I should know,” said the first figure with a derisory snort.
“He still eluded three weres. That’s not something to dismiss.”
“I heard. Oh he can run. I don’t doubt that. The little coward is yellow to his core.”
“Yet Father is convinced he is the one. His Talent makes him the weapon we need.”
“He was the weapon you needed seventeen years ago!”
“Look, I’ve apologised for that. I’ve scrutinised the spell in minute detail and I still don’t understand why it has lasted so long.”
“I’ve lost decades of my life due to your failure to understand what went wrong! It was only supposed to last for three months! Instead, I get twenty plus years of my real-self buried under this simpering fool. Would you tell me how I can get that back?”
“Father says he has a potion containing a few drops from the Fountain of Youth. Your youth can be returned. You will get the chance to live your life again as you wish it to be.”
“It better.”
“And you are finally beginning to gain more and more control of your mind. A year ago you struggled to hold control of your mind for an hour. Now you can control your mind for two or three hours. At this rate it should only be a matter of weeks before you are in complete control.”
“Hours. Not all the time. Hours. I’m only myself for a few hours every day! It’s like being a prisoner in my own head.”
“It will take time. Don’t forget the other you has lived for longer than you have in a real sense. The fake you has a fully formed personality… memories.”
“And what of the memories once this is over? What am I to do with those?”
“We have a potion that can remove those.”
“Good. I want this to all go away!”
“I can only say again how sorry I am. I never meant you any harm.”
“I know… so what happens now?”
“Father is sending me additional resources to capture Alan.”
“I still can’t believe you failed.”
“You underestimate him. Just look at the way he managed to subvert the binding ritual, the first time he outwitted us. No one expected that. We won’t make the mistake of underestimating his deviousness a third time.”
“You better not. Father will not be pleased if the idiot child eludes you again.”
“I won’t fail again,” said the figure with a shudder. “Father couldn’t show his true self to you all the time you were under the spell but he’s far worse than he ever was when we were kids. It hasn’t helped that things have not been going well since the Grand Coven was dissolved last week.”
“The Grand Coven’s gone?”
“Yes. The Chairman of House Elegast was assassinated a little over a week ago. The signs point to it being one of his own Family but there are accusations that another of the Great Houses was behind it. Mistrust now dominates the relations between the Great Houses and the Lesser Houses are already seeking allies to protect themselves against the coming war. The English Houses won’t be able to stand aloof from this for long. The smart money is on House Rasputin being the first to move against one of the other Great Houses.”
“As much as I hate to say this, Alan alleges that the Witchfinders have returned. Could it not be them that are behind the murder?”
“Father does not believe this to the case. He believes that whoever was behind the attack is trying to cover their tracks with a false trail.”
“And the dissolution of the Great Coven is what has forced father to move up his timetable for Alan?”
“Yes.”
“Then make sure you don’t screw up this time.”
“I will. There is something else but I don’t quite know how to say it…”
“I don’t have time for anything other than direct.”
“It’s the other you… one of our Elders suggests that there is a chance given how long the spell has run, that in a very literal sense, we’re talking about the other you being a real person.”
“Okay?”
“This other you isn’t part of the plan. If this other you learns of your existence... of their eventual fate… well… they may fight against you.”
“I’d like to see that. I’m the real person.”
“You need to take this seriously. The other you is far more experienced than you are and if they realise what is happening, more desperate.”
“You forget, I have both our memories. They have none of mine since I awakened.”
“No, you only have some of their memories. The spell hasn’t weakened enough to give you total access to their memories yet. They could with enough will power hide things from you.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m the real one,” said the first figure turning back towards town. “Cheer up! We’re going to be in Father’s good books again and I’m going to get my life back. My son isn't going to elude you a third time. We’re home free!”
“Damn it, Angelika,” cursed the second figure. “I really wish you wouldn’t tempt fate like that.”
I was half-way through my morning porridge when my iPhone chimed. An icon depicting a white speech bubble against a green background along with an unknown number appeared on the lock screen. However, while the number was unknown to me the message and its sender became instantly clear.
It was a picture of a black stone.
I nodded gratefully to him as he took my rucksack from me, using my free hand to cradle the side of my jaw. However, my physical pain was a welcome distraction from the emotional pain I felt. The death of Granny Constance weighed heavily on my mind yet I couldn’t tell anyone about it without revealing the presence of the Pyskies. Felice had promised that they would leave her body to be found later this morning so at least she would have a proper funeral.
“The tooth? It’s growing. More tender than anything, though I think most of the discomfort is from the new tooth emerging at an accelerated rate.”
“Well you are teething,” chuckled George before hastily adding. “But least that proves the potion is working. I confess to have had some doubt about that.”
“You and me both.”
“Guys,” said Tracy as she joined us. “How’s the tooth?”
“Growing,” George and I both said in unison. I felt myself blush as George turned to me and grinned.
“So any news from the tooth fairy?” asked Tracy.
“Not yet. Though I’m not entirely sure how this is supposed to work.”
“What no return note?” said Tracy.
“Nope. And they definitely took my tooth. I wrapped it in the note and put it under my pillow last night. When I awoke the tooth and note were gone and a coin was in its place. Oh, by the way, the going rate appears to be a £1 for a tooth.”
“Better than I ever got,” grumbled Tracy.
“You and me both,” I replied. It seemed the tooth fairy paid well these days unlike when I was a kid.
“So when do you think you’ll hear from the tooth fairy?” asked Tracy.
“Maybe tonight? I really don’t know.”
“I think it might be sooner than that,” said George.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Because someone keeps ‘psssst’-ing us from that doorway,” said George, pointing to a dark shrouded classroom.
“OMG! An adventure!” squealed Tracy. “Please, please, please let me come! Pleeeeeease!”
Urrrgh. It was like being accompanied by an overly energetic puppy. And there’s me not being a morning person in the mix as well.
“Well, I’d love to go on an adventure but I’m going to be late for maths if I don’t hurry,” I said glancing at my watch.
“Seriously?! You’d take maths over this?”
Ohhhh… any day of the week. If I had a choice. Which is sort of turns out that I don’t. Also, if I don’t go now am I likely to face Tate removing another tooth to recall the tooth fairy? Now that’s a horrible thought.
“Oh well… I guess I’ll catch up with you both at next lunch?” I asked.
“Oh no! Don’t think you’re going on an adventure without me!” warned Tracy. “I spend my days as a social pariah thanks to my gremlins. The thought of actually going on an adventure with the one person who has less good luck than me is too good to pass up!”
“And don’t think for a moment that I’d trust either of you to survive an adventure on your own,” said George. “So I’m coming too.”
Great. It’s turning into a regular Family outing. That being said it would be nice given some of the stuff I’ve come across these last few weeks to have some company. Plus, you never know maybe whatever I meet might want to eat one of them instead of me? What’s that old expression… I don’t need to be able to outrun the lion, just you?
“You aren’t any good at athletics are you?”
“George is county cross country champion and I used to be a good 1500 metre runner. Why?” asked Tracy.
Oh that’s just peachy. It turns out that both of them can probably outrun me. Alannah snacks for lions appear back on the menu. I really need to start hanging out with some out of shape people.
“Fine… but make sure you follow my lead okay?” I huffed.
“No problem,” they replied in unison, grinning like lunatics.
“Let’s see what our new friend wants then shall we?” I asked as I stepped into the darkened classroom and reached for the light switch.
“No lights,” hissed a voice.
Initially I couldn’t see anything but my eyes adjusted enough that I could finally see something swooped through the air a few feet in front of me. The light from the hallway through just enough illumination into the room that with effort I could see the figure fairly clearly as it came to a hoover at head height.
“Hey, how are youse doin’?” asked the tiny humanoid with a thick caricature of a New York accent.
It took me a couple of seconds to place the deep male voice with the small figure hovering in the air on tiny butterfly wings in front of us, as it seemed so at odds. It was probably the least androgynous faerie I could ever imagine. The intricately patterned wings seemed to form the shape of an ornate spade shape like you see on expensive card decks and this was rounded off by the sort of dark coloured men’s suit that Edward G Robinson would have thought was the height of fashion. Under one arm he held a closed violin case, the neck of which was pointing at me like it was an old fashioned tommy gun.
“Ey! Paisano! I’m talking to youse!”
“Uhhh… me?”
“Yeah, youse blondey. Youse the broad from the Seditious Court who’s lookin’ to meet with the boss right? We got ya note.”
George mimed the question ‘Seditious Court’ to me but I waved him off with a frown. The look he gave me back however indicated that we would be speaking about this later. So much for keeping all this courtly stuff secret.
“Uhhh… I am the emissary.”
“Yeah, you’re the broad.”
“How dare you! You will address a princess in a more respectful tone,” interrupted George, with a quick wink to me that the tiny goodfellas reject couldn’t see. “One does not address a member of the royal family as impertinently as you did.”
Maybe it was the suit that Mr Goodfellow had picked out for him but George seemed to have the whole authoritative butler from Downton Abbey thing going on. God it was sexy.
No! Bad girl! Bad!
The small figure produced a small unlit cigar from a suit pocket that it chewed on thoughtfully for a moment before speaking.
“I apologise princess,” he said with a nod of his head. “I meant no disrespect to the Seditious Court.”
“None was taken Mr…?”
“Bayleaf. I run the Boss’s lower east side of England operation, specialising in calcium extraction and trading.”
“You’re the tooth fairy!” squealed Tracy, leaning in closer to get a better look at the miniature being. “OMG… he’s wearing tiny little spats! It’s soooooooooooo cute!”
Spats. A generation from now, will people be able to even recognise them? Never has an item of clothing crashed out of the fashion world as quickly as spats, well maybe with the exception of the kipper tie. The only reason I even know what Tracy is talking about is due to my love of old movies and that it’s the nickname of the villain in Some Like It Hot.
“Ey! Who youse callin’ a fairy ya crazy broad?”
“Oh… sorry,” said Tracy recoiling as Bayleaf puffed himself up a bit in front of her. “What are you then?”
“I ain’t no fairy. I’m a faerie.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Trust me toots, the —y vs. —ie ending makes all the difference.”
“Umm… okay? I’m uh, sorry?”
“That’s better. I’m technically on of the ferlies, an off-shoot of the fey but mostly I’m a Capo for the Boss.”
“That… doesn’t sound very friendly,” I said, looking at Bayleaf more critically. “Just what does being a ‘Capo’ involve?”
“I oversee the tooth racket for my patch, ensuring that the boss gets the goods for a fair price. Somethin’ that ain’t that easy in this day an’ age, I can tell ya. Youse ever tried negotiating with a parent over the cost of a tooth? Twenty years ago, ya’d be payin’ pennies now they’re all Gordon Gecko an’ we’re payin’ pounds.”
“Wait… you reveal yourself to the mundane?” asked Tracy. “So why doesn’t everyone know you are real?”
“What are youse stupid? Of course we don’ reveal ourselves to ‘em. We do it in their dreams.”
Well I guess that kinda made sense.
“That’s got to be costly for your operation,” said George. “If the parents artificially inflate the market price for the raw goods.”
“Eh, tell me about it. We got overheads. No one ever thinks about da overheads. I don’ just gotta pays the tooth fee. I gotta pay for da collectors, da sprinkling of fairy dust to enter the parents’ dreams, storage for the raw materials and then da processing to extract the damn calcium. An’ then we gotta negotiate a sale price for the pure calcium with the toothpaste companies. Youse thinks the bogeyman is scary? Try negotiatin’ wid a multi-national corporations!”
“Wait… you reveal yourself to corporations?” asked Tracy.
“What is it with youse about us revealing ourselves? Of course not, we use a glamour when we meet with da company reps,” said Bayleaf of me, before leering at Tracy. “Though if you wants me to reveal myself we could maybe meet up later and it could be arranged…”
“Moving on… let me get this straight they put bits of teeth in toothpaste?” I asked, trying to work out which of the two things repulsed me most. Tracy being hit on by a tooth fairy or the thought of bits of total stranger’s teeth being brushed across mine twice a day.
“Ya-huh! Where da youse think all dat enamel strengthening stuff they advertise comes from?”
I was really hoping the answer to that one was toxic chemicals not bits of other people’s teeth. The say hell is other people but they were wrong. Hell is clearly other people’s teeth.
“I think I may be sick,” I gasped, dry heaving a little at the thought.
“Well make sure ya do it away from me, capiche?” said Bayleaf. “This outfits Italian.”
Unlike him from the sound of that accent. He’d seen the Godfather too many times and eaten too much Goodfellas Pizza for my money.
“So your boss is like the head tooth fairy?” asked George.
“Amongst other things. You might know her by her more famous name though,” said Bayleaf. “She’s-“
The accent, the suit… it all suddenly made sense.
“She’s the Fairy Godmother,” I groaned, face palming.
So this is what the Pyskie meant by most organised of the unaligned Faerie groups. Organised as in Organised Crime.
“So youse ready to come wid me princess?” asked Bayleaf. “And are you bringin’ da entourage?”
“No I’m not ready but yes I’m coming and yes I’m bringing them,” I replied gesturing to George and Tracy. “So how does this work?”
“I’ll open a doorway to the bosses place. Nugget here will keep an eye on you so don’t try anything funny.”
“Nugget?”
A deep rumbling of stone against stone sounded from the hallway behind us. Turning slowly I found myself staring at a troll that was very impressive by human standards but a little small by troll standards. Smoothly polished stone skin with arms like tree trunks it stood easily, eight or nine feet tall. It had to stoop to fit in the hallway and it pretty much obscured all the light from the hallway, save for a faint silhouette, as it moved towards us.
The room was silent save for the sound of my uncontrollable hiccups.
Allegedly this might be poetry...
There once was a girl who lived in a boy,
Though on balance she would've preferred Illinois,
Or anywhere else she could really enjoy,
But sadly it seemed she was stuck in that boy.
Her parents did to each other confide,
Their shared puzzlement at gender defied,
But they took it all within their stride,
And hoped if ignored that it would quietly subside.
At school all the boys and girls did shun,
This girl who was like no other one,
And whom all could see she had no fun,
This shy and scared little honeybun.
She sought out a favourite teacher to confess,
How she couldn't take anymore of this boy BS,
And that she wanted more than anything to be a princess,
But instead she was told these feelings to suppress.
In desperation she did freak-out,
And threw her masculinity into doubt,
She did sulk and cry and scream and shout,
But was firmly told that boys don't pout.
As a teenager she knew she had to hunker down,
And silently suffer the wrong pronoun,
So each night she snuggled up in a warm nightgown,
And counted off each passing sun-down.
At High School she knew that she must hide,
The fact that she was Miss Jekyll, not ugly Mister Hyde,
But her tormentors she found she couldn't brush aside,
And they fractured three ribs in her left side.
At nineteen her confidence was mislaid,
For her doctor wanted only to dissuade,
And so she left his office very afraid,
For all her dreams for the future were coming unbraid.
Her twenties passed by in a blur,
Until she met a nice woman who seemed to like her,
And then something unexpected did occur,
And in bed she ended up without a demur.
As you can imagine the experience did not go well,
Every instinct the girl had sought to rebel,
And it only drove her deeper into her shell,
As she lay, not alone, feeling rather unwell.
The relationship though only a short time did span,
Even though they both shared a love of Chopin,
'I feel like I'm living with a lesbi-an',
Said the woman to the girl hiding inside a man.
The girl in the boy was left with no one,
So she returned home to be mistaken for the prodigal son,
But I'm the prodigal daughter she said to everyone,
And my time hiding behind that boy is now done.
So she set about becoming an English Rose,
And to her time as a boy she said 'Adios'!
And sometimes she was so happy she burst out in prose,
And sometimes it was so scary she felt all morose.
Blessed with love and support the girl did blossom,
And with a cheerful smile she did disarm most problem,
For the worst she offered a few pithy words of wisdom,
For I fear the most bigoted learn only most seldom.
The girl it has to be said was a hopeless romantic,
She'd flirt coyly and try that movie Meg Ryan magick,
But to never let them get too close that was her tactic,
For fear that her beau might turn out to be transphobic.
Now the ending to this story I do not know,
Though ideally she'd end up living with some handsome beau,
Who would tell her she's perfect and leave her all aglow,
But until then she'll keep on chasing each rainbow.
Authors note: The last time I wrote poetry - beyond a couple of lines incorporated into birthday cards, etc. - was when I was 14 for an English assignment. It's been *ahem* two decades since then. So please be gentle. Particularly where I've inflicted significant pain on the English language to get the rhyme.
Oh, and I should probably say while there are bits of me in this verse, it's got an equal smattering of fictional events.
A were-vampire horror story (slightly edited to read better)
The first taste was exquisite. It was like the sweetest wine Amelia could ever imagine and it made her wonder why she had been so nervous about sampling this heavenly nectar in the first place. The warmth as it flowed over her tongue gave her an almost sexual thrill, a feeling compounded by the sensation of her dinner companion's hands pressing against her breasts. A loan moan filled her throat as she took another greedy gulp of the marvellous liquid. After a few minutes, the all consuming need inside her started to abate and she reluctantly stopped sucking the fantastic liquid through her hungry mouth. Slowly drawing back, she fell back into the sofa she had been sitting on with a satisfied sigh, panting as she sought to recover from the amazing sensations racing through the very fibre of her being.
Her eyes still closed as she sat there in a state of bliss, she reached out and grasped the surprisingly cold hand of her date in her own very warm hands.
"Sweetie, that was incredible!" she gasped "You were incredible!"
She held his hand for a few minutes basking in the wonderful afterglow before squeezing his hand once more.
"Sweetie?"
Opening her eyes she looked with shock across the sofa to see the slumped figure of her date. His pallid skin tone contrasted with the bright red stain running from his neck down across the front of his shirt. A strangled scream escaped her lips as she clamped her hands over her mouth. An irrational terror filled her that whatever had done this would claim her next. She pulled her legs up tightly against her body in fear, unable to look left or right in case the unknown assailant was lurking just outside of her vision, waiting to pounce once she saw it. The thought of how she could protect herself raced through her mind. She had no weapons to speak of, save whatever knives were in the kitchen, and her flatmate would be out all night. As the terror grew within her heart she felt her body initiate a fight or flight reflex and her incisors began to extend in response.
A thought fought its way to the front of her fear befuddled mind. Why do I have such big teeth...
And the answer that followed scared her more than the corpse in front of her. All the better to eat people with my dear...
Tearing herself away from the sight in front of her she raced across the living room to her bedroom, nearly taking the door of its hinges as she barged through. Stopping in front of the mirror she was shocked to see an attractive brunette looking back at her. The smokey doe eyes were wide with shock. She assumed that before her lipstick had been smudged it was similarly flawless but it was hard to tell with all the blood around her mouth. Taking in the image before her in greater detail it occurred to her that if she was a...v...va...one of them. She didn't believe in those sorts of things and she was pleased to see she didn't look like one of those actresses from the cheesy Hammer Horror films. For a start, she thought that the woman reflected in the mirror looked pretty hot in a non-creature of the night kind of way. Secondly, having a reflection would make doing her makeup sooooooo much easier in future. It also let her see that the strapless off the shoulder, tight black dress with the long sleeve extending down to the a point with a loop over her middle finger she was wearing gave her a seriously sexy look. And the chunky heeled knee high leather boots were a work of art. She vaguely remembered buying them that evening. Thirdly, despite the fact the room was in pitch darkness, she could see as if it were a perfectly clear sunny day. And not in a monochrome dog vision kind of way. In a full colour human kind of way. And fourthly, the stylised red crucifix resting just above her cleavage suggested that going to church on Sunday wouldn't be a problem although she did wonder how Father Maguire would react to her next confession...
On reflection, she thought probably best to skip church for a couple of weeks, though a lot of praying as to how to get out of this mess might be in order.
In frustration she swept her hands through the floating curls of her bob, further contributing to the tousled bed hair look, only to notice a red smudge across her forehead where the palms of her hands had pushed hardest. Holding her hands palm up in front of her, she gasped at the sight of the blood all over them. The deep revulsion she felt turned quickly and surprisingly to curiosity and she raised her palms towards her face to inhale the delightfully sweet aroma. Tentatively, she flicked her tongue out to taste the blood. She let out a deep moan as that exquisite fine wine taste tickled her taste buds and before she realised it she was taking long full tongued licks of the wonderful nectar from her hands. As she sucked each finger clean she couldn't help but giggle a little at the thought that she had cleaned her hands of barbeque sauce in the same manner the previous weekend.
She smiled at the thought of the barbeque. It had been a good day out. They had spent the afternoon at Wimbledon enjoying the tennis and telling themselves that the overpriced strawberries were part of the authentic 'Wimbledon experience'. In predictable form she recalled they had watched the British No. 3 lose in straight sets to the 400th or something player in the world rankings. They had then gone to Frank and Stephanie's for a barbeque in the evening which led to going out for a few drinks in the local pubs and clubs. She recalled the boys failing to pull that night where as she had met this exotic looking woman who had said that she was exactly the type of man she was looking for. Wait...man?
They had been fumbling out back in the alleyway behind the pub garden when she remembered that the crazy woman had bitten her...no, him... really hard on the neck. She'd...He'd thought it was some sort of love bite at first but although the pain went quickly, the woman wouldn't stop sucking at his neck. So he'd nipped her exposed shoulder in retaliation. He hadn't meant it to be more than a nip but as he moved she twisted her grip on his neck and in a stab of pain he'd clamped down hard on her drawing blood and rather ickily swallowed some of it. He remembered the woman pushing him away and swearing and cursing at him. Something about the curse of the were-va...one of those things he didn't believe in...
Him...yes, he was most definitely a him despite the reflection in the mirror.
He saw the woman's reflection in the mirror mouth the words "Oh. My. God." before clamping her hands over her mouth. She was a he. No wait, rather he was a she. Or was she a he? He stood there for a few minutes just staring at the woman staring back at him. He came to the conclusion that while he was definitely a he, a he called Andrew not Amelia in fact, it would be best to think of himself as herself right now and avoid the whole gay blood sucking make out earlier on the sofa that way.
She wondered how she could have forgotten what she was. The change. It had to be the first change. She recalled the other woman had, once she had stopped swearing at her, reluctantly warned her the first few changes would be disorientating and hard to control and more than likely she would lose herself in the moment. She would only change at night to start with, which she felt was some small comfort. She blanched a little as she remembered the words of the woman...Moira...her name was Moira...she remembered Moira's words that she would change every night for a few hours unless she fed. If she fed a little she wouldn't change for the next couple of days. If she fed a lot, she would not need to feed for up to a week, although if she consumed too much there was the risk that her female self would begin to blur over into her male self. And each time she fed it would become much harder to stop. And if she couldn't control her appetite, eventually he would cease to be and night or day there would only be the girl in the mirror.
She resolved there and then, not to feed again. Moira had said that after the first few changes, she should be more in control of herself. All she had to do was survive those first few feeds. Something as horrid as feeding on another man shouldn't be that difficult not to do she thought.
Her mind drifted back to the wonderful feelings that feeding on that man had generated. She greedily licked her lips without thinking and a soft moan escaped her mouth. She wished that her dinner companion had more of that wonderful nectar she could sample, but she knew he was nothing more than an unappetising dry husk now. The night was still young she thought. Maybe if she went back to the pub...
"NO!"
She had to be strong. There would be no more yummy feeding. Absolutely, positively no more yummy, scrummy snacking on those gorgeous, delicious men.
"Oh God...I'm doomed," whispered the were-gender changing vampire woman in the mirror.
Gregg looked at the wine glasses and the open bottle of wine as he walked into the living room. He'd spent the night at his girlfriends and had come back to shower before heading off to his afternoon Sunday League football match. A smile crept across his face as he saw the red lipstick on one of the glasses. It appeared that his flatmate Andrew had gotten lucky after all. He was pleased as he'd seemed a bit out of sorts for the last week. He heard some movement from the kitchen and stuck his head around the open doorway.
"Andy? You alone mate?"
"Hmmm?" she said in surprise. No 'he' said in surprise he reminded himself. He was back in his male form again once the sun had come up.
"Oh yes. Why?"
"I saw the glasses in the living room and...Andy, mate...what have you done to your hair?"
Andy reached up at felt the loose floating curls of his bob. It felt okay to him.
"What do you mean?"
"Mate...yesterday you had your usual short back and sides. This morning you've got some sort of girly bob? Are you feeling okay?" asked Gregg with a frown.
Andy absent mindedly fingered the curls for a few seconds before giving his flatmate a big smile.
"I'm feeling...great! It's been ages since I felt this alive!"
"And the hair?"
"Oh, I just felt like a change. You know how it is," stated Andy before giving Gregg another smile. In hindsight, going out for that second and third feed hadn't been such a good idea as it had left some physical changes once the sun came up. Still, he had been more in control for those feeds and while his companions might be a bit unwell for a few days they would have no lasting ill effects.
"Okkaaaay... I'm going to get changed for football. You still coming?" The thought briefly crossed Gregg's mind that the lipstick on the wine glass might not have been from some woman Andy pulled but from Andy himself.
"Of course! Oh, before you shower, could you please take the rubbish bag out to the wheelie bin? I need to put some stuff aside for dinner as it's my turn to cook this week."
Gregg smiled at that thought. Andy was, for all the concern he was causing him, a darn good cook and he looked forward to his cooking week. Lifting the sack, Gregg was surprised how heavy it was.
"Jeez Andy, what did you put in here?"
"Nobody you know," said Andy with a guilty smile.
Gregg just laughed in response. "They must have been a midget then because there is no way you could get a whole guy in one of these sacks."
"Tell me about it," muttered Andy under his breath. It occurred to him that the reason movie vampires had henchmen was that disposing of the bodies was a lot more difficult than it first appeared.
As Gregg hefted the sack onto his back to get a better grip of it, Andy knelt down in front of cooker to set the timer.
"What are you cooking for dinner?" asked Gregg. He rather hoped it would be the roast that Andy cooked a couple of weeks ago.
In response, Andy chewed on his lower lip for a moment before answering.
"Ermm..chicken? I think it'll taste like chicken." Well, that's what he'd read anyway. Or was it pork? It was definitely a white meat. He giggled softly. That was always the trouble with a take away, deciding what to do with the left overs.
As Gregg left the flat heading down to the wheelie bins located at the back of the building, Andy ran his tongue over where her incisors would slide forward from in a few nights once the effects of his feed had lessened. Gregg was a good friend and it occurred to him on reflection, that she'd always wanted a sister...
END
This was a creative writing exercise as much as anything. Given that I'm still very new at writing, I thought I'd try some stuff I'd never done before. I've never written anything remotely grounded in reality, so I thought I'd have a go at this. It turns out this wasn't remotely grounded in reality either. Oh well. Comments as always appreciated if you enjoyed the story. If you didn't...well I'm sorry. On the plus side, this has cleared out my muse problems with Wynter Lioness and I know how I need to rewrite chapter 3 now, so result! :-D
I'm pretty sure today must be a Wednesday. I say this because I've never really got on with Wednesdays.
Relationship break-up's? Always seem to happen on a Wednesday.
Evenings that my mother calls to tell me she's not getting any younger and she'd really like to see some grandkids? Wednesday evenings.
Mornings when I spill juice down my blouse when getting ready to go to work - yup, you guessed it - Wednesday mornings.
And right here, right now - the day that I encounter the lamest supervillain in existence? Yay me, Wednesday.
For information, I'm not the guy in the yellow chicken suit calling himself the 'Rooster of Doom'. That dude clearly has mental health issues that are going to need some serious professional help. Nope, I'm the tall chick in the patriotic red, white and blue who looks like a cross between a Spartan extra from the movie '300' and Geraldine Estelle Halliwell during her Spice Girls days. And I'm currently trying to stop the 'Rooster of Doom' (and yes, that's how he identified himself) from knocking over a logistics lorry for a well known supermarket chain. The first police officers on scene advised me that the 'Rooster' monologued that his intention was to raise his 'Poultry Posse of Power' from the free range eggs on board. I seriously kid you not. My life has been reduced to the 'and finally' section of the ITV News at Ten. It'll be between me and a duck from Melton Mowbray performing a 'McTwist' on a skateboard tonight. At this point, I'm really hoping they go with the duck or I'll never live this down in the 'cape and cowl' community.
Anyway, 'Chicken Boy' here leapt 20 metres in distance clearing a 3 metre high fence to land on top of the logistics lorry so the police of course called for caped back-up. And sadly, I was closest. Who am I? I'm a super heroine. Well, according to my birth certificate I'd technically be more a superhero than super heroine. It's complex. Anyway, I go by 'Britannia' when I'm dressed like this. I'm actually the fifth Britannia. Great-Great-Grandmother was the first back during World War I. She couldn't vote and had to wear a whale boned corset as part of her costume, but she could drop kick an agent of the Kaiser from Leeds to Leipzig. Now that is 'girl power'.
Dear 'double-g' grandma had died long before I was born but she is still fondly remembered today for when she famously went stylish toe-to-jackboot with a German 'superheld' called 'Rot Ká¶nig' on the lawns of Buckingham Palace in 1917. By all accounts it was epic. They even made a film about it staring Elsa Lanchester in the early 1930's. 'Double-g' grandma saved the entire royal family. I'm about to save free range eggs. I pray to God they don't make a film of this.
So, with a graceful hop (if I do say so myself) I clear the fence and start walking towards the open trailer on the lorry. I could have flown but having already given the tabloids a lovely shot of my panties during my fight with some armed robbers last week, I'm a teeny bit more self-conscious about how I look from the back.
Anyway, as I approach 'Chicken Boy' I can clearly see he is wearing an ill fitting fancy dress chicken costume, though truthfully I think the butterball shape might be more him than the costume. And he appears to be talking to a box of a dozen free range eggs. Okay, I am sooooooo definitely not drawing my sword or unslinging my union flag emblazoned shield from my back. The name of the game here is to be non-threatening and just talk him into coming with me. This guy definitely needs help not a pounding. As I take a few steps up the loading ramp for the lorry I gently clear my throat to try to get his attention.
"...now my sisters and brothers we shall rise and take back this planet from the ape. Together we gallus gallus domesticus can.."
I detest villains monologues. They are generally based around getting even on society for something that happened to them back at school. Y'know the thing - 'I had to destroy Paris because Robyn Brown wouldn't go out with me in high school.'
"Hi!"
That was soooooooooo lame. I've been doing this for six months now and I still haven't mastered the grand entrance speech.
"Err....hi?"
"So, Chic- *ahem* I mean Rooster. Would you care to explain what you are doing? With the nice multi-national company's produce and all."
"PRODUCE?!? This is nothing more than a slave ship! Thousands of my brothers and sisters travelling to their death in state sanctioned murder! I am the right claw of the great rooster god!"
Yeah, it turns out super villains do really talk like that. It really surprised me during my first week on the job. That and the need for them to strike poses.
"This enslavement of my brothers will end! The time has come for mankind to relinquish its hold on the planet and make way for a new species! And I have been chosen as the prophet of the great rooster god! Through his gifts I have the power to free my kind and... are you smirking at me?"
"No, of course not!"
Err...like yes!! It's not like he'd know anyway, the Britannia costume comes with a Greek style helmet with a full face plate sculpted from double-g grandma's beautiful face.
"Err... I think you are. Your face is definitely smirking."
"Look it's a face plate sculpted from mithril steel. It doesn't chan.."
Oh shi..oot!! It does change.
At Monday's meeting of the 'Round Table' - and yes I know that is like the lamest name EVER for an English Superhero team - I got hammered on vodka and orange during the meeting. Piece of free advice, superhero team meetings sound exciting but are basically the equivalent of that first day back in junior school when you had to tell the class what you did during the summer holidays. You know most of your teammates are embellishing on the truth or are fully paid up members of the anorak brigade spouting on about every minute technical detail of the killer cyborg they fought ('and everyone knows that for proper heat sinks he should have used aircraft grade aluminium'...*yawn*). So, 'Amazon' and myself had a drinking game going on. Every time someone said to beat the villain they had to 'reverse the polarity of the neutron flow' I drank and whenever they said "-name- hadn't counted on my superior -name-" she drank. Luckily, they call on the heroes alphabetically because by the time we got to 'Union Jack' we were both drunk and giggling like teenagers. Turns out there had been a bleeding edge technology fair at the O2 that week and the techno villains came out of the woodwork. Later on, I ended up doing some tequila shots with our resident magician, 'Merlin'. He bet me he could link the expression on my helmet to my mood. I'd forgotten all about it but it seems that he could. And did.
"Okay...okay. Let's be grown-up's and forget about the whole 'smirking thing'," my hands made nice little quotation marks in the air at this point, "and why don't you and me take a walk over to the nice policemen over there and we can straighten this whole thing out. I'm sure whatever your demands are, the Prime Minister will be more than happy to listen to them."
For all I know in the current political climate votes for chickens might even have been part of the Queen's Speech for the Coalitions legislative agenda...
I reached out with my left hand to him, indicating he should join me and gave him my best smile, hoping the face plate would reflect it. And then next thing I know, *BAM!*, I'm lying several metres away on my back. He must be some sort of speedster because I swear he never moved. More immediately, I must have hit my head because otherwise... because otherwise the chicken standing on my tummy would be real. I'm as in favour of a 'bogof' deal as the next super heroine, but selling chickens in a supermarket? It seems a bit retro to me, buy one chicken and get lots of eggs free over the next five years? Just how bad is the current economic situation if we're reverting back to an episode of the Good Life?!?
"Nice chicken....shoo!" To underline the point I sort of wave my hand at the chicken in a 'go away' gesture. I'm a dashing, sophisticated urbanite, what the heck do I know about proper animal husbandry? In response it just crows. So I guess that makes it a boy chicken...rooster...what-ev-er. My top trumps superhero card rates me at '45' for strength, which for comparative purposes (I'm told, it's not like I'm vain enough to have checked, honest!) is less than the admittedly fictional Superman's at '50' but more than the equally fictional Wonder Woman's '41'. So I think I can handle a rooster...cockerel... boy chicken... whatever the heck it's called. But of course, it couldn't be that simple. It's Wednesday.
I grab the chicken, gently enough not to harm it though because there is no way I'm getting on the wrong side of the RSPCA over one chicken. I'll take crazed super villain's any day over that! No one cares if you beat the crap out of a supervillain. Unfortunately, the chicken is squirming around in my hands and manages to face me and defiantly crows at me again, giving me an excellent view of its dentistry.
"Err...my what big teeth you have grandma."
I'm pretty sure chickens don't come with a set of teeth. Particularly not teeth that wouldn't be out of place on a great white shark. And then the little fu... feathery fiend...bites me.
"OW!"
OW! Y'know I kind of felt that! It wasn't much more than the pain of pricking my thumb with a needle but I'm supposed to be damn near invulnerable. The only thing I'm vulnerable to is magic and certain metals...so unless those teeth are iron that means... that Chicken Boy is a magic user. Of course he would be. It's Wednesday.
Scrambling to my feet (which I would still like to think I did gracefully) and holding the killer chicken in one hand, I'm tempted to see if I can match double-g grandma's record and send the little thing on a grand European vacation starting in Leipzig. Which of course I don't follow through on in any way! I'm a good girl, miss! Anyway, a maniacal shout from the back of the lorry distracts my attention from the killer chicken.
"So, my arch nemesis Britannia, you futilely come back for more!"
Arch nemesis?! Dream on, butterball! I'm holding out for a supervillain like Doctor Dastardly or anyone in the League of Death. Or another national symbol hero/villain. You on the other hand are so going to be plucked, Chicken Boy.
"Okay Rooster, this is your last chance to come peacefully. Put the egg box down and step away from the vehicle."
"I salute your bravery, ma chérie! But you are too late!"
I watch as with a wave of his now glowing hand the eggs in the box split to reveal rapidly growing chickens. Chickens with rather sharp teeth now that I can see them. Not particularly big chickens mind you. Normal size really.
"Even the legendary Britannia is helpless before my Poultry Posse of Power! Attack my brothers and sisters! Overthrow the symbols of our oppressors! Show this flag clad bimbo what the might of your Dromaeosauridae ancestors can achieve! BWAH-HA-HA-HA!!!"
"Dromaeosauridae? Wait! I know this one, I was really into dinosaurs as a child... err... Dromaeo... is runner? And sauridae is lizard! It's a running lizard! It's a running lizard....oh...."
Still, I can handle a dozen magical chicken shaped Velociraptors...right? I mean, double-g grandma defeated Imperial Germany's best and single-g grandma and grandma took on the Third Reich's superheld. Even my mother took on the Cold War's finest. I'm not losing to chickens.
"Bring on your dozen killer chickens, butterball!!" I shouted with a bit more bravado than I felt.
"A dozen? My dear girl, you arrived a bit late for a dozen! Say hello to the first 3,000 soldiers in the war between homo sapien and homo gallus!!"
I have to admit that it was quite impressive in a way as the chickens flooded from the back of the lorry at that moment. Sort of like that scene in one of the Jurassic Park movies where the Velociraptors jump out of the grass claws first. Except this was a an explosion of much smaller angry squawking, claws, teeth and feathers.
All heading for little ol' me.
I didn't bother jumping the fence this time. Frankly, I wasn't in the mood for it. I just slammed the fence gates with my hand shattering the chains and lock so it swung open. Behind me I was dragging the unconscious form of chicken boy by a foam claw. Mysteriously, as the press would later report, there wasn't a feather left on his costume. I on the other hand was covered in an assortment of brown, red, grey, yellow and white feathers. And my uniform was a mess. You try fighting 3,000 scratching, pecking, biting fiends and come out of it with your clothes intact.
Luckily, my helm, shield, vambraces, and greaves were all made of mithril and therefore without a mark. I definitely needed to speak to my mother and find out if there was any way to get the rest of my clothing magically protected. Not least because I had to make my own uniforms. It's not like Next stock superhero costumes after all! And it would seriously compromise my secret identity to have them made for me given the quantity I need. Consequently, a lot had changed in my life in the last six months since assuming the mantle of Britannia. Back then, I couldn't sew and had no idea what a chiton or a himation was. Now I was a culture snob and wouldn't be seen dead in a Doric chiton. Not the average life of a 23 year old is it?
Approaching the waiting police vehicles I was pleased to see Detective Sergeant James Anderson amongst the throng of emergency services personnel. DS Anderson was on secondment to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Superhuman Crime Division) and mostly covered my geographical area of activities. I'm sure he had many merit worthy professional features (fast track candidate, outstanding field record, blah-blah-blah) but frankly all I cared about was that he was 'hot'. And that's hot spelt 'H-A-W-T' for information. Dark haired, tall, chisel jawed he had a sort of young George Clooney thing going on. And he was born on 29 September which made him a Libran. And little ol' me just happened to be an Aquarian. A perfect match made in the stars. I'd jump his bones in an instant if it wasn't for one not so teeny problem. But as I said, its complicated. Still, I might not be able to make the purchase right now, but I could still window shop.
As always, he was immaculately suited and booted. He was probably the sort of guy that his girlfriends (please, please God, let him be single!) complained about how long he spent in the bathroom before they went out. Not that I would complain if he was in a state of undress in my bathroom.
Unfortunately, as I came to a halt in front of him I remembered the state I was in. My union flag emblazoned Ionic styled chiton was badly ripped and my blue himation was pretty much reduced to tattered scraps of material. The red edging to both garments was barely visible other than in my cloth girdle wrapped around the chiton at my waist. And I smelt of angry chicken and blood. Damn it! I'm about to meet up again with Deliciously Scrumptious Anderson and even I don't want to stand anywhere near myself. If he ends up with that bitch Unicorn because of this, I'm soooooooooo going to beat the crap out of chicken boy on visiting days at his prison. Remember, play it cool and get a witty opening line in to make yourself look like more than another big boobed airhead heroine.
"Err... Hi"
Did I just say 'hi'?!?! Again?!? Arrrrrrrrgggghh!!! I really do suck at first lines. There must be some form of night school class on heroic entrances I can attend.
"Hey! I don't recall sending out for chicken, but it was sweet of you to bring some by."
Oh...he's funny. Well, I find him funny.
"Well, I hope you'll share it with your friends?" I gestured to a team of waiting police officers ready to take 'chicken boy' from me and eager to start running the usual array of tests performed on a new superhuman. I think the smile on my face is so big and fixed right now that it's probably broken the face shield on my helmet.
"So 'Tania, anything we need to worry about with the Rooster here?"
We have pet names for each other! I bet Unicorn doesn't have that! He calls me 'Tania', which is y'know short for Britannia and I call him (in nowhere other than my dreams) 'Deliciously Scrumptious Anderson'. It's a special relationship. One that shouldn't be spoilt by reality.
"Tania?"
And wow, he is sooooooooooooo dreamy. He has the most amazing brown eyes with little flecks of green. I could get lost in those eyes. And his soft kissable lips. I could kiss those forever!!
"Hello? Earth to Britannia?"
And he's tall!! I'm just under six foot, so I've always maintained I'd never date a guy shorter than me. Of course, our kids would be tall too. Mmmmmmm... Oh wait, he's talking to me. Err...
"Err... he's a magic user, some enhanced physical abilities and needs to be kept away from chicken and egg products. Also I'd be really grateful if you could avoid using the words 'magical chickens' in the press briefing. Raptors sounds much better."
"I'll try and thanks for the heads up on the magic aspect. Are you okay? You're uniform really seems to have taken a pounding."
He cares for my welfare! And I think he's sneaking a peak at my cleavage too! Result! Hmmm... I wonder if he'd be prepared to kiss my injuries better before they heal?
"Err..Tania? Could you explain why your helm's face plate is making kissey faces at me?"
I am going to kill Merlin next time I meet him.
"Oh! I err...think, that is guess, that maybe in the fight it like took some damage? But don't worry...uh, everything is under control."
"So, it's not because you want to kiss me then?" he asked with a broad confident smile.
OMG! Say yes!! Say yes!! Or even better, just kiss him!!! Wait, how do I kiss him through the face plate?!? Should I raise my helm to kiss him? Did I put any make-up on this morning? Sh..oot, I think I can taste feathers. I can't kiss him with feathers in my mouth!! Should I say something? Ask him for mouth wash or something?
"What? Yes! No! I mean, not that I wouldn't if you wanted to... but obviously y'know, professional relationships and... you weren't...feathers... I mean...wow, is it hot out here? I think I hear a distress call! I've err.. got to go!"
This is just perfect. I bet Unicorn would have kissed him. Heck, she'd probably be naked right now yelling 'take me big boy'.
And that was it. I was up and airborne in a couple of seconds. At least he waved as I departed. Of all the days for him to ask if I wanted to kiss him it had to be a Wednesday.
"Yes, mother. I know that grandma wouldn't have handled it that way. Or you. Hey now, that's not fair mother. They were magical chickens!"
It was late evening, nearly bed time in fact. I'd just enjoyed a nice hot shower before curling up in a robe in front of the TV in my flat to watch the News at Ten. Unfortunately, my mother called and wanted to do the play-by-play of my performance before moving onto more traditional subjects of torture. And grandma had been on conference call earlier to offer her pearls of wisdom.
I'd also had the joy - I use the term very loosely - of attending a meeting of the 'Round Table' this evening to discuss next week's impending alien invasion of Manchester and I was tired and on a short fuse after having to explain about Chicken Boy. Typically, Unicorn had to bring back a trophy from her encounter earlier during the day from when she saved a bus load of nuns and orphans from Doctor Dastardly. On the bright side, at least Merlin promised to try and work out how to reverse the incantation on my helm's face plate. Unfortunately, he was as drunk as I was when he did it and can't remember the exact incantation used. He estimates it'll take him six weeks to work out what he did and reverse it. Fan-tas-tic.
"Yes mother, I have spoken to Doc Silver. He's meeting me next week."
Ahhh... We've moved onto more traditional forms of torture now.
The thing is, I'm a knock out from the neck down. I have a figure that would make a glamour model feel plain. All Britannia's are it seems. The problem is, I only changed my name to Abigail eighteen months ago - before that it was Jack. Ever since 'double-g' grandma, each Britannia's first child was a girl. A girl who at the age of 18 would manifest the powers of Britannia. Unfortunately for mother, her first child (that's me btw) was born physically a boy. Everyone (apart from dad) was a bit put out by this. Suddenly, it looked like there would be no more Britannia's to carry forward the family business. My mother had two more children after me, my sister Jayne and my brother Thomas. Jayne was trained from an early age to be the next Britannia until as a teenager she started developing Dad's powers. You may have heard of her, she's the speedster known as 'Black Arrow'. Anyway, the problem is Britannia's aren't speedsters, so mother was back to square one - no heir for the family business.
"No mother, I'm not speaking to Doctor Voodoo. I don't care if the Carib League speak highly of him!!"
During this time, I'd started to manifest behaviour that was quite definitely female but my mother had always put this down to jealousy on my part at the attention being lavished on my sister (and I was totally jealous over the way she could do no wrong as the next Britannia) and sent me to a series of really dull psychologists who kept saying it was okay to be a guy. I finally came out to my parents at 20 years of age and announced my intention to transition. Not that anyone other than dad really cared. I had shown no power manifestation at all by that stage and even my brother had started to develop father's powers. Then one morning six months after taking the girl pills *zowie!* my Britannia powers start to manifest - Strength, Invulnerability, Flight, Enhanced reflexes and senses, and Accelerated healing. Mother nearly had a stroke when I showed her my powers. Six months after that, my body started to change at an accelerated rate like everything the hormones was doing to my body was super augmented. Hence the knock out body.
"Momma..... please don't call Doctor Voodoo for me.... Yes, I know you had to phone the dentist for me until I was 18... but... no... momma, it's not the same... one good reason, try that HE'S CREEPY!!!"
What the hormones and my powers couldn't do however, was change my skeleton significantly. My face looks like a slightly more masculine version of 'double-g' grandma. I don't look male or anything but I'm just attractive female rather than superhumanly stunning. And it couldn't change *ahem* 'down there'. Easy you say, have SRS to solve it. Did I mention I'm freaking invulnerable and have accelerated healing powers? I tried with a surgeon using tools made from the right metals. It healed and grew back. Which leads to my regular conversations with my mother about doctors in the superhero world. Remember, I'm vulnerable to magic as well as certain metals. And mother wants another generation of Britannia's from me sooner rather than later, so she's trying to find a doctor of magic who can make those changes to me. It's not that I object to her aims. I want kids. Preferably, Deliciously Scrumptious Anderson's. It's just that she just will not stop going on about it to the point that at night, I can hear the biological clock I don't have yet, ticking!
"Mother, is dad there? Could you put him on the phone? Yes, momma... I know this conversation isn't over."
Turning my attention back to the TV, I notice that the female presenter, Julie something, has reached the 'and finally tonight' section on the News at Ten.
Please, please God... skateboarding ducks, skateboarding ducks....
"And finally tonight, respected fifth generation super heroine Britannia falls fowl of a supervillain with a difference. We now go to our superhuman correspondent, Jemima Hanson for further details. Jemima..."
*sigh*
"Hi Dad...yes, I am crying a little.. Why? Well you see, it's a Wednesday..."
END
More (Mis)Adventures of Britannia
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The downside to super-hearing is you can't ignore the phone when it rings, no matter how deeply asleep you were. I blearily reached out for the phone resting in its cradle beside the bed, kicking my legs to untangle the sheets from around me. The glowing numbers on my alarm clock tell me it's 8.00am. And a Wednesday.
"Hello? Oh, hi momma...no, no, I was just sleeping... no momma, I'm not taking 'that tone' with you... yes, I know it's gone past time to get up but I was out... no, not at one of those night clubs, I was assigned to patrol the graveyard shift... yes, I realise you wouldn't have known that because I never call... no, I didn't know Wyvern calls his mother every day... yes, I know he has good prospects... no, I didn't know he was single again... yes, I saw Doc Silver yesterday... no, momma... yes momma, I know you want to see a new Britannia born before you die..."
In case you were wondering, Doc Silver is a mystic adventure hero and, given he saw me in the freaking nude, hopefully also a real medical doctor. He wasn't actually able to help me so it is still technically impossible for me to be pregnant due to on-going complications with 'down there'. Oh, and piece of free advice for you. You have no idea what cold hands are until a man encased in a skin of solid metal has touched very sensitive, if unwanted, parts of your anatomy.
"No, momma I haven't called him yet... yes, momma I know he's a mage... momma, doesn't it concern you at all that his name is Doctor Odd?.. No, I didn't know he said he was the 'Sorcerer Superior'... is that as well as being a Master of the Mystic Arts? uh-huh... and what university did he obtain his masters in mystic arts from then? You can't tell me can you? And does anyone other than himself call him that?.. ah-huh, thought so..."
The other reason I'm not keen to go see Doctor Odd is that freaky porn star handle bar moustache he has. There are certain sorts of probing, mystical or otherwise, that this girl draws the line at without someone springing for dinner and movie first, if you catch my drift.
"Yes, I went to that appointment with Mister Improbable you set up... no, my regenerative powers ate up all the nanites within minutes... yeah, he still thinks that the mystic arts are the best chance I have of changing things 'down there' given my vulnerability to magic... what? no, momma... but, momma you aren't lis... momma, if you would just... no momma, I'm not talking back to you... I'm sorry, momma it's just that I'm tiiiiiiiired, I only got home at six... okay, yes momma. I know it's not over... Yes, love you too. Say hi to dad for me."
Switching the phone off I toss it onto a pile of clothes on the floor. I lay there for a few minutes face down on the bed until my bladder reminds me that all that coffee I drank to stay awake last night eventually has to go somewhere.
I really did try and go back to sleep after that but well, London in the morning isn't the quietest place in the world even with double glazing and sound proofing on the walls. Add to that my enhanced senses and the fact that my moving about woke my cat up and she wanted to play and it seemed that sleep would not be coming easily for me that day. By mid-morning I could be found slumped on the sofa watching some moronic daytime talk show, though I do have to say that the host is doing a sterling job keeping a straight face while some idiot is babbling on about how his wife has been replaced by a shape changing alien. I mean, Puh-leaze, that is soooooooo 2009.
I'm spared from suffering the 'unmasking' of his wife as an alien by an image of Doctor Dastardly cutting into the broadcast signal. A quick flick of the buttons on the remote tells me that this is happening across all channels. Unfortunately I don't get to hear what he has to say because as he starts speaking my Round Table signal device starts sounding out the assemble beep.
I wonder if I have a clean cape?
Two hours later and I'm crammed in the back of a converted military transport aircraft and trying to catch some sleep until we reach the not so secret lair and defeat the devious Doctor Dastardly's deadly dishonest designs.
Or something like that.
I'm tired and Unicorn's mission briefing was very, very dull. The way I figure it, we turn up somewhere and we punch someone. I'm a Majestic Class Superhuman, which puts me somewhere close to Superman if he were real. The 'who, what, where and why' are largely irrelevant and the 'how' usually involves me pounding the crap out of someone. It's totally old school I know but it worked for great-great-grandma Britannia, so who am I to change it?
Unfortunately, any hopes of getting a few more precious minutes of sleep however are dashed by the arrival of Amazon as she nudges me into an upright position on the row of seats I was lying across. I mumble a few obscenities at her as I wipe the sleep out of my eyes.
"Hey Goldilocks," said Amazon passing a silver hip flask as she sat down next to me. "This should wake you up."
"What is it?"
"Vodka and Red Bull. It should give your metabolism the kick it needs to get going."
"And if it doesn't?"
"You being this cranky in the same flying metal box as 'My Little Super Pony' should be interesting," said Amazon, giggling quietly to herself.
I unscrew the flask and take a deep drink, feeling the kick from the red bull within a few seconds as my enhanced metabolism processes it. I take a further drink from the flask before passing it back to Amazon and stretch some of the kinks out of my muscles.
"Thanks."
"No probs," said Amazon with a smile.
Unlike my own body, which due to the nature of my powers merely makes me look athletic, Amazon is built like a brick outhouse. She frankly looks like she could bench press a tank where as I look like I'd struggle with a heavy bag of shopping. Ironically, I'm actually the stronger of us. Despite the 'Amazon' tag, she is outfitted more like a Romanised version of Joan of Arc with leather thigh boots, a roman legionnaire style leather kilt and a push up leather sports bra under a tailored chainmail shirt.
Apart from being a teammate, Amazon is also a good friend and usually my partner in crime when I'm not taking the whole 'cape and cowl' thing so seriously. Ask her about the time she threw up over the Prince of Wales after rescuing him from the super villain 'Count Otology'. Trust me, you don't want to take on a super villain whose sole power is to cause nausea, dizziness and disorientation. The results are... icky.
"How was the graveyard shift?"
"Dark. And quiet. A couple of burglaries and a warehouse fire that the fire service needed some help with. How's the day shift?"
"Less fun without you," said Amazon with a snort. "I'm expected to behave like a responsible member of the community."
"How's that working out for you?" I mumble, stifling a yawn.
"Not well. I'll probably end up of the graveyard shift with you before long or, God forbid, monitor duty."
Monitor duty was like one step up from being a mall security guard. You field telephone calls from the emergency services, other superheroes and the government all the while sitting in front of a bank of screens that are already being monitored by an A.I. that beats you at chess and always bugs you to play 'Global Thermonuclear War' with it. In the event something actually happens it's your job to push the oversized red 'emergency' button. That's it.
"Amy...hypothetically assuming for a moment that I wasn't listening during roll call. I know Merlin, Ivanhoe and 'International Velvet' but who's the guy in red over there?" I ask pointing to the red clad figure two rows over.
"Red Gauntlet. Glasgow's finest evidently. He's been on the trail of Dastardly for a while now, hence his inclusion in the squad. His powers are from the supersized red gauntlet on his left hand. It allows him to manifest crimson coloured energy constructs."
"Great. Basically, a 'muggle' then?"
"Pretty much."
I'm not proud of it but there is a little snobbery in the superhuman world between those that generate their own powers internally and those that use technology to externally generate powers.
"Abbey...what's with the domino mask?"
Abbey, short for Abigail. That's me. Or at least it has been for the last eighteen months.
"Merlin is still trying to fix my helmet from that mood spell. I got tired of not having a poker face when fighting villains."
"It works with the rest of the outfit. Bow at the back is cute too."
"Don't tell my mother but between you and me...I'm kinda enjoying the freedom not wearing the helmet gives me."
"Wouldn't want you to betray five generations of tradition, eh?" said Amazon with a smirk.
"Yeah. Though y'know...masks are kinda kewl."
"How's the CPD-9's going by the way?" asked Amazon, rolling her eyes at my valley girl impression.
The form CPD-9's (Civic Property Damage - Causation No.9: Superhuman Conflict) were required for insurance purposes following any superhuman conflict resulting in significant property damage. Yeah, the comic books totally underestimate the amount of paperwork involved in fighting crime.
You may think the hard part is mutating, discovering a lost mystical artefact, building a power suit or being bitten by a radioactive wombat but it's not. The hard part is dreaming up a code name that doesn't land you in copyright court, designing and making a costume that doesn't make you look like a professional wrestler and finding a super team that offers comprehensive personal liability insurance. Thanks to 'double-g' grandma the first two were covered for me, but the third is the reason I joined the Round Table.
Trust me, 'Do I have insurance cover?' is the first question you will ask yourself when you hypothetically demolish a major urban shopping mall in a significantly sized hypothetical northern English city by miscalculating the direction in which the hypothetical Martian tripod death machine will hypothetically fall after you've hypothetically ripped off one of its legs.
Hypothetically.
Just like as a hypothetical consequence, your probation period as a member of the Round Table would be hypothetically extended for another six months and you'd be assigned to the graveyard shift, which would hypothetically really, really suck.
"Slowly. It's like you need to be some sort of super brain to follow them," I reply rolling my eyes. "And they are in triplicate."
"So ask the new liaison officer for help," said Amazon gently nudging me in the ribs as she passes the hip flask back to me. "I can see it now...your eyes meet of a pile of red tape like two star crossed public servants..."
In reply I just blush and turn to look out of the window. Our liaison officer is Detective Sergeant Anderson if you insist on being formal about it, otherwise known as 'Deliciously Scrumptious' Anderson (how scrumptious? truly scrumptious! Think young George Clooney before he went grey) and Amazon knows I fancy him something rotten but have repeatedly lost the nerve to say anything and he doesn't seem to have picked up the come hither signals I keep giving him.
"You know he's single now?"
My head whips around quick enough that I almost get whiplash from the French plait my hair is in. "Get. Out. Of. Town. He's what now?"
"Single. Free. Eligible. Back on the market. He recently broke up with his girlfriend..."
YES!!! Do you know that happy dance Snoopy used to do in the cartoons? I'm mentally doing it!! This news can only be undeniable proof that there is a Patron Saint of Horny Single Women! Time to break out the silk sheets, champagne and chocolate body paint!
"Just don't hang around letting him know you're available too girl," said Amazon lowering her voice to a whisper. "You've got competition..."
"Who?" I ask narrowing my eyes.
With a subtle cant of her head, Amazon indicates to the back of Unicorn standing up a few rows up from us.
"I caught her flirting with him yesterday during the clean up following our encounter with 'The Ghastly Ghost' and, well..."
"Well?"
"She was dissing you something fierce, girlfriend," said Amazon affecting a cheesy ghetto accent as she passed her flask over to me again. In response, I take a long gulp of its contents before speaking.
"You realise this means war..."
The Isles of Scilly are it seems a lot more boring and sensible and a lot less silly than the name might suggest. I shield by eyes from the updraft as our transport pulls away from the cold, windswept island that we've been deposited on.
Doctor Dastardly clearly knows we are here because he's lowered the cloaking field around his 'Citadel of Science'. I guess as a charter member of the League of Death he feels he can take our six person team without too much problem. Besides, what's the point in being a supervillain if you don't do battle with superheroes? He might never admit it but he needs us to justify his outlandish schemes for world domination and that's good news for me. Why's that good news? Because it finally represents the chance to improve my standing in the 'cape and cowl' community and upgrade my Rogue's Gallery. Goodbye 'Rooster of Doom' and his army of miniature free range Velociraptors. Hello badass super villains. Frankly, it's about time. The only way my Rogue's Gallery could have got any lamer would have been if my next opponent was a talking tiger wearing nothing but a flattering red neckerchief. Wouldn't that have been Gr-r-reat?
"What's the plan boss?" asks Ivanhoe, nervously looking to Unicorn.
Ivanhoe is a clean cut teenager dressed like Walt Disney's idea of a medieval knight. He's terribly earnest and a bit of a fan boy around the more famous super humans. He also has the fashion sense to wear a mask, which is a point in his favour. I have no idea what his power is. And I'm going to break his nose if he doesn't stop staring at my breasts when he speaks to me. Like Unicorn, Merlin, Amazon and myself, he is also a member of the super team the 'Round Table'.
And yeah, happy-happy joy-joy, 'My Little Super Pony' is our designated team leader for the mission. For reference, in the absolutely unlikely chance that you are interested, she's the Rubenesque harlot with the mane of cheap dyed platinum blonde hair in the skin tight heavily corseted metallic finish bodysuit. Her great power is she can count to ten with her feet and make sugar lumps disappear.
...
What? Those are sooooooooo definitely her powers. I've got her Top Trumps card somewhere if you don't believe me...
...
Oh all right... She's mildly attractive in the right light if you are into the whole j-lo curvy woman thing and she also has an internally generated force field and energy lance, can leap large distances and she can make you tell the truth by touching you. Let's just say she's not been keen for us to shake hands a second time...
"Approach pattern beta, with Britannia on point and Amazon covering the rear."
Please tell me she's not going to say it. Please tell me she's not going to say it.
"Round Table...Roll!"
She said it. We really need to come up with a better battle cry.
The robotic archers were new.
Or rather, they weren't covered by the cliff notes version of the briefing so maybe they weren't necessarily 'new' new but they were definitely 'new' to me. Anyway, I'm in DC pin-up mode (you know the one - chest out, shoulder blades back gripping that imaginary pencil, tummy in and bum out while my hair and cape were blowing imposingly in the breeze) and I'm effortlessly brandishing a reinforced steel blast door in one hand that I had just wrenched from its hinges to let us into the Citadel of Science and feeling fairly confident that this is going to be the image that the Round Table's PR team lead with tomorrow. As team leader, Unicorn carries a small recording device which is used for PR, evidence at court cases and training and I make sure she's looking at me before I discard the door.
With a nod to the others I enter the dark tunnel behind the door, letting my heightened senses adjust to the reduced light. A noise from up ahead catches my attention and I pluck an object out of the air from in front of me. It looks like some sort of arrow, which for a citadel of science seems surprisingly low tech. Straining my hearing, I search out for a heartbeat to indicate a nearby archer but hear nothing. The next second I'm staggering backwards out of the tunnel with three arrows sticking out of my stomach, which is a bit of a surprise given I'm nigh invulnerable.
I'm already starting to feel light headed as I'm knocked to the ground by the first of a dozen or so perfect looking people sporting fixed expressions and all attired in matching black bodysuits. Digging deep, I push past the pain and throw a handful of my assailants off of me before grasping one of the arrow shafts pulling it free from my stomach. After I stop screaming, I hold the arrow up to my face. It's not the bloody point of metal that gives away what the arrow is tipped in but rather the grey discolouration rapidly creeping up my arms. The arrow is tipped in iron.
Iron.
Dammit. I have two weaknesses, just two. Unfortunately, they are the same two weaknesses all Britannia's have had since double-g grandma, which is a complete vulnerability to certain types of magic and iron, due to the Fey origins of our powers. However, the real disadvantage of being a fifth generation superhuman, each of us with identical powers and weaknesses, is that anyone in the business who does anything beyond basic research knows my Achilles heel. I just never thought it might actually be the death of me. After all, I am the fifth woman to wear this gaudy coloured outfit which kind of suggested that everything works out for the best even in those 'kryptonite' moments y'know? Besides, I don't want to die. I can't die. My mother would never forgive me if I died without a daughter to pass the mantle of Britannia on to someday. I need to get the other arrows out so that my accelerated healing powers can kick in. I get as far as grasping the second shaft before I pass out.
When I come too, which in itself was the best thing to happen to me all day, I'm relieved to notice that I am no longer doing my impression of a human pincushion. It's not all good news however as the iron collar around my neck is burning my skin something fierce. Sort of like a really scratchy starched shirt collar. I give the chain attached to it a tug but all that does is demonstrate that the other end of the chain is securely anchored to the wall and prove I'm not strong enough to shift it until I'm free of the superpower interfering iron collar. Great. To escape the iron collar I need to be free of the iron collar. As much as I hate to admit it, I really need help from the rest of the team.
My surroundings are dimly illuminated by some candles and in the darkness I can just make out the forms of my teammates similarly shackled either side of me. Although from the gleam of the chain on closest of them, Amazon, not all of them are in literal irons. A shuffling noise from the inky black darkness in front of me draws my attention and then a different noise. I think I can hear organ music. Is that? Yes, I think it is! And it's Johann Sebastian Bach's 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor' if I'm not mistaken. Y'know, the one that goes 'da-da-daaaaaaa *pause* da-da-da-da-daa daaaaaaa...'
And ooooooooh.... a circle of red led lights have appeared in the centre of the floor in front of us and... yes, a large rotating church organ is rising from with the circle of light. I bet that's Doctor Dastardly in the top hat and suit with the little black cape playing the organ. I think I'm going to cry. This is just soooooooo perfect old school villainy. I've finally reached the big leagues. *sniff* Nothing could spoil this moment.
I was wrong. Something could spoil the moment.
Out of curiosity do you know how long Johann Sebastian Bach's 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor' is? I can tell you. It's EIGHT AND A FREAKING HALF MINUTES. And he played every single freaking note of it. He lost me somewhere around three and a half minutes. So sue me. I'm a product of the MTV generation. Anything beyond four minutes is a symphony.
Anyway, his entrance was deeply disappointing. They say never meet your heroes. The same it turns out goes for your anti-heroes too. You see in person Doctor Dastardly is a bit...underwhelming. Yes, THE Doctor Dastardly. The Doctor Dastardly who was a charter member of the League of Death. The Doctor Dastardly who made the shortlist for the 10 Most Evil Britons in history and trust me, there have been a lot of evil Britons so competition was stiff. The Doctor Dastardly used as a bogeyman by mother's against children who won't eat their greens. I expected the menace of an Anthony Hopkins's 'Hannibal Lector' or Lawrence Olivier's 'Dr. Christian Szell'. Instead, I got 5 foot 6 inch version of Jack Lemmon's 'Professor Fate' from The Great Race crossed with Terry Thomas's Sir Percy Ware-Armitage from 'Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines'. Much like Tom Cruise, I'd always got the impression from seeing him in action that he was taller. Still, he does bring some old school class to proceedings. I mean, that's an honest to gosh morning suit he's wearing, tails and everything, and how many people ever wear a top hat these days.
Doctor Dastardly is currently about ten minutes into his exposition about how he will rule the world. You know the spiel. Blah, Blah, Blah...at my mercy...blah, blah, blah...finally I will have my vengeance...blah, blah, blah... she'll regret turning me down now...blah, blah, blah...you will all be crushed before my might...blah, blah, blah...apostrophes will be outlawed...blah, blah, blah...nothing in the world can stop me now... *yawn* Aaaaaaaand, cut to the chase...
Throwing his arms back, Doctor Dastardly bellows his distinctive catchphrase. "Pull the lever, Max!"
"Wah-ha!! Wah-ha-ha!!! Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
Now that's what I call a diabolical laugh! It's deep, resonant, has great projection and has that fine balance between being comical and creepy. Again, that's old school class.
And on cue (that's what the henchpersons are for after all) the lights come on to reveal a lab that looks like it would be right at home in the 1931 Universal Pictures 'Frankenstein' film. Electricity eerily crackles between metal poles and those globe things with the lightning inside that cause bad hair days are dotted around the lab. This is serious mad scientist stuff. And in the centre of the room is the biggest ray gun machine thing I've ever seen. It's currently pointing into the darkness through a hole in the roof. It must have cost a fortune. I really hope he's in receipt of some sort of grant for this mad science...ness. That may not be a word in hindsight.
It's a tragic commentary on the failings of capitalism but so many of our best and brightest new mad scientists fail because they can't get access to start up investment capital from either private investment or public sector grants. I don't know about you but I'd invest in mad scientists if I had money to spare. Just think of the military and medical spin-off applications every time a new energy source or laser is invented to destroy Middlesbrough. The unintentional benefit of mad science is often that 'one small step for a man' can also be 'one giant leap in reducing mammary bounce through new spacesuit fabrics that translate into material used in women's undergarments'. And trust me, those spin offs are important. Particularly in my line of work where preventing that sort of bounce is significant if you wish to avoid embarrassingly painful post-fight soreness.
The consequences of an increasing number of mad scientists chasing a decreasing pot of funding is that while established mad scientists can cherry pick their offers, the lesser known ones often have to turn to other sources of funding for their mad science. We've all heard the celebrity voiced appeal adverts on the television, y'know the ones that go...
"Did you know that during the course of this advert, three mad scientists will be assaulted by gaudily clad 'superheroes' in the name of truth, justice and the American way? Take Professor Fright. During the last month alone she has been assaulted five times by superheroes and the last time resulted in her being left with three cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder. This just isn't right. And it doesn't have to be this way. For just two pound a month you can help Professor Fright fund the construction of her terror ray to enable her to scare Captain Heartland and the greater Kansas City area into submission. For five pounds a month, you can help pay towards unethical experimental research into two new life forms she can use to give Captain Heartland. And for ten pounds a month you get to adopt a mad scientist of your choice and receive regular updates on how their attempts to rule the world are progressing. Remember, if you give to one thing today, make sure its mad science."
I'm already reaching for the phone... *sniffle*
Anyway, back to Doctor Dastardly. His designated lead henchperson, Max, is advancing towards the Doctor with his trademark shuffling gait. Max is a truly motley looking individual, though I have heard it suggested he is the cunning behind Doctor Dastardly. In his arms the diminutive henchperson is struggling to carry an oversized gun with thick long hi-voltage cables running from it.
Great. Now I'm going to be ray gunned.
"Ah dunnae kinn abit ye but 'at disnae look guid tae me," calls out Red Gauntlet from my far left.
"You'll never get away with this as long as there is breath in our bodies Doctor Dastardly!" shouts Unicorn. I really wish she wouldn't give the villain permission to kill us at moments such as this.
"I think that can be arranged, my dear..." he sneers as he pulls himself to what passes for his full height, puffs his chest out and dutifully strokes his moustache to underline his dastardliness. Max dutifully snickers in support of his boss.
We're in the traditional face off segment of the encounter now, where each side gets to make their villainous and heroic statements, much like you see in American courtroom dramas actually. Hopefully, 'Champion the Wonder Horse' can keep this section of the dialogue going long enough for someone to get these freaking iron chains off of me.
"You're already defeated Doctor Dastardly! You just don't know it yet! Your shackles may restrain my body but they don't restrain my mind. And while my mind is a powerful weapon, my teammates working together are an unstoppable weapon!"
With a mental flourish, which is rather like a physical flourish just with less hand gestures and more eyebrow wiggling, her energy lance scythes through the chain holding me to the wall. Doctor Dastardly stops for a second, a look of confusion crossing his face which I guess means he forgot about Unicorns telekinetic energy lance. Taking my chance, I leap into the air intending to close the distance between us using my flight. All the records I've read indicate that other than his gift for inventing diabolical contraptions, he has no powers so it should be a fairly simple 'tap and out cold' job. For a few seconds I sail towards my target before like Wile E. Coyote that great British invention, gravity (Patent Sir Isaac Newton, 1665), pulls me crashing to the ground. I'm still wearing the freaking iron collar. Lying face down on the ground the only sound I can initially hear is the snickering from Max.
"You look tired my dear," laughs Doctor Dastardly as I climb to my feet, wincing from the gravity induced bruises. "Max, why don't you help the young lady have a peaceful rest... or is that rest in peace?"
A metallic clack rings out as Max pulls back a trigger on the ray gun and then the world goes white.
"C'mon girl, wake up!"
I force my eyes open and try and ignore the spots dancing before them. I can vaguely make out the form of Amazon standing over me. She's holding something in her right hand and after a few blinks my eyes focus enough to see it. It's a broken iron collar. More precisely as I feel my neck, my broken iron collar.
"Take a few minutes to get your strength back and then you can return the favour," she says with a grin as she points to her own collar.
My voice comes out as a dry whisper when I speak and I have to swallow a few times to generate some moisture in my mouth.
"What..."
"Happened?" asked Amazon. In response I just nod. "You my friend got barbequed by Max and I mean barbequed... all black and crispy. You had me worried for a few minutes."
I hold out a hand noting the flakes of blackened skin falling away to reveal rapid new skin growth. It's still slightly pinker than normal but already whitening out.
"Yeah," said Amazon noting my look of concern. "I guess the iron mustn't have been pure enough or something because it didn't totally negate your healing power. By that point me and Ivanhoe had already tried to break free and we both got a dose from Max."
"Are you..."
"We're both fine. A little crispy around edges but fine."
"Where...are we?" I ask, noticing my voice returning to normal. I wipe away some flakes of blackened skin from my throat.
"Dungeons or something," replied Amazon, looking around the darkened cavern. "Something about being fed to his pet."
"Great," I reply with a smile, flexing my hands. "Now let's get you out of your collars and deal with Fido."
Amazon and Ivanhoe both have slightly different collars, both more high tech than my own. However, a small application of pressure and both come apart in a number of pieces relatively simply. Satisfied that I'm pretty much healed I take the opportunity to take a good look around. The dim light in the cavern shows bare rock walls shrouded in shadow and a hard earthen floor. The occasional human bone a testament to the reason why Doctor Dastardly is renowned for high productivity amongst his work force.
"I've seen worse places," states Amazon as she dusts herself off. She winks mischievously at me and inclines her head towards a large metal portcullis. "Want to bet that's where Fido is?"
"Is that a control panel by the bottom of the portculis?" I ask, pointing to a grey metal box projecting slightly from the rough stone wall.
"Looks rather out of place... this is a supervillain lair... I think that's our way out," groans Amazon. "Great. Well, I guess there is no avoiding Fido."
"You up for a bit of doggy training?" I ask Ivanoe, sporting my best evil grin.
"Indeed! Let us have at the beast!" cried Ivanhoe pulling his sword free from his scabbard. "For I shall slay it!"
And yet again, he fails to make freaking eye contact with me...
Amazon's already got the panel open and is messing with innards of what does seem to be some sort of door control.
"Do you know what are you doing down there?"
"You sound just like my first girlfriend," giggled Amazon.
A low rumble reverberates around the cavern, causing Amazon and I to exchange nervous glances.
"That doesn't sound good..." she mutters searching for the source.
*POP!*
"OW!" moans Ivanhoe as something bounces off his back.
*POP!*
This time I get to see the cause of the noise. It seems that the walls are dotted with small round holes in them and something just popped out of one. The latest projectile again hits Ivanhoe in the back.
*POP!*
"What the.." He's cut off as something hits him in the face. His arms flail wildly as he spins around.
*POP!*
"OW!" I cry as something tears into the back of my uniform. Okay, I draw the line at that. Do you know how long it takes to make one of these outfits?!? The himation alone takes me three days to turn from cloth to outfit.
*POP!*
"Not that I'm complaining but what happened to Sir Whine-a-lot?" asked Amazon as she stands up, dusting her hands off. Behind her the portculis slowly starts to slide upwards.
I shrug my shoulders in response. Glancing around the pit I can see the back of Ivanhoe a couple of metres away from us. His arms are still desperately grabbing at his head.
"Ivanhoe?"
*POP!*
*POP!*
As I approach Ivanhoe, I can make out some muffled noises coming from him. Reaching out for his shoulder, I gently turn him around to face us. Amazon gasps as Ivanhoe's face comes into view in the gloom.
"It's a face hugger!" she screams.
My heightened senses can see better in the dark than Amazon, so I get a clearer view of the thing on his face that his hands are desperately trying to pull away.
"Actually...I think it's a totally not. It kinda looks like a... hedgehog."
And I think it's an unhappy one because it's attempting to bite him. It's gripping his face with its little paws and seems to be attempting to remodel his nose.
*POP!*
With both hands I grasp the creature on his face, only to let go quickly when the spines on its back draw blood from my hands. Ouch! Sonova.. that hurt! The spines are iron tipped...
*POP!* *POP!* *POP!*
As I reach forward to grasp the hedgehog again, I'm knocked sideways by Amazon colliding with me before she crashes into Ivanhoe ending up in a tangled heap on the ground. I can see now that her back is covered in hedgehogs as she flails around on the ground attempting to rid herself of them.
A sharp pain from my left ankle reveals a hedgehog attempting to bite through my skin. Luckily, the bite heals as soon as it happens indicating that my powers are most definitely back to full strength now that I'm free from the iron manacle. A not so gentle nudge with my boot moves it away from me. If this is all Dastardly's got, I sooooooo think I can deal with the Erinaceus Europaeus pretty quickly and get back to the main event. I just hope no footage of this ever gets out. Chickens, reptiles, most sorts of fish you can deal with and face no bad publicity. However, you end up fighting cudly mammals and generally lead to letters to the papers.
I carefully pull the hedgehog from Ivanhoe's face, avoiding the spines, and turn to see if Amazon requires assistance.
"Are you--" before I can say anything more however, a roar reverberates around the chamber drowning me out.
From the darkness beyond the gate, a figure slowly lumbers into view. At first all I can see is a patch of white before the rest of the creature becomes more distinct as it emerges into the dim light of the pit. It's got to be at least 2 metres tall from the tips of its vicious talons to the top of its white bonnet. Wait... white bonnet?!? The white apron and gingham blouse are also a lovely touch for a monstrosity of science. And it's the biggest freaking hedgehog I've ever seen...
And it looks familiar. Though when I've met a freaking giant killer hedgehog before I can't recall right now. As it pulls a viciously spiked rolling pin from its apron, I remember where I've seen a hedgehog dressed like this before. In that moment, I know I've lost this fight. A memory of a beloved childhood story read to me by my mother comes racing from the recesses of my mind. A memory of a hedgehog dressed in an apron with a bonnet and a gingham blouse...
I can't hurt Mrs Tiggywinkles...
"Oh for God's sake, will you stop crying!" snaps Amazon, stepping over the still form of a giant member of the Erinaceus Europaeus family.
"I CAN'T HELP IT! YOU KILLED MRS TIGGYWINKLES!!!"
Fortunately, it turned out Amazon hadn't been read Beatrix Potter as a child so she could hurt Mrs Tiggywinkles. Unfortunately for Amazon, I was squealing like a six year old who had lost her favourite teddy bear every time she hit Mrs Tiggywinkles and I'm still sobbing my heart out about it.
"I DIDN'T KILL HER! I JUST BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF HER!"
"DON'T YOU YELL AT ME! AND LIKE THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE!?!"
I glower at her intently through tear filled eyes for a few seconds in between the occasional sniffle or sob. The downside of wearing a mask is that the material is soaked under my eyes.
"Besides, she might not have actually been a Mrs..."
"What?" Okay, so maybe there isn't such a thing as a hedgehog wedding but I don't think she should be using technicalities to excuse her conduct.
"It's just I got a good look at her...'down there'... during the fight and well...it wasn't what I expected...." Amazon at least has the good grace to blush at this point and intently examine her boots.
"Wait... are you telling me you just fought a crossing dressing hedgehog?"
"Ummm...maybe? There is a history of cross dressing wolves in nursery rhymes...and you can't tell me the ugly duckling isn't a trans parable..."
Entering the lab from the animal pens it's clear that things haven't been going much better for the others. The room is awash with little red highlanders suggesting that Red Gauntlet is back in the game and holding his own against Doctor Dastardly's rent-a-henchman.
In the centre of the lab, dominated by a large telescope like device pointing upwards through a hole in the roof, is Doctor Dastardly's lead henchperson Max is trying to pin down Unicorn with the ray gun which seems to be spewing forth some sort of lightning, which when it's not barbequing me is actually quite spectacular. Unicorn's hopping around like she's running in the Grand National on the defensive, so he's not having much luck, though kudos on the property damage as the lightning splits and spins off in unpredictable directions. I search the room a bit before spotting Dastardly on a gantry looking down on proceedings, directing his forces through some sort of radio headset that would have looked high tech in maybe the 1940's.
"I see Unicorn and Red, but where's Merlin?" asked Amazon.
I'm in the process of trying to spot Merlin when I see a flash of green from underneath a pile of matching black bodysuits.
"There! Amazon, help Merlin! Ivanhoe, see if you can distract Max to let Unicorn go on the offensive. Dastardly's mine," I grin, cracking my knuckles. A couple of steps later and I'm airborne coming to a landing a couple of metres away from Dastardly.
"Give it up Doctor, you know you can't beat us."
"You're looking a bit anaemic girl!" snarled the Doctor, pulling an old looking flintlock style pistol from his belt. "I'm prescribing you a course of iron!"
It's at moments like this I wish I could do the Keanu Matrix thing and limbo under a bullet, nor in this case iron ball. Instead I'm slumped against the wall clutching my shoulder in pain and trying to staunch the bleeding.
"Silly little girl," laughed the Doctor, preening his moustache in triumph. "You aren't anywhere near ready to take me on. If you ask me, your mother retired too soon."
I watch as he turns his attention to the floor for a second, clicking a button on the microphone horn resting on his chest.
"Max, watch out for the idiot in the knight's costume, he's trying to flank you. Drones, focus your attack on the magician and that Amazon woman! They cannot be allowed near the device."
"Things not... quite going to... plan?" I gasp.
"A minor setback at best," laughed the Doctor. "Between Max, my robots and my human henchmen you will be defeated and even if you aren't..."
The Doctor pulls an old style pocket watch from his pocket and examines it before looking back at me with a truly unhinged evil grin. "Even if you aren't defeated, it won't matter in three minutes twenty seconds anyway because the device will be charged enough to bring a large section of the moon crashing down on this planet."
See, this is why the briefings are largely irrelevant. Unless you are dealing with one of those 1990's style dark types, most villains will explain their plan with the smallest of prompting.
"I'm sure it won't come to that. The governments of the world will see sense and pay up within the next few minutes. No one would put mere money before the lives of billions!"
Oh dear. He really is living in the past.
"You haven't really been keeping up with current political events have you Doctor?" I ask shaking my head. "What do you think politicians do every day?"
"Such cynicism in one so young," he sighed, pulling another flintlock style pistol from his belt. "I have to admit that you've rather been a disappointment full stop to be honest. Your mother would have dealt with this encounter with far more grace, more elan. Perhaps your death might coax your mother out of retirement. Anyway, any last words?"
"Yes actually. Do you know one of the problems with iron balls? They don't deform on impact like softer metals, which means..." I remove my hand from my bloody shoulder to reveal a small ball in the palm of my hand. "that I can dig all of it out. And if there is no iron in my system that means..."
I grasp his pistol, twisting the barrel upwards. "I have all my powers."
I rise to my feet and using the lapels of his suit lift him bodily off the ground.
"I'm a twenty-something single woman with mother issues and I'm having a bad day. I'd really suggest you surrender now."
"MAX!!"
The gantry around me explodes in lightning as Max turns the ray gun on us.
"Her, Max! not me you fool!" screams the Doctor as I drop him to the floor.
The machinery lining the wall sparks and pops from lightning damage and I'm forced to duck as Max unleashes another blast from the device. The metal railings on the gantry flash with current as the energy snakes along it and the twisted remains of sections of the gantry groan worryingly.
"Behind you Max!" yells the Doctor.
Looking down, I spot Unicorn and Ivanhoe grappling with Max, an opening appearing when he turned his attention away from them to us. Relieved that I'm not likely to be barbequed again, I clamber to my feet.
"Give it up Doctor, you've no cha..."
I stagger backwards as the smoke clears from his pistol, clutching my shoulder again.
"Why does everyone always assume people carry one or two pistols?" he chuckled, dusting himself off as he sits upright. "I always carry three, just in case. No one ever seems to check beyond the second one."
"By the time you've dug that ball out, you'll be dead my dear," he said, pulling a sword free from a cane resting against the wall. "And by the way, your mother would never have been caught off guard like that. Time to diiiiiiiiiiiiiiii--"
With an ominous creaking noise, the gantry lurches the left, coming away from the stone walls. I desperately search for the iron ball embedded in my shoulder while the Doctor and I exchange horrified glances.
"Can you fly?" asked the Doctor, grabbing the railing for dear life as further bolts pull free from the wall, tipping us further towards the device in the centre of the room.
"Not until I've got this out of my shoulder," I grunt, my fingers slipping on the blood around the iron ball.
With a final terrible snapping sound the gantry breaks free of the wall, tipping the Doctor, myself and several tons of machinery towards the device.
"Oh shi--"
I gingerly emerged from the Citadel of Science blinking in the low late afternoon sunshine as I made my way towards the waiting cluster of emergency service groupies you get at a superhuman encounter. It had taken them best part of an hour to dig me out of the wreckage and then extract the lead ball from my shoulder. After that I spent a painful half hour waiting for the bones in my body to repair themselves. That's the downside of my regeneration powers, the healing hurts nearly as much as the injuries do.
Unfortunately, in all the chaos following my impromptu destruction of the device Doctor Dastardly and Max had escaped but we saved the world, so I'm calling it a win. What my mother will call it is an entirely different matter given she never to my knowledge failed to capture Doctor Dastardly in their encounters.
To top it all off I was dirty, covered in blood (my own) and my uniform was ripped to pieces. My blue himation was little more than scraps of blue cloth that I had tied around me to cover the damage to the upper part of my chiton and attempting to preserve my little remaining modesty.
"You okay?" asked Amazon, falling into step next to me. "I was mopping up henchpersons but heard what had happened."
"I want to go home, take a long bath and forget all about today."
"You really do look like hell, girl," she grimaced, offering me her flask.
"I bet. At least there is no press here. This is not the look I want anyone to see," I reply gesturing to the tattered remnants of my uniform as I took a drink from her flask.
"Ummm..."
"Ummm?" I asked, narrowing my eyes as I looked at her.
"Our liaison got in ten minutes ago..."
"Oh? OH! Oh. My. God."
I start pulling pieces of stone from my hair in a panic. "I need a mirror!"
"Ummm..." said Amazon, gesturing with her head towards the throng of emergency services personnel.
My heart sank as I turned to see the jacket of a representative of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Superhuman Division) moving from the command post that had been set up towards us.
"No. No. No. No. Noooooo!"
"Britannia!" called out the figure, waving a hand towards us in greeting.
I waved half heartedly in response, before trying to brush some of the lines of dried blood off of my arm while trying nonchalantly not to look like someone who had just been dug out from under several tons of metal.
Okay now...deep breath. Try not to let his scrumptiousness make you hyperventilate and throw up like last time.
"Hey Amazon," said Detective Sergeant James Anderson, nodding slightly in greeting to us both. "Hey 'Tania, we must stop meeting like this."
"Um...hey yourself!"
AAAAARGH!!! Damn it! I thought that night school class on heroic entrances would have paid off but my mind just went totally blank. To my side I heard Amazon snort quietly under her breath.
"Are you okay?" he asked with concern looking at the blood encrusting my skin.
"Ummm... yeah. Y'know... ummm... healing factor."
"That's good to hear because you had me worried."
My brain momentarily stops when he leans forward and brushes some pieces of metal from my hair. Conscious thought eventually intrudes on my dreams as Amazon digs an elbow into my side. I'm vaguely aware that Deliciously Scrumptious has been talking for a few minutes and I guess my head must be moving occasionally because he seems to think I'm answering him. I wouldn't have a clue what he is saying though. All I could hear is Marc Cohn singing 'True Companion'.
Oh well...here goes nothing...
"I was um...wondering...if you would like to..uh... fill in the paperwork now while my memory is fresh and...um..maybe-we-could-also-have-something-to-eat-afterwards-if-you-haven't-already-eaten-that-is?"
Need to breathe. Need to breathe. Need to breathe. *Deep breath*
In response he gives me a sheepish smile and scratches the back of his head. Oh God, is that a good thing?
"I'd love to 'Tania.."
Oh. My. God. YES!!!! YES!!!! There is a God and he loves me!!! This is it!!! This is finally the day I have a good Wednesday!!! Goodbye Woeful Wednesday, Hello Wonderful Wanton Wednesday!!! And maybe afterwards we could kiss and stuff!!! Wait...he said he'd "love" to...was that an admission he loves me?! Oh. My. God. We are sooooooooo going to be married on a Wednesday. And that would make me Mrs Abigail Scrumptious! Where the heck do I get a wedding dress tailored at this short notice?
"As I said 'Tania, I'd love to...but... Unicorn asked me a few minutes ago if I'd go out with her to get something to eat and, well, I accepted. We've been spending a lot of time together while she's been helping me settle in and y'know one thing led to another..."
...
Wha?
...
"She..asked...you...out?"
"Yeah. I was shocked too. I mean, I'm not much to look at and she was voted, what, like the sexiest superhu--"
"THIRD. She was voted THIRD," I interrupt. "And it's not exactly fair! I wear a helmet and a volumous costume most of the time which really hurts my chances!"
"Really? Thought she said she was first... Anyway, maybe we could meet up another time? Oh, hey, there she is now. Hey, Uni!"
What?! He has a pet name for her too? But...I thought I was special. I thought only I had a pet name...
"Hi James. Are you ready hun?" She slinks up beside him and hooks her arms around one of his. How does she slink like that?!? And how does she manage to make that feline purr sound with her voice? Is it something that they teach to girls in special classes when they become adults that I missed out on? And the bitch hasn't got a hair out of place or a scrap of dirt on her uniform.
And get your damn hands off my imaginary boyfriend, you bitch.
"James, I was thinking, that as the our transport comes with a two-seater air cycle, let's skip heading straight back to base. We could be in Paris in fifteen minutes and we could go for an walk along 'la rive gauche' before stopping for something to eat at a charming little restaurant called 'Le Grand Véfour'. You know, Napoleon wooed Josephine there."
Wait...there will be wooing? Without me? I...I...I...
"And maybe we could toast with some champagne to the hope that this time Monday, you'll be Detective Inspector James Anderson?"
NO!! NO!! NO!! He can't be Detective Inspector! He can't! There's no 's' to make him 'scrumptious' in that!!! He'd...he'd...he'd be 'Drearily Interminable' or something...
Unicorn gently steers my former future husband away from me towards our transport only pausing to give me a finger wave over the soon to be ex-Deliciously Scrumptious Anderson's shoulders. The insufferably smug smile on her face can only be described as that of the cat that has got the cream. In response I just give her the finger. I know it's childish but it made me feel momentarily better.
I wander around aimlessly for a few minutes before sitting against a fallen tree trunk. As I sit down I hear the alarm chime of my communicator in my utility pouch.
"Hello? Oh...hi mother...no, mother I am always pleased to hear from you..."
And to prove that there is no limit to how bad a Wednesday can be, the first drops of rain of a light summer shower start to fall.
"Mother, you've what?!? How dare you make an appointment without asking me... no, I don't care what the Carib League members 'Windward' and 'Leeward' said about him at that gathering of Commonwealth superhuman's you attended last week...well, YOU can cancel the appointment with him them... no way! I'm not meeting Doctor Voodoo under any circumstances... MOMMA, HE'S CREEPY!.. yes, momma. I'm sorry for raising my voice momma..."
The rain has now increased in intensity to become almost a tropical shower. I'm rapidly being soaked to the skin and there are blood stains spreading across the remnants of my uniform which are going to be hell to get out in the wash.
"Momma...can I speak to daddy please? Yes momma... I know... we'll speak about this tomorrow momma..."
*sigh*
"Hi Dad...yes, I am crying a little.. Why? Well you see, it's a Wednesday..."
END
I wasn't happy with elements of this, so I removed it to do a large rewrite. As with any sequel, there was always a risk it's not as good as the original and this was the case with this story. Hopefully you've enjoyed the revised story posted here in the continuing (Mis)Adventures of Britannia (a title I've gleefully 'borrowed' from a comment by Zoe Taylor in the previous Britannia story (and in case she's not be aware I've done that, thanks Zoe!)).
Synopsis..
Prince Henry Wynter was the Heir to the High Throne of the Heptarchy and prophesised to one day lead his people to unparalleled greatness. Twenty two years after he abandoned his destiny and his throne for the chance to be the person he felt he was meant to be, he finds that Fate has not yet finished with him. The events surrounding the proposed appointment of a new Heir to the High Throne have consequences that reach as far the remote farmstead refuge of the former prince and threaten to destroy the new life that she has built for herself.
Prince Henry Wynter was the Heir to the High Throne of the Heptarchy and prophesised to one day lead his people to unparalleled greatness. Twenty two years after he abandoned his destiny and his throne for the chance to be the person he felt he was meant to be, he finds that Fate has not yet finished with him. The events surrounding the proposed appointment of a new Heir to the High Throne have consequences that reach as far the remote farmstead refuge of the former prince and threaten to destroy the new life that she has built for herself.
The Wynter Palace, The Island of Avalon EY 2449 (22 Years Ago)
If you had asked Lord Daniel Amherst when he awoke that morning to describe his life he would have responded to you with one word, 'blessed'. He was handsome, charming and bright, yet self-effacing enough that no one ever found him to be vain or overbearing. He was heir to the Kingdom of Cantia, one of the richest of the seven sub-kingdoms that comprised the Heptarchy. He was extremely well connected at the High Court of Avalon and was often touted as a future Privy Councillor, due in large part to his friendship with the children of the Angelcyn crown. As a young Lieutenant in the Yeomanry of the Household, the elite royal guard of the Angelcyn High-King, he represented the finest blooming of chivalry amongst the elite of Albion. In short, in the twenty-two years of his life misfortune was not an acquaintance he knew well.
Despite or maybe even because of his comfortable life, Daniel often dreamed of heroic adventures. In truth, the Yeomanry had seen little in the way of battle since King Henry, the current High-King, had brought peace to the quarrelling of the seven kingdoms at the beginning of his reign. The officers of the Yeomanry were to be found as often at banquets and balls as they were at the barracks. Daniel longed for action - a mighty battle or perhaps even a storybook quest in which he would triumph over daunting odds to rescue a beautiful princess imprisoned by her wicked father in the tallest tower of a mighty castle.
Now as the rain lashed down upon him from the starless night sky soaking his torn and bloody yeoman's uniform right through to his skin, Daniel couldn't help but reflect on what a difference a day could make. The rain washed blood running down his sword tarnished the lustre of his chivalry more than the steel of the blade. For rather than it being the product of overcoming dauntless odds against wicked foes it represented a vicious and largely one sided encounter with good men who sought to do nothing more than that which their duty demanded. He had through his actions of the last hour lost everything - the riches, the power and the prestige. Yet, looking at the enchantingly beautiful woman leaning heavily on his free arm, he was never more certain that the price he had paid was worth it.
He felt her fingers digging into his arm as she convulsed under another tremor of pain. She turned her head up to him, causing the hood of her sodden velvet cloak to fall back to reveal a long mane of blonde hair. Cupping his bearded cheek with an outstretched hand she mouthed "thank you" to him before her face contorted in pain as another tremor convulsed her body.
"Thank me in the morning," he said with a smile. "I've still a couple more impossible things to do before you are out of your father's reach."
Moving as quickly as he could, Daniel half-carried, half-dragged his companion across the wide empty courtyard towards their waiting horses. Yet again that night Daniel gave thanks to the á‰se, the Gods of the Angelcyn peoples, for without the heavy rain and low clouds the walls surrounding the courtyard would have been patrolled by guards who would have quickly spotted them by the light of the two moons. Still, he couldn't help but glance around nervously as his companion's mount snorted in recognition of its approaching rider. When he told his companion he had some impossible things to do, he hadn't be joking. He'd fully expected to die trying to rescue her, yet at every turn his things seemed to break in his favour. Sheathing his sword he steadied the reins of the great white destrier and guided his companion to the stirrups with his free hand. After several false starts and some help from Daniel, she was finally able to swing herself up into the saddle.
"Sixteen hands didn't seem quite so tall this morning," she whispered half to herself to cover her embarrassment in having trouble mounting the horse. "But then again, you didn't seem quite so tall either this morning," she said looking down at Daniel with a tentative smile.
She was truly amazed at the transformation her friend had undergone before her eyes during the course of that evening, even though she knew he was physically the same man he had always been. She knew that like all Yeoman he was at the peak of his physical fitness but it was only when she was clinging onto his arm that she realised how much she enjoyed what that meant in a man. Unbidden thoughts of her hand exploring his strong torso made her face flush red with embarrassment. In her heart she had always recognised that he had been handsome but now she felt, to her surprise, the butterflies in her stomach that told her that she found him pleasingly attractive. A small shiver coursed through her body as she recalled the feeling of his embrace when he had taken her in his surprisingly strong arms after breaking down the door to her prison in the High Tower. The thought of how much she had wanted him to kiss her agitated the butterflies in her stomach even further.
'Is this what the poets mean when they talk about love?' she wondered. 'And does he feel the same way about me?' A sudden panic gripped her at the thought that her feelings - whatever they were - might be unrequited. Feeling tears beginning to form in her eyes she was almost grateful for the excuse to cry when her body convulsed with another tremor of pain as she felt the magic wash over her in an attempt to twist the fabric of her very being, only kept at bay by her latent magical talent augmenting her willpower to be herself.
"My lady?" he asked, interrupting her thoughts.
She could hear the concern in that simple question from him. Pulling herself upright in the saddle she stuck her tongue out at him in jest in an attempt to mask the uncertainty she felt about him and what they were doing.
"Well come on then," she said with a wavering voice. "I thought you were the man with the plan after all."
Daniel could see a brief hint of fear in her eyes as realisation of what crossing the threshold of the gatehouse meant occurred to her. Just as quickly as it had appeared, the fear in her eyes was replaced with a forced look of determination as she turned to face him again. At that moment, even with her sweat covered face flush from a mix of exertion and uncertainty and her hair matted from the heavy rain, Daniel couldn't help but think his friend never looked more beautiful than right now. Taking the reins of his own bay coloured destrier, he led both horses towards the castle gatehouse and freedom.
The High Tower of the Wynter Palace The Island of Avalon EY 2449
"Luminaire!"
The darkness in the room receded as a growing orb of light appeared above the outstretched palm of a figure in room. Once she was certain that the rapidly brightening light source was sufficient to see by, she moved towards the only window in the circular room and looked down into the courtyard below. She smiled as she saw the two figures crossing through the gatehouse and into the grounds beyond the palace. She was confident that she had arranged things so that no one would notice their departure for several more hours. The deaths of the guards in the tower itself had been regrettable but she had been unable to find a solution to their presence other than to let Daniel do that which he had been trained for - to fight and to kill - and hope he would triumph.
That aside, it had taken a lot of work but she had finally managed to change the path of the timeline to a more positive balance of probable outcomes. That she had also used her opponents two prized pieces in the game to do it was even more satisfying she thought. Pushing her half moon reading glasses further up her nose as she turned to face the shadows cast at the fringes of the room by her glowing orb.
"Skulking is unbecoming for beings like us," she said haughtily before turning back to the window. Tendrils of inky black darkness flowed through the air and started to coalesce into humanoid form in response to her comment.
"I thought the rain was a simply delightful way of easing their exit, even if juggling with wind patterns to shift this rain storm over half the continent was a tad tricky," she added with a degree of smugness.
"You broke the rulessssssssss..." hissed the shadowy figure in response.
"Nonsense," she interrupted. "I obeyed the rules of the Hunt to the letter. I never made anyone do anything - freewill was exercised at every turn. I never created the rain, I just guided it to this location on the back of winds that already existed. I never used magic on her, but as her godmother I was invited to tutored her when she was little in the use of her own latent Weaver gift to protect her from harm. There was no direct intervention by myself in any aspect of this, at every stage I worked through indirect measures. Personally, I think it's just sour grapes that your pawns have worked so well to deliver my aims."
"His death would have been Homeric in its poetry. Instead you condemn him to a life of mediocrity. Yet despite all your efforts, this world is still doomed like so many of the other human worlds. I will find another pawn to play the role of the destroyer. It is after all in their very nature to destroy themselves," the shadowy form whispered as it moved closer to her.
"Do you not accept that this world is different from the other human worlds on which you have run the Wild Hunt? They seeded this world in keeping with their longing for a simpler time, when man and the Earth Mother, Nerthus, lived together in harmony. On this world they have turned their back on the disastrous pursuit of technology - gone is the obsession with the atom and fossil fuels and forgotten are their Einstein-Rosen Bridges - in favour of more harmonious, sustainable and balanced alternatives. Even the name of this world, Eorá°e, is a celebration of the humans common roots with our kind."
"Your kind, SaxnÅt!" hissed the figure
"Not mine! Never mine! I will see this world run with the blood of your Saxon children."
Turning away from the window to face the shadowy form, she took a moment to marshal her thoughts while adjusting the oversized red bow at the front of her blue dress. Her normally jolly round face contained a look of sorrow as she reached out to the dark figure.
"Please let me help you Herla," she pleaded. "You have led the Hunt for too long now and you are losing touch with your humanity. I will petition Woden himself on your behalf. Trust me, it's not too late to save you."
For a moment the swirling darkness seemed to pause, as if in thought, before barking out a bitter sibilant laugh.
"I trusted someone once before and look what it has done to me. I am cursed to lead the Wild Hunt for ever more, never able to leave my horse in human form. Still, if I must hunt then let it be a challenging one. I have enjoyed the thrill of this hunt, SaxnÅt. You have been a better opponent than any I have played in two millennia but when we meet again for the final run, your pawns will not escape my horsemen and hounds." With that, the tendrils of shadow began to unravel and fade back into the dark corners of the room.
With a cry of "Eteindre!" she extinguished the glowing orb as she completed her walk to the door of the tower. Her brow wrinkled in concentration, she knew there was still much to do before the next run of the Hunt. As she stepped over the shattered door she started to hum a jaunty tune to herself as the beginnings of a plan formed in her mind. A tune that was interrupted by a taunting voice calling out of the darkness from the room behind her.
"Oh SaxnÅt. Next time we run the Wild Hunt together sword god, do me the honour of showing me your true form, not that of the rotund old maid that you currently wear. I have no interest in anyone's Fairy Godmother..."
A farmstead cottage on the slopes of the Downs Mountain Range, Kingdom of Cantia
Frige's day (Friday) 19 April EY 2471 (The Present)
As a child Daniel's father had exalted to him the simple pleasures of manual labour and how there was no satisfaction as great as that derived from physically doing something with your own hands. Looking at his sore, bruised and grease covered hands it occurred to him that, despite those words, he couldn't remember a single time when he had seen his father actually doing any manual labour.
Daniel chuckled as he realised that much of what his father had told him fell into the category of 'do as I say, not as I do'. Now a husband and father of four himself, Daniel had tried hard to lead by example and not ask anything of his children that he would not do first. As a nobleman turned farmer of course there were a lot of things he had done for the first time which he reflected did give him a bit of advantage over his father who with his courtly retinue probably couldn't have performed any physical labour even if he wanted too. He couldn't help but smile as he realised that in walking away from the throne of the Kingdom of Cantia, he had in many ways more freedom now than he ever did before despite all of his former wealth and influence.
Daniel stretched trying to ease the tightness in his muscles. The reason his hands were in such a state was that he had spent the last three hours fitting a brand new gearing system to the small six blade wind turbine that powered the water pump for the cottage and the farms irrigation system. Originally, he'd planned to find a local blacksmith and ask him to forge replacements for the damaged parts, even if that meant that the wind turbine was less efficient and at a greater risk of breaking down again in the future as the replacement parts would lack the infusion of magic that the original gearing had in it to increase its performance. In contrast, his wife had taken a different view and had urged him to replace the old artificer made gearing system with a new one, knowing that a gearing system infused with an artificer's magic's throughout would be sensitive enough to turn the blades of a wind turbine in gentle breezes, whilst still being robust enough to withstand the strongest winds. While Daniel understood Georgina's desire for running water at the cottage, he worried that a stranger in town spending money on an artificer's services would attract unwanted official entanglements. This impasse had lasted for a week until under the pressure of his Georgina's urging, then pouting and finally full blown sulking, he'd relented and against his better judgement travelled the two days ride to the market town of Wye to find an Artificer.
As he searched his battered green canvas tool bag for a rag to wipe the grease from his hands, he idly thought of how he could reap the benefits of his labour. The excited shouting from the cottage when he had gotten the pump working again clearly indicated how happy his wife was to have running water again. Perhaps, he mused, a hot bath shared with Georgina would be suitable recompense. As they bathed she could massage the soreness from his muscles while he explained to her the importance of why she should enjoy the simple pleasures of manual work the next time the gearing system broke in a spring storm.
Cadet's Barracks, Royal Military Academy, Island of Avalon EY 2445 (Twenty-Six Years Earlier)
16 year old Lord Daniel Amherst struggled with the clasp on his sword belt, tangling it up with his red cadet tabard. He'd been so proud to be selected for a place in the cadet division of the yeomanry and knew that the next four years training at the Academy would provide him with the opportunities needed to make a name for himself at the Court of Avalon. Of course he reminded himself, that was conditional on passing inspection before the Queen for final admission to the yeomanry and a commission as a cadet officer.
"Damn it!" he exclaimed. He still couldn't get the clasp on the sword belt to clip into place.
His best friend, Harry, moved over to him to assist seeing the problems he was having. "Let me do that before you damage your tabard," he said. With a few easy movements he heard a 'click' as the clasp locked home on the sword belt and Harry stepped back to straighten it up.
Noticing Daniel's nervousness, his friend sought to reassure him with some gentle teasing. "Relax 'Percival', we'll make a dashing yeoman of you yet!". The two friends shared a love of classic literature from the Old World and Sir Thomas Malory's tales of Camelot were a particular favourite.
With a deep sigh, Daniel's head drooped. "To be honest, 'Arthur', I'd be content just to make it through this morning and receive the red and white chequered tabard of a yeoman given how much your mother seems to dislike me." He gestured to a tall, immaculately turned out cadet a few metres away. "And if you are looking for a dashing yeoman, I'd suggest you try 'Lancelot' over there."
The young prince glanced over at the man Daniel had referred to as 'Lancelot'. "Tom? Naaah, he'd be a better Yeoman if he spent more time training and less time chasing ladies-in-waiting!" Harry stuck his tongue out at the handsome young dark skinned yeoman cadet to signify his comment was in jest before turning to face Daniel again his face taking on a bitter expression.
"You'll be fine. My dearest royal mother has no problem with you per se, rather I think she knows how much I value your counsel and is concerned that I would be listening to anyone but her. She won't reject you for fear it would push me closer to my father and undermine her in whatever twisted game they're playing this time."
Seeing the jocular mask that Harry usually wore drop for a second, Daniel desperately sought to say something to ease his best friends pain. However, he knew whatever words he came up with, none could change the fact that Harry was right. "Harry, I'm..."
Daniel's words died in his throat as Tom's large hands clasped themselves across each young man's shoulder, pulling the two yeomen cadets to him. "My brother yeomen, today will be a great day! Not only will we only be shortly commissioned in the Queen's Own Regiment of the Yeomanry of the Household but afterwards the night of celebrations we shall lead will become legendary in the annals of yeoman history!" Both young men found themselves smiling at Tom's exuberance.
"Now let's not keep the Queen any longer from her finest yeomen!"
The Market Town of Wye, Kingdom of Cantia
Frige's day 19 April EY 2471 - late afternoon
Lieutenant Jack Fairfax moved through the crowded market streets towards the local offices of the Lord High Steward where his commanding officer was waiting. He noted with a degree of satisfaction that the sight of his distinctive red and white diamond chequered tabard with its ornately embossed golden crown in the centre caused the crowd to part in front of him making his path that much more easy. Entering the offices, he briefly clicked his heels to attention and bowed his head slightly as a mark of respect to his commanding officer.
With a courteous bow his commanding officer turned away from the richly dressed woman he had been speaking to and acknowledged the Lieutenant with a slight nod of his head.
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Good news, sir. I followed up the lead from the merchant you spoke to earlier and found an Artificer who confirms that a man similar in appearance to one of the pair we seek used his services four days ago. From a conversation overheard by the Artificer between our quarry and a youth who accompanied him, it seems that they were heading for a farmstead on the eastern slopes of the Downs Mountains range."
Fairfax carefully studied the face of his commanding officer trying to spot any emotional response from the man he desperately wanted to impress. Major Sir Thomas Albany was a legendary figure amongst the ranks of the Yeoman of the Household, the elite personal guard of the High King of Albion. A charismatic figure, the handsome black man was rumoured to have been romantically linked with many a young noble woman at court. During his nearly thirty years of service to the yeomanry he had distinguished himself fiercely in battle, playing a prominent role in quelling the uprising twenty years ago in the Twin Kingdoms of Bernicia & Deira by a pretender to the throne of the High King. As 'Queen's Champion' he carried her favour and commanded an entire regiment of the yeomanry. More excitingly for the young yeomen officers were the whispered stories that the short shallow scar that ran diagonally from his forehead across his left eye to his cheekbone was the result of a duel against the traitor Lord Amherst during said Lord's flight from the Wynter Palace.
"Lieutenant, you said there was a youth with our quarry. Did you get a description?"
"Sir, the Artificer believed described the youth as being in his late teens, tall with blonde hair."
"And the Artificer is certain about the other one?" said a frowning Sir Thomas.
"He had lost the beard the man in our description had and his hair was longer but the Artificer swears that he matches the overall age and physical description for our quarry, Sir."
Lieutenant Fairfax waited as Sir Thomas looked heavenward for a moment in a manner that the he had come to learn was a sign that his commanding officer was weighing up the pro's and con's of a course of action. Rubbing his close cropped dark hair with the palm of his open right hand, Sir Thomas turned his attention back to the young Lieutenant.
"Very well, Lieutenant. Gather your detachment and Lieutenant Bathurst's detachment as well. Instruct Sergeant-at-Arms Ackers that she will be leading Bathurst's detachment in the absence of the lieutenant as he is to remain in Wye and oversee the other search teams in my stead. We will be leaving for the Downs Mountains in two hours."
A farmstead cottage on the slopes of the Downs Mountain Range, Kingdom of Cantia
Moon's day (Monday) 22 April EY 2471 - early afternoon
Madeleine Amherst put her book down and gently scratched the fur on Greytail's head in response to his nuzzling against her. The dark shaggy coated old dire wolf had been adopted by the family as a cub when Madeleine's father had come across him as a small cub tucked up under his mother's corpse hidden amongst the bodies of a dead dire wolf pack. Madeleine knew that many of the farmers on the valley plains paid hunters to kill the wolves as often in lambing season they would move down from the mountains in search of easy prey. So it was that instead of returning with the escaped auroch that her father had originally been searching for, he brought back the cub. She had been three years old at the time and one of her earliest and fondest memories was holding the sleepy cub in her arms after her father had removed it from an open pouch on his pack.
That had been fourteen years ago and her mother, who had been heavily pregnant with her younger brother Noah at the time, had hand reared the cub. Madeleine and her older brother Hal, had spent many happy evenings playing games with the wolf cub like it was a normal farm dog. He was now considered one of the family by all and her mother often joked that Greytail was the least troublesome of all her children.
Closing her eyes momentarily, Madeleine laid her head back against the tree she was sitting against and luxuriated in the warm late spring sunshine. In addition to the gentle breathing of Greytail lying next to her with his head or her lap, she could hear her mother humming a happy tune from the kitchen. Like her mother she had been overjoyed when her father had finally repaired the wind turbine and running water had returned to the cottage, not least because the alternative of carrying buckets of water from the well was one of her least favourite chores. Opening her eyes she turned her head to the look at the right side of the large 'U' shape courtyard the cottage formed around the tree she was sitting against to check on her younger sister Charlotte who was playing with her raggedy dolls. Satisfied that her younger sister was okay, Madeleine picked up her book again and continued to read.
The Wynter Palace, Island of Avalon
Moon's day 22 April EY 2471 - early afternoon
High Queen Aliénor Wynter stood on the balcony of her royal apartments looking out at gardens on the terrace below her. Anyone who cared to look up from the terrace gardens would have seen a woman of delicate beauty whose appearance would meet most people's description of a fairy tale princess. Her white and gold silk dress was cut to show her tall, trim athletic figure to its best and her long bright golden blonde hair was curled into circular buns on each side of her head and held in place with an elaborate spun gold hairnet decorated with small gemstones that glinted in the sunlight. Like many of the noble born, the blood of the ancient and now semi-mythical race known the á¦lfe ran through her bloodline and had extended her youthful looks by decades so that despite being in her mid-seventies she easily passed for a woman in her early thirties. Without turning her head she spoke to the figure that had entered the doorway to the balcony behind her.
"My King, to what do I owe the pleasure of your calling upon me?" Her soft melodic tones contained the merest hint of an accent that revealed the High Queen's foreign birth.
"Does a King need a reason now to call upon his Queen?"
"Not usually, but since 'princess trollop' arrived you have not called upon me or warmed my bedchamber."
"I'm afraid since Princess Alys arrived, affairs of state have been all consuming," said the King with a hint of humour in his voice. "and will continue to be... consuming... for several more nights."
"If you are not here to warm my bedchamber then why am I honoured with your presence?" she asked, her voice containing barely restrained fury.
"My Queen, I fear you have misplaced your regiment of yeomanry for they do not seem to be in Avalon other than for a small personal retinue. You also seem to rather carelessly have lost your Champion," replied the King.
"My King, your concern flatters me. However, I can assure you that my Champion and my yeomanry are not misplaced and I'm certain that they will be returning before too long with that which I have sent them to find," said the Queen turning her head to give him her brightest smile.
In response the King snorted derisively. "It will do you no good. It has been over twenty years now and in all this time there has been no attempt made to contact us. Even if your Champion succeeds, what good will it do you?"
"Blood and absolute primogeniture. One of my children will one day reign," said Queen Aliénor turning to look back out across the gardens. "If you intend to legitimise the bastard offspring begat by your loins and 'princess trollop' to displace our son Geoffrey in the line of succession, you leave me no choice but to find the Heir. You swore before the Archbishop and the á‰se on the night before our marriage that you had not lain with another woman so you cannot legitimise an older child than our first born even if the whoring of your youth were to have produced countless more bastards. And, if we were to have grandchildren by now from the Heir they would automatically take precedence in the line of succession."
The King roughly grabbed the Queen's arm pulling her around to face him again. As he spoke he increased the tightness of his grip with every word. "One day you will go too far Aliénor. And on that day I shall take great pleasure in publicly thrashing you until you beg for my forgiveness."
Aliénor leaned forward and pressed her lips hard against the King's. As she withdrew from the kiss, she gently nipped at his lower lip with her teeth.
"Promises, my King. Promises," she whispered, holding eye contact with the King through hooded eyes.
The look of anger in the King's eyes changed to that of lust momentarily before the anger returned as she withdrew further from him. With a furious shove he released her arm and stormed back into the royal apartments. Behind him he left the Queen staring with a look of smug satisfaction at the King's retreating back.
A farmstead cottage on the slopes of the Downs Mountain Range, Kingdom of Cantia
Moon's day 22 April EY 2471 - late afternoon
The clear blue spring sky let the late afternoon sun illuminate the cottages courtyard without the need for any additional light from the lanterns hanging from the walls. In the centre of the courtyard two tall male figures wearing white tabards over padded white serge jackets raised their foils in salute to each other before assuming positions for another fencing bout.
"C'mon Hal!! You can beat your father this time!" yelled Georgina in encouragement to the swordsman with the collar length golden blonde hair protruding from the back of his mesh facemask.
She looked on with pride at the heraldic design with which her eldest son's simple white tabard was adorned. It was only at times like now in the privacy of their cottage that the family could wear its distinctive arms rather than pretend to be the commoner 'Stockbury' family and Georgina delighted in seeing them worn as they had been in her youth. She was inordinately fond of her own heraldic design of a rampant 'argent' coloured lion on an 'azure' coloured field which had been awarded to her on her eighteenth birthday. Unlike the arms she would have inherited in later life from the Angelcyn Throne by virtue of her station, these arms had been unique to her. She often chose to reflect the white and blue colour scheme of her arms in the ribbons she wove into her braids. As was the custom for an Angelcyn woman, her own coat of arms had been impaled with her husband's when they married dividing the field vertically in half so that the left side of her arms was now occupied with the image of an 'argent' coloured rampant horse on a 'gules' coloured field while her arms were compressed onto the right side. Personally, Georgina thought her husband's white and red coloured arms lacked the charm of her own but the two combined symbolised a union that was the most important thing in the world to her, her family. Hal should by Angelcyn tradition have worn his father's arms with maternal charges marked on a cadency label of five points that denoted his status as eldest son in a royal lineage - that of the Kingdom of Cantia and the High Throne. That Hal had chosen to breach heraldic tradition in order to reflect both family lines equally through adopting her impaled arms, all be it with the five point cadency label, caused her to love him all the more for it.
Georgina returned her attention to braiding the shoulder blade long dark blonde hair of her youngest child, Charlotte, with red and white ribbons. Georgina's own waist length golden blonde hair was platted with gold, white and blue ribbons and hung over her shoulder. From their vantage point sitting beside one of the walls of the courtyard Charlotte frowned at her mother's encouragement for her elder brother and called out in support of her father.
"When can I play swords?" asked the spellbound little girl to her mother without turning her head.
Georgina couldn't help but smile in response to her daughters question. It was one Charlotte had asked with increasing frequency of late and with a contrariness she recognised all too well from herself.
"As I've told you before Lottie you can't play with grown up swords until you reach Noah's age. Nine years old is just too young for something so dangerous."
"But momma..." pleaded Lottie, her eyes never leaving the fight before her.
"No 'but momma' young lady. You have to wait another five years before you can learn to play swords," interrupted a stern sounding Georgina, although a smile played across her lips out of Charlotte's sight. "I've said you can learn the bow in another two years, sweetie," Georgina said in a much softer voice.
Leaning forward to envelope her youngest in a hug, Georgina whispered in her ear "Patience my little lioness your time will come." Temporarily mollified Charlotte continued to watch with rapt attention her father and brother, cheering on her father as he made a dramatic advance-lunge for his opponents torso.
"I think the honour of the family will keep resting with father if Hal doesn't improve his technique," noted Madeleine sweeping her skirt under her as she sat down next to her mother.
"You may be right. Although I also seem to recall from yesterday that your passata-sotto needed more work," said Georgina.
In response Madeleine blew a strand of her dark fringe from her eyes to signify her disagreement with her mother's observation of her technique. There was a few minutes of awkward silence punctuated by the noise of steel on steel as mother and daughter formulated their next comment, each trying desperately to think of a response that would not start another round of the mother - daughter arguments that had beset Madeleine's teenage years.
"I would accept that my passata-sotto could do with some small improvement, mother," sighed Madeleine "though how am I going to improve my technique? I've done everything father has taught me and it's not like I can study from you after all! You may be good with the bow but I've never seen you even handle a blade."
Georgina couldn't help but giggle a little at that. As a member of the Royal Household she had been tutored by the best teachers in every field, including the sword and the bow. She knew from experience that when she was a teenager she was more skilled with the sword than her younger brother Geoffrey and had even beaten him at a few tourneys to underline the fact.
"I know you consider me to be a bit flighty Maddy, but I've watched your father practice with the blade since we were both children. And I can assure you that your father's technique is worth studying further, even if his footwork could do with some improvement."
Daniel choose that moment to execute his own passata-sotto to dodge under the blade of his son. With a sigh of relief Georgina noted that Hal just managed to turn out of the way of her husband's foil. However, any response from Madeleine was interrupted by a shout from Charlotte as her father's blade struck the torso of her brother on the following strike.
"What's that make it?" asked Madeleine.
"Three bouts to your father and two bouts to your brother. Hal nearly turned the second bout in his favour though. I think the day when Hal beats your father may be close at hand," said Georgina, the pride in her son evident in her voice.
At Madeleine's sudden stiffening next to her, Georgina recognised all too late that she had offended her by forgetting to acknowledge Madeleine's own prowess with the blade. Georgina was momentarily torn with indecision as to how to redress her mistake before she finally spoke, desperately trying to avoid a repeat of previous arguments between the two of them over Madeleine's perception of her mother's bias in favour of Hal.
"I'm sorry Maddy. That was insensitive of me," said an embarrassed Georgina. "You may just as well be the first one to beat your father."
Tilting her head slightly, Madeleine swept one side of her dark collar length bob behind her ear with her curled index finger, a sign Georgina recognised with some relief as her eldest daughter biting her tongue from a retort.
"So you think we can improve on our Ä’ostre festival second place in the sword competition come the Harvest festival in September?" asked Madeleine.
Georgina, grateful for the conversation change, reached out and tentatively pulled her daughter to her with a one armed hug. "Improve? By the time the Harvest Festival comes around, I'm expecting to 'reap' a first in the archery and sword competitions between you and your brother for the 'Stockbury' family," she said with a wink.
Madeleine just groaned in response to her mother's poor joke.
The White Bridge, The Island of Avalon EY 2449 (22 Years Ago)
Daniel cradled his companion in his arms as he walked back to their waiting mounts. He'd been so focused on struggling to see the bridge ahead of them in the murky pre-dawn light that he hadn't been paying much attention to her and it had taken a second to realise what the startled squeak from behind him had meant. The fear that had gripped him after he heard her impact on the ground had been so intense he'd almost pitched out of his own saddle while trying to hastily dismount. His hands shaking slightly with fear he'd gently turned over her prostrate form to discover to his relief that she had fallen from her horse onto wet grass rather than the hard cobble stones of the path on which they had ridden. As far as he could see she had not suffered any significant injuries from her fall, although her face showed her discomfort as another tremor of pain shook her. Resting her against a plinth that marked the entrance to the White Bridge he wiped some mud from the left side of her face with his hand, aided by the rain still pouring down upon them. As the mud washed away to reveal her porcelain complexion more clearly, all be it with some angry red marks hinting at some bruising to come, Daniel once again drank in her almost otherworldly beauty. Her perfectly kissable cupid's bow lips, her delicate nose, her vivid blue eyes with their thick lashes, her high refined cheek bones and her elegantly pointed ears gave her a appearance that he felt could drive men and nations mad like in the tales from the Old World of Helen of Troy. It had after all driven him to abandon everything he had ever valued for a life of potential hardship as a fugitive.
"Are you able to carry on?" he asked with concern.
Ahead of their horses the first signs of dawn could be seen on the horizon. He had deliberately taken them by the hardest route to track rather than the quickest way off the island, knowing that the High-King would send his light cavalry over the open plains in search for them as soon as he realised they were gone. The narrow steep path and thick woods of his chosen route made this a less obvious escape route and more difficult for any pursuers to follow, although Daniel knew that the High-King would send men to check this path and time was not on their side.
"I'm scared Danny," she whispered in reply. "Scared that that they will find us. Scared that I will not be able to counter the reversal spell cast upon me by the Royal Weaver. Scared of what they will do to you if they catch us. Scared that we will be fugitives with no money, no status, no land... and that you will come to hate me for what you have sacrificed to help me."
Daniel could see tears forming in her clear blue eyes and as one tear broke free from the pool building on her eye lashes he cupped her cheek with his hand so that he could wipe away the tear with his thumb. He couldn't imagine how stressful and painful this day had been for her and he could see she was close to breaking point. Feeling her face press into his hand he realised that she desperately needed reassurance.
"My best friend once told me the ancient proverb that 'a bean in liberty is better than a comfit in prison'. I never truly understood what that meant until tonight," said Daniel with a smile. "I can't promise you the wealth, land or status that you deserve but I can promise you this: I will not let any man take you back and I will do everything I can to make you happy. Now let us not tempt fate any longer and get you across the bridge, your highness."
He offered his hand to her and helped her to a standing position. As he placed his arm around her to guide her to her horse she surprised him by standing on the balls of her feet to kiss him on his beard covered cheek.
"Thank you again, 'Percival'," she whispered, her face flush with embarrassment at being so forward.
"My pleasure, 'Blanchefleur'," he said with a grin that grew even wider in response to the pout she gave him.
"Surely I warrant a 'Guinevere'?"
"Sorry, Princess. Lancelot loved Guinevere, Percival loved Blanchefleur, and I love you."
He watched as her eyes grew wide and heard a small gasp of surprise at his confession of love. For a moment he wondered if he had been too presumptuous in his confession, until that was when she grasped him in as tight a hug as she could manage. He returned her embrace, resting his chin against the top of her wet head. He held her like that for a few moments before gently releasing her from his embrace. A move which he was pleased to see she reciprocated with a degree of reluctance.
"C'mon, let's get going before I catch my death in this rain," he said, turning her towards the horses. "Besides, once we've crossed a few miles beyond that bridge and into the mountains you should be safe from both your father's militia and the range of effect on the Royal Weaver's transformation spell."
As he gripped the saddle preparing to assist her up into the stirrup, he was dismayed to see two mounted figures in the livery of the Yeomanry round the bend and come to a halt a dozen metres away from them. He felt her pull away from his grip as she backed away. Barely audible over the noise of the rain he could hear her whimpering in fear as she retreated to the plinth. Stepping forward he adopted a defensive stance, drawing his sword from its scabbard.
As the riders dismounted, Daniel's heart sunk with recognition of the lead horseman. "Tom," Daniel said with a nod to his friend. "I'd hoped that it wouldn't be you that found me."
"I must admit that I hoped not to find you either," said Thomas unsheathing his own sword. "Could I hope that for the sake of our friendship 'Percival' that we can resolve this without any more bloodshed?"
"Only if you let us go, 'Lancelot'."
Thomas looked away for a second, his jaw clenching in frustration at the circumstances he found himself in. "I can't. I'm oath sworn to bring you both back to the King."
"I can't let you do that," said Daniel.
Thomas let out a grunt of frustration to Daniel, his free hand clenching into a fist. "Why are you doing this? Why are you throwing away everything over someone who won't even exist tomorrow? She's nothing more than an illusion, you must know that?" cried Thomas, the anger rising in his voice and his sought to find a reason to avoid the friendship ending fight he knew was coming.
"Maybe she won't exist tomorrow. Maybe she will," said Daniel with a shrug. "Did you know that she has a latent Weaver gift? As with all latent's it's instinctive and based on her emotional state and willpower. And we both know she has never been short of willpower. She has chosen to fight the transformation spell, so this is who she chooses to be."
"And what about the wise woman's prophecy?" asked Thomas. "She clearly said that for our people to know greatness your princess cannot live. All traces of her deviancy must be purged so that the 'Wynter Lion' may live to fulfil his destiny."
"I was there too remember. We spent two bloody days climbing that mountain with the King to see the great 'Oracle' and all we found was a woman who wasn't even wise enough to know what soap was. Gods, she reeked," said Daniel. "Where I come from wisdom isn't measured in terms of pungency!"
"I remember, you wouldn't shut up about that for days," said Thomas breaking into a smile. His smile quickly disappeared as the moment of shared memory passed. "Dan, don't make me do this."
"Tom.... I don't want too. The princess was given a choice between peace and war, and she chose peace. I'm asking you to do the same now."
A sad smile slowly crept across Thomas' face in response to Daniel's statement. "I'm oath sworn."
Daniel nodded his head in understanding of the situation his friends honour placed him. Pulling himself up to his full height Thomas extended his sword arm towards Daniel, who mirrored the en-garde position.
"Dan, we never did resolve which one of us was better did we?"
Although this isn't the first story I posted, it is the first story I started writing. The Britannia story 'I Don't Like Wednesdays' came out of muse based problems with this story. I was a big fan of Persephone's fantasy story 'The Frozen Balance' (and if you haven't read it do so!!!) and that gave me a nudge to try and write some tg fantasy. And being a member of the Cantwara myself, it gave me the opportunity to write them into the story! I'll be posting this every two weeks, so that it will be running two weeks behind the version on stardust. This version has been subject to some re-editing since then (EDIT: such as changing Captain Albany to Major to make underline the importance of his position within the yeomanry). I hope you enjoy my first attempt at more serious tg!
Prince Henry Wynter was the Heir to the High Throne of the Heptarchy and prophesised to one day lead his people to unparalleled greatness. Twenty two years after he abandoned his destiny and his throne for the chance to be the person he felt he was meant to be, he finds that Fate has not yet finished with him. The events surrounding the proposed appointment of a new Heir to the High Throne have consequences that reach as far the remote farmstead refuge of the former prince and threaten to destroy the new life that she has built for herself.
A farmstead cottage on the slopes of the Downs Mountain Range, Kingdom of Cantia
Tiw's Day (Tuesday) 23 April EY 2471
Georgina's eyes narrowed as she studied the six riders who entered the clearing in front of the cottage from her vantage point at the window in front of the kitchen sink. She absently fretted with the plate that moments ago she had been scrubbing clean, knowing that the riders presence was a potential threat to the life she had built here with her family. She'd thought - or perhaps more accurately had desperately hoped - that they had long since stopped searching for them and began to regret her foolishness in persuading Daniel to go to Wye. Her pale porcelain complexion flushed red with the shame she felt about having sulked until her husband had relented and agreed to go against his better judgement to an Artificer. Blinking back tears she looked heavenward for a moment and offered a silent plea to the á‰se to watch over and protect her family from her foolishness.
The red and white diamond chequered livery of the riders tabards with its ornately embossed golden crown in the centre marked the riders as being the Yeomen of the Household, the Royal Family's personal guard. She recalled from memory her father instructing her as a child that they only left the court at Avalon for one of two reasons - to either escort a senior member of the Royal Family or when the Crown expressly wished someone to feel it's displeasure. Given the cottage was more than four weeks hard ride from the High Court at Avalon she doubted that they were escorting a senior royal, though she feared they were here to collect one.
The riders fanned out as her husband and eldest son entered the clearing in front of the cottage from the path leading to the farms small workshop. She watched her eldest son, Hal, fumbling with the buckle on his sword belt and mentally tried to will to him the calmness the situation warranted. In contrast her husband was calmly wiping grease from his hands with an old rag as he approached the riders. She knew that the easy confidence he exuded was a product of the many hours he had spent on the training grounds in his youth. Putting the plate down gently on the draining board she dried her hands on her apron and headed towards the back door of the cottage to find her remaining children.
Daniel focused on the riders before him, noting the livery that he had once worn in his youth. Had it really been twenty-two years since he last wore the livery of a yeoman lieutenant he wondered? He knew that both Georgina and himself looked more like people in their early-20's rather than the mid-40's they actually were thanks to the blood of the ancient race, the á¦lfe, which ran through many noble family trees in the Seven Kingdoms. Those high noble born like himself tended to have even greater longevity due to the relatively small pool of socially acceptable breeding partners from other noble houses constantly reinforcing the á¦lfe bloodlines and it was very likely he'd look like someone in his mid-50's well into the eleventh or twelfth decade of his life. However, he knew potential longevity was just that, potential. It didn't make him invulnerable to harm or death.
Satisfied that his hands were clean enough to hold the hilt of the sword hanging from his belt if needed, he stuffed the rag into the back pocket of his work trousers and quickly flexed his fingers to stretch out any stiffness. He'd have liked to have worked through some warm up exercises but there hadn't been time. He had been surprised when his eldest son, Hal, had come running to the farm's small workshop with sword belts in hand to tell him that he had seen the riders approaching along the track from the lower meadow. The cottage had been purposely built in a natural depression nestling in the gentle slopes of the Downs Mountains that allowed the forest on the mountain side to screen it from view from the plains below. Unfortunately, it also worked against them in obscuring some of the view of the approach path to the farmstead.
He ran a hand briefly through his shoulder length dark hair to brush the loose strands away from his vision and to better hide the rounded point to his slightly elongated ears which was a mark of the high concentration of á¦lfe blood which his noble bloodline had given him. With his grease covered trousers tucked into a battered set of knee high leather boots and his loose smock with its sleeves rolled up over arms he looked every bit the rural farmer.
Originally, Georgina and he had planned to spend six months hiding on the remote farmstead which was part of his father's extensive land holdings, pretending to be a newlywed young farming family. Then rather unexpectedly given that Georgina was a child of the gleaming spires of the city of Avalon, his wife had fallen in love with the quiet life of the farm. Daniel was far too happy enjoying life as a newlywed to push the issue of their original plan to move on to one of the provincial cities and he knew he would struggle to deny her anything that would make her happy.
Their stay of six months became a year, then two years. Two years spent learning to become the farmer he had originally pretended to be and, more importantly, learning about each other in the ways all newlyweds do. And when Georgina fell pregnant with their eldest child, Hal, in the autumn of their second year on the farm, Daniel knew then she'd never move from the home she had made at the farm.
In order to remain hidden, Daniel had set about establishing their new identity as the 'Stockbury' family. It was only now, on the verge of potential discovery, that he realised how much this farmstead had come to mean to him as well and how entwined it was with all the good things in his life. The unexpected gift of happiness and peace that this quiet family life had blessed him with had far outweighed the prestige and riches his life as a member of a senior noble family would have given him. However, he now feared that his past was catching up with them and that the á‰se would demand payment for the wonderful years of happiness they had unexpectedly granted him in answer to his prayers twenty-two years ago.
Hearing his son fumbling with the clasp of his sword belt behind him, he turned his head letting a genuine smile appear on his face for a second as he remembered the problems he had with his own sword belt as a youth. He gave him a reassuring wink that the riders could not see. While Hal was skilled enough with the sword for most opponents in competition, Daniel knew from bitter personal experience that there was a big difference between knowing in theory how to kill a man and being able to look another man in the eye and end his life with a stab of the blade.
The White Bridge, The Island of Avalon EY 2449 (22 Years Ago)
Daniel let his blade glide down Thomas's blade before pulling back from yet another feint as the two swordsmen continued to probe for weaknesses. Behind him he could hear the sounds of a struggle between the second yeoman and the princess as the man sought to drag her back to his horse. From the swearing he heard, it was clear that things weren't going entirely the yeoman's way.
Cursing himself for being distracted, Daniel was only just able to side step a lunge from Thomas using his sword to turn the blade away from him. With a flurry of movement, Daniel sought to turn defence into offence with a feint of driving his blade towards his opponents stomach. As Thomas parried the attack with his blade he was driven further back to avoid a slashing attack from a turning Daniel. Now that both swordsmen had some distance between them, they both lapsed back into defensive postures, warily circling each other.
"Is that all you've got?" teased Thomas with a smirk playing across his face.
Thomas advanced on Daniel, the point of his blade moving in slow circular movements as he first feinted one way then another. Daniel parried a sudden lunge and launched into his own riposte, driving his opponent back. A slip on the muddy grass by Daniel as he advanced swung the balance of power back to Thomas who proceeded to lunge narrowly missing Daniel's ribs with a savage strike.
A high pitched scream from behind him once again distracted Daniel, and Thomas pushed his momentary advantage driving Daniel to retreat under a flurry of strikes. The sound of his swords metal reverberating from the blows against Thomas's sword and cursing from the second yeoman momentarily drowning out the dawn chorus.
With a thrust Daniel drove Thomas back a couple of paces opening up a gap between the two men. Both men slowly circled again attempting to draw the other into the first move. Daniel stepped forward bringing their blades into contact briefly before stepping back.
"You should have studied harder on your footwork, it's telegraphing your moves," taunted Thomas.
In response, Daniel closed the gap with a short charge bringing both blades together as Thomas parried the attack. Now that their blades were bound, the more muscular Thomas sought to bring his slight height and weight advantage to bear pushing his blades swept hilt into Daniel's in an attempt to point his opponents blade downwards.
"We didn't study this," snarled Daniel through gritted teeth as he brought his knee up into Thomas's groin. As Thomas doubled over, Daniel brought the equally elaborate swept hilt of his sword down heavily across the back of Thomas's head, knocking him onto his knees and causing his opponents sword to fall from his hand. Stepping back, Daniel rested the tip of his blade on the back of Thomas's neck.
"In answer to your earlier question, I was always better," said Daniel. "I just never wanted to win as badly as you did until today."
His hands firmly clasped over his groin, a clearly pained Thomas looked up at Daniel with eyes full of fury. The meaningful silence as both men locked eyes was only punctuated by the increasing sound of the dawn chorus around them. Thomas was the first to break the silence with a snort as he looked away from Daniel.
The sound of a muddy footstep behind him was the only thing that allowed Daniel to side step the thrusting rapier blade. Even so, he felt pain searing his right side as the point of the blade cut through his flesh and glanced across his ribs. As the blade retracted from his side, Daniel staggered forward his left hand instinctively pressing down on the wound. Turning, he barely parried a second blow from the yeoman before failing to block a downward slash into his leg which pitched him backwards into the muddy ground. To his horror, Daniel saw his sword slide from his wet hand as he hit the ground with a jarring thud. Desperately trying to scramble for it he was stopped by the yeoman's boot pushing down on his wrist and the tip of his sword gently pushing against his chest to turn Daniel onto his back.
Behind his attacker, Daniel saw that Thomas was on his feet and gingerly advancing on the pair, all be it he noted with some satisfaction that Thomas's left hand was still cupped over his painful groin.
"Yield now. There will be no second time of asking." spat a clearly pained Thomas as he approached.
Daniel closed his eyes, sinking back into the muddy earth as he released the tension from his body. 'So this is how it ends,' he thought.. 'Blanchefleur...I'm sorry'
When Daniel next spoke his voice trembled with emotion. "The Princess... is she okay?"
Thomas looked at the second yeoman in response to Daniel's question.
"She'll live. She'll have a few bruises where she fought back but nothing that can't be healed by a Weaver," he said. "I've left her by the horses."
"You left her tied up by the horses," corrected Thomas with a frown.
"Err... no Lieutenant. I didn't have time what with you being in trouble and all. Besides, unless she's going to needlepoint us to death I can't see what harm a scared little princess can do?"
At the yeoman's comments a deep chuckle started to emerge from Daniel, until his body convulsed with almost hysterical laughter. A look of alarm crossed Thomas's face. The King had been very specific about keeping the true situation secret, which meant most members of the yeomanry only knew they were searching for a kidnapped princess. As Thomas turned he saw the princess standing by her horse raising a string less recurve bow into a firing position. As her fingers delicately plucked at the air where the bow's string should have been a thin ribbon of light appeared between the tips of the bow. Thomas watched as in one fluid motion she pulled back on the glowing string and a horizontal line of energy crackled into existence forming into a rough arrow shape which she proceeded to sight against her target and then release. The impact of the arrow staggered the second yeoman causing his body to convulse as wisps of energy curled around it. His arms jerked like they were boneless sending his sword flying through the air away from Daniel before he collapsed heavily to the ground.
Thomas watched in horror as the princess turned the bow towards him and like a harpist plucked again at the air with her right hand causing a ribbon of energy to spring to life. He prepared himself for the inevitable only to watch her convulse under a tremor of pain, causing the energy string of her bow to wink out of existence as her right hand dropped from the bow to clutch at her abdomen. Knowing this might be his only chance to snatch victory in this encounter, Thomas gritted his teeth and set off at a full sprint across the 60 or so metres towards the princess. Without a doubt, he knew this would be the most important 10 seconds of his life. He would return to the high court a hero or not at all.
The princess was key to his victory as Thomas was confident that if he could neutralise the threat of her bow then he would be able to beat an injured Daniel one-on-one.
1 second... the princess screamed, her voice cracking as she did so to reveal a deeper, more resonant voice. Her eyes tightly shut, Thomas could see her grip on the bow start to relax.
3 seconds... Daniel could be heard starting to scramble for his sword as Thomas began to reach his stride despite the muddy ground slowing him down. The princess's scream had now taken on a very tenor like quality.
4 seconds... Thomas watched as the flesh on the princess's face rippled trying to superimpose a square jaw line and stronger nose of the Heir on her face. Her scream had now dropped far enough in pitch it was better characterised as a yell now. Her grip on the bow had let it slide through her fingers so that she was now only holding it with a few fingers on the lower limb.
6 seconds... The wet thud of Daniel's footsteps behind Thomas indicated that he also had now begun to reach his stride in pursuit. He was now close enough to the Princess that he knew Daniel couldn't catch him given his injured leg before Thomas got to her. Tightening his hold on the sword he prepared to bring the swept hilt up to punch the princess with it, knowing he would only have a few seconds after he reached her before he would have to face Daniel again. Thomas could see virtually all of the Heir's face now in the princess.
8 seconds... Thomas was within a few metres of her now pulled his sword back as he prepared to punch her with the hilt guard hoping to deliver a knockout blow. The princess's voice jumped up an octave as her features started to revert back to their feminine glory. Her eyes snapped open and she started to sweep the bow upwards holding it firmly by one of its limb.
10 seconds... Thomas hit the ground heavily, the vision in his left eye obscured by blood running across his face. At least he hoped it was that and not more permanent damage. With the vision in his remaining one good eye he could see blood dripping from the top end of the princess's bow now raised above high her head. In addition to the pain he felt and the ringing in his ears, Thomas had been aware of a spark of energy from the end of the bow as it had swept upwards and hit him. He could already feel his vision starting to dim as small energy shocks coursed through his body. The last thing Thomas saw before unconsciousness claimed him was the princess rush to embrace Daniel.
The Princess kissed Daniel hard on the lips, her bow now forgotten at her feet where she had dropped it. Her hands clasped around his neck as she sought to pull herself as close to him as it was physically possible. In return, Daniel had placed his arms around her waist and was pulling her to him equally as hard. In between snatched kisses they both frantically babbled at each other.
"Oh gods, Danny... is that blood?"
"Did the yeoman hurt you?"
"I was so scared they would kill you..."
"We can't stay here..."
"I thought I'd lost you!"
"I promised you..."
"I love you so much..."
"Marry me..."
"We need to treat your... What did you say?"
Daniel smiled as the Princess pulled back from their embrace to look up into his face. In a small voice, she asked again "What did you say?"
"Please marry me," he said with a confident smile. "I love you. I have since that day I first saw this you when we were children."
For a second the princess just stood in front of Daniel, her eyes the widest he had ever seen them. Daniel wondered if perhaps he had been mistaken in asking her as he saw her start to shake as tears streamed down her face.
"You don't have to answer right now," he said softly, fearing that the question he'd asked had been asked at an inappropriate time, a product of the adrenalin rush resulting from emerging victorious in a conflict he should have by all rights lost. Preparing to turn to gather the horses, and recover what was left of his dignity, he was almost knocked to the ground as she tackled him in a fierce hug. The pain he felt from the wound to his side was eased by the one emotion filled word he heard uttered repeatedly into his chest as she embraced him wildly.
"Yes."
The two childhood friends remained locked in an embrace for a few minutes before either had sufficiently recovered from the emotions of the moment to speak. Wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve, the princess was the first to speak, her voice still retaining the nasal quality of someone who had been crying.
"Yes...with one condition."
Daniel frowned. "What condition?" he asked tentatively.
"Granted, I've not had much experience of kissing bearded men.."
"I should hope not!" teased Daniel.
"As I was saying," the princess replied gently poking him in the chest on the other side from his wound for interrupting her. "Although, I've not had much experience of kissing bearded men, I'm not sure I particularly like it. So my condition for marriage, is you shave off the beard. It's all prickly, a bit like what I would imagine kissing a hairbrush would be like."
"You never did like my beard," Daniel said with a wry smile. "But if that's the price you setting for marriage, I would be a fool not to pay it. I accept your condition. Now let's get out of here. The sooner we reach Cantia and the protection of my people, the sooner I can get my wound fixed up and we can marry."
"And the sooner you can give up the vow to be chaste outside of wedlock that all the Queen's yeomen under twenty-one must take?" asked the princess with a sly smile.
"I'm not the only one here that made that vow," said Daniel with a grin. "Though the thought that I'm still seven months, two weeks, three days and a number of hours from my twenty-first birthday hadn't even crossed my mind..."
A farmstead cottage on the slopes of the Downs Mountain Range, Kingdom of Cantia
Tiw's Day (Tuesday) 23 April EY 2471
Sir Thomas Albany shifted uncomfortably in his saddle as he watched the two figures emerge from the path leading off to the side of the cottage. He had been in the saddle for nearly four weeks now chasing down leads and had grown tired of the picturesque forests and meadows of the lands of the Cantwara. He longed to return to the comforts of court life in Avalon. Had it not been for the Queen's insistence that, as Queen's Champion, he personally lead the yeomanry expedition he would have happily delegated the mission to a subordinate as he felt their mission to be little more than a fool's errand. Their quarry had already alluded the yeomanry's most rigorous searches over twenty years ago and frankly he felt they had long since fled the seven kingdoms that made up the Heptarchy.
He straightened himself up in the saddle as he watched the two figures approach. This was the third lead he had followed up personally where individuals matching the description of one of their quarry had been sighted. Like the previous two encounters, he fully expected this one to be fruitless as well but felt he had to demonstrate to the Queen he'd taken an active interest in the investigation. The one suggestion that something was remiss about this time was that the tithe lists and land registration maps he had brought with him indicated there were no farmsteads at this location. This was probably just administrative incompetence but there remained the possibility it was something else. He sighed, as given the laissez-faire attitude amongst many of the Cantwara to the taxation authority of the Angelcyn Crown it was probably the former. He was torn between wanting this fool's errand to be over and the consequences of its success.
He also found the regional dialect of the Cantwara was becoming increasingly irritating and wished for a conversation with someone who could say the words 'dune' and 'June' and not make them sound the same. He grimaced as he recalled spending six fruitless months in the lands of the Cantwara as a young Lieutenant searching for their quarry. 'Wellllll...' he thought, his grimace softening to a smile as he remembered the faces of the farmers daughters he had charmed into bed as a dashing young Lieutenant 'maybe not entirely fruitless...'
Glancing briefly at his second-in-command, Lieutenant Fairfax, he felt a small surge of pride in the professionalism of his promising yeomen lieutenant as even after all these weeks of chasing dead end leads he still kept the men in his detachment sharp and alert. He snorted quietly, wondering for a moment how many of the other young lieutenants had maintained such discipline amongst their search groups. A wry smile formed as he couldn't help but think that many would be better officers if they spent more time training and less time chasing social advancement and marriages of opportunity.
As the two figures halted a short distance in front of the riders, Sir Thomas turned his attention to them and nearly dropped the reins of his horse in shock. The darker haired of the two was undoubtedly Daniel, while the second was the spitting image of the Heir when he was younger. Not a day went by when Thomas hadn't at some point reflected on the outcome of that day twenty-two years ago and he still wasn't sure what he had want the outcome to have been.
Daniel looked up at the rider wearing the insignia of a Major in the Yeomanry and found his hand moving towards his sword hilt in shock. Unlike his own features which had barely changed during the intervening years, the face of the man he had once called friend showed the effects of age. Thomas's ears showed only the barest signs of any point, marking the absence of any significant quantity of á¦lfe blood in his family tree and his short cropped black hair was showing the first signs of grey at the temples. His face had a few lines around the eyes from time spent squinting into the sun, an occupational hazard for someone who spent much of his time outdoors, and of course the faded scar from their last encounter.
For a few minutes the two former friends just stared at each in shock, neither sure what to say or do. Two decades ago, they had been closer than brothers and in their hearts both regretted the events of that day at the White Bridge and what it had cost their friendship. Beside both men their companions exchanged quizzical glances at each other and at their respective elders. Thomas was the first one to break the silence.
"Harry was always on at you about shaving that beard off. Said that it made you look scruffy," said Thomas with a grin.
Daniel rubbed his chin with his left hand, his right never leaving the pommel of his sword. "Yeah... made me shave it off the night after the White Bridge. I still miss it after all these years," said Daniel smiling ruefully.
The smile faded from Thomas's face as he spoke next. "I'm not here for you, Dan. Where is the Heir? That's clearly Harry's son, so don't even think of denying you know where he is."
Hal frowned, looking to his father questioningly unconsciously mirroring Lieutenant Fairfax who was similarly looking questioningly at Thomas.
"Tom, that's not just the Heir's son. That's my son as well."
Daniel nearly laughed at the look of confusion that crossed Thomas's face. A look that quickly changed to one of shock with realisation of the implications of Daniel's statement.
"Gods, but we... that is the Queen... assumed that his latency wasn't strong enough to permanently counter the Royal Weaver's spell to purge him of his...unnatural desires... then that means..."
"Do you honestly believe mere magic could stop the Heir when he put his mind to something?" asked Daniel. "You only saw things from the King's perspective, Tom. You never listened to what I tried to tell you earlier that day before we fled the Wynter Palace. What the Oracle, the King and even you saw as 'deviancy' was actually the true expression of the person the Heir felt she was. I honestly don't pretend to understand this for a second Tom, I've always been happy being me but for Harry... Harry was only ever truly happy being herself."
Thomas stared at first Daniel and then the youth standing next to him. Removing his wide brimmed felt hat, Thomas rubbed his hand across his short hair contemplating the significance of what he had learnt. This impacted on the plans that the Queen had imparted to him in ways he had never anticipated and he needed to think about it. His reverie however, was interrupted by Lieutenant Fairfax.
"Your orders sir? If these are who I think they are should we not take them into custody?"
"Custody? Gods, that... boy... is the first person in 2471 years to be heir to two thrones. The founding documents expressly forbid an Heir to the throne of the one of the Seven Kingdoms to marry the Heir to the Angelcyn Throne, less it cause discord by favouring one kingdom over the others. That boy is.. an impossibility. He is..."
"My son," called Georgina, emerging from the trees beside the path leading back to the cottage. She noted that the yeomen had been so focused on Daniel and Hal that they had never noticed her approach. As she walked she wiped her hands on her apron to remove the sweat from her palms so that she might hide the nervousness she felt before stopping beside her husband and wrapping herself around his left arm.
"Gods...Harry, is that really you?" asked Thomas. He felt much of that which he had been certain slipping from his grasp like sand.
"Yes, in every way that matters this is still me. You just see the real me now. My name isn't Harry now either. It's Georgina...Georgina Amherst. And that is our son." As if to emphasise the fact, Georgina tightened her grip on Daniel's arm. A move that did not go unnoticed by Thomas.
Meeting his gaze directly for the first time, Georgina gave Tom a sad smile. "Tom, I'm truly sorry for my part in giving you that scar."
Thomas found himself instinctively reaching up to touch his face and trace the scar with his fingers. It had taken him six months to convince the King that he was worthy of having his sight restored by the Royal Weaver to his blinded eye. The King had held him personally responsible for the failure to recapture the Heir and had it not been for the fact he was a member of the Queen's Own Regiment, he felt he would have been dishonourably discharged from the Yeomanry of the Household. To his surprise the Queen had forcefully and publicly spoken out in favour of Thomas. She had defended his honour and anointed him to all that would listen as a man who would go on to do great things. He'd sworn an oath there and then that he would never fail his Queen in the completion of any duty she set for him. And for twenty-two years he had kept that oath. Now he found himself facing the same choices as he had twenty-two years ago. Would he do that which he felt was wrong but honour demanded or would he throw away his honour and do that which he felt was right?
It had all seemed so clear to him as a chivalrous young Lieutenant. His honour had seemed to him to be the most important thing in the world. More important than family, friends and even his own life. On the practice fields as cadets it had been hammered into them, day-after-day that a man without honour was not a man. A Yeoman's word was his bond. A Yeoman's oath was unbreakable.
Death before dishonour.
It therefore made perfect sense to Thomas that when a man closer to him than his own brother dishonoured himself by breaking an oath to the High-King, it was his duty to bring him back or die trying. Even after the melee at the White Bridge, Thomas still desperately clung to his sense of honour, his belief in what made a good man. And that belief remained unshakable until the uprising by the pretender to the High-Throne in the Twin-Kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira.
Even now after all these years, Thomas could still hear the screams of the men, women and children as he gave the order to torch those settlements that had supported the Pretender. He had joined the Yeomanry to do great things. He didn't join it to slaughter livestock and thereby deprive the villagers of milk and meat. He didn't join it to salt the ground so that the following seasons crops failed. He didn't join it to burn villages and put scores of unarmed men, women and children to the sword. And yet he did all those things and worse because his honour and oath demanded that he follow the instructions of his King and Queen. And it was as a consequence of that campaign, a campaign in which he had been highly decorated and richly rewarded with monies and title, that he came to realise how wrong he had been at the White Bridge. He had spent the many sleepless nights that followed in the years after the uprising praying to the á‰se that his friends had found sanctuary far from the lands of the Angelcyn, perhaps in the 'Septem Provinciae' across the Great Sea.
With a deep sigh, Thomas lightly dismounted from his horse signalling Lieutenant Fairfax to do the same. He carefully approached the three figures, making sure to keep his hand clear of his sword hilt. Stopping a few paces in front of the trio, Thomas crouched down on bended knee while beside him, Lieutenant Fairfax stood looking on uncertainly.
"My Prince..ess," he said bending his head so that he looked at her feet out of respect. "I am here on instruction from the Queen, your most royal mother. You are summoned by her royal edict to return to the Wynter Palace with me, in order that the issue of succession might be resolved."
"And if I refuse?"
"Your most royal mother has ordered me to bring you back with or without your consent. I am oath sworn to do so."
Georgina closed her eyes and rested her head against her husband's shoulder, a small sob escaping her lips as she realised whatever the outcome she was likely to lose someone dear to her. Yet, despite this fear she could not find it in her heart to bear malice towards Thomas. She of all people understood the burden that duty could place on an individual. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach she realised the Thomas she knew twenty-two years ago could not let her walk away now. And there were just too many yeomen for any other outcome other than death or serious injury of her husband or son if they had to fight.
"However, I...will not force you to come with me. I won't make this mistake a second time. I won't let my honour dictate my actions at the expense of my morality. If you say 'no' then we will leave."
Scarcely believing her ears Georgina paused for a few moments to digest the comment before speaking.
"Thank you Tom," said Georgina in a ragged tear filled voice, letting out the breath she hadn't been aware she had been holding. She could feel the tears rolling down her cheeks as a sense of relief washed over her. Releasing her grip on her husband, she stepped forward to pull Thomas to his feet before embracing him in an equally tight hug to express her gratitude.
"Dad? What's going on?" asked Hal, confusion clearly etched in his voice. "Why is everyone calling mother the Heir?"
"It's...complicated, Hal."
"Actually it's more complicated than your think," stated a new voice.
Thomas released Georgina and turned to look up at the mounted figure of Sergeant-at-Arms Ackers. In surprise he noted the drawn cavalry crossbow resting in her hands.
"Sergeant. I order you to stand down," said Thomas.
"I'm afraid you lost the right of command when you became derelict in your duty, Sir. You know what happens to oath breakers." Her voice was calm and cold, with no trace of emotion to colour it.
Lieutenant Fairfax noted that the look of surprise on Thomas's face was quickly changing to that of anger. Stepping forward before his Major could speak, Fairfax addressed the rest of the men.
"Yeomen! I order you to stand down and place Sergeant-at-Arms Ackers under arrest!"
In response a faint smile played across the Sergeants lips.
"Sorry, Lieutenant. When you split the men to approach the cottage you left me to determine how to split them. You will find that these are all my squad not yours. The Queen had concerns that Sir Thomas's past friendship with the Heir might affect his judgement. That was why Lieutenant Bathurst and our squad were told to stick close to you both. She was well aware of the doubt that has troubled Sir Thomas since the uprising in the Twin Kingdoms. However she had hoped that he would remain true to his oath."
Finding his voice again, Thomas spoke. "What do you intend to do with us?"
"My orders are very clear on the matter in the event that we found the Heir or Lord Amherst and you were not able to carry out your mission."
Sergeant Ackers raised her crossbow and levelled it at Daniel. In a fluid motion she pulled the trigger loosing the bolt into Daniel's chest. Georgina's scream of anguish echoed around the clearing as her husband pitched backwards into the ground, the bolt sticking from the rapidly reddening front of his white smock.
"Consider that your formal discharge from the Queen's Own Regiment of Yeomanry, my Lord."
To be continued...
This chapter has undergone some dialogue rewritting in the final scene since the original version posted on Stardust which should hopefully clarify some of the supporting characters personalities a bit more.
As always, I hope you enjoy this story and thank you for taking the time to read it.
Prince Henry Wynter was the Heir to the High Throne of the Heptarchy and prophesised to one day lead his people to unparalleled greatness. Twenty two years after he abandoned his destiny and his throne for the chance to be the person he felt he was meant to be, he finds that Fate has not yet finished with him. The events surrounding the proposed appointment of a new Heir to the High Throne have consequences that reach as far the remote farmstead refuge of the former prince and threaten to destroy the new life that she has built for herself.
Previously...
"Sorry, Lieutenant. When you split the men to approach the cottage you left me to determine how to split them. You will find that these are all my squad not yours. The Queen had concerns that Sir Thomas's past friendship with the Heir might affect his judgement. That was why Lieutenant Bathurst and our squad were told to stick close to you both. She was well aware of the doubt that has troubled Sir Thomas since the uprising in the Twin Kingdoms. However she had hoped that he would remain true to his oath."
Finding his voice again, Thomas spoke. "What do you intend to do with us?"
"My orders are very clear on the matter in the event that we found the Heir or Lord Amherst and you were not able to carry out your mission."
Sergeant Ackers raised her crossbow and levelled it at Daniel. In a fluid motion she pulled the trigger loosing the bolt into Daniel's chest. Georgina's scream of anguish echoed around the clearing as her husband pitched backwards into the ground, the bolt sticking from the rapidly reddening front of his white smock.
"Consider that your formal discharge from the Queen's Own Regiment of Yeomanry, my Lord."
The slopes of the Downs Mountain Range, Kingdom of Cantia
Tiw's Day (Tuesday) 23 April EY 2471
Madeleine used the end of the weaver bow she held in her right hand to gently push her younger brother Noah forward as he slowed in response to the haunting scream that echoed through the woods surrounding the cottage. She signalled to him with another slightly firmer nudge to his shoulder to keep going and he reluctantly picked up the pace of his descent down the tree covered slope. Despite the treacherous ground under foot, strewn with tree roots and loose earth, Madeleine risked briefly looking up from her footing to check that her younger sister was also still moving forward. She was gratified to see that Charlotte remained safe, clinging to the back of the family's old dire wolf. In fact, if anything the pony sized animal was pulling away from Noah and herself. The one direction that Madeleine couldn't bring herself to look however, was backwards towards the only home she had ever known.
The Amherst farmstead cottage on the slopes of the Downs Mountain Range, Kingdom of Cantia
Georgina knelt beside the lifeless body of her husband, clasping one of his large rough hands in between her own much smaller softer hands. Occasionally she would tenderly brush her lips across his fingers in a gentle kiss. It comforted her greatly that he had a look of serenity on his face and she decided to take it as a sign that he had not suffered when the crossbow bolt had pierced his heart, for she could not bear to think that he had suffered in the final seconds of his life.
In between her soft kisses, Georgina whispered of her love for Daniel as tears ran freely down her cheeks. She found herself wondering how it could have happened that Daniel could have died. She distinctly recalled that the wedding vows exchanged at their hand-fasting ceremony had been 'for all eternity', something that a Priest of the á‰se had witnessed so she knew it had to be true. Yet the evidence in front of her indicated that they were not to be together for eternity. In fact it had been a far too brief a time and there was so much left for the couple to do together that would now be forever unfulfilled. She couldn't help but deeply regret that she had not told him more often that she loved him.
Daniel had been part of Georgina's life for so long that she couldn't truly remember a time when he wasn't a part of it. She'd been five years old when they first met as children. Daniel's mother, Queen Aldeberge of the Kingdom of Cantia, one of the seven kingdoms that comprised the Heptarchy, had brought him to the Wynter Palace in keeping with custom so that he could fulfil the obligations of his birth and pledge his allegiance and the future allegiance of his kingdom to the High King of the Angelcyn and by extension his Heir. After the largely symbolic ceremony that went with the pledge, High Queen Aliénor had invited him to join the other noble children at court for an afternoon, in an act that was more polite courtesy than a meaningful attempt to forge relationships between the children of the nobility.
Georgina, who of course had been the young Prince Henry then, had been a gentle and shy child. Even at such a tender age, the female soul inside Prince Henry had sought ways to express itself and this had estranged him from the other boys at court, who seemed to subconsciously drift away from the young prince. In contrast, Daniel ignored the roughhousing of the other boys and had walked up to the young Prince and boldly asked the names of the little wooden horses he had been playing with and clearly treasured so much. Even at a young age, Daniel had radiated an irrepressible sense of fun that led most people almost against their will to like him and within a matter of minutes he had started to draw the young prince out of his shell. By the end of the afternoon, the young Heir to the High Throne had even been playing games involving some of the other young noble boys present and it had not escaped the High Queen's notice that Daniel was the lynchpin that turned her shy introverted son into the beginnings of the sort of person she felt he would need to be if were to have any chance of being a successful High King. And Prince Henry would need to be a successful High King to advance her aspirations for her own future.
An invitation was extended that very day to Queen Aldeberge that her son would always welcome at court, an act of generosity that the High Queen would come to regret during Daniel's teenage years when she realised the hold she had over her son was being supplanted by that of dashing young Lord of Cantia. The invitation for Daniel to visit regularly had delighted the young prince beyond words as unbeknownst to everyone, the girl inside the young prince had started to develop a shy affection for Daniel and over time those feelings blossomed into first friendship and then love.
As they grew older and became teenagers, it was Daniel who had provided the young prince with a role model for how a boy should act and he had made it so much easier for him to fake his way through life. Daniel also covered for the Henry on those occasions when the real person inside was accidentally revealed in the presence of others. Indeed, on several occasions Daniel had nearly been despatched from the High Court in disgrace as a consequence of covering for Henry.
When Georgina had discovered how to use her own latent magic to transform herself from her hated male form into the person she truly was inside, it was Daniel who saved her from the attempts of the Royal Weaver to magically entombed her within Henry's form against her will and strip her personality of those attributes which her father had considered to be weak and unbecoming of a future High King. Most importantly, it was Daniel who had given her a gift so special that she could never hope to repay him - that of unconditional love despite what she had been born.
And now a stranger enlisted in the service of her mother had taken her world from her. Her pain and sorrow weighed heavily on her heart and part of her wanted to do nothing more than lay down beside her husband and pass with him into the next world. The only reason she could think of to live was that someone had to protect their children. Their children who would have to live very long lives without a father.
A maelstrom of pain, sorrow and confusion swirled at the core of her being, slowly blotting out the existence of all other feelings. And then, just when she thought she could never feel anything else ever again, she felt a new emotion in her heart. A strange new emotion that was also a very, very familiar old emotion. One that had in fact, laid long dormant since before she left the Wynter Palace all those years ago. An emotion that she knew in time would consume her very soul if she let it. And it found a voice. A long unheard voice that whispered words of retribution and rage to Georgina from the deepest darkest corners of her mind.
Georgina closed her eyes momentarily, working to entomb her baser instincts to the prison in which they had long laid dormant and gain control of her emotions. In her youth she had become increasingly frustrated with what she saw as the unfairness of life forcing her to wear her hated male form for most of her waking hours while other girls at court had flaunted their dresses and loves. The stress of being unable to mentally relax and express herself for any length of time had generated an unforgiving ruthlessness in combat situations that scared the young girl inside her. Yet once again, Daniel's friendship had saved her and he had taught her how to express her emotions in a more positive manner and stopped her becoming the sort of person that troubled her nightmares. Since her final transformation and rescue, Georgina had felt the beast within her heart was finally vanquished and she had become more confident in the expression of her emotions. Georgina knew that her eldest daughter, Madeleine, considered her to be more than a bit embarrassing at times at the way laughter and tears would gush forth but she did not care if it meant she could feel without needing to filter her emotions any more.
Finding herself out of practice of suppressing her negative side, it took her a few minutes before she was confident that she had properly quelled the emotional turmoil within her heart. Georgina could not help but smile a little when she realised it was the thought of her husband, even in death, that had enabled her to regain her self-control. When she opened her puffy red rimmed eyes again she raised her husband's hand to her lips a final time before lowering it gently onto his stomach. Leaning over him she brushed against his still chest as she pressed her lips chastely against her husband's lips in a final farewell.
Her goodbye's over, Georgina turned her attention back to the situation around her and carefully gripped the hilt of her husband's scabbard enclosed sword and slowly slid it free. It had been several decades since she had used a sword in anger and she was acutely aware that her husband's sword, while a masterpiece of craftsmanship, was balanced for him and not her smaller and weaker form. Taking one final glance at her husband's body, Georgina silently vowed that she would not rest until she had made all of those responsible for her husband's death suffer a similar end.
Turning her attention to the melee going on around her in the clearing for the first time, a quick glance confirmed her worst fears. Anyone with knowledge of Thomas and Daniel's past would have recognised them as the most immediate dangers in any engagement and clearly the Sergeant knew this, as both men lay unmoving in the grass with crossbow bolts projecting from their bodies. The young yeoman lieutenant had fared little better and was struggling with an opponent despite a crossbow bolt projecting from his shoulder. Her son, Hal, in contrast seemed to be holding his own and Georgina could not but help feel a swelling of pride at the man her son was becoming.
Georgina opted to assist the man in most immediate danger, the young lieutenant, and had started to move towards him when she saw her son parry his opponents blade and then move to block a move that was to her experienced eyes clearly a feint of a stabbing attack to the stomach. The cry of warning died in her throat as she saw the yeoman switch from the feint to the real attack, leaving Hal's blade absent from where it needed to be to effectively block a switch to an upwards slash to the head. Georgina recognised the spray of blood, flesh and hair as the sword bit into the side of Hal's skull was at the very least a severely disfiguring wound and without the attention of a physic or weaver in the near future, potentially a mortal wound. A small growl of anger emitted from Georgina's mouth as she charged at the yeoman standing over the motionless body of her son.
As the two combatants blades clashed together, Georgina recalled the words of her fencing instructor Sir Hugh Leyton. 'The blade is not just an extension of your body but an extension of your will,' he had intoned to her in that richly senatorial voice of his that made every word he uttered sound as if it was an unquestionable fact. 'A blade will allow a good man to do good deeds and an evil man to do evil deeds. It is what is in your heart that will determine what you do with it and what sort of man you will ultimately be.' Sir Hugh had then taught her numerous ways with which to kill a man which had led the young Georgina to conclude that there was a third way he had not told her, which was that a blade would also allow a good man to do evil deeds.
She feinted a strike to her left and then blocked a thrust from her opponent in retaliation. A few more testing feints soon revealed to Georgina that her opponent while skilled with the blade, was not formally trained with the blade. He fought from a knowledge of previous encounters which served him well against the inexperienced and untrained but placed him at a disadvantage when engaging a classically trained master of the sword. Even more to her advantage was the fact that from his perspective he was fighting an apron wearing farmers wife not a member of the High Family. Georgina stepped forward into the engagement, parrying another thrust from her opponent before moving her blade to circle her opponents in a moulinet that ended in a savage but shallow circular cut to his body. As he jerked backwards to avoid the blade cutting any deeper, she slashed deeply at the inside of his exposed sword arm.
"Mercy?" he begged clutching at his wrist trying to staunch the flow from the severed radial artery that with each beat of his heart sent more of his life blood pouring from his body.
"Mercy? You will have the same mercy that you gave to my baby boy," snarled Georgina as she stabbed her blade into his exposed neck.
The sound of a second yeoman charging at her prevented Georgina from examining the body of her son. Adopting a defensive stance advocated by Agrippa, her heart ached as she knew that she would not be able to safely give her son the attention he needed to survive his wound until she had despatched all of her potential opponents. She allowed the advancing yeoman the first attack with his blade in order to gauge his level of skill and long dormant knowledge began the process of calculating the series of moves necessary to defeat him. Satisfied she had his measure after her initial parries of his attacks, she began the riposte that would ultimately lead to his death.
Madeleine felt relief wash over her as saw the track up ahead as the trees began to thin out. Once they were across the track they would be more difficult to track on the hard ground and they would be a good quarter of the way in distance to the barn in the lower pasture. She knew that the steeper slope and more densely packed forest on the other side of the track would slow them down slightly but she figured it would slow down any pursuers unfamiliar with the terrain even more. Her mother had instructed her to get her younger siblings to the barn in the lower pasture and this remained the safest way she could think of to do so. The nature of the terrain precluded any pursuit by horseback unlike the alternative routes and Madeleine's mother had indicated that she should stay away from any riders she might encounter. Once at the barn, they would be safe. Madeleine knew that her father maintained a hidden storm cellar under the barn that would provide provisions and shelter for the three of them until such time as one of her parents came for them.
IF their parents came for them, she thought.
The fear her mother felt over the events of the immediate future had been conveyed to Madeleine in the embrace that she gave her before she sent them away from the cottage. It wasn't a tearful embrace or even a fearful embrace. No, it was a loving final embrace. It was as if her mother had tried to convey all the love she felt for her in a single hug. And that had scared Madeleine far more than all the tears and wailing in the world would have.
Blinking back her own tears at the remembrance of that embrace, she watched Greytail reach the tree line and in one graceful leap clear a track wide enough for a cart. Madeleine couldn't help but smile a little as Charlotte let out a nervous little squeal as the wolf became momentarily airborne. She knew they were far enough from the cottage for there to be no danger of the sound being heard back there, so she felt no danger in letting her younger sister enjoy the moment. Indeed, if events turned out as she feared it might be the last time in a long while that Charlotte could feel such guilt free joy. As an indication as to how fast Greytail was starting to outpace them, it took Noah nearly a half minute more before he less gracefully crashed through the tree line stumbling spread eagle onto the dusty track, his weaver bow spilling from an outstretch hand from the force of the impact. Madeleine, who was a few seconds behind Noah, carefully crossed through the bushes at the tree line onto the track and started to urge her younger brother to his feet.
"Noah, we don't have ti.."
The remainder of the sentence died on Madeleine's lips as she saw no more than two metres away a gathering of six armed men. While she didn't recognise the red and white checked tabards they wore she knew that these men were in all probability related to whatever had scared her mother so much. Instinctively pulling magical energy from the very earth upon which she stood through her body and into the 'Siden Stone' embedded into the centre of the bow, she gestured a string of energy into life on the stringless recurve bow and hastily fired an arrow of crackling energy at the ground in front of the Yeomen in an effort to delay them. The resultant flash of light combined with the cloud of dust thrown up from the ground where her arrow hit, briefly obscured the two groups from each other. Madeleine grabbed Noah by the scruff of his leather jerkin with her free hand and desperately tugged him from the ground to a half crouch as she started moving towards the opposite tree line.
The initial shocked silence of both groups was initially only punctuated by the sound of Noah's hands scrabbling in the earth as he sought to gain his balance until a piercing shout emitted from one of the soldiers.
"Halt! Halt in the name of the High King!"
Madeleine cursed inwardly at that shout, realising now that the men were not mercenaries or local militia but instead members of the Yeomanry of the Household. With a renewed sense of urgency Madeleine dragged her younger brother towards the edge of the track, almost making it before her arm jerked back as Noah came to a sudden stop. Madeleine's momentum spun her around slightly so that she looked back towards her younger brother. The sight that greeted her chilled her heart as she saw a burley yeoman had a firm grip on her brother's right arm.
"You aren't going anywhere, girl," he snarled at her across the struggling form of Noah.
Madeleine could see three more yeomen were now within a few paces of her and she knew that there was no way in which she could easily get Noah free from them all. For a brief moment the thought of abandoning Noah and making her escape through the woods, only for it to be hastily rejected. Madeleine was far too much her mother's daughter to admit defeat just because the odds were against her and far too much of her father's daughter to abandon a family member. Instead, feeling her anger rising, she released her grip on Noah and grasping her weaver bow in both hands swung it by a limb at the yeoman holding onto Noah. As she swung the bow, Madeleine felt a further charge of her magic surge up through her legs from the ground and into the weaver bow to replenish the Siden Stone and causing the end of the bow's limb to crackle with eldritch energy. Her intended target jumped backwards in fear at the sight, falling over his own feet and landing heavily on the ground. Grabbing Noah by the arm she pulled him towards her in an attempt to get off the track, only for the downed yeoman to lash out at Noah with his boot while cursing Madeleine as a 'weaver bitch'. The force of his kick cracked heavily against the side of Noah's knee driving the teenager to the ground in a scream of pain.
The three remaining yeomen slowed their advance at the sight of her sparking weaver bow and changing their stances, cautiously drew their swords.
"Hawkins. Smith. Move to flank her," ordered the oldest of the three yeomen. Madeleine could see that he knew the danger a weaver bow could present in the hands of a skilled user and she realised that he was trying prevent her from having the time to focus her power in such a way as to be able to fire an arrow from the bow.
"Aye, sir!" they called in unison.
Seeing the two men trying to flank her, Madeleine changed her grip on the weaver bow to grip it more like a staff, so she could defend an attack from multiple angles.
"Get back!!" screamed Madeleine at the two yeomen either side of her.
Using the charged end points to the bows limbs she quickly jabbed at both men to force them back. Sensing an opportunity, the yeomen in front of her slashed downwards at her bow in an attempt to disarm her. At the last minute Madeleine raised her bow to block the downward blow of the sword only to see in shock the blade bite deep into the fully charged Siden Stone that was located in the centre of the riser, the rigid centre part of the bow. A blinding flare burnt itself into Madeleine's eyes as the stone shattered and the last sound she heard before losing consciousness was the dying scream of the yeoman in front of her as the full force of the discharge conducted down his sword into his body.
The first thing Hal became aware of was the feeling of grass tickling his face as he turned his head slightly. Slowly opening his eyes he let out a low moan from the brightness of the light and the headache that assaulted his senses, which forced his eyes closed for a few minutes before he felt confident enough to open them again. When he did manage to open his eyes and had pulled himself up onto his elbows, he was gratified to see that once he had stopped moving his blurred vision began to clear sufficiently to start identifying specific shapes in the clearing around him.
"Don't make any sudden moves. It's going to take a few minutes more before the healing stone has run its course," said a voice from out of his line of sight.
"What happened?" asked Hal to his mystery benefactor, his dry throat reducing his words to a hoarse whisper.
"We're alive and free. Whether that is the same as winning is debatable," said the voice.
Hal heard the sound of a stopper being removed and gratefully accepted the hardened leather canteen that was offered to him. Gulping down the water greedily, he felt clarity return to his thoughts and senses with each mouthful of cool water. Hal gingerly felt the side of his head with his free hand, gently probing where the source of the pain came from. He could feel the mass of wet matted hair that signified where the sword blade had struck him and marvelled that other than some blood and dull pain, the head wound seemed comparatively minor. Taking confidence from this as a sign that he could chance moving his head without aggravating a head wound, he turned slightly to find out the identity of his mystery benefactor. Hal was surprised to see the younger of the two yeomen that had greeted his parents crouching behind him and he returned the canteen back him, risking a tiny nod of his head in gratitude for the water. The young yeoman's tunic and tabard was heavily bloodstained over the right side of his chest and two pronounced holes could be seen at the centre of the blood stain.
"Do you feel able to stand?"
Hal nodded his head once more with a slight grimace and braced himself against the young yeoman lieutenant as he helped him to his feet. Looking around the clearing properly for the first time since the fight had started, Hal saw four horses in yeomen livery quietly grazing. Scattered around the clearing Hal saw a matching number of bodies wearing the uniforms of the yeomanry lying in the grass and he noted that one of them was the man who his parents had called Tom. The crossbow bolts sticking from his chest indicated that like Hal's father, his role in the encounter had been all too brief. Hal tried to remember how Thomas had died but found that his recollection the fight was still a little hazy.
"You must be a skilled swordsman to kill all those men on your own," said Hal, signalling with his hand away from Thomas's body towards the three dead yeomen lying a couple of metres from him. In reply, the lieutenant cleared his throat with a hint of embarrassment before speaking.
"No. Shortly after you were knocked unconscious by a rather vicious blow to the head, I took a crossbow bolt to the chest that kept me out of the fight for a while."
"Well who did then? My father couldn't as he..." Hal bit back the emotion swelling in his throat and was silent in anguish for a few seconds before continuing.
"Your major is some distance from these bodies. If I was unconscious and you were unable to fight that would only leave my mother and she is hardly the sort of woman who could..." Hal trailed off as he recalled the earlier conversation between his parents and the yeoman major about his mother being the lost Heir to the High Throne. The lost male Heir. With a quizzical expression on his face he once again looked around the clearing.
"Where is my mother?" asked Hal.
A grimace crossed Fairfax's face before he replied. "Sergeant Ackers has her. She blindsided the Princess when she was fighting the third yeoman. Ackers wasn't aware that I had a healing stone on me and assumed that while my wounds weren't of themselves immediately fatal, I would have died in a few days without a weaver to staunch the bleeding inside me."
Fairfax gently pulled at a leather cord around Hal's neck until a glowing blue pebble emerged through the open neck of his tunic. Tentatively, Hal reached up and grasped the pebble, feeling an energising warmth course through his body as the skin of his fingers touched it.
"This saved my life and saved you from disfiguring injury and possibly even death. The sword blow you took nearly severed your ear and would have left you with prominent scaring without the healing stone," said Fairfax.
Hal felt the extent of the sticky matted hair on the side of his head and gently traced his finger around his ear trying to gauge the full extent of his healed injury. Realising just how bad it would have been, Hal could not help but stare in wonder at the healing stone, watching it as it pulsed in time with his own heartbeat. By all accounts he realised, he should be unconscious and bleeding to death right now.
The thought occurred to him that if it could work such wonder on him it might be able to save others with far worse injuries. In part desperation, part inspiration he pointed to the body of his father.
"Could this bring him back?" asked Hal, his voice tinged with need and hope. In reply Fairfax just shook his head.
"Why? Why can this save you and I from such injuries but not him?"
Fairfax closed his eyes and let out a long exhale of air before he spoke. "I'm sorry. Truly. But it's a healing stone not a life stone. The soul still needs to be with the body for healing to occur and your father has been dead for too long now. As it was I was only just able to use the stone. Another few minutes and I'd have lost to much blood for it to work."
Fairfax stood in silence watching as Hal knelt beside the body of his father and said his farewells. He couldn't help but feel envious of the apparent loving relationship between Hal and his father, which was such a contrast to the cold, formal relationship he had with his own. That had all changed when his father secured an application to the Academy for him and he met Sir Thomas Albany. Thomas had taken the 15 year old aspirant cadet under his wing and had guided his career, shaping him into the man he was today in the process and giving him a surrogate father figure. He never realised the true depth of his feelings towards Sir Thomas until the moment in this very clearing that he had been made to choose between his honour as a yeoman and the man he loved like a father. Yet, despite standing there in the clearing as an oath breaker, the worst dishonour that a yeoman could have, Fairfax would not change his actions. Although he felt truly shamed to have broken his oath to the High Queen, he felt the shame of being disloyal to Sir Thomas would have weighed heavier on his heart.
"...I said, do you have any suggestions as what we are going to do next?" asked Hal, interrupting Fairfax's thoughts.
"Next? There is no next. At least for me," said Fairfax in a voice strangely absent of emotion, almost as if he were discussing events unrelated to himself. "As a yeoman I'm oath broken. My name will be read out among the ranks of the dishonoured in the Great Hall and a bounty placed upon my head. No one can give me shelter or succour on pain of death. The only way my honour may be reclaimed would be for a member of the High Family to accept my sword in service so that my dishonour may be forgiven or to cleanse my dishonour at my own hands..."
Grabbing his tabard by the neck with both hands, Fairfax ripped the material apart discarding the tattered red and white cloth at his feet. "I would not change my actions today but I do regret them. I must therefore accept that I have no right to wear this uniform."
Hal recognised the man's shame although he lacked the militaristic upbringing of the yeoman to truly understand it. The martial nature of the yeomanry contrast with the more relaxed upbringing given to him by his own parents. A particular expression his father seemed so fond of using came to mind, which was that 'failure was just the á‰se's way of giving you another chance to succeed'. The reminiscing about his father brought Hal's mind back to the present and he once more gazed upon the prone form of his father.
The thought occurred to him that he could not have dreamed of a more unreal chain of events than he now found himself immersed up to his neck in. This morning he had planned nothing more than attending his chores with the aurochs and practicing his blade work. Now his father was dead, his mother missing and his sisters and brother were gods only know where. And seemingly to compound the unreality of the moment, his mother it seemed was also the rightful male heir to the High Throne. His mother, the legendary 'Wynter Lion'.
Every child in the Heptarchy knew the fable of the heroic Prince Henry who had disappeared in pursuit of a kidnapped Princess and who would one day return to assume the throne and lead the Angelcyn people to greatness. As a child he had never understood his father's unease with the fable, yet now he knew why it was so. It seemed so preposterous that words couldn't even describe it. His mother, this woman who doted on her children and who was never happier than when in the arms of her husband was the Heir. This woman who wore her heart on her sleeve and was prone to laughing or crying at the drop of a hat, was the lost semi-mythical warrior king of the Angelcyn. And even more unreal, Hal thought, he himself was the heir to two thrones - the throne of the Kingdom of Cantia, the very kingdom in which he was born and raised, and the High Throne itself.
The High Throne. A glimmer of an idea began to form in Hal's mind. However, any further thought on the matter was interrupted by a loud gasp from the body of Sir Thomas. His body spasmed to life for a moment before his hands frantically clawed at the crossbow bolts in his chest until they were dislodged. Once the bolts were removed, Sir Thomas's form collapsed back into inactivity save the rising and falling of his chest as he gulped air with a rasping sound into dry lungs.
"Thunor protect us!" exclaimed Hal at the sight. The two young men looked at each other in mute shock before warily advancing to the prone form of Sir Thomas.
"Your master is weaver gifted?" whispered Hal in awe.
"No. The closest he has ever come to being weaver gifted was the six months he wooed Synnove," whispered Fairfax in reply. At the look of confusion on Hal's face he sought to provide further clarification. "She is an apprentice to the Royal Weaver."
"Then how is he alive?" asked Hal prodding the body of Sir Thomas gently with his boot. A startled cry escaped from Hal's lips when Thomas's hand pushed Hal's boot away from him. Warily kneeling next to him, Fairfax noticed a faint glow coming through Sir Thomas's tabard. His fingers carefully undid the top button on Sir Thomas's tunic and pulled out a polished rectangular black stone engraved in words from the Old World tongue. The dull red glow it gave seemed to be drawn back into Sir Thomas with every breath he took.
"It's a life stone," murmured Fairfax in almost reverential tones. "They glow bright green when fully charged and turn matt black when discharged." Looking up at Hal, a smile crept across his lips. "That sneaky bastard got a life stone from Synnove. Do you have any idea how precious these are? They are reserved explicitly for the High Family and the most senior priests and weavers."
Hal knelt down on the other side of Sir Thomas. "My father...maybe it would work on him too?" He reached out to grasp it only for Fairfax to close his hand firmly around Hal's wrist.
"Don't. We have no idea if it has healed him fully. He may need the entire charge."
"It's a risk I'm prepared to take if it would mean my father were to live again. Thomas breathes as we speak, so it probably won't kill him if I removed it. Let go of my hand, yeoman."
Fairfax's expression set in anger as he locked eyes with Hal. "Make me, farm boy."
"Stop it now," said Thomas, his voice dry and hoarse but still strong.
"Take this," said Thomas pulling the life stone from his neck with great effort. "Daniel was like a brother to me. If this helps him at my expense, so be it. I have terribly wronged him and his family today. However, I fear it is too late for him. If his soul has crossed over he may not be recoverable."
In retaliation, Fairfax grasped the pulsating blue pebble hanging around Hal's neck and pulled the chord hard, freeing it.
"Fair exchange," said Fairfax, anger palpable in his voice. He leant down and tied the cords around Sir Thomas's neck, watching as colour flowed back into his pallid cheeks as soon as he placed the healing stone against him.
Hal's headache returned as the healing stone was secured around Sir Thomas's neck. Gritting his teeth he made his way over to his father's body and secured the life stone firmly around his neck. Taking a seat next to his father's body, he laced his fingers together in silent prayer to the á‰se.
Sergeant-at-Arms Ackers pulled her horse, and by extension the horse tethered to her mount, to a halt as she rounded the bend on the track leading from the cottage to the lower pastures. The scene in front was the last thing she expected, with the bodies of two dead yeoman laid out on the track, one of whom had substantial burns to his body. She noted that a yeoman was in the process of wrapping the other body in his saddle blanket for transport to a location at which he could be properly buried indicating that the immediate conflict, whatever that may have been, was over. On spotting the senior yeoman present, she gently spurred her horse forward until she came to halt a few metres away from a yeoman tending to the injured arm of another yeoman.
"Corporal Wyndham? What has happened here?" she asked. In reply, the yeoman ceased his work bandaging the arm of the injured yeoman and pulled himself to his feet.
"We encountered a weaver bitch. She fried Sergeant Landon and Yeoman Smith cracked his skull open after being flung into a tree when her damn weaver bow exploded," stated the corporal pointing in the direction of two dead yeoman. "Yeomen Hawkins and Lang also received minor burns and bruising when the bow exploded."
"The weaver?"
"We can't find her. I'm guessing she was also flung clear by the explosion as well, otherwise she'd wouldn't have left him behind." Corporal Wyndham gestured back towards the yeomen's horses where the final of the six yeoman was tying a young boy's hands to one of the horses.
"Well, well..." murmured Sergeant Ackers, noting the family resemblance of the prisoner with that of her own captive. "Maybe today is my lucky day."
"Begging your pardon, Sergeant. Where are the others?" asked the corporal.
"Dead. We also encountered weaver trouble," replied Ackers, schooling her expression in a display of remorse. She knew that the average yeoman's distrust of weavers would probably be enough to discourage further discussion on the matter, particularly given their own recent encounter with one skilled in the weaver arts. It occurred to her that maybe she could even work it to her advantage if she spun it right.
"Sir Thomas managed to save a prisoner from them before his death. His orders were for me to take her immediately to Lake Vortigern."
A confused look came over the corporal's face as he looked up at his mounted superior. "Sergeant, surely Lake Vortigern is taking us further away from the bulk of our regiment and deeper into Cantia. Would it not be better to make for the Avalon Road with most haste?"
"Lake Vertigern is about two days eastwards, I know. However, Sir Thomas's orders were very specific on the matter and it is not for the likes of us to question the Queen's Champion. I'm sure he had knowledge of matters we do not."
Acker's stared at the boy for a moment in thought before turning her attention back to Corporal Wyndham. "Send one of your men back to Lieutenant Bathurst in Wye with the bodies of our brother yeomen. The rest of us will proceed with haste to Lake Vertigern. That way, if there has been a change of orders, the lieutenant can send yeoman to meet us at the lake."
Corporal Wyndham nodded his head in acknowledgement, grateful that the Sergeant had heeded his concerns and set about preparing his yeomen for departure. Once she was satisfied that the corporal had matters in hand she rode her horse over the young prisoner, dismissing the guarding yeoman as she pulled her horse to a halt.
"What is your name boy?" she asked.
When he didn't reply, she leant forward to press her hand against his bandaged knee. Acker's was gratified to hear a suppressed squeal of pain through the boy's gritted teeth.
"I'll ask you one more time boy. What's your name?"
"Noah," he sullenly replied.
"How old are you?" she asked. Noah initially hesitated in responding to her until she pressed once more against his knee. This time she added more of her strength to it and only stopped when she saw a tear run down his cheek.
"How old are you?" she asked once more, her voice remaining calm and even in tone.
"Fourteen."
"Well Noah, I'm Sergeant Ackers. I killed your father and brother and I've captured your mother. Unless you do as I say, I will not hesitate to kill her too. Do we have an understanding?" Ackers struggled to keep herself from grinning as the boy deflated when she tugged the reins of the second horse and brought the body of Georgina into view. A simple nod of his head indicated his acquiescence to her demands.
"Smart lad. Now listen closely..."
To be continued...
Firstly, sorry for the delay to the few remaining readers I prolly have!! I had real problems writing one of the sword fight scenes because it seemed quickly to become repetitive. It's amazing how difficult I found to write something I could picture so clearly! I also needed to tweak one of the characters because I feared he was in danger of becoming interchangable with another from the dialogue. I hope I've now achieved that. I'm posting this chapter at the same time on both here and stardust because of the delay between chapters but intend to try and crack on and get chapter four back on track.
Anyway, thanks for reading this far!
Prince Henry Wynter was the Heir to the High Throne of the Heptarchy and prophesised to one day lead his people to unparalleled greatness. Twenty two years after he abandoned his destiny and his throne for the chance to be the person he felt he was meant to be, he finds that Fate has not yet finished with him. The events surrounding the proposed appointment of a new Heir to the High Throne have consequences that reach as far the remote farmstead refuge of the former prince and threaten to destroy the new life that she has built for herself.
Previously...
"It's a life stone," murmured Fairfax in almost reverential tones. "They glow bright green when fully charged and turn matt black when discharged." Looking up at Hal, a smile crept across his lips. "That sneaky bastard got a life stone from Synnove. Do you have any idea how precious these are? They are reserved explicitly for the High Family and the most senior priests and weavers."
Hal knelt down on the other side of Sir Thomas. "My father...maybe it would work on him too?" He reached out to grasp it only for Fairfax to close his hand firmly around Hal's wrist.
"Don't. We have no idea if it has healed him fully. He may need the entire charge."
"It's a risk I'm prepared to take if it would mean my father were to live again. Thomas breathes as we speak, so it probably won't kill him if I removed it. Let go of my hand, yeoman."
Fairfax's expression set in anger as he locked eyes with Hal. "Make me, farm boy."
"Stop it now," said Thomas, his voice dry and hoarse but still strong.
"Take this," said Thomas pulling the life stone from his neck with great effort. "Daniel was like a brother to me. If this helps him at my expense, so be it. I have terribly wronged him and his family today. However, I fear it is too late for him. If his soul has crossed over he may not be recoverable."
In retaliation, Fairfax grasped the pulsating blue pebble hanging around Hal's neck and pulled the chord hard, freeing it.
"Fair exchange," said Fairfax, anger palpable in his voice. He leant down and tied the cords around Sir Thomas's neck, watching as colour flowed back into his pallid cheeks as soon as he placed the healing stone against him.
Hal's headache returned as the healing stone was secured around Sir Thomas's neck. Gritting his teeth he made his way over to his father's body and secured the life stone firmly around his neck. Taking a seat next to his father's body, he laced his fingers together in silent prayer to the á‰se.
A farmstead cottage on the slopes of the Downs Mountain Range, Kingdom of Cantia
10 August EY 2451 (20 years ago)
Prince Henry Wynter lived a life governed by elaborate rules of etiquette and privilege. As the heir to the High Throne he was immersed in the courtly life at the Wynter Palace from before he was born and fed a steady diet of discipline, duty and respect. If he wanted for anything he had but to ask a courtier and it would be so done and the finest minds in the Heptarchy were available at his beck and call should he need their counsel. His every interaction was governed by conventions setting out in detail how he should respond to people based on their rank and station. Indeed, volumes had been written over the rules that governed such a simple act as greeting him in the Wynter Palace's presence chamber, the room where guests and assemblies were formally received.
As a member of the Yeomanry of the Household life was no different with a strict hierarchical command structure governing interaction between the ranks of the yeomanry. Whether on the battlefield or at a banquet or ball, for the young prince the privileges and duties of rank and station were inescapable. On top of this were the very specific expectations that the Angelcyn people had when it came to their High-Kings or High-Queens. Prince Henry, much to his displeasure, had been raised to be a warrior-king who when the time came would not shrink from driving his enemies from the field with the fluttering banner of the white dragon in one hand and the finest Angelcyn made steel in the other. This image was spoon-fed to him every day through every subject he studied and every activity he undertook. His philosophy teacher, Yeoman Major Martinson, had been very clear in his teachings that 'peace', 'negotiation' and 'compromise' were words used by the defeated or soon to be defeated party and Angelcyn kings had no need of such expressions when a single word summed up all they needed to offer their people. 'Victory'.
However, that had all ended on the day when Daniel had saved Prince Henry from his father's intended version of his future in favour of the future Henry had so desperately wanted and needed to live. As Georgina, runaway princess, the constraints of duty and expectation were cast aside in the name of living free. In this new world, the only obligations she had were those borne of choice, such as her decision to marry Daniel and trade her surname of Wynter for his of Amherst.
At times however, she feared her life at court had institutionalised her, making her too dependent on other people setting the rules of her world. In those moments, she would embrace her freedom to be frivolous, unpredictable and adventurous just to prove that she wasn't institutionalised. She knew Daniel viewed such moments with a mixture of horror and bemusement, depending on how successful she was in her latest endeavour. The one thing Georgina didn't do however was give up, for underneath the exterior of the newly married farmer's wife Georgina still couldn't completely shake her upbringing and the word 'defeat' was not a word in her vocabulary. Whether her opponent was a rebellious noble on the field of battle or stubbornly flat bread in her oven, Georgina embraced the challenge with the same determination.
The product of such reckless adventurousness had led her to the situation she found herself in at this moment. Daniel had been moaning about his hair, which after nearly two years was far beyond that permitted under yeomanry regulations but he stubbornly refused to risk journeying into the nearest village that had a barber. This had led to her latest impetuous pronouncement and her now being in the position of seriously considering expanding her lexicon by one word as she viewed the back of her husband's head. Trying desperately not to focus on the uneven lines cut into his hair, she hesitantly turned the unfamiliar hinged blades in her hand slowly from side to side as she sought to gain an appreciation for their balance, irritated at how clumsy she had felt in her first attempt at using them.
She knew most of the tension she felt wasn't due to her unfamiliarity with the blades of the scissors. Her martial upbringing had discovered a rare talent with any bladed weapon and even something new like scissors she knew she would eventually master. Rather, the problem was her inability to focus on the task at hand as another more significant matter weighed far heavier on her mind. However, she knew that until she worked out how to express it to Daniel, she would have to try and focus as best she could on his hair.
Closing her eyes briefly, Georgina let out a cleansing breath of air as her sword master, Sir Hugh Leyton, had taught her and she once more prepared to do battle. With her right hand she smoothly raised the scissors so that they hovered above Daniel's head like a sparrowhawk hunting for prey, while with her left hand the tips of Georgina's fingers danced lightly across Daniel's scalp teasing first one grouping of hair strands and then another before pausing over a particularly thick strand that seemed to take her fancy. Gently she plucked at the base of the hair with her index and middle fingers before sweeping down across a stubble covered cheek as she traced the wayward strand of dark brown hair, only stopping when she reached what she adjudged to be a centimetre or so from the end. Her face a mask of concentration, she tilted her head to each side to appraise the cutting point before slowly closing the blades of the scissors over the strand of hair with a crisp snip, the unwanted hair tumbled to the stone floor.
Satisfied with the cut, her fingers resumed their wandering across Daniel's scalp before settling on one of the spiky strands emanating from the crown of his head. Once she had the fullness of the strand trapped between her fingers, she first pushed it one way and then the other before she traced the hair to what she gauged to be the best cutting point. The sound of the scissors closing over its target was the only sound in the room other than Daniel's slow breathing and a gentle bubbling from a nearby cooking pot. Releasing the shorn strand, she gently swirled Daniel's crown of hair with her finger tips as she stroked his hair flat.
Taking a half step back to view her work, Georgina pressed her lips together in a pout as the strand of shortened hair rebelliously taunted her by standing proud despite being trimmed. In retaliation she snipped at the offending hair a second time, this time not using her fingers as guide to the cutting point. A brief pause and re-examination let to a third cut. And then a fourth. Gazing upon her work, she let out a low growl.
"Maybe..." said Daniel, pausing to clear his throat but not daring to move his head less he lose an ear to Georgina's scissors. "Maybe I should take the risk and go to the barber in Sarsen after all?"
"No!" said Georgina indignantly. "You chose not to remember. Besides, this is not going to beat me."
"Before or after you've cut a bald patch into my crown?" said Daniel, thankful that Georgina was behind him so that she couldn't see the grin on his face.
"OW!"
"That is for laughing at me."
"You're behind me, so how on Eorá°e would you know what I'm doing," said Daniel rubbing his ear. "Or even not doing," he added hastily.
"I am your wife. I know these things."
"Why is it in the fairytales Prince Charming gets the simpering happily domesticated princess while I get the unreasonably violent magical princess who can't cook," muttered Daniel under his breath.
"OW!"
"That is for muttering."
"Do you have to keep doing that?" grumbled Daniel rubbing his other ear.
"Awwwwww. I am sorry sweetie," said Georgina lightly kissing the top of Daniel's head. "But you did bring it on yourself by marrying me..."
Daniel let out a short laugh in response, letting some of the tension flow from his body. "Yeah. I should've seen the warning signs at our handfasting ceremony when you asked if there was enough rope to tie my other hand as well."
"Well, I could not have you getting away now could I?"
"Guess you're stuck with me then," said Daniel tilted his head so that the back of it rested against the top of the chair so that he could look up at his wife. Their lips touched tenderly as Georgina leaned forward and Daniel inhaled the faint strawberry smell that he had come to associate with his wife as her hair fell across his face. Slowly pulling back from the kiss, Georgina smiled shyly at Daniel before carefully easing his head back into an upright position.
Her fingers once more caressed his scalp seeking another strand of hair to trim and the couple slipped into a shared sense of silent contentment. When Daniel hesitantly broke the silence, his voice adopted a tone similar to that a rider might use when coaxing a skittish mare.
"Gina, I know we haven't seen any yeomen on the plains since the last harvest, but we still need to be careful."
Georgina felt Daniel jump in surprise as she hugged him in a tight embrace, resting her head on his shoulder. She could almost fancy she saw goosebumps rise on his skin as she kissed his neck.
Daniel reached up and touched her arm and the two lovers remained locked in a silent embrace.
"I love it here, Danny. Honestly I do. I am truly happy here. It is just sometimes...sometimes when you are out working on the farm I grow bored and miss the company of other people. All my life, there have been people around me. It is just taking time to get used to this. As long as I have you though, that's all that matters."
Daniel absently stroked his wife's arm as he digested her words.
"I'll tell you what, Gina. If we don't see any more yeomen between now and the harvest festival we'll go into Sarsen with the Paxton's to celebrate it this year. Deal?"
A little squeal of joy escaped from Georgina in response and she squeezed her husband with all her might before releasing him. Once she had calmed down, Georgina could not stop the smile pulling at the corner of her lips as she thought about how old man Martinson would have viewed her willingness to accept a compromise rather than pushing for her view to dominate. But then, she thought ruefully, he hadn't ever been married to the best of her knowledge, otherwise he would have known that marriage involved compromise, negotiation and peace if it was to work. She leaned forward to kiss Daniel on the cheek again, before repositioning his head to continue cutting his hair.
"I would ideally like to keep both my ears if you need a styling tip," said Daniel.
"Shush you. This is going to be perfect when I am finished. Now keep still."
Georgina switched her attention to the left side of Daniel's head focusing on the shorter strands at the top of his head first, slowly moving down towards his ear. Despite her best efforts however, her attention still kept drifting back to the spike of hair defying her will and she had to restrain herself from making a further cut at it.
"So what did you do while I was in the upper pasture this morning?" asked Daniel breaking the silence.
"Oh, the usual. Housework...tended to the hens... I am also thinking of getting you to clear space for a second vegetable patch near the stables, as the one we have is only just meeting our needs as it is at the moment."
"Sounds as boring as my morning herding the sheep," chuckled Daniel.
"Pretty much."
Georgina paused in her work for a moment, biting the corner of her lower lip as she contemplated whether this was the right time to try and express to Daniel the issue that was really troubling her. In the back of her mind she could hear Major Martinson urging her that hesitation was for the weak and that the victor seized the day.
"Mistress Matthews did drop by earlier."
"Matthews...She's the weaver from over in Little Broxbourne isn't she? I thought Master Morley covers this side of the mountains?"
"Yes, but he is not a trained physic, so she helps him in midwifery matters."
"Well then, her weaver gift clearly didn't grant her a sense of direction if she ended up here," chuckled Daniel. "You told her how to get back down to the plains? If she was out this way, I guess that Ambrose has got Jeanie pregnant again?"
Georgina had been rehearsing this moment all morning but found herself torn by conflicting emotions now the time had come. A feeling of light headedness overcame her and she closed her eyes to stop the room from visibly spinning. Subconsciously, her left hand lightly touched her lower abdomen. How long she stood like that she didn't know. The only clue that Georgina had to any time passing was when she felt Daniel's hand close around hers. The rough skin of his palms pressed against the back of her right hand as he gently freed the scissors from her grasp and placed them on the wooden table to which the chair he had been sitting on belonged. Georgina opened her eyes, her vision blurry with tears she hadn't been aware she was shedding and tackled him in a tight hug letting out the tension she felt in a tear filled bawl.
"Shhhh. It's okay 'Blanchefleur'. If the á‰se choose in their wisdom not to bless us with children, I don't care as long as I have you. Anyway, there is nothing to stop us being involved with the Paxton's children. Jeanie is often saying she wants you to call over more often."
Georgina desperately wanted to correct Daniel's misunderstanding as to why she was crying. However, she found that the diaphragm wracking sobs she was experiencing had reduced her capacity to speak to a fleeting window of time too short to do anything in but babble incoherently. Instead, Georgina held Daniel as tight as she could, letting her warm tears wash away the fear until the front of his tunic had become wet and sticky where her eyes and nose pressed against it. Daniel gently rubbed her back and whispered how much he loved her until she managed to get her tears under some semblance of control. Snuggled against her husband's broad chest seeking out a dry patch before speaking, her voice was nasally and hoarse from the crying.
"You know how hard it is to visit Ambrose and Jeanie. They are two hour's ride away as it is and both of us have duties to attend to on our farms. Besides, given I am the one who is pregnant, I think the least they could do is visit us."
"Pregnant?" whispered Daniel after a pause.
"Yes," said Georgina, as she listened to her husband's heart rate increase from her position resting against his chest. "Are you... pleased?".
"You're absolutely sure you're pregnant?"
"Honestly? No. It seems like something from a dream. However, Mistress Matthews was adamant. And there have been a few other...physical...things that made me suspicious enough to ask Jeanie to send her over when she next came to check up on Jeanie's youngest. But, you are pleased...right?"
In response, Daniel gently squeezed her before releasing her from his grip and cupping her face in his hands.
"Pleased? Of course I'm pleased!"
Daniel lent down and kissed Georgina with a kiss she felt was far too short for her liking. Looking up at him she saw that infectious grin of his dancing across his face. 'That's the look that got me pregnant in the first place' she thought with a sigh.
"I was saving that last good bottle of wine until our next wedding anniversary but I think we have cause to celebrate with it now, don't you?" said Daniel. "You get the glasses, I'll get the bottle from the cellar."
Georgina saw Daniel through the open door of the kitchen as he stopped to look at his reflection in the small hall mirror.
"Y'know...Actually, I think I might try growing my hair longer after all," he called back to her after examining her handiwork. In response she just laughed.
The Wynter Palace, Isle of Avalon
Tiw's Day 23 April EY 2471 - Late Afternoon (The Present)
The deep amber tinged light of the sun seeped through the French doors lining the west wall casting shadows across the sombrely dressed group of men and women sitting around the large rectangular oak table that dominated the room. The back of each heavy set chair was decorated with a simple red oval in which sat the passant white dragon of the Angelcyn, its stride halted by a raised clawed front leg. A mixture of servants and court bureaucrats flitted around the table, the cacophony of colours of their outfits contrasting against the uniformity of blacks, browns and whites of the seated.
A loud double rap at the great gilded oak double doors of the room silenced the gentle murmurs of whispered conversations amongst those present. As the great doors slowly swung open, the sound of a dozen chairs could be heard scraping against the tiles as each of the seated rose to their feet.
"My Lords and Ladies of the Privy Council, be upstanding for His Most Royal Majesty High-King Henry II, King of the Angelcyn, Ruler of the Heptarchy, Duke of Gallia Aquitania and Lord of the Isle of Avalon."
The silence of the chamber was disturbed by the sound of a small falconry bell jingling as the High-King entered, striding across the room towards an empty wooden chair at the head of the table that was only distinguished from the others by its higher back. The High-King still clad in the muted browns and greens of his hunting clothes contrasted with the two colourfully clad figures walking a respectful distance behind him, figures that the falcon resting on his gloved left hand strained to keep watch upon.
"Apologies for the delay, my most loyal Privy Councillors. Regretfully, affairs of state prevented my exercising 'Winged Victory' this morning as I would normally," said King Henry with a broad smile.
As the High-King neared his chair, he flicked his wrist sending the falcon on his glove soaring into the air to circle the room. Once the High-King was seated by waiting servants, the grey haired Chamberlin of the Household responded to an almost imperceptible nod of the High-King's head with the level of understanding only gained through years of service. Clapping his hands he signalled to the servants and staff to leave the chamber before finally assuming his position a discreet distance behind the High-King's chair.
The King reached for an ornate gold ewer and poured the wine within it into a crystal goblet in front of him. Taking a long drink from the goblet, he signalled to the standing Privy Councillors at the table for them to be seated as he himself slouched down against the velvet covered padding of his chair.
"My Lords, as Lord President of the Privy Council, I declare the Council to be in session. Getting down to business, may I ask the Lord High Constable if he has anything new to add concerning the activities of the Queen's Yeomanry?"
The assembled council turned as one to look at the Lord High Constable, who shuffled a few parchments in front of him seeking the document he needed. Taking a sip from his own goblet of wine, he spoke with a clarity and projection of voice associated with decades of issuing orders over the din of the battlefield.
"My King, as per the last report I received this morning I can advise that the Queen's Yeomanry continue to search with little avail, if we are to assume they are searching for the Heir. I have two regiments of the King's Yeomanry arriving at the borders of Cantia within the next two days and the frigate's Valiant and Indomitable entered the Kingdom of Cantia's territorial boundaries late yesterday. Should the Queen's Yeomanry find the Heir not only will we know about it but you will have a range of options at your disposal."
"Is there any sign that Cantia's forces are mobilising in response?"
"None. Cantia's Militia remains in its barracks and the irregular Fyrd have not been called to arms. They appear to be unaware of our forces activity."
"Thank you Lord Sommers. I'm sure that Lord Cavanaugh appreciates the brevity of your updates as much as I do. It gives him less to remember when he reports them back to the Queen, eh?" said the King, a sly smile crossing his face.
The quiet chuckle that rippled around the table competed with the spluttering protestations from Lord Cavanaugh, his crimson face a similar shade to that of his thinning red hair. Holding his hand up to still the noise, the King winked at Lord Cavanaugh before continuing.
"I tease you in jest, my Lord High Steward. Your loyalty is never in question. It's just too much of a temptation to get a rise out of you. Moving onto other business, Earl Marshal how goes the preparations for the anniversary of my ascension to the throne?"
Like many of the men and women assembled at the table, the young Lady Alice de Clare owed her position to King Henry's patronage. As a junior advocate at the Court of Chivalry, she had worked under Lord Edmondson, Earl of Meonwara and the previous Earl Marshal, building a reputation for fairness and efficiency. His tragic and unexpected death two months previously had led to her surprise appointment as the new Earl Marshal, despite her lack of seniority or title. She knew to her sorrow that many at the High Court attributed her rapid rise to her delicate yet pleasing features and ample bosom rather than her ferocious intellect and sense of fairness that her made her so successful at the Court of Chivalry. It was her sense of fairness however, that was now causing her problems as the King had made it very clear what he had expected from her and hinted darkly at the consequences of displeasing him.
Her added worry was that in pleasing the King she faced the prospect of displeasing a prince of the realm. She enjoyed the title of Countess of Meonwara and the associated lands that came with it and didn't wish to lose it all by upsetting the wrong member of the blood royal. Sitting at the table she desperately sought to avoid the unwavering stares from the two colourfully clad figures sitting either side of the King as she spoke.
"M-m-my King. The preparations are on course to celebrate the anniversary of your coronation on W-w-woden's Day the 15th of May."
"And the other matter?"
"My King?"
"The matter of Duke Richard's genealogy?"
"I-I-I have confirmed his genealogy, and by extension that of his mother Princess Alys, to be related to your ancestor High-King William II who reigned EY2043 to 2127, making them both descendants of the Blood Royal. In addition, as per your oath witnessed by a Priest of the á‰se and the Lord High Weaver, I can confirm Duke Richard to be your son making him a p-p-prince of the Blood Royal."
Pausing to take a drink from the goblet in front of her to steady her nerves under the cold stare of Prince Geoffrey sitting to the King's immediate right, the Lady Alice spat the contents out in shock as Lord Sommers thumped the table, causing a ringing of crystal to reverberate around the room.
"All hail Prince Richard! All hail Prince Richard!" cried Lord Sommers, the refrain being taken up by other members of the Privy Council with varying degrees of enthusiasm until the King Henry waved them into silence.
The King let out a hearty laugh as he watched Lady Alice dabbing at her black and white robes with her napkin, trying to blot the wine stain from them. When he spoke his voice contained the good humour for which he was renowned and Lady Alice could almost see the spray of freckles across his cheeks joining up as his smile creased his face.
"Earl Marshal, I must apologise for the Lord High Constable. His enthusiasm sometimes makes him forget that we aren't young yeomen at the mess table on campaign anymore and that there are certain expectations for the behaviour of Privy Councillors."
"My apologies, Lady Alice," said a less than contrite Lord Sommers offering his own napkin to Lady Alice. "My enthusiasm for the High King and his family sometimes gets the better of me. Please continue with your report."
Glancing at her heavily stained robe with its formerly white front panel, Lady Alice let out a deep sigh before continuing.
"M-m-my King, in addition the Du...Prince Richard...lodged a formal petition with my office yesterday morning seeking his inclusion in the line of succession. If you were to grant his petition, which given he was conceived outside of wedlock you have the option to decline, it would make Prince Richard by virtue of his birth in EY2431 to be...second...in line to the High Throne behind the current Heir, Prince Henry, and ahead of Prince Geoffrey born in EY2432, the current presumptive in the line of succession in the absence of his older brother."
"I so grant the petition."
"Father! This is an outrage!" cried Prince Geoffrey pushing his seat back as he stood, his right hand grasping for the sword absent from his belt. Anything else that Geoffrey might have said was cut off by a stinging open handed slap from his father, which knocked him back into his seat.
"You may be my son but you will never be High King!" snarled King Henry, standing over the cowed figure, who was busy trying to shield himself with his hands. "You have the same weakness of spirit that afflicted my uncle, High-King Stephen, and I did not save this throne by force of arms to see these lands plunged back into the anarchy of those times. None of you, not your sisters or your younger brother John, have shown the mettle needed to be High-King of the Angelcyn. Only Henry and Matilda came even close and she is dead and he is lost to us."
Turning in disgust, King Henry threw his napkin at his son who was cautiously wiping a trail of blood from the corner of his mouth. As King Henry slumped back into his chair, he placed his head in his hands and whispered under his breath a comment only heard by those closest seated to him.
"A true Heir would have beaten me to the ground for slapping him."
An uncomfortable silence filled the room until the High-King once more looked up at the assembled council.
"Earl Marshal. How long would it take for you to complete the proceedings necessary to make Prince Richard the presumptive Heir in the absence of his half-brother Prince Henry?"
Her answer already prepared for such a question, Lady Alice took a deep breath and spoke with a confidence absent from her previous words. The way Prince Geoffrey had responded to his father's rebuke being all the assurance she needed as to which prince to back in the succession.
"I can make the necessary arrangements and notices to make it both an anniversary of your coronation and the investiture of a new presumptive Heir on 15 May should it so please you, My King."
"It does so please me."
"As you say, so will it be done," stated Lady Alice in the time-honoured traditional response to a royal instruction.
"I have a further royal edict to make. From this day forward, I strip Prince Geoffrey of his seat on the Privy Council and instead, I award it to Prince Richard. Furthermore, unless the Earl Marshal wishes to exercise her constitutional right otherwise, I shall as of Woden's Day 15 May EY2471 anoint Prince Richard as not just the presumptive Heir but the next High-King on my death. Do you have any objection Earl Marshal?"
"As the Privy Council is aware, the Earl Marshal has the final say on all matters to do with the line of succession and the coronation of a new High-King. On my appointment to the position I sought to familiarise myself with all the laws concerning succession and can confirm that subject to the issuing of a proclamation of your intent, My King, and giving Prince Henry or any of his legitimate issue time to come forth and stake their claim, you may do so."
"In which case, Earl Marshal, I would instruct that such a proclamation be issued immediately giving the Heir and any issue he may have until Woden's Day 15 May to come forth."
"As you say, so will it be done," said Lady Alice, nodding her assent to the King.
To the resounding shouts of 'Gods Save Prince Richard' the King poured himself a large goblet of wine all the while watching the murderous look that Prince Geoffrey was giving Prince Richard sat opposite him. He half hoped that Geoffrey would show the backbone necessary to challenge Richard and settle the dispute for the throne in an honourable way with steel in hand. Either way, he thought, for the security of the realm one of his two sons would need to be dead long before his own death came to avoid a struggle for the throne.
A farmstead cottage on the slopes of the Downs Mountain Range, Kingdom of Cantia
Tiw's Day 23 April EY 2471 - Early Evening
Hal sat on the edge of his parent's bed starring at the sealed leather pouch in his hand. He had known about this since he was a young boy but had never expected to be opening it on his own, always imagining that his brothers and sisters would be gathered around him when the time came. Breaking the wax seal on the back he unfolded the pouch to reveal two letters, each with a ring tied to it by a gold ribbon which he recognised as the same ribbons as those used by his mother in her hair braids. The largest and thickest of the letters had his father's handwriting on it, addressed to Hal by his full birth name of Henry Daniel Amherst. The smaller of the letters had a much simpler inscription written on it in his mother's ornate copper plate script. It simply said 'to my baby boy'.
Holding his mother's letter to his face, he inhaled the faint smell of strawberries that he associated with the presence of his mother. Placing her letter to one side for a moment on the bed spread, he picked up his father's letter examining the signet ring tied to it. It came as no surprise to him after the events of earlier that day to see the royal seal of the House of Amherst on it, the rearing stallion of Cantia. Pulling the ribbon apart, he opened the letter and moved closer to the cold pure white light being emitted from the illumination stone sat in the centre of a lantern.
Jack Fairfax opened the stable style kitchen door to enter the cottages kitchen, wiping the dirt from his hands with an old rag he'd found in the stables. Pulling a chair out at the oak table he sat down opposite Sir Thomas and accepted the steaming cup of tea offered to him, embracing it with his open palms to savour the warmth of cup and drive out the chill of the late spring evening from his bones. Both men sat in silence for a few minutes, each reflecting on the day before Fairfax finally spoke.
"I've removed the tack and saddles of the horses of the dead yeomen and let them go on the upper slopes of the mountain pasture. With luck they won't be discovered for a while yet and that should delay questions about why yeomanry branded horses are running wild."
"The bodies of Acker's men?"
"I've thrown them into the river on the far side of the mountain. It's deep and fast flowing and should carry the bodies a considerable distance from the cottage before they come to any settlements. That side is heavily wooded anyway, so settlements are quite sparse. I personally would have preferred to have buried or burnt them but I honoured your wish that they not be in anyway easily associated with this cottage."
Sir Thomas smiled sadly at Fairfax, leaning back into his chair as he spoke. "I have destroyed a happy family home today and fear that this place will never know peace again thanks to my actions. I hope that one day another family will again call this cottage home and in that event I don't want to leave them the gift of unmarked graves if I can avoid it."
"If I may be so bold. This was always going to happen, Sir Thomas. If it wasn't us it would have been someone. Do you genuinely believe the High-Queen or the High-King would ever stop searching for the Heir, who is after all prophesised to lead us all to glory? Don't even get me started on what we have found here. The mere existence of that farm boy is in breach of the Founding Documents. If I recall the exact wording, it states that 'no King of the Angelcyn shall serve two masters' and being the heir to two thrones - Cantia and the High Throne - he does just that. They should be in Avalon accounting for their actions before the Star Chamber."
Sir Thomas frowned, placing his cup down on the table and took a long hard look at Jack before speaking. "If you feel this way, why did you break your oath and side with me?"
Jack blushed a deep crimson before speaking, looking at every part of the kitchen but that occupied by Sir Thomas.
"My father is a cold bastard whose only concern was duty and honour. Children should neither be seen nor heard. The only time he ever smiled at me was when I was selected for the Academy as a yeoman cadet. The only time. Do you know what his parting words to me were?"
Jack adopted a gruff tone of voice as he spoke next. "Don't disgrace me boy."
Resuming his normal tone of voice, he finally made eye contact with Sir Thomas. "And then I met you, the mighty Queen's Champion, at the Academy. I was a lost 15 year old with the legacy of my father's military successes hanging over me like the Old World tale of the Sword of Damocles. No one cared about me, it was all about whose son I was. Only you treated me as a real person rather than a legacy. You praised me when I succeeded and encouraged me when I failed. You taught me how to be a man not just a yeoman. How could I ever properly repay the man who choose to act like a father over the man who was my father but just saw me as a future officer? I would follow you in battle against the legendary Grendel if you commanded me or even if you didn't. I would tweak the noses of dragons and tilt forevermore at windmills if it pleased you. I would break my oath and act contrary to my very nature..."
Jack abruptly got up and walked to the kitchen sink, looking but not seeing out at the twilight darkened clearing in front of the cottage, lost in thought. He jumped in surprise as he felt a hand on his shoulder a few moments later and half turned his head to see Sir Thomas standing behind him. Turning back to stare out into the clearing, the two men stood in silence in the darkening room, Sir Thomas's hand never moving from Jack's shoulder.
Hal carefully folded his father's letter and put it back on the open leather pouch. The letter was very much his father in style - practical and thoughtful. It set out details of his father and mothers past, the present his parents found themselves in shortly after his birth and the contingency plans his father had made in case of discovery. Switching his attention to the ring that came with the letter, he pulled at the ribbon freeing it and placed it on his right ring finger.
"Goodbye Hal Stockbury, Hello Henry Daniel Amherst," he muttered under his breath as he examined the heavy gold signet ring on his hand. The ring much to his surprise had been a perfect fit, cementing the growing feeling that this was both his heritage and his future.
Hal gently tugged at the ribbon tied around his mothers envelope and couldn't help but smile as it slowly opened up like a blossoming flower to reveal the folded letter inside. The sight took him back to his childhood and the intricate origami shapes she had made to amuse her children. He remembered being a desperate six year old wanting to know how to make a hopping frog and the simple joy he and his mother shared when he successfully made his first one hop. Unfolding the letter, Hal couldn't help but admire her beautiful handwriting which he always felt made his angular lines look like the runes of the Norsemen in comparison to her flowing script. Unlike his father's letter, his mothers was short, only occupying a single side. Intensifying the brightness of the lantern, he began to read.
"My dear darling baby boy,
It seems so odd to write to you, the grown man, while you, the baby, are nursing at my breast in a sling even as I write this. I cannot help but wonder what sort of man you have become and what sort of mother I have been to you. A good one I hope. A better one than my own at the very least.
I find myself wondering as I look down at you whether you have younger brothers and sisters. Could I be so blessed to give your father the large family I know he wants? If this is the case, please tell them how much I love each and every one of them, for I cannot imagine this family as being anything other than filled with love and laughter.
You will know by now if you have read your father's letter that you are not Henry Stockbury but rather Lord Henry Amherst. That is the gift of your father's heritage to you and should secure your safety all the while you are among the Cantwara. My gift I fear is more of burden.
I was born 'His Royal Highness The Prince Henry George Wynter, Prince of the Angelcyn, Duke of Meonwara, Marquess of Lindsey, Earl of Wihtwara. The Wynter Lion.'
It seems like a life time ago.
This makes you a Prince of the Blood Royal and a descendant of the House of Wynter. This is also the burden I give to you, for it makes you a target for anyone coveting the High Throne for you are a threat to those with lesser claim and only I have a greater legitimate claim than you.
I know your father thinks it best you seek the protection of his parents, the King and Queen of Cantia, and there is merit in such a decision. However, I know my own parents and I give you this simple piece of advice.
Run.
Run for all you are worth and do not look back until you find yourself in either the Brythonic Islands to the west or across the Great Sea in the Septem Provincae. I was raised to be little more than an instrument of war. I do not want this life for you. Please heed my words for I could not bear for anything to happen to you. Live and be happy in peace.
I would ask one final thing of you, my angel. I would ask that you remember me as I truly am, your mother, and not as some prince you've never met.
I will love you always."
"I love you too, momma," whispered Hal as he traced his mother's signature with his finger. "Regardless of who you were born you are, and always shall be, my mother."
Picking up the ribbon with his mother's signet ring on it, he reached behind his neck with it and tied a strong knot in the ends before tucking it into his tunic. Now wasn't the time for this ring to be worn he felt in his heart for a reason he couldn't quite place. His parents had however left him other gifts he could use here and now he thought, as he walked over to the large dark wood chest that originally contained the leather pouch.
Inside, neatly folded was a faded velvet cloak of the finest material he had ever seen despite the rain spots that marked it. It had been upon this that the pouch had rested. However, under that was the real prizes, two swords of the finest workmanship he had ever encountered. Even the knights he had met in the sword contests at the festivals in Sarsen had nothing on these weapons.
The first was a blade fit for a King encased in a scabbard of snow white leather with ornate gold thread work woven into it. It's cruciform shape ending in a pommel containing the largest diamond he had ever seen. A light but elaborate basket hilt wove around one side of the cross guard protecting the base of the blade and enabling the sword to be held either in one hand or a hand-and-a-half configuration. The outline of a small white lion on the scabbard and the white, blue and gold ribbons tied around the pommel left Hal in no doubt that this was his mother's blade, the fabled 'Victory' for which no blade was said to be the equal of in the Heptarchy. Oddly, it felt lighter to the touch than a blade of its size should be. Yet it was the second blade that he found his eyes were drawn to, as if a voice was whispering in the back of his mind that the first blade was not for him.
The first thing about his father's sword that drew his eye was the elaborate swept hilt of a like unparalleled in Hals' experience. The metal twisted and flowed almost as if it was organic and even the slight chips in places that spoke of its use in combat couldn't detract from its beauty. The pommel at the end of the blade was inlaid with small red rubies to give a background against which a white silhouette of a rampant stallion could be clearly seen. In contrast to the first blade, the tan leather scabbard contained no ornamentation. Picking up the sword and its accompanying belt, Hal couldn't help marvel at how perfectly balanced and weighted it was. Releasing the clasp on his own sword belt, he dropped the sword that by the standard of festival competitions would be considered excellent, and in its place he secured his father's sword. Resting his hand on the pommel, Hal knew now what he needed to do.
"Did you find what you were looking for?" asked Sir Thomas as Hal entered the exercise hall that ran down one side of the 'u' shaped cottage building. He wondered if it was just the effect of the clean clothes he wore or something else that made Hal seem more at peace than he had earlier.
"Yes, thank you," said Hal, shuttering his lantern to deactivate the illumination stone within it as the hall was sufficiently lit by the glow of other lanterns hanging from the ceiling. "Has there been any change in my father's condition?"
Sir Thomas looked down at the body of his friend, laid out on a low trestle table, the dull red glow of the life stone visible on his chest.
"None. The life stone prevents the body from decaying and preserves it in a state somewhere between life and death but there appears to be no spark left of your father's soul to reanimate it. I'm sorry but we need to face the fact that Daniel isn't coming back to us."
Hal stopped on the opposite side of his father from Sir Thomas and rested an open palm against his father's chest, biting his lower lip as he gazed down at his father in a habit subconsciously picked up from his mother.
"Gods," whispered Sir Thomas gazing upon Hal. "It's unnerving how much you look like him. I mean her. No, I mean him. You look like Henry. I mean like your mother did...before..."
A smile broke out across Hal's face in response to the verbal knots Sir Thomas had tied himself in. "It's okay. It's not every day I find out my mother - your friend - is a legendary Prince of the Blood Royal. It's going to take me some time to get used to the concept of my mother as a warrior king and you some time to get used to the warrior king as my mother. I guess we'll just have to help each other get it right, won't we?"
Sir Thomas found Hal's infectious smile crossing to his own face. "You might look like Henr...your mother... used to but I get the feeling that there's a lot more of Daniel in you than first appearance would suggest."
"You may well be right. I've always had my father's practicality," said Hal with a quiet laugh.
The two men stood in silence, looking down at the body of Daniel both marvelling at the look of peace on his face as he laid as if in repose. After a few minutes, Hal finally broke the silence.
"I guess we haven't been formally introduced have we? I am, it seems, Prince Henry Daniel Amherst, Lord of Cantia and second-in-line to the Wynter Throne," said Hal extending his hand across the body of his father.
Sir Thomas bowed his head in acknowledgement of Hal's superior social status before grasping his hand at the wrist in a traditional yeoman's greeting.
"Sir Thomas Albany, for the moment Major and Queen's Champion in the Queen's Own Regiment of the Yeomanry of the Household. Soon to be a wanted criminal with a price on his head I fear."
"Call me Hal, Tom. If I may be so informal as to address you that way? I've decided what I intend to do next by the way if you are interested."
"Hoo-bloody-ray for you, farm boy" called out Jack from where his was learning against the doorframe of the entrance way to the hall watching the two men. "Maybe finally we can go. We've sat here in this cottage all afternoon. It's a miracle the place isn't swarming with yeomen."
"Lieutenant Fairfax, that will be enough! You will show respect for a member of the Blood Royal!"
"That's kind of the point though isn't it? As far as anyone is concerned we are both dead. I'm no longer a Lieutenant and neither are you a Major. Even in death we will be dishonoured because the moment Ackers returns to the regiment and reports our actions, our names will be read out amongst the ranks of the dishonoured in the Great Hall of the Wynter Palace. And if it ever becomes known that we are both alive, we will be dishonourably discharged with a price on our head. Just like farm boy over there will have his royal status, and probably his head, quashed the moment he shows up at the Wynter Palace. We need to bury the stiff and get out of here. Now."
Ignoring the scowl and rising anger on Sir Thomas's face, Jack turned to Hal and mockingly waving his hand before him as he mimed an elaborate bow. "Unless my Lord, you would wish otherwise?"
"Actually, Jack, you are almost right. We will get out of here. But not now. We will wait here until the morning to ensure that my brother and sisters have ample opportunity to return from wherever my mother no doubt sent them. We will then take 'the stiff' as you so eloquently referred to my father with us to Canterbury via a stop off at the barn in the lower pasture. And actually, thanks to the life stone, rigour mortis has yet to set in on my father. Once at Canterbury, I intend to see that my father is buried in one of the royal barrows in keeping with the customs of the Cantwara."
To the surprise of both men, Hal tugged at the white tabard he wore until he had pulled it over his head. A perplexed Jack glanced over at an equally confused Sir Thomas.
"Tell me Tom, did you always do what your mother asked of you?" said Hal.
"Err..no. Actually, I seem to remember quite often disobeying her. It was one of the reasons my family sent my application to the Academy rather than training me for my father's merchant business. They hoped it would instil discipline and a respect for orders in me. Uh...why do you ask?"
"Frankly, I can't remember a time when I ever disobeyed my mother. Until now. It's my intention to raise a force at Canterbury with which to free my mother and avenge my father rather than run and hide as she wished."
Hal stepped away from his father's body walking towards the door. As he pulled level with Jack, Hal thrust his tabard forcefully into Jack's hands.
"It's my understanding, Jack, that an oath broken yeoman can find redemption if a member of the High Family accepts his sword in service. Congratulations, Lieutenant Fairfax, you are now the first member of 'The Wynter Lionesses Own Regiment of the Yeomanry of the Household'. I'm sure my mother and I, as members of the High Family, will look favourably on your service and have your name removed from ranks of the dishonoured in the Great Hall if you serve us well."
Giving a speechless Jack his most smug smile, Hal glanced back at Sir Thomas. "There is of course an opening for the position of Princesses Champion and Major if you are interested, Sir Thomas?"
As he disappeared into the darkness of the hallway beyond the door, Hal heard the deep bass laughter of Sir Thomas.
To be continued...
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to either comment or pm me in respect of the Wynter Lioness. It's been hugely appreciated. As was the kudo for the last chapter. :-D I would also like to thank Persephone for both inspiring this with her stories and pointing me in the direction of Sol Stein's great book on writing. I'm still digesting his points and hopefully the next chapter might benefit from them.
This chapter is about double the length of a normal chapter and is therefore my justification for it being four weeks rather than two weeks after the last chapter. ;-) I might go with the larger chunk chapters instead of smaller ones, so updates may now be monthly but we'll see how the chapters develop in keeping with the plot structure I sketched out at the start.
So, without further ado, I hope that you enjoy this chapter and please feel free to comment!
Updated: 20/12/10 as I noticed writing Chapter 6 a paragraph of dialogue boxed me in more than intended and needed to be rewritten. Apologies!
Prince Henry Wynter was the Heir to the High Throne of the Heptarchy and prophesised to one day lead his people to unparalleled greatness. Twenty two years after he abandoned his destiny and his throne for the chance to be the person he felt he was meant to be, he finds that Fate has not yet finished with him. The events surrounding the proposed appointment of a new Heir to the High Throne have consequences that reach as far the remote farmstead refuge of the former prince and threaten to destroy the new life that she has built for herself.
The Wynter Palace, Isle of Avalon
Woden's Day 24 April EY 2471 - Mid-Morning
Synnove hated life at court with, as she had once raged to the Lord High Weaver, its duplicitous, arrogant, self-serving retinue of inbreeds that formed the high families of the Heptarchy. Were it not for the fact she was apprenticed to the Lord High Weaver she would have happily been anywhere else but the Wynter Palace. She understood why the Lord High Weaver as the Royal Weaver had to be close to the High Family but she looked forward to the ending of her apprenticeship in six months time and the freedom her ordination as Arch Weaver, second only to the Principal Weaver of her magical order, would grant her after nearly five years of study.
That however was in the future.
In the present Synnove found herself clenching her right hand tightly shut in frustration behind her head, grasping at the disorganised mop of blue tinged dreadlocks that contrasted surprisingly pleasingly with the warm brown of her skin. She watched as her latest visitor, a richly dressed woman who was in the process of an overly elaborate curtsey in front of her, prepared for whatever case she had dreamed up to persuade Synnove to weave her magic. Most of the supplicants she saw were politely referred to more junior members of her Order after their audience with only those who status demanded it or whose pleas warranted it, being attended to by Synnove directly.
That didn't stop them trying to get her to personally weave her magic for them though. Synnove's mastery of siden was renown throughout the High Court and had seen her become the youngest Master Weaver in her Order for four generations. Those supplicants lacking the required social status or genuine case and who were not pleased by the prospect of Synnove referring them to lesser weavers in her Order would often try to pre-empt her rejection by offering to buy her skills. Synnove usually rejected them outright, treating them with barely concealed distain. A few pompous individuals demanded her skills but were soon given a lesson in the levels influence that the Weaver Orders held at High Court. Most of these individuals found that a high ranking noble dependent on Synnove for their enhanced beauty would side with her in a heartbeat over some middle ranking member of the nobility.
The most foolish however tried to lie to gain access to her skills.
Synnove had already sent two supplicants away for trying to deceive her this very morning, the last left with a particularly painful set of boils that whilst not leaving any permanent mark would make sitting down impossible for a week. As her thoughts wandered Synnove found herself fighting the urge to drown the woman before her in her own bodily fluids, something that her weaver skill would have allowed her to do with little more than a flick of the wrist.
Taking a calming breath, Synnove closed her eyes and sought to bring peace to her spirit through opening her senses so that she could once again feel the natural rhythm of the sea lapping at the sands of a distant shore. In a few seconds Synnove felt her heart rate align to the rhythm and opening her eyes to focus her attention on the noblewoman before her, appraising the woman's appearance critically with eyes that saw far more than normal eyes.
The cut and materials of the woman's dress spoke of a skilled seamstress using design to gloss over the quality of materials. There was a little wear to the clothing, something not visible to the normal eye but clear enough to Synnove. This was confirmed by the mix of colours in the dress which were identifiable, to those who followed the fashions of the High Court, as two years out of date. The bright colours of her outfit had been replaced by darker colours, and the crimson so prominent in her outfit had been replaced by navy blue as the signature colour of preference.
Next Synnove's attention turned to the jewellery the woman wore, which was expensive for most people but not by the standards of the High Court. Her pendant contained the most valuable jewel she wore but Synnove estimated it was worth at best five hundred Gold Crowns, far less than the value of the smallest piece of jewellery adorning the ladies of the most senior houses. The pendant did serve to draw eyes to the noblewoman's greatest physical asset though, as Synnove had no doubt was the intention, and she couldn't help but giggle slightly at the thought that the greatest mystery for most of the men that Lady Woodstock met would be the colour of her eyes because they probably never looked at her face for very long.
Her skin showed several blemishes on her face and arms and Synnove noted a few marks from what she suspected had been a bad case of childhood chicken pox. Her long dark hair was well kept, although a little oily. Overall, her face and figure were attractive enough to make her stand out from the average woman. The rounded edge to her ears without a trace of a point was confirmation of her low birth status which meant that she genuinely was the early twenty-something she looked, a rarity amongst the slow aging á¦lfe rich bloodlines of the High Court.
She guessed that the lady before her had married above her station by trading on her ample bosom and pretty face to snare a junior member of a major noble house or a senior member of a minor house. As a consequence, her social status and the fidelity of her husband were dependent on her appearance and her as yet untested ability to deliver an heir. And hence, Synnove thought, her visit to the most sought after weaver in the water element of siden. While the Principal Weaver of her order was more skilled than Synnove her natural strengths lay in other areas, leaving Synnove as the most gifted weaver in her order when it came to unnaturally enhancing the natural beauty of a subject.
"My Lady Synnove, I am deeply honoured that you agreed to grant me an audience."
"Think nothing of it, my Lady..?"
Synnove let the question hang for a few seconds, waiting for the noblewoman before her to pick up her cue.
"Oh! L-l-lady Woodstock, My Lady," she stammered. "My husband is Sir Anthony, 2nd Baronet of Caldicot."
'Well, that answered that question,' thought Synnove. 'King Henry granted a slew of titles to knights during the first Brythonic campaign. She's minor house at best. Sir Anthony is probably little more than a gentrified knight.'
"How is life in the Brythonic Marches, My Lady Woodstock?"
"Not easy, My Lady. The Brythonic people still refuse to acknowledge the Angelcyn Crown, even after thirty years and the benefits we bring them. Their language is baffling and they seem reluctant to learn ours. And after a generation of rule, it is still not safe to travel much beyond the boundaries of the towns due to the threat of raiders from the islands that remain beyond our control."
"You must be enjoying your visit to the High Court then? A chance to get away from it all?"
"It isn't quite w-w-what I thought it would be," stammered Lady Woodstock, her cheeks colouring crimson.
Synnove nodded in sympathy, knowing that many in the High Families considered the lower ranks of the nobility to be little more than peasants and did little to hide their contempt.
"Well, court life isn't for everyone," said Synnove, giving Lady Woodstock her most reassuring smile. "Now, to what do I owe your visit my lady?"
"My Lady Synnove, I most humbly ask for your assistance in a personal matter of great importance for which my husband with his considerable resources and influence amongst the High Families would be most appreciative of should you need his assistance one day."
Synnove worked a jewel encrusted ring loose from her index finger on her right hand and held it up to Lady Woodstock.
"I do not mean to be cruel My Lady, but this ring was a gift from the High Queen in appreciation for services rendered to her family. Your pendant is worth what, five hundred Gold Crowns? This ring is alone is valued at twenty five Platinum Sovereigns, five times your pendant. As for influence, I'm apprenticed to the Lord High Weaver and can gain private audience with any member of the Privy Council on request. Can your Baronet match that?"
"No..." said Lady Woodstock, her shoulders slumping as her head drooped down.
"I thought not. If you make an appointment with Adept Wickham, she will be able to discuss your needs," said Synnove, a tight smile on her lips. "If you have nothing else to add, I have things to do Lady Woodstock and I will bid you good day."
Lady Woodstock took a few steps towards the door before stopping and turning to face Synnove once more, her cheeks glistening with tears. Slowly, she reached up to her neck and fumbled for the clasp holding the pendant around her neck, scooping the lose pendant up in her right hand.
"I have no wealth, no influence and no breeding. My lady-in-waiting is my younger sister and I have no servants. My father told me when I left to marry the Baronet that my husband-to-be would lose interest in a farm girl and that I would be forced to crawl home and beg him to take me back."
Lady Woodstock crossed the short distance to Synnove forcing her pendant into the Weavers hand.
"I've been married for two years now. Two years and I cannot give him a child!" cried Lady Woodstock. "And with each year, my beauty fades a little and the reason for my husband staying wed to me diminishes just a little."
"Please My Lady Synnove, I was hoping that you might be able to provide me with a potion to enhance my beauty," said Lady Woodstock, her hands pressing the pendant forcefully into Synnove's hands. "I-I-I...f-f-f-fear my husband's head is being turned by the numerous b-b-b-beautiful women in court and t-t-t-that he will leave me for one who can give him a ch-h-h-h-h..."
Lady Woodstock's speech descended into unintelligible sobs that wracked her whole body and Synnove gathered the woman in her arms, fearing she might collapse. Steering Lady Woodstock to a nearby chair, Synnove knelt in front of her placing her fingers against the hysterical Lady's temples, channelling her siden to calm the sobbing woman's breathing. She had seen far too many noblewomen pass out from the dangerous mix of tight corsetry and strong emotions to take any risks. As her breathing started to regulate itself in a more natural rhythm, Lady Woodstock turned her red rimmed eyes to look imploringly to Synnove.
"I knew that the Queen Aliénor and her daughters were possessed of a beauty to rival the á‰se but there are so many beautiful women here. How can I hope to compare to them?" asked Lady Woodstock in a hoarse whisper.
Lady Woodstock looked down at her lap, the answer to her almost rhetorical question clearly weighing on her mind. She reached out to once more clasp Synnove's hands in desperation, new tear tracks merging with those already marking her make-up.
"I can't go back to the farm... I can't... I won't... go back... Please help me... Please..."
Once more expanding her senses, Synnove sought to read Lady Woodstock's physical and emotional sincerity. Her heart rate, breathing and blood pressure all seemed to confirm her sincerity, as did her aura, leaving Synnove in a quandary as to her course of action. She didn't want word to get around court that a few tears could make her manipulable lest the resulting outbreak of boils amongst the insincere women of the High Court reach epidemic levels. By the same token, Synnove had not been born into a family of Weavers or of wealth and she knew something of not fitting into courtly life. Synnove didn't know much about farming but she did know far more about fishing nets than most of the women at court.
'It would be one in the eye to the duplicitous, arrogant, self-serving retinue of inbreeds of the High Court,' she thought, with a smile playing at the corners of her lips. 'And it has been so long since I put on a show...'
"How long will you be at court, Lady Woodstock?"
"Two, maybe three weeks."
Synnove stood up, pulling her hands free from Lady Woodstock, leaving the pendant in its owners hands. She walked slowly away from her towards a rack of glass vials and bottles.
"I suggest you persuade Sir Anthony to finish his business in two weeks. The potion I will give you is only good for about fourteen days give or take. It will enh..."
A loud squeal interrupted Synnove before she could continue and Lady Woodstock ran the short distance to envelope her in an embrace from behind.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she sobbed into Synnove's back.
Clearing her throat, Synnove gently detached Lady Woodstock's embrace before pointing back to the chair she had been sitting in previously.
"You're...welcome. Now please resume your seat so that I may begin."
Picking up a small perfumery size rounded glass bottle, Synnove checked Lady Woodstock was seated before extending her empty left hand. Staring intently at the space above it, her ice blue eyes sparkled becoming brighter and brighter in colour until the glow from them seemed to change the colour of the very air around her. The ice blue tinge in the air was brightest in the space above her open palm and slowly a tiny spinning ball of blue light started to coalesce in the air above her hand. Slowly the blue light increased in circumference, revealing a swirling circular ball of ice blue liquid with gaps amongst the swirl rather like the spiral of a peeled orange skin.
Satisfied that she had the rotation right, Synnove carefully held the empty glass bottle above the blue ball, turning it so that the open neck was facing downwards. She reached up with her left hand to give the ball of liquid a gentle nudge watching as it swirled up into the open neck of the bottle. As it reached the bottle the ball contorted in shape squeezing in through the bottle neck into the circular bottle. Once the liquid was in the bottle, Synnove turned the bottle so that it was more correctly orientated for keeping a liquid inside it and placed it on the table behind her. Picking up a nearby mortar and pestle, she vigorously ground the contents for a minute before carefully tipping its mix of vegetable and mineral into the still swirling liquid in the bottle.
"Mélange!" cried Synnove, causing the bottle to flash bright blue once in response before she inserted a cork stopper into the neck.
Synnove walked over to Lady Woodstock, noticing that her eyes wide were firmly focused on the faintly sparkling bottle in her hand. Lady Woodstock accepted the bottle in trembling hands, more tears flowing down her cheek as she mouthed her gratitude to Synnove.
"It will be ready to ingest in an hour. Make sure that you drink half of it this week and half next week. It should take about half an hour for the changes to start and another hour for them to complete during which I would advise you to rest. Whatever you do, don't try and consume it all now. The human body cannot always handle the trauma of radical transformation and those who have consumed two much often die quite painfully."
"Do you understand?" asked Synnove after pausing to ensure that Lady Woodstock had heeded her warning.
Lady Woodstock nodded her head sharply in response, her eyes even wider as she looked back at the bottle. Anything more she might have said however was cut off my the sound of clapping coming from the open doorway. Leaning against the doorframe was a tall woman with a garland of flowers resting on waves of dark green tinged brown hair. Her simple green dress split to the thighs at the sides, sparkled with every imaginable precious stone in a tree like pattern across it. A sparkle that seemed reflected in the woman's forest green eyes.
As she approached the pair, her every step accentuated the sway of her perfect hips and the graceful movements of her perfect long legs. The sweet smell of wildflowers and a smile that seemed to hold the promise of golden summer days entranced Lady Woodstock, all thoughts of courtly life and her marriage driven to the deepest recesses of her mind. Had Lady Woodstock the presence of mind to glance upwards however, she would have seen Synnove rolling her eyes.
Coming to a halt in front of the two women, the new entrant pulled Lady Woodstock to her feet and slipped the bottle from her unresisting hands before passing it to Synnove to hold.
Lady Woodstock trembled as a hand was softly placed either side of her face, cupping her cheeks and tilting her head up slightly as the flower garlanded woman leaned in. Their lips touched briefly in soft pecks that tasted of honey before Lady Woodstock's lips parted to give the tongue gently probing along her lips full access. An involuntary moan escaped her throat, muffled by her companions lips pressed against hers.
The taste of the flower garlanded woman's honeyed kisses seemed to flow into Lady Woodstock's other senses - her vision blurring with golden light; the comforting warm feel of hands cupping her face; and the thick restful silence around her. A feeling of perfect peace unlike that which Lady Woodstock had ever known cocooned her senses and she happily closed her eyes before drifting into a deep soothing slumber.
"When she next couples with her Baronet, she will conceive a child," said the newcomer, releasing her hold on her. Easing the unresisting Lady Woodstock back into the chair, Synnove turned to the newcomer with a smirk on her face.
"If I ever needed proof of how big a ham you are, I got it just now. Mind you, I should have expected no less from a member of your Order, My Lord Applegate."
"Me? A ham? You can talk!" exclaimed the flower garlanded woman in a mock exasperation, a hand reflexively alighting on her chest. "It's been years since I saw such a show such as you just put on. The whole conjuring the floating ball of liquid from the water vapour in the room was more than just a little hammy, My Lady Fisher. Especially when you could have used the pump in the corner of the room to get water!"
The two women briefly held each other's steely gaze before embracing in a fit of giggles.
"It's been too long, Martha," whispered Synnove releasing the other woman from her embrace.
"It has indeed, old friend," sighed Martha wiping a stray tear from her eyes. "Though I cannot dispute the wisdom of the Lord High Weaver in sending me to Bernicia and Deira this past year to repair the damage our forces caused in suppressing the Pretender's uprising. I left a piece of the best part of me there all those years ago and while it has taken my Order all this time to repair the damage, it gladdens my heart to say that this years crops will flourish and the harvest will be sufficient to not just sustain the people but grant a surplus for sale and planting. And maybe, just maybe, one day I can finally be worthy of my title of 'Principal Weaver' again. I fear though that my actions may never be redeemed."
Not for the first time in her life, Synnove thanked the á‰se that the Lord High Weaver had not chosen her Order to go with the forces that suppressed the uprising. Far too many of those that returned in victory found in the years that followed that their conscience could not bear the weight of their actions. In particular she remembered the night a year ago when her beloved Thomas broke down, begging her to forgive what he had done. A man so strong and confident in normal or abnormal circumstances, Thomas had opened himself up to her and wept like a child in her arms. By the morning his composure had returned but she knew the hole in his heart remained.
Synnove knew it had been much worse for Martha.
Or more precisely, Lord Martin Applegate, Principal Weaver of the Order of Earth Siden, one of the three sanctioned elemental orders of magic on Eorá°e. Lord Martin had been a popular and fair leader of his Order, his pleas for mercy often staying the hand of the High King when his baser instincts interfered with regal judgement. It had been a surprise when the 28 men and women of his Order had been chosen to accompany two regiments of the Yeomanry of the Household to suppress the Pretender's uprising but many in the three Orders saw it as a sign that the current Lord High Weaver's time was drawing to a close. The common consensus at the Wynter Palace had been that Lord Martin's presence would mitigate the excesses of the Yeomanry and bring the conflict to a swift and humane conclusion.
This would turn out to be far from the case.
The conflict had been vicious and protracted, with the forces of the Angelcyn Throne continuously harassed through persistent guerrilla attacks on their supply lines and foraging parties interspersed with hasty engagements springing up and then melting away too quickly for Angelcyn forces to bring their military advantages to bear. By the fourth month of the campaign, supplies were low and morale lower. Finally, they forced an engagement at the Battle of Bamburgh, only to see the Angelcyn forces routed with disastrous casualties. A desperate last stand two days later in fields outside the market town of Belford saw the capture of the Pretender against all odds when the battle seemed lost, throwing the uprising into disarray. The forces of the Pretender melted away from the battlefield but not before slaughtering the Angelcyn baggage train, sparing neither the wounded or the non-combatants travelling with it. Amongst those non-combatants were seven novice members of the Order of Earth Siden.
The following day the reprisals against the civilian population that supported the Pretender began.
"I went back to Belford," whispered Martha, tears running down her face as she tried to look anywhere but at Synnove. "Did you know that the local farmers say that on a still night you can hear the screams of the townsfolk from the spot where Belford used to be?"
"It's superstitious nonsense of course," said Martha, wiping her runny nose with the back of the sleeve of her dress. "The whole town was ground flat when the fissure I caused to open beneath them closed on top of the sunken town. What they hear is sulphur and other gases escaping from deep cracks in the planet's surface."
Synnove reached out and pulled her friend into a hug, partially to comfort her and partially to hide the expression on her face. Not for the first time she found herself without success trying to reconcile the sweet, kind hearted Martha in her arms with the rage filled mass murderer she knew Martin to have been at Belford.
"Shhhh. It's okay," said Synnove rocking Martha gently as she sobbed into her arms.
"I couldn't find his grave, 'Nove. I...I...I looked and I looked but I couldn't find Billy's grave. It was only supposed to be a temporary grave...only temporary..."
"You couldn't have predicted it would happen. No one did."
"He was sixteen. I promised our momma that I would look after him. It was my fault he joined the O-O-Order...I can't even bring him home 'Nove. I can't bring him hoooooome," wailed the woman in her arms.
The two friends stood locked in a comforting embrace, Synnove gently rocking the pair and making occasional calming noises not caring for anything other than trying to reduce her best friends anguish. She knew not how long the two had stood there until she felt a hand gently touch her arms. Raising her head, she blinked back the tears in her eyes to focus on a young man wearing the livery of the Yeomanry of the Household, a sad smile on his face. Gesturing for Synnove to release Martha, he gently turned Martha around before dipping to curl an arm under her knees and pick her up. Martha's sobs paused briefly as she looked up at the man holding her before throwing her arms around his neck and renewing her crying with a vengeance. He kissed her tenderly on the top of her head before turning and carrying her out of the room. As he reached the doorway he paused to nod his head in acknowledgement of the older woman who was standing outside the room, before turning into the corridor and disappearing from sight.
Synnove dabbed at her eyes with a silk handkerchief she had pulled from a pocket in her dress watching the elegantly dressed older woman enter the room. Synnove's half heartedly curtseyed was waved away by the woman as she crossed the short distance to her and gathered her into a brief motherly embrace.
"Agnes, she's not going to get better is she?" whispered Synnove.
"Better is a relative term 'Nove," scolded Agnes gently the corner of her mouth twitching slightly with a sad smile. "You as my chosen successor should know that everything is relative."
"If you mean will she be the person he once was again? I doubt it very much. We had all hoped her work restoring the damage he caused might help bridge the divide between the two aspects of hir being. That doesn't seem to have worked though and I fear Martin is as lost to us as he is to Martha."
"The spirit healers could do nothing?"
Agnes shook her head slowly.
"No. Like all members admitted to the Earth Order of Siden, Martha and Martin represented a duality of spirit, reflecting the earth as our mother and father. It is that very two spirited duality that is the problem. After the uprising Martin couldn't handle the consequences of what he had done so he retreated into his Martha aspect placing all the guilt and blame for his actions with Martin. Despite her protestations that she was still Martin and insisting at formal events as being addressed as 'My Lord' we began to suspect that Martha had become a single spirited being like you and I."
"So Martin is lost then," said Synnove, all emotion gone from her voice.
"For all intents and purposes, yes." said Agnes with a sad smile. "The assimilation of Martin's spirit by Martha's is nearly complete. Physically and mentally she will be unlikely ever to be Martin again. However, all that Martin is will be part of Martha, so in some small way he lives on."
"We can do nothing? What would happen if we could find his brothers body?"
"The Readers of the Paths examined the probable realities and advise that the recovery of his brothers body does not make a difference in the restoration of Martin's spirit, although it does bring Martha a degree of peace in the majority of probable realities. What is clear is that Martha does not survive in any probable reality without your friendship and the love of Captain Willows."
Agnes carefully knelt in front of the still sleeping form of Lady Woodstock, reaching out to gently brush a stray strand of hair from her face.
"I know what Martin did a decade ago troubles you Synnove. It should do as a warning of the power of Siden in the hands of a skilled practitioner. Martin was not a twisted follower of fire siden but the Principal Weaver of good order. That however, did not stop him in a moment of grief and anger losing sight of what was right and good. Martin was a good man who did a horrendously evil thing. The question you need to ask yourself, is do you believe what Martin did outweighs Martha's chance of redemption?"
Reaching out with her index finger, Agnes gently tapped the centre of Lady Woodstock's forehead leaving a golden glow where she touched that quickly faded.
"Lady Woodstock will awaken shortly. I suggest you remind her of both Martha's and your gift before you send her on her way. The Readers of the Path have high hopes for the 3rd Baronet..."
The Royal Botanical Gardens, The Wynter Palace, Isle of Avalon
Woden's Day 24 April EY 2471 - Mid-Morning
Prince Richard wiped the sweat from his forehead with a hand towel as he gazed up at the majestic giant before him. Were it not for the fact that his breath was still ragged from the exertion of his previous fencing bout, he thought that it would have been taken away by the size of the tree, easily 70 or 80 metres tall. He had heard of the giant sequoia trees from the distant savage Starfall Lands but had never seen one in person. There were only reputed to be four throughout the entire seven civilised continents and this was the only one in the Heptarchy.
Richard knelt by the small shrine set up at its base and pulled a Gold Crown from the money pouch on his waist which he offered to the shrine for luck, as was the custom in the Heptarchy. A small statute of Woden in the shrine indicated that which Richard already knew, that this was the legendary Woden's Tree, planted by the first High King, William the Great, in EY 2. It was under this tree that the High Kings were crowned and Heirs anointed and Richard had changed the location of his daily fencing bouts to here so that he might get a better feeling for the spiritual home of the Angelcyn. Every child throughout the Heptarchy knew the story that if the tree were to fall, so would the Angelcyn. Richard walked up to the tree and pushed hard against its bark to find it reassuringly immovable.
"I guess it's good for my reign then," he said with a laugh.
Satisfied that the sweat was removed from his face and his breathing back to normal, he returned to small gathering of people waiting for him to resume his fencing bout. His personal instructor, Chevalier Anton Le Fort, was berating his current sparring partner, an aging Yeoman Sergeant, over his footwork in the last bout. Richard had to smile because despite his poor technique the Yeoman was the most challenging opponent he had faced since arriving at the Wynter Palace.
The Yeoman Sergeant, William he believed was his first name, was an intriguing contradiction. Everything about the late forty-something yeoman on the face of it seemed to speak of a skill with the blade developed through a series of hasty fights in back alleys outside public hostelry's and the uncultured melee of the battlefield. The jagged scar on the Yeoman's right cheek looked a few years old and was partially obscured by several weeks growth of the salt and pepper beard stubble on his face. His long hair was far from Yeoman regulation length and his uniform was comfortably fitted rather than regulation fitted. And yet despite this, he seemed to possess a sharpness of movement that suggested considerable formal training beyond that provided to enlisted Yeomen in basic training or learnt in the drive to survive on the battlefield. Indeed, were it not for the Yeoman's rounded ears Richard would have expected him to be á¦lfe blooded like himself.
"Chevalier, I am ready to resume," said Richard, accepting his face mask from his aide and placing it over his face. Once both men had accepted their rapiers they saluted each other and then the Chevalier before adopting the commencement en-garde stance.
As in the previous bout, the Yeoman waited for Richard to make the first move, seeking to defend rather than attack. Richard began with a flurry of movement, driving his blade forward in a series of feints, attempting to force his opponent to commit to a move that would allow for an opening. Again, he found himself marvelling at the tight blade work of his opponent, which firmly closed any openings that might have appeared.
The two men continued the pattern of attack and retreat for several minutes, each potential opening shut firmly by the Yeoman in response to the attack, while never making an aggressive move to Richard.
Richard pulled back slightly and circled his opponent looking for an opening.
"You're...probably...the...most...challenging opponent I've...fought," gasped Richard, trying to bring his breathing back under control. He noted that his opponent on the other hand, having adopted a minimalist defensive strategy was breathing calmly.
Attempting to distract his opponent, Richard stamped his forward foot on the ground in an appel and then lunged. The Yeoman quarter turned to the inside to dodge the lunge and parried Richard's blade away from him.
"Are...you...ever...going...to...attack...me?"
"You're good My Prince, possibly even great," said the Yeoman, parrying a further lunge from the Prince. "The easiest way for me to win this bout therefore is to not engage and let you provide me with the opening."
Richard recovered to the en-garde position watching as his opponent did the same.
"You say I'm only possibly great Yeoman. Yet I doubt you've ever fought against a more skilled opponent with the blade."
"Fought? No. Fenced with a more skilled opponent? Yes."
The colour rising in Richard's cheeks, he once more attacked with his blade slashing at the Yeoman in a rapid series of moves. To his annoyance each slash was parried by the Yeoman with minimal effort and turned away. Closing the gap with the Yeoman, Richard's blade clashed hard against his opponents as he lunged, momentarily binding the two blades together at the hilt guard. The superior quality of the Prince's sword showing as the ornate basket hilt cut into his opponents simpler hilt guard.
"Who have you fenced with that is more skilled than I?" asked the Prince through gritted teeth, sweat beginning to run down his neck as each man sought to push the other away by brute strength alone to break the bind.
"The Wynter Lion."
Richard stepped back in surprise, disengaging his blade from the Yeoman's. When he spoke, his voice hinted at the building anger within him.
"You dare rank that...that...freak...above me?"
The Yeoman moved forward in a lunge that slashed at the sleeve of the Prince's jacket. The Prince retreated desperately parrying the Yeoman's increasingly aggressive attack as he attempted to regain control of the situation. A sharp riposte from the Prince's blade following yet another parry drove the Yeoman onto the back foot, allowing the Prince to regain his composure. Letting his eyes briefly drop to his opponents feet, the Prince shifted his grip slightly to further down the hilt to extend the range of his attack in response to the Yeoman's forward foot twitching.
The Yeoman took a small jump forward in a classic ballestra attack, attempting to throw the Prince off-guard. As his blade sliced through the air towards its target however, the Prince rolled forward coming to a stop on his back just in front of the Yeoman and straining to extend his blade upwards so that the point rested gently against the underside of the Yeoman's chin.
"You yield?" asked the Prince, ensuring that enough pressure remained to hold the blade steady but without cutting the Yeoman.
"Yes...My Prince."
Letting his sword arm relax so that the blade tip dropped to the ground, the Prince pulled himself to his feet. He brought his sword arm up into a salute that was stiffly returned by the Yeoman. Removing his face mask, the Prince indicated to the Yeoman to do the same.
"So, do you still think the Wynter Lion is better?" asked the Prince, seeking the Yeoman's gaze to ensure the veracity of his answer.
"Yes."
The Yeoman's tone brooked no argument or uncertainty and the Prince felt a grudging respect for the common soldier who dared to disagree with a Prince of the Blood Royal.
"I see..."
The Prince indicated with his hand for the Yeoman to come closer, which he warily did. However, in keeping his attention on the Prince's face he never noticed the uppercut from his sword arm until the hilt guard smashed into the underside of his jaw, knocking him backwards to the ground.
"Well, in that case I think I need to practice harder, don't you?" said Richard, bringing his sword up again in a fencing salute. "I will see you the same time tomorrow and every day after that until you can admit that I, Prince Richard, am better than your precious Wynter Lion."
Turning his back on the Yeoman, the Prince walked towards the Chevalier and his awaiting retinue, pausing as he passed his rapier to an aide.
"I think Yeoman, that you will find that the Wynter Lion is second to the Lionheart in all things. Not that it will matter either way when I am the Heir."
As the Prince and his retinue left the clearing, two men in the outfits of the Yeomanry of the Household moved to join the Yeoman Sergeant lying on the ground.
"There really is no such fool as an old fool," said the oldest of the two yeoman as he extended an arm to pull the Sergeant to his feet. "And you William, should know better than to disagree with a member of the High Family. Especially a bastard son like Prince Richard looking to assert his authority."
William gingerly touched his chin, wincing slightly as he touched the soft underside. "You may be right, Arthur. You may be right."
"And I don't want to hear you ever disagreeing with a member of the High Family, regardless of the sort of example the Sergeant here is giving you. He's bloody lucky not to be under arrest or dead," said Arthur pointing at the remaining Yeoman, a young man of in his late teens.
"Yes, Corporal."
"Good lad. I'm twenty nine days short of my twenty and I don't want any trouble from either of you until I've been given my honourable discharge, land grant and pension. William here might be foolish enough to risk trouble but he's a three termer and if he hasn't learnt by now he never will. You on the other hand aren't even two years into your first ten. You could be gone, like that," said Arthur, clicking his fingers. "Just remember that, boy."
"Yes, Corporal," said the young yeoman contritely.
William chuckled quietly, sparing a quick wink to the young yeoman when he was certain the Corporal wasn't watching. Picking up his rapier, William walked over to the shrine in front of great tree and knelt down in front of it, bracing sore muscles against the pommel of the rapier which he stuck point down into the ground. He pulled a Copper Coronet coin from a pocket in his jacket and placed it on top of the Gold Crown left by Prince Richard.
"Your time will come, Richard," whispered William in a tone of voice so low that the others could not hear him. He placed the tips of his fingers on the feet of the small statute of Woden in the centre of the little shrine, as if in prayer. "And when she arrives, you will regret your insults towards her today."
William could hear the shuffling of feet behind him and turned to look over his shoulder at the young yeoman nervously looking in his direction.
"Sergeant...is it true that you met the Wynter Lion and fenced with him?" asked the young yeoman.
William smiled at the question and couldn't help but think how much the yeoman reminded him of his own children, so far away from the Wynter Palace. The hair on the yeoman's face was little more than peach fuzz and his voice was still soft, not yet stressed from drink or yelling instructions on the parade ground or in battle.
"What's your name, yeoman?" asked William.
"Bryan, sergeant. Bryan Hillis."
"Well, Bryan. It's true, as a young yeoman I did fence with the Wynter Lion on many occasions. Even won a couple of bouts though truth be told, I lost a lot, lot more than I won," said William, a wide smile crossing his face as his eyes took on a far away unfocussed look as if he was seeing events from the distant past and not those of the clearing around him. His silent reverie however, was interrupted by the young yeoman.
"Did you meet him Corporal?" asked Bryan.
"No lad. I've only been a Yeoman for twenty years. The Wynter Lion had been gone a couple of years when I enlisted. The old guys talked about him a lot though. Not one of them had a bad word to say about him either. Then again, none of the old timers had a bad word to say about the traitor Amherst before he killed a dozen yeomen and ran off with that princess, so you never can tell." The corporal spat onto the grass after mentioning Daniel's name.
Neither of the two yeoman, noticed the pained look that crossed William's face in reaction to the mention of Daniel's name.
"That being said, there's something odd about the whole thing concerning the Wynter Lion's quest to rescue the princess as well. Take the princess. You ask five different people want her name is and you'll get five different names. It's damn odd if you ask me," said Arthur, rubbing his chin in thought.
"W-w-what did the Prince mean when he said that the Wynter Lion was...'queer'?" said Bryan, switching his attention between the two older yeomen to see which would answer.
"Never you mind, lad. Never you mind," said Arthur, clearing his throat. "Old wives tales told amongst three termers who should know better. Isn't that right, William?"
William nodded his head in reply to the pointed look that Arthur gave him before turning back to face the great tree.
"Sergeant, what was the Wynter Lion like? As a person, I mean. The tales I was told as a kid say that he was fearless and had the strength of ten men and that his purity of heart meant that evil would wither at his touch. They say he swam across the Blue Ocean to the Starfall Lands in pursuit of the kidnapped Princess and that when he returns he will lead us all to glory."
William let out a deep laugh that echoed around the clearing, spooking a couple of birds from a nearby tree.
"What was sh...the Wynter Lion like?" said William pausing for a moment in thought. "The Wynter Lion was the best person I ever knew. Or ever will know. There isn't a day that goes by when I don't pray for the Wynter Lion's continued safety."
The Royal Botanical Gardens, The Wynter Palace, Isle of Avalon
12 June EY2441 (30 Years Ago)
In the twelve years of Daniel's young life he didn't think he had ever felt such soreness as he did today. Every muscle in his body cried out in pain from the exertion he had put it through and he was fairly certain that under his chainmail tunic were some serious bruises that would take more than his mothers kisses to make better. The most painful bruise wasn't under the chainmail however but on the back of his head, which he was gingerly prodding with his fingers trying to ascertain the exact size of.
"I said I was sorry," said the similarly attired young blonde haired boy walking beside him. Daniel noticed that his companion was trying to avoid looking at him in an attempt to hide the crimson flush on his face from view.
"I don't blame you Harry," said Daniel with a sigh. "I blame Sir Hugh for giving you a sword in the first place."
Daniel winced slightly as he pushed again at the bruise. "I've changed my mind Harry, I blame Sir Hugh and you."
Harry's head whipped around to look at Daniel, his mouth open in shock at the words of his best friend. The look of guilt and shock on his face quickly changing to that of consternation as Daniel erupted in a fit of giggles with the occasional wince interspersed as he moved his head too suddenly.
Harry gave Daniel a playful shove in the arm in retaliation, a small smile creeping across his face as Daniel's infectious laughter echoed around the gardens.
"Y'know, I'd never ever have guessed in a million years that you would be so good with that sword," said Daniel in admiration at his friends skill.
"Weeelll, it was only wooden," said Harry. A cheeky smile lit up his face as he continued. "And I was only fighting you."
Daniel stuck his tongue out at his friend in reply.
"It could have been worse. I could have hit a part of your body that gets regular use."
Harry dodged to the right as Daniel tried to push him back in retaliation.
"I am soooo going to make you regret that," growled Daniel, narrowing his eyes in an exaggerated scowl.
Daniel lunged at Harry, causing his friend to squeal with laughter as he dodged out of his grasp and race off down the path. Daniel chased after him, taking care to ensure that he kept close but not close enough to catch his friend, making the occasional good natured grasp at him that caused another outburst of squeals and laughter before he ran off again. On one occasion the two friends were chased off a flower bed by an annoyed groundskeeper as they trampled over freshly laid plants. They eventually came to a halt at a crossroads in the paved path, surrounded by ornate rose beds.
"I have to get back to the Palace," said Daniel with a frown. "My mother has hired a tutor to provide for additional Latin lessons. What about you?"
"I'm free until lunch. Unlike you, my Latin is fine," said Harry, sticking his tongue out at his friend again. "Mind you, your Latin might be better if you didn't spend so much time in the lesson annoying Matilda."
Daniel chuckled in response. "Your sister likes it really. Besides, no girl can resist my charms."
Harry rolled his eyes in response. He had a pretty good idea from conversations with his sister that she did in fact find Daniel annoying, particularly when he tugged at her braids.
"I'd stay away from Matilda when her sword lessons start next year."
"Yeah, yeah," said Daniel with a laugh. "What are you going to do?"
"I think I might take a walk through the gardens. It's been a couple of months since I've stopped at the shrine by Woden's Tree."
"See you at lunch?" asked Daniel.
"See you at lunch."
The two friends grasped wrists in the traditional yeoman style of farewell and set off down different paths. As he reached the wall around the Botanical Gardens, Daniel glanced back at the giant sequoia which towered above the other trees clustered around its base. He'd been taken to see the tree on his first visit to the Wynter Palace and his mother took him on every subsequent visit to leave a Gold Crown at the shrine in order to ensure that he continued to have the blessings of the á‰se.
However, what Daniel had always really wanted to do was climb the tree. Unfortunately, he had never been there alone to do it. Until now of course. Daniel chewed at the centre of his lip nervously and looked around. In the ten minutes he'd been walking along the path since parting company with Harry he had only seen one groundskeeper and she was intently concentrating on the flower bed she was working on.
'In fact,' he thought. 'I'm not even sure she saw me.'
Daniel looked back at the Wynter Palace a good fifteen minutes walk further on from the walled Botanical Gardens. He knew his mother would be extremely displeased if he skipped the Latin class.
"I can always learn Latin another day," mused Daniel out loud. "But will I get another chance to climb the great tree?"
With a mournful sigh turned back to face the Wynter Palace. He could picture just how cross his mother would be. He loved her very much and didn't want to disappoint her. Daniel took a last long look at the great tree in the distance.
"She'll get over it," he whispered as he turned and raced back down the path towards the tree.
Daniel burst into the clearing in front of Woden's Tree, breathing heavily from his running. He'd been pretty lucky he thought in that he'd only passed a couple of groundskeepers and they had done little more than glance up at him before returning to their work. He bent over to catch his breath for a second before looking up to see a blonde haired young girl staring at him with wide eyes and a startled expression on her face. Pulling himself upright, he gave the young girl a sheepish smile.
"Sorry if I startled you," said Daniel, stepping forward with his arm outstretched. "I'm Daniel."
The girl made no effort to move, continuing to stare at him. Daniel took the opportunity to take a better look at her. He guessed she was about his age, with an angelic face surrounded by a gender neutral page boy style much like that worn by Harry and himself. Daniel decided she was probably the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen. Even more beautiful than Matilda, though he noted that she did look a little like her.
Her attire however, surprised Daniel. Instead of the flowing gowns often worn by the young girls at the High Court she was clad in a chainmail tunic that seemed slightly too big for her. Not by much but it looked as if it belonged to someone slightly taller than she was and her leggings and boots were also a little baggy but not by enough to fall down. It was not unusual to see girls in armour on the training grounds and indeed the Founding Documents clearly stated that man and woman were equal in all respects. What was unusual however was to see one in chainmail so far from the training grounds.
He withdrew his proffered hand when she had made no effort to take and cleared his throat in an attempt to attract her attention.
"What's your name? I'm sorry again for y'know, surprising you."
The young girls lips moved slowly making the shapes of half formed words. Her complexion by now had turned from white to deep crimson.
Daniel tapped at the chainmail tunic he wore and indicated to hers. "I don't remember seeing you on the training grounds."
"Did you see me? You couldn't have missed me if you were there. My friend Harry nearly knocked me out during our bout!" exclaimed an excited Daniel. "Do you want to see my bruise?"
Daniel didn't know much about girls, only having a younger brother but his pretty sure a cool bruise would impress just about anyone. In response the girl just shrugged and Daniel thought she went a deeper shade of red if it was possible.
Daniel bent over in front of the girl, parting the hair on the back of his head to enable her to get a better view of his bruise.
"Does...it still hurt much?" asked the girl timidly.
"It hurt a little when it happened but I didn't cry or anything," said Daniel proudly. "Besides, you should see what it did to Harry's sword. It broke it in tw..."
Daniel stopped suddenly, seeing the broken sword tucked in the girls belt. Pulling the broken sword from her belt he reached into the dented helmet hanging by its chin strap from his belt and pulled out a pointed piece of wood. The girl made an attempt to grab at the broken sword put he turned his back to block her. Daniel pushed the jagged ends of both pieces of wood together to form a complete wooden sword. Turning to face the girl, he held the sword up so that she could see.
"What is this?" asked Daniel angrily. "Where is Harry?"
The girl collapsed to her knees sobbing, covering her face with her hands. Daniel's anger quickly evaporated and he found himself involuntarily rubbing her shoulder trying to comfort her.
"Shhhh! I'm not angry really. Honest. Just amazed that Harry would part with the sword. We promised we would always keep the bits as a keepsake of our first bout."
"I did Danny, I really did," said the girl in between sobs. "I never gave it up. It's me, Harry."
Daniel frowned looking around the clearing.
"Very funny Harry," he yelled. "Now why don't you come out from wherever you're hiding."
The girl sighed and wiped at the tears running from her eyes with the palm of her hands. Clasping her hands together as if in prayer, she closed her eyes. As her face screwed up in concentration, Daniel took a step backwards as she started to sparkle like she was covered in reflective fish scales. As each sparkle disappeared, Daniel noticed that the skin under it seemed to subtly change. He watched entranced for a few seconds before he realised how the girl was changing. Stumbling backwards he fell heavily onto his bottom as the sparkles faded and Harry was visible kneeling in front of him. The transformation took little more than ten seconds from start to finish Daniel guessed.
"H-h-h-harry?"
Harry nodded his head in response.
"How...long...have you..."
"Been able to change like this? About five years, though only in the last couple have I been able to change so quickly."
"Are you cursed?"
Harry pulled a face in response.
"No. That girl you saw is who I want to be. I can't really explain it but it feels like she is the real me rather than Harry."
"Wow."
"Yeah, wow," said Harry with a small smile.
"So...can you do other magic? Are you like the Earth Siden?" asked Daniel.
"I don't think I can do more magic, though I might be able to use a weaver bow."
"That would be so cool!"
"Yeah," said Harry with a grin. "I don't think I'm like the Earth Siden though. They are happy changing between forms but I only want to be a girl."
"So being a girl...makes you happy?" asked Daniel, his brow furrowed in concentration.
"Sort of. Being me makes me happy. And I'm a girl in here," said Harry gently touching his chest where his heart was.
The two friends looked at each other in silence for a few minutes, each trying to work out what to say to the other. Finally, Daniel broke the silence.
"Err...it's not y'know, contagious is it? Being a girl?"
Harry stuck his tongue out at a friend and laughed. Closing his eyes and grasping his hands together, the sparkles returned to his skin, quickly changing him back to the beautiful young girl of earlier. When she opened her eyes, a devilish smile appeared out of place with the sweet face that framed it.
"I've never tested if it is contagious or not," she said with a sly grin. "Let's find out shall we?"
The girl lunged at Daniel, falling on top of him as she tried to wrap him in a hug. Daniel's initial screams of outrage soon degenerated into laughter as he saw that nothing was changing in response to contact with her. The two friends roared with laughter before the girl rolled off Daniel to lie on her back next to him.
"I can't call you Harry when you are like this can I?" chuckled Daniel. "I guess that makes you Princess Harriet?"
Daniel glanced over to see her pull a face as she turned her head to face him.
"Ewww. No thanks. You remember my cousin Harriet? The one who called me all those names?"
"So what do I call you?"
"I...I kind of like Georgina. I mean my middle name is George anyway, so it's not that big a change."
Daniel held out his hand to Georgina.
"Nice to meet you Georgina," he said. "I'm Daniel."
"I'm ch-arrrrrrm'd," said Georgina in an exaggerated posh voice as she grasped his arm by the wrist in a yeoman style greeting. Daniel stuck his tongue out in response before a smile broke out on his face.
"Does anyone else know about Georgina?" asked Daniel.
"Nope. Just you."
"I won't tell anyone."
"I know," said Georgina with a smile, releasing Daniel's arm.
"How do you think your parents would take it if they knew about you? I mean Georgina," asked Daniel.
"Not well Danny," said Georgina with a sigh. "Not well."
"It doesn't bother me, Georgina or Harry, you're my friend."
The two friends laid back again, staring up at the great tree towering above them both. They lay in comfortable silence, neither wanting to break the peace of the moment, and enjoyed the warm late morning summer sun. After lying in silence for what seemed like eternity, Georgina spoke first.
"What brought you to here anyway? I thought you had Latin?"
"Eh. Figured skipping a lesson wouldn't be the end of the world if it meant I got a chance to climb the great tree."
"Danny!"
"C'mon, what use am I ever going to have for Latin?"
"Apart from it being used in the law and trade, not much. But then I'm not the heir to a kingdom that gets most of its gold from trade with the Septem Provincae," said Georgina.
"Oh. When you put it like that..." said Daniel sheepishly.
"Oh, indeed," giggled Georgina.
The two friends lapsed once more into silence before Daniel spoke after a few minutes.
"So, are we going to climb this tree or not?"
"What do you mean 'we'?"
"It will be more fun if we both do it. It's not like anyone is going to know anyway."
"Except me of course," stated a third voice.
Daniel and Georgina scrambled to their feet to see a young man, probably not much more than a teenager himself Daniel guessed, in the livery of the Yeomanry standing behind them.
"How...how long have you b-b-b-been standing their?" asked Georgina.
"Not long," said the Yeoman with a smile. "Just long enough to hear of your friends climbing plans."
Daniel frowned, turning his head between looking at the tree and looking at the yeoman. "I'm not going to get to climb the tree am I?"
"No."
The yeoman reached into his tunic and pulled out a leather pouch from which he withdrew two coins. He tossed one each to Georgina and Daniel. While Daniel caught his one handed, Georgina fumbled with hers before grasping it in both hands.
"You can however, make an offering to Woden at the shrine," said the Yeoman. "And perhaps you, young man, might want to apologise to Woden for thinking about climbing his tree?"
Daniel reached out and grasped his friends hand, sensing her nervousness. Together the two friends walked over to the small shrine and knelt before it placing both their Copper Coronets on the offering place.
"We'll find somewhere for you to change on the way back to the Palace," whispered Daniel. In response Georgina nodded her head quickly, glancing back at the yeoman nervously.
"C'mon you two, it's time you headed back to the Palace so that I can continue with my rounds," called out the Yeoman.
Daniel and Georgina nodded and hurried off as quickly as they could back towards the Palace without attracting undue attention. Neither friend would realise for some minutes that they were still holding hands.
The Wynter Palace, Isle of Avalon
Woden's Day 24 April EY 2471 (The Present) - Late-Morning
Agnes Smythe, Principal Weaver of the Order of Water Siden, let out a tired sigh as she laid down on her bed. It was taking increasing amounts of her siden to keep moving and she had little opportunity to rest all morning. She'd excused herself from overseeing the daily minutiae of the Order's business, leaving it in the capable hands of Synnove and claimed that she wanted to meditate on some matters that the Readers of the Paths had mentioned.
In reality however, this was only a part of the reason for her need to rest. The other, and more compelling reason, was that the life stone around her neck was running out of charge and she was beginning to feel all of her one hundred and seventy two years of life and two weeks of death.
"Here, let me help you," said a figure materialising out of the shadows of the room. Agnes smiled at the woman, a portly matronly type with a blue dress and an oversized red bow.
"Thank you, my friend," said Agnes with a tired smile.
The woman removed a stone from a small ornate wooden box on the bedside table and reached around Agnes's neck to untie a leather cord. Pulling the leather cord from its hiding place under Agnes's clothes she grasped the dull red glowing stone on the end of the cord and exchanged it for the bright green glowing stone she had removed from the box. Tying it back around Agnes's neck, she noticed an immediate improvement in her mental alertness.
"I'm sorry to have asked you to stay Agnes's, I know how much you had wanted to cross over and be with your husband rather than clinging to the remnants of this life," said the woman with a sad smile.
"It's fine Saxnot. Really," said Agenes clasping Saxnot's hand in her own. "I understand the need to remain here for the next few weeks. If I had not, I would not have worn the life stone on the night I died."
"Thank you, old friend," said Saxnot. "It won't be much longer now. I sense that the pieces for this cosmic chess game are nearly all assembled on the board and Herla's proxy will be making his opening move within the next few weeks if he hasn't already."
"Let us hope so. You and I both know that my time here is limited. Life stones can only prolong life after natural deaths such as mine not reverse death and you cannot intervene directly to boost my siden under the rules of the Hunt."
Saxnot snapped the fingers of her free hand causing a chair at a nearby table to glide across the polished wooden floor of the room until it stopped next to Agnes's bed. Slipping her free hand behind her to smooth her dress, Saxnot gracefully sat down so as not to unduly crease her dress.
"Show off," laughed Agnes, a rosiness returning to her cheeks with each passing moment.
"Maybe," said Saxnot emitting a school girl like giggle that seemed at odds with her matronly figure.
Agnes closed her eyes, resting her head gently back against her pillow. "I still cannot tell who Herla's proxy is yet. The situation isn't helped by the lack of resources at my disposal of course. All of the Order of Earth Siden apart from Martha will be in Bernicia and Deira for another six to eight weeks and half of my order has been deployed to Mercia to deal with flooding from the Rivers Tame and Anker threatening Tamworth."
"Can Martha be of any use to us?"
Agnes sighed, opening her eyes to meet Saxnot's searching gaze. "On a good day when she's functioning well, yes. On a bad day...she's too fragile. I fear that she could not cope with the stress of the Hunt."
"I feared as much. I wouldn't put it passed Herla to have fanned the flames of the Pretender's Uprising all those years ago to have achieved such an outcome. Amongst the á‰se he is renowned for playing the long game. What of the Order of Air Siden?"
"Half are in Portsmouth with the fleet, while the remainder left I do not trust. Not even Principal Weaver Harrison if I'm truthful. He's the Lord High Weavers man through and through and far too focused on power and glory."
"What about Synnove?" asked Saxnot. "Can she lead our forces if needed?"
Agnes squeezed Saxnot's hand briefly. "I hope that she doesn't have too. Why else do you think I've stayed here?"
"If she had to though?" persisted Saxnot, her voice taking on an undercurrent of urgency.
"If she had too...yes, she could do it. But doing what may need to be done to win could tear her apart in much the same way as Martin's demons have him. If I can do anything to spare her that, I will."
Saxnot nodded in understanding and stood, releasing her friends hand so that she could pull a cover over her. "You my friend need to rest so that the life stone can replenish your siden reserves."
Agnes gently swept her hands over her face, nodding her assent to Saxnot's instruction. "Saxnot, can you tell me one thing? Will I live to see the return of the Wynter Lion?"
A small sigh emanated from Saxnot as she briefly looked heavenward.
"I do not know, my friend. The probable realities have yet to fully coalesce and the paths are still tangled. It might be better to ask a different question..." said Saxnot, gently tugging at the ends of Agnes's bed covers to ensure they were straight.
"The better question to ask is will the Wynter Lioness live long enough to see you."
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to either comment, pm or kudos me in respect of the Wynter Lioness so far. It's been hugely appreciated on this story, given the length of it and the irregularity of the posting. As usual I would also like to thank Persephone for inspiring this with her stories and without which this story wouldn't be here.
Part of the delay for this chapter was I wrote 9,000 words of a 12,000 word Hallowe'en tale that missed the contest deadline. That story will probably be published when its eventually completed. I'm intending to produce at least one more chapter of WL before Christmas and then use the Christmas hols to try and regain the story buffer. Overall, we're nearing the end of the set-up section of the story, so we're more or less a third through depending on how the next couple of chapters pan out. Once more thank you for taking the time to read WL, it's greatly appreciated.
Prince Henry Wynter was the Heir to the High Throne of the Heptarchy and prophesised to one day lead his people to unparalleled greatness. Twenty two years after he abandoned his destiny and his throne for the chance to be the person he felt he was meant to be, he finds that Fate has not yet finished with him. The events surrounding the proposed appointment of a new Heir to the High Throne have consequences that reach as far the remote farmstead refuge of the former prince and threaten to destroy the new life that she has built for herself.
The slopes of the Downs Mountain Range, Kingdom of Cantia
Woden's Day 24 April EY 2471 - Late-Morning
Hal closed his eyes and carefully massaged the bridge of his nose in an effort to ease the dull ache building inside his head. Slumping forward in his saddle, he listened to the sounds of his two companions examining an area of forest off the trail leading from his family's cottage down to the lower pastures. He couldn't stop his thoughts drifting to how much things had changed in his life in so short a time.
Two days ago, Hal Stockbury would have described his home life as happy but perhaps a little dull. It was mainly composed of chores around the farmstead, with a little leisure time to read or practice his martial skills with blade and bow. Hal had a childhood many would consider idyllic, raised in a home environment where love and laughter were commonplace. His parent's, who were still at times embarrassingly devoted to each other after two decades of marriage and four children, had little in the way of ambition beyond running the farmstead and keeping their children safe and happy.
The closest thing to excitement in Hal's old life was the tourneys held during each of the seasonal festival's in Sarsen and the twice yearly tournament in Wye. He'd even had a couple offers to join the service of landless knights as squires based on his prowess with the sword although to his disappointment his mother had refused the offers.
Now, two days later, Prince Henry Amherst longed for a dull life after having had to watch as Sergeant Ackers and her Yeomen of the Household make his life interesting in ways he had never contemplated. His father was dead. His mother had been abducted and his sisters and brother were missing. At best he only had a faint hope as to where his sisters and brother might be.
The farm boy that had never been further than a couple of days ride from the farmstead was contemplating a journey to the Isle of Avalon, four weeks hard ride away, in the hope of saving his mother. His mother whom it seemed had once been the very male Wynter Lion, Heir to the High Throne of the Angelcyn. To complicate matters more, his only allies in all of this were the two men who had led the Yeomen to his home in the first place. Hoping that his instinct that the two men were trustworthy was correct, Hal slid off his horse and went to check on his father's body.
Stopping by the two aging destriers, Hal affectionately stroked their manes as he moved between the pair. Suspended in the centre between the two warhorses was a makeshift litter upon which his father's body rested. Pulling at the straps, he sought to ensure that it was still securely tethered without rubbing uncomfortably against either of the giant warhorses. Satisfied that all was as it should be, Hal responded to the gentle nudging from one of the horses.
"I don't have any carrots or apples with me today for treats," said Hal, with a laugh. "You'll just have to wait until we stop tonight, Val."
Canting it's head slightly, the great white charger gently nuzzled at Hal's pocket's attempting to verify his claim. Hal chuckled at the tickling sensation caused by the horse as it searched him for hidden treats.
A quiet warning whiney from the other horse signalled an end to the impromptu search as both Hal and the hungry horse turned to face the figure approaching. A subdued Sir Thomas came to a halt in front of the trio. His posture, with its tight shoulders, had the air of a man with the weight of the world upon him. In his right hand he held a scrap of cloth that Hal couldn't quite make out.
"Hal...something happened here yesterday," said Thomas, gesturing to a blackened tree trunk beside the trail with his free hand. "We've found pieces of a shattered weaver bow and traces of blood. None of my men carried weaver bows and I know your mother could use one..."
"Noah and Maddy were both gifted and could use a weaver bow," said Hal, gently stroking the neck of the white destrier beside him in a calming manner in response to the loud snort it sent towards Thomas. "If my mother sent them away from the cottage, she would have undoubtedly given them their bows for protection if she had the chance. The blood...do you think it's theirs?"
"Maybe," said Thomas, bringing the scrap of cloth up so that Hal could see it clearly. Thomas pulled at the material, separating it out into two separate pieces of cloth.
"This is definitely part of a yeoman's uniform," said Thomas indicating to the red and white chequered cloth. "But this isn't part of the standard issue uniform..."
Hal carefully pulled the second piece of cloth from Thomas's grasp and turned it over in his hand. He noted the intricately embroidered flower design and the golden yellow colouring of the material.
"It's from one of Maddy's bodices," said Hal, his voice catching slightly as he spoke. "D-did you find..."
"We've not found anyone. I'm going to join Jack in a thorough sweep of the area to see if we can find anything."
"I'll join you."
"No," said Thomas, placing his hand firmly on Hal's shoulder. "We need you to stay with your father and the horses. We'll be fine. Both Jack and I are experienced trackers and if there is anything to be found, we'll find it. Trust me."
"I guess..." said Hal uncertainly. "I'll..."
Hal lapsed into silence as he tenderly traced the embroidery on the fragment of his sisters bodice, unaware that tears were flowing unbidden down his cheeks.
Thomas hesitantly prodded with his dagger at the pile of broken twigs and small branches. The scrap of material he found at the scene matched that which he'd found earlier and he was in no doubt that this was where Madeleine came to rest. A scorch mark on a nearby tree further corroborated his suspicions. Siden energy didn't burn organic material in the same way that fire did and if you knew what you were looking for the clues were easy to find. Moving to the damaged tree he broke off a piece of blackened bark and rubbed it between his fingers, letting it crumble to gauge the degree of burn. Blowing the dust from his hand, he turned around and began to carefully inspect the undergrowth.
The absence of footprints between the trail and the site and the general impact pattern visible in the earth suggested to Thomas that when the weaver bow broke Madeleine had been thrown through the air and landed here. Having seen an overcharged siden stone explode before in battle, Thomas had a good idea of the effect it could have on those nearby. That the impact spot was , if he was an accurate judge of distance and he knew he was, a good seven hundred metres away from the trail was of no surprise to him.
What surprised him however, was the absence of a body or any evidence of anyone removing a body. Thomas rocked gently on his haunches as he tried to puzzle this latest enigma, soaking in the silence of the forest.
"People don't just vanish," he muttered under his breath as he scanned the surrounding forest. "So where are you if you aren't here?"
A hint of movement on the periphery of his vision, caused Thomas to turn his head sharply to get a better look. His senses alive to every sound and sight, he carefully scanned the surrounding forest for any sign of life. Oak and elms trees gently rustled in the light breeze and the occasional bird could be seen in the high canopy. Rising to his feet, Thomas's fingers lightly touched the pommel of his sword in reassurance. Every instinct he had was screaming at him that he wasn't alone, yet his vision and hearing kept telling him he was alone.
His attention flicked upwards at the sound of a branch creaking in the tree canopy above him but he saw nothing there. Yet despite what his five physical senses were telling him, his instinctive sixth sense of danger told him otherwise. He'd lost track of the number of times his 'old soldiers' sense of impending danger had saved his life and right now that sense was protesting that he was in imminent danger.
Clearing his throat, Thomas sought to coax a response from someone.
"Hello? Is there anyone there? Madeleine? Noah? I'm with Hal...I mean you no harm. Anyone?"
Thomas strained to hear anything over the deafening silence of the forest but the only noise he heard was again the faint rustling of tree branches in the wind. And then, carried on the same breeze he thought he heard the faintest sound of a voice to his left. Being careful to keep looking ahead, Thomas silently slid his dagger back into its small scabbard on his belt and firmly gripped the hilt of his sword.
Turning slowly to his left, he slid the sword from its scabbard and braced himself for the attack from the foe that wasn't there.
Thomas knew that without the life stone, which was around the neck of Daniel's body still, there would be no coming back. For the first time in nearly a year, death would truly mean death. And a part of Thomas sang in celebration, feeling alive for the first time in a long time. If he died today he would die an honourable death regardless of what the Yeomanry of the Household may believe of him. He would die in the defence of his friend's family not for a cause or a flag long since tarnished by politics. And he wouldn't give his life cheaply either. He would make them pay. He would make them regr...
"Sonuva!"
A loud crackling and snapping of branch and leaves followed by some inventive cursing from behind him drew Thomas's attention. Spinning around, he saw the prone form of Jack Fairfax tangled up amongst vegetation and wire.
"Damn poachers!" fumed Jack, hacking at the entangling mess with his sword. "Just you wait until I get my hands of them..."
Thomas turned back to face the unseen danger, taking a deep breath to steady his pulse and clear his mind. Screening out the noise from Fairfax, Thomas listened to the forest. Somewhere nearby a bird was singing. A deer moved quietly a few hundred metres away, trying to quickly distance itself from the predator attracting noise of Jack struggling to get free. In short, everything looked and sounded like it should.
Whatever hadn't been there was gone.
Sheathing his sword, Thomas crouched down by Jack and proceeded to help untangle the younger yeoman from the wire and vegetation he had become ensnared in. He resolved that as soon as Jack was free they would return to the safety of the trail and head for the barn.
The Lower Pasture Barn at the foot of the Downs Mountain Range, Kingdom of Cantia
Woden's Day 24 April EY 2471 - Late-Morning
Thomas cautiously examined the horse lying dead behind the back of the barn, noting the powerful bite marks that had ripped its throat open. From what he could see, the horse had died a relatively quick and painless death unlike the badly mauled human body lying next to it. It was the severed arm of the yeoman lying in some tall grass near the track that had first drawn his attention to the back of the barn and the rudimentary attempts by someone - or something - to hide the evidence of the kill.
Stepping over the corpse of the horse, Thomas knelt down next to the yeoman and gently reached out and closed the glassy unseeing eyes.
"I'm sorry Simon," he whispered. "I'm so, so sorry. I never intended this end for you."
Thomas tensed as he heard the footfalls of a second person before relaxing on seeing who it was.
"Where's Jack?" Thomas asked the newcomer.
"He's gone ahead to check the barn and outbuildings while I secured the horses. The arm you found..." said Hal, pointing to the body.
"Yes, it's his."
"You knew him?" asked Hal, pulling his kerchief up over his nose to mask the smell of death and decay.
"Yeoman Simon Hawkins. A first class tracker and a mean fiddle player," said Thomas, his voice tinged with sadness. "He was one of six yeomen in Jack's detachment."
"Do you think there are more around?" said Hal, glancing beyond the barn and related outbuildings to the sprawling lower pasture beyond it. "I never saw anyone else while I was tethering the horses."
"There's another dead horse about two hundred metres that way," said Sir Thomas, with a wave of his arm in the direction leading north away from the barn. "From what I can see, it was being used as a pack animal to transport the body of Sergeant Landon. There are signs that a third horse escaped but it's unclear if it had a rider or another corpse."
"So you think they are long gone?"
"Yes, they wouldn't have left their dead unburied if they were here," replied Thomas. "And there are no signs of any struggle beyond that which killed Simon and his horse."
"How did he die?"
Sir Thomas sighed, and ran his hand across the top of his short cropped hair. He took a second to momentarily look back at the bite marks on the horse before speaking.
"The pattern of indentation on the horse suggests that the killer was probably a dire wolf rather than a sabre tooth. While that's no comfort to Simon here, for us it is a small mercy as it means the wolf pack has probably moved on to easier pickings."
"You're sure it's a dire wolf?" asked Hal, a note of urgency entering his voice. Sir Thomas nodded an affirmation in response.
"Greytail!" shouted Hall happily. "The other's can't be far away!"
Thomas watched as Hal sprinted for the entrance on the far side of the large barn, calling out the names of his siblings as he ran. Rising to his feet, Sir Thomas jogged after him ensuring that he kept a keen eye on the tree line across the track as he moved.
Greytail let out a deep throated growl that seemed to reverberate around the cavernous barn as he barred his teeth at his prey. His flared nostrils drank in the smell of fear, the combination of sweat and blood that prey made when it's end was near. Watching his wounded prey crawl backwards until it finally propped itself up against one of the hay bales in the barn, Greytail's eyes sought to find any evidence of any other metal claws like the two lying under his right paw. Satisfied that none were in obvious sight, he flicked his attention back to the burrow behind him from which 'Little Cub' was peeking out. Shifting slightly, the pony sized Dire Wolf sought to block Little Cub's view of the prey in case he was required to kill it. He knew that Mother did not want her to see such things, even though to Greytail's mind the lesson of hunting was the most important lesson that a young cub could be taught.
The prey let out little yelps of alarm that Greytail had to silence by moving closer to the prey and barring his teeth in a pronounced snarl. More likely than not, Greytail thought, the prey had a pack. Not for the first time, he wished Mother had been more specific in what she had whispered to his mind. He knew it wasn't her fault. As far as he could tell Mother wasn't even aware of her whispering gift and the jumble of images and emotions that she whispered into his mind sometimes took time to decipher, cluttered as they were with the human tongue. What he did know was that Mother had whispered to him an image of humans in the prey's pelt associated with the emotions of fear and anger.
Greytail had hoped to avoid a second confrontation with this pack after encountering one before the last moonrise. However, the stench made by the Big Hooves when they wintered here had permeated the barn and distracted him from noticing the newcomer until too late. If there were a pack, Greytail knew he would have to dispose of the prey quickly but away from Little Cub so that Mother's will would not be disobeyed. As Greytail approached he noted the prey's yelps of fear started again until he quickly silenced them by firmly grasping the prey by the neck. Carefully dragging the prey so as not to end its life it yet, Greytail headed for a darkened corner of the barn in which to make his kill.
"Maddy? Noah?" called out Hal as he burst in through the open door of the barn. Hal stopped briefly as it took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the gloom of the barn. "Anyone? Hello?"
"HAL!" cried a small voice from the centre of the barn floor. Hal ran towards the trapdoor in the floor of the barn, pulling it open to reveal the combination storm cellar and storeroom. Perched near the top of the ladder leading down into the storm cellar was his youngest sister, Charlotte. Hal pulled her up into his arms once she had scrambled clear of the trapdoor and gathering her in a tight embrace he spun around with her, laughing in relief at finding his sister safe. Charlotte in turn, giggled and squealed in his arms and the two siblings clung tightly to each other, both afraid to let go in case the other wasn't real.
Eventually, Hal gently lowered Charlotte to the ground and kneeling in front of her he took her hands in his own.
"Lottie, are you okay?" he asked. In response Charlotte nodded her head vigorously causing the tears on her cheeks to shake loose and tumble to the straw covered floor.
"Where are the others?" asked Hal, his voice a soft whisper. "Where are Maddy and Noah?"
"I don't know," replied Charlotte with a sniffle. "It's just me and Greytail. They were behind us and then...they were gone."
"Well, we will just have to find them, won't we?" said Hal with a smile conveying more conviction than he felt before once more wrapping his arms around his sister in a tight embrace. He could feel the tension drain from his sister as she sobbed gently into his shoulder.
"Greytail?" asked Thomas from behind Hal, where he had been watching the reunion of brother and sister and struggling with his guilt for the pain that he had caused their family.
"Our dog," said Hal with a smile. "Greytail! Here boy!"
The sight of the dire wolf padding out of the gloom from the far corner of the barn, caused Sir Thomas to take a step back in shock. The sight of Fairfax hanging limply from its jaws caused him to reach for his sword, resulting in a deep resonant growl from Greytail in response.
"Greytail! Drop!" called Hal, ensuring he held Charlotte tight to him so that she couldn't see the sight behind her. "Drop boy! Drop!"
Greytail with some reluctance released the limp form of Fairfax, letting him drop to the floor before slowly wagging his drooping tail in a hopeful manner. For a few seconds, neither man or wolf moved until Fairfax hesitantly reached up to his neck and started to wipe the mix of blood and the wolf's saliva away. Satisfied that Fairfax wasn't in any immediate danger, Hal released Charlotte with one arm and signalled Greytail to join them in a hug. Silently padding over to the two siblings, Greytail bent down to lick both their faces while a giggling Charlotte and smiling Hal both reached around his neck to draw him into a hug.
For a few moments, Hal revelled in the joy of being with family and the memories of happier times and briefly let go of all the tension and worry of the previous day.
Pulling the bucket from the well, Fairfax tipped its contents over his head washing away the mixture of blood and saliva that had coated his neck and chest. As the water cascaded over his bare chest and touched the healing stone hanging around his neck, it danced and shimmered as it purified on contact. The stone glowed a faint dull red signifying that the events of the last few days had left the charge of siden that powered it seriously depleted. Shaking his head to dislodge the excess water from his hair, Jack wiped his face with the small cotton towel that all yeomen carried in their travel kit and examined his right arm again.
The dire wolf's bite marks had now faded to just angry red marks on the surface of the skin and the flesh and muscle underneath had knitted back together returning full use of the arm to him. Satisfied that he would be fully healed in a few minutes, he picked up his blood stained and torn tunic before throwing it in disgust on top of his similarly torn and blood splattered riding breeches.
"How are you feeling?" asked Sir Thomas, offering a clean tunic to Jack.
"Well...let's see. As far as the world is concerned I'm dead. When Ackers gets back to the Wynter Palace she's probably going to spin a tale of treachery that will have my name read out amongst the roll of the dishonoured. Not that she even needs to concoct much of a story given I disobeyed royal orders. I got snared in a rather nasty poachers trap which I should have noticed. I've somehow ended up following a clueless farm boy on some hair brained quest. I spent five minutes as a Dire Wolf's chew toy. And oh... I'm down to my last tunic," said Jack, tugging the new garment over his head as he spoke.
Sir Thomas chuckled quietly at the last comment watching as the expression of righteous indignation on Jack's face softened to a rueful smile.
"At least you're alive," said Sir Thomas, resting his hand briefly on Jack's shoulder. Turning from the well back towards the barn, Sir Thomas returned his attention to the tree line that ran along the opposite side of the track from the barn.
"What is it?" asked Jack. "You've been paying an unnatural amount of attention to that tree line since about half way down the mountain."
"I just have a feeling that we aren't alone."
"You think Ackers left more yeomen?"
"No. It's not yeomen," said Sir Thomas, releasing the leather strap that held his sword in its scabbard while he was riding. "In fact I'm not sure it's any type of man."
"You think the smell of dead horse has attracted predators?" asked Jack, pulling clean riding breeches on. "The last thing we need is to run into a hungry sabre tooth, even with the wolf on our side."
Sir Thomas's paused before replying, his eyes focused intently on an area a few hundred metres away from them, just inside the edge of the tree line.
"Did you see it that time?" whispered Sir Thomas, nodding towards the undergrowth.
"No. Maybe...not clearly. I think I saw something..." said Jack, his own dropping to a whisper. "I didn't get a good enough look to see what it was."
"I did," said Sir Thomas, a tightness in his voice.
"What is it then?" asked Jack as he fastened his sword belt in place. "What is it that has you so spooked?"
"Dweorgas," spat Sir Thomas. "They are drawn to children and probably saw the girl go into the barn alone yesterday but the wolf has kept them at bay. I'm going to check to see if I can find the other two kids. It's most likely that Ackers has them both but I want to be sure."
A frown creased Jack's face in response. "Dweorgas? Are they even real? I thought they were just some form of mythical nature spirit. Stories to scare children and an excuse for the guilty to cover their crimes."
"No, they are real all right. When I was a young yeoman I escorted the High King to a meeting with one of the Clan Chieftains. His name was Finn if memory serves. Creepy little bastard but a damn good smith. Oh...and don't tell Hal or the girl, they've got enough to worry about at the moment."
"If you say so."
"I do."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to bury our dead and have a quick look at that tree line. You're going to take the Amherst's and make for the Paxton's."
"Oh yes...the babysitters," sighed Jack. "If we're really lucky they will take farm boy off of our hands as well as the girl."
"You don't have to come with us Jack," said Thomas, his eyes intently searching the tree line.
"Yeah...well, where you go, I go and all that..." mumbled Jack, before speaking more clearly. "I should come with you into the forest."
"No," said Sir Thomas. "While they normally stay in the forest, it's not unheard of for them to leave it in pursuit of a child. I need you here. Anyway, it's unlikely they will attack a rider unless provoked. They have no love for horses and horses no love for them. Besides, I need you to stay with the others and protect them. If I'm wrong and there is a sabre tooth in the area, the boy doesn't stand a chance defending his sister without your blade."
Jack grunted a begrudging acceptance to the plan.
"I'll do as you say," he said gathering his kit up from around the well. "You just be careful old man."
"Less of the 'old man' you young whelp," said Sir Thomas. While his voice contained a mischievous edge, his eyes remained hard and focussed on the tree line as he walked towards the back of the barn and the fallen yeomen.
Thomas rammed the shovel into the ground and stepped back to examine the two shallow graves he'd dug behind the barn. He hoped that this hasty measure would be sufficient to deter scavengers, particularly when the corpses of the two dead horses nearby would be easier pickings.
"I'm sorry lads," said Thomas. "You both deserve better burials than this. When we get to Canterbury, I'll ensure that the Cantwara are told where to find you so you can be buried properly."
The sound of his horse's agitated whinnying drew his attention back to the present. Fairfax and the Amherst's had been gone for a good hour now and he suspected the dweorgas were finally feeling confident enough to venture from the tree line. Banging his shovel against the side of the barn to dislodge the worst of the fresh earth from it, he unscrewed the metal sections of the handle as he walked and slotted each of the pieces into an open pouch on his saddle bags. Once it was secured away, he grasped the loose reins of his mount and began to rub its neck gently, whispering words of reassurance to the skittish animal.
"You can come out now," said Thomas, in a loud clear voice while focusing his attention on keeping his horse calm. "I'm alone. I may not be able to see you but I know you are there."
In response, the only noise was the gentle breeze rustling the branches of smaller trees. Yet when Thomas turned his head away from his horse towards the tree line, he was not surprised to see a figure standing on the trail.
"Well met, sir" said Thomas, bowing his head slightly out of respect to the figure before him. While his horses reins were held firmly in his left hand, the palm of his right hand gently rocked against the pommel of his sword. The figure closed the distance between them so silently that Thomas wasn't even certain he was walking on the ground, coming to a stop a couple of metres away from Thomas. Thomas's mount snorted its disquiet and scratched at the ground with its hoof, prompting a wary glance from the newcomer.
Now able to get a clearer look at him, Thomas compared the figure to the images popularised in the fairytales of the Angelcyn and his own, several decade old recollections of his meeting with Lord Finn.
Unlike the gruff stocky creatures of his peoples fairytales, Thomas guessed the newcomer to be just under a metre and a half in height. He would hesitate to call the figure a 'dwarf', given the perfect proportions of his comparatively short stature. His youthful, stubble covered face with its delicate features and flawless pale white skin spoke of a 'prettiness' rather than a 'ruggedness', an appearance that was not helped by his jet black shaggy hair which had been loosely pulled back into a waist length braid decorated with daisies and laurel leaves. A pair of coal black eyes peered out at him from under a precious stone encrusted gold coronet which Thomas knew denoted his status as a clan chieftain amongst the Dweorgas.
"Well met, Yeoman" replied the figure, his voice was surprisingly soft and light but his body language hinted at a firmness underneath not to be trifled with. "What brings you to this forest?"
"I'm searching for two children who I believe came upon this place sometime yesterday. Who do I have the honour of addressing?" said Thomas, his mind working hard to recall the appropriately respectful manner in which to address a Dweorgas clan elder.
"You may address me as Lord Nori...or simply My Lord...and I know of the children that you seek, Sir Thomas." said the figure, idly fidgeting with a sizable curved dagger in his hands as he spoke. The size and shape of the blade making it look more like a cleaving than a stabbing weapon.
"You know of me, My Lord?" asked Thomas.
"I know of many things. I know that the boy, Noah, is with the other yeomen. They are taking him eastwards, away from the your people for reasons I do not know."
"Is he unharmed?"
"Based on the last report from my rangers before the yeomen left the forest, I would say so."
"And the girl?"
Lord Nori, shifted uncomfortably for a minute, toying with the protective ring guard on the underside of the hilt of his dagger.
"By human standards, I am ancient," said Lord Nori, brushing his hair aside to reveal an ear with a pronounced point far in excess of that of the most noblest born á¦lfe descended human. "I was born in the twenty-third year of the reign of High King Theodore, which by your calendar would be EY1076. An unpleasant and ignorant man, Theodore would blame my people for the three year long Great Famine saying that our tunnels had drained the water from the soil. Complete rubbish of course but in the final year of the famine, Theodore would orchestrate a series of massacres against us to appease his peoples unrest and divert the blame from himself. As a result, the Clans withdrew from day-to-day interaction with your people to refuges deep underground and in the darkest forests..."
A bitter expression creased Lord Nori's face as unpleasant memories replayed through his mind.
"I tell you this because ever since then, your people have distorted and twisted their perception of my people to excuse their acts of barbarism against us. Your ancestors killed my mother and thousands more of my people yet in your eyes, I am the villain here. I am not what you think I am. I can tell from the fire in your eyes that you believe the stories of us as tricksters...inflictors of curses...and child snatchers. Tell me, Sir Thomas...have you ever heard the 'Charm Against A Dwarf' sung to cure those tormented by nightmares we've supposedly inflicted by taking their 'soul' for a ride?"
Thomas nodded his head in response, tightening his grip on his sword hilt.
"I know of you, Sir Thomas," said Lord Nori. "Do you think the nightmares that torment you of the innocent men, women and children you put to the sword in reprisals against the people of Deira and Bernicia are caused by my people or your own conscience?"
Thomas let go of the hilt of his sword and shook his head slowly.
"My demons...are my own."
"Aye lad, they are that," said Lord Nori, the barest trace of a smile playing on his lips. "If it helps you to understand me better, I would direct you to the name that your Norse cousins know us by. We are the 'Dá¸kká¡lfar' to them...the 'dark elf'. We are no better or worse than those of your own people who have the blood of the á¦lfe running through their veins."
Lord Nori paused and held up his hand in a beckoning gesture. In response a dozen Dweorgas clothed in green and brown patterned garments emerged from the tree line, holding an assortment of axes, bows and swords.
"I'm showing you my rangers so that you understand the need to temper your actions with wisdom after what I am about to tell you...I have the girl but I will not release her to you at this time."
Thomas's hand tightened around the hilt of his sword again in response to Lord Nori's comment.
"I must insist that she is released," said Thomas, his eyes not leaving the bowmen amongst Lord Nori's people. "Her brother wishes only her safe return, My Lord."
"From what I've observed of the him, Hal is a good lad," said Lord Nori with a smile. "A trifle blinkered at times when he has made his mind up but then he gets that from his mother. And yes, I know who she really is. I swore an oath to the Wynter Lion shortly after she settled here that I would bring no harm to hers if she in turn brought no harm to mine. I was not able to help Noah but I can help Madeleine."
"If what you say is true...if you mean her no harm...then you would have no objection to my seeing her then, My Lord?" asked Thomas.
Lord Nori exhaled in response and lowered his dagger.
"This is probably the longest I've spoken to a human not of the blood royal since High Queen Alexandra was sitting on the Wynter Throne...what, three hundred or so years ago. Now there was a fine woman...."
"My Lord," said Thomas, his voice taking on a more insistent quality. "May I see her?"
"You will see her," said Lord Nori, extending his free hand to Thomas. "Upon that you have my word."
Thomas felt a sharp pain as he grasp the proffered hand and pulled his hand quickly back. A thin scratch marked one of his fingers and he sucked at in an effort to staunch the bleeding and minimise the slight pain.
"I think I caught my hand on your ring, My Lo..."
Thomas collapsed to his knees heavily, pitching forward into the ground. His hand flailed at his sword but his muscles seemed oddly uncoordinated and he couldn't form his fingers into a firm enough grip on the hilt to draw it. As his vision started to blur, he saw the face of a smiling Lord Nori bend down close to his.
"You have my word that you will see Princess Madeleine when the time is right for her to be returned to you," said Lord Nori. "I give you my oath that she will come to no harm by my peoples hands while in our care."
Lord Nori signalled to figures outside of Thomas's range of vision and he felt other hands grasp him and move him into a sitting position.
"Wha..."
"It's a fast acting paralysing agent of our own devising. You may experience some difficulty in speaking as your lips and tongue go numb. Rest assured that you will have no lasting ill effects from it, although right now I'm sure you're wishing you were wearing that healing stone and not your compatriot," said Lord Nori with a chuckle. "I want you to remember what I say next, as it's very important. You may not think it now but we are actually on the same side in the coming storm. Everything I have told you today is true, although with one small exception..."
"Wa...x'eption..."
"What exception? I may have stretched the truth a tiny bit when I said we weren't tricksters by nature. It turns out that your people remember that part perfectly correctly," said Lord Nori, with a wink.
"Yewww...itl...baaa..." mumbled Thomas, before the power of speech finally deserted him.
"Anyway, I've got to be going. Things to do and all that. You just take things easy and enjoy a nice rest," said Lord Nori patting Thomas gently on the cheek.
The last thing Thomas saw before losing consciousness was two Dweorgas struggling with the reins of his horse.
The Paxton Farmstead, The Great Plains, Kingdom of Cantia
Woden's Day 24 April EY 2471 - Early afternoon
"Pa! Riders!" called a teenage boy from his vantage point standing in the open first floor doors of the barn.
Ambrose Paxton carefully placed the hay bale on the ground and turned to face the road leading from the farmstead to the plains. Shading his eyes from the low spring sun, he could make out the form of three riders and two accompanying rider less horses in the distance.
"Tony...can you see who it is from there?" he called up to his youngest son.
"Yeah...one of the riders is Hal Stockbury...it looks like little Charlotte is riding with him. I don't recognise the second man...but it looks like he's wearing some sort of uniform."
"Go tell your mother we've got company coming and then get your brothers together."
"Wayne and Robert are out in the Auroch pastures," called Tony in response.
Ambrose cursed quietly under his breath recalling he'd sent them out to the far pastures earlier that morning.
"Tell your mother anyway...and get your sisters together in that case."
"Okay, Pa!" called Tony as he headed back into the darkness of the barn.
Ambrose Paxton was the sort of man who people would often say that 'they wouldn't have wanted to cross when he was younger'. Even now in his early fifties, he was someone that you would have to think twice at crossing. Standing at just under two metres tall, he gave the impression of being at least that wide and while some of his muscle had faded away with age, work on the farm had ensured that the muscles in his arms remained largely unchanged. His light mocha coloured skin had a leathery quality typical of someone who had spent far too long outside unprotected in extremes of weather.
Ambrose leaned against the flat top of a post in the low wooden fence that surrounded the farmstead and waved with his free hand as the riders came to a halt in front of him. With an excited squeal, Charlotte slid off the side of her brothers horse and ran to embrace him.
"Uncle Ambrose!" squealed an excited Charlotte as Ambrose spun her around in his arms.
"Hey pumpkin!" greeted Ambrose.
Hal dismounted and shook hands with Ambrose in greeting, his own hand disappearing in the grasp of the older man's much bigger hand.
"Hal," said Ambrose.
"Unc...Ambrose," said Hal, blushing at his slip. It was still difficult for him not to refer to the older man as 'Uncle Ambrose' even though they were not related. However, he honoured the older man's wish that now Hal was of age he greet him as an equal.
"Who's your friend," asked Ambrose nodding his head towards the still mounted figure of Fairfax. "And what brings you to the farm?"
"Ambrose, this is Lieutenant Fairfax. Jack, this is Ambrose Paxton," said Hal. "As for why I'm here...things have...happened..."
In response to Hal's gesture towards the two aging destriers, Ambrose placed Charlotte on the ground and approached the litter.
"Is he..." asked Ambrose, letting the final part of the question remain unspoken as he glanced towards Charlotte.
"Yes, I think so..." replied Hal. "I had hoped that the life stone...I...that is, we..."
Ambrose reached over and embraced Hal.
"We'll get through this together," said Ambrose, releasing the younger man from the bear hug.
Turning to the farm house, he cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed at Tony standing uncertainly in the doorway.
"Tony! Ask your mother to set the table for three more and then get Sara and Rachel to come out here with you!"
Watching as his son waved in acknowledgement, Ambrose carefully scooped the body of Daniel from the litter with both arms.
"Yeoman, if you wouldn't mind seeing to the horses. The barn has a small stabling area at the back you can use. My children will help you find everything you need," said Ambrose. "Charlotte, Hal...we'll take your father inside to lay down in one of the spare rooms and we'll talk more over dinner if that's okay?"
Hal nodded his agreement. Any further discussion was curtailed by a cry from a young woman as she ran from the farm house.
"I see Sara is pleased to see you," said Ambrose.
In a hug that nearly knocked Hal off his feet, Sara threw her arms around Hal's neck and pressed her lips hard against his. Grasping her waist tenderly with his hands, Hal returned the kiss with equal passion.
Charlotte giggled softly at her brother and looked up to see a smile on Ambrose's face. Noticing that he'd be caught smiling, Ambrose cleared his throat and adopted as stern a visage as he could manage, trying to ignore the smile tickling the corner of his lips.
"Alright you two, enough of that. Sara, you need to help your brother and sister stable the horses while Hal and Lottie here need to go inside and talk."
Sara leant into Hal, sneaking one last quick kiss before grasping the reins to his horse.
It took all of Ambrose's willpower not to laugh at the goofy smile that was plastered onto Hal's face as he walked towards the cottage.
The Clan Laurel Refuge, The Downs Mountains
Woden's Day 24 April EY 2471 - Late-Afternoon
Lord Nori slumped into a heavily padded chair with a sigh and crossing his legs, rested them on the surface of the large oak desk in front of him. With a practiced ease, he used each foot in turn to remove the boot from the other and kicked off his thick woollen socks, enjoying the feeling of cool air running over aching, hot feet. Closing his eyes, he rested his head against the chair and cleared his mind of everything, feeling the tension start to wash away.
"I'm getting too old for this..." he whispered, though truth be told he knew that in his heart a part of him enjoyed today even if his body was paying the price for it now.
"NORI DAVLINNSSON!" shouted a voice from outside his chambers. A voice he recognised all too well.
Lord Nori hastily pulled his feet down from the desk and straightened up in the chair as the door burst open. A quick scan of the room told him that there were far too many potential projectiles in the room for his liking and he wondered if it would make things worse if he went for his shield, hanging on the wall behind his chair.
Two figures entered through the doorway, one, an attractive Dweorgas woman, marching towards him with her face full of thunder while the second, a late middle aged human male, nervously shuffled into the room behind her.
"What do you think you were doing?" shouted the woman, grasping the edge of his desk as she leaned forward to poke him in the chest. "What on Eorá°e possessed you risk your life in such a manner?"
"Dorlin...sweetheart..."
"Don't you 'sweetheart' me, Nori Davlinnsson!" shouted Dorlin, her volume getting louder and her complexion getting redder by the second. "You promised me that you would delegate the task of tracking the other Amherst children to one of the ranger commanders. Promised me! So imagine my surprise when Captain Alaricsdottir said that you were leading the rangers!"
Nori's eyes briefly flicked to the ornamental iron ore paperweight that his wife was grasping in her left hand and not for the first time in their marriage gave serious consideration to wearing his battle helm more often in the Refuge. Glancing up, he noticed the anxious expression on the human hovering in the background.
"Sweetheart...not in front of the child," hissed Nori, gesturing with his eyes towards the human.
Dorlin's head turned to look back at the other figure in the room, briefly giving him a warm smile before turning back to face Nori.
"Don't think this is over Nori Davlinnson!" she snarled back before dropping heavily in one of the two chairs on her side of the desk. "Just you wait until tonight."
Patting the second chair, Dorlin gestured to the third figure in the room to join them.
Accepting the truce with relief, Nori slumped back into his chair with a loud sigh. He couldn't help but smile as he recalled the words of advice his father gave him as a child about selecting a mate. 'Marry a woman with iron in her veins'. Lady Dorlin Hergersdottir certainly had that in her veins he thought. And also in her grasp he noted with some unease as he watched her shifting his paperweight from hand to hand.
"So Gareth, how is the girl?" asked Nori, hoping to change the conversation to safer ground.
"Her physical injuries are healing well and she should look none the worse for her injuries by tomorrow morning," said Gareth. "Our weavers have significant concerns about the shards of siden stone lodged in her though. They've only been able to remove a fraction of the shards, mainly the smallest pieces. In your absence, father, I advised Lady Snorrisdottir and her weavers to keep her asleep until they've removed as much as they can and completely healed her burn wounds."
"Given how badly burnt she was when our rangers found her, I think you are doing her an act of kindness by not letting her see her injuries," said Nori, nodding his assent. "It's better that she wake up tomorrow and be none the wiser as to how close to death she was when we found her. Well done, lad."
A shy smile tugged at Gareth's lips as he blushed in response to Nori's praise.
"When do you intend to release her back to her family?" asked Gareth.
"I've given my word that we will release her when the time is right," said Nori with a wink. "And that will be when I am certain she can come to no harm. My oath to the Wynter Lion still stands."
"I've never seen a human with that much aelfe blood in her before," said Gareth, running his hand through his thinning short cropped salt and pepper hair. "Is all the Wynter line like that?"
"No...not to that degree. The Amherst's are a family unusually rich in the blood of the aelfe which helps but the Wynter Lion herself is the purest aelfe blood I've ever met outside of our own people. Far more so than her parents oddly..."
"Ahhh...a mystery to pique my father's curiosity. Though if you will forgive me, mother...father...I'm due at Court shortly to hear petitions relating to families wishing to undertake exploratory mining in the eastern zone," said Gareth easing himself to his feet with a grunt.
"Joints playing you up again, son?" asked Nori, his face softening in response to the pained expression on Gareth's face.
"No worse than usual father," replied Gareth, grasping his mother's outstretched hand to reassure her. "It's already passing."
Straightening himself up to his full six foot, Gareth turned and bowed slightly to both his parents. Both Dweorgas watched as he limped out of the room and once the door closed behind him, Dorlin burst into tears causing Nori to hastily move around the desk to take her in his arms.
"Shhhhhhh...sweetheart, it'll be okay," whispered Nori, lightly kissing the top of his wife's auburn hair. "I'll speak to Lady Snorrisdottir later and get one the weavers to visit him and relieve his pain. While she has done a tremendous job in retarding the visible signs of his ageing, she expected his pain to return sooner or later. Even the power of siden has its limits."
"My baby...he's too young for this..." said Dorlin, punctuating her speech with diaphragm heaving sobs. "too young..."
Balancing on the arm of her chair, Nori pulled his wife closer to him, so that her head rested gently against his chest.
"The trouble is he's not young though is he? For one of us, seventy-five would be early adolescence...for a human lacking the blood of the aelfe in his veins...he's in the early part of his old age," said Nori, his voice heavily tinged with sadness. "I don't regret for a moment rescuing him from those outlaws that murdered his family. It seemed like a gift from the á‰se at the time, holding that orphaned four year old in my arms so soon after losing our own newborn child...and I've never been prouder than when he was sixteen and he choose to remain with us...his family...rather than return to the human world."
Nori blotted at his eyes with the back of his hand before continuing.
"I consider myself to have been blessed. I married a beautiful woman who has become more beautiful with each passing century and I have a son to be proud of...Gareth Norisson's kindness and bravery will be sung in the history of our people for generations to come. And if he only has a short time left with us, then I intend to make every day of them count."
"I wish there was something we could do..." sighed Dorlin, snuggling against her husband's chest.
"I've asked Lady Snorrisdottir to speak to the other clans and consult the old knowledge. I give you my oath that no stone will be left unturned in an effort to find some way of giving our son the life span he should have."
"You're a good man, Nori Davlinnsson..." said Dorlin as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "I know you will do everything within your power to save our son from his mayfly human life."
Nori rested his chin on top of his wife's head and closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her body against his. The couple held each other in silence for a few minutes before finally Dorlin stirred. Rising to her feet she kissed her husband lovingly on the cheek before leaving the room. Stopping at the door, she looked back at her husband watching as he collected his socks from the floor.
"Nori..." asked Dorlin in honeyed tones.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"I love you..."
"I love you too."
"Nori..."
"Yes, sweetheart?" answered Nori, a hint of irritation in his voice.
"I haven't forgotten you're still in the doghouse," said Dorlin, flashing an evil grin at her husband as she exited the room.
"Marry a woman with iron in her blood..." muttered Nori looking heavenwards. "Sometimes father, I think that advice was the biggest trick you ever pulled on me..."
The Paxton Farmstead, The Great Plains, Kingdom of Cantia
Hal gratefully accepted the wooden salad bowl passed across the table to him by Jeanie, helping himself to a large scooping before passing it onto Ambrose sitting beside him. The general hubbub of conversation in the kitchen reminding him of meals at home.
Taking a bite from a honey cake, Jack let out a little sigh of appreciation. "This is good. Better than good. We need some of these for the road if it's possible."
Ambrose chuckled in response. "Jeanie can bake like no one else I've met."
"Marsha, Jean..." said Jeanie, turning to her youngest children. "Why don't you take Lottie and go out back and feed Greytail. I'm sure he would like the salted leg of lamb I've put aside for him."
"Yes, momma!" responded Marsha excitedly, getting down from her seat. "Come with me Lottie!"
"Momma..." whined Jean. "Can't I stay with you.."
A stern look from Jeanie silenced her twelve year old daughter and she reluctantly headed out to the back of the house after the two giggling younger children. Once she was certain they had gone, Jeanie turned to face Hal once more.
"What have you told Lottie?"
"About father?" asked Hal, around a mouthful of beef and salad. "I've said he's very sick and I'm going to take him to a physic. I still live in hope that we can find a weaver who can revive him but either way, the life stone is preventing his body suffering any decay."
"She needs to know the truth sooner or later," stated Ambrose, breaking a chunk of bread from one of the loaves in the centre of the table. "Whatever you hope, you can't deny her the chance to say goodbye to him if he is gone."
"I know...I intend to tell her before I head for Canterbury how serious father's condition is. If I can't find a weaver who can heal him once we reach the city then I will ensure that he is buried in keeping with the customs of our people."
"Hal, where is your mother, your brother and other sister?" asked Jeanie softly.
Closing his eyes momentarily, Hal's head tilted forward allowing his hair to obscure some of his face before he spoke.
"The yeomen have momma..."
"Noah and Maddy?"
"I think they have them as well. I'm not sure. I'm not sure about a lot if the truth be known..."
"What do you think...Jack wasn't it?" asked Jeanie, recalling the hasty conversation with Hal while the horses were being stabled that had established that Jack was to be considered trustworthy and posed no harm.
"I know for certain that Sergeant Ackers has their mother. If she or any of the troop had come across the children, they would have taken them as well," said Jack. "From the evidence on the trail, we think Maddy fought with some of the yeomen and lost. We did a thorough search and found no trace of a body."
"Girl has spirit," said Ambrose, an appreciative tone to his voice. "No way she went easy. Too much like her mother."
"Of that husband, I have no doubt," said Jeanie. Reaching behind her, she twisted her long dark hair up into a high pony tail that revealing a small delicate point to her ears. "On a related note, Hal...how much do you know about that ring you are wearing?"
Hal turned his hand around taking a closer look at the ring. "Everything. It's my father's birthright. How much do you know about it?"
Jeanie exchanged a glance with Ambrose, and at his subtle nod continued speaking.
"I know it is the ring of the heir to the Kingdom of Cantia. I've never seen that particular ring before today, but I saw similar ones on the fingers of King Justin and Queen Aldeberge when I swore an oath to serve the crown."
"Like Jeanie, I've never seen that particular ring before today either," added Ambrose. "But I have also seen your grandparent's rings. I even kissed them when they offered me the farm."
"Cantwara militia?" asked Jack, canting his head slightly to reappraise the bigger man.
"Yeah...I'd completed my ten and was looking to leave and take the five hectares I was entitled to by service and rank. Jeanie had already had our first two children and we wanted to raise a family in peace with the little money we had saved. That was just under twenty-two years ago. You can imagine our surprise when the King and Queen invited us to a private audience and offered to provide me with an even bigger pension and land grant than I would have got as a three termer. All I had to do for it was accept the specific twenty hectares they offered me...this farm...and promise to come to the aid of their son and daughter-in-law should they ever need it."
"We'd intended just to be friendly neighbours originally as your parents were unaware that we knew who they really were but I think your momma was feeling a little lonely when we called around and well...we formed a friendship that developed from that," said Jeanie. "We took the task as a duty...but over time it became something we would have done anyway for a friend without the promise of all this..."
"Wait...Hal's royalty?"
Ambrose turned to his eldest daughter, Sara who along with two older other siblings had been listening raptly to the conversation going on around them.
"Yes, Hal is technically Lord Henry Amherst, second in line to the Kingdom of Cantia," said Ambrose.
"Bet she didn't know that when she was kissing him," stage whispered her younger sister Rachel to Tony. In response, both Hal and Sara shyly blushed prompting a smirk from Jack.
"Oh...but it gets even wilder than that," said Hal, pulling at the ribbon buried under his clothes. Looping it over his head, he tossed the ribbon and its attached ring to Ambrose. "Do you know what this is?"
Ambrose examined the ring, noting the richness of the material and craftsmanship. On the ring was the symbol of the Angelcyn dragon, with its raised clawed front leg, and above that an image of the High Crown similar to that shown on all official documents from the Wynter Palace. Turning it over in his hand, he passed it to Jeanie.
"So the rumours were true then? Your mother was really a princess and eloped with your father?" asked Ambrose.
"She was a princess. She did elope with my father...but that's not what that ring symbolises."
"Hal...where did you get this?" asked Jeanie, staring intently at detail engraved into the side of the ring. "These are cadency marks for the first born child of royal lineage."
"That can't be," said Ambrose looking between Hal and Jeanie. "The first born child was the Wynter Lion. You aren't seriously telling me that Georgina is a man?"
"Was. Not is. I don't claim to understand it all but I do know this. My mother regardless of accidents of birth was a wonderful woman and proud mother," said Hal.
"Then that makes you..." asked Sara in a quiet voice.
"Prince Henry Amherst at your service," said Hal.
"And she didn't know that when she was kissing him either," said Jack with a chuckle, enjoying the opportunity to watch Hal squirm again.
Standing by the sink in the Paxton's kitchen, Hal accepted the wet plate from Jeanie and proceeded to start drying it, as he had every time he'd eaten at the family's house since he turned fourteen. Leaning against a big welsh dresser nearby was Ambrose, quietly drinking beer from a plain glazed earthenware bottle.
"Thank you for that lovely meal," said Hal accepting another wet plate from Jeanie. "You're a wonderful cook and I particularly enjoyed the bread. My mother never could quite get her bread to rise properly."
"Thank you Hal," said Jeannie. She gave Hal a wink before turning to face her husband. "You know you're always welcome here and it's so nice to have a man about the house who pulls his weight cleaning up after a meal."
"I harvest the wheat and slaughter the cattle to put food on the table," said Ambrose in reply with a snort of disapproval. "Besides, you always moan that I don't clean the plates properly anyway."
"Can't or won't clean them properly?" asked Jeanie teasingly.
Hal couldn't help but chuckle at the domestic interplay, so similar to that he experienced at home. He distinctly remembered his father saying that the á‰se blessed him with children so he never had to wash up again.
Her face turning serious, Jeanie reached out and gently touched Hal's arm.
"Hal, there's no good time to say this, so I'm going to say it now, okay? Stop me if I have this wrong but my understanding from what you said at lunch is that you intend to march into the public assembly room of the palace at Canterbury, convince the King and Queen of your lineage using the ring and sword, and then raise an army to march on the Wynter Palace and take back your mother and avenge the death of your father?" asked Jeanie.
"A little over simplified but, yeah, basically. Why?"
"Because it's a stupid plan," said Jeannie.
"Well what choice do I have?" asked Hal, putting down the plate he had been drying. "It's not like I can get a private audience with the King by just sidling up the gates and saying 'psst! let me in to see the King, I'm his grandson, honest!' is it? The only way I'll be able to get in to see him is during the public petitions session. In case you haven't noticed my sole assets are a couple of yeomen, a dire wolf and my father's ring and sword. I have to hope that by creating as much noise as possible and using the public testimony of the two yeomen that I can pressurise the High King into returning my family. If the King of Cantia can sway enough of the other Kings to our cause, the High King can be made to acquiesce. It's not like the High King is going to just return my mother if I pitch up at the Wynter Palace and ask for my mummy back is he?"
An agitated Hal slid to the floor with his back against the kitchen wall, and pulled his knees to his chest.
"I wasn't raised to be a leader or a diplomat or a prince. My father is probably dead. The á‰se only know what has happened to my sister and brother and I'm kind of making this up as I go along, running on bravado since yesterday. I had to do something...or I'd just have curled up into a ball and stayed there. If you've got a better plan...please...let's hear it."
"Okay...well, the ring combined with my contacts will get you a private audience with the King. I can guarantee that much."
"Wait...your contacts?" asked Hal. "I thought it was Ambrose who was in the militia?"
"Yes, that's true. Ambrose was in the militia. He left after reaching the rank of sergeant-at-arms in fact," said Jeannie, her voice filled with pride. "However, I also worked for the Cantwara Crown."
"Were you a lady-in-waiting? Is that how you have contacts with the King?"
Jeanie let out a light giggle, a broad smile on her face as she recalled the past.
"I was many things. I was a lady-in-waiting, a scullery maid, a baker, a flower seller and more...but that was always in the pursuit of my true occupation."
"Which was?" asked Hal, his curiosity peaked.
"I was a...creative problem solver...for the crown."
"What does that mean?"
"You had to go and ask," grumbled Ambrose, closing his eyes and slumping back against the dresser.
Jeanie reached behind her apron and pulled a small throwing dagger out from behind it. In a flurry of movement the dagger had flown from her hand and was projecting from the wooden dresser just above Ambrose's head. Open mouthed Hal turned from looking at Ambrose, to Jeanie and then back to Ambrose.
"I also bake," said Jeannie smugly before selecting another dirty plate to wash.
The Clan Laurel Refuge, The Downs Mountains
Woden's Day 24 April EY 2471 - Early Evening
Nori pulled a chair up next to the bed and took a proper look at Madeleine for the first time since she was found by his rangers. The dark brittle skin from the siden burns had been changed to a more normal angry red burn by the efforts of his weavers. Within a few hours, the only mark left from the incident would be the faint scaring from small shards of siden embedded in her skin that they couldn't remove. What worried Nori more was that none of his weavers could tell him what the effect of having the shards of siden stone trapped in her skin would do to her. He hoped whatever it was that it wouldn't be harmful to her.
"Unexpected...but fortuitous..."
Nori turned at the sound of the woman's voice to see the matronly form of a middle aged human materialise at the foot of the bed. Fussily adjusting her oversized red bow around her neck, she also fluffed the bun her hair was tied up in before gracing Nori with a smile.
"She nearly died SaxnÅt," said Nori, turning back to face Madeleine.
"But she didn't and your people saved her."
"You didn't know that though!" shouted Nori, rising to his feet. "You would have let a child die!"
"I think by human standards, seventeen is considered to be nearly an adult. But as I said...this development is unexpected but fortuitous. It provides a valuable new piece for the board. When will you be returning her to her brother?"
"When I'm confident that she will be suffering no ill effects from the siden shards."
"You don't have to worry about that."
"I'd rather take the advice of my own weavers and physics first thank you," said Nori indignantly.
"Her welfare is secondary to that of the role she can play. I had thought her mother would be crucial to my goals but now I see other options available. More reliable options not tainted by prophecy."
"I've met the Wynter Lion. You will be hard pressed to find a more loving and honourable person."
"That was before, when Daniel was alive," said SaxnÅt. "I have read the paths. If the High King restores her to her original form then the outcomes are not good. Not good at all, unless you consider a bitter, rage consumed, insane warrior king to be your idea of a good ruler."
"And you want to put the child in the way of that?" asked Nori.
"Not particularly. However, if it saves the three billion lives on this planet...then the needs of the greater good must take precedent over the welfare of this one girl. Rest assured if Herla wins you will all die, crushed beneath the might of the Angelcyn High King."
"I don't believe that the life of one innocent is ever an appropriate trade off, regardless of the outcome."
"You will honour your promise to Sir Thomas," said Saxnot, her face a mask of exasperation.
"I gave my oath. We aelfe keep our oaths."
"I sense trickery, my Lord," hissed SaxnÅt, moving to stand behind Nori. He started slightly when he felt her hands on his shoulder.
"I've already given my word to Sir Thomas that she would be returned to him when the time is right."
"Yes...but is your definition of when the time is right the same as mine? I would hope that you wouldn't be trying to deceive me Nori Davlinnsson...I have many agents here on Eorá°e who could make life difficult for you and your clan."
"Difficult? How do you make life more difficult for a dying race?" snarled Nori, shrugging the hands off his shoulders. "The star fall that shattered a continent and killed the Old Worlders deprived my people of the cure for the affliction that limits our ability to bear live offspring. We were just about maintaining a static population until the massacres committed by King Theodore pushed my people's numbers below that which is viable. If it wasn't for our long life spans we'd already be a footnote in history and as it is we will be extinct as a clan within three generations and as a race within five. No one clan on its own has a viable population base and even if we merged all the clans together we would only delay the inevitable. Already Clan's Eagle and Granite are lost to us...their remnants scattered and absorbed into the others."
"I understand that Lord Finn believes he has a solution. Is your need for personal power greater than that of your peoples survival?"
"Finn is a bigot and a fool. I...and my people...would rather Clan Laurel ceases to be, than join that man and his twisted plans to use fire siden to ensure the survival of Clan Blackthorn. I'd rather die an aelfe than live as the creatures his people will become. Besides, the human children we rescue and that opt to stay with us will ensure that our culture if not our bloodlines will survive in some small way. Finn treats the human children his people 'rescue' as little more than chattel. It is the fault of his people than the humans mistrust us in the first place."
Saxnot bent down to stroke a stray strand of hair from Madeleine's forehead.
"Suppose it doesn't have to be this way, My Lord Nori? Suppose your people can have their fertility boosted to human norms. Imagine Dweorgas families with three or even four children rather than the one or sometimes two you have now."
"Two in itself would be a miracle. Our people have struggled to have more than one live birth per family for the last five hundred years."
"Mother and daughter must be reunited," said SaxnÅt. "It is the only way to ensure my victory. Do this for me and I in turn will grant your people an enhanced reproductive rate for five generations and...I'll heal your son as a sign of good faith. In return, I want your oath, given freely now, that you will have mother and daughter reunited before the anniversary of the High Kings coronation."
"Do you know what you are asking? The risk to the girl would be extreme," said Nori. "Our people consider harming a child to be the greatest crime imaginable."
"I know what I am asking. Madeleine's condition is unexpected. In most of the time lines she died in that confrontation with the yeoman or shortly afterwards. That she survived in the prime reality is something that Herla would not have counted on and even now I'm working to obscure her existence from him. So if you think about it, she is - on the balance of probability - already dead."
"You heartless ba..."
"Ah-ah-ah!" said SaxnÅt, wagging her finger in front of Nori. "That's no way to speak in front of a lady is it?"
"You are no lady." snarled Nori. "You're not even human are you?"
"No...I'm not human anymore. Once I was but not now," said SaxnÅt sadly. "Your oath, Nori."
"I want Gareth healed now, as proof of your intent," stated Nori.
"That is acceptable."
"Then I, Lord Nori, give you my oath that I will reunite this girl with her mother before the anniversary of High King Henry's coronation this coming May."
In response SaxnÅt snapped her fingers.
"If you speak to Lady Snorrisdottir tomorrow morning you will find that she had a document in her possession that will heal him all along without realising it. She will find the document later tonight."
"Then I will honour my promises."
"Ensure that you do Nori," said SaxnÅt fading from view.
Slumping back into his seat, Nori placed his head in his hands.
"Nori Davlinnsson, what have you got yourself into this time you old fool," he whispered to himself.
To be continued...
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to either comment, pm or kudos me in respect of the Wynter Lioness so far. It's been hugely appreciated on this story, given the length of it and of course, like all authors, comments do help encourage me. Hopefully, the current popularity boost of the fantasy story might garner the odd new reader, which given a further drop in reads last chapter would be welcome! At just over 12,000 words this chapter is probably one of the longest yet. I just couldn't break it without the final scene with Lord Nori though, so it felt right to go over my normal 10,000 words. Expect a chapter a month from now on with the story finishing late 2011-ish.
As usual I would also like to thank Persephone for inspiring this with her story 'The Frozen Balance' and without which this story wouldn't be here.
A quick mention to the Dweorgas. Modern fantasy dwarves and anglo-saxon / norse dwarves are not quite the same thing. I have taken elements from both in my Dweorgas with a heavy reliance on the beauty of norse elves and other elements of them. What fascinated me most about them is the association with 'black' or 'dark' elves in early norse literature and I've played with that a lot. I did forgo that early norse dwarves were human height compromising on them being short but not really, really short. One of the things I really wanted to get away from was the whole bearded bit as well, so that's gone. Think of them really as short elves who are good with metalworking and caves. As for the metrical 'Charm against a Dwarf', it does actually exist and can be found by a google search fairly easily. It's open to a lot of interpretation but the view I liked was that "among the Germanic peoples nightmares were believed to be caused by various wights who attack people in their sleep and then take their souls out for a ride' The mare was apparently a metaphysical wight whose whole purpose in life was to ride both men and horses in their sleep. In the morning men so afflicted would wake up exhausted and it was believed that if a man or horse were so ridden long enough he would die of exhaustion..". So, that was the bit I absorbed into my world for the meaning of the charm.
Prince Henry Wynter was the Heir to the High Throne of the Heptarchy and prophesised to one day lead his people to unparalleled greatness. Twenty two years after he abandoned his destiny and his throne for the chance to be the person he felt he was meant to be, he finds that Fate has not yet finished with him. The events surrounding the proposed appointment of a new Heir to the High Throne have consequences that reach as far the remote farmstead refuge of the former prince and threaten to destroy the new life that she has built for herself.
The Golden Hall, The Wynter Palace, Isle of Avalon
The Coronation Anniversary Masked Ball, 15 May EY2446 (25 Years Ago)
The sky was so full of stars that Daniel thought if he had asked the Woden himself to show him all the stars in the heavens there would not be so many as were in the sky tonight. Intellectually, he knew that this was a once in twenty-five year occurrence when Fá¦dera was in a new moon phase and Má³drige was in a dark moon phase but romantically he preferred to see it as a blessing from the á‰se, a gift to the boy with his head in the heavens.
Reaching out with his hand in front of him, he lazily traced the outline of the constellations... Beowulf... Thunor's Hammer... the Grendel... and more. He knew the names of them all and as a small child he had enjoyed spending evenings camped out in the Palace Gardens back home in Canterbury gazing up at the stars trying to imagine where in the distant heavens lay the Old World from which his distant ancestors, the á¦lfe, had travelled to settle Eorá°e. He knew from his mother and other wiser heads than he, that the Old World's star wasn't visible to the naked eye in the night sky but as a child he had believed that if he looked long enough and hard enough that one day he might by rewarded by Woden with a glimpse of it. Even now, at the age of seventeen years, whenever he had the chance Daniel still gazed hopefully at the stars.
Taking a long swig from the open bottle of wine in his other hand, Daniel listened to the soundtrack accompanying his stargazing, the beat of the bodhrá¡n and the gentle buzz of a thousand conversations from the ballroom behind him. The edge of veranda overlooking the Summer Gardens may only have been five metres away from the French doors to the ballroom but the acoustics and still night air made it feel a lifetime away.
The ball had been an impressive event even by the standards of the Wynter Palace and it was the first time that Daniel could ever recall that all seven of the kings of the Heptarchy and their heirs were present in the same place at the same time. While Daniel had enjoyed seeing so many of his friends at the ball, that pleasure had been outweighed by the apparent declaration of the opening of hunting season on eligible heirs and he'd spent much of the evening dodging the most persistent of his would be suitors. He'd felt particularly sorry for Harry, who as the Heir to the High Throne had been a powerful magnet for those looking for a socially advantageous marriage. Knowing there was nothing he could to help his friend, Daniel had grabbed a couple of bottles of wine and retreated to the peace and quiet of the dimly lit veranda. That had been nearly two hours ago.
Alone with his thoughts, the wine and the stars, Daniel pondered the future. His time as a yeoman cadet officer would come to an end in just over two years and he would have to make a choice between accepting a full commission or leaving the Yeomanry to return home. In his heart though, Daniel knew that the mantle of yeoman was ill fitting at best to his temperament. His heart yearned for adventure, excitement and romance, not discipline, duty and orders. He wanted to be a hero like in the tales of old and overcome daunting odds to rescue beautiful damsels in distress. And the Yeomanry didn't offer that any more than being the heir to the richest of the seven kingdoms did. The world of his father was all about commerce, laws, responsibility and Latin. And he hated Latin. With a deep sigh Daniel took another drink from the bottle.
The sound of the French doors opening behind him interrupted his thoughts and he turned to see an agitated young woman closing the door hurriedly behind her before pushing herself into the ivy that climbed the exterior of the palace walls. Like all those with large amounts of á¦lfe blood in their lineage, Daniel was able to see clearly in low light conditions and the faint illumination from the palace gave him sufficient light in which to see. Even pressed into the shadow of the ivy covered walls and wearing an ornately decorated half mask, the woman couldn't hide her beauty. A sly smile tickled the corners of Daniel's lips as he thought that perhaps tonight he would have a beautiful damsel in distress to rescue.
"My Lady?" called Daniel softly as he took a step away from the stone balustrade running along the edge of the veranda. "Do you require any assistance?"
Before she could reply however, the French doors were thrown open and Daniel watched the woman press herself even further into the ivy, screwing her eyes shut as if to deny the existence of the silhouetted figure standing in the doorway. Blinking rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the bright light from the ballroom, Daniel's heart sank when he saw who the new arrival was.
"Amherst," growled the figure.
"Repton," replied Daniel.
"Should have known a misfit like you would be out here. Frankly, you'd do us all a favour if you just went back home."
"It's always a pleasure to see you too Lawrence," said Daniel, taking a swig from the wine bottle in his hand. "To what do I owe this visitation from the youngest and least pleasant son of the ruling house of Mercia?"
"Are you drunk?" asked Lawrence, wrinkling his nose in disapproval.
"Not anywhere near enough to endure your company for any longer than the bare minimum that I have too. What do you want Lawrence?"
At one hundred and ninety-three centimetres in height, Daniel knew he was far from short yet in front of Lord Lawrence Repton he couldn't help but feel small next to the veritable bear of a man. Lawrence not only topped him in height by a good ten centimetres but also in width by what seemed a similar amount and Daniel half-expected the ground to shake with every step Lawrence took to close the gap between the two of them. Not wanting to expose the woman hiding in the ivy any more than he had too, Daniel quickly advanced on Lawrence ensuring that he had only gone a few steps onto the veranda before he pair stopped within sword distance of each other.
"Are you looking for trouble, Amherst?" asked Lawrence, lightly fingering the ceremonial rapier hanging from his belt.
"I'll ask the question again, slowly so you might understand. What. Do. You. Want. Lawrence?"
The two locked gazes for a moment, before Lawrence looked away with a snort of derision.
"I'm looking for a woman."
"The ball's full of them. I'd suggest you try there," said Daniel. "Alternatively, you have the coin to procure what you need assuming you can't find a lady at the ball who hasn't met you before or heard of you."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Exactly what it sounded like. You have a reputation Lawrence and not a good one. If I ever find out that it's true..."
"You'll what?" asked Lawrence, once more touching his sword hilt.
"Whoever you're looking for, she's not here," stated Daniel.
"You never answered my question."
"Let us hope for the sake of peace amongst the seven kingdoms that I never have to Lawrence," replied Daniel taking another drink from the wine bottle. "Just go Lawrence. Just go..."
The two young men once more locked gazes, measuring each other's resolve. This time Daniel broke the stare, turning his back on Lawrence and returning to the balustrade looking out onto the Summer Gardens.
"The day will come when you can't hide behind the shield of Cantia or the protection of the heir to the High Throne, Amherst. I look forward to that day..."
Daniel didn't reply, instead focussing his gaze firmly on the orderly patterns of the flower beds of the Summer Gardens. When he heard the retreating footsteps of Lawrence and the click of the French doors closing, he finally released the tension from his body leaning heavily against the balustrade.
"Wait a few minutes longer," he said hearing a rustling from the ivy. "He'll take another pass by the doors in a few minutes to check that I'm not lying."
Hearing the rustling stop, Daniel took it as confirmation that she'd heard him.
Taking a deep breath Daniel placed his trembling hands flat on the balustrade, letting the feel of the cool stone calm him. The adrenalin high receding, he knew it was foolish tempting fate like that by annoying Lawrence. The older boy was not only physically bigger than him but also by all accounts a very gifted swordsman. Added to that the man's grip on sanity was tenuous at best if the rumours were true. Daniel silently thanked the á‰se for the fortunate blessing of Cantia not sharing a land border with Mercia.
The light from the ballroom dimmed slightly and mustering his best devil-may-care smile, Daniel turned waiving his bottle in salute to the silhouetted figure on the other side of the French doors. Watching Lawrence stalk off back into the ballroom he cocked his head towards the woman in the shadows.
"He's gone now. I wouldn't recommend returning to the ball unless you have some friends who can protect you from Lawrence. He's going to be in a bad mood for a while, which unfortunately is my fault. I'd offer you my sword but I fear I may be a trifle intoxicated." Or not intoxicated enough to fight Lawrence, added Daniel silently.
Stepping hesitantly out of the darkness, the woman nodded her head in acknowledgement. Daniel watched as she chewed the corner of her kissable plump rose coloured lips in thought for a moment before hiking the folds of her ball gown up slightly to approach him. The expensive ornate dress, though clearly not tailored for the beautiful woman in front of him, was vaguely familiar leading Daniel to wonder if she was the younger daughter from one of the lower rungs of the aristocracy reusing an older sisters clothes. As she neared Daniel his eyes drifted towards the plunging décolletage of the gown, a sight he found pleasing to more than just the eyes. Maybe risking a slow death at Lawrence's hands was worth it after all he thought to himself with a chuckle.
As the woman neared Daniel he tore his gaze away to more respectfully meet her eyes. Resting her hands lightly on his arm she leant upwards on tip toes and pressed her lips softly against his cheek.
"Thank you," she whispered breathily in his ear, her breath causing his skin to rise in small goosebumps. With a smile she turned and with a rustle of fabric hurried off into the darkness of the veranda leading to the gardens below, leaving only the memory of the touch of her lips and the faint smell of strawberries in the air.
Daniel smiled goofily at the darkness as his fingers absently stroked the spot on his cheek that she had kissed.
"I'm going to start rescuing damsels more often if that's the reward," he whispered to himself.
The faint smell of strawberries haunted Daniel even as he weaved between the ornamental flower beds in the Summer Gardens and not for the first time he found his thoughts returning to the damsel he had rescued earlier that evening. He had not seen her further during the night much to his disappointment but given the mood Lawrence had been in when he saw him it was probably for the best. With a frustrated sigh Daniel slumped heavily against one of the palace exterior walls and upended the wine bottle in his hand, taking a deep drink from the bottle. Wine running from the corners of his mouth he discarded the now empty bottle and closed his eyes as he relaxed against a trellis laced with ivy that clung to the cool stone walls.
"Hey!" exclaimed Daniel as an object bounced off the top of his skull, shaking him from his stupor. Bending down he picked up an ornate rose coloured shoe.
"Hello?" called Daniel looking around but seeing no one. Peering inside the shoe he saw the signature symbol of Mason and Willow, royal dressmakers by appointment. A chuckle worked its way out of Daniel as he recalled an Old World fable his mother would tell him as a small child.
"I shall marry the fair maiden who doth fit this shoe," he said, theatrically holding the shoe aloft, adding sotto voce "Who knowing my luck will turn out to be covered in warts and have a face like the back end of a cow."
"Ow!"
Daniel bent down to pick up the matching shoe to the one already in his hand. Standing up he glanced around noting he was still alone and he desperately wracked his brain for any knowledge of tales of evil shoe throwing Wights, absently wondering if it possessed more than two feet. Being pelted by a centipede like wight, each foot adorned with a rose coloured shoe had little appeal he concluded.
A startled feminine squeak from above caused him to look upwards to be greeted by the sight of dainty bare feet swinging frantically from the trellis several metres above him. His aelfe enhanced senses allowed him a reasonable view of the woman suspended above him, though the angle prevented him from getting a good look at her features. The gentleman in Daniel blushed as he followed the swinging feet up long stocking clad legs to an array of petticoats but the teenage boy in him kept looking.
"Hello?" he called out. "Do you require assistance?"
"Piss off!" hissed the swinging figure above him. Stepping back slightly, he could see she was trying to work open a window leading to the royal bed chambers.
"That wasn't a particularly ladylike response," said Daniel with a smirk.
"Like it is gentlemanly to stand there looking up my dre--"
The woman's sarcastic retorted turned in to a distressed scream as with a loud crack, the trellis supporting her weight came apart from the wall. Discarding the shoes, Daniel braced to catch the woman only for her momentum and his inebriation to drag them both to the ground in a tangled heap.
After recovering his breath from the knee he took to the stomach as they collapsed in a heap, Daniel peered at the figure laying prone across him, the hem of her ball gown lying around her waist to reveal an abundance of undergarments. Reaching to pull her dress back down to restore her modesty, Daniel found his hand being slapped away as the woman struggled to turn over and sit upright.
"What sort of catch was that you idio..."
The words died on the woman's lips as she got a good look at Daniel.
"Danny?"
Not believing his own ears, Daniel reached out and gently pulled her ornately decorated rose half-mask up to her forehead so as to better see her face.
"Georgina?"
The two friends stared at each other stunned for a few moments before Daniel broke the silence.
"It was you earlier at the ball!" he exclaimed taking in a good look at the woman sitting in front of him. "What in Woden's name are you doing going to the ball like that?!? For á‰se sake suppose someone saw you?"
"Lots of people saw me," hissed Georgina in an angry retort. "And why should they not have? I am an attractive woman I will have you know."
Daniel snorted in response to Georgina's pout. "An attractive woman who also happens to be the very male Heir to the High Throne."
"Do I look like the male Heir to the High Throne?"
Daniel had to mentally admit she didn't. Blushing a little, Daniel shifted uncomfortably where he lay and sought to untangle their legs.
"Wait a minute...you were at the ball as Harry. How did you manage to change? Where did you even get that dress?"
It was Georgina's turn to blush now and she focused her attention on the her hands resting in her lap when she spoke.
"Matilda. Matilda gave me this dress."
"Your sister? She knows?"
Georgina nodded her downcast head in response.
"You told her?" asked Daniel, surprised at how hurt he felt about Georgina sharing her secret with someone else, even if it was her sister.
"Not exactly..." said Georgina in a soft voice. "She...she walked in on me changing from Harry to Georgina in my chambers six months ago. I did not really have much choice in the matter about sharing my secret."
"She's...she's okay with you... with Georgina?"
"Surprisingly so actually," said Georgina, looking up at Daniel with a shy smile. "We have spent a lot of time together in the evenings when you are off doing boy things..."
Daniel couldn't help but smile at that comment. 'Boy things' was Harry's phrase for any traditionally masculine activity or pastime. It was the use of such common phrases that always reassured Daniel that Harry and Georgina really were just the same person in different packages.
"This is one of her gowns in fact. It's a little tight in the bodice but fits surprisingly well," said Georgina as she tugged at the top of the bodice to make it sit more properly after being disturbed by her fall.
Daniel's face burned as he looked at where Georgina's hands were. He knew that seventeen year old girls had curves in places that seventeen year old boys didn't. What his brain was struggling to rationalise right now though, was that his best friend was a seventeen year old girl with all the developing womanly curves that entailed. Intellectually, he knew Georgina was a girl. They had grown up together after all and he'd spent nearly as much of his leisure time with Georgina as he had with Harry. However, in all the time he had seen Georgina to date she'd been wearing Harry's clothes. Harry's oversized, slightly baggy clothes on her slimmer and shorter frame. And the older Harry got...the taller Harry got...the broader Harry got... the more Georgina was lost in a shapeless mass of fabric and chainmail. Sitting before him in a ball gown, a slightly tight ball gown if anything, this was the first time he had seen Georgina in clothing appropriate to her gender. In fact, seeing her for the first time in a dress he had to admit that she filled it out in a way that he found very pleasing.
"Danny?" asked Georgina.
"Hmm?"
"I asked if you were okay?"
"Oh. Sorry. Yeah fine," said Daniel struggling to meet Georgina's quizzical gaze as his gaze kept being drawn to the ample cleavage framed by the bejewelled décolletage of her gown.
"You seem distracted," said Georgina with a smirk, noting where his gaze fell.
"Errrr... well, you've got bony knees that kind of knocked the wind out of me," said Daniel, rubbing his stomach as an afterthought.
"Yeah," giggled Georgina. "I'm sure that's what it is."
Daniel stuck his tongue out at Georgina in response.
"Very mature."
"Yeah well, what were you doing up there anyway?" asked Daniel.
Untangling their legs, Georgina carefully moved to sit next to Daniel smoothing out her gown as best she could when she sat down.
"Matilda figured that if I slipped out from the ball after establishing my presence there that I could return as Georgina. If anyone asked where Harry was, she would claim she just saw me and send them in some random direction. The plan was I would spend an hour or so like this and then slip back and change but then I bumped in Lawrence..."
"I meant to ask. Where did you go after we met?" asked Daniel.
"I had intended to return to my chambers and change but my mother had one of her 'headaches' and retired early. Every time I approached the royal chambers they were swarming with maids and the like, so I spent the last few hours sitting in a pergola one of the gardens. Matilda was supposed to leave one of the windows open for me just in case anything went wrong but either she forgot or someone helpfully closed it."
"You could have asked me for help you know," said Daniel with a sad smile. "I would have helped."
"I know. It's just that...I thought you might tease me dressed like this," replied Georgina blushing.
"Oh, I'm going to tease you about it," chuckled Daniel. "But I would have helped. You're my best friend, either way, and I will always sta--"
Daniel stopped at the sound of raucous laughter from the garden.
"Down!" hissed Daniel, pulling Georgina to the ground. A small cry of protest died on her lips as Daniel cupped his hand over them. The friends laid there silently listening to the sound of footsteps echoing on the paved pathway some metres away. After waiting a few minutes Daniel craned his head from left to right searching for any sign of the third person in the gardens, ignoring the muffled squeaks of protest from Georgina.
"I can't see him," whispered Daniel. "He must have headed back towards the ballroom. We'll give it a few more minutes and then see about moving on, okay?"
An indignant squeak from Georgina reminded Daniel that he still had his hand over Georgina's mouth.
"Sorry," mumbled Daniel, noting the anger dancing in his friends eyes. As he removed his hand, he felt a stinging slap on his arm from Georgina.
"Will you be quiet," hissed Daniel as he glanced around them. Holding himself slightly above Georgina by his arms, Daniel drank in the faint sweet odour that seemed to emanate from her. Bending down he took a deep inhale from close to Georgina's neck, noting the goosebumps that appeared on her skin as he exhaled.
"Strawberries..." he whispered.
"It's a side effect, I think, of the magic," replied Georgina in a quiet voice, blushing profusely. "Besides, I like the scent of strawberries."
"I kind of like the scent of strawberries on you too..." said Daniel, blushing when he realised he had said that out loud. Clearing his throat, he clambered unsteadily to his feet to ease their mutual embarrassment. Observing the problems Georgina was having with her ball gown, Daniel extended a hand to help her up and pulled her to her feet.
"Danny, how much have you had to drink?" asked Georgina as she canted her head noticing for the first time Daniel's impaired balance and the bottle of wine lying on the ground near them.
"Given that I'm intent on sneaking a member of the fairer sex into the royal bed chambers, probably not enough," said Daniel adjusting his clothing. "Now where is my sword?"
"Over here," replied Georgina, hooking her foot under the centre of the scabbard before kicking it up into the air and catching it. Accepting the sword from her, Daniel slid it back into the belt loop that held it.
"Show off."
"A true swordsman is an artist, a performer...a show off," said Georgina sticking her tongue out at Daniel.
"Right, let's get out here," said Daniel grasping Georgina's hand. "As quickly and as quietly as possible too."
"I need my shoes," said Georgina looking around for her discarded footwear.
A deep baritone chuckle stopped the pair in their tracks as a figure stepped out of the darkness from behind a nearby sycamore tree. The dim light glinted off the edges of his drawn rapier as he raised it.
"If this is you two sneaking off quietly, I'd hate to see how noisy you were when you weren't trying to be quiet."
"Lawrence," said Daniel releasing his grip on Georgina's hand to grab the hilt of his sword.
"Amherst," replied the figure stepping out from the shade of the tree.
"You have something of mine Amherst," growled Lawrence nodding towards Georgina.
"I think no one owns the lady but the lady herself," replied Daniel, noting that his mouth had gone dry and he suddenly felt a lot more sober than a moment ago.
"Larry?" called a slurred, slightly whiney voice and Daniel noted the presence of a young woman leaning heavily against the tree as she emerged into sight. "Can we go now?"
"Be quiet woman," snapped Lawrence as he moved his rapier to an en-garde position.
"So do you intend to fight?" asked Lawrence pointing to Daniel's sheathed blade. "Or are you going to give me that teasing harlot?"
"I suggest you apologise to the lady for impugning her honour and leave Lawrence," replied Daniel, an unnatural calmness to his voice in the circumstances. "Before I do something I won't regret."
"Now wait a minute," interrupted Georgina from beside Daniel. "Stop this foolishness."
"Madam, the defence of a woman's honour is never foolishness," said Lawrence. "Even one as lacking in honour as you clearly are, bare foot and dress all askew from your recent liaisons."
"It's okay Gina," said Daniel placing a hand on Georgina's arm. "He doesn't care one way or another about your honour, do you Lawrence?"
Lawrence chuckled in response. "Truthfully...no. I actually hope you have no virtue to defend for it would make things much easier for you later on. Not that it matters even if you did have virtue. I've grown up in the royal palaces of the Heptarchy and know every woman of note. You are not one of them... and therefore you mean nothing to me. I will take what I want...one way or another...and as an added bonus I find myself with the opportunity to rid myself of a particular annoyance."
"If you intend to lay a finger on her you'll have to come through me first," said Daniel pulling his sword free of the belt.
"That was the plan. You've had this coming for a while Amherst."
"En garde!" ordered Lawrence bringing his blade up. Daniel responded into a similar position before Lawrence lowered his blade chuckling. "Amherst, your blade...it's still sheathed."
Daniel lunged forward slapping Lawrence hard across the side of his head with the flat of his sheathed blade.
"If you think I'm risking war by killing you, you're dimmer than I thought," said Daniel. "Doesn't mean I'm not going to beat some sense into you though."
With a roar, Lawrence charged at Daniel thrusting at his chest with his blade. Shoving Georgina to one side, Daniel clumsily parried the blade before slapping Lawrence's arm with his own blade in response. Stepping back a couple of paces, Daniel returned his weapon to an en-garde position as he waited for Lawrence to re-engage.
The two men moved more cautiously now, the initial rush of emotion subsiding to be replaced with a colder, more calculating approach. Lawrence circled his sword lazily as he stamped his foot loudly on the stone path, causing a startled Daniel to stagger backwards, before probing Daniel's defence for weaknesses through a series of controlled feints. Breathing hard from the effort of defending against a flurry of blows, Daniel sought to turn his latest parry into a riposte, twisting his sheathed blade under his opponents in an attempt to disarm him. Momentarily finding their blades bound together as Lawrence's snagged on the leather of Daniel's scabbard, Lawrence used his superior physical strength to wrench Daniel's blade from his grasp. With a flick of the wrist Lawrence sent Daniel's blade spinning away from the pair as Daniel back peddled quickly out of range.
"Cheer up," said Lawrence, a lecherous leer on his face. "I may let you watch me have my fun before I finally kill you."
Scrambling out of the way of Lawrence's thrust towards his stomach, Daniel dodged under the follow up slash and charged headlong at his opponent. Briefly grappling with his opponent, Daniel struck Lawrence's sword hand hard against his lower thigh causing him to lose his grip on his weapon.
"Yeah, well I'm going to enjoy this," snarled Daniel, slamming his fist into Lawrence's jaw with a sharp upper cut. Daniel cursed clutching his sore knuckles as the bigger man took the step backward and spat out a small amount of blood.
"Almost felt that."
Lawrence's punch spun Daniel round and he collapsed face down into the ground. Rolling onto his back, Daniel was greeted to the sight of Lawrence scooping up his rapier.
"Any last words?" asked Lawrence as the tip of his sword pricked the skin of Daniel's throat. The look of delight on Lawrence's face as he stood over his defeated opponent faded as he saw the look of relief that replaced the mixture of confusion and horror that had been there moments before.
"Three actually. She's. Behind. You."
Lawrence turned his head just in time to see the tan leather scabbard encasing Daniel's sword swing for his face. With a shout of pain, Lawrence staggered backwards as his nose received the brunt of the impact.
"Bitch!" cursed Lawrence looking at the blood that covered the palm of the hand that he had cupped over his broken nose.
With a flick of the wrist, Georgina discarded the rapier's scabbard and beat her sword against Lawrence's in a torrent of blows. The sound of steel ringing against steel echoed around the gardens as Lawrence desperately sought to defend against his opponent. Spotting an opening, Lawrence used his height advantage to launch a slashing attack only for Georgina to duck under his blade and thrust her own blade through his thigh. With a scream of rage, Lawrence stamped down hard on the retreating hem of Georgina's gown causing her to stumble as the fabric pulled taught and fall to the ground.
"No scream?" asked Lawrence mockingly. "I like it when they scream."
Gazing up at him, it became apparent to Georgina just how much Lawrence liked it.
"Gina!"
Lawrence spun around slashing at the charging form of Daniel, a crimson scar of blood indicating where his blade had passed. His moment of triumph was short lived however as Daniel's momentum carried him into Lawrence, sending the pair tumbling to the ground. Pushing Daniel clear, Lawrence clambered to his feet only to feel a sharp pain as the point of Georgina's rapier emerged from the front of his shirt where it had pierced his side just under his rib cage.
"If you've hurt him..." snarled Georgina, leaving the rest of her statement unfinished as she pulled her blade clear.
Turning to face Georgina, Lawrence dropped his sword as she thrust her blade through his body again, this time on his other side. Falling heavily to his knees, he watched as Georgina's raised her weapon in a preparation for a decapitating strike that was stayed by a cry from Daniel.
"Stop!"
"He deserves it," said Georgina in an angry tone.
"Yes. Yes, he does. Not just for now but for half the things he's rumoured to have done."
Her blade which had started to dip at Daniel's intercession once more raised to a striking pose.
"Good. Then we're agreed."
"No! I said he deserved it. I didn't say you should do it."
"There's a difference?"
"Yes. We call it the rule of law," said Daniel pulling himself gingerly to his feet. Placing a hand over his wound, he staggered forward to stand beside Georgina. "This isn't the heat of battle. He's disarmed and incapacitated."
"A law which the likes of him flout with impunity."
"Because the High Court turns a blind eye to his transgressions unless it affects one of their own. Something he well knows."
"Then we're back where we started. The law is an ass and he deserves to die."
"The law isn't an 'ass', as you so delicately put it. Those that apply it are. A good man...or woman...on the High Throne could change all that. She could restore meaning to the law but only if she was not tainted with the excesses of wrongdoing," said Daniel, gently lowering Georgina's sword. "Taking one life, the life of a man who may even deserve to die, may not seem a bad thing but it is. If you decide who lives and who dies without recourse to the law you are as bad as him. It's also the start of a slippery slope. What happens the next time you encounter someone who you think deserves to die? What happens if that next man is me?"
"I would never kill you. Could never kill you," whispered Georgina.
"And already you have started applying the law unfairly. You've just given me carte blanche to do what I will without the same sanctions as others who would commit the same crimes that I might."
"I..."
"Debates as to the balance between law and justice are better served another time," said Daniel, noting the distant sound of voices approaching. "Right here, right now, all I'm asking is for you to be the better person and spare his life."
Georgina let out a scream of frustration as she punched Lawrence in the face with her swords hilt guard, sending him tumbling to the ground unconscious. Letting Daniel take the blade from her hand she spat at the prone form of Lawrence and kicked him hard in the ribs for good measure.
"I hope that never heals!" shouted Georgina, noting the deep scar the hilt guard had left on Lawrence's cheek.
"Feel better?" asked Daniel as he staggered over to check on Lawrence's companion lying against the nearby sycamore tree.
"Yes, thank you. I do. How is she?"
"I think she passed out. She reeks of wine," said Daniel, wincing as he pulled himself up from kneeling in front of the woman. "Probably for the best really."
A rattling of distant gates to the Summer Gardens caused the pair to glance at each other nervously.
"Grab your shoes and let's go," ordered Daniel. "The yeomen should be able to get medical attention in time to Lawrence but we need not to be here when they arrive. I'm sure you wouldn't want to answer questions as to your identity."
Georgina nervously nodded her head in reply.
"I have a room in a set of ground floor chambers Cantia maintains not far from here for state purposes. We should be able to find you some alternative clothing there," said Daniel gesturing away from the direction of the yeomen. "Let's go."
The Downs Forest, Kingdom of Cantia
Woden's Day 24 April EY 2471 - Early Evening (The Present)
Georgina wrapped the coarse woollen blanket around herself as she sat on a fallen log staring up at the brightest stars visible in the late twilight sky. The trees around her blocked any view of the setting sun but from the deep crimson tinge to what light was visible from the last of the sun's rays she knew it had been a mockingly beautiful sunset. What right she wondered, did the sun have to taunt her with the hint that there was still beauty in the world when her husband was lying cold and dead some miles away, not even given the respect of a decent burial.
Glancing around the clearing she noted the burley yeoman hovering some metres away keeping a wary eye on her, his hand not far from his sword. A pleasure less smile alighted her lips briefly when she made eye contact with him and she noted with some degree of happiness he subconsciously rubbed the bandage on his forearm. She knew it had been a foolish move on her part but she had allowed the rage roaring inside her to guide her actions the moment they had first placed a knife in her hand. Had it not been such a blunt cutlery knife and had the yeoman not squealed like a stuck pig she was pretty certain she could have killed him before the others could have stopped her. Still, it had underlined a point she had been keen to make and it had certainly decreased the amount of general lustful leering she'd been the subject of when she first regained consciousness, particularly from the now wounded Yeoman Lang. She would need to be smarter next time though and she regretted that she had wasted the element of surprise.
Pondering her situation, the rich plumy tones of her former swords master, Sir Hugh Leyton, regarding unconventional warfare sprung unbidden from the depths of her memory.
"There is no advantage to attacking by the expected means and methods."
They would expect her to attack them directly now, head on. She'd need to find a more oblique weapon than the blade now. Would they feel comfortable enough to let her make a meal for them she wondered? Ground glass always made an interesting special ingredient in the sauce after all.
"Momma?"
It was a tentative question, almost pleading for proof that she was who she said she was. Still it was enough to quench the rage inside her, turning a roar to a soft purr at the sound of her youngest son's voice and she opened the blanket enough to let him share its warmth as he slid onto the log next to her. As he adjusted it around his shoulders she flashed him a cheeky smile and snaked her free arm around his ribs to pull him closer to her.
"You are not too big for a mother to hug yet," she giggled at his brief discomfort as she pulled him to her. "Even if you are taller than me."
As a man, Georgina had been tall, standing a similar height to Daniel's impressive 193 centimetres but as a woman the only member of her family she was taller than now was her youngest child, Charlotte. The loss of nearly twenty centimetres of height was possibly the only thing she missed about being 'him'. Even sharing a log with Noah, she was conscious of his extra five centimetres of height. As she felt Noah settling into her hug, she returned her gaze back to the stars.
"Your father loved watching the stars. I would wake up sometimes and find him gone from the bed and he would always be in the same place, sitting underneath the oak tree in the courtyard. We would sit together and he would point out the constellations to me and tell me the stories behind them," said Georgina, her eyes misting slightly at the memory.
"I...I wish I'd paid more attention to what he'd told me," sighed Noah. "I never shared his passion for the stars in the same way Hal or Maddy did. And now...now, I'll never..."
"It is okay Noah," said Georgina tightening her grip on her son. "Your father was never one to force anyone to share his interests. He was always proud of your ability to walk your own path. Anyway, you were always more the artist than the star gazer."
"I'm not sure exactly what I am now," said Noah with a shrug.
"Noah?"
"The yeomen call you 'princess', momma."
Georgina hesitated, mulling her options before she spoke, her voice little more than a whisper.
"I know."
"Are you? A princess, that is?"
"Yes," said Georgina, a hint of resignation entering her voice.
"You said that you had married father against the will of your parents which is why we never saw them. The coat of arms you said was your family's. The one Hal never used at tourney. It's a white lion on a blue background. The personal crests of members of the Wynter family have white heraldic beasts on a blue background don't they?"
"..."
"Don't they?"
"Yes."
"You're the missing princess."
It wasn't a question but a statement from Noah.
"Yes," said Georgina, the twilight hiding a single tear as it ran down her cheek.
"What does that make me?"
"My son."
"Am I a prince?"
Georgina let out a deep sigh. When she spoke again, the strain of the emotions she was trying to control could be heard in her voice.
"I turned my back on that life a long time ago, Noah. I will tell you everything before we reach our destination should we not find a way to escape from our captors, that I promise you. For now though, you only need know that you are Noah Amherst not Noah Stockbury. Whatever I am, nothing changes the fact your father is...was... the heir to the throne of Cantia. You are an Amherst and you should wear that name with honour and pride. As for myself, you are going to hear some things soon that will make you question everything you know about me. The most important thing I need you to remember though is you are my son and that I love you very much. Nothing you will hear about my past changes that, okay?"
Noah bit gently at the corner of his lip for a moment in thought. When he released his lip, he nodded his agreement.
"Thank you."
"Momma... that sergeant... Ackers. She says that no one is coming for us. That they are all dead. Are they?" asked Noah after a few minutes of awkward silence during which mother and son had been lost in separate bouts of introspection.
"I will not lie to you Noah, it is most probably the truth. I pray to the á‰se that Charlotte got away though, maybe even has made it to the Paxton's farm, but from what you say about Maddy and what I saw at the cottage, there is no one else left to come for us," said Georgina, unconsciously biting her lip nervously in a shared trait between mother and son.
"So, what do we do now?"
"We cannot help Charlotte if we are dead. First order of the day is to survive. The second order is to be free, so that we can go back for her. Someone your father and I studied under often quoted from the accumulated wisdom of the Old World. Right now the words of a man called Sun Tzu would seem to relevant - 'he who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious'. Tonight we bide our time, tomorrow we look to seize any opportunity that circumstances may gift to us. Until then, watch our captors. Learn their strengths and weaknesses. When the time comes we may need to move quickly and you need to be as prepared as possible for that, okay?"
"Okay, momma."
"I need you to be strong for me, Noah," whispered Georgina. "Your father...your father was an example who by his actions made me a better person than I was. I need you to keep his memory alive and be strong, so that I do not forget that I can be that better person he saw in me."
"I'll try," said Noah with a frown. "I guess as the man of the family now, it is my responsibility."
Georgina squeezed her sons shoulder affectionately and gave him a smile brimming with pride.
"I wish you had more time to grow up, Noah. Yet, while I know there is still so much more you need to learn about the blade, I have no doubt that where it counts you are a man," said Georgina, tapping her sons chest above his heart to underline her words.
Noah nodded his head briefly before looking up into the darkening nights sky.
"I...I know I shouldn't say it but...but..."
"I miss him too," said Georgina, kissing her son's cheek lightly. "I miss them all so much."
Woden's Day 24 April EY 2471 - Late Night (The Present)
Digging with his thumbnail to work loose a scrap of meat stuck between his teeth, Lord Finn Einarsson lounged on his throne watching as his rangers dragged the beaten and bloody figure of a Dweorgas male into the chamber. Flicking the offending piece of meat away from him, Lord Finn turned to a courtier lurking in the shadows behind the throne and beckoned him closer.
"Let us see what our erstwhile allies think the future looks like," ordered Lord Finn.
"Yes, My Lord."
Lord Finn reached out to stop the courtier as he went to move past the throne. "Wait. Just in case, ensure my bodyguard stay close by."
"Yes, My Lord."
The courtier scurried down the dais and across the room to the central fire pit that warmed the royal chamber. The courtier whispered a message to a hooded figure whose face was partially obscured by the brightness of the roaring flames. Dismissing the courtier with a nod, the figure grasped a set of long handled blackened metal tongs with his thickly gloved hands and used them to remove a small unnaturally glowing stone from the centre of the fire pit. The cloaked figure advanced on the prisoner with the tongs outstretched before him leaving a trail of steam behind him as the stone hissed angrily in the cooler air. As the robed figure neared, a third ranger took a firm grip of the prisoners jaw and prised it open to allow the tongs to be inserted deep into the unresisting mouth. Ensuring the prisoners head was held tilted upwards still, a wine skin was poured into his mouth to force him to swallow or drown. Despite the prisoners choking struggles, the rangers kept pouring until the wineskin was completely emptied and they were satisfied that the burning stone had indeed been consumed.
"Let him go," said Lord Finn, moving forward to sit on the edge of his throne.
The rangers let the gasping prisoner fall to the floor, where he collapsed in a heap spitting up a mixture of wine and blood. As he prisoner lay there, the trauma of near drowning was soon replaced with an urgent clawing at his stomach and a quiet whimpering that slowly turned into an agonised scream as the lining of his stomach burnt under the heat of the stone. Pulling his hood back to reveal a grey haired Dweorgas male, the figure knelt in front of the prisoner.
"You can make the pain end with a single word. Would you like to know what that word is?" he said, in soft soothing tones.
His broken fingernails digging into the flesh of his stomach the prisoner could only nod in reply.
"Changement...you can say it. Go on."
"Ch-ch-ch..."
"Changement...come on, you are so close. So close to the pain ending."
"It b-b-burns," stuttered the prisoner, his voice hoarse and cracked from the effects of the burning stone he was made to swallow. "P-p-please help me, it b-b-b-burns..."
"Of course I will. I'm trying to help you remember? All you need to do is say one word and the pain will end."
"cha-chan..."
"C'mon, nearly there...say it with me...ch-ange-ment."
"ch-ch-ch-changement!"
"Thank you," said the grey haired Dweorgas smugly as he took a couple of steps backwards.
The prisoner emitted an ear splitting scream as the bones in his shoulder cracked from the force with which his left arm jerking upwards. Looking on in fascination, the assembled rangers saw the flesh rippling like a wave from the shoulder to the fingers. As the ripple passed, the skin that was left behind took on an black sheen ending in dark black pointed nails. The Dweorgas around the prisoner took a step back at the sound of bone cracking and grinding as the arm elongated slightly, taking on a more defined look as muscles reshaped.
The arm hung unnaturally suspended in midair, loose at the wrist like some life sized marionette. For a moment silence reigned in the hall with the only sound a quiet panting from the prisoner lying face down on the floor with his arm suspended above him. And then with a final scream, his whole body jerked upwards into the air, the obsidian sheen creeping across his skin bringing similar changes with it as it had caused on the arm. The pitiful scream ceased as the flesh on his throat transformed and the noise that replaced it was much more guttural. Almost a growl. Next the skin on his face rippled replacing the naturally elegant features typical of the Dweorgas with something more rugged. Most strikingly the dip of the nose bridge rose to the same height as the brow ridge and the cartilage and bone thickened to create a flat, broad nose much like the nose guard on a helmet. Finally, his eyes changed to animal like slits before rolling backwards to reveal the off-whites of his eyes.
Lord Finn beckoned two of his bodyguards closer to the throne as he watched the prisoner fall to the ground. All was quiet in the chamber as the newly transformed figure carefully rose to its feet and slipped into a dark robe that was held for it by one of the rangers present.
"My Lord?" asked the grey haired Dweorgas figure, peering carefully into the face of the transformed figure.
"Edmund my faithful retainer," he growled. "It is me not some perfect stranger."
Edmund nodded his head and took a deep breath before turning to face Lord Finn.
"My Lord Finn," said Edmund with a deep bow. "I have the pleasure of introducing you to my master, the Principal Weaver of the Order of Fire."
"Does your master have a name?"
"Names are power," hissed the transformed figure "And I would not want our relationship so soon to sour."
"Then we are at an impasse rhymer, for I will not do business with a man without a name," said Lord Finn.
"My patience you should not try, unless you have a desire to die."
"If I may be so bold my master," interjected Edmund. "Perhaps the solution is to take a name to be used once that has no spiritual connection to you? That way Lord Finn has his name and you have given up no power to him."
"You have a name in mind?" asked Lord Finn.
"May I suggest Obsidian?"
The newly christened Obsidian turned to face Lord Finn and nodded his head once in asset to the suggestion.
"It will do. Welcome 'Obsidian' to the Refuge of the Clan Blackthorn."
In response to Lord Finn, the black robed figure bowed deeply. Rising from his throne, Lord Finn descended from the raised dais, stopping before the last step so that he was face-to-face with the slightly taller Obsidian.
"This...this is what we will look like?"
"It is My Lord," said Edmund.
"And everything you promised?"
"Is there. This form is stronger, tougher, quicker and yet still retains the blood of the á¦lfe as promised," said Edmund.
"And the other thing?"
"You worry about your seed?" growled Obsidian, canting his head slightly as if to appraise Lord Finn. "Have no worry you will once more plentifully breed."
"I would have preferred it had you come to me in person," muttered Lord Finn. "This telepresence trick while impressive doesn't demonstrate trust, something of particular importance I would have thought given that your sort...rhymer...do not naturally engender trust."
"We trust you no more than you trust us," said Edmund with a chuckle. "This isn't about trust. This is about mutual needs and the alignment of goals. We will deliver you the means by which to save your people and make Clan Blackthorn dominant. No more will the likes of Lord Davlinnsson and the others belittle you, shun you...disrespect you. No, instead they will swear fealty to you or feel the force of your displeasure."
"And in return for me you will destroy," said the figure "The Wynter Lion's eldest child, that meddlesome boy."
"You know his location?"
"While others may be seeking him high and low, we know the route his party doth to go."
"He's heading from the eastern slopes of the Down's Mountain's for Canterbury," said Edmund.
"Nori's territory," said Finn, his face wrinkled in displeasure. "I'll need more than one unwilling transformee for this. You know what Nori's like about protecting children."
"Give me one score men, brave and true," said Obsidian "And in return the might of an army I will give to you."
"Do we have enough siden stones?" asked Finn turning to a court official hovering a discreet distance behind him.
"Barely my Lord. Our weavers have only just over two score."
Lord Finn chewed at a broken nail for a moment in thought, spitting the pieces to the floor.
"I want one score of a my rangers converted to stop the boy and another score converted so that I may have the means to get more stones," said Lord Finn.
"That was not the deal," said Edmund angrily. "You stop the boy first. The sun must set on all the ties that bind the Wynter Lion to her old life for the son to rise in his new life and prophecy be fulfilled. Only then will our aims have been achieved and only then will we give you the means to save the rest of your people."
A feral smile crossed Lord Finn's lips as he turned to face Edmund. "For whatever reason, you cannot stop the boy yourself. You need my involvement and if I understand things correctly if you don't stop the boy you don't achieve your goals. This makes my assistance much more valuable than originally thought, and in a seller's market..."
The words of a sharp retort died on Edmund's lips as Obsidian held up a hand to silence him.
"Lord Finn, beware you don't endanger my plan, or else you may just wind up a dead man."
"I do not take to threats well Obsidian," said Lord Finn, turning his back on Obsidian to ascend the dais to his throne. "I have chosen to change the deal. These are the new terms. Take it or leave it."
The fire pit in the room flared up, sending tufts of flame skittering across the flagstones of the chamber before they burnt themselves out. Calming himself, Obsidian gave Lord Finn a broad smile showing the points of his enlarged canine teeth.
"Change the terms again... and I will end your reign."
"So you accept my terms?" asked Lord Finn seating himself on his throne.
"I accept," replied Obsidian. "Just do not give me cause to regret."
"Good. Then as soon as my men are changed you can send them whence they need to go."
Lord Finn picked idly at a scab on the exposed skin of his arm watching as Obsidian signalled to Edmund to step closer and leaned forward to whisper in his ear. Straightening up after their brief conversation, Obsidian bowed deeply to Lord Finn.
"Now I must leave you to your fun, for my time here is done. As a last gesture of goodwill you will find, when I leave this vessel he will be of loyal mind. I would advise that you do not give me cause to return, less in my enmity you do burn."
With a wave of his hand Obsidian caused a blue flame to engulf his body. As the flame dissipated Obsidian's eyes rolled back, showing the animal like pupils once more. For a moment the creature swayed slightly blinking as he became aware of his surroundings until his eyes settled on Lord Finn. Dropping to one knee, he bowed his head to Lord Finn.
"I am yours to command My Lord," he growled.
Edmund half-heartedly bowed to Lord Finn before pulling the hood of his robe once more over his head.
"I will return to my workshop, My Lord," said Edmund. "If you can have the necessary siden stones sent to me within the hour I will give you two score of transformed rangers for tomorrow morning."
As Edmund exited the room, Lord Finn beckoned an advisor to the throne.
"Ensure that Edmund has the siden stones within the hour," ordered Lord Finn. "And summon my war leaders to meet with me immediately so that we may review our plans for an assault on Clan Oak's mines. An army while useful will not increase the clans birth rate. We need more siden stones quickly and I will have the raw material for them in my hands before sunset tomorrow or the heads of my war leaders on a spike."
Thunor's Day 25 April EY 2471 - Early Morning (The Present)
Lady Ingrid Snorrisdottir swept her fringe of jet black hair from her eyes, once more re-reading the ancient scroll in her hands to satisfy herself that she had the sequence correctly remembered. High á†lfe was the language of her Old World forefathers, the basis upon which all the languages of Eorá°e were derived, and had a complex phonetic structure that she needed to pronounce perfectly to allow her to weave the siden so that it had the desired effect. Letting the scroll curl back up around the slim wooden rollers at each end she cleared her throat quietly to attract the attention of Lord Nori standing nearby.
"I believe I am ready to proceed My Lord."
Lord Nori tore his gaze away from his adopted son and the small group of novice Weavers inscribing symbols in chalk on the stone floor of the room around him. The grimace on his son's face showed an uncertainty about siden that he had gained from his mother who was wringing her hands nervously just outside the chalk circle.
"Let's just run through this one more time," said Lord Nori with a tight lipped smile. "The scroll will rejuvenate my son restoring his health and giving him extra years of life?"
"That is my understanding My Lord."
"And this scroll, which you found late last night, was in your possession all along?"
"Yes. It was amongst my grandfather's journals. From the notes written in the margins of the scroll, I'm assuming he had removed it from his personal library sometime shortly before his death."
"And you'd never thought to check there before?" asked Lord Nori, his eyes narrowing.
Lady Snorrisdottir blushed slightly, understanding immediately what her clan chieftain was asking. He had sought her assistance on several occasions over the years as his adoptive human son aged in an effort to extend his quality and length of life. A life span which by Dweorgas standards was barely more than a fleeting handful of years.
"No. In fact, I've no idea what made me even think to look there last night..." said Lady Snorrisdottir with a frown.
"I think I've got a good idea," muttered Lord Nori. Noting Lady Snorrisdottir's raised eyebrow at his words he waved off any comment from her. "It's not important right now. Tell me Ingrid, honestly, what is the chance of it working?"
She exhaled loudly as she studied the floor intently for a moment before looking up to make eye contact with Lord Nori.
"You're what now? Fourteen hundred?"
"Just shy."
"And I'm a little younger but only by a few decades. If we're lucky, we've both got another four centuries in us if we live to a similar age as our parents generation..."
"Probably less," interrupted Lord Nori. "Whatever has affected our ability to reproduce seems to be shortening our life spans as well. Sixteen hundred seems to be a good old age for us now."
"Yes, yes it does... Nori, my grandfather was nearly three and half thousand years old when he died in EY134 and according to his journal, he had expected to still have best part of another thousand years of life in him. I point this out because most of our parents generation were either born during the journey from the Old World to Eorá°e or in the early years following their arrival here. So much knowledge was lost when Meomer's Well was destroyed in the star fall of EY26, not least the cure for the illnesses that claimed so many of our parents and grandparents generation and still to this day limits our ability to bear life offspring."
Lady Snorrisdottir gestured with the furled scroll to Lord Nori.
"The wonders that my grandfather thought nothing of performing are simply staggering and his grasp of the mechanics of the Siden are breathtaking. He talks of changing reality just by the mere act of observing it. My grandfather was developing this spell in an attempt to save the surviving members of his generation from the sickness that claimed so many of them though he was hampered by the knowledge lost to them when Meomer's Well was destroyed. It appears he completed the spell but he was unable to tell anyone before he died. My father was little more than an adolescent, a mere one hundred and forty years old, when my grandfather died and appears to have just boxed his possessions without properly examining them. This scroll was found amongst others that were incomplete that my grandfather had been working on."
"Given its never been tested, do you think it will it work?"
"Yes. Yes, I'm certain it will. I'm just not sure exactly how it will work. The knowledge of siden here is far beyond my own capability to understand but the feel of the siden when I test manipulate it suggests it will work."
"Suggests?"
"I won't lie to you, Nori. There are risks in using it and risks in not using it. If we use it, you have to realise this scroll was designed for someone with our stronger constitutions in mind and the rejuvenation effect may kill him. If we don't use it, Gareth's health will continue to worsen. He's a seventy-five year old human with no á¦lfe blood in him. I've reinforced his heart on three occasions in the last two years and he has fairly constant pain in both knees. And finally, as our leader rather than his father, you will know that the Readers of the Path are becoming increasingly agitated that we will face a peril within a matter of days on a par with the pogroms the humans waged against us during Theodore's reign. If this is so, you will need my Weavers for more pressing things."
"The most common paths read in the last few hours show the emergence of a previously unforeseen threat that will destroy the Refuge and scatter our people across the land," said Lord Nori with a sigh. "If this is true then Gareth needs to be as fit as possible for the coming storm, not least so that he may guide Dorlin and our people to safety as I fear my destiny and that of the young human in our care are now interwoven."
"What aren't you telling me old friend?" asked Lady Snorrisdottir, resting a hand on Lord Nori's shoulder.
"Many things Ingrid. I fear that the time may well come when Dorlin and Gareth will need your wise counsel in the leadership of our people. For now though, I'm still Clan Chieftain and my son has agreed to undergo rejuvenation," said Lord Nori, placing his hand on top of hers. "I would be grateful if you could proceed at your leisure My Lady Snorrisdottir."
"As you wish My Lord Nori," replied Lady Snorrisdottir. She briefly squeezed Nori's hand before pulling her own free from his and with a clap of her hands she signalled to the novice Weavers her intention to proceed. She smiled fondly at Gareth while she waited for the last of the Weaver's to finish their chalk inscribing and nodded respectfully to Lady Dorlin. When the novices were clear she took a deep cleansing breath and unrolled the scroll.
The air around Gareth sparkled as she began her barely audible recitation of the enchantment on the scroll and soon a ball of glittering light surrounded him. Slowly at first, the individual points of light drifted towards Gareth, flaring briefly as they touched him. As the volume rose in Lady Snorrisdottir's voice however, so the speed of the process increased and the points of light rained down on Gareth. From within the centre of the circle Gareth let out a light chuckle.
"It tickles," he said examining holding his hands up to examine more closely the changes being wrought by each point of light as it struck him.
"But it's working," breathed Lady Dorlin in hushed tones.
Lady Snorrisdottir noted the rejuvenated look to Gareth's skin as it plumped up with the smoothness and elasticity of youth. Releasing hold of the bottom of the scroll she swirled a finger in the air watching as a smattering of white points of light appeared rotating next to Gareth. Adding a second raised finger to her swirling motion she noted red points of light emerging amidst the white. Adding additional raised fingers to the swirling motion of her hand she added blue, silver and finally with her raised thumb, yellow. The resulting multicolour helix rotated lazily next to Gareth, who was staring at it with a mixture of fear and curiosity. Moving her hand in a fluid motion, she shifted from swirling it to a horizontal flick that batted the helix into Gareth, flaring in a kaleidoscope of colour as it merged with him.
"Remplacez!" shouted Lady Snorrisdottir throwing her arms wide. In response, Gareth's body shook and he collapsed to his knees gasping, his once thinning short cropped salt and pepper hair now a deep black as it fell across his face. The room remained silent for a moment, no one daring to breathe as they watched Gareth. Lady Snorrisdottir let out a sigh of relief when a much younger looking Gareth tilted his head up and gave them all a joy filled smile as he panted heavily getting his breath back.
"I feel...great...tired but...great," he rasped.
"Is it over?" asked Lady Norlin, nodding towards her son.
In reply Lady Snorrisdottir nodded as one of her novices helped her to a nearby chair and pressed a goblet of water into her hands which she drank from greedily. Passing the empty glass back to the novice, she smiled contentedly as she watched Gareth being embraced by both of his adoptive parents. It was moments like this where she could bring joy into people's lives that made all the training involved in becoming a weaver so worthwhile.
"Make sure this goes back to my personal library," Lady Snorrisdottir said, indicating to the scroll resting in her lap. "I think we will have cause to call upon it again for others in the nea..."
Her words died in her throat as she watched Gareth convulse, spittle forming on his lips as he slumped into his parents arms.
"Gareth!" screamed Dorlin as the larger form of the human threatened to drag both Nori and Dorlin down to the ground with him.
"Stop!" shouted Lady Snorrisdottir rising to her feet.
She frantically waved her novices away from the chalk circle lest the enter the maximum range of the enchantments effect. With concern she noted the multicoloured tendril of siden that had erupted from Gareth's back and speared first Dorlin and then through her, curved around into Nori, before re-entering the front of Gareth.
"What is happening My Lady?" asked one of the Novices hesitantly.
Gareth once more convulsed, his long auburn hair sticking to his face as sweat poured from him.
"I don't know. The enchantment had worked. He was rejuvenated," said Lady Snorrisdottir, her face creased in confusion.
"Did the enchantment go wrong somehow?" asked another Novice. "Was it flawed in some way?"
Lady Snorrisdottir gestured for the scroll as she watched Dorlin and Nori struggle to lower their son to the ground. Unfurling the scroll, Lady Snorrisdottir read through the enchantment silently searching her memory to confirm that each section had been pronounced correctly by her during its casting.
"I read it correctly," she said with a frown. "And during the casting it felt right. I could feel the rejuvenating energy flow into Gareth."
"He definitely looked younger," said another novice, nodding towards the circle. "If he'd been one of us I'd have said he lost several centuries in fact."
"One of us..." whispered Lady Snorrisdottir with wide eyes. "One of us! The enchantment worked! Or rather, is working!"
"My Lady?" asked a confused novice.
"The enchantment was designed to rejuvenate one of us! A Dweorgas, not a human! Had Gareth had á¦lfe blood in him it would have completed but he didn't and the stimulation of that was a key part of the rejuvenation process. The siden worked the changes it could without that and appeared to finish. In reality it went dormant waiting on what it needed to finish the process. When Dorlin and Nori entered the circle they provided the siden with what it needed to complete the enchantment and create a rejuvenated, healthy Dweorgas. It is fortunate that they did in fact, as unfinished the enchantment may well have killed him trying to find within him that which he did not have."
"Then Gareth will become?"
"One of us. Not just one of us in fact. The very essence of Dorlin and Nori will be a part of him. He truly will be their son in more than law and name," said Lady Snorrisdottir.
A brief blinding flash drew everyone's attention back to the circle as the stream of siden energy pulsed rapidly before fading away. Blinking away the spots from her eyes, Lady Snorrisdottir moved to the very edge of the chalk circle.
"Nori! Bring him outside the circle! Quickly!"
Nori turned to face her, his face a mask of confusion at the changes taking place in his son.
"Damn it Nori! Do it now!"
It was Dorlin who moved first, grabbing her son by an arm and dragging him towards the circumference of the circle. Nori quickly shook himself from his momentary stupor and grabbed the other arm. As they cleared the threshold of the circle both sagged from exhaustion and fell into the waiting arms of Lady Snorrisdottir's novices.
Crouching next to Gareth Lady Snorrisdottir swept his long auburn hair from his face, the colour an almost perfect match for that of his adoptive mother. The face revealed underneath had changed even more so than the colour of his hair and it had the delicate beauty common to both genders of Dweorgas. The unfocused coal black eyes reminded her of Nori but the button nose and plump cupid's bow lips were most definitely that of Dorlin's. The jaw line though was neither Nori's or Dorlin's but something else, a fusion of two respective sets of genetics but the overall shape of the face made reminded her strongly of a young Dorlin. Delving into the long empty sleeves of Gareth's shirt, she sought his wrist to check his pulse.
"How is he?" asked Dorlin as she gently extricated herself from the arms of a novice.
"She's fine," said Lady Snorrisdottir with a sad smile. "A trifle disorientated at the moment but that should pass shortly."
"She?"
"She. I've not done a full physical check as I think that might be more befitting a mother - daughter conversation but noting the absence of an Adam's apple and the general appearance of her features, with their strong resemblance to yourself, and certain changes to her chest... I think it's fair to say you were the primary template the enchantment used to rejuvenate and as it saw it, 'heal' Gareth. The older she gets the more like you she will look I would guess, though some elements of Nori's family line will be visible in her features."
"She?" asked Nori, kneeling down beside Dorlin.
"Do try and keep up Nori. Yes, she," muttered Lady Snorrisdottir.
"He...she looks so young," whispered Dorlin, gently stroking her child's face.
"The rejuvenation spell took a couple of decades off her age. Rather than seventy-five, I'd hazard her to be little more than fifty. Going back to school's going to be an unpleasant shock," chuckled Lady Snorrisdottir. "As is waking up to find yourself both a girl and little more than a teenager, the equivalent of fourteen or fifteen in human years."
"Damn it Ingrid, this isn't funny!" snapped Nori.
"Forgive me, my gallows humour was not appropriate," said Lady Snorrisdottir with an air of contrition. "Still...don't you see Nori? This is the answer to our prayers. Those of us with adoptive human children no longer have to watch them wither and die, prisoners of their mayfly lives. They can become like us, with our life spans and even have our bloodlines running through their veins. Gareth is as truly your child now as if Dorlin had carried him to term. It resolves the issue of our birth rate and it will enable us to offer our adoptive children the chance for a real future. Imagine families of three or four children again! Our children in every way that matters! Your daughter is for all intents and purposes the first child of a new generation."
"She's my son," said Nori bitterly. "And I want him back."
"We'll work on that," said Lady Snorrisdottir, clasping her hands over her nose and mouth, almost in prayer. "I don't understand why this happened given you were both in the circle. There must be something in the enchantment that for some reason sees the subjects sex as something that needs to be corrected. Human and Dweorgas are biologically different in some very significant ways despite our external similarities, so maybe it's something to do with our very essence? The trouble is, as I said before, I don't truly understand half of the scroll. My grandfather's skill was far greater than my own."
"Someone must know of something, surely?" asked Dorlin.
"I don't recall our people having had the need for such an enchantment, it's inherent in our nature as creatures of siden that our spirits and body are in alignment at birth. In that respect Gareth may be your child but he was not 'born' your child, rather he was re-born and not blessed with that balance between spirit and body. I've heard of it happening amongst the humans though, that of spirit and body not being in alignment."
"What about the practitioners of Earth Siden? I remember my parents introducing one to me as a child and seeing him..her...change between sexes," said Dorlin.
"Maybe. Maybe not. Their ability to change is inherent in their duality of spirit and only works on themselves as far as I know. The twisted practitioners of Fire Siden may have something but there is a price to be paid in using Fire Siden that I find unpalatable. My loyalty to my Clan Chieftain is almost limitless but using Fire Siden is that 'almost'. In fact, I know of no cases of the practitioners of the pure three elements changing another's gender...save one, little more than a rumour in weaver circles."
"The Wynter Lion," said Nori, mulling over Lady Snorrisdottir's words.
"I understand that the Lord High Weaver of the Wynter Court tried to change her sex back to male. If I could see the enchantment I would have a feel for its potential to work on Gareth. My skill at manipulating Siden is likely to be far superior to any humans and I should be able to resolve whatever flaw stopped the spell from working when the Lord High Weaver cast it. Sadly, given her proximity, the Wynter Lion herself is of no use because she overcame the enchantment likely removing all trace of it in that act."
"You...you mean...this could be temporary?" asked Dorlin a hint of hope creeping into her voice.
"Have no doubt My Lady, we are talking of an enchantment at the blurry outer limits between Earth and Fire Siden but I believe it might be safe enough to work on Gareth," said Lady Snorrisdottir. "But I need sight of that enchantment..."
"And therein lies the problem," sighed Nori. "Given the strained relationship between the Clans and the High Family since Theodore's Reign they aren't likely just to give us something like that. There will be a price...one I may not be comfortable in paying."
"Nori Davlinnsson!" snapped Dorlin, waving a finger at her husband. "You will do all that is necessary to restore our son, do you hear?"
"Dorlin, sweetheart, it's not that simple..."
"Yes it is! 'Our son' and 'Our people' come before the petty affairs of the humans! You promised to protect and honour our family when we were hand fasted and I'm holding you to it. Torhild Knutsdottir's adopted daughter died of old age last month, a mere 83 years. That could have been our son or Ingrid's daughter! And now, through the blessings of the á‰se we have a way of giving our children the proper lifespan they deserve and our people the children of their blood that they deserve. The only thing standing in the way of our children's happiness is you, Nori Davlinnson! You!" screamed Dorlin, her face flushed with anger.
Lady Snorrisdottir watched carefully as Nori's face contorted between a range of emotions as he weighed up his options. Her breath caught in her throat as her thoughts drifted to her own adoptive daughter and she was surprised at the strength of the revulsion she felt at her child being placed in a similar situation to that facing Gareth without help, the anguish of living a millennia and half in a body she was not comfortable with.
"Nori...please," whispered Lady Snorrisdottir, her eyes blurring with tears. "Please."
"And you, Ingrid? And you?" he chuckled mirthlessly, his shoulders slumping in defeat. "Fine. So be it. You win. I will leave as soon as the Wynter Lion's daughter is fit enough to travel for the Wynter Palace. I don't however expect to hear a word from either of you in remonstration of the price that must be paid though. Are we clear?"
Nori's body rocked as Dorlin threw herself into his arms, whispering sobbed thanks of joy into his chest. Resting his chin on his wife's head, Lady Snorrisdottir met his gaze only to recoil at the sorrow she saw reflected back at her. A sorrow that silently spoke of tragedy yet to come.
Thunor's Day 25 April EY 2471 - Early Afternoon
Georgina gently tugged on the reins of her horse to slow it as the party emerged from the forest trail onto the sloping shores of Lake Vortigern. Ahead of her Corporal Wyndham rose slightly in his saddle to get a better view of the shore line.
"I don't see anyone Sergeant," he said over his shoulder. "Are you sure this is the right place?"
"It's the right place Corporal," said Sergeant Ackers with a smirk as she fumbled with the clasp on her saddle bags. "Fitzpatrick, Lang...stay here and keep an eye on the princess."
Ackers carefully urged her horse forward bringing it briefly level with Georgina. "The boy comes with me. For his safety you understand, given we do not yet know whether the weaver charm that has caused the poor princess to see us as enemies rather than friends is still in effect. She's been docile enough today but you never can tell."
With a knowing wink to Georgina, Sergeant Ackers spurred her horse on to the edge of the waters nudging the pack pony Noah was riding forward with her. Georgina nodded her head slowly at her sons questioning glance back at her and he reluctantly allowed Ackers to move him forward.
"Ma'am? If I may have your reins?"
Georgina turned to see Yeoman Fitzpatrick's horse pull to a halt next to hers and she let him take the reins when he reached for them. Georgina found herself relaxing in the presence of the shy young yeoman who reminded her so much of her eldest son at times.
"Yeoman Fitzpatrick...that sounds terribly formal," said Georgina with a kindly smile to the young yeoman as he steadied his mount next to hers. "I am sure you must have a given name or a nickname of some sort rather than have to keep addressing you so formally?"
"I...Fitz...the men call me Fitz," said Fitzpatrick blushing deeply.
"Well, Fitz, I just wanted to offer you my thanks. You have perpetrated no harm directly on my family through your actions and you have always treated my son and myself with the greatest respect. I will not forget your kindness."
"Ma'am?" asked Fitzpatrick hesitantly. "I don't understand?"
"You do not need too," said Georgina with a genuine smile as she gently patted the yeoman's arm. "Just remember Fitz I bear you no ill will."
"I...I never liked Fitz to be honest ma'am. You could call me Dan or Daniel, the name my family call me if you liked?"
A small gasp escaped Georgina's lips at the mention of her husband's name.
"Ma'am? Have I said or done--"
Georgina held her hand to silence the yeoman, taking the time to blink away the tears that had welled up in her eyes as her thoughts had drifted back to the death of her husband. Taking a deep breath, she offered a strained smile to the young yeoman.
"It's fine. Really. It's just Daniel is...was...my husband's name."
"I'm sorry, ma'am. Had you been married long?"
"It would have been Twenty-two years this summer."
Noticing the frown that crossed the young yeoman's face, Georgina gently brushed back her hair to reveal the pronounced points on her ears.
"I do not look forty-two do I?" asked Georgina, a little pride creeping into her voice. "A gift from my á¦lfe ancestors."
"Truthfully ma'am, you don't look much more than a couple of years older than me."
"What are you? Nineteen? Twenty?"
"Nineteen, ma'am. Completed basic training and passed out from the School of Arms last summer," said Fitzpatrick proudly.
"It is not everything you expected is it, Daniel?" asked Georgina, recalling her own graduation from the Royal Academy as an officer and her disillusionment at the level of politicking in the yeomanry.
Fitzpatrick's eyes flickered in a sidelong glance at Sergeant Ackers before he spoke. "No, it's not at all what I expected. We all know something's not right but Lang says we shou--"
"Don't fraternise with our guest Fitzpatrick, you feckin' idiot," barked Yeoman Lang as he pulled his horse to a halt on the other side of Georgina, interrupting the young yeoman. "And make sure you've got a decent grip on those reins of 'ers for á‰se sake, boy!"
"How is the arm Yeoman?" asked Georgina in honeyed tones as she favoured Lang with a feral smile that betrayed the true intention behind her words. "I can assure you that it was never my intention to injure you..."
"I've no doubt what you intended alright you bloody bitch..." muttered Lang under his breath as he pulled at the reins of his mount to put an arm's length distance between himself and Georgina.
With a satisfied smirk, Georgina leant forward in her saddle and gently stroked the neck of her mount while focusing her attention for the moment on Ackers. The Sergeant had pulled from her saddle bag a small metal tube inscribed with artificer marks and was unscrewing the top. She carefully tipped a smooth looking pale orange coloured stone from a small silk purse on her belt into the open end of the tube before rising slightly in her saddle.
"Fusée!" exclaimed Ackers, extending the tube as high above her as her arm would stretch.
With a loud fizzing noise, the stone shot straight upwards into the sky leaving a sparkling orange trail in its wake. The higher the stone rose the greater the fizzing noise become and the brighter the trail before with a loud crack the stone exploded in a burst of orange light high above the lake. Streamers of crimson red and golden yellow light spiralled away in all directions from the flickering bright light hanging in the air above them before the dimming orange light faded leaving just a faint smudge of colour drifting on the breeze.
Georgina smiled to herself as she watched Noah's look of wonderment, remembering that her son has seen very little use of artificer made products in contrast to her upbringing at the Wynter Palace. In happier circumstances she would have delighted in watching his expression at what was to happen next. Now however, she hoped that he could keep his wits about himself to respond when the moment presented itself to them if she was right.
"They'll see that won't they Lang?" asked Fitzpatrick excitedly. "I bet you could see that from the whole lake!"
"Hope so lad. Hope so. Still it could hours yet before we see 'em depending where they are around the lake. If we're lucky they're close by, 'cause the sooner 'er highness here is someone else's problem the better for my liking."
"I will miss you too Yeoman Lang," said Georgina, favouring the yeoman with a wink.
A strengthening breeze tugged at the loose strands of Georgina's golden hair that weren't probably tucked into her braid. A faint rumble of thunder could be heard in the distance despite the blue sky overhead.
"Damn it," spat Lang. "Last thing we want is to get caught out in the open between a forest an' a lake in a thunderstorm."
"Sergeant Ackers doesn't seem bothered..." observed Fitzpatrick, nodding towards the calm looking woman gazing up into the sky. By now some of the smaller branches on the trees at the edge of the tree line were starting to sway.
"Well then, that'll be the proof that she ain't right in the head then won't it?" said Lang, rising in his saddle. "CORPORAL?"
"Hold fast," ordered Ackers in response, oblivious to the concerned expression on Corporal Wyndham's face next to her.
The gusts were now becoming a constant wall of wind and were accompanied by a loud deep rumble that seemed to vibrate through their bones. Either side of Georgina, the two yeomen had to fight with the reins of their horses to still the skittish beasts. In contrast Georgina leant forward gently stroking her mounts neck and whispering words of reassurance to it.
"I don't see any thunderclouds!" shouted Fitzpatrick, the sound of his voice drowned out amongst the roar of the wind. Both hands gripping his reins he struggled to stop his horse from bolting.
"This ain't natural. It's weavery!" shouted Lang, an edge of panic creeping into his voice. Grasping his reins he turned his mount towards the direction of the forest. "We need to get to cover now!"
"HOLD FAST DAMNIT!" screamed Ackers. Reluctantly Lang circled his horse back to its original orientation after a moment's hesitation, the deeply ingrained instinct to obey orders trumping his fear.
Georgina pushed her head close to her horses neck for protection as a blinding maelstrom of dead leaves and dust buffeted the party, carried at speed through the forest and erupting on the lake shore.
"Lang? I don't like this. What's going on? WHAT DO WE DO?" shouted Fitzpatrick, his forearm shielding his eyes against the debris.
"I DON'T KN--"
A smug smile teased Georgina's lips as the noise and wind suddenly died leaving an unnatural stillness around them.
"--ow?"
The two yeomen exchanged confused glances at one another, neither daring to say anything least they tempt fate. Finally, a nervous chuckle of relief escaped from Fitzpatrick as he wiped the dust from his face.
"Whatever that was, let's not do that again."
"Damn right," laughed Lang warily. "I'd have seen you alright though lad. Unlike the Corporal and Sergeant you didn't see me freeze up wh--"
The yeoman's words died on his lips as the top of the trees near the shoreline shook violently scattering leaves like confetti down on the party. With a deafening roar of wind the prow of wooden ship came into view, its keel skimming just barely a metre or so above the tree tops as it passed over them throwing the shoreline momentarily into shade. The bark of orders high in the rigging could be heard as the lateral sails were trimmed and the ship slowed and descended towards the lake.
The party watched in silence as the vessel skimmed the surface of the lake before a loud thunder like splash signalled that the keel of the vessel had briefly broken the water's surface before rising clear. Large drag sails were unfurled at the stern and the second time it broke the water's surface the whole length of the keel submerged before re-emerging from the water. Finally, with a deep hissing roar the keel of the vessel broke the surface a third time and this time sank further into the water and didn't re-emerge.
"Is that?" asked Fitzpatrick, his voice hoarse as he gestured to the ship in silent completion of his question.
"Aye lad. It's a sky clipper a'right," replied Lang, spitting after he said the word 'clipper'. "Unnatural is what it is though if you ask me. Ships float not fly. It's the way of things."
"I...I've always wanted to see one," said Fitzpatrick. "Do you think we will get to go on it?"
"Don't know. 'Er highness will though," said Lang gesturing to Georgina who was still lying flat against the body of her horse between the two yeomen. "Make sure you've got a good grip of 'er reins lad. If she's going to try somethin' it'll be now or nev--"
Lang's stared in horror at Fitzpatrick as he noted that both of his hands were grasping the reins of his own horse.
Kicking her legs out into the side of the flanking yeomen's horses making the started beasts move away from her, Georgina dug her heels into the flanks of her own horse urging it at the gallop towards Sergeant Ackers. Unlike her own prized destrier, the rouncey the yeomen had was lighter and smaller and fought her as she slammed it into the side of the Sergeant's horse. While the Sergeant fought to stay in her saddle from the force of the impact, Georgina pulled Acker's cavalry sabre free from its saddle scabbard and turned in her saddle swinging it wildly at the nearby Corporal Wyndham forcing him to back away from her.
"Ride Noah! Ride!" screamed Georgina at the top of her voice as she spurred her protesting horse along the shoreline. Behind her she could hear Sergeant Acker's ordering her men in pursuit of them.
Georgina let Noah's slower pack horse in front of her on the muddy narrow shoreline, thanking the slippery surface for reducing the disadvantage the pack horse had over the less encumbered rouncey's of the yeomen.
"Make for the clearing up ahead!" shouted Georgina, knowing that their chances of escape were all the greater if they could make it into the forest. A couple of crossbow bolts whistled past her from the pursuing yeomen making Georgina smile as she knew they were little more than a warning as the yeomen would not risk killing her and this allowed her to use her body to shield Noah.
As the pair neared the clearing, Georgina's horse reared up in fright as an blinding orange ball of light fizzed past exploded in front of her. Tumbling from her saddle, Georgina landed heavily in the water dropping her stolen sabre and was forced to roll out of the way as her horse turned and bolted away from the flare.
Pulling herself to her knees, Georgina groped around her in the shallow water for her sabre unable to see clearly as she tried to blink the spots from her eyes.
"Momma?" called Noah from the other side of the rapidly dimming flare as her fought to control his own scared horse.
"Go Noah! Go!" cried Georgina as her hand grasped the hilt of the submerged sabre. "It's up to you now to find Lottie!"
Pulling herself to her feet she brought her sabre into an en-garde position as Lang and Wyndham warily dismounted ahead of her and drew their own long swords. Lang was the first to move, feinting a thrust to her right in an attempt to open her up her left for Wyndham. Georgina quickly parried Lang's sword away, spinning to block Wyndham's lunge towards her leg. Kicking a spray of water up at Lang causing him to momentarily shield his face, Georgina beat the middle of Wyndham's blade knocking it aside long enough to execute a slash at his chest as she pulled her blade back. Cursing her, Wyndham staggered back pressing his free hand over the wound in an attempt to staunch the bleeding.
Any advantage was short lived as with a grunt Lang lunged at her forcing her to take a step backwards as she parried the blade. Losing her footing in the muddy water, she stumbled backwards only just parrying a thrust at her arm at the last moment. Sliding the cutting edge of her sabre down Lang's blade Georgina twisted her blade forcing his arm downwards before spinning her own blade upwards and slashing across the back of his arm. With a shout Lang withdrew from the engagement bringing his blade back up in a defensive position.
Breathing hard, Georgina returned her blade back to its en-garde position as Wyndham once more rejoined. She feinted towards Wyndham driving him defensive before switching to a lunge at the injured Lang forcing him to stumble backwards as he frantically parried her blade. A counter thrust from Wyndham forced Georgina to take a few steps backwards under a rain of attacks from the corporal.
"Momma!"
The shout from Noah caused Georgina to spin around and parry an attack from Ackers who had managed to flank her without her noticing. The attack from Ackers forced Georgina to take a step backwards forcing her deeper into the lake, the water now lapping at her knees.
"Noah, go!" she screamed, horrified to see her son hadn't moved from where he had stopped as a result of the flare.
Ackers pressed Georgina's distraction with a series of stinging blows, the sound of metal on metal ringing out across the lake. Binding her cross guard against her opponents, Georgina forced their blades up in a struggle of strength as both women sought to push the others blade away and create an opening.
"You might as well give up," snarled Ackers through gritted teeth. "You can't beat us all."
"Right now, I would settle for just killing you."
"You couldn't stop me killing your husband or son, so what makes you think you can kill me now, freak?"
With a roar Georgina twisted the cross guard of her sabre against Ackers blade, snapping it and pushing Ackers backwards with a shove that sent her tumbling to the ground.
"Die bitch!" hissed Georgina, tightening her grip on her weapon.
"No!"
Georgina spun around at the shout from her left to find herself enveloped in a tackle from Fitzpatrick that knocked the wind from her. Staggering under his weight the pair both fell to their knees, Fitzpatrick's iron grip pinning Georgina's arms at her side.
"Why?" asked Fitzpatrick, a look of confusion crossing his face as it drained of colour.
"I...I don't know," replied Georgina, a tear falling from her eye as she looked up into the young yeoman's face.
"You said you wouldn't..."
"I-I-I know. I'm sorry."
"Oh..."
Georgina struggled to keep Fitzpatrick upright in her arms as he slumped forward, the blood covered blade of her sabre coming into view where it projected through his back.
"I'm sorry," whispered Georgina, resting her chin on the top of his head as she held him tightly. "I'm sorry."
"Lang, get the boy," ordered Ackers as she pulled Georgina upright by her braid, twisting it painfully. "Wyndham, see to Fitzpatrick."
Ackers dragged Georgina to the shore where she threw her face first into the mud. Kneeling on top of her, she pulled some rope from her belt and tightly bound Georgina's hands together. Only when she was satisfied that the rope was tight enough that it was biting into Georgina's wrists did she move her weight off her.
"Ahoy the shore!"
Pulling Georgina to her feet, Ackers twisted her around to face the arriving long boat.
"Ahoy the boat," said Ackers with a smile.
"Is that her?" asked a young dark haired man, wearing the light blue diamond chequered tunic of the Angelcyn navy.
"It is."
Jumping from the boat with a small splash into the shallow waters lapping at the shore, the new arrival approached Ackers grasping her wrist in a traditional yeoman greeting.
"In which case, on behalf of Admiral the Lord Repton, may I welcome you on board the royal clipper Prince Henry. I know he is particularly keen to reacquaint himself with your guest."
Firstly, I would like to apologise most profusely for the delay in posting this chapter. I'll try and post the next chapter more quickly but no promises as this one went through a lot of rewrites and that was with the bonus of the story being fully plotted. So sorry once again, and I hope it doesn't spoil your enjoyment of the story too much.
Secondly, as usual, I would also like to thank Persephone for inspiring this with her story 'The Frozen Balance' and without which this story wouldn't be here. I'd also urge you to read her latest work. :-)
Finally, I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to comment and kudos to date. All are most gratefully appreciated though I will spare you the horror of being subjected to the little dance that achieving a three figure kudos total provoked. You'll thank me for it, I promise. As for Chapter 8...it's coming soon-ish.
When Poppy's grandfather dies, her father inherits his childhood home in Happy Springs, New Hampshire. He decides to take his three daughters from England on their first trip to the land of his birth to fix up the house as a potential summer home and give Poppy a break from some problems she's been having. He says it's an old house that just needs a little work to restore it back to its full glory. It's going to be fun fixing it up. Poppy isn't so sure...
"Hey, wake up sleepyhead we're almost there."
My eyes fluttered open at the gentle nudging from my sister as she reached back from her seat in the front of the vehicle. Letting out a yawn, I stretched my arms out and tried to work some of the kinks out of my neck and shoulders.
"Hey, down in back," said my father briefly glancing back over his shoulder at me with a grin. "It's hard enough trying to get used to driving on this side of the road again as it is, without you obstructing the rear view mirror."
"Tell me about it," I muttered glancing out of the window, the late-afternoon summer sun muted by my sunglasses. "Do they all know they are driving on the wrong side of the road? Driving on the right is just kinda fu...freaky."
I shuddered slightly watching a car pass by on a side of the vehicle that my instincts kept screaming should be the pavement.
"Language please Poppy," sighed my father with a slight edge to the voice. "You may be seventeen now but while you are under my roof I hope you will respect my rules, particularly with Daisy in the car."
I blushed as I ducked my head and spared a glance at my sleeping younger sister in the seat next to mine. Even at seventeen the one thing that always brought me up sharply was the thought of disappointing my father in some way. I could deal with him being angry, though he rarely was in front of any of us kids, but him being disappointed in me caused a gnawing discomfort in the pit of my stomach that would niggle all day until I could get back in his good books. I guess l was just too much of a daddy's girl at heart. In contrast, mum and me had endured stand up, knock down screaming matches from pretty much the onset of puberty and we were only just coming to terms with our new, slightly tentative, harmonious relationship.
"I think it's actually the car rental company's roof dad," laughed my older sister from the front passenger seat.
"Yes, thank you Fleur. I knew I should have brought the boys," said my father shaking his head slightly, a put up tone creeping into his voice. "But nooooooooooo, your mother was all 'it will be good to spend time with your girls' to me."
Dad flashed me a quick wink in the rear view mirror signalling he wasn't serious and that he had forgiven me for my earlier outburst.
"Y'know, for a town called 'Happy Springs' I expected it to be more...joyous," said Fleur staring out of the window. "Maybe spontaneous musical numbers breaking out in the streets or at least public dancing."
"And I've not seen any springs either," I added.
"Do you think they meant springs, 'boing!', or 'stick-it-in-a-bottle-carbonate-it-and-charge-one-pound-fifty-a-bottle' springs?
"I kinda pictured a town full of laughing Zebedee's," I said with a grin.
"BOING!" cried my sister and I together, causing my sleeping younger sister to stir.
"Should've brought the boys," muttered my father under his breath in his most put upon voice. "And not let Alice raise them on the kids shows of her youth."
"Are we there yet?" asked Daisy, elongating the last word as she stretched.
I reached over and brushed some of her fringe out of her eyes before impishly flicking one of her strawberry blonde pigtails.
"Hey! You said you weren't going to do that anymore," she squealed, covering her pigtails defensively with her hands.
Reaching over as best the seatbelt allowed, I put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a partial hug.
"I'm sorry," I said leaning down to kiss the top of her head. "You just looked so cute I couldn't help myself. I won't do it again though, I promise."
"It didn't really hurt or anything. Just don't do it, 'kay?" she replied settling into the hug. "I like it that you're nice to me now."
"I wish I could undo the past sweetie," I whispered resting my chin on her head. "I wish I could change a lot of things but the worlds not like that. We get second chances not do-over's."
"New and improved though, little sister," said Fleur leaning back from her seat to rest her hand on my knee. "New and improved."
I clasped my free hand over hers and closed my eyes, listening to the rhythmic sounds of my little sister breathing and the wheels on the road while taking a moment to bask in the love of my sisters. Despite all the things that had happened recently, I still couldn't believe how lucky I was to have the love of my sisters.
"We're here girls," said my father, his voice catching a little as he watched us in the rear view mirror. He steered us to a stop on the opposite side of the street under the shade of a tree.
Releasing my seat belt, I slid out of the car, well minivan in reality, and stepped down onto pavement. In front of me was the sort of property you see in movies, set back from the road with an immaculate front lawn sloping up to an imposing two storey colonial revival style house.
"Not bad. Not bad at all," I said helping Daisy down. "I think I can live with this."
"Sweet," said Fleur walking round from the other side of the car. "I don't think this looks anywhere near as bad as that solicitor made out when grandpa's will was read."
We briefly high fived as we took in the view, sharing a grin. Mum had insisted that the cost of any decorating be kept down by us doing it rather than employing someone and looking at the house in front of us even the flower baskets hanging from the porch were picture perfect.
"Uh, is it me or is someone living in our house?" I asked, noticing child's tricycle sitting at the top of the driveway.
"There are indeed people living in that house, because girls it's not ours. That's the Jensen's place, or it was when I was a kid. Our house is on the other side of the street," chuckled my father. "I parked this side so we got the best view. Isn't it something?"
My breath caught in my throat as I turned to see the ramshackle property behind us. Like the other buildings in the street, it shared the same two storey colonial revival style although rising from one side was a...well a turret I guess you'd call it. A brick rounded turret with windows all around the top storey which rose slightly above the roof of the main building. It gave the impression of once being an imposing building, nearly half as big again as the properties around it. However, this was clearly a building that had seen better days. Only two of the four windows on the first storey had any shutters attached and the three that were attached appeared to be hanging on through willpower alone. The glass in the three attic windows rising from the roof were cracked and several roof tiles were missing revealing the underlay. Things were little better on the lower floor with two huge windows, one either side of the leaning porch, pretty much obscured by a pair of untended trees. The tattered screen door swinging slightly in the breeze to bang against the front door gave it a forbidding feel despite the summer sunshine. It was the virtual dictionary definition of property blight.
"It's something all right," breathed Fleur.
"It just needs a little bit of love," said my father grinning.
"It needs painting," piped up Daisy as she moved round to our dad to get a better view.
"Then we'll paint it."
"It needs new glass," said Fleur.
"I'll call a glazer once our stuff is unpacked."
"It needs an exorcism," I said, raising my sunglasses to get a better view.
"Then we'll get a priest," laughed my father.
"What's an exorschism?" asked Daisy.
"Nothing you need to worry about," said dad scooping Daisy up into his arms. "It's just your sister being silly."
"You know we're going to be known as the kids from the creepy old Haas place," said Fleur, emphasising her words with a rather melodramatic sigh.
"Hey now, be nice I grew up here," said Dad with a frown. "It'll be fine once we've given it a bit of TLC."
"Is it too late to go home and send the boys out instead?"
"Hush Poppy. It'll be fine."
Any retort I had once cut off by a groaning from the house followed by a loud crash as one of the remaining shutters fell to the ground. Slack jawed Fleur and I exchanged a horrified look.
"Well that's one trip up the ladder saved," said my father with a forced smile. Pulling some keys from his pocket he threw them underarm to Fleur. "I'll park the car by the garage and unload. Why don't you are your sisters go ahead and take a look around our new summer home."
"Oh joy," I breathed as I pulled my handbag out of the car.
The front door creaked eerily as Fleur turned the handle, pushing it open to reveal a dingy hallway stretching the length of the house. Dust swirled in the light as a gentle breeze blew in from behind us, which from the smell emanating from it was the first time in a while it had been exposed to fresh air. The squeak of my trainers on the varnished hardwood floor echoed through the house eerily as I entered the hallway.
"Abandon hope all ye who enter," I whispered, only to get a nudge in the ribs from Fleur.
Stopping to take in the view, I brushed my fingers around the outline of a discoloured rectangle on the wall which I assumed once marked a picture frame that had been there a while before its final removal. Similar marks were visible on the floor indicating where there had once been heavy items of furniture.
"The floors don't seem in too bad a state," said Fleur tentatively bouncing up and down on the boards. "No real movement, or anything that I guess a bit of washing and buffing up wouldn't sort?"
"Great, that's your job then," I replied with a grin. Fleur stuck her tongue out in response.
Pushing open a door into a room that I guessed had once been a living or dining room I marvelled at the large fire place that dominated the outer side wall. Intricately carved wood panels flanked the hearth and a thick wooden mantel shelf rested across the top. The wood seemed almost black in the poor light from the obscured front window.
"Now that's a fireplace that wouldn't be out of place in some costume drama," said Fleur running a finger along it.
"Dusty?" I asked squatting down to look at the carved wooden panels beside the hearth.
"Not as bad as I thought given it's been empty for what, a year now?"
"Longer. Aunt Libby said Grandpa went into that care home about eighteen months ago if I remember."
"These wood panels are something else," said Fleur running a hand over the carved panels. "Though the one on the right seems damaged. Is this something you could fix?"
I reached over and traced the cracks in the wood with my fingers.
"I'll have to find the right wood and sketch out the pattern. Maybe. Carving was more Ellie's thi... I... I..."
I blinked back unbidden tears as an unwanted memory surfaced and I sank to my knees fighting back a sob. I hated being so weak, so emotionally out of control, a passenger on the rollercoaster of my emotions. I felt my sisters arms wrap around me as she gently pulled me into an embrace.
"Shhhh, now," she soothed, stroking my hair. "Remember what mum said. It's okay if you need to let it out. Bottling it all up isn't doing you any good. All it's doing is making it burst out like this when you can't hold it in anymore."
"How can I after...after... she... she... can't. How c-c-c-can I..." my voice trailed off into great heaving sobs as I buried my head into her shoulder.
"You can do it by not doing it on your own for a start. We're a family. Families help each other."
"But I don't deserv... don't deser... don't..."
"No. You're not doing that to yourself again, you hear me? You deserve the same as everyone else in this family. You're no better and no worse than anyone else here, okay? There's no room for that sort of thinking," she said pulling me tighter into her embrace.
In response I just sobbed harder until emotionally exhausted and a little travel lagged, I eventually drifted off to sleep in her arms.
"Merrr-ooow?"
I awoke to what felt like someone rubbing the tip of my nose in tuna scented wet sandpaper but actually turned out to be a cats tongue.
"Hey there girl? boy?" I murmured, gathering the cat into my arms as I sat up. "Where did you come from?"
"Respectively, it's a girl and the garage," said my father putting down his kindle and switching off the clip on light as he got up from where he had been sitting. "Daisy found her when I was unpacking the car. We decided to call her Fluffy. It seems she's taken a liking to you."
Kneeling next to me, he gathered up his jacket from where it had been bundled up as a pillow for me.
"Fluffy?" I said holding the short haired tabby cat out in front of me. "Fluffy?"
"Daisy found her, so she got the naming rights," he said with a smile. "Her stuffed toy cat is called Fluffy remember? And what with your mom's cat fur allergy she's never had a real cat. So, Fluffy."
"Shouldn't we have her checked for like fleas or rabies or something?" I asked turning the cat in my hands slightly to get a better look at her. In the early evening sun her silver streaks seemed to glow slightly.
"Already done it. We took her to the local vets and had her checked out. She's not chipped or on their lost list and is in perfect health as far as they can see. Tomorrow we'll stop by the local sheriff's office, so if someone has reported her lost or stolen we should know soon."
"Where's Daisy?" I asked listening to the silent house.
"Your sisters have gone on a supply run, including picking up some take-out for dinner. They should be back soon."
"Take OUT?" I asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow. "Surely, you mean take AWAY?"
"Don't call me Shirley," replied my father with a chuckle. "It's been twenty years since I've been back here. I'm reconnecting with my roots."
"Yeah, life was sure tough in the 'hood eh? Detached mansions set in what, half an acre of land from the looks of it?"
"Hush now," he mock scolded, lightly tapping me on the nose. "Anyway, enough about me. Let's talk about you."
I placed the cat gently on the ground and pulled my legs tight up against in a hug, not meeting my father's eyes.
"I'm fine."
"You're far from fine. And these... moments... are getting worse, more frequent. You've got me worried pumpkin," he said softly. "I've spoken to a couple of friends on the faculty at Dartmouth and they've given me the name of a therapist in Plymouth that might be of help. She's supposed to be a little out there but has great results with..."
"Freaks like me?"
"Hush," said my father tapping my nose again. "You're many things but not a freak, you hear me? I don't know what goes on in that amazing brain of yours at times but I'm not going to let you bottle this up until you have a breakdown or worse."
"Me? Amazing?" I scoffed. "Dad, you have a host of awards sitting on the mantelpiece at home. That new strain of wheat you bred to produce better yields in harsher terrain is feeding millions."
"And yet people still die of hunger in places where the soil won't support it. Even worse, there are places where the soil could support it but stupidity stops people from growing it due to conflict or the over exploitation of natural resources such as water vital to crop growth. I could create a wheat crop that could grow in a desert without water and people would starve due to the stupidity of mankind."
He sighed for a moment and scratched the cat, I guess I should call her Fluffy as it's her name, behind one of her ears.
"Sorry, that was a little preachy," he laughed. "Anyway, you on the other hand are an artist and a very talented one too. Not only did you sell all your artwork at that local gallery exhibition but that gentleman from the Royal Academy told you to keep in contact with him so he could come to your future exhibitions. I didn't see him tell anyone else that."
"No, he told Ellie that too," I whispered as I felt my eyes start to sting again with unshed tears. "That was always her dream. It was all she could talk about, going to The Slade and then the RA. I actually preferred The Ruskin, then the RA, but I always knew I'd go to The Slade to keep her happy."
"Ohhhh...Poppy, I didn't know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
I leant into his hug as he pulled me close to him.
"I'm soooooo sick of crying," I sniffled.
"I know pumpkin," he said kissing the top of my head. "We'll give that therapist in Plymouth a call tomorrow okay?"
"If you think she can help..."
"I don't think it could hurt. It'll be a nice road trip anyway. It's been ages since I've been to Plymouth."
"Okay dad..."
"Mind you, don't expect miracles. It's been my experience that Haas women are naturally tearful. Why should you be any different when you're upset?"
"Because I'm not..."
"Shush now. I think I recognise one of my own daughters okay?"
"...Okay, dad."
"We good?" he asks giving my shoulders a gentle squeeze. He might have said 'we' but I know he meant 'you' from the tone of his voice.
"We're good. I'm good."
"Good," he said releasing me. "Oh, you might need this."
I dubiously accepted the cloth handkerchief he offered me from his pocket.
"Oh don't worry, I've not used it for its intended purpose. I keep it for damsels in distress."
I dabbed at my eyes with it, noting the familiar smell it seemed to hold.
"It smells like...mum?"
"Yes it does. She spritzed a little perfume on it before we left as a keepsake. That's another reason I carry it. It's like having a little piece of your mother with me wherever I am."
That sums up my parents really. It's like they are still in some teenage romance still. Nothing big or fancy, just little things to show their love for each other. As you can imagine my younger brothers hate all the relatively chaste public kissing involved between our parents.
"By the way, the good news is while you were sleeping the heating engineer came and checked out the furnace and gave it the all clear so we'll have hot water for the radiators and showers once we have power. The bad news is that due to a paperwork snarl up the power company won't have the electricity connected until tomorrow."
"So we're staying in a hotel tonight?" I asked hopefully.
"Pfft. Hotel, shmotel. I stopped off at a sporting goods store on the way back from the vets and picked up some battery powered lanterns and some sleeping bags. Think of it as indoor camping. Oh, if you want to have a look around before the girls get back with dinner, grab a lantern from the hallway. The sun sets surprisingly quickly around here."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to replace the batteries on the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. It looks like your grandfather had them installed relatively recently but better safe than sorry."
As my dad head towards a doorway I hadn't noticed at the other end of the room until now, I turned and headed back through the double doors that I had originally entered.
Fluffy dutifully trotted behind me, the bell on her new collar jingling. The hallway was quite dark by now but I spotted the lanterns next to the pile of luggage we had brought with us and headed over to them.
"Oh, watch out for the canoe!" yelled my father, his voice echoing off the walls of the empty rooms. "We had a bit of an incident at the store!"
"What canooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!"
I hit the ground with a heavy slap, and heard my sunglasses skittering off my head and across the floor.
"YOU OKAY?"
"NO I'M NOT OKAY! SOME IDIOT PUT A CANOE IN THE HALLWAY!" I yelled back rolling onto my back. I gingerly blew on my hands trying to sooth the stinging from the impact. I hissed quietly from the pain.
"MY BAD!"
"WHY THE FU--FREAK IS THERE A CANOE IN OUR HALLWAY?" I yelled back. This time the only response was silence.
"DAD? HELLO?"
Being careful not to put too much pressure on my stinging palms, I pulled myself up on my knees and took a good look at the canoe. What was a real surprise was that it wasn't one of those modern fibreglass ones. It had a real wooden frame with some sort of canvas stretched over it and a pair of heavy looking oars inside. On the seat was a label and I leaned forward to see it more clearly.'Property of Clarks Sporting Goods. Display only. Not for sale.'
How the fu... freak did we end up with a display model of a canoe? Daisy. It had to be Daisy. My sister was disaster on wheels, well she was when we let her be on wheels. Which we didn't often because hello, disaster on wheels.
"Merrrrrrrow!"
I looked up to see Fluffy rubbing her chin against one of the ribs of the canoe, her body protruding half-in, half-out of a hole in the side.
"Oh. Is this your handiwork or Daisy's?"
In response Fluffy rolled on her back, batting at the tattered fabric with her paws.
"Pleading the fifth eh? Probably for the best."
"Meow?"
I shifted on the sleeping bag trying to get comfortable as I surveyed the cartons of Chinese food arranged on one of our hard bodied suitcases. Dad had moved the rest of our luggage into the room with us, including oddly, the canoe which Fluffy seemed to have adopted as her own personal cat basket. Although the tree out front mostly obscured the window, dad had also rigged up a makeshift curtain using a groundsheet he'd picked up with the sleeping bags. The effect of it all was that the light from the lanterns gave the room a surreal sort of urban campfire like feel to it.
"So what's the plan for tomorrow?" asked Fleur as she worked to cram a larger helping of noodles into her mouth with the chopsticks then ought to reasonably fit."Ohhhhh....this is good."
"I've got a couple of contractors coming in the morning to give me some quotes for the big stuff that I can't do, so I'll need to stay here for that. I'll also need you and Poppy to run some errands in town and out to the old Schultz Mall for me in the morning. We need some blinds for the windows for a start, so that the world and its wife can't look into the house. Then in the afternoon, we're going out to surprise your Aunt Libby. She doesn't know we're here yet."
"Wait...why haven't we told Aunt Libby we're here?" I asked pausing on the sesame prawn on toast that I had chosen.
"Because knowing your Aunt Libby, she'd insist on us staying the night with her," replied dad. He reached over to help Daisy pick up a chicken wing from one of the cartons."And this is more fun isn't it princess?"
Daisy nodded happily in response as she bit into some chicken wings, enjoying being able to eat food with her hands for once.
"Wait...there was an alternative to this?!? A bed with a mattress and real sheets?!?" shrieked Fleur around a mouthful of noodles.
"Chew your food kitten, this isn't a race," said dad.
"Daaaaaaaaaad."
"Trust me, we'll look back fondly on this night at the end of the summer."
"You're absolutely sure they didn't have any aromatic duck?" I grumbled prodding a carton of lemongrass chicken noodle salad. "Every Chinese restaurant or take away I've ever been to does duck. You know I like crispy aromatic duck."
"Will you stop going on about that. I asked. They said did not do any duck items on the menu. They were very insistent," she replied.
I snorted my disbelief at that statement.
"Look... Duck Off!"
"Fleur!" chastised dad.
"What?" she replied sweetly. "That's what they said to me."
"You know very well."
"I'm sorry daddy," she said in a sweet little girls voice, her face schooled in contrition.
"Balls" I muttered under my breath.
"Poppy!"
"Pork balls! Do we have any?"
"Here, balls to you," said Fleur passing a carton over to me with a sly grin.
Picking up my chop sticks I made sure that I held them in such a way as to give her the finger while favouring her with a big grin.
"I should have brought the boys," groaned dad, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Yes, you sho--"
A loud crash from outside stopped Fleur in mid-sentence.
"Daddy, what was that?" asked a startled Daisy as she looked around nervously.
"That was nothing to worry about princess. It's just one less trip up a ladder tomorrow."
End of Chapter 1
Authors note: I honestly didn't intend to write this as there were two other stories I was trying to write (including Wynter Lionness which has a chapter nearly in the can) but I couldn't not write it as it was muse blocking. I've decided to go ahead and publish just to get it off my desk and give me an outlet in between writing the other stuff. It's meant to be a little fun and give me a chance to try writing something in modern times not involving super powers or magic. I've also never written something set abroad really, so another first. This is the first of approximately ten chapters of roughly the same length in an on-going story. I'm sort of pitching it at a John Hughes / Dawson's Creek level of realism (and those references didn't date me at all) *rolls eyes*. I intend to publish a chapter a month, work permitting. No reproduction etc without permission. Comments always welcome if you enjoyed it.
When Poppy's grandfather dies, her father inherits his childhood home in Happy Springs, New Hampshire. He decides to take his three daughters from England on their first trip to the land of his birth to fix up the house as a potential summer home and give Poppy a break from some problems she's been having. He says it's an old house that just needs a little work to restore it back to its full glory. It's going to be fun fixing it up. Poppy isn't so sure...
The first type are 'Morning People'. You probably know one, those sorts who skip merrily into each new day with an animated blue bird swooping around them and virtually sing the words 'good morning' like they are Debbie Reynolds, Gene Kelly or the other guy. There is something unnatural about people who wake up cheerful. I hate these people with a passion.
The second type of people I like to call 'Normal People'. Those people who need a bit of a run up at the day and some peace and quiet while they ease into the morning. I'm one of these people. I liken normal people waking to a computer starting up in that you have that period between pushing the start button and the operating system loading. Cornflakes, juice and a shower is my BIOS.
Unfortunately for me, my sister Fleur is a morning person. I love her. No offence intended to Daisy but Fleur is totally the bestest sister in the world. And yet, one day not too long from now I will probably smother Fleur in her sleep. Possibly even tonight.
"Nggggggggh!" I screamed, going from peaceful slumber to wide awake in the space of a second.
In front of me the sight of Fleur howling with laughter disappeared from view as a curtain of tangled bed hair fell across my eyes. Not that I can make out her laughter because all I can hear right now is the opening to Van Halen's 'Jump' blasting in my ears. Pulling the iPhone ear buds free I clutch at my poor abused ears.
"Oh. Em. Gee," cackled Fleur, fanning herself with hers hand. "Your face."
Mumbling an obscenity at her, I fell back into my sleeping bag. Unfortunately that only caused her to laugh harder.
"Wha' time?" I asked, squeezing my eyes tightly shut. The start of one of those headaches you get when you wake up too quickly from a deep sleep was tickling at my brain.
"Real or local?" asked Fleur.
"Both?" I yawned.
"Real time is just past Midday and local is just past 7am. FYI, Daisy has been up since 5am local."
"Thanks for letting me sleep in then," I groaned. Daisy was also a morning person, as was my dad. I took after mum in being normal.
"No problem. Dad said it's time for you to get up though. We've got the first of the builders arriving for nine and dad wants us ready to go for then."
"Ugh."
"C'mon, shake a leg. It's a beautiful Thursday morning in America and we've got a lot to do. I'll be in the kitchen sorting out breakfast," said Fleur, patting my sleeping bag covered leg. In response I just covered my head with my pillow.
"Hey sleepyhead, I thought I was going to have to come back there and sing or something," giggled Fleur, wrapping an arm around my shoulder as I shuffled into the kitchen. I'll confess I wasn't the quickest of risers and it had taken me best part of ten minutes to get up.
"Mof'ee?" I mumbled as I wiped the sleep out of my eyes with the heels of my palms.
"Sorry, mof'ee's off. The power isn't yet back on. Grab a seat and I'll get you some orange juice," said Fleur giving my shoulder a quick squeeze before turning to a collection of brown paper bags set out on the kitchen worktop. "It's room temperature I'm afraid."
I let out a catlike yelp of a yawn as I slumped heavily down on a high backed wooden kitchen chair, which creaked slightly under my weight. Resting my head against my arm as I slumped against the table I enjoyed the comfortable softness of the sleeve of my cotton dressing gown acting like a pillow. Golden early morning sunlight flooded the room through the windows running along the rear wall of the kitchen.
"Hey, when did we get a table?" I asked, realising what I was resting against. "This wasn't here yesterday."
"It was but not here. Dad found it in the wait for it... not one, but two... car garage with a few other items of furniture. He thinks it was the table his parents had in the kitchen when he was a kid so he cleaned it up and put it back here," said Fleur, punctuating the words 'one' and 'two' by holding up the appropriate number of fingers.
"Wow if it's that old maybe we should be calling the Antiques Roadshow in to see if it's worth something?"
"I'm gonna tell dad you said that," laughed Fleur as she placed a carton of juice and an empty plastic cup on the table. "Drink up."
"It's smooth right? You know I don't like the bits," I whined.
"I still can't work out how your pet name from dad isn't 'princess' given how much you moan about things... there's no duck... my orange juice has bits in it..." mocked Fleur with a laugh. "It says 'no pulp' so I think that means it's smooth. I mean the bits are pulp so it must be the same thing."
"What's for breakfast?" I asked, pouring the juice into the cup.
"You're drinking it."
"We couldn't stretch to a bowl of cereal or something? I thought you guys went shopping yesterday?"
"We did but we're not going to do a proper food shop until the power has been restored. Anyway, fear not young one," replied my sister with a knowing smirk. "Dad has promised to take us out for 'brunch' later to a place spoken of in hushed whispers amongst the members of his tribe. A house where they sell pancakes of a cosmopolitan nature."
"Sweet," I yawned, sweeping a tangled mass of hair back. "Our first authentic American brunch experience. It's going to be those thick chunky American pancakes you see in the movies, right?"
"As large and as thick as a manhole cover according to dad."
"Not that our father is prone to wild exaggeration or anything."
"Of course not," replied Fleur with a wink.
Draining the orange juice from my cup, I stretched and started to feel a bit more awake. I poured myself a second cup of juice and glanced around the room. The kitchen was large by standards back home. The wooden kitchen units formed a wide 'U' shape, probably at least twice the size of our kitchen back home, with the open end filled by the large windows dominating the external wall. On one side within the 'U' was an island worktop with a sink and on the other side was the table. The whole room smelt slightly of bleach and I noted a pile of cleansing stuff on one of the worktops.
"Where's dad?"
"He and Daisy are out walking the cat."
"Oh okay... wait? what?"
"Walking the cat. And don't start, I've already said it to them but Daisy doesn't want to let Fluffy out of the house alone until we've had chance to butter the cat's paws. It was a suggestion from mum. Hence the said walking of said cat so it can do its business. Not only are we going to be the kids from the creepy old Haas place but we're going to be the strange kids from the creepy old Haas place," sighed Fleur.
"Great."
"Yeah."
"Is are phone working then if mum called?"
"No, dad called her on his mobile. The house phone is another one of the 'today' things according to dad."
"Oh. Mum's okay with us having Fluffy?" I asked, remembering her allergy was the reason we'd never had a cat before.
"Subject to a couple of conditions over where Fluffy can go in the house, yeah. She did make it clear when she and the boys fly over next month she expects the place to be spotless with no stray fur."
"Great. We get to clean this place top to bottom not once but twice," I groaned.
"Yeah... anyway, you need to grab a shower and get ready," said Fleur picking up the carton of orange juice. "Dad cleaned the family bathroom yesterday. We can't use the shower until he's replaced the head and we've no hot water anyway until we have power but the plumbing does work, so you should be able to have a cold strip wash."
"Oh joy."
"I've put your towel on top of your suitcase with your bathroom stuff," said Fleur, shooing me out of the chair as I drained the last of my juice from the cup. "C'mon. Chop, chop. Lots to do."
Brushing the last of the tangles out of my hair, I played with the fringe with my fingers teasing it out as I wanted in the mirror. I knew it was a vanity but I was proud of my hair. Starting off fairly straight it naturally turned into loose curls by the time it reached between my shoulder blades. The colouring of my hair took after my father's dark blonde hair rather than my mother's strawberry blonde, although there was a hint of red to it in the right light. The way I figured it we all were entitled to at least one vanity and my hair was mine. It took a lot of work to maintain properly but was well worth it for the changes it made to the shape of my face.
Turning my head slightly from side to side, I found myself smiling at my reflection in the bathroom cabinet mirror. I'd started blockers at 15, hormones at 16 and I was quietly pleased with how I looked. I mean I could look better. I wasn't beautiful by anyone's standards except maybe my parents and they were clearly biased. Even pretty would be a real stretch but I thought I had the whole fresh faced English Rose look down well. To be fair with a skin colour so pale it was almost blue, my choices were either the English Rose look, the Goth look or the St Tropez spray tan look. On that basis the English Rose look was a good look, a little bit of blush, some understated eye make-up and a little mascara and 'barely there' pink lip colouring. The words of the song by the Jam came to mind, 'no matter where I roam, I will return to my English Rose'. Well, if it was good enough a look for Paul Weller to find attractive, it was good enough for me.
I reached into my toiletries bag and pulled out a scrunchy ringed with paper pink roses that I pulled over one wrist. I had a feeling I'd be needing later if dad had us gophering for him. It was actually my mother's but she let me have it as she'd worn her own hair in a professional chin length bob since I was a tweenie. She'd been given it as a teenager in the 80's by grandma making it an honest to goodness 'vintage' fashion scrunchy, which along with the snood and legwarmers formed the holy trinity of 80's retro fashion for the 21st Century. I also treasured it because she'd given it to me, not Fleur. It felt kinda like a rite of passage to womanhood, something passed down from the matriarch that wouldn't have been passed to one of my brothers.
My thoughts were interrupted by the muffled sound of Fleur calling up to me. "Hey hurry up in there! Dad will be back soon!"
Gathering up my toiletries and cosmetic bags I swore under my breath as the later slipped from my grasp, spilling over the floor. Kneeling to pick everything up, I paused as I saw the white back of a square of photo paper. Turning it over, I felt a lump form in my throat at the image of two nearly identical teenage girls on it. One was a little taller and the other one was a little more filled out in a good way. They easily passed for cousins or at a casual glance even as sisters. The same hairstyles, clothes and general overall look gave a sort of twin vibe. Both girls were linked in an embrace with broad smiles on their faces as they hoisted high champagne flutes in a toast against a backdrop of paintings with sold tags on a gallery wall.
"Ellie..." I whispered, tracing the outline of the shorter of the two girls with my finger. "I miss you so much. I... I..."
Bowing my head, I squeezed my eyes tightly shut to try and regain control over my emotions. The only sound in the room was my ragged breathing and the soft pitter-patter of tears as they fell from my eyes onto the photograph. I'd truly forgotten about the photograph, buried as it was at the bottom of the bag. Once it evoked such a pleasant memory that I carried it everywhere but now all it represented was pain and guilt.
The photograph was from when we were celebrating the close of our first exhibition. Well, Ellie said it was 'ours' because in that irrepressible mad way of hers of looking at the world we were the stars of the show. It was like she lived in an imaginary version of the Truman Show and everything really was about her. In actuality it was an exhibition for a dozen or so local artists but regardless of the truth, the fact that we were the only ones to sell out all our works just reconfirmed her view of us as sixteen year old art prodigies. I remember her saying 'Stick with me kiddo and you'll be all right' just prior to that photograph being taken. If I only had of done she might still be alive but I didn't. I didn't... and she was dead. And I wasn't but I should have been.
"Get it together you stupid cow," I cursed in between sobs, punching myself in the leg. "Get it together."
After a few minutes, I managed to stop the flow of tears. Wiping at my eyes, I groaned noticing the black streaks on my fingers and set about retouching my make-up.
"It's typical of mum isn't it? Thousands of miles away and she still runs this family," sighed Fleur. "Do you think this matches the picture?"
Fleur held up a picture of a telephone, one of those cordless ones that lets you walk around the house with the handset, that had been taken off of the Wal-Mart website. In her other hand she held a box with an apparently matching picture on it. After a quick glance I nodded my assent to Fleur.
The thing about our mother was that unlike dad, who was a bit of an idealist and a dreamer, she was very organised and practical. Mum might not want to build a new world like dad but she was damn well going to make sure the existing one ran properly. She was a barrister and was a partner in her own small but successful chambers specialising in corporate law and was known for 'tilting at windmills' as she put it. If you had a difficult, technical case hinging on an obscure point of law, mum was your barrister. She was a hardnosed, no nonsense, intellectual career woman who cried when one of the robots died in the film Silent Running of all things, sang Disney musical numbers in the shower and drank her tea every morning out of a wonky cup I'd made in pottery at junior school. She was a walking bundle of contradictions. I really missed her.
"Penny for them?" asked Fleur, tugging gently on my sleeve.
"Just thinking about mum," I replied with a slight sniffle. "I miss her."
"Yeah, me too," said Fleur sliding the box with the telephone into the shopping trolley. "Though there are some advantages to being here without her."
"Like what?"
"Like being with dad is kinda like being on holiday without responsible adult supervision."
"You're so bad," I laughed, lightly slapping her on the arm. "But thanks for making me smile... so what's next on the list?"
"Let's see...." said Fleur, shuffling various website print outs in her hand. "We've got the phone... the kitchen appliances... we eventually got the one thing mum didn't provide a print out for, the bedding, after working out why the duvets looked odd and didn't have tog ratings... we need a table lamp... and dad forgot to pick up a cordless drill yesterday, so we need one of those..."
"I call the lamp."
"Thought you might," said Fleur with a smile handing me a piece of paper. "Mum wants that one."
"Where should we meet up?"
"Ummm... see that sign over there?" asked Fleur, pointing to a sign in the distance that read 'Customer Service'. "How about we meet there?"
"Okay... how about last one there has to do the others cleaning duty for Fluffy's tray for the week?" I asked, surreptitiously glancing up at the aisle signs. The lamps were a couple of aisles further away but I wouldn't be slowed down by the wonky wheeled trolley like Fleur which fought to go in the opposite direction from the one you pointed it in. "Or are you chicken?"
"You're on," cried Fleur, laughing as she pushed the trolley at me before starting off in a sprint. "Don't forget the trolley."
"Bitch!" I shrieked after her. "You fucking cheater!"
Hearing a throat being cleared behind me, I turned to see the disproving glare of a stern faced elderly lady.
"Bollox," I muttered under my breath as I schooled my expression into my most contrite face.
Puffing hard from the exertion I wrestled the shopping trolley to a halt next to Fleur at the Customer Service Desk, the muscles in my arms screaming from the fight to make it go remotely in the direction I had wanted it to go. Fleur glanced briefly in my direction before turning her attention back to a poster on the wall by the desk.
"That sooooooo doesn't count," I hissed. "You fu-freaking cheated. Not only that some old biddy chewed my ear off about my language thanks to you."
"As that old guy in one of your geeky films says, 'I changed the conditions of the test'. I won and you get poop scoop duty," said Fleur smugly. "Anyway, that's not important. Look at this."
I looked over at the poster Fleur had been pointing too.
"HAAS for Congress..." I read from the poster, a patriotically decorated red, white and blue affair. A woman of indeterminate age with immaculate coiffed hair and who bore a strong familial resemblance to dad, reassuringly smiled out of the poster. "I didn't know we were running."
"I think dad has some explaining to do," said Fleur.
"You bet he does," interrupted a new voice from behind us. "And not just about your Aunt Kathy's congressional career."
"Aunt Libby!" squealed Fleur turning and embracing the woman behind us.
"Hey sweetie," laughed Aunt Libby returning the hug. "It's been too long."
Breaking the embrace Aunt Libby turned her attention to me. She took a step back to appraise me for a moment and I found myself shifting uncomfortably under her gaze.
"And I'm guessing this tall drink of water is my niece Poppy. C'mere sweetie," she said, her face breaking into a broad grin as she spread her arms.
"I'm not that tall Aunt Libby," I sighed as I settled into her hug.
"You're taller than me girl," she laughed "And both of you are as skinny as a rake, which we'll have to change. I guess that's to be expected though. Your mom's a skinny little thing too."
At 5' 6" or so, Aunt Libby was by no means short although I was a three or four inches taller than her. However, the real difference between us was in her shape, which curved in all that right places giving her a figure I could only envy with my much narrower hips and smaller bust. Even Fleur looked a little androgynous next to Aunt Libby, although to be fair I think a lot of women probably did. Even in jeans and a black polo shirt she was femininity personified. She looked gorgeous and she clearly knew how to use it. If you looked carefully you could see she used more make up than you'd imagine to look like she didn't use much at all but it worked in giving her a faked natural beauty look. I remembered dad saying she'd been a cheerleader in high school and clearly she still kept in shape because there wasn't an ounce of fat in the wrong place as far as I could see despite her curves.
"You look even prettier in person than you do via Skype girl," whispered Aunt Libby in my ear. "Welcome to the family young lady."
I squeezed Aunt Libby in response, feeling the warmth of her love for me. Somewhat reluctantly withdrawing from the hug I dabbed at my eye to blot a stray tear.
"Are your parents here?" asked Aunt Libby, looking around.
"No, it's just us. Dad and Daisy are back at the house," replied Fleur. "We were on a shopping expedition while dad speaks to the builders. We were going to surprise you later."
"That sounds like something my brother would do," chuckled Aunt Libby good-naturedly. "I'm pleased to hear you've got professionals in though and he won't be doing the work himself. I've seen what he's like when he's got tools in his hands, it's like evolution in reverse."
"Ummm... we're only using the builders for the big stuff. We'll be doing all the decorating and such," said Fleur with a touch of exaggerated despondency. "Unless of course you could convince him otherwise..."
"Don't you get me involved in family feuds now," said Aunt Libby genially. "That battle you have to fight on your own. Or get your mother to fight."
"It's on her orders we're doing the decorating. It's a money saving measure."
"Where's Alice and your brothers anyway?" said Aunt Libby placing an arm around Fleur's shoulder. "I'd have thought you all would have come over together?"
"Mum's got a case that's going to run a few more weeks, so she and the boys are staying until it's over. Grandma is helping her out until then."
"It's worrying on all sorts of levels that she's left your father in charge."
"I'm not convinced that Daisy isn't in charge," I giggled. "She's got dad wrapped right around her little finger."
"Oh you can sooooooooooo talk, 'pumpkin', about that!" exclaimed Fleur. "Don't think I've seen you."
"Hey, I got a computer for my last birthday. A nice computer sure but still a computer. You got a car on the strength of batting your eye lashes at dad!"
Fleur had got an old VW Beetle in 'Herbie' colours from my parents for her eighteenth birthday. It gave her a level of freedom that I could only dream about. She could go where she wanted, when she wanted. I had to take a bus or the taxi service of mum and dad. The only blessing was that mum had made her display green 'P' plates on the car, which Fleur hated.
"I did not! Anyway, I seem to recall you got driving lessons for your last birthday and if you actually take your test... again... and pass this time then who knows what your birthday present might be..."
"That bollard jumped out at me!" I hissed, jabbing a finger at Fleur.
"Hey girls, cool it!" said Aunt Libby placing a hand on my shoulder. "I thought your mother said you two were getting on better now."
"Oh this is better," laughed Fleur, winking at me. "This is nothing like what it was before, right sis?"
I pouted a little before a smile crept across my face. "It's okay Aunt Libby, we're good. Besides, I kinda like having her chauffeur me about."
"Yes M'lady," intoned Fleur in her best Parker impression as she doffed an imaginary cap.
"So," I asked turning back the poster. "Who's Aunt Kathy?"
"You... you don't know who Kathy is?" asked Aunt Libby, canting her head slightly as she studied me. "Seriously?"
"Is she related to Uncle Samuel?" asked Fleur, glancing at the poster. "No, wait... she's campaigning as a Haas... is she a cousin?"
"She's my baby sister... and your father's as well," said Aunt Libby. "Your dad has seriously never mentioned her?"
Fleur and I exchanged brief looks before shaking our heads.
"No," we replied in unison.
"Why that pig headed boy..." growled Aunt Libby, looking heavenwards. "Would you girls like to see her? She's actually doing a 'Congress on your Corner' event here right now over in the garden centre. I'd just come over to drop off some flyers for the campaign appearance she's doing at the store this weekend. I'm hoping it might bring some new trade in."
I exchanged a look with Fleur, who shrugged, smiling slightly.
"Why not," I said grinning. "It's sort of like being on 'Who Do You Think You Are'."
"Welcome to Haas family history 101," said Aunt Libby. "You may be living way over there in England but you're a Haas and you should know the basics of where you come from."
"So why haven't we heard of Aunt Kathy?" I asked as we set off for a corner of the massive store that we'd not been near during our shopping. I suppressed a giggle watching Fleur fight with the steering on our trolley.
"I can only guess. Their relationship used to be really close as teenagers," replied Aunt Libby after a brief pause. "Kathy's four years younger than me so by the time I hit my teens she and I weren't that close but your daddy and her being closer in age meant that he tended to be put together a lot as small kids. They remained that way as teenagers and when Jacob was made the starting quarterback in High School he and Kathy, who was a real tomboy back then, used to spend hours practicing in the yard catching passes in the evenings and at weekends. By the time your father graduated she was probably the best receiver the school never had and those two were as thick as thieves."
"Dad played American football at school?" queried Fleur. "He never mentioned that."
"Didn't just play it, lead the school to its only undefeated seasons on two occasions. Your father was a High School god as hard as that is to believe," giggled Aunt Libby. "There was even some college interest in him but he was adamant that he wasn't going to college on an athletics ticket. So he went to Dartmouth and studied agronomy and gave up football, much to your grandpa's disgust. I remember him berating your father about how the blue collar vote loved a football hero."
"What was grandpa Haas like?" I asked.
I couldn't recall ever meeting him or even speaking to him and other than a handful of pictures my dad had from his childhood I had little idea about what sort of person he was. Dad would only ever talk about his mother who had died when he was a teenager. He mentioned so little about Grandpa until he fell ill that for the longest time I thought dad had been raised in a single parent household.
"Difficult," said Aunt Libby with a shrug. "Dictatorial. Domineering. Being a Haas meant power was your birth right and that meant we could never come second in anything, never put a foot wrong. You have to remember the Haas family has been here since the 1660's. We came over as Dutch Quaker famers originally seeking religious freedom. We quickly acquired some prime farming land, some of which became the town of Haas Springs, and had made a lot of money by the 1700's."
"Wait, Haas Springs... is Happy Springs?" asked Fleur.
"Yeah. There is a statue to lots of greats, grandfather Willem Jacob Haas in the old town square you girls should see. Anyway, the upshot is we're pretty much New Hampshire royalty. There has been a Haas in either the state senate, city council or the Governor's office since Independence and we've had a fair few Haas in either the House or Senate in DC, most recently being Representative Katherine Haas - New Hampshire 2nd District."
"She never married?" I asked.
"No, she did. She married into the de Ville's at your Grandpa's urging, another wealthy old money family, but in Haas County there is a strong benefit in campaigning under the Haas name."
"Huh, so why did she and dad fall out then?" said Fleur as we came to a halt at the end of an asile in front of a small gathering of people and press. In the centre of the throng was the woman in the campaign poster.
In reality Aunt Kathy was a little taller than I'd expected, still with some of the curves of Aunt Libby but with a little more athletic frame and a smile they could launch a container ship of Colgate. Just looking at those perfect teeth made me run my tongue over my own brace.
"Your father and grandpa had a major falling out around the time your father was awarded his Bachelor's degree. Your grandpa had just about tolerated your father's agronomy degree on the basis that it would play well with rural voters in any future Senate or Gubernatorial campaign but he expected him to settle down and join the family business on graduation while working towards an MBA. He also expected him to find a wife from among a selection of 'approved' women, i.e. families with wealth and connections. Instead your father announced he'd secured a scholarship to go to Oxford to do his Master's degree in agronomy and that he'd marry who he wanted to and not who your grandpa wanted him too. Well, you know what happened there. Your dad and mom met and when your dad announced his intention to not only marry but live in England and after a heated exchange in which some things that were impossible to take back were said, your father and grandpa never spoke again."
"So how did that affect Aunt Cathy?" asked Fleur.
"You have to remember I'd moved out several years earlier when I fell pregnant and married your Uncle Samuel. Neither will tell me what was said but I know they spoke shortly after your dad's excommunication from the Haas household and they got into an argument, the upshot of which was neither spoken to the other in over twenty years. Then with your father gone and me given up on, your grandpa turned all his efforts into securing the Haas legacy through Kathy. Now that your grandpa is dead and your father is here I'm hoping that my brother and sister can mend fences."
"Do you think they can?" I said, watching the Aunt Kathy working the small crowd.
"I don't know," sighed Aunt Libby. "All I know is I need to try and make things right for my own piece of mind."
We stood in melancholic silence for a few minutes watching Aunt Kathy. Even with my limited knowledge of politics, I wasn't yet old enough to vote after all, I could see how slick she was at it. She stopped and took the time to make each person she met feel they mattered to her in some way, making eye contact and actually speaking to them rather than at them. I watched campaign badges and stickers being handed out by a small group of university aged kids as they trailed behind Aunt Kathy, each one taking the time to exchange a few words with the person.
"Do these sorts of small scale events work?" asked Fleur, changing the subject as she gestured at the crowd. "Does anyone ever change their vote from meeting a politician, other than deciding not to vote for the one they met?"
"You're new here," said Aunt Libby with a smile. "All politics in New Hampshire are 'retail politics'. It's not so much the votes you gain by meeting with people but more the votes you lose if you don't do it. We've become so used to candidates, even incumbents like your Aunt Kathy, working the vote that when one doesn't there is a backlash against them, like they think they are too good for us or something. Remember, New Hampshire kicks off the Presidential primaries so we expect to be wooed. Besides, she's chosen the venue carefully. This is as much about 'Wal-Mart Mom' as it is retail politics."
"Huh. Who'd have thought baby kissing still worked in the era of twitter?" I said.
"Trust me, there are a lot of voters out there who don't follow their news from the net preferring to get it from newspapers and television. Older voters in particular are more inclined to vote than younger voters and for many of them twitter is an anathema. "
"That's a big word for a Thursday," said Fleur, a smile creeping across her lips. "I get that dad ran off to escape this and Aunt Kathy decided to pursue it after he left but you're older than both of them and you seem to know a lot about politics so how come the posters aren't for 'Libby Haas for Congress'?"
"There's a little bit too much of your grandpa in me. If I played politics it would be to win and I don't think I could live with being that sort of person. I much prefer to sell cheesecake and cupcakes and dabble in your Uncle Samuel's campaigns for High County Sheriff."
"How's that going by the way?"
"The next election will mark his sixth consecutive year of office as High Sheriff of Haas County," said Aunt Libby smugly, adding quietly under her breath. "And your grandpa said he was too young and a nobody mick son of a drunk that would amount to nothing."
I glanced behind Aunt Libby to Fleur who mouthed the word 'issues' to me and I quietly nodded my head in agreement.
"I'm going to go speak to your Aunt and let her know that your dad is in town," said Aunt Libby, refocusing back on the two of us. "I'm not sure what your father would think about me introducing you to Aunt Kathy without speaking to him first, so would one of you mind skipping meeting her this time and taking these leaflets over to Kathy's campaign manager?"
"No problem," said Fleur accepting the wodge of leaflets Aunt Libby pulled from her handbag. "Where to?"
"The dark haired woman by that table," said Aunt Libby gesturing to a small trestle table laden with campaign memorabilia. "We'll meet back here in a few minutes okay?"
"Do you want to stay with the trolley?" asked Fleur as we watched Aunt Libby move towards the crowd. "Or do you want to take them instead?"
"I'll stay," I said, shuffling a little uncomfortably at the attention been given to the crowd by the campaign team. Avoiding any attention from strangers had long been one of the main aims of my transition and crowds tended to make me nervous. I knew it was irrational but in the back of my mind was the idea that a crowd could become a pitchfork and torch waving mob yelling 'kill the freak' pretty easily, particularly given we were in the one part of the store that actually stocked pitchforks.
"I'll see if I can snag us a badge or something," said Fleur with a grin.
"They're giving out doughnuts over there, see if you can get us some. I'd kill for a Yum-Yum. I've starrrrrrving," I begged, adding as I moved my hand to cover the shopping. "Besides, this is a land full of gun totting cowboys so one of us needs to know where our towels are at."
Fleur waved as she set off for her destination, leaving me to pick idly at imaginary lint on the pile of towels in our trolley. Getting jostled by people moving through the aisles to and from Aunt Kathy's event I moved the trolley closer to the side of an aisle selling protective gardening clothing, using the trolley to shield me.
"Ah see y'all have circled the wagons there ma'am," said a male voice from my left, a strong southern sounding accent easily noticeable. "Seems mighty sensible given the number of towel rustlers around in these here parts."
"Ha-h... uuhhh..." I said, the sarcastic initial tone of my voice tapering off as I turned to face what I could only assume was an angel or a gift from a suitably benevolent alternative deity.
Easily six foot tall and athletic, with enough muscle to show that he worked out but not enough muscle that he looked like he was considering running for Governor of California, he looked like he'd stepped straight out of one of those American teen shows where imperfection only existed as a special guest star to show how perfectly kind the perfect kids were. His face was clean shaven, although a hint of a dark beard shadow could just be seen on his jaw line partly obscured by a light tan that I would have been interested in finding out if it was full body. He gave off an overwhelming feeling of rugged wholesomeness. I was vaguely aware that he was wearing clothes but struggled to pull my eyes from his face.
"Howdy ma'am," he said tipping the brim of his straw cowboy hat slightly. His face broke into a wide grin that seemed to tickle at the outside corners of his wonderfully chocolate brown eyes.
"Uhhhm?" I replied, waiting for the runner carrying the message from my brain to make it to my mouth. In contrast to the link between brain and mouth, the link between nose and brain seemed to be running superfast as I noted a pleasant cologne smell that I couldn't quite place emanating from him that seemed to blanket my senses.
"Ah'm guessing y'all not from these parts ma'am?" he asked, a mischievous light dancing in his eyes.
"I have towels," I said, inwardly cursing my brain for its contribution to the conversation.
"And they're mighty fine towels too," he replied, trying to suppress a chuckle. "Ah'd bet y'all looked lovely now in one, miss?"
"Umm... H-H-Haas. Ja... P-p-poppy H-haas," I stammered. Taking a deep breath, I tried again. "I'm Poppy. Poppy Haas."
I thrust a hand stiffly out in greeting and waited for him to shake it.
"Did you... did y'all say 'Haas'?" he asked, canting his head to scrutinise me more closely. "As in the Congresswoman?"
"Umm... yeah. She's... umm... an aunt. On my father's side. But I've never met her," I replied, mentally making a note to take what was left of my brain to task for the last part of pointless information that it had ventured. What did he actually care about whether I'd met my aunt? And why was I telling him it anyway? And why hadn't he moved to shake my hand which was now firmly and embarrassingly locked in waiting for a hand shake that didn't appear to be forthcoming anytime soon.
"Y'all don't sound like you're from around here."
"N-n-neither do you Tex," I replied, rejoicing at my brains late entry into the conversation as I found my words beginning to form my easily. "I'm English. I'm here for the summer."
"Ah have a feeling that we're gonna be in for a lovely summer then Miss Haas," he replied. He reached out and gently took my outstretched arm by the fingers before slowly leaning in to kiss the back of my hand. The sensation of his lips gently brushing my skin sent a shiver of goosebumps along my body that from the way his eyes twinkled as he peeked up at me I was sure he noticed.
"W-w-who are you?" I asked biting my lip at the tingling feeling spreading from my hand.
"Ah'm uh... Tex... Ah mean Rex. Umm.. Rex Stetson ma'am," he said looking momentarily flustered. I blushed as I realised I was twisting slightly from side to side as he held my hand and focussed intently on the floor tiles while I sought to regain my composure.
"Are... do you live here?" I asked, exhaling loudly as I sought to regain control of my breathing which seemed to have stopped.
"I... ah'm not from here either. Ah'm here visitin' relatives."
"Where's home?"
"The.. uh... great state of Texas, ma'am... uh... Dodge City."
As soon as he had said that, he seemed to hold his breath while waiting for me to speak.
"So you umm... got the hell out of Dodge then?" I giggled, feeling a sudden burst of bravado that sent another message running to my brain to ask it why we were flirting with him.
His face momentarily creased in concentration before relaxing as a chuckle escaped from deep within him. "Ah guess ah did."
We stood for a few moments grinning at each other like fools, before I looked away blushing.
"Ah guess ah'd better be moseying along then Miss Poppy," he said tipping at his straw cowboy hat, the name of which momentarily escaped me.
"Will ah... I mean I," I said hastily clearing my throat. "Will I see you around?"
"Ah don't know Miss Poppy," he replied, grinning in a way that told me he knew he had me where he wanted me. "But ah'll be looking out for y'awll."
"Be seeing y'all Miss Poppy," he said tipping his hat once more.
"Umm.. bye Rex."
"Ma'am," he added, tipping his hat at someone on the other side of me.
"Whoa, now that was prime beef," mumbled Fleur around the ring doughnut projecting from her mouth as she stepped up next to the trolley.
"Umm... yeah."
"Here's your doughnut," added Fleur as she held up a ring doughnut covered in hundreds and thousands on thick sticky pink icing. "Sorry, I couldn't find any Yum-Yum's."
I risked a glance behind Fleur, spotting Rex in the distance. He appeared to have been stopped by one of the women working for Aunt Kathy and was talking to her in an animated fashion. As he spoke he looked back towards me and our eyes briefly met before I found myself blushing and quickly turning away. I could feel my eyes stinging as I tried to blink back tears of confusion.
"Poppy?" mumbled Fleur, resting her free hand on my shoulder. "Did you hear me?"
"Oh Fleur," I sobbed, wrapping my arms around her neck and pulling her into a crushing hug. "I w-w-w-was f-f-f-flirting with him."
"Hey, shush now," she cooed, stroking my hair with her free hand. "It's okay. It's okay."
"N-n-n-no, it's not. Ellie..." I wailed.
"That wasn't your fault. You need to accept that. Just like all guys aren't those lying arseholes that killed Ellie. Dad's a good guy and for all we know, so is your prime beef."
"But..."
"So you flirted with him, Poppy. Big deal. Doesn't mean you have to sleep with him or even see him again."
"I guess..." I sniffled.
"God knows you have every right to have trust issues sis after what happened," murmured Fleur. "Just... just don't blame yourself for having fun okay? It's okay to flirt now and then."
"I guess..." I sniffled again.
"Dad said he was going to get you some help right from a therapist that was recommended to him right?"
"Yeah..."
"Then give the therapist a chance because you can't keep tearing yourself apart every time you see a guy you might like or you think too much about the future or your art."
"He seemed nice," I whispered into Fleur's shoulder. "Honest. He wasn't at all slick like t-t-those m-m-men w-w-were."
"See. He might just be a nice guy and if he isn't and is just a regular common or garden arsehole... well Uncle Samuel has a lot of guns I'm willing to bet."
I couldn't help but laugh a little at that thought.
"Thanks Fleur," I sniffled.
"No probs."
"Umm... Fleur?" I asked, raising my head from her shoulder. "Where's my doughnut?"
"Well it was in my hand before you hugged me..." laughed Fleur. "But I think you know full well where it is now."
Pulling back from my embrace of Fleur, I groaned as I saw the mess of pink icing and doughnut smeared across my top.
"Result!" exclaimed Fleur brushing some granules of sugar off her own top. "All the icing went your way."
"This is my favourite top too," I whined. "I bet it leaves a fucking mark."
I turned at the sound of someone clearing their throat to see the disproving glare of a familiar stern faced elderly lady.
"Oh... bollox."
When Poppy's grandfather dies, her father inherits his childhood home in Happy Springs, New Hampshire. He decides to take his three daughters from England on their first trip to the land of his birth to fix up the house as a potential summer home and give Poppy a break from some problems she's been having. He says it's an old house that just needs a little work to restore it back to its full glory. It's going to be fun fixing it up. Poppy isn't so sure...
*Fleur's View*
'C'mon, she'll be fine. She's with Ellie, neither of them are stupid enough to go anywhere with any guys... and frankly your brother makes a better looking girl than I do... let her have some fun and let us have some fun without dragging your little bro-- sister along behind us... besides, there is this hawt guy you need me to introduce you too...'
I awoke with a jolt, the springs on the bed squeaking under my sudden movement as I come to rest sitting upright. Taking a few moments to catch my breath, I let my eyes adjust to the gloom before reaching over to the nightstand beside the bed to check my phone.
Saturday, 3:30am.
That's just... peachy. Grabbing a pillow from behind me I pull it over my knees and lean into it, letting out a whisper scream of frustration knowing there is no way I'll get to sleep again after that memory being dragged into my dreams. I can't stop dreaming about 'what-ifs' and 'what-dids'. I hate that cat and I don't mean Fluffy.
Generally, I like cats. I like the West End musical, Top Cat and the actual fur covered bundles of feline superiority but there is one I've increasing come to dislike. I don't know the cat's name (or even if it had one) but I know the name of its owner, Erwin Schrá¶dinger, and his cat stars in every nightmare I've had for the last six months. What IF I had done things differently that night?
What IF... I had been a responsible big sister? I could have sent my underage sister and her best friend home from the pub with a flea in their ear after spotting them and their sixth form gaggle. Ellie and Poppy would have hated me for a few weeks but that would have been better than what actually happened and yeah I know it would have been hypocritical given my own undiscovered exploits at sixteen and seventeen but being a big sister is about passing on the lessons you learnt the hard way to spare your younger siblings from sharing your mistakes. If mum and dad knew half the stuff I did back then... well, I'd probably be grounded until I collected my pension.
What IF... I had listened to my instincts and stayed with my sister instead of listening to Martha and my hormones? The hawt guy that she hooked me up with that night might have had a great body but he had a brain so small that a stegosaurus would have felt smug in comparison. On top of that he was a truly awful fuck. No Wham, a rather undersized Bam and not even a "thank you ma'am"... which was particularly galling given he was the only one of us to get off that night. If I'd stayed with Poppy I certainly would have sent mister-too-smooth-by-far and his friends packing. If you spend your Saturday nights frequenting the pubs and clubs of London at sixteen like I did you learn the hard way to spot the dangerous ones. I was so lucky at sixteen, a child in the world of adults, I know that now. Ellie wasn't.
Intellectually, I know it's not all my fault. I know others played their parts, opening their boxes to set the cats of possibility running. What IF... Poppy hadn't been outed like she was to the whole world online by those idiots at school? That's the trouble with the 'net, once it's out there you have no way of knowing who gets to know about you.
Even worse, and I feel so guilty for even thinking this, What IF... Ellie hadn't been passing herself off as Poppy to mess with people that night? It... it... might have been Poppy that died that night. She was the intended target after all. How bad a person am I to feel relieved that my sister's best friend, someone who more of a sister to her than I ever was, died instead of Poppy?
I'm trying so hard to be a better big sister... trying to be more like Ellie in many ways... and just trying to be a better person... and yet I'm such a fraud. I've been making a show of being all smiles and jokes and trying to be French to Poppy's Saunders, hoping that no one notices the quiet desperation behind it. This isn't even really me. It's the empty shell of the old me, that happy-go-lucky carefree party girl Fleur. I don't know who I am anymore. I just... I just know I need to find a way to be a better person. Somehow.
What was it Poppy said to Daisy the other day? 'We get second chances not do-overs'. My do-overs may haunt my dreams but in my waking hours I need to grasp my second chances when they come along and maybe, just maybe, I might find my shot at redemption. I might find out who Fleur Elizabeth Haas really is, not who she thought she was. And maybe, just maybe, I might find out if I like her although I don't hold out much hope.
Wiping at my eyes, I reached for my laptop on the nightstand and powered it up. Logging onto the house's wireless network (yeah... beds, furniture and wireless - we were busy on Friday), I opened up my messenger to see mum's name showing as available. It's 8:30am back home so I guess she's having breakfast and checking her email like she always does.
My finger hovered over the touchpad on the laptop for a moment, the room silent except for the muted whir of the laptop fan and the soft tapping of my tears falling on the keypad. I just feel so alone right now. I need to speak to someone. More than anything I can't face three hours being stuck alone in a room with someone I dislike so much. Me.
Taking a deep breath, I wiped the back of my hand across my nose and clicked the touchpad to reveal my online status and then clicked again to accept the invitation from mum. I've only been gone a few days but my spirits soar at the image that appears in the opening pop-up window and I can't help but smile at the sight of her sitting in her dressing gown clutching at a mug of tea. I can faintly hear one of my brother's voices in the background, I think it might be Heath, which I assume means the boys are in the living room watching TV, playing Xbox or whatever it is that boys do on a Saturday morning.
"Fleur? Is that you honey? Is everything okay there?"
"I...."
"Fleur... it's too dark and I can't really see your face properly. Can you move closer? Is everything alright?"
"Oh yeah, it's all fine mum," I replied quickly wiping the tears away from my eyes before moving closer to the laptop. "My body clock is still out of synch that's all."
"Are you sure? You don't quite sound right."
I can't do it. I can't disappoint this wonderful woman who has such a high opinion of me by telling her what a fraud I am.
"The rooms a bit stuffy and I didn't want to open the windows at night. You should see the size of some of the bugs over here."
"Your father never mentioned anything about big bugs in New Hampshire," said my mother, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. It was a cheap shot to a phobia she has but I've seen mum work a courtroom and I learnt from her.
"Yeah... anyway... sooooo did River pass the test and get his new belt?"
The broad smile that breaks out across her face tells me all I need to know about my youngest brothers martial arts training.
"Is that... bacon?" she asked, sniffing the air like a bloodhound despite her eyes still being half-closed. "I love bacon."
"I know. It's bacon. Grab a pew at the table," I reply. "I'm making Grandad Mortimer's signature bacon butty's... thick cut fresh bread lightly toasted so it is firm enough to hold but still soft enough inside to absorb the juices, three rashers of back bacon, a sliced tomato, a little sliced cucumber and ketchup. We couldn't find any proper brown sauce yesterday, so sorry about that. I've also got a fried egg left over if you want it?"
"Please."
"Great. It'll be a few minutes, so help yourself to the juice chilling in the fridge. Daisy... stop feeding Fluffy at the table please," I ordered, catching a red faced Daisy in mid-act of feeding the cat a piece of bacon. I choose to ignore the sulky tongue she stuck out at me before trying to cute kid pout her way out of trouble. Like that is going to work against the me, the undisputed queen of the daddy's little girl pout.
While preparing Poppy's butty I sneak a little bit of bacon for myself from the grill. It's nice enough, and maybe this is just me, but bacon always seems to taste better when you are hung over.
"So what's the plan for today?" I ask to the room as I crack an egg into the frying pan.
"We're going to Aunt Libby's store this afternoon," said my father with a sigh putting down the magazine he was reading. "I've agreed for Libby's sake to try and patch things up with Kathy, if she'll talk to me."
"What sort of shop does Aunt Libby own?" asked Poppy, sitting back down at the table with her juice. "Is it a local shop for local people?"
"Not in the sense you mean Poppy," chuckled dad. "Your Aunt owns a chain of stores across New Hampshire and the North East operating under the 'Live Free or Diet' name. They sell all the sorts of things that you'd find in a coffee shop except it's all made from scratch on the premises. Their signature food is cupcakes and cheesecakes if I remember what Libby was telling me."
"A chain? How many stores does she have?" I ask as I pop some bread into the toaster.
"Forty or so I think."
Huh. Self-made successful business woman from an influential old family and married to the Sheriff... yeah, I can see why Aunt Kathy is pushing the association with Aunt Libby.
"So is Aunt Libby loaded or something?" asked Poppy.
"I don't know about 'loaded' but she's done well for herself. She took the little money that mom gave her and used that to finance her first venture. Not bad for someone who has pregnant at the time with her first child," said Dad with a smile. "I have some great memories as a senior going there after school with Kathy and babysitting your cousin Sean."
"What about Aunt Libby?"
"Well, she married John de Ville. The de Ville's are old money like us... like dad I mean. However, unlike us they choose to flaunt it a bit. I was on the team with 'Cadillac' and I remember him with his Audi and his expensive Swiss watches. Dad always insisted we drive American. I guess some habits die hard given the rental Explorer sitting in the drive."
"Cadillac?" I asked, as the bread popped from the toaster.
"John Cooper de Ville III. He hated being called 'John Jr' or 'Little John', so from Elementary School went by his middle name. We all called him 'Coop'. Well, combine that with his wealth and the swagger he had on the field in high school and it was a short leap to 'Cadillac'."
"This place really is something else... so how come your sisters are loaded and we aren't?" I asked.
"We don't do too badly Fleur despite how little I earn at the University," replied my father. "Your mother brings home good money, even with the charity and 'no win, no fee' work she does. I can't recall any of you ever wanting for anything despite my excommunication from the Haas fortune."
"A car..." interjected Poppy.
"Anything reasonable," replied my father, lightly tapping Poppy's nose. "Anyway, money isn't the most important thing in life by far. I'd hoped I'd raised you all to know that."
"So what's this afternoon going to be like then?"
"I'd guess the usual political networking and baby kissing publicity event of my childhood. It'll be odd to be at one where my father isn't the one running for office."
"Do we need to do anything?"
"No. Your cousins will be there, so it will give you a chance to catch up. Other than that, all you need to do is enjoy the show and the free food while I talk to your Aunt Kathy. Dress code is smart casual though."
"Will there be any press there?" asked Poppy, blanching visibly.
"Yes, but don't worry it'll only be local," said dad, placing a hand on Poppy's. "They won't be interested in you. Anyway, your Aunt Kathy's campaign people wouldn't dream of sharing the spotlight even if you wanted it. This is all about her election."
"Fleur?" asked Poppy, trembling slightly as I took a seat next to her, putting down plate with her bacon butty on her placemat.
"If you don't want to go we can go somewhere else while dad meets with Aunt Kathy?"
Dad nods his head slightly in affirmation to me behind Poppy. I watched her bite her lip in thought for a few moments before she turned back to face dad.
"I'd like to go. It'd be nice to see Sean again. He's... he's been really supportive. An' I'd like to see Aunt Libby's shop."
"I know he'd like to see you too," said dad, wrapping Poppy up in a hug. "It'll be fine, don't you worry."
I hear Poppy mumble her 'okay' in the hug before dad releases her to embrace a squealing Daisy, tipping her upside down in his arms.
"Mmmmm...." sighs Poppy as she takes a bite from her butty. "I really needed this."
"No probs," I replied, getting up from the table. "Oh, and I had a look at that top of yours from the other day. I think I've got all the icing stains out but you might want to have a look anyway. It's in the basket in the utility room."
"You did?!? Ohmygod... I love that top!" squealed Poppy jumping to her feet and embracing me in a hug. "Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!"
"Hey, I did that for myself as much as you," I giggled. "I might want to borrow that top. I have the perfect skirt for it."
"Just keep your paws off it missy," scowled Poppy, narrowing her eyes.
"Or what?" I teased. "If you think you're ready for a shot at alpha female, bring it on."
"On second thoughts," laughed Poppy releasing me from her embrace. "You always were the biggest bitch in this family..."
"And don't you forget it," I replied, shooing her away with a wave of a dishcloth.
"Fleur..." said Poppy, pausing at the doorway leading to the utility room.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. Thanks for everything. You're like the best sister ever."
I give her a weak smile in response and with a nod of her head she disappears in to the utility room.
Oh Poppy... that is like so far from the truth.
End of Chapter 3
Authors note: Let's pretend this is really March 31st... *ahem* Sorry, very busy with work (in a good way) but it really drained my creative efforts. Hopefully things will be a bit easier for a while and I still intend to try and get things back on track by posting another chapter at the end of April. No reproduction without permission, etc. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read, comment and kudos last chapter as it is really appreciated and helps me work out if this is going the right way. I'm been enjoying writing these characters and it's been really useful in helping me step up my game in writing Wynter Lioness, which I'm holding back on posting until I've got a group of chapters under my belt again. If you enjoyed this chapter, then your comments are always welcome. :-)
When Poppy's grandfather dies, her father inherits his childhood home in Happy Springs, New Hampshire. He decides to take his three daughters from England on their first trip to the land of his birth to fix up the house as a potential summer home and give Poppy a break from some problems she's been having. He says it's an old house that just needs a little work to restore it back to its full glory. It's going to be fun fixing it up. Poppy isn't so sure...
Chapter 4
*Poppy's View*
Aunt Libby's 'Live Free or Diet' coffee shop chain wasn't what I expected. Maybe it's television's fault but you mention the words 'coffee shop' and 'America' and I'm thinking 'Central Perk' the same way if you say 'bar' and 'America' I start humming the theme to 'Cheers'. Live Free or Diet, or 'LFD' as the staff called it, didn't have a sofa occupied with fashionable Gen X'ers dominating the room but rather a mix of clientele with no one group seeming to dominate it enough to make it 'their place'. Oddly, that seemed to make the place feel more welcoming as you never felt you were judged for being different from the crowd. I guess in a place where no one group was the majority, everyone was the minority and tried to get along. That being said, there are minorities and there are minorities. I'm guessing being a tallish English gender dysphoric teenage girl in a New Hampshire coffee shop meant I was still in a minority of one.
Visually, the most striking feature of LFD was the wood and brass oval 'island' counter in the centre of the shop, which was ringed with red, white and blue leather stools (in that colour order). In the inner part of the island the staff were manning the various coffee machines and the tills. Although there were people sitting on the stools the island the majority of the customers were sat in the booths that lined the walls. The medium height walls between booths were roughly head height when sitting and gave you a degree of privacy without making you feel isolated. A really nice touch was the dividing walls were lead paned stained glass which threw some interesting light effects across the booths. I almost wanted to get my watercolours and do a study of the light.
I don't know if it was because it was the original branch or if it was typical of the other LFD stores but it also had a real homey family store feel to it. Instead of the bland stock photography pictures on the wall that faked history and atmosphere, there were genuine pictures on the wall of staff and customers celebrating various seasonal events and public holidays over the years. In some of the oldest ones, little more than faded Polaroid pictures in frames, I spotted dad from back when he was in his final year at high school. I think that made him a 'senior' but I'll be honest and admit I'm still getting to grips with the local customs and language.
In addition to the decor there was the most amazing smell coming from the kitchen that was gently wafting through the customer area, mixing with the variety of coffee smells from the island area. Aunt Libby made a big thing about the fact that all the food they serve here they make on the premises from scratch and the smell of baking bread was mouth watering. If the bread smelt that good I couldn't wait to try some of the desserts on the menu.
I could have spent hours here just enjoying the atmosphere and aromas if it wasn't for the fact the place was heaving with people. My newly discovered other aunt, Congresswoman Kathy Haas New Hampshire 2nd District, was pressing the flesh; mingling with diners while schmoozing them and their vote for all they she was worth. Every now and then her gaze would sweep across my dad and her face would briefly cloud over before the politician in her took control and the smile reappeared. I don't know why dad and Aunt Kathy had stopped speaking but I had the feeling what she did to dad was serious. If you think I'm jumping to conclusions that it was her and not dad that did whatever it was that stopped them talking I have one word for you - Politician [pol-i-tish-uhn] (noun) which to quote from the online definition I googled means "seeker or holder of public office, who is more concerned about winning favour or retaining power than about maintaining principles". I had a simpler definition - Politician [pol-i-tish-uhn] (noun) "a habitual liar and thief".
In contrast my dad breeds new crops to feed millions in soils and climates that otherwise wouldn't sustain them. If you look up the word 'principled' in a dictionary it will say "see Poppy's dad". No way would he not mention her in my seventeen years of life otherwise surely? I have no idea what the bitch did but it has to have been pretty heinous. No Christmas cards, no birthday cards, not even a passing allusion to 'I have a sister I don't speak to'.
Still it would have been interesting to watch Aunt Kathy work from a distance if it wasn't for all her campaign flunkies roaming the shop trying to pressurise you with the hard sell into wearing a 'Haas 2012' badge. Though oddly they kept calling it a button. I've no idea why.
It seemed to me that they wanted as many people as possible wearing them before the media arrived, which I overheard they would later in the day. When I told them I didn't need one of their stinking badges, arguing I had no idea what Aunt Kathy's policies were, the flunky listed some of them which included her role in getting the new stadium built for the Haas High School team, The Huntsmen. I tried to make a joke about that being the only form of hunting I could support and inadvertently got into a policy discussion with her over hunting rights that quickly morphed into a heated argument. All I said was hunting animals for sport was barbaric act and that people who hunted bears should be made to do it as God intended... with a piece of branch or a rock mano-a-bearo...
I'm guessing there were votes in keeping the hunting lobby onside because she launched into me like I'd insulted her parentage, which to be fair I did later on but hadn't at that point. That situation occurred because the flunky was far better at debate than I was and before I knew it she had tied me up in verbal knots with my own words taken out of context and turned against me. That was the point that I questioned her parentage before storming out in tears. It was brutal and if that was what passed for political debate in Haas County I was going to stay well clear of it. It was a nice sunny day outside and I had intended to stay by the car sulking but eventually hunger got the better of me and I sloped back in dodging the flunkies. Spotting Fleur seated at the island I quickly made a bee line for her and took a seat on an empty stool next to her.
"Hey," I said nudging her gently. "What's the cheesecake like?"
"Mmmmmm..." moaned Fleur as she slowly slid the fork out from between her lips.
In response to Fleur's overacting I recalled a line from an old movie and motioned to the smartly dressed middle aged waitress on the inner side of the island counter.
"I'll have what she's having," I said with a giggle.
"So that's one blueberry pie with a scoop of ice cream and whipped 'not the low fat crap' cream, a stack of apple pancakes with another scoop of ice cream and one New York cheesecake with more whipped cream?" she replied, peering over her glasses at me.
"Fleur!" I gasped turning to my sister. "Ummm... could you maybe hold the blueberry pie and the stack of apple pancakes?"
"So just the cheesecake?"
"Yeah... basically," I reply with a sheepish grin. "Sorry."
As the waitress moved away, I stared in horror at Fleur as she all but licked the plate clean. In response to my staring she just waived a hand at me dismissively.
"It's a little slice of heaven."
"You're going to balloon up if you keep eating like that," I replied, shaking my head.
"Meh. It's all good, the weight always goes to my boobs first anyway," she said, favouring me with a wink as leant towards me squashing her breasts together with the insides of her arms for effect.
"Fleur!" I whisper-yelled, anxiously glancing around.
I thought the eyes of the teenage boy sitting on the other side of the island were going to pop out on stalks like in a 1940's Bugs Bunny cartoon. Spotting the boys reaction Fleur dissolved into fits of laughter.
"You should have gone for the works little sister, a little fat in the right places could give you the killer Haas figure that Aunt Libby and I have..."
"Fleur!" I snapped. I so wasn't in the mood for having my deficiencies highlighted after my flunky run in.
I'd just started to slide off the stool before Fleur caught my arm. This time when she spoke her voice was devoid of the humour that it had possessed moments before.
"Poppy... I'm sorry. It's just... habit. I don't mean it, it's just... just... I speak before I think sometimes. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said or done that," said Fleur, silencing my response by pressing a finger against my lips. "That being said, my thoughtlessness apart there is a serious basis to my teasing. Mum and dad may not have noticed but I did okay? Since... Ellie... I know you haven't been eating right. Yet since we've been here you've been more like your old self. Well, when you don't stop to think about things anyway. From the moment we stepped off the plane here you've been eating normally again. I don't know if it's being away from everything back home or what but this holiday has already done you more good than a dozen shrink sessions had back home."
I tried to say something in response but Fleur just shushed me, keeping her finger firmly pressed against my lips.
"I wouldn't put it past mum to have sent the three of us out with dad for the very reason of getting you outside of yourself. Take some advice from your wiser, yet still great looking, big sister. Think less and live in the moment more, okay?"
My eyes met Fleur's intense gaze for a moment, before I closed them feeling the sting of tears at the corners of my eyes. Slipping off her own stool she nudged me back onto mine with her hip just in time for the waitress to deliver my cheesecake.
"I've got to go use the little girl's room. You eat your cheesecake okay?"
"Fleur... thanks. I'll think about what you've said okay?" I replied, stiffening briefly as she wrapped her arms around me in a hug before relaxing into it.
I was still getting used to the extra physical contact that women seemed to have as part of their daily lives. Back when I was Jacob no one ever hugged me like that. Even mum stopped when I got to a certain age. She never said anything but one day those small daily hugs just started to dry up. I guess it was because in her eyes one day I was a big boy? A man? I never found the courage to ask why she stopped doing it. I just mourned there passing as another sign of my hated development towards manhood.
"De nada little sister. It's what big sisters are for."
"I got lucky with you," I sniffled. "Some of my friend's big sisters are real jerks."
"When it matters you will always be able to count on me from now on Poppy," said Fleur, her own voice heavy with unspoken emotion.
"I know," I said, feeling her arms slide across my shoulders as she released me from her embrace.
"This is all a bit heavy for lunchtime isn't it?" I said, forcing a half laugh as I tried to change the mood.
I was about to say more when I felt Fleur's trailing fingers hook under one of the straps of my bra and pull. Yelping in surprise as the strap snapped back into me I felt my face heat up as people sitting nearby turned to see what the commotion was about. Spinning around I saw Fleur slowly backing away from me, her arms out in a calming gesture.
"Live in the moment little sister," she said with a wink, her voice full of humour. "Besides, everyone's a jerk sometime and I'd be thrown out of the Big Sisters Union if I went too easy on you..."
"I don't know about tha--"
"Hush Poppy, don't be modest."
I glanced over at Fleur sitting opposite me in the booth and gave a small nod in response to her eye rolling.
"And this is Daisy, she's as bright as a button and--"
I tuned out the rest of dad's boasting about his family, letting my eyes wander around the collection of early forty-something's seated in the booth and in the chairs pulled up at the open end of it. After we'd eaten, Fleur and I had collected Daisy from where she was sitting with Aunt Libby and wandered over to dad where we'd got embroiled in this conversation. The male occupants of the booth were all bound together by being on the same American football team in High School. Together they represented some of the star players of the legendary twice undefeated 'Haas High Huntsmen'. We had ESPN back home, so I'd a little familiarity with American football. Dad watched games regularly during the college and NFL season and that at least meant I could follow some of the conversation about long past games. It was kind of cute the way they kept referring to each other by their nicknames when they discussed plays.
"I never thought I'd see the six of us back together man," laughed Floyd 'Safe Hands' Kennedy. "Just wait until I tell my son that I met 'Hawkeye' Haas. Y'know, my boy's been chasing your passing records this year man."
Floyd was Dad's favourite target back in the day and made a wonder catch that won a state championship in their first undefeated year. He was the most successful in sports terms of anyone at the table having spent seven years in the pros playing as Wide Receiver in Boston before retiring with a reoccurring ACL injury that wouldn't heal properly. For Fleur and my sake he explained that an ACL was the Anterior Cruciate Ligament. I'm guessing it's in the knee or something from the way he would rub it when he spoke about the injury. He had recently been elected to the local school board and was a supporter of the school's athletic programmes.
"Kid's got promise. Rest of the team sucks big time though," added John 'Cadillac' de Ville. "Hell, we should suit up and show them how to do it. I could still rush for more in a game than that kid wearing my number could do all season. Frankly, it's an insult that they haven't retired our jerseys. Hell, I'm going to have a word with that poor excuse of a Principal. If it wasn't for me they would never have been able to raise the finance for the new stadium. Boy owes me."
John Cooper 'Cadillac' de Ville III, Running Back. I guess I should be calling him Uncle John as he was married to Aunt Kathy, not that he seemed to spend any time with her while she was working the room. In fact he spent most of the time topping up his coffee from a hip flask he kept in his jacket and flashing the bling. His suit had an expensive tailored look to it that suggested to me that my sisters and I weren't the only thing made in England at the table and his watch was a big chunky piece of Swiss engineering. I couldn't help but think of the villain from the Muppet's recent movie when I looked at him. He certainly wasn't hiding how great he thought he was and was doing most of the bragging in the booth.
"You think Jim Brown wasn't as good as you were Coop. The kids aren't bad, they just need to catch a break," said Billy 'Fleet Feet' Murphy, Tight End.
Another 'uncle', Uncle Billy was Aunt Libby's brother-in-law and like his older brother, Sam, was a member of the Sheriff's department. He'd gone to college on a football scholarship but also studied hard and got himself a criminology degree as well. He never really made it in the pro's and after a couple of years playing indoor arena football he came back and joined the Sheriff's department, rising to the rank of detective. He'd nearly crushed the life out of me in the hug he gave when he realised who we were. I couldn't help but like Uncle Billy with his constant laughter and the twinkle in his eyes when he spoke.
"Maybe, though you guys were pretty special," said Billy's wife Laura, kissing her husband's cheek.
Laura had been a cheerleader and was just as much fun as her husband. She looked amazing still after all these years and was perched on her husband's lap at the end of the crowded booth, dressed in a smart skirt suit. She managed the LFD branch we were in for Aunt Libby and had come out to find what all the commotion was about before getting swept up both onto her husband's lap and into reminiscing with the boys.
"They put too much emphasis on passing the ball these days," said Uncle John, ignoring Uncle Billy's comment. "We won more often than not due to the running game. The old ground and pound approach."
"I think Hawkeye here played more of a role than you credit him. Those passing records have stood for a long time now. They broke your rushing record a couple of years back didn't they?"
"You mean that kid on steroids? Doesn't count."
"I think you are the only person who ever suggested that kid was on drugs," replied Uncle Billy with a scowl.
"I don't care about the kids. It's just great to see you back man," added Richard 'Brick' DeAngelo, Centre. "I just wish you hadn't had to leave in the first place. I don't like to speak ill of the dead but your father was a grade a piece of--"
"Brick, just you remember that's my wife's father you're talking about," interrupted Uncle John, preventing him finishing his sentence. "You don't get to speak about a family like the Haas's in that way."
I tried hard not to laugh as Fleur rolled her eyes and pulled a face in response to Uncle John's words.
"Still doesn't change what an as--"
"Ricky the kids," hissed his wife Amanda, giving an apologetic glance to my dad. "And it's wrong to speak ill about those who can't defend themselves."
Amanda DeAngelo was a delicate, petite woman that you worried would be squashed when her husband rolled over in bed. Like Laura she had also been one of the cheerleaders when my dad was at school.
"Hey, it's okay," said my father. "My father was a difficult man, I'd be the first to admit that. However, while things didn't work out quite like I expected I can't complain. I've got a wonderful family, a job I love and friends who after all this time still have my back."
I watched my dad and Brick do that guy first bump thing and everything seemed okay. I never got the secret language of guys, despite having the chance to observe them in the natural habitat first hand for so long. I watched Brick redden slightly in response to my father's warm words of friendship. A mountain of a man with a slightly hangdog look, I could see that he wasn't the sort that expressed deep emotion well.
"So I hear you're the Mayor now?" asked my father, a big grin on his face. "I couldn't think of a better guy."
"Neither could I," said Uncle John as he took a sip from his coffee. "It also helps Kathy's campaign by being able to point to local farmers son and sports hero as a political ally which is why we bankrolled his campaign."
I watched Brick start to say something before his wife gently placed her hand on his arm and shook her head.
"So you're the ones who've moved into your old man's place then?" asked the final member of the team present, Aaron 'Rocket' Haas, also a Tight End.
Yeah, Haas. That was a shock.
From what dad had said when he introduced everyone, Aaron was a distant relation whose ancestors split from the family tree sometime at the start of the last century. The unspoken subtext seemed to be that they hadn't fared as well financially as the 'core' Haas lineage. If Aaron was any indication of the calibre of his branch of the family I wasn't surprised in the least. He immediately made me feel uncomfortable with the way his gaze kept wandering over Fleur and myself and he oozed with all the oily charm of a used car salesman, which it turned out he sort of was. He managed to drop into the conversation at every opportunity that he owned the local BMW dealership and was also something called a 'realtor'. Not just any old realtor either but a 'Certified Commercial Investment Member'. It still sounded like being a glorified estate agent to me but what did I know?
"Yeah, doing it up ourselves as a summer home. It's going to be a great fun, isn't that right girls?" asked my father with a slightly manic grin.
"Yay," replied Fleur affecting a flat tone to her voice as she slowly twirled her index finger in circle. "Can't wait."
"What about you pumpkin?" asked my father, squeezing my shoulder. "You're looking forward to helping out your old man right?"
I coughed nervously in response, suddenly finding the decoration on the place mat to be of great interest.
"Huh," said my father with a frown before turning to Daisy who was nestled under the crook of his other arm. "What about you Princess? You're up for helping out your old dad?"
"Can I use a hammer? 'Cos mummy won't let me use a hammer," replied Daisy with an expectant look on her face. "I don't know why 'cos that building was old anyway. It's not like it was new or anything an' everyone says the new one is much nicer..."
"Uh... I'd forgotten about that. It's probably best you don't then if mummy said no princess," said my father, bending down to kiss the top of Daisy's head. Fleur and I exchanged worried glances at the thought of Daisy holding any tools.
"Ooo-kay," replied a dejected sounding Daisy.
"Good girl, now let's--"
My father's words went unfinished as a piercing squeal erupted from just outside the booth.
"Jakey? Oh My God! Jakey Haas! It is you!"
A tall blonde woman with the sort of tan that only came naturally if you lived much nearer the equator and far too much make-up for my liking was bouncing up and down excitedly in her white stiletto heels and spray painted on clothing. Glancing around the table I watched Amanda and Laura roll their eyes.
"J-J-Jane?" said my father, a rabbit caught in the headlights look on his face.
Anything further he might of said was cut off when she cupped the sides of his head and kissed him with enough passion that I found the need to reach over and cover Daisy's eyes with my hand. That it had the effect of pushing them apart was purely an accidental bonus. Honest. I watched my father's mouth silently open and close a few times after Jane pulled back from the kiss, a smug satisfied look on her face.
"You still have it honey," she purred leaning forward to give the entire booth a view of silicon valley as she wiped her lipstick off my father's lips with her thumb. Eventually after what seemed like an eternity my father finally spoke.
"I'm uhm..."
"Staying for the summer? I heard," said Jane showing perfectly straight Hollywood smile white teeth. "Maybe I'll see you around sometime handsome."
With a finger wave she turned around and strutted back off into the crowd. I'd say something about undulating motion to describe her hip movement but by that point I was grappling with Fleur who was intent on pursuing the home wrecking hussy and disemboweling her with a spork.
"Whoa! Same old Jane," laughed Uncle John. "You know she always hated that you were the meal ticket that got away and the one thing Jane hates is losing. You better be careful Jake, while the cat's away and all that... What was it you said about her again when you dated her back in high school? Mad as a box of frogs but bangs like a wild animal?"
"John! Language!" hissed Laura reaching across the table to press her hands against Daisy's head. "Little ears!"
"You had sex with that?" hissed Fleur, murder dancing in her eyes.
"Hey your old man was a jock, not some monk," said Uncle John, still laughing. "Girls were throwing themselves at us. We were like rock stars. What were we going to do? Man doesn't live by bread alone..."
Luckily I anticipated the shift in direction as Fleur changed her focus to disembowelling Uncle John with her spork.
"Because you needed the fresh air to calm down," I said with a sigh as I sat down heavily on the bench seat of an empty trestle table. Around us the waiting staff of LFD were buzzing around, carrying drinks and meals to similar trestle tables in other parts of the patio garden.
"Calm down?!?"
"Yes, calm down. You aren't going anywhere until I hear the words 'in control' from you," I said, saying the words 'in control' in my best Animal from the Muppets impression.
"I.. but... I... Aaaaaarghh!" screamed Fleur, underlining her frustration with a stamp of a foot.
Closing my eyes I swung my legs up on the bench seat as I laid back, letting the warm afternoon sun wash over me. "I never, ever thought I'd ever meet anyone other than mum who had carnal knowledge of our father. Frankly, I'm not even that comfortable knowing mum and dad have done it."
"Tell me about it," said Fleur. I felt the trestle table move slightly as she sat down on the opposite bench. "The use of the word 'bang' in the same context as dad and any woman makes me feel nauseous."
"I need some serious brain bleach to get rid of that memory," I replied with a shudder. "The thought that our father had a recreational sex life as a teen is going to need a lot of therapy to overcome."
"Therapy? More like a lot of vodka."
I glanced under the trestle table noting that Fleur was lying down on the opposite bench seat. Maybe it was my boyish upbringing but there was something in talking about emotionally painfully things while not looking at each other that seemed to make it easier. Actually, there was part of me that would be more comfortable talking about difficult emotional things using morse code to someone else in a different room.
"Good luck getting served. We're both under 21 remember? It's not 18 like back home."
"Not insurmountable little sister. I've got a dress back at the house that with the right make up and accessories..."
I snorted my disapproval in response.
"What are we going to do Poppy?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"It's not our fight Fleur. It's down to dad to deal with that woman."
"We're going to leave this to dad? You know he's not equipped to deal with a woman like that."
"It's what he wants us to do and we should respect that," I said with a sigh. "As much as we may not like to think about it dad clearly has a history with that woman."
"Not listening... la-la-la-la-la..."
"Fleur..."
"Nope, as far as I'm concerned dad has had sex a grand total of six times, all with mum, all with the lights off and all solely for the purposes of procreation. And he didn't enjoy it."
"Fleur, we need to face the fact that... actually, I think I prefer your version of reality."
"Thought you would," giggled Fleur.
"What do you think mum will say when dad tells her tonight?" I asked, trying to picture the conversation.
"You should have let Fleur spork the bitch."
"Fleur..." I replied with a snort. "Remember what dad said."
"Oh, was that when he said 'I tried to say something but she distracted me with what she was doing with her tongue down my throat during the kiss' you mean?"
"Oh God, not that!" I cried, placing my hands over my ears. "La-la-la-la... not listening..."
"Then what?"
"I meant that we were to stay out of it and he would tell her that he was happily married and that the kiss was deeply inappropriate."
"Oh that..." said Fleur. "I still think sporking the bitch works better."
"Fleur..."
"Okay, okay... we'll go with your approach but I still reserve the right to call sporking the bitch 'Plan B'. Happy?"
"I can live with that."
I stared up at the blue sky overheard while we both sat in silence. Other than the odd wisp of fluffy white cloud the sky was clear allowing the warmth of the sun to permeate every inch of me. I found myself let out a small sigh of contentment.
"Do we have to go straight back inside?" I asked, not wanting to move from this spot ever again. The feeling of a full stomach and the warm sun giving me a contented glow.
"I think we're good for half an hour," said Fleur, stretching languidly. "Dad knows where we are."
"Great," I said stifling a yawn. "Wake me up before you go-go okay?"
"Bad joke but no problemo," said Fleur with a small laugh. "I could do with a nap myself anyway."
"Night big sister."
"Night little sister."
"Ah'm sorry if I disturbed y'all ma'am," said a familiar voice. "Only there weren't no other spare tables..."
I watched Rex raise his small plate with a piece of steaming hot chocolate cake on it. He was sitting on the ground beside the table resting his back against the bench seat by my feet. Glancing around I noticed that the sun was still high in the sky and patio garden was full of customers, so I figured I hadn't been asleep for too long. A noise from the other side of the table indicated that Fleur hadn't gone anywhere and was still asleep snoring softly on the other bench seat. Relaxing a little now that I realised I wasn't alone, I gave Rex a weak smile.
"Umm... it's okay," I mumbled, my voice quavering a little with nerves.
"Ah can go if ah've disturbed you any?" asked Rex as he started to get his feet.
"No, no, it's fine. Really," I said, motioning him to sit back down.
I took a moment to take a deep, calming breath and remember the words Fleur had said to me. Just because the men that... Ellie... doesn't mean all men are like that. Dad was a good guy. So was granddad Mortimer. And so were my brothers... well as good as younger brothers could be I guess. Uncle Billy seemed nice and I knew Uncle Sam was. Maybe Rex was too? He seemed nice. He had that sort of plain spoken, simple honesty to him.
"Thank you kindly ma'am."
I found a giggle escaping as he tipped an imaginary hat to me with his free hand. It was a slightly comical gesture but at the same time it spoke of something... respectful... safe?
"I'm guessing you probably want your hat back?" I asked, offering his hat to him. "What was I doing with it anyway?"
"You were goin' all pink in the face ma'am an' I was worried y'all would burn in the sun."
"Oh... umm... thank you," I replied, reaching up to touch my face. It felt warm but I wasn't sure if that was the sun or the effect Rex was having on me. I felt a warm glow inside that even when I was sleeping, at my most vulnerable, he had looked out for me. "So... umm... are you here with your relatives?"
"Relatives?" he asked, placing his straw Stetson back on his head.
"Yeah... you... um... you said last time that you were here visiting your relatives..." I replied, setting a record for the most uses of the word 'you' in a single sentence.
"I did? I mean... oh yeah... they're all back in the store eatin' an' stuff."
"Aren't they going to worry about you that you're out here with me?"
"Umm... no? Ah said ah was getting too hot an' would come on out here for some air an' all."
"But isn't Texas hotter than New Hampshire?" I asked, frowning.
"Umm... Ah'm heartened to hear that you remember so much about our earlier conversation," he replied, those wonderful chocolate brown eyes sparkling with mischief. "Y'all been thinking about me since we last me then?"
I turned my head away from Rex as I fought to regain my composure while I had no doubt that my face flushed a shade of red that matched the most vibrant shade in my paint box.
"Ah'll guess that's a yes then Miss Poppy," he chuckled.
"Well... umm... y-y-you remembered me too," I stammered, desperately trying to think of a way of getting the conversation back on safer ground.
"Ah could hardly forget as beautiful a woman as y'all now could I?" replied Rex. "Particularly not one named after the state flower of m'ah home state."
"The state flower of Texas is a poppy? I didn't know that."
"Umm... yeah?"
"That's... kinda kewl, actually," I replied, biting my bottom lip nervously as I looked back at Rex through my eye lashes. 'Stop flirting girl' hissed a voice inside my head.
"Ah think it's 'kinda kewl' that's y'all beautiful too, Miss Poppy," said Rex with a grin.
"Yes... I mean no! No! I didn't say that it was 'kinda kewl' that you thought I was beautiful, I meant the state flower being a poppy was 'kinda kewl' because it's a beautiful flower. It's why I choose the na... I mean, it's not me being beautiful because that would make me sound conceited thanking you for saying that and obviously I'm not conceited or even beautiful really actually I'm quite plain to be honest and I don't want you to think I'm conceited or beautiful well maybe not not think I'm beautiful but not make you think I'm the sort of girl who fishes for compliments from boys an' stuff an'... an'... an'," I said, coming to a halt to gulp down air as I tried to regain control of my breathing.
"Ah know what y'all meant Miss Poppy. I was just teasing you."
I found myself scowling slightly at Rex's maddening grin. For all the safe vibes Rex gave, I got the feeling he was the sort of guy that liked to tease a girl.
"Aww, don't be like that now Miss Poppy. Here, have a peace offering from me," said Rex, cutting a small piece of chocolate cake with his fork and holding it out for me. I tried to wave it away but he just cocked an eyebrow at me Spock style and gestured again with the fork, moving closer to me.
"Now y'all wouldn't want to offend me by refusing m'ah southern hospitality would you?"
I shook my head in response, mouth firmly closed.
"Open wide..."
After hesitating for a few seconds, I opened my mouth tentatively letting the warm piece of chocolaty goodness slide into my mouth. A small involuntary moan escaped as the fork slowly slid out past my lips, causing me to blush once more.
"Oh that's good..." I whispered, tasting the thick chocolate filling in the cake.
"Your aunt sure knows how to bake," said Rex, cutting the remaining chocolate cake into two pieces on his plate.
"I couldn't, it's your cake..." I said as he offered me a piece.
"Ah'm happy to split it with you Miss Poppy," he said with a wink.
This time I accepted the proffered piece of cake without hesitation, closing my eyes and savouring the taste. If sex was half this good I'd be surprised.
"M'ah momma says that there ain't no problem that chocolate won't solve," said Rex around his own piece of cake as he ate it.
"A wise woman."
"That she is, Miss Poppy, that she is."
"Poppy, just Poppy please," I said, biting at my bottom lip again. "Miss Poppy makes me sound like a primary school teacher."
"Ah could see you teaching elementary school Miss Poppy," chuckled Rex. "Ah could see you being good with kids an' all."
"You haven't seen me with children," I snorted.
"No but I'd like too," he replied, his face split wide in that maddening grin that seemed to hint that if this was a game of cat and mouse, I was most definitely not the cat.
My eyes danced across his muscled chest that his tight tee shirt did nothing to hide despite the khaki windbreaker he wore. For a moment I found myself wondering why he didn't just take the windbreaker off if he was hot indoors but before the thought could go anywhere my eyes locked with his. For a few moments I forgot everything just gazing into his eyes, enjoying the feeling of warmth and simultaneous sense of both safety and danger that they evoked in me. It wasn't a bad danger but if the way my body was reacting was any clue it wasn't perhaps the sort of danger a good girl entertained.
"Poppy?"
"I.. what?" I said, blinking back to reality.
"Ah said what do you want to be doing with yaw'r life?" he said. "Are you okay, you seemed... distracted?"
"No! I'm fine, really. I'm fine."
"Y'all sure?"
"Uh... I'm fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?" I asked, looking away only to see Fleur still lying down but biting her lips in an effort to stifle her laughter.
"Ah'm all the better for seeing y'all Poppy," said Rex, reaching out to take my hand in his. "But ah must be getting back to m'ah folks now."
"Ooo-kay..."
"Y'all take care now Miss Poppy," said Rex, bending slightly to kiss the back of my hand. I felt a rush of goose bumps down my arm emanating from the spot where his lips brushed my skin. "Ah hope to see you again real soon."
"Umm... t-t-that wouldn't be the worst thing..." I said, stumbling over my words. "And I said c-c-call me P-P-Poppy remember?"
I intended to be stoic as he departed with a tip of his hat but found my traitorous right hand finger waving goodbye to him against orders. Stuffing it in my lap under my loyal left hand I watched Rex re-enter the store with a wave in my direction. I couldn't see his face clearly but I was fairly certain that permanently maddening grin of his was plastered across his face.
"Not a word," I growled at Fleur as the first of her suppressed giggles escaped. "Not a word."
I took no comfort at all from the squeal Fleur emitted moments later as she laughed so hard she fell off the bench.
"Ha-ha...ha," I said, pulling the door open again. I had twenty years and several hundred pounds less of doughnuts on him. "If you think you can do better, you can try and get close to the target... oh wait, that's right you tried and failed."
Opening the cooler box next to the seat I pulled a coke from it and took a deep pull from it, washing it around my mouth.
"That's right you don't like the taste of chocolate do you Augustine?" said Rosenberg with a chuckle. In response I gave him the finger.
"My mother always said the way to a woman's heart was through chocolate and you can--"
I was about to say more when the van lurched slightly as the side door pulled back again.
"Jeez, jumpy much?" said the casually dressed middle aged Hispanic woman as she entered the vehicle, nodding at my drawn pistol. I gave her a sheepish shrug as I slid it back into its holster under my windbreaker.
"I wasn't expecting to see you Sandra, what gives?" I asked.
"I'm here on behalf of the great state of Texas to arrest you for crimes against their accent," she said with a sigh. "You sound as bad, no actually you sound worse, than Nick Cage in Conair."
"I sayed, put tha bunnay back in tha box," mimicked Rosenberg in a bad southern accent. "It's a miracle that the British kid is as dumb as he is."
"Hey, you guys wanted me for my computer skills not my acting skills," I said, starting to get up. "I can catch the next flight home if you don't like it."
"Cal-i-for-ni-ay, dude" said Rosenberg, giving me the bullhorns gesture.
"Bite me Rosenberg."
"Okay, that's enough," snapped Sandra. "We all have jobs to do if this is going to work. Rosenberg, you just make sure that you stay in contact with Williamson okay? It took a lot of time, money and effort to get her onto the Congresswoman's staff."
"I know my job Soto," said Rosenberg with a frown.
"Then make sure you do it," replied Sandra, still glowering at him. "As for you Nicholas, there is no point sending our best nerd in there if you can't get close enough to the Haas family to do the nerd stuff. How's it going with the Haas girl?"
"Slowly. She's a bit shy. Seriously cute but a bit shy," I replied. I felt a smile tickling at the corner of my mouth as I thought of Poppy but quickly shook it off. "If I go too quick, it'll spook her."
"What about the other sister?" asked Rosenberg.
"Too late now. We're stuck with the Poppy kid like Nicholas here is stuck with that stupid accent now we've played our hand," said Sandra with a resigned sigh.
"We could bring in someone from out of state?"
I watched Sandra's head bobble slightly as she thought it over, before she shook her head.
"I'd rather not if I can help it. My experience has been things work better if you keep it small," replied Sandra. "Has the girl, Poppy, said anything about why her father has come back now of all times?"
"No. I'm not even sure she knows," I said with a shrug. "Could it be coincidence?"
"I might have said so until I saw him sit down with the principals today. No, he's got to be back for the money."
"Do you think someone spooked them and he's here to get it out of the country?" asked Rosenberg. "If he can move it before we've finished connecting the dots, we'll lose it."
"No, I've put too much effort into this to lose," said Sandra, her face set. "We keep doing, what we've been doing. Now get back to work okay?"
Rosenberg and I both nodded our assent. As I started to slide the door to the van open, Sandra called out to me.
"Nicholas?"
"Yeah?" I said, turning to face back into the van.
"We've all got a lot riding on this kid. Don't fuck up, okay?"
Authors Note: And welcome to the May 2012 chapter of 'We are Family'. What? It's not May you say? Umm... yeah, sorry about that. The good news - or the bad news depending on how much you liked this chapter - is work is finally allowing me to getting back to writing again and I'm finally getting back into the swing of things after a few really bad attempts to restart. The next chapter has already been started and hopefully should be ready sometime November work permitting. Thank you for taking the time to read this chapter and hopefully you've enjoyed it. If you enjoyed this chapter, then your comments are always welcome. No reproduction without permission, etc.
When Poppy's grandfather dies, her father inherits his childhood home in Happy Springs, New Hampshire. He decides to take his three daughters from England on their first trip to the land of his birth to fix up the house as a potential summer home and give Poppy a break from some problems she's been having. He says it's an old house that just needs a little work to restore it back to its full glory. It's going to be fun fixing it up. Poppy isn't so sure...
Chapter 5
"Hey, wake up sleepyhead we're almost there."
I started awake at my father's words and gentle nudging, the late morning sunshine stinging my eyes as I blinked into wakefulness. Pulling my ear buds free, the soulful sounds of Inna Modja were replaced by Randy Newman. Dad was big on what he called 'real music' but what Fleur called 'grumpy old white guys'. Even though he was in his early 40's, which I guess isn't that old for a dad, his playlists were full of folk songs, Springsteen, Dylan and others. I liked that song from Toy Story but on the whole preferred mum's playlists of A-Ha, Disney songs and 90's Britpop hits if I had to choose one of them for in-car entertainment. With a yawn I peered out of the side window, the rows of regularly spaced trees running parallel to the road like bars.
"I thought you said this person was in Plymouth?" I asked, stretching my arms to work out some kinks from the long drive. "And for the record, it's still freaky that Plymouth isn't on the coast here."
"Did I? Sorry, I meant just outside Plymouth. We're only a couple of miles from her place now," replied my father, glancing down at the satnav built into the dashboard.
"I get things are different here but you need to try and be a little bit more accepting of difference, Pumpkin."
"Me? I'm the poster child for difference," I replied with a derisive snort.
"I hate to disappoint you Poppy but you really are very set in your ways," replied my father with a shake of his head.
"Whatever," I mumbled under my breath.
"And you know full well you aren't any different than any of your sisters to me."
"I'm not sure whether to be flattered or insulted at that statement..."
"Poppy..."
"Okay, okay... flattered," I said, holding my hands up in mock defeat.
"And the other thing?"
"I'm not really that bad about accepting difference am I?"
"I'm just saying, since we arrived here you've taken just about every opportunity that's presented to moan about things that aren't the same as back home. You need to remember that this was my home before I met your mother. All these things that you are so quick to dismiss for being different are part of me. I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't criticise things where the difference warrants it... but maybe you could, to quote Bing Crosby, try to 'ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive'?"
Had I really moaned about everything that was different? Ugghhh. Maybe. Truth be told maybe I didn't really want to be here, any more than I wanted to be back in England. Was I really rejecting a part of my dad when I was so critical of things here? Double Ugghhh. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt my dad's feelings.
"Okay... no promises, but I'll try alright?" I said quietly.
"Good enough, Pumpkin. Good enough," said my dad reaching over to briefly squeeze my shoulder.
"So, how far are we from this therapist? All I can see are trees. What's she live in, some sort of cabin in the woods?" I asked, trying vainly to spot some signs of civilisation beyond the trees lining either side of the road.
"Yes."
"I... what?"
"Yes, she lives in a cabin in the woods."
"I thought you were taking me to some sort of therapist, not the local wise woman," I said with a frown. "Shouldn't therapists have like an office or be based in a hospital or something?"
"Poppy, she's a proper therapist. I'll admit she has a reputation for being a bit unorthodox but she has very good referrals from people I trust. I think her institute has an office somewhere in Plymouth but she does a lot of her work from her cabin. Which is, coincidentally and perhaps not unsurprisingly given it is a cabin, in the woods."
"Well if she sacrifices me to appease some ancient gods I'm soooooo telling mum."
"Pumpkin, it'll be fine. Stop being so melodramatic," chuckled dad.
At the prompting of the female voice on the satnav, dad took a turnoff leaving the smooth asphalt of the road for a rougher finished surface, cracked from weather and age. The ambient light around us dimmed due to the thicker tree canopy. For a dazzling urbanite like myself the thought of so much mother nature in one place was both beautiful and slightly intimidating.
I slid my own iPhone out of my cardigan pocket in response to its gentle vibration, tapping the read message notification with my thumb.
*Fleur: Are you there yet?*
*Poppy: No. Dad taking me to cabin in woods. Concerned I'm going to be sacrificed to appease ancient gods. Send help.*
*Fleur: Don't worry, remind them that sacrifice of virgin was optional in movie! :-p lol*
*Poppy: I'd be safer if you were here. Slut dies first. :-p*
*Fleur: Ouch! Will get you back for that!! Text me when out little sister.*
"Poppy?" asked my father, raising an eyebrow quizzically in response to my giggle.
"Sorry, I was just texting Fleur... So, how did it go with Aunt Kathy?" I asked, raising the question that I'd been dying to ask all weekend but had never found the right moment to.
"Not great," said my father with a sigh. "Not great at all..."
"What did she say?"
"Nothing beyond the basic pleasantries. It's been over twenty years since we've spoken..."
My father trailed off into silence, his face scrunched up in frustration.
"What happened between the two of you?" I asked.
"Stuff..."
"Stuff?"
"Stuff."
"What the fudge is 'stuff'?" I asked, turning in my seat to get a better view of my father. Yes, I said 'fudge'. I'm trying to be a better behaved girl remember. It was fudge or frak. I went with fudge.
"Stuff is... stuff," he replied, his eyes never leaving the road. "Stuff you don't need to worry about."
"Gee... patronising much?" I said, sulkily turning away from him to face out the side window again. "I am a part of this dysfunctional Haas family of yours to, y'know."
"Poppy..."
"Talk to the hand," I replied, in a manner that even I thought was a little petulant sounding. We drove on for a few minutes more in silence before the car came to a halt in the middle of the road. The ratchety creak of the handbrake startled me enough to turn to face my father.
"Stuff... means that some stupid things were said, okay?" said my father, his voice barely audible over the sound of the engine ticking over.
"Just how stupid could it have been that you didn't talk for twenty years?"
"Stupid enough," he said with a heavy sigh. "You have to remember that my childhood was--"
"Norman Bates style freaky?"
"...unconventional," replied my father, emphasising the word. "Dad expected us to rule the world... or at least New Hampshire. I was born into a dynasty to be a prince of the modern age in my father's eyes. Sort of like the Kennedy's but more Dutch Protestant and less Irish Catholic. Of course, it wasn't so much about realising our ambitions as realising his."
"That doesn't sound fun," I said, frowning at the thought of my father's childhood.
What surprised me even more was when I saw my father reach up and dab with the back of his hand at some silently shed tears. My father rarely ever cried.
"It wasn't," said my father, his voice back to a gentle whisper. "And it wasn't the worst part..."
"What wasn't?"
"The worst part... the worst part was that all that narrow mindedness... the vitriol and mistrust... as much as you tried to keep it out..."
"Yes?"
"Some of it got in."
"I... what?" I said, my voice wavering slightly with my uncertainty at how to respond to my father's words.
"Nothing to concern yourself with right now, pumpkin," replied my father, clearing his nose with a man-sized snuffle. "We've got an appointment to keep."
I nodded distractedly as he started the car back on its way down the track. Lost in my thoughts I reflected on my father's words.
"Aunt Libby runs Uncle Samuel's campaign doesn't she?" I asked after a few minutes of driving in silence.
"Well, I think it's more of a partnership," replied my father.
"Would Uncle Samuel be where he is today if it wasn't for Aunt Libby?" I asked, knowing the answer before it was given.
"No," replied my father after a few moments of silence.
"Aunt Kathy is a congresswoman."
"Yes," replied my father, his voice still unnaturally subdued.
"One married someone and helped them win public office, becoming the de facto kingmaker in the process... one holds public office and aspires to greater public office..."
"Yes."
"But you don't... you're different. You don't even run things at home. Mum does all that..."
"I would like to think of it as a partnership," replied my father, a smile returning to his face for the first time since we'd started this conversation.
Yeah right, a partnership in so much as mum sometimes told us to ask our father who would always tell us to do what mum wanted. If dad the power behind the throne in our household he was so far behind it he wasn't just behind the throne he was in a different wing of the palace.
"Dad... it doesn't sound like any of it got into you... I can't imagine Grandpa Haas taking my transition as well as you did?"
"You've got that right," said my father, a frown returning to his face. "I was about Daisy's age when I remember him one night, drunk as a skunk, crowing about the assassination of a man out west. He was ranting about his sort should be barred from public office and how San Francisco needed another fire to cleanse its sins."
If dad was about Daisy's age then it would have put it in the late 1970's and assassinations in San Francisco...
"It was Harvey Milk wasn't it?" I asked. See, I watch serious films. Or the trailers for them...
"Yes... and that was one reason why I was determined you would never meet him. Even as a small child it was obvious you were different. You needed the space to find yourself without the likes of my father sowing the seeds of doubt in your mind about what other people would think, trying to tell you what you felt was wrong."
"You did good," I said, my face flushed red with embarrassment. "I prolly never thank you or mum enough for that."
"You don't need to thank us for doing the right thing Poppy. It's what parents are supposed to do," replied my father. "Anyway, it was never really an issue about your grandfather. He never made any effort to contact me and to be honest, even after he died I never expected to hear from his estate. I thought it would be split between Libby and Kathy... well, maybe more in the favour of Kathy than Libby."
"So why did Grandfather Haas leave us his home? It's a pretty personal thing to leave to the son he didn't talk too."
"I wondered that too," said dad with a grin. "Turns out it wasn't him that did it. It was a condition of mom's will. The house had been put in her name decades ago when I was a child, some sort of tax dodge I think, but in her will she left it in trust for me on the condition that my father be allowed to live in it rent free until his death. I've no idea why. Mom died before I graduated high school and it seems that before your grandfather could get me to sign it over to him we'd had our falling out."
"So when grandfather Haas died..."
"Yeah, I was surprised as anyone. I understand that Kathy was spitting feathers as dad had told her he was leaving pretty much everything to her. I think when his mind started to go he forgot that the house wasn't his to bequeath, something the lawyers had to sort out before we could take possession. Luckily your mom knows people in corporate law over here who knew people who could help."
"We should visit Grandma Haas' grave. To thank her."
"I think that would be nice Poppy," said my father, a warm smile lighting up his face. "We could all go. I never got the chance to introduce my girls to her in life. I can't change that but... we should definitely go. Make a trip of it."
"We could even just go now?" I asked hopefully. "This drive has been very therapeutic. I'm probably cured..."
"Poppy..." warned my father.
"Oh all right, just remember if I get sacrificed I'm going to be cross for the remainder of the day," I said with a theatrical sigh.
For information, when I say 'Therapy Cabin' I'm not thinking 80's Saturday morning kids show but a more serious retro 60's show. The 'Therapy Cabin'... A Martin Quinn Production... in Color!...' kind of thing. I can hear it now in the ominous voiceover... 'How does a nightmare begin? For Poppy Haas, aspiring artist and most beautiful of the Haas girls, it began at few minutes past midday on a lost Monday morning looking for a proper therapist she never found. It began with a welcoming sign that gave hope of black coffee... it began with a homely, un-deserted looking cabin and a father too stubborn to turn around and continue their journey... in the weeks to come, Poppy Haas would go back to how it all began many times... da-de-daaaa... da-de-daaaaa...'
"Here's your coffee, Miss Haas... that was white with two sugars right?" asked the receptionist handing me a hot, watery, milky white liquid in a cardboard cup.
"Ummm... thanks," I replied ducking my head. I'd actually asked for black, no sugar but I'd probably mumbled it or something. There's no other way that someone could get an order that wrong right? It had to be at least partly my fault. I'd say that some coffee was better than no coffee but after taking a mouthful I was pretty certain whatever I was drinking had no more been near a coffee bean than... well, something else that hadn't been near a coffee bean.
I put the cup down and returned to the old copy of Cosmo that I'd been thumbing through trying to work out from the quiz what sort of movie heroine I was. I'd been hoping for something a bit Ripleyesque but evidently I was an 'ingénue', which struck me as a big word for a magazine who's previous article was entitled 'Are you a bitch?' but there you are. Once I knew what 'ingénue' meant I'd know whether to be insulted or not.
"Poppy?"
I looked up from the magazine to see my father standing in the doorway of the therapist's consulting room. Next to him was I assumed the therapist. Nearly as tall as my dad, she was smartly dressed in a suit and heels giving very much a CJ Cregg from the West Wing kind of vibe. Wiping sweaty hands on my jeans I stood up and followed the therapist into her room.
"Go get 'em, pumpkin," said my dad, stooping to kiss the top of my head as I passed him. "I'll be outside if you need me."
"Hello, Poppy. We felt it better if this session was a one-to-one with just you and me," she said gesturing for me to sit in one of the leather arm chairs in the room.
"My name is Professor Caroline Marx."
We briefly shook hands before I literally sank into the arm chair. Sitting down beside a large ornate wooden desk that faced out towards the woods, she swivelled her desk chair around to sit facing me. The gap between us was filled with a low coffee table and my flailing legs as I tried - unsuccessfully - to get to grips with the armchair.
"So, your father gave me his view of why you are here but I'd like to hear your perspective if I may?" she asked, picking up a stylus and some sort of tablet pc.
Sitting, or perhaps more accurately, sinking, before the Professor this all finally felt very... real. I recalled the previous therapist my parents had made me go see after Ellie's death. I hadn't wanted to go and the pain of Ellie's loss was still so raw that I hadn't yet worked out how to mask it so my objections had only made my parents all the more determined that I would speak to someone. Fortunately for me, the woman they sent me too was so wet she was virtually a liquid and at the point she'd reached for the glove puppets so we could talk about my feelings 'in safety' I already had her number. It had only been for one session because I had convinced the therapist that I was on the road to being 'okay' and at the time my parents, whatever they may have suspected, had no proof to the contrary.
Okay, so I made the glove puppet bit up but you get the general gist of it.
Now though, I was sitting opposite a full blown professor of brain stuff who came highly recommended by brainy people my dad knew and there wasn't a hint of a puppet in sight. If anyone was going to get me to talk about things it was this woman. It wasn't the framed certificates on the wall that made me think that, it was the look in her eyes. It was like she'd weighed and measured me the moment I'd stepped foot in her office. This woman was confident she was going to break me. She was going to make me talk about Ellie... and I wasn't ready to share my pain yet. It was a burden I deserved to carry and no one was going to take that away from me.
I really needed to be somewhere else.
"Would you believe that I feel amazingly better already and it's all down to the healing powers of the Therapy Cabin? You could put that as an endorsement on your website if it helps?" I said, trying to rise from my seat before the suction from the leather pulled me back down. Leather seats in summer. They might as well have put glue on the upholstery the way they were sticking to me.
"Poppy..."
"I'm fine. Honestly. I'm getting better every day... y'know, time heals and all that. I'm sorry for my dad wasting your time. He's a little over protective," I added.
This time I unsuccessfully tried to use the arms on the armchair for leverage. This sucker didn't want to let me go.
"Poppy..."
Frowning she tapped something on her tablet and proceeded to read from it.
"In the case of the mistaken identity murder of promising young artist Ellie Arundel, Mr Justice Lightfoot sentenced her murderers William Hallis and Joseph Carey, both 22, to 30 years imprisonment each. Carey will be back in court shortly to face a further charges relating to his actions during sentencing when he hurled a series of transphobic insults at Poppy Haas who had been in court to witness the judge's decision. Miss Haas, 17, formerly known as Jacob Haas, had been Hallis and Carey's intended target on the night of Miss Arundel's murder..."
I felt the strength flow from my body as I sank back into the armchair. The memory of Carey screaming insults at me after the judge had announced his sentence caused me to flinch involuntarily as each memory hit me.
"Do you want to try that again?" asked Professor Marx as she looked up from the tablet at me. "Because if you are here to waste my time then I'm very happy to end this session and tell your father that you were unco-operative."
"D-d-don't you have to be nice to me?" I stuttered, shocked at the harshness of her response.
"No. I'm your therapist not your mother," she said in a clearer voice, her stern expression softening slightly. "Poppy, I can tell you've spent far too long bottling things up from our brief conversation so far. It's not surprising to hear from your father that it's beginning to tear you apart. Do you seriously believe you are getting better?"
"Maybe?" I replied, the uncertainty in my voice evident to us both. "I mean, yes."
"Then you won't mind talking about Ellie will you?" asked the Professor.
"I..."
The words seemed to die on my tongue as I struggled and failed to come up with a reason for why I couldn't talk about Ellie without admitting how much doing so hurt.
"Ummm... are you going to ask me about my feelings?" I asked, trying to think back to my last therapy session. I could deal with that conversation, divert the conversation down a pathway I could manage.
"I'm not really bothered about them," replied the professor. "Maybe later. So, how long ago was that article written?"
My shoulders slumped as I realised that short of refusing to answer she wasn't going to give up with this line of questioning. Clenching my fist closed, I dug my finger nails into the palm of my hand to distract me as I replied.
"Uhhh... December... last December..."
"So what, just over six months ago?" asked the Professor, her eyes keeping contact with mine despite the scribbling of her stylus on the tablet.
I nodded my head in reply.
"And how long ago did Ellie die?"
"Murdered. She was murdered. Died makes it sound like it could have been an accident. They spent weeks planning it," I snapped, unsuccessfully trying to suppress my irritation at her words.
"Sorry Poppy," said Professor Marx holding up her hands in a placating gesture. "A poor choice of words on my part. How long ago was she murdered?"
"Nearly a year ago. She was murdered last July."
"Why did they... murder... Ellie?"
"As the article said, they didn't want to murder Ellie. It was me that they had planned to kill. It was me they should have killed..." I said, my voice trailing off into a hoarse whisper. "They even said that at the trial..."
"Who did?"
"Ellie's murderers... it was part of their manslaughter plea. They said that they never intended to kill her, that they meant her no harm... it was me they wanted. Only me."
"It was a hate crime."
"Yes," I snorted. "Though surely all murder is surely a hate crime..."
"So why you? Out of all the thousands of transgirls why you?" asked Professor Marx.
"It was the press exposure for The Exhibition that first put me on their radar."
"The Exhibition?" she replied, mimicking my hard capital 'E' sound quizzically.
Ellie had insisted that we overemphasise the 'E' as if it was a capital because when we were famous artists the art books would refer to it as such. It always used to make me smile the way Ellie discussed our futures. She couched them in the same sort of language you would use when writing the biography of a famous artist.
"Ellie and I... we were part of a local gallery exhibition for promising artists. We were the youngest there. Most of the artists were either at the local college, or an art school or older. We were sixteen and full of our own self-importance. Well, Ellie was. I... I didn't even want to go."
"Why didn't you want to go Poppy?"
"The press and that it was too public."
"That surely is the point of an exhibition... that the public can come?" said Professor Marx, canting her head slightly in curiosity.
"Too public for me. I'd gone 'full time' eight months earlier, the previous September, and since then I had been having some... problems."
"Problems?"
"The school had been pretty good about it and so were the other kids in my classes but there was a small but vocal minority though that weren't so nice. They were kinda okay to my face when others were around but they gave a really bad vibe and, well... outside of class... online... they were showed their true colours."
"How?"
"Every bad hair day, every mistake with my make-up... every outfit that didn't quite work... they were posted online via social media. Everyone is an instant journalist with smart phones these days. Take a picture, upload it and comment on it in 140 characters or less, or whatever. They said it was because I was a boy that I didn't know what I was doing and ignored every bad hair day, make-up mistake and outfit disaster the other girls had..."
"You look pretty passable to me Poppy."
"I guess I wasn't that unpassable then but yeah... I had Mum and Ellie to help me through a steep learning curve. Mostly Ellie... she knew how a girl my age was supposed to look and helped me find her style."
"Surely you mean 'your' style?"
"No, Ellie was fairly opinionated on the issue of what was the best look for me and since she felt her look was best she replicated it with me. We were fairly similar in skin tone, hair colour and the like so mostly it worked."
"You started blockers just after you turned fifteen according to your medical history, right?"
"Yeah, the month after my fifteenth birthday... and hormones the following summer..."
"And the Exhibition was... May last year?" she asked, counting off the months with her fingers.
"First week in May last year."
"And you'll be eighteen this August according to my notes?"
"Yes... the 14th. Why?"
"I was looking to establish the timeline. So, Ellie was murdered what? About two months after the Exhibition give or take?"
"Yes, she was murdered on 10th July."
"So how is the Exhibition linked to Ellie's murder?"
"The local newspaper," I said with a sigh. "They felt the need to make repeated references to my transition in the story on the Exhibition. That story was posted on the newspapers website and Hallis and Carey saw the article and well, the kids at school were also making a thing of it on social media. Ellie said that as long as people were talking about us it was good for our art but..."
"But?"
"She never really got the whole thing about why I just wanted to blend in and disappear. Ellie was a shout it from the rooftop kinda girl and thought I should be proud of being trans. She genuinely believed that diversity was a good thing and should be celebrated, though sometimes I think it was because her life was so vanilla. She never understood that I didn't want to be different, that all I wanted was to live the normal life of a teenage girl. I couldn't give a damn about the rainbow flag an' all that gender theory crap. I'm a girl. I'm not a boy. That's all the gender theory I need to know."
I gave up fighting the chair and sank back into it with the sound of creaking leather filling the room momentarily.
"You... sound a little angry there Poppy..."
"I'm sorry... it's just... if they hadn't made a big deal of my difference in the newspaper Ellie might still be alive. Why does it matter what I was and how I was born? How is it relevant to my art?"
"It's not but then newspapers are less about reporting truths than they are about reporting facts, I guess. To them your gender dysphoria was a fact that they felt needed reporting. The truth was two talented teenagers had a successful art exhibition. The fact was one of them was transsexual."
"Well in that case, I hate facts," I said, sniffling slightly.
"Do you feel up to telling me what happened on the night Ellie was murdered?" asked the Professor, putting her tablet down on the desk. "Just you and me, no notes."
Closing my eyes, I let out a breath I hadn't realised I had been holding.
"I'd prefer not to," I replied.
"Okay."
"O-okay? I stammered, looking up at her warily. Was that all I needed to do to get out of here I wondered. There had to be a catch.
"So how are you finding New Hampshire?" she asked.
"It's... different. Not like the movies."
"Oh? How so?"
"You don't all look like movie stars..." I said, favouring her with an apologetic smile.
"Very few people look like movie stars Poppy and that includes some movie stars without their make-up," she laughed.
"Fair point I guess."
"So how does it feel to find out your dad was a football star?"
"Weird. I mean, I knew he liked the game. He got ESPN back home just to watch it and he insisted on teaching us the rules and how to play. Heath's actually not bad with throwing the ball but then he's really into sport full stop. Football, rugby, cricket... he excels at it all."
"You get on well with your brothers?" asked the Professor.
"Yeah. Mostly, I guess."
"Mostly?"
"Heath had some problems with my transition initially but he's mostly good with it. I think he got some flak at school because when we're out he can be a little... distant. Like he's embarrassed."
"How old is he?"
"Fifteen."
"Fifteen can be a difficult age for a young man trying to find his way in the world at the best of times. I'm sure he'll be fine as he gets older and more confident Poppy. How about your sisters? Any problems with them?"
"No. I get on great with them. Fleur is just... well, don't tell her I said this but she's like the best sister ever."
"And Daisy?"
"Life's never boring with Daisy," I said with a giggle. "You wouldn't be interested in buying a non-sea worthy canoe by any chance?"
"Uh... no," replied the professor looking at me like I had two heads.
"Oh well, looks like dad's going to get his wish to mount it on one of the walls then," I sighed.
"Well, it's been nice meeting you Poppy," she said, rising to her feet.
"Oh... OH! Yeah, um... likewise," I replied, a little stunned. "I'm sorry to have wasted your time."
"No problem. Need a hand there?" she asked, noticing my difficulties in rising from the chair.
"Thanks."
"I do have one last question though Poppy," she said as she grasped my hand.
"Oh... okay?"
"Why didn't you tell Hallis and Carey that you weren't Ellie?"
"I... sorry?"
"The court reporting indicated that Ellie spoke to the two of them for about thirty minutes before they killed... sorry, murdered... her. All the while she was pretending to be you, you were sitting at the same table. You had ample opportunity."
"..."
"Poppy?"
"Because... I didn't want..."
"To be different?" she finished.
I nodded my head, letting my hand slip free from hers.
"What happened that night Poppy," she asked in a quiet voice as she knelt down beside my chair. "Tell me, please."
"It... it was Ellie's idea," I said, finding myself unable to meet the Professor's gaze and instead studying a scuff mark on the side of one of my suede boots. "Hallis had contacted Ellie via her an art website, pretending to be a girl named Halley. He... she... claimed to be also trans and an artist and said how inspiring she found us to be and praised Ellie's and my work. Ellie of course lapped up the adoration."
"And Hallis was able to convince you he was a teenage transgirl artist?" she said with a frown.
"Sort of. 'Halley' claimed to be in her early twenties and at art school. Hallis had taken art at 'A' level and evidently had some promise before whatever it was that makes a person a good person broke in him, so he could talk the art talk. He was also able to fake being trans because... well, I think he was transgender. In serious denial and self-loathing I don't doubt but... well, the stuff he wrote on his 'Halley' art account had me convinced. If nobody ever really talks about those of us who lose our way in transition then even fewer people talk about those of us that become so overwhelmed by anger and grief and loss about our situations that something breaks in them. Hallis was one of those lost souls. If he wouldn't or couldn't transition, then I think in his mind nobody should be allowed to."
"And Carey?"
"Carey was a bully boy pure a simple, not an artistic bone in his body but a fair amount of hops and other less legal substances. He scrubbed up okay though, sort of skater cool. He just about fitted into the art crowd look."
"So how did you all find yourself in that bar together?"
"Ellie had been contacted by the gallery about another exhibition and had persuaded the owner to take a look at some of Halley's work that was on-line. She had some modest talent. The owner had agreed to exhibit one piece by Halley. Ellie was like that... she was a very generous person. She liked to see other people do well and believed that if she could help someone she should. That always confused people... she could be self-absorbed and selfless in alternate breaths."
"She sounds an interesting person."
"Interesting doesn't do her justice."
"So... the bar?" asked the Professor.
"Our work was selected to form the backbone of the exhibition and to celebrate Ellie suggested we paint the town pink to celebrate with a few drinks and a celebratory meal..."
"And Ellie invited Hallis... 'Halley' along?"
"God no, even Ellie wasn't that naive. She'd told Halley we'd meet up at the gallery during the exhibition. Problem was Ellie posted her whole damn life on social media... and Ellie had given Halley access to it," I sighed, my bitterness at the memory palpable. "I'd told her to be more careful... I should have made her adjust her privacy settings. She even posted when we were leaving for the pub. Everyone who followed her account could see it."
"We can't run other people's life for them Poppy," said the Professor squeezing my hand gently. "As much as we might wish we could."
"That's a nice thought but it's not true. I could have made her change the settings if I insisted..."
"So, I'm guessing Hallis and Carey knowing where you were turned up at the bar?" she said, though it was phrased more as a statement than a question. "So what happened that evening Poppy?"
"Pete's not going to be there Poppy," laughed Ellie as opened the car door. "He's rehearsing with that band of his for a few more weeks."
"And what about Steve? Or George? They keep trying to talk to me about sports like I'm one of them or something..."
"The big bad boys won't be there Poppy so try and chill eh?" said Ellie. "You need to take a break from being so uptight or you're going to have a heart attack or something."
"Don't worry, they're part of Peter's band Poppy. I hear they've got a gig at the Royal Oak next month," said our driver, Sharon. At least that's what her parents and the school called her. To everyone that matter she was 'Shaznay', as she thought it boosted her musical aspirations by having a more 'interesting' name. Plus it was better than being known as 'Shazza', which was definitely on the wrong side of being chavvy.
"It'll be their first and last gig," laughed the final member of our quartet, Allison. "I got dragged along to listen to a practice the other week and they were truly awful."
"I'm not surprised with Pete on lead vocals. The only note he can hold is the one in his wallet when his round is due," added Shaznay.
"Ohhhh... meow!" giggled Ellie. "Still bitter about the break up? Don't be, you're better off without him."
"Besides, it's Saturday night. We're young, single and carefree... well Poppy apart on the last one... so let's see what other fish we can find in the sea for you," added Allison.
"Hey!" I squealed.
"Leave Poppy alone Allie," admonished Ellie. "She can't help being uptight."
"Hey!"
"Don't take it the wrong way Poppy," laughed Allison putting an arm around my shoulder. "We love you even as uptight as you are."
"What-ev-er," I muttered under my breath as we entered through the main doors of the White Hart.
"I like that dress Ellie," cooed Shaznay. "You've got to let me borrow it sometime. I've got just the shoes for it."
"Then you'll have to ask Poppy," replied Ellie. "I'm borrowing it from her."
"It's only borrowing if you intend to return it," I grumbled. "Your concept of clothing ownership is positively communist."
"Absolutely Comradetteski Poppy. Down with private property and up with communal ownership!" laughed Ellie. "Freedom from material possessions is good for your soul!"
"Is 'comradetteski' even a word?"
"Y'know your problem Poppy? You're never satisfied," said Ellie. "Take that beautiful skirt I picked out for you. Did you ever thank me? Nooooooooooo, it's all 'my legs are cold' or 'it's too short'..."
"Which it is!" I added, tugging at the hem. "You don't have to worry about covering things up the same way I do."
"Oh shush, Poppy. It's fine and really shows off those legs of yours which you're always trying to hide," said Ellie with a dismissive wave of the hand. "If I had legs like yours I'd always be wearing the shortest skirt I could find!"
"By the way, I like the way you've both had your hair done," said Shaznay, taking a moment to admire our new hair styles. Well, my new hair style.
"Ellie talked me into having her style," I said, teasing at some of the end strands of my hair. "I was a little sceptical at first but I kind of like it."
"It's nice. Definitely suits you," added Shaznay.
"Was that the dress you wore to the exhibition Poppy?" asked Allie.
"Yup!" replied Ellie for me. "I was looking at some of the photos we had taken at the Exhibition and I was struck by how great this dress looked."
"On me," I added under my breath.
"That's where I've seen it!" said Allie. "It was the photo they used in the newspaper wasn't it?"
"And on the gallery website, though it's not a good quality picture," added Ellie. "They used a fairly average digital camera at the gallery for their own photos. I've offered to help them with some of their publicity materials this time. You still can't beat a real camera for publicity shots."
"I'll get the first round in if someone grabs us a table?" asked Allie. "Usuals?"
"Yeah, we'll be over there," said Shaznay waving to an empty table by the window. "Have we decided yet whether we're going to the Indian or the Chinese afterwards?"
"Not yet," said Ellie. "I could really go for a curry though..."
"I'm going to the little girls room," I said, tugging again at my skirt hem.
"You look fine Poppy," said Ellie with a sigh. "You don't need to keep checking how you look every five minutes."
"I need to pee."
"What-ev-er... it looks fine Poppy."
The White Hart was the typical maze of a late 19th century public house with poor lines of sight and nothing quite where you expected it. Weaving my way towards the ladies I was already out of sight of the others when someone grabbed my arm and ignoring my squeal of protest slammed me against the wall of the entrance corridor to the toilets.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" hissed Fleur as she brought her flawless made up face close to mine as she pressed me into the wall. "Do mum and dad know you are here? You said you were going round to Allie's..."
If I wasn't struggling to breathe I'd have probably giggled at the incongruous image of my sister in her sexiest tight dress and made up like some sex kitten grasping me in the sort of choke hold that would make a professional wrestler proud. Behind Fleur stood her best friend Martha, who was fidgeting uncomfortably at my sisters behaviour and gave the air of a woman wanting to be elsewhere in a hurry.
"Hey sis," I replied weakly, my eyes watering from the pressure she was applying to my neck.
"Don't 'hey sis' me Poppy," she growled. "Do mum and dad know you are here? And don't even think about lying to me..."
"No," I gasped. "But then they think you're going back to Martha's tonight. What would they say if they knew that rather than being snuggled up on her spare bed that you'd be spending the night in some random stranger's bed?"
"Are you threatening me little brother?" whispered Fleur with real venom as she leaned close to my ear. "Because you so don't want to go there..."
"Fine. If you want me to go home then you can take me," I replied.
"You can get a taxi."
"Nope. You don't take me I don't go ho--"
Any further words were cut off by Fleur applying more pressure to my neck.
"Poppy... shut up. I'm doing this for your safety you little fool. It's dangerous for you to be here. What if someone from school recognises you for fuck's sake? Do you seriously want to be outed to pub full of drunk arseholes?"
"No one will recognise me..."
"Yeah right, that's not what mum said happened at the mall the other week is it? Those kids calling you names..."
"That crowd doesn't hang out here they go to the Royal Oak," I replied, struggling for breath.
"Fleur..." said Martha, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Poppy's with Ellie right?"
Unable to speak I tried to nod as best I could from Fleur's choke hold, grey spots were starting to dance at the edge of my vision.
"It's not like they are here to get hammered or get picked up by a guy is it?"
"You better not be," hissed Fleur with renewed anger.
"It's just a couple of drinks..."
"You're not having anything alcoholic, you're not even seventeen yet."
"Like you never drank at sixteen," I replied, meeting Fleur's gaze as best I could. "I heard what some of the girls at school were saying about you, y'know."
"A lot of that was exaggerated to make me sound cool," said Fleur, her anger deflating a little. "Besides, this isn't about me..."
"No, it's about me," I said, gulping in a deep breath of air as Fleur's choke hold lessened.
"I... I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did... particularly as some of those mistakes could be fatal for you Poppy..."
"I get that Fleur but you need to remember I'm not you," I said softly.
"What the fuck does that mean?"
I let out a strangled cry as Fleur pressed me back into the wall. Hard.
"It means I rarely drink and unlike some I could mention I'm still a virgin," I wheezed, gasping for air.
"You ever say that in front of mum," hissed Fleur. "And I will end you little brother. Maybe I should stay with you while you are here."
"What? No!"
"Yeah... maybe you can stay but we can sit at the next table or something... that way I'll be able to keep any eye on what you and your mates are up too..."
"No, Fleur! I'm not a child!"
"Fleur, c'mon let her go," said Martha, gently tugging at Fleur's arm. "She'll have a few drinks with her friends and they will all be gone by the time this place turns into a meat market... right?"
"Yeah, just a couple of drinks to celebrate the new exhibition and then we'll go for an Indian or something, okay?" I offered.
"Just a couple and then you'll go?" asked Fleur, the uncertainty evident in her voice.
"Yeah... anyway, I promised dad I'd be home by eleven thirty anyway. He thinks we're getting something to eat and then going back to Allie's to watch a DVD. I'll be with Ellie the whole time and we're getting a lift back with Shaznay. Her dad's like super strict about her curfew anyway..."
"See? C'mon, she'll be fine. She's with Ellie, neither of them are stupid enough to go anywhere with any guys... and frankly your brother makes a better looking girl than I do... let her have some fun and let us have some fun without dragging your little bro-- sister along behind us... besides, there is this hawt guy you need me to introduce you too..."
I sagged against the wall as Fleur let herself be pulled away from me by Martha.
"You do as you promised little sister, okay?" shouted Fleur over her shoulder as Martha pulled her towards the stairs for the upper floor of the pub. "And you call me if you get into trouble. My mobile's switched on and in my purse."
I nodded to Fleur, gingerly feeling my neck as I watched her disappear around a corner from view. If that was a product of the self-defence training Fleur took last summer, I needed to get on that course myself I thought ruefully.
The first was sort of skater boy arty grunge. A couple of tribal tattoos around his muscular biceps poking out from his short sleeve shirt. His fair hair was tipped in black at the fringe and he wore a skin tight t-shirt displaying a picture of Rossetti's 'Proserpine', a painting Ellie had always admired. He was currently showing off his physique to Shaznay who was getting grabby with his biceps.
The second guy was much more slightly built, dressed more casually in jeans and a college sweatshirt emblazoned with the logo of The Ruskin. He was involved in an animated conversation with Ellie that from the way she was gesturing was clearly about art. I tried not to roll my eyes knowing that if this guy knew anything about art then we wouldn't have time to go for that curry after all. Once that girl started on her subject there was no stopping her.
"Ellie! This is Joe and Billy," called out Ellie to me as I approached the table.
"Umm... hi?"
I frowned at Ellie canting by head at her to indicate my confusion as to why she'd called me by her name.
"Billy recognised my picture from the gallery website," she said gesturing at her dress before nodding towards the smaller of the two men. "He thinks I look very sexy in this dress. Even better in person than in the photo on the gallery website."
Ellie stuck her tongue out at me briefly as I took a seat next to her. I found my eyes involuntarily narrowing as I scowled at Ellie.
"You look beautiful too Ellie," offered Billy, lightly clasping my hand in his in greeting. "I'm sure you'd look even more beautiful if you tried smiling more as well."
"Sorry," I replied, ducking my head a little sheepishly.
"That's better," he said smiling.
"Billy is in his second year at The Ruskin and we were talking about our upcoming Exhibition."
"I saw some of the works you exhibited on the gallery's website and was just saying to Poppy how impressed I was by your work."
"Well, Ellie's the real talent," said the 'new' Poppy. "I thought her London skyline in mixed media was truly inspired. Possibly the signature piece of the whole Exhibition."
I tried to avoid rolling my eyes at Ellie's self-promotion. It was at times like this she reminded me of the Zaphod Beeblebrox quote from HHGTTG - 'if there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.'
"It was an excellent piece. The way she used different materials related to each building was very inspired," he said raising his glass in salutation. "Ellie is very talented."
"Ellie's something all right," I muttered under my breath, raising my own glass in acknowledgement.
"However, and no offence intended here Ellie, for me I think that Poppy's piece entitled 'Hope' was my personal favourite," said Billy.
"Oh, there is absolutely no offence taken," I replied, trying (and failing) not to sound too smug. "I've always said that 'Poppy' needs to be less modest about how talented she is. Tell me more about what you liked about her work..."
"Cow!" laughed Ellie, slapping my arm as she rocked back in her chair. "I can't believe you said that."
"What about 'you' being the real talent?" I giggled. "And me, Ellie, being a mere scribbler in comparison."
"I'm so going to get you back for that," she laughed. "So how has your holiday from being uptight, stressed Poppy been?"
"You... you did this deliberately?"
"Guilty as charged," said Ellie. "And you didn't answer my question."
"It's been... nice," I said smiling. "It was really odd when he talked about trans stuff and he was looking at you. No one has ever not looked at me when trans stuff has been discussed, even when it wasn't about me. It felt... nice... to be normal."
"You are normal, silly," said Ellie, reaching out to hug me. "Look, I know it feels to you like you're always going to be different but you so aren't Poppy. I can see how you could get lost in the maelstrom of transition but trust me, just you wait until we finish school and head off to college and get away from the locals. New part of town, new people... a clean slate."
"That would be nice," I said leaning into the hug. "Though surely you mean a 'new town', The Ruskin is in Oxford."
"We're going to The Slade. We both know you're going to give in sooner or later, so just admit it. We're going to be part of the Bloomsbury set," replied Ellie.
"What-ev-er," I muttered, rolling my eyes even though she couldn't see it. We both knew Ellie was right though. I would give in and agree to The Slade sooner or later.
"Right, well I'm going to go powder my nose. We'll finish the next drink and then ditch the boys and go get a curry, okay?"
"Sounds like a plan."
"Try and stay out of trouble while I'm gone 'Ellie'," she laughed, kissing my cheek as she slid out of my arms.
"You too 'Poppy'," I replied.
"How many people have you told the full story to Poppy?" she asked.
"You. The police got everything material to the crime. Mum and dad got the summary version. My last shrink was so into talking about my feelings we never even got around to discussing what actually happened."
"And how do you feel Poppy?"
"Lost," I said in a quiet voice. "Like a piece of me is missing. The best piece of me."
"Your father said that you had an emotional moment while in the new house discussing repairs with your sister?"
"Yes. The fireplace needs some work to the surrounding ornamentation."
"How long has it been since you produced any new art Poppy?"
"I've fulfilled all my coursework deadlines," I said with a shrug.
"That wasn't the question, was it Poppy?"
I stared at a print hanging on the wall of Edward Steichen's 'Flatiron Building', which felt a little incongruous with the rural setting of the Therapy Cabin. I'd always wanted to duplicate the feel the photograph had on a more contemporary scene.
"Poppy?"
"Completed works?" I asked turning my attention to the professor again.
"Yes."
"I've started a few sketches but completed works... none. I've been using work that I had done previously for my coursework. I've got a bedroom and part of the garage full of works I've done that the school hasn't seen before so it's not a problem in terms of quantity. I just can't seem to finish anything new..."
"Then that's going to be our goal. I want you to produce a new piece of artwork on a subject of your choosing before you leave for home, okay?" said the professor rising to her feet.
I shrugged, grunting noncommittally.
"What happens if I can't?" I asked quietly.
"I have faith in your Poppy."
"I'll try," I said blushing slightly.
"No, try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try."
"You're quoting Yoda now? What comes next in this session? You'll offer to train me in the ways of the force?" I laughed in disbelief.
"Nope. This is what comes next," said the professor, before slapping me upside the back of the head. "It's not your fault Ellie died. Get over it."
"Hey!" I shouted, rubbing the back of my head.
"Stop whining, your father signed a waiver when you registered allowing me to conduct a range of unorthodox treatments. It's what I'm famous for," she said with a smirk.
"Just think yourself lucky your case doesn't warrant water boarding..."
"You wouldn't..." I replied, my eyes widening as I pushed myself back into the chair.
"You've wallowed in self-pity, bottling all your emotions up for far too long now Poppy. You can't keep blaming yourself for Ellie's death," she said, picking up her tablet again. "You're going to learn how to express all that pent up guilt in a more constructive way before your head explodes. Which by the way if it does during a session I'm billing your father for the cleaning costs. No, given your artistic strengths, that constructive expression will be in the form of an original new piece of artwork."
"I'm fairly certain therapy shouldn't involve a homework component," I grumbled. "Or slapping."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," laughed the professor pulling me to my feet. "Unless you've got anything else to say we'll call it a day. My secretary will arrange a date for your next meeting with me. I'll want you to bring whatever you've done so far with you to that meeting. Okay?"
"Uh... as long as it doesn't involved being slapped again I guess I'm okay with it," I said, cringing slightly.
"Great. Well it's been a useful first session Poppy," said the professor reaching into a glass jar on her desk. "Here's a lollipop for the ride home."
Gingerly accepting the lollipop I let myself be led out to the reception where my dad was waiting and I quickly found myself enveloped in a comforting hug.
"How are you pumpkin?" he asked.
"I'm... I honestly don't know," I said letting out a sigh as I closed my eyes.
"That's the most truthful thing you've said to me since Ellie died," replied my father, tightening his grip. "I'm guessing the session helped?"
"Yes... no... maybe?" I replied. "I got homework and a lollipop. You know that woman is certifiable?"
"I know she's a board certified psychiatrist."
"That's not what I meant."
"She gets good results."
"She's like House if he was a psychiatrist. And a woman."
"Well, he solves his cases in under an hour. Should I be cancelling the second session?" asked dad with a chuckle.
"You know she slapped me?"
"Um... yeah about that. Full disclosure... she said she might."
"What?" I shrieked, pulling back slightly from my father. "You knew?"
"Yeah..."
"I'm seeing that waiver form that you signed and I'm soooooooo telling mom tonight."
"That's fair," said my father. "And I spoke to your mother on my cell phone while you were in the session so she knows."
"And?"
"She says I should do this," replied my father, leaning forward to kiss the top of my head. "I'm sorry pumpkin."
"Well, I guess that makes things okay," I mumbled into his chest as he pulled me into another hug. I loved my father's hugs, they were like the best medicine in the world. That slap might need a few of them before I was recovered.
"According to my lawyer, I'm also authorised to make an offer to buy you pancakes and one item of clothing up to the value of $50 from the mall on the way home as compensation for the slap."
"There could be permanent damage from the slap, y'know?" I said, an unseen sly smile forming.
"Counter offer?" asked my father, trying hard not to smile.
"Pancakes and clothing up to the total value of $100?"
"Poppy..." warned my father. I could feel his chest shake as he tried hard not to laugh.
"There could be bruising and everything..."
"Okay, okay," laughed my father. "Pancakes and a total of $75 on new clothes?"
"Deal!" I said stepping back to extend a hand.
"Deal," replied my father shaking my hand lightly to seal the deal. "Now let's get out of here and go home."
Home.
Happy Springs was full of so many new things I'd forgotten that it also contained something I'd always taken for granted. They say home is where the heart is and my heart never strayed far from my father. I was a daddy's girl and damned proud of it. So right here, right now I guess our house in New Hampshire was home.
"Yes, let's go home," I said, smiling at my dad.
End of Chapter 5
Authors Note: Firstly, as always, apologies for the delay in getting a new chapter out. I was full of good intentions before becoming full of flu over Christmas, which I've struggled until recently to properly shake. Still helps cement my reputation as the white rabbit of authors (I'm always late)! :-) Secondly, I've never tried to do something quite so emotive, so it took a lot of rewriting to get the scene with Professor Marx how I wanted, particularly given I had decided when plotting that she would be very much in the maverick doctor vein popular with tv. Hopefully it worked. And finally, thank you for taking the time to read this chapter and hopefully you've enjoyed it. If you enjoyed this chapter, then your comments are always welcome. No reproduction without permission, etc.
When Poppy's grandfather dies, her father inherits his childhood home in Happy Springs, New Hampshire. He decides to take his three daughters from England on their first trip to the land of his birth to fix up the house as a potential summer home and give Poppy a break from some problems she's been having. He says it's an old house that just needs a little work to restore it back to its full glory. It's going to be fun fixing it up. Poppy isn't so sure...
Chapter 6 -"Living in America"
*Rosenberg’s View*
I hate fucking mathletes.
Back when I joined the Bureau if you wanted to be a Special Agent all you needed to have was a solid college degree, aptitude and the ability to go all ‘Gang Busters’ on the bad guys when required. Sure, we had the nerds who would do the paperwork and forensic stuff but in the field it wasn’t book smarts that won the day it was street smarts. A Special Agent needed… well I was going to be all pc there an’ say ‘grit’ but let’s be blunt, what a Special Agent needed was balls.
So you can imagine my joy that after 27 years on the job when I should be the Special Agent-in-Charge, I’m being told to pick up the coffee and doughnuts. Me, an experienced field agent, was told to get the coffee and doughnuts instead of that wet behind the ears Johnny Utah wannabe, Augustine. Un-fucking-believable. At least I can live in hope he’ll jump out of a plane without a parachute sometime soon.
I nod to Agent Atkins to buzz me through into the industrial unit we’re renting. I like Atkins, he’s a good kid. He’s an old style agent; he played some college ball while getting a degree in criminology and in his five years since Quantico had built up a good reputation as a stand-up guy. Plus he drinks his coffee as God and J Edgar intended a Bureau man too — black, no sugar. Unlike that mochafrappamacchiachino fruity shit the mathlete drinks. Hell, you could stick a little paper umbrella in one of those and it wouldn’t be out of place it’s that not coffee.
Passing through the reception façade full of posters for our cover operation and the books we’re supposedly wholesaling, I dump the doughnuts and coffees on a shrink wrapped pallet of J Edgar Hoover biographys that we’ve been using as an impromptu snack counter. At least having to get the snacks meant I got the doughnuts that I wanted, though that was only a tiny consolation. Grabbing my own doughnut and coffee I take a seat at my desk facing the operations board while the others grab their own stuff and get seated. Like any good SAIC, Special Agent Soto likes us to have regular updates though this morning is a special one given we have the full team in, including the two junior G-Men.
Yeah, junior G-Men, technically New Agent Trainees as they haven’t graduated Quantico. They aren’t even 23, the minimum age for entering the Bureau. Some pen pushing moron in Washington thought it would be good to establish a ‘Future Agent’ programme to fast track the so-called best and brightest through the system at an earlier age. All they had to be was over 18 and have a college degree. Williamson is 20 and got her first degree while still in a training bra, while the mathlete is 19 and got his first degree before he started shaving. Knowing my luck they’ll probably both make SAIC before I retire.
I’m honestly not sure which of the two I hate most, the hacker mathlete Augustine or the preppy co-ed Williamson. Scratch that, I do know which one I hate the most. I have to put up with Augustine’s pretty boy face every day where as I only get to see Williamson a couple of times a week. Hell, all the time she wears that tight skirt we’re copacetic. *Huh* What do ya know? Absence does make the heart grow fonder.
Logging onto the network I try and tune out the incessant prattle from Williamson and Augustine about MTV or Jersey Shore or whatever the fuck it is that those kids talk about. In background I see SAIC Soto starting to write up today’s updates on the board but what has most of my attention is the email from the London police with the background information I asked for on the Haas’s. Most of it is the usual inconsequential crap but attached to it is a folder marked ‘Poppy Ashley Haas (Jacob Willem Haas III)’. Opening it up, there’s a case report also attached relating to the murder of some kid called ‘Arundel, E’ but that’s largely incidental compared to the biographical information on the Haas girl. Well, I say girl but this file says a whole something different. I can feel a laugh building in my belly that I fight to keep down. So this is the kid we’re trying to get the mathlete into the panties of eh?
Leaning back in my chair, I take a sip from my coffee before tipping a nod to a confused looking Augustine. If only he knew why I’m grinning at him. If only…
I try to stifle a yawn as I grab my morning coffee and doughnut and take my seat at my workstation. I’d been up until late last night, well early hours of the morning really, trying to access some of the accounts of the byzantine web of company holdings that the late Jacob Haas set up. Sadly, with little luck as whoever set up their security was very good. Scratch that, they were not just good, they were very, very good. I wasn’t ready to give up yet but this was going to take a lot longer than I’d expected unless I could somehow get my hands on computer inside the corporate firewall.
I took a drink of my caramel macchiato, letting out a contended sigh and slip back in my seat. Oh sweet caramel coffee goodness how you can make my problems go away…
“Howdy thar pard’ner!”
Groaning, I looked up to see Agent Williamson perch herself on the corner of my desk.
“Not you too Anne.”
I resisted the urge to hide my face in my hands. It had become something of a running joke amongst the team to mock my fake Texan accent. No one said hello to me now other than SAIC Soto, it was all ‘howdy’. Still with Anne, I didn’t mind too much. Anne Williamson was drop dead gorgeous, smart and had a fantastic sense of humour. Is it any wonder that I found myself subconsciously sitting up straighter in her presence? When she smiled at you… well, when she smiled at you all those stories you heard about Greek nations going to war over Helen of Troy suddenly started making sense.
“My last boyfriend pulled a face like that during sex,” she said nodding towards my coffee.
I tried not to blush too much at her comment and the mental image it conjured up. I knew I was developing a serious crush on her that wasn’t professionally appropriate but that didn’t stop my heart racing at the thought of being intimate with her. Agents don’t date agents I mentally chided myself.
“Trust me, you should try the caramel macchiato. It’s just the perfect morning pick me up after being up all night.”
“Any luck?”
“No… it’s getting frustrating. I’m beginning to wonder why I’m here.”
“Well, it’s clearly not for your acting skills nerd boy.”
From anyone else that might have felt like a rebuke but with the hint of sparkling laughter in her voice I took it for the good natured teasing it was.
“Ha… ha… ha.”
“C’mon… it’s kind of funny,” she said nudging me with an elbow. “Only you would accidentally end up hitting on someone connected to the case and then panic and build yourself the worst legend ever.”
“I was only there to drop off that memory stick to you! I’m not a field agent!”
It was a stupid, stupid moment of insanity. I was waiting for the chance to meet with Anne when I’d seen two pretty English girls talking. When the cute younger one had made a joke about protecting their towels from ‘gun totting cowboys’ it struck me as funny to play to the stereotype. I’d intended to clown around a bit before coming clean and maybe try getting a date with the older girl, because trust me spending you don’t want to spend too many evenings staring at Rosenberg’s ugly mug while trying not to scream as the older agents keep telling you how much tougher it was in their day.
*sigh* It was all going well until I learnt that I was speaking to a girl called Poppy Haas, niece of Representative Haas. The same Representative Haas who just happened to be one of the principal targets. How the hell was I supposed to know she had English relatives? It wasn’t in the case notes. And it all went south quickly from there. Much like my embryonic career as an Agent would be if I screwed this up. And possibly the whole ‘Future Agent’ project.
No pressure there then.
“Hey, stop the pity party,” chided Anne, tapping my nose with her finger. “You can still spin this to your advantage. If you can get in with the Haas family you have just as good a chance as I do of finding that second set of accounts.”
“If they exist…”
“They better because no way are we getting a warrant for what we need against a sitting member of the House and a well-connected local business family otherwise. We need to find proof of the link to the Albrecht crime family and we need to find it soon. The Bureau isn’t going to fund all this for long otherwise,” said Anne, gesturing the equipment and people around us. “Besides, whether you intended to or not you’ve doubled our chances now. That’s something right?”
“I guess…”
“So buck up little buckaroo!” said Anne, lightly punching my arm. “It could be a lot worse!”
I rolled my eyes in response as I rubbed my arm. I’m fairly sure the hardest material known to man is located in the knuckles of the most petite women.
“Rosenberg seems in an oddly good mood. Someone spike his Wheaties with something this morning?”
I turned to look in Rosenberg’s direction at Anne’s comment, an impromptu shiver running down my spine as he nodded towards me with a slightly unhinged looking grin on his face.
“Yeah, worries the crap out of me.”
“Is that clear?” repeated Soto in a firmer voice, eliciting a louder chorus of assent than her previous question had received. “Agent Muller, perhaps you would like to update the team on the latest information that you have?”
“Of course. Thank you Agent Soto,” he said, clearing his throat as he stepped forward out of Soto’s shadow. “And please everyone, call me George. As you may know, as part of a deal offered by a former Albrecht family employee the Bureau was provided with anecdotal information linking the Haas and de Ville families in a money laundering and bribery operation to Albrecht. Further investigation into these allegations by the Treasury Department suggest that this primarily relates to the Jacob Haas Memorial Dam public works project which employed several companies which we suspect to be fronts for the Albrecht family.”
“A project in which Representative Kathy Haas and her husband were key figures in bringing into being,” added Special Agent Soto.
“Indeed. In addition, Representative Haas has received a large number of small scale individual donations from some first time donors which has attracted the attention of the Treasury Department. We believe, though at this point cannot prove, that these payments are being made by the Albrecht family through third parties. As you may know, Representative Haas came under strong pressure during her primary from a Tea Party backed candidate and only narrowly defeated him. Since her former challenger’s announcement that he will run as an independent candidate in November for her 2nd District seat, we’ve seen a significant upswing in activity from her as she tries to build an early lead and set the tone of the campaign before any of her rivals start their campaigns in earnest. All this and preparing to fight an expected strong challenge from the Democrats has seen a significant drain on her campaign funds. A campaign that to put it bluntly, she doesn’t have the finances for without these additional donations given the impact of the recession on to her husband’s business interests.”
“If we can get traction on any of these we can build a case and get the necessary warrants to start investigating the wider Albrecht link more proactively,” said Soto. “I want you all to co-ordinate any information you have on financials through Agent Muller. It may be that he can spot something we’ve missed. Is that clear?”
I added my voice to the quiet murmur of agreement around the room.
“Good. Now, Rosenberg any joy on the background check on the latest branch of the Haas family to appear?”
“Yeah. I’ve received an update from the London police which I will compile into a briefing note for distribution through the usual channels. In brief, Jacob Willem Haas II, aged 45. He has a Batchelor’s in Agronomy from Dartmouth and a Masters and PhD from Oxford University in England. He is an internationally renowned agronomist and university lecturer in addition to being a former high school football star quarterback. He has no red flags against him from either the British or Homeland. He’s married to Alice Haas, nee Mortimer. British, aged 43 and a law graduate from Oxford. She’s a corporate lawyer but does a lot of charity and consumer protection work. Again, no red flags from Homeland or the Brits. Between them Jacob and Alice have six kids, three of which — Fleur, Poppy and Daisy are present here. The remaining three - Heath, River and Oakley — are in the UK still with their mother. The mother and sons have reservations on a British Airways flight to New York with onward connection to Manchester, NH on August 3rd.”
“Anything in there that can help you play Cyrano to Augustine’s Christian de Neuvillette?”
“Oh come on,” said Soto throwing her hands heavenwards at the sea of blank faces starring at her from around the room. “Not one liberal arts major amongst the lot of you?”
“One,” said Anne raising her hand. “Guys… like in the movie Roxanne with Steve Martin. The Haas girl is Daryl Hannah.”
“Oh, well yeah in that case. I guess there is,” replied Rosenberg, his professional face dissolving into that maddening grin again. “I can build a profile of the girl that can help him target his charms, such as they are, successfully.”
“Great. I want you, me and Augustine to sit down at the end of the day and plan our next step. Everyone else, you have your assigned duties.”
The best cookery is like dancing… it takes practice, it is best done in a relaxing setting and it is more fun if you do it with others. At least that’s what mum always says to us. Fleur says mum says to dad when they think we aren’t listening that the best cookery is like sex… and you can fill the rest in. I had to resort to the brain bleach to get that image of my parents out of my mind.
I guess that’s why our kitchen always felt so welcoming. Mum would create an atmosphere where it was okay if what you tried to make didn’t turn out right rather than go all Gordon Ramsey on us. I still maintain to this very day that my rhubarb muffins are an overlooked delicacy. A key part of setting that atmosphere was that whenever mum was in the kitchen she would always have music playing, whether from a battered old CD player when we were small kids or from her iPod in more recent times. I have priceless memories from when I was really young of helping mum in the kitchen along with Fleur and Heath, covered in flour and icing sugar and enjoying every moment. It’s not the same here without mum but it is still fun kicking back and clowning around with Fleur, Daisy and dad.
Fleur’s got control of the music at the moment, so we’ve got BNL’s ‘Some Fantastic’ blaring out of the small booster speakers to her iPhone. I’m not much of a BNL fan to the same degree as Fleur and mum anyway but I’m enjoying the beat to it and find myself nodding along it and the silly lyrics. In contrast Fleur, ever the exhibitionist, is dancing around the kitchen to it like she doesn’t have a care in the world. It’s good to see her just let go like this, being the old Fleur I used to know. She used to do this all the time until she turned about fifteen and then almost overnight, it stopped. I think she got so caught up in being a grown-up that she forgot that it’s okay to have fun. I missed that Fleur. The Fleur who didn’t give a crap what anyone else thought. Of course, then she started to fill out as the puberty fairy worked its magic and she became one of the pretty popular girls and started to give a crap about what everyone else said. The Fleur who was embarrassed by me… by my transition.
“Hey! No internal monologues allowed!” cried Fleur, giggling as she passed me a bowl full of mixture. “You can help dad by mixing the batter for the pancakes if you’re just going to stand there!”
“C’mon Daisy, let’s show these two how it’s done,” said Fleur, swaying over to our younger sister.
One day I’m going to work out how she manages to roll out of bed and look so good in gingham check pyjama bottoms and a simple red cami-vest. I’m wearing the same thing in green, thanks to mom’s bulk buying, and I look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. I can’t help but laugh at Daisy’s little girl version of dancing which seems to involve bouncing up and down as much as anything.
“So how you doing pumpkin?” asked dad, pouring some of the first bowl of mixture into a pan.
“Okay.”
“A good okay or a bad okay?”
“Just an okay, okay.”
“Well that’s better than we’ve had for a while I guess.”
“Actually… it kinda is. It feels like forever when things were just… things. If it makes sense?”
“It does,” said dad, leaning over to kiss me on top of my head. “Small steps pumpkin, small steps.”
“It would be nice to be… normal again,” I replied, passing dad the spatula.
“Like anyone in this family is normal,” said dad with a wink.
I marvelled as with practiced art, he slid the spatula clean under the pancake and flipped it over with a flick of the wrist. Most of my attempts to make pancakes ended up in it splitting into pieces at that point or landing all curled up.
“So what plans do you have for your art given the homework that Professor Marx set you? Sculpture? Still life? Portraits? Some sort of mixed media piece?”
“Not sure,” I replied with a shrug. “Maybe try some portrait sketching? I can do a family piece maybe?”
“Ooooooooooh… you could offer to show Sexy Rexy your etchings!” squealed Fleur.
The room went silent for a moment, save for the noise of a pancake falling to the floor.
“Fleur…” I hissed between clenched teeth.
“Sexy… Rexy? Lucy you got some ‘splaining to do…” said dad, fixing me with the parental interrogation face.
“Well firstly… I don’t call him ‘Sexy Rexy’ that’s a name Fleur made up for him…”
“No she just sighs heartfeltly in the presence of prime Texan beefcake.”
“Not helping Fleur…” I hissed.
“Secondly, I’ve only met him twice and both times were with Fleur…”
“Okay… you said he’s Texan?” asked dad.
“Yeah.”
“So I won’t know his family then?”
“Well, he did say he was staying with relatives while he was here.”
“Maybe I know them then,” replied dad, scooping up the dropped pancake from the floor. “What’s his last name?”
“Stetson.”
“Let me get this straight… his name is Rex Stetson?”
“Yeah, poor kid,” added Fleur opening the pedal bin for dad to dispose of the dropped pancake. No five second rule in our kitchen. “It’s no wonder he’s so buff with that name. Prolly needed to be to stay alive at school!”
“I don’t remember any Stetson’s growing up and my father knew just about everybody in town. Maybe they moved here later?”
“Could be?” I said with a shrug.
“Okay, I’ll allow it… with conditions.”
“Allow what?”
“You seeing this Rex kid.”
“I-I-I… no, you’ve got th-“
“What conditions?” interrupted Fleur.
“One, I want to meet him before you see him again. Two, if he wins my approval no unchaperoned dates until I say so.”
“But it’s not li-“
“She agrees!” added Fleur, interrupting again.
“I… What?!?”
“Good it’s all agreed then.”
“No, wait. Dad it’s no-“
“No arguments pumpkin, we’ve agreed it and I’m not changing my mind. Now please get me some more mixture would you?”
Grabbing another bowl of mixture, I stomped over to Fleur.
“What the hell was that about?” I whisper yelled.
“It’s okay Poppy,” said Fleur, placing a hand on my arm. “You don’t need to thank me.”
“THANK YOU?!?”
“You my girl need to get out and about and have some safe fun while we’re here. A few supervised meet ups with Rex sound perfect. All with the added security of the fact that your Uncle is the local police chief. He’ll probably get tasered if he tries to cop a feel in the cinema!”
“This…THIS… is your idea of helping me?!?! I don’t know where. I don’t know when. But you are soooooo going to pay for this,” I growled.
“Bring it on little sister,” giggled Fleur. “You’re talking to a fully-fledged mistress of bitchcraft.”
I passed the bowl of mixture over to dad as the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” I announced, eager to get out of the room.
Walking back to the front door, trying to regain my temper I glanced at the outlines of old pictures still on the wall. Where we had been focussed on bringing the bedrooms up to standard for our own use, we hadn’t done much to the hallway yet. I tried to picture rows of family pictures of dad, Aunt Libby and Aunt Kathy with their parents in different sorts of family poses. Would they be shots of them clowning around or formally posed portraits? Would there be newspaper clippings from dad’s football games? If our own hallway back home was any indication it would be a mixture of all three, substituting Heath’s martial arts for dad’s football. And of course, examples of my art. Some of the smaller, personal pieces that were gifts to my parents for birthdays or various Hallmark Holidays.
I don’t know who I was expecting but on opening the door, it certainly wasn’t the visage of Lycra and spray tan before me.
“Hi sweetie,” she said, flashing her Hollywood smile as she shifted a heavily laden wicker basket in her hands. “Is your daddy home? I’m his special friend Jane. I remembered how much your daddy enjoyed my cooking when we were younger so I brought over some for him.”
Daddy? Do I look twelve? And what’s with the ‘special friend’ stuff? Talking of misjudging things, leopard skin pattern lycra tops… who in their right mind thinks they can carry that look off and not look like Peg Bundy from ‘Married with Children’?
I seriously thought about slamming the door in her face and was very close to doing so before I heard a metaphorical ‘bamf!’ over each shoulder.
“You know you want to do it,” purred sexy devil me, surprisingly rocking the red leather look. I’d have to try and remember how well I looked in a red leather corset. “And they both deserve it…”
“You know it says terrible things about you that I don’t have a rebuttal argument,” said angel me with a shrug before picking at her dress. “And next time could we try and be a bit more imaginative than this white sackcloth of a dress?”
“What can I say? The devil doesn’t just have the best tunes, he has the best clothing designers,” giggled devil me.
“You okay sweetie?” asked Jane, leaning forward to look at me and flashing a view of her buoyancy aids while doing so. “Only you seem to have the oddest look on your face.”
“I’m good thanks.”
“Atta girl!” purred devil me before disappearing in a metaphorical ‘bamf!’
“Whatever,” sighed angel me, disappearing in a similar ‘bamf!’
“Let me go get dad-dy,” I said, flashing my full set of pearly whites in a smile that would have sent most sane people running. “He’ll be right back.”
Closing the door, I found myself skipping to the kitchen.
“Fleur… there’s someone at the door for you,” I virtually sang. “Here, let me help you daddy.”
Taking the mixture bowl from Fleur, I passed it over to dad as he poured another future pancake onto the pan.
“Daddy?” asked dad, reaching out to touch my forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Never better.”
“Ooo-kay,” replied dad returning his attention to the pan.
“Daddy… do we have a garden hose?”
“Uh… yeah. It’s in the garage. Why?”
“Oh… just thinking it’s a good way to end a cat fight.”
“Wait… is Fluffy in a fight?”
“Fluffy? No.”
“Then who?”
Anything further that dad might have said was drowned out by an outraged shriek from the front door. A shriek that was followed shortly by another, slightly higher pitched shriek that evoked more fear than anger.
“Poppy… what have you done?” asked dad, as he killed the heat to the pan and hurried towards the front door, closely followed by Daisy.
“Heh. It seems the pupil is now the master,” I giggled to the empty room. “I’ll get the hose.”
End of Chapter 6
Author's Note: Firstly, If you enjoyed this chapter, then your comments are always welcome and gratefully received more than you probably know. No reproduction without permission, etc. Secondly, well, it's fair to admit that a regular posting schedule is unlikely but I'm going to keep going to the end and hope that you the reader stay with me on this journey. The next chapter is very clearly formed in my mind so hopefully it will be a quicker turnaround... that being said if wishes were fishes... anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this story. Best wishes!