‘That is,’ said Pieter, ‘that I don’t know what you’re doing here either.’
‘Great.’ Matthew kicked the trunk of a tree. Its weirdly elastic texture gave him the sensation of having plunged his foot into jelly. ‘And let me guess. You can’t tell me how to get out of here.’
‘Oh, I can.’ Pieter was pleased to be of assistance. ‘You’re presumably a being with little soul connection, therefore I can safely guess that right now you are slumbering. I suspect your physical self wakes to the day. Do you remember falling asleep?’
It all flashed by. Storming out of the house, roaming the neighbourhood, a red-eyed bat, drifting into a misty sleep in the park. ‘That’s right,’ Matthew said. ‘I did fall asleep. I’m dreaming then!’
‘You want to go now, I see,’ Pieter said, turning.
‘You bet.’
Pieter drew from his pocket a woodwind instrument fashioned from marsh grass. ‘Perhaps we’ll meet again. If so, I expect you’ll be in a better humour. Then we can talk some more.’ Wandering away from Matthew, he proceeded to play an odd little melody. Low and haunting. The soft, sweet whistle of a pipe made from reed.
‘I have been a bit of a jerk,’ Matthew admitted. He softened his tone. ‘You’d better get home to your parents, kid.’
Pieter wound up his tune, then sprinted in the direction of a hazy crimson light. Matthew felt eerily alone in the twilit forest. ‘Hey, Peter Piper,’ he called. ‘How do I get out of here?’
Pieter’s voice pierced the silence. ‘Wake up.’ It sounded derogatory in the same way smart-arse Adam Harrow would address him: Wake up, Weissler. There’s no way Hong Kong’s going to fix these deposits by Friday.
Pieter’s voice again. This time it sounded well-meaning. ‘Just wake up, Matthew.’
How the creature guessed his name was a puzzle to Matthew. Logic gained upon waking alerted him to the obvious. The scenario had occurred within a dream.
Dreaming of saucer-eyed leprechauns who insisted they weren’t part of his mind. Huh! Perhaps someone spiked his drink at the bar. If anyone were to do it, it’d have to be Harrow. That good-for-nothing loser. Yeah. Drugging drinks. Matthew wouldn’t put it past him.
Shaking himself more awake, he became aware of the cold turning him goosebumpy and dampness settling into his skin. Rain. He was sitting in a playground while the clouds showered down.
He strolled back to his pseudo-Georgian eyesore and stood by the fishpond’s waterfall in contemplation. The book he’d thrown at the wall: hadn’t there been a chapter in it on supernatural sightings?
Intent on recovering Dalesford’s Thoughts on Tomorrow’s Tycoon War from the floor of his study, he marched down the garden path towards the chandelier’s blaze, a swirl of crystal brilliance glinting in sharp, neat fragments behind the prim foyer windows.
Chapter Two
Rosetta set down a bowl of pretzels and took a seat between Craig and Eadie. ‘What part are we up to?’
Royston tilted his head to the side, birdlike and alert. ‘Chapter III. What’s happened to Lena?’
‘Working.’
‘At 8 p.m.?’
‘She’s rearranging stock at her shop.’
Craig opened his book, then craned his neck round to Eadie on his left, deep-brown curls bobbing like a glassful of cola bubbles. ‘Do you want to read next, Eadie?’
‘But I read last time!’
‘All right, I’ll read,’ Craig said. ‘And then, Rosetta, could you read Chapters IV and V?’
‘Sure. But before we start, I have some news that I’ve been absolutely aching to share. About our Friday Fortnight website.’ She told Eadie, Royston and Craig that her Lillibridge-related site had rapidly gained international interest since its launch two weeks earlier. Her hope of connecting with other readers throughout the world was blossoming into reality.
Anyone who had managed to get access to an out-of-print copy of Our True Ancient History—available at only a smattering of antiquarian outlets—anyone wanting to explore its philosophies, was encouraged, on Rosetta’s ‘About Us’ page to form a book-study group of their own. She’d had no idea the response would be so enthusiastic. ‘So far we’ve had over 800 visits!’
Craig gave a low whistle, and Eadie shrieked.
‘And five other Friday Fortnight groups are forming. Thirty-seven people in total!’
‘Where are these groups situated?’ Royston asked Rosetta. ‘Are they mostly in Australia?’
‘There’s only one other here in Australia—it’s in Melbourne. Every other group is overseas. I’ve got a list here with the exact numbers. Drum roll please, Craigo.’ Craig pummelled the coffee table. ‘England, Scotland, Canada, and two groups forming in the United States. A few readers in Ireland formed an Our True Ancient History group well before we did. They’re going to stay connected with us through our website.’ She scanned the list again. ‘Ooh, and just one person in Sweden.’
‘In Sweden?’ said Royston. ‘Where in Sweden?’
‘A little place called Perelda. It’s an island just north of the mainland apparently. Just the one person in a group of his own. How amazing is that? Okay, Craig, Chapter III awaits.’
‘At your service. Alrighty, people, listen up.’
<><> III <><>
Once Maleika woke, she was pleased to discover Pieter had readied the fire. When she asked where he’d journeyed in the Dream Sphere, he couldn’t remember.
‘Take another sip of Remembrance Essence, Pieter. You’ve probably travelled far.’
Pieter did so. ‘All I recall is a forest similar to this one. And a fellow who got quite angry with me.’ Pieter took another sip of the essence. Another small memory returned. The fellow had been dully clad, and he’d mistaken Pieter for one of the future’s many great masters, having at one stage referred to him as ‘Jesus’ and then as ‘Christ’. Pieter drained his cup. ‘It’s no use,’ he said. ‘I cannot recall it in detail.’
‘Ah well,’ said Maleika filling a cup for herself. ‘Perhaps you aren’t meant to.’ Comforted by the familiar sights that now surrounded her, Elysium Glades bejewelled with moonlit dew, she turned to the campfire, sipped the Remembrance and allowed her memory of the day’s slumber to return. ‘Alcor asked me to observe a scenario. I expect what I saw was the distant future, and I expect it was our earthly world rather than another. I observed two people, a mother and daughter.’
‘And...?’ said Pieter.
‘And they conversed inside a smallish dwelling which resembled that within.’ She nodded towards the Grudellan Palace. ‘Its walls weren’t rounded but sharp and square.’
‘What colours surrounded you, Maleika?’
‘Sparkling colours of the Earth,’ she said, recalling flashes of silver, copper, amber. ‘Gold,’ she added warily. ‘Gold there was.’
‘Were the people themselves golden?’ This was asked by her nephew Croydee, another member of the Brumlynd clan who had crept out to join them. ‘I hope they weren’t body kings.’
‘Not body kings, no. I assumed them to be sprites because the mother, obviously the Clan Watcher of the two, had skin and eyes of brown like us, dear, although her complexion was much lighter in shade, and no sign of superiority towards animals was indicated; a feline of grey sat loyally by her side. The younger one had a snow-pale face and tresses the colour of fire. The Watcher had wonderful lights streaming from her heart chakra.’ Pieter and Croydee nodded appreciatively. ‘Her aura was warm and of fire, which explained the inclusion of red in her environment. The youngster, her daughter, became exasperated at one stage and engaged in an odd little bird dance. The mother sprite’s sense of hope is misted over. A sadness, a loss, has permeated her overall enthusiasm.’
‘Why is she sad?’ Croydee’s long-lashed eyes crinkled in concern.
‘She’s missing a valuable part of herself. It’s as though she’s been tripped up by the gold-tainted illusion. Her mind has split into thousands of little facets—each yearning for the re
membrance of other worlds—and yet there’s little connection to the world in which she resides.’
‘Then why, for goodness sake, does she stay?’ said an incredulous Pieter. ‘Why doesn’t she get her Dream Master to mortally finish that silly useless life and go on to something better?’
‘Patience, Cousin Pieter,’ said Croydee. ‘Not everyone understands how to pass over peacefully. I’ve heard that those of the future are rarely able to remain permanently in the Dream Sphere during one of their slumbers.’
Maleika agreed. ‘And earthly life is the only existence they know. Dedication to the younger one is her motivation for living there. A huge commitment ribbon streams from one heart to the other. Whenever the Clan Watcher is tempted to float off, the heart ribbon returns her to the reality of the timeframe they undertook.’
‘I wonder why you’ve been asked to help this one, Aunt Maleika,’ said Croydee.
‘I wonder too, Croydee. ’Tis all very exciting.’
An inky blueness was blotting out the twilight. The owl hooted. Crickets sang cheerily. The sprites’ waking hours had sprung to life.
<><> IV <><>
When the golden hours descended upon Elysium Glades, Pieter called together several of his companions to share his Dream Sphere excursion: a foxling, an antlered deer and a mango eater, who each curled up outside his pumpkin-shaped sleeping wagon and settled promptly into slumber.
Once his physical self was immersed in sleep, he hastened to the Devic Great Hall. While in the Dream Sphere with his expanded memory of Dream Sphere occurrences, Pieter gave a great deal of thought to the body-king product who breathed grimy air, shouted at numerals and drove a chariot that roared. His ponderings over this fellow caused him to conclude that the future of the sprites would indeed be bleak, and so on this particular visit he asked Alcor whether his earthly home would plummet into this tragic, gold-grasping existence that resisted the quiet wisdom of the heart.
‘For some amount of time it will,’ Alcor said. ‘And then grappling for power will retreat into history.’
‘So it is, therefore, worth pursuing?’ said Pieter doubtfully. ‘A return to our currency of kindness?’
‘Very much worth pursuing, Pieter.’ Alcor’s smile hinted at sadness. ‘Yet many will be whirled into the Cycle of Suffering before then. The outlook for the in-between time, I am afraid, is grim.’
Alcor gestured to three doors at the end of the Devic Great Hall. ‘Behind each of these is an individual requiring your help. Which door will you choose?’
‘The middle one, please, master.’
Pieter was immediately transported to the other side and found himself atop a snow-caked mountain where a puffing breeze whipped clouds around his feet. An eagle was circling the rich violet sky.
Pieter had trouble getting the eagle’s attention. Inhabiting an entire world with a faraway winged one wasn’t the most comforting situation. The elf boy felt a coldness he’d seldom encountered. His mind became inflexible, as if of steel, and in his heart...Was it an ache? Although rarely dependent on his clan, he now longed to see the bright eyes of passed-over Wallikin...and where were his creature companions? There was no sign of them now, and Maleika was yet to fall asleep and travel there. She had mentioned her hope of revisiting the Clan Watcher sprite: a heartbroken mother of jovial temperament whose name suggested roses and whose futuristic dwelling displayed the shimmering metals body kings mined.
Alcor’s instructions floated across to him from the other side of the Dream Sphere door. ‘Bridge the gap between you and the ethereal eagle.’
How should he converse with one so conscious of its own magnificence? The emotion the bird expressed was remote, filmy, but a word penetrated the clouded pinnacle, and the word was ‘vanity’. Too strange to accept for Pieter, who had never known such a description. His higher mind narrowed it down to a word better known at that point in time where self-adoration was only in its infancy. Pride. A word used for body kings and not yet linked with arrogance.
For a moment Pieter took on the bird’s thoughts and feelings.
‘Fearsome bird below, clad in a pointed cap. Does it not see this is my dwelling? Neither me nor mine. Inferior.
Some try to encroach on me but are yet to win, for I ingeniously defend my territory. I leave them with little doubt as to who owns what. My plan is to skim the top of the sky. Look down, I shall, from there. And seen as God by all creation below, I shall smile and express gratitude for my marvellousness.’
The bird’s chain of impressions grew hazy. Pieter gained only limited insight into what the eagle most wanted to achieve before his current life drew to a close. Was it simply to reach the top of a wind-wizened world and congratulate himself for having grasped perfection?
On these compulsory stay-awake Fridays, Izzie would shut herself away to finish art homework or her own little drawing projects. When she’d fallen asleep other times, she’d been woken by someone cackling energetically, like a bantam on amphetamines. She’d since trained herself to fight drowsiness and did her best to ignore the echo of undulating murmurs.
Her mother’s voice rang out from the sitting room. ‘Hey, I thought of something funny,’ Rosetta was saying, having interrupted herself mid-chapter. ‘That reference to the silver feline and fire-haired daughter...’
‘I grinned to myself when I saw that.’ Craig’s voice. ‘Who would have thought you’d feature in a book, Rosetta, disguised as a Clan Watcher?’
‘Well, what can I say? Being associated with an Egyptian stone wasn’t enough for me. I zoomed back to the 1770s and made Lillibridge give me a mention. And as you can see, he agreed to include Izzie and Sidelta.’
‘Sounds like an obliging guy.’
‘Oh, he is. Believe me, he is. Handsome too.’
‘Jokes aside...’ This was Royston’s voice, but Izzie didn’t hear what he said next. She was now fully absorbed in her latest art project.
Craig said something in a shout. Eadie giggled.
Rosetta was saying in lowered tones, ‘Keep it down, you guys, Izzie’s trying to sleep.’ There it was. The usual token attempt of her mother to shush everyone. No-one ever took any notice, probably because soon after saying that, Rosetta would put her guests’ volume to shame with raucous and passionate debates, roaring laughter and overly verbalised sympathy for anyone in her sitting-room who happened to be facing any sort of ‘challenge’.
The contrasting silence brought on by their ‘World Peace Meditation’ had last time caused Izzie to drop off at her desk, head resting on an unfinished charcoal sketch. She’d woken an hour later, but only long enough to tumble into bed. On the following morning, Izzie had glared into the bathroom mirror at smudges shadowing one side of her mouth. The smudges had melded together into a solid black circle, suggesting she was locked in a lopsided scream, the price she’d paid for dozing off and dreaming faeries dwelt in the backyard magnolia tree. The dream was so very real and so very tranquil it had made Izzie wonder whether she should use a sketchpad for a pillow every time she slept.
Rosetta’s tone became upbeat again. She’d returned to the eagle chapter.
Oh dear, Pieter thought. The eagle has little desire to learn of his sad significance, and yet, in comparison to all populations of all cells—microscopic worlds of countless proportions—he is little more than half a grain of sand. Now to make his acquaintance.
Pieter resorted to sound. He conjured his marsh-grass pipe and whistled a lilting tune. His music ballooned upwards and invaded the eagle’s dreams of conquering.
Although the bird thought himself to be a leader, he was, on the contrary, an excellent follower, for he allowed the melody to guide him down to Pieter, the ‘strange bird’.
The eagle demanded to know why Pieter had trespassed.
‘To learn of another’s existence,’ the elf told him.
‘You do not wish to be another great one here?’ the eagle asked in suspicion.
‘Nay! Just exploring. Do you like to
venture also?’
‘Yes. I’ve made many journeys to various parts of the sky.’
‘This sky and this sky only?’
‘What other sky is there?’
‘Are you saying you remain here and look not at worlds outside this one?’ Pieter was intrigued.
‘Don’t be a fool. You’re one of those strange travellers from that mountain over yonder who pop into my dwelling from time to time with dreams of discovering life in other dimensions. Such unfortunate optimism! Still, they trundle on their merry ways in search of a fantasy—as will you no doubt—only to remain here to the end of their days. They become content with the truth and blush at their former silliness.’
Was this how those of the future might feel, should they become oh-so-enclosed in their individual habitat? The Oracle had spoken of a scorn for nature and an obsession with contraptions. Pieter liked not to think of that time: when separation would take the place of unity; when Earth’s non-faunal dwellers would create ever more things of a mindless capacity. Boxes on wheels, for instance, and segregated view cubes: unguided, contrived, spewing meaningless noise and imagery to a sadly deficient receivership.
Pieter reminded himself then that valuable thinking should not be spent on distant timeframes. Moulding murky thought-forms might cause even greater harm to the dreary future he had witnessed in the Dream Sphere. Instead, he had to focus on this world, the world his dream-self had entered. He had to extract the truth from the eagle’s pride, to feel the pain if necessary. One of the elf’s primary intentions for venturing through doors at the end of the Devic Great Hall was to learn how better to understand suffering, other creatures’ suffering, so as to help remove it.
‘I hail from another world,’ Pieter began.
‘Don’t insult my intelligence.’
Unperturbed, Pieter went on. ‘Whether or not you believe me is of your own free will, although I implore you not to call me a liar. I’m here with a gift of heartfelt enlightenment. Take it if you wish.’
The Golding Page 4