The Golding

by Sonya Deanna Terry

  Molly reversed from the driveway, calling, ‘Your life is going to take on a brand new purpose. It’s all about commitment.’

  ‘Sure!’ Rosetta gulped.

  Molly’s car revved.

  Commitment was not a good word. She’d paid the price of commitment ever since Angus had stomped out of her life, leaving her with the sole care of a child he’d refused to support and a mortgaged house the bank repossessed.

  Molly’s car lurched forward, then zoomed recklessly backwards.

  Rosetta checked that the garbage and recycling bins were pushed far enough away from the driveway. An echoing bumpity-bang resounded, followed by a rumble.

  Curry’s startled head popped up at the window, swivelling left and right.

  Had Molly really hit the bins? All three of them? Rosetta swung round to inspect the damage. The wheelie bins, now skittled, lay drunkenly across the driveway.

  ‘Oops! Sorry!’ Molly’s voice had become faint and far away.

  A feeling of listlessness overcame her.

  Darkness fell swiftly, like someone had turned off the sun.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Rosetta asked herself. ‘What’s happening?’ Her arms might as well have been made of stone. Her legs, too, had become immobilised, as though the soles of her feet were suctioned to the lawn.

  ‘Mum!’

  Rosetta’s eyes snapped open.

  ‘You were snoring!’

  She was back in the verandah chair! How did Izzie get there so suddenly?

  Dominic Wallace, young Charlotte Wallace and Izzie were standing at the bottom of the steps. Staring at her.

  ‘Where’s Molly...the bunny...’ Rosetta stopped. She’d been asleep. Curry and the enigmatic tarot reader weren’t even real.

  Unsteadily, she rose to her feet.

  Dominic Wallace, tall and cardboard-cut-out handsome, was thumping up the steps. With the self-aware strut of a man inspired by his own potential, he crossed the verandah. To Rosetta’s chest, he said, ‘And how is Rosetta?’

  A blatant opportunist. She hadn’t forgotten the time he’d asked if she’d consider meeting him for a drink at a plush hotel. Was it any wonder Diondra suffered from perpetual anger? Who wouldn’t, with a husband who never missed an opportunity to advertise his contempt for monogamy?

  ‘What was that about a bunny called Molly?’ said Charlotte blinking.

  It was all very quiet on the verandah.

  Dominic lifted his eyes to Rosetta’s face and smirked.

  ‘Just sleep-talk I guess.’ Rosetta attempted a laugh. ‘Must have been dreaming.’

  Dominic’s voice took on a suggestive tone, starting with a stage-whisper and ending in a growl. ‘The bunnies in my dreams have names like Sindi or Candee.’ He gestured to the tuxedoed rabbit-head logo on his polo shirt. ‘Oh, what I’d give to be buddies with Hefner.’

  <><> IX <><>

  Body kings, so named by the devas, goaded and strove and desired. Plundered treasure tokens. Smashed apart sacred caves intent on shattering their mysteries.

  Within the centre of a treeless plain, and at the edge of Elysium Glades, lay a glimmering palace guarded by eagle-winged men. In one of its chambers, a body-king daughter sat by a loom. As daybreak lit the motley patterns formed, the young maiden’s face took on radiance, a glow that died at the shadowing of a cloud. Filtering from the rafters was the stomp of the Grudellans who guarded her family’s much-coveted gold. By the well were three hundred sprite slaves chanting numbers that made no sense to them, in an effort, enforced by the Solen, to segregate little from lot.

  Buckets mounted and filled and overflowed. The elves’ secret Wondalobs water, plumbed and consumed excessively, was rendering those of the royal court overly powerful. Power, only beneficial in small doses, would turn against itself like a two-headed asp when utilised to extremes, and yet those of Gold’s Kin, unperturbed by suggestions of danger, continued to gluttonise their pilfered prize.

  Shaking her head at the wail of another sprite sent away to the mines, frowning at the squabble of guards in the tower above her chamber, the golden girl heard her minders’ voices and resisted the temptation to run and to hide.

  ‘Eidred,’ they snapped. Sharp voices, crisp as autumn leaves and twice as icy, filled the gilded chamber. ‘Eee-dred! Where are your tables?’

  ‘They are away, good minders, away.’

  ‘Enough of your tiresome impertinence! We command you to work two dozen hours in the laundries.’

  ‘Yet I addressed you in the manner you ask.’ Eidred’s heart became heavy at the thought of an entire day and night without nourishment, scrubbing flaxen cloth.

  ‘’Tis rude not to have multiplications tables ready at this sun’s degree.’

  ‘Lessons, I thought, are, and always were, at the 31st sun degree. If I see correctly from my sill, we are still in the 30th.’

  ‘Then the 30th it is to be. From yesterday onwards. Since you avoided waiting with times-tables ready, in the possibility of us changing our minds, you now have greater work to contend with as punishment. Start immediately.’

  Swallowing back her sobs, the Princess of Grudella tucked her woven craft carefully into a jewelled treasure chest and sat down to work on numeral perfecting. She glanced sideways at her minders, but they continued to stand over her. Terrifying shadows they were, with cruel beaks and eyes that were barely there.

  If their excuse for her punishment was based on logic, the prime component of her lessons, then she wanted no part of logic. This daughter of the Solen dreamed of freeing herself from the cold, skeletal creatures forever.

  She despised the content of the lessons as much as she despised her Grudellan teachers.

  They were ghastly, those pterodactyls.

  <><> X <><>

  ‘There,’ the princess said as she folded the last of the linen. ‘Finally done.’

  No more had she thought of her loom or attended to dreams of future happiness. They were ripped from her heart when she’d clicked into counting mode. At last her thoughts were her own again.

  If only she had a faerie godmother; someone who would listen comfortingly to all her woes, who would understand her inability to feel safe in the family she was born into and who had the power to manifest Eidred’s heart’s desire. A magical gift. A wish materialising into a truth.

  With one magic spell all to herself, Eidred could revel in freedom. No longer would she be confined to a medium-sized chamber in a sprawling prison of a castle, she’d have a larger chamber, and she’d make the imposing castle smaller. The Grudellans—pterodactyls that haunted her day and night and never let her be—would, upon her wish, only be able to annoy her once a day. Once a day and no more than that.

  Oh, to have freedom! She’d wish for an extra colour to add to her tapestry. She’d lower the voices of the slaves so that their screams wouldn’t startle her as much. She’d make her skin a shade golder than it already was, and all the linen they made her scrub would scrub clean in half the time.

  What fun to feel what free people felt! Life would no longer be mundane. It would be challenging. She’d even go so far as to change her name. No longer would she be known as Eidred. She’d be Eidredelda. What a splendid name! It made her feel important.

  And her father would be made, upon her wish, to lessen his grumbles about the faeries. Secretly, Eidred didn’t think it fair that the fey should be so resented. This she confided to no-one. If her sympathy towards them became known, the Solen would end her worldly existence there and then for such insanity. Eidred wasn’t meant to be aware of the sprites. No-one else of the royal court could discern them without the aid of their fey-detection cloaks, and yet Eidred saw them perfectly—no doubt a breach of palace law—and was constantly in awe of the faeries, elves, gnomes, dryads and pixies who dwelt within Elysium’s glorious forests and glades.

  She’d stumbled across these elusive people twice in her life. The meetings had been quite by accident, during punishments when she’d been order
ed to transport two parcels of gold to a shipful of Ehyptians on Grudella’s shore. The gold had been such a strain on the princess’s tiny frame, her arms had still ached and trembled three daybreaks later.

  It had been night, just as it was now. That was when these people awoke. Came to life, rather. During the sun’s hours they retreated to their invisible sleeping wagons.

  When Eidred’s people went to sleep, the world was no longer theirs. It became a silvery land of shadows and belonged to the fey. So different were they to those of her realm. The fey were quick, gracious, colourful. Their words rang with kindness, and they rarely expressed anger or loathing. Twice they had helped her carry the gold through their forest by making the weight of it vanish. This they did by sprinkling stars over Eidred. The stars had made Eidred dizzy in a pleasant sort of way, giving her the impression of treading through silken clouds.

  Eidred was still unsure as to whether she admired or despised the fey. She was supposed to despise them. And she did. She despised them. She despised them with affection. Torn by creed and all of its laws, Eidred—from the time of her arrival in the world five-and-ten season-cycles ago—had spun out her existence cocooned in guilt and armed with fear. Who was she, anyway, to entertain the thought of faeries being in any way adequate? Those mites were inferior. Why else would they sleep through the gods’ finest hours and wake to the depths of nocturnal gloom? To wish for a faerie godmother was a wicked thought. Away with it at once!

  The thought was almost gone when Eidred settled down to sleep. Almost gone...and it would have been forgotten had the girl not halted it for a further moment.

  Supposing I was wicked and trusted the inferior fey folk, she thought. Suppose a faerie godmother appeared and promised to present me with the magic seed of freedom. I know more than anyone that they wield mischievous powers and are best avoided. But suppose the fey are such people who happen to be superior. Wiser than even us. People who know more, can do more and can call in the energies of change far quicker than any of our sorcerers.

  How would a being like this appear? Eidred fancied she could see a creature, dark-eyed and of fey origin, hair like her own but skin that differed in tone to hers: as luminous as an oyster gem, and eyes too big for the face. It wore a gown the colour of fire. It had butterfly wings in all shades. Its voice was opposite to the voices Eidred most often heard; free of screeches. Simply a whispery breeze of a voice that didn’t assault the ears. A faerie godmother! What would she be known as? Eidred closed her eyes to allow sleep to engulf her.

  What would this faerie godmother be called?

  The answer came back from somewhere unknown.

  Your godmother is Orahney.

  And it sounded like a blessing, carried in the arms of the soft night air.

  <><> XI <><>

  Eidred woke to find her chamber different. The walls were half dissolved and veiled in a radiant mist. Her ears were filled with a shrill whirring, not unlike the buzzing of bees.

  There came a flash of light, so bright it filled the darkened room with the essence of daybreak.

  Eidred blinked rapidly, surprised at her lack of alarm. The most she felt was a calm awareness of things going according to plan.

  Appearing at the end of her bed was a satiny light. It might have been a firefly, for it was surrounded by a halo. The light grew larger. Eidred discerned a person within the glow—a moving, breathing person.

  ‘A faerie!’ Eidred said. Her dreams were coming true.

  ‘Orahney,’ a voice murmured. ‘Can you hear me?’ There before Eidred stood a little, plump lady with eyes as bright as suns and a dimpled smile that spoke of pure kindness.

  ‘Who are you?’ Eidred asked.

  ‘Maleika,’ the being said. ‘Orahney, is that you?’

  The princess was puzzled, aware she had heard the name Orahney somewhere before. Why had it repeated? ‘I am not the person you seek,’ she said with apology. ‘You have evidently lost your way.’

  Before responding, the fey woman studied her. ‘Well I never! Tell me, then, child, who you suppose yourself to be.’

  Eidred shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose anything. It just is, that’s all. I am Eidred, Princess of Grudella. My father rules this particular realm.’

  ‘Your father is a king?’ Maleika shuddered. ‘How is this so?’

  ‘His father was a solen also,’ said Eidred, at once feeling a sense of pride regarding her heritage. ‘He has hundreds of men who are slaves to him, and he is in constant contact with the gods.’

  ‘Who are...?’

  ‘I will not state all their names, but Grudas, the pterodactyl god, oversees the Grudellan realm.’

  ‘Oh dear. I’d never thought my search would become so complicated, Orahney...er...Eidred, I mean to say. Tell me, Eidred, have you befriended any sprites of the devic realm?’

  ‘Apart from you, none! To do so would be the death of me, you do understand. How strange. Here you are, appeared in my room, and ’tis almost exactly what I had wished for, only I’d somehow supposed you’d have hair like mine and would be clothed in orange. Never mind, you’re here now. Let me state my wishes.’

  ‘Wishes, child? You want me to grant you a wish with my magic?’

  ‘I asked for these before slumbering. Please hurry. We cannot have the guards finding a member of the fey here. It would be the end of us both! I shall tell you my wishes now.’

  ‘You don’t remember a thing, do you?’ Maleika sat down by the tower window, a moonbeam silvering her downcast eyelids. To Eidred she appeared as tranquil as a lamb, despite the danger that lurked in every corner of the palace.

  <><> XII <><>

  Maleika was in turmoil, filled with concern for the golden-haired creature before her. Surely this being was Orahney reincarnated. But Orahney choosing to be royal? How could this be? While she had not enjoyed any luck in her search for Pieter, Maleika had at least accessed a clue to finding him. She’d travelled to the other universe and consulted the Oracle there. The Oracle had told her of an eagle statue.

  Three flights of stairs

  The lost one’s room

  Is sanctioned off in lofty gloom

  Revisit where the eagle’s flown

  Its earthly shell

  Is set in stone

  The only information the Oracle dared to give. The stone eagle was perched on a towering post in the Grudellan Palace grounds, just beyond the golden gates and thicket of poisonous thorns, which flanked the glittering monstrosity gold-skins called home. The hill the palace had impolitely risen from, once ferny and vital when part of Elysium’s forest, was a sandy, treeless plain that faerie and dryad clans had been forced to desert.

  The Oracle’s mention of revisiting this site was a puz­zle to Maleika. Her only other journey to the Grudellan Palace had taken place many season-cycles earlier. She had disguised herself as a bewitcher back then with the cloak Orahney had asked the oak dryad to conjure. Armed with Orahney’s crystal-crowned wand, she’d infiltrated a temple where a crystalling was in progress, an infant-naming cere­mony for one of the Solen’s newborns. The temple had been nowhere near the eagle statue, and so she could not agree with the Oracle that she was in any way revisiting it.

  Maleika heard crashing stomps on the staircase. Marching, echoing, marching on upwards while a menacing screech violated the tower room’s moon-bathed stillness.

  ‘You must go, Faerie Godmother,’ urged the girl. ‘It’s them—the sons of the gods!’

  Maleika immediately called forth her beauty-creation powers—magic earned from the gleaning of Kindness Merits—arriving, after an interval, back at the forest of her dwelling. Kloory, Croydee and the water sprites had already journeyed to the river, leaving a nest of embers that threw out dying warmth.

  Prodding the embers with a twig, Maleika mused over the gold-skinned girl’s aura. Wracked with fear. A heart frozen by examples of cruelty. A body-king daughter, not especially dark, but victimised by darkness, thus identifying with this more than w
ith light.

  ‘Why this concerns Pieter’s whereabouts, I do not know,’ muttered Maleika, gazing at the yellow sparks flying upwards amongst fluttering ash. ‘The likeness...something in the features—or perhaps it was only the length of hair or facial expression—had me confused initially. I thought the princess to be Orahney with an altered persona, returned from the Dream Sphere in a new earthly life.’ She resolved to consult the Oracle again about Pieter’s disappearance. ‘I am obviously not regaining my Dream-Sphere memories correctly. To err like this is proof itself.’

  <><> <><><> <><>

  On the way to his car, Matthew paused in the Martin Place Station arcade, contemplating the sign in a shop window: Book Launch 5.30pm Friday. Purchase Thoughts on Tomorrow’s Tycoon War and have it signed by visionary Alice Springs author Conan Dalesford!

  Matthew already knew about the launch. Dalesford’s book, second-hand because he’d retrieved it, fully wrapped, from an arcade bin, had come with a bookmark advertising the event. His chunky wristwatch and the lifelessness of the store told him he’d missed out, but he couldn’t have left work any earlier.

  A clunk rang out from the darkened shop. The door swung open and a warm female voice said, ‘So that’s your Sydney launch complete, Conan. What next?’

  He could see the source of the voice now. A smallish woman with neat brown hair and spectacles was efficiently locking the double doors alongside a wiry tanned bloke with a close-cut snowy beard.

  ‘A Scandinavian holiday,’ he said, ‘which we’re very much looking forward to. Caroline, I truly appreciate all you’ve done. And please thank charming Rosetta for all her help.’

  The two said their goodbyes and the man, Conan Dalesford himself, turned, gave Matthew a nod and veered a trolley bag towards the escalators.