The Golding

by Sonya Deanna Terry

  ‘She’s here,’ shrilled one of Dalesford’s granddaughters, a golden-haired munchkin no older than five.

  ‘Okay, guys,’ Dalesford shouted. ‘Hit it!’

  Embarrassed by Dalesford’s old-school attempts at coolness, Matthew kept up in ‘G’ as young Brantley had recommended, and hummed along in harmony with the kids’ unfamiliar lyrics.

  Through the door whirled a portly woman with glowing eyes and a face that emanated joy. She danced, stamped and clapped her way up to the inexpert band, her dress in its ice-cream shades of pineapple and vanilla swishing in accordance with the boom ker-boom of Dalesford’s bongos.

  When the song ended, she placed her hands on her hips and said, beaming, ‘I thought I told you guys I’ve finished with birthdays.’

  ‘We weren’t listening, babe,’ said Dalesford.

  ‘And who’s this good looker over here?’

  Matthew turned. No-one behind him.

  ‘You, darlin’,’ said Jannali. ‘I’m talking about you.’

  ‘He’s Matthew,’ called one of the smaller grandsons. ‘Granddad invited him over.’

  ‘The hotshot merchant banker from Sydney, sweetheart,’ said Dalesford.

  Matthew stepped forward. ‘I’m really sorry to intrude like this on your birthday.’ He reached out to shake Jannali’s hand. ‘If I’d known, I would have...’ The guitar swung with him and clunked against the nearby table.

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ Jannali boomed. She stepped forward and looped her arm through Matthew’s. ‘You happen to be the best present I could wish for. It’s not often my husband gives me a handsome man for my birthday!’

  ‘You’re mistaken, love,’ Dalesford said. ‘He’s only on loan.’

  Still clutching Matthew’s arm possessively, Jannali sidestepped closer. She frowned up at Matthew before bursting into chuckles that proved to be contagious. ‘I certainly hope you’re staying for lunch,’ she said. ‘Auntie’s donated a super-sized Pavlova, and we won’t get through it all ourselves.’

  ‘Um...’

  ‘Brantley!’ she commanded. ‘Set an extra place at the table, then come back and do some more jamming.’ She took a seat beside her husband at the drums. ‘Okay, guys,’ she said. ‘What are we playing now?’

  <><> XVI <><>

  Pieter’s previous Dream Sphere memory was unclear. It came to him every so often in glimpses of the autumn faerie calling to him for help and referring to herself as a princess.

  He was on the hill tonight with his water-sprite siblings, Zhippe and Carlonn, two orphans under his mother’s care. The three were somersaulting high above the tree-tops, then zooming to the ground in bundles of chortles.

  The sweet smell of night breeze on clover permeated the air. For these children, evenings were spent revelling in movement and laughter. Even guardian devas such as Maleika, although able to harness greater calm, never lost that sense of play as they matured.

  The water sprites, or undines as they were known, were both adoring and adorable little people. Zhippe and Carlonn’s sea-sprite parents had passed on to the Dream Sphere many season-cycles earlier after having been stolen away and robbed of their heart radiance by body king troopers. The twin orphans frequently reminisced about their coral-garden playground beneath the ocean, and often told the other Brumlynds detailed and lively stories about sprites who had shared their environment: a beach east of the Grudellan Palace with powdery lilac sand. A storm had swept them into one of Elysium’s rivers but they’d since been embraced by the Brumlynd clan and thereafter enjoyed residing in Elysium Glades alongside Maleika, Pieter, Kloory and Croydee.

  Zhippe, the one at Pieter’s left who was scaling the elm tree, had a large head and long autumn-toned hair, which stuck out in fluffy spears. Bony features, softened by a permanent dimply smile, made up Zhippe’s jovial face.

  Carlonn was greener and daintier. Lichen grew from Carlonn’s wrists, and hair like moss floated around the creature’s shoulders. The eyes, like Zhippe’s, were a curious black with golden glints. Carlonn would bound like a playful tiger cub when on land, but once submerged in water, resembled a gliding fish.

  The gender of these creatures was not important since they lived not for reproduction but for keeping strong the river’s life-force. Their nurturing senses of the female and protective senses of the male were not expressed from within them, instead, transferred directly into the water so that the river would not evaporate. Evaporation meant the undines’ home would be gobbled up by air sprites: sylphs, who were converted to the body kings’ vengeful ways. This had begun the creation of drought, a terrible ailment to inflict on such an essentially moist planet.

  The three were chatting with the rabbits who had emerged from their burrows. Shy ones were Elysium rabbits, impeccably polite too. Getting them to say anything louder than a whisper took quite a lot of coaxing.

  A fledgeling mother was anxious about the plight of her firstborn. Carlonn offered to search the entire river bank, and the mother rabbit agreed that this might be best, for she hadn’t seen Fripso all day.

  Pieter searched the high road above the dell with Zhippe. He had an awful inkling that Fripso may not be returning, but refused to give the thought entry to his emotions. Vexations such as fear and heartache, all newcomers to this world, having been introduced by the chaos-hungry body kings, were not entertained if it could be helped. Weeping, cowering and lamenting was frowned upon by Clan Watchers. It only perpetuated the gold-skin notion that all should suffer.

  Zhippe supposed the young bunny had explored the higher hills, having been born under the pioneering sign of the mountain goat, and Pieter agreed that this was a sound suggestion. They headed for the foothills where the sheep grazed. Fleeces like scallop-edged clouds studded a mountaintop blackened by night. The ewes, rams and lambs were similarly concerned. The bleats they sent out to relatives on neighbouring hills were answered with, ‘Naught discovered, we are sorry to say.’

  The rabbits searched their hill again, careful to avoid the burrows on the western side, which now belonged mostly to weasels. Since their contact with sorcerers, weasels were no longer amiable. Though they weren’t entirely converted to the rogue doctrine, their clan leaders were considering such. To do so would turn them very nasty indeed, a great change from their gentle, almost cow-like natures. Earlier on they had been friends to everyone, most of all to the rabbits, yet now suspicion corrupted their eyes and their heart chakras were miserably clouded over.

  The three found nothing and returned to Karee wishing they had. Fripso’s mother sighed and bade them farewell. She would send Fripso around, she said, to show his appreciation when he was found. She’d then added bravely that she would insist he explain to them where he had gone. And then they would all laugh together over berry cider and sing a gratitude song or two.

  The undines were looking forward to the refreshment of the river. Pieter was intent on searching some more. Waving goodbye, Zhippe and Carlonn somersaulted over the bank and did a crazed little jig in the shallows.

  Pieter smiled at their silliness. He knew he should return to his dwelling. He had not been back for many a night, and on this particular evening, he’d been seized by a sense of urgency, fearing Fripso had been taken by a gold-skin. Hadn’t he, himself, been visited by a gold-skin disguised as an eagle? Could the eagle apparition have gone to Fripso after Pieter had sent it on its way? He must trek to the Grudellan Palace in search of the poor creature.

  Dawn was soon to arrive. Pieter’s search through Elysium Glades for Karee’s son had been in vain. He found a clearing under a filigree tree and laid himself down, his concerns for both a missing rabbit and deceptive eagle apparition soon to be dissolved in slumber. ‘I am no doubt attempting to visit my clan in the Dream Sphere,’ he told himself. ‘But without the aid of Remembrance Essence I will never know, and the undines won’t see Maleika till after their ocean sojourn.’

  The radial spokes of cobwebs in each tree branch, snowflake-intricate symbols,
gleamed sedately while altering from silver to gold.

  The forest’s night world was growing lighter. Inhabitants, all, were lost to a better existence.

  <><> XVII <><>

  Certain Fripso was imprisoned by the gold-skins, Pieter trekked to the edge of the forest to observe their gilded residence.

  He passed through a cavern, drab in contrast to the rest of Elysium due to a dark emptiness that reeked of decay, and emerged at the edge of a thicket of poisonous thorns, which enclosed and concealed the body king palace.

  Pieter had almost reached the spires of gold when he heard a crackle of twigs. Expecting to see a squirrel or a goblin even, he turned, only to witness a fleeting shadow; graceful, like the shadow of a deer, although not of faunal origin. The girl, whose shadow it was, stepped further into the thicket.

  ‘Oi!’ yelled Pieter. ‘Who are you, if I might ask?’

  The slight figure turned. Because of the darkness, Pieter could not discern her colours, seeing only flowing tresses and rather large, startled eyes. ‘Like a deer, but not a deer,’ he whispered to himself.

  ‘Who spoke?’ said the girl. She stepped through a moonbeam, and Pieter saw then that her colours were golden. A cascade of yellow-gold hair, bright as the sun, and skin that gleamed golden as well. A body-king maiden. One of the others.

  Take caution, Pieter, the elf warned himself.

  ‘I apologise for startling you,’ he said impatiently. The apology, he knew, was a useless thing. Gold-skins could not communicate with sprites without the aid of sprite-seeing garments and court witches, terrifying sorceresses who dwelt in black pyramids in the palace grounds.

  Naturally hearing nothing, the girl continued on her way. Pieter followed her noisily—twigs snapping beneath his feet, leaves crumpling angrily—yet not once did the golden girl turn. Instead, she waltzed onwards, a basket of berries swinging in one hand, stooping to look at toadstools or to peer in rabbit burrows, then continuing on while Pieter scuttled behind.

  It was then that Pieter glimpsed the gold-skin fully. She had seated herself on a mossy fallen tree trunk to rest and drink from the stream. Subtly as ever he could, Pieter observed her through the bracken, only to encounter a pang of familiarity.

  Yesterday’s visit to the Dream Sphere had been unclear to him, yet now he remembered losing Orahney, seeing her sabotaged by greyness. She had visited him in a different form; had looked exactly like the girl by the stream. If it hadn’t been for her aura’s colours, Pieter would not have recognised the faerie. Now, as he looked upon this child of perpetrators, he couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, if only for her birthright and ugly colouring, for in these times fair hair and lightly tanned complexions were considered frightening to those of greater souls.

  To Pieter, however, it was more than a sense of sympathy that crossed him—it was a feeling of attachment. Of knowing, although he didn’t quite understand what it was that he knew. Despite Orahney and the girl being entirely different in physical appearance, Pieter now noticed a similarity. Was it the hair?

  Orahney’s hair was far from golden of course. Mostly it shone mulberry, but at sunrise, it grew almost like that of the body kings. The Brumlynds had often laughed and told the Dream Sphere dweller she frightened them when the sun lightened her tresses. She’d made a turban of sorts, from lunarised birch leaves, so as not to scare them, and they all teasingly referred to this headdress as ‘camouflage’ for her other ‘more sinister’ side.

  Why then had Pieter, in his last visit to the Dream Sphere, heard Orahney refer to herself as a princess? How could she ever assume herself to be such a horrific creature? To see a deva whose numerous Kindness Merits had elevated her to Watcher of an autumn sprite clan descend into that sort of confusion was disheartening indeed. She may as well have been a leopard determined to dwell in an ant nest.

  ‘I know she does not see me,’ Pieter said of the gold-skin, with a satisfied grin, then said even louder to prove his point, ‘Those eyes rarely witness the goings on of sprites.’

  A look of astonishment crossed the girl’s face. ‘Who said that?’ she said.

  Pieter started and stepped back.

  ‘Who is talking? Please do not mock me. I am afeared. Please step forward and introduce yourself. I mean you no harm.’

  Just as wary as the girl who had spoken to him, Pieter crept out from the bracken. The girl blinked her wide blue eyes. Surely she couldn’t see him!

  ‘I am sorry to frighten you, lady,’ said Pieter, ‘for it was not my intention. Is it true you can not only hear me but see me as well?’

  The girl gasped. ‘Of course! You’re a faerie! Oh my goodness.’

  ‘An elf,’ Pieter corrected.

  ‘I beg your pardon. An elf. This seems to me to be no coincidence. I had a faerie godmother visit me only two nights ago, but she vanished before I got my wish. Have you come to grant my wish instead?’

  So typical of these creatures, Pieter thought. Full of self-serving values. Still, I shall try to remain understanding.

  Aloud, he said, ‘In actuality, no. It is not to my knowledge that any sprite grants wishes. Are you certain you heard correctly on this matter?’

  ‘I read it in The Book of Rightitude,’ said the girl, now obviously impatient with Pieter for not arriving in the guise of a faerie godmother. ‘It says if someone like me, who has proper lineage, happens to capture a creature such as yourself, I may use its power to make real my wishes. It is the law. It is fact. Even so, I am not permitted to associate with the likes of you, elf, so I had better be on my way. Good evening.’

  ‘Sorry to be of no use to you,’ Pieter said, and there was more than a hint of sarcasm in his tone. How could she hope to capture him when he was taller than her? Younger perhaps—he was probably her junior by two or three season-cycles. Far less juvenile though.

  He covered himself with a cloud of temporary invisibility—even the palace’s eagles circling the thorn thicket did not see him—and ran on after the hoity-toity maiden. He was determined to find out who she was and why she could access a sprite with her vision. Very few of that type had any awareness of devic peoples. They could not even sense sprites, yet would dream up wrongful stories about them. Sprites never knew these days when they were being spied upon, or tricked into confiding in a body-king magician.

  What an unusual creature, thought Pieter as he stole after the body-king daughter through gilded gates held open by winged guards.

  Something here was not as it seemed.

  The hush of darkness enveloped Pieter. The golden girl sprang up lamplit steps where stone gargoyles threatened the entrance.

  Guided by gleaming hair that shone like a beacon in the artificial light, Pieter followed the girl inside, into the cold, dark, fear-ridden palace; saw the hideous pterodactyls clawing at their food, and crept like a lamb behind her. A lamb in the shadow of lions.

  Chapter Six

  Matthew stepped out to his car amid a cacophony of hoots and excited farewell squeals from the kids and Jannali on the porch.

  ‘Call me, son, if you need to,’ Conan Dalesford said.

  Matthew assured him he would. Jannali Dalesford had insisted he stay over. He still had those questions on the BlackBerry to ask. He hadn’t got round to them, but who cared? Encountering the hospitable Dalesfords, their eclectic collection of musical instruments and their smoochy alpacas had exceeded his expectations and yet hadn’t involved alcohol. A good time in Sydney usually meant celebrating a win with his colleagues at the bar with the fancy lampshades, congregating at the arched windows to laugh and guzzle liquid-stupidity before trundling across to the taxi rank.

  ‘Your loving wife’ll be happy to have her man back,’ Jannali said when she hugged him goodbye.

  ‘Let’s not forget the children. They’ll be pleased to see their dad again,’ Dalesford said. ‘There are two, aren’t there?’

  ‘Stepchildren,’ Matthew corrected. About to say they wouldn’t have missed him, he hesitated. No point
in attempting to make others understand his home situation.

  He shook hands with the author, climbed into his rental car and sailed towards the property gate, Jannali’s well-meaning words circling in his mind.

  ‘Gimme!’ Doctor Cyanide shrieked from the radio. ‘More! More. More. Moooo-wah!’

  ‘Aargh.’ Matthew thumped his fist on the steering wheel. ‘Not you again.’ An additional reason for hating Cyanide’s music was the image it threw up of Adam Harrow at a microphone stand. Work’s annual social club concerts were embarrassingly bad. Never intended to be good, of course, but comedy could so easily descend into blather.

  The task of impersonating a famous musician had become a steadfast tradition among many of Sydney’s investment bankers. If it hadn’t been for the proceeds going to a good cause, Matthew would never have taken part, but he believed The Royal Children’s Hospital to be more than deserving. Bringing along his guitar each year, and a pair of fake sideburns, was a hassle. Burdened by the knowledge that his act would do Don McLean a terrible injustice, he’d sing about the Chevy and the levee, and Jack being nimble and all that. Harrow was invariably first on stage, giving voice to his grasping conceit, stabbing an accusing finger at the admin team and screeching the lyrics to ‘Gimme’.

  Matthew reached the airport at sunset when the sky was vacillating between rose and gold. Hunger gnawed at him. He strolled around the restaurant section, searching for something more appetising than plane food: hardly a challenging task.

  He checked his Rolex. Not enough time for an a-la-carte dinner at a local restaurant. He’d have to grab a simple main from the airport bistro.