Kloory detected a hint of uncertainty in this last statement. Deep in thought, he surveyed the glades where streams of iridescent light draped from shadowed branches. ‘Two others are connected with Pieter,’ he said. ‘And each of the three shares the same soul-path. No-one knows how far from us it will lead or how long it will last. Perhaps eternity. Or perhaps Pieter will return tomorrow and Fripso in a day or two.’
Finding little comfort in the hazy speculation, Maleika gathered up her bottles of Remembrance Essence and in readiness for dawn retired to her sleeping wagon, quite forgetting to bid Kloory a happy wakening.
The glades lost their mystical shimmer and turned a brazen gold at the emergence of daybreak. Maleika was lost in a dream where three silhouettes—one of a boy wearing a crown, another of a flowing-haired girl and the third of a timid animal baby—were crossing a stream that separated now from then.
<><> XXIII <><>
Each evening, Maleika and her clan went bravely about their work as though they were not in the least concerned about the disappearance of two vital members of their forest.
Instead of wasting time pitying herself for the emptiness she knew was there, Maleika became busier than ever seeking their whereabouts and spent much time pondering. Even if Pieter and Fripso were taken by gold-skins, somewhere, in some reality, was a decision to allow it, and so Alcor offered as much assistance as a Dream Master could by encouraging her to open the door that held the most answers. Frustration at her inability to unpuzzle these riddles plagued Maleika, yet she refused to weaken and warded off temptations towards dark emotion with the rays of hope that the moon offered on each silent waking. Was her son with the rabbit? Was the gold-skin maiden aware that she had taken on some of Orahney’s characteristics? Kloory’s suggestion that somehow all three were connected might not have been as silly as it seemed.
It was the far-distant future that weighed most on Maleika’s mind. If Pieter were deterred too much from his life path, the evolution of the world he had volunteered to rejuvenate might become lost in the Cycle of Suffering that gold-skins were known to have inflicted upon Earth’s future.
They did not suppose he would vanish without a trace. Whenever he ventured outside his home-forest the clan located him promptly, or he returned with the aid of his beauty-creation powers.
It was as though she must cross a chasm to reach him, a looming black hole that echoed the one in the Bastion galaxy, where those whose souls had not yet developed hearts would escape to extinguish the evidence of their creation. Somewhere and somehow, the frameworks of these souls had been noted. Somewhere and somehow their re-creation occurred, at which time the maker was indeed careful to include the potential for love in future evolvements.
Nothing in existence was a mistake. Nor was anything that escaped existence. Whether a thing existed or not was supremely important in at least someone’s dimension. And in thinking of this, Maleika was reminded of the dragon cave, where life had been ended and not renewed. She thought, as she sipped cider by the just-built fire, of the thorn thicket, of the eagle statue that loomed over it and of the Oracle in the Dream Sphere who she hoped would tell her more about Pieter in words free of poetic ambivalence.
She went to a ferny ledge, lay herself down and asked again, ‘What do you have to tell me?’ and although it was not yet dawn, almost too early to exit her earthly world, Maleika became immersed in sleep, curled up in bracken like a fledgeling deer, gliding towards that city wherein the Oracle was held, peering into the Oracle’s silver-gold ocean. It glimmered with texture and colour and light and shade, and all things profound and powerful. It chose a rhyme in which to speak to the elf woman. It said:
And now
Those few
Will choose
Anew
To delve the caves
Of darkness through
A gilded vortex
Fringed with blood
Those linked in memory
Maimed by mud
The shadowed prowl
To herewith prey
On star-spun souls
Their heart-warmed fey
But trace all progress
Through the maze
Of solar stealth
And toxic haze
To one point where
Those lives are freed
Thus vanquishing the glut of need
Then crumbled is the horned ones’ wall
Where grizzly beasts are prone to fall
And once a winged man acts with grace
By gifting magic framed in lace
The Silvering will fast descend
To mark the greed-lack ailment’s end
For now Maleika put to rest
Your search
It is a fruitless quest
Unperturbed by the nonsensical references, Maleika bowed deeply her thanks and intentioned herself to the Dream Sphere’s Devic Great Hall where Alcor stilled her shaking shoulders. As he wove from his wand a pastel-hued calmative to her shuddering collarbones, she told him of the Oracle, reciting the prediction so as to remember it on her waking. ‘Can you offer me any direction on this, brother?’ she asked.
‘Maleika, I offer only opinion on what I have heard. My Clan Watcher has given no advice, but it seems to me that those you seek are under a dark influence at present. If I were you I would next be searching for the horned ones’ wall.’
‘This I agree to during the next slumbering.’
‘Then so be it. I shall prepare a triplicate of dimensional doorways, all holding knowledge pertaining to such. I shall advise my master in readiness for the morrow.’
‘Thank you, Alcor.’ Maleika felt her voice vanish as she spiralled towards Earth and her temporary bracken bed in Elysium Glades. Awakening to crickets’ comforting chirrups, she rose, journeyed back to her clan and settled into a place by the fire where her small nephew Croydee was already preparing heated Remembrance Essence.
‘You, Aunt Maleika, are more important than you think,’ said the other Brumlynd, and he said it nobly, as though he’d been given authority to do so.
‘Ha! This is what I say of Pieter, but I am merely his Watcher, so I suppose in a way I am drawn into his important missions.’
‘Nay, Aunt Maleika,’ said Croydee, pouring the essence into a star-shaped mug. ‘Cousin Pieter is part of a devic crew, but you are the captain. You are the one who will alter the future eternally.’
<><> <><><> <><>
Glorion was sure to have received his invitation by now. Izzie hadn’t told anyone she’d invited him, figuring his acceptance could be dropped into the conversation during lunch break. His refusal would be extra devastating if she had to convey it to six boy-crazy teens. The group wouldn’t hesitate to cheer her on if someone as cool as Glorion paid her attention. They loved those kinds of stories, but stories of rejection and heartbreak were equally fascinating and led to a billion pushy questions.
‘Pity we don’t have boys coming along,’ Sara said in a whine.
‘Well why don’t you invite some?’ suggested Izzie. ‘It’s everyone’s party as far as I’m concerned.’
‘But if I invite Alexander or Glorion or Tyson it’ll look like I’m asking them out. If you invite them it’s just you including them with a whole lot of others.’
Izzie smiled to herself at that. Alexander and Tyson could in fact be excellent decoys, allowing her to get together with Glorion unnoticed. The last thing she wanted was to find her party being had by someone else. ‘Okay.’ Izzie shrugged. ‘I’ll invite Alexander and Tyson.’
‘And Glorion?’ Sara, daughter of Izzie’s former policeman neighbour, watched Izzie closely, eyes bright with hope.
This called for some bluffing. Sara, the ninth-grader with the neatly braided single plait, the kid who’d been delighted to have tenth-grader Izzie move to her area and start at Burwood High, and who’d prior to that knocked on Izzie’s door every second weekend when staying at her dad’s Punchbowl flat, was surprisingly
easy to coerce. ‘Don’t know about Glorion,’ Izzie said in reply, adopting her best ‘bored’ expression. ‘Glorion’s the one with the weird boots, isn’t he?’
Sara coloured. ‘Yeah. Weirder than weird.’
‘Then Alexander and Tyson—even though there’s a humungous chance they’re busy—are okay to invite anyway don’t you reckon?’
‘Yeah! I reckon.’ Sara, about to clap her hands in excitement, caught the juvenile gesture before it had a chance to manifest and forced her arms to drop to her sides.
Getting a ‘no’ from Alexander and Tyson would not be a stress. Although cute, Tyson was a bit of a big mouth. Alexander Whitford was absurdly formal, like he thought he was his own great-great grandfather. The other girls said he was sophisticated. Izzie just saw him as old.
Glorion, on the other hand, was quiet and loud in all the right ways and so effortlessly up-to-date he was actually ahead of his time.
In the afternoon, Izzie bumped into Tyson on her way to French class, Tyson who was trying to get to French class too, darting between kids with backpacks like a boxer dodging strikes. The tee he wore had sliced off sleeves that showed off his bumpy biceps to advantage. Hot, in a stocky sort of way. That was Tyson. Not that he was anywhere near as nice as a certain Dutch boy. Izzie handed him a party invitation. And then everything went wrong.
The day rolled on. Once the bell rang, Izzie dawdled home, wishing she could think of a way to put things right. It wasn’t until she reached her front door that a realisation dawned. She’d forgotten to look over her shoulder every so often like her mother insisted she do after that fingernail dude turned up at Punchbowl. Since that day outside Louey’s newsagency, when the same guy collided with her and glared, Izzie had taken the backward glance thing a whole lot more seriously.
Her mother’s voice, low in tone and loud in volume, was reverberating in the hallway of their 1920s bungalow, Rosetta absorbed in a phone conversation with one of ‘the girls’. She beamed when she saw Izzie and waved energetically.
Izzie marched down the hallway, the Persian rug softening her step, and made a right-turn into her room, wishing she could activate some sort of mute switch on all that blah-blah-ing.
‘But meet me for a coffee on Wednesday, darl, and I’ll tell you all about it....Yeah. Happened two Sundays ago. Well it started off with a potential client phoning for a tarot reading...Oops, sorry! Just checked my diary. Would Thursday be okay with you? I’m rostered on for serving lunch at the refuge on Wednesday. Then I’m cleaning offices for Jack Barnaby Wednesday night...’
Izzie plunked her bag down next to her bed and moodily recalled her chat with Tyson.
‘What’s your number, Busy Izzie?’ Tyson had asked.
‘My phone’s stuffed at the moment. I’ll give you Sara’s number.’
‘Cool!’
‘Anyone else you wanna bring?’
‘Aargh! I’ll check with the guys. Glorion could be in on it.’
‘Gl...Glori... you know Glorion Osterhoudt?’ At Tyson’s mention of the name, Izzie’s totally-in-control persona had morphed into that of someone who felt young, unsure and disproportionately lost for words.
‘Yup. Dutch guy. You like him, do you?’
Izzie’s face burned. ‘Glorion? N-no!’
Tyson, who’d at first been fazed by Izzie’s instigating of the conversation, nervous even, had gone on to chat calmly like he’d known her for years. ‘Yeah, I’ll tell him about it ’cos he’s pretty much new here and he might want to go. Thanks Iz, I’ll let you know.’
‘Yeah...um...do that...um...’
‘Do you know if Mr Fisher’s back teaching Maths?’ Tyson had taken a step backwards then, his spiky-lashed eyes seeming to treble in size. ‘You’re going red, Izzie! I reckon you do like Glorion.’
Re-living those final moments of the conversation made her uncomfortably warm again. She slapped a sketchbook onto her work desk and thumped down her tin of pastels.
Rosetta’s blah-blah-ing had got even louder. ‘Yeah the evening shift’s going well. Apart from rude notes from people like “M.P.W.” it’s not bad at all...Wonder who M.P.W. actually is. I imagine him as grey and bristly. High, pessimistic-sounding voice, bossy with his wife, a bit mean, a bit miserly. One of Lillibridge’s body kings. Ha-ha-ha!’
‘Blah, blah, blah,’ moaned Izzie, head waggling from side to side as she hung up her schoolbag. It was always when she wanted to sulk in silence that her mother’s exuberance got especially annoying.
She shook the pastels from their tin. She’d overheard the story twice already, something to do with the tarot cards and an uncanny experience. Wasn’t Rosetta going to tell this friend all about it on Thursday when they met for coffee? Apparently not. Izzie had now been gifted the good fortune of hearing the story a third time.
She took out a purple pastel and ran a hand over the cream coloured page of her sketchbook. Rosetta’s anecdote – told from the sitting-room and made louder by the house’s absence of carpet as a sound block—wound up now after some stunned and amazed superlatives. ‘Don’t abandon eggs! Ha-ha! Yeah, that’s what “Molly” in my dream said!...More real than any dream I’ve had in the past!’
The conversation moved predictably to Rosetta’s ‘Gorgeous GEG.’ The Green-Eyed Guy. He’d gone into the shop where she worked, and he’d talked about something other than his purchase. Izzie already knew this.
‘I already know,’ Izzie grumbled. ‘I know, I know, I know.’
‘...I know,’ Rosetta’s voice chimed elatedly. ‘I know, I know! I can’t believe it either!’ Laughter. ‘And it was all because of that bloody shop-sign—you know the one I’m talking about, Lena, that A-frame pavement board I had so much trouble painting. Had it in the back seat before the paint had dried and Izzie accidentally sat on it when I collected her and a friend of hers from school one day. Dalia had the front seat, luckily...It did happen!...I’m serious, Lena, it did! Izzie has the paint marks on the back of her uniform to prove it. Had I should say. I mean, it’s not like I’d get the poor kid to keep wearing it...Use it as a floor rag...Compulsive recycler...’
Izzie whispered, ‘Please don’t mention that I needed a roomier uniform.’
‘No I got her another one...A bit roomier for her boobs and hips...Great little second-hand shop next to her school canteen...These kids grow so fast!’
Izzie drew a circular chain that spiralled and spiralled and spiralled outwards. Kind of like how life was supposed to be, ever expanding into new possibilities, although Tyson referring to Glorion as a buddy had sprung her own spiral into reverse. She turned the page of her sketchbook, picked up a pastel of palest pink and concentrated on creating a luminous oval, flecked with white highlights to give a dimensional illusion, then drew a grey and gold frame around it, loops of lacy metal, which lent her oval the look of a brooch or pendant encased in lunar-gilt, a rare silver-gold metal she’d learnt about yesterday in science.
‘...You’re kidding!...The last time I saw Ben he was, say, up to my shoulder, and when you and I ran into each other at the markets, I was like, “Who is this? Oh, it’s Lena’s son!”...Not too tall I hope! Although it’d save you getting the ladder out when he does the roof gutters. Ha ha!’
Izzie eyed her picture of the jewellery piece in satisfaction and pinned it up on her corkboard, then began on an abstract of the sun and moon locked in a kiss. She added caramel splodges and black stars, and thought of Glorion’s eyes. Glorion’s weren’t just intelligent eyes, they were far beyond that. Those eyes held some kind of genius. That had been proven at the debate. The memory of his words seemed to float about Izzie in heart-shaped speech-bubbles:
Picture a world that has forgotten what it is to feel ailments such as fear, worry, grief.
Picture a world whose many varied peoples have learnt, after having weathered the storms of deception, to trust each other once more.
He was so...so world-minded! So interested in society and the human race as a whole!
Worldly Glorion would already have had countless romances. The question hung like a raincloud over Izzie’s mostly unswayable optimism. Was he already in love with someone? Could he be pining for someone in Holland? She cringed at the thought of Glorion, light-brown hair and silver snow boots glinting red in the morning light, solemnly waving goodbye to a weeping girl with plaits and staggering away with his hand on his heart through a windmill field blooming with tulips.
‘Why did I make such an idiot of myself in front of Tyson,’ Izzie whispered to the fluffy, curled-up heap on the bed: Sidelta resembling a silver-grey pom-pom. ‘What if Tyson tells Glorion I like him?’ If Glorion didn’t turn up to her party, she’d know he had laughed along with Tyson about her crush on him. And even if he didn’t have a girlfriend back in Holland, he was probably far more interested in getting to know some other tenth-grader, someone three-hundred per cent prettier than Izzie, with shampoo-commercial hair.
Now that Tyson was set to speak to Glorion, Izzie felt sure his failure to turn up to her party would feel like a double-rejection, the first being his non-response following the invitation she’d left in his locker.
Low-pitched laughter exploded in the hallway. Rosetta was still yabbering to Lena. ‘And I’m glad I’ll never know what the guy in the Jaguar was thinking...Ha ha ha! Tried to walk away intelligently...Ha ha!...could hear this sniggering sound coming from the car. I was mortified.’
Mortified!
‘That’s the word,’ Izzie said to the cat. Prickly with inadequacy, Izzie again recalled her downward spiralling talk with Tyson that morning. Why this compulsion to revisit an incident she’d prefer to forget? She spoke once more to her pointy-eared pet. ‘I thought mothers and timid people were the only ones who got mortified, but that’s exactly how I felt today!’ Prior to that she’d only ever referred to the feeling as ‘being weak’. ‘I was mortified, kitty-cat.’ She pressed the side of her face against the purring bundle’s silvery back. ‘And it’s a stupid, stupid emotion, Sidelta. Cats don’t get embarrassed, do they? Why wasn’t I born a cat?’
The Golding Page 17