The Golding

by Sonya Deanna Terry

  Royston looked at the sky, nodded, then looked at the sky again.

  Royston dashed back to her. Shook his head. ‘Harmless,’ he said. ‘Just as I expected. Has the mind of a child. Said he was collecting seaweed with his bucket and spade. Asked if I wanted to join him and whether it was “gonna rain?” ’

  Royston’s verdict was heartening. His youth counselling experience allowed him insight into developmental conditions. It was doubtful some kind of abductor with something to hide—even if faking a juvenile persona—would invite a potential witness to remain alongside him.

  They returned to Burwood in nerve-wracking silence. Once they passed Izzie’s floodlit netball court, Rosetta grasped the door handle. Almost home again, almost back at Ashbury Avenue. But if Izzie wasn’t there when they unlocked the front door...

  Rosetta closed her eyes and sent a silent, passionate plea to her daughter’s guardian angel: Please look after my Izzie. And please, please bring her back to me safely.

  Thinking aloud, she said, ‘The guy at the beach could have been bluffing. He might have just been pretending he was juvenile and harmless. I didn’t take in his face, only the eyes, and it was only for a split second. Light and bright. Blue I think, but perhaps I’m—’

  ‘Trust me,’ Royston said. ‘That guy under the pines wasn’t faking his persona. There was no embellishment about him, Rosetta, unless we’re counting the makeup.’

  Rosetta whipped around. ‘Makeup?’

  ‘Kohl.’

  Her thoughts zoomed back to slimy Dominic. The black smudges around his eyes…His getaway later that night to Port Vila in Vanuatu…Diondra’s mention of his absence from home. ‘Are you serious, Royston?’ Her voice rose harshly. ‘You didn’t tell me he was wearing kohl!’

  ‘Of course I didn’t. It didn’t seem important.’ Royston watched her in concern. ‘Is there some relevance in that, Rosetta?’ Confused now, he added, ‘Perhaps I’ve missed something.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Izzie had at first been afraid of the footsteps descending the staircase.

  She’d looked up to see red reflective fabric underlining the base of two space-age boots, then flashes of white and navy enveloped in light, the combination of Glorion’s jacket and backpack.

  ‘Okay, Izzie.’ Glorion had jumped from the stairs and reached towards her. ‘Grab my hand!’

  Glorion had broken into a run. He’d hauled Izzie into some kind of passage. She’d sprinted alongside him as speedily as she could.

  And now they were rushing through a subterranean corridor. They’d been running for ages. This sudden escape was mad. Where would it lead? Eating dinner in a boatshed that evening had been weird enough. Discovering an underground tunnel beneath it was even weirder.

  The interior here was not unlike the ferny, stone-walled underpasses wending through The Rocks: a conglomerate of crooked old buildings that graced the turquoise brilliance of Sydney Harbour.

  Glorion’s voice was a panicked shout. ‘Nearly at the exit!’

  Izzie knew, having sketched The Rocks tunnels from photos, that this underground escape route she and Glorion were hurrying through could well have been built in the late 1700s. Apart from an absence of growth between the bricks, it was identical to the harbourside ones built by early convicts.

  Afraid her fingernails would tear holes in Glorion’s hand, Izzie willed her eyes to focus forward, following the light.

  Her legs were beginning to tire, but she forced herself onward, thankful for her marathon training in phys-ed class, praying that the running wouldn’t aggravate Glorion’s asthma.

  They ran on, past glimpses of damp sandstone, their footsteps an eerie echo.

  Hastening through this thru-way was rather like being lost in the ancient world of Lillibridge’s depictions, the dragon cave of Elysium Glades that Glorion had described.

  ‘We stop up here,’ Glorion shouted.

  The crystal lit the end of the tunnel, but was it the end? It seemed an exit couldn’t have been farther away. The end was visible but entirely closed off! A dead end. Not a single way out. Looming before them was an uncompromising wall of steel.

  Again Glorion yelled what sounded like a Dutch swear-word. Astoundingly, the wall slid up to reveal a flight of mossy steps. A ceiling made of criss-crossed metal blocked off the top.

  ‘Oh no,’ squealed Izzie. ‘We’re sealed in!’

  Unperturbed by this, Glorion climbed the stairs. He reached up, his fingertips making contact with the square of metal, and flipped the ceiling upwards and off. It fell onto a surface above them with an almighty clatter. ‘It’s just a grate,’ he said.

  Then he turned to Izzie, and the sight of him there, majestic against the darkness, made her catch her breath. Imprinted now on Izzie’s memory was a snapshot that would remain with her forever, Glorion on the steps, backgrounded by a rooftop vista that opened out to the fabric of the night. Light from beyond, perhaps from the moon or a streetlamp, had etched his outline in gold-tinged silver. Outside of this glow was a scattering of stars. A halo. He looked like a celestial super-being with a halo.

  Can’t help it, she affirmed. I love him.

  Despite its ethereal charm, the scene was misted over by a thought that unsettled her, a kind of premonition that echoed Glorion’s earlier words, a vague indication that she wouldn’t see him again for a long time. Perhaps never.

  His dark eyes radiated gentleness and concern. ‘Are you all right, Izzie?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yup.’ Climbing the stairs, Izzie shook off the negative notion and concentrated on being alert to their next move.

  ‘Okay, once you get out of here we’re heading for the nearest Mylanta bush.’

  Izzie couldn’t help laughing now that much of the panic had eased. Considering the nauseating fear they’d endured, a bush growing heartburn medicine could well prove useful.

  She stepped towards the surface, accepting Glorion’s hand as he helped her up to a scrubby wilderness. ‘Mylanta bush?’ she said between chuckles. ‘You mean lantana I reckon.’

  ‘Yes! This is what I mean.’ Glorion patted her shoulder with an affectionate smile.

  They were surely a quarter of a kilometre ahead of their pursuers, whoever they might be! Glorion had assured her, as they ran, that their escape had been neatly concealed. Some months before, he’d created a decoy to promote confusion. With the help of magnets, he’d worked out a way of replacing the mat after locking off the trapdoor. How he’d done this, Izzie could only wonder. As far as she knew, magnet controlled trapdoors and voice activated steel barriers were not in common use.

  Relieved to be back above the ground, Izzie took in her surroundings. The soil here was soft and powdery. Contrary to nervous visions of emerging onto a railway track and dodging an oncoming North Shore Express, she was still at the beach in a tangle of undergrowth, the lights of Brighton’s esplanade winking not so far away through a veil of she-oaks that had taken on the appearance of feathers in shadow.

  Knees almost buckling from her frantic run, Izzie stumbled across to the lantana bush where clusters of pink and yellow florets livened the air with their spicy scent. Glorion knelt. He reached in beneath the base of the lantana and hauled out a structure of sorts that looked like a cane basket. It was the size of a small fishing boat and had flat, wooden bench-seats in it.

  ‘You’re not going to get us to sail in that,’ said Izzie, unable to resist giggling. ‘It’s got holes!’

  ‘Nope. But we can still travel in it.’

  For a second, Izzie marvelled at Glorion’s sombre-faced humour. The home he’d made for himself would have already been discovered by the foreshore authorities. The police, who would have been alerted by now, were probably rummaging through the boathouse’s treasures to check for drugs or stolen goods. ‘Okay,’ said Izzie, playing along. ‘Let’s travel. Where to?’

  ‘That’s something I should be asking you.’ Glorion seated himself inside the oval boat-basket and gestured for her to
take the seat opposite. ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Um, Glorion, I don’t think it’s relevant to joke too much right now. We’ve got to keep moving. We don’t know where the Feds are.’

  ‘Feds? Aussie cops?’ Glorion drew the crystal from his pocket then waved one of his hands across a tapered end, intent on activating it. The boy was obviously from a well-off family. His casual acceptance of luxury inventions consistently bordered on boredom. Sounding suddenly like a slangy Australian, he said ‘Nah, I’m not running from a couple of local coppers.’

  ‘The foreshore authorities then? For squatting in a boatshed?’

  Glorion shook his head. ‘More serious than that.’

  Chilled by this, Izzie stepped back. ‘Then who?’ Was someone homicidal stalking her friend? ‘Who is after you?’

  ‘It’s SAPO,’ he said, his mouth stretching into a grim smile. ‘The Swedish secret police are after me, Izzie. See, I’m not all I appear to be. And I hate having to lie about my heritage. Especially to you.’ He patted the seat opposite him. ‘All right, Izzie, jump in.’

  Izzie’s temper ignited. Her nerves had been jangled by one too many scares that evening, and Glorion’s random reactions had ratcheted her tolerance level down to zero. ‘Cut the crap,’ she yelled. ‘How dare you lie to me! If you were for real and the Swedish police were after you, I doubt you’d be sitting in that excuse for a boat pretending it was some kind of...I don’t know...magic flying machine. For all I know those rattling sounds might have been nothing more than a few clumsy fruit bats.’ She stopped to draw in a breath. ‘It’s either paranoia or a really bad joke.’

  Perhaps she should have listened to the rumours at school, that he faked his Dutch accent. His version of an Aussie drawl moments before had been spookily accurate. If he was right about SAPO shadowing him, then he might have been Swedish, but why would Scandinavian detectives be concerned about a boy of fifteen? Glorion didn’t look or behave like a crook. Odd and all as he was in the way he swung erratically between naivety and brilliance, Izzie doubted he was some kind of Mad Dog Morgan. Burwood High was too public a place for an immigrant escaping the law.

  Would he give her a rundown on his past, or would the cryptic remarks continue? Another game of charades that Izzie was destined to lose.

  ‘I’m not paranoid,’ Glorion yelled back. ‘Get in. Quick! They’re gonna get us if we don’t go now!’ He leapt out of his toy, clutched Izzie’s wrist with a firm hold and gestured for her to hop into the cane construction that he believed—thanks to some sad breakdown between his imagination and logic—was something he could travel in. Curious to see how long this delusion would last, Izzie got in.

  ‘Stay there,’ Glorion commanded. ‘Please.’

  He waved his hand across the crystal again. A light, this time a violet one, flickered from it. And then something uncanny happened. The structure rattled. Izzie squealed. Its shakes intensified, then shuddered to a stop.

  ‘Now hold on tight,’ instructed Glorion. Izzie grasped either side of the vessel.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she screeched. The vessel seemed to be growing legs! Izzie wasn’t imagining this. The vessel was rising higher; was jolting them upwards in alarming bursts. They were level with the lower branch of a tea tree now. And now they were hovering shakily beside the tree’s crowning foliage!

  ‘Must be attached to a tree lopper,’ Izzie muttered. ‘What is this? I’m scared, Glorion.’ She attempted to peer beneath the container, which continued to lift them higher and higher, to try and establish what was propelling it.

  Glorion was too busy concentrating on the crystal to notice the daze Izzie was in. He tapped one end, frowned at it, then turned it over and tapped it again.

  They were now suspended over the tree-tops. Nothing beneath them! So much for the cherry-picker theory.

  Stunned, Izzie looked down, taking in shop rooftops and car surfaces that gleamed softly in a haze of neon far below.

  They were flying! Floating in mid-air!

  Izzie screamed. And screamed and screamed, louder than she ever had, even louder than she’d screamed on the Easter Show Pirate Ship, which was really saying something, considering the stomach-swivelling scariness of that ride.

  This had to be a dream. No-one wandering below was aware of her shouts. Oblivious to Izzie, and to Glorion and to the vehi­cle that had pushed them into the sky, the wanderers on the street continued to wan­der, looking at their watches or speaking to each other or drawing out their phones from pockets and handbags. Even Glorion didn’t seem to be alerted to her terror.

  Izzie’s voice was hoarse from pressure. She silenced her­self, clung to one side of the contraption and peeked over the edge.

  The pub singer she’d passed earlier had, after a break, taken up his guitar to embark on a yodelling sort of song, his words rich in tuneful lonesomeness.

  Glorion uttered nonsensical words.

  Shivering from shock, Izzie said, ‘Is that a command to bring us back down?’

  ‘No,’ said Glorion, and he threw down the crystal in anger. ‘I was swearing. In my language.’

  ‘Please Glorion,’ Izzie rasped. ‘Take us back down.’ The basket-boat then pivoted to the side and, as though having heard Izzie’s plea, zipped back towards the lantana.

  With stomach-churning velocity it plummeted, then bumped back onto the ground. Puffs of sand from impact flew up around Izzie and sank away floatily.

  Glorion was sitting with his head in his hands. ‘Yeah it brought us back down,’ he said with a groan, ‘but that wasn’t my intention.’ He rose, collected the crystal from the basket-boat’s floor, stepped onto the sand and held out an arm to Izzie.

  Accepting his hand, warm and invitingly enclosing, Izzie stepped out.

  ‘The crystal’s Sonic and Visibility shield was starting to fail. Being seen or heard would have been too much of a risk.’ Glorion kicked one of the boat-basket’s sides. ‘There’s too much radar around. Someone must be speed testing nearby.’ He paused for a second, brows knitted thoughtfully. ‘Then again, it could just be that I’m low on glutathione.’

  ‘The stuff in asparagus?’

  ‘Mm. It acts as a conductor for crystal energy, in tandem with the zilconic fabric of my boots. Come on, Izzie, we’ll have to walk now to deliver you back home, and we’ll have to be quick.’

  Hurrying beside Glorion as he suggested they hail a cab instead, Izzie tried to gather her thoughts. Not even European technology was as advanced as that. And those boots. They’d always struck her as futuristic.

  The future boy. The boy who had glimmered in her destiny. The boy who had told her many a time in recurring dreams that they’d have a few years to wait and then the world was theirs to share. Had it really been a vision of Glorion?

  Since meeting him, Izzie assumed her mind was playing tricks on her. She’d told herself she’d unconsciously recalled the guy in the dream to be Glorion because it suited her to think their paths were fated to cross. The dream boy had probably been nothing like Glorion in reality, but he wasn’t from reality that boy, he was inside her head. And yet, hadn’t she felt as though she’d recognised Glorion when they’d met in the canteen queue? Didn’t her introduction to him somehow feel like seeing a movie for the second time?

  ‘Awesome crystal,’ she said when Glorion halted at the kerb of the esplanade to wave down a cab. Not an electronic device as previously thought. Glorion had already denied that. ‘Where did you get it?’

  Glorion, clearly mindful of being followed, looked beside and behind him. He shrugged. ‘From one of those crystal shops.’

  Some store catering to New Agers like Crystal Consciousness Books & Gifts. Probably tagged with a brief set of instructions listing its uses: Ridding the lungs of congestion...Illuminating escape routes...Becoming airborne with or without an invisibility shield. A strong warning to keep its abilities secret would have also been printed on the tag. Bought at a crystal shop? Yeah, right! As far as telling fairy tales we
nt, Glorion was an ace.

  ‘I have a special way of recalibrating crystals to give them their power. But they’re a poor imitation of...Look Izzie, here’s a taxi now.’

  His casual statement baffled her. ‘A poor imitation?’

  A poor imitation of what?

  A technique of empowering crystals sounded logical enough, but how did it explain Glorion’s capacity to control lights vocally, or doors at the end of tunnels? How did he even know there was a hidden underground escape beneath that particular boatshed? ‘So you get a crystal, any old crystal and then you make it magic.’

  Glorion shook his head. ‘Magic is just an illusion.’ He held his arm out to signal the cab. The cab stopped, but only to pick up a group of pub-goers. ‘It’s an alternate form of creation. You call it that because you’ve never seen it happen before. The Victorians would have called anything you see around here magic.’ Glorion nodded towards the beach where a group of younger teenagers were scurrying across a shore that wetly mirrored the cloud-crowded moon. ‘Including that frisbee those kids are throwing to each other.’

  The singer-guitarist outside the pub had since donned a sheepskin coat and bright blue beanie to shut out the cold and was beginning on a cowboy song with lilting chords, something about loving someone longer than the lifespan of asteroids.

  ‘’Cos my galax-eee

  Is you

  And the starlit charms you throw at me

  Are worth a year or two’

  Izzie gazed up at Glorion, at those mysterious eyes, wishing she could decipher just by looking at him who he really was and where he was from.

  But hadn’t she already pieced it together? ‘I’ve always believed in time travel,’ she said quietly. ‘At first I wondered whether you were from the future. But now I’m starting to suspect something else.’

  The musician strummed another verse of his galaxy song.

  ‘But the person

  Y’really are

  Means my years of love