by E M Graham
‘Come outside,’ he muttered and opened his door. I had no choice but to follow him.
The wind had blown away all the cloud cover up there on the high ground, yet the fog remained like a blanket in the shelter of the harbour and downtown at our feet. It was like we were on an island, a single tiny continent consisting of me, Hugh and the tower. We hunched against the wind and walked towards it, our path lit only by a single light pole at its base.
When we had reached the other side of the stone building, he paused and took my shoulders in his hands. He took a breath to speak but the foghorn sounded below, across the harbour at Fort Amherst, its loud mournful cry like a dirge.
‘I’m only going to say this once, then we walk back to the car,’ he said when it had finished, in a voice only loud enough for me to hear. ‘The alternative I spoke about, if you don’t get up to speed, is that your magic will be bound. Irrevocably. It is an unpleasant process for both the binder and the bound. The closest thing I can liken it to is a lobotomy of your magical soul. Don’t ask me questions about this, and let’s pretend I have not spoken these words. Got it?’
Although my front remained warm, protected as it was by Hugh’s body, the wind was slicing through the back of my jacket like a butcher’s cleaver through butter. I could scarcely believe what he said.
They had a process for this? It sounded like the worst kind of punishment, and I told him so.
‘No, Dara,’ he said as he looked at me, puzzled. ‘Not punishment, not at all. This is a safety measure for the good of all, including the person whose magic is to be bound. If they are considered to be not able to handle their power, then their power has to be deactivated. That’s all.’
He turned to go, but spoke again. ‘I really don’t want to see that happen to you.’
10
WE DROVE DOWN THE HILL in silence, Hugh’s words still looming between us. I was speechless. Magic binding - how could such a thing be done? To even speak of removing my magical powers, so cold and merciless like... like shooting a pet dog who had bitten once, on the off chance that it might bite again.
When he finally drove up to the back door of my house, I turned to him before getting out, waiting for him to tell me it wouldn’t happen, that this could never happen to me.
‘So, this is it? You’re going tomorrow?’
Hugh nodded.
‘Okay,’ I said. I opened the passenger door.
‘Just...’ he said.
I turned back to him quickly, hungry for reassurance.
‘The arrogance, Dara,’ he whispered. ‘Lose the arrogance. You’ll be fine.’
I SLAMMED THE DOOR of the cheap rental car behind me, shaken to my very core. Arrogance, indeed. How dare he. What a nerve he had.
Who was he to talk of arrogance? The witches were the most arrogant people I’d ever met. Dad, Sasha, Cate... even Hugh himself. They were all overbearingly confident, looking down their noses at my half-blood and Normals as if they owned the world.
And I too, was powerful, despite not being a full witch. This wasn’t arrogance, I was just finally acknowledging my own power. And they could never take this away from me. I would fight to the death before I allowed that to happen.
I slammed the back door behind me too even though Hugh was long gone by then. The house was quiet. The lights of the parlour were still burning down the hallway, Edna and Mark deep into the pre-Christmas cheer no doubt. I stomped up the back staircase to let them know I’d returned, then stomped back down again to grab Hugh’s stupid text books so I could at least pretend to be working my way through them. He’d probably go behind my back and check with Edna.
Psychology, Algebra, Religions of the world... even Philosophy 101. Arms laden down by the books, I nudged open my door. What did all these have to do with real magic? I could feel the power flowing through me, and there was nothing that smacked of the mystical in this pile of books. I didn’t need this nonsense.
I tossed them in a heap on my bed and clicked my fingers. The bedside lamp turned on and I smiled, for I’d taught myself that trick, no help needed from Hugh for that simple feat.
Maybe I didn’t even need him and his stupid, judgemental elders. I was doing pretty okay by myself.
I WAS STILL MAJORLY pissed off at Hugh the next morning so I didn’t bother going to classes. Instead, I gathered my papers and laptop and hiked downtown to hang out at a coffee bar and work on the Lord of Misrule paper. Coffee Comfort was the perfect little hole in the wall to help me think. It had the best view of the Narrows and the wide ocean beyond, if you managed to grab the single window seat, and the place was sort of scuzzy so it wasn’t very popular. The coffee was crap too which didn’t help their sales, but it was good enough for me. The whole operation may have been a front for a drug op because a lot of streels hung out there later in the day, and it was popular with the bikers in the early evening. First thing in the morning though, it was empty.
The Lord of Misrule. I stared at the blank page before me, pen in hand as I waited for inspiration. Last week I had thought I knew where I was going with this, but now I wasn’t so sure. Perhaps I could write the introduction after the body had taken form, then I would know at least what to write.
Also known as the Abbot of Unreason, this title was given to a nonentity, a dunce or the most unlikely leader of a community, and he was given full rein for that week while everyone else went mad with booze and illegal doings.
I googled the topic on my phone to remind me of what I’d wanted to write. Misrule was largely a British custom, but one that stemmed from the Roman practice of Saturnalia where the so-called king was sacrificed at the end of the week. Ugh. It was also, according to a guy called Asterius, responsible for the birth of capitalism in that children would wrap fruit in foil and exchange their gifts for things of more worth.
Forget it. As I leaned on my elbow and watched the sun dance on the waters of the harbour below, I let myself get into a daydream, nearly but not quite allowing Alt to come upon me. I could almost see the otherworld, overlain like a pencil drawing over the real time. Instead of the War Memorial, across the cobbled road in Alt was the back of the old wooden Customs building, a grand affair with much bustling around it. Leaning against this self-important building was a tall and cadaverously thin figure in top hat and ragged long coat, and then our eyes met.
It was the ghostly figure I’d seen not so long ago when walking up Duckworth Street before the craft fair, the very same, and he could see me, his face pleaded as he reached out his hand in my direction. I gave such a start that Alt dropped from my vision at once and I sat stock still in my plastic chair. Dear God, I had to watch what I was doing, or Hugh and his elders might have a case.
I set my attention back to my study of Misrule.
Willem called himself The Lord of Misrule but that was just a conceit. No one had elected him to be king, he was just a failed sorcerer flogging his pathetic crafts in a city at the outer edge of the Americas. A pretentious little man trying to be important among a group of wanna-be witches.
Those Christmas figures he’d made sure were life-like though. Amazing how he did that with just paper and flour and unspun sheep’s wool, the hours he must have put in to create those horrid little creatures, all representing a nasty aspect of Christmas traditions.
I remembered again my short visit to his booth, lit only by single spotlights on each of the Christmas creatures, and how they had appeared to be living and breathing with their eyes following my every move. Creepy things. Then I remembered also the feeling of dread and gloom that had come upon the house after Mark had brought the troll home and hidden it up in the attic. And how the paper bag which held it had rattled and shaken as if it was trying to escape.
Christ. What was Willem planning? Those creatures of his were full of magic and his evil intent. I watched as a huge supply boat filled my view of the harbour, loaded up with crates on the way out to the oilfields of the Grand Banks.
Misrule was afoot, th
ere was no doubt about it.
We would go to Zeta’s this evening, me and Alice, and I would get my medallion from him somehow even if I had to steal it. Yes, I was already thinking of it as mine, for I knew it was meant to be in my hands not his, for it had been held by my mother.
And while I was there I would find out what evil he was planning with those creatures. Perhaps Hugh had been wrong to dismiss the failed sorcerer out of hand. I did not have a good feeling about this.
I RODE DOWN to Alice’s after supper, and then we walked our bikes over the footbridge to the old train station. I explained to her what I needed.
‘I don’t know about this, Dara,’ she said as she slowly pushed her bike ahead of me.
‘There’s nothing to it,’ I said. ‘It’s just a bunch of pretend for these people.’
‘But you said he’s a sorcerer,’ she objected. ‘Not that I believe in any of that stuff. But I don’t want him, like, turning me into a toad or something.’
I hooted with laughter. ‘Alice, he’s going to be so entranced with you he’ll just be slobbering at your feet,’ I said. ‘He’ll be trying to get in your pants. All you have to do is look at him and act like you believe every word he says, and that’ll free me to look through his stuff and get my medallion.’
‘I dunno,’ she said again. ‘Seems rather deceitful. You want to steal from him, this guy Willem.’
Alice was the most honest person I knew, she hated deceit, unlawfulness and anything that wasn’t strictly above board. She was the polar opposite of her brother Benjy. Loving the straight and narrow path as she did, I could never figure out why she couldn’t see how bad he really was.
I would never, ever tell her that I only passed high school math by cheating off her, by getting myself into her head as she wrote the answers to the tests.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘Nothing wrong with this. I’m just taking back what belonged to my mother.’
We reached the end of the bridge and she paused till I drew level to her. ‘What else is there?’
‘That’s it, honest.’
‘No, I know you, and there’s something you’re not saying.’ She wasn’t moving until I told her it all, or at least enough to satisfy her.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘The thing is, Willem really is a sorcerer. That is, he does have some magic power, and... and do you remember those creatures of his at the craft fair?’
She nodded.
‘I think he’s planning something really bad with them, but I don’t know what it is,’ I confessed.
‘How do you mean?’
‘He’s enchanted them, infused them with magic or something,’ I said.
‘Magic and the supernatural doesn’t exist, Dara,’ she said with a sigh. ‘It’s all in your weird little mind. I think you spent too much time alone as a child and read too many books.’
At least she got back on her bike and started heading toward the old train yard.
I bit my lip and followed her. How could she be so blind, even when she had the evidence right there in her own home?
‘What about Nan Hoskins, then, Alice? You saying her ghost doesn’t live in your parlour and make you watch Corrie Street with her? I guess that’s not magical, is it?’ I called after her.
That made her stop fast, her tires skidding on the gravel.
‘It’s not the same thing, not at all,’ she said. ‘Ghosts are natural, Dara. Nan Hoskins was a very strong character in life, and of course she couldn’t go to her rest that easy. It was just her body that gave up, not her soul.’
‘And the fairies up on the Southside Hills? The ones that took Benjy and spit him out again?’ I was just taunting her now, taking out my frustration in spite. ‘Your brother thought they were real enough, didn’t he?’
‘Sure and he spent a month at the Mental drying out afterwards,’ she retorted, finally turning to face me. ‘That was the drugs his friends gave him, he couldn’t handle all that shit. There are no such things as fairies, Dara Martin. Grow up!’
She made me so mad, being in such denial, that I did something I really, really shouldn’t have done.
‘Okay, then, you’re so smart and know everything,’ I said. ‘I’m going to show you something that will make you believe me. Come over here.’
‘What? You’re going to put a spell on me?’ She made a rude sound with her mouth. ‘Well, maybe my so-called elf blood will cancel your magic out. Isn’t that how it works with your gaming friends?’
I threw my bike down on the ground and stalked over to her. Placing my arms around her, I hugged her tight. I didn’t know if this was going to work or not, for I’d never brought another person over to Alt with me before, but we were going to find out now. If Willem could do it, well, so could I. She wanted proof, she was going to get it in spades.
Alice hated being touched, that was the elf in her, and she tried to squirm away from me but I held fast. I took a deep breath, and squeezed my eyes shut and made the mental flip into Alt.
WHEN I OPENED my eyes again, darkness surrounded us, but I still held Alice in my arms. Success, of a sort.
She stood absolutely still, petrified in my arms, too terrified to even move or to shake off my touch.
‘You okay?’ I whispered to her.
‘What’s going on, Dara? What happened to the streetlights?’ she asked. ‘Did you make them go out?’
She was quivering like a songbird in the clutches of old Hal the tomcat. I let her go, but kept my hand on her shoulder, just in case.
I looked around us, trying to make something out of the pitch black which surrounded us. I’d never flipped into this section of Alt before, because the west end of Water Street was creepy enough in real time. I could smell coal smoke and sewers and the peculiar odor of train tracks, but it was fresh creosote, not the lingering wispy leftover smell of the abandoned train yard that we had left.
I did a fast calculation in my mind. Were there trains in Alt? In my limited experience, Alt town was sort of like a Gothic punk version of real time, with gaslights and the women in long dresses and the men in top hats, some of them. There were rarely electric lights, as if Alt town was a fin de siècle version of real time, left over from the late Victorian era but with supernatural inhabitants.
Had the curtain between Alt and my time been thinner at some point in the past, and what had caused the divergence? This was no time to ponder the finer points of Alt existence, for I knew I had probably broken several of Hugh’s major rules in this single act. I had shifted into Alt without prior knowledge of where I was going, and even Lack of Prior Due Diligence alone would have earned me a fail from his elders. Taking Alice with me had undoubtedly doubled the tally of lawlessness, so we couldn’t stay here long.
But yes, there were definitely railways here, and as I turned I recognized the outline of a large iron steam engine right by us, a faint glow coming from behind it. The heat still rising told me it had only recently reached its destination.
‘What the hell?’ Alice whispered as she turned with me, her eyes huge. Her almost blonde hair glimmered in the gaslight, the ponytail hanging down her shoulder from under her toque. ‘What’s going on?’
‘You wanted proof of the supernatural,’ I told her. ‘This is it. This is Alt town, like I told you about.’
‘I thought that was in a book you read,’ she said, moving toward the steam engine. It was filthy and real and hard beneath her hand. I moved with her, remaining in touch as I didn’t know what would happen if we parted. ‘I didn’t think you were serious.’
She peeked out around the steam engine’s cow-catcher grill and gasped. ‘Look over there,’ she hissed. ‘Is this for real?’
I looked around with her and saw the old stone station as it used to be. In the light of two gas sconces, a man in a dark uniform was just entering through the wooden door leading from the platform. His strangely set ears prevented his hat from sitting properly. I drew her back quickly.
‘Yes, it is, as real as Alt is anyway,
’ I said. ‘Do you believe me now?’
‘We have to get out of here, Dara, now! This place isn’t right, it’s not natural,’ she said to me urgently.
We felt a rumble coming from the ground. I looked down at the iron rails by our feet. ‘Another train is coming,’ I said and I grasped her shoulder again, preparing to bring us back to the safety of the run down and isolated old station of real time, but just like that, she was gone, evading my grasp and running towards the lights.
‘Move away from the tracks!’ she said as she ran directly toward the light of the station. ‘Run, Dara!’
‘Get back here,’ I hissed at her, but too late. ‘Jesus, Alice, not that way, don’t do that, you don’t know...’
The station door opened just as she reached the platform, jumping up the whole three feet in a single bound.
‘You, boy!’ The uniformed guard yelled. And to my horror he reached out and grabbed her by the same shoulder I had held so tightly for her safety. I saw his hand in the light, hairy and misshapen like a paw with dirty big claws where his fingers ended. He whirled her around and shook her so hard I feared he might snap her delicate long neck.
I had to create a diversion even though it meant going deeper into Alt, so I ran and jumped up behind him, kicking him in the butt and then taking off into the station itself.
It worked, he dropped Alice and came tearing after me, blowing his shrill whistle all the time like a Keystone Cop. My plan was to run through the station then back around the other side, grab my friend, and switch back to real time. It didn’t work out that way though, for I had not taken into account Alice.
She ran after me, right through the old station, past the two ladies in their long dresses waiting for their carriage and the porter having a smoke by the entrance.