by Ben J Henry
‘It’s not real, you know,’ she said, eyeing Alicia as she traced the stone. ‘The church, the grave. The pain. It’s only ever as real as you choose it to be.’
Rainn swept a hand across the top of the headstone and left a trail of fire behind.
‘When I was thirteen, I was living with my grandparents in Singapore. They had one of their rows and,’ she shrugged, ‘I was sick of their fights—so fed up that I stood at the top of the stairs and yelled. I told them that if they argued one more time I would burn the house down. That night, I went to bed and had a dream. I dreamed that I had walked to the kitchen stove, turned on the gas, lit the candle on the table in the hallway and walked out of the house. The police woke me in the front garden.’
The fire on the headstone blazed. The horses stopped grazing, red flames reflected in their large eyes. And then the fire vanished.
‘Do I expect your pity?’ Rainn uttered. ‘Do you expect mine? I couldn’t care less what happened to your mother.’
With a wave of her hand, the headstone vanished. The grave was gone, dismissed.
‘I don’t want your pity,’ said Alicia, standing between the horses, her fingers tensed, ‘but if you expect me to climb crystal steps and ride shadow horses, I want the truth. Aldous and Morna kidnapped my brother and killed my mother. They used David as bait, in the real—on Earth. And Ryan here. What do they want with me? Do they really think, after everything they’ve done, that I’ll join this Order of theirs?’
‘They think you’re special,’ said Rainn as she stroked her horse’s mane and gazed into its sapphire eyes. ‘Aldous and Morna believe you may have inherited an exceptional willpower from your grandmother. The ability to break the rules set by other minds. That door was reinforced by the pair of them. Your mother could not break it. Neither could I.’
She turned, wearing a coy smile as she brushed strands of hair from her forehead. ‘Honestly, Alicia, I found myself a little jealous when you passed their test.’
Rainn closed the distance between them.
‘But then I had an idea.’
The voice in Alicia’s mind sounded as a thought of her own. But it was not her voice: Rainn had projected the words within her skull. Their faces were an inch apart and Alicia took a step back.
‘Will and expectation.’ Rainn’s silky tones resonated between her ears. ‘Vivador is founded on these principles. If you have a willpower that exceeds their own, then you are a threat to the Order of Chaos. Aldous sent Ryan to test you so that he could determine how powerful you are. And what if you are precisely as powerful as he believes?’
Alicia frowned.
‘It would mean—’
Rainn raised a hand to silence her, and Alicia glanced left and right, expecting figures in the shadows of the nearby pines. She kept her mouth closed and formed each word carefully, looking through the woman’s eyes to what lay beyond.
‘They’re afraid that I’ll destroy them.’
Rainn flashed her perfect teeth.
‘Ride with me to Psarnox. You will get your brother and I will claim Vivador.’
Alicia returned the smile, but cocked her head. The shadow stirred within as she spoke aloud: ‘And what if I kill the pair of them, take my brother and leave you with nothing?’
Rainn’s face darkened and her smile fell. A flicker of panic swept her eyes but she did not check their surroundings for anyone who might have overheard. She turned and leaped onto the back of her horse.
‘You may be special here, Alicia,’ she uttered aloud, her teeth barely parting. ‘But in the material realm you are flesh and blood. Here, strength is determined by the conviction of your will. On Earth, power lies with the immoral. You may be able to break the rules in Vivador, but challenge me in the waking world and I will put a bullet in your head.’
What’s your name?
The moment she hit solid ground, Winter knew the trick had worked. Her flight through the glass had given her brain the opportunity to restructure her surroundings. By picturing Stonehenge, she had drawn on the memories of her nine-year-old self, and these nebulous images were presented to her in magnificent detail. Facing the massive sarsen blocks of the prehistoric monument, Winter recalled her father’s history lesson.
The circular formation of stones, over four thousand years old, had perplexed humanity for millennia. It was once believed that the wizard Merlin had used magic to conjure the structure; later it had been attributed to the work of Druids; and then carbon-dating had revealed that the stones were erected during the Stone Age. For eight centuries, the structure was amended and extended, and by the Bronze Age, it was the greatest temple in Britain.
Winter stood at the end of what was called the Avenue: a wide, flat path of grass believed to be the ceremonial approach to Stonehenge. Here, beside the enormous, unshaped Heel Stone, she had held her father’s hand as he pointed to the spot where a second stone had stood, marking the grand entrance. At her feet, a metal arrow glinted, its head indicating the direction of the midwinter sunset.
A smile teased her lips as she recalled her father’s awe, directing her gaze along the path of the arrow. The winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, had fallen on her birthday. Thousands of years ago, great feasts were held on this day, as crowds watched the sun set between two upstanding stones: a blood-red orb descending to the base of the trilithon arch in the centre of Stonehenge. In modern day, all that remained of the Great Trilithon was a single stone, over seven metres tall, topped with a blunt spike. Winter’s brow furrowed as she looked beyond the outer ring of sarsen blocks. This prominent stone was missing.
She strode deeper into the memory, passing a sunken stone pitted with holes. Rainwater pooled in this horizontal block, drawing out the iron in the rock. With a penchant for the macabre, Winter’s father had drawn her attention to this rusty red, after which the block had earned its name: the Slaughter Stone. It was once believed that women and children were sacrificed to the gods as religious leaders charted the seasons. As with all memories of a gruesome nature—replayed with fascination; embedded with fear—she recalled his words with the exceptional clarity that faced her now.
From the angle of her approach, the outer ring of sarsens appeared complete, though only six lintels remained on top of their upstanding stones. These enormous sandstone blocks had been hauled on wooden sledges from the Marlborough Downs—thirty kilometres away—in a labour that would have taken two hundred people a gruelling twelve days.
Stepping closer, she studied the precarious lintels, wondering if their grooves were natural or manmade? Which details were remembered, and which could be credited to her imagination?
In that garrulous mood he adopted when his wife was absent, Winter’s father had indicated a ring of bluestones within the outer circle. These igneous stones had travelled nearly two hundred and fifty kilometres from the Preseli Hills of Wales. Beyond this, Winter had seen a horseshoe of trilithons, with the towering stone of the Great Trilithon at its head. But not now. Now, there were no bluestones, no trilithon arches. Amid the sarsen circle lay a large pool.
‘What do I do at Stonehenge?’ Winter had asked her fellow captive and felt a shrug on the other side of the pole. Presently, a primordial urge drew her to the water. She crossed beneath a lintel, stretched her arms to brush her fingers against the upstanding stones on either side, and dived into the pool.
At first she was falling. Then, like a stone cast into the air until it reaches that balance between two forces, she was pushed and pulled at once before accelerating back up through the water.
Winter was launched from the pool and landed heavily, hip and shoulder, on flat stone. Under a black sky, the sarsen blocks surrounding her were lit by an ethereal glow that emanated from the dark water. She lay on an octagonal dais in the centre of the pool. A drum sounded, rippling the water’s surface and reverberating through her bones. She leaned up on her elbows and spotted a silhouette under one of the lintels. Squinting through the glow of the
pool, she was able to discern a teenage girl, a year or two her junior. She opened her mouth to call out when something wrapped around her wrists and ankles, binding her supine to the dais. Diamond-patterned scales tightened about her wrist: the body of the snake that held her down. Punctuated by the beat of the drum, her shriek echoed between the stones.
With panic-stricken eyes, she sought the figure at the water’s edge. Uplit by the glow, the girl stood in a strappy top and leggings, fists balled either side of a waifish frame. Dark hair was tied in a single plait that fell over her bony shoulder. It was not with interest that she watched Winter, not curiosity, but rapt intention.
‘I will literally—’ Winter’s threat died on her lips as something crawled along her leg. A tarantula crept from her knee to her thigh. Her breath was solid in her throat as she noticed the girl staring with such intensity that Winter was certain she controlled the spider’s movement. Unblinking, she moved each hairy leg across Winter’s bare skin.
Winter had not achieved her position at the apex of the social pyramid by playing victim to younger girls. The sickly tremor on those parted lips—in her attempt to terrify Winter, this girl had created something she loathed. Winter met her eyes, exposed the fear that lay within and delivered her most hostile glare. As with every peer that had dared to defy her, the girl’s resolve crumbled. The spider disappeared.
The scaled bodies around her ankles and wrists tightened and there followed a hiss as the heads of two snakes reared into view. As red eyes gazed into her own, Winter had the profound sensation that ash lined her throat. She coughed until her eyes were watering and she struggled against her binding. The twin pairs of eyes blinked from red to blue and this change in colour altered the taste in the back of her mouth. With a tang of iron, she tasted blood.
The younger girl’s mouth snapped shut and her nostrils flared impatiently. Winter’s forearm stung and a cut appeared on her skin as if she had been struck with a whip. She winced under more invisible strokes as the slash-marks formed letters and the letters, words.
WAKE UP.
Winter’s lips twisted into a grimace: this urchin’s attempts to drive her from Vivador were clearly failing. The drum beat harder and faster, synchronising with the thudding of her heart as Winter tore her arms and legs from the snakes that bound her. Standing up, she glared at her tormentor and scanned the pool. Dark skin glistened under the violescent glow and black hair fanned across the water’s surface: a dozen floating cadavers, made in her own image. Swallowing a rising nausea, she lifted a bare foot and stepped onto the back of the nearest body. The black dress shifted under her weight.
You’re too heavy, she thought, her mother’s voice between her ears. With tentative steps, she crossed from one body to the next, using broad gold belts as stepping stones. Her eyes were narrow and her smile maleficent when she reached the bank. She lowered her head to that thin face.
‘Boo.’
The girl vanished, taking what appeared to be a dome of darkness with her. The drumbeat ended and the pool shimmered an innocent blue in the daylight.
‘Blackout,’ Winter said aloud, taking stock of her surroundings. In the distance to her left, a solitary mountain broke the uniform horizon. To her right lay an expansive lake, in the centre of which stood a stone tower. Her heartbeat slowed as she stepped between the blocks of Stonehenge and gazed upon this silent space. Animated and enthusiastic, Jack had exhausted her with details, desperate to convince her of his journey down the well.
You never believed him—why were the words that filled her head so accusatory? Jack had never mentioned hearing loud, angry thoughts. Or had he? She had cut him off, threatened him, changed the subject—
Why didn’t you listen?
I don’t like this place. She delivered her judgement with a decisive nod. Vivador would pass for the real world, were it not for an ominous silence that seemed to invite a scathing inner commentary.
You told him everything—
—What do you fear? Rainn’s face lurked in a corner of her mind. And before she had found something on which to fasten her attention:
You have nobody left to talk to.
‘What now then?’ she asked out loud, hands on hips as she glanced from the mountain to the tower. She might have cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted Alicia’s name were she not haunted by the feeling that she was being watched. Since the mountain looked an impossible distance away, Winter turned to her right. She strode from the sandstone blocks to where a simple wooden bridge stretched across the water until it reached a low platform in the centre of the lake. The building that rose from this platform resembled a Buddhist tower that had been stripped of its paint and left at the mercy of time. A network of vines twisted between thin windows and burrowed in and out of cracks in the dark, crumbling stone.
I don’t like this place.
Words of caution pricked her mind as Winter crossed the bridge. After such a hostile welcome to this alien realm, she cast skittish eyes across the still waters, waiting for the emergence of some prehistoric beast. She picked up her pace, marching across the sun-bleached planks. Her footsteps fell from wood to stone as she reached the central platform and scanned the empty windows. The hexagonal walls of the tower rose seven storeys into the sky. The broad arches that lined the highest floor were empty. It was unlikely that Alicia would be waiting inside.
With nowhere else to go, she stepped under a tall archway to ascend a spiral staircase that wound along the inner wall. Through each window she saw only the lake, the standing stones encircling the small pond, the mountain on the horizon and endless fields rippling outwards. If this building held no clues as to where she might find Alicia, she would have to tell Gus that his plan had failed.
She reached the top step and entered a hexagonal chamber lined with arches stretching from floor to ceiling. In the centre of the floor, two intricately engraved stone thrones rotated back to back on a circular platform. Though the thrones were empty, she was not alone in the room.
Standing beneath one of the arches, little more than a silhouette against the brilliant sky, a man looked over the bridge. His shoulders were broad beneath a brown leather jacket, his arms crossed. He waited a moment as if to determine whether anyone else might cross the bridge and then he turned to face her.
The man was in his early forties, with pale-blue eyes in a narrow face. His beard was flecked with grey, his hair dark and ragged. A cleft in his upper lip revealed a canine, giving him a snarl not echoed in his dull eyes. His expression was profoundly unwelcome and Winter took a step back towards the staircase.
And then he spoke, and his husky voice was all she understood. It originated not from his mouth, but the centre of her mind, as if it were a thought of her own.
‘What’s your name?’
Haunted by that pale gaze, Winter was immobilised. Had a leviathan risen from the lake and seized the tower in its jaws, it might have taken her a moment to notice. What finally stirred her into motion was a searing pain in her leg. Gripping her left thigh, she fell to the floor with a vivid awareness that, in the waking world, something was savaging her. The man furrowed his brow, raised a hand and took a step across the tiles. An unveiled look of dismay crossed his face before Winter shut her eyes and the tower vanished.
Ryan, age 14
I haven’t left this place, not in fourteen years. Mum teaches us all about the different countries, cities, islands, but our world has four walls, seven ponds and a tower we’re basically not even allowed to look at. Rainn told me and Amira a whole bunch of things that she had at her grandparents’ house in Singapore, like Television and Internet—where you can see anything that has ever existed. Ever. But all I’ve got are the photographs Mum prints off her computer. Photographs and dreams.
Peter tells me that it isn’t safe out there. Not after what happened with Sam. He says that people are looking for me, but Rainn says nobody has even heard of Burnflower. Not that I should believe anything that comes out of Rainn�
��s mouth. She even told Amira that her surname is Burnflower, and that’s how she found the place.
I knew it was Rainn that left the front door open that night. She does a lot of things while she’s ‘sleepwalking’, and it’s funny how many of these accidents involve my stuff—my teddy bear with the arm missing, my underwear in the cookie jar. She basically hates me and I don’t even know why. Peter told me I should be nice to her, but it’s a two-way street and Rainn is like a lorry ready to run me down. I overheard Mum say that Rainn was definitely going to run away because she’s so troubled.
The front door was wide open and Sam was missing for the whole day. I didn’t even eat. I must have walked around the house about 29 times looking for him. I wanted to search the woods but that was obviously forbidden. Peter told me that he had searched the Pagoda but I didn’t believe him, so I waited until it was dark and went right to the top. The top floor is empty with a bamboo floor that Mum used to do yoga on before Peter needed his space. There are six arches at the top and through the one at the very back you can see the lake behind the trees. I was trying to see if Sam was swimming in the lake when I heard footsteps behind me.
Peter led Sam up the steps on his lead. Sam was so excited to see me and I was just about to run over when Rainn walked up behind them. Peter looked at me forever and then he turned to Rainn.
‘I have a present for you,’ he said as he offered her the lead. ‘Perhaps you will take better care of him.’
I waited for Rainn to say something, but she just kneeled down and stroked him between the ears like he was the first thing she had been given in her whole life. She dragged him down the steps and I stood at the arch that faced the house. I did not want to look at Peter, so I just watched Rainn walk my dog between the ponds and waited for my lecture.