The Word Guardians: and the Battle for the Peacekeepers

by Lawrence Yarham

  Yas remembered the sensation of falling from the kick-step. She checked-in with her body before moving. There was no part of her that felt in pain, or numb or seemed to be in an awkward position. She was about to open her eyes, when she heard a lady’s voice jolting her back to the here and now.

  “Och, what were you doing?” It was McVale. Her question was in response to seeing Yas on the floor, the kick-step on its side. “How ever did you manage to fall off?” she said, reaching down to Yas to see if she was alright. “That’s something I’d do!”

  McVale waited a moment and then gently tapped Yas on the shoulder.

  “Can you hear me Yas?” she said, concern growing.

  Yas opened her eyes. Her face was resting on the open spread of the book. The text was blurry but she could make out an image of a huge tree on the page, set amongst some other smaller trees around it. In her mind’s eye, or perhaps real-life (she wasn’t sure at this point), the tree’s boughs moved as if to express a human wink at her.

  Yas pushed herself up into a sitting position, her knees and legs to one side. She blinked a few times, feeling a little dazed. McVale’s face came into focus in front of hers.

  “Off with the fairies, were you?”

  “No. A tree… “, mumbled Yas. “I fell into a forest, I think.”

  “Well then,” said McVale, bending over and still concerned. “Are you able to get up?”

  “Yes.” Yas’s fall seemed like so long ago. It couldn’t have happened that quickly could it? Then again in dreams, events that played out a significant story line took very little time in the real world. Maybe that was it, she rationalised.

  With the helping hand offered from McVale, she got to her feet cautiously. She felt a little lightheaded, perhaps from getting up too quickly, but otherwise she was okay. She remembered the vibration, the sponge like shelves and the moving books before she fell. Surveying the scene, she was surprised to see just a single book, that of her grandpa’s, out of place, open on the floor. All the other books were still where they should be, on the shelves. It was as if nothing had ever happened.

  “That’s so strange,” said Yas. “There was this vibration, and then I lost balance.”

  “A vibration you say?” McVale eyed Yas over the top of her glasses. Yas felt under the microscope for some reason. She felt guilty for having gone to find the book. McVale bent over and picked it up.

  “I’m sorry,” Yas said. “I wanted to see what the book was. You mentioned it was a gift from my grandpa.” She paused. “I should have asked first.”

  Surprisingly to Yas, McVale just waved her hand and dismissed the concern. “Not to worry.” She looked down at it thoughtfully, then back to Yas. “How are you feeling?” Do you need to sit down for a minute?”

  “I think I’m fine,” Yas replied. She was feeling a little awkward, being the focus of McVale’s attention, and she found herself questioning her dream. It was so vivid. It made her doubt where she was for the moment.

  Perhaps McVale picked up on this. “Well, its not as if we’re rushed off our feet just now, is it?” she said, tapping the book with her free hand. “How about you tell me all about it?”

  McVale took Yas by the arm and sat her down on the sofa in the front section of the store, placing the book on the arm nearest the door. She walked back to the counter, picked up two coffee cups and returned to where Yas was seated.

  “I got your favourite,” McVale winked, handing one of the cups to her. Then she sat down, her cup in her hand. She paused and smiled at Yas, then took a sip of her drink.

  “So, into a forest, eh?”

  “I’m not sure,” replied Yas truthfully. She paused for a moment to search for a rational explanation. “Did we have an earthquake or something?”

  “Not that I felt,” replied McVale, shrugging her shoulders, looking outside.

  Yas took a sip of her drink. It helped to steady her. Hot chocolate. The cup felt incredibly hot, but the frothiness of the milk enabled the heat to arrive slowly. It was a very welcome distraction.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  McVale nodded but said nothing. She watched Yas over the top of her half-rimmed glasses. It wasn’t quite her signature stare but clearly, she was waiting for Yas to talk.

  Yas searched for something that explained her dream. The only thing she could come up with quickly, and which she felt rang true, was her grandpa. It made a lot of sense.

  “I’m really sorry I went looking for the book,” Yas said.

  McVale again waved her hand to dismiss it, looking at the book next to Yas on the armrest. “Think nothing of it.”

  “With what you said about my grandpa, and my parents talking about him this morning, it made me curious. I think I bumped my head...” Yas reached up to feel for a lump on her head, “and he kind of featured in the dream I had.”

  McVale’s focus grew more intense.

  “Interesting.” She smiled gently. “Tell me.”

  Yas hadn’t expected that. She was hoping she could avoid having to recount something that she hadn’t quite wrangled her mind around yet. “It feels a little silly, to be honest.”

  “Don’t worry,” urged McVale. “Let me be the judge of that, hmm?”

  Yas took another sip of her drink. She imagined that this is what it felt like to be in some form of psychotherapy session. If she ever mentioned dreams to her parents, there was no discussion, just a ‘that’s nice’ or something that felt like a dismissal. To be encouraged to delve deeper here, felt quite uncomfortable. However, Yas figured that of anyone she knew, this conversation was most likely to happen with McVale. Sam popped into mind briefly, but she dismissed him. Conversations with him could be awkward sometimes. Anyway, she was here now with McVale. Yas took a deep breath and sighed then started from the beginning of what she could remember.

  “I was reaching for the book... and the whole shelf started to vibrate and become... I don’t know... soft and spongy. It was like I couldn’t get a firm grip on anything. Then with the shaking, I tried to step down off the kick-step but must have caused it to tip over or something and fell off.”

  “Hmm,” murmured McVale thoughtfully. She stroked her chin with her long slender fingers. “Was there anything unusual? Anyone around?”

  “Now that you mention it,” continued Yas, “I thought I heard someone whispering, but there was no-one. Then the shaking started when I reached for the book.”

  “And what did you dream?” asked McVale.

  “I’m not sure what it was really,” dismissed Yas.

  McVale just sat and regarded Yas. Her stare urged Yas to continue. Yas waited for a few moments, but McVale’s gaze didn’t change. Again, Yas tried to put aside the discomfort of talking through what felt personal.

  “Okay, here it is,” replied Yas uncertainly. “I dreamt I had fallen into a picture from the book.” She looked up and met McVale’s eyes. Yas was defensive, because she thought that Ms. McVale might think her a little crazy if she revealed the tree and the squirrel. She stopped, hoping that McVale would pick up on her reticence and switch topic.

  “What did you see?” McVale asked, leaning forwards. Yas was disappointed that McVale was so intent on hearing her tale. Oh well, as her grandpa would say, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’. She realised she just had to continue.

  Yas retold the story, starting with the fall. She recounted how she had been caught by the branches, then gave a summary of the conversation with the squirrel and the tree, including the details relating to her grandpa and the Custodians, and then finally how she had ascended the stairs and woken up on the carpet.

  McVale was silent, sat back a little and looked off to the side. She was smiling to herself.

  “See, I told you. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” Yas said, defensively. “I must have hit my head harder than I thought.”

  “Custodians?” asked McVale, switching her gaze back to Yas.

  “Yes? So?” replied Yas, shocked that McVale had picked
up on something so specific from the dream.

  There was a further pause. McVale smiled at Yas. It was always difficult to read exactly what the older woman was thinking. Yas whiled away the awkwardness by taking another sip of her drink.

  “You remind me of the first time I fell into a book,” McVale said simply. “I thought much the same.”

  “What?” blurted Yas, narrowly avoiding spraying the contents of her mouth into the room. “You have to be kidding me?” She wasn’t expecting a grown-up to be acknowledging what she thought of as a dream. But then, as the tree had said, ‘it wasn’t a dream’.

  “Its impossible isn’t it?” offered McVale, seemingly making light of the situation. Then her expression changed, becoming more serious. “To tell you the truth,” she said, “I hoped this might happen for you.”

  “Hoped?” queried Yas.

  “Yes,” said McVale matter-of-factly. “I believe you would be an excellent Guardian.”

  “I don’t know,” said Yas, the rational part of her mind kicking in again and questioning everything. “How do I know it wasn’t just some crazy dream?”

  “Its not,” answered McVale. She had her cup to her chin in thought. “I believe I can help you find these...” she paused, “Custodians of the...”

  “...first libraries, I think,” finished Yas uncertainly.

  “Yes, quite,” said McVale. “I wonder which ones though?”

  “Sorry?” asked Yas. “Which ones?” She was not sure what McVale was referring to.

  “It must be referring to one of the great libraries, dear. The question is which one.”

  “How do you know?” queried Yas. Then she also wondered why McVale seemed to be buying into this so completely. “It was just a dream though, right?”

  “No dear, it wasn’t,” answered McVale, off in thought again. “I will need to do some research on the matter.” McVale took a sip of her own drink. “Now,” she continued. “How are you feeling? Would you like me to run you home?”

  “Honestly, I’m okay,” replied Yas.

  “Well, let’s get on with the day then, shall we?” McVale stood up and headed to the back of the shop. “If you feel unwell, just say.”

  “I will,” replied Yas, a little dazed by their conversation.

  The pace in the shop for the rest of the day was slow. Unusually, McVale busied herself on her tablet and even popped out of the shop twice more. Yas had an inkling it was unplanned and possibly to research the libraries they had talked about. She found herself wondering what McVale really thought about the dream. She’d not dismissed it, but she’d also not shared any details of the time that she ‘fell into a book’. Yas was kicking herself mentally. She wished she’d asked. For the rest of the day she tried to re-open the conversation. Each time though, McVale switched topics and shut her down. Yas left the shop at the end of her shift feeling even more confused than when she had awoken on the floor.

  “See you Wednesday,” Yas called to McVale as she left.

  “Oh,” waved McVale frantically, moving from the counter. “Sorry, I forgot. Could you help me after school on Monday? I need to start on a stock take.”

  “Sure,” replied Yas reluctantly. That didn’t sound like fun.

  “Say about three-thirty then? For a couple of hours?”

  “Okay,” shrugged Yas.

  “Thanks, Yas. See you then.”

  “Sure.”

  Yas stepped outside and saw Sam walking down the steps from the library. He saw her and waved. She waved back, going down the few steps to meet him in the central area. It was good to see him. She could think about something else for a little while.

  The sun was casting long shadows, but still warm. The wind from this morning had dropped and it actually felt more like a late summer evening than fall. It was nice to be outside and have the time to walk, talk and think. They retraced their steps from this morning, across the square, then through town and out towards the suburbs.

  “So how was Ms. Vickers today?” asked Yas.

  “Oh,” replied Sam. “Mad as ever. She had me put back all these reference books she’d borrowed and had stored upstairs in the administration office.”

  “What was she doing with them, anyway?” asked Yas, genuinely interested.

  “I honestly don’t know,” sighed Sam. “She said she was trying to help finish up a project she was working on with my dad.”

  “That’s interesting. Is she doing some research for a paper or something?”

  “I don’t know,” shrugged Sam. “To be honest, I think she just said that so I would agree to put them back for her. Took me bloody ages. She had a bunch of books from ancient wonders of the world, to mythological creatures and ancient libraries.”

  “Oh, cool,” replied Yas, thinking back to the dream and conversation with McVale earlier.

  “Is it?” asked Sam, uninterested.

  “Yeah,” replied Yas, not wanting to hold out on him. “McVale was looking for information on different famous libraries today.” It was a truth, she told herself. Its just that she hadn’t explained the event that had triggered that search.

  “Okay?” said Sam. He didn’t see the connection and from his tone, didn’t seem much too concerned either.

  “You might not believe this,” he said, changing the subject. “I was wondering if Vickers has been looking for portals.”

  “To realms?”

  “Yes,” said Sam. He looked straight ahead determinedly, wanting to avoid any refute.

  Yas was not sure what she believed now, only that her opinions had shifted from this morning.

  “Sam,” started Yas awkwardly. “Just for a moment, let’s say you’re right...” She looked down at small tufts of grass in the sidewalk trying to make their presence known. “What do you think she’s looking for?”

  They headed around a corner at the end of the residential street. In the distance they could hear Saturday rush hour traffic and an emergency siren, moving away from them.

  “I guess,” replied Sam at last. “I hope... she’s trying to find my dad.”

  He waited for a reply. There wasn’t one. Yas continued to muse through this in her mind. She figured that if Sam’s belief in the realms was tied to hoping to find his dad, then who was she to say otherwise.

  “You okay?” replied Sam. “You seem a little... different or something,” he paused for a moment trying to come up with the right words to say. “You normally disagree with me.”

  “Yeah... about that,” she started, then felt that saying nothing was exactly what her parents would do. “I’m not sure yet...” Yas offered, testing the waters. “Something happened today.”

  Sam glanced across at her quizzically. “What?” he asked. They waited for the pedestrian crossing lights to change so they could cross.

  Yas held up her right hand in defence. “Look, I don’t know how to explain it yet. It sounds more and more crazy the more I think about it, but I feel... you know... I feel I should tell you.”

  A couple of cars went past, while some others behind them slowed to a stop as the lights changed. They started to cross.

  “Okay?” Sam replied. He was listening intently. Yas could always say that about him. He wasn’t like other guys who were too full of themselves. Sam always seemed to have time for her. She appreciated that and immediately felt guilty for being guarded.

  “Okay, here it is,” Yas said, taking a deep breath. Then, as quickly as she could, she said, “I was putting a book back in the store and fell off a kick step. When I fell, its like the floor wasn’t there and then I had this crazy dream that I was in a forest, with talking animals.”

  Sam said nothing for a moment. He seemed to understand that if he leapt to what he felt was the obvious conclusion that Yas would immediately stop talking about it.

  “What do you think it was?” he asked looking at her intently, clearly trying to hold back his excitement.

  Yas held up her hand again in defence. “I really don’t know. Like
I said, it seems crazy the more I say it. Maybe I just fainted or something and dreamt about a book that I had just been looking at?”

  “What was the book?” asked Sam.

  “Histories of the world,” Yas replied. “It was a book my grandpa had apparently given to Ms. McVale.”

  Sam stayed quiet and they continued walking.

  “I know what you think it might be,” Yas continued defensively, filling in the space. “I just don’t know.”

  “Its okay, I know how you feel about all of this,” Sam shrugged, clearly disappointed that she’d not outright said it was a realm. “I’d love to show you this place my dad used to take me,” he said. “Only, like I said this morning... I can’t find the way in.” He paused, looking deflated, pulling his fingers through his hair. “I’ve tried everything.”

  They came to a stop on a corner. It was the place where they went their separate ways home.

  “Look, I know this is a lot to take in, but its all real, Yas. I need you to believe me!” He looked at her intently. “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? You know... if you found a way?”

  “Of course,” replied Yas. She could see a look of desperation in his eyes and wanted to help but was worried she might not be able to. “Absolutely. I just don’t know how I got there if it wasn’t a dream.”

  “Text me or call me if it helps to talk,” he said, satisfied. It amazed Yas how he bounced back in similar situations. He could be down one moment, then back up and brighter the next. She felt she could learn a lot from that. “See you Monday?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Take care.”

  They went their separate ways. Yas continued walking, enjoying the freshness of the air in the shade, and the warmth in the sunshine. Very quickly her thoughts turned back to the dream. She wasn’t sure what else to make of it. Walking on autopilot, it wasn’t long before she reached the front door of her home. She reached into her bag for her keys and was puzzled to touch something that felt out of place there. She pulled out a leaf, like the one on the floor in the shop. She wondered how it could have fallen into her bag while she was walking. As she looked at it, a voice sounded in her head.