by Carl Purcell
But he could. Riccardo ended it without a second thought. Rebecca was heartbroken – not the first time or the last time she'd know that feeling. The very worst thing was that she had this child and she had no idea what to do with it. The doctors told her they'd never seen a woman deal with labour pains so well. That was nothing. That didn't even register compared to the pain of looking at this little girl, not even aware of where it was or what was going on, and knowing that it had to go. By then Riccardo was long gone and she had been handed off to somebody else for the last few months of her apprenticeship. Not that it mattered. He had no interest in Rebecca or the girl.
That was that. Rebecca could count on one hand the amount of times she saw that little girl before she became a social worker's problem. A ward of the state until further notice. When she'd gotten her life back on track, Rebecca did think of trying to find her but she knew that no good end would come from that. There was no way she could face that little girl any more than she could face her own guilt for what had happened. Some things, Rebecca decided, were best left buried deep and abandoned until, somehow, the wounds scabbed over and faded into the barely noticeable scars that everybody has somewhere.
Rebecca and Ashley had fallen asleep when the plane began its descent into China. The Beijing airport lay before them, under the dark clouds of autumn and a thicker layer of smog. Rebecca thought, with some regret, that the city was a foreboding sight to wake up to and one that rushed towards their plane all too quickly. The cabin lights hadn’t woken Ashley yet but the sounds of the plane’s descent soon would. Rebecca stretched her arms above her head and yawned. China. She wasn’t fully aware whether she was talking or thinking. The mysterious Far East. Next stop: Edward’s castle. And if they were real lucky they might just have the luxury of not being run over or shot or set on fire before they get there. God, this place looked awful. Were they going to be living here? She hoped not. She hoped it was somewhere far away in a distant corner of China where no one would find them. Rebecca closed her eyes and let her head rest against her seat again. All that thinking and looking out the window was just too much effort and there must have been something else to concentrate on. Something simple? Anything? Yes, there was. There was a deep, black pool of unconscious, calling for her. Rebecca obliged. She didn't dream.
The next time Rebecca woke up they were on the ground and Ashley was tugging at her arm.
“Wake up, Rebecca,” she was saying from somewhere far away in a world where people had their eyes open and moved their bodies around. Rebecca didn’t want to go back there just yet. It had been so long since she could sleep properly and now, just when the Land of Nod was enjoying its summer – the best time of year to visit the Land of Nod – she had to leave and go back to that world of running around and protecting Ashley and shooting Thralls. The Land of Nod was a much better place to be. “Come on!” Ashley was closer now and pleading with her. It was time to get up, no doubt about it.
“Alright. Just stop pulling my arm.” Rebecca answered and forced her eyes open wide. “How long since we landed?”
“Only a few seconds but they opened the door for us and said we have to leave.”
“Did they say where we’re going?”
“No. They just said we have to go.” Rebecca tried to stand up, forgetting that she still had her seatbelt wrapped around her. She fell right back into her seat. Once she had unbuckled her seat-belt, her next attempts at standing were more successful.
“Let’s go then.”
They disembarked into the airport and already they as if like they didn’t belong. Rebecca thought that she must be feeling much like a young child – even younger than Ashley – must feel. She was looking at everything for the very first time. Everyone looked different to her and the signs were all written in writing she didn’t understand. Every door and path led away to places she’d never seen and arrows pointed in every direction, leaving her completely disorientated and confused.
“Where do we go?” Rebecca asked no one in particular.
“That way!” Ashley exclaimed excitedly.
“How do you know?”
“Because that man over there is holding a sign with your name on it.”
“Oh. You’re right.” Rebecca took Ashley by the hand and led her over to the man holding their names on a piece of paper. He was a Chinese man in a dark suit and dark sunglasses. Rebecca thought that the clothing worn by fancy chauffeurs were the same clothes worn by government agents in movies. When they got close to him Rebecca immediately noticed the tattoo of black lines twisting down the right side of his face. She recognised the same tattoo worn by all of Lord Sebastian’s Knights.
“Rebecca Williams?” He spoke English perfectly with an accent toned down by years of switching from his own language to English.
“Yes,” Rebecca answered and smiled politely at him. Ashley wasn’t saying anything.
“Please come with me. It is a long journey. Do you have any bags?”
“No.”
“Then we will go.”
“Go? We don’t need passports or anything?”
“You do not need to go through customs in this building. International flights come and go from a different one and you are not coming internationally, are you, Ms Williams.” The emphasis he put on ‘are you’ meant he wasn’t asking a question.
“No, I guess not.”
“Follow me.” Rebecca looked down at Ashley briefly and gave her hand a comforting squeeze before she started after the knight.
He didn’t talk at all to Rebecca and Ashley as he led them through the airport and they didn’t try to start a conversation with him. Experience had taught Rebecca that the Knights of - whatever they called themselves - weren’t much for conversation. So they walked quietly from their gate without looking back and taking a final glimpse of the plane. Somewhere deep inside, Rebecca knew that looking at the plane would be too hard. That was their last link to home and they would never see it again – their home or the plane. Neither was open to them any more.
All three sat just as quietly in an ordinary-looking blue car. The chilling touch of déjà vu brushed over her. Rebecca realised that she’d done this before. There was a silent knight riding in the front and he was taking them – two girls swept unwillingly into a world out of their control – to some far away castle to meet with a Lord they’d never heard of. He would give them gourmet dinners and show them the world of magic. Without any tricks or illusions and without using a single mirror or smoke machine, he would do the impossible and then tell one of his knights to teach Ashley the impossible. But Rebecca wasn’t important to this Lord or his knights and so she would be left as an idle hanger-on with nothing to do. What would happen next? Would they find her? Could they? Of course they could. They’d found them twice before. Oh god. Rebecca's throat felt sore as she choked back tears. It was beginning all over again. She'd been there before and it was all going the same way. She was trapped in that horrible nightmare that she couldn't escape. A nightmare that just looped forever and ever. In a week she would be running away from burning wreckage again and she'd have nowhere to go and no one to help her. Before she knew it she'd be in some other country being driven by some other knight who doesn’t talk and it would all begin again! It was the most horrible thought she’d ever had and worst of all was how real it all felt. This wasn’t a nightmare. A nightmare, a true nightmare, ended. This was something much worse than a nightmare. This was real life and life’s a bigger bitch than your dreams could ever be.
The man in the sunglasses drove them both directly out of the city just like Sir Julian had done when all of this started. That day passed them quietly and the man in the sunglasses didn't even turn on the radio. Ashley sat staring intently at her hands for a long time but she never said anything. Rebecca tried to sleep but found she was no longer tired enough to even doze. The landscape beyond the city was different to what she was used to seeing and, if she had come to China as a tourist and not a... A wha
t? A refugee? A prisoner? A fugitive? Rebecca couldn't find the right word to describe what she was. What kind of person who has done nothing wrong is forced to run from their own home and leave everything they knew behind them without even a word as to why? But then what could she have told her friends if she did have the chance? She couldn't tell them why she was running, because she didn't know. Ultimately, that was all Rebecca could say about her situation. She didn't know anything. She looked down at Ashley. She was still looking at her hands, palms upwards, and focused with a frightening intensity. Rebecca thought that the little dark-haired girl probably knew more than her. What had Benjamin told her? What secrets of the world was this small girl now carrying with her? Did she know about the knight's order? Did she know what extends beyond the reaches of the universe? Could she read minds like Benjamin and used her power to find out what the man in the glasses was thinking?
Rebecca turned away and looked out the window again. Whatever Ashley knew, she wasn't going to find out by becoming paranoid. They were in this together. There was comfort in those words because it meant she wasn't really alone. Maybe Ashley did know more than her about the surreal turn life had taken in so few days, but even if that was true they were still in this together. Rebecca closed her eyes and tried to think of something else.
Her mind went to her mother, something it often did. Rebecca missed her mother but not in the tearful mourning way. She had never really mourned her mother because the idea of her dying had never really hit her the way it does when you're an adult. Rebecca didn't feel as though her mother was gone so much as she felt her mother may never have really been there at all. She was just a dream, a really nice dream of a woman who took care of her and made her smile and always had time for her. Any time Rebecca needed her she could still find her in her dreams, because that's where she had always been. Rebecca even remembered her mother in the way you remember a vivid dream you had the night before. Everything is just at the edge of your consciousness but slowly fading and leaving you just a hint what you had been dreaming about. They were silhouettes of people and echoes of conversation that you know had happened in your dream but you couldn't put the details into words because the details were only there when you were falling asleep again. Going back to that Land of Nod where everything is only as real as a dream.
Once, in her dreams of a mother, Rebecca had been at the beach in a purple one-piece bathing suit. It was hot and sunny but there was no one else at the beach. Of course there were other people there. There was no such thing as an empty beach on a hot day. But she couldn't remember anyone else being there. She just remembered herself and her mother at the beach. They were splashing around in the water; a wave that was unusually big crashed onshore and washed over them, knocking Rebecca from her feet. Her mother reached down quickly and, with one arm, pulled her out of the water. She was fine and what water she had swallowed she coughed up immediately. Her mother asked her if she wanted to back onto the sand and rest but Rebecca wanted to stay in the water. That's exactly what they did and they didn't come out of the water for hours. Rebecca had gotten tired of jumping around and so her mother took her by the hand and led her back onto dry land. The sand was hot and squeaked with every quick step Rebecca took. Her mother didn't seem to mind it being so hot and she didn't remember her being especially tired either. Her mother seemed to have limitless stamina when they were playing as they had been in that dream of the beach. She probably was tired. She probably wasn't as fast as Rebecca remembered her being, either. No one is that perfect,. Rebecca told herself that she was just idealising the memory of her mother but part of her didn't believe what she was saying. She liked having a perfect mother, even if she was just a dream.
The sun was low in the west when the man in the sunglasses finally stopped driving. Rebecca looked around but she couldn't see any signs of life. There were no houses or cars or people anywhere around them. She could see mountains towards the horizon and plains of tall grass around her.
“Why are we stopping?” Rebecca asked and the thought that this was a trap crossed her mind.
“We wait.” The man in the sunglasses answered and got out of the car. Ashley got out of the car to look around and Rebecca, even though she had been planning to stay, followed her out.
“What are we waiting for?”
“A lift. Unless you'd rather walk?”
“Why can't we drive?”
“It gets the car too dirty and then I have to wash it.”
“So how do we get there?” The man in the sunglasses turned around and looked at Rebecca. A cigarette hung in his the side of his mouth. He struck a match and lit it.
“You ask too many questions.” He said without removing the cigarette from his lips.
“A horse!” Ashley suddenly shouted. The man in the sunglasses smiled at her.
“Smart kid.” He looked around them. Rebecca was doing the same but neither of them could see anything. “How about that?” He turned around again and looked at Ashley. “How did you know you're going by horse?”
“I can see it. It's a horse and it's pulling a carriage.”
“I don't see anything.” Rebecca said while she was still looking around.
Ashley snorted. “Of course you can't. It's too far away. I can see it though.”
“How?”
The man in the glasses laughed and tapped the ash off his cigarette. “The kid's got a touch of magic in her.”
Ashley nodded. “Benjamin taught me how to see things that are far away.”
“How far away is it?” the man in the sunglasses asked.
“I don't know. It's just far away.”
“Well, at least it's on its way. You're sure to fit right in around here.”
What had been nothing soon became a dot far off in the distance. It lacked any kind of features or form to distinguish it but everyone had an idea of what it was. Then it grew bigger as it came closer and eventually they could recognise it as the horse and carriage Ashley had told them was coming. The driver was a Chinese man in sandals, cargo shorts, a sports coat and a cap. Rebecca starred at him with the kind of bafflement you get when someone looks as if they got dressed after drinking heavily. The driver of the carriage had a big grin on his face that stretched under his big nose from ear to ear. He pulled on the horse's reigns, tipped his cap to Rebecca and Ashley and then looked at the driver and they exchanged words in Chinese.
When they were done, the driver looked at Rebecca and said, “He'll take you to the castle. He doesn't speak any English though, so don't bother asking questions, because you won't be getting any answers. Lord Edward will be waiting for you when you arrive at the castle.” He walked back over to his car. Rebecca and Ashley got into the carriage. There was no top and the sides were low. Two benches had been nailed down into the floor and Rebecca and Ashley each took one. It didn't strike Rebecca as a wagon that had been intended for people to ride in.
“Nervous?” Rebecca asked. Ashley shook her head and even gave her a small smile. The carriage started moving across the grass, back the way it had come. Rebecca watched as the car they'd come in started up and drove back towards the city. Soon she couldn't even hear the sound of its engine and everything had become a picture or rural serenity. Rebecca's nerves had calmed and she didn't feel anxious any more either. For the first time she could enjoy the beauty of her surroundings and the freshness of the air blowing down from the mountains. For the first time, things seemed like they were going to be okay.
Chapter 4
Lord Edward's castle sat a stone's throw away from the foot of a mountain range and was separated from them by fields growing rice, vegetables and from a barn with cows wondering around outside. Around the edge of the fields were little houses and as the carriage rolled up the dusty road to the castle Rebecca could see men and women farming. Lord Sebastian had lived comfortably like any wealthy man of the modern world. Lord Edward's estate was nothing short of kingly and Rebecca thought that if she ever saw another home l
ike this it would be the palace of a true king. To the side of the castle was a pagoda five stories high and, when the doors were closed, as they were when they arrived, the picture of two dragons entwined in combat was carved into the wood. The whole estate was awesome and Rebecca couldn't find a single word in all her mind to fully sum up how the place had surprised her. While she gazed at her surroundings she thought she saw someone standing on the roof but then the figure was gone in the blink of an eye. The incident did little to distract her from looking for more beautiful details on the house like the white stone statues of fierce monsters standing guard by the front door.
The driver stopped outside and turned his head as far as he could to look at Ashley and Rebecca. Two servant girls, like Lord Sebastian's maids, helped them out of the carriage. Ashley stomped her feet on the dusty ground a few times then brushed her dress off. Rebecca thanked the women helping her and began to look around for their host. She looked over by the door then towards the pagoda. When she turned around again, she found that he was standing right next to her. Rebecca jumped and yelped in surprise.
“You scared me,” she said apologetically.
“Lord Edward, at your service. Let me say that you are the prettiest lady I've ever had the pleasure of surprising.” Edward's features hinted at a partly Chinese heritage and he didn't look anything like Lord Sebastian. He was considerably younger with darker hair and a taller, thinner build. His features were softer and understated, except for his watchful eyes that gave away his emotions more than the way he smiled.