The Forgotten Throne

by Elliot Burns

  “I know how it seems,” said Sarah. “It’s insensitive. It’s one of the new janitors. He doesn’t really get this place and what it means to people yet. He treats it like it’s a hotel.”

  Jack turned to face her. “You said you had something to tell me about Alfie,” he said.

  She nodded. “Maybe now’s not the best time to talk about it.”

  “Might be a while before we see each other,” said Jack. “I’m working all of next week, and Mum’s not doing too good. What did you want to tell me?”

  She crossed her arms, and her expression changed. She looked like she was deep in thought, or as if she were trying to decide what to say. Sarah had problems focusing for long periods of time. She said she wasn’t exactly sure where it stemmed from. Her theory was that it was because of an accident she had when she was six. She was climbing a tree, when she disturbed a beehive and then fell.

  She was fine for a few years after that, but then she started to struggle in school. It was only with hard work that she caught up to the rest of her peers. Jack knew that when Sarah lost her train of thought, she hated him trying to help her find it. She didn’t want attention drawn to it.

  Finally, she spoke. “Yeah – your uncle. Like I said, I didn’t know when to tell you. It seemed too soon. It might be nothing really. I didn’t want to get you worked up or stir up feelings or whatever.”

  “What is it?” he said.

  She sighed. “Before Alfie…passed… he tried to communicate.”

  He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this. He’d never heard so much as a sound leave his uncle's lips. He’d always wondered what his voice was like, but now he’d never find out. Not only had he never heard him talk, but he’d never seen any indication that his uncle knew he was there, despite the nurses’ reassurances.

  “Did he speak to you?” he said, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice so that he didn’t worry her.

  She shook her head. “Nothing like that. I was changing his pillows. When I lifted his head, something didn’t feel right. I don’t know what it was. A feeling, I guess. I went cold all over. So, I stepped back and looked at Alfie, and he was staring right at me.”

  Jack could hardly contain his shock. He hunted for a logical explanation. “Are you sure you didn’t just move his head?”

  “He was looking at me, Jack. And he started blinking. Like, rapidly. As if he wanted to tell me something. I got the feeling he was doing it purposefully, and I didn’t know what to do. And then I glanced over at his bookcase and saw the old Scrabble game we used to play. You know, the one with all the ‘C’s missing? I got an idea.”

  Jack couldn’t believe it. All this time and he’d gotten no hint of life from Alfie. He’d come here day after day to visit. He’d always hoped that one day he’d open the door to find his great uncle sat up in bed, smiling. That he'd be ready to talk and tell him where he’d disappeared to for 40 years, and about what adventures he’d had. After all, Alfie was his only living male relative, and he’d always wanted to get to know him.

  “Are you okay?” said Sarah.

  “I’m fine. Keep going,” he said. “This is freaky.”

  Sarah crossed her arms. “I laid out all the plastic blocks with letters on them, and I pointed at them one at a time. Whenever your uncle blinked at a letter, I wrote it down. It took ages, and I could tell he was feeling the strain. But we got there.

  “We finished, and I had a message. I was so excited that I ran out of the room to call you. I’d just dialed your number, when Gemma sprinted down the corridor and told me Alfie had gone into cardiac arrest.”

  Jack remembered getting the call. Sarah had been the one to ring him, and he could tell her voice was trembling when she told him. He’d always expected news of grief to hit him like a punch in the stomach. Instead, it was like a sheet of ice slowly spreading over him.

  He looked at her. “What was the message?” he said, barely able to keep his curiosity in check. He realized he was clenching his fists, so he tried to appear a little less tense.

  Sarah reached into her pocket and took out a slip of paper. Jack watched as she slowly unravelled it.

  Chapter Two

  The Secret

  He couldn’t even remember saying bye to Sarah. Before he knew it, he was walking through the labyrinthine corridors of the nursing home, heading toward the daylight of the lobby. He passed the reception desk and saw that his mop job on the coffee hadn’t been great.

  Right now, his mind was on other things. As he left the nursing home he gave once last glance at the walls, certain it’d be the last time he ever saw them. He saw the design of the wallpaper. It was a series of hexagons placed haphazardly, without pattern or meaning. It was a fitting decorative touch to the place, since he’d spent much of his time here in confusion.

  The front doors made a scraping sound as he pushed them open. Across the carpark and over the road was the bus stop. There would be one due soon. He needed to get home and talk to Mum about what Sarah had told him.

  He still couldn’t believe it. All this time, all these years, all these visits, and Alfie had never tried to communicate. Then, hours before he died, he suddenly became chatty. As much as his brain was trying to work out the meaning of Alfie’s message, there was something else on his mind.

  He just wished that he had been the one to get the message. He’d spent years trying to talk to Alfie. He’d read books about it, researched articles on the internet, but nothing worked. He was glad that Sarah had been there. Glad that his uncle hadn’t spent his last few hours alone and trying to communicate in vain. Still, after all this time, Jack would just have loved to have had some contact with him. Some kind of connection that he recognized.

  He left the parking lot and stepped onto the side street. A man approached from his right – average height, grey hair and beard stubble – but Jack gave him only a second’s glance. He stood on the edge of the street and faced the road. Cars whizzed by, and Jack waited for the road to clear.

  There wasn’t much on this side of town, but he guessed he’d miss it all the same. Five minutes down the road there was a Viking-themed burger restaurant, with a feature dish they called the Valkyrie Land, Sea & Air. It was a burger that had beef, chicken, and cod on it. The walls were decorated with paintings of blonde-haired Viking warriors. Shelves were filled with skull-shaped beer tankards. Jack had invited Sarah there a few times, but their schedules had never matched.

  He wondered if he’d see her again. People always had good intentions to see each other, but he knew from experience that it didn’t happen. After all, when his friends had gone to college a year earlier, they’d all promised to meet up with each other. Then, month by month, their contact lessened, and it had been a while since he’d heard of any of them.

  If he didn’t see Sarah again, then their last conversation was certain to be one he’d remember for the rest of his life. As the cars whizzed by without any sign of clearing, he thought back to what she’d told him.

  ‘What was the message?’ he had asked her.

  Sarah had taken a slip of paper from her pocket. She’d looked at it for a few seconds, as if she was trying to decipher the message. Then, she’d started to read it.

  ‘Destroy-’

  A sound shook him from his thoughts. He felt his phone vibrate against his leg, and his ringtone cut through the noise of traffic. He took his mobile out of his pocket and looked at the screen.

  [Mum]

  When he’d left the house earlier, she’d been in bed. When she was at her best, Mum was an energetic person. Up at 5 am, and not in bed until midnight. If she happened to still be in bed by midday, Jack knew something was wrong. It meant that she was going through one of her bad phases. He was surprised that she was even awake enough to call him. Seeing her name on the phone display worried him.

  “Mum?” he answered. “Are you okay?”

  Silence for a few seconds. Then she spoke. Her voice was quiet, almost a w
hisper.

  “We had a call from the landlord,” she said.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. Her voice scared him. “I know I said I paid the rent, but I haven’t. I spent it on-”

  “A catalogue,” he said.

  “I’m trying to get better.”

  He sighed. “How long do we have to pay it?”

  He heard movement on the end of the line. Like Mum was shifting position. “Mr. Lawndes says he’ll give us a week. After that, he’s serving notice to evict us. He said he’s sick ‘our shit.’”

  “Okay, Mum. I’ll deal with it,” he said.

  After he ended the call, the road had cleared, but he didn’t step out. Instead, he stood at the edge of the street and mentally juggled his finances. There was no question of them being evicted – he couldn’t let that happen. Mum was a creature of habit to the point that switching coffee brands shook her up. Being forcibly made to move home would be devastating.

  That meant he would have to do something. The worst part was that Mum knew that. She knew that he’d been saving for college, and that he had a bank account with money in it. At his current rate of saving he’d just about be able to afford the first year’s college fees, but it’d be tight. Paying for a month’s rent would throw everything out.

  Damn it. He knew he didn’t have a choice. He’d stop by the bank on the way home and wire the money to Mr. Lawndes.

  Suddenly, Jack felt anxious. His shoulder muscles felt tense, as if he’d just done a workout without stretching. He needed a drink. Or maybe not a drink, but something. Without thinking, he reached into his jeans pocket. His fingers touched on something metal.

  It was the bracelet. It had been on the shelf with Alfie’s things, and Jack had been messing with it. It was made of gold, but the surface was scratched. Something about it had drawn his attention, as though he was meant to find it. He must have picked it up and put it in his pocket without realizing. He guessed that at the time, he wasn’t really thinking straight. He was more concerned with trying to process what Sarah had told him.

  He remembered watching her as she unravelled the paper. It seemed to take hours as she unfolded it. He did his best to stay calm, but it wasn’t easy.

  Sarah looked down at the slip of paper and read from it.

  ‘Destroy the stone.’

  Jack had looked at her strangely. It was like the words had reached his ears, then floated through his head and out the other side.

  ‘Is that it?’ he asked.

  Sarah shrugged. Then nodded. ‘He was too tired, Jack. He couldn’t go on.’

  ‘But it makes no sense.’

  Years of waiting for any sort of communication with Alife, and this was the result. Jack racked his brain and tried to find a way to shape the words so that they made sense. It was impossible.

  ‘Destroy the stone.’ What stone was that? And why did Alfie want Jack to destroy it?

  It was the last ravings of a man weakened by age and illness. Whatever had happened to Alife to make him mute must have injured his brain. It was the only explanation. It was a pity. Nobody would ever know why Alfie had disappeared for forty years. They'd have no idea what he’d been through, and that was the tragedy of it all. He just felt bad for his great uncle.

  Still chewing on the phrase ‘Destroy the stone’, Jack stepped out into the road. He twisted the sentence in his head. He took it apart, examined each word in turn, tried to make it fit into what he knew of Alfie’s life. It was impossible.

  It was better that he focused on the rent issue. Not better, but more important. He started to calculate finances in his head. He had enough for the rent, but how many extra shifts would he need to take to replace his savings? It’d take a few more 12 hours shifts, at least. His body ached at the thought.

  ‘Destroy the stone.’

  The words hit him again. No matter where he went with his thoughts, the phrase followed. It was as though after Sarah had spoken the words, they’d anchored to Jack and that they would stalk him everywhere.

  He was thinking about them again, when he heard a sound.

  The squeal of brakes. A screech of metal. The smell burning rubber.

  He was in the middle of the road. He’d wandered into it without thinking. He’d tuned out everything around him, and he’d started to cross the road without making sure it was safe.

  In the split-second left to him, he saw the car. He heard the driver screaming. He saw his body jerking as he frantically pushed the brakes. There was a tremendous groaning sound as the car slowed on the road. As the noise deafened him, Jack knew the driver hadn’t pressed the brakes in time.

  He knew the car would hit him. He couldn’t move. Even if he could, there was no time.

  Two tons of steel smashed into his chest. Then something hit his head. Pain spread through him. Sounds exploded, then faded. Light weakened. He tried to reach out for something to hold on to, but his arms wouldn’t work.

  Then it was dark.

  Everything.

  Just black.

  And quiet. So, so quiet.

  So why could he still think? Could you process thoughts while you were unconscious? Should he try to do something?

  Should he try to open his eyes?

  One eyelid first. That was best. But try as he might, it wouldn’t move. He had to really force it. He was no superman, but he’d never had to strain just to open his eyes before.

  Then it opened. Light flooded in. Greens and yellows. Just blurry streams of light at first, but when he opened his other eye they started to take more definite shapes. Gradually, feeling returned to his body. He became aware of something pressing against his legs, chest and arms.

  He moved. He realized it wasn’t something pressing against him, but rather him pressing against it. And the ‘it’ was a path made of loose stones, and he was spread out across it.

  What the hell?

  He was conscious, he knew that much. He could tell from the way the sun warmed his cheeks. That made it all the stranger that he was no longer on a tarmac road. He was no longer surrounded by brick-built office buildings. The nursing home wasn’t behind him, and the Viking-themed restaurant wasn’t to his right. In short, every damn thing was different.

  His head throbbed. Part of his skull stung like it had been cut. When he put his finger there, rubbed it, and then pulled it away, there was no blood. His clothes were strangely free from any sort of stain. Groaning, he pushed his hands down on the stones and got to his feet.

  Why wasn’t he hurt? He remembered the car. He pictured it in the millisecond before it hit him. Like a metal shark swimming his way. A behemoth ready to wipe him off the face of the earth.

  The car was nowhere to be seen now. Instead, all Jack could see were fields of green and yellow grass. He was in a countryside area, that much was certain. To the west, he could see patches of farmland where crops had been planted. In the distance, the peaks of jagged mountains loomed over the landscape.

  He turned around in a circle. He was nowhere near his home town anymore, that was for sure. He couldn’t think of anywhere nearby where there was so much greenery.

  And he certainly didn’t know of any castles near his hometown.

  He saw it as he completed his 360-degree scoping of the area. It was in the east, not too far away. Close enough that he could see that it was structurally okay, though the stonework was broken in places. Debris was scattered around it. Most of the windows were smashed.

  Aside from the castle and a few scattered farmhouses, there wasn’t much else. He needed to think. He should probably get himself checked into a hospital to make sure he was okay, but for now, he just wanted to get home. The question was, which way was home?

  As he pondered the question, he heard a noise. It sent a ripple of unease through him, making the hairs on his arms stand up. He looked around him, but he couldn’t see anything.

  It was a growling sound. Not from a dog, but something bigger. It was nea
rby. It sounded aggressive, like a warning that something was ready to attack. And it was getting closer.

  Chapter Three

  In Royaume!

  At first he wondered if it wasn’t the sound of growling but instead, an engine turning over. Like maybe he’d wake up and he’d be back on the road, his skull cut open, blood leaking onto the tarmac. That an ambulance would arrive and paramedics would rush over to him. The driver of the car would be in the background blaming himself. Jack would tell him that it was his own fault for stepping into the road.

  The scene around him didn’t change. As much as he willed them to, the green fields didn’t make way for tarmac. It was disorientating. Like someone had blinded-folded him and then dropped him in a random area of the country.

  At least the growling had faded. He looked around. He couldn’t see anything that could have made a growl. Still, he didn’t feel safe just standing there. It was time to take stock and then do something.

  First, he reached into his pocket for his phone. Even way out in the country, surely he’d still have signal? His fingertips touched the fabric lining of his pocket without grasping his phone. After a few seconds of rummaging a shock hit him – his phone was gone. He took a few steps around to see if it had dropped onto the stone path, but it hadn’t.

  The farmhouses. One of them would have a phone. Or at least they might have a vehicle, and might be willing to give him a ride. He must have walked all the way out here after the accident. Maybe he’d gotten a concussion and had been acting on autopilot for a while, and he’d wandered into the middle of nowhere.

  It was a plan, at least. The problem was, the nearest farmhouse looked at least a few miles away. And between Jack and the house might have been whatever had made the growling sound. He couldn’t see it right now, but if it was some kind of cougar or wolf, he didn’t want to run into it out in the open.