by W. C. Peever
“I can’t listen to this. He can’t be dead! I don’t believe it. I won’t go with this man. I don’t trust him. Charlie, come with me. Now. Run before we are caught up in the same web of lies that took our fathers. I need you.” Her pleading tugged at his heart, which had belonged to her since they were in diapers. He knew their mothers, inside the house, desperately needed them right now, but his best friend needed him more.”Okay.” He said. Let’s go. I’ve never left you before and I never will, no matter how much trouble you get me into. Why should today be any different?” They jumped on their bikes and tore off down the hill, back towards the pond.
The house behind them turned into a blip of light, and then no light at all. Ice and gravel kicked up from the wheels, taking nicks out of his ankles where his socks didn’t quite meet his pants. Trees sped by at an impossible rate. The frost building on his eyelids soon made it hard to see more than a few feet in front of him. He instinctually knew they would reach the bottom any time now but the moonlight was playing tricks on him. There had never been a streetlight where the pond met the road, yet Charlie could swear he saw one now, growing nearer. Or was it a street light? No, it was a man in the road, holding some sort of bright light. Not just a man. Impossible as it seemed, it was the man from the pond. The man from the house. The man who tried to tear them away from their families.
Lord Grayson leaned on his cane and looked up at them, his eyes electric blue in the moonlight. Charlie could not be sure, but it seemed as if the man was smiling. As they approached he raised his cane and brought it down hard on the dirt road. There was a momentary, brilliant flash, and then everything went black.
Chapter Two
A Brand New Day
Charlie woke up to the smell of burnt bacon and toast. He stretched and rubbed his eyes. When he opened them again he went into a panic. This wasn’t his bedroom; it wasn’t any kind of room that he could recognize. Everything was white, brilliantly lit white. Bailey was curled up in a corner and he ran to her side.
“Bailey! Wake up. Bailey!” She didn’t stir. “Bailey, please wake up!” She groaned and slowly opened her eyes.
“Where are we Charlie? What happened?” She sat up. “Do you smell burnt bacon?”
“Well, I’m glad you smell it too. I thought I was going crazy. I can’t imagine where it’s coming from.” He looked around dazed. “Weird. The entire room is white. How did we get in here? I don’t see any door!”
Bailey gave him one of her looks. “More importantly, Charlie, how do we get out? What do you remember?”
“We were riding our bikes by the pond. And then I saw him, the man from the house. He did something. There was a flash of light. Then…nothing.”
“Good, good. You’re awake,” came a voice from somewhere outside the room. “I am sorry for your current accommodations, my dears, but it’s important that you don’t experience any untoward stimulus after your first QILT.” The white walls disappeared and the children found themselves in a beautifully ornate room of what surely must have been a royal castle. Ancient and fading tapestries adorned the stone walls, from ceiling to floor. A large mahogany desk sparkled in the glow of the crackling hearth. Sitting behind an oversized desk, in a red velvet armchair was Lord Grayson, smoking a pipe.
“Quick Instant Light Traveling experiences can be quite exhausting, but you two seemed to have recovered quite well. Welcome to Thornfield School. Please have a seat; we have a lot to talk about.” He gestured towards two purple velvet armchairs, into which the children sat.
Grayson looked at them from across the desk, his gold rimmed glasses half way down his nose.
“Cup of hot chocolate? This old castle can be quite drafty in February, and hot chocolate always seems to make a conversation so much more pleasant. The Highlands are after all a very windy area of Scotland”
“Scotland?!” Bailey sputtered. “I told you there was a lot that we needed to talk about,” Grayson said. He considered his next words quite carefully. “I have the ability to…transport myself…and others…anywhere in the world, instantaneously…on a beam of light. I am a Manserian.” He said proudly, and when he saw the expressions on their faces he continued. “A master Manserian actually, a manipulator of elements, and guardian of the nine worlds. I, and those of my kind, ensure the safe return of the Gods. I believe that you both are a part of our Order.
“The elements? Like you control fire and water and such? How?” Charlie asked, completely enthralled. Bailey grabbed his arm and stopped him before he could go on.
“I am getting to that point.” The man said, matter-of-factly. “However, there is a bit of history that you must fully understand. Now –”
As he spoke the door in the back of the room opened and a pleasantly round, portly woman in a long, purple velvet dress strode in, carrying a tray with three streaming cups of hot chocolate delicately balanced on top of it.
“Ah, Ms. Welling, very good. Please put the tray on the table. Thank you so much for your help at this late hour. Would you also be so kind as to make their accommodations ready for the night?”
“You don’t mean to put them up in the main bunks, Professor?” Ms. Welling seemed a bit taken back and yet totally in control of the situation. She continued to speak without waiting for a reply. “I think not. The other children have been asleep for hours and they have a busy day tomorrow. No, putting these two in the main bunks would not be right. I mean look at them, Grayson. Filthy, soaked to the bone in Gods know what. It will take them an hour just to get cleaned up for bed. No, that would be completely out of the question. I shall make up two rooms in the Mason Tower. That should be quite suitable for one night.”
“As you wish, Ms. Welling, as you wish. You are the authority in all matters residential. I willingly defer to you, and your skillful hands.” She nodded and left the room, as briskly as her legs could take her.
“That was Ms. Welling. She’s in charge of the living arrangements here at the castle, among countless other self appointed duties. If she comes across as rather strict…well she is. However, you will find her to be impeccably fair. A wise person should always desire a strict but fair person in charge of welfare. Don’t you think? Now where were we? Ah yes, my great abilities.” He chuckled to himself.
“I have certain abilities that most people do not. You should soon discover that you have some of these abilities too. I can instantly transport to different places on earth. I can take people with me, as you’ve experienced firsthand. I am also blessed with the ability to manipulate the elements. As such, I can change my form into anything I wish.”
The children looked up at him with a look that said clearly what asylum have I found myself in, and how do I get out?
“What, you do not believe me? Very well, I didn’t expect you to. Well then, I suppose I must prove myself,” Lord Grayson said and placing his cane in front of him. He closed his eyes and began to sway back and forth. The swaying suddenly became violent, and in seconds a gray tabby cat with the professor’s brilliant blue eyes sat on the chair where just moments before Grayson had sat.
The cat looked up at them and spoke. “Despite my appearance, I am not a cat. I am still the man you were speaking with moments ago. However, my appearance has shifted into the form of my childhood pet, Miss Whiskers. Oh, I did love that cat. We did everything together. Good times…” He drifted off briefly into reverie. “But I believe that is enough for tonight, and I tend to find myself worn out for awhile after a shape shift. Ms. Welling will show you to your rooms. Good night.” The cat jumped off the seat and went to curl up by the fire.
“All right my dears,” came the voice, followed closely by the rather large body, of Ms. Welling. “Come now, off to bed. A good night’s sleep is what you need.” She ushered the children out of the room and through the maze of corridors to their rooms, then tucked them neatly in. To Charlie’s complete surprise he was sound asleep before his head hit the pillow.
******
Bright beams of
light were streaming in from the gable windows of Mason Tower to hit Charlie right in the face. He woke with a start and sat straight up, his green eyes darting back and forth. The room was spacious. All the walls were richly paneled in wood and both the floor and the ceiling were made of large cut stone that stretched to the sky. The bed he was sitting on was an antique four poster. The comforter matched the patterned red and orange Oriental rug on the floor.
He knew that he was in a castle, or at least that’s what he had been told last night, but this room did not appear to be like any castle he had seen in the movies. Yes, the floor was covered in a black and white checkerboard of marble tiles that made him think of a movie that used people as chess pieces, and yes the furniture was old, but it was still not what he would imagined at all. All and all, it would have been a beautiful place to awaken, had Charlie not been kidnapped, rendered unconscious, and imprisoned the night before. He got out of bed, warm feet hitting cold marble, rubbed his face and looked around the room. His glasses lay on an ornately carved mahogany bedside table, next to a tall, ice-cold glass of orange juice, and a croissant with steam still curling from the cracked center.
The food looked amazing and he quickly finished the refreshing juice. Wait. Food? The glass of juice fell from his trembling fingers as the reality behind the juice’s sudden appearance found purchase in his mind. Charlie ran for the bedroom door, slamming it open against the wood panel, and sped down the hall to the room where he saw Bailey retire the night before. Someone had been in his room.
Someone had unlocked the deadbolt he had secured himself before hopping into bed. Someone had stood over him while he slept, or at least close enough for them to place a tray of food eight inches from his head. To say he was unnerved by this violation would have understated the problem.
Charlie reached the door where he had last seen his friend and composed himself. After all, Bailey would never let him live down the fact that he had run away from a tray of food. Once he had checked over his shoulder, controlled his breathing, and when his heart had resumed a semi-normal rhythm he knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again, a bit harder this time. Again, there was no answer. He pounded his fist on the old wood and called out her name, the force of his knock echoing down the long corridor. She was not there. She was gone, or dead…Maybe she ate the tray of food and it had been poisoned, or worse she had been taken somewhere. He needed to find her.
A panic he had not felt since the time he lost track of his mother at the circus she had taken him to when he was five set in around his heart. Charlie turned to run, somewhere, anywhere, and slammed smack into Ms. Welling heavyset bosom.
“Goodness!” The woman exclaimed. “And where are you planning on going in such a hurry? And what’s all of this noise? You could wake the dead!” She fussed in vain trying to straighten his hair. “This is not the way a gentleman should present himself.”
“Where’s Bailey?” Charlie interrupted coldly. “What have you done with her? I won’t let you hurt her!”
“Oh, be reasonable, Charles. She was famished, and rightly so after last night. Neither of you had supper, so I escorted her to the cafeteria for breakfast.”
She focused on his hair for another minute, then realizing that it was a lost cause stopped fussing. “I assume you will want to join her?” He nodded. “Well, follow me,” she said as she turned and walked out the door with deliberate, metered steps. Charlie followed closely behind.
“Excuse me, Ma’am, could you…” Charlie began.
“The name is Ms. Welling. Not ‘Ma’am’, nor ‘Mrs.’ nor ‘Mother,’ understand? Now, what would you like to ask?” Ms. Welling’s voice was terse, and yet there was an unexpected softness to it that was comforting. He smiled at the ‘mother’ comment. She’s the closest thing the students here have to a mother, he thought, and she knows it.
“Could you please tell me where we are, Ms. Welling?”
Her thin pursed lips raised in a smile, more of pride than humor.
“Well, Thornfield is a private school. All of the usual subjects are taught: math, science, history, and literature, and we have perhaps the finest professors from around the world. Many of them studied and later taught at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale and the Sorbonne prior to settling down here. You see, we offer them something no one can find anywhere else in the world; a place to teach the students who will go on to be the guardians of humanity.
“Guardians of Humanity…do you mean our abilities?” Lord Grayson had hinted that Charlie and Bailey might have abilities last night, and had then proceeded to turn into a cat. “What kind of abilities?”
Ms. Welling shook her head. “I have no knowledge of your abilities, nor does anyone alive. All I can tell you is that everyone here has the potential for such abilities. You will have to undergo the trials to determine which potential abilities you posses.
“As to your first question, this castle was built on the very site where Merlin’s tower once stood. Thornfield was finished in the 1500’s by Lord Henry Thornfield. It took him years to find the ruins of Merlin’s castle, as the original council of Merlin had kept its location a strict secret. But, when he finally discovered it, he spent his whole family fortune restoring it. The stone work of the castle is original, some of it restored from the very ruins, but the woodwork and current elegance was installed in the late Victorian era. It is therefore extremely old and valuable, so be careful. Everything else is quite modern. Our library has over thirty computers all with the latest Windows update. We have a digital camera class if you wish to take it, and each student is issued a laptop at the start of every year. Additionally we are preparing to install elevators in each of the five towers – they are a devil to climb! I think you will find your next few years with us quite enjoyable”
Charlie had stopped listening after Ms. Welling had first said Merlin, a word that had been sacred to him since he first read The Once and Future King.
“But…Merlin was a man from a story, a myth. Not an actual person? That would be ridiculous right?” The question levitated in the air, held there by the hopes and dreams of every school age child whose boyhood fantasies may actually be true.
“Oh, he lived,” she laughed to herself as if at a private joke “a good long life. No, Merlin was not the magician the stories portray. He was a master Manserian, like our current Headmaster, like all of us in this castle, yet a hundred times more powerful. He could control all of the elements and travel through time. He also possessed the rarest ability of them all. Merlin was a Dimensionalist, and a World Jumper. He could jump not only between the nine worlds, but he could jump between the dimensions that are created in each. Imagine the power – to be able to go back and see what would have happened if you had made a different choice! There was this boy who asked me to a dance, he was so infatuated with me in…” Ms. Welling looked down at the twelve year old boy she was speaking to, and quickly composed herself. Her tone turned back business and the question she had been asked. “This singular ability can only be inherited. Not even Professor Grayson can jump between dimensions.” She whispered as she stopped in front of the two sliding glass doors of the cafeteria. “Ah, here we are.” She pointed over to a far table. “Bailey will be over there and oh, goodness she does have a healthy appetite.”
The hall was filled with tables. Some of them were new and modern while others were probably around when Merlin was alive. Some were round, some square, and all of them scattered around the hall in a very haphazard sort of way. The tables did not take away from the grandeur of the hall, which was as large as a football field. The entire room was constructed of gray slabs of granite, like what a castle should look like, and yet the floor was made out of the stuff that his cafeteria at school was made off, and all of the chairs were those uncomfortable folding metal ones.
Sure, along the perimeter of the hall stood a pantheon of Greek soapstone statues of heroes past, but even they were mingled around tables of computers. Among this pantheo
n of juxtapositions sat Bailey. In front of her were three plates piled high with sausages, pancakes, eggs, biscuits, jams and jellies.
“She likes to eat,” Charlie said with a laugh. He nodded his thanks to Ms. Welling who was very glad to be done with him. Charley hurried over to Bailey’s side. “Got enough to eat there, Bailey? Leave any for me?” Bailey replied by punching him in the shoulder a bit harder than was playful, and returned to her meal.
“You going to get something to eat or just sit there and make fun of me?” she said, smiling in between mouthfuls. Charlie proceeded to the nearest buffet table, which was littered with huge silver chafing dishes, all filled with the most delicious food. He loaded a plate and walked back to where Bailey was. As he sat down, he noticed that she had finished all three of her plates, and was contentedly sipping a cup of what he assumed to be coffee. Typical, he thought as he turned his attention to his own two plates.
“Quite a place, isn’t it Bailey? I mean, have you ever seen anything like this before?”
“Well the coffee is great, and that speaks a lot about a place like this.”
Charlie rolled his eyes and concentrated on his sausage. She was addicted to the almighty bean, or at least the caffeine contained within. He was always amazed that it never stunted her growth, but maybe that was just a lie parents tell their children. In any case, she drank between two and ten cups a day and Charlie had to deal with the repercussions. In fact, it was usually after one of her coffee binges that Bailey would get them in the worst kind of trouble.
An older boy approached them from behind. “Excuse me,” he said.
“Yes?” said Charlie. The boy was had to be close to seventeen, most likely in his last year at Thornfield. He had long black hair pulled back in a greasy ponytail, patches of stubble on his chin wherever he could grow it, and a large red spot, just beneath his rather elongated nose, where he had recently squeezed a pimple. Not at all the type of boy you want handing you something in the middle of breakfast.