Phyllis Wong and the Waking of the Wizard

by Geoffrey McSkimming

  Phyllis picked up her bag, put it over her shoulder and made for the doorway. ‘Let’s go.’

  Daisy trotted outside ahead of them. ‘She remembers the way,’ Phyllis smiled.

  Clement followed her out of the farmhouse and they hurried through the broken-down gateway into the narrow road lined with its hedges of hawthorn and holly.

  Phyllis walked briskly, to try to get her circulation flowing and warm up. ‘W.W. told me that at this place we’re going to there’s supposed to be a carving or an inscription or something, made by Myrrdin himself. W.W. thinks it might give a clue to Myrrdin’s whereabouts. That’s what we’re looking for today.’

  The gravel crunched underfoot as they walked. Every now and then they jumped over icy puddles, or sidestepped to avoid a frosty cow pat in the middle of the road. The sun was low in the sky, shining weakly and feebly against the cold atmosphere. From its position, Phyllis guessed that the time was somewhere in the mid-afternoon—and being the middle of winter as it was, it would quickly be night.

  Daisy scurried ahead of Phyllis and Clement, taking her duty as advance patrol sentry very seriously.

  Clement kept asking Phyllis where they were going, but whenever he enquired, the prestidigitator just smiled her wait and see smile and kept walking. After a while, he changed his tack and started asking, ‘Are we there yet?’ at which Phyllis would pointedly ignore him and start whistling a tune.

  ‘Nineteen sixty-five, huh?’ he said, after giving up on that line of questioning. ‘Boy, my folks weren’t even born in 1965. At least, I don’t think they were.’

  ‘That’d be right,’ said Phyllis. ‘We’re here not only before our time, but our parents’ time as well.’

  The narrow laneway turned to the north-east. Phyllis stopped. ‘Look,’ she told Clement. ‘Across the plain.’

  Clement squinted through his glasses. Slowly, his eyes grew wide as he focussed on the towering stones. ‘Stonehenge?’ he asked, recognising it vaguely from one of his games.

  ‘Stonehenge,’ confirmed Phyllis.

  ‘Hey, Phyll, way cool!’

  Phyllis saw his wide smile, and it made her smile too. ‘C’mon, let’s go see if we can find Myrrdin’s scribblings!’

  Soon they were close to the great monument, and it was clear to Phyllis that today was a very different sort of day from the last time she’d visited Stonehenge with Wallace Wong. Today the place was crowded. There were people everywhere: people sitting on the grass all around and amid the stones, people singing, people dancing, even people chanting.

  ‘Hey!’ Clement exclaimed. ‘Hippies!’

  ‘Strike me pink,’ muttered Phyllis.

  ‘I’ve never seen a real live hippie before,’ said Clement. ‘Wow! Do you reckon they’ll be friendly?’

  ‘I hope so.’ Like Clem, she knew little about hippies.

  Clement dumped his backpack onto the gravel and rummaged around inside it. Daisy ran up to him and poked her snout in the backpack, just in case Clement needed some help.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Phyllis asked.

  ‘Don’t look for a sec,’ Clement said.

  Phyllis rolled her eyes, and turned towards Stonehenge. There were hundreds of people around, and on the far side of the site she could see a row of brightly painted old-looking wooden caravans, some of which had horses grazing nearby. The caravans had bold, swirling, psychedelic patterns all over them, and Phyllis felt cheery at the sight of them.

  ‘Okay, you can look.’

  Phyllis turned to see Clement wearing a shoulder-length, dark brown wig. He smiled at her.

  ‘You look like your sister,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘I don’t have a sister.’

  ‘I know that, but if you had a sister, that’s what she’d look like.’ Phyllis was sort of glad he didn’t have a sister, if what she’d just said was true.

  ‘Oh, ha ha.’ Clement straightened his wig. ‘This is a Richard III wig, if you must know. But it’ll also pass for a hippie wig. They all wore their hair long back then . . . back now, I mean, in 1965.’

  ‘You look sublime,’ Phyllis told him.

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ He zipped up his backpack, hoisted it onto his back and, flouncing his new long hair off his shoulders, set off along the last stretch of the lane towards Stonehenge.

  Phyllis shook her head at him. ‘C’mon, Daisy girl.’ She clicked her fingers and the little terrier scampered after her.

  Stonehenge was a sea of colours and sounds and smells. Some of the hippies were cooking lentil and vegetable stews in big pots over fires, and the aroma was carried along on the crisp air so that it almost danced around Phyllis’s nostrils. Her tummy started rumbling, and she realised she hadn’t eaten for ages. She thought about that. For decades, she decided.

  ‘Hey,’ Clement said loudly, ‘I just got an idea. Imagine if there was a game where there were hippie zombies. How great would that be? They’d be all trembling and chilling and spaced-out even more than normal and—’

  ‘Clem! Shh! Don’t make fun of them.’

  Clement pushed his glasses up his nose, blushing. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘I know.’ She punched him lightly on the arm and grinned. ‘Let’s go visit!’

  He grinned back. ‘Yup.’

  They made their way through the groups. Daisy trotted up to a man with long hair and a straggly beard who was strumming a guitar. He was surrounded by a few other hippies, all of them wearing faded flared jeans or long, flowing dresses with sheepskin coats over them.

  When the man with the guitar saw Daisy, he stopped playing and scooped her up. ‘Hey, little doggie,’ he said, bringing her close to his bearded face.

  Daisy squirmed and wriggled.

  Phyllis and Clement came up to the bearded man.

  ‘Hey, girls,’ one of the women greeted them.

  ‘Hi,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘I’m not a girl,’ said Clement.

  ‘Sorry, dude,’ the woman apologised.

  Clement shrugged.

  ‘Groovy coat,’ another woman said to Phyllis. ‘It’s not real fur, is it?’

  ‘No, just fake,’ said Phyllis.

  The woman gave her a big smile. She was wearing small round glasses with pink lenses, and her hair was plaited with daisies and other wildflowers. ‘I’m Mooncherry,’ she introduced herself.

  ‘I’m Phyllis, and this is my friend, Clem. And that’s Daisy.’

  The bearded guitar man gave Daisy a small frollicking jiggle and set her down on the grass. ‘She’s a cool little pup,’ he said.

  ‘Welcome and peace,’ Mooncherry said to Phyllis, in a gentle, mellifluous voice. ‘These are my friends: Rainchild, Crystal, Dewglisten, Amberheart, Oggiedad, Flintstorer, Venus, Tuesday, Ringbearer, Featherstone and Gerald.’ Mooncherry lowered her voice and added, ‘Gerald hasn’t decided on his Druid name yet.’

  Clement observed that Gerald was the only one dressed in a suit, although he did have a brightly coloured woven headband around his head.

  ‘Hi, everyone,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘Peace, man,’ said Oggiedad, holding up two fingers in a V-shape. Some of the others murmured similar greetings and did the same.

  ‘Peace, man,’ Clement said back at them, returning the V-shape.

  Mooncherry said, ‘Come for the eclipse, have you, Phyllis?’

  ‘The eclipse?’

  ‘Tonight,’ said Mooncherry. ‘The lunar eclipse. That’s why we’re all here. It’s a full moon and the eclipse will come tonight . . . everything will be aligned . . .’ Mooncherry tilted her head and looked carefully at Phyllis. ‘Phyllis.’ She said Phyllis’s name almost dreamily. ‘You know things,’ she said quietly. ‘You know secret things, don’t you?’

  ‘She’s a magician,’ said Clement, proudly.

  Mooncherry stood and, reaching out, took Phyllis’s hands in hers, holding them gently. ‘That’s why you’ve come,’ she said to Phyllis. ‘You’ve come to find out the secrets . . . the
magic secrets . . . of the moon. The secrets that only appear when the moon passes behind our planet and disappears into our shadow . . .’

  ‘The syzygy,’ said Ringbearer, nodding wisely.

  ‘The syzygy?’ repeated Clement.

  ‘When the sun, the Earth and the moon are in a straight line,’ Ringbearer explained.

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Clement nodded, as though he knew all about the syzygy, but he had just forgotten it for a moment.

  ‘That’s why you’ve come, isn’t it, Phyllis?’ asked Mooncherry.

  ‘Well,’ Phyllis replied, ‘actually, no. Not really. We’ve come to look for something else.’

  ‘We’re all looking for something else,’ said Oggiedad. ‘I’m looking for that perfect tune . . .’ He picked up his guitar and started strumming softly.

  ‘Peace, man,’ said Amberheart. She started swaying gently to the music.

  ‘What are you looking for, Phyllis?’ Mooncherry asked.

  ‘Oh . . .’ Phyllis let go of Mooncherry’s hands. ‘Just something my great-grandfather told me about.’

  ‘Yeah,’ added Clement. ‘You should meet her great-grandfather. He brought her here just the other—OUCH!’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Clem. I didn’t see your foot there.’

  Clement hopped up and down—Phyllis could be forceful, and the heel on her boot was hard.

  ‘So you’ve been here before?’ asked Mooncherry.

  ‘Just the once. I thought I’d show Clem the place. It’s his first time.’

  Mooncherry smiled. ‘Well, it’s the perfect time to be here. Will you be staying tonight? You can camp out with us if you’d like.’

  ‘That depends,’ Phyllis said. She clicked her fingers, and Daisy, who had been enjoying all the pats and tummy-rubs and attentions of some of the other hippies, came running up to her. ‘On whether we find what we’re looking for.’

  ‘Chill out, man,’ said Dewglisten. ‘Whatever it is, whenever you find it you’ll find it.’

  ‘The answer, they say, is blowing on the breezes . . .’ chanted Tuesday.

  ‘Groovy,’ said Amberheart.

  ‘Certainly,’ said Gerald.

  ‘Go carefully,’ Mooncherry said.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Phyllis. ‘We will.’

  ‘And come and chill out with us if you’re still here later. Watch the eclipse with us.’

  ‘Yeah, man,’ said Clement. ‘We’ll do that.’

  Phyllis gave Clement an oh we will, will we sort of look.

  Mooncherry reached into her pocket and brought out a red-and-yellow headband. ‘Here, Clem.’ She handed it over to him. ‘I think you need it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He took it eagerly and slipped it over his wig—he always liked it when he could add some new item to his disguises collection. ‘Groovy.’

  Phyllis shook her head—now he looked like his sister (if he had one) with a headband.

  Mooncherry smiled.

  ‘It was nice to meet you,’ Phyllis said, picking up Daisy and popping her into her bag. ‘Have a swell time.’

  Mooncherry gave Phyllis and Clem the peace sign and watched as they made their way into the midst of the hippie gathering.

  Beaming meaning

  ‘So that’s why the place is so crowded,’ Phyllis said as they picked their way through the groups of hippies into the inner circle.

  ‘I’ve never seen a lunar eclipse,’ said Clement. ‘Matter of fact, I’ve never seen any sort of eclipse. Hey, you can call me Clemeleon Dude from now on.’

  ‘What?’ she said, bemused.

  ‘Clemeleon Dude. Like Chameleon Dude. It’s my hippie name. Or my Druid name, like they said.’ ‘Clemeleon Dude,’ Phyllis repeated. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Ever-changing in appearance, Phyll. That’s me, yeah, dig it.’

  A man came running down the grass, pushing an old red wheelbarrow with two young women in it. They were holding on precariously to the sides and half-laughing, half-screaming like babies do when they’re being tickled to within an inch of their lives.

  ‘Hey, watch out, girls!’ the man called out to Phyllis and Clement.

  ‘I’m not a girl,’ Clement called back. Daisy barked excitedly as the barrow hurtled past.

  ‘Sorry, dude,’ the man shouted over his shoulder.

  ‘Ever-changing, all right,’ Phyllis smiled. ‘Why, Clem, you can even change your sex.’

  ‘Oh, ha ha,’ he said, flicking his long hair across his shoulders.

  ‘Come on, Clemeleon Dude. Let’s search.’

  Phyllis decided to put Daisy on her leash, in case any more wild wheelbarrows suddenly appeared out of nowhere. When the leash was clipped onto the back of Daisy’s coat, the trio headed towards the centre of the standing stones.

  ‘So, this inscription,’ said Clement. ‘What’s it say?’

  ‘Well,’ Phyllis answered in the lowest voice which Clem could still hear above the singing and chanting rising up from the hippies, ‘it’s supposed to prophesy where the final battle of the world will take place.’

  ‘Cool!’

  ‘But W.W. and I are hoping it might give a clue about where Myrddin could be nowadays.’

  ‘Cool times two!’

  ‘Yeah, but where it might be is anybody’s guess.’ Phyllis stopped walking and peered all around Stonehenge.

  Clement shivered. ‘It’s getting colder,’ he said, dumping his backpack on the grass. ‘Ha! I thought this might still be in there.’ He pulled out a long scarf and wound it quickly round his neck.

  Phyllis pulled on her gloves. ‘It’ll be dark soon. C’mon, let’s start over there.’ She led Daisy and Clement to the southern edge of the stones.

  ‘This is going to be harder than I thought,’ Phyllis said, looking at all the hippies. ‘So many of these guys have set up their tents and windbreaks right up against the stones. There’re places we won’t be able to see, unless we ask people to move.’

  ‘Let’s just infiltrate the place,’ said Clement, sounding like a spy. ‘We’re smaller than most of ’em . . . we’ll just be invisible.’ He gave a big grin and led the way further into the inner circle.

  ‘Rarf!’ barked Daisy, and she and Phyllis followed him.

  As they moved around the circle, examining what they could of the inner sides of the sarsen stones, they found many inscriptions. ‘Graffiti,’ said Phyllis, frowning.

  ‘Wow,’ said Clement, smirking. ‘Ha! I didn’t know they knew that word back here.’

  ‘It’s a very old word,’ Phyllis told him, hurrying on.

  Light flakes of snow began to fall, wafting across the plain on the gentle, chilly breeze. Phyllis wished she’d worn her other coat with the faux-fur-lined hood. Daisy trotted along happily; snow, unlike rain, never bothered her, especially when the snowflakes were dry like these ones, and not slushy underpaw.

  For more than an hour Phyllis, Clement and Daisy searched the site, poking about behind tents and the psychedelic caravans. With the coming of the snow, the light faded quickly, and Phyllis and Clement used the flashlights in their cell phones to illuminate the sarsens. (Their flashlights still worked, even though their phones couldn’t pick up any signals.)

  But all they could find was roughly hewn graffiti—people’s names, or love hearts with initials in them and arrows piercing them, or crude drawings of dogs and cats and other creatures.

  Finally, Phyllis turned off her phone flashlight and sighed. ‘It’s no use,’ she muttered, shivering. ‘It’s getting too dark to see anything. Not even the light from all these campfires will be—’

  ‘Dorcas is a nerk!’ blurted Clement.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dorcas is a nerk!’

  ‘Who’s Dorcas?’ asked Phyllis.

  ‘I dunno, but she must be a huge nerk. That’s the seventh time I’ve seen it written. It’s chalked up all over the place. Man, someone sure didn’t like Dorcas. She’s the Queen of the Nerks!’

  ‘For Pete’s sake, Clem, we—’

&nbs
p; ‘Hey,’ he said loudly, ‘there’s another one over there, on the side of that stone!’

  ‘Clem, come back here!’

  ‘Rarf rarf!’ Daisy barked as he hurried away to a place where they hadn’t yet investigated.

  ‘C’mon, Daisy girl, we’d better not lose him.’

  Clement had disappeared around the corner of a particularly bad-smelling place. ‘Peee-eeew!’ he exclaimed when Phyllis and Daisy caught up with him.

  Phyllis pinched her nostrils shut. ‘Ergh,’ she grunted in a nasally tone. ‘This must be where everybody’s dumping their trash and stuff they’ve finished with.’

  ‘Yeah, like stuff their bodies have finished with!’ Clement looked like he was about to throw up. ‘Yucko.’ Then he pointed his phone flashlight to what had led him there, and read the graffiti out loud, as if to voice his reason for venturing into this pongy place: ‘Dorcas is a nerk!’

  Daisy started snouting around in a pile of old food scraps.

  Clement shook the snow out of his long hair. ‘Hey, Phil, what do you say about heading back? My nose is so cold it’s wanting to emigrate off my face.’

  Phyllis was shining her phone flashlight onto Daisy, when suddenly her eyes lit up. ‘It can’t be,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Not here . . .’

  ‘Huh?’ said Clement, his teeth chattering.

  ‘Clem, look!’ She cast her flashlight across a section of the sarsen stones behind Daisy, where a whole lot of food scraps had been dumped. Down near the rotting vegetables, half-covered by the pile of garbage, several lines of old words had been inscribed into the stone.

  Clement shone his light there too, half-expecting to read another pronouncement about Dorcas. But it was nothing of the sort.

  The next moment, two things happened: Phyllis rushed to the stone and fell to her knees, and the syzygy came.

  The sun, Earth and moon lined up precisely.

  The sky became darker, blacker than the deepest velvety shadows of night, as the moon passed into the Earth’s shadow. A single brilliant ray of moonlight speared down through the snowflakes. The ray of moonlight bathed all of Stonehenge in a crisp, glacial-white glow.

  Gasps and cheers and sounds of mellowed-out awe rose from the throngs of hippies. Many stood and joined hands, dancing slowly around in circles, chanting and laughing.