Phyllis Wong and the Waking of the Wizard

by Geoffrey McSkimming

  But the hippies didn’t see where the moonlight shone brightest: straight down onto the stone in the rubbish dump part of Stonehenge where Phyllis, Clement and Daisy were. The almost-blinding light shone directly onto the words carved into the stone.

  ‘It’s the eclipse,’ said Clement, forgetting about his frozen nose for the moment.

  ‘It’s the inscription,’ said Phyllis, her heart beating fast. ‘Look!’

  ARTHUR, BE IT KNOWN THAT THE GREAT WHIMPERING WILL SEE THE FINAL DAYS OF THIS WORLD. BUT IT WILL NOT BE HERE. NOR WILL IT BE IN YOUR REIGN. IT WILL NOT BE UNTIL AFTER THE REIGNS OF MANY KINGS BEYOND YOUR TIME. NO GREAT WINDS OR STORMS. NO MIGHTY DESTRUCTIONS. MERELY THE GREAT WHIMPERING, AND THE COLLAPSING OF THE KNOWLEDGES ABOVE. IT WILL NOT BE MY DOING. I WILL WATCH. FROM THE STARGAZING BELVEDERE CALANAIS MAELDIN.

  Phyllis read it aloud, softly, her breath coming in vaporous steam puffs.

  Clement followed the words silently as he listened to her. Then he switched his phone to the camera mode and took a picture of the inscription.

  ‘Can you put your flashlight back on? I’ve got to write this down, and the moonlight’s starting to fade,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘Yup.’ He switched it back to flashlight and shone it on the writing.

  Phyllis propped up her phone flashlight by her feet, so there was extra light. She pulled out her Transiting journal and a pen and whipped off one of her gloves. Immediately she felt the coldness clamping onto her hand, and she started transcribing the words as fast as she could.

  ‘Don’t worry if you miss a bit,’ said Clement. ‘I’ve got a photo of it.’

  ‘Yeah, but remember, sometimes our technology goes whacko in another Time.’

  Clement shrugged.

  ‘The Great Whimpering,’ Phyllis said as she finished copying the words down. ‘Holy moley, what on Earth will that be?’

  Daisy kept snouting about in the rubbish, oblivious to what Phyllis and Clement had found.

  ‘The end of the Earth,’ said Clement. ‘I bet that’s what it means. You think Myrddin wrote this?’

  Phyllis shut her journal and shoved it and the pen back into her bag. ‘It has to be.’ She slipped her glove back on. ‘See, it’s addressed to Arthur. And it mentions his reign. W.W. said that the inscription was supposed to be a warning from Myrddin to King Arthur, telling him that the battle for the end of the world would take place here. But clearly, that’s not what it says. And I don’t get the end bit . . .’

  ‘What’s a stargazing belvedere?’ asked Clement.

  ‘What does Calanais Maeldin mean?’ Phyllis wondered.

  ‘Search me.’

  Phyllis picked up her phone and stood, shining the light over the last few words. ‘Maeldin,’ she whispered. ‘Maeldin. Maeldin . . . Myrddin . . . Merlin . . . hey, Clemeleon Dude, maybe Maeldin is another name for Myrddin. He had lots of names, it seems.’

  ‘Calanais Maeldin?’ said Clement, scratching his wig.

  ‘I wonder . . .’

  Just then the ray of moonlight dwindled, as if it were seeping rapidly into the night. It grew feebler and feebler until, in no more than three seconds, it had vanished completely.

  ‘Clem! Look!’

  Phyllis shone her flashlight across the stone, sweeping the beam from left to right.

  ‘Hey!’ Clem gasped. ‘It’s gone!’

  ‘Whillickers,’ Phyllis said, her eyes wide.

  Daisy came over to see what they were so excited about.

  The entire inscription was no longer there; where the words had been was now nothing more than pockmarked stone, embedded with soft mounds of old green moss.

  Phyllis felt herself tingling almost out of her skin.

  Shedding more light

  They came straight home, after a brisk walk back to Winterbourne Stoke and the crumbling farmhouse. It was too cold to stay any longer at Stonehenge; after the eclipse’s moon ray had gone, the snow had started falling heavily. Plus Clement had become fed up with being mistaken for a girl (the final straw had been when a little girl sitting with her mum had invited Clement to come and play dollies with her).

  So, after a speedy Transit—where the buffeting wind seemed less bothersome than the cold they had just been in—they arrived back in Phyllis’s basement of magic.

  ‘Man,’ said Clement, now devoid of his long hair, which he’d stuffed into his backpack (making a mental note never to wear that particular wig again). ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘Me too.’ Phyllis’s tummy was settling from the Transiting and she could feel a rumbling emptiness down there. ‘C’mon, let’s go upstairs and raid the pantry. I’m famished.’

  ‘Excellent idea,’ said Clement.

  ‘And if Mrs Zepple’s there, just shield your eyes for a while. Don’t look directly at her. Your eyes are glowing green.’

  ‘Cool.’ He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

  ‘C’mon, Clemeleon Dude.’

  The kitchen in Phyllis’s apartment was warm and they found Mrs Zepple sitting at the table, shelling peas. ‘Ah, there you are, lassie,’ she greeted Phyllis. ‘Hello, Clement.’

  ‘Arf!’ barked Daisy, scampering over to Mrs Zepple’s ankles.

  ‘And to you, you wee pup.’

  ‘Hi, Mrs Zepple,’ said Phyllis and Clement together. Clement pulled out a chair and sat at the table, dumping his backpack on the floor, while Phyllis took off her coat and went to the pantry.

  ‘What is it ye’re bein’ after?’ asked the housekeeper. ‘Och, let me guess: something chocolatey?’

  ‘You can read my mind, Mrs Z.,’ Phyllis said as she looked through the shelves.

  ‘It’s not a hard thing tae do when you’re hungry.’ Mrs Zepple shuddered slightly. ‘I’m mighty glad I cannae read minds,’ she added. ‘That sort of ability gives me the willies.’

  ‘We’re famished,’ Clement said, rummaging in his backpack and keeping his face down so Mrs Zepple couldn’t see his eyes. ‘I could eat a horse!’

  ‘Well, you’ll not be finding any such cuisine in my scullery, Clement. Phyllis, there are some chocolate cookies in the jar on the third shelf up. The ones you like, with the Belgian chocolate and shortbread and pieces of ginger inside.’

  ‘Yummo,’ Clement said.

  ‘Would you like me tae fix you both a sandwich?’ asked Mrs Zepple.

  ‘That’d be swell,’ said Phyllis, taking the jar off the shelf and bringing it over to Clem.

  ‘Turkey with cranberry sauce on rye?’

  Clement smiled so wide his glasses moved up his nose. ‘Oh, can I move in with you, Mrs Zepple?’ he asked.

  Mrs Zepple went to the fridge. ‘Och, ye’ve got your own family tae mind you,’ she said, laughing. She put a jug of lemonade and two glasses on the table, then went to the bench and started the sandwiches.

  Phyllis and Clement dived into the chocolate cookies while Daisy sat by Mrs Zepple’s feet, hoping for a cascade of crumbs or, better yet, crusts.

  ‘Not too many of those,’ Mrs Zepple said over her shoulder. ‘That chocolate’s extremely rich. Ye’ll get the collywobbles if you overdo it with them.’

  ‘No such danger,’ said Phyllis. ‘When it comes to chocolate, I can’t be beaten.’

  ‘So where have you all been?’

  ‘Sto—’ began Clement, but he was cut short by an incoming boot on his shin. ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Just out,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘Aye? Oot where?’

  ‘Just enjoying the moonlight,’ said Clement, and Phyllis gave him a look that threatened knee-capitation.

  Mrs Zepple’s big eyes swivelled up to look at the kitchen clock. ‘Moonlight? It’s just gone four in the afternoon! Ooh, ye’re a funny one, Clement.’

  Clem realised his faux pas and quickly sang a few bars of an old song about being in the night with you and the moonlight and music. Then he said, ‘It’s a song Mum’s making me learn on the xylophone.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mrs Zepple, thinking what an eccentric boy Clement was. />
  Phyllis took her journal out of her bag and opened it on the table as she munched away. It was a long, wide table and Phyllis had deliberately seated herself at the opposite end to where Mrs Zepple had been sitting, in case Mrs Zepple wanted to peek at the book when she came back to shell the peas.

  Clement finally found his cell phone after pulling almost everything out of his backpack and scattering the contents all over the floor.

  ‘Hey, Clem,’ Phyllis whispered. ‘Look up “Maeldin” for me?’

  He switched on his phone and entered the name in his browser, relieved that the internet was working again. ‘Hmm,’ he said softly. ‘There’s a few . . . ah! Here’s the one!’

  He went to a page that listed all the various names that Myrddin had gone under. ‘Look, Phyll.’

  She leant over and read silently. ‘I was right,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Maeldin was another name for him.’

  ‘For whom?’ asked Mrs Zepple, placing two plates of sandwiches on the table. Daisy immediately came and sprang up onto Phyllis’s lap to be nearer the food.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Z.,’ said Phyllis, and Clement grunted a thank-you and grabbed half a sandwich and began devouring it.

  Phyllis took a bite as Mrs Zepple sat down again and went back to shelling the peas. Phyllis decided to evade her question by asking another: ‘Mrs Z., what’s a belvedere?’

  ‘A belvedere?’ Mrs Zepple’s eyes grew larger, and a look of wistfulness came over them. ‘Noo there’s a word ye don’t hear bandied aboot a lot any more.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Phyllis said, her mouth full. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Och, my great-aunt had one at her house in Inverness. That were a bonny house, Phyllis, big and old and . . . d’ye know, it was so huge, so sprawling, it was like a wee castle. I loved playing there when I was a lass. There were so many places tae discover . . . and the belvedere was one o’ my favourites. It was built ontae the side of the house . . . a small tower, like a turret, a place tae look out from at the view all around. Ye could see the mountains from the windows of the belvedere, and the Moray Firth, and at night ye could see the stars . . .’

  She’d stopped shelling the peas and was looking at the far wall, but she was seeing her childhood haunts as clearly as if they were there instead. ‘Aye, the belvedere. ’Twas my favourite place, I tell you.’

  ‘So it was a lookout?’ asked Phyllis.

  ‘Aye. A wonderful lookout, my dear. You’d’ve loved it.’

  Phyllis stopped eating. A surge of excitement rippled through her as she remembered something W.W. had told her: that Myrddin had built an observatory of stones in a circle, with seventy doors and seventy windows, from where he observed the sun and Venus and the stars. He’d built a belvedere, Phyllis realised. A stargazing belvedere, as the inscription at Stonehenge had said.

  The young prestidigitator felt more hopeful that she was on the right path.

  ‘Where’s Inverness?’ asked Clement. He’d completely devoured his sandwich and four chocolate cookies and had gulped down his lemonade and was sitting back in his chair with the air of a contented piglet.

  ‘Where do you think?’ Phyllis said to him. ‘Scotland!’

  ‘Oh. Yeah, I forgot. I battled some zombies there once.’

  Seeing as how Mrs Zepple was in a loquacious mood, Phyllis decided to ask her another question. ‘Mrs Z., do you know what a calanais is?’

  ‘Ah, my dear lassie! I most certainly do. Only it’s not a what, it’s a where.’

  ‘Huh?’ said Clement (almost as an oink).

  ‘It’s a place,’ Mrs Zepple explained. ‘In Scotland, way up in the Highlands, on the Isle of Lewis. A marvellous place indeed. Some people call it Callanish, but we Scots know it as Calanais, which is the Gaelic way tae say it. Aye, the Standing Stones of Calanais are, if you’re wanting my opinion, the best standing stones in the world . . .’

  Standing stones . . . the words embedded themselves into Phyllis’s mind, and she felt goose pimples erupting up and down her arms.

  ‘Like Stonehenge?’ asked Clement, and Phyllis gave him a look that said don’t say too much.

  ‘Och, much more mysterious than Stonehenge, I think. They’re on a wild and isolated island, for a start, and they have much more . . . how can I put it . . . much more of the unknown aboot them. Which is a silly thing tae say, really . . .’ Mrs Zepple smiled wistfully. ‘The Standing Stones of Calanais don’t have the stones on the top, like they do at Stonehenge, but I think they’re much more impressive. They’re set out in a big cross shape . . . Ooh, you must try tae see them one day, Phyllis.’

  ‘I’ll put it on my list,’ said Phyllis. She noticed Clem tapping away on his phone, and leant closer to see that he was already looking up a map of the Isle of Lewis, trying to find Calanais.

  ‘Aye,’ said Mrs Zepple. ‘I know you’d enjoy it, Phyllis, with your love of all things shrouded in mystery. You might find some inspiration for some new magic tricks up there.’ For once, she didn’t seem uncomfortable when she was talking about mysterious things.

  Then Clement blurted a rude word, loudly.

  ‘Clement!’ Mrs Zepple remonstrated, her eyes swivelling at him, shocked.

  ‘Clem!’ said Phyllis. He didn’t normally say words like that, at least not when he was with her.

  ‘Arf!’ barked Daisy.

  ‘Sorry.’ Clement blushed, and stabbed at his phone with his finger. ‘This blasted thing just conked out. Man, the Wi-Fi of the world isn’t what it used to be!’

  He picked up his phone and gave it a shake. Then he started tapping away at the keypad. Phyllis saw the colour drain from his face.

  ‘Well, if you’re asking me,’ said Mrs Zepple, ‘I think the whole internet is a waste of too much time. Why, you two would be much better oot and aboot, exploring places. I bet you don’t do enough o’ that, now, do you?’

  If only you knew, thought Phyllis.

  Clement was growing paler. ‘Are you okay?’ Phyllis asked softly.

  He pushed his glasses up and gave her a look that meant that he needed to tell her something. Urgently.

  Phyllis picked up on it. ‘Mrs Z., we’re just going downstairs for a while. Thanks for the snack.’

  ‘Ye’re welcome.’

  Phyllis stood, bundling Daisy under her arm.

  Clement got up and quickly shoved everything on the floor back into his bag. ‘Thanks, Mrs Zepple,’ he muttered. ‘Sorry I said—’

  ‘Och, think nowt of it. Noo off you all go. I’ve got things tae do.’

  Downstairs on the sofa in the basement of magic, Clement showed Phyllis what he had seen on his phone.

  ‘See, Phyll? After the Wi-Fi dropped out, I tried to go to my photos to find the picture I took of the inscription. But my whole album was wiped out. Every photo’s disappeared, but this showed up instead.’

  He handed her the phone. She and Daisy peered at the screen.

  There was no photo of the inscription lit up by the lunar eclipse moonlight. Another image—the only image remaining on Clement’s phone—was staring out at them.

  ‘Blimey,’ gasped Phyllis Wong, her blood running cold.

  Image this

  ‘That’s why I said that word,’ Clement told Phyllis. ‘It freaked me out.’

  ‘It’s freaking me out too,’ said Phyllis.

  She watched the moving image on Clem’s phone. It was a greenish-white swirling mist, filling the screen and dissolving away to blackness, then re-forming and swirling around again. After each dissolving and re-emergence, something appeared in the mist. Something hazy and floating and trembly.

  A man’s face. A man’s bearded face.

  And the man’s head was shaking, moving slowly back and forth, and his eyes were staring out at them with a baleful look.

  Phyllis shuddered, and patted Daisy on her lap.

  ‘Whadda you reckon it is?’ Clement asked.

  ‘Search me. Is it something from one of your games?’

  He squinted hard at
the face. ‘I don’t think so. I haven’t seen anything like that in any of ’em . . .’

  ‘He looks like he’s warning us,’ said Phyllis. ‘Telling us no or something. The way he’s shaking his head . . .’

  ‘Who is it?’ Clement could feel the food in his tummy going all swirly, a bit like the mist that enveloped the man’s face.

  ‘I wonder,’ Phyllis said.

  Clement looked at her, and she at him. Neither of them said what they were thinking.

  ‘Clem, switch your phone off, completely off, then turn it on again. See what happens.’

  ‘Okay. I just hope it doesn’t stop working. Mum’ll kill me if I’ve ruined another phone.’

  He powered off the phone and they waited a minute while it started back up. All the icons appeared again, in their right places.

  ‘Hey, look! My photo album’s back!’

  ‘Open it.’

  He double-tapped and it opened smoothly. ‘Great,’ he breathed. ‘They’re all there.’

  He scrolled speedily through the album.

  ‘Ha!’ said Phyllis. ‘They sure are. Including all those pics you took of those ancient Greek statues’ bottoms on that excursion to the Art Gallery.’

  ‘I was bored,’ Clement said, smirking.

  ‘Is the man’s face still there?’

  Clement scrolled down to the most recent pics in the album. When he got to the final one he opened it. ‘Nope. Look, it’s the inscription! Myrddin’s words again!’

  ‘Hmm,’ hmmed Phyllis.

  ‘That was creepsville. I hope I never see that old dude again.’

  ‘It was screwy, all right.’ Phyllis interlocked her fingers as she thought.

  ‘So,’ said Clement, after re-reading the inscription in the photo. ‘Calanais?’

  She blinked. ‘But of course, Clemeleon Dude.’

  ‘You can stop calling me that now. That was just my Druid name. For Stonehenge.’

  ‘You may just need it for where we’re going,’ Phyllis told him. She deposited Daisy on the rug and stood. ‘C’mon.’ She took out her Sphere of Greater Temposity. ‘And rug up this time . . . we don’t know what the weather will be like when we get there.’