Darkwells

by R. A Humphry

  Manu stared at the mounted heads of stags and the Grenville coats of arms as Watkins served dinner to the three of them via silver dishes. A matronly old woman, of whom Henry appeared terrified, had attended to his few injuries and scrapes after the madness of the battle subsided. She then bustled him off to a bathroom to shower and provided him with clothes that fit him well, all of much finer material and cut than he was used to.

  “Suites you young Sir,” the woman said as she re-entered the room.

  He looked in the mirror and agreed with her. The fashion was a little out-dated, even to Manu’s provincial eye, but the shoulders in the jacket accentuated his broadness and the overall effect made him look more of a man and less of a boy than he had ever felt in his life. He fiddled with the bow-tie which the woman confiscated out of his hands as soon as she saw what he was attempting. “How did you get such well fitting clothes? Lord Grenville is much smaller…”

  “Oh, no,” the woman said, pulling the tie around him, “these are his father’s old clothes, from when he was about your age. Strong man he was, big and broad like you. No, no, our Henry takes after the Lady.”

  They ate in silence, each one unwilling to broach the subject of what they had just been through. Manu felt a little awkward and out of place. Henry wore his formal clothes as one would wear a bathrobe. Heather had refused to change and was in her jeans and hoodie, which Manu thought a bit rude - although, he reasoned, she had got less faerie ooze on her.

  At length their host broke the silence. “You should have worn the dress,” Henry commented to Heather, who snorted.

  “Only in your posh boy fantasies will I squeeze myself in a dress like that.”

  “It was my cousin Milly’s dress. You would have looked fabulous.”

  “Never.”

  Manu cleared his throat then coughed and the two of them turned to look at him. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I may have swallowed some of that ooze.”

  Henry stared at him then put his cutlery down. “Yes, yes fine. I’ll explain. I’ll give you the full version later, but suffice to say that yes, Heather and I are what we call practitioners of the art, or magic. Usually this gets at least a grunt of surprise but given the circumstances we will skip right along from the astonishment.”

  Manu was silent for a moment, contemplating. Things were starting to fall into place for him. He was only just beginning to assess his life through the lens of experience and shocking things were becoming apparent. “It was you, wasn’t it? In my dreams when I was back home.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were in the sky that day, when I was playing against Greys.”

  “Yes, bit strange that.”

  “What did you do? You said you did something.”

  “I dispelled a curse. Or at least I counter-acted it. It was very complicated and, well, to be honest it almost killed me. Watkins had to put the bowl out with the fire extinguisher.”

  “Someone was cursing me?”

  “Something was, yes. It homed in on your bloodline, for some reason. I think it is that tracer that I followed in, or else I doubt I would never have found you.” Watkins appeared and cleared the table. Heather poured out some more wine.

  “Why were you looking for me?” Manu asked.

  Henry shifted, uncomfortable for a second. “Heather,” he said, “Can you block your ears? This is embarrassing.”

  “Says the man with the perverted crush on his cousin Milly,” she replied.

  “Urgh. Alright.” Henry ran his hands through his sandy hair. “I was seeking the key to my future.”

  “God, that sounds like something my mother would say,” Heather muttered as she gulped down a swallow of wine.

  “It is something my mother did say,” Henry replied. “She had the sight. She said that I had two doors in my future; one wide open that led to a frivolous life of pleasure and flighty things.”

  “Sounds awful Henry, please stop this horror story,” Heather observed.

  “The other door was locked and led to a life of hard work, suffering and purpose.”

  “This sounds backwards,” Heather said.

  Henry shrugged and looked at Manu. “Well, maybe. I’ve seen too many wastrels in my set to think it a good sort of life. But that’s how I found you. I went to the mirror and searched for the key.”

  “And it was me,” Manu said, nodding seriously.

  “And it was you,” Henry replied raising his glass.

  “Hold on,” Heather said with an upraised hand, “are you saying that you have been spying on people with that bowl?”

  “Err..”

  “Have you ever spied on me?” Heather said in outrage.

  “No?” Henry offered.

  “Manu, your friend is sick.” Heather declared. “And he will teach me how to block that bowl before the night is over.”

  Manu laughed as Henry blushed. Heather was right; Henry did feel like his friend.

  #

  Things changed for Manu after that night. Henry became his constant companion around Darkwells. It was such a surprising relief to have someone to look forward to seeing, to be able to talk to about his day. It made all the little problems and trials bearable, to know that Henry would be there at some point with his affable nature and penetrating, capricious mind. He was introduced, in the Darkwells way, to Alex and to Fawad and they got on well. They met up with Heather in the town as much as they could manage. Darkwells and England were born anew in Manu’s mind. Henry delighted in taking him around the grounds explaining the colourful and unique history of the school and its buildings.

  He talked about their architectural style, layout and purpose. “I once came in by Helicopter, don’t look at me like that lots of people do it at Darkwells, anyway, Dmitry from Barons was using the helipad so we were forced to circle the school until he buggered off. That’s when I noticed.”

  “Noticed what?”

  “That the whole school is part of a colossal spell.”

  “Sorry? What?”

  “It’s a Heptagram. A seven pointed star. If you take all the buildings as the edges of the star you get the shape,” he traced it out in the sand, “Old hall, Chapel, Alchemy, Rhetoric, Divinity, Arithmetic and Lingua.”

  “Huh,” Manu said, impressed, “What does a Heptagram do?”

  “Oh lots of things, mainly to ward off evil in some way. But it gets better. The roads. The trees,” he said drawing out the shady lanes that led from building to building, “they are the ones that build the star. What are they lined in? Rowan and Elm and Oak,” he ticked them off as he moved from row to row, “Beach, Ash, Yew and Birch. They are all powerful symbols in spells like these. What does it mean? I haven’t a clue.”

  Walking Darkwells with Henry transformed it into a much more magical, enchanting place. Henry had a voracious thirst for knowledge, Manu found, that he concealed behind a mask of eccentricity and flakiness. He was deeply interested in where Manu came from and Manu, for the first time, found himself telling stories about his old home. The telling of it made him realise how much he missed it and how much he missed his parents, who he had not heard from at all since arriving at Darkwells.

  #

  Heather showed him the other side of England and the town. She was so well liked and known about the town that when they were with her the two boys felt welcome almost everywhere they went. Sean was a big help too and took an instant like to Manu, who he insisted was a victim of Britain’s cruel imperial past. Manu discovered that with a simple shift in attitudes the England he had hoped for was emerging from behind a fog of indifference. Here was the polite, considerate, thoughtful place he had thought existed. Or at least, it was there when they were with Heather – and Manu was only just learning what magic a pretty face and long hair could accomplish. She had certainly enchanted Henry.

  #

  A couple of weeks before the Christmas break Manu was walking with Henry down the Main Drive back towards their respective houses. As they walked Henr
y stopped.

  “What are you doing over Christmas Manu? Are you going home?”

  Manu sighed and looked away. “I got a letter from my father. There are some difficulties at home and I’m to spend it with my Uncle David in London.”

  “Yes, well. Maybe you’d like to spend it with me at Hawksworth? I mean, if you would like. We have plenty of room and if you get tired of it I can always,” he clicked his fingers, “and you’ll be at Uncle Dave’s in a jiffy.”

  “From your stories Henry, I’d be in Tokyo.”

  “Maybe Brighton, but at least in the south east, I’m not that bad.”

  “I’d love to Henry, thank you,” Manu replied, smiling. They continued down the road until they came to the silent guardians that split Henry off to Princes and Manu off to Dukes.

  “You never asked,” Henry called back as Manu set off down his path. Manu stopped and turned.

  “Asked what?”

  “About why you went golden that night. About why you were like a ruddy superhero.”

  “I thought it was some magic thing you did,” Manu replied, shrugging his shoulders.

  “No you didn’t,” Henry replied, “and no it wasn’t.”

  “What was it then?”

  Henry raised his cane and pointed at the worn down statues. “You are one of them, a Warden. In the history of my old Order we have a certain strand of practitioner who doesn't cast spells. Their power is focused inward you see. They are physical beings, warriors. Often they would pair up with a Magician and work as a team, as an Aegis.” Henry laughed and shook his head, “think Merlin and Arthur.”

  “Or your parents,” Manu countered.

  “Yes, or them,” Henry agreed with a bittersweet smile.

  “Or my parents,” Manu said in the barest whisper.

  Henry’s eyes sparked with interest and he looked up. “I had wondered,” he said glancing down at the bronze and the tooth. “Wardgrave. I should have guessed.”

  “They said nothing to me, but it makes sense now.”

  “They often don’t. Magic can be a terrible, terrifying burden. You lived in the rift, right? That is wild country, full of untamed powers. Our Order made a push to bring order but when the British left - we did too.”

  Manu nodded, ignoring the hollowness inside him. Talking about it reminded him of how much he had never said to his parents. Of all he wanted to ask them now he understood better. A thought occurred to him. “When I play Rugby, do you think I use it?” The idea that he had been cheating all these years left him a little queasy. What if he had hurt someone?

  “I doubt it,” Henry replied. “People would have said something. You are a bit like Heather - all power and no control. With time you can dial it down, but at the moment I would say that it is either on or off, golden blaze and all.”

  Manu nodded, then frowned. “That day when you saw me from the clouds, I felt some sort of power,” Manu searched for the words, “something similar. There was something… something from my mother’s line, from the Maori side that seemed to fire up inside me.”

  “How very intriguing,” Henry said earnestly. “What was it?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t like it, I can’t control it.”

  “Well, I’ve no idea. What I can tell you is that magical inheritance is a bizarre and unpredictable business. We have no idea what we are given by each of our parents.”

  “I doubt my mother gave me very much. There isn’t much in that side of my heritage beyond sitting in a canoe.”

  “Oh I don’t know Manu, that seems a very one dimensional look at the world. One day you might find that it’s the side of yourself that you deny that defines you.”

  Manu opened his mouth to protest then clamped it shut. He could sense that they were teetering on the edge of an argument and so he instead changes subject. “Thanks again Henry, for the invite.”

  “You won’t thank me when you are bored to death in that old house. My stepfather is still in America with his other children; I doubt he will make it back, so it’ll just be us.”

  “You could ask Heather,” Manu suggested, glad that his friend had taken the opening.

  “I could, if I had any courage.”

  Chapter Seventeen: Landscapes

  Henry was not showing off. It may have been technically true that he had opened more portals in the last week than he had done in his whole life but that was all just part of being a teacher, right? Heather beamed at him over her shoulder as she walked down the rows of lavender, running her hands along the purple flowers, her eyes shining in the red dawn sky.

  “You only have five more to go,” she said to him as she flopped back into the purple bed with a laugh.

  “I’m afraid I missed that,” Henry said sauntering, very pleased with himself.

  “Six impossible things before breakfast.”

  “Ah, yes. The White Queen. I suppose I should point out that in magic, the rule is: jam to-morrow and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day.”

  “Clever clogs,” Heather replied.

  “And your lesson?”

  “But it’s so pretty.”

  “Come come, don’t be lazy.”

  Heather sighed and picked herself up. She rattled off the spell with a fluid ease that left Henry a little startled. The effects took hold as he watched. The clouds rolled in from unseen places, churning and dark and pregnant with rain. The red rising sun was lost and heavy drops started to fall.

  “You see what you made me do?” Heather said gesturing. “Now remove me. I bore of this place.”

  #

  His next surprise took them to the sand banks of a cold and slow moving body of water. Frost-tipped grass grew in scraggly clumps around them. Behind Heather, who was hugging her arms together against the chill, rose two enormous concrete pillars from a mist-shrouded base. Massive steel chords hung from the pillars in graceful arcs that dipped down into the all concealing fog that hugged the ground below a cloudless blue sky.

  “Where are we?” Heather asked, rubbing her arms.

  “The Humber Bridge.”

  “Lovely.”

  “Apprentice! Dispel this foul fog.”

  “Why? It looks so much more mysterious and romantic like this.”

  “For god sake woman, just do it. It’ll help the otherwise misery-ridden people of Hull get to work.”

  #

  He emerged from the next portal a few feet from the edge of the steep chalk cliff. He took an unsteady step back and dragged Heather with him.

  “That is either amazing precision Henry, or you have just tried to kill me,” Heather said as she helped him stumble away. The sun was up now, rising above the low lying cloud that spread out over the sea below them. It felt as though they were on the roof of the world. The white layered stone of the cliff face stretched out for miles in either direction.

  “It is called the art for a reason,” Henry mumbled as he wiped the loose grass of his trouser knees.

  “What do you want me to do here?”

  “Rainbow.”

  “But it isn’t raining.”

  “Exactly. It’s magic, genius.”

  #

  They had breakfast under the shade of an old oak by a dry stone wall in a field that was filled with poppies in full bloom. The flowers covered the land in a carpet of red that complimented the rising orange sun. Heather produced a _anish and a croissant from the little wicker basket Henry had brought with them.

  “Danish,” he said to her unspoken question as he poured out a mug of steaming tea and handed it to her. She accepted it then reclined back on the sequined blanket and stared in contemplation across the field.

  “Your new mate,” she began as she bit into her croissant. “What do you know about him?”

  “Manu?” Henry asked, sipping his tea.

  “Yes. He’s a strange one, isn’t he? Sounds posher than you sometimes. He is a bit like an American, thinking that England is stuck in the twenties.”

  “He’s alright,
” Henry said. “He’s just from the sticks.”

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong. He is a nice guy. Too nice for his own good in fact. But the way he was fighting… I’ve never seen anything like it. It makes me a bit nervous, being so close to someone that deadly and knowing so little about them.”

  Henry debated with himself for a second. “I had Watkins do some research on him and the Wardgrave family, just to be sure. Before you ask, no, I’ve not done the same for you, although I ought to have done. They are quite a remarkable family, you know. Almost legendary in the community, it turns out.”

  “Legendary how?”

  “Well, James, the father, was part of the most renowned partnership in living memory. He was Warden to one Aaron Killynghall. Together they made a phenomenal Aegis of Wizard and Warden.”

  “You are joking.”

  “Not at all. I was as shocked as you are. As a rule I ignore the gossip in the community because it all such hyped up guff but Watkins assures me that this is true.”

  “What did they do together?”

  “Oh, the legends vary. They were very active during the Cold War, from what Watkins tells me. Conducted a lot of operations in Berlin and Moscow and Cuba. James Wardgrave is ex-army. The family is from a long line of Wardens. Killynghall is a mystery though. I tried getting his rank from the Order but drew a blank. There are so many stories about them that it is hard to tell what is fiction and what is fact. What they all do agree on, however, is that the famous Aegis fell out.”

  “Like Lennon and McCarthy?”

  “Yes, and for the same reasons. During some adventure or other they ended up in New Zealand where the inseparable pair were broken up by a local island girl.”

  “Ah yes, the terrible female witch breaking up the boys club.”

  “That appears to be exactly the case. The two fell out and James married the woman and formed another Aegis, at least as famous as the first one, and Killynghall vanished into the shadows.”

  “Only to appear as the grumpiest teacher at Darkwells and then be the Housemaster of his former partner’s son.”

  “Convenient, isn’t it?”

  “Does Manu know this?”