by Robin Jarvis
Alasdair had taken his guitar to Jody’s cabin and was playing it softly, singing ‘Fields of Gold’. He really was very good.
Resting her head on the pillow, eyes lightly closed, Jody imagined being free and walking “among the fields of barley”. Close by, Christina curled up on her bed, entranced. Gradually the other girls in there broke off their conversations and turned to listen. The two on the mezzanine crept down to sit on the stairs. The sandy-haired Scot held them spellbound. There was a sadness and a yearning, in the song and in his voice, that reached deep inside and made them remember how life had been, before one book had changed it all. At that moment, they felt the contrast and the pain of what they had lost more keenly than ever.
Watching the Punchinellos from the door, Maggie gagged as she saw them crunch their teeth into the roasted Doggy-Long-Legs.
“Barfarama!” she uttered in revulsion. And the spell of the song was broken. “I can’t believe they’re eating those things! In fact, they’re not just eating, they’re bingeing on them.”
“Can ye no?” Alasdair asked. “Two days ago would ye have believed you’d be eating kitchen rubbish?”
“That’s different,” the girl said.
“No, it’s not,” Jody joined in, nettled that the music had been interrupted. “It’s just a shift in what you see as normal. We don’t even question what those guards are now – or where they come from. We’ve accepted them as part of our life here. This time next week, or the week after, you might be glad of some roasted spider-mouth monsters to eat.”
Maggie shivered. “Not ruddy likely,” she said.
“We’re going to see a lot of changes,” Jody told them gravely. “I’ve been thinking about it – not much else I can do at the minute. It’s going to get awful worse here. Think about the absolute basic stuff, like when the soap runs out – or the toothpaste, or the loo roll. What happens then?”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Maggie confessed. “Don’t you think the old guy will replace it?”
Jody laughed. “You kidding?” she said. “Take a look at my back if you want to see what he thinks of us. And how about malnutrition? We can’t live on just soup or expect phantom apples to appear from nowhere. We’re going to start getting weak and sick. You look thinner in the face already.”
“I’m non-stop starving. It’s driving me mental. My body isn’t used to this.”
“It will be. And how about this one – what sort of germs or diseases do those guards carry? Could be as strange and as alien as they are. As for the spider things, don’t tell me they weren’t crawling with fleas or lice or God knows what else. You think we’re going to be immune to that?”
“Aliens?” Maggie muttered. “Sooner you’re up and about again the better. You’re driving yourself crackers lying there all day. Oh, I could kill for some cheese and crackers… a great big lump of cheddar would be awesome. Why does everything relate back to food?”
Alasdair played a loud chord to cut through their misery.
“We willnae be here much longer,” he promised. “I bet you we’ll be oot of this hellhole this time next week.”
“Dream on!” Jody mocked, rolling her eyes.
Alasdair produced the phone from his pocket and handed it to Maggie.
“Fully charged and the emails went oot this morning,” he boasted. “All we got to do noo is wait. I hoped there might be something on the news sites by noo, but no. Probably keeping it hush-hush till they send the troops in.”
“You’re amazing!” Maggie declared. “How’d you manage it?”
“The name’s Bond,” the boy replied, raising one eyebrow. “Alasdair Bond.”
“You said your name was Alasdair Mackenzie,” Christina disputed.
“It were a joke.”
Maggie was so excited by the news she stood up and waved the phone in the air. If Alasdair hadn’t been distracted, he would have stopped her.
“Hey, girls!” she called to the others in the cabin. “We’re getting out of here!”
They stared back at her sceptically.
“Heard that one before,” a girl called Sally said.
“I’ll wait till the coach is here before I start packing,” another added with weary cynicism.
Maggie folded her arms, disappointed by the unimpressed reaction. “It’s true,” she insisted. “Alasdair’s positive about it. You’re a jaded lot. I’m going to tell everyone else.”
She turned to leave but Alasdair pulled her back.
“What do ye think you’re doing?” he asked.
“Popping next door. Why?”
“The fewer folk that know the better!” he said. “I cannae believe you just blabbed to everyone in here. I dinnae want old Mainwaring to overhear someone gassing about it.”
Maggie huffed. “No one’d be that stupid,” she said, dismissing his concern with a shrug.
Alasdair could see she wasn’t going to listen to reason. She was too hungry to spread the news. He wished he’d kept his own mouth shut.
“Well, dinnae take the phone wi’ you,” he said firmly.
Maggie dearly wanted to show it to everyone else, but perhaps he had a point.
“Hide it in your case for now,” Jody suggested.
“Oh, all right,” she agreed.
Maggie tucked the phone in among her clothes then hurried out to spread the happy tidings.
“She’s a liability,” Alasdair said. “Keep an eye on her. Dinnae let her use it after it gets dark. Every guard in the camp’d see the light. She’d only be wasting the battery on YouTube or Angry Birds or something equally useless. I’ve a mind to take the phone back to my cabin.”
“It’s not yours,” Christina told him. “That’s stealing.”
“I dinnae care. It’s our only contact wi’ the outside world. We cannae afford to let that big-mouth risk losing it.”
“Put it under my mattress,” Jody said. “Then she can’t accuse you of taking it. I’ll have a word. I’ll say we thought it best to hide it somewhere safer. It’s best if she doesnae know where it is. She knows what she’s like – the slightest bit of temptation and she gives in.”
“Putting her in charge of the kitchen were a bad idea then,” Alasdair said, making sure no one was looking as he removed the phone from Maggie’s case and slid it under the bed.
“She wouldn’t eat more than her share,” Jody told him. “She’s all right she is.”
Alasdair picked up his guitar. “I’m just in a cranky mood,” he sighed. “Impatient to get oot of here, I suppose. I’ll leave you fair lassies and see ye in the morning.”
Returning to his own cabin, the Scot glanced over at the fire where the Punchinellos were glugging down the wine. He moistened his lips. He so wanted a drink. Just then Maggie emerged from one of the other cabins and hurried into another. To his surprise, he felt a twinge of envy. He wished he could be the one to tell Lee everything had worked out fine without his help.
“Dinnae be so petty,” he admonished himself. He entered his cabin and lay on his bed, wondering how soon they would be liberated.
The night closed in. Long after lights out the guards continued to sit around the fire, hooting and snorting, squawking to one another in a filthy-sounding, quacking language of their own. Eventually four of them staggered and waddled back to their own chalet whilst the other tried to climb the steps of the skelter tower, but fell asleep halfway up.
In the darkness of the cabin, Lee stared blindly at the pitched ceiling above his bed. Marcus was already fast asleep in the one nearby. Lee’s nose wrinkled. There was a peculiar smell coming from the other end of the mezzanine. Why didn’t Marcus spray his trainers as well as the rest of him?
Lee closed his eyes and started murmuring the words of Dancing Jax. Tonight would be a perfect time to return with something a bit more ambitious and substantial than apples. He had taken an enormous risk slipping out with them first thing that morning. He was surprised the sentry in the tower hadn’t spotted him. He
didn’t know it was glued to Spencer’s media player at the time, having watched five Westerns through the night.
Lee felt the usual pain in his heart and the rush of blasting cold. His eardrums thumped and the pit of his stomach dropped as though he was falling…
It was a frosty winter’s night. The moon was in a waxing crescent and the diamond dust of floating ice in the sharp air ringed it around with a halo.
Lee looked up and shivered. He wasn’t dressed for this sort of weather. His breath blew out in clouds of grey vapour and he rubbed his pimpling forearms as he swayed unsteadily. The disorientation he always felt when first arriving here never lasted long. He gazed about him, hoping to see the by now familiar landmarks. He appeared to be in a meadow. Dark shapes of twisted, naked trees and looming pines grew far off on his left and bare, craggy rocks climbed over to his right. There was no sign of the White Castle, or the village. He still hadn’t learned how to command the wheres and whens of his entrances here. There had to be a way of influencing them, but that control was eluding him.
“You gotta hone your technique,” he told himself. “You is plain wack at this.”
He took a step forward and jumped back instantly. His trainer had cracked through a layer of ice and freezing water engulfed his foot.
“Every damn time!” he grumbled.
Kicking the dead grasses and reeds that surrounded him aside, he discovered he was on a narrow strip of spongy ground. Everywhere else was swampy water. The boy’s swearing formed stuttering, foggy shapes in the air. He had absolutely no idea whereabouts in the world of Dancing Jax he was. For all he knew he might even be beyond one of the thirteen hills. He tried to visualise the map at the front of the book. Was there anywhere like this bog drawn there? He couldn’t remember.
Twisting about, he tested the ground carefully before taking another step. It seemed firm behind him so he progressed slowly that way, creeping bit by bit through the marsh. He didn’t know where he was headed, but as long as this soggy, ice-crackling path led to solid, dry earth that was good enough. If he could make it to those trees and beyond, there might be a view he would recognise. He had been hoping to reach the village tonight and steal some loaves from the miller. That would make Maggie’s eyes pop out in the morning.
The moon rose higher. It was so bright it cast a ghostly sheen over the landscape. The only sounds were the dry rustle of the dead grasses and the occasional plop or gurgle when a bubble rose to the surface beyond the frozen edges, so when Lee heard high-pitched squeaking overhead, he almost toppled over in shock. Glancing up, he saw black, winged shapes flapping through the dark.
“Bats,” he said. “Like this place isn’t goth enough already?”
He tracked their course for some moments then sucked the bitter air between his teeth when he saw where they were headed. He hadn’t noticed it before. It was partly hidden by the shrouding pines. But there, in the middle distance, was a solitary tower.
Silhouetted against the wintry sky, it stood bleak and threatening. The frosty moonlight gleamed dimly on its rough stonework and curved round the tiled pinnacle in the centre of the crenellated crown. Fearsome spikes jutted from the tapering sides and the faintest greenish glow near the top betrayed an arched, open window.
“Okaaaay,” Lee murmured uneasily. “Wild guess – that ain’t the Fairy Godmother’s penthouse crib.”
It was time to go. The miller’s bread could wait for another day. He wasn’t going to stop here another minute more. He turned around to retrace his squelching, splintering steps, then halted.
A soft pink light was drifting behind the grasses. A glimmering rosy flame was floating over the water.
“Oh, don’t you be a will-o’-the-wisp!” he hissed. “You guys is always bad news!”
Uncertain what to do, he waited and the glow sailed nearer until he finally got a proper look. It wasn’t a will-o’-the-wisp.
The flame was inside a small, jewel-like lantern, no bigger than his cigarette lighter. The lantern was swinging from an ornate hook above a shapely, miniature boat with delicate, filigree dragonfly wings at the stern. It was all made from gleaming, glinting gold but only the size of a shoebox. Sitting upon silken cushions within was a doll, with a beautiful, cherubic face and long, golden hair that tumbled over her shoulders. Live butterflies, drowsy with the cold, were sewn into those cascading tresses and she wore a gossamer gown, embroidered with silver flowers and tiny crystals. Just as Lee was wondering what on earth a doll in a blingy boat was doing out here on a night like this, she moved. With a jolt, he realised she was real.
The boat continued to sail slowly by on the marsh’s sluggish current. The girl turned to look at him and her pale face dimpled in surprise.
“By the good earth’s blood!” she declared. “What are you? You are tall as a tree and your visage is as the very night. Are you a giant emissary sent by the King?”
Lee overcame his own shock and grinned at her. This sick place was full of mad surprises.
“No,” he said. “I don’t have nuthin’ to do with the castle guys if I can help it.”
“Not those kings, silly,” she laughed sweetly. “There are many monarchs above and below this land. I myself am Telein – daughter to the king ’neath the stone hill.”
“Well, hello, Princess,” he answered, smirking as he made a clumsy bow.
“You are not of the Marsh King’s court? Strange, there ought to be someone here to greet me. ’Tis most discourteous.”
“I’m just passin’ through,” he replied. “Don’t know no Marsh King.”
Telein sat forward in the boat and cupped a hand round her mouth. “Then you are indeed fortunate,” she whispered. “’Tis rumoured he is uncommon ugly.”
Lee chuckled. He liked this dainty princess.
“Mind if I aks a personal question?” he ventured.
“I do not see how I could prevent it,” she replied pertly. “But I may choose to withhold my answer.”
“Don’t mean no disrespect, nor nuthin’, so don’t take this the wrong way, but – is you a fairy or a gnome or elf or what?”
Telein rocked back on her cushions and clapped her hands in amusement.
“Verily you are an untutored fellow!” she laughed. “I am of the tribe of Danu. In truth, could you not tell? Are we so forgotten?”
“I’m a real newbie round these parts.”
Her bright green eyes stared off into the gloom. “We were here long before the Dawn Prince raised the walls of Mooncaster,” she said. “And before the Lamia fouled the sky. But we forsook this upper world, ages past, and made our abode deep below – in the golden caves.”
Lee wasn’t any wiser but he let it pass and crouched down to be level with her. She really did have the prettiest, cutest face. The soft lantern light danced in the boat’s burnished timbers and reflected up into her eyes – making them sparkle with brilliant, emerald fires.
He wished he still had his phone to take a photo. He didn’t know enough fancy words to ever describe her. A Victorian romantic painter like Millais could have conveyed the intangible bloom in her cheek, the lustre of her curls and the hint of a smile that pulled and played at the corners of her lips. And a poet would have expressed the exquisite, otherworldly nature of this vision far more eloquently than Lee could ever hope to articulate.
“So why’s you out in your iddy-biddy, pimped-up dinghy tonight?” he asked.
“I journey to see the Marsh King,” she explained. “From the rock mouth I have travelled, whence I joined the poisoned stream and passed through the empty, sleeping land. Now my voyage is ending. Each midwinter a maiden of the Danu must come pay tribute to the ruler of this kingdom. This year the honour is mine.”
“Tribute? What, sing and dance and tell him he’s the greatest – crap like that?”
She gurgled with laughter. “I am no nightingale,” she said. “The king’s ears shall be sorely grieved if he commands me to sing. Lilts and refrains trickle ever through my fingers
.”
“Ha, you an’ me both. I can’t hold a tune either! Don’t stop me though.”
Telein smoothed the folds of her gown. “Would that singing were my only duty this night,” she said with a heartfelt sigh.
“Whassup?” Lee asked gently.
She clasped her tiny hands beneath her chin to keep it from trembling. “This is my bride night,” she pronounced. “And this vessel is my dowry.”
“No way! You’re marrying that uglord? What the hell for?”
“The Marsh King takes a new wife every midwinter,” she explained solemnly. “It is the bargain ’twixt our peoples. A meagre price to pay for peace, else he will send his army to assail our golden chambers. It has been thus for many years.”
“It’s extortion is what it is.”
“You speak a puzzling tongue, my night-faced giant.”
“Right now I’m fluent in the language of Angrymad. You can’t get wed to no serial sleazebag gangster you never seen! What happened to all them other wives? How many does he want?”
Telein shook her head. “No one knows,” she answered with a worried frown. “Once the stream bears the brides from our hill, neither word nor token ever comes back to us.”
“Girl – your Royal Highness – you gotta get outta that tacky ride! Right now!”
“I cannot. I shall do my duty. The bargain must be kept. The wary peace will hold.”
A sudden surge in the current took hold of the glittering craft and it was whisked further out over the marsh. Lee jumped up and ran along the boggy causeway to keep pace with it, but the boat whirled unerringly closer to the centre of the freezing waters.
“Honey!” he shouted. “Trust me, get outta there.”
“I am confounded as to why there is no retinue to greet me,” she murmured, peering into the empty darkness beyond the reach of the lantern’s rosy light. “Where are his halls and mansions?”
“Princess!” Lee yelled. “You listen to me! Get back here – fast as you can.”