by Jenna Grey
“Well, you do look better, I must say...” She hesitated, lit up a cigarette and took a long drag on it, blowing the smoke up into the air in a great cloud, that hung over Lily’s head for a moment and then baptised her with noxious fumes. “I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself at last.” Another hesitation. “Look, I don’t know how you feel about it, but I thought you might like to come back on Saturday for a birthday tea – I mean, you can’t let your eighteenth birthday go past without something.
Lily could hardly believe what she was hearing – was Claire actually being nice to her? It must be catching. She shrugged, coughed out the smoke, and gave a bright smile.
“If you’re sure it’s no trouble. Yes, thanks.” What with everything that was going on, she’d almost forgotten it was her birthday tomorrow. “I’ll get some cakes and drinks so that you don’t have to lay out too much.”
She wondered what Claire would get her as a gift. She did always buy the kids a birthday and Christmas present, but in Lily’s case it had never been anything she actually wanted: one year it had been a set of hair rollers – as if – and another time some really awful teenage make-up that she would never use in a million years. Still she supposed the thought was there. This time it would probably be a set of adjustable spanners.
“Oh, a parcel came for you today.” Lily already knew what it was. Tasers. They couldn’t do any harm she supposed ‒ well, they could, and she hoped they would, not much point in having them otherwise.
“Thanks – I needed some new shampoo. I don’t like the one we use.” She suddenly realised that was a very lame excuse so quickly asked:
“What are you going to do about the garden when I’ve gone?”
Claire screwed up her face and blew out another lungful of smoke.
“I hadn’t thought about it really. I can’t afford to get anyone in.”
Perfect.
“I could come and do it for you...” Lily said. “I mean, I love gardening, and you’ve got no-one to do it. I could come every Saturday – well, whenever I’ve got some spare time, and see to it, if you like.” It was the best excuse she could think of to come back and see the kids, besides which, she would miss her garden.
Claire actually smiled. It was obviously a struggle for her to remember just what muscles she needed to use to pull off a smile, but she managed to drag one up from somewhere and it sat uncomfortably on her face like a stranger in a foreign land.
“Well, that would be great. You’re on.”
That would give Lily the perfect excuse to visit the kids more or less every day.
She took the children out into the garden, away from Claire, who she really couldn’t bear to be around right at that moment. She was still giving her funny looks, and trying to see if she could spot the invisible contact lenses.
The garden, Lily’s pride and joy, got sun for most of the day, and everything that grew in it thrived – of course it did – how could anything grown by one of her kind not flourish? There was a paved area in the centre, rather than a lawn, edged by a low wall that held all of Lily’s potted herbs. Lily really had no intention of spending what little time she had spare mowing grass. She’d ordered some paving slabs in and laid out a decorative centre piece in different coloured slabs, and she had to admit she’d done a really good job on it. A collection of life-sized fibre glass animals loitered around in corners, as if in urgent conference: rabbits, badgers and squirrels, which she’d bought from her pocket money over the years. She’d resisted the temptation to add a few garden gnomes to the mix; gnomes were such annoying creatures. Around the centre piece were beds of herbs and country garden flowers, a profusion of colour and tangled wilderness. A perfect garden.
Liam and Sarah often helped Lily with such tasks as weeding and watering the flowers. She’d bought them each a little gardening kit – bucket, spade, hoe, so they could look after their own little patch of garden.
“Guess what?” Lily said, “We’re going to do magic. We’re going to make a magic charm that will keep the smoke man away. He won’t bother you again. You can help me make it. I need some herbs from the garden. You can help me pick them if you like, and help me make the charm, Shall we do that right now?”
There were two frantic nods. The terror in their eyes told her that Sarah, at least, would do anything to stop that creature coming. Lily was going to make damn sure that it never touched either of them again.
“Did they come and see you last night?” Lily asked.
Sarah and Liam both shook their heads.
“I had a dream about fairies,” Sarah said. “They took me to Fairyland, and I lived in a big toadstool, with a beautiful fairy.”
“Well, that sounds nice. Did you like it there?” Lily asked.
A nod.
“I wanna live in toadstool,” Liam said.
“Perhaps one day we can all go and live in Fairyland. You never know.”
She showed them which herbs to pick and helped them put them carefully into their little plastic buckets, blessing them with her magic. She was startled to feel that the herbs the children had picked were already vibrant with magic even before she touched them. She had never quite realised just how powerful a child’s imagination could be and how much potent magic lay inside every child, just waiting to be tapped into. She had a feeling that these few herbs and blossoms held as much potency as anything she could have picked on even the most auspicious moonlit night.
She’d only been out there a few moments when Kieran wandered out; he loitered in the kitchen doorway, awkward, his hands thrust into the pockets of his khaki cargoes, idly kicking up the dirt, casting red-faced glances at Lily. As far as Lily could remember it was the first time he’d ever set foot in the garden.
“Everything okay?” Lily called across. Kieran inched a few steps forwards, wincing as the sun hit him, and screwing up his eyes against it, like a vampire venturing out into daylight.
“Claire’s still going on about your contact lenses. I didn’t know what to say to her.”
“Oh, sorry,” Lily said.
Another couple of minutes of awkward silence and more fidgeting then finally:
“Why d’yer do it? I mean why suddenly come out like that?”
He ambled over to where Lily was kneeling and dropped down onto the paving, hugging his bony knees and looking decidedly uncomfortable.
Lily scrinched up her nose and gave it some thought.
“I don’t know. I suppose I suddenly just got sick of hiding. I just realised that the only person I was really hiding from was myself.”
She gave a little shrug and carried on picking the heads of yarrow.
Kieran picked up one of the golden yarrow heads and began fiddling with it, picking bits of blossom from it.
“Is that what you think I’m doing?” he asked, not looking up at her.
“No. You have to decide when you’re ready to change things. No-one else can make that decision for you. For what it’s worth, I think that maybe you’re better off keeping it to yourself just for the time being. You’ll know when it’s the right time.”
He looked up then, and nodded a smile – he seemed relieved.
“What are you doing?” he asked, watching the children as they stuffed handfuls of heaven knows what into their plastic buckets. Lily could sort through later and pick out the ones she could actually use.
“I thought it was a good idea to let them help with the gardening, give them a sense of responsibility,” Lily lied.
“Have I got enough magic flowers to make the charm, now?” Sarah called across to her, waving the bucket at her. Lily winced and felt a bright flush of colour rise to her cheeks.
“Magic flowers?” Kieran asked, a smirk touching his lips.
“It’s just a game to get them interested – you know like Mary Poppins with her tidying up game.”
He grinned and threw the yarrow head at her.
“You must think I just dropped off the Christmas tree. Come on, tell me,
what’s going on?”
Lily pinched in her face in a little moue of misery. She really didn’t want to do this, but she had to, didn’t she? Kieran was in as much danger as the little ones, and if she didn’t warn him and anything happened, it would be her fault, wouldn’t it? She pulled in a breath and blew it out again. It didn’t help.
“What would you say if I told you that I thought that Liam and Sarah – well, you as well – were in danger?”
Kieran gave a brittle laugh.
“From Claire? No, she’s useless, but we can manage all right. Her cooking’s not that bad.”
Lily gave a wan smile.
“I’m not joking, I wish I was. Kieran I’m going to tell you something that you won’t believe, but I can prove every word of what I’m saying. Just hear me out before you tell me I’m nuts.”
He looked worried then, a look his face hadn’t worn often.
“What’s this all about?”
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
There was no hesitation, not a second’s pause.
“Yeah, course I do. You’re the one person that’s never crapped on me – well, apart from the odd bit of sniping, and saying I’ve got a needle dick, but that’s normal between brothers and sisters, though, aint it?”
She managed a smile at that.
“Yes, pretty normal...” Lily hesitated for a moment, desperately groping for the right words. She had the terrible feeling that there weren’t actually any words in the dictionary that would cover this situation. She just dived in and hoped for the best. “Kieran, have you been having any bad dreams lately?”
There was a frown and not very well hidden beneath it was a ripple of disquiet.
“Why d’you ask?” He tossed the comment away casually, picking up another flower head. Lily reached out and took it away from him, forcing him to look up.
“Kieran, have you been having any bad dreams lately?” she asked again, her voice demanding this time.
There was a moment’s hesitation, a cautious glance... and something that looked like guilt.
“Yeah, so what?”
“We’ve all been having them, Liam, Sarah, and me. Exactly the same dream.”
He was suddenly defensive.
“That’s not possible, people can’t have the same dreams.”
Lily stared him straight in the eye, and said:
“No, they can’t.”
Kieran looked hard at her for a few moments, studying her face, trying to glean some kind of clue from it. Lily suspected that all he was seeing was sheer blind panic.
“What are you saying? If it wasn’t a dream what was it?”
Lily drew in a breath, loaded with as much oxygen as her lungs could take and blew it out again to try and calm herself and stop her voice from shaking. It didn’t work, she was shaking from head to foot, voice and all.
“There’s a place between waking and sleeping, when the mind is far more open to outside influences. When someone is hypnotised they go into that state and they can recall things that have happened in the past and do things they would never normally do... but when someone is in that state, creatures that are not part of this reality can find their way through to us to influence us for good or bad.”
Lily could see from Kieran’s face that this was not going well.
“That’s bollocks. It was just a dream.”
“You thought you were awake, but you couldn’t open your eyes or move – you were paralysed and you were very afraid, you wanted to wake up, but you couldn’t. Then you felt something on the bed, moving up towards you, perhaps some smaller figures holding you down and one large form moving up the—”
“Shut up!” he yelled shuffling backwards, away from her on his behind. The kids looked over, startled.
“It’s okay, just a wasp. Watch out for them,” Lily called across to them.
The colour had completely drained from Kieran’s face, and Lily noticed he was trembling.
“It was just a dream, that’s all.”
He sounded angry, dismissive. She could understand it, if she were him, she wouldn’t want to believe it either.
“But it seemed very real to you, didn’t it? Not like a dream at all?”
He looked away, his gaze focused on some unseen target, while he considered his answer. When he looked back at her any trace of anger and ridicule had gone, instead he looked older, his eyes holding a dark intensity that far exceeded his sixteen years. It was the face of a boy that had seen far too much in his short life.
“Yeah, it seemed real. I thought I was awake, but I couldn’t move, and then there was something on the bed with me, just like you said...” He hesitated and swallowed, looking as if he were trying to keep from being sick. “I woke up and I thought I caught sight of this black shape, like a man. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear it was a man squatting on the bed. I saw teeth, snarling, green eyes, and then darted out of the window. I thought it was from eating too many Pringles.”
His face was almost putty-like now, grey, his eyes wide and staring, fear finally getting the better of him. Lily closed her hand over his and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“Oh Kieran... they’re real. You didn’t imagine it. They’re called the Shadow People, the djinn, and you have no idea how dangerous they are... you can look them up on the net – trust me, they are as real as you or me. I’m almost a hundred percent certain that they murdered Gary Wilcox. He was so scared of them that he had a heart attack and died.”
“That’s nuts,” Kieran said. “Why are you telling me all this? You trying to scare me?”
He swallowed hard, his lips trembling. Lily suddenly understood that despite his bravado, he was still just a kid – a very scared kid.
“I’m just telling you the truth, because you need to know it. Like I said, you and the kids are in danger and I have to protect you.”
Kieran’s face held real fear now; sweat beaded his face, and the trembling was now a violent shake.
“Those sorts of things aren’t real.” Kieran persisted, “they can’t be real.”
Lily growled her frustration and jabbed a finger towards the two children who were now collecting flowers and herbs in every empty receptacle they could find, lining them up in a row like hunting trophies.
“You go and ask Liam and Sarah and decide if you really think it’s nuts. You know that the woman that brought me up was a witch – God knows you’ve teased me about it enough, but she taught me about these things. There are creatures out there, dark creatures that want to do nothing more than harm other people. Have you ever heard of the fey?”
He gave her a blank stare.
“What, are they a new band or something?”
Lily rolled her eyes.
“No, not a new band,” she said, exasperated. “Most people call them fairies.”
Kieran gave a slightly hysterical laugh.
“What you mean like Tinkerbell?”
“No not like Tinkerbell – these are fairies you really won’t want to believe in.”
Kieran shook his head, a wild gesture of negation, jaw set, eyes narrowed.
“No, now way. Sorry, I can’t buy into that sort of crap.”
“You mean that you’re afraid to believe it,” Lily said.
His reaction was immediate and extreme, he lashed out at her like a cornered snake.
“I’m not scared!” he snarled.
Lily patted the air to calm him.
“Okay, you’re not scared. I’m nuts, Liam and Sarah are imagining things, and you can go to sleep again tonight knowing that nothing is going to come and attack you in your dreams. Cool. Just bugger off then.” She stood up and made to walk away from him. A hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. She sat back down, and saw the first tears creep into his eyes, he brushed them away angrily with the palm of his hand.
“What are these things then?”
Lily looked across at the trembling boy, his face tear-stained, blotchy and smeared with dirt and felt overwhel
ming affection for him. He looked so afraid, so vulnerable. She reached across and closed her hand over his.
“I’ll try and explain, but try to stay strong. I promise, everything’s going to be all right, I promise. We'll work this out.”
“I am scared. I just don’t understand what’s going on.”
“It’s okay, I know, and you should be scared. These creatures, the djinn are where we get the term ‘genie’ from – only these don’t live in magic lamps or ride around on carpets. From what I can make out we’re just dealing with one of them here, and he’s a particularly nasty specimen. These creatures are as old as time itself and pre-date man, each living for thousands of years. When man first appeared on earth, the djinn resented them, believing that they has stolen the world from them. Ever since then they’ve wanted payback. They can only appear in solid form for short periods of time, but they can posses humans and control them to a certain extent, mainly simply whispering in their ears to get them to bend to their will.”
Kieran raised a sceptical eyebrow.
“Why can’t we see them all the time then?”
“The djinn are trapped in a kind of nether region between worlds, not quite able to manifest themselves in solid form for more than short periods of time and causing harm out of spite to make themselves feel better. They can travel vast distances at great speeds. They’re dark creatures, malicious, greedy and selfish, gaining power by sapping humans of their life force and making them weak.”
“Can you make them stop?” he asked. His hand was trembling in hers, and she gave it a little squeeze of reassurance.
“Yes I can.”
“I don’t want them to come again. I was fucking terrified, I nearly shit myself – I’ve never been that scared in my life. I wasn’t going to say anything because I thought it was just a dream. I didn’t want anyone to think I was going nuts.”
“They’ve visited Liam and Sarah as well. I think it’s been touching Sarah – and we have to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”