James Munkers

by Lindsey Little

  ‘Did you pull the same act on Jem?’ I ask accusingly as we walk away.

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Have you no scruples, woman?’

  ‘I have so many scruples,’ she says loftily, ‘that kissing doesn’t even make it onto the list.’

  We swing past Jem’s place, and Pippa goes through the whole routine again while I hide in the bushes outside. It doesn’t take as long, seeing as Jem hasn’t got any siblings for her to cuddle, but I’m still left loitering outside for a good few minutes before the two of them emerge.

  ‘We’re going to have a bit of trouble when they find out you’re dating us both,’ I say.

  ‘Pippa thought of that,’ Jem tells me. ‘She called herself Kit instead.’

  ‘What, are you supposed to be twin sisters or something?’ I ask Pippa.

  ‘I am twin sisters.’

  ‘If you say so.’ She’s a strange I wonder if she has multiple personalities?

  She walks us down the road to where Will’s car is waiting. No Will in the front seat, though. Pippa produces some keys and climbs in behind the steering wheel.

  ‘You have a driver’s licence, then?’ Jem asks, getting in the passenger seat.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘James, get in.’

  Oh well. Being driven by a girl without a licence isn’t the most illegal thing I’ve done in the last twenty-four hours, I suppose.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask as Pippa steers us out of town, skirting the woods.

  ‘Will’s place,’ she answers. ‘It’s safe there, and he’ll be able to sense any Hoarders trying to sneak up on us.’

  ‘Is that likely to happen?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s possible.’

  Goodie.

  ‘What will we be doing there?’ Jem asks.

  ‘You will be training with Will, learning weapon use and fighting techniques –’

  ‘Wicked.’

  ‘– and James will be training with me.’

  ‘Magic stuff?’

  ‘Magic stuff,’ she confirms. ‘For tonight I just want to assess the extent of your ability and start teaching you some controlling techniques. We don’t want you walking around Ouse with power dripping out of every orifice.’

  It only takes a few more minutes to get to Will’s place, a cottage on the other side of the woods. ‘See that track?’ Pippa says as we get out of the car. ‘That leads through the woods to your place.’

  So that’s how Will kept getting into our back garden. I can’t believe that was only a few days ago.

  We trudge up the drive to the front door. Pippa knocks. A big, booming bark starts up on the other side of the door. Jem and I exchange glances. Images of bloodthirsty hounds race through my mind.

  ‘Get back, you great lump,’ Will’s voice sounds through the door. The door opens and his head pokes out, checking it’s us, before he backs away with the front end of an enormous Alsatian in his arms. I’m not so sure about walking towards it but Jem drags me forward. As soon as the door closes behind us Will lets the savage beast loose and it launches itself straight at me.

  Just as I’m about to get my face scratched off Pippa steps in and catches the huge dog’s front paws. ‘All set?’ she asks Will as the dog licks her chin, whining hysterically.

  ‘Just about. Were you followed?’

  ‘No,’ she says through her face bath. ‘I asked Warwick to make some noise in the old barn on the other side of the village about half an hour ago. He should keep them occupied for a while.’ She drops the animal back onto the ground and it pushes its face into my leg. I go toppling into the wall. Will grabs its collar and pulls it off me before it nuzzles me to death.

  ‘Come on through,’ he says.

  He leads us down the hall, past a kitchen and into a big space in the middle of the house. Its polished floor is tastefully dotted with leather couches, Persian rugs and coffee tables. Vases and lamps adorn every surface. A grand piano sits in the far corner.

  Jem whistles. I agree. I wonder who Will had to kill to get this?

  ‘Make yourselves at home,’ he says as he moves books and newspapers off the couch and carries coffee cups back to the kitchen. ‘Does anyone want a cuppa?’

  I watch him move comfortably about in bare feet, jeans and a T-shirt, bringing tea to everyone, chatting to Pippa. He seems so different from the shadowy figure in the garden. More like a normal person. Nice.

  ‘So,’ he says to Jem, ‘your friend here has some of the meanest bastards in this dimension after him, and sucks at fighting. You reckon he’s worth defending with your life?’

  Not so nice, then.

  ‘Sure,’ Jem says at once. ‘I guess he’s pretty cool.’

  Will opens a chest against the wall and lifts out the mother of all broad swords. ‘Let’s get started then.’

  Jem’s face breaks into a grin and the two of them disappear into a room at the back of the house.

  Pippa and I watch them go. Then we survey each other across the room. She cocks her head and stares at me. It’s kind of unnerving. I know she’s my fake girlfriend and all, but I’m still finding her weird.

  ‘So, what do we do now?’ I ask, to break the silence.

  She puts her cup of tea down on the piano. ‘I test your magical abilities,’ she replies.

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, and raises her hand. The piano stool jumps into the air and hurtles towards my head.

  There’s a flash of light.

  The next thing I know I’m opening my eyes with sweat dripping off me. I’ve landed on one of the couches which, judging by the gouges in the floorboards, has travelled backwards a good two yards. The broken remains of the piano stool are on the floor on the other side of the room, together with the shards of a large picture frame that is no longer hanging on the wall.

  Pippa’s still standing next to the piano. ‘Interesting,’ she says calmly.

  Will bursts into the room, sword in hand, and takes in the damage. ‘What the hell!’ he yells. ‘I leave you alone for five seconds, Philippa.’

  I wish he wouldn’t yell so loudly. My head is thumping.

  ‘We’re experimenting,’ Pippa says. It’s amazing how sedate she’s being in the face of a violent, angry man with a big weapon. He storms about the place, swearing like a trooper at each new discovery of damage. Jem looks on with concern from the doorway, an axe dangling by his side.

  ‘Calm down, William,’ Pippa says eventually. ‘I’ll teach Jim how to fix it all. It’ll be good practice for him.’

  Will mutters something under his breath. Then he turns to me. ‘If I find so much as a scratch on that piano,’ he says ominously, and stalks out of the room.

  ‘You okay?’ Jem mouths at me. I give him a shaky thumbs up. He smiles and disappears back into the other room.

  Pippa walks across the room towards me, ignoring all the debris, and sits cross-legged next to me on the couch. ‘Can you describe what happened there?’ she asks.

  I push myself up a bit higher and wipe a sleeve over my sweaty forehead. ‘I’m not sure,’ I say hoarsely. God, my throat. ‘The stool was coming at me, there was that light, and the next thing I know I’m here and it’s over there.’

  ‘And how do you feel?’

  ‘Awful. Utterly drained.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She peers into my face. Then she closes her eyes and touches the sides of my head with her fingertips. A warm gush of energy washes through my body, and I can feel her scrutinising every inch of me. I blush as the energy reaches my lower half.

  ‘Yes, you are drained.’ She opens her eyes again and removes her hands from my temples. The warmth disappears. ‘You threw everything you had at that piano stool. Why did you do that?’

  Is she kidding? ‘Because you threw it at my head.’

  ‘Well, hurling it to the other side of the room was a bit of an overreaction,’ she says. ‘Why didn’t you just stop it?’

  I blink. ‘I can do that?’

  ‘You can do
that. You can lift and move anything in this room if you want to. Including me. You can reassemble the broken furniture. You can put the piano on the ceiling. And it doesn’t take as much power as you’ve been using. It seems you can’t yet control how much energy you use to do things. Did you feel the same way when you used it last night?’

  ‘On the football field, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yeah. I felt totally lousy.’

  ‘Then I assume you used all the power you could then, too,’ she says. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It means you can recharge somehow. You use up all your power, but it comes back to you eventually.’

  ‘Why is that interesting, though?’ I ask. ‘Don’t Guardians and Hoarders recharge as well?’

  ‘No, they don’t. Remember, I said that Guardians keep a connection to the Twelfth Dimension when they come here? Well, they need that connection to access their powers. The same goes for Hoarders and their dimension. They access their dimension, take energy from it, and use that energy in this dimension. Once they’ve used it, it’s gone, and they need to access their dimension again for more.’

  My head is starting to hurt again. I rub my eyes and try to concentrate. ‘So let me get this straight. Guardians use energy from the Twelfth Dimension.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Hoarders use energy from the Thirteenth.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So where does my power come from? Am I accessing it from a dimension, too?’

  ‘No,’ Pippa says, shaking her head. ‘It’s Twelfth Dimension energy, certainly, but you’re not accessing the dimension to use it. It’s somehow been embedded inside you and, as I said, it seems to be rechargeable. You use it all up but then it comes back to you.’

  I peer at her. ‘So how much power do I have, then?’

  ‘If it keeps recharging? Limitless.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Yes, it’s very cool,’ she says, ‘unless you lose control, flood the world with energy and destroy it.’

  I think I’m going to throw up. ‘Can I go home and be normal now?’ I ask.

  ‘No. How long was it last night between attacking the dagger and attacking me?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, sorry about that.’

  ‘Irrelevant. How long?’

  She doesn’t hold a grudge – I’ll say that much for her.

  ‘I don’t know. About half an hour, I suppose. The second time didn’t feel as strong, though.’

  ‘We’ll do some experimenting tonight, then. See how long it takes to get you back up to full capacity.’ She stands up and pulls me after her. ‘In the meantime, let’s teach you how to slow the flow.’

  We end up sitting cross-legged on the floor, meditating. Pippa says serenity and concentration are the key. It’s a bit hard to be serene and concentratey when I could bring on Armageddon at any moment. Also, there’s a battle going on next door. I keep sneaking peeks towards the door whenever there’s a clash of weapons or a grunt from either Jem or Will. I look back to the front again after a particularly loud battle cry and find Pippa narrowing her eyes at me. ‘You’ll have to do better than this,’ she says sternly.

  ‘They’re being distracting.’

  ‘I don’t care if they’re dancing the macarena naked!’ Wow. She’s yelling at me now. ‘You’ve got a skinful of power in you, James, and I don’t want you accidentally blowing up your house because you were momentarily distracted. Is that what you want?’

  Visions of my family’s bodies lying among flaming timber and shattered stone jump into my mind. I swallow and shake my head.

  ‘Good!’ she yells. ‘Now calm down and breathe!’

  Easier said than done. I close my eyes, but all I see are dead bodies and fire. I try breathing deeper, but all I’m doing is breathing faster. I’m on the point of hyperventilating when I feel Pippa take my hands, and her power once more seeps into me like a strong cup of tea.

  Slow it down, boyo, a warm voice says in my head. It sounds like Pippa’s voice, but gentler. In… out… in… out…

  My breathing starts to follow the slow rhythm and I feel my shoulders drop in relaxation.

  That’s the way, the voice encourages me. You’re doing great, Jim. Come on, let’s go for a walk.

  I follow the voice with my mind and suddenly I’m looking inward, unaware of what’s going on outside. It’s warm and safe in here, everything bathed in a red glow as I go wandering around inside my own body. Every now and then, though, a blue light pulses by, on its way to the tips of my fingers, the end of my nose. It tingles as it passes.

  Follow it back.

  I do as the voice asks, travelling through my body until I reach a place, halfway down my torso, where a bright blue light is glowing in the deep. It looks like my animals.

  It is. They were made from it.

  I was the one causing all those animals to appear?

  The power was trying to get out of you. I guess it got sick of waiting.

  It’s just leaking out of me? That can’t be good.

  It’ll stop once you’re tapping into it more. Have you seen any manifestations since last night?

  The animals? No, come to think of it.

  There you are, then.

  But I can’t keep using the magic. I’ll blow something up.

  Oh, Pippa didn’t scare you with that, did she? She can be a bit abrupt sometimes.

  Pippa? You mean, you’re not –

  The best way to keep control of it is to practise. Don’t worry. We’re here to help.

  And then the voice is gone and I’m opening my eyes. Pippa is still sitting in front of me holding my hands. Only she seems to be bobbing around, as if she’s floating… on…

  I look down and see the floor, two feet below us. I yelp in surprise and go crashing down to land on my tailbone. Pippa glances down at me and comes floating down much more gracefully. ‘Well, you didn’t break anything this time, anyway,’ she says. ‘Come on. I’d better walk you two home.’

  We go into the back room, which is long and bare save for all the weapons displayed on the walls. Will has Jem in a headlock when we enter.

  ‘Time to go,’ Pippa announces.

  ‘Is it alright if I have a shower first?’ Jem asks from under Will’s arm. ‘If I go home all sweaty after being out with my girlfriend, my parents might get the wrong idea.’

  Will releases him and points at another door. ‘Bathroom’s through there. I’ll drive Jeremy home,’ he says to Pippa. ‘You walk Junior back through the woods.’

  I let the “Junior” comment pass, mainly because Will could break both my arms with his little finger, and Pippa and I head out into the cold.

  ‘How long is it going to take me to do this stuff without injuring myself?’ I ask, rubbing my bum where I hit the floor.

  ‘Like we said: practise. Control and concentration. Here, at home – whenever you can.’ She steers me down a path to the right. Trees loom above us, blocking out the moonlight, and Pippa creates a little globe of light to guide us.

  ‘Hang on,’ I say, thinking. ‘Can I do this stuff at home? I know the house has a protection thingy on it, but won’t the Hoarders sense it or something?’

  ‘No,’ Pippa says, side-stepping a puddle. ‘Hoarders can only sense Hoarders using power, and Guardians can only sense Guardians, because they’re accessing different power sources.’

  ‘Huh?’

  Pippa frowns at my stupidity, but elaborates. ‘Think of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Dimensions as two drinking fountains at opposite sides of the school. You’d be able to tell who was drinking from the one you were using, but you wouldn’t be able to tell who was drinking from the other one. It’s the same for us. A Hoarder wouldn’t know if a Guardian was doing something unless they could see the effects, and vice versa.’

  ‘But I’m not either, am I? I’m not a Guardian or a Hoarder.’

  ‘No, you’re different. You saw that glowing place inside your body?’<
br />
  ‘Yeah,’ I say, stepping over a fallen branch. ‘Looks cool, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, very nice. That’s your power. You don’t have a connection to the Twelfth – you don’t need it. You carry the power around within… James?’

  I look around and see that she’s stopped a couple of yards back, near another track that splits off from this one.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asks.

  I point down the track I’m on. ‘It’s this way, isn’t it?’

  She cocks her head. ‘Have you ever been in these woods before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So how would you know the way?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I frown and peer through the dark trees ahead of me. ‘Maybe my powers come with an acute sense of direction.’

  ‘Well, they don’t. It’s this way.’

  I turn back reluctantly, sure that we’re now headed in the wrong direction.

  ‘As I was saying,’ Pippa says once we’re on our way again, ‘you carry your power inside you. This gives you an advantage over Guardians and Hoarders.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘For one, your power is always accessible. This isn’t the case with us. There are certain areas in this dimension – Ouse is one – where the barriers between our dimensions and this one are weaker, thus making our power stronger. Unfortunately, that means there is a higher number of Hoarders in this village. They crave power, and they’re stronger here than they are elsewhere.’

  That doesn’t sound like an advantage. ‘How many is a higher number?’

  ‘Well, they come and go, but there’s usually at least fifty, I’d say,’ Pippa replies casually, as if she’s talking about the local swallow population.

  ‘So how can I tell if someone’s a Hoarder?’ I ask.

  ‘You can’t. Well, not until they try to kill you, anyway.’

  Spectacular.

  The path veers up a small hill. When we reach the top of it the woods start to clear, and I spot the lights of our house shining through the night. It looks like Pippa knew the way after all.

  ‘So how do I practise magic with so many baddies walking down the street?’ I ask as we walk along the back lawn.

  ‘At home, alone. It’s the connection with our dimensions that we can sense. Because you don’t make that connection, nobody will be able to sense it. We can’t sense you and you can’t sense us – not unless you’re engaging directly with our power.’