by Robin Jarvis
“Praise him!” the others, except for Miller and Tommo, chanted. “Blessed be this day.”
Jezza gazed down on them like a kindly parent.
“The contract is complete,” he announced and he turned around, displaying his back.
Shiela drew a sharp breath. It wasn’t possible.
Bathed in that early light, they saw that the appalling burns had healed completely. Now across his skin pearly scars formed an elaborate, mystical design. The flickering dawn grew brighter and the lustrous shapes and ancient writing appeared to glow and pulse with their own fire.
“The contract is complete,” the Limner repeated in a marvelling whisper.
And so Shiela witnessed the arising of the Ismus, and her mind reeled.
The Holy Enchanter stepped down to walk among them. Manda returned his modified biker jacket to him, gabbling how she had cut up one of her own coats to add the tails so it resembled the drawings of the Ismus in the book. The man received it gladly and touched her forehead in blessing.
“I give thanks to you, faithful followers,” he said. “You have kept vigil whilst the covenant was made. Your Lord shall not forget it. Now we may truly begin. The Court of the Dancing Jacks must increase and thrive – and the way has been shown.”
That was why the van was present in the boot fair later that day. The Ismus had decreed the first seeding of the books was to commence from there. He knew most of the town would be milling around beneath the Martello tower that afternoon.
Dismissing Howie, Queenie, Manda, Tommo and Miller for the moment, he had packed half a crateload of books into the van and driven to the site with Shiela and his black-faced bodyguards.
“You are quiet and deep in thought, my fair Labella,” he said to her. “Can there still be doubts?”
Shiela had stared at him with frightened eyes. “I don’t know who you are,” she answered in a fractured voice.
“I am the Holy Enchanter, your consort,” he told her patiently. “You will remember and it will be as it was between us. I will read from the book to you tonight. I shall regale you with tales of our magickal life at Court and the doings of our Prince’s subjects. You shall see.”
Shiela was quite certain she didn’t want to see – ever. But she held her tongue and when they arrived at the book fair she dutifully set out the books as he instructed.
“And if not,” he murmured to himself as he watched her, “there is always the minchet.”
At first the customers were non-existent. Nobody was interested in the old-fashioned-looking books. The people dawdled by, hardly glancing at them. They really just wanted an excuse to remain outside, away from their stuffy homes, where shock and grief had harboured them since Friday night. The Ismus knew that would change and he waited. His bodyguards remained inside the curtained van throughout, keeping a close and silent watch on him. As the day wore on, and the rest of the boot fair’s unremarkable, sundry wares had been thoroughly inspected and rejected, attentions gradually turned to the Dancing Jacks.
“Children’s book?” a dumpy, middle-aged woman in yellow flip-flops asked in a bored, fat voice.
“The only one they’ll ever need,” the Ismus answered. “Looks very dated,” she observed with a disagreeable face. “Children don’t want to read old stuff like this nowadays.”
“The word is classic. Quality only improves with age. Think how many great stories withstand the passage of time and are beloved by new readers every generation. They are timeless because they contain fundamental truths and are captivating pleasures.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of Austerly Fellows. He can’t have been much good.”
The Ismus’s jaw tightened and his lips drew back, revealing his gums.
“You will,” he said through a fixed grin. “And he was far, far greater than good.”
The woman blundered on. “So what’s the reading age?” she asked.
The Holy Enchanter peered at her as if not understanding the question. His head oscillated slowly on his neck like a snake considering a cornered mouse and he prowled around the table to stand beside her.
“Can there be such narrow limits on fresh thoughts and new ideas and the escape into wild adventure?” he asked.
The woman leafed lazily through the pages.
“I’ve got a twelve-year-old god-daughter and she’s very particular,” she said, not bothering to look at him. “She won’t read anything beneath her level. She doesn’t like stories about children younger than her. This one looks too babyish to me. It’s got pictures in it – she’s too old for pictures.”
The Ismus placed a firm hand on the book and took it from her. The woman’s dismissive, trivialising attitude irritated him. Shiela looked across, sensing the mounting tension, and when he next spoke, she recognised the familiar nettled tone of Jezza in his voice.
“How can narratives that enthral and quicken the blood be spurned, merely because their protagonists are younger than the reader?” he demanded. “The darkest, most gruesome fates can befall the smallest infant. I could tell your god-daughter a story set in a Victorian baby farm where the little mites were doped with laudanum to keep them quiet all day. If some of them died as a result, well – not many of the absent mothers objected. And when there wasn’t enough money to feed them, because it had been squandered on the matron’s gin, the surplus babies were tightly tied in flour sacks and thrown into the river. Would that be too babyish for her – even with pictures? Would she really think a drawing of a drowned, garrotted baby too childish for her grown-up sensibilities? What a screwed-up little psychopath your god-daughter sounds. She should be seen by a doctor and sedated before she harms someone.”
The woman blinked at him, speechless, and began backing away.
“Or how about…” he continued, “the tale of the six-year-old boy who drove his governess to suicide by the relentless and artful erosion of her sanity with his diabolic whispering? I could sit your particular god-daughter down and tell her stories of certain children, far younger than her, that would make her scream her twelve-year-old head off and make her drench the bed in urine for the rest of her life.”
“You… you can’t speak to me like that!” the woman spluttered.
“I’ll speak to you any way I want, you sow-brained fleck of crud. Don’t come here, boasting about your ignorance, and parade your prejudices about books with pictures in them to me, not to ME! And definitely not while you have this sacred text in your uncouth, porcine trotters. Tell me, do you always smell of sweaty ham or is it a special day today?”
The woman was so outraged by his verbal assault that she raised her hand to strike him. Suddenly two tall men with sooty faces were in his place and towered over her threateningly.
“You want to make some new friends in hospital?” Dave growled.
“Get gone,” Charlie spat. “No one touches the Ismus. The next time I see your fat pig face – it’ll have my fist in it.”
The woman shrank back. “I’ll have the law on you!” she cried. “You’re raving mad!”
“Oink away, Madam,” the Ismus laughed, reclining on the sill of the van and stretching his long legs. “You’ll learn.”
With an unhappy, frightened glance at Shiela, the woman escaped into the crowd.
“She’ll be back,” he predicted. “And by then she’ll be desperate to pay whatever I ask. Remember her, and her yellow flip-flops. If she’s back next week, don’t let her have a copy for less than seventy.”
“Seventy pounds?” Shiela asked in disbelief.
“And two grand the week after. Oh, she’ll pay it,” he assured her. “These works will be going for a lot more by the time we’re down to the last crate – a whole lot more.”
As the afternoon wore on, more people were drawn to the table. None of them were as objectionable as the first woman and so the amount of books finally began to dwindle.
Sandra Dixon had come to the boot fair to escape the suffocating attention of her mother. Since the attac
k on her, Mrs Dixon hadn’t let the girl out of her sight. Sandra had phoned her friend, Debbie Gaskill, about it and they had been messaging one another all weekend, but Mrs Dixon had always been hovering close by.
Sandra had felt strangely numb when she learned that two of her attackers had been killed in what was becoming known as the Felixstowe Disaster. Her mother had sniffed in marked disappointment and, behind tightly folded arms, stated, “Shame it wasn’t all three of them!”
Sandra wasn’t so malicious. She explained to Debbie how weird she felt, still bearing the bruises those dead girls had inflicted on her. It creeped her out completely. Her living skin displayed, in ugly purples and yellows, the last vivid impressions Ashleigh and Keeley had made in this world and, when those marks faded, what would be left to show for their brief lives?
It was a wonder Mrs Dixon had allowed Sandra out that Sunday afternoon, but the girl’s younger brothers needed attention too so she relented, with the proviso that Sandra return after three hours.
It was good for Sandra to feel the salt breeze on her face as she walked on the shingled beach, even though it made the cut on her lip zing and tingle. She had gazed out at the broad horizon for a full twenty minutes without moving. Then she continued on her lonely way down the shore until she saw the Martello tower in the distance and remembered the boot fair would be on today.
When she found the camper van with its stall of old books, she paused and examined them curiously.
“Lovely!” she exclaimed to the woman standing by the van. “I really like old books like this. Is it a story or a medieval history? Nice illustrations – very clean lines. They remind me of the ones in early Rupert Bear annuals. I’ve got four of those from before World War Two. My gran gave them to me. I love them.”
Shiela looked at the willowy girl with the swollen lip and bruised cheekbone and pitied her. She was too fragile to enter the world of the Dancing Jacks. It would overwhelm and crush her immediately.
“Move on,” Shiela said in an urgent whisper. “This isn’t for you.”
Sandra wasn’t certain she had heard her correctly. “Pardon?”
Shiela cast an anxious eye into the van where the Ismus and his bodyguards were reading intently.
“Go, now,” she told the girl. “For God’s sake, go!”
“I only want to buy it!” Sandra replied, bewildered. “What’s the matter with you?”
Shiela was scared the men would hear, so she shook her head and quickly took the girl’s money.
“Don’t read it,” she hissed at her as the girl walked off. “Throw it away!”
Sandra thought the woman must be a bit disturbed. Perhaps the van was from a day centre or a clinic. Then she glimpsed the blackened faces of two of its occupants and was certain of it. They were rocking backwards and forwards.
Turning discreetly away, she saw something that drove the strange woman and the VW van from her mind. It was quarter to three and Conor Westlake was still waiting for Emma to turn up. He was sitting on the sea wall and looking in Sandra’s direction. She hoped the lout had not seen her. Ducking behind a group of people, she dodged out of sight and pushed through the crowds to return home, clutching the book.
The afternoon wore on, Conor met with Emma and then he too bought a copy and the pile of books continued to diminish. The Ismus was pleased.
When four o’clock came and the vendors began packing their unwanted goods back into their cars, there were only three copies of Dancing Jacks left on the table.
Martin Baxter and Paul wound their way through the drifting people. Carol had done another night shift at the hospital and was now fast asleep at home. Martin greatly enjoyed coming to the boot fair. Sometimes he found treasures to add to his collection, or an annual he had owned as a child. The nostalgia of seeing those well-remembered pages after all those years made him both sad and happy at the same time. Carol told him he was in love with his own childhood and said he would never truly grow up. Martin couldn’t argue with her there.
To him the past was a safer, friendlier place than the world he inhabited as an adult. Life just seemed so much better back then, even though it was less luxurious and the best gadget ever was a pair of shoes with a built-in compass and animal paw prints on the soles to confuse your enemies. People knew who they were and where they fitted into the workings of society. Now nobody knew and everyone was dissatisfied, always scrabbling after more stuff, because that was the only way they could measure their success. No one understood the value of anything any more and things were chucked away simply because the latest version had come out, not because they were broken.
Before Carol and Paul had entered his life, Martin had felt pretty much obsolete himself. Perhaps that was why he had retreated so much into his fantasy world. Now it was such a major part of his life he could never break out of it, not that he wanted to.
That Sunday afternoon he was very pleased with himself at the boot fair. He had found in a box of odds and ends a Dinky Eagle Transporter from Space: 1999 and it was in almost mint condition. That evening it too would be suspended from the ceiling of his inner sanctum. He might even watch an episode. He had them all.
A momentary twinge of guilt troubled him. None of this was really appropriate on the day he had learned just how many of his pupils had perished in the disaster. Another pang of guilt twisted inside his conscience as he remembered the relief he had felt when he saw that none of his favourite students had died. It had mortified him that he could be so callous. And yet he wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to pretend he would miss Ashleigh or Keeley. Did that make him a wicked, heartless person – or merely an honest one? He had no idea, but he had kept those shameful thoughts to himself and didn’t mention them to Carol because he knew they would shock her.
Driving that confusion from his mind, he patted the spaceship in his coat pocket and went back to wondering which season to pick tonight’s episode from: po-faced series one – or the dafter series two? Then Paul nipped in front of him and picked up the very last copy of Dancing Jacks on sale that day.
“Cool,” the boy said, appreciating the quaint, period cover.
A strange-looking man in a funny leather jacket bowed to him. “You like the look of it, do you?” he asked.
“It looks like a magic book,” the boy said.
The Ismus laughed out loud. Then he leaned forward and whispered, “What if I were to tell you that it is – the most magickal book of wonders and secrets in the whole wide world?”
“Are there wizards in it?”
“No wizards, but there is a Holy Enchanter and Old Ramptana, the Court Magician. Between you and me – he is a bit useless. In fact, everyone knows it except him. Then there’s Malinda, the retired Fairy Godmother, who had her wings clipped off by the Bad Shepherd and now lives in a tumbledown cottage in the haunted forest.”
“Wicked!”
“No, she’s a good old sort is Malinda, not like Haxxentrot, the crabby witch in the Forbidden Tower. You wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her: she’s an evil old hag and always trying to spoil the happy life of the Court. Malinda is much nicer. She gives away charms and enchanted trinkets to those brave enough to seek her out in that perilous place. Once she gave a pair of silent shoes to the Jack of Diamonds; no matter how heavy his tread, no matter what he stepped upon, he made no sound whatsoever. That is how he stole away the Lockpick’s keys when he lay sleeping in his chamber strewn with eggshells.”
Paul listened, entranced. The man spoke as if the place was real and he actually knew the characters that lived there. He really was convincing.
Martin stood a little distance away. He had decided to plump for a season two episode. He had always liked the shape-changer in it – with the lumpy eyebrows and iffy blusher sideburns.
He smiled at the spellbound boy. He was a great kid. Carol had done an amazing job raising him on her own.
“Mr Baxter?” a small, nervous voice asked close by.
Martin looked arou
nd and saw that a young, ashen-faced woman was addressing him. He was about to nod at her politely, when there was a flicker of recognition. That face…
“Shiela?” he said uncertainly. “Shiela Doyle?”
The woman smiled in confirmation. “You remember,” she said and realised she had not been so pleased to see anyone for such a long time.
“Course I do,” he told her. “You were one of my stars. Went to university, didn’t you? Physics, wasn’t it?”
She knew he was eyeing her shabby clothes and unwashed hair.
“I dropped out in the second year,” she explained.
“Oh, sorry to hear that. You were one of the smart ones, Shiela.”
“It wasn’t what I wanted,” she said. “Or so I thought at the time…”
“You all right? You look a bit on edge.”
The woman seemed wrung with indecision and concern. “Mr Baxter,” she began falteringly. “I wonder… do you think I could…?”
Her attention was suddenly diverted by the Ismus talking intently to the young boy.
“Is that kid with you?” she asked in surprise.
Martin chuckled. “He is indeedy.”
“You didn’t have any kids when I was at school, did you?”
“He’s my partner’s lad,” he informed her. “Might just as well be mine though, the way we get along.”
“I see…”
“What were you going to say?”
“Never mind that,” she said quickly. “Don’t let him buy that book. It’s not… healthy.”
Martin followed her glance. He observed the unshaven, pale features of the Ismus and thought he looked like a dealer.
“Shiela,” he whispered. “You sure you’re OK? Are you in trouble? Is it drugs?”
She shook her head in exasperation. “Please listen to me!” she said.
“Hey, Martin!” Paul cried out triumphantly, clasping the Dancing Jacks in both hands. “Look what I’ve got! This man’s just let me have it for nothing!”
“Oh, no,” Shiela breathed.
Chapter 11