The Tapestry

by Wigmore, Paul

  ‘I will always love you my little button’ he had whispered into her ear as he kissed her on the cheek. He had always said that no matter how shiny and pretty a button; there were none in the button drawer that could compare to his. It was corny but that’s what she loved about him.

  As she held the picture in her hands she thought she saw a flicker of something...something bright and yellow flicker to the left of her out of the corner of her eye. But as she turned to look, there was nothing. She stared at the tapestry on the wall. It was something her grandmother Isabel had left her in the will and along with it came a message.

  My dearest Clara, you have a gift that has also become your curse, and only you and I can know why this is so.

  For the last half of my life I have been the keeper of the dragonfire and now I am nearing the end of my life. I must pass the responsibility onto you.

  The Tapestry I am giving you contains the dragonfire, of which you will become the keeper. It was given to me in payment for the services which we both now provide. He was a poor man and this was all he had. He had told me that he could no longer bear to hold the responsibility and that he was too old to carry such a burden.

  I never knew at the time what he meant, as I know you don’t now, and I hope you never have to find out.

  It is a beautiful tapestry which I ask you now to hang on a prominent wall in your home. Look after it and it will look after you should the day come, which I hope it never does.

  I love you my dearest Clara... Grandma xxx

  There it was again, that little flicker, what was it? She looked towards the tapestry again. It was about four foot by six feet long. Woven into the design were the images of two Chinese dragons, they were in obvious battle. Their faces were full of hate, at the very centre of The Tapestry was a ball of flame which had smashed together between the two of them. It was the middle of that flame that now caught Clara’s attention. She supposed this was the dragonfire that her grandma had spoken of... there was something in the middle of that ball of flame. And it appeared to be glowing.

  Just as she noticed the glowing fire, she heard the sound too. It was a horrendous, unearthly sound. She had heard it before, or something like it... it was a sound that she would have heard on the astral planes.... but she was on this side of the curtain. How could this be? The sound was like that of a cackling hyena, only this hyena sounded as if it was ripping the meat from its victim whilst it was laughing. Her body froze and it felt as if her blood had run cold. There were goose pimples now searching for the sky all over her body. There was a sense of impending doom in the air that was almost tangible and she had no idea why. The air all around her had changed. It seemed to be charged with an electric current. She looked back at the tapestry and the eyes of each dragon had turned a bright green. This can’t be happening, she thought. And as if in response to her thought, just to prove her wrong the dragons seemed to move their heads towards her...

  ‘Clara...guardian of the dragonfire. Now is the time for you to begin your journey. You must find the trident to defeat who is now your enemy. Or the earth will surely perish’

  The dragons had spoken to her, but surely that can’t be true she thought, this is all wrong, was there something in her tea? She felt as if she needed a good lie down. She shook her head and rubbed her eyes, before she looked back at the tapestry and everything seemed to be as it was before... stupid old woman she thought, too many ghost stories you been readin’ my old gal. She rose from the chair and walked towards the tapestry. The background was totally black with the two dragons weaved into the design in white cotton with slivers of green and red throughout, but the ball of flame in the middle which seemed to be an equal effort on each dragons part was of the brightest yellow, still seemed to be a lot brighter than before. Then she heard the sound again. It froze her to the spot and sent a shiver through her very bones as she watched the dragonfire before her burn brighter. As that is what it was doing. The flame in the tapestry actually began to burn, the flames licking at the glass it was encased in leaving scorch marks up the glass, as if they were trying to escape.

  She knew this was actually happening now, there was no question. She could hear noises from the other side of the astral curtain that you were not meant to hear when on this side... never, and yet she still could. The sound was the most frightening experience of her life and now her tapestry had gone up in flames.

  And it all stopped as quickly as it had started. She looked once again at the tapestry and the flames were no more. But inside the frame was a golden disk which had green emerald type jewels encrusted around the outside with the two dragons from the tapestry inside the jewels. And between them was the dragonfire just like on the tapestry. It was just sitting at the bottom of the frame. The thing had appeared from nowhere, and even stranger was that the tapestry was undamaged and the deafening sound had ceased..

  She didn't know whether to approach the frame or simply turn on her heels and run for the hills, or even sign herself into the nearest psychiatric hospital.

  I can’t run away though, she thought. Her Grandma Isabel or Isa (as she preferred to be called) had passed this tapestry on to her, knowing that she could trust her with whatever secrets it held. She had the feeling that her Grandma had never really known what those secrets were and had been saddened to never know what it was she was guarding... but that's just it. She had protected it and kept it safe until the day came that its secrets would be revealed. Clara... as frightened of what might lay ahead as she was, wasn’t going to turn and run, she wasn’t going to let her grandma’s effort be in vain. She was going to walk over to that tapestry and... that's as far as her thoughts got before she even reached the tapestry. She walked into an invisible barrier which would neither let her move forward or backwards. She was facing the tapestry dead on and the whole thing seemed to be swelling up and down, in and out. To her it looked as if it was breathing, or more accurately... it seemed to be rippling in some strange flutter of wind. She could hear a noise, not like the cackling hyena laugh from before; this was like a gentle breeze chasing itself through the forest. It was a pleasant sound that she felt utterly at peace with at once. She imagined that she could feel it caressing her face, gently blowing her hair and lifting it. It was the kind of clean wind that came with the promise of spring on its tail. It uplifted her very senses. She took it all in with deep breaths, could feel it ruffle her blouse and kiss her skin. Her eyes closed and she found herself on a hill; she could see for miles around but to Clara... well, she felt like the only person on the planet right then. She had never felt so exhilarated. She looked up and the sky was a perfect blue, not a cloud in sight and the sun was in its heaven. The trees all around were the greenest and fullest she had ever seen. It was when she looked down at her feet that she realised she wasn’t standing on the grass but was floating high above a hill in a place that she didn't recognise. She was slowly turning in the air above the hills...

  Ok, this has got to be a dream, she thought. She tried to pinch herself or move or, do something for crying out loud. But it was impossible; she just couldn’t wake herself up.

  Her arms were outstretched and she was telling herself wake up, wake up as if the very words said aloud would bring her back to normality, she even visualised being back in her comfy chair at home as the idea had struck her that she had been astral travelling and got slightly lost, but even that didn't seem to work. She was still spinning very slowly above the hill. It was as if she were just surveying the land before her for some unknown reason but although she wanted to leave... she also wanted to stay. There wasn’t a sound to be heard apart from the odd little birdsong or rabbit scuttling to its warren. She felt so at peace and in awe of Mother Nature but she also felt very vulnerable and weak and without good reason. How could she feel so at ease and yet so vulnerable? and besides, before she could think of anything else to wake herself up... the dragons arrived.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘Where’s my numbaaa one?�
� the man slurred as he walked through the door. Gavin felt icy hands against his chest and back stop him dead in his tracks when he heard that voice. He turned to look at the owner of the voice but knew who it was before he had clapped eyes on the monster that was his childhood tormentor, controller... stepdad. He could never speak his name since he had become a man and couldn’t even register saying it in his own head, as if he would be betraying himself for using the dirty word.

  Gavin's head did betray him and turned to look at what he knew was before him. He was back in the little house where his childhood had ended. He was in the house where the whole concept of being a child had become a curse...

  The man was in a tatty dressing gown that was too short for him if he were to bend over and pick something up. The man had come rambling down the stairs and into the room. There was a little boy sat on the floor watching the television in the little room with his sister. He was sat with his knees bent so that his feet touched his bottom and his hands were placed on top of his knees. The palms had to be facing towards his chest; if the man was in a good mood then his palms were allowed to face outwards with his fingers pointing towards his chest. It was very uncomfortable and gave him cramps. But that was how the man said he had to sit, and the little brown haired boy would never defy the man or he would be punished, and the punishments were always severe. Sometimes the man would take off his belt and snap it before he dished out a good hiding, sometimes he would have to stand in front of the television and watch a quiz show, every answer he got wrong earned him a strap of the belt or a hiding from the slipper.

  Gavin could remember the struggle that the boy was having in keeping his hands on top of his knees and at the same time keeping the back of his feet touching his bottom whilst his legs were shaking with the effort, for that little boy was Gavin. He remembered for the first time in many years what it was like to be that little boy. A life full of walking on egg shells and never knowing from one day to the next if he was going to be beaten for forgetting to do his chores, or whether the blame would be laid on his Mum for Gavin's mistakes.

  While Gavin was stood there watching it seemed as if the little boy and his sister were not able to see him as this was a memory of his own, replaying in the confines of his own mind and he recalled somehow that this day wasn’t a good day as the man had bought the boy a new pair of pumps. As he remembered this, the vision in front of him changed and he could see the little boy with the new pumps on sitting at his desk in school and he recalled how happy he was not to have to wear the wellie's that he usually had to wear to school no matter what the weather. The new pumps were black and they felt wonderful when he tried them on, they made him feel like he was one of the trendy kids because they weren’t just black, they had an orange stripe that ran around the bottom of them that gave them just that little bit extra. He had been told to take them to school and use them for P.E. class. He was meant to wear his wellie’s the rest of the day but six year old Gavin decided he didn't want to do that. He remembered wearing his new pumps proudly showing them off all day and hiding his wellie’s at the back of the classroom where all the coats had been hung. None of the other kids were wearing wellie's and winter was over, spring was here now and the wellie’s should have been resigned to the back of the closet until next year. But the man insisted he wear them. Probably because it was cheaper than buying new shoes for the spring, or more likely because he knew he would be ridiculed in school for wearing wellie’s and got a sick pleasure out of knowing the humiliation it caused Gavin.

  He watched with a sick sense of trepidation in the pit of his stomach for he knew what was coming. The memories that had been locked away behind this door were now springing to life all around him and he just wanted to turn around and walk out the door. Lock it all up and never return, but he knew he couldn’t. For some reason he knew that he had to watch, although he didn't know how it was going to help him to become. For that is what he felt was happening to him now, he felt as if he were becoming someone or something. What, he didn't know but this was an important part in his becoming. He somehow knew that so he looked again and it was now lunchtime and he saw that little Gavin couldn’t wait to run out on to the playground and have a kick around with his friends. He remembered how it was usually quite awkward trying to play football in his wellie's and it can be painful kicking a leather football around with no protection on your feet. So little Gavin would normally just sit and watch whilst reading a book. Usually a famous five novel, these were his favourites and sometimes he had wished that he had an Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin so that he could be sent away to Kirrin Cottage during the school holidays and have fantastical adventures like Julian, Dick and Anne. Only he knew he would never want to come back. He knew it was only a dream but it was something that he had kept alive inside him because his thoughts were something that the man could never touch. He sometimes read the stories just because he felt he was getting one over on him... his literary tastes had changed since he had grown up but he recalled that he was always at his happiest when reading. It was like he felt that just for that brief little time that he really was in the seaside town of Kirrin and nothing could harm him, the man couldn’t take that away from him. His happy thoughts were all he had left when he were that little boy. Gavin didn't know at the time but what was left of his childhood was about to be taken and crushed underfoot. The torn remains of his childhood left behind on the pavement to be washed away with the rain like yesterdays newspaper bearing the headline “BOY GONE MISSING”.

  This day was different though, he remembered; as soon as that bell went he ran to the dining hall and scoffed his dinner down in what seemed like one or two mouthfuls. He literally hoovered it up, his knife and fork were a blur of movement in front of him and then he had raced to the grass at the side of the playground to join his friends who had already begun to pass the ball between them. Gavin watched as the little boy ran to Stewart who was his best friend and quite popular in school, unlike Gavin. How could I have forgotten about him? he thought. He was a good inch taller than Gavin and always had the latest trainers and went on the best holidays, he would come back sometimes from the summer holidays and tell Gavin all about the fantastic beaches that his parents took him to in places like Spain and Greece. Gavin recalled wishing his parents would have taken him somewhere nice like that but he knew it would never have happened. He remembered being that little boy and sometimes he had wished he had Stewart as a brother because then he would have gotten all the things that Stewart did.

  As he was watching these events played out before him Gavin heard a voice inside his head, ‘be the boy again’ it whispered... ‘be the boy again’. It was Saul, and he felt Sauls’ presence at the side of him. He looked into the purple eyes of the man demon as he repeated his words without a movement of his lips. He put his strong arm out and placed his hand onto Gavin's shoulder. ‘Be the boy again Gavin you have the power inside of you to do this. You cannot change the memories of your mind by merely watching, otherwise they will just play over and over, causing you more harm. You need to be the memory to change the memory. You need to be the boy... so that he can be a man.’ He knew what he had to do now, he looked toward little Gavin and realised that he did have to become the boy so that he could make him into a man. No sooner had he thought it, the grown up Gavin had gone and was now little Gavin about to play footie with his best mate Stewart, he had dark hair but it was shaved into a crew cut which was basically just about a millimetre of hair left on the head. Gavin had asked for a crew cut the last time his mum had taken him to the barbers as it was the latest trend but she said that the man had said he had to have a short back and sides and nothing else which wasn’t surprising. The other kids used to tease Gavin because of the wellie's and the hand me down clothes that he wore but Stewart was a year older than Gavin and always stuck up for him. He lived on the same road as Gavin which is why they were such good mates, although Gavin wasn’t allowed to play out much, when he was he would always run over
to Stewarts house and they would play games like cops ‘n’ robbers or sometimes Gavin would be allowed to borrow Danny’s bike and they would go for a bike ride somewhere, Danny was Stewarts older brother and was very kind to Gavin. This only happened when Gavin knew that the man was going to the pub though. As it didn't bear thinking about what would happen if he rode round the corner and bumped into him. He had never been told he wasn’t allowed to go on a bike but he knew that because he hadn’t been told that he could... then there would be a problem. Of course the man wouldn’t say anything at that point. He would probably pat him on the head and tell him to have a fun time and be careful. When what he would really mean is have a fun time while you can because I just caught you red handed doing something that you didn't ask my permission for... and I’m gonna make you pay for it later. There would be a look in his eyes that Gavin knew meant trouble... It would be the bad look from the bad place.

  Stewart was pleased to see Gavin and hurried him over with a beckoning motion of his hand.

  ‘Come on Gavvo’ he shouted as he raced towards them. They had laid down their school jumpers and bags as goalposts and were kicking the ball between them. ‘Are ya playin’ today matey or readin’ more about Fingerin’Fanny?’ he asked when Gavin arrived at his side. Stewart always thought it was funny there was a woman in Gavin's books called Fanny and would rib him but Gavin really didn't know why it was so funny, he knew that girls had fanny’s to pee out of but didn't understand why he called her fingerin’ fanny. It didn't make any sense to Gavin but he never said so as he didn't want to look silly in front of Stewart so he just always laughed along with the joke.