Widdershins

by Alexander, Alex

  He took it, hesitantly.

  ‘Fanks…’

  ‘But, if our paths cross again, I’ll expect you to tell me what it was all about. Promise?’

  ‘Sure, miss. That’s very kind o’ you. But… I don’t get it. Why you being so nice all o’ a sudden?’

  ‘I don’t want you to get into trouble now do I? What kind of person would that make me?’

  ‘…’

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘Niclas… miss.’

  ‘Nic-las? What a funny name. I’m Cassandra. With a C, the proper spelling. It’s a pleasure to meet you Nic-las.’

  ‘And you… miss.’

  ‘Come… we should get out of here before he comes back.’

  ‘…yeah…’ said Niclas, a smile creeping onto his lips.

  She smiled back. It was a strange smile. A little too smiley, perhaps. Maybe it was a trick, he thought. Maybe she was going to wait till they were upstairs, then let loose the pointed finger again and yell, “Guards!”

  But she didn’t. The two of them snuck back into the library. Cassandra went back to her table and Niclas, sweating like a lobster in a crockpot, shuffled his way to the exit and out into the street.

  A while later, Cassandra left the library and was met by a horse and carriage at the bottom of the steps. It wasn’t just any old horse and carriage. The tall, white horses were the kind trained in dressage. They were muscular giants, with magnificent manes and black feathered head dresses. The coach itself was made of the finest oak, and finished with intricate carvings made by a carpenter who clearly had too much time on his hands.

  The driver didn’t say a word, he touched the tip of his top hat and nodded. Out of the door came a man dressed a little on the threatening side. He was armed with a silver rapier and was padded and armoured from head to neck. His name was Rufus. Though his relationship with Cassandra was that of an unrelated uncle, he was much more than a close family friend, he was her loyal, sworn protector.

  ‘Good day, M’lady.’ He held the door for her and helped her with a hovering wrist up the steps and into the back.

  ‘Thank you, Rufus,’ she said.

  The door closed and the coach wheeled away.

  ‘More homework from Mr Eccleston is it?’ asked Rufus, noting the pile of books on Cassandra’s lap. ‘Want me to hold them?’

  ‘No, no. I’ve got them,’ replied Cassandra.

  Indeed, she did have them. They were cradled in her lap by two over protective hands. At the top was Professor Columbo’s History of the Colonies, at the bottom, Holm Rhomsky’s Tongues of the Natives. And somewhere in the middle, a book with no name, no author and a mysterious black stone melted into its cover.

  ‘One job! You had one job!’ said a very angry Balthazar from the corner of the bed.

  Niclas searched the empty bag as if it were bottomless and the book had fallen into another dimension within it.

  ‘I can’t believe this. None of these books are right. They’re not even slightly right. I could understand if they looked similar to the one I described but they don’t. Not at all. They’re the least similar looking books you could possibly find. This one’s clearly a recipe book and this one is… what is it? Ah! Poetry. I should have known you’d make a fluff of it.’

  ‘I… I don’t understand, sir. It was right ’ere, black stone like you said. Old dark leather. It was all funny scribbles inside too.’

  ‘Well it’s not here now is it! What do you suppose happened? It grew a pair of legs, hopped out of your bag and ran back to the dusty shelf from whence it came?’

  ‘No… sir… I don’ts gets it, sir. I don’ts.’

  ‘And this bag? Where did you steal that from?’

  The bag was a luxurious bag, a little too luxurious for a bag as far as Balthazar was concerned. It was a plush, purple velour, lined with black silk; not the sort of bag you just found lying around.

  ‘Some girl gave it me.’

  Balthazar’s green slit eyes widened. This was it. The missing piece of the jigsaw.

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘Just some girl… I didn’t want t’tell ya, but I gots caught lookin’ in the forbid bit. It’s ok though. She didn’t tell no one or do anyfing bad. She was quite ’elpful really.’

  ‘Helpful? How so?’

  ‘Well. If it weren’t for ’er I’d never ’av’ found it. And she gave me this bag, see, so I could get out without lookin’ like I was robbin’ the place.’

  If Balthazar had had hands, he’d have slapped Niclas across the face and sunk his own head into his palms. But he didn’t, he had paws, so he raised one to his nose and sunk into that instead.

  ‘Wot? Wot is it, sir? Don’t be like that. It ain’t…’

  There it was, like a bad smell the thought settled into Niclas’ little pea brain.

  ‘You don’t fink she did one on me? Like, took the book for ’erself?’

  Balthazar kept his eyes closed. He was bubbling with feline rage and if he looked at the boy just then, he’d probably have clawed him.

  ‘She was proper interested in it…’

  Balthazar held his miserable pose.

  ‘…and, come to fink ’bout it, she did change ’er mind a bit quick…’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘I dunno, sir. But she was proper posh. From north ends for sure. She told me ’er name… but…’ Niclas scratched his head.

  Balthazar sighed and put distance between him and the boy. It was for the best.

  ‘Don’t be mad, sir. It ain’t my fault. I bin hustled! Bin duped!’

  ‘Not only did you fail to do your job, you’ve succeeded in making the situation worse.’

  ‘Oh, sir, don’t be like that. We can find ’er.’

  ‘And how do you suggest we do that? It’s lost. Forget it.’

  Balthazar walked over to the window, jumped up and sat with his nose pressed against the cold glass. He liked to sit there. It was his thinking spot.

  ‘I could go back. I reckons she visits the library a lot. She said she read a lot. She probs spends loads o’ time there. I could wait around until I see ’er again and then… Well… I dunno exactly, but… I could get it back.’

  ‘Are you familiar with the Lunar Festival?’ said the cat, eager to change the subject.

  ‘Uhh… does that mean moons? Cause I know the moon festival. It’s when the whole city gets drunk, there’s dancin’, ’n’ games, ’n’ drinkin’ and all that sort o’ fing. Us boys was never allowed to celebrate, but Mr K ’n’ the grown ups used to leave us alone for the night. It’s the one night o’ t’year we could all ’av’ a bit o’ fun… that was, until Smivy ruined a ’ole batch o’ gin… Was proper bad that time… Never saw ’im again.’ Niclas sighed ruefully.

  ‘Hmmm, yes.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. Wot woz you sayin’?’

  ‘Do you know the history behind the festival?’

  ‘Can’t say I do, sir.’

  ‘Allow me,’ said Balthazar. ‘Once a year the two moons crossover. Nei passes in front of Jah, and the two become one in the sky. In olden times, the First People thought the two moons were going to crash into one another and bring about the end of the world. Of course, they didn’t. But it became tradition to celebrate it each year as if it were the last day of life. Such a tradition has survived the test of time, yet scholars and years of lunar studies have proven the old tale a myth.’

  Niclas looked to be listening very intently. In reality, he was very much lost.

  ‘It is now but a celebration of the passing of the old year and the coming of the new year. And that time again is fast approaching.’

  ‘Sir… sorry… but… wot’s this got to do wiv that book?’ said Niclas, bravely.

  ‘Everything. That book contains a certain knowledge that I require. And I only have until the night of the Lunar Festival to prepare for it. Else I’ll have to wait another year.’


  ‘Prepare for wot, sir?’

  ‘I wasn’t always like this you know. A cat. I was a man once.’

  ‘Wot? Did’ya get sick or summin?’

  ‘Yes, you could say that. If I am to be cured again, I need what’s in that book.’

  ‘…’ Niclas squinted, frowned and looked around. ‘Wait. Let me get this bent. So… you’re a cat… but you ain’t really a cat… you’re a man who’s now a cat… and you’re wantin’ to be a man again?’

  ‘That’s about right, yes.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well……’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Well that’s proper topsy turvy!’

  ‘…’ Balthazar let out a long hard sigh. He’d anticipated this. It was a difficult story to sell.

  ‘So that’s why you need this book then? I guess that sort o’ makes sense,’ said Niclas.

  Balthazar looked up. He didn’t speak. He almost did but he was a bit too surprised. Strangely, really, really stupid people could sometimes be very, very smart, precisely because they were so, so stupid.

  ‘Soooo, wot you fink, sir, should I go back to the library? How long we got till the festival?’

  Balthazar ignored Niclas. An idea had cropped into his head. Quite a decent idea too, evinced by the fresh glimmer of hope on his whiskered face. He leapt down from the windowsill, and examined the purple bag which Niclas had dropped on the floor.

  ‘Sir?’

  The cat didn’t reply. He pawed at the fabric. His exceptionally sharp eyes had spotted something important.

  ‘Look. I feel proper bad ’bout it, sir. I was stoopid, I know. Taken for a right fool. Let me go back to the library now. I’ll camp outside it until I see that posh bint and then I’ll give ’er a piece o’ the ol’ souvern revenge and get your book back.’

  ‘Shush.’

  ‘Wot?’

  ‘We’re going to need candles. Candles and chalk. Pink chalk.’

  ‘Sir? Wot for?’

  Niclas wasn’t sure why Balthazar’s mood had changed, but he was sure the cat was now smiling. It had something to do, though he was even less sure why, with the single thread of long blonde hair beneath the cat’s paw.

  PART TWO

  The Girl who Read Too Much

  When darkness fell on the Guard’s Square the lanterns kept it lit. Brightest were the ones on the eastern side, where the golden Palace gates shimmered below burning braziers.

  It was late in the night and all the Palace windows were washed in blackness. Even the servant quarters on the lower west wing were sleeping. But up high, in the centre of the Palace’s facade, a small rectangle of illumination suggested that all was not still.

  Someone was up, and way past their bedtime.

  Cassandra had waited hours for the Palace to enter its slumber. When the day was done, she lay in bed beneath her duck down quilt, waiting for Martha, the maid, to tuck her in. The maid kissed her on the cheek, blew out the candle and backed out of the room closing the door behind her. Once the door clicked shut, and the muffled beat of the maid’s footsteps had faded from earshot, Cassandra counted a minute.

  She leapt up, threw off the quilt and struck a match over the still smoking candle wick. Then, from under her bed, she pulled out a pile of books, took up the untitled one and sat at her desk with it.

  It was an odd book. The oddest she had ever seen perhaps. It was made of a strange sort of leather that felt like frostbitten skin. The stone too was blacker now in the candle light than it had been when she first laid eyes on it. And the lack of any inscription on the cover excited her. Cassandra was a person who usually got excited by books, but none had ever kept her up so late.

  It wasn’t just the cover that intrigued her. As she flicked through the pages she frowned at the curious symbols. What were they? What did they mean? Was this a book from the Colonies? Yet she had studied the languages of the Five Isles and not come across anything quite like this. This was different. It was older and far more peculiar than any language that existed.

  She had hoped there would be a section in the common tongue. A part of the book that explained itself.

  There was no such section.

  Soon her excitement fizzled out with a poof, like a very disappointing firecracker.

  Maybe her private tutor Mr Eccleston would know. He was young for a professor but just as wise as the old, bearded ones. But could she really ask him? Questions would surely follow. The book was bound to be in the forbidden section for a reason; a section of the library only permitted to the highest echelons of the Academy.

  Perhaps, she thought, she could take it back and say there’d been a mix up, then, slyly, inquire with the librarians as to the book’s nature. But they probably wouldn’t tell her. They’d probably just take it away. Or worse, get the Academy involved.

  She was getting angry about it all, so she slammed the book shut. For all she knew it was probably just an old recipe book that had ended up in the wrong place.

  She sulked into bed. Her head hit the pillow and she pulled the quilt over her shoulders.

  From a sideways view, she could still see her desk, and couldn’t quite lift her eyes from the tome. She started huffing and puffing. The more she looked at it the more frustrated she was getting. Her eyes clamped shut.

  But the book wasn’t finished with her yet. It played on her thoughts and whispered into her ears. And that’s a little more than a metaphor. Because something was whispering. Though it was all too snake-like and ghostly to be understood. It sounded like the rustle of the leaves in the courtyard, like the seething of the melting candle wax, the breathing of the breeze creeping in from beneath the door. The breeze was more noticeable now than the whispering. It was oddly colder than it had been but ten seconds ago, and now colder still. A gentle bluster of air ruffled through the room, tickling the candle flame. This spooked Cassandra and she shot up. For the window was closed; and even if it had been open as wide as it could, there was no wind that night.

  Yet now the breeze had stopped. The whispering too. The room was sleeping just as the rest of the Palace was.

  She stared at the tome with scrupulous eyes.

  ‘Hello?’ she said softly, to no one in particular.

  Without a mouth to speak, the book seemed to call back. The whisper was faint and barely noticeable, but it came directly from the dresser.

  Cassandra rose again, walked over to the untitled tome, sat in the chair once more and turned the cover to the first page.

  She nearly jumped. Nearly fell off her chair.

  It couldn’t be but it was. There, before her, the letters of her alphabet were arranged in the common tongue. What had once been a jumble of squiggles and symbols was now as readable as any of her other books. The word in the centre of that first page, though meaningless, seemed to strike a chord of recognition.

  ZOLNOMICON.

  She turned the page.

  The writing was small. Etched in black ink that had lost none of its blackness over time. And there were more words there on a single page than there were in some entire books. They were crammed together and squashed into orderly lines, legible only to people with excellent eye sight or those with a spare eyeglass. But they were legible. Just.

  This was the common tongue for sure.

  Cassandra shrugged. What was that old saying? When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth… something like that. It was no more possible for a book to change its words than for a leopard to change its spots; by that logic, though improbable, it was her eyes and imagination that had gotten away with her. Yes… that sounded… reasonable.

  She ran her finger along the opening sentence and read the words to herself.

  ‘The eyes of the open mind belong to he who whispers in the astral plane.’

  The floorboards creaked and a breeze shuddered the candle’s flame. Cassandra took no notice of it. Or at least, she tried
not to.

  She continued…

  ‘Herein lie the whispers of he who whispers, spoken by the tongues of eternals, interred on the flesh of their backs with the ink of their bones.’

  Something stirred in the room. The netting over the windows ruffled. The candle was burning just the same but the room was darker. There were corners of it that had disappeared entirely.

  She continued…

  ‘This grimoire harnesseth the workings of the Zol. All that is, is the Zol. The All. The Source. The Fabric of the Universe. All space, time and energy are connected as one within the consciousness of the Zol. Open one’s mind to the whisperings of he who whispers and the sapient shall have knowledge to bend the Zol to their will. It is all that was, is and will be. It is the gift of immortals. It is the instrument of masters. It is shadow and flame. It is the destroyer and the creator. There is nothing outside of it, there is only the Zol.’

  Cassandra stopped. She had heard about hairs standing up on the backs of people’s necks and shivers shivering down spines. But it wasn’t until just then, when she learned that hairs do actually stand up on the backs of necks and shivers do really shiver down spines.

  She could have sworn too, that as she had been whispering, another voice had been whispering between her breaths. Something eldritch. Something which didn’t belong.

  Knock knock!

  It was frightening enough to bring the girl to her feet. She slammed the book and turned to face her bedroom just as the door opened.

  ‘Oh dear. Deary, dear, dear, dear. What are you doing up and out of bed Cassandra? You’re just as bad as your brother you are.’ It was only Martha, the house maid. ‘Now is not the time to be studying, M’lady. Now is the time to be resting. You needs to rest when you’re tolds to. They call it beauty sleep they do. Now, I never had a chance o’ been a beautiful maiden, but you M’lady, you’re a beautiful young girl, and one day I’m sure you’ll be a beautiful Queen, just like your o’mam. But, if you go on like this, up all night, squinting under candlelight, not getting your beauty sleep then you’ll be hiding from mirrors all o’ your adult life. And you don’t want that do ya?’