by Vance Huxley
“Clever. The sorcerer left a guard outside, in case someone used a glyph to get through the boundary. Though he must have made a mistake because it should have detected your glyph coming along the track and caught you before the gate.”
Abel felt slightly guilty and then confessed. “I didn’t do the blood thing at first. I tried to get in twice before I stabbed myself. I don’t like the blood stuff, it’s creepy.”
“You will never need it again. I must use your hand to strengthen the boundary.”
“All right.” Abel’s hand moved by itself and rested on the gatepost. He suddenly staggered and felt weak though the feeling passed, leaving him feeling tired. “What was that?”
“I used some of your magic, quite a lot, to strengthen this barrier. I doubt anyone else will enter now.”
“Isn’t is dangerous to use up all my magic? There might be something else.” Though Abel’s worries had more to do with Henry than magical creatures.
“Not all of it and you are already collecting more just by walking around. I will explain back in your home. Are all tracks like this, smooth? Where do you live? This surface is wonderful.” Abel gave up because Ferryl descended into almost babbling as they came past the first houses.
* * *
Except for her being invisible, the walk through the village with Ferryl felt like escorting a lively, excited, inquisitive little sister or talkative puppy. A dozen steps after leaving the gate she’d persuaded Abel to bend down and touch the tarmac road, then take off his trainers and socks so Ferryl could enjoy how smooth and warm it felt. The last time she saw it, the road had been a rutted track connecting the village to the post road. The whole walk turned out like that, with Abel touching walls, lamp posts, and glass. Ferryl seemed stunned by the amount of metal, whole carriages made of it, and the lack of horses.
“Too much time has passed. Let me look inside your head, to see what you know.” For the tenth time Abel refused but this time, instead of pushing harder, Ferryl changed tack entirely. “Put out your hand to the cat.” After a pause she added, “Please?”
“I appreciate the please for a change, but I’m not getting too near. That one isn’t always friendly.” Abel held out his hand and to his surprise the black and white neutered tom came towards him instead of hissing or backing off.
“May I use your hand, to say hello?”
“You’ve got to stop if he scratches.” Even as he said that, the cat stretched and rubbed his head along Abel’s hand, purring. The answering purr startled Abel since it came from inside his head, and his fingers stroked and scratched. The cat lay down, arching his back happily while Ferryl murmured something Abel didn’t understand. After a few moments the cat stood, stretched, butted his head against Abel’s hand and leapt up and over the low wall.
“Your world has become too complicated for such creatures. He will worship, in the way of cats, but cannot help me this time.”
“The cat talked to you? Were you speaking cat?”
Ferryl sounded amused. “No, fool, but he let me see his world. Many strange things he does not understand, and a few he does. I spoke in an old language.”
“When you told me names you spoke Latin, I think. Spiritus or something like that?”
“I speak Latin and Greek, but I do not read very well. What is that?”
Abel shelved the idea of a Latin and Greek speaking tattoo for now. He should have taken ancient languages as a study option. “The bus shelter? It’s to keep the rain off while people wait for transport to town.”
“All that metal and good glass just to keep the rain off a few coach passengers? Why is it cursed? Even with no sorcerer in the village, your local witch should have cleansed it.” Abel heard a dismissive sniff. “Or at least chased off the Globhoblin.”
“We don’t have a witch, how can a bus stop be cursed and why, and where and what on earth is a Globhoblin?” Abel’s vision blurred and cleared again. “Yeuk. The slimy football thing with too many legs and warts is a Globhoblin? Not a Hobgoblin?”
“Hobgoblins are bigger, greener and can be good or bad. Globhoblins have as many legs as they wish and are always unpleasant. How do you stop creatures like this from drooling in milk pails and stealing kittens? I don’t remember seeing any hexes on the doors. The witch should keep your village clean even if another sorcerer or sorceress hasn’t moved in.” Ferryl sounded really worried now.
“Can you do that? Get rid of the globlin thing, and the curse, and protect the village?” Abel didn’t even try to make sense of the rest of her answer. That warped toad-like thing in the bus stop had just stuck out a warty tongue and given him a grin with too many teeth.
“Give me your hand. For one glyph.” Abel agreed without thinking because the thing freaked him, and a vague, smoky shape flew from his finger to hit the football sized creature. It popped, the gloop bubbling briefly before disappearing. “Let me look at the curse.” Abel walked a bit closer, cautiously, seeing a vague reddish glow appear around some of the graffiti. Someone had been crudely unhappy about the bus being late.
“That’s a curse?”
“Whoever scribed it had enough intent to give it life, or maybe something else found it funny to activate the letters.” Ferryl snorted. “If I were to activate that other one, there, the man might need a witch very quickly before anything really dropped off.” Ferryl paused. “I cannot read some, or understand others. I must look in your head!”
“Break that curse, please, then let’s go home and we’ll think about it?” Another glyph made of smoke or vapour drifted from Abel’s finger and the glow around the writing died away. He headed straight home and by the time they arrived Ferryl had reverted to childish wonder at almost everything. Abel had become a lot more worried because things, creatures, seemed to be everywhere. Not many of them, and not large, but he really didn’t like the idea of them slithering, hopping or flitting about without being seen.
* * *
“Hand, quickly.” Abel had barely come through the back door into the kitchen, and stared around in alarm even as he agreed. His hand gestured and a wispy shape flew towards the kettle, then the microwave. A little creature came out of each, both smoking slightly. These were the first even vaguely humanoid types Abel had seen up to now, reminding him of a toothless old man in overalls. The creatures had no actual clothes, but the shape looked eerily similar.
“What are they?”
“Gremlins. You have so many homes for them in here. Luckily some of your mechanicals are already protected by hexes.” Ferryl pointed Abel’s hand at the fridge and cooker, but after a quick inspection couldn’t find any protection on the water taps or the freezer. The two singed gremlins scuttled outside, and Ferryl confirmed the kitchen didn’t have any more in residence right now.
Abel didn’t need an explanation of a gremlin, an unexplained fault in equipment, though finding out they were real came as a shock. He would have liked an explanation for the creatures flying and scuttling around the kitchen. Some were rooting in the rubbish bin, while others were clustered on the dirty dishes in the sink. Though first, “Where are the hexes?” Abel glanced around, wondering why anything had them, or if the cooker did why didn’t the microwave? Did some people know about the magic life around them?
“There, the scribed shape attached to the front.”
“The brand logo?” Abel touched the one on the fridge and Ferryl agreed that was an active hex to repel gremlins. All the brand logos on the protected items were hexes, but neither of them could work out why the logos on others weren’t activated. “We’d better check the other equipment. Mum keeps complaining the digibox records the wrong TV channel now and then.” The other creatures could wait for now, since a good few were leaving.
“I do not understand, but I can check for a gremlin.” Ten minutes later another three slightly singed gremlins had left the house. According to Ferryl the digibox should work better even if she still had no idea what it was.
Abel followed the la
st gremlin through the kitchen to make sure it left. “Why didn’t you splat them?” Ferryl didn’t strike Abel as the merciful type.
“If I destroy it in the machine the gremlin will wreck what it can as it dies. The gremlins understand the glyph’s warning. If they leave and stay away, I will not kill them. If they stay or come back, I can and will.” Abel could hear the sheer frustration in the next part. “I must learn what all these things in your house are, what they do, or I may damage them by mistake.” Abel’s hand moved and a slug-like creature near the rubbish bin splattered and evaporated.
“Is that dangerous?”
“No, but it has been too long since I could do this.” Another two creatures, one scuttling and one flying, exploded into slime that evaporated.
“That’s not hygienic. Won’t the bits leave slime over everything?”
“No, the creature reverts to pure magic.” Another one died. “You must let me into your head!”
“No, and I’d like my hand back if you’re done, please.” Abel waited, ready to use her name, but his hand suddenly started obeying. “I’d like to check upstairs now, and you can take my hand to remove gremlins and dangerous creatures. Then you give me it back, and we’ll try to work out a way for you to get what you need.”
Ferryl sniggered. “You are learning.”
They checked all the rooms upstairs, which definitely felt a bit weird as Abel never went into Mum’s bedroom. Ferryl evicted two more gremlins, one from Mum’s laptop and the other from the bathroom scales. The second one might explain why Mum complained about her diet only working sometimes. Once they’d done, Abel sat down for a talk to his tattoo about how long she had been out of touch. As they talked, he noticed several flying and scuttling creatures left the room.
Unfortunately, Ferryl didn’t consider the numbering of years, dates, to be important because people kept changing the system. Eventually Abel used his computer to search for when various things happened, people and facts Ferryl remembered. They concluded that Ferryl went in the hole, literally she insisted, nearly two hundred years ago in the early eighteen hundreds. From a few things the sorcerer told her, and her own estimate, the visits stopped in the late eighteen hundreds. Victoria had definitely still been on the throne the last time the sorcerer used Ferryl’s skills.
Ferryl’s memory really did seem patchy, and she kept blaming the sorcerer for stealing her wits. Physically, she swore, and insisted they would be hidden away, probably in Castle House. Though even her wits, whatever they were, couldn’t fill in two hundred years of missing information on how the world worked, day to day. Not rocket science but what a car was, zips and electric lights, reading modern English, why milk went in a fridge. Some questions seemed more surreal, like why Brinsford didn’t have a witch to deal with the curses and globhoblins.
Abel agreed that Ferryl had to find a way of catching up, of learning how the modern world worked, before she lashed out thinking something normal had threatened her. The two of them went round and round the problem and either Ferryl had to look inside Abel’s head, properly, or she had to look in someone else’s. Abel insisted on someone else’s, because he could use her true-name to stop Ferryl from taking any other person over. At least the tattoo promised she could take all she needed from a sleeping person without leaving more than a few odd dreams.
“Not my mother.”
“She sleeps here so it would be easy. Why do you have a room each and a whole house for two? Are you rich? Why don’t you hire bully-boys to beat those two peasants?”
Abel ignored most of that as the usual way ‘talking’ to Ferryl strayed off course. “She’s my mother. If there is a problem, I don’t want her waking up brain dead or with a spooky passenger.”
“I told you this will not damage her. Once I have my wits back I could gift her a glyph to attract a strong young man, or a rich one? To thank her.” Ferryl paused. “I could find her man and bring him back?”
“I’m not risking Mum, and she doesn’t want or need another man. You can’t bring Dad back because his ashes were scattered out at sea.” Abel didn’t need reminding of standing on a boat in the rain one grey November day, or Mum sobbing, not being able to speak properly when she scattered the contents of a plastic pot then dropped it in the sea. Then six year old Abel had to throw his flowers followed by Grandad. “Please keep quiet while I try to work out where I can find someone asleep.” Abel cudgelled his brain but unless he found a drunk in Brinsford, it wouldn’t be easy. He vetoed Ferryl’s suggestion of using a glyph to knock someone out. He had to find an answer because the constant torrent of ill-informed and downright dangerous or illegal suggestions from Ferryl were driving him crackers.
His tattoo talking stopped when Mum came home, because Abel didn’t fancy trying to talk to anyone else with Ferryl’s voice rattling on inside him. Mercifully, the silence also stopped Ferryl complaining about all the information she needed. Unfortunately keeping her quiet meant Abel couldn’t ask her to get rid of creatures. Several appeared and scuttled about in the food while Mum made tea. Abel found that if he stood near enough either he or probably Ferryl scared them away.
Abel repeated his instructions on the way round to see Rob and Kelis. He felt a bit mean because Ferryl hadn’t had anyone to talk to for a long time, but until she managed to catch up with modern life her comments really were either hilarious or scary. At least Abel could walk down the street in the open, with his cat-lady aboard the Copples brothers were the least of Abel’s problems.
Abel could feel her interest and frustration as he and his friends discussed the board game that might, hopefully, make their fortune. She really did try to keep quiet but occasional comments, and the feel of her moving in his skin under his sleeve, were both distracting. She seized control of Abel’s hand once but neither Rob nor Kelis saw the smoky glyph or the slightly singed gremlin scurrying out of Robs’ computer, though Rob sniffed at the air and looked around. When Abel left to go home, Rob’s front door had barely shut behind them when she started. “Now may I talk?”
“Yes Ferryl. I can answer quietly and nobody will hear while we are on the street.”
“Could we walk to your house across the fields where I can check for wards or hexes?”
“No. I’ll arrive home muddy again, a really bad idea, and anyone looking out of a window will wonder why someone is in the field.” Abel looked at the edges of the light cast by the street lamps and could see odd creatures moving about. “I’m not keen on getting out of the light and giving that lot a chance to get me.”
“Those beings are not frightened of the light, they are staying out there because they are frightened of me, or us. They sense the magic, but are not sure what you are.” Ferryl’s tone became a little bit plaintive, and once again Abel wondered if she was playing for sympathy. “It has been so long since I walked in the open countryside, day or night. I can show you the different fairies, and you can explain how those portraits and words on paper are a magical world?”
Abel immediately turned back to cut up the side of Rob’s house and over his back fence. He really did want to see a proper Tinkerbell after all the ugly looking things he’d seen so far. “I’ll walk along the grass just outside the garden fences, and slowly so I don’t get home looking like a tramp. If anyone sees me I’ll tell them I’m hiding from Henry.” Abel tried to work out how to explain gameplay to a complete newcomer. “The idea of the game is for those who play to imagine they are casting spells and fighting monsters, rescuing maidens and finding treasure.”
“Why not make the glyphs real, then the magic would be real, the monsters would come to investigate, and maybe the survivors would find treasure and maidens.” After a pause, Ferryl laughed. “Though maybe you would lose too many players, and then a sorcerer would be sent to stamp out the problem.”
“I really hope that was a joke.” Abel left a pause but Ferryl’s agreement took a while coming, so maybe not. “Where are the fairies?” There were creatures here, ugly littl
e flying ones with long, thin horny wings, but no bright colours or pretty fluttery types. Everything he could see had patches or whorls of muddy greens, browns and a few splashes of white or black. He hoped these were moth equivalents, and the daylight version would be prettier. The creatures flitted between the bushes in the gardens and the nettles along the edge of the fields but as Ferryl promised they gave Abel a wide berth.
“These be faerie, and fae. The faerie live off grass, fruit and leaves, mainly the magic from them but they eat tiny amounts to help them to keep a shape. The small fae prey on midges, flies, and similar small pests or weak faerie, but leave anything larger alone. The larger fae have stings, prey on faerie or the likes of wasps and butterflies, and drain small amounts from larger magical creatures. Their stings will drain a little magic from humans, leaving a red mark that will irritate, and too many will weaken the young or ill. Stop here.” Abel stopped for a while. “Nothing, no sign of hexes or wards, not even a fae-trap. Your witch or warlock, whoever it be, must be very weak or lazy.”
Abel gave up trying to explain Brinsford had no witch or warlock, in fact he’d started to wonder who might be one. Ferryl launched into a description of each type of creature they saw, so at least by the time he climbed into his own garden Abel knew the difference between some fae and faerie. The fae were longer and sleeker, and really did look more predatory, but all the fliers were dull colours and often mottled to blend in even better. It might have been the medication, or the excitement, but all Abel wanted to do when he arrived home was sleep.
* * *
Abel opened his eyes the following morning and could sense Ferryl’s satisfaction. “I have discovered what I need to know.” She sniggered. “Your mother had lovely dreams. I wish I had my wits, then I could gift her a small glyph to stop her hip hurting as much. You are right, she does not want a man while you are still at home.”
“I told you not to do that!” Abel pulled up his pyjama sleeve to be met by a smug smile.