Jack Gregson & the Forgotten Portal

by Peter Wilson

  Jack glanced over in the direction of the graveyard, thinking of his mother surrounded in black mist, and imagined no longer being able to visit her.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he slipped the ring on to his finger. He felt a change immediately as he heard the sound of a deep low growl surrounding him.

  His eyes snapped open, as something nearly pushed him over. The black mist had returned, sleeking along the ground, probing everything it came in contact with. Suddenly he knew where the growling came from as the mist twisted and transformed before him. A thick tendril suddenly morphed into the shadow of a wolf, and jumped towards him before dissipating inches from his face.

  “Stand up!” Jack screamed to Rosie as he saw a shadow circling where she sat engulfed in mist.

  “What’s gotten into you?” David asked, as Rosie jumped to her feet.

  Jack looked at to the statue and saw that the black warrior had replaced the monk, his sharp sword pointing directly towards them. Its red eyes smouldered as it stared down on him, it’s teeth bared as if giving an angry snarl. It took all of Jacks strength to stay where he was when every part of his being was telling him to run and hide.

  “He’s got his ring on,” Rosie said as she walked over to Jack. “Is it the warrior Jack? Should we put ours on too?”

  “No, don’t!” Jack replied quickly as he spotted something on the warrior, a dull red glow upon his chest over the deep black armour. It’s not blue, he thought.

  “Wolves!” David cried. He’d put his ring on, despite being warned.

  “Just stand still,” Jack said. “I don’t know if they can hurt us, but don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  “Why don’t we just get the hell out of here?” David hissed back, as he lowered his voice to a hysterical whisper.

  “Because we need to get that necklace,” Rosie replied. She had also put on her ring and was staring at the statue. “It’s not blue, but it’s got to be important, don’t you think?”

  Jack looked back at the statue. It stood two and a half metres tall, the necklace well out of reach for all of them.

  He turned to David and said, “You’re going to have to give me a boost.”

  “What!” You’re going to actually touch that thing? It could come alive and chop your head off!”

  “It’s just a statue,” Jack said firmly, more hoping than believing it to be true. “Come on, boost me.”

  David shook his head, but made his way to the statue. Turning around, he entwined his fingers together, creating a foothold for Jack to step into.

  Jack placed his foot in and after a count to three was thrust above his larger cousin right into the torso of the dark statue before him. The rock sat before his eyes, clasped in a silver claw attached to the necklace. Not wanting to touch the statue for a second longer than he had to, he grabbed it and gave a good tug, snapping the necklace free on the first try.

  “Got it!” Jack called to David who immediately let him drop. “Nice and easy. Now let’s get out of here.”

  They turned back to the house and stopped in their tracks. The mist was swirling, moving faster as thick tendrils reached out towards the sky. They started to take the form of wolves as they drifted towards them, at first three of them and then five. Soon there were over ten wolf spectres circling them, growling.

  “What do we do now?” Rosie asked terrified.

  Jack looked around in every direction, and saw they were surrounded. It occurred to him suddenly. “The rings! Take them off!”

  The three of them grabbed at the rings on their fingers and tugged them off. Nothing changed. The wolves continued to converge on them.

  “Am I the only one who can still see them?” David asked.

  “Nope, I see them too. And the statue.” Rosie replied.

  “So, we’re screwed?” David said looking at his sister.

  Rosie nodded, just as a bolt of white lightening shot through the air, hitting the ground metres from their feet.

  A white mist started to form, spreading around the three of them. Just like the black mist, tendrils started reaching to the sky, but instead of wolves, white horses start to form. Soon there were surrounding Jack, David and Rosie, stamping their hooves at the wolves that had started to retreat. Before long a path had cleared, the black mist held back by a barrier of white.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said David as he took the lead and they started running back to the house.

  “What was that?” asked Jack.

  “I don’t know, maybe the Curator did something to help us.” Rosie guessed.

  “That meddling woman, I should have known.” A familiar voice said as they rounded the corner.

  Their grandmother stood before them, a walking staff in her hand pushing white mist onto the earth as more horses glided either side, ready to defend her. With a wave of her staff the mist started to clear, the horses vanishing.

  She closed her eyes and waved it again, a yellow light flowing over the garden, the twisted trees and black warrior once again concealed as it streamed over them.

  She looked at the three of them and sighed. “Come on then, back to the house. It looks like we have much to discuss.”

  Chapter Five

  Answers

  Their grandmother led them straight to the attic, making sure the rest of the family didn’t see them.

  Once they arrived she had begun berating the Curator for sending “defenceless children” out into danger. The two of them argued back and forth, making Jack think they had known each other a long time. When it was clear there wasn’t going to be a winner, his grandmother threw her hands in the air and walked over to them.

  “That woman! Sworn to keep the attic a secret and she calls on you three the second you’re alone.” their Grandmother said still angry.

  “Grandma, the Curator didn’t call on us. We found her.” Rosie said sheepishly, worried their grandmother would turn her anger on them yet still not wanting the curator to be in trouble for something she didn’t do.

  “And how did you manage that? What inspired you three to do some redecorating on level three of the house and coincidently position the painting of the pond in exactly the right spot on the wall?” she asked in disbelief.

  “A book we found in the library,” Jack said as he went on to explain the events of the day, starting with the discovery of the magic book in the library, to finding the attic and then their discovery in the Rear garden. “Which is when you arrived, and saved us,” Jack finished.

  “How did you do that anyway Grandma?” David asked. “We didn’t know you could do magic.”

  “And if you hadn’t gotten yourselves in mortal peril like that, you still wouldn’t know.” their Grandmother snapped at them. Then, sighing heavily continued, “On the other hand, if you hadn’t uncovered the illusion in the rear garden, things could have gotten a lot worse before we had time to do something about it all. I just wish Maggie had come to me first.”

  “Don’t you think I tried?” The curator said from behind her. “I’ve been trying to get your attention for two days. Why do you think your brother had your grandchildren walking around the grounds blowing things up? Even he noticed my signs and knew something was wrong. Firing off dynamite might have been one of the dumber responses I could think of, but at least he tried something and didn’t just ignore me!” she finished angrily.

  “You’re right Maggie, I’m sorry. I did feel you calling and I ignored it,” their Grandmother replied solemnly.

  “Thankyou,” the curator replied, happy with her small victory. “So what are we going to do? The blue emerald is gone!”

  “And?” David said.

  “And!” replied the Curator incredulous.

  “Well I get that we need to get rid of the statue and that horrible mist, but that batty book told us that the emerald prevents people coming through the portal, nothing about it stopping wolves appearing to scare the pants off of everyone. So if that’s all it does, who cares? L
et the portal be open, let people come and go as they please. The stories say that’s how it used to be, so why not let it be that way again?”

  “That ‘batty book’ is one of the first relics our family collected when we went exploring through the portal.” Their grandmother replied after a pause. “Tooted to tell you whatever you need to know in any given circumstance. ‘How do I make a chocolate cake?’ you could ask out loud, and a chapter would appear on exactly how to make a chocolate cake. I’m guessing that you found the attic because Maggie’s need for assistance was so great, that it presented itself to you with the information you would need to find her.”

  “It wasn’t that easy though,” Jack said. “The book knew a lot of things, but it didn’t just lead us to the attic, it gave us some cryptic clues for us to figure out.”

  “And that is the flaw with the book, although it took our family some time to figure this out. They soon learned that the content of the book was only as good as the knowledge of its previous and current owners. If one of its owners had been a master chef, the chapter on chocolate cake would be of the perfect recipe, a delight to eat. If none of its owners had ever cooked in their life?”

  “A chapter on chocolate cake wouldn’t appear in the book?” Rosie guessed.

  “Oh it would appear, but you probably wouldn’t want to use the recipe. The book would be smart enough to know one of the ingredients of chocolate cake is chocolate, but as for the rest of it? You could be told to mix in broccoli or manure. The book was created as a way of passing knowledge down through generations of owners, but for some peculiar reason if you want to know about a topic it has no knowledge of, it’s still compelled to give you an answer. So if it doesn’t know something…”

  “It makes it up! I told you I never cried for mom in the gardens!” David said. “Grandma, so what you’re saying is that the book has no idea what the blue emerald does and it made something up to keep us happy?”

  “Not quite,” replied their grandmother. “What the book told you is correct, that the blue emerald was enchanted and placed in the garden. What it didn’t tell you and doesn’t know is why it was placed there. David you mentioned that long ago the portal was open for anyone to come and go as they pleased and that’s true. But the question you want answered isn’t ‘why can’t it be that way again?’ but rather ‘why was it concealed in the first place?’ What happened decades ago that forced our family to seal the portal and hide ourselves away from the rest of the Universe?”

  Their grandmother paused, suddenly realising she was telling them more than she’d intended. “Anyway. A very real danger, and not information children need concern themselves with.”

  A clang of something hitting the ground came from the top of the stairway, causing everyone to turn around.

  “Sorry Mrs Gregson,” Alice the family’s hired hand said as she attempted to hold a tray and pick up a spoon she’d dropped with very little success. Rosie rushed over to help before she dropped anything else.

  “Alice knows about this place!” Jack exclaimed. The morning had been one surprise after the other, as Jack and his cousins’ worlds were turned upside-down. He found himself a little annoyed that his Grandma was being so secretive, and then to find out that Alice knew all this time as well!

  “Alice has been with the family for years Jack,” his grandmother replied, “even before I moved in and took up residence. I doubt there’s a secret she doesn’t know about this place.”

  “Oh I don’t know Madam,” said Alice as she carried over a tray of tea and biscuits, “considering I had to work it all out for myself I think I might have missed one or two.”

  Their Grandmother chuckled, “indeed. You were quite the nuisance as a young woman I’ve heard, getting mixed up in the Gregson family business wherever you could.”

  Alice didn’t respond but smiled as she started serving tea to each of them. She gave Jack and his cousins extra biscuits, knowing that they had yet to eat. Jack, realising he was starving grabbed one and bit into it.

  “Ahem,” the curator coughed loudly. “The emerald?”

  “Right. Jack pass me the necklace you grabbed from the black warrior,” his grandmother requested holding out her hand.

  Jack passed it over. He had been examining the stone since walking back from the garden. When he didn’t wear the magic ring it was a dull red rock, the size of a large marble but course and chipped. But when the ring was on, it was another story. It glowed a dull red, enough to spot in the dark but not to light a room. The stone itself lost it coarseness, becoming smooth with the colour changing from shades of bright red to black as it swirled in a clockwise rotation. It reminded Jack of a planet.

  “It’s enchanted,” his grandmother said examining it. “It’s extremely powerful. It was being used to conceal the warrior statue and the black mist. There’s something else…some other purpose I can’t see. Luckily for us, there are few that could have created something like this. Alice, did you bring what I asked?”

  “Of course,” replied Alice pulling a leather pouch from an apron pocket and handing it over.

  Their grandmother took the parcel and pulled on one of the leather strings that bound it together. The knot released and the leather unwrapped to reveal pristine white writing paper, a small pot of ink and a golden quill. “As soon as you exposed the illusion by pulling the necklace off the black statue, I knew we would be needing some outside assistance and asked Alice to fetch this for me.”

  David, getting impatient asked “Grandma, the blue emerald. Why was it used to seal the portal?”

  His Grandmother ignored the question as she opened the pot of ink and dipped the quill in. “This is special paper, it takes whatever language is written on it and transforms it in to a language the reader can understand. Anthrow can speak English but he never bothered to learn how to read it.”

  She went quiet again as she continued to write the note. Once done, she reread what she’d written and lightly swayed the paper in her hand to dry the ink. “Now, we need to…”

  “Grandma!” said Jack. “Please don’t ignore us. We ask a question and ignore it. You mention someone called Anthrow whom we’ve never heard of and you don’t explain who he is. It’s not fair!”

  “It’s because you don’t need to know all the details Jack, I’ve already told you too much,” his grandmother replied shortly. “You’ve all been thrown into this, and yes I’ll acknowledge that it’s probably my fault. But this isn’t a game and your part in it is over.”

  “Madam?” Alice asked quietly from where she stood. “The note you wish to deliver. You know you cannot do it yourself. You must stay and protect the manor while the portal is open. And you’ll need a Gregson to go through the portal and talk to Anthrow if you want his assistance…”

  “No, not them. They’re children!” Their Grandmother said horrified.

  “They’re also the only Gregson’s besides you that know there is something wrong. Do you want to involve more family members?” the curator countered. “Besides are they not just delivering a note? I’m sure it is something they can handle. Even if they are some of the slower family members I’ve met over the years,” she finished sourly.

  “Hey!” Rosie said.

  “They can call Anthrow the second they’re on the other side, I still have that signalling device he gave you. They could also take the book with them, in case they need any information when they arrive. This is the best way,” Alice added.

  “Enough! You win, but stop this ganging up. You do work for me remember?” Grandmother said admonishing them both as they smiled back at her.

  “Right then. It’ll be safer if you stick together, so it looks like you three will be going through the portal tonight. You will need to go after dark, once the rest of the family have returned to the house. Come, we have much to prepare.”

  “Wait!” both Jack and David said in unison.

  “We’re going through the door? The one that hasn’t been opened in over a hun
dred years?” Jack asked.

  The curator turned to Alice and said, “See, it’s as I told you. These really are the slowest Gregson children I have ever met.” Turning back to Jack she continued, “Child, the stories are just that. Stories. Oh some of them are true enough, but in reality if it wasn’t for the fact there is a magic door that can’t be opened on the grounds, only a select few would know the true history of this family.”

  “It’s true,” added their Grandmother. “If not for the door, the stories would have been too fantastical to be believed. But every generation hits it with an axe or tries to blow it up - this she said with a frown - and discover that it is no ordinary door. So the stories live on. For some reason the house won’t allow me to hide the portal door with an illusion.”

  “But why is it a secret?” David pleaded.

  Their Grandmother looked at all three of them, knowing they wouldn’t let up unless she gave them more. “Fine, one question each and that’s it. Rosie, go.”

  “Who’s Anthrow?” Rosie said excitedly.

  “Anthrow is a guide of sorts. No one knows the portal entrances better than him, and few have his…talents for travelling throughout different worlds. He owes me a debt, and he always pays them. David, you’re next.”

  “I think you know my one, but why was the blue emerald put in the rear garden of the house. Why did you seal the portal?”

  Their grandmother shifted uncomfortably, as if it wasn’t something she felt like sharing with the three of them. Finally she said, “Have you ever heard anyone talk of Richard Gregson?”

  “He’s the one that named his son Greg Gregson, the one who the Attic has a crush on,” said David. “Is that you Curator? Do you fancy Richard?”