by M S C Barnes
Aelfric stiffened and stared down at the notebook.
“I don’t understand. Could you see?” Dom frowned. The other teachers and The Caretaker remained silent as Aelfric turned away and started walking towards the far wall, Dierne beside him. “I saw enough, Dom,” he said.
Seb’s heart sank as he realised his palm was aching.
“Lily, they need to return to their lessons,” Aelfric said, waving a hand at the wall. The ornate door appeared.
“Seriously? Back to lessons? Seriously?” Zach protested. “You know it’s art for us now right? What about the golem? What about God? What about the truth paper that didn’t work? Surely these are more important subjects for us than painting a picture of a bowl of fruit?”
Seb thought, right now, he would happily draw a picture of a bowl of fruit. His mouth was dry. The prospect of stepping through that door with Aelfric, and having to deal with what was beyond it, filled him with dread. He tried not to show it and then felt Nat’s hand on his shoulder.
“You don’t have to,” Alice spoke Nat’s words into his head. “Aelfric knows the effect reading these souls is having on you, Seb.” He turned to her and she smiled reassuringly, her lips not moving, as Alice continued to relay her message. “He’ll take care of it.”
Her words helped but the ache in his hand created a shadow of guilt.
Alice stared at him, his silver irises dancing with orange light. “Seb, Dierne is saying Aelfric wants you to return to school. He can handle this one.” His twin shrugged.
Seb glanced at the doorway and saw Aelfric disappear through it. Trudy was on her feet, striding across the room.
“To lessons then!” she barked at them as The Caretaker joined her and the two, following Dierne, passed through the door, which then fizzled out of sight.
Lily guided them all over to the wall and instructed Seb to open the door back to the Head’s office. His mind muddled, swinging between guilt and relief, Seb did as he was told and within minutes they were joining their class in the art room
Not a Novice
Seb hated art. His efforts at recreating the world around him, whether using pencil, pen, gloopy paint, charcoal or clay had all been abject failures and Scarlet constantly ribbed him about his lack of artistic talent. But he loved being in the art room. For some reason it was irresistible to fairies. There was something about the creative atmosphere that seemed to attract them and the air, as be stepped through the door, was alive with their twinkling, glittering wings. It looked bright and magical.
Scarlet was at her happiest in the art room too. She was fascinated by the fairies, who also seemed to have an affinity for her. Several swooped over and sat on her shoulders as she walked, smiling, to their table.
Aiden sidled up to Seb and Zach.
“A bit disturbing, isn’t it?” he said in a hushed voice.
Seb watched two fairies, smaller than the size of his palm, flitting in and out of the stream of water running from the tap their art teacher was using to clean some brushes.
“Why?” Zach asked. “It was simple enough to get rid of the golem in the end and the teachers have come across them before. Nothing new.”
“It’s the use of these strange words; Dom was worried,” Aiden said.
“It was just a bunch of words. Seb still managed to collapse the abominable snowman, so it’s no real biggie.” Zach perched on the table beside Scarlet until she shoved him off and pointed to his own chair.
“I’m sure I had something to do with that too,” she said.
“Well Dom said the words that were used show we are dealing with someone who isn’t a novice.” Aiden stopped talking as two other class members moved over to take their seats nearby. Then his words continued in Seb’s head, through Alice, who sat on the draining board behind them. “Dom said using the name of God is the easiest way to create an animating spell and apparently it makes it simple to identify who made it because, when the Custodian lights up the golem, and the Seer reads the words inscribed on it, what is actually revealed is the name of the person who made it; effectively god to the golem.” Aiden shrugged, an action which looked incongruous since he hadn’t been actually speaking. Alice did a mock shrug for him and Scarlet giggled. Aiden continued, using Alice to pass his message. “Apparently, it is really rare for the name of God not to be used. In fact, Aelfric’s group have never come across a golem animated in any other way.”
“What other way is there?” Zach asked through Alice.
“Zach, weren’t you listening?” Alice repeated Scarlet’s annoyed words, even including a tut in the relevant place. “The only other option is ‘the word of truth’.”
“Yes, I was listening,” Zach answered. “But, clever-clogs, that means nothing to me. And don’t pretend you know what it means!”
Dispensing with Alice’s services, Scarlet leaned towards Zach, “The word of truth is the bible. Everyone knows that,” she hissed at him.
“No, everyone doesn’t. Cos I don’t. And they’re not going to carve the whole bible into the head of a golem are they?” Zach whispered angrily at her.
Nat tapped his shoulder. “Getting angry won’t help.” She smiled at him and at Scarlet. “Scarlet, I didn’t know the word of truth is the bible either.”
“See? See?” Zach sat back with a satisfied grin. “You made that up.”
Scarlet glared at him until Aiden’s words, spoken into their heads, began again.
“Many religions have a ‘word of truth’. Buddhism speaks of four pillars of truth. In Hindu there are eight Sutras or truths. Even Jesus in the bible said ‘I am the way, the truth and the light.”
“Hark at the preacher,” Zach snorted and stuck a leg on the table. “My feet are still wet.” He pulled at his crinkled trouser leg. Scarlet pushed his foot, which was six inches from her face, off and huffed.
“I did ask Dom if maybe the words were ‘the word of truth’? He said they could be but he didn’t understand them, and that’s what the problem seems to be. None of the teachers have come across this before. But I think Aelfric knew what they meant. I saw his reaction when they changed on the paper and he told Dom he had seen enough.”
Zach had begun undoing his laces and now pulled one shoe and a sock off.
“It is not life drawing class today, Master Orwell.” Their art teacher, Mr Hebson, a blusterous, beefy man with a bushy beard and red nose, turned from the sink and approached them. “Clothes to remain on, if you don’t mind,” he said. A couple of fairies landed on his head as he stopped at the table. “Now, let’s continue with your magnificent paintings shall we?” He paused as the last student stragglers took their seats. “Come along all.” He gave a big smile, displaying a set of the most perfect white teeth. A fairy flitted up and hovered an inch from his mouth, gazing at the dazzling incisors. “Let’s see if we can’t breathe some life into your creations.” He beamed and then winked at Nat.
Seb stared at the teacher who now bustled around the room, followed by a small group of fairies, checking everyone had paint, brushes, water and had retrieved their half-finished pictures from the drying racks.
“We’re in trouble if you breathe life into yours, Seb.” Zach laughed, looking at Seb’s painting. Seb looked down at his poor effort of a depiction of a blackbird perching on a berry-covered bush. The topic was ‘Colours and Textures in Nature’ and Seb had liked the idea of the stark black of the bird contrasted with its bright orangey-yellow beak and the sumptuous red berries. But the concept was one thing. What he had actually managed to produce on his wrinkled and smudged paper was a huge black splodge that looked like a kind of ‘tar-monster’ with a dirty, ochre-yellow stick for its mouth and surrounded by red blobs of what could easily have been blood. He sighed. Art really wasn’t his thing.
Mr Hebson, heading for the far side of the room, hummed a little tune in a deep baritone that rumbled through the air and caused a stream of fairies to flit towards him, some perching on his shoulders, others on his head, lik
e he was a fairy Pied Piper. Scarlet sighed and Nat smiled.
“The fairies love him,” Nat whispered to Seb.
“Shame he doesn’t know they are there.” Seb watched the fairies gathering around the cheerful teacher.
“Doesn’t he?” Nat smiled and nodded her head towards Mr Hebson. Seb looked more closely. The teacher paused in front of a small mirror on the wall beside his desk. He ran his fingers through his beard and sang even louder. As if in response, many more fairies poured through the mirror and circled him.
Seb knew fairies used mirrors as doorways into the human reality and it actually looked as though the teacher was calling them through the mirror to him. He rocked slightly from side to side as he hummed and then suddenly he span back to face the classroom and wandered across the room with a big smile on his face, still singing loudly and surrounded by more than a hundred of the tiny, sparkly-winged characters. All the other children ignored him, they were used to his effusive and noisy personality. Stopping at the sink, which he had previously filled with water, Mr Hebson gripped the porcelain edge, letting his arms slope to form slides. Then he stopped singing and chuckled heartily as the many fairies slid down his arms to splash into the water. Each one disappeared below the surface momentarily before zooming back out. As they rose through the air they span and sprayed water left and right with their wings. The cascade of droplets caused a very slight mist, unnoticeable to the unaware. As the light from the window shone through the mist, it produced a spectacular hazy rainbow.
Mr Hebson left the fairies frolicking in the water and approached Seb’s table again. “Come on Master Thomas, that blackbird won’t finish itself. My he’s a handsome fellow though.”
“You mean you can tell what it is?” Zach sniggered.
“Why of course Master Orwell. Your friend here is a wonderful impressionist.”
“The only impression I get from that, is that maybe Seb shouldn’t have been let loose with the paints.” Zach pointed at Seb’s picture. Aiden chuckled and Scarlet laughed out loud.
After five minutes the atmosphere in the art room was one of light-hearted jollity. Seb felt relaxed. His guilt dissipated. He wasn’t sure if that was the influence of Mr Hebson and the fairy gathering or because his palm had stopped aching. But as he started work on his picture all thoughts of golems, spells and soul-reading vanished.
Just Get On With It
To the sounds of shouting and laughter from the other pupils heading home, Seb, with Scarlet and Aiden, walked away from the school and into the woodland surrounding it. Alice floated beside them. They had said their goodbyes to Zach and Nat at the gates and were making their way to a quaint cottage in a clearing a few hundred metres into the woods. This cottage sat above The Pytt and had been their home for three months, Aelfric having arranged for them to board there after Seb’s and Scarlet’s family home was burned to the ground and Aiden’s foster placement had ended suddenly.
The bare branches above offered some small protection against a fine drizzle as they trudged along beneath the trees. Scarlet and Aiden chatted about the lettering Scarlet had seen on the golem’s forehead. Seb just watched his black school shoes pace over the soggy, leaf-strewn track. He suddenly felt inexplicably low.
It was dismally dim; the sun, hidden all afternoon behind weighty, grey clouds, was now well into its descent at the end of this short winter day. The sultry, chill dampness was, Seb thought, a stark contrast to the bright, windswept and bitterly cold, snow-covered landscape they had stood in only a couple of hours before. Glastonbury. He knew they had encountered the golem in the countryside around Glastonbury. His skills as a Custodian gave him access to some sort of an internal map that meant he always knew, without a doubt, what part of the country he was in. He wondered if the location had been significant, or if the person who created the golem had simply sought out a place where, at the time, it was snowing.
“Quiet as usual, Seb?” Alice nudged him and grinned. Seb lifted his head.
“Just hoping The Caretaker’s made coffee for when we get back,” he said, unable to raise a smile himself.
“This golem thing is worrying and there are so many more souls trespassing at the moment,” Aiden said. Hopping over a large puddle, he overbalanced and bumped into Seb as he spoke. “Seven already today.”
“That’s no great mystery, Aiden,” Alice said, grabbing his arm to help him regain his footing. “We are nearing the solstice. The distance between Áberan and all the realities is narrowing. Many souls, rather than waiting for the solstice, when they know the Custodians will enact The Restoration, take their chances early.”
Seb had been confirmed as Custodian on the autumn equinox and, following that, had helped Aelfric stand guard and deal with upwards of twenty souls who had used the narrowing between realms to trespass. But the solstice was very different. The gap between the realities during that day would rapidly narrow until it was virtually non-existent — and many more souls would trespass. The Restoration occurred at the very moment of the solstice and, though Seb had difficulty grasping the exact details, he did understand that, in that moment, for him and Aelfric, somehow time would slow; and then they would have to deal with reading perhaps hundreds of souls.
The solstice was only four days away, and he was getting increasingly anxious as it approached.
“Aelfric will be exhausted even before The Restoration begins, with the number he has had to deal with lately,” Scarlet said. “Seb,” she turned to him, “you really are going to have to get your act together before then.”
There was no point arguing, Seb knew. She was right. But he didn’t need to hear it again. Avoiding eye contact with her he hung his head and, as he emerged from the tree cover, strode quickly across the gravel driveway towards the front door of the cottage.
“Seb,” she called after him as he quickened his pace. “Did you hear me? You have to just get on with it!”
“I know I do.” He rounded on her. “You don’t all have to keep going on about it. I am trying.”
“Not hard enough,” she snapped at him. “All you have to do is read the souls and decide where to send them. How hard can that be?”
“How hard?” Seb was incredulous. “Scarlet, do you want to know the things I see when I read these souls? Do you? Because they would give you nightmares —”
“Then talk to Nat!” she shouted. “That is what Nat is here to help you with. It’s pathetic that you just keep saying it makes you feel sick and upsets you and yet the help that you have got available to you, you won’t use.”
There was an awkward silence, broken only by the sound of a crow cawing and Aiden’s feet fidgeting in the gravel.
Unable to explain, Seb simply turned, opened the cottage door and walked inside.
“Seb!” Scarlet darted after him.
The fire in the sitting room crackled, the flames spreading flickering light around the room as they stepped through from the small porch. It was cosy, warm and inviting. Instantly, Seb felt his mood lighten.
The Caretaker appeared from the kitchen carrying a tray of hot drinks. Scarlet, distracted, kicked her shoes off, bounded over to the largest of the two sofas by the fireside and flopped onto it.
“Tea will be in half-an-hour. Come and warm yourselves.” The Caretaker led the boys across to join Scarlet and then retreated to the kitchen.
Alice perched on the sofa back as Scarlet continued her scolding in a hushed, harsh whisper. “All I am saying is that you have to use what you have been given, Seb. We all know how amazing you can be. We saw you in action at The Hurlers. I can’t understand why you’ve been so useless since then.”
“Scarlet,” Aiden said. “He’s doing his best.”
“No he’s not, Aiden. He’s avoiding doing anything.” She crossed her arms and tutted. Seb stood up. “Where are you going?” Scarlet demanded.
“Upstairs. I’m not hungry,” he muttered and walked off.
“Scarlet, you shouldn’t give him such a hard t
ime.” He heard Aiden mumble to her as he reached the stairs and Alice joined him.
“She’s just frustrated because she knows how good you are,” Alice said, flitting up ahead of Seb as flamers began to pop into existence all around them. These little glowing orbs, the size of a Malteser, cast a cheering light in any dark place with just a thought from Seb. He didn’t even have to ask for their help any more, he simply had to think they would be useful, and they would come.
“I know,” he said. “And I know you’re angry at me too, Alice.” The stairs creaked as he turned the spiral to the top landing. His heart lifted as the light from the flamers picked out the thousands of tiny protective gems embedded in the paint which covered the walls, ceiling and even the stairs. Everything around him glittered.
“Sometimes Seb. But only because you should trust me more than any other soul and yet you don’t, you shut me out. That hurts.” Alice moved in front of him so that he had to stop. Half the landing ahead was still hidden in darkness, and over Alice’s shoulder Seb saw a shadow in that darkness move. The light from the flamers spread along the landing, illuminating the whole length and the shadow was revealed as a large, silver wolf. This was one of a pack of wolf-stags, creatures who existed to act as a power source for the Custodians, and to protect them. Cue was their lead, but this wasn’t Cue, it was a different wolf from the pack. That it was here surprised Seb.
Alice, noting where Seb’s gaze fell, glanced over his shoulder, then turned. “Why’d you call for him?”
“I didn’t,” Seb said as the wolf padded forward to stand outside the bedroom door. It was so large it took up most of the gap between the walls and Seb was unable to reach the door handle.
“Well, why’s he here then?” Alice patted the wolf on the foreleg. “Eh, Pace? Why are you here?” The wolf grunted and sat its bulk down, allowing Seb to reach the handle. He and Alice passed through the doorway and the wolf followed. “Okay, so he’s coming in,” Alice said, shrugging as Seb closed the door.