The Enchanted Flute

by James Norcliffe

  A flute that will only play one mysterious song? A leap from a window into a strange and often frightening world from which there seems to be no escape?

  The Enchanted Flute sweeps Becky and Johnny from their humdrum lives into an ancient Arcadian world where an old battle is about to be reignited. The flute Becky’s mother bought at a pawn shop proves to be a catalyst, a prize all forces seek. Becky, as the one who plays its enchanted music, becomes the focus of everyone’s needs and seething hatreds.

  A dazzling, inventive story resounding with familiar myths and the old stories, charged not only with musical language but also a dangerous, menacing edge.

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One THE FLUTE

  Chapter Two DOCTOR FAUNUS

  Chapter Three ARCADY HOUSE

  Chapter Four SILENUS

  Chapter Five THE CENTAUR

  Chapter Six THE MOTORCYCLIST

  Chapter Seven THE RETURN

  Chapter Eight SEPARATION

  Chapter Nine DECISIONS

  Chapter Ten BASILIUS

  Chapter Eleven THE TUG OF WAR

  Chapter Twelve RECEPTION

  Envoi ET IN ARCADIA EGO

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by James Norcliffe

  Copyright

  For Tom and Seren, and Lissie and Alejandro

  The woods of Arcady are dead,

  And over is their antique joy;

  Of old the world on dreaming fed;

  Grey Truth is now her painted toy …

  W.B. Yeats

  When the tightly wrapped parcel arrived, addressed to Becky, she guessed immediately what it was. There was her name on the wrapping paper, written in large spidery capital letters. REBECCA PYM. Somehow she knew this was the handwriting of Dr Faunus even though she’d never seen his handwriting before.

  There was no return address. There would have been little point. If the parcel contained what she believed it did, and if Dr Faunus had arranged to have it delivered to her, then it could mean just one thing: that Dr Faunus had finally accepted defeat, was perhaps even dead.

  ‘What is it Becky?’

  She looked at her mother nervously. ‘I think it’s the flute …’

  Donna Pym gave Becky a look of surprise. ‘The flute?’ Then realisation: ‘That flute?’

  Becky nodded. ‘That flute.’

  There was a pause as they looked at the parcel sitting on the kitchen table.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to unwrap it?’

  ‘I suppose so …’

  However, when Becky didn’t make any immediate move, her mother looked at her compassionately. ‘Are you still …’

  Becky knew what she meant. Her mother was asking was she still frightened.

  Becky nodded again. ‘I guess so.’

  ‘I don’t think you need to be …’

  ‘No,’ Becky said. ‘You’re probably right.’ She gave her mother a little smile, and reached for the parcel.

  Her mother fetched a pair of scissors and Becky carefully cut the string. Then she pulled the paper away and withdrew the familiar, battered black case. She clicked open the spring locks and lifted the lid. There it was. Once again. The bright silver instrument set in the crushed blue velvet lining.

  Becky paused for some time, taking it all in. Her mother waited patiently, neither hurrying her nor encouraging her. At length Donna Pym reached forwards and laid a comforting hand over her daughter’s. Becky’s hand was trembling. She let her mother’s hand rest there for a moment or two, and then she shook it off gently. She took the flute out and assembled it.

  She put it to her lips, her fingers finding the familiar stops, and then staring gravely over the instrument towards her mother, she began to play.

  The first time Becky saw the flute had been over a year before. She’d managed to pass her Grade Six examinations through the school and had made it to principal in the school orchestra, largely through the encouragement of Ms Paddy, her music teacher. Becky thought Ms Paddy was quite mad. She was interested only in music; music took precedence over everything including food, dress sense and reality. For all that, Becky knew her teacher was essentially kind. Quite unrealistically, Ms Paddy was always trying to persuade Becky that her mother should buy a flute for her. One night at a parents’ evening, to Becky’s embarrassment, she even mentioned how important it was.

  Donna Pym looked helplessly at Becky, and then gave a wan smile. ‘Of course,’ she mumbled. ‘We’ll see what we can do …’

  ‘Oh, good,’ Old Paddy gushed. ‘Super!’

  As far as Becky was concerned, it wasn’t super. It wasn’t super at all. They didn’t have that sort of money and that was why she’d never even mentioned the subject. ‘We’ was the term her mother still used instinctively, even though Becky’s father had walked out on them a couple of years previously. He’d been last heard of on the Gold Coast with one of the women from his office.

  So buying a flute was out of the question. Becky knew that. Even buying new clothes was out of the question. That was why, every so often, she spent time with her mother in a run-down part of the city where there were a number of second-hand (‘pre-loved’) clothing places. They had been hunting, unsuccessfully, through one of these shops and were wandering disappointed down a side street looking for their car, when Becky first saw the black case open in a dusty window.

  ‘Stop,’ she said, catching at her mother’s arm.

  Even through the murky glass the flute shone bewitchingly.

  Her mother glanced up at the lettering on the window.

  ‘It’s a pawnshop,’ she said.

  ‘What’s a pawnshop?’

  She gave Becky a tough little grin. ‘Don’t ask. We might be looking for one of these ourselves one day soon.’

  ‘Well, I am asking!’

  ‘Well … It’s a shop that lends out money. It takes something valuable in exchange as collateral, you know, security, and then it lends you the money and gives you a ticket. When you pay the money back and, of course, they charge a lot of interest, you can get your watch, or ring or whatever, back as well.’

  ‘I see …’

  ‘If you don’t come back within the time, the shop will sell your precious item and keep the money to pay back the loan.’

  ‘So …’

  Her mother nodded. ‘So I guess this flute must have belonged to someone who hasn’t come back to redeem it.’

  Becky nodded, peering more closely through the glass where it lay in a jumble of dusty golf clubs, television sets, binoculars and microwave ovens. There were little price dockets on all of these things, but the pawnshop owner had carefully turned them wrong way up so that you couldn’t read the prices. Becky imagined this was a deliberate ploy to make you go into the shop.

  She knew her mother wanted to get going, but something made Becky linger there looking through the window. She could feel her mother’s gaze, but she refused to glance back in case the need was clear on her face. Eventually, her mother gave in, as Becky knew she would, although it did make her feel a little guilty.

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose it can do any harm to find out how much it costs,’ Donna Pym said.

  ‘I suppose not,’ Becky remarked with as little interest as she could muster. Her mother wasn’t fooled for a moment. She gave Becky’s hand a tiny squeeze. ‘Come on then,’ she said, and led the way into the shop.

  The shop was gloomy and had an unpleasant odour of mustiness and decay. In Becky’s imagination this was the scent of lost dreams and dusty hopelessness. It was suddenly a little depressing. Instinctively, she wanted to leave, especially when she saw the man
perched up behind the glass-topped counter on an old swivel-topped bar stool. He looked a little greasy and untrustworthy. He was wearing a grubby striped shirt with stains at the arm-pits and even from behind her mother, for she didn’t want to get too close, Becky could smell wafts of the sour-sweet aftershave he had applied far too generously. Slowly he swung from side to side waiting for her mother to speak. He was probably only in his thirties, but with his oiled hair slicked back and his wire-rimmed glasses, he looked old before his time.

  ‘The flute,’ her mother began. ‘In the window … Is it for sale?’

  The man gave Donna Pym a shrewd appraisal, and seemed oddly disappointed. Then he nodded and slipped wordlessly off the stool and moved to the window. Becky was sure he had thought that they were in his shop to borrow money on the strength of a wedding ring perhaps, or some really valuable family heirloom.

  He returned with the rather battered black case and laid it before them on the counter.

  The instrument lay shining on its bed of velvet. Becky could see the faint discolouration of tarnish here and there, but if anything, it looked more beautiful, more tempting, now that they were not looking at it through a screen of dirty window.

  Gingerly, her mother turned the little tag over. Becky peered over her shoulder and she felt a little surge of excitement. The flute, although not cheap, was far less than she had imagined. She could feel her mother’s deep indrawn breath. All the same, Donna turned and looked at her daughter sadly. Becky felt a welling disappointment. Her shoulders slumped a little as she looked up to see the shop-owner’s dark little eyes studying her.

  ‘You play the flute?’ he asked.

  Becky nodded.

  ‘Grade six,’ said her mother.

  The man nodded as if that explained everything. He turned to her mother. ‘It’s in excellent condition,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ her mother said regretfully.

  He looked back at Becky briefly, then once more at her mother. ‘The price is negotiable,’ he said softly.

  Becky’s mother didn’t say anything.

  ‘Have a go if you like,’ he said to Becky this time.

  ‘May I?’

  ‘Of course …’

  Carefully Becky took the flute out and assembled it. She let it roll in her hands a little then steadied it and, after stepping back and away from the counter, raised it to her lips and breathed into the mouthpiece.

  A single note. Followed by a small trill. Becky’s eyes widened with surprise. She had meant to play something she’d been rehearsing with the school orchestra — a piece by Borodin they had been preparing for the junior prize-giving — but her fingers found themselves doing something completely different. It was as if she weren’t in control of them. A strange little melodic pattern followed. It was weird and slightly wonderful. A haunting magical melody, mournful and sad. Becky pulled the flute away with a flourish and found herself breathing excitedly. Her mother looked at her with astonishment.

  ‘That was beautiful, Becky,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve never heard you play that piece before …’

  Becky gave her a quick look of bewilderment. ‘Neither have I,’ she muttered.

  The pawnshop owner gave a little clap-clap. ‘You’re very good, dear,’ he said.

  Becky hated people, especially complete strangers, calling her dear. ‘Thank you,’ she said shortly, dismantling the flute and placing it back in its box. She was hugely attracted to the instrument, but at the same time what had happened had scared her a little. What strangeness had caused her to finger those notes? It was as if she hadn’t actually been playing the flute at all; in some eerie way, the flute had been playing her.

  Becky did not like that one little bit.

  She tugged at her mother’s arm. Suddenly she wanted out. Out of the dirty little shop, away from the grubby, smelly little man, and away from the temptation of the flute. This time, however, her mother shook her arm away. Clearly, she’d been entranced by the music.

  ‘You did say negotiable?’ she said to the shopkeeper.

  ‘Would you be prepared to pay cash, madam?’

  Becky’s mother nodded stiffly. She had caught the man’s implication that there could have been some doubt.

  Once more the shopkeeper glanced between them. ‘In that case,’ he said carefully, ‘I could offer you fifteen … no, twenty per cent for cash.’ He smiled at Becky. ‘Such a talent should not be denied,’ he said.

  Becky smiled tightly, tugging at her mother’s arm once more. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she muttered. Then Donna Pym did what Becky suddenly feared she would.

  ‘We’ll take it,’ she said.

  And she opened her handbag and took out her purse.

  On the way back home in the car Becky glanced over her shoulder from time to time at the black case sitting on the back seat. She knew she should have been feeling good about the situation, grateful for her mother’s generosity. But somehow, she couldn’t. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. In her mind she could hear the strange little melody and she remembered how some strange force had compelled her fingers to play it.

  She felt fearful. She felt that no good would come of this.

  ‘You didn’t have to, you know,’ she whispered.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said her mother brightly. Becky knew her mother was feeling happy, knew that she’d committed an act of great kindness and that it would mean scrimping here and saving there, and Becky knew that this was making her feel really good. She could almost have predicted her mother’s very next words.

  ‘Goodness knows,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been able to do much for you really since …’

  ‘I’m really grateful,’ Becky said. ‘But, honestly …’

  ‘Shh,’ said her mother. And Becky knew the subject was closed.

  Becky didn’t really know why, but when she got home she locked her bedroom door before she opened the black case. The flute looked so lovely she almost managed to convince herself she had been dreaming about the odd incident in the pawnshop.

  All that changed, however, when she put the instrument to her lips. Once again she felt her fingers being manipulated into positions and movements completely beyond her control. It was the same haunting little trill and melody as before. Note for note, cadence for cadence. She jerked the flute away from her mouth and placed it on the bed. ‘This is stupid,’ she muttered angrily to herself. ‘Get a grip!’ She put her music stand together and grabbed some music from her backpack. It was the dance from Prince Igor they were doing for the prize-giving. Becky shoved the music onto the stand and grabbed the flute once more. Breathing deeply and standing firmly one metre from the stand, she put the flute to her lips yet again. This time she forced her fingers to the stops the music demanded. She needn’t have bothered. She felt some uncontrollable impulse brush her intentions aside and her fingers once again became the creatures of something other, something Becky had no control over.

  The little trill.

  The melody.

  Sad, haunting, come from afar.

  It almost captivated her. But it scared her more.

  Again, Becky pulled the flute away, and with a gasp of frustration she flung it on the bed.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she whispered. ‘What’s happening?’

  There was no way Becky was going to take the flute to school the next day. Unfortunately, she had not reckoned on her mother’s enthusiasm.

  ‘Don’t forget your flute,’ she said, as Becky was getting her things together.

  Becky paused, thinking quickly. ‘I don’t think I’ll take it to school,’ she said. ‘I’d hate …’

  ‘But you have to,’ her mother said.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Becky said. ‘Not if I don’t want to.’

  That sounded grumpy and she was sorry as soon as the words were out of her mouth. But her mother hadn’t really noticed. She brushed the objection aside with a wave of her hand. ‘Of course, you don’t,’ she said. ‘No, I me
ant, you have to because Ms Paddy is keen to see it.’

  ‘But Ms Paddy doesn’t even know I’ve got it!’ Becky stared at her mother. There was a funny expression on her face and Becky guessed immediately. ‘Oh, Mum … you didn’t!’ she cried. Becky hated it when parents and teachers got together behind people’s backs. It was like a conspiracy.

  ‘I just thought she ought to have a look at it to make sure we hadn’t paid too much,’ her mother said lamely. ‘I don’t know anything about flutes. It’d be nice to know we bought a really good one.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So she was delighted to know we’d bought one and was very keen to have a look at it and hear you play it.’

  Becky stared at her.

  ‘Especially when I told her about that lovely little piece you played in the shop …’

  There was no way, after that, Becky could avoid taking it to school. She did think briefly about losing her temper and doing a Hollywood, but what would have been the point? Eventually she would have had to calm down and explain why she’d lost it. And she had no idea how she could explain.

  ‘So you finally have your own flute,’ gushed Ms Paddy. ‘Splendid!’

  If there’s one word Becky hated, it was ‘splendid’. She put it right up there with ‘super’. And Ms Paddy used them both. A lot.

  She nodded and pushed the box towards her teacher who clicked it open and then oohed and smiled at the instrument. Actually, Becky was pretty sure Ms Paddy did not know a lot about flutes. ‘Lovely,’ Ms Paddy murmured, reading the engraved label. ‘It’s a Boehm. German. It looks quite old.’

  ‘I think it is,’ Becky said.

  A sudden impulse took her. ‘Ms Paddy,’ she said, ‘do you know what this is?’

  Becky reached across and took the flute out and put it together. She had no doubt that she would be able to play the strange little melody. She hadn’t been able to play anything else. She wasn’t wrong. As soon as Becky had the instrument to her lips her fingers found themselves repeating the movements. The trill. The sad, haunting melody like an aching appeal from someone lost and alone. This time Becky allowed the piece to go on much longer, but at length she pulled the flute away and stared expectantly at Ms Paddy. She was staring at Becky with astonishment.