Faerie Path #6: The Charmed Return

by Frewin Jones

  In the shocked silence Jade’s voice was only just above a whisper. “So . . .” she murmured, “no pressure, then . . .”

  Chapter XI

  Tania found herself lying sleepless in her darkened bedroom with wide-awake Rathina at her side and Zara seated on the sill of the open window singing quietly to herself and gazing out into the starry London night.

  Mr. and Mrs. Palmer had persuaded the reluctant Tania and Edric that they needed to rest before undertaking their task. Tania lay looking at Zara and remembering how she had first met her sister, at the door of her other bedroom in the Royal Palace of Faerie. A newly discovered memory, but of something that seemed to have taken place entire lifetimes ago.

  Edric was on the couch downstairs and Jade was in the guest bedroom. Jade had been adamant not to be sent home: “You think I’m going to miss out on all this? No way! I’m staying right here.”

  “Will you not at least lie down, Zara?” Rathina asked now, watching their sister with anxious eyes.

  “I need no rest, Rathina,” Zara replied gently. “Nor ever shall.”

  Tania leaned up on one elbow. “Zara?” Her voice was tentative. “I’m sorry, I don’t really know how to ask this, but what are you?”

  Zara smiled, her face bathed in starlight. “Do you fear I am a ghost?” she asked. “That I am the unquiet dead doomed to walk the world?”

  “Well, something like that. . . .”

  Tania was aware of Rathina alert and tense at her side. “I pray that be not so!” Rathina whispered sharply.

  “I am not a ghost,” said Zara. “Mayhap were I to walk the halls and fields of Faerie, it would be as a ghost, for my time there is done—but in this world I am alive, I think.” She sighed but not unhappily. “For a brief time.” She tilted her face upward, as though warming her skin by starlight.

  “So, you’re like an angel, or something?” Tania ventured.

  Zara laughed gently. “An angel! ’Tis a pretty thought! The angel Zara! It is true that I am not the only Faerie soul to have come to this world to do good deeds for a while before stepping over the Eternal Threshold.”

  “Others who died in Faerie have come to this place?” Rathina asked.

  Zara nodded. “To shed light in dark corners and to offer comfort to the abandoned and the bereft . . .”

  Rathina gasped. “I knew not!”

  “Nay, nor should you,” said Zara. “Already I have told you overmuch of things best unknown.” She looked at them. “Sleep, now. I shall watch over you.”

  “Sleep?” said Tania. “You’re kidding.”

  Zara laughed and made a wafting movement of her hand. “Sleep,” she murmured. “A deep and healing sleep.”

  Tania felt drowsy. She saw Rathina’s head hit the pillow. Her own head came down, and the duvet lifted up over her shoulder, although she had not moved it.

  The last thing she heard was Zara’s voice, singing a soft lament.

  “Just as you promised, the evening comes to me with stars in its eyes

  The evening comes as no surprise to me,

  Flies to me, soft with the shadows of midnight,

  And takes me to the land where all roads go

  To the land where all roads go.”

  “Tania? Daughter? Do you hear me?”

  It was Oberon’s voice, crying out in the darkness. Tania stumbled through the gloom, straining her eyes.

  “I can’t see you! Where are you?”

  “In the deep dark, my daughter—where none but you shall ever find me!” His voice broke with emotion. “We are lost, my child—betrayed and lost. Cast down, bound in amber, shrouded in silence.”

  “Where? What happened?” Her own voice made her head hurt.

  “My brother came upon us unawares. The brother I had long forgotten—the brother banished in the lost days before the covenant.”

  “Lear!”

  “None but he!” Oberon’s voice was wrought with anguish. “He came upon us as we fought to keep the shield of Gildensleep alive. Secretly from out of the frozen north, from beyond even Ynis Borealisis. Great power he has accumulated unto himself over the millennia.”

  “What did he do?” shouted Tania. “What has he done?”

  “He has taken the throne of Faerie, my child.” Oberon groaned. “And all that were powerful in the Eternal Realm are now encased in amber for all time.”

  She was too late! The quest had taken too long—and now all was lost!

  “I’ll come to you, Father!” Tania cried as the dream faded. “I’ll awaken everyone. We’ll walk through right now.” She thrashed under the covers, desperate to wake herself up.

  “Be wary of my brother, child,” came Oberon’s dwindling voice. “He has grown mighty in witchcraft in the years of his banishment. He will seek to overwhelm you, and I would not have you spend eternity in a prison of unbreakable amber. It is a fearful thing. Awake but frozen of limb, locked in perpetual torment, unable to act while Lear cuts a swath of darkness through both Faerie and the Mortal World!”

  Tania could feel her father’s fear and pain, and the growing panic that his Realm and all its people would be lost forever. She had to reassure him.

  “I can beat him,” she cried. “I know I can. Trust me, Father!”

  “All is lost. . . .” A whisper now, from an impossible distance.

  “No! It isn’t!”

  “All is lost, all is . . .” The voice was gone.

  “No!”

  “Sister! Spirits of mercy, what ails you?”

  Tania felt hands on her shoulders shaking her awake. She snapped her eyes open. Rathina was kneeling over her in the bed, her eyes dark as sloes. Tania gasped for breath, trembling all over.

  Zara stood over her. “What did you dream, Tania?” she asked.

  “The King!” Tania said falteringly. “Our father, the King. Trapped in amber. Crying out for help!” She pushed Rathina’s hands away and scrambled out of bed. “This was a mistake. We should never have waited!” She threw on some clothes and then ran for the door. “Rathina, get dressed. I’m going to wake Edric. We have to act now—it may already be too late!” She flung her bedroom door open and ran down the stairs.

  Chapter XII

  The living room was lit by a single lamp that threw feathery shadows over the walls. It was still deep night beyond the drawn curtains. London was asleep, but in here a dangerous, fervid light was growing.

  The furniture had been cleared from the center of the room: chairs piled together, the low coffee table upended on the couch, the television pushed into a corner.

  Clive and Mary Palmer stood together by the door, their faces still heavy from their disturbed sleep. Tania noticed they were holding hands.

  Jade was kneeling to one side, her eyes huge in the flickering light. Tania had not meant for her to be involved in this, or even to know about it till she awoke in the morning—but the noise made in rousing the others had alerted her, too, and she had insisted on being there when Edric “did his thing.” Looking at her now, Tania wondered whether she wished she’d stayed safe under her duvet.

  Edric was summoning the Mystic forces. He had called the Globus Heim into existence, and a gradually expanding ball of coruscating blue light filled the whole of the middle of the room.

  Edric was at the center of the growing globe of light standing perfectly still, his hands clasped together in front of him, head lowered, his eyes full of molten silver. Tania could see his lips moving through the incandescent light of the Dark Arts—his whole body bathed in flickering sapphire, threads of light whipping around him like shooting stars.

  The power of Dark Arts filled her with dread. She was terrified that something would go wrong—that the Dark would rise up and claim Edric for its own. Could she even trust him now? Might these fearful sorceries corrupt him and ruin him and turn him into a monster who would destroy them all?

  Tania glanced at Rathina. Her sister’s face was pale as she looked into the Mystic light. Rathina knew a
ll too well the devilry that could be called up through the Dark Arts: deadly powers that could crush a good soul and hurl its owner into the deepest of hells.

  Only Zara seemed untroubled as she watched Edric calling upon the reluctant spirits. Did she know something the rest of them didn’t? Or was she beyond fear and apprehension? It was impossible to tell.

  He mustn’t be killed. He mustn’t be changed in a bad way. I couldn’t bear it. If something terrible happens to him . . . No! I won’t think like that. He’s strong, and he has my love to keep him safe. This will work. It must!

  Edric’s lips became still. He raised his head, eyes narrowed, like someone coming suddenly into blazing sunlight. A slight smile. He brought his arms up in two wide circles until they were palm to palm above his head. As his hands clapped together, the Globus Heim became still and solid: a blue crystalline sphere sunken a little into the floor so that there was a wide, flat disk of carpet within.

  Tania swallowed hard, desperate to appear fearless as Edric’s eyes fell on her. He stepped to the curving wall of the globe and reached his hand toward her.

  “The spell is safe now,” he said, his voice muffled from within the ball of glittering light. His hand pierced the sparkling rind of the Globus and emerged into the room. “You can step through—but don’t let go of me once we begin to move back in time.”

  Tania stared at his hand. Hesitating. Did she trust him? Did she dare?

  Zara stepped up to Tania’s side. “Have no fear. His true spirit is not overthrown by the Dark,” she murmured. “But heed him. You must never lose your grip on his hand when you are in the past, for if you do, you will be lost there.”

  Tania nodded, too frightened to speak. She glanced briefly at her parents. Seeing the distress in their faces, she quickly looked away.

  She took Edric’s hand. It was cool to the touch, and his skin seemed to spark, as though with static.

  “This will not be as the time before when you inhabited your past selves.” Zara’s voice spoke close behind as Tania was about to step into the Globus Heim. “That time you became the girls that you once were. This time you will be separate from them. But they will know you and they will trust you. Take their hands and they will come to you.” She felt Zara’s touch gentle on her shoulder. “And you must try not to be overwhelmed by grief at what you will see and what you know. Be strong, Tania—endure the pain!”

  Tania turned her head, puzzled by Zara’s warning. But before she was able to respond, she was pulled into the sphere of dancing blue light.

  As she was drawn into the Globus, she felt a coruscating fire enter her, sparking and burning through her veins. She gasped for breath, a sensation like lightning flaring in her stomach, sending out tongues of flame that ran prickling along her arms and legs. Bolts of blue light flashed across her vision, hissing and spitting.

  And then she was inside, and the fire was gone from her limbs. The air was charged, tingling in her throat and nostrils. She could feel the hairs bristling all over her body as though her skin was furred with electricity. The living room and the people in it wavered in a blue haze, blurred so that shadow and light merged and she could not make out their faces. It was as though the whole world had gone out of focus, leaving only Edric and her together within the mystical glow of the Globus Heim.

  “Are you okay?” asked Edric. “Do not listen to the voices.”

  She frowned. “What voi—?” Then she heard them. Whispering and muttering. Evil voices and cruel voices, miserable voices and whining voices. Lost voices and lonely voices. All around her. Voices to drive a person insane. The baleful voices of the Dark Arts.

  “You have to ignore them,” Edric said, his calm voice cutting through all the others.

  She turned to him. “I will.” She tried not to hear. She tried not to see the silver in his eyes. She tried to trust him and to swallow the fear. “What happens now?”

  “Now your journey begins.”

  His fingers twined tightly with hers. He turned and made a pass through the air with his other hand. It left a wake of sparkling gray filaments, like a dew-spangled spiderweb seen through early-morning mist.

  Again and again he let his hand glide through the air, like someone wiping breath from a window.

  As the web of gray threads expanded, Tania saw new images through them. Darkness. Buildings huddled together in a narrow street. A horrible sound. A horrible wailing and rumbling sound that came out of a night sky stabbed by fingers of moving white light.

  “Step through, Tania,” Edric said. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll be with you.”

  Together, and with no more sensation than moving from one room to another, they stepped out of the Palmers’ living room in Camden. The menacing voices of the Dark Arts and the shimmering blue light of the Globus Heim were gone.

  They were on a road that was like a black canyon between terraced houses. Although it was deep night, there were no streetlights. No window showed even a glimmer of light. The noise was worse now—as though some gigantic animals were stropping their claws along the slate-colored sky. It set Tania’s teeth on edge.

  “Where are we?” she asked. “What is that noise?”

  “Bombers,” said Edric.

  “What?”

  “We’re in the East End of London,” Edric said. “The date is the tenth of May, 1941. This will be the worst night of the Blitz.”

  Tania stared up into the sky. The probing fingers of the searchlights rolled pale, misshapen circles over the clouds, making the sky ghastly. Growling and roaring bomber planes moved in formation over the city.

  “What do we do?” Tania asked.

  “We wait.” Edric’s voice was oddly impassive, as though his thoughts were elsewhere. She glanced at him but looked quickly away. His eyes were glowing like two full moons.

  She saw grisly red lights blooming in the sky, followed by the howl of the bombs and the roar of explosions. She gripped Edric’s hand as the sky above the rooftops turned a deep and ugly crimson.

  The screaming of bombs came closer. A jet of fire burst from a rooftop at the end of the street. Black smoke boiled and for a moment all the windows of the house glowed. Then, in horrible slow motion, the whole of the front of the house swelled, cracked open, and spilled out into the street. Tania pulled away, wanting to run, but Edric’s hand tightened on hers, keeping her at his side.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “We’re safe.”

  Thick, choking smoke rolled along the street.

  A door was flung open close to where Tania and Edric were standing. Tania sensed the girl’s fear and knew her name before she emerged from the house.

  Marjorie Saunders. Her father’s away. A soldier in the war. She’s nine years old. She has a cat called Muffin. Her best friend is Elsie Turner. She lives here with her mother and her gran and granddad.

  The girl came running into the street, her face transformed into a ruddy mask of terror by the flames that clawed their way out of the pall of smoke.

  “Marjorie! No!” screamed a woman’s voice. “Come back!”

  But the girl was lost to panic. She didn’t even see Tania and Edric as she ran past them.

  “Catch her hand! Quickly!” snapped Edric.

  Tania lunged forward and managed to lock her fingers around the girl’s wrist.

  “No! Get off me!” The girl struggled, wild in her fear.

  There was an explosion so huge that Tania was momentarily deafened and half blinded. She felt the ground erupt under her feet. She saw the blurred outline of a dark mass toppling slowly toward her.

  Then she felt Edric pulling her arm, and suddenly she was back inside the globe of shining sapphire light. Kneeling at her feet was the girl, Marjorie.

  Releasing Edric’s hand, Tania crouched and hugged Marjorie’s shaking shoulders. “It’s okay, you’re okay now,” she murmured.

  The girl lifted her tear-stained, grubby face. A light of recognition ignited in her eyes. “Oh! I was dead scared.” Tania
drew the girl to her feet. She was wearing a little knitted hat and a dark overcoat. “Mum said to stay put under the stairs, but I got frightened.” She ran a sleeve under her nose. “I hate that Mr. Hitler! My dad says he’s gonna punch him in the nose soon as he gets to Berlin!”

  “That’s a good idea.” Tania swallowed hard, darting an anxious glance to Edric. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Of course, silly!” Marjorie said. She put her hand to the left side of her chest. “This is you,” she said. “Inside me.” She reached out and pressed the same palm to Tania’s heart. “And that’s me!” she said, smiling. “Inside you!”

  Tania nodded, gazing into Marjorie’s eyes.

  “Tania?” Edric’s voice was no more than a whisper. “There are others.”

  “I have to go now—for a little while.” She glanced around the blue globe. “I’d like you to stay here, please. I need to find some other girls. Girls like you. Will you be okay?”

  “Right as ninepence,” said Marjorie.

  “Good. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Taking Edric’s hand again, Tania walked a second time into the glimmering spider’s web . . .

  . . . and came to a place she remembered with terrible clarity.

  They were on a tree-lined walkway alongside the River Thames. A gray sky emptied a steady fall of rain, pattering on the ground and pitting the dark flow of the swollen river.

  A shrill voice called from under a sheltering tree.

  “Gracie! Gracie! You come back here this instant or I shall give you such a smack!”

  “No!” called a defiant voice. “Shan’t.”

  Tania saw a little girl in a rain-soaked bonnet stamping through puddles, her arms swinging wide.

  “You’ll catch your death of cold and your mama will be so angry, Gracie.”