Ravens and Writing Desks: A Metaphysical Fantasy

by Chris Meekings

  “You know it’s only polite to say good afternoon back?” said the tramp in a lighter, friendlier voice.

  “My mother told me never to talk to strangers,” she said.

  “Ah, good advice. My mother always said, if you’re going to kill each other, do it outside—I’ve just finished cleaning! Which is also good advice,” he said, getting up.

  This took Lucy aback. Tramps normally just leered at her or drank foul liquor from bottles in brown bags. One had even followed her once. They very seldom were so polite or talked about their mothers.

  “Well, now we have established that both our mothers are wise women, maybe we can discuss a job I have for you to do,” the man continued.

  He was old but kind looking. That put her on guard, kind people were never up to any good.

  “Are you going to offer me sweets?” she asked, suspiciously.

  The man looked confused and checked his pockets. “No, no I don’t think I have any sweets. I wasn’t planning on having to bribe you. I think I have a turnip in here somewhere if you want,” he said, fishing in his coat.

  He pulled his hand from his pocket, and a ruffled pigeon flew out from under his coat. It circled around his head a few times and then made a bid for freedom in a vague eastern direction. The man sniffed loudly, and Lucy noticed that he held in his hand a rather dishevelled and fat, long-eared bunny.

  “How do you know my name?” she asked.

  “It’s written on your school case,” said the man absently, as he replaced the bunny under his coat.

  Lucy was rather upset she hadn’t spotted such an obvious trick.

  “Well,” she said, trying to regain the upper hand in the conversation, “what is it that you want?”

  “Want? I don’t want anything. It’s what I have to do. Believe me, if there were any other way, I would have tried it… Well, I already have tried it, actually. All the things I could think of but none of them worked… Not a single one…”

  Lucy was sure he was quite mad. He talked at her without actually talking to her. His eyes kept wandering off as if he didn’t want to look straight at her.

  “Let us start with introductions. I am the Wizard Bechet. You, I have already ascertained, are Lucy Gayle,” said the man, offering his hand.

  Rather stupidly she took it.

  In an instant Bechet had caught hold of Lucy’s wrist and had turned her palm upwards.

  She yelped in pain and alarm, caught by surprise.

  “There it is,” said the wizard, staring deeply into Lucy’s palm as if it were a crystal ball. “Yes, written in the lines. It’s you, it’s you, it’s you, oh my! You’re reincarnated.”

  Bechet eyebrows leapt to the top of his wrinkled brow, and he made an odd clucking noise with his tongue.

  “Please let go. You’re hurting,” she said.

  “Oh, I am sorry my dear,” he said, letting go. “I forget my own strength sometimes, but I had to see for myself. I had to know it was you. That you were really you.”

  Lucy rubbed her wrist where he’d grabbed her and scowled at him.

  “Oh, dear! I fear I’ve lost your trust. I’ll just have to give it back to you.”

  He snapped his fingers with a loud click. The pain vanished, and the sun came out. A sparrow began to sing on a telephone wire.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “I gave you your trust in me back and also alleviated the pain in your wrist,” he said with a flourish.

  “How did you do that?”

  “That is not a question for now—now is the time to go back to the introductions. As I said, you are Lucy Gayle, and I, am Bechet the wizard. It is nice to meet you. I’m sorry about hurting you, but I had to be sure. You see, I’m a non-believer,” said Bechet, tapping his nose conspiratorially.

  “A non-believer in what?”

  “In you, my dear, in you.” He gave Lucy a wide smile which was somewhere between kind and manic.

  “How can you not believe in someone you’ve only just met?”

  “Hmmm?” said Bechet, distracted.

  “I said, how can you not believe…”

  “Oh dear, this conversation is going all wrong and backwards. You know, it was far simpler when I rehearsed it in my head,” said the man, throwing up his hands in frustration. “Well, it’s better if I don’t say too much. If you know everything, it’ll muck about with the prophecy, and that will never do. So you could say it was against the wizard’s code.”

  The back part of Lucy’s brain sent an urgent message to the front part, with the word: wizard.

  “That’s the third time you’ve said you’re a wizard. Wizards don’t exist,” she said.

  She felt she was on solid ground in this argument. All right, she’d read about wizards, like Gandalf, in books, but she was fairly sure they didn’t exist in real life. Anyway, she was fed up with the old fool. He was either mad, after something, or possibly both.

  There is only one way to deal with people like that, a small part of her brain said, and that is to beat them at their own game.

  “Wizards don’t exist? That’s a bit of a bind,” said Bechet.

  “Well, prestidigitation exists, but that’s just tricks with cards and quickness of hand,” said Lucy, who’d read many books on the subject. She’d tried some of the tricks as they’d seemed quite easy when written down. She’d ended up with four card cuts on her right hand, two of which went septic, and she’d had to take penicillin for a month.

  “Hold on, my dear,” said Bechet. “I need to sit down; those words are too long for me.” He snapped his fingers and pulled out a rather large bench from under his coat and sat on it.

  Lucy conceded for prestidigitation that was rather impressive.

  “Your mouth is open,” said the wizard with a grin that shone from him like a sunbeam. “Here, would you like a seat? I think your legs might give way soon.”

  She tried to speak, but she couldn’t manage it. A foul smell shot into her nose, a mixture of hot alcohol, ageless sweat and unbrushed teeth. What was that? A memory? A dream? It felt like the déjà vu from earlier.

  She shook her head, and the smell vanished. She nodded at the old man, yes she would like to sit down; the world was definitely weird today.

  Bechet flapped his hand at the cardboard he’d been sitting on. It folded in on itself and, with a quiet “spang,” changed into a rather cushy, rose patterned armchair.

  Be sensible, she thought to herself as she sat in the armchair. Armchairs don’t just appear from mid-air. You’ve been tricked. All right, it was a good trick, but it was a trick none the less. You’re probably on camera, being filmed for one of those caught on video programs. Just play along.

  Bechet produced, as if from nowhere, two cups and saucers. He suspended them in the air and then grabbed his cuff. He poured steaming tea from his coat arm.

  Lucy sighed, she just couldn’t work it out. She tried to “Occam’s razor” it. Was it more likely that this was an elaborate setup, or that this man really was a wizard? Well, maybe he was a wizard. It answered all the questions. No, be sensible, magic didn’t exist. Magic was something for nothing, but all the natural laws she’d ever read about said you can’t get something for nothing. There had to be an explanation, all this magic talk meant was that she didn’t have all the information; she didn’t know where the cost of everything was being paid. Without all the information, she would draw wrong conclusions. She had to sit, listen and let things play out for a bit.

  So, they sat in an alley, between two disused buildings and drank their tea. It was good tea, very hot. Lucy wondered how the wizard didn’t burn himself when he poured it.

  “Now,” said Bechet, as he slurped the last of his tea. “There must be many things you’re wondering about.”

  Lucy sat forward in her armchair—at last some sort of explanation, something that might make sense of this rather weird experience.

  “Well, I’m afraid I can’t answer any questions. It’s to do w
ith prophecy. You can’t tell someone a prophecy about themselves until they are already committed to finishing it. It’s all that “free will” thing. Can someone truly fulfil a given prophecy when they know they’re going to? When those kinds of questions get asked time and reality tend to get muddled, and we all end up circling a singularity like water going down a plug hole,” said the wizard, making a circling gesture with his hands. “Suffice it to say you are important. I don’t have much time. I am about to send you on a quest. A quest of great importance to the world—but, firstly, I have a gift for you.”

  Bechet fished in his pockets again.

  “No, not in there,” he said, as he emptied his pockets. “Ah I know,” he said, with a wink to Lucy, “I left it in my study. Would you care to join me in fetching it?”

  “Where is your study?” she asked, drinking the last of her tea.

  “It’s just there,” said Bechet, pointing to the wall behind himself.

  “It’s in that abandoned building?” Lucy asked a little doubtfully.

  “No, no silly, not in the building. It’s in the wall of the building.”

  Ah, thought Lucy, stands to reason really. It’s something for nothing again—damn magic. It’s not real!

  Bechet raised himself from the chair, produced a piece of chalk from a waistcoat pocket and drew a door, in outline, on the wall. Then he drew runes at certain points along the door’s frame. All the while, he muttered words under his breath, which Lucy couldn’t quite work out. When he finished he turned, smiled at Lucy and tapped the door three times. With great majesty and phenomenal timing, nothing happened.

  Lucy looked on with a self-satisfied grin. She’d almost been taken in for a moment, she’d nearly believed that this silly old fool was a wizard. That she, Lucy Gayle, was special and was about to go on a quest. She’d nearly believed.

  Even so, no one could make a door out of a solid brick wall and chalk.

  Bechet looked around, puzzled. “What have I forgotten?”

  “Maybe a home-sweet-home sign,” said Lucy, with a sneer. “Or, a door handle?”

  “You shouldn’t sneer. It isn’t polite,” said Bechet, without turning around. “Ah, but, you are correct about one thing.”

  He drew a tiny circle where the door handle should have been and knocked again three times. There was a loud, cracking sound. Where the outline had been, there stood a magnificent oak door. It was a rich chocolate colour and looked like the door to a great ballroom in a grand manor house.

  Lucy stared incredulously as the door appeared. This wasn’t right. Magic couldn’t exist. The laws of nature, of science, said that it couldn’t happen. Nevertheless, it had just happened in front of her eyes.

  “Let’s have a little light in here,” said Bechet, clapping his hands. The room lit up, and Lucy took full-view of her surroundings.

  The room, about fifteen-foot square, was furnished with several squashy looking, moth-eaten armchairs. Heavy smoke hung in large clumpy clouds. In the centre stood a billiard table which appeared to be in the middle of a game. Balls were strewn on its surface like planets in orbit. The walls were covered in bookcases, and books covered every other available surface.

  “Welcome, Lucy, welcome to the Yet-To-Be-Written Study,” said Bechet with a flourish encompassing the whole of the crowded room. “Inside here are all the books that have yet to be written.”

  “What? Inside here?”

  “Yes,” he smiled, as the enthusiasm poured from him like a spring.

  “Inside this little study? These are all the books that have not yet been written?” She looked around at the books. “There are a great many, but it doesn’t seem to be enough.”

  “Ah,” said Bechet, looking a bit deflated. “Well, there is a storage cupboard through there.” He pointed around a bookcase to a small door that led into a dingy kitchen.

  “Well, what is the point of this Yet-To-Be-Written Study?”

  “Here lies the wisdom of ages to come. It’s all the knowledge of the future, Lucy. Look, I’ll show you,” said Bechet, getting back on track. He picked up a book at random and pushed it at her. “Here is Smith’s Compendium of Extra-terrestrial Flora, published by Frobisher in 2145.” He handed her a great red leather book.

  “And here,” he said handing her a black tome, “is the seventh Harry Potter book.”

  As she reached for it, the book disappeared in a puff of purple smoke.

  “What…what happened?” she asked.

  If there was one book she would like to have foreknowledge of, it was that one. She’d heard that some bookmakers were taking bets on who died; she could make some money.

  “Damn it,” he said, deflated. “Rowling must have finished it.”

  “So, once the book is finished it goes away? What do you do when you want to read something someone’s already written?” she asked.

  “I err…I have to go to a library,” said the wizard, embarrassed.

  He walked over to a desk bureau and rummaged around in the top draw, letting out a full cavern of bats.

  They flapped their way around the room in great leathery “whoomps”. Having circuited the room twice the bats, finding nowhere better, took roost with some socks on a washing line suspended across one corner of the study.

  From the drawer, Bechet brought a leather thong with a purple stone attached. The stone glittered in the room’s dim light, brightening it like a plum sun.

  “This is for you,” he said, proffering the stone to Lucy. “This is the key.”

  “It’s not,” she stated, placing her hands on her hips.

  “What?” said Bechet, thrown off by the interruption.

  “It’s not a key. It’s a lump of amethyst,” said Lucy.

  She’d read quite extensively on rocks and minerals, and she knew a lump of amethyst when she saw one.

  “It’s a key,” said Bechet, in a churlish tone. “If I say it’s a key, then it’s a key. You know, it’s probably your contradicting people, which causes you to have no friends? People don’t really like that sort of thing. This is a key.”

  “All right,” said Lucy and then she added, under her breath, “but it still looks like an amethyst lump to me. What does it do?”

  “It’s a key,” said the wizard testily. “A key is for unlocking things. If you aren’t going to use your brain, then this isn’t going to work. Don’t be obstructive. My whole world is in danger, and you are the one fated to help it. There is a prophecy.”

  “The one you can’t tell me about?” she interrupted.

  “Yes, that exact one. I need you to trust me. Will you do that?”

  Lucy thought for a moment, and then she said, “No.”

  The wizard looked stunned.

  “That’s…that’s…that’s not how it’s supposed to go,” he stuttered. “You’re supposed to say, yes, I trust you, and then I give you a little information, you go off and do the quest and fulfil the prophecy you didn’t know about. Time and space carry on, prophecies get fulfilled, and my world is saved. You’re not supposed to say no!”

  “Well, I’ve said no. You haven’t given me any reason to do it. You come from nowhere, give me a rock, tell me it’s a key. Then expect me to, just, wander off like a lamb and do what you say? Well, I’m not going to,” she said, crossing her arms defiantly. “Why is your world in danger? Why am I the one that can save it? If you’re not going to tell me, then I’m not going to do it,” she said, throwing her arms up.

  “I was afraid you might react like this,” said Bechet, all the laughter had retracted from his voice like the tide retreating before a tsunami.

  Lucy was suddenly aware that she was in a curious room with a weird man who said—and had proven—he could do magic. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to be churlish.

  The wizard whispered one word, “Coactum.”

  Lucy felt a strange pulling sensation in her chest, like a dog tugging at a towel. It grabbed her, irritated her, forced her, compelled her to listen to the wizard. The
dull, blue ache settled in her.

  “I cannot allow you to choose the wrong path,” said the wizard. “You must do this for my world. It is you who must choose. It has been prophesied. You will not be capable of turning aside from the quest with the coercion spell I have placed on you. Only when you have chosen will you be able to rest and return.”

  “Take it off!”

  “No! Shan’t!” he said and stamped his foot.

  “Take it off! I won’t do what you say,” she threatened.

  “You have no choice. Now then, as for your quest…”

  As Bechet was speaking, Lucy noticed something strange over his shoulder. The bookcase behind Bechet was growing fainter, shimmering in the vague outline of a man.

  Bechet read her face and turned to face the outline. He stood stock still for a moment, and then he let out a low hiss.

  “Oh no,” he said. “He’s found me, and I’m already weak from the other spell.”

  He waved his hands and shouted “Bifidus!” There was a flash, around him stood two identical Bechets appears.

  He’s split himself in three, thought Lucy.

  The shimmering shape began to get more solid. It was almost as if it were slipping between two worlds, like a fried egg sliding between a frying pan and a plate. The thing was man-shaped, and it was black as midnight—an absolute absence of light, like the centre of a mine.

  Whatever it is, she thought, it’s almost through.

  The man-shape wore a wide-brimmed hat and stood in a long flowing cloak.

  In a flash, one of the Bechets ran into the corner and struggled with the apparition.

  The other hurried Lucy from the room as the original stood in the middle directing the other two like a puppet master.

  “Lucy,” shouted the original Bechet, “you must take the key and heal my world. Lucy, you will have to choose. Please, Lucy.”