He remained with his eyes closed for another minute then opened them slowly.
“Go back in your mind, Jake, to the time Gorm first appeared to you. Just relax and remember, what were you doing and thinking?”
I sat back and it was my turn to close my eyes. “I’d just gotten back from school. Dad and Rosie were at a drinks party at the dean’s. I went out into the back garden.”
“What made you do that, Jake?”
I smiled. “I wanted to think about Ciara. I remember I was smelling the flowers and listening to the blackbird and was thinking I wished it was a lark…or a nightingale.” I was silent for a minute. Then I said, “You can stop smirking. It was a momentary thing. I’m not a sissy.”
He seemed not to hear me. He said, “Now, focus on the moment just before Gorm appeared to you.”
“I was standing by the pond. The blackbird was on the chimney. I was thinking about Ciara’s eyes and how incredibly green they are. Then the air began to shimmer…”
I talked on for a bit then Sebastian’s voice gently interrupted me. “That’s very good, Jake. Now, I want you to come forward in time to this afternoon, and I want you to go back into the garden to a few moments before Gorm appeared.”
“I was pretty mad. I came through the house with one thought on my mind. I was going to call up Gorm and make him explain what the hell was going on.”
“How did you do that?”
I paused. “I couldn’t. I called him, but he wouldn’t come.”
“So, what did you do, Jake?”
“I don’t know. I started to remember the first time he appeared. I had been thinking about Ciara and how green her eyes were—”
“And when you started thinking about her?”
“The air changed to a shimmering green.”
“Okay, Jake, just take a nice, deep breath, wiggle your fingers and your toes, and when you’re ready, open your eyes.”
I did those things and stared at him. “Did you hypnotize me?”
“I relaxed you quite deeply with my voice. Do you see the importance of what you remembered?”
I sat forward. “Ciara.”
He nodded. “He appears when you stand by the arbor and think about Ciara.”
“Why?”
“We may not have found the answer, old chap, but we seem to have found the question.”
“Why?”
He shook his head. “‘Why’ is the open question to end all open questions. Never ask ‘why?’ There is no answer to ‘why?’ The question is ‘what?’ What is it about Ciara that causes this portal—or whatever it is—to open when you think about her in that particular place?”
I stared at him, shook my head, shrugged and spread my hands. I think I conveyed that I had no idea.
He smiled. “Well, no point thinking about what we don’t know. So what do we know? We can say that there must be some special connection between the two of you. What quantum physicists would call a ‘quantum entanglement’.”
I smiled. “I like that.”
“I thought you might. We have no idea how parallel universes work, but a constant in quantum physics and relativity is the effect of consciousness on reality. So, when you think of her—”
“It affects the reality field!”
He smiled. “If you like. Think of this, also, Jake. When the two shape-shifting leprechauns struck—”
“I was with her.”
He nodded. “Indeed, you were. I think you’ll find that she is integral to this whole thing.”
I frowned. “But why?”
“That’s impossible to answer and impossible to find out. ‘How’, on the other hand, might be easier. Think about it, Jake. What do you know about her?”
I thought. “Not a lot.”
“Well, as I say, not much point thinking about what you don’t know. But what do you know?”
I stood up and started pacing, the way they do in movies. It actually does help you think. I said, “I know she’s an only child, and I know she lives alone with her dad.”
“Rather like you.”
I glanced at him. “Yeah…” I carried on. “Her dad is super-protective and keeps a real tight hold on her. It was almost impossible to meet up today, but she swung it. And she said that because of her dad, it was hard for her to have friends, much less…” I made a ‘you know what I mean’ gesture with my hand.
He said, “Go out with anybody.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that.”
“What happened to her mother?”
“I don’t know. But I do know her dad is a big shot in politics. Michael Fionn. He’s a—”
“He’s the guy.”
“What?”
“He’s the guy. He’s the man who’s going to get kidnapped by this Aren, and it’s up to you to protect him—hence the link with Ciara, his daughter.”
“How the hell am I going to do that…by next Friday? That’s less than a week! And anyway, Sebastian, how can you be sure? Who would want to kidnap—?”
“The chief consultant to the EU on environmental issues? Do you read the news?”
I sat down, feeling a bit sheepish. “Well, not really, no.”
“Well, let me suggest that in the future you take a little more interest in the world you live in, Mr. Norgard. Michael Fionn has always been the ultimate man in gray, working behind the scenes while the big personalities get all the limelight. But he is a real mover and shaker. He makes things happen. He is very powerful and very influential.”
I made a face and while I wondered what the hell I was getting into with Ciara, I asked, “Okay, but how does that make him a target for kidnapping by shape-shifting leprechauns?”
“He has recently sprang into the public eye because he is due to address the European Commission next week on whether they should sanction drilling for oil in the Arctic Circle. Huge oil reserves have been found there, but when everybody is talking about phasing out fossil fuels and saving polar bears, drilling for oil in the Arctic seems a tad controversial. There is a very powerful lobby saying the EU should put that money into green research for sustainable energy. But there are also vested interests that stand to make billions if the drilling goes ahead.”
I nodded. Something was making sense but I wasn’t sure what it was. I said, “And what does Michael Fionn say?”
“Precisely. He is playing it very close to his chest, but the word is that he is going to advise they go ahead and drill. It’s odd. For many years, he was an advocate behind the scenes for a greener world, but lately he seems to have been drifting the other way.”
I screwed up my face and scratched my head, seeing Sebastian suddenly in a different light. “How do you know all this?”
He laughed. “I pay attention, my dear chap! The holy trinity—attention, concentration, observation. And another thing keeps leaping out at me.”
I frowned. “What?”
“The color green. Green eyes, green sea, the Emerald Isle, green issues…”
“Holy sh—!”
I stood.
Sebastian said, “What is it?”
I turned to face him. “It’s not her dad.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not her dad! It’s her!”
“I’m not following you.”
“We need to find out who Aren is, because he has a vested interest in the advice Michael Fionn gives the EU Commission. He probably stands to make millions, even billions, on the outcome. So, he is going to kidnap Ciara to put pressure on her dad to give the advice he wants him to give!” We stared at each other for a long moment. I shook my head. “He hasn’t been drifting. He is as green as he has ever been, but he is being threatened and pressured, and that is why he has become so protective of his daughter. That is why she knows she can’t have friends or—”
“A boyfriend.”
I nodded. “Yes, that.”
He leaned back in his chair, watching me. “So, what on earth are you going to do?”
I thought about it but not for very long. “I have to talk to Ciara. If I can’t get to her tomorrow, then Monday, come what may. I have to get her alone and tell her everything. And whatever happens, on Friday I have to be with her the whole time.”
“Good luck with that, old chum. You have your work cut out for you. What about Thursday night after midnight? And what about Friday night?”
I set my jaw. “I’ll sleep in the grounds of the house if I have to.”
He smiled. “I very much fear you’ll have to. I can’t see old man Fionn inviting you into his daughter’s bedroom. Can you?”
I had to admit I couldn’t.
Dad and Rosie came in shortly after that and Sebastian was as easy and charming as though they had been friends forever. He had the weird ability to behave with people twice his age as though he were twice his own age. Though I had the uncomfortable feeling when he spoke to Rosie that they were, actually, only a few years apart.
She invited him to stay for tea and we sat on the terrace within sight of the pond, the weeping willow and the arbor. As she offered him a salmon and cucumber sandwich, she said, “Pendrake, is that the Cornish Pendrakes?”
He twitched an eyebrow, but that was as close as he came to showing surprise. “Yes, as far as I know, there are only us and the Devonshire Pendrakes, but we don’t talk about them.”
It was obviously an inside joke because only he and Rosie laughed.
Dad said, “Why’s that?”
He was smiling when he answered. “They supported Cromwell in the Civil War. The Cornish Pendrakes, the oldest branch of the family, supported the Crown.”
Dad smiled and shook his head, like he’d never understand the Brits. “You make it sound like yesterday. Wasn’t that 1642?”
Rosie laughed. “That is yesterday!”
Dad rolled his eyes at me and I smiled.
Rosie turned back to Sebastian. “I believe the Pendrakes are one of the oldest families in England, aren’t they?”
He was looking at her a bit fixedly, like he was wondering why she was asking him all this. He said, “There are references to a Celtic Chieftain called Pendrake in Saxon documents going back about fifteen hundred years.”
She smiled as she sipped her tea. There was something oddly mischievous about her eyes. “The mighty Uther Pendrake, whose clan were said to have come from Ireland in the dawn of time. I knew your grandfather.”
Now, he looked surprised. “Really? But surely…”
She stood. “Oh, there’s the kettle. Excuse me.”
Sebastian glanced at me. Dad was lost in a sandwich. The blackbird went crazy for a minute. Sebastian said, “And I really ought to be getting back. Mr. Norgard, a pleasure to meet you. See you again, no doubt.” And to me, “Jake, see me out, will you?”
We bumped into Rosie on the way to the door and they said brief farewells. At the door, I said to Sebastian, “What the hell was that all about?”
He smiled urbanely and dismissed it. “The English, old chap. We’re obsessed with our own language and our ancestry. Very unseemly. Let’s try to meet up tomorrow and discuss this business with Ciara. There has to be a more sensible solution than camping out in the old man’s garden.”
I watched him walk down the drive and wondered how much weirder things could become.
Chapter Nine
Sebastian and I met in town on Sunday and had coffee. We talked, but we talked in circles and came to no conclusion about the best way to proceed except that on Monday I had to talk to Ciara. I thought I should come clean and tell her everything about myself, but Sebastian thought I was crazy. He said Ciara would think the same, to the power of a hundred, and I would just send her running for the hills. I didn’t agree. In my gut and in my bones—and in every other visceral part of me—I knew she would be cool with it. But even so, the risk was too high. I had to tell her, but I had to tell her after Friday. I couldn’t risk her avoiding me before Friday. No way.
As it was, it made no difference, because she wasn’t there on Monday morning. And to complicate matters, as I was climbing out of Rosie’s car, I got a Whatsapp from my teacher, Mrs. Applebotham—pronounced ‘apple-bottom’, not kidding—saying that I should go straight to the Mooting and Debating Chamber to meet Mr. Singh, join the debating team and receive my first assignment. I cursed in ways that would make Mrs. Applebotham’s perm curl and wasted five minutes waiting for Sebastian by the lockers.
As he approached, I said, “Have you seen Ciara?”
He shook his head. “No.”
I told him about the Whatsapp and asked him to keep an eye out for her and tell her it was urgent that I see her, wherever and whenever she said—but soon. He said he would and told me where the Mooting and Debating Chamber was. As I was making my way there, I was thinking sourly that it should be the Venerable Mooting and Debating Chamber, and when I got there, I saw a brass plaque outside the ancient oak door that said, This Venerable Mooting and Debating Chamber was endowed to the school by the Right Honorable Aelfen Nixon in the year of Our Lord 1999.
I pushed through the door. It wasn’t huge, but it was magnificent. The ceiling was gabled and supported by huge oak beams that you just knew were at least five hundred years old. The walls, like most of the school, were oak-paneled. There was a stage at the end of the hall with a lectern on it and rows of benches facing it that I gathered were the public gallery. There was room for maybe two-hundred people.
Sitting at a small table on the stage were four people. There was the headmaster, Mr. Clarendon, the English master, Mr. Singh, who took the debating group, Brutus and a guy I didn’t know. They all watched me in silence as I walked down the long aisle between the benches with my steps echoing in the excellent acoustics of the hall. As I reached the stage, Mr. Clarendon said, “Mr. Norgard, good of you to join us.” He included Mr. Singh, Brutus and the other guy in a sweeping gesture and said, “You know Mr. Singh and Muller, of course, but Mr. Nixon is new to us, though his family have been patrons of the school for many, many years.”
Nixon stood with a kind of languid grace and reached out his hand. “I’m Dicky. I hear good things about your swordplay. We’ll have to have a bash sometime.”
I shook his hand. It was firm and strong. “Sure. Whenever.”
I sat and the headmaster eyed me from under bushy eyebrows. “Mr. Norgard, I have decided to throw you in at the deep end to see whether you will sink or swim. You may view this as a disaster or as an opportunity. I am curious to see which view you take.”
He paused and was obviously waiting for an answer, so I said, “I’ll certainly view it as an opportunity, sir.”
“Glad to hear it. Now, the last couple of weeks have not been uneventful at the Anglo-American, and though we have an excellent record in debating and mooting and many of our best debaters have gone on to excel at the university, our two leading stars this year have both been struck down in the last two weeks in a bizarre outbreak of heinous synchronicity. However, they had performed exceptionally well in inter-school and inter-county debates and have been selected for the national semi-finals. Their teams were the Oxford Owls and Hern.” He frowned, I blinked and he went on. “Now, Mr. Nixon here has an outstanding record in debating. He was undefeated at St. Andrews, north of the border, and at St. George’s in Paris, from where he comes to us. I am told by his masters at those schools that his oratory is unrivalled and his logic quite crushing in debate. So, I am entrusting him with Hern, and he has agreed to step into the breach, as it were. And to you, Mr. Norgard, I am entrusting the Oxford Owls.”
I was astonished and I let my face tell him so. “But, sir, I have never debated in my life!”
“Which is why I am entrusting Hern to Mr. Nixon. My instinct tells me you will flower under pressure, Mr. Norgard. But should my instinct have led me astray, I shall have, as you say on your side of the Atlantic, covered my bases.”
“How long have I got to prepare, sir?”
He glanced at his watch and said, “Ab
out one hundred and five hours. The debate will be here on Friday evening at six p.m. sharp. I shall expect you here at five. Whoever wins goes through to the finals representing the school.”
I half-rose from my chair. “Friday? But I can’t! Friday is impossible. You need to find somebody else.”
His eyes were a couple of degrees colder than the Antarctic ice sheet. “I trust this will not be a problem, Mr. Norgard. I have discussed it already with your father and he fully understands the importance of the matter. And, may I add that in view of recent events, I shall be expecting great things from you. You have a lot riding on this.”
He stood and left.
Mr. Singh was watching me curiously. He spoke suddenly. “Mr. Muller is Mr. Nixon’s second. He will assist him in his research and preparation, and, if Mr. Nixon so wishes, he may take part in the debate itself. That is a matter for them.”
Brutus was smirking at me like he thought he’d somehow got one over on me.
Singh went on, “You will need to find a second of your own. You have very little time to prepare, and the good reputation of the school rests on your performance, so, Mr. Norgard, I am prepared to give you some latitude in your English schoolwork and homework over the next week.”
I was shaking my head, and as I was doing it, I could see Brutus grinning from ear to ear. Dicky was watching me with interest and a kind of mild, superior smile. I ignored them and turned to Singh. “Sir, Mr. Singh, you don’t you understand. Any other day but Friday… It is crucial.”
“Does somebody’s life depend on it, Mr. Norgard?”
I drew breath then hesitated. “Maybe?”
“Whose…and what are the exact circumstances?”
I flopped back in my chair. It was useless.
“I thought not. The subject of the debate is ‘Man Has the Right and the Duty to Exploit the Planet’s Fossil Fuel Resources’. Hern, you will be defending that statement, and Oxford Owls, you will be arguing against it. If you need help or guidance, you know where to find me.”
With that, he slipped us two sheets of instructions, rose and left.
The Dreaming Spires Page 7