‘Welcome back,’ said Merritt, once Bel had ducked under the lintel.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That was quite a night last night, wasn’t it, kids?’ he said, turning to the children and giving them one of his penetrating stares.
Niamh and Grady were still slightly stunned to think they were talking to a six foot tall bird of fire. ‘Mmmhh,’ muttered Niamh, at a loss for words before turning back to contemplate her by now empty plate. The events of the previous night were too bizarre to take in and she wondered how she would cope with the coming day.
Merritt poured a cup of tea for himself and Grace into two rather tatty but obviously well-loved cups. Grace came into the kitchen and sat down beside Niamh as Merritt placed the tea and freshly cooked toast in front of her. Gently touching Merritt’s hand she turned to Bel and said with just a touch of humour in her voice, ‘Well O wise one. Now what?’
With a watchful eye on the children the phoenix recounted his journeys through the night. ‘I’ve been scouring the forest through the night and into the morning. Whoever and whatever was chasing you is gone. There’s no sign of anyone at the waterfall and the signature of the magic used against you is fading. I don’t doubt it was Balthasar or his people − the feel of the magic is all wrong and it doesn’t belong to this world.’
‘Not of this world?’ said Merritt. ‘Then how did they do what they did?’
Bel looked puzzled for a moment. ‘I don’t really know, Merritt. They obviously were using magic but how they did it I don’t know. It was almost as if they had a store of magic that they somehow brought with them, or they had briefly opened up a channel between the Old World and this one. That seems the most likely reason for it. There doesn’t seem to be any other explanation. And there’s only one person we know of that could muster that sort of power.’
‘Balthasar?’ asked Niamh quietly.
Bel did not reply but closed his eyes and nodded.
‘But how can he do that?’ asked Grace. ‘Unless there has been some new magic found it’s not possible for wizards or witches from our world to be able to use the magic of the Old World here. The only creatures that can do that are sitting in this room and relaxing in the stable outside. You and Embarr’s kind are able to move between our worlds but not anyone mortal like Merritt or I. And I can’t see the faeries or elves of this world carrying out an attack like last night’s.’
Bel agreed. ‘You are right as ever Grace. I think for now we won’t have answers but just need to consider the next step. And I have been doing a great deal of that. We all know staying here is not an option. Neither the children nor you will be safe. It’s time to go home – for all of you.’
The children both looked at each other. ‘Home?’ they mouthed to each other with a look of puzzlement on their faces.
Merritt frowned. ‘That’s a lot easier said than done, Bel. We all have a life here. The children have their school and we are part of the village. If we just disappear then it will raise too many questions. Have you thought about that?’
‘Yes Merritt, I have given it plenty of thought,’ said Bel. ‘I think what happened here last night took an awful lot of planning and resources beyond what Balthasar is normally able to muster. For now I think we have some time. We can plan our return with some care. There won’t be a repeat of last night for a while. As for explaining away why you have gone, well, I think that needs to be pretty simple – as simple as telling everyone you are off on a trip overseas for a while – taking the chance to show the children some of the world while they are still young.’
‘That seems a bit flimsy, doesn’t it?’ said Grady, who was sneaking another piece of toast off his mother’s plate and stuffing (just about the whole thing) sideways into his mouth. His sister looked at him with an undisguised air of distaste. She could never get over just how gross her brother could be at times – however much she loved him.
‘I’ve always found that the simplest explanations are often the most easily accepted. Don’t make it too complex. The cleverer you try and make your excuses the more likely you are to trip yourself up,’ said Bel in reply.
‘Yes, that’s exactly right!’ said Niamh in just slightly too eager a voice. Her cheeks flushed red when she realised she had just reminded her mother of last year when she had tried to get Mum and Dad to give all their old books to the school fair because (according to Niamh) the school would come round to the house and take away the books themselves if Niamh didn’t hand them over! It was only Niamh’s way of trying to be overly helpful to the school. She was somewhat embarrassed when her mother asked Niamh’s teacher at school about it. Niamh spent the next week mucking out the chicken coop while she learned not to make up stories. She could still smell chicken on her gumboots whenever she put them on now and was looking forward to the day they were finally chucked out.
Merritt drummed his knuckles on the table which Grace knew immediately was the sign he had arrived at a decision. ‘I think you’re right,’ he said firmly. ‘We need to do something soon so let’s get this underway. I don’t think we have any reason to wait.’
‘You’re sure?’ said Grace.
‘Absolutely. Can you think of a good reason for staying?’
Grace held Merritt’s eyes for a moment before shaking her head. ‘None,’ she whispered.
‘Ready for a journey, kids?’ smiled Merritt.
‘Oh yeah!’ chorused Niamh and Grady with wide, wide smiles …
The next few weeks were spent spreading the story around the village and arranging matters for the departure. Niamh and Grady’s school was more humorous than troublesome to extract them from. As is the wont of most enthusiastic teachers, the children were given copious piles of reading and tasks to do while they were away. ‘You can’t neglect their learning,’ said Mrs Bingley, the children’s teacher. ‘You absolutely must take all the work away with you that you can so they don’t fall behind. How long will you be away for?’
Grace started to answer but only got as far as, ‘Well we don’t ...’ before Mrs Bingley cut back in again.
Her jowls wobbled as she turned almost red in the face; ‘It is not okay to be doing this to them at this age you know. Taking them away from their friends and home.’ The last was said with a pot load of hand wringing and shaking of the head, which only added to the cheek wobbling.
Were it not for the earnestness of the delivery Grace would have burst out laughing. As it was it was all she could do to maintain a serious face as she backed away towards the door of the school office. The verbal onslaught continued unabated despite Grace’s continued apologies and agreement that she was most definitely thinking of the children’s wellbeing and she would consider everything Mrs Bingley had said and would make sure they did their schoolwork every day and make sure they were practising their writing and spelling and reading and and and and ...!!! By the time Grace left the schoolyard she felt her ears had been talked off and were about to shrivel and drop onto the ground from overuse!
Eventually everything was in order. Plans had been laid, stories made, and the time had come to start on “The Adventure” as Grace and Merritt had begun to call the upcoming journey. Bel turned up at unexpected times and unexpected places to talk with Merritt. He rarely spoke to Niamh and Grady who had begun to feel they were just bystanders in the whole adventure. Even Embarr had disappeared into the forest and not been seen since the night of the attack.
By now the season had well turned to winter. Frosts were common and leaden grey skies were coming earlier every day now. Finally, a light early winter snow began to fall bringing magic and crispness to the countryside and making the scarecrow fingers on the trees stand out against the icy morning air.
The previous night Bel had turned up in the kitchen unexpectedly. A loud crack of noise suddenly split the sounds of bubbling pots as he appeared without warning inside the back door. Niamh let out a short yelp of shock, dropping her ice cream cone onto the floor beside her. Cu recognised his chance. He sho
t forward, paws scrabbling for purchase, and reached the ice cream just seconds before Fin. In moments there was nothing to show ice cream or cone had ever fallen, except two happy-looking Labradors with tails wagging briskly and smiles on their ice cream-covered faces.
‘Apologies for my entrance, everyone. I thought it might be better just to turn up here than risk being seen outside. Without trying to be dramatic, I think our time grows short now. We are leaving not a moment too soon.’
Merritt looked nonplussed at the news and shrugged his shoulders as he continued getting dinner ready for himself and Grace. ‘I figured we didn’t have too much more time left. Tomorrow morning then?’
‘Yes, I believe it will be,’ said Bel. ‘Is everything ready to go?’
‘The bags are all ready and waiting in the garage,’ said Grace.
Grady and Niamh exchanged puzzled glances. ‘What bags, Mum?’ asked Niamh. ‘We haven’t seen you pack anything up and our clothes are still in our drawers. There’s even washing still in the laundry.’
‘Yes there is, sweetie,’ said Grace, ‘and it can stay there for now. There isn’t anything we can really take from here to where we are going. Everything you need will be at our destination waiting for you.
‘Just wait for tomorrow, my little man,’ said Merritt. ‘All will be revealed. For now it’s enough to know the real fun is about to begin.’ In reply Grady just gave one of his furrowed brow growls which barely hid an impish grin beneath the lion-like sound.
The next morning the children were out of bed before even their parents, which – for Niamh at least – was a rare occurrence. Breakfast seemed as normal as ever, if just a touch more extravagant with the maple syrup coming out with lashings of cream for some of the most stellar pancakes the household had ever seen. The kitchen was filled with the smell of caramelised butter and banana with the scent of crispy bacon layered over the top.
Once the meal was done and Grace and Merritt had a cup of tea in hand they sat down with the children. Both Niamh and Grady could tell there was about to be one of “those discussions” – the type where Mum and Dad were going to be serious and usually resulted in pocket money being withheld or no movies that week. This time, however, they also sensed a sadness in the air and waited for one or the other to speak.
Merritt started; ‘Well I guess it’s time we shared more of the plan with you today, guys.’ Niamh and Grady said nothing but waited. ‘You know the bones of the tale we’ve told everyone, about going off to live in Ireland for a while because we wanted you guys to spend some time in the land of faeries and elves. But what you don’t know is that story is only partly false. We are going to spend some time with the faeries and elves, but it won’t be in Ireland,’ Merritt paused for a moment and cocked his head to one side as a wry smile and slightly faraway look crossed his features, ‘... at least I don’t think where were going is in Ireland, but you can never really tell. The walls between here and there are so thin that maybe it is!’ he finished chirpily. ‘When we leave here this morning the car will have bags packed into it and we’ll head off into the city. From there we’ll head down to the warehouses by Ferrymead where we’ll make our first stop and meet our ... friends ... who will help us with the next part of the journey.’
The children had stopped trying to lick the maple syrup off their plates early on in their father’s explanation. Grady’s mouth was still partly open as if it still wanted to get back to the serious business of maple syrup but had been overruled by his head.
‘So what do we have to do?’ asked Niamh, who was just slightly better at keeping her head and stomach thinking separately.
‘To be honest Niamh, not a lot,’ said her father. ‘Until we get to Ferrymead there won’t be a lot you’ll need to worry about. We could go where we need to just as easily from here but we really need to make our story convincing. The trip into town and our little detour will – hopefully – throw anyone off our tail that might be following.’
‘Do you mean whoever came after us in the forest?’ asked Grady.
‘Yes,’ said Grace. ‘If they came once they will come again. That’s what Bel came to warn us about. He thinks there may be goblins in the forest. And no goblin ever turns up where they shouldn’t be without a nasty reason behind their appearance. So we need to move sooner rather than later.’
‘Well let’s get going then,’ said Niamh. ‘I don’t want to hang around here if there’re goblins around. Come on Grady, let’s help get the kitchen cleaned up so we can go. And for heaven’s sake stop trying to lick that plate any cleaner! There’s nothing left but the pattern on the plate and you can’t eat that!’
Grady put the plate down but turned to his father. ‘What does a goblin look like, Dad?’
‘Like I do when you don’t clean your room up when your mum asks you to!’ said Merritt, pulling an angry scowling face. ‘You don’t want to know yet, but you’ll find out soon enough.’
Grace started chuckling but not because of Merritt’s goblin face. ‘How ironic,’ she said. ‘The first time in your life you offer to do dishes is the one time you don’t actually need to. It’s almost like you knew! No, Niamh, today we can just get going. There are other friends out there who will come in and sort out the house for us. We don’t need to worry about it now.’ As they spoke a van pulled up outside on the gravel and two tallish women hopped out. They strode up to the door and rapped on it.
‘And here they are!’ said Grace. ‘Right on time.’ She opened the door and greeted the visitors. ‘Ella! Lucia! How lovely to see you both. Do come in.’
The two strangers (to Niamh and Grady, anyway) stepped lightly into the room. They moved with the same easy grace as Merritt, and Niamh knew at once they must be some sort of kin to her father.
‘Hello Grace, Merritt,’ they said in unison, bowing slightly as they did so. ‘Delighted to be here. It’s not often we get the chance to help someone return. We feel very honoured that our task should be to help these two young ones and yourselves. It is an unexpected pleasure,’ said Ella, the taller and blonder of the two.
Niamh and Grady found themselves entranced at the sight of the visitors. There was no doubt they were not of this world.
Grace saw the look of wonder in the children’s eyes. ‘Yes, Ella and Lucia are like your father and me. They come from the same land but have been here much longer than we have. Their time in this world would probably surprise you. How old do you think they are?’
Niamh and Grady looked at each other quizzically and shrugged their shoulders. ‘Whatever we guess will be wrong,’ said Grady, ‘so why not just tell us?’
Lucia laughed, the sound tinkling around the room like the chime of a crystal bell, a delightful uplifting peal that reminded Niamh of the sound of the brooks and rivers nearby running after a light shower of summer rain. ‘So much like your father,’ she said, after the sound finished echoing away. ‘Straight forward and commanding. Alright my little friend, I will tell you. I am over seven hundred years old.’ Grady’s eyes widened in shock. ‘And my sister here is over eight hundred years old.’ Niamh’s mouth was by now as wide as her brother’s had been a few minutes before, trying to get the maple syrup and pattern off the plate.
‘Ella and Lucia are here to help us with getting out of here quickly this morning. They are going to clean up the place after us and look after the house when we are gone. No one will suspect anything. It’s all part of the story.’
‘But won’t anyone else know just by looking at them that they aren’t like everyone else?’ asked Niamh.
‘No. No one will suspect anything, sweetie,’ said Merritt. ‘As far as the rest of the world goes, they all see Ella and Lucia as slightly taller than average but also very much plumper and older-looking than you see them. It’s all part of their magic. Pretty cool, eh! Show them, Ella,’ he said.
‘Why of course,’ she replied and turned back to the children. For a moment their faces blurred and suddenly the blue rinse brigade was standing in
their house, two slightly dowdy but perfectly normal-looking women who could wander through the village without anyone batting an eyelid.
‘Wow!’ said both children at the same time. ‘How do you do that? Can we learn?’
Again the faces blurred and Ella and Lucia were standing before them again. ‘All in good time,’ said Ella. ‘For now we just need to get you guys moving. Ready to go?’ she asked, turning back to Merritt and Grace.
‘Yep. All set. Just need to grab coats, keys, and some snacks and we’ll be away. Niamh, Grady – take a look around and say goodbye to the house for a while.’ A shadow passed over Grace’s face for a moment. ‘I’m not sure when ... if ... we’ll be back, so take a few minutes and we’ll see you out in the garage soon.’
Niamh and Grady hopped down from the table and ran back upstairs to their rooms. Niamh took a look around hardly daring to believe that she wouldn’t be back here tonight. It seemed like a dream they had not quite woken from that they should be leaving today. They had plenty of warning they would be going and had said their goodbyes over the preceding weeks at the waterfall, the cave, the beach and the forest. But knowing you are leaving and actually walking out the door are two different things. She grabbed the backpack sitting at the foot of her bed and threw into it the few special things she absolutely must take with her.
Grady was doing the same in his room though his list of things to take was somewhat different – a collection of toys, two of the cars his father had bought from the petrol station during the luxury car promotion (spend $20 and buy a car!), and a couple of weighty adventure books filled out the backpack.
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