The Trespassing of Souls

by M S C Barnes

grinned and Miss West nodded in satisfaction. Zach tutted. “And now,” Mr Duir stood up, “you need some rest. As Zach says, you have been up all night.”

  As they all began to settle on the surprisingly comfortable rugs for a short sleep, Mr Duir approached Seb and asked him to walk with him to the lake. They crossed the water and sat atop the diamond.

  “Seb, you are afraid of this?” Mr Duir’s eyes searched Seb’s.

  Seb nodded. “I fear messing up!”

  “Mm, I always do.” Mr Duir smiled.

  “After all these years?” Seb asked and he nodded.

  “Fastidious, you see.” He chuckled and the diamond sparkled more brightly. “You are so young,” he continued. “When we took on this mantle I was a man of thirty and the youngest of my group. You are all not even adult and I am not sure if that gives you an advantage or will be an issue for you. However, Nature has its reasons and from what I have seen of your abilities, I believe the former applies. Now,” he glanced back at those settling down by the fire, “you have had a hard night. And what we are about to do, in some ways may be harder. The emotional onslaught you will experience will be difficult.”

  “You’re not making me feel any better.” Seb tried to smile.

  “From the moment you are confirmed Custodian, Seb, your role will require you to read souls.” Seb looked puzzled. “When you followed me through the Elder Tree into the passages between, did you cross the ley line?” Seb nodded, remembering the spectres sweeping back and forth along those tracks. “And did you touch the souls?”

  “Yes … well, more that they passed right through me!” He shuddered at all those memories and experiences.

  “When you find trespassing souls, and at the solstice when you enact the Restoration, you must do the same.”

  Seb shrank inwardly. Mr Duir must have seen him flinch.

  “You never get used to it, Seb, but you learn to bear it,” he said. “The only way you can know the soul is to experience its lives, its actions, its thoughts. Whether they are free-trespassers or released from an animal host, each of the souls you encounter must be drawn through you and you must concentrate on what you feel. As the sum of their lives and thoughts are revealed, you will know if there is still hope of returning them to the right path or if they are beyond help. The sad fact is that the ones beyond help will bring you such pain and heartache you will wish an end to it all. But these will be few. The others will cause you sadness too, but this will be balanced with hope, with kindness and with joy.

  “Only when you cannot find a clear feeling will you seek instruction from Nat. For her the experience of soul travel will be far more acute than for us and you will only do this if you simply have no answer.”

  Seb nodded, making himself a promise that he would spare Nat if he could at all.

  “I can spare you one experience and if you ask me to I will, but for the rest, it is your role. It will hurt you, it will exhaust you, but it will give you a feeling of purpose and worth like nothing else can. Now, get some rest.”

  “Can I ask a question?” Seb said, not making a move to get off the diamond.

  “You can ask,” Mr Duir said.

  “Why just human souls?”

  Mr Duir frowned.

  “I mean, why not Dryad or fairy or elf? Why is it only human souls that seem to do this, seem to turn bad?”

  The frown deepened. “I had supposed we had explained, but now I think about it, we have not,” Mr Duir said. “Seb, the human soul is the bottom of the chain of souls. I think humans have the tendency to see themselves as the top but in truth we are just starting out. Travelling to this reality is an education. When a person reaches a certain state of awareness and a respect for the wonder of life, they are ready to move on. They are transferred, by Nature, into the reality of the Dryads.”

  Seb sat, eyes wide. “You mean Alice was human once?”

  Mr Duir nodded. “And Dierne and all the Dryads.”

  “Do they know that?”

  “Of course,” Mr Duir said. “And sadly that was the main cause of Braddock’s dissatisfaction. He couldn’t understand why Nature would put the responsibility of dealing with errant souls in the hands of those very base and immature souls. He felt it was like putting prisoners in charge of a prison.”

  “Well that’s true, isn’t it?” Seb said.

  Mr Duir thought a moment and then said, “Who is best placed to judge: a jury of your peers who live the same life’s experiences as you and resist temptation, or a jury of Lords who live lives so remote they cannot understand the temptations the general populace face?”

  Seb frowned. “But the Dryads have all managed to avoid temptation when they were living those same experiences.”

  “Maybe not without fault though, Seb – maybe not without having been an errant soul at some point. Whilst Dryads, by nature of what they are, have managed ultimately to stay on the correct path and find enlightenment enough to pass into their realm, they are now so far removed from the normal life of humans they cannot understand, or be in touch with, the present temptations faced by human souls.” His eyes twinkled as he stared at Seb. “To review the actions of human souls you must still be walking in their shoes. As it is, we are somewhat removed from their actual reality but not so far as to be unable to understand the temptations that entice them. Braddock would never accept that – although I do wonder if he had a deeper motive.”

  With that he slid down from the diamond. Dierne swooped over to join him as he walked to the tree, where he sat, once more isolated from everyone on the bank.

  Alice flitted over to Seb.

  “Do you remember being human?” Seb asked him straight out.

  Alice, surprised by the question, crossed his legs and sat in mid-air.

  “No,” he frowned. “Not specifically.”

  “So how do you know Dryads were humans before?”

  “We just do, just like we know that when our time as Dryads is complete we will move to the Fairy Realm.” He checked over his shoulder and then whispered, “I’ll be honest – I am in no hurry to be a fairy!” Seb stared at him, open-mouthed. Alice laughed. “Come on Seb, it’s not that hard to understand. Surely after all the things you have been told …”

  “I know,” Seb said, blinking, “but doesn’t that, again, make it all a bit pointless? I still don’t get why we don’t remember. Surely we need our memories to be who we are.”

  “Are we on that tack again, Seb?” Alice chuckled. “Do you remember learning to walk?”

  “Not at all,” Seb said.

  “And yet you know how to walk. Do you remember learning to feed yourself?”

  Seb shook his head, getting the point. “And yet you can still feed yourself. Now, do you remember learning to write?”

  “Vaguely,” Seb said, images coming back to him of making his pencil follow the dots to form the letter S over and over at school.

  “Well, bits of what we learn and how we learned it stay with us. In my quiet times I have hazy memories I cannot quite grasp and I believe these to be images from my lifetimes as a human. So while I do not specifically remember being human, what I learned in the course of the visits I made to that reality have made me who I am now. When I have returned as the same leaf on a different tree the number of times needed to gain a better understanding of the magic of it all, Seb, I will move on and become … a fairy.” He grimaced.

  Seb laughed, choosing now to just go with it. He decided it was a great prospect, the thought of one day being a Dryad.

  “And the end? Elves? Is that what we all become?”

  “No.” Alice said.

  Seb raised his eyebrows. “What then?”

  “There is no end, Seb – once a fairy, always a fairy.”

  “So where do the elves come from?” Seb was lost again.

  “Those silver folk, Seb, are Custodians past.”

  Now that was like a body blow to Seb.

  “Custodians? So I won’t become a Dryad, or a fairy?�
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  “Lucky you. No, Seb. When you finally decide to give it all up you will become one of those sparkly boys and girls; an elf, tending the flora and fauna of all the realities – the Gardeners and Gamekeepers of the Worlds!” Alice laughed out loud at the look of shock on Seb’s face.

  “But I don’t think I want that!” Seb said.

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  “And all the relationships I have had, Scarlet, Zach? You, even?”

  “ ‘Me, even’ – is that a footnote reference, Seb? Am I a footnote?”

  “No. Oh, you know what I mean, Alice. You and Mr Duir have finally convinced me that it is amazing to come back and live different lives and meet the same souls in different circumstances, yet now you are telling me that won’t happen for me. Are you saying that when I finish being a Custodian – which I am not even sure I want to be – I’ll end up all alone, without any of the friends I have made on the way? That’s just plain sad,” he swallowed down the lump in his throat. “My day just got worse!”

  “Ah, so you weren’t listening properly, Seb.”

  Seb wrinkled his brow, trying to pay attention, but actually just overwhelmed by sadness.

  “Seb.” Alice poked him on the arm. “Seb, the elves tend the flora and fauna of all the realities …”

  Seb was hardly listening. He watched the glinting surfaces of the diamond, stared down at the little water imps gathered at its base, waiting to provide support for him if he jumped down.

  Alice poked him again. “Seb … did you hear me?”

  Seb nodded. “But I don’t see how that helps. Without wanting to be