The Trespassing of Souls

by M S C Barnes

another ninety-five years. There was nowhere for his soul to go.

  But Mr Duir wasn’t done.

  “I am aware of nothing in the lore of old that says Knights Sentinel must be paired.” The Elders watched Mr Duir but said nothing. “The souls make their pledge in order to be guaranteed a return as paired souls but there is nothing I know of that says a pairing is required.” He turned and looked at Mr White who nodded slowly.

  Seb’s heart raced now. He only knew as much as Mr Duir had told him about these knights, that they took the pledge to earn the reward. But could one pledge to serve alone?

  The Elders conferred again.

  Finally the elf said, “It is so. The pledge is to serve, the pairing the reward. It is not necessary for that pledge to be taken with the company of another.”

  His point made and his argument accepted, Mr Duir nodded.

  “Wolf-stags,” the elf called.

  Cue appeared from nowhere and then eight more wolves leapt to stand on the perimeter of the Channelling Stone, materialising as if they had jumped through an invisible wall. A multitude of fairies began to zoom in from every direction too.

  “Clear the Stone,” the elf directed and obediently the groups stepped half and half onto the two Dryad pathways. Seb walked with them.

  “Not you, Custodian.” The elf stopped him, directing him to stand with Mr Duir.

  Surrounded by a half-circle of glistening fairies, hovering above their heads, and a semicircle of gigantic wolves behind them, Mr Duir and Seb waited.

  “Young Custodian, this soul gave a pledge to you and you bound the soul to this reality. Is it your wish this soul be pledged as sentinel?”

  Seb nodded once. “If he wants it,” he said.

  The elf regarded Seb, as though pondering that answer. Then the Dryad Elder stepped forward.

  “Understand this, Custodian, the soul is bound for the remainder of the service pledged. The choices it faces are simple: to remain displaced or to serve as sentinel.”

  So that was it then – his father was stuck with the unenviable decision to continue as an ogreish spectre, haunting the passages and paths between the realities, or take on the guise of a sentinel, the only lone Knight Sentinel in the history of time.

  Mr Duir turned to Seb.

  “Seb, service as a Knights Sentinel will give your father the chance to fulfil his promise …” he paused, choosing his words carefully, “but you need to understand what that means. Once he becomes a sentinel he will no longer be your father. This soul, trapped and displaced, knows his history, knows you, recognises himself as the soul of your father. The transformation to Knight Sentinel will leave a residue of that experience but, first and foremost, he will be a knight. There will be no sentiment, only duty.”

  Seb turned to Scarlet, a questioning look on his face.

  “I don’t want to bind him to something worse,” he said to her. “And I don’t want to lose him.”

  She leapt up onto the plinth. “Seb, what could be worse? He is lost, displaced, a ghost really. I am sure being a sentinel is preferable to that! And Seb,” she looked sadly at her brother, “we lost him five years ago.”

  “But on his own Scarlet, for nearly a century.”

  “Protecting you, Seb. That’s what he promised to do.”

  Seb pondered that. He knew what his doubt was. It seemed, from what he had seen, that the summonsing of the Knights Sentinel was a very rare thing.

  He turned to the elf.

  “When they are not summonsed where are they?”

  The elf took a step back, as if surprised.

  “Seb, does it matter?” Zach couldn’t understand the fuss. “Ogre or cool knight – I know which I would choose.”

  Seb knew Zach was right and gave up the argument.

  “Okay, what do we do?” he asked the elf.

  “Call it to you, Custodian.”

  Standing on the plinth, facing these three strange but beautiful-looking Elders, Seb wondered how he was meant to do that and then knew that he didn’t have to. The sound of wheezing behind him and Scarlet’s gasp told him the soul who had been his father was there.

  Turning slowly, Seb tried to control all the emotions he felt: fear at the memories of being chased by this ghoulish apparition; knowledge that this was the sad state in which his father’s soul had been trapped; memories of bereavement, of loss; hopes of being reunited – he tried to ignore it all. As his eyes found the dark shape only feet from him he flinched and then relaxed. It wasn’t as bad as he remembered and the image was far less terrifying with all his new-found knowledge. He stared at the chasm of blackness that served as a body for this soul. That really was all it was – a dark smudge in the world around them. And he could feel from that black, empty space, the hope and sadness Nat had described. This was a soul trapped in a nowhere space; it didn’t have the misty form of other souls and it didn’t have the physical presence of a body. It was simply a gap in reality.

  The elf walked past Seb and Mr Duir, stopping inches from the ogre. The light from the aperture above made his skin and clothing glisten and his delicate, chiming voice echoed around the vast space of the sphere.

  “You swore an oath to a Custodian. The pledge was given in ignorance but in honesty. Do you acknowledge that pledge?”

  Seb heard nothing in response but wheezing.

  “Do you acknowledge that pledge?” The elf said again.

  And then a sound floated on the air. “Yes.” One simple word spoken in a rasping voice.

  “Dad!” Scarlet mumbled and took a step towards the ogre. It turned abruptly.

  The fairy flitted in front of Scarlet. “It does not fit this reality; you must not touch.” The words tinkled. Scarlet froze, looking heartbroken.

  “The pledge to a Custodian binds you to service. In your current form you cannot meet that commitment,” the elf continued.

  “No,” the ogre rasped.

  “A Knight Sentinel must guard and protect any and all Custodians and is bound to this Ancient Place for that service.”

  There was no messing around, Seb thought. No real explanation, just the bare bones of what was planned for this soul. Seb didn’t think enough had been said. He took a step towards the ogre.

  “You can become a sentinel, but if you do you can only appear here. I don’t know where you go when you aren’t summonsed or what you can and can’t do. And you will be alone; all the others are paired, and— ” the elf raised a hand for him to be silent. Seb ignored him. “And you might not remember being our dad,” he waved towards Scarlet.

  He knew he sounded like he was trying to dissuade his father’s soul from the option being laid before him, but he wanted to be sure that he was fully aware, this time at least, of what commitment he would be making if he agreed to this.

  The elf wasn’t going to indulge Seb any longer. He said to the ogreish shape, “Do you accept your place as Knight Sentinel?”

  Without a moment’s hesitation the voice grated, “Yes.”

  Instantly there was movement everywhere. The elf stepped back, away from Seb and indicated for Scarlet to leave the Channelling Stone. She shuffled back but remained beside the Dryad. The Fairy Elder flew over to touch Seb on the shoulder as the wolf-stags padded forward to stand behind him in a semicircle, Cue at their centre. As the thousands of other fairies began to swoop down, Mr Duir said, “Seb, do you wish me to complete the ceremony?”

  “If someone would just tell me what to do, I will do it,” Seb said to him.

  Mr Duir shook his head.

  “This ceremony requires you to read the soul, Seb. Like the souls in the ley line, you would see the lives before your life with him …” he paused to give his words more impact, “lives as another person – not your father.”

  Seb understood his warning and instantly he knew he didn’t want to see the past lives, loves, hates, joys and woes of this soul before it became father to Scarlet and him. He was struggling already to see past the hideous ogreish shape and iden
tify this thing before him as the wonderful man he had known. If he then had to see all the things he had done and been before, maybe the brief eight-year spell as his father would simply become lost and insignificant in all that. So Seb conceded and moved out of the arc of wolves to stand with Scarlet, beside the Dryad Elder.

  “Should you not do it?” she asked him. “His pledge was to you.”

  “I don’t think I could bear to watch his past lives, Scarlet,” Seb whispered to her. “He wouldn’t be our father then, he would be so many different people. I don’t want to know who he was before, what he did – I want him just to be Dad.”

  She nodded as Alice joined them, watching the sparkling spectacle as the fairies formed links between the wolves, and then between the animals and Mr Duir.

  The teachers and Seb’s friends were barely visible beyond the halo of light on the Channelling Stone. Mr Duir stood absolutely still, the ogre swaying back and forth in front of him, then he said, “You chose to serve. The normal reward does not fit your circumstances. Speak the reward you would seek.”

  Everyone waited and Seb wondered what their father would ask for. When his words came Scarlet gasped.

  “To protect also, my daughter.”

  The elf quizzed the ogre, “What do you mean by that?”

  “I wish to protect my daughter.”

  “That is not a reward,” the elf cautioned. “It is beyond the service requirements of the Knights Sentinel. What reward would you have?”

  The ogre was insistent. “That is reward enough.” The rasping, wheezing voice gave the suggestion of lack of intelligence but the