by Jon Jacks
The Rules
Book I: The End
Jon Jacks
Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks
The Caught – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things – The Last Train
The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus
P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl
Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – Seecrets – The Wicker Slippers – The Cull
Text copyright© 2012 Jon Jacks
All rights reserved
Thank you for your support
Fearing that the war against demons, sprites and fays was being lost,
Merlin brought the time of magic to an end,
imprisoning both good and bad in a most enduring substance,
to be withheld therein for over a thousand years.
Gesta Britanniæ, Maidulph of Malmesbury, c680
*
Chapter 1
That was fifteen times that the flipped coin had come up tails, against only five heads.
That was fifteen times Beth had been slapped hard across the cheek by a grinning Donna.
‘It’s a trick coin! It’s weighted!’
Beth glared in wide-eyed dismay at the coin.
Donna had balanced it on her thumb once again, in preparation for another flip.
‘You think so?’
Donna smirked knowingly at her friends.
Holding back from flicking the coin, she clamped her free hand over it, keeping it in place.
‘So, you want to change your choice, eh? Heads you get a smack? Tails I slap myself in surprise?’
Donna lightly rubbed one side of the coin with her thumb.
The thumb tip darkened, as if she were wiping away years of accumulated dirt.
‘No, no! I want to finish this game now, please Donna.’
Beth didn’t want to give Donna the satisfaction of hearing her plead for mercy.
But she didn’t want to suffer more slaps to her sore, reddened cheeks either.
Her nose was already bleeding, the blood dripping down and staining her smart school blazer.
She gave a half-hearted struggle, hoping that Claris and Kate would loosen their painfully tight grip on her arms.
‘A game?’
Donna swapped wicked, knowing smirks with her friends once again.
‘This isn’t a game, Bedlam.’
Beth cringed.
She hated her nickname.
She’d had it ever since a lesson on Victorian London. Everyone had snickered when they heard that Bethlehem Hospital had given us the word ‘Bedlam’.
‘This is an experiment,’ Donna continued. ‘And you’re our guinea pig.’
Taking a felt-tip pen out of her blazer’s inner pocket, Donna began to draw a large eye on one side of the coin.
The darkened tip of her thumb was the same black of the pen’s ink, suggesting that she had wiped away a previous drawing.
Donna drew a triangle around the eye.
Then she turned the coin over.
The coin’s embossed head already had a large eye surrounded by a triangle drawn across it. On this side, Donna quickly added a few more lines inside the triangle.
‘Heads, it’s a slap!’ Donna blew on the ink to quickly to dry it. ‘Right Jonesy?’
Grabbing the back of Beth’s head, Claris forced her to vigorously nod.
The coin spun in the air.
It landed on the floor.
Heads.
Slap!
*
‘You’ve gone too far this time, Donna Howard!’
Even in her dazed, tearful state, Beth realised that help was suddenly at hand.
There was a sense of authority and anger in the voice of the person determinedly stomping towards them.
Heads had come up time after time, interspersed with remarkably few tails.
Beth had been slapped time after time.
Beth had tried not to cry. Tried not to give Donna, Claris and Kate the satisfaction of seeing they were finally getting to her.
But the slaps were hard. Her cheeks were smarting. Her skin stinging.
She felt humiliated, helpless, frustrated.
She couldn’t even free a hand from Claris and Kate’s firm grip.
She felt that it was all so unfair, too.
She had got herself into this by trying to rescue Georgina Jackson, their original victim.
As soon as Beth had managed to pull Georgina free of Claris and Kate’s grip, Georgina had ungratefully run off.
And now Claris and Kate held her in Georgina’s place.
‘Let Jones go now, Baxter, Dunn!’
As the burning grip on her arms finally loosened, Beth recognised the shrilly-commanding voice of Miss Hilary.
Through Beth’s tearful stare, the delicate sharpness of Miss Hilary’s face blended into her unflattering bob of mousey hair.
‘It’s only a game Miss,’ Donna brazenly protested. ‘Isn’t that right Beth?’
This was Donna’s usual explanation to any teacher catching her bullying.
The victim would always agree.
They feared a violent retribution later if they didn’t.
Miss Hilary wasn’t in the mood to wait for Beth’s answer.
‘Only a game, Howard? Look at her!’
Donna saw something entirely different to Miss Hilary.
Miss Hilary saw a girl near to sobbing. A girl with cheeks so red from being slapped that they glowed.
Donna saw the redness of the skin, but regretted that it hadn’t been enough to draw more pleas for mercy.
‘But Miss!’
Donna retorted petulantly, holding up the coin before Miss Hilary’s face.
‘Jones agreed that she’d slap me if tails came up. And I’d slap her if it was heads. Isn’t that right, girls?’
‘That’s right Miss!’ Claris and Kate blurted out together.
Miss Hilary was far from being an intimidating figure.
Her precariously thin body seemed incapable of supporting her head. The girls called her ‘the Praying Mantis’.
But she had a natural inclination to refer even the smallest matter to a higher authority, as befits a religious studies teacher.
‘Is that right Jones?’
For a moment, Miss Hilary latched her angry eyes onto Beth.
She suddenly turned on Donna.
‘Then can you explain, Howard, why Jones’s cheeks are so red? And why yours have hardly been touched?’
Donna’s cheeks were red, but only from the exertion of slapping Beth as hard as she could.
‘It was the coin Miss! It kept coming up heads so–’
‘Is this right Jones?’ Miss Hilary asked once again.
‘Well, yes, but…’
‘But nothing Jones! So you did agree to this stupid game!’
‘No Miss! I mean I–’
Before Beth could explain, Miss Hilary spun to face Donna once again.
‘I’m still not fooled Howard! Why were Baxter and Dunn holding her?�
��
Her penetrating gaze fell on the now nervously squirming girls.
‘Because she was refusing to go along with the rules miss! When heads kept coming up! She accused me of cheating miss! She said I was using a weighted coin.’
Miss Hilary held her hand out for the coin.
‘And is it weighted?’
‘Oh no Miss!’ Claris and Kate piped up together once again.
With an offended pout, Donna placed the coin in Miss Hilary’s open palm.
‘We let Jones change her choice halfway through, miss. She chose tails first!’
Miss Hilary tested the coin in her palm.
She twirled it between the fingers of her other hand.
‘Is that right Jones?’ Her tone was tersely critical. ‘Did you change your initial choice?’
‘Yes Miss,’ Beth answered resignedly.
‘I thought you had more sense than this Jones! All of you; you’re coming with me to–’
She faltered.
She was closely observing the coin for the first time.
‘What’s this?’
Her eyes were wide with anger. She whirled on Donna.
‘Did you say it always fell heads up?’
Donna swapped confused glances with Claris and Kate.
‘Yes…yes Miss.’
Donna spluttered hesitantly, amazed by the fury etched across Miss Hilary’s face.
‘Heads kept coming up–’
‘These symbols!’ Miss Hilary spat out the word with disgust. ‘Who drew them?’
She stared hard at the girls, but didn’t give them chance to reply.
‘Do you know what the symbols mean? Are you really saying God always loses out to the Devil?’
All the girls, including Beth, now looked at each other in confusion.
What was all this about God and the Devil?
Surely Miss Hilary was completely overreacting?
‘I…I don’t know what you mean Miss.’ Donna was uncharacteristically flustered. ‘My brother showed me the symbols. It’s a trick he learned in the pub–’
‘Trick? You call this a trick?’
Miss Hilary held up the coin as if it were the most damming evidence in a trial for murder.
‘It’s nothing serious Miss, it–’
Donna had made the mistake of smiling as she spoke.
Miss Hilary cut her short, her eyes blazing.
Her voice was a petrifying screech.
‘I think it’s very serious, Miss Howard! Very serious indeed!’
She gripped Donna’s arm.
‘The headmistress; yes! I think this is a matter for the headmistress! Come along with me now!’
Donna resisted Miss Hilary’s attempts to drag her away.
She squirmed, grimaced, leant back.
Miss Hilary pulled harder, catching the slightly smaller girl off balance. Forcing her to follow.
Everyone was astonished.
It was so unlike Miss Hilary to be so aggressive, so physical.
It was also an action that would undoubtedly lead to her dismissal.
It might even be the end of her career as a teacher.
‘Come on!’ she shrieked at the dumbfounded girls.
She shocked them into surly movement.
Miss Hilary tugged hard on Donna’s arm once again.
Sensing that she was losing respect in her friends’ eyes, Donna began leaning back, shuffling her feet lazily.
She was offering as much resistance as she dared.
‘You can’t treat Donna like that Miss!’ Claris snapped. ‘We’ll have the law on you–’
‘Yes, yes! The law Miss!’
Claris’s outburst had given Donna a renewed sense of self-righteousness.
A sense that she was being unfairly picked upon.
She wrenched back on her arm, almost breaking Miss Hilary’s grip.
‘Let go of me you old bag of bon–’
Grabbing Donna’s arm with both hands, Miss Hilary violently pulled her back.
With her free hand, Donna pushed brutally hard against Miss Hilary’s chest.
The push sent the surprised teacher stumbling back towards a high wall they were passing.
Miss Hilary struck the wall so hard, it forced the breath out of her.
Her grip on Donna’s arm instantly relaxed.
Donna flung herself aside, away from Miss Hilary’s reach.
Beth was the first to notice the cracks in the wall.
They spread out swiftly from the area of impact. They zigzagged higher and higher between the grey stones.
‘Look out Miss!’
Hearing the ominous cracking, Miss Hilary glanced back fearfully at the rapidly disintegrating wall.
She raised her arms, a vain attempt to protect her head from the first of the heavily falling blocks.
With a thunderous groan, the crumbling wall toppled forward.
And Miss Hilary disappeared beneath an avalanche of stones and powdered mortar.
*
Chapter 2
Beth toyed nervously with her new earring.
It still felt strange, even though it had joined a line-up of rings and charms dangling from her heavily pierced ear.
She was crouching as low as she could as she made her way through the field of yellowing wheat.
She was fully aware that her coal-black clothes were hardly perfect camouflage.
Still, she liked to think that it was a look that would have been appreciated by the people who had originally landscaped this area.
The way her dark makeup split her face into angled shapes.
The way she had braided her hair into (admittedly filthy) dreadlocks. Piled up high on her head.
Surely the prehistoric builders of Silbury Hill would have felt at ease with her?
Far more, surely, than they would with any of the archaeologists and engineers now tunnelling into the mound’s base?
For the moment, the archaeological team had retired to their encampment of Winnebagoes and caravans for their lunch.
But Silbury Hill was still closed off to unwanted victors. A tall wire fence had been erected around the huge, ancient pyramid of earth, ‘deterring fortune hunters and latter-day druids’ (as it had been reported in the local press).
‘It’s too dangerous Beth!’
Beth’s name broke up underneath a series of wracking coughs.
She spun angrily on Drek.
He was vainly attempting to silence his coughing, placing both hands firmly over his mouth. But it only seemed to make it worse.
The uncontrollable spasms went on for even longer than normal.
‘Go back Drek! It is dangerous, if you’re going to bring everyone down on us with your coughing!’
As soon as she had said it, Beth regretted it.
Drek couldn’t help coughing any more than she could help the violent headaches and weird dreams she suffered every night.
Back at the commune, Foley took away the drugs Drek had been prescribed.
Drek shouldn’t allow the capitalist world to taint him, Foley would say, pocketing the drugs. Everyone knew Foley sold the pills out on the streets.
But no one contradicted Foley.
Drek’s face creased in anguish, a mixture of disappointment and humiliation.
He pitifully stared at Beth through his broken spectacles. One lens had splintered and been repaired with nothing more than a sticking plaster, like some poor kid from a pre-war movie.
Drek could easily get himself a new pair, obviously, but he preferred it like this.
Beth was one of the few people who knew the plaster hid an eye as lifeless as those staring back at you from a fishmonger’s stall.
‘I’ll…I’ll head back th
en,’ Drek stammered.
Even so, his one good eye was wide and pleading. Pleading to be allowed to stay with Beth.
‘Okay Drek,’ Beth said. ‘You head back.’
Drek nodded sadly. He turned around.
He made his way back along the path of crushed wheat stalks as quietly as he could, muffling his coughing and keeping low.
Beth noticed the encrusted, green-tinged grime on the back of his dark clothes. An occupational hazard of the life they had chosen.
Is that why we’re called crusties? she wondered, not for the first time.
She thought of calling Drek back.
She thought better of it.
She wanted to see inside the hill.
*
Silbury Hill was thousands of years old, she had been told by various women at the commune.
A hill made entirely by man (and women!) using timbers and earth.
Religious ceremonies would have taken place around it. Ceremonies stretching out across Avebury’s fields into the vast circle of huge stones, standing or toppling like abruptly petrified giants.
According to the legends she had avidly read when younger, King Arthur’s magician Merlin had magically constructed Stonehenge within the blink of an eye.
Most of the commune’s women wanted to believe that such magic still hovered around ancient sites like this. The men, spending most of their time in a daze of strong lager, seemed to think the sudden appearance of food in front of them worked on similar magical principals.
There was a sharp rustling of the wheat off to Beth’s right.
‘Foal?’ Beth hissed. ‘Is that you girl?’
Foal was suddenly beside Beth’s side. Her tongue lolled around outside her mouth as she panted in excitement.
‘Well, it’s just us now, eh girl?’
Foal looked up into Beth’s eyes as if she understood.
Beth smiled, somehow reassured by the dachshund’s sharply intelligent face.
Foal was Foley’s dog. Beth found it hard to see anything about Foley that she could like, unless you counted Foal.
She had heard that Foley had called her Foal because it was like his own name. Because he had had her since she was a drenched little pup, fresh from her mother’s womb.
No one had dared say it was a stupid name for a dog. Even though most had thought it.
According to the commune’s more wicca inclined women, Foal would be a mother herself before two months were up. ‘It’s all there to be read in her waters,’ Geraldine had insisted mysteriously, patting her own growing lump.
Foal suddenly bounded away, rushing ahead of Beth.
‘Foal! Don’t rush off Foal!’
According to Foley, Foal was a special breed, ‘A Cloth-eared sausage dog – which is why she can’t hear any orders.’
Foal disappeared into the shrouding wheat.
*
Beth followed after Foal as quickly as she could.