Ellie stifled a yawn; the sofa looked good, so soft and welcoming. Would it be very rude, she wondered, if she lay down and had a little nap? Behind her, the two women were discussing something quite urgent. Ellie’s ears pricked, sure she heard her name spoken once, then twice. She yawned again.
A nap would be fine, she decided quite suddenly. All I need right now is a little catnap. Ellie’s eyes drooped and, quite unconscious of what she was doing, her feet shuffled forward along the floor, taking her, not towards the sofa as she’d intended, but away down the length of the room.
It’s quite handsome, Ellie thought dreamily. Handsome, what a funny word to describe a mirror, she almost giggled. Freestanding, and almost as tall as her and almost as wide, the mirror’s ornately carved frame was patterned with leaves, flowers, faces…
Hello, Ellie thought stupidly, standing almost nose-to-nose with her own hazy reflection.
Clouds scudded.
Hello…
Around her the light in the room began to fade.
‘Step closer, child.’ The voice held the resolute steel of command.
Was that Miss Dorothy? Ellie wondered. The question rattled around in her head. But there was no time to chase it as a moment later, Ellie tipped forward into inky blackness.
✽✽✽
She blinked slowly as she woke; around her everything seemed to be white, a stark featureless white. Am I in heaven? Ellie giggled aloud.
‘We have been given a task to keep the skies clear - each and every night. We do not know why, or for how long.’ Gladys’s voice was cool and precise. ‘The vision was clear. We must delay the storm that is approaching, and we cannot deviate from our task.’
Ellie shifted her gaze and the white solidified into a tall, thin figure, straight backed and silhouetted against the window. Ellie felt around with her hand. She was lying stretched out on the sofa, her bag placed beside her. Miss Dorothy was sitting perched by her feet; she looked as pleased as punch.
‘The mirror welcomed her that much is true,’ sniffed Gladys. ‘She has not been rejected, but we do not know how her energy will affect the balance.’ Gladys peered sternly at Ellie. ‘You can attend tonight, but you must be silent, you are to observe only. You are not to act, and above all, you are not to perform any magic. The work we do is too important for us to be concerned with the proficiencies of a mere child, an unknown one at that.’
Ellie didn't know quite what to say, so she said nothing at all, and nodded, hoping that was the right thing to do.
✽✽✽
Drops dripped through the darkened trees as Ellie and Miss Dorothy wheeled off the forest road. Leaning her bicycle against a fence post, Ellie smoothed the heavy woollen fabric of her coat and turned the thick collar up against the drizzle. A few steps away, in the gloom of the evening, a group of cloaked, hooded figures were moving slowly over a wide grassed area, and a bank of trees grew off to one side.
They were circling around a central stone, Ellie realised. It looked like a monument of some kind - tall, weathered, and ancient. Above them thunder rumbled and a burst of rain fell from the sky.
No one stopped to greet them as Miss Dorothy and Ellie drew closer, no one smiled or even seemed to notice their arrival; all seemed too intent on their task.
Ellie frowned. What were they doing?
‘Blessed water!’ muttered a thin, feminine voice. ‘Tumble and turn, and do my bidding!’
‘Come to mine!’ A shadow passed. ‘Know me, know my family, know my line. I bid you!’
Ellie turned; she knew that one. Sure enough, she caught a glimpse of Billy, his face scrunched in concentration, his mouth moving. Smiling, Ellie waved, but the deliveryman only whipped his hood down low and averted his eyes.
Across the circle, a voice cried. ‘I do quell thee!’ And a sudden whip of air, chill and sharp, cut through the gathering before escaping into the night.
‘Heed me!’ A dark figure raised a hand, flourishing a stick, polished, and set with stones. They glistened in the wet, and an intricate pattern flashed in the darkness. Seconds later the flurry of rain stopped.
Ellie fidgeted, she wasn't sure what to do. Miss Dorothy had raised her own hood, and left her at the edge with a whispered reminder to just watch, and be quiet. Ellie could just about see the old lady weaving in among the others, each figure following their own invisible path.
It didn't seem to make much sense. Overhead, a sizzle of lightning spat through the clouds and the hairs on her arm prickled.
‘Spirits of the South, workers, weavers of the forked flame, I command you, depart!’ Gladys, her bony fingers scrapping white against the night, threw forth her arms.
Ellie gasped as a sudden flicker burst into sight around the thin woman’s hands. They looked like wisps of tiny faeries, working hard, their mouths open in effort. Around them light sparked.
‘Go back!’ barked Gladys, her brow pressed together in concentration.
Unthinking, Ellie stepped forward and raised her hands, ready to sing out a tone to help. At once, Gladys whirled and tossing back her hood, furiously shook her head.
No. Ellie was not to interfere.
Afterwards, Ellie and Dorothy rode back to the village in silence, the rain still dripping from the broad-leafed trees arching over the road. Miss Dorothy seemed exhausted; her small stout figure sagged as she pedalled the last mile. A pop of distant gunfire sounded. Flinching, Ellie stopped, her eyes wide.
‘Don't worry, it’s just the shooting range,’ murmured Miss Dorothy. ‘There’s all sorts of goings on during the night. Keeps their eyes sharp, I imagine.’
‘I wonder what the time is at home?’ Ellie tilted her head up to the cloud-covered sky. ‘Dad will be reading, I guess, and Ben, I don't know, probably out with my friend…’ She sighed, overwhelmed by a sudden surge of homesickness. ‘I wonder how long I have to be here.’
They had reached the corner of the village high street. Houses slept silently on either side and, intermittently, the ground shook as rolls of thunder boomed on the horizon. ‘Oh child, no matter how long you’re here, when you get back you could have been gone for years, or merely a flash of a second and your loved ones none the wiser.’
Ellie squeezed on the brakes. ‘What?’
‘Of course you know time behaves differently when you work magic. It’s in all the fairytales.’ The old lady had seemed to have recovered her good humour. She nodded at Ellie. ‘A hapless traveller enters the hall of fairy, eats, drinks, and is merry, and on their return a hundred years has passed.’
Ellie stared at Dorothy, ‘but that can’t happen to me?’
As she spoke, the air quaked as an enormous shape swooped towards them out of the darkness. It was so close, Ellie could see the four engines under its wings glowing an unearthly red. The bomber was so huge and so dark, its shape blocked out the entire sky, leaving an acrid smell of hot oil in its wake.
‘We don’t really know do we, child?’ Miss Dorothy cried over the noise. She gestured to the sky, ‘But you could hardly call this fairyland.’
‘I have to go home! Oh no, I had no idea’.
Dorothy walked ahead and unlatched the front gate to her cottage. ‘Are you planning on coming back, to here I mean?’
‘W-w-well, I don't know.’ Stuttered Ellie, she hadn’t moved; she stood glued to the footpath, frozen with horror. ‘I think I have to.’
‘Well then, you’d best keep something of yours here.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Ellie stared at her. ‘What do mean?’
‘Come on in, quickly.’ Dorothy gestured her into the garden. ‘Just what are you being taught?’ Her lips pursed in disapproval. ‘Well, it’s not like that around here. An apprentice learns the art and science of magic, and knows just what’s what. They’re put in their place, and don’t just go gallivanting around the countryside on their own. Why if you were mine –’
Ellie put her hand on Dorothy’s arm. ‘Please...’
The old lady sn
iffed. ‘Well, come inside. We don't want to be having this kind of conversation where anyone could hear.’ She pointed to Ellie’s bicycle. ‘Put that in the lean to around the back, mine too if you please, and I will tell you what to do. It’s quite simple, something a first-year apprentice would know. But as I said, if you were mine, I would not let you leave in the first place.’ Miss Dorothy declared, jutting her full bosom forward and bustling up the garden path.
Wheeling the bikes around to the side of the cottage, Ellie heaved them into the narrow space and closed the gate behind her. Her heart was thudding, panicking. She tried to breathe, and the ground shook as another bomber roared overhead.
In the living room, Miss Dorothy was bent low in front of the fire, working the bellows; the flames rose brightly as puffs of air blew over the hot coals.
‘We don’t know exactly how Time works,’ she began as Ellie entered the room. ‘That’s for the science mages to work out, but the mechanics seem to be relatively straightforward, dare I say even simple. The answer is hidden in what the fairytales don’t tell you.’ She sniffed. ‘It’s all in there, you know, if you care to look. You simply leave behind something of your own. That way, of course, you won’t get lost.’
‘But how do we know what will happen when I get home?’
‘We don’t, none of us have tried a two-way portal, in fact none of this has been tried at all to my knowledge, jumping all over the place. But, needs be as needs must, so they say.’
Ellie rubbed her head, none of it made any sense at all.
‘Ah. This would be perfect.’ Miss Dorothy had stood up and was now regarding Ellie’s waterproof jacket. It was hanging over the armrest of the sofa by the fireplace where Ellie had left it. ‘But it is very peculiar.’ Dorothy commented, examining the mesh lining and strips of Velcro fastenings. ‘What is all this used for? But, no matter,’ Dorothy gave a satisfied nod. ‘If it is yours, it should do the trick.’
Ellie took the jacket without a word. It had been a gift from her parents a couple of years before, back when the rain had been as regular as clockwork.
She’d scarcely worn it.
‘Oh and Ellie, one more thing, if you do leave it here,’ Miss Dorothy looked up, a tiny dimple showing in her apple-red cheeks. ‘Would you mind terribly much if I wore it to tomorrow night’s circle, if you’re not back by then? It looks like it should me keep jolly well dry.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
Blue Mountains, Australia, present day.
The heat was suffocating and a thunderhead was building, rising into an otherwise cloudless sky. In the canyons, trees stood huge, careful and completely still, their limbs so dry and brittle any movement could cause one to crash heavily to the ground. Beneath them, the forest floor was covered with litter, dead branches, and shattered, fallen giants.
In the canopy, narrow leaves turned to catch the sun as it arced across the sky, absorbing precious energy even as their tips burned, and what moisture was remained sucked dry.
Matthew stood at the cliff edge, clad in his full clerical regalia, surrounded by the select few from the congregation. The storm roiled, a deep angry bruise against the glare of the midday sky. Magnificent, the cloud towered straight up into the heavens and its base flashed bright with heat, like a beacon - with lightning shards of energy bound deep within the body of the thunderhead itself.
Matthew raised his hands to the sky.
‘My people...’
In response, the followers standing before him raised theirs, the fumes from their torches mixing with the menthol of the eucalypts, spiralling upwards in the heat.
‘Listen, turn your eyes to the storm and know a mighty truth; as one we are feeble, but joined in a single-minded purpose, we are mighty.’
‘Are you with me?’
Matthew clenched his fist as they roared their affirmation; the rush of his people’s faith was like a jolt of concentrated power.
The storm cell surged and fingers of black cloud descended like daggers to the earth, sparking with the fury of the spirits.
He smiled. They were so simple to call, and so powerless against his will.
At his gesture, Ben came forward and the Select fanned behind - his flock, his resolute band of faithful warriors.
Matthew laid his hands on Ben’s head and began to pray.
‘We are your Instrument, oh Lord. We hear your call.’
‘We are your Instrument, oh Lord. We hear your call.’ Ben repeated.
As he spoke, the people swayed when he swayed, and prayed when he prayed.
‘We do your bidding.’ He raised a single hand.
‘We do your bidding.’
‘We fulfil your desire.’
Matthew glimpsed at Rose at the back, behind Mrs Beatty and her husband, and Ben’s father, Brian Malone. The man’s eyes were open and he gazed heavenward, awash with belief. Matthew nodded. Yes, the Malone family, all of them stalwart believers, firm supporters of the doctrine of ascension and the scorching of the earth, all of them ... except...
A vision of Ellie’s face flashed before him, pale and asleep in her room, ill with the fever that had settled in days before. Matthew indulged a minute nod of satisfaction. There would be ample opportunity to deal with her later, and now, whatever influence the rebellious girl had over his sweet Rosalind had faded. Here was his daughter standing before him, her beauty and steadfastness shining like a beacon.
Exalted, Matthew cried out in a mighty voice. ‘The End has come!’ and the people shouted in turn.
‘The End has come!’
In response, the cloud roiled as the spirits dropped lower, their incandescent forms bright against the massing darkness. Only he, the Reverend Matthew Hopkins, the Instrument of God, knew they were there - a vast reservoir of power poised to heed his command.
He smiled, and his voice became a whisper caressing the wind, so soft the Select had to lean in close.
‘As the forests burn, and as the earth is scorched, then we shall be lifted up.’
The words were as rhythmic and as powerful as any incantation.
‘As the forests burn, and as the earth is scorched, then we shall be lifted up.’
As the people repeated the phrase, a wind began to stir - hot, dry, and merciless.
‘As the forests burn, and as the earth is scorched, then we shall be lifted up.’
The voices increased in intensity, and Ben reached into the top of his chequered shirt.
‘As the forests burn, and as the earth is scorched, then we shall be lifted up!’
The chant rose louder and louder, and the spirits responded, snatching the words and pulling them high into the sky. Thunder cracked, and from the monstrous cloud a shard of lightning burst free.
‘Now!’ cried Matthew.
His face ablaze with faith, Ben struck a match and his kerosene soaked torch burst into flame.
The chant dropped to an expectant silence, as sharp as a cut.
Below stretched the forest, a maze of tree-filled canyons rich in combustible fuel - fallen leaves and dry branches, and something else; the agent of its own destruction. Oil. It had evolved over eons to aid survival; protecting slender eucalypt leaves from the ravages of hungry predators. Matthew smiled even as the menthol scent burned his nose. This cloud of vapour, rising from countless leaves, bore thousands and thousands of tiny droplets, sharp, pungent, and highly flammable.
It was his daughter’s turn. Eye’s downcast, Rose dipped her torch into the flame. Matthew nodded, his heart filled with fierce pride as she took her place beside Ben and the others, her slender arms raised out over the lookout, her dark hair curling down her back.
He didn't need to say a single word.
Matthew bowed his head as the Select lifted their eyes to heaven. In unison, they flung their blazing firebrands high over the edge of the cliff. Flames streaked, first orange, then flaring blue as each one tumbled over and over, down into the tinder dry depths.
✽✽✽
Ellie
snapped awake. The night was dark and quiet; the only light was the green glow of the clock spilling over the wall above. Warily she turned her head just as the set of electronic numbers flipped over in the night. 00:04 the digits hovered before her. Ellie expelled a sigh of relief. Just past midnight. She paused, bracing herself for any discombobulating sensation of her room lurching and spinning. Yet, despite a distinct queasiness, nothing happened - her desk, cupboard, and window remained anchored securely to the floor.
Thank you, she smiled, still tasting the tang of the dark, bitter concoction Miss Dorothy had handed to her the night before, ‘Drink it, child,’ she’d insisted. ‘The recipe has been in my family for generations - it’ll help keep your wits about you.’
The old lady had been right, for despite the mixture’s foulness, Ellie felt pleasantly sharp and very awake. She looked to the window closed tight on the other side of the room, and a shiver of warning flicked across her skin. Tossing back the covering, Ellie tiptoed across the floor and pushed back the curtains. It all looked okay. The remains of the fallen giant had been mostly carted away, and beyond it the road slipped away down the hill and into the night.
The houses slept, even the wreck opposite. Above its jutting frame Ellie could see a tiny sliver of moon, shining clear in an ocean of stars. She frowned.
With a hard shove, Ellie pushed open the sash of the window. Where were the clouds?
She took in a deep breath and almost choked as the air tore into her throat; close, dead, and hot - like the final exhalation of an exhausted beast. Coughing painfully, Ellie slammed the window shut, and stood stunned in the centre of her room.
The freezing winds had vanished, and heat had returned to the mountains, heavier, drier, and more desolate than before.
‘It’s not right,’ she gasped. ‘What’s going on?’
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