by R Mountebank
Chapter 3
Pennysworth Normal
The rest of the day went by in a sulky, tear-filled blur. Mary sat in the back of every class with her head down, ignoring all questions and any spit-balls that flew her way. She had her wild hair pulled over her face to hide the tears from the others. When the final bell rang she gathered her bag and flew out of the room, her stretched uniform dishevelled and dotted with paper pellets.
Mary sped down the hall and burst out of the front door in a lopping stride. The strange boy she met during her lunch break was waiting outside the school, his back braced against the wall and his arms crossed. As she drew near he stood up straight and blocked her path. Mary tried to walk around him but an amber hued hand darted out and clutched her shoulder firmly.
“Let go of me, John,” said Mary coldly.
John looked down at her, his emotionless face only betrayed by a tightening around his eyes. “Mary Horn, please let me apologise. It was wrong of me to say what I did.”
Mary scowled back at him with her best angry face just to let him know how much his apology meant. John’s amber skin gained a reddish tinge and his mouth drooped in what she thought was a pout. She realised that this strange boy was upset in earnest. The anger and angst which she had bottled up all afternoon began to dissipate slowly.
“Okay, John. You may apologise. But make it a good one,” Mary said with a straight face.
John looked startled. “I thought I just did.”
Mary let the tension build until John’s skin tone had gone through several more transformations.
“It’s okay you great goober. You can breathe now.”
John sighed quietly and stepped back to a more respectable distance. Mary finally noticed the odd looks she and John were getting as her school fellows filed past. On one and all it was a combination of disgust and contempt; the kooky weird girl and the strange new boy, what a couple. Deidre and her cronies ambled past tittering and laughing behind petite manicured hands. “I didn’t think there could be anybody uglier than you, Mary. Now I see your children will be.”
Without a thought, Mary had a fist cocked and was marching towards Deidre. The other girl dropped her school bag and puffed out her prodigious chest.
“Want a shot at the title, chicken-wing?”
Deidre’s friends formed a half circle behind her. Other children stopped to see what was going to happen. A low murmur grew into an excited roar; the masses could smell blood and now wanted to see it. Mary began to grow uncertain. She wasn’t afraid of Deidre. Deidre and her friends and half of the school were another matter. Being the least popular person in the county had its downside and she didn’t want to think of how the mob could turn on her.
What would it be? Fight or flight?
She felt a spasm of pain deep in her chest that radiated through her body. She shrunk an inch before she could calm herself with some deep breaths.
"Oh Gawd! She's going to faint! What a chicken!" somebody crowed from the cheap seats.
Before she could act either way John stepped past her. His eyes flashed brightly as he spoke. “You offend me mortal. You attack my lineage without provocation. For this I take my due. Three fold your curse shall be.”
Deidre sniggered while John bore down on her, his voice taking on a chanting lilt.
“Your words are barbed with venom; I take your tongue lest thee offend again. Your eyes are full of insolence; I take thy sight so ye may never look above your station again. Finally, for your insult I thwart your true desire; may you never feel a man’s touch nor your womb quicken with child.”
Deidre laughed. “Whoa weirdo. Back off before I deal to you too.”
John looked down at the smirking girl. He made a quick hand gesture, thumb pressed to pinkie finger. “It is done,” he said quietly.
Turning he grabbed Mary by the hand and led her away from the pressing throng of students. Mary let herself be strung along behind, barely comprehending what had just happened. Hearing a scream she turned her head. Most of the kids were dispersing except for Deidre and her cabal of friends. Deidre sat on her knees clawing at her face in a mad panic while her friends looked on with worried faces.
“What just happened, John?”
The tall boy continued to walk with long strides. They passed around a stone walled boundary and headed towards Pennysworth village. A blood curdling, wordless cry followed them. Mary wrenched her arm from Johns grip and looked back nervously.
“John, stop. What did you do to her?”
John looked at her with a mischievous glint in his eyes, the faintest smile on his lips.
“I took away her power,” he said matter-of-factly.
Mary tilted her head unsure of what he meant.
“The harlot offended you and me without cause, so I cursed her,” John offered. “I doubt she’ll do it again.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mary slowly.
John spread his arms and shrugged. “Didn’t you hear me say it? I took away her sight, speech and desire. She’s quite harmless now.”
Mary shivered at the thought. Sure Deidre was rude and a royal pain, but nobody deserved what John had done to her in ten short seconds. If what he said was true.
“Are you for real, John?”
Raising a hand in front of him, John studied it mockingly.
“I don’t know Mary Horn. Some of my people say we are just a remnant of a former age, a people lost and forgotten by cruel and powerful gods. A dream remaining only in the minds of man and beast…”
Mary stamped her foot. “I’m serious! Did you just… take her eyes and ears or something?”
Laughing, John fished around in his pockets. “I have them here if you really want them…”
“John!” Mary screamed shrilly.
“Okay. Okay. Yes I did take away her sight, and speech. And I’d do it again if I have to. Nobody offends the great line of…. Smith and gets away with it.”
Mary shook her head. Real or not she couldn’t just let John do what he did, especially over something as trivial as calling her unborn children ugly.
“John, I demand you release her,” replied Mary coldly.
The tall boy crossed his arms and looked at the pavement.
Don’t make me beg for Deidre’s sake, thought Mary.
“John, please undo whatever you did.”
John’s body tensed.
“Maybe a smaller curse?” pleaded Mary.
John shrugged his angular shoulders. “Okay, Mary Horn. May she always wear odd socks and never find true love.”
Mary arched an eyebrow.
“May her bus never arrive on time?” asked John, gingerly.
Mary nodded. “That’s better.”
The strange boy pinched his thumb to each finger on his right hand and mumbled some incoherent babble.
John smiled a toothy grin. “I’ve never done that one before,” he confided.
Mary laughed nervously. What did this odd boy do exactly? Mary lifted a shaking hand and brushed her hair into place. She didn’t know whether to fight, flee or collapse on the floor and scream in the foetal position. Would he turn on her if she offended him as well?
“So John… What just happened? How did you do that?”
John’s smile slowly faded into a stony glare. “You people are easy to manipulate. It’s all energy and light. All I did was put a little energy in the right parts of her brain; over stimulated another part with light. The spirits of my ancestors had some input too. It was quite simple.”
Mary’s skin crawled. How could you do that to another person?
“Do you do that often? Hypnotise people that you don’t like?”
Raising his head John looked down his long nose at Mary as if he were inspecting a bug in a microscope. “I suppose I do. But it is magic. Not hypnotism.”
Mary gulped loudly. Her hands quivered as she smoothed her skirt and arranged her blouse. “I don’t suppose you’ll be doing it to m
e anytime soon?” She said in a shaky voice.
John smiled another toothy grin and slapped Mary on the back. Mary squeaked before she could control herself.
“No, Mary Horn. I would never do that to a friend.”
“We’re friends?” asked Mary uncertainly.
“Sure, Mary Horn. You have sass for sure but it is interesting to be around you. Most people I meet are boring and rude.”
Wiping a hand across her brow Mary realised she was sweating.
How close did I come to thinking I was a frog?
She looked at John sideways. Could she be friends with a magic wielding boy that looked like an alien and spoke like a robot? Anything was possible she thought.
John hefted his bag higher on his shoulder and looked at his wrist watch. “I suppose I should leave. My… uncle is expecting me home promptly.”
Mary sighed softly. She didn’t feel particularly safe around a boy that could and would hypnotise people willy-nilly, but he was interesting and the only person in all of Pennysworth County that didn’t spit at her or yell obscenities on sight. The thought of developing a friendship with someone was an entirely new idea, one that she was becoming fond of fostering.
“Where do you live? I could walk you home,” said Mary.
“Isn’t there a bus of some kind to take us home? A school bus?” replied John.
“Do you really want to ride that old piece of junk with all of those snot-nosed kids?” she replied, jerking a thumb in the direction of the school. “Besides, it takes forever with all the stops and all the back roads and such.”
John shrugged then pointed a long slender arm. “We live on the northern border of this land where the forest meets the merger of two steams. The energy of the land is quite agreeable. The Orientals would say it has a favourable chi. You may escort me, Mary Horn.”
Mary sighed again. Maybe this friendship thing was going to be a lot harder than she originally thought.
Pennysworth village centre was comprised of old brownstone villas and narrow cobbled lanes running in mad angles over low hills. Almost all of the shops could be found on two streets running parallel to each other in the town centre. They were named Trembling Road and Shiver Street. The locals, however, called them ‘Big Shake’ and ‘Little Shake’, or Big and Little as Trembling Road was slightly longer. Whitewashed cottages and squat stone houses on quarter acre sections were more prominent in the outlying suburbs to the south and east where the land was flatter. The roads were tar sealed here and old weather worn oak trees lined them. To the west, one larger hill commanded an old Roman fort which had been renovated by the locals over the generations. It was now a grotesque modern mansion owned by a pompous family that nobody ever saw except for village fairs and council meetings. Behind the fort was a modest wooden church with a steeply pitched slate roof. It was fairly modern by Pennysworth standards, having only been built several decades earlier. The graveyard was a new addition also. No more than two dozen headstones lay in the yard as most of Pennysworth’s residents had family plots on their own land or in the surrounding forest. The land beyond Pennysworth was dominated by a quilt-work of farmsteads, each acreage a different hue of colour to the next as the crops and agriculture changed, hedgerows and ancient moss covered stone walls dividing them. Mary and John walked through the village centre on ‘Big Shake’ with Mary explaining everything she knew about Pennysworth all the while.
“That really fat man there,” she said pointing across the street to a middle-aged man who rolled down the sidewalk with every step “is the local baker. His name is Mr Baker funnily enough. His kids are fat, too.”
She pointed at a tall stork like woman approaching them. “That funny looking woman is Mrs Teller, she works at the bank.”
The older woman sniffed loudly and raised her long nose as she walked past the two odd looking teens. John made a low noise in his throat and twitched his hand. Mrs Teller shrieked as one of her heels broke. Mary didn’t notice. “The green grocer is just a little further. It’s owned by…”
“A Mr Grocer by chance? I’m beginning to notice a pattern here,” said John interrupting.
“No. Mr Entwistle. His wife is Mrs Grocer,” said Mary flatly.
“The age of occupation seems new to these parts,” replied John.
“No. Just the worst case of nepotism you’ve ever seen.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Forget about it.”
“So following that line of thought, that means your family hunt elephants?” asked John.
“Har-dee-har… Ahhhhhh!” yelled Mary suddenly. She gestured at something across the road and dashed over without bothering to look for traffic.
“What did I say?” mumbled John to himself
Mary had seen something in the window of the bookshop from across the street. On a display rack sat a pile of new magazines. Each was worth its weight in gold amongst the students of Pennysworth Normal High. Between their glossy pages were the fashion tips, music fads and celebrity gossip of the world beyond. They were both a source of amusement and information for Mary, who often had to save her allowance for weeks to afford just one.
Mary darted in to the shop and scooped up the pile of magazines. She pawed through them quickly, selecting the best before anyone else could claim them.
“Oi, you! No bags in the shop!”
Mary dropped her bag to the floor and kicked it out the door without looking. The sour shop owner shook his head slowly as he watched from behind the counter. John walked in carrying Mary’s bag shortly afterwards.
The owner rounded on him. “Can’t you idiots read? No bags in the shop!” he said pointing at a hand written sign.
John took two steps backwards and stood in the entrance scowling.
“How much for these?” asked Mary throwing two magazines on the countertop.
The shop owner looked down at the merchandise. “Twenty grams,” he replied gruffly.
Mary raised her eyebrows and whistled.
“It is what it is,” said the owner, folding his arms.
Mary pulled out a thin leather pouch from her pocket and jiggled it in her hand. The shop owner slid over a set of brass scales and the transaction began. Mary added small gold coins to the scale, one at a time. The owner licked his thin lips as he watched the pile grow. Finally, Mary dropped her last coin and the scales tipped. The shop owner took a hatchet from beneath the counter and removed a coin from the pile. After chopping it in half with one chop of the hatchet he handed one half back to Mary and added the other to the pile of gold. The scales teetered.
“Good enough,” he said. “Now get out, the two of you.”
Mary gathered up her score and rushed out of the shop. John stood by the doorway scowling at the shop owner.
“Are you deaf as well as dumb? Go!” said the owner, pointing.
John raised a hand and pressed his pinkie to his thumb. Before he could open his mouth, Mary grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him away.
“What was his problem?” asked John.
“Me, I suppose,” replied Mary. “He’s never been fond of me. The kids in school often try and steal from him too. He’s a bit uptight I think.”
John looked at the magazines Mary clutched to her chest. “And you spent all of that money on what exactly?”
Mary blushed. “It is my one and only vice… Do you want to have a look?” she asked, offering the worst of the two.
John took it from her and flicked through the pages as they walked.
“Fascinating… Do all of you people read these things?”
Mary brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Girls mostly. Some boys do but they wouldn’t dare tell you.”
“Interesting,” said John. “Would you mind if I borrow this?”
“…Sure you can,” said Mary after a pause.
The street ended at a tee intersection and crossing the road, they took the left fork. This street was t
he oldest in Pennysworth. All of the houses were made of stone and mortar of various hues. Some roofs were thatched though most had slate or tiles. Old wrought iron work was still to be found on some of the doors and windows. The only new thing about this part of town was indoor plumbing and the light bulb.
“Will you tell me what your family does, Mary, or shall I just assume you’re poachers?” asked John.
Mary sighed.
What does my father do?
“No not at all. My father is a doctor of sorts. No he’s more like a scientist really. The truth is I’m not too sure. His study is filled with all kinds of plants and rocks and things. He often makes stuff for people, mechanical things or powders or liquids. He does have something to do with the local power station I think. Does that make him an engineer too? He has the odd person come by to visit him – and I really mean odd. They always speak in private and he gets really cross if I try to listen.”
John shook his head slowly as if he didn’t agree or understand. “Your father hasn’t explained to you what his occupation is? How… strange.”
Mary stiffened at that. It was very true. Her father didn’t have much time for her at the best of times. Lately he had been in a foul mood. He locked himself in his study for longer and longer hours these days. She hadn’t seen him this upset since Remy, her older brother left Pennysworth for good.
“How about your mother then? Does she work at all?” John asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
“My mother left when I was very young.” Mary replied flatly. “We don’t see her.”
“Oh. I see” said John slowly. “Do you have siblings?”
“My brother left too. That’s enough about my family. What about yours?” Mary said sharply.
John scratched his chin. “Well, Mary. They are… how do I say it? They don’t work. Not in a conventional sense. They are… very wealthy and own a considerably desirable location.”
Mary eyed him sideways. “It must be nice to be rich. Where is this place you own?”
John bowed his head sadly and looked at the ground.
“It isn’t that great. It causes all kinds of problems to be honest.”
He walked on silently with his face downturned and the faintest gleam of a tear in his eye.
“Is it on the coast?” asked Mary bluntly. “Like some tourist trap where lots of people give you money just to lay around a pool and do nothing? Or is it a casino? I’ve always wanted to see a casino. Or the beach or anything other than here.”
John didn’t say a word. He just stared straight ahead.
Mary rolled her eyes. “It can’t be that bad, being rich – can it, John? Celebrities seem pretty happy with themselves most of the time. Maybe you’re just doing it wrong. You need someone like me to help you is all.”
John smiled thinly and lifted his head.
“Oh I do wish I could show you my ancestral home, Mary Horn. Perhaps after… everything I may. I want to go home too. I want to see my family again…”
Mary let that hang, unsure of what he meant and uneasy of holding him to his word just now. The pair left the last of Pennysworth town behind and, passing underneath an arched gateway, walked down a tar sealed road that was lined with wild hedges of gorse and blackberry. Small yellow flowers were scattered through the gorse, and buttercups and small white dandelions grew helter-skelter in the grass and dotted the ditches between the road and the hedgerows. Here and there they passed ancient oaks, their leafy boughs rippling in a lazy breeze to the songs of a multitude of birds. They passed modest farm houses nestled amongst manicured gardens, the buildings old and worn yet charmingly rustic.
Mary kicked stones while she waited for John to speak. The odd boy walked with a grim set to his jaw, oblivious to the awkward silence that he had created. Finally Mary had enough.
“So, John, if you won’t tell me where you’re from or how or why you came here of all places what will you talk about?”
John looked at her sideways, the trace of a sneer twisting his thin lips.
Mary raised an eyebrow in defence. “What did I say? You won’t zap me with magic will you?”
“Maybe I will. A small one perhaps,” replied John.
“Do it and I’ll bop you in the face.”
“My boots they are a-shaking.”
Mary punched him in the arm in response. John squealed in an alarmingly high voice and stepped back several paces.
“Ouch. What was that for?” he said rubbing his arm.
“Being a sarcastic tool,” snapped Mary.
“I told you before, Mary Horn, I am not a tool.”
Mary stopped in her tracks and put her hand on her hips. “Then tell me something! All of this cryptic stuff is driving me insane. You’re just as vague as my father!”
John tilted his head as he listened then turned to face north. “You don’t seem to understand many things, Mary Horn. And because of that I cannot tell you what you want to know. There are certain covenants in place which I must observe. Even now my… uncle listens to me, fearing that I misstep my place. To tell the whole truth would break an oath I made, which among my people is a very serious crime. I suggest you speak to your father for I will tell you no more.”
Hefting his bag John strode on with head fixed forward, leaving Mary behind. After several steps he began to shimmer as though seen through a heat wave. From one moment to the next, Mary was blinded, her vision going white then red before slowly returning to normal. She stared at the spot where John had been. She went slack-jawed; John was nowhere to be seen.
Did he just hypnotise her while she wasn’t paying attention?
How did he put it? Energy and light in the brain? Ancestor spirits?
She had some important questions to ask her father when she got home.
