by Amanda Fleet
***
The graveyard was quiet. Dew still clung to the grass between the graves and the gravel path crunched under my feet. From a nearby tree, a bird sang its heart out, and on the far side of the cemetery, a couple of rabbits lolloped together.
When I reached Sarah’s headstone, there were already fresh flowers from her family. I wondered if they still blamed me for what happened. I certainly did. She was my only friend other than Finn, and I’d let her down so badly.
I arranged my flowers in a spare vase and placed it next to the stone, before crouching to talk to her for a while. I came here pretty often to tell her all the news and gossip, but I only went to the escarpment twice a year.
As I dried my eyes, a middle-aged woman spoke softly to me from the adjacent plot. “Don’t weep. Her spirit lives on and will last forever. Just as your spirit will. The body may go, but the spirit will find a new one.”
I wiped my nose. “I don’t believe in reincarnation.”
“Just because you don’t believe it, it doesn’t make it untrue.”
She smiled kindly as she tucked salt-and-pepper hair behind her ear, and turned away. I wished I did believe in reincarnation – it might make Sarah’s loss more bearable. The thought that my beautiful, funny, amazing friend lived on in someone new might compensate for the knowledge that if I hadn’t pushed her to go to the police, she might still be here. But I didn’t believe it, and my heart was splintered at her loss.
It was a stiff hike up to the escarpment. Once I reached the top, I gazed out for a moment at the green fields and scattered woods, before placing the flowers at the spot Sarah must have jumped from. I steeled myself to look down to the rocks where she’d landed, my mind spooling back to finding her there. I was the one who’d found the note in her room, saying she couldn’t go on. I knew where she’d go. If only I’d got up here faster, I could have stopped her.
I perched on a rock and wrapped my arms around my knees, hugging them tight to my body. “Sarah, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I miss you so much!”
I stayed there until the cold wormed its way into my bones and I had to leave. After one final glance towards the rocks, I eased myself up and stamped some warmth back into my frozen feet, before making my way back towards the town to meet Finn for lunch.
***
The check-out desk divided the ground floor of the library into two areas – adult fiction to the left and reference to the right. It was busy there that afternoon and it took me a few minutes to find a table, but eventually I found one in the reference section, next to a computer terminal.
I itched to work out what the hell the strange book was, but I had enough sense to do a significant chunk of work on my design for Monday first.
After about an hour, I pushed my design aside and laid the weird book on the table, next to a battered notebook. I chewed my biro. Maybe if I could find out what the book said, I would work out how it had arrived on my kitchen table. Through locked doors.
I wiped clammy hands on my thighs and took a deep breath. I opened the book, staring dry-mouthed at the incomprehensible symbols, and twirled the pen in my fingers. Was any language still written in runes? I was pretty sure that any online translation page wasn’t going to be any help if the writing was old, even if I could find a way to input the text.
The library allowed you to use the computers for free if you had a library card, so I logged in and repeated my earlier search for runic alphabets, spending more time looking at the results. Nothing matched all of the runes used in the book and I rubbed my eyes. This was hopeless.
I shook myself and sat up straight. It must say something, right? I pulled up the alphabet that most closely matched the book and found the page where there was an approximate pronunciation guide. Looking at the book, I jotted down the sounds for as many of the first line of runes as I could.
Nothing. Well, nothing useful. Some of the runes in the book didn’t appear in the online guide, and sounding out those that did, made it sound like Klingon.
I gnawed the end of the pen, staring at the runes. In my brain, guttural phrases chased each other around.
And then made sense.
I blinked. The runes suddenly seemed familiar and first of all words, then whole phrases sounded in my head. I dragged a hand through my hair. The words were alien and if you’d asked me to read them out, I wouldn’t have been able to, but I understood the meaning. I swallowed. How could this make sense?
Something tickled at the back of my brain – not quite a memory; not really a dream. I knew this script. As I scanned the lines, the stories rang loud and clear in my head. They described an ancient mythology with things called Elders and Guides and spirits.
The Guides
Beings have three parts: character, vitality, form. The form is the body; the character and vitality come from the spirit. At conception, a bond forms between the body and the spirit and the spirit gives the body vitality and character. Without the spirit, the body cannot live. At death, the body is too weak to hold the spirit and the bond between the spirit and the body breaks. The spirit leaves willingly, eager to move to a new body. The Elders told us that it is the desire of the spirit to find a body which will not fade with age and it flits from host to host, ever searching for an immortal form.
To assist the spirits, the Elders created the Guides. The Guides eased the transition from life to death. They accepted the spirit from the dying body and transferred it to its new host. When a Guide accepted a spirit, all of the spirit’s vitality was held back and the Guide received none. When a new body was found, all of the vitality flowed from the Guide to the new body, giving it life and character. For millennia, the Guides performed their roles without fault, waiting patiently to accept the spirit from the dying before carrying it safely to the next body. The Guides were ethereal. No one Outside could see them, only Guardians. At most, Outsiders could perceive them as mist.
The Elders did not know what would happen if a Guide took a spirit before the body was at the point of death.
Aegyir was a Guide and for millennia he waited with the dying, accepting the spirit as the body expired and taking it to a new host. One day he went to accept the spirit of a dying man who was one of identical twins. Aegyir sat with the wrong brother and grew impatient. The body seemed strong, yet Aegyir had been sent to guide its spirit. He placed his hand over the man’s heart, expecting to receive the spirit and the man to die but instead, the spirit resisted Aegyir. In his impatience, Aegyir reached into the man and ripped out his spirit.
When Aegyir took the spirit from the man, its vitality was still flowing into the man’s body. The vitality needed to be bound but the bond with the man had been severed before it was ready. Hence, a bond formed with Aegyir and all of the spirit’s vitality flowed into Aegyir. Aegyir was transformed from an ethereal being with no substance, into a solid form. Without vitality, the man died.
The spirit was split. The part of the spirit that gave character could find no space in Aegyir’s body and was cast into Chaos. The part of the spirit that gave vitality became bound to Aegyir, giving him strength and power.
The Elders demanded that Aegyir assist the spirit to a new host body but Aegyir, revelling in his new strength, refused to obey the Elders.
The first war between The Guardians and The Guides had started.
Towards the beginning of the story, an illustration of a shadowy figure – a Guide – filled the lower half of a page. It crouched over a person, its face largely shielded by a hood and its body concealed within a cloak. Red eyes glowed from beneath the hood and long, bony fingers stretched out over the chest of the prone person. A ball of light emerged from the chest. It was exactly what I’d seen outside the gym, two days ago.
At the end of the story, an illustration of the Guide called Aegyir attacking the man he killed covered a whole page. In this image, the light wasn’t in a ball, but stretched out as if made of elastic. At the man’s body, tendrils of the light seemed to be being pull
ed free of his body. At Aegyir’s end, tendrils flowed into his shadowy form. I stared at Aegyir’s face.
I am coming for you.
My heart thumped and I glanced around the library. A couple of curious faces met my gaze, but nothing even half resembling either a wraith-like Guide or the monster Aegyir. I don’t know what I was expecting to see, but the picture of Aegyir was exactly the same as the thing I’d seen when the black mist enveloped me. I turned back to the book and re-read the story.
Only Guardians could see these things; Outsiders couldn’t. I had no idea what a Guardian or an Outsider were, but I could see these things. Or, at least, I had on Tuesday when the old man died. I still couldn’t work out how the hell I could read this book, or why someone had left it in my kitchen.
I studied the pictures. They were hand-painted, but I still thought the text was printed. Whoever had drawn them was very talented. Although they mirrored my drawings of the Realm, they were clearly done by someone else – not me. It was like looking at a fake of my drawings – same pictures, but different execution.
My head was splitting and I checked my watch. I only had a few minutes before I had to meet Finn for a quick snack ahead of the self-defence class. I gathered the book and my notes together and packed them away. As I did so, a faint glow at my wrist caught my attention. A strange blue light emanated from the charm, making the patterns in the silver appear to writhe as if they were alive. I tilted my wrist, examining the bead. I’d never seen it glowing like this before.
Blue for danger.
My head shot up and my gaze locked with that of a woman opposite me who was glaring at me. Unnerved, I finished packing my things away and tugged my sleeve over my wrist, even though being stared at wasn’t unusual. As I left, I passed the desk she’d been sitting at but it was now empty.
I pulled my jacket around me and hurried across town to the gym. A light drizzle gave the pavements a tangy odour – part dog-piss, part damp dirt. I dodged umbrellas and turned my collar up, trying to gain a bit of shelter by walking close to the shops. Every now and then, a climate-destroying blast of hot air from the open doors of cheap clothes shops hit me. I kept my eyes peeled for ex-convicts.
When I arrived at work, Finn was sitting at one of the cafe tables, his eyes fixed on the door.
He jumped up as I dashed in. “You’re late.”
I rolled my eyes. “All of two minutes! Sorry!”
He hugged me, holding on tight.
“It’s okay. I haven’t seen him,” I said.
“Good.” He steered me towards the food service area, his shoulders softening.
While we ate, Finn ran over the running order of the self-defence class.
“You sure you’re okay to do it?” he asked. “I can get one of the women here to do it instead.”
I smiled. “I’m fine. You never spook me and the class will be good for me.”
“Did you work on your design at the library all afternoon?”
I hesitated. Finn had already said that I sounded crazy over the Guide I’d seen outside the gym. How was he going to take the news that a strange book had turned up at the house, with pictures of the Realm, the Guide, and me in it?
“Rea?”
“Er. Most of the afternoon. But I also found a weird book and I was looking at that. I’ll show you at home.”
“A weird book?”
I wasn’t sure what to say. Finn squinted at me.
“Is the course fully booked?” I said, trying to deflect him.
“No. Almost. Three spaces.”
“Okay.”
Finn peered at me for a moment longer but I pointedly kept on eating my food. I could tell him when we got home.
***
The self-defence course went well. We covered a variety of manoeuvres and all of the women practised both with me and then with Finn. The course over, Finn grabbed the bike helmets from his locker and we headed out. As we passed the reception desk, someone spoke to Finn and he paused to reply. I carried on, expecting Finn to join me as soon as he’d finished chatting.
As I left the building, a bloke stepped into my personal space, filling it.
“Look who it is… Cuckoo!”
It took me too long to recognise the man. It was several years since I’d seen him and he was carrying a couple more stones of weight – some fat, a lot of muscle. Stephen. Fear bunched my guts and battered my heart against my ribs. He was just outside the door, flanked by two of his friends from school-days. They smiled nastily as I scanned their size. I might, might have been able to take on Stephen on his own, but not these two as well. I hunted around desperately for Finn, realising he wasn’t next to me, but he was still inside, joking around with the girl on the front desk.
“Not so brave without your pet bodyguard, huh?” said Stephen.
His two friends moved so that I was surrounded, the wall of the gym behind me. Where the hell was Finn? My eyes sought him in the doorway of the gym, but there was still no sign of him, only his deep laugh rumbling from inside the building.
Stephen took a long drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke in my face. “It’s good to be out and about again. Free to do what I want.”
He stepped closer. My heart hammered in my chest and small dots appeared in my vision. The cigarette smoke stung my nose and made my eyes water. Stephen smirked and blew a smoke ring that circled my nose before dissipating. I wondered where his clothes had come from. John? The hoodie was at least two sizes too small and his belly bulged over the waistband of his jeans.
“Didn’t think Finn would leave you alone, knowing I was out. I was kinda hoping to see him,” said Stephen.
“Yeah, he’ll be sad to have missed you too. You do know there’s a CCTV camera, right above you?” I said, standing my ground, despite my legs feeling like jelly.
Stephen glanced up at the camera. “Just having a friendly word. Nothing to stress about.” He took another drag on his cigarette. “Anyway, prison wasn’t so bad that it would put me off finishing what I started.” He blew smoke into a long thin ribbon above me.
Finn came out of the gym, took one look in our direction and marched over, interposing himself between me and Stephen. The two pals of Stephen’s might have been brave enough to help try to intimidate me, but faced with Finn they abandoned Stephen with alacrity.
“Don’t you dare come near her,” Finn spat. “You come near her again and I’ll kill you!”
“Finn!” I said, holding his shoulder, hoping the red mist wasn’t about to come down.
Stephen peered over Finn’s shoulder at me, all acne-scars and bad teeth. “Word of advice, Cuckoo. Stay out of my way.”
“Yeah. Word of advice from me. Stay out of Finn’s way. And mine.”
Finn drew himself up to his full height, his eyes burning. “You want a fight, you fight with someone your size.”
I half wished Stephen was stupid enough to try it but he wasn’t.
“Finn,” barked a sergeant-major voice at our side.
Billy, Finn’s only decent father figure.
Finn turned back towards the gym and took a step away from Stephen, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Billy moved forwards to stand between the two of them.
“Everything alright here?” he said.
“Yeah, we’re fine. Stephen is just threatening me with finishing what he started.”
I shouldn’t have said that. Finn’s face blanched and he took a step forward, jaw tight, fists bunched. Billy put his hand on Finn’s shoulder, shaking his head.
“Stephen, I think you should leave. I don’t take kindly to people threatening my staff.”
Stephen’s lip curled and he shoved back dark, greasy hair with nicotine-stained fingers. “I’m going. But you know what? I would love it if Finn had a go. I don’t think he’d cope with prison. And a pretty boy like him? Well, I guess he’d be popular. If you know what I mean. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t mind that. He does hang out with faggots.” He blew smoke right
into my face again. “See you around, Cuckoo.”
His two pals lurked a few strides away. With their grubby sweatshirts and ripped jeans they could have been clones. They eyed Billy warily. No, you could never miss the fact that Billy had been in the army and been trained to kill people.
Stephen gathered the side-kicks to him and swaggered down the street. I puffed out a long, shaky breath and pressed my hand against Finn’s chest to hold him back, feeling the anger vibrating in him. He was so protective of me and part of me loved him for it, but only part of me. The other part was scared his temper would land him in deep shit one day.
Across the road from us, a man caught my eye. He was leaning on the wall, his eyes locked on me, his face hard. He wore a mid-thigh woollen coat, buttoned over dark trousers – far too professionally dressed to be in Stephen’s circle. And more interested in me than a normal rubbernecker would be.
Just as he was beginning to completely creep me out, he pushed himself away from the wall and followed Stephen and his pals down the road. I frowned. Was he someone John had asked to keep an eye on Stephen?
Once they were out of sight, I turned back to Finn and Billy.
“Finn. Keep your cool. Or go back inside and I’ll hold the bag while you work it off,” said Billy.
Finn scowled. “I’m cool.”
“Good. Reagan, you okay?”
“I’m grand. He didn’t do anything. To be honest, I think he was hoping to bait Finn. Wind him up so he lost it and he could claim self-defence.”
Finn said nothing. Only he knew how close Stephen had come to achieving that.
