She knew she was back home by the feel of the carpet on her bare feet. September opened her eyes and found that she was standing once again at her desk facing her dark window. The Moon was as it had been, just above the rooftops. She felt dizzy for a moment and rested both hands on the desk. Her eyes fell on her alarm clock. Apparently no more than a few moments had passed since Mother had called to say good night. Perhaps I’ve been dreaming, and sleepwalking, she thought. She stood up straight and felt a weight press between her breasts. She reached for it. In the moonlight she could see it was the silver locket. She gasped; it was true, it had happened. She undid the case and looked at the stone. It was dull and cloudy; no more than a piece of old glass. And yet the locket proved it to be more.
September closed the locket up and took the chain from around her neck. She placed the stone in the bottom drawer of her desk under some papers. As she straightened up she felt her body. She was back to as she had always been. The delightful tautness of her body in the Land was replaced by the soft roll of fat around her middle and the weak, flabby muscles in her arms and legs. A sigh escaped her and she climbed onto the bunk and beneath the duvet. She laid her head on the pillow feeling exhausted, hoping sleep would come, but instead her head was filled with many mysterious images.
4
“Are you up, September?”
Mother’s shrill call woke September from a deep, disturbed sleep. She peered through half open eyelids at her alarm clock and was astounded to find she had overslept. It felt as though she had been awake all night, tossing and fidgeting in bed. Her mind could not reconcile her visit to the Land and the defeat of the comet with normal life. Surely it must have been a dream, and yet it felt so real. She recalled the fire dragon bearing down on the wooded shrine, the Mordeyrn fighting it off with his gold plate and her part in the victory. She could smell the grass and the trees and smoke from the bonfires; she could still taste the delicious soup and the last chant and farewells of the people rang in her ears.
“September!”
“Yes, Mum, I’m coming.” Her reply came out weak and strained.
“Are you ill?” Was Mother coming upstairs? September swallowed, coughed and forced her voice to sound stronger.
“No, I’m fine. I’m coming.” She rolled off the bunk onto the floor and pulled open the drawer of her desk. She fumbled under the papers until she retrieved the pendant. There it was, the silver locket and chain. She clicked it open and gazed at the milky stone inside. It was true. She had visited the Land and seen all those things. She stared at the stone for a moment longer before closing it up and hiding it back amongst her things. She had to hurry or she would be late for school.
In less than ten minutes she was washed, dressed and entering the kitchen. Gus looked up at her with a thick slice of toast halfway to his mouth.
“Gosh, Sis, you look dreadful.”
September glowered at him. Mother, busy at the sink, turned to examine her.
“Are you sure you feel all right, Ember,” she asked gently. September ran her hands through her hair.
“Yeah, didn’t sleep very well. Feel a bit tired but I’ll be fine.”
“Did you have nightmares then?” Gus mocked. September ignored him and put some jam on a slice of bread. She hurried out into the hallway to put her blazer on with the bread flopping in her hand, trying to be lively and ready for the day but in truth feeling exhausted.
It wasn’t a good day at school. She couldn’t concentrate. Every few minutes something from her visit would come back to her; a face, the metal objects, something the Mordeyrn had said, the enlarging ball of fire coming straight towards her. Mrs Roberts, the English teacher, asked if she was unwell, while Mr Jones in Physics had snapped at her to wake up and pay attention. Her friends, her only friends, Poppy and Emma, mothered her and fussed during the lunch break but they could see that she was preoccupied. They thought there had been an incident: one of the other girls calling out names at her, the boys blocking her way along the corridor, a teacher getting at her. She shook her head denying that it was any of the usual problems that made life at school a misery.
Last lesson of the afternoon was Chemistry. September wasn’t one of Mr Bloomsbury’s star pupils but he was quite nice. When the bell went she hung around as everyone else fled.
“Oh, hi, September. Do you want something?” he asked when he noticed that she wasn’t rushing to leave the laboratory as she usually did.
“Um, yes. I was wondering. Was there a time when we only knew about seven metals?”
Mr Bloomsbury looked surprised. September guessed he had been expecting her to ask for some trivial help with the homework he’d set or a question about the GCSE examinations.
“Well, yes, I suppose there was. Most of the metals in the Periodic Table have been discovered in the last two hundred years, so, uh, yes, earlier than that there would have been about seven. Why?”
“Oh, it’s just something I read somewhere,” September realised that she was flustered and hadn’t worked out a story, “and were they linked to the planets?”
“Ooh, now you’ve got me. I think that was an idea that the alchemists had.”
“Alchemists?”
“Yes, you know. The guys who tried to turn lead and stuff into gold. I don’t know much about it but they were the people who sort of did chemistry before it became a real science. I think a lot of their ideas came from the Arabs.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, gosh, I’m not sure. I suppose alchemy started to fall out of fashion in the seventeenth century, although I’ve heard that Isaac Newton was a keen alchemist.”
“Newton? The physics guy who discovered gravity?”
“Well, he discovered the laws of gravitation that explained the motion of the planets around the Sun.”
“Didn’t Galileo have something to do with that?” There was another look of surprise on Mr Bloomsbury’s face.
“Yes. Galileo was just before Newton.”
“So all this alchemy stuff was at the same time as people thought the Sun and everything went around the Earth?”
“Yes. What’s got you into all this, September?”
September blustered, what could she say?
“Oh, it was just something I read.” Mr Bloomsbury’s expression showed September that was another surprise.
“Right, well, good. Look I don’t know a lot about the history of science but I’m sure there are some good books around, or you can find lots of stuff on the internet.” The teacher looked as though he was keen to get away.
“Thanks. Actually you’ve helped me get things a bit clearer.”
“I’m pleased. Goodbye September.” He turned away from September and started to pile pupils’ books and papers together. September left. She didn’t meet up with her chums for the usual post-lessons natter, but hurried home. Gus wasn’t back from college yet, Dad was at work of course, and Mother was too.
September hung up her blazer and went upstairs to her room. She sat at her desk and switched her old, clunky computer on. While it was taking its usual long time booting up she reached into the drawer and pulled out the starstone. She needed to see it and feel it to reassure herself that she wasn’t going daft and pursuing silly dreams. Something real had happened last night, and if that was true then some time she would be going back and she was expected to be someone special – what had the Mordeyrn called her? The Cludith o Mine-golly-seren or something? The bearer of the Starstone, slim and strong and fit. She recalled the cramp and stiffness in her arm as the shaft of blue light had leapt between the stone and the gold plate, and the waterfall of light that had engulfed her when she had travelled to and from the Land. She remembered the adulation of the crowd as the comet was destroyed. She half dreaded and half looked forward to it happening again. Now though the stone looked dull and dead in its casing.
The computer was awake. It didn’t require much skill or knowledge to google alchemy and metals, confirming what Mr Bloomsbu
ry had said and what the Mordeyrn had told her of the connections between the metals and astronomical bodies. But there was nothing about the magical properties of the metals or such things as starstones. That belief seemed peculiar to the people of the Land. Indeed while she found hints of ideas that she had heard from the Mordeyrn, such as that comets were once thought to be below the Moon, the Land seemed strange and different and its creators, the Cemegwr were not mentioned anywhere.
She heard Gus come in and tramp up the stairs to his room followed soon by the thudding bass of the heavy metal music he seemed to be unable to live without. Shortly after there was a clatter of pans from the kitchen; Mother had returned. September went downstairs to see her.
“Oh hello, love. I didn’t know you were in. School alright today?”
“Yeh, it was OK.”
“You didn’t stay to chat to your friends?”
“No, I came straight home to get on with some work.”
“Are you feeling better? You did look poorly this morning.”
“I’m fine, just tired. I’ll have an early night and hope I can get to sleep.”
“Well, we’ll have supper soon and then you’ll have time to let it go down before you settle. Got much homework?”
“A bit.”
Mother busied herself collecting items for the meal. September sat at the kitchen table idly watching her. A thought occurred to her.
“Mum?”
“Yes, Em.”
“You had six children, didn’t you?”
Mother stopped in the middle of chopping an onion and turned to face her. There was an expression of surprise in her face.
“Yes, love. You’re my sixth. You know that.”
“There wasn’t a seventh?”
There was silence for a few heartbeats. September noticed her mother’s pale face turning pink.
“I had six lovely children,” Mother said slowly and deliberately, “Now don’t you think you should get changed out of your school clothes?”
September took the hint and returned to her room. There was something mysterious in Mother’s response. Previously September had never suspected that there may have been a seventh offspring. She could not recall any mutterings or passing remarks at any time in her life, but Mother’s guarded reply suggested something had happened. If she was the seventh child and not the sixth as she thought then another of the Mordeyrn’s statements would prove to have some truth. She changed into leggings and a loose tunic that slightly disguised her round tummy, and settled down to start some homework.
Later, when Father had arrived home, September joined Gus and her parents around the kitchen table. Usually conversation was lively but this evening Mother remained silent and pensive. Was it because of her question, September wondered? The two men didn’t seem to notice and munched their suppers with a bit of chat about football. Once the table had been cleared, Gus headed back upstairs. September followed him. As he was about to disappear into his den of a room, September called to him.
“Gus.” He paused and turned, surprised to find September right behind him.
“What is it Em?”
“Do you know anything about Mother having another child?”
“What? She’s a bit ancient to have another baby isn’t she?”
“No, not now, silly. I mean in the past, before I was born.”
“What are you talking about? There’s April, May, June, Julie, me and you. Six of us. That’s enough isn’t it? Perhaps you don’t remember how crowded this house was, full of women – before April, May and June left.”
“So, no mention of another boy or girl?”
“What are you on? Didn’t you hear me? There are six of us – that’s enough for me.” He went into the room and slammed the door on her.
September returned to her room and got on with a bit more work. It was Maths. She always got stuck with Maths homework and this evening her thoughts kept wandering. She gave up and went back to her internet search for information on alchemy and pre-Galilean science but couldn’t find anything to match what she had seen the previous night.
About nine she went downstairs to collect a glass of orange juice and said she was going to bed. She undressed and stood in her T-shirt looking out of her bedroom window. She held the starstone in one hand and absentmindedly rubbed the strawberry mark on her right hip with the other. It was dark outside but unlike the previous evening the Moon and stars were hidden by cloud. The stone remained dull and lifeless. September returned it to its hiding place and jumped into bed. She really did feel exhausted, as if she had been awake for two whole days. Sleep came quickly and with it dreams. Dim, clouded, confused dreams of the circle of trees on the hill, the stone altar, people processing and chanting and the comet bearing down on them.
5
Despite sleeping all night she still felt tired and disturbed by the dreams. Were they memories of what she had seen or was she an observer of things that had happened since she had returned? An observer looking through frosted glass at moving shadows and deaf to any sound or conversation? The alarm going off was a relief and she got up quicker than usual for a school day. There was the usual breakfast routine, trying to ignore Gus’ inane comments and Mother’s concerned questioning.
She got to school a few minutes earlier than usual. Poppy and Emma weren’t there but there were a few boys from her year clustered round the entrance, trying to look cool despite their uniforms, with their collars up and trousers tugged down on their hips.
“Oh, look it’s the fat snowball with the daft name,” one of them said. She didn’t see which as she was trying to ignore them by looking away.
“Hey, blubber-girl, couldn’t your parents think of a name?”
“Perhaps they couldn’t be bothered.”
She hurried past them, avoiding their attempts to jostle her. Tears filled her eyes and her foot caught the top step. She staggered and the boys laughed. She hurried to the cloakroom trying to find a place to hide so no-one would see the tears in her eyes. She should be used to it by now, the teasing about her weight, her flab, her white hair and pale skin and her silly name. Most of the time she was proud of her name, no-one else was called September, but at times like this she wished Mother and Father hadn’t got stuck on naming their children after months as a way of getting round the bible names or family names argument. It was OK for April, May, June and Julie; their names were normal. Even Gus didn’t mind so long as he wasn’t called Augustus out loud, but September, well! She liked being called Ember, it seemed lively, but only Mother and Father and her best friends seemed to remember to call her that.
Sitting there on the floor amongst the lockers and coat hooks, she recalled the image of the crowd of gown-wearing people standing at the edge of their copse of trees that they called their Refuge, cheering her after she had helped destroy the comet; the ‘Draig tân’ they called it. She remembered the feeling of a mature body, lithe and fit. Had she imagined it? She had felt so alive and full of energy. Wielding the power of the starstone, whatever it may be, seemed real then. Here she was plump, unfit, thick. The boys were right to call her fat – what guy would think of asking her out even though she was sixteen in a couple of weeks’ time?
It wasn’t a good morning. She was pre-occupied with her internal debate all day. She drifted through lessons, ignoring the teachers who urged her to get down to work. They just shrugged when she failed to respond. After all they didn’t expect much from September Weekes. She didn’t have a lot to say to Poppy and Emma either. At lunchtime she opened her packed lunch and saw her usual crisps, biscuits, Nutella sandwich. It was what she always insisted on. Mother had given up trying to get her to bring a more ‘healthy’ meal. Now for the first time she saw the whole lot as fat, fat, fat. She tipped it into the waste bin. She was going to change. She wasn’t going to be a sixteen year-old fatty. She was going to turn over a new leaf and become the figure of her dreams.
The afternoon wasn’t much better. Her stomach rumbled an
d she couldn’t concentrate. She hurried home at the end of school not waiting to chat with her friends. In the kitchen the biscuit tin caught her eye. It would be so natural to open it, take out a handful of biscuits and chomp them down. No, she told herself, she was hungry but she mustn’t eat the fattening stuff. She found an apple and ate that instead. She drank a glass of water instead of her usual cola. Feeling less starved and quite virtuous she went to her room, and took off her uniform. Standing in front of her long mirror in her knickers and bra she took a good look at herself. It wasn’t something she normally did; she didn’t like what she saw. She tried to see the woman she felt herself to be holding the starstone above her head. It seemed like a dream but the pendant was there at the bottom of her drawer. She got it out, unclipped the casing and looked at the dull milky white stone. She stood in front of the mirror again holding the stone above her head. It was disappointing. Her image didn’t resemble her memory of herself as a strong, fit woman wielding the magic stone but, she remembered, she would be going back to the Land. They had told her so. That body would be hers again and there was no reason why she couldn’t have it here as well. She was resolved. She would diet, she would exercise and she would show that she wasn’t a dumb idiot. She was the Bearer of the Starstone, the Mine-golly-thingy and the people loved her.
She found a pair of jogging bottoms at the bottom of her wardrobe, hardly worn. She put them on with a T-shirt and a pair of trainers. Then she hit the road. In twenty metres she was puffing, after fifty she was reduced to a trot. Once round the block and she was sweating and panting. She got back to the front gate just as Gus got home.
“What on earth are you doing, sis?” he said.
“Exercising,” she said between breaths.
“Why? You never exercise.”
“I’ve decided. I’m fed up with people saying I’m fat.”
Seventh Child Page 4
