by Michael Kerr
“There,” Mephisto said, pointing up ahead to where a stone built cottage with a thatched roof was standing in a glade, next to a gurgling brook. White smoke curled up lazily from the cottage’s chimney to mix with the mist.
Perhaps the cottage was really a mist-making machine, Sam thought. She was sure that nothing would ever surprise her again. Anything could exist in this world.
The oak door of the cottage opened as Mephisto approached it.
“Please, come in,” the wizard said, standing to one side and beckoning them to enter.
They hesitated, not sure whether or not it might be some kind of trap. It was hard to know who or what to trust anymore.
Tommy went first. He walked to the middle of the flagstone floor, stopped, and felt his mouth drop open. He stared in wonderment as a small figure he recognised slid down from a wooden chair and walked towards him.
― CHAPTER EIGHT ―
MEPHISTO AND THE MAGIC COTTAGE
It had to be a trick. The wizard was making Tommy see things that weren’t there. How could his Teddy bear be here? Pookie was back at home in his bedroom, sitting on the top shelf of the wardrobe, gathering dust. He had not even seen it for at least two years, after getting too old to take it to bed, or to talk to it. The tattered Teddy bear – that he had owned for as long as he could remember – now had bald patches where the brown nylon fur had worn away. It was also missing its right arm, and had little left of one ear, which Tommy’s mother said he’d chewed off when he was teething. But he now realised that the little bear was still his most treasured possession. He had christened it Pookie, and imagined it to be alive, and told it all his secrets. It was an old, cheap bear that had belonged to his father when he had been a child. It was full of sawdust, and was misshapen. Tommy was sure that it would frighten most toddlers in its present state, with its sunken cheeks and lopsided appearance.
“Hiya, Tommy,” Pookie said to him in a voice that sounded exactly like Bugs Bunny. “Gimme a hug, pal.”
Tommy reached down and picked Pookie up. The little bear’s sewed on mouth turned up in a smile, and it pressed its felt nose up against Tommy’s and wiggled it in an Eskimo kiss.
“You can’t really be my Pook,” Tommy said. “This is just a trick.”
Pookie shook his head and fixed Tommy with his button eyes. “It’s no trick, Tommy, it’s magic,” he said. “You were thinking about me and wishing I was here. So here I am.”
Tommy turned to where the others were standing behind him. “Can you see him?” he asked them.
They all nodded.
“He’s an ugly little brute,” Speedy said.
Pookie turned to fix Speedy with an angry expression. “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” he said. “Especially as you’re no work of art yourself, with those silly pointy ears and pea-green skin. What are you, some kind of pixie?”
“I’m a fairy,” Speedy said.
“And I’m a very old, very wise Teddy bear, and I’m pleased to meet you...I don’t think.”
“Let’s sit down and have something to eat and drink,” Mephisto said. “Anything you like, I have.”
They sat on high-backed wooden chairs, and found that large silver plates and knives and forks were set on top of the table in front of them. It was as if they had been expected.
“What would you like to eat, Sam?” the wizard asked her.
“Steak, chips, eggs, and onion rings, please” she said.
The meal popped into existence on her plate.
Mephisto asked them all in turn what they would like to eat, and conjured it up with a twitch of his thick, white handlebar moustache.
“What about me?” Pookie said. “I’m famished.”
“And what would a Teddy bear eat?” Mephisto chuckled. “If he had more than a stitched on mouth and was not just a cotton-skinned stuffed toy.”
“If I was flesh and blood like all of you, then I would want a big stack of pancakes smothered in maple syrup, and a chocolate milkshake.”
Mephisto placed a hand on Pookie’s head and said:
“Little bear who wants to live, and breathe, and eat and feel.
From this day forth, until you die, this spell will make you real.
You’ll feel the warmth; you’ll feel the cold, and all the pain and joy;
the happiness and sadness, which you couldn’t as a toy.”
Pookie yelped, fell back on his rump, and his head was circled by a bright halo of twinkling stars. When they faded, Pookie was alive. He was no longer missing an arm or an ear, and his fur was thick and the colour of orange marmalade. He was a fine looking bear, and could have been easily mistaken for Winnie-the-Pooh.
“Ooh, that does feel good,” Pookie said as he climbed down onto the floor from Tommy’s lap and tipple-tailed around and made himself dizzy, then got to his feet and jumped up and down and waved his arms in the air. After a minute or two, he clambered up on to a chair, picked up a plate and looked at his reflection on the shiny silver surface.
“Why, what a handsome bear I am,” he said. “Thank you, Mephisto, for making my dream come true.”
“You may not thank me in a few years,” Mephisto said. “when you grow old and can’t jump up and down or tipple-tail. Or when you get toothache, or any of a million other things that a stuffed toy does not have to worry about. Being alive may not be so much fun, then.”
“Whatever happens in the future will not make me wish that I hadn’t been really alive,” Pookie said. “Take my word for it. It’s no fun being a stuffed toy with sawdust for brains, and being pulled to pieces and chewed and thrown about. Or stuck on a shelf in the dark and ignored.”
“Sorry, Pook,” Tommy said. “I didn’t know you knew what was happening.”
“He doesn’t really remember any of it,” Mephisto said. “I’ve given him a memory of what he would have known had he been capable of thinking.”
Pookie smiled at his reflection again, then put the plate back down and watched as a tall stack of pancakes appeared on it. Next to the plate was a big jug full of warm maple syrup. He poured oodles of it over the pancakes, and ignoring the cutlery provided, stuck his face into the sticky mess and ate noisily, as bears do.
As they ate, Mephisto told them that evil would never be stronger than good, as long as the chalice remained intact. “The virtue trapped inside it is pure and everlasting, and must be kept within the gold that has been forged around it, or the future is in danger of not happening,” he said.
“Can you use your magic to get us to the Keeper at Iceworld?” Ben asked.
“I’m afraid not. All I can do is grant safe passage through this valley,” Mephisto said. “And warn you of some of the dangers that lie between you and the Lake of Life.”
They talked for a long time, and Pookie became bored and went over to the fire, curled up in front of it, and was soon snoring and dreaming for the first time. He was full of pancakes, and dreamed of eating more of them.
“I think it’s time you all got some sleep,” Mephisto said eventually. “Come the morning, you must continue on your way. I will give you three objects that have the power to overcome trials I know you will come up against. But each can only be used once, and you must decide which to use to protect you, or to help you to solve a problem.”
Mumbling some spell they could not hear, Mephisto nodded to the chairs they were sitting on, and they were at once changed into beds with thick mattresses and plump pillows. And in the second that they watched the transformation take place, the wizard disappeared.
“He didn’t even say goodnight,” Ben said. “Where do you think he went?”
“I don’t think he went anywhere,” Fig said. “He appeared to us as he wanted us to see him. He has just changed shape, and is able to make things appear to be what they aren’t.”
“What about Pook?” Tommy said. “Is he just in our imagination?”
“I don’t know,” Fig said. “How can we possibly know what is or isn’t real?�
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All of them – except for Gorf – were overcome with tiredness, and lay back on the beds and fell asleep.
“Tommy! Tommy! Wake up,” Pookie said, poking his warm, wet tongue in Tommy’s ear as dawn light brightened the room.
“Don’t do that,” Tommy said, pulling away and sitting up.
“Give me a break. You used to chew on my ears. You even ripped one of my arms off, and pulled my eyes out more times than I care to remember.”
“You weren’t alive back then,” Tommy said. “You didn’t feel it. And anyway, I was only a kid.”
“Remember the monster in the wardrobe? And how we hid under―”
“There was no monster, Pook. I imagined it. And you don’t remember anything.”
“Do to.”
“Do not.”
“Do.”
“Don’t.”
“I remember you being so scared that you wet the bed.”
Tommy looked at the others. They were still asleep, apart from Gorf. The door of the cottage was open, and the troll was outside, a little way off, knelt down and drinking from the stream.
“Shut up, Pook,” Tommy said. “Don’t you dare say anything like that again. What would my friends think?”
“I thought I was your friend. Your very best friend.”
“You were. But I’ve grown up. Teddy bears are for kids.”
“So are fairies and trolls, but you seem to be very friendly with them.”
“We can be pals again, Pook, now that you’re, er, alive. Just don’t mention things that happened when I was little. It’s embarrassing.”
“Okay, pal. Now give me a big hug, like you used to.”
Tommy gave him a quick hug, and Pookie wrapped his arms around Tommy’s neck and kissed him on the cheek.
“Enough,” Tommy said. “No need to overdo it.”
As each of them got up, the beds turned back into chairs. A black cat wandered in through the door, and with a puff of green smoke it became Mephisto.
“Neat trick,” Speedy said. “We can do that, or at least we could, before we got too far away from home and lost our powers. But why the green smoke?”
“Just for effect,” Mephisto said. “A few sparks, a little smoke, or a loud bang always impresses people more.”
“And what do you really look like?” Fig asked.
“You don’t want to know, old fairy,” Mephisto said as he walked outside into the fresh air with Fig and the others following behind. “Best you see me as a kindly Merlin type of magician. I’m not too easy on the eye in my real form.”
“So humour us,” Ben said. “We’ve seen all sorts of strange sights over the last few weeks. I don’t think you could be any more frightening.”
Mephisto was in really a very ancient creature, humpbacked and very thin, with crinkly grey skin, only one yellow tooth in his head, and almost blind. It was not how he liked any other being to see him.
He changed, to become a towering, powerful beast: a man from the waist up, and a white horse below. A long spiralling horn grew from the middle of his forehead, and his thick hair became a writhing mass of snakes. He pawed the ground with one of his front hooves, and the serpents growing from his head hissed and flicked out their satin-black forked tongues.
“Very funny,” Tommy said, impressed by the sight, but not taken in by the deceit. “You’ve got your Greek mythology all mixed up. You look like a centaur, half man and half horse, with a unicorn’s horn, and snakes for hair, like a gorgon’s.”
“And what would you know of Greek mythology, Tommy Scott?” Mephisto said.
“I read a lot,” Tommy replied. “And you don’t fool me with your special effects.
“I am a gargonataur,” the wizard said.
Tommy grinned. “Rubbish. You just made that up.”
Mephisto stared at Tommy, and two beams of blue light shot out from his eyes. Even as Tommy put his hands up to shield his face, he was turned to stone.
“Isn’t that what gorgons did, turned people who looked at them into stone?” Mephisto said to the others.
“Turn him back to how he was,” Sam said.
Mephisto reared up on his back legs, dropped down again, and then shook his head. “You didn’t say please. Did you leave your good manners at home?”
Sam felt her face redden. “Did you?” she asked. “Do you treat all your guests like this?”
“I tend not to have guests, Sam. I like my privacy. But you’re right. I let young Tommy annoy me. He seems a bit of a know-it-all. Hasn’t he learned yet that there are many things he will never read about in books?”
“I know he can sometimes get up people’s noses,” Ben said. “But he doesn’t mean any harm by it. Please change him back.”
Mephisto wondered how the boy managed to get up noses, but bent forward, touched the human statue with the tip of his horn, and Tommy became himself again.
“What happened?” he said.
“You got petrified, turned into rock,” Ben said. “So try not to upset him again. If Mephisto says he’s a gargonataur, then he’s a gargonataur. Right?”
“Yeah, and I’m the tooth fairy,” Tommy muttered.
“Knock it off, Tommy,” Sam said. “Don’t ask for trouble.”
While everyone’s attention was on Tommy, Mephisto adopted his true shape.
Gorf noticed the little wizened wizard first. “Look,” he said, and the others turned to where Mephisto was standing.
“Not a pretty sight, eh?” Mephisto said.
Sam realised why their host had appeared to them as something other than himself. He was obviously very, very old, and looked all skin and bone. His spine was twisted, which forced him to bend forward and sideways at the waist. He wore a close-fitting grey leotard that matched the colour of his skin, and his eyes were a milky white.
“Everyone gets old,” Sam said. “It’s what’s on the inside that counts. Not how you look on the outside.”
“Wise words for one so young,” Mephisto said in a quavery voice. “You might change your mind if you live long enough to be so infirm and weak.”
“How old are you?” Ben asked.
“In your years, over two thousand. Long enough to know many things.”
“Is there a God, Mephisto?” Ben asked.
“I believe so. How could there not be?”
“You mean you don’t know for sure?” Tommy said.
“That’s right. I have my own beliefs, as do you. We all have a personal view, and can’t all be right, but could all be wrong. It’s all about faith, Tommy. Come the day of your personal reckoning, then you will know for sure if there is one maker of all that exists. I see in your mind that you imagine God as an old man with a flowing white beard, who lives in some heaven of clouds, and is surrounded by winged angels and chubby cherubs playing harps. How do you think Gorf, or Fig and Speedy and all the other beings in Allworlds see the Almighty? Each has their own image of Him.”
“That’s confusing,” Tommy said.
Mephisto laughed, and his one remaining tooth fell out. He immediately turned back into the tall robed figure that they were used to seeing him as. “That’s better,” he said. “I feel much more comfortable in this guise. And as for being confused, Tommy, you will never know the truth of more than just a fraction of what exists, so don’t strain your small brain by trying. Many mysteries have no answers.”
With a lot to think about, they all went back inside the cottage, wished for what they wanted for breakfast, and tucked in when it appeared in front of them. Pook had another stack of pancakes and syrup. Tommy, Sam and Ben had bacon and eggs with toast and orange juice. Fig and Speedy shared a large omelette made from duck eggs and wild mushrooms, and Gorf ate a sandskipper, which was a two-foot-long lizard that looked like a gecko. He chose to eat it raw, and the others turned their chairs away from him as he ripped its legs off and started crunching them with his iron-strong teeth. They did not see him bite its head off, and then its tail, before chewing the p
lump, scale-covered body. The sound of him devouring it was enough.
Full, and with the three objects that Mephisto had given them, they set off along the valley. The wizard marched along in front, leading them away from the cottage. Tommy – who was at the rear – looked back over his shoulder, just in time to see the magic cottage turn into mist and dissolve. He said nothing. But he knew that everything in the valley was just a figment of Mephisto’s imagination.
Pook was trotting along at his side, holding his hand, and Tommy felt suddenly very distressed. What would happen to his Teddy bear when they left the Valley of Mist? Would he just disappear like the cottage? After all, the wizard had conjured him up from Tommy’s mind. He knew that Pook was not really there with them. It was all an illusion.
They reached the southernmost end of the valley, where another thick white wall of mist rose up in front of them.
“This is as far as I will go with you,” Mephisto said. “Keep heading south, and be ready to face many dangers. Should you complete your task, then you are welcome to come back this way and pass through the valley again.”
Tommy withdrew his hand from Pook’s paw, went up to the wizard and cupped his hand to the old sorcerer’s ear. “What about Pook?” he whispered. “Will he cease to exist when we pass through the mist?”
“He is as real as you all want him to be,” Mephisto said. “If you believe in him enough, then he will stay as he is. But if you doubt him, then he will disappear.”
Tommy reached up to his neck and gripped the necklace of polished ruby red stones that King Ambrose had given him. Ben and Sam did the same. They all felt the determination, courage and belief that the king had said they would. Each believed that Pook was real.
Tommy gripped the little bear by the paw again and led him into the mist, through it, and out the other side. He was still there. The others joined them, and were happy that their new companion had survived.
