Aliens In My Garden
Jude Gwynaire
Published by Prodigy Gold Books, 2018.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
ALIENS IN MY GARDEN
First edition. October 9, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 Jude Gwynaire.
ISBN: 978-1939665737
Written by Jude Gwynaire.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
THE END
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1
Do you have a garden?
Has it shown you the Thing yet?
Not all gardens do the Thing, of course, and even with those that do, not everyone can see them do it.
My garden does.
Look—this is my garden. Overgrown grass, flowers, the vegetable patch—the shed, the broken swing, the trees down the far end with dark leaves for shade. Nothing special. Nothing to worry about, right? An ordinary garden...
There are people who say the whole world grew out of a garden. There are other people who say the whole world is still a garden—a big round garden in the black and starlit backyard of space, big enough to be seen by the creatures who live out there, unaware of us all scurrying about down here, being important. Of course, if that’s the case, then everything’s relative. Maybe we only see the garden that’s the right size for us. Maybe, beneath or within the garden we can see, there’s somewhere else, with people and creatures living their important lives, as unaware of us as we are of them.
And maybe, if the sun’s in the right direction, and you step lightly on the grass and think really tiny thoughts...
VZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZHHHHHHHHHT.
That’s the Thing my garden does. It shows you the Garden underneath.
_________
Harper flapped, his wings practically fluttering, his heart hammering beneath his straggly, scruffy-feathered chest. He didn’t know it yet—but soon, he would have new visitors in his garden. Strange visitors—stranger than any he had ever seen. Of course, it wasn’t just his garden—the Garden belonged to many others...including a witch, a green man, and a wizard. So, maybe, the Garden was already a little strange.
Must tell Alditha, must tell Alditha, he thought, fluttering frantically. Really speaking, owls were meant to swoop majestically, only doing something as undignified as flapping when there was no graceful alternative. But Harper had never been good at being an owl. He’d nearly been thrown out of flight school as a chick, and it had taken him five tries to pass his hunting module. And as for talon care, many was the time old Master Woozlem had looked down the length of his stern, hard beak, then turned his head away in despair.
Harper gulped. Where am I? Oh no, I must be lost again...
Navigation was another owl thing at which...well, he wasn’t exactly bad, but he needed to really concentrate to get it right. It was all the flight dynamics and four-dimensional mapping on a moving landscape. He shuddered. It was like doing hard sums in your head while somebody threw a planet at you and expected you to move out of the way.
He’d come from Mill Bottom, around the fringe of Nettle Wood, then flown north, through Rosemary Chase, where the warm summer smells had calmed him for whole minutes in the lands of the East Garden—just shy of the Downs, past the hedgerows, cornfields and jade-green meadows of Hogweed Town.
Sometimes, when he wasn’t concentrating really hard on where he was going, Harper felt the Garden shudder and shimmer far beneath him, and then he’d gaze down and it would look unreal—a mad, enormous spooling-out of intricate, unravelling landscapes. A vision of unknown fields, rivers, hills and woodland that he had no hope of recognizing, as though the Garden was suddenly much bigger and stranger than it could possibly be—as if he were somewhere else entirely. And then, almost as soon as he looked at it, trying to work out which direction to fly, his eyes would adjust, and the world would shimmer and shudder again, and he’d be back in the Garden he knew, wondering where he’d been and where he was and what the meaning of it all could be.
He never told anyone all this of course, not even Alditha. He had quite enough to worry about without people thinking he imagined great swathes of Garden that couldn’t possibly be there. Nevertheless, in his mind, it was his Garden—Harper’s Garden—and he worried about it constantly. Harper was an unusual owl, for sure.
He looked down and around, trying to see where he was. Bright flowers clustered and seemed to giggle like schoolgirls with a secret. Harper blinked with sudden recognition—he was approximately six big fields and a meadow due west of the South Garden. Taking into consideration the 20-degree curve on the 1.7% upward grade that he’d encountered by the orchard at Coxton, and the unexpected headwind over Foxy End, he was still quite pleased with his efforts. However, somewhere along the line, he had missed the periphery of Blue Dragon Forest, for the distant towers of Skoros Castle were already visible on the horizon.
The thought of the castle made his heart beat faster again, made him flap harder and more determined.
Just you wait, wizard, he thought. Just you wait till I tell Alditha what you’re up to.
Even as he had the thought, he saw Alditha’s cottage come into view. As the Garden’s leading white witch, she made sure the cottage was always neat and tidy, whitewashed, thatched and welcoming, so it stood out of the undergrowth, a solitary dwelling. People knew witches liked their peace and quiet, and while Alditha’s reputation was white, you didn’t want to take the risk of getting on her dark side.
He slowed his flapping, concentrated as the cottage loomed larger, closer.
Glide, he told himself. Glide like an owl...
He shot in through the open kitchen window, put his feet down too soon, and tumbled head over wings, somersaulting in the air, and colliding with, in order, a heavy copper pan, a bottle of something sweet smelling and sticky and green, a large ball of thistle-fluff and a miniature haystack.
Landing was another owl thing he’d never quite got the hang of.
Still, he admitted to himself, could’ve been worse. He lay there upside-down, dripping in green goo, covered in thistle-fluff and hay. Could’ve been much worse.
‘Morning, Harper,’ said Alditha from the far corner of the kitchen. ‘Having fun?’
He ruffled his feathers and swung his wings around, trying to get the working surface under his talons. When he stood up, the goo stuck to him, and the thistle-fluff and hay stuck to the goo. He looked like a badly built matchstick model of himself.
‘You’ll never guess what that wizard’s up to now,’ he cried, remembering what he’d seen down at Mill Bottom, outside the Green Man’s house.
Alditha looked up from what she was doing. Harper wasn’t entirely sure what that was exactly, but it seemed to involve a silver ball, about as big as he was.
‘Skoros? What’s he done to upset you this time?’ she asked, turning to look at him as he waddled along the working surface. Normally he’d have flown over to speak to her, but covered in goo from ears to talons, he thought he might just drop like a stone if he tried.
‘He’s only go
ne and built a flying teacup, that’s all. And now he’s flying it about the place, scaring people silly. Gave the Green Man a real start, I don’t mind telling you,’ he announced.
Alditha raised one eyebrow at him. She had good, proper witchy eyebrows that seemed to work independently of the rest of her face. People said the eyes were the windows to the soul, but when Alditha raised one eyebrow at you, it was pretty much a window to her certainty that you were a blithering idiot.
‘A flying...teacup?’ she asked. ‘Harper dear, are you feeling quite all right?’
__________
Skoros was a wizard.
His great great grandfather, Radzack The First And Only, had been a wizard.
His great-grandfather, Salu-Valek The Merciless, had been a wizard.
His grandfather, Malcontent The Peacemaker, had been a wizard.
His father, Subracken, The Broody, had been a wizard.
Wizards, every one of them. As he padded down the plush red carpet of the corridor of ancestors in what he’d been quick to rename Skoros Castle as soon as his father had accidentally blown himself to bits, their portraits all glared down at him in expectation. All except Malcontent, who smiled incongruously from his portrait as if he knew some great and wonderfully calming secret.
They all had wizards’ robes, just as Skoros had. They all had wizards’ hats, just as Skoros had—in fact, the hat had been passed down through the generations and was a little too big for him, so he had to keep pushing it up over his eyes. The soft, scarlet silk curly-toed wizarding slippers were an indulgence none of them had gone in for until Skoros himself. But from their glaring faces, and even Malcontent’s beaming face, one thing became depressingly obvious. They all had wizards’ beards, just like-
Skoros didn’t have.
He knew with every fibre of his being that he was destined to be a wizard, and not just any wizard either but one of those great, world-conquering wizards he’d read about in the family history books. But there was one fact he couldn’t deny. Wizards had beards, and he didn’t have one. He couldn’t seem to grow one, no matter what he tried—and he’d tried a lot. He’d tried potions, and lotions, and gels, and sprays, and even on a couple of occasions, actual magic hair-growing spells.
He shuddered. The last time he’d tried that, it had gone badly wrong. The hair in his nose had twitched and started sprouting, and then, having got the idea, it had begun to grow, and grow, and grow, till it reached his feet in two long, spiky plaits. He had toyed with the idea of combing it round his mouth and trying to pass it off as a beard—but then he’d sneezed an enchanted sneeze, and the snot had flown all the way to the ends of his nose hair. Skoros The Bogey Face was not how he wanted to be known.
That was another thing, he grumbled to himself as he passed beneath the portraits of his illustrious wizarding ancestors, towards his secret room. They all had cool names—again, apart from Malcontent, who’d been a bit of a white sheep in the family.
Skoros didn’t have a cool name.
Skoros The Even Mercilesser, he thought. That’d be a cool name. Or Skoros the Garden-King, that’d work too. And I’d make everyone call me it. Not-
He stopped at what looked like a wall, covered in circles, cogs and piston designs. He closed his eyes, remembering and not wanting to.
Not what She called me.
Against his will, Skoros closed his eyes and reminisced. Suddenly he was twelve years old again, in the Old Garden Magic School playground, staring at his boring, ordinary shiny school shoes.
‘Well?’ said the girl, impatient, making him snap his head up to look at her.
‘Well...’ He’d completely forgotten what it was he’d wanted, needed to say to her so badly that he’d waited till she was alone and tapped her on the shoulder. He remembered planning to ask her something, remembered asking the mirror a hundred times in the weeks leading up to this moment—but what? What was it he’d asked? His mind was blank. He felt the blood rushing to his cheeks, and his eyes began to search her face for some clue as if he’d find his answer there.
She humphed, began to turn away. The question hit Skoros in the forehead like a blacksmith’s hammer.
‘D’youwannagooutwithmeorwhat?’ he yelled—too fast, too loud, and not at all like he’d practiced in front of the mirror.
She turned back to him, raised one slow, perfect eyebrow.
‘I mean,’ he gasped, ‘would you...erm...do me the honour of accompanying me? Y’know...to the Midsummer Hallowe’en Dance. I mean...if you’ve got nothing else on. I mean, obviously, someone’s already asked you, and...obviously, you’re going with them. I mean, obviously.’ He nodded, as the obviousness of it began to sink in for the first time.
She rolled her eyes. He saw Shadrach Michelthorpe sidling up to see what was going on.
‘Oh Skoros,’ said Alditha, ‘don’t be such a wet blanket.’ And with that, she turned on the heel of her black leather boot and walked away.
Shadrach Michelthorpe began to laugh, a big belly laugh from the boy with the big belly. ‘Hey, lads. Skoros is a wet blanket. Did ya hear? Alditha called him a wet, wet, wetty wet blanket. Prob’ly wets his own, eh lads? Eh?’
It took the crowd of boys a moment to get into the spirit of the joke, but Michelthorpe, who’d been the victim of the bully boys himself too many times, was not about to let the joke go, and slowly the fun of it spread, till most of the boys, and some of the girls too, were chanting it round the yard. ‘Wet blanket, wet blanket, Skoros wets his blanket.’
Alditha turned around as the noise rose, and for a moment, she met his eye, a look of sorrow and apology on her face. And he snarled, turned, and stalked off to the school library to escape the jeering of the crowd.
Skoros opened his eyes. Skoros the Wet Blanket had been his name for the rest of his time in Magic School. Well, he thought, chewing his bottom lip, we’ll soon see who the wet blanket is. He reached into the sleeve of his wizard’s robe and pulled his wand from its holster. There were plenty of wands in the castle—the wands of his noble ancestors, all now held in cases, finally at rest. Each wizard made their wand—it was part of the ritual of apprenticeship. When it had been his turn, his father had directed him to some of the most magically powerful trees in the Garden and told him to feel which one called to him.
Skoros had felt nothing. It was as if even the trees had heard about him and weren’t going to help him pretend to be a wizard when he had no right to be one. From that moment on, Skoros looked at trees and saw only firewood.
He had stayed in the family library for days, only emerging when his eyes were red with reading. Then he went walking in the castle grounds, until a beautiful song made its way to his ears. The sound of hammer on metal, the hiss and spit of hot steel plunged into water. The song of it sang to him, and he stumbled there, pulled by some powerful instinct.
In his mind, Skoros retraced a snippet of conversation from that day...
‘Afternoon, Master Skoros,’ said Grunde, the blacksmith.
‘Get out,’ said Skoros, without intending to be rude. ‘Just get out, now. Please.’
‘But your father’s wanting this ’ere fireguard by mornin’, Master Skoros-’
‘GET OUT,’ yelled Skoros, pinning the big man to the wall of his own forge unexpectedly. It had been the first time he’d ever raised his voice to anyone, and the power of it coursed through his veins. He met the smith’s eye with something cold and imperious in his gaze, and eventually, the smith gave the smallest of nods. Skoros let him go, and the man skulked out of the forge. Skoros barred the door after him, then turned back to the hammer, the anvil and the range of metals around the room.
‘Now then...’ he said, and set to work.
He didn’t stop for three days straight, ignoring hunger, ignoring thirst, ignoring the frequent hammering on the door and the yelling—first of the smith, and then of his father—to open up and stop this foolishness. But at the end of three days, Skoros held up his wand. It was steel inside,
with tiny valves and pistons operating pin-wheels and thick, chunky stoppers. The casing was pure bronze, with curlicue designs in copper and silver. It had circular recesses along the length of the shaft and ended not in the traditional point, but in a corkscrew that made the tip of the wand hard to see.
Now Skoros knew he had found his magic.
He’d remade the wand several times since then as his skills had improved, boosting the power, adding some clicker-switches and a row of tiny rubies which lit up inside when the wand was activated. The corkscrew rotated now too, which delivered a more stable magical field, and boosted the wizard’s ego tremendously.
Back in the present, Skoros waved the wand at the decorated wall suddenly, and the cogs began magically to turn, the wheels to spin at different speeds, the pistons that had looked like decoration began to pump. One let off a small jet of steam, and the wall split into two halves. Skoros pulled open what were now a pair of doors to reveal his secret room. It was bronze from head to toe, the walls covered in thick strips of metal welded together with heavy rivets. Along the far wall was a mechanical marvel—another mass of pipes and pistons, dials and gauges, that seemed to have eaten a large dark mahogany desk and made it part of itself, as though it was slowly devouring everything in the room. A large wood and leather chair sat ready at the desk, its arms, too, riveted in bronze. On the right-hand side, welded into the enormous bronze contraption was what looked like a mirror, except the glass was pure black, reflecting nothing. Sticking out from the side of the mirror was a crank handle, while perched on top of the would-be looking-glass sat a sleek, black-feathered bird—much like a raven—with what appeared to be bronze feet and claws, and a silver beak.
‘Rawk,’ said the bird as Skoros came into the room. ‘About time, too. Thought you were never gonna get here, Wet-blanket. Rawk.’
Skoros smiled his first real smile of the day. ‘Razor,’ he whispered, barely waving the wand at the bird. ‘Sssh.’
‘Raw-aaaaarrrrk.’ squawked the raven, its eyes bulging as it felt an invisible grip on its throat.
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