by Robin Jarvis
“Or one girl still hasn’t arrived yet.”
Marcus immediately became intensely interested. “Herr Spenzer!” he exclaimed, punching him on the arm. “If you’re right and if she’s a babe, I’ll buy you some spot cream!”
Lee Charles ate in silence. He watched everyone: the little groups who were tentatively getting along, the young kids slowly opening up to their neighbours, testing those strangers with small questions and giving timid answers. He saw the Indian boy, Rupesh, staring unhappily at the food before him. He didn’t touch any of the meat and pushed the watered-down ale away. Lee wondered what his home life was like now. All religions in the UK had been affected by Dancing Jax. Worshippers still attended the churches, mosques, temples and synagogues, but it was only through habit and the perceived need to continue acting out what they believed were their pretend lives here. How long would that continue, he wondered?
Lee’s own grandmother had been a devout Christian her whole life. Her immaculate front room, which he had been forbidden to enter unaccompanied until the age of ten, was filled with her treasures such as the old radiogram as big as a sideboard, glass swans, photographs of the family and a framed print of a painting called Christ at Heart’s Door. Every Palm Sunday she would bring home the small cross she had been given at the service and tuck it behind the print where it would remain for twelve months. This year she hadn’t and the once beloved picture had been replaced with one of the many views of Mooncaster that were now in the shops. The last time Lee visited his grandmother he had discovered the print hidden down the side of the china cabinet.
He looked over to where the Ismus was sitting with the Jacks and Jills. Nothing about Lee’s face betrayed the anger and hatred he felt towards the Holy Enchanter. Under the table his fist closed slowly and he imagined the weight of a gun in his hand. In his mind’s eye he saw himself holding it sideways, like in the movies and music vids, and busting caps into that scrawny poser. That would be so sweet. He turned his head before the grin became too large and watched the wenches passing in and out of the kitchen. From the glimpses afforded through the swinging door, he saw that no alterations had been made in there. It was electric lights, brushed steel surfaces and magnolia paintwork.
He placed a piece of pie on his trencher, smashed it flat with the heel of his hand then slapped it on to a slice of bread, folded it over and ate it. His mind ticked steadily.
Along the next table, Charm was making cooing noises as she drank in the castle model.
“I’m gonna hang pink curtains in one of them windows when it’s my turn,” she promised, with a big smile to the cameras she had gathered about her. “Whoever I turn out to be, I just know I’ll be painting everyfink pink. I loves it I do.”
She posed and performed for the lenses then carved a slice of pheasant for herself, declaring it to be “a ropy-looking chicken” but everything else was “carb city”.
“Bread, pies, beer and pasties!” she exclaimed, raising her hands in mock horror. “All the bad stuff! Go straight to my bum that would. Good job there’s no spuds or I’d make a pig of myself. I love spuds. There ain’t any in Mooncaster though, is there? Not invented yet or summink my ma says. God knows what I’ll do without my bit of mash and gravy on a Sunday when I’m there. Have you tried them purple spuds? They is gorge –and proper purple all the way through like beetroot, no word of a lie! I tried mashing them with ordinary to make pink, but they just went an ’orrible grey. It were revoltin’!”
Scrupulously removing the “killer fattening skin” from the meat, she put a morsel of pheasant into her mouth and chewed. The instant she tasted the gamey flavour her expression changed and her eyes popped wide. A moment later, she was spitting it out and retching. Seizing the ale, she downed 300 calories in one swig.
The feast continued until nine o’clock when there was one final reading for the night. Jody rested her forehead on the table. What was the point of going on with this charade? It wasn’t going to work on them now.
The other children watched in stony silence as the adults around them shivered with pleasure to be back in their other lives. Marcus folded his arms and stared fixedly at the castle model, refusing to take any notice of their slack-jawed faces. He was sick to the back teeth of it. Charm clasped her hands in front of her as though in prayer and tried to imagine roaming around those battlements or gazing up at one of the towers, willing herself there. Under one table the youngest feet nudged and scuffled one another. The playful kicks travelled back and forth in a kinetic pulse. Christina was at one end and Alasdair formed the cut-off point at the other, until he started joining in as well. The adults were too absorbed in the world of Mooncaster to notice and the mind of the Ismus was on other matters.
When the reading was over, the children were allowed to return to their cabins with promises of an even better day tomorrow.
“Lucky us,” Jody mumbled to herself. “Can hardly wait.”
Alasdair rounded up his group. Most of them were half asleep. It had been one long, exhausting day for everyone and their feet were dragging. He led them out and was pleased to see Tommy Williams smiling at last.
Marcus made his way over to Charm, who was put out to have lost the interest of the cameras.
“How did you like the scoff then, gorgeous?” he asked.
“It were mingin’,” she answered, striding past him.
“So,” he called after her. “What you up to now? It’s still early! We should hang out and chillax.”
“Do you ever hear yourself?” Lee asked with a shake of his head as he left.
Marcus made a gesture behind him.
When the refectory was empty of children, the Ismus thanked the minstrels and the news teams. They bowed and followed the Jacks and Jills outside. Kate Kryzewski lingered and approached.
“I trust you now have enough for your report?” he asked.
The woman looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, my Lord,” she said. “It is strange for me to be out here in the Great Hall, when I know I should be in the kitchen. What will Mistress Slab say? She will cuff my head with the big spoon, I know it!”
“Peace,” he told her. “Remember that in this dream you are Miss Kryzewski; you have a report to make and send to America. You are only Columbine when you awaken back in the castle. Here, you must be the best Miss Kryzewski you can be, so that you are stronger in your real life – or else how will you ward off the Jockey’s advances?”
“Yes,” she said, collecting herself and working with the traces of Kate that remained. “The report, what I need – what it needs – is to see some ‘afters’. These dumb kids are the ‘befores’. This piece won’t pack any punch unless we get to see them after the sacred text has opened their eyes. That’s the pay-off, that’s what’ll resonate and make Americans sit up and realise the awesome benefits of your great work. They’re suckers for happy endings. If they can see these kids get turned around from surly aberrants to overjoyed at discovering who they really are, that’d clinch it.”
The Ismus listened attentively. She was right and he needed to stall the US, to keep them from taking action for a little while longer.
“I agree,” he said. “I promise you shall have your ‘afters’. But not tomorrow. Spend that day up in London. Film in the hospitals, nursing homes, the day centres with the disabled. I can arrange for you to visit a prison to see how reformed the inmates have become. Return here on Sunday and you shall have a whole merry bunch of children anxious to tell the world of their newfound joy.”
She thanked him profusely and hurried out to join Sam in the car. Jangler came over to join his master.
“Can you really turn those children?” he asked. “I thought it was impossible. That was never the reason they were gathered here – or why the other centres around the world will be needed.”
“Oh, yes,” the Ismus said. “It’s possible. But it isn’t a simple matter. I shall have to call on aid, as I did back in 1936. The night I ‘disappeared’.”
“As I said, I do not baulk at risks. It will be uncomfortable certainly, but necessary. We are so close to achieving our goal. I cannot turn back now. Whatever Miss Kryzewski asks for, she gets. That is why I invited her. She is the key to America. Her report will unlock it for me.”
“How many children will you give?”
“That is impossible to answer. The power I call upon is… very difficult to control. It will be like using a battering ram to gain entry to their minds. I must be careful not to cause too much damage within. Their young heads exploding would not make good footage, especially in high definition.”
Jangler chuckled at the prospect then became serious.
“As long as you do not place yourself in danger, my Lord,” he said.
“If I had never placed myself in danger, I would never have heard the voice of the Dawn Prince Himself, uttering my name.”
“I cannot even dare hope I shall one day hear Him – or look upon His great Majesty.”
The Ismus smiled. “What we do here, Jangler,” he said, “will bring that glorious day ever closer.”
The old man puffed out his chest proudly. “And the Lady Labella?” he asked. “Might I enquire after her health?”
“She is blooming, Jangler, blooming!”
“Most highly favoured Lady! That is gratifying news, my Lord.”
The Ismus held up his hand. “But we run ahead of ourselves!” he told him. “Tonight our little aberrant rabbits must earn their carrots. That is the primary reason they are here.”
Outside in the compound, a chorus of car doors and engines started. The Jacks and Jills each had a black or red BMW waiting and were driven off to the nearest five-star country hotel. The vehicles outside the camp followed them up the forest road.
Jody sat on the step outside her chalet and watched the headlights sweep over the trees and disappear in the distance. The kids inside were waiting to brush their teeth before bed, but Charm was hogging the bathroom. Most of them, including Christina, were fast asleep long before she emerged. It had been a long, exhausting and stressful day.
In Alasdair’s cabin the boys had crowded round the sink together and were already under the crinkly linen of the brand-new duvets. The Scottish lad strummed his guitar in the semi-darkness for a time, lulling them to sleep with gentle tunes.
It was different and more rowdy in Lee and Marcus’s hut. The boys there were older and, though tired, no one was going to be the first to admit he wanted to go to sleep. Jim was lying on his bed, rereading one of his favourite issues of X-Men, admiring the artistry and imagination all over again.
Spencer was engrossed in his portable media player, watching a Western. He was heavily into cowboy movies; they were as removed from the world of Mooncaster and his own unhappy, timid life as he could imagine.
Living in Southport, he had taken to roaming the seemingly endless tracts of beach and sand dunes there, pretending he was thousands of miles away, in the Nevada Desert. With classic cowboy soundtracks playing in his earphones, he would mosey on down the trail, tracking coyotes or outlaws, and practise sharpshooting with his two-finger Colt 45. Jackrabbits fled at the jingle of his spurs and the towering cacti of his mindscape were riddled with his quick-draw lead. Immersing himself in the fantasy of a lone, silent lawman, as the world around him went haywire, was the only way he had kept sane. He had even bought a Stetson off eBay and, when he was sure no one was around, would wear it on those solitary walks. Everyone had their own way of coping. That was his. He had brought his hat along this weekend as a reassuring talisman. He wasn’t going to unpack it. As long as it was with him, in the bag, that was enough.
The three other boys, Mason, Drew and Nicholas, wanted to play on the cabin’s games console, but Marcus had possession of the TV remote and was flicking through the Freeview channels.
“Nothing but crap on nowadays,” he grumbled, hopping from station to station. “DJ gets everywhere. They’ve tarted up the Rover’s Return to be an old inn and the street is pretending to be that village – they’ve thatched all the houses! Ken Barlow looks a right knob in tights. You can’t even get Friends any more – you think Joey looks like me? Girls have said… Hey, we made the news! This place is on the TV. That’s today, when we first got here – and there’s that Charm bird all over the Ismus bloke. Talk about sucking up! Look at her! I’m still going to get in her pants though. More blah de blah from him, what else is on? How about this – Celebrity Minchetchef? There’s no way anyone can make that vomit taste good, no matter how many chunky chips you stack next to it like Jenga. My Big Fat Jaxy Wedding, nope. Home shopping – get your cloaks, leather tunics and pointy shoes here, Have I Got Jax For You?… Oh, look, here’s the black and white Nazi channel. At least that never changes. All they ever show on there is ancient stuff about Hitler. Who watches that?”
“You should, Ladies’ Man,” Lee said as he walked by. “You really got no idea what’s going down here.”
“What is it with you?” Marcus demanded, infuriated by the lad’s attitude. “You’ve been on my case since we got here. Just what is your problem?”
“We all got the same problem,” Lee told him. “But some of us is too blind or too dumb to see it yet. You think we’re here to get our caps twisted? No way.” He put a cigarette in his mouth and pushed against the door. “I’ll take this one outside,” he said as he left. “Wouldn’t want you to choke in the night, Lily-lungs.”
“Jerk,” Marcus muttered when he was gone.
He glanced up at the mezzanine and took the opportunity to dash up and open the small window to let in some fresh air. Then he picked up his carefully folded clothes, sniffed them for smoke and checked for burns. Downstairs three boys leaped on the games console and were soon hunting flesh-eating zombies and blasting heads and legs off with sub-machine guns. They were glad that games based on Dancing Jax were still only at the development stage. This was what they wanted.
With the unlit cigarette still hanging on his lip, Lee strolled in front of the cabins.
“Hi,” Jody greeted him, looking up from the step. “How’s it going with…?” But he ignored her and continued walking.
The girl shrugged with indifference and put her chin on her knees. She had grown to accept being as noticeable as wallpaper and it only proved her earlier decision with Christina had been the right one.
“No point trying to make friends here,” she told herself. “Other people only ever let you down.”
Lee sauntered round the corner out of sight. The main block was before him. When he was certain no one was about, he ran across to it, veering sideways when he heard voices approaching, and crouched in the shadows.
The Ismus came striding out, followed by his bodyguards and Jangler. The men crossed to where the SUV was parked and Jangler waved them off with a flourish of his hand.
“Till the morrow, my Lord!” he called, bowing as low as his portly figure allowed.
The SUV drove through the gates and rumbled up the forest road. Jangler returned to the main block, took a hoop of keys from his belt and locked the doors.
Concealed in the darkness, Lee waited till the old man had finished, then watched him head towards the cabins.
Jody was still huddled on the step when Jangler came ambling by. He touched the brim of his floppy hat in salutation and wished her a good night.
“Are you staying here?” she asked in surprise.
He paused and a strange, unpleasant smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
“Where else should the Lockpick be but on guard?” he replied. “You young people need someone to watch over you.”
“You make us sound like prisoners.”
“Prisoners?” he repeated, making a staccato noise like a cross between a cough and a laugh. “Here, in these luxury holiday chalets, with all this beautiful scenery and invigorating fresh air around you? Tut tut, what an overactive imagination.”
�
�Shame I can’t apply it to Dancing Jax though, huh?”
“Oho,” he said. The old man inclined his head and touched his hat once more. “Sweet dreams,” he added.
Jody jerked her head aside. “Fat chance,” she huffed. “Been nothing but bad ones since this started.”
Jangler’s eyebrows lifted and the moustache jiggled on his lip. “How… distressing,” he murmured. “We must see what we can do about that, mustn’t we?”
Then he clicked his heels together, an action he immediately regretted because his feet were still suffering in those shoes, and continued on his way.
Something about the way he spoke those last words made Jody’s skin creep. Her eyes followed him till he reached the cabin at the other end. She wondered who, if anyone, was going to occupy the empty one next to it.
Jangler hesitated before entering. He turned his gaze towards the night-shrouded forest that surrounded the camp and chuckled to himself, knowing what was lurking out there. He gave another chuckle when he anticipated what would happen later, when everyone was asleep, and let himself in.
Lee circled the main block, testing each window he came across. Finally he found one that had been left open. He climbed inside and took a slim torch from the pocket of his trackie bottoms. He was in the lecture room, where the press conference had been held earlier that day, and where Sam, the cameraman, had later been lured by the Ismus, so the Black Face Dames could hold him down and force minchet into his mouth.
Lee shone the torchlight around; there was nothing in here, nothing he could use. As silently as possible, he made his way into the next room. It was the dining hall. The tables had been cleared, but the model of the castle still dominated the centre.
The boy curled his lip at it then made his way to the kitchen.
In there the torchlight bounced over the brushed steel surfaces and sparkled in the utensils hanging on the wall. Lee wasted no time. He pulled open every cupboard, searched in every drawer. Then he rushed to another door and yanked it open. Behind was a well-stocked storeroom, crammed from floor to ceiling with catering-sized tins and packets of dry goods. None of it was Mooncaster fare.
