Jimmy’s power waned in the same way it had waxed moments earlier, and slowly the playground once more became a playground, with youngsters darting around, completely oblivious to the drama that had just unfolded within their midst.
Although the two boys remained huddled together near the entrance to school, which is what they usually did anyway, Jimmy was nowhere to be seen.
Reuben sat upright in the great chair of his study, gloom gathering about him. Although still bright and piercing, his eyes were distant, as if gazing at a scene which was almost at the edge of vision. The gloom slowly deepened as storm clouds gathered above him, and a profound chill began to creep outwards from the great globe on his desk. It took only a few minutes for the gloom to envelop everything except for what had become the faintly glowing outline of one of the tapestries of Omni, and Reuben himself.
Almost imperceptibly, the confines of the room gave way to a hilltop covered in grassy heath tussocks, the chair became a fallen tree stump, and the chill had grown steadily to become a knee-deep, icy mist. It was as if Reuben had become part of the tapestry. Was it by his design? Or had he been summoned? The clouds above him gathered ominously, not for the weather they might bring, but for another different onslaught they might unleash.
Ostensibly in a trance, Reuben did not move. The slight breeze disturbed his shock of black curls only slightly, as his half-moon spectacles reflected the warm autumn sunshine. Impassive, almost dispassionate, his intense blue eyes flashed momentarily into life, displaying a depth of activity that belied his physical inactivity. Ordinary, everyday creatures within a huge radius of Reuben’s hill, slowly ceased to move. Autumnal leaves stopped mid-fall. Everything became still, except for Reuben’s breeze-disturbed hair. The gloom closed in until only his slightly glowing face could be seen.
“So you are here to confront me at last,” the voice grew slowly in Reuben’s mind. “Do you feel you can at last challenge the Seth? What you must ask yourself is how will your meagre powers, such as they are, stand up to my powers which are limitless, and born of the very bones of this land?”
Reuben’s eyes flashed, as his mind surged without saying anything. That surge revealed a fraction of the strength that was Reuben; a revelation, which made Seth recoil slightly, showing that Reuben’s power was to be neither ignored nor dismissed.
“The upstart feels he may be able to challenge me, does he?” mocked Seth. “You, I will deal with in due time. More pressing is the young bearer of the parcel, who shall feel the full onslaught of my wrath for his temerity in meddling in affairs which do not concern him. Bear in mind that I know where I can find Master Scoggins, so that I might pay him a visit at any time, soon.”
“You will not have your way, Master of Despair,” rejoined Reuben sharply.
“You do possess a voice, oh leader of your band of ragamuffins and ne’er-do-wells!” Seth taunted.
“...And a voice that will resonate in your mind as it dominates all you hold dear!” snarled Reuben, dismissing Seth’s rejoinder with utter contempt.
Seth was silenced and taken aback somewhat by the intensity of the riposte, which was delivered as a rapier opens up an opponent’s defences.
“As far as my “ragamuffins” are concerned,” Reuben continued with renewed vigour, “should you attempt to do them harm, your fall will be so swift and so low, never in this age of the world will the Evil Lord of Seth be seen again.”
“Empty words, old man,” Seth replied, but without much conviction, a doubt growing ever greater in his mind such power did he feel from Reuben. “You will never be strong enough, with your entire rabble, to overcome the Seth!” and with that, he was gone.
With the disappearance of Seth, the mist cloud and gloom began to dissipate, the breeze and wildlife in the countryside came alive slowly once again, and a lark started to send out its beautiful, fluid notes as it spiralled upwards, on its way to its place in the upper airs, imbuing all who could hear it with a sense of gladness and hope.
The waxing of Jimmy’s Omnian will with his dealings with Dwayne and Billy, carried him back fleetingly to that glorious place. As if to reaffirm that he now belonged to that realm, and to reawaken the resolve which had carried him through many dangerous adventures.
Immediately he landed, he knew where he was. There was no mistaking the southern-most eaves of the Shifting Forest of Linden. Its shimmering and sighing leaf-dressed branches offered sanctuary from the unusually warm sun. Somehow the forest seemed to know why you were there and what you needed to make your life as comfortable as you wished it to be. Jimmy’s mind ran back to the first time he had encountered the forest, during that first parcel visit to Omni. He remembered also that it was almost his last visit – anywhere. He wouldn’t be renewing his acquaintance with the Great Gaping Ghyll this time – he hoped!
A thought struck him. Why was he here? Shouldn’t he have been somewhere else? Somewhere entirely different? School! Playtime? Dwayne Davis!
A movement, which was not tree-related, he caught out of the corner of his eye. People? No, surely not! There it was again! They were beings of some sort, he felt sure. But what were they? They seemed to be humanoid, perhaps half-size, but had a translucence about them, which made them difficult to see entirely. Although, having been involved with the working of Linden twice before, this could have been an illusion the forest wished to create.
Yes, that was definitely – the bell for the end of playtime! The trees and gentle wafting breeze had given way to hard-edged walls, a paint-peeling door, and dozens of clapping feet and squealing voices. He was back in school! This was the same school, only it felt different, somehow. It was more clearly defined, the fuzzy-edges had disappeared, and he felt, at least for the time being, that he belonged here.
“Nice of you to join us, Mr Scoggins,” came that sarcasm he recognised so well as he closed the classroom door behind him. All his classmates were in and settled to Mr Bolam’s maths lesson.
“Please sit down and have the goodness to join the lesson,” he added more sharply. “I’m sure you won’t want to complete what you have missed after school this afternoon.”
“Sorry, Mr Bolam,” Jimmy answered with a certain confidence and authority. “It won’t happen again.”
The teacher was a little taken aback by this answer, but returned to the point of the lesson.
At the end of this session, as all the children were leaving to line up for lunch, Mr Bolam asked Jimmy to remain behind. Jimmy’s performance in this particular class had improved immeasurably. The change puzzled the teacher so much that he wanted answers.
“OK,” he started, “who are you, and where have you hidden the real Jimmy Scoggins?”
“I don’t follow, sir,” Jimmy answered, rather confused.
“My obviously unsuccessful attempt at humour!” Mr Bolam explained. “Before break, and even since the summer holidays, you have been ‘elsewhere’. You have done no work whatsoever, and I have wasted a lot of my time trying to ‘find’ you. And now ...” he shrugged “ ... you have – what can I say... dominated the most un-favourite of all your subjects? Your work this lesson has been nothing short of – inspired. Why? How?”
Jimmy thought for a few seconds, not able to explain the real reason, and then he said quite simply, “I really don’t know, sir. Before, I seemed to have been in a dream that I can’t explain. The only explanation I can give is that it’s like that Bible story you told us last term about Saul on his way to Damascus, you know, the one where he was struck by light, and later changed his attitude, and understood. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now.”
Mr Bolam was stunned. He didn’t know what to say, and so simply dismissed the boy with a lame “I hope it continues” comment. However, from now on he would pay greater attention to young Jimmy Scoggins, and to his progress.
“Jimmy! Jimmy Scoggins!” came a little voice from behind him in the
dinner queue. Jimmy turned sharply but could see no one he might know.
“It’s me, Peter Lee,” insisted the voice. “I’m back here.”
Jimmy isolated the voice finally, five people behind him in the queue. It issued from a thin, fair-haired boy of about eight or nine, with an excited and expectant look on his face.
“Can I come and sit with you when I’ve got me dinner?” Peter asked, eyes pleading, as Jimmy turned to get his mash and fish fingers.
“It’s a free country,” Jimmy said. “Do whatever makes you happy.” He turned away, walking slowly so that the moat of thin brown gravy around the mound of mash on his plate would not escape either down his shirt or onto his shoe. He chose an empty table in the corner of the hall by the window, giving a vista onto the school playing field and the hills beyond. He had enacted many an adventure in those hills, before he discovered Omni.
“How did you do that?” Peter blurted out as he set his plate on the table next to Jimmy’s.
“Do what?” Jimmy returned, a little puzzled.
“You know, stopped that bully Davis and his sidekick Billy Jones after they, he, attacked you at playtime,” Peter responded eagerly. “One minute you were on the floor; next, Davis was squealing, holding his knee; and then they were slinking into school, quiet and subdued, with you nowhere to be seen. How did you do that?”
“I think you must be mistaken,” Jimmy replied guardedly. “I don’t remember any of that at all. You sure you didn’t imagine it?”
“OK,” Peter returned, touching the side of his nose with his index finger, “if you want to keep it to yourself. But can I be your friend?”
“I don’t know,” Jimmy hesitated.
“Go on,” Peter urged. “I’ll be a good friend. I’ve got some wine gums! I know I’m in the year below you, so we can’t be classmates, but we can be friends at playtimes, and my Nan lives in your street.”
Jimmy knew he would have to be careful not to divulge any of his secrets about Omni, but he saw no harm in being Peter’s friend. After all, he didn’t really have any others.
All the while Jimmy was having this rather one-sided conversation with Peter, he was being observed from across the room by the sullen and brooding lump that was Dwayne Davis. He had been warned, but perhaps there might be an occasion when he would be able to gain his revenge on Jimmy Scoggins. He would bide his time. He was in no hurry. However, little did he know just how much Jimmy’s power was growing, and how fiercely Dwayne’s desire for revenge would come back to haunt him.
Jimmy drifted restlessly in and out of consciousness that night. Soon after he had gone to bed, a huge electrical storm developed, which seemed to become entangled with his vivid dreams of Omni, and the strife he and the Omnians had had and were continuing to suffer. The images were so vivid and seemed so real that dreaming and waking could not be distinguished one from the other. The raging battle between people and the elements became overprinted by the stark image of the Faceless Rider, who was no longer faceless. Here he was the prince of a mighty realm, leading battalions of peerless cavalrymen, all clad in shiny black adamantine armour, mounted atop black steeds whose iron-shod hooves struck sparks from the rocks, and whose nostrils snorted fire.
Chapter Fifteen
“Mum?” Jimmy mumbled through a mouthful of Chocoflakes at breakfast.
“If it involves leaving your breakfast to go on some cock-and-bull chase, the answer’s no,” she replied before he had asked the question, neither breaking routine nor looking up from the washing machine she was loading.
“I wasn’t going to ask that,” he said defensively. “Do you think it would be all right to visit Uncle Reuben today, seeing as it’s Saturday and I haven’t been to see him for quite some time?”
“I thought you’d grown out of those visits, and all those silly stories he used to tell you. Childish, Tommy called them,” she observed. “Besides, aren’t you going to the match with our Tommy?”
“You know I’m not interested in football, and besides, Tom’s going with all his mates from secondary school,” Jimmy rejoined pointedly. “They don’t want me with them.”
“Then I don’t see why you shouldn’t go,” she threw back at him from the top step of the back garden, as she began to hang out her first batch of washing to dry. “Perhaps you had better phone him first to make sure he’s going to be in. Sorry, forgot he doesn’t have a phone, does he?”
Breakfast finished and tidied away, Jimmy wondered how to get in touch with his uncle, but before he had had the time to decide, the phone rang stridently in his ear, making him jump in surprise.
“Hello?” he asked, rather more tentatively than usual. “Who...?”
“Jim! Old chap!” came that very familiar and welcome voice. “How are you, and where have you been? Long time no see.”
“Uncle Reuben!” Jimmy cried, eyes dancing with glee. “I was just wondering about coming to pay you a visit. How did you know?” His uncle never ceased to amaze him. He always seemed to know what he was thinking at any given time. Although he was delighted to hear from him, he was a little puzzled to hear him on the telephone at all, given his dislike of the instrument. “But you don’t have a phone. So how are you...?”
“Well, don’t you know, I borrowed my next door neighbour’s, as a matter of simplicity. Could never get used to one of these things,” Reuben replied. “I haven’t seen my favourite nephew for far too long, and I thought it was time you and I got together, sooner rather than later. How are you fixed for today?”
Jimmy had long since accepted that Reuben was magical, and knew more about his business than he would admit to. He felt also that he might be able to answer a few of the more pressing questions about Omni that were troubling his mind.
“That would be fantastic!” Jimmy enthused. “There are some things I would like your advice on.”
“Nothing too serious, I hope,” Reuben chortled.
“Just one or two ... things ... which are in my head that only you can solve,” Jimmy said, dropping almost to a whisper.
“Within the hour suit you?” Reuben asked, and with that, the conversation was over, and Jimmy was out of the front door on his way to the bus stop.
As he reached the gate, two very unusual things happened. Firstly, his bus flew past him a full ten minutes before it was due, empty of passengers and with only a driver and conductor on board. As it reached the end of his street and made to turn the corner into Gemini Road, it slowed and stopped, along with everything else he could see. Mrs Brown’s dog stopped in mid-leap after a tennis ball thrown by her son; Jonny French’s scarf was still flying out behind his back; and the postman was still pushing hard on his pedals, his letters spilling onto the road as he braked to avoid a cat – all frozen in time.
Jimmy was startled because of his missed bus, and also because this was the second time that this had happened to him in as many days. As he turned to chase the first bus, another one slowly rolled to a halt outside his gate, only this time, there were neither passengers, nor driver, nor conductor. The automatic doors opened, and he found himself urged to board. Well, urged wasn’t quite right, because he found he had no choice really; and no sooner had he boarded and the doors had closed, than they were opening again on Tumbles Row – his stop.
He stepped onto the pavement slowly and cautiously to avoid any accident, turned to check he hadn’t left anything on his seat, to find the bus was no longer there. Everything around him was slowly returning to real time, unaware of what had happened.
Surprisingly, Jimmy had begun to take unusual and unexpected occurrences in his stride, and as the last frozen movement came back to life, he simply shrugged his shoulders, turned on his heels, and made his way to his uncle’s. He was, however, surprised to note that the ‘tingle’ he usually felt on rounding the corner before his house, did not happen until he reached the gate, and his uncle was not waiting fo
r him on the top step. As he pressed the doorbell, Jimmy had a vaguely uneasy feeling, which certainly had never been there before. Also, he had to ring twice before the door opened; most un-Reuben-like.
“Hello Jim, old chap,” Reuben started as usual. “How are you? Sorry I was a bit late opening the door; phone call don’t you know. Kept me talking rather over long.”
That certainly was not like Uncle Reuben. He didn’t possess a telephone; rarely used them. Why would he then not tell him the truth? There was something not quite right. His initial doubts about whether it might not be his uncle were dispelled when he looked into those sharp, bright eyes. That it was Reuben was not in question. However, there was a sign around his eyes that not all was well. Since his return from Omni, he had learned to be wary and careful.
“Come in! Come in!” Reuben urged, as he ushered Jimmy quickly through the front door.
“Uncle?” Jimmy began, as he munched his way through his second piece of apple pie and ice cream.
“Yes, old chap, what is it you would like to know today?” Reuben returned, eyebrows raised.
“It’s half question, half statement, really,” Jimmy went on. “You know when you’ve been to Omni, and come back? Well, you see, I’ve found that things have changed since I’ve been back. I wasn’t able to concentrate in school for the first week or so, but at playtime yesterday, I ‘thought’ my way back ...”
“You thought your way back?” his uncle interrupted, quite surprised, or as surprised as Jimmy had ever seen him. “To Omni? How did you manage that?”
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