I looked up at the shop sign. It said Targett’s. Inside the display area lay a selection of dusty bric-a-brac. I didn’t remember an antique shop here. Across the other side, Howell’s the Bakers stood where it should, though the woodwork looked in desperate need of paint. Next to Howell’s should have been the newsagents where I picked up Dad’s newspaper. Instead an illuminated sign, with garish red letters, said, ‘Adults Only’. The shop window had curling magazines and strange candles.
A Monopoly set, caught in the yellow glow of the street lamp, lay next to old roller-skates in Targett’s shop window. The man with the top hat and monocle stared at me. The extra details added to his hat, moustache and cane, had been made by Juliette when she was about ten years old. I also recognised the missing corner to the lid. Why on earth would this flea pit of a shop have our only Monopoly set?
I walked on down towards the Carfax, passing the cinema which, although open, didn’t say what films they were offering this week; just three red ‘Xs on the display board, the last one having slipped slightly as though it had lost the will to live.
The wailing of the car drew closer and flashing blue lights swept over all the graffiti on the shop fronts. It sped on up towards the station.
I stopped. It had to be early evening as the sky still had some light of its own, even with the dull grey cloud cover. But no one walked on the pavements. And the only car I’d seen belonged to police who fancied themselves as rally drivers. I turned into the Carfax, and headed towards where the Post Office should be. Two bus shelters, with all their glass smashed out, suggested buses mightn’t be running. The shops in the inner road of the Carfax were also closed and shuttered. Light sneaked out from the corner of a window of a pub in the distance. Perhaps I could go there and ask what had happened.
I hardly noticed the person sitting on the steps of the closed chemist shop; I thought the crumpled shape was an old coat dumped there. The elderly man’s head rested on his chest. He loosely grasped a half-drunk plastic bottle of water. Or I assumed it held water. He looked old enough to have taught my granddad. Some useless beggar.
A woman made her way towards where I stood and the man half-sat and half-lay. She had way too much make-up on and her hair piled up in curly clusters on her head. She tottered on very high heels with a skirt much too short and a coat much too long, but open and showing her tight blouse underneath. She carried a polystyrene box in her hand.
Just like the police, she didn’t look my way at all. She stopped by the man and sighed, looking up at the sky as though to check for rain. The light fell full on her face. My heart rose full into my mouth. Tears sprang to my eyes. Juliette. Not Juliette as she is or was or whatever the frickin’, twinkin’, blinkin’ hell was happening. But Juliette as she might look in ten years’ time if life had been really, really cruel.
“Here, Dad,” she said. “It’s the best I could do tonight.”
The old man looked up. One of his eyes had turned milky white but the gleam in the other showed my father hadn’t lost all his spirit, even though he appeared to have aged half a century.
“I know. I know. No one gave much today. One person stopped and asked me to play Danny Boy. I did my best, but the mouth organ is not what it used to be and they apologised for having no change. They gave me their water bottle though, so I suppose we should be grateful.”
My hand hurt horribly. I squeezed the brooch so hard it bit into my palm. I moved to where Juliette would see me clearly, but she looked through me.
“Dad,” she said.
He looked up from his job of dividing the noodles with the plastic fork that came inside the box.
“Dad, I had the strangest sensation.” She stared right at where I stood. She sniffed, wiped her nose with the back of her hand and let out a sigh. “Doesn’t matter though. I’m probably just hungry.”
“No. No. No. No!” I shouted, pushing the hard metal of the brooch further into my hand. “No. Take me back, I’ll choose again. I want to go back.”
Tears blinded my vision. I squeezed my eyes shut. A hand touched my shoulder.
“Are you all right?”
The Crystal Boat
Håkan’s story
Håkan stood in the narrow gully wondering which way to choose. His mind whirled. Hasina, the tall dark-haired woman dressed in flowing robes, with a feather embroidered on the shoulder, had quickly won his trust. Something about her calm assurance and the warmth of her presence made her easy to follow. He’d never seen a woman so effortlessly graceful. She’d led him into a large circular room. She didn’t speak outwardly, but inwardly he heard her words tumbling around his mind.
‘The Gods created time that mankind could be free,’ she said. ‘Free to choose as their minds decided. At any point in time much is possible, good and bad, and if you have a place to stand and see, like this place, the results of all those possible choices flow forward like massive strands.’
The woman went on: ‘Few indeed are permitted to see the future. Those are the world’s great prophets, and hard is the path they must walk. But you, a Seed of Life, may see the Great Choice that is to be made. If you so wish.’
Håkan nodded, not really knowing what she meant, and moments later here he stood, faced with two smooth rocks marking two different ways forward, and painted with signs he didn’t understand. He shrugged and took the pathway marked by the white tadpole with its black eye, if that’s what it was. He liked frogs.
At first the gully narrowed. He had to squeeze between two thorn bushes and his sleeve caught. He couldn’t free it and the leather tore, leaving a tuft of his sleeve quivering in the slight breeze. He emerged onto a ledge, somewhere high enough that clouds swirled below him. He had a choice, to go back or to descend these impossibly narrow steps cut into the rock face. Looking back, the thorn bushes appeared to have grown and to block his return completely. He trusted his head for heights and, carefully keeping his balance, he started to descend. The cloud swirled close and he could only see a few feet in front of him. The steps went on downwards for a long way. Had he met someone coming up, he doubted they could have wriggled past each other without one of them falling. He came to a slight hollow in the cliff-face where he could catch his breath. His heart raced and even though the foggy cloud made his hair damp, he could feel sweat trickling down his back. The steps now turned in the other direction, descending still further. He grimaced and set off once more. A gust of wind caught his jacket and for a moment that lasted more like forever, he thought he would tumble. His gloved hand found an indentation in the rock, just enough to save his balance. He clung there for an endless moment, not daring to look down to where the cloud had begun to clear. His knees weakened and for several breaths could hardly bear his weight.
Below him he could see a landscape stretching out towards the horizon. Sun sparkled on a river that meandered through a forest of great trees, their deep green leaves shifting in colour as the wind moved them in the bright sunlight. Scattered across the forest were clearings, each with a cluster of buildings unlike any he had ever seen before. Between these buildings he could see the occasional flash of reflected light, suggesting small rivers feeding into the great river that flowed off to his right, where farmland provided a checkering of browns, yellows and turquoise.
With the sunlight now providing a better view of the steps ahead, and the width of the steps increasing, Håkan made quicker progress. After a couple more turns a handrail appeared and Håkan descended two steps at a time.
When he finally reached the bottom, the sun had moved significantly lower in the sky. Above him the cliff face rose sheer, with an occasional tree just about clinging to a crag. He couldn’t see the top of the cliff, nor where he had started from, as clouds still tumbled and flowed, blocking his vision.
The purity of the air and its freshness suggested he remained quite high up, or that he was in a land like Sweden where even sunny days cannot quite drive away the glorious freshness of a summer’s day.
Some way ahead, a boat, tethered to a post, bobbed on a narrow river. He’d never seen a remotely similar craft, for the whole of it might have been cut from crystal, and it flashed and glittered in the sunlight. He looked for oars but could see none. The stream, if stream it was, ran more or less parallel to the rock face. Too wide to jump, he didn’t fancy walking for miles to find a bridge, and anyway he couldn’t see one in either direction. The banks of the stream were full of flowering plants, and dragonflies darted around, their red and deep blue-green bodies, flashing in the sunlight like sparks from the blacksmith’s forge. Above, a hawk or maybe an eagle slowly circled, high up by the clouds.
He stepped into the boat to see if he could use his hands to paddle across to the far side of the stream. As he untied the line that tethered the boat, it moved. A sound, somewhat between a woman’s humming and cat’s purring, filled the boat and it vibrated slightly. Håkan nearly lost his balance as the craft, now with a mind of its own, took the centre of the gently flowing stream and moved steadily, its prow parting the water in two distinct waves. Håkan crouched and started praying. He remembered many childhood stories of enchanted boats and expected any minute to sweep into an inlet in the cliff face and find himself presented as lunch for the local trolls. At the moment he decided to jump out of the boat and swim to the far shore, it slowed, keeled over to one side and turned, entering a wider waterway heading for the distant trees. This river had sides too straight to be natural and felt deeper than the stream, with the banks considerably further away. In the clear water occasional shapes appeared and darted by, suggesting fish bigger than any he’d ever seen before. So instead of being a troll’s lunch, he might end up on a fish’s smörgåsbord. He decided to sit it out and see where the boat took him. His exhaustion from descending the rock face and the rocking motion of the enchanted boat lulled him into a doze.
“Come!” said a voice, in Swedish. “This is no time to sleep. You will have a sore neck for days if you lie like that much longer.”
Torsberg
A boy, somewhat older than Håkan, led the way. He wore a jerkin of soft wool, and wide pantaloons of a material Håkan didn’t recognise. Their deep-green colour changed slightly as they moved and caught the light. His feet were bare. The grassy path up from the river had a softness unlike the tracks Håkan knew in the forest. The trees here stood taller than those around Signy’s farm, and their great limbs were thicker. At one point two children, sitting high up in the branches, waved to him. He didn’t wave back as he assumed they were fairies, or worse.
Birdsong surrounded them everywhere. Occasionally other paths gave off from this one, also softly grass-covered. They reached a bridge, and a craft, like the crystal boat that had carried him here, bobbed at the bottom of a few steps. Flowers tumbled down the banks of these waterways, and tiny birds with long sharp beaks flashed between bulrushes.
Over the bridge, the track rose up towards a hilltop. As they reached the crest Håkan studied the rocks that broke through from the rougher grass. They were familiar. Very familiar.
“This is—”
“Yes,” said the boy. “This is Thor’s Hammer as we call it. It is famous for who lived near here once and what took place here once.”
The boy pointed down the hill towards the familiar shape of the stones of the Judge Circle. Nearly all the birch trees had vanished, to be replaced by this huge forest. Within clearings, buildings made of similar crystalline material as the boat glinted in the sunlight. Closer to Håkan and below him, buildings emerged from the hillside with curving walls as clear as spring water and roofing covered with grasses and flowers. Inside these strange homes, made he knew not how, wooden floors caught the warm light of the afternoon sun.
The boy moved in front of Håkan. He placed his hands on the younger boy’s shoulders. His eyes were moist.
“I’m allowed to show you this. I’m not allowed to tell you much though. That’s been made very clear.” He smiled, and went on, “If I did so you wouldn’t be able to live your life in the way you choose and that would be wrong.”
“But everything has changed.”
“Yes. Yes it has, hasn’t it. And the part you are to play in that is not a small one. You have seen why the Great Decision, so long ago for us of course, why it was – and is…” He cleared his throat and looked out across the forest. “Why it’s so important.”
The older boy moved away and started to descend the hill towards the Judge Circle. Håkan looked back to where the distant cliff face should be but could see nothing of it. The landscape, though altered in appearance by the size and colour of the trees, remained similar to what he knew of home.
Running down the hillside, as he often had in the past, the wind caught his hair, and the unfamiliar fragrance of many herbs wafted around him. Try as he might he couldn’t overtake his new friend. Once at the bottom he started to remove his jacket as he caught his breath.
“No,” said the boy. “No. Keep that on. You’ll need it.” He looked up to where the sun approached the tops of the trees. “We must hurry. There are things you need to do and you cannot do them here.”
The taller boy walked to the edge of the Judge Circle. He stood right by the stone Håkan sometimes used to jump off when he practiced his somersaults. That at least looked unchanged.
“Do you have the jewel?” asked the boy.
Håkan had no idea what he meant.
Once more the older boy looked towards the sun which brought out red glints in his hair.
“The jewel you were given when you entered this circle.”
“Oh,” said Håkan, feeling a bit silly. It rested against his palm, even as they spoke, safely tucked in his glove. “Yes, Yes, I do.”
The boy pointed back up the hill. At the crest, by the austere rocks at once so familiar and yet now so strange, many children stood. In their hands they carried flowers. They appeared around the edge of the hillside, talking to one another and pointing down towards where he stood. Music drifted by on the breeze. Håkan listened, holding his breath. He knew that music. The pipes. Someone playing the Swedish pipes. He heard the children laugh and in a rippling wave of colour they shook their flowers in the air above their heads, allowing petals to fall like rainbow snow.
The boy moved behind him. Within the circle, the light dimmed and a freezing cold blast of air hit Håkan in the face; just at that moment a hand pushed him between two of the standing stones. He stumbled in. His feet crunched on crisp snow, as flakes swirled around his face. He looked back but the boy had gone and Torsberg stood empty, grey and bleak. Someone sobbed, someone else in the circle. The English boy stood there with his eyes closed, fists pushed against them and snow settling onto his leather hat. His cheeks glistened with tears. Håkan, glad for the first time to see his companion, walked over and touched his shoulder.
“Are you all right?”
Paracelsus’s Gift
Sweden – about 1520
We’d ridden most of the morning, and my legs screamed out for mercy, or would have done if they had a voice. We’d left the Circle quickly after Håkan had jostled me back into the here and now; well his here and now, even if not mine. As we followed twisting paths through the forest the unreality of it all gradually ebbed away, aided by the piercing cold air and thin flurries of snow. I still couldn’t shake out of my mind the image of Dad begging in the Carfax and Juliette looking so miserable and at a loss. I had to do whatever it took to prevent that from ever happening to those I loved most. Håkan had had a very different experience in the time-tubes or whatever we’d clambered about in. He chuckled and burbled on in Swedish as we shared his horse, but I didn’t listen. Håkan’s saddle found every sore spot on my nether regions.
Paracelsus led the way, even though Håkan gave directions. He kept a hand on his sword and looked about frequently. We neither saw nor heard anyone. We’d not followed the route away from the standing stones that we’d taken earlier that morning. Håkan said we would be less likely to meet anyone
if we went across the land of Bengt, the woodcutter. So we followed the narrow paths and forded streams flowing swiftly with icy water, till we finally came to the edge of fields covered in pristine snow. Håkan pointed at his house in the distance, but said nothing, and we kept within the trees until the farm had been left well behind us.
At one point, Paracelsus spoke to us quietly, over his shoulder.
“We can’t afford to stop long today. Your mother is well in advance of us and we must meet with her before night closes in, and that’s just a few hours off.”
The German doctor had remembered what I’d forgotten, that during Swedish winters days are very short and nights are very long. He’d not asked us about our experience. Once we had crossed the monastery land without being seen and circled the town, he relaxed a bit.
“You know, visions of the Other Worlds take their own price. When you boys crossed over, the sky darkened as though going backwards into night. The fire sucked down into itself, and I had to keep adding kindling or it would have gone out entirely. I can tell you, my young friends, I said many prayers, some I’ve not said since I matched your years. But I always place my faith in The Lord, and He’s always blessed me.” He sniffed, hawked and spat.
“Woodland sprites gathered too, you know. I could sense their delicate presence all around, but they went just before you returned. It’s good, this work you did. It’s good.”
When we stopped for a quick lunch of chilly bread and tangy cheese, Paracelsus fiddled deep in one of his saddlebags. He stood for a while, his hand inside the leather container, and listened.
“It’s time,” he said, apparently satisfied that no one stood in earshot. “I couldn’t be sure until today, but now I am. You are the boys my teacher told me of and it is right I hand this burden on to you.”
Time Knot Page 19
