Feynard

by Marc Secchia

“No!” the Unicorn cried. “You lie!”

  The Lurk’s great shoulders bunched into a sad, apologetic shrug. “And so, as Mylliandawn’s star rose to prominence, your parents lost their lives, sacrificed upon the altar of her greed. As you grew older and began to ask too many questions, the debt was laid upon your shoulders to keep you quiet. In your shame, you never questioned why. And so you serve Mylliandawn and the Unicorn Council, shackled to their cause. You take on the jobs other Unicorns consider too dirty or demeaning. You continue to pay the price. Thus, you are made a pariah amongst your kin.”

  Zephyr trembled from nose to hoof. “These are a pack of the vilest insinuations, you fiend!” he whinnied shrilly. “Mylliandawn has never been ought but good to me! I’m no one’s lackey–”

  “Then consider my words with care,” interrupted the Lurk, just another shadow now in the murk. “Seek the truth, noble Zephyr! Protect the Human! If ever again you seek to cross Mistral Bog, ask for Snatcher.”

  The Unicorn nearly spat in his direction, but desisted. What if the Lurk was right? Was there some grain of truth in his story? The consequences of his debt had galled and shamed him now for tens of seasons. The Unicorns treated him as if his presence were tainted. They shunned his company, and shrouded his paths in snickers and whispered conversation. Courting a mate had become unthinkable. Yes, he was an outsider. But he had always believed … Zephyr lifted his head to ask another question, but the colourless expanse of Mistral Bog had swallowed the Lurk as if he had never been.

  Disconsolate, confused, and above all lonely, Zephyr turned his horn toward Thaharria-brin-Tomal, home of the Unicorns. He reached out to enfold the Human’s thread of life with his power, even as the Lurk had cradled him.

  He must keep the Human alive at all costs.

  Chapter 1: In the Library

  Kevin used to hide in the Library. It was his favourite place for two reasons–reading was his lifeblood, and Father and Brian avoided it religiously. They advanced no reason for this behaviour, nor did he expect one. Skeletons aplenty rattled in the Jenkins family closet. As the runt of the litter–to borrow one of his brother Brian’s insults–Kevin knew any inquiry would be received in a dim light.

  The Library at Pitterdown Manor had been Victoria Jenkins’ pride and joy. Though he had only met his Great-Grandmother in person a handful of times, this impression stuck clearly in his mind. Great-Grandmother, who was always addressed by her title and never by first name, was an avid collector of books and manuscripts, and had amassed great rooms full over the years. She spoke fondly of the Library, as of a dear old friend.

  Father disparaged the ‘eccentric old witch’ in private. Brian had once insinuated that the sole reason they visited was that as direct descendants of Victoria Jenkins, they stood to inherit a substantial estate, although the manor’s dilapidated condition did make one wonder. At the time, his snide remarks had earned Brian a sharp cuff, but Father had salivated over the inheritance often enough for everyone to appreciate the true picture. Avarice was his weakness. Avarice, coupled with a taste for the high life. Thus they were always on their best behaviour when visiting Great-Grandmother. Brian, as the elder and favoured son, always accompanied his parents to dinner, while Kevin was left with the nursemaids. During their visits, he took to secreting himself in the Library with some book or other, and thus whiled the hours away.

  In those early years, the Jenkins family made an annual pilgrimage to Pitterdown Manor. Brian and he would engage in the inevitable territorial squabble across the back seat of their battered old VW van as they thrummed ever northward from England’s lush green south to the borderland of Scotland, home of enigmatic dark tarns and buttery shortbread, where Kevin imagined the thin skirl of wailing bagpipes still sounded over the bones of brave Highlanders slain by the traitorous English. Last time, he had avidly devoured the story of William Wallace, which changed his perception of Scotland forever. Now, its austere majesty called to his heart in a whisper of desire.

  They usually took tea after Edinburgh, as the shadows lengthened into twilight, when Kevin’s tiredness peaked and Father began to cast anxious glances at his watch. He would doze the last stretch, stirring only when the wheels crunched onto the winding gravel drive leading up to the main house. Liveried servants greeted them, unloaded the luggage with miraculous efficiency, and conducted them to once-sumptuous rooms. Most of the servants had been replaced after Great-Grandmother’s death. These recollections brought a grim slash of a smile to Kevin’s lips. He suspected that they had been dismissed for causing Father some offence in the years before it all changed.

  Today–he counted swiftly upon shaking fingers–yes, today was their twentieth anniversary as owners of Pitterdown Manor. This anniversary marked the Jenkins’ elevation to riches and lordly living–not instantly, for there was a protracted legal battle Father had fought to gain control of the full estate, which had ended to his satisfaction. When the will was read, Father received what he regarded as his just reward–sole, undisputed ownership.

  Twenty years had also passed since Mother had become ill of a strange, wasting disease, never to rise again. She spent brief, dying days in a drug-induced delirium.

  She and her son, so alike.

  It was twenty years, too, since he had last ventured further than the main gates leading to the world beyond.

  Yes, these walls encompassed his world, and the Library was his solace and his curse. “A solace,” he said in his characteristic whisper, letting the words expire amongst the towering racks of musty old books, “For Kevin Albert Jenkins, named after his paternal grandfather Albert, has nothing of what it takes to be a true Jenkins.” His bony fingers smoothed the blanket upon his lap. The words were a thin parody of Father’s, an oft-repeated litany of self-debasement and mockery. “A solace to the poor invalid Kevin, for what use are you to anyone? Why, I had to provide you with private tutors because you could not attend a proper school. Twenty-four hour nursing! Do you have any idea what it cost me, boy?” ‘Nothing at all,’ Kevin shot back in his mind, ‘for you worked for not a penny of what you have today, Father!’ “What do you do all day, but sit there in that blasted library and read?”

  “A curse,” he continued solemnly, “for your only friends are books, Kevin, and though you can see the world beyond, you can never go out into it. You’re a bundle of allergies; an immune-deficient anomaly. Look out there, to the snowy fields and forests and hills of merry old Scotland, and rue the day you were born. Oh,” he turned to parody again, “you were a weak and sickly child, Kevin Jenkins. It’s a miracle you are alive today! What more could a dear father do than provide the very best care for his beloved son?”

  “You could start,” he added after a pause steeped in bitterness, “by not abusing me.”

  He flipped the page.

  * * * *

  The Library was a massive, rambling affair, spanning three levels and multiple rooms and chambers in the Pitterdown Manor’s West Wing. Where Kevin habitually sat in the massive, vaulting main chamber, a sturdy fireplace stood to his right hand and a huge bay window to his left, affording him both warmth and a fine view over the pond to the croquet lawn, the stables, and the heathery hills beyond. A cold snap in late April had dumped several inches of snow over fresh-budding blossoms.

  To all sides and even above the fireplace, historic leather-bound tomes marched in orderly ranks upon oaken shelves and bookcases, right up to the ceiling. The stuffy aisles were so narrow, one could barely squeeze between them, giving rise to the niggling intuition that the bookshelves were leaning across to engage their neighbours in fusty, obscure conversation. The combination of the threadbare green carpet, heavy drapes, and Kevin’s favourite, overstuffed armchair made the chamber look and smell hundreds of years old. The air inside never moved.

  Huddled upon this broad armchair, so bundled up beneath a tartan throw that a casual glance might have passed right over him, was a spindly figure of carroty hair and cadaverous complexion–Kevin
. Standing a mere five feet and four inches in his socks, he was more easily mistaken for fourteen than his twenty-seven years, and possessed a lamentable tendency towards spots. According to his old nurse Constance, who had died last year, he had inherited the stub nose and flame-red hair of his late Great-Grandmother. Frail limbs and a thin chest exaggerated an ill-favoured appearance. Buried like a mole beneath the thick blankets and an old-fashioned robe, he seemed diminished, almost pathetic–almost, but for the eyes. Of all his physical attributes, his eyes were remarkable. Kevin’s irises were the colour of ripe green apples. Golden streaks radiated like inner fire from around the pupils, lending his gaze the arresting power of a master conjurer or a television evangelist. Their intensity betrayed a rare intelligence, but were most often inclined to misery, loneliness, and inanition.

  His eyes were the only part of him that seemed alive, hopping across the pages like sparrows’ feet.

  Kevin sighed now and flipped the cover shut against the final page. “A fine tale,” he whispered to himself. “What shall I read next?”

  This consideration was spun out for a leisurely half-hour as he contemplated and discarded the pursuit of various subjects currently of interest–lately European history and philosophy, but his pet subject was archaeology. Whoever had built up the collection of books had done a first-rate job of cataloguing the Library. Most subjects were easily found, but there were a couple of storage rooms he knew of on the second level where the careful system had somehow broken down. Kevin had recently unearthed a book on magic there, which he took pains to hide from Father, who had always been sternly disapproving of Great-Grandmother’s alleged ‘witchery’ and ‘magic’. Father had never volunteered more on the subject–but the implications of any transgression were as clear as daylight. Kevin artfully concealed the offending tome right above the fireplace, in plain sight.

  Today, he decided, was a day for the unexpected. Today he would blow a few cobwebs out of the corners of that last storage room.

  He yanked the throw aside and rose feebly to his feet. After a pause to worm his feet into well-worn, comfortable slippers, he shuffled further into the Library and took the steep wooden steps to the second level, pausing midway to rest. Soon, he was lost to sight amidst the overarching bookshelves.

  Ten minutes’ work had a rusty lantern in his hand. Pitterdown Manor’s electricity supply was temperamental at best–which might have been exciting but for his terror of dark places and a persistent clumsiness due to one too many ear infections in his sickly youth. He suspected he might need a hearing aid.

  Kevin considered himself something of an explorer. The manor had a haunted air about it, particularly at night. The servants had told him that there were some parts unopened in over fifty years. Having grown up on a diet of secret passageways and gothic horrors, Kevin had been sorely disappointed to learn that Pitterdown Manor had none. What it did have was an endless supply of rooms, and the Library. Perhaps it was the mystery of the Library that had drawn him here. It had a special atmosphere–a presence, almost. He chuckled to himself as the door creaked open. What a load of old cobblers!

  The storage room, which he had only recently discovered, was accessed via a gloomy space beyond an L-shaped corner and a massive bookcase containing medieval illuminated manuscripts, which he had left alone for fear of their value. He had to shift a couple of boxes before the door would open completely, which was exhausting work. Soon he waded into a haphazard collection of wooden crates set around an ancient desk. Tall stacks of books covered every inch of the desk’s surface. Paradise found! He raised the lantern and selected a book at random.

  “The Arabian Nights,” he read. “How disappointingly modern!” His asthma was starting to act up. “Marvellous timing, old boy,” he muttered crossly, about to leave to retrieve his pump, when another volume caught his eye. He craned his neck to read the spine. “Ah, now … Myths and Legends of the Lesser Worlds? Queer.”

  He tugged at the book, but it was halfway up a stack and the whole tower leaned dangerously toward him. His smile curled his lips back from his teeth like an angry terrier about to bite. “Intrepid adventurer in mortal peril,” he intoned. “What uncertain fate shall befall him?” He paused to cough and wheeze. “Oh dear–best hurry along.”

  But curiosity held him. He could not bear to wait. “Oh, dash it all!”

  Kevin reached up with both hands and pulled with all of his puny might.

  Books tumbled, the lantern went flying, and a great cloud of dust avalanched out of the door. With it came Kevin, landing on his rump with the volume clutched to his chest. The door shuddered under the weight of the mountain he had dislodged and slammed shut right next to his foot, leaving him with the uncomfortable impression that the room had just ejected him by force majeure. Wheezing like a hissing kettle, Kevin rushed back to the armchair–as fast as his condition allowed him to rush–and took a relieving puff from his asthma pump.

  When he recovered, it was to announce, “Intrepid adventurer returns victorious!”

  The Library swallowed this less-than-fearsome croak with fusty thoroughness, earning a further squawk of irritation from its sole inhabitant.

  Intending to settle down with this intriguing book, which had cost him a fright and a bruised rear end, he grasped the sturdy volume by its spine and turned it about. A folded piece of paper fluttered to the floor, yellowed and brittle with age. Kevin clucked. The thin sheet of letter-paper was folded in half, and covered on the inside with compact but beautifully scripted handwriting. Handling the fragile scrap carefully, Kevin held it up to the light and felt his eyes widen.

  It was addressed to him!

  “My word,” he breathed. “There must be some mistake.”

  Not so. The note was clearly and unmistakeably addressed to Kevin Albert Jenkins, from ‘V.N.K.J.’ That would be Victoria Nicolette Katherine Jenkins, the second name courtesy of an obscure French ancestor–Great-Grandmother’s initials!

  “How very queer,” he burbled, quite beside himself with curiosity and excitement. Using his fingernails, he pried apart the delicate sheets and began to read:

  My dearest Kevin,

  By the time you find this letter, I shall doubtless have been called to meet my Maker. Despite what your father may have told you, I am neither a witch, nor an eccentric old duck. I am, plainly speaking, the Keeper of an ancient Tradition, which has engaged generations of our ancestors. I wished to personally bequeath this heritage to you, my great-grandson; but alas, to my frustration and despair, your Father has denied my aspirations all these years. I suspected his allegiance to the Evil One, but was mistaken. Harold refuses to admit anything other than that of which he is convinced by his own mind and senses. He thinks that the world is ruled by chance, that Fortune favours the ambitious. This is the Great Lie. Like most people, he is blind to the other worlds, which he has attempted to hide from you.

  For there is a world touched neither by sight, touch, smell, nor by hearing, but by the Spirit of a Person. If you will only believe, Kevin, then you will see that what I say is true. And there are other planets akin to our Earth, inhabited by great multitudes of living, breathing creatures. Would that I could convince you of these things! But I must be brief. My last breath is nigh. You will find that this great house, Pitterdown Manor, holds many Secrets. You are the new Keeper of the Tradition, Kevin. You have inherited the Gift. You may be called to Serve at any time. You should not hesitate, nor should you fear anything, if your heart remains courageous and pure.

  Here are the things you will need:

  Firstly, the Key-Ring, which is hidden beneath the mantelpiece in the Blue …

  In that instant, Kevin heard Father’s heavy tread just behind him and he whirled, clutching the letter to his chest, his cheeks flaming scarlet.

  Father halted three feet away, a look of intense suspicion suffusing his face. His hands were clenched into fists by his sides. “What are you hiding, boy?”

  “Nothing,” Kevin blurte
d out. His nostrils detected a whiff of alcohol. Father had been drinking. His guts clenched up into an icy ball and he sank to the floor before Father’s looming figure, knowing that nothing he could say or do now would avert a beating. Nevertheless, he tried, “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “You pathetic little bastard!” snarled Harold. “Give me that!”

  Father’s thick fingers tore the letter from Kevin’s numbed grasp. It took him several long moments to realise that he was holding it upside-down; then he righted it and began to read–myopically. Colour rose to his face, and as Kevin watched in horrified fascination, that thick purple vein started pulsing dangerously in the middle of his forehead. Purple blotches spread like a fierce rash down his neck, until Kevin thought something must surely explode–and his hands! They were shaking!

  Deliberately, his blunt, powerful fingers began to shred the letter. Time crawled as each individual piece floated slowly down through the air to build a silent snowfall around Father’s elegant, expensive loafers. Each heartbeat throbbed in Kevin’s eardrums with painful intensity. He saw Harold Jenkins’ mouth open in a bitter snarl, unrecognisably twisted. Kevin became aware of his own pleading babble.

  With the inevitability of death itself, Father’s foot lifted and swung into a brutal kick that smashed him against the open fireplace. Pain stabbed into his side as wet heat splashed down his leg. Shame preceded a stench of burning flesh, and an awful, all-consuming burning …

  * * * *

  Gagging on the sharp reek of antiseptic, Kevin awoke. For a blissful second, he imagined that he might be dreaming and that if he only turned over, he would wake up to find sunlight streaming in through the gap in his heavy drapes. But his body felt strange. As he breathed, searing pain attacked his left side. He was dimly aware of a catalogue of other hurts. He tried to open his eyes, but there was something covering them. So he reached up and tried to take it off.