Karing eventually stopped before a beautiful sandstone wall and smiled happily at them.
With one look at the wall, both her and Pembrake almost fell over. Karing had led them, no doubt while Abby and Pembrake were fantasising about high tailing it out of there, to none other than Mrs Hunter's front gate. Or what would be her front gate in the future. But as Abby had heard Mrs Hunter say many a time, this house had been in the family for generations.
As far as not stuffing up the timeline went, taking a future son to meet his mother in the past as well as his father, was an appalling turn of events.
She returned Karing a manic, wide-eyed grin. 'Oh my, look at the time, we really have to go.'
Pembrake was staring at the wall with a look like, well, a son might share with his long-lost mother. It was like he was returning home, in his head, to the times that he'd lived here.
Karing blinked at her sudden excuse. 'The tree is just in the court yard-'
'No!' she nearly shouted then laughed it off nervously, 'I mean I just realised that we really don't have the time. I am so sorry.' She bowed her head once and turned to flee, Pembrake, thankfully, falling in step behind her.
'Sorry then,' Karing called out from behind them.
Not as sorry as she was.
They were going to leave, they were going to get the pleck out of here before the timeline shattered like a prized vase thrown against the wall.
Well that had been the plan.
'Pembrake!' a woman's voice, light and trill, rang out from up the garden path.
Pembrake froze next to Abby, as if all the heat had been sucked out of him with that simple word, leaving him a lifeless, static husk.
A woman ran down the path, her white dress with lace trim streaming out behind her as her bare feet padded against the clean cobbles.
'Darling,' said Karing, throwing his arms wide and smiling with an open-faced warmth that would reveal to anyone that he was the happiest man alive.
The woman leapt into his open arms, and he brought them quickly around her, strong enough to lift her full weight without stumbling.
To say that Pembrake was blanching, would be an understatement. His cheeks were growing more sickly grey with every second. Any more of this display and there would probably be so little blood left in his head that he would collapse into a coma.
Abby watched uncomfortably, shifting her gaze from the lovers to Pembrake, not knowing what it was she should do. Their opportunity to run away seemed to have passed.
It was clear, even to Abby, who this woman was. She had the same dazzling green eyes, the high cheekbones, and delicate hands of Mrs Hunter. Even under the vibrant mask of youth, it was clear this was Pembrake's mother.
But why had she shouted his name?
'Pembrake darling,' the young Mrs Hunter said quickly, 'who are these people?'
Karing gave them a pressed-lip grin. 'Friends of mine, Lilly.'
Abby replied with a small smile of her own, then turned to her Pembrake and gave him the kind of look that said clearly 'what kind of a person actually names their son after their father?'. Really, it wasn't even as if Pembrake was that fantastic a name to bother repeating across a generation.
Her Pembrake was oblivious to Abby's pointed look; he seemed to be preoccupied with dying slowly. His whole face was now so slack, it was a wonder his features hadn't slipped off into a puddle on the ground.
'Friends?' Lilly said with an almost infectious joviality. 'They should come in for breakfast!'
Lilly, aka Mrs Hunter, didn't have a thing on candy floss – the woman spoke with the find of sickly sweet hiccupy words that sent self-respecting witches everywhere for a pamphlet on feminism and a swig of brandy.
How exactly could this bright-eyed, bubbling woman be the same sober, gentle Mrs Hunter that Abby knew from the future?
Karing looked back at them, a perceptible glint of satisfaction in his eyes. He'd achieved what he had originally set out to do – get them breakfast.
'Oh you simply must come inside!' Lilly clapped her hands together and made a noise not unlike a horse whinnying.
Sweet voice, animal noises, a white-lace dress – what would be next, puppies?
'Yes, you simply must come inside,' Lilly continued the conversation on her own, 'and you are just in time! I've just made a batch of cookies!' Lilly said this last statement as if she'd just come up with the solution to world conflict, she was that proud of it.
Dear plecking lord, thought Abby. This girl was insane. How in the world could she grow up to be the beloved Mrs Hunter?
Without waiting for a reply, Lilly bounced up to Abby and hooked her arm underneath Abby's, and began to pull her up the path.
What should she do? Surely it was the worst of ideas to allow herself to sit down for breakfast with Pembrake's parents – the possible damage to the timeline could be irreparable. But she hardly seemed to have a choice….
~~~
Pembrake watched his mother latch an arm around Abby and pull her playfully up the garden path. The look of wide-eyed shock on Abby's face was beyond amusing. But overall, the present situation was not one of mirth.
He cast his eyes back to his father. Karing was smiling, his whole face getting in on the act: his forehead seeming to disappear underneath his crisp white cap.
He'd only ever seen him in photos.
'So,' Karing cleared his throat, ' I am sorry for this. But when Lilly wants something,' he tapped the red roses he still had against an open palm, 'she often gets it. You do have the time, don't you? Though if you don't, you may have some time extricating your wife there – I'm afraid Lilly just got a puppy and she's awfully proud of it.'
'Larry,' Pembrake said all of a sudden, unable to stop the word coming out. Larry had been his dog as a child. He'd been so loyal and kind, always following Pembrake around on his adventures. Whether it would be running away from the Esquire gang or trying to sneak into the slumps – Larry had always been there to bark and bite the young Pembrake out of trouble. He hadn't thought about Larry in years….
Karing looked momentarily confused, but then his grin returned. 'Gosh, yes I forgot to ask you what your name was – very rude of me. 'Karing extended a hand, 'nice to meet you, Larry.'
Slowly, carefully, Pembrake accepted the hand.
Karing's handshake was quick and strong, like a dog shaking a slipper.
Pembrake could feel the tingle trace its way across his back and up to the base of his neck. It was eerie seeing his parents like this.
'You best come inside then, Larry,' Pembrake Karing ticked his head towards the great sandstone house behind them. 'Lord knows how many cookies my fiancé has force fed your wife by now.'
Pembrake Hunter was lost in thought, and gave a jarred nod, following Karing up the path.
'Oh, and by the way – is that your cat?' Karing pointed to Charlie who had jumped up onto the wall and was looking for all the world like a normal cat – no death glares and no macho threats.
'No, I've never seen it before,' Pembrake took a moment to make eye contact with Charlie, 'I imagine it simply likes to wait for people and follow them.' He would hope Charlie, even though he was a cat, could pick up on the implied command.
Thankfully Charlie appeared to nod and padded his paws for a moment before settling down in a patch of sun.
'Oh. Well, you'll love this house – it's been in her family for centuries!'
'Hmmm.' Pembrake went back to his thoughts.
He'd grab Abby and they'd run. They'd get the pleck out of here and never return.
Each step along the path, the clean cobbles tapping dully underneath his footfall, saw the haze of nostalgia further engulf Pembrake.
The white roses to his left, that hugged the back side of the wall, were smaller, their branches not yet intertwined and knotted as they were in the future.
The old apple tree that he had once climbed as a boy of five to try and get a better view of the ocean, only to fall out and break his a
rm, had more branches and looked like a gnarled many-fingered hand. It had lost most of its branches... it would lose most of its branches in a storm 15 years from now.
'It's a fantastic old tree, 'Karing noted, ‘and it is full of apples.'
'Hmm,' Pembrake massaged his right arm.
'So tell me,' they had finally arrived at the door and Karing stamped his shoes firmly on the mat outside, 'what brings you to Bridgestock?'
Pembrake found himself staring at the detail in the cast-iron door knocker. When he'd been ten, and mad at his mother for making him go along to some stupid party, he'd slammed the door so hard that the knocker had come off, chipping the paving by the door.
'It's only, you don't seem to be from round here, and your wife has the slate-grey eyes of the Mountain people.'
'I was born in Bridgestock,' Pembrake said automatically.
'Oh, yes,' Karing ushered him inside, 'and what do you do?'
'I'm in the nav- I'm in the ni…ght watch,' Pembrake recovered quickly, and made a mental note to start paying more attention. If he kept on allowing himself to be distracted by every tree and rock from childhood, he'd inadvertently tell his father that he was in fact his son from the future. And that would factor quite high on the list of temporal stuff ups.
'Really? You can't be too happy about the changes that that William Franklin man is trying to make, then – I've heard he wants to wrestle control of the Guards from the Captain.' Karing looked at Pembrake keenly, obviously generally interested in his opinion.
'William… you mean the Colonel?' Pembrake quickly went through a list of royal advisors and dignitaries in his head that he knew were important to the history of 28-years-ago. The Colonel seemed to be the only man who would have had enough gumption to suggest to the King that he should change the whole organisational structure of the Royal Guards.
'Oh yes, I've heard him called that. But I find it curious considering he's never served in the military.'
Pembrake tried to concentrate on the conversation, not on the all-too-familiar furnishings of the hallway. 'Yes. Colonel is titular; it was conferred on him by the King when Franklin was successful in advising for a pre-emptive strike against Elogia.'
'That was him?' Karing's brow stretched with surprise and he opened his mouth to say something else but was interrupted by a bang from the kitchen.
'Oh you caught the vase! How marvellously fast you are!'
Both he and Karing rounded the door to the kitchen to find Abby with her arms clutched around a large ornate vase, her face twitching with polite shock.
Karing strolled up to Abby and took the vase from her, resting it back on the dresser. 'Don't worry, she's been trying to destroy that vase every since we met.'
'I have not been trying to destroy it!' Lilly brandished a tea cup at Karing playfully, 'I'm just a little clumsy.'
By the look on Abby's face, clumsy didn't even come close.
Pembrake looked at the vase for a moment: he would eventually break it himself in one of his more memorable tantrums, this one over Mr Hunter trying to send him to boarding school.
'Why don't you,' Karing took the cup that Lilly was still brandishing, 'go and grab a loaf of bread and some cheese, and I'll fix the tea before you break it.' There was no malice behind his words. It was not an aggressive command, just a playful suggestion.
He didn't know how much more he could take of this. Without thinking, he pulled out a chair with one of his legs and sat heavily. It was his kitchen, after all.
'Oh,' Abby's voice was by far the most highly strung, levelling in far beyond even Lilly's sweet yelp. 'I really don't think we can stay for breakfast!'
Pembrake tapped a fist against his jaw, all get up and go had seemed to have gotten up and gone from him. Somehow meeting his parents in the past, meeting the father he had never known, was stirring up memories of his childhood and crushing him underneath their weight.
She looked at him so expectantly, so pointedly with those stormy-grey eyes. Had little Abby run out of plans, or was she waiting for him to get up and run?
Pembrake rested back in his chair, feeling a headache twist around his temples.
Abby set her jaw and managed to put her hands on her hips, negotiating through the folds of excess fabric that hung over her slight frame.
'Your husband appears to have sat down, perhaps you can stay?' Karing quickly set about pulling an extra two cups from the cupboard.
'Husband? He's not my husband!' Abby spoke with indignation, as if Karing's statement had been dirty.
'We're to be married just as soon as Penny here accepts my proposal,' he supplied quickly, Abby's tone had irked him. It was as if the mere suggestion of marrying him had brought up her bile. Was he really that repulsive? Well then, he wasn't about to let her get away with that. He leant forward and brought his hands together, 'plus, I'm haven't the money at the moment.'
'Oh, but you two look wonderful together!' Lilly placed two large loaves of bread on the table.
'Yes, I could see the moment I met you – just made for each other,' Karing agreed.
Abby was now looking at him with lips drawn thinner than paper, and he couldn't help but smile back.
'You know, I've rarely seen a couple that looked so perfect for each other in fact!' Lilly apparently couldn't stop herself.
'You'll find that a very valuable compliment,' Karing set a cup of tea in front of Pembrake, 'Lilly is very good at reading people.'
Abby frowned at this, her eyes looking distant and thoughtful.
'One of the old witches even said I had latent second sight!' Lilly trumpeted as she sat down, 'so I just know you two will never be apart again.'
Latent second sight? His mother?
'But you,' Lilly motioned for Abby to take a seat, 'you almost look like a witch yourself! You aren't, are you?' there was no accusation behind her words, she had simply grown even more excited.
Abby sat stiffly and appeared to think for a moment. 'No.'
'Oh,' Lilly settled down, clearly disappointed, her green eyes drooping like little daisies devoid of sunshine.
They had eaten, actually stayed for the course of the breakfast, talking and sitting with Pembrake's parents, 28 years in the past.
They were pleasant, even fun at times, warm and friendly. At one point Lilly had showed Abby her puppy and Abby had given such a silly laugh, Pembrake had wondered for a moment if there really was a young woman under that old-witch mask.
But finally it had come time to leave, and Karing and Lilly had walked them to the door. He walked down his garden path, closing his gate and taking one final look at his house from the past.
Finally, when they were safely on the street, and Charlie had leapt down to meet them – Pembrake had turned to Abby and they had had a little chat. Most importantly, Pembrake let Abby know why exactly he did not appreciate her not running away when he had suggested it. If the timeline was ruined, if his father would no longer be his father, or if his mother would run off and join a pantomime – Pembrake knew who to blame.
Something inside him, something from his past, may have made him trust this witch… Abby, for now. But that didn’t mean he was about to give her leeway to prove him wrong.
~~~
They had walked on from Esquire Street, continuing their mission to find some way of fixing their destinies and of getting into the Palace without straight away being chased out.
Walking the streets aimlessly waiting for clues that quite stubbornly wouldn't appear was getting stupid now. Though it was not half as bad as the monumental dressing-down Pembrake had given her once they were out of earshot. She'd felt like a new recruit facing up to her Commander after doing something awful like chopping down the mast. His face had set with fierce anger and he'd shouted with the frightening force of a hurricane.
Apparently the prospect of meeting his mother in the past had spooked him, though Abby half wondered if there was something else to it. Pembrake had looked at Karing with such pale wary,
like he had seen a ghost or something. Just how was Karing his father anyway, and who was Mr Hunter then?
Before Abby could really settle down and think hard about the matter, she had found Pembrake had paused by the small glass windows of a shop. Not wanting to incur his wrath again by speaking or breathing too loudly, she'd just walked up carefully beside him.
Too much time had passed, and Pembrake, she realised, seemed to be looking not through the window, but at his reflection in it. 'Oh you can't be that vain, can you?' she snapped, once again before realising what she'd said.
Pembrake ran a finger along his jaw line, as if tracing the shape. He did not shout at her to shut up, or point out that she was an innocent little witch with no real understanding of life. With was odd really.
She blinked at him. 'Pembrake, could we move on? You look fine, as usual. Not that I care, of course,' she added quickly.
'I wouldn't expect you to understand, Abby,' his voice had the far-off quality of someone on the edge of sleep.
She bristled. 'And I wouldn't expect a Commander in the Royal Navy to be so very disagreeable – but I guess I am wrong.'
'All these years,' he turned from the window, his eyes closing, 'the bastard.'
He wasn't angry at the dirt on his face, was he, or the straw in his hair? Abby pressed in her lips and tried to avoid his gaze.
'I can't believe he left. For what? The Navy, the high seas, the better life?!'
Oh deary dear. Abby was used to hearing people's troubles. Strangely, more so since she'd become a window cleaner. But it usually wasn't this confrontational – it usually wasn't this raw.
She swallowed hard. 'Pembrake, I… look I understand what you're going through, but I'm sure Karing had a good reason for…' Abby didn't want to say it, but couldn't think of any other way around it, 'abandoning you.'
Pembrake didn't snap like a dry twig, but he did sniff terribly at the mention of 'abandon'. 'Don't try and analyse me, Abby; I'm not in the mood. If you hadn't agreed to go and get their plecking apples, we would never have been in that situation.'
Abby the Witch Page 12
