The Magic of Endings, page 16
‘Go!’ mouthed the stone Dads again.
Jojo and Trevor, with a squealing bark, leaped back as the shaking stone-men fell. As they collapsed as one. As the stone went back to being just stone.
And once again, all went dark.
The Boatman
All went dark apart from a cloud of shining golden dust. It came, Jojo had seen, from the heart of the central stone-man. From the heart of his dad.
The little golden cloud floated down towards him. He did not scramble back from where he lay on the smooth, cold floor. Just as he knew that the only way was up, he knew this little golden mist was here to help.
The specks rested on Jojo’s chest then sunk into his wet T-shirt.
His lungs loosened. He breathed in: no pain, no burning. Then out. In and out. No asthma attack. No tightness at all.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ he whispered into the dark as a tear sprung to his eye. That couldn’t be it. That wasn’t his dad gone. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. On they would go.
‘Trevor? Are you OK? Trevor?’
The dog didn’t bark. He snuffled in close to Jojo, pushing his nose and then head under Jojo’s arm, lifting him from a half-lying to a half-sitting position.
‘You’re right,’ said Jojo. ‘Let’s go.’
Jojo reached around with his hands, fumbling, feeling what kind of place they now found themselves in. The floor seemed to be made of large rectangular flagstones. Behind was the collapsed stone which had been his dad, which had kept him safe from the trees of Queen Mab. Further on though, into the tunnel (had it already been there? Had his father, the stone-man, formed it?) the flagstones gave way to a huge step. It was as tall as three regular steps. Jojo found all this through touch. But as he lifted Trevor onto the step and then the step beyond, which curved to the left, and the step beyond that, which curved a little more, he found light slowly breaking in.
A warm red light again. Were they heading back into the forest?
Trevor farted each time Jojo lifted him, a little waft of stinky gas.
‘Ah, Trevor,’ Jojo said. ‘You really do smell.’ But he knew he wouldn’t have it any other way. He knew he would not have made it this far without the dear dog. So he continued to carry him from step to step, up and up as they gently spiralled.
‘Spiral stairs, Trevor, this feels more like a castle. We must be getting there.’
But as they rose and the light grew stronger and stronger, another feeling came over the pair. At first Jojo had put his sweat down to the exertions of lifting the dog before scrambling up himself. Lift and scramble, up the giant stairs, always curving left. But soon the warmth was not just prickling beneath their skin, it was in the air and in the stone too. The steps seemed hot somehow, like sand beneath your feet on a sunny day.
Trevor barked as Jojo put the dog down again on what must have been the fiftieth, sixtieth, maybe seventieth step.
‘Yup, this is new,’ said Jojo. He gulped and took a deep breath, the hot air drying his mouth.
How long since they had drunk something? He guessed they’d swallowed plenty of water as they struggled from the river in the cave. But he was thirsty now.
He wondered if he was unwise to run straight to the faerie mounds with nothing in hand. Was that really what Aunt Pen would have planned? Maybe a mission like this needed a full pack. Food. Supplies. How long would they be here? Would they find more and more Dads for hours, days, weeks? For ever?
How long would they be on these stairs?
Most of those questions Jojo had no answer to. But the last one soon became clear.
‘I think that’s the top,’ Jojo said.
The stairs were well lit now. The heat was intense. Jojo’s clothes had begun to dry from the river, but the dampness was soon replaced by his running sweat. Above they could see an opening. There was another chamber, not nearly as big as the forest, but all lit, as the stone woods had been, in an orange light. This light was not a glow though. This was a roaring blaze.
‘Come on,’ said Jojo, lifting Trevor one more time before his fear could get the better of him.
They climbed and climbed. The last steps leading them out.
Jojo found the source of the heat at once.
The chamber was almost like a station. The ceiling was at least twenty metres up and carved into sweeping arches. The stairs they had climbed ran up onto a wide platform of sorts. Instead of rails though, the platform edge fell to a gently blipping pool of something that looked distinctly like... ‘Lava!’ Jojo said, placing a hand to steady Trevor, who barked and shuffled back towards the stairs.
The surface of the pool rippled and bubbled. It was black and orange and red and yellow. It swelled and moved, forming itself into shapes and patterns like clouds. There was a hand. Waves of red. An eye.
Jojo swallowed.
What now?
The platform area was closed at both ends. There were no more stairs. No doorway. The only way on appeared to be an arched entrance through which the lava flowed.
How could this be lava though? Surely they’d be burned alive this close.
Jojo took a step forward. It was still hot, still sweltering, but no hotter. He did not suddenly burst into flames.
It could not be real lava. Any more than they were real trees in that stone forest. Something like it, to be sure. But not the real thing. He imagined it could still burn though. If they touched it.
He took another step forward. Trevor farted and barked but didn’t follow.
‘Perhaps,’ Jojo thought aloud, peering into the opening, ‘there’s... some way to go on.’
‘I can take you on,’ said a voice, deep and slow.
Jojo nearly jumped out of his skin. Trevor yapped and leaped up. He barked and ran in a quick circle.
There, in the lava pool, was a boat – six metres long and narrow with a carved prow. And at the back of the boat sat a man in a dark cloak.
How had Jojo not seen him before?
‘You... you weren’t there. Were you?’ Jojo said.
The boatman dipped his head in a nod. ‘I am always here.’
‘But,’ said Jojo, ‘you weren’t...’ Then he thought again. ‘Who are you?’
The boatman’s head moved again, tipping to one side. ‘Who am I?’ he repeated, as if this question was the strangest he had heard. ‘I am the boatman. I am always here.’
Jojo gulped. His heart was still hammering from the surprise of this boatman’s appearance. But he’d seen so few people in this place – only her, Queen Mab, and him, his dad – it was quite a relief to meet someone else, even if it was a faceless stranger.
‘Do you have a name though? I’m... I’m... Jojo.’
Again the boatman’s cloak moved, his head tipping back to the other side. ‘Jojo.’ He nodded. ‘That is a good name. A good name.’
Trevor had stopped barking. He was nudging Jojo’s legs with his big, damp nose and letting out a rapid series of tiny farts.
The boatman seemed to lift his eyes to meet Jojo’s now. Jojo felt his gaze looking deep inside him. He swallowed hard and the boatman looked away.
‘Do you want to go on?’ said the stranger.
Jojo looked at the tunnel. The only way.
‘On?’ he said. ‘Ye-yes. We do. We want to go on. Don’t we, Trevor?’
He looked back at the dog. His tail was tucked firmly between his legs. His face was buried in the back of Jojo’s knee.
‘We do,’ Jojo answered for the both of them and started towards the boat. ‘Come on, boy.’
Trevor let out a small woof. He seemed to breathe in deep. He snuffled. Then he followed Jojo to the boat.
The boatman did not speak or move as the boy and the dog clambered in the boat. Although it had seemed narrow, it did not rock or bob. It did not seem to notice them climbing in at all. It certainly didn’t sink further into the lava. It had not got any hotter either.
Then, without a word, the boatman stood and pushed away from the platform with a long pole that Jojo was sure had not been there before.
Trevor was at the front of the boat, Jojo in the middle and the boatman at the back. He dipped the long pole into the fake lava, pushing them forward. Then lifted it, strings of the red-hot substance swirling and falling back into the pool, and pushed again. In no time at all they were passing under the arch.
They were going on.
Lost and Found
The tunnel they passed along was not like the subterranean river, dark and cold. It was not like the forest, rough and wild. This tunnel, like the platform cavern, was carved and shaped. There were arches supported by tall pillars. Beams crisscrossed the ceiling. The walls were smooth.
Trevor spent his time looking ahead, past the prow figurehead, which was carved in some form, where the tunnel neither curved nor sloped. It just went on. Jojo was looking into the lava. He was sure those blips and bubbles were trying to form themselves into something more. Was there something in the lava?
Jojo dragged his eyes from the stream and looked to the boatman. There was no seeing into that deep hood.
‘You can’t have always been here,’ said Jojo.
The boatman did not take his eyes from the way ahead. He kept on dipping and lifting the pole. There was a sound though, a deep breath being taken.
‘I am always here. I have a debt to pay. I take people on.’
Jojo frowned. Sweat was dripping down his nose, running in little rivulets across his forehead. He looked from the boatman to Trevor to the front of the boat.
They had not inspected that figurehead. They’d been too busy watching their step as they boarded the boat. But now he did—
‘But perhaps once,’ intoned the boatman. Jojo swept back round to look to the stranger. ‘I was somewhere else.’
Maybe you were someone else, Jojo thought. He frowned again and reached for his pocket, reached for the hagstone. He felt and felt, but the stone was not there. He pulled out the pouch and looked inside. No stone. Just the coin. The last gift.
He had wondered for a moment if he were to look through the stone, what would he see? But he must have lost it, must have dropped it somewhere on the steps.
Again, Jojo found himself drawn to the surface of the lava. To the swirls and eddies in the burning river. There was the eye again. There was a mouth. Or did he imagine it? Was it like cloud-watching? You could see anything in the clouds if you looked long enough.
‘Are we nearly there?’ Jojo asked, still staring at the burning stream.
‘Where?’ asked the boatman.
Now Jojo looked up. ‘You said, you’d take us on to... to...’
‘I take people on. I have a debt to pay.’
Jojo looked back down the tunnel, the way they had come. There was no sign of the arch they had come through. The tunnel just went on. He looked ahead. Endless tunnel. He trained his eyes on the figurehead. It was. He could only see the back but he was sure now. It was her. Mab, carved on the prow of the boat.
The sweat now running down his back was not just from the heat. He shuffled a little towards the dog.
He turned again. His frown had deepened. ‘Where do you take people?’ he said to the boatman.
‘I take them on.’
Jojo reached out a hand for Trevor. He needed to hold on to something. Here they were in the middle of a lava flow on a boat going... on.
‘Where do we... do we stop?’
‘I take you on.’
Jojo gulped. What was this? A boatman to take you nowhere? A debt?
He looked once more at the burning river. She was here. Eyes and hands and mouth and stream. Mab was here.
‘Who are you?’ he shouted at the boatman.
‘I am the boatman.’
Jojo leaped up. He felt heat rising in him. Anger stronger than his fear. ‘You’re not a boatman.’ In a few strides he was there, face to face with the stranger. He reached up and pulled down the hood.
The boatman did nothing to stop him. The boatman merely stared back with blank eyes, the eyes of Jojo’s father.
‘Dad,’ gasped Jojo once more. Once more his father was here. He had found him again. Except this man was old. Not as old as Grandad. But old. Old and bald. Unlike the boy Dad, flying above the castle, and the young man Dad, who had been three stone-men, this Dad showed no sign that he recognised his son.
The boatman looked long at Jojo. Then he looked back to the tunnel ahead. He lifted the pole and dipped it once more. ‘I am the boatman. I have a debt to pay. I take people on.’
‘What now?’ shouted Jojo. He twisted and shouted it at the figurehead. He shouted it at the river.
And a voice came back. ‘He can never pay. The end will never come. HE IS MINE.’
The last three words came as jets of lava shooting from the surface of the lake, hitting the smooth stone walls and arched ceiling.
‘Now you are too,’ Queen Mab finished with a whisper.
Jojo was still standing. He licked his lips.
He was. He was hers, stuck on a boat going nowhere. No escape from this.
Except...
He knew what he had to do. Something that was hidden. A debt. Jojo smiled and the river of lava bubbled and hissed in reply.
Jojo reached into his pocket and once more pulled out the pouch. The river began to rock and froth, little waves hit the narrow boat. Trevor barked and stood, watching the lava warily. Jojo took the boatman’s right hand from the pole. ‘Look at me,’ he said.
The boatman once more turned his gaze to the boy. His son.
‘I found it,’ Jojo said, emptying the little pouch into his father’s hand. ‘The coin. The payment.’ Fresh spurts of lava erupted around them.
The many-sided, red-gold coin tumbled onto the boatman’s palm. His eyes fixed upon it. He stared intently at the image of Queen Mab, which blazed in the light of the lava.
‘Jojo,’ the man said now in the voice of his father. ‘You found it.’ He looked at Jojo, a tear in his eyes, then back to the coin. He stared. He took a deep breath. ‘And now my debt is paid.’ The boatman, Jojo’s dad, pushed the coin to the edge of his finger, caught it on the tip of his thumb and...
Flick! The coin sailed through the air. It turned end over end. Jojo saw it as if in slow motion – the head of Queen Mab, the engraved symbols, the queen, the symbols, the queen. It flew and then with a plop and a hiss it hit the lava stream.
Instantly, jets of lava erupted around them. The waves doubled in size, tripled. The boat rocked and twisted and began to smoke. The walls began to melt and then crumble.
‘Now we’ve got to get out of here,’ Jojo’s dad shouted.
He plunged the pole back into the roiling river. He twisted and flicked the long boat sideways. They were now facing, not the long straight tunnel, but the wall.
‘What are you doing?’ shouted Jojo.
Trevor barked and barked over the coughing, roaring lava.
‘Sometimes,’ the boatman Dad called, pulling up the pole once more, ‘the only way on is to smash straight through.’ He pushed the pole downward with a mighty thrust and the boat shot forward. It rose on a wave. Another sent it rocking sideways.
Jojo reached out a hand and grabbed onto the dark cloak his father wore. He readied himself for the boat to smash into the falling stone of the wall. Behind them, the lava erupted again, not just a jet this time, though. Now it took form. Now it was a woman.
The boat jumped forward as a huge, fiery Queen Mab lunged for it.
‘HE IS MINE,’ the queen screamed, reaching for the boat. She did not grasp it though.
Jamie Locke, the boatman, pulled up the pole once more and with a leap, threw himself at the rearing faerie queen. The pole was a spear. It shot straight at her heart.
‘No!’ screamed Jojo. ‘Noooo!’ But there was nothing he could do.
The boat plummeted on. It hit the wall, not with a thud, not with a crash. There was no noise. No splintering of the boat. No falling wall smashing into them. In fact, there was no noise at all.
Jojo, who found he had squeezed his eyes tight shut, now opened them.
He found himself, bloody, bruised and burned, but still standing. In front of him was a huge stone door. Candles on metal stands stood on either side of the door. Trevor, his tail swishing against the tiled floor, bristled beside him. Behind him there was nothing but solid wall. That was no matter. Ahead was where he needed to go. Of that he was certain.
‘We’re here,’ said Jojo. He tightened his fists and once more stepped forward. With a gulp he pushed the door open.
Fire
The door gave way and Jojo found himself gazing into a room he’d been in before. A circular room filled with pillars, each of which held a statue – a statue of his dad. As a boy running, a smile on his face. As a man, building something. A teenager swimming. There he was again on his wedding day.
Jojo stepped into the room, Trevor at his side. It was lit by a thousand flickering candles all on their own stands.
The last time he’d seen this room, with Aunt Pen on the first day he’d met her, he’d not been able to take in all the shimmering images in the stained-glass windows. (Just a week ago? It felt like an age.) Now they stood illuminated in his mind. Each image spoke to him.. There were sand dunes. A village green. There was London. Here was the arch at Dor beach. In each, there was another image of his dad, another memory. Here, he ran. There, he laughed. He read. He swam. He sat. He slept. He lived in the coloured glass.
Trevor barked and started forward.
‘What is it, boy?’ Jojo said. He looked over to where the dog had begun to trot.
They were not alone in that room. Sitting on one of a pair of silver thrones was an old, old man. His beard was white. His brown skin was as crisp as dry leaves. He appeared to be asleep. But there was no mistaking him.
‘Dad!’ Jojo shouted. ‘Dad!’
This had to be it. This had to be it.
The boy ran towards the throne and the sleeping man and the biggest stained-glass window of all. This was the only one that did not hold a memory of Jamie Locke. Instead, this window showed the faerie queen in her majesty. She was huge. Her flame-coloured hair filled the top of the window in waves like a mighty crown. She was dressed in red glass which bathed the place where the old man slept in a fiery glow. She stared as Jojo approached. But still he ran.
