The Magic of Endings, page 8
It was from here that memory broke out.
Beside the bed in which the man slept, a woman sat. Her hair was white, but with a hint of the red it had once been. There was little to see of her. Her head was in her hands.
The shaking continued, it shook the inhabitants of that room. The shaking grew. Groans from the deep. And then a crack and a boom. Somewhere in the deep, rocks broke.
Memories broke out.
Explanations
After a sip of Kernowan Moonshine to warm them all, Grandad said, ‘Well, I think a few more words could go toward that explanation.’
So he got a few more words.
As they walked back home, trying with very little success to dust themselves off, Jojo and Ricco told their grandad the story so far of flights through space and time, of near-death falls, of Mum’s mysterious burping and of the trip underground to visit badgers. They told it well with only the occasional interruption from Aunt Pen of, ‘Well... it’s not quite that simple,’ or, ‘It wasn’t exactly like that,’ and, ‘There’s a bit more to the whole adventure than they’re letting on.’
They spoke about the tunnels collapsing, about their escape through the dark. Jojo showed them all the stone with the hole in it that he’d picked up.
‘That’s called a hagstone, that is,’ said Grandad. ‘It’s meant to be magical.’ He glanced at Aunt Pen, frowned. ‘Maybe it is? They say it shows the world how it really is.’
Aunt Pen did not comment on the stone but gave Jojo a meaningful look. Perhaps she was saying, That’s important. Or, Keep that safe.
Jojo frowned at it. Peered for a moment through the hole. And with a shrug, dropped it into his jeans pocket.
It was not until they turned onto the lane that they finished with how they flew as light through the cracks in the earth.
‘And that’s when we landed in the river,’ Ricco said.
Grandad stopped there on the street, lost in thought for a moment. To Jojo, there seemed to be the merest hint of a tear forming in his eye.
‘I know what you’re gonna ask,’ said Aunt Pen.
Grandad swallowed something stuck in his throat, words or thoughts or those gathering tears. ‘Do you now?’ he said in his gruff way.
‘I do,’ said Aunt Pen. ‘And I can’t do it.’
To the brothers it was like eavesdropping on one of those adult conversations where two people speak in riddles and half-finished thoughts.
‘You can’t?’ said Grandad. ‘Or won’t? Is it possible?’
Aunt Pen peered deep into Grandad’s eyes as Grandad stared right back. Jojo and Ricco looked back and forth between the pair of them. ‘I can’t do what you would ask,’ she said. ‘There are certain constraints on my magic. Certain limitations on all magic. And that, Mr Locke, is at the heart of the problem. More needs to be fixed than one lost son. But if that were fixed...’
Grandad took a long, long breath and let out a sigh that seemed to deflate his whole body, like he was a bouncy castle with the pump turned off. His eyes fell to the pavement.
‘I can’t do what you would ask,’ Aunt Pen repeated, reaching out and lifting Grandad’s chin with one finger, as you would do to a young child. In that moment, Jojo saw Aunt Pen in a whole new light, not as a tiny faerie, not as the rather odd aunt, but as someone or something ancient and knowing – a faerie godmother true. ‘But something can be done about what you would ask.’
Grandad swallowed again. He fixed her with a stare again. He went to speak. But the faerie spoke first.
‘However, before you ask, I cannot even say what must be done or will be done. There’s a bigger plan at work here, Mr Locke, and we are at a tipping point. If we were to take one misstep, we’d fall. If I were to push too hard one way or another, we’d fall. If I were even to open my mouth and speak of it, it’d be the end. Much would be lost for ever. There is so much I cannot speak of. I am bound by the same magic that imprisons...’ Her words stopped. ‘So much I cannot say.’
Grandad stared a moment more, then said, ‘I think I need some more fresh air,’ so he and Trevor kept on walking. Jojo and Ricco were left to ponder the conversation as they made their way along the final stretch of the lane.
Back inside, there was no sign of the strange little man Hob Goodfellow, whom they’d left Grandma with. But neither was there any sign of the colossal mess Aunt Pen had left in the kitchen. Grandma was happily knitting.
There was no sign of Aunt Pen either. They did not know at what point in those final steps she had slipped away but she had. Again, she was gone.
After the events of that afternoon, the boys owed themselves a quiet afternoon. They changed out of their filthy clothes and Jojo shoved them into the washing machine. With many words of thanks for ‘just the greatest day’, Ricco plonked himself in front of the television.
Jojo couldn’t concentrate though. Not even on everyone’s favourite programme – Mickey Mack’s Family Game Show – coming to you live each and every day.
Now he knew what Grandad wanted, his mind was a-whirr. He wanted his missing son back. He wanted that empty space in his head, in his heart, in their homes to be filled.
Jojo knew all about that empty space. The space that was now filling, tiny bit by tiny bit. Memory by memory.
He could feel his father now. Feel his arms around him. He knew what it felt like to have him, to be held.
There were tears in Jojo’s eyes, as he sat there watching the Thorpe family compete for the grand prize of a holiday in Florida. He was glad no one turned to look at him. No one saw the tear run down his face and onto his thin pyjama top.
He missed his dad. For the first time ever, he missed his dad.
And he knew Ricco felt something the same. What did he dream of? Family? Sure, a family of badgers, but still family.
Jojo found himself feeling slightly guilty, guilty that he hadn’t thought to ask before for the one thing that everyone in his family needed. An end to the emptiness.
An answer to the mystery of the missing dad.
Guilty, but he knew that before these days of magic had begun, he didn’t even know it was what they wanted or needed. Not really. Now he knew it, right in his gut.
They needed the wrong made right.
What had Aunt Pen said, the same sort of thing she’d said to him about limitations, constraints on her magic? Not everything was possible. She couldn’t do what Grandad wanted.
I can’t do what you would ask. That’s what she’d said.
When Grandad returned, Jojo did not lift his head to meet his gaze. And Grandad sat heavily, not rising for some time even when Trevor parked himself on Grandad’s lap, which he hated.
*
Mum rang in to a very strange atmosphere.
‘Hello, darlings,’ she said, her face appearing on Jojo’s phone – they got reception by holding the phone half out of the window.
‘Hey!’ Ricco fizzed. ‘We had the best day!’
‘Wow,’ said Mum. ‘That’s great. With Aunt Pen?’
‘Yeah,’ said Ricco.
‘Hey, darling,’ Mum said to Jojo, who tried to turn his frown into a grin.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘So what did you get up to?’
‘Well—’ began Ricco.
‘Nothing,’ said Jojo quickly. What was the good in Mum knowing? He couldn’t tell her now. They couldn’t tell her there was a faerie who could grant wishes but the one wish that should be made, could not be made. He couldn’t tell her that.
Now it was Mum’s turn to frown.
‘It was the best day, but you did nothing?’ she said.
‘They went to the park,’ said Grandad, appearing just in time to lean over Jojo’s shoulder and appear in the little box that showed what Mum saw on the other end of the line. ‘And then the river.’
Well, that was true, thought Jojo.
‘Fun,’ said Mum.
‘And a very nice little man made me lunch,’ said Grandma, now appearing at Ricco’s shoulder. ‘Little Goodfellow.’
Grandad glanced over at his wife. He hadn’t heard this bit.
‘Erm...’ Mum said. ‘That’s nice. Is Aunt Pen there? Pen? Pen? Did they behave themselves?’
But Aunt Pen was still nowhere to be found.
*
That night, once again, Jojo could not sleep. One thing Aunt Pen had said ran round and round his mind. Not a storm of thoughts this night, just one, again and again, hitting him from all angles. A thought without an answer.
Something can be done about what you would ask.
That’s what Aunt Pen had said. How? What could be done? What should be asked? What should be wished for?
There’s a bigger plan at work here.
The same cryptic words she’d said to Jojo in his bedroom.
He dreamed that night of Mr Badger asleep on the sofa, watched over by that woman with the red hair – a terrible, fearful woman. Her eyes blazed even in his dream.
The words of Mrs Badger rang out, ‘It really is time Dad was waking up,’ and somewhere far away a drum was playing or a clock was ticking.
Time was running out.
The Man in the Moon
This, by chance, was exactly what a certain starry-eyed, black-cloaked man was saying to the faerie Penperro on a grassy sand dune overlooking the beach of Dor.
‘Time is running out,’ said the Sandman, all in black, the stars in his eyes grown dim.
Penperro held an hourglass balanced in one hand. But instead of sand pouring through and filling the bottom half of the glass phial, one minuscule feather floated downward, more slowly than possible, to join a pile of hundreds of the same.
‘The seeds have been sown. I have done what needs be done. All he requires now is a push. He must know what is within him: courage – the will to act,’ she said.
The moon shone across the sandy beach and glinted on the rippling waves. It was a calm night. As calm as any you could wish for. But the king of dreams and the faerie godmother did not look to be enjoying it.
‘They will come here soon,’ the Sandman said. ‘They must.’
Out at sea, the moon’s rays caught on a strange series of waves.
‘Dolphins,’ he said. ‘A whole pod. Maybe a dozen of them. They’re making their choice – this side or the other. If we fail, the gate will close. There will be no travel between our world and this one. All magic will spill from the human world too as it does from Elfhaeme. No more dreams. No more moonlight. No more dust motes dancing on a ray of sun.’
As the Sandman spoke, Penperro lifted her eyes to look round to their right to a huge rocky arch stretching out from the cliffs into the wash of the waves. The gate will close.
Penperro looked up to the moon. It was empty tonight, no man looked down; for the man in the moon was sitting beside her on the sandy dunes with a bag full of stardust and words of warning. He’d make no rounds tonight; he’d set no dreams running through the minds of mortals. All his mind was now bent on their great task.
‘I know what happens,’ Penperro said. ‘All magic. Gone. Elfhaeme will fall. My sister will fall too along with all of us. I do not believe she knows of the danger. And I cannot get to her to tell her now. The ways are closed even to me.’
‘And would she listen, if you could?’ said the Sandman.
Penperro sighed. A deep sigh. ‘She did not. When I warned against loving a mortal man, long years ago, she did not listen. Maybe I should have...’
‘The past has been and gone,’ said the man in black. ‘It will not come again.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Aunt Pen. ‘Perhaps though,’ her voice dropped now to the faintest of whispers, ‘we can shape a new past.’
They looked together out at the beach. ‘You cannot hold it back much longer. You must show him more.’
Penperro vanished the hourglass into a locket which looked exactly like a pocket watch on a chain.
‘Well then,’ she said, ‘I will.’
The Beach in the Bathroom
Jojo had slept, eventually, with that thought ticking always in his mind. He’d slept and slept long, throwing off the running and digging and madness of the day before.
He knew nothing of the conversations the faerie had had with the Sandman. He did not see clearly what she was steering him towards. He only knew that whatever she was up to, it was unpredictable and wild.
Jojo woke to a whispered conversation in the hall outside his door.
‘I want to see him,’ said Grandad. ‘Even if it is just one last time.’
It was quiet for a moment but for the tinkling of pendants and lockets. Jojo pushed his blankets down, sat up and listened hard. ‘That can be done,’ said Aunt Pen.
‘How?’ asked Grandad.
‘Make a wish. What do you want to see?’ said Aunt Pen.
‘Well... it’s difficult,’ muttered Grandad as Jojo shook the sleep from his head and began to take in what he was hearing. ‘There’s so much... so much I can’t remember. I... I—’
‘How about,’ said the faerie, ‘how about the day you taught him to fish?’
Jojo leaped from the bed. ‘Grandad,’ he called, running for the door. ‘Don’t do it.’
But he was too late.
‘Mmm... yes... I wish to see my boy on the day he learned to fish.’
Jojo pulled the door open as that flash of light pulsed from Aunt Pen. ‘Oh no,’ he hissed and squeezed his eyes shut. He got ready to make a grab for a hand hold, ready to plunge into water, ready for giant creatures to be all around him.
But nothing happened.
He opened one eye and looked up at Grandad, dressed in his coat and boots and Aunt Pen wearing a kitchen apron, staring down at him where he was curled on the floor. ‘You OK, boy?’ said Grandad.
Aunt Pen winked, the wrinkles around her eyes growing in length and depth as she did so. ‘Breakfast,’ she said, hobbling off to the kitchen with a cough.
‘What have you done, Grandad? It goes wrong. It always goes wrong. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.’
But all Grandad said was another, ‘Mmmm,’ a deep rumble from his huge chest, as he hung up his coat. Then he made his way round to the kitchen with a, ‘We’ll see, won’t we.’
*
Ricco was up, playing Jenga with Grandma. Grandma loved Jenga, the toppling tower game, even though her hands shook like they were tied to heavy weights.
In the kitchen, Grandad was at the table, which was spread with toast and butter, honey and jam. Aunt Pen was at the cooker, frying something. Jojo sat as she turned with a plate of puffed pancake-like pockets of gold.
‘Oh yes,’ Grandad said. ‘Fry bakes. Pass ’em here.’
Breakfast went on without event. Grandad fed Grandma mini pancakes with honey. Ricco had thick slices of toast and peanut butter. Jojo, however, could not eat. There was a deep knot in his stomach. Something was coming again. Magic was on its way.
He kept his eyes on Aunt Pen who, he was sure, was ignoring him. Someone else was there too. No one was paying him any mind, but out of the corner of his eye, Jojo caught sight of Hob Goodfellow, tidying this, moving that. Jojo could not look right at him, no matter how hard he tried; his eyes seemed to slide off the little man and focus on something just to the left or right. But he was there, just out of sight.
Jojo wondered if he’d had enough of magic altogether. Enough of all this mystery. Enough of strange creatures and unknown designs. He wanted to know, for certain, what must be done. He’d ask. Soon, he’d make the faerie talk.
‘Tinkle time,’ said Ricco, standing and heading to the bathroom.
Jojo reached for a pancake and popped it in his mouth. Now Grandad had made his own wish. What would it bring? What day were they heading for?
‘Woah-ho-HO!’ shouted Ricco from the bathroom. ‘You have got to see this.’
‘Ah,’ said Aunt Pen.
‘What’s up with you now?’ said Grandad.
‘Here we go again,’ said Jojo.
‘Oooh, Mr Goodfellow is back,’ said Grandma.
Everyone apart from Grandma and the goblin crowded out of the kitchen, across the living room and down the hall to where Ricco stood beside the open bathroom door.
Ricco stared and gulped. As they approached him, water sprayed out of the bathroom door, soaking his pyjamas.
‘Woah!’ he said again, shaking himself like a dog, as Trevor the actual dog came bounding past them and through the open door.
‘Trevor!’ shouted Ricco and plunged after him.
‘Ricco!’ called Jojo. He didn’t run after his brother. Not straight away. He stood and stared and took a deep breath.
That wasn’t their bathroom in there. It wasn’t any room at all.
Instead of the yellow and cream lino floor, a rocky slab sloped away down towards a swirling sea. There was no sink, no bath, no toilet, no walls. There was just the sea, and above, the blue sky, peppered with wisps of white cloud.
Jojo turned back to the hallway. Then back to the bathroom door and the sea beyond. He pinched himself again. No. He wasn’t dreaming. There was a whole sea in his bathroom.
Ricco and Trevor had vanished from sight.
‘This is the day,’ whispered Grandad. ‘I know it. I can feel it.’
‘Come on,’ said Aunt Pen. ‘After him. You can’t let him get lost in the past. We’ll never get him back. He’ll come back through tomorrow aged thirty years!’
The waves rolled in, sending another spray of spume. This time across all three of them. They shook, like Ricco had done and then as one leaped forward through the entrance, onto the rocks.
‘Ahh. This is it. Trestle Beach,’ Grandad sighed as the cool sea breeze hit them.
And it was the beach, Jojo could see, the beach not far from the cottage in the lane. The beach he’d seen from high in the sky. The beach that was imprinted in his mind. The rocks were at one end. To their left, sand and stones ran away in a long curve till they reached rolling sand dunes at the other end and then a huge stone arch beyond that, out at sea.
