Horizon: The Sky Ship Aerismar - Table of Contents

[Rocket Rabbit]

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Horizon
The Sky Ship Aerismar
by Claire Hack

For all his life, Felix’s life has been… well, his life.

That is to say, dull. Tending to the goats, making cheese and taking care of his housebound mother. Things that needed to be done.

Even living next to an inter-dimensional anomaly – the great void – was surprisingly unexciting.

Although to be honest, he’d always imagined that adventure was something that happened to other people.

Grandma Gigi changed all that.

She says she's a witch.

She tells him he has to save a young girl who will attacked and killed by a vicious creature.

Well, Felix has always been inclined to obey his elders...

Chapters

1. The Sky Ship Aerismar
2. Vera
3. Grandma Gigi
4. Gruuuulch?
5. Away
6. Away, Away
7. Magic
8. Down the Chimney
9. Recovery
10. Leaving

Coming Soon - 11. Sergeant Trippet

[Rocket Rabbit]

1.   The Sky Ship Aerismar

Here, there were whispers. Rustling silk. A sound like scissors cutting hair. This was a crossing place. This was the place where worlds brushed against each other like the thousand separate leaves on a tree. There was a feel to the air, like the surface tension on water. The harder the water is hit, the harder it hits back, the harder it is to pass through.  But step into the water quietly, or stumble into it by accident…




The sky-ship Aerismar soared through the dark aether, the reams of fog breaking as easily as water over her gleaming hull, which was carved with songbirds and thunderstorms. Her figurehead was a black stallion, paused at the height of its leap. Rain from the iron-hooded sky lashed the deck and occasionally, the Aerismar gave a long groan and shuddered violently. Along her balustrades were hung electric lanterns, shaking with the motion of the flight, but the lanterns were not switched on, though the sky was growing darker by the second.

It was the most dangerous thing in the world to try flying an aeriscaelum-hulled sky-ship through an electrical storm. Captain Cestrudus Tinn knew that better than most. If the lightning struck you, you’d either lose control of your ship or the engine would overload. Though this storm was definitely a humdinger, as his dad would have said, luckily for Cestrudus, it was not a thunderer. Yet. He kept his eyes fixed on the horizon, hoping.

The storm had blown out of nowhere and caught the S.S. Aerismar and her one-man crew by surprise. Before the first hour was up, the ship was well off her planned course and heading further into unknown territory. The navigation devices fixed into the wooden console before him spun uselessly and Cestrudus wasn’t even sure if he was over land or sea anymore. Damn interference! He thumped the console angrily.

Coming this far was a mistake, he thought. He’d left Aerodys in a hurry and until he was out in the open sky, he’d been restless, uncomfortable. In fact, he’d gone straight from Rosa’s bedside at the hospital to the docks where the Aerismar was moored. He hadn’t wanted to face going home to the empty bed. And the empty cot. He’d done the only thing that came naturally to him. He’d run for the horizon.

Rain ran down his face and dripped from his nose onto the bank of meters which were going crazy. He’d given up trying to understand the torrent of useless information they spewed out. They were no good to him now. He’d already ventured into unmapped territory before the storm struck, and he’d wager it had carried him much further still. He had no choice but to wait out the night and reassess the situation when it was light.

Gritting his teeth, Cestrudus threw a switch on the console, diverting all unnecessary power to the engines. The small electric bulb at the top of the control console blinked out, but the blue emergency light beside it stayed on. Cestrudus took a battery torch from his coat pocket and used it to light his way to the hatch which led below deck.
Down there, sheltered from the banshee wind and the wicked lashing of the rain, Cestrudus felt calmer. He found his way to his cabin and settled at the desk, which was fixed to the floor, and fixed the torch overhead. The leather-bound log book rested in the centre of the desk, and he pulled it towards him and took up his pen.

Day 72. Not nearly enough rations to get us back to Aerodys. Approx. 13 miles east of Pinnacle Rock, bitch of a storm took up chase. Been on our tail all day. Hoping it doesn’t turn electrical. In any case, seems to be screwing with the meters. Been reading out funny since it sprung on us. Seem to be maintaining altitude of 700, though unsure of accuracy. Altimeter and barometer both haywire – storm. Unsure of location. Land or sea? Past Pinnacle, much unmapped. Can’t see ground below, but it IS dark. Will wait until light.

Not sure how much longer fuel will last. Seem to be using more to compensate for loss of control in storm. May go down in the night.

Cestrudus paused in his writing and tapped his chin with his pen, considering the implications of this last sentence. With care, he replaced his pen to the page and slowly completed what would be his final entry in the log book.

If the engine does fail, then I am ready for this. If the storm turns electrical, then I am ready for this. Death is an adventure I already endured with Rosa.

Cestrudus stared at the last few lines, surprised they came from his own hand. Finally, he lay down his pen and closed the book. There truly was nothing more he could do now, but wait. His bunk creaked as he laid back, his boots still on his feet. He was still primed for an emergency, and as the storm raged around the Aerismar, his ears strained for the sound of thunder.

It was going to be a long night.




This was the place where the world ended.

It was known by the people who lived there as Middle, because it had once stood squarely in the middle of the map. It had been an important city; a conduit where the wealth of the nation converged and flowed through. Since then, many things had changed. To look at it now, you might be fooled into thinking it was nothing more than a seaside cliff, but if you looked down, even on the clearest of days, you wouldn’t see any water at its foot. Little by little, the earth had crumbled away from underneath, collapsing, disappearing into an immense abyss. Most of the city was gone, eaten by the earth on which it stood.

All that was left of Middle now was a scattering of buildings around a nearby hilltop. The buildings were tall and elaborate, made of white marble, outdated and too grand for their new purpose. What once were churches, libraries and civic offices were now homes, crumbling though they were. The people of Middle were poor and isolated; the remnants of a city that had been cut off at the roots and forgotten about completely.

Halfway down the hill, there stood a house much humbler than the rest of Middle, known by the villagers as Edge Cottage. Its grey-stone walls seemed to sag inwards with exhaustion and it looked like a strong gust of wind would send the whole thing tumbling down the hill and into the abyss. A white fence encircled the cottage, running down to lean gently over the edge of the cliff and within the fence was a garden, of sorts. Weeds had sprung up throughout, the grass was long and unkempt and the bushes needed cutting back. Every now and then, a curious rolling sound could be heard, as another small piece of the cliff below parted and crumbled away.

It was late spring-time and a light breeze toyed with the long grass. A herd of goats swarmed around in the field beside the cottage, moving towards the sandy-haired boy who sat on the fence with his chin on his fist. An empty bucket dangled loosely from his other hand. Felix had lived in Edge Cottage for all his life and he hated goats.  Unfortunately, he was a goat-herder and the herd needed milking.

Sixteen years of daily honest labour had given Felix a stronger build than might be expected, given his poor diet (much more goat’s cheese and milk than he was happy with), though it was rumoured that his were the sturdiest legs in all of Middle. His skin was tanned from working outside all day and his hands were scarred, mostly from Vera, but in personality, you would not find a more thoughtful person than Felix. When he’d run out of chores to complete, he was more than happy to lay himself down in the grass at the cliff’s edge and stare at the sky. Despite the fact that Felix lived an impossibly simple life, with few fancies and distractions, he always found an awful lot to think about.

This morning, for instance, as he milked the goats, Felix was thinking about tables. The dining table in his home had only one leg, and it was prone to shaking and wobbling whenever it was used. Really, he thought, it might be steadier with four legs, which he’d generally learned were often more use than one. But then there was that one stone flag next to the fireplace which was wobbly. It stuck out at the corner. Sometimes he even tripped on it. He suspected that would cause more problems too, even with a four-legged table. So it would make sense to get that flagstone seen to first.

“Felix!”

The goat was now chewing his sleeve out of boredom. As he looked up from his milking, the goat gave him a most vicious glare and showed him its teeth.

“Felix! You’ve milked her dry! Give up with your day-dreaming, you useless clout!” Winnifred, his mother, was hanging out of the kitchen window, a dish cloth clutched in her hand. Wisps of her prematurely white hair spilled from underneath the patterned rag she had tied on her head and the jade-stone earrings she always wore bounced with her tantrum. He turned his back on her to walk to the dairy, knowing that she was scrutinising every move he made.

The dairy was a small stone shed attached to the side of the house and kept cool all day long by the shadow of the cottage. Inside, it was whitewashed and kept very clean and there was a small door leading into the kitchen. Really, it was just a small, cold room where they kept the milk and cheese and the equipment. As Felix entered, his mother threw open the kitchen door and glared him, her pale blue eyes flashing.

“What took you so long?” she snapped, taking the milk bucket from him. “Everyone’s clamouring for more cheese for the Mean Day Feast.” She shook her head and retreated into the kitchen to start cleansing the milk. Felix watched her tipping the fresh milk into a ceramic pot before suspending that above a large pan of water. Mumbling, she poked at the fire in the range for a moment, before glaring back at where her son still stood, watching her. “Fire’s not hot enough. Fetch more wood, instead of standing there all starstruck.”

“Yes, mother.”

Felix exited the dairy and went to the woodpile. As he was picking out logs for the kitchen range, he felt the wind change and looked up. It was blowing in from over the cliff now, more insistent than before, plucking at his hair and tugging at the hem of his shirt. Quietly, he watched as a bank of grey clouds rolled onto the horizon, tumbling closer with each second that passed. It reminded him of the way the sheep in the next field moved when the dog was herding them; a chaotic tumbling, eager not to be at the back of the herd, but still moving together like a single being.

“Where are you with that firewood?” he heard his mother wail from inside. He eyed the approaching cloud with vague interest before heaving up his load of wood and heading back into the house.




He woke to the sound of his ship screaming. Panic fluttered through his heart until he realised that the engines had not yet failed. But what had made that noise? The engines below were screeching and the ship was juddering with the strain. A white flash outside the window almost stopped his heart. The storm had turned! Beneath his feet, the ship bucked and shook as the lightning strike surged through her.

Cestrudus leapt from his bunk and snatched up the torch. The Aerismar needed him, and damned if he wasn’t going to help her! He heard the whine of the engines kick into overdrive and the entire ship leapt up, buoyed by the extra electricity that had just passed through her hull. She was picking up speed at a frightening rate, and Cestrudus had to fight to keep his feet.

Up on deck, it was chaos. The storm was all around him. The wind twisted and writhed around him like a dying snake. Water ran across the deck, and Cestrudus almost slipped as he crossed from the hatch. Lightning flashed up ahead as he reached the control console. The meters were still flickering wildly; a few had even cracked. He placed one hand on the wheel and flipped some switches. The ship’s violent shuddering eased slightly.

Steady, my girl, he thought. I’ll see you through this.

   The Aerismar strained against him as he tried to turn the wheel, and he felt, rather than heard, something grinding down below. Lightning split the sky again, reaching down to touch the stallion figurehead. The entire hull glowed hot white, and steam rose from either side. The sudden surge forward threw Cestrudus from his feet. The deck tilted and he slithered towards the railings, grasping uselessly at the rain slicked wood.

   Damn it! He staggered to his feet, clutching the rail as the ship juddered worse than ever. Suddenly, underneath, behind the sound of the storm Cestrudus heard another sound. Metallic screeching. He glanced over the edge and saw the aeriscaelum plating stretching, parting. Damn it! The Aerismar was breaking apart!

   Cestrudus ran back to the console, flicking switches, trying desperately to make the shaking subside. The last thing he wanted was to shed half those metal plates. No, the last thing he wanted was to lose the Aerismar. She was all he had left. The ship surged again. He hadn’t even noticed the lightning strike this time. But… no, something was really wrong.

   “No!” Cestrudus lurched forward, hoping. The power meter was dead. The blue emergency light blinked out. That meant the engines had failed. That last lightning strike must have overloaded her.

   Come on, my girl, wake up! Cestrudus’s fingers ran over the buttons and switches, and a hundred thoughts flew through his head as he tried to restart the engines. He could feel her losing altitude faster and faster. There was a flash to the left, and Cestrudus saw the finger of lightning creep down the sky, missing the Aerismar. And the idea was there.

   “Come on, damn it.” He watched the sky, hoping. His fingers were poised over the console switches. After a small eternity, he heard the rumbling above his head, like the earth was shifting. He started flicking the switches. Almost in slow motion, he could see the lightning streaking down to strike the ship. Faster!

   The bright line touched the stallion again and Cestrudus felt it move through the Aerismar. Yes! His fingers turned the last switch just before the ship lurched forward. Cestrudus stumbled backwards and lost his footing. His head cracked on the deck, and the last thing he heard as the world turned grey was the sound of the engines running again.

   The Aerismar was awake again.



Read the next chapter!

[Rocket Rabbit]

2.   Vera.

   
Felix could hear bleating. With his arms spread wide like a tightrope walker, he took another step closer to the edge, paused to quiver when he heard the tumbling of loose earth beneath him. The ground under his feet remained solid, so after steeling himself again, he shuffled forward a little more to peer over the edge into the void.

The void stared back at him. Like always, the foot of the cliff was obscured by a dense layer of fog that seemed almost strong enough to walk upon. From somewhere out beyond, Felix heard a distant rumble, like thunder but tinged with the screeching of metal.

Vera stared back at him too. She was the herd-mother and the most evil-tempered goat on the farm. Felix suspected that she did everything she could to drive him mad, especially now, as she glared up at him from a narrow ledge about fifteen feet down the side of the cliff. He had no idea how she’d found her way there without falling.

Really, he thought, he should leave her there. The memories of countless vindictive nips and head-butts outweighed any sentimental reason for rescuing her, and Felix’s life would certainly be a little brighter without the evil ringleader making things difficult. After a few moments of thinking about it, he realised Vera couldn’t stay down there because his mother just would not allow it. Felix would have to find a way to reach her. The old she-goat seemed to know just how much trouble she was causing him, and she looked up and gave him a devilish wink.

After some more deliberation (but not too much – Winnifred shouted when he stood staring into space for too long), Felix went to the shed and fetched the good rope and a harness for the goat. After some more thought, he emptied an old saucepan of the knick-knacks it had accumulated and took that too. There was a metal stake driven deep into the soil in the garden – relic of Old Middle – which Felix knew was sturdy enough to take his weight. With the rope firmly secured around the stake, he approached the cliff again and carefully placed the saucepan on his head.

Felix didn’t know what the word ‘abseil’ meant, because it wasn’t a word that came up in his daily conversations with Winnifred. However, if anyone ever told him it’s meaning, or if he ever looked it up in a dictionary, he would realise that it was the perfect word to describe what he did next. The rope made his palms sting as it ran through his hands, and every time his foot made contact with the cliff wall, it sent a shower of loose earth scattering into oblivion. He didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘precarious’ either.

When he reached Vera, she bit him on the nose. Though she was reluctant to give him any room, Felix found a footing beside the goat on the ledge, which was more solid than he’d anticipated. On closer inspection, it appeared to be a seam of rock which ran deep into the cliff. Vera bleated mockingly at him, and tugged sharply on his elbow.
“Ow,” he said. Before she could do it again, Felix tugged the goatsack from his pocket and pulled it over her mouth, fixing it behind her ears. Vera tried to shake it off, almost throwing herself and Felix into the abyss in the process, but after a minute she gave up. Felix could feel her giving him the evil eye as he tied the leather harness around her, ready to hoist her back up the rope.

As he struggled with his wayward goat, the void made that strange metallic sound again, followed by a dry burping noise. The air around him suddenly became very hot. Something small thudded into the cliff-face off to his right and bounced away out of sight. The same thing happened above his head, and then to his left. Something struck him hard on the back of the next, and Felix cried out with shock. Whatever had hit him was scalding hot.

Suddenly, he was showered with small, hot objects. They pattered against the cliff like solid rain, or piping hot hailstones, before disappearing into the void. Wherever they struck Felix’s skin, they left a stinging sensation and a small burn. Vera made a sound almost like a cackle, which Felix took to mean that she was annoyed at this turn of events.

After a few moments, the strange showered ceased. The void made another strange sound – a creaky, juddering noise followed by a high, inhuman wail which echoed across the cliff. Felix glanced nervously over his shoulder, then immediately wished he hadn’t. The void had a way of making his eyes aches and his stomach turn.

When he shifted his weight on the rope, something rolled out of a fold in his shirt and came to rest on his belly. He picked it up carefully between his thumb and forefinger, and realised it was one of the objects that had fallen out of the void at him. It was a silver bolt which was bent completely out of shape and curiously, it was still warm to the touch. The bolt was thick and sturdy, and he wondered what pressure had been used to distort its shape so badly. Felix spent a moment studying it, turning it to catch the light, before depositing it in his pocket.

As he began to struggle back up the cliff face with Vera kicking at him from her place on the harness, Felix wondered, not for the first time in his life, what lay beyond the void. It was certainly an interesting anomaly to live beside, he thought, because often there were odd sounds and smells that came drifting through the air. Unusual weather too. He remembered one summer evening when a brief but violent blizzard blasted its way across. It threw three inches of snow on his mother’s flowerbed before it blew itself out. Winnifred wasn’t happy about that.

His foot was caught in a clump of weed, Felix realised. The edge of the cliff was still a good six feet out of reach, and Vera didn’t seem to have grown bored of kicking him in the back of the legs. She head butted him half-heartedly as he reached down to free his foot. The plant was somehow wrapped tightly around his ankle, so he gave it a good hard yank. Two things happened.

Firstly, dislodging his foot from the weed caused a small landslip. The weed and the earth surrounding it crumbled away like puff pastry, taking Felix’s shoe with them. Secondly, a shard of metal as long as his hand embedded itself in the cliff face exactly where Felix’s head would have been if he hadn’t ducked down.

He blinked. A trickle of earth came from around the shard, much like blood from around a knife-wound. There was no mistaking it; the shard would have been in the back of his skull, saucepan helmet or not. Nervously, Felix reached out to touch the shard and withdrew his fingers at the intense heat.

What would have happened if it had hit him in the head, Felix wondered. Obviously, he would most likely be dead. His mother probably wouldn’t realise until the next day, when he failed to milk the goats. And by then, Vera probably would have eaten his body out of sheer spite. All in all, he was pretty happy that it missed him.

After allowing it to cool, Felix wrapped it in his hanky and put it in his pocket. He intended to put it on his bedroom shelf as a keepsake; ‘The Shard of White-Hot Metal that Almost Killed Me but Didn’t.’ A long struggle up the cliff face with Vera later, and both boy and goat were safely back on top of the cliff, although goat had taken a few ungrateful bites out of boy in the meantime.

“Now, you stay out of trouble, Vera,” Felix said sternly, removing her harness. The she-goat eyed him unconcernedly and head butted him in the knees.

The sun was starting to set by now. In the kitchen, Winnifred had finished making goats’ cheese for the day and was instead packing goats’ cheese into crates for the Mean Day Feast the following morning. She gave him a rare smile as he sat down heavily at the kitchen table and stared dismally at his red and raw hands, and the goat-bites up and down his arms and legs.

“I need you to deliver these to the town square tomorrow morning,” his mother said, carefully writing out labels in her chicken scratch hand.  Felix nodded.

He’d always thought that Mean Day was a stupid celebration. It started with a feast and ended with a fast, and went on to include a general shortage of food throughout the village. Essentially, the people of Middle gathered to celebrate food. At one time, Mean Day was simply a fast, where the villagers refrained from eating anything for the whole day. Later, some bright soul decided that there should be a large feast the day before, so that nobody would be hungry during the fast. All the food in the whole village would be taken to the square, piled on long tables and then eaten. The results were generally stomach aches for everyone and a shortage of food over the following days, since anything left over from the feast was left to rot in the square.

Felix took the metal shard from his pocket, carefully unwrapped it and set it on the table. It was dark, rough and pitted on one side, polished smooth on the other. There was a strange, cursive etching on the smooth side, and Felix couldn’t figure out what it was until he turned it around. Suddenly, it looked like a bird, or at least, the head and wingtips of a bird.

“Ow,” he said. In turning the metal around, he’d caught his thumb on a razor sharp edge and there was a deep gash in his thumb. He stuck the wounded digit in his mouth and rewrapped the metal piece. From outside, he heard the void stirring again and shuddered.

The abyss had been unusually noisome today, he thought. And it had thrown things at him. A long time had passed since it had been so active. He remembered the day it snatched a man away into nothing, in front of Felix’s own eyes. Jeb Knab, a farm hand further along the cliff, was walking along the path in front of Edge Cottage, the same way he often did. Felix remembered the way Jeb had soared into the air and vanished; it was as if someone had tied strings around his hands and feet and whipped him away like a giant puppet.

Felix saw his mother’s hand pause in her writing as another long, ethereal wail echoed out from the void, echoing all around their little house. They exchanged a nervous look, and Felix shuddered.

Something caught his eye and he stood up, went to the window and stared out, unable to believe what he was seeing. There were white lights flashing out in the darkness, out in the void. They were flashing so persistently, so rhythmically that for a moment he was certain it was some kind of code. Such a thing would be impossible, surely?

There was nobody out there. There couldn’t be. It was that fact that made the void what it was. The thought that anything could exist out there boggled Felix’s mind. It was impossible, he thought resolutely. Nothing could exist so far beyond the point where his garden fence leaned lazily over the edge.

He said nothing to Winnifred about what he’d seen; telling her something like that would only make her nervous and irritable. When he went to his room later that night, he tucked the piece of metal at the back of his shelf. Something about it made him uneasy.

His bedroom window faced out toward the cliff and if he had glanced out of it at that moment, he might have seen something. The ghostly shape of a vessel in the sky, glowing dull grey.  It’s the type of thing Felix would have noticed; the type of thing that would have set his busy little mind ticking and left him unable to sleep.

The last gasp of the great storm rolled toward the headland with breathtaking speed, carrying the helpless Aerismar along with it.






Some hours later…


“Wake up, Strudy. You slept too long.”

   Rosa? But…?

   Cestrudus sat up and blinked. The sky was brilliant white and his eyes ached. He felt the back of his head, felt dried blood in his hair. The Aerismar was serene, deathly quiet, but still flying. Cestrudus could feel the vibrations of the engine through the deck. But she’d taken a hell of a beating. The storm seemed to be gone, though the sky was still choked with cloud.

   Where on earth was he? Feeling every ache in his body, Cestrudus stood and staggered to the railing, massaging his head as he went. Looking over, he could see that some of the aeriscaelum plates on the hull had been ripped away by the storm, lost forever. But beyond that… he could see land.

   Now he could smell it. On the air, factories and pollution. There was a city below him. A grin spread across his face and suddenly he was exhausted. For now, he was safe. But he couldn’t rest yet. The engines probably sustained damage in the lightning strikes; Cestrudus was lucky they hadn’t exploded.

   He checked at the console. Engine power was normal, and the meters that hadn’t broken seemed to have calmed a little. The Aerismar seemed to have survived her brush with oblivion, but she was still hopelessly lost.

   Cestrudus heard the sound of an explosion from far below and something big struck the tip of the prow. Shocked, he grasped the console as the ship rattled. What the hell? He looked over the railings again. The city had been left behind, but he could see scattered buildings. What happened?

   Another explosion broke the silence, a dull thwump. Cestrudus couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Someone was actually shooting at him! The second impact struck the Aerismar on her port flank, sending her reeling sideways, and Cestrudus came close to being thrown overboard.

   The Aerismar was a civilian ship, not licensed to be equipped with any weaponry. Technically, she was registered as a research ship. She was not designed for warfare, because there was nowhere in the world where Cestrudus could not fly for fear of being shot down. His world was at peace. The Aerismar’s hull was easily penetrated.

   This was the reason why it was so easy for the Bruscan Army to shoot her down.



Read Chapter Three!

[Angel]

Ah I like what you have of this so far RR. I like Felix, he's got that dreamy air that's always fun.
Hope that you may come back to it at some point.

[Chinaren]

I'll read this later Robbit, but with a quick skim through this looks like a nice one.   

[Rocket Rabbit]

Wakey wakey!!

Welcome to my Nan'09 novel!! 

[Chinaren]

 

Great stuff so far Robbit!  (Finally caught up).

[Rocket Rabbit]

Glad you liked it CR. You'll have to read the updated chapter 2, since most of that is new now. =] It concerns a daring cliffside goat-rescue.

This is RR, signing out for the night, nicely on target! 

[Rocket Rabbit]

'Kay, since I've been making good progress today, I thought I'd smack another tasty treat up here for you to enjoy. =]

Or not, it's up to you how much you enjoy it really. But I thought, since I'm actually writing something and since there's a ridiculously good chance that I'm going to keep writing it, I should share it with you. Give a little back, if you like. =] =]

RR x

[Rocket Rabbit]

3.   Grandma Gigi

Felix sprawled out on the grass, resting his hot palms on the cool earth and trying to catch his breath. The walk to the village square was all uphill, and the only path was composed of uneven stones. Still, the cheeses were all delivered, ready for the Mean Day Feast later that afternoon, and Felix had some free time.

Without realising, his hand strayed down to pluck a handful of grass, and he began braiding it as he thought. He didn’t have much free time these days, and he didn’t know what to do with it when he did. All his days seemed to be filled with goat-related activities; milking, herding, grooming.

Above his face, the piercing blue sky stretched out forever, and at the edge of his field of vision, he could see where the azure melted into the void’s grey aether. He hadn’t heard any more of the strange noises since the previous night, but now, in the quiet garden, he could hear a humming sound. He looked around for a source before realising it had to be the void again. Whereas the sounds from the night before were unsettling and ominous, this humming was pleasant, almost human, almost singing. He realised he could smell something unusual. Again, it wasn’t unpleasant – rather, spicy, floral and enigmatic and somehow familiar.

The wind picked up, blowing in from beyond the cliff, bringing more of the strange scent with it. Felix sat up, feeling the breeze playing with the curls of his hair and drying away the sweat from his brow. The hairs on his arms were prickling, standing up straight. Something was happening, he thought, watching the horizon.

A black speck appeared, far away out there. Before Felix’s startled eyes, it grew larger and larger. No, it was coming closer, he realised. Something was travelling towards him incredibly quickly. The sing-song humming became louder as the thing approached. The black speck soon became a blob, and then a figure. A person.

It was a person, flying through the air towards him. Felix scrambled to his feet and took a step back. What was he supposed to do? As he watched, the figure became closer, and he saw it was a woman, short and round. She was walking on the air, and a violet ribbon circled her, around and around like it was drawn by a string. Soon Felix could make out the details much clearer; the scarlet bell-shaped hat that covered her smooth, silvery hair, a faded black apron and a large dusty pair of boots.

By the time the old lady reached the cliff edge, the spicy aroma was so thick that Felix was almost choking on it. He took three steps back towards the cottage, wondering if he should run and fetch the shovel from the shed.

An unnatural wind whipped at Felix’s clothes, bobbing at the heads of the flowers around him, as the old woman strode up and stepped down out of the air, hitting the ground with a muffled thump. The purple ribbon-like strand of light encircling her melted away and she straightened her shoulder and brushed dust off her clothes. Felix stared at her as she readjusted her hat before locking his gaze in a steely grey stare.

“I am a powerful witch,” she announced grandly. “If you do not do as I say, I’ll put a hex on you.”

Felix took another step away. A witch? He thought again about the shovel, whether iron and wood would be an effective weapon against a witch.

“Felix de Lucar,” the witch said, in a voice like a scolding auntie. “I know that look. Don’t you dare.”

Felix froze like a frightened rabbit. The strange smell was fading away and the wind had died down. But now there was a scary old lady claiming to be a witch standing in his garden, demanding that he do her bidding.

The witch raised a finger in warning, and Felix’s shoulders sagged. He’d always been inclined to obey his elders.

“So… what do you want me to do?” he asked quietly.

She took a deep breath and hissed through her teeth. Suddenly she said “Ah!” and began rooting around in her pockets. Looking for some magical amulet so she could put a curse on him, Felix thought, clasping his hands to his mouth.

“A cup of nice tea would be lovely,” she said, not at all in the ethereal tone Felix had expected. She produced a small brown packet and handed it to him. “Proper tea leaves. Milk, one sugar, please.”

Felix gawped uselessly as she marched past him and up the path to the house. For a moment, he stared at the packet of tea she’d given him before jogging up the hill after her. He found her seated comfortably at the one-legged kitchen table, twiddling her thumbs and looking curiously about the place.

“I’ve never been inside your house before,” she said sunnily.

Felix tried not to catch her eye as he filled the kettle and set it on the stove. Winnifred wasn’t in the kitchen, which was unusual considering she never left the house. She must be in bed, Felix decided. Good job too, since he had a feeling she wouldn’t like having a witch at the kitchen table.

“It’s a nice place,” said the witch. “Very quaint.”

Glancing about the kitchen, Felix found it hard to see through a stranger’s eyes. His mother kept it meticulously clean, but it was still far from being grand. A row of spotless metal pans hung above the fireplace, which had recently been swept. His mother had placed a vase of fresh daisies on the mantle, but they did little for the atmosphere. Felix supposed it was because the only window in the room was a small one over the sink, which still managed to be big enough for his mother to lean out of to shout at him. Actually, he was surprised the stranger hadn’t commented on the smell; goat’s milk seemed to have seeped into the walls. He could never get the stink of it out of his clothes.

“I know you don’t like it here now.” The witch nodded sagely. “But your heart will miss it when you leave.”

When you leave? Felix tore open the paper sachet and tipped the contents into their best and only china teacup. The tea leaves let out a deep, satisfying aroma when he poured the water over them, which was unlike any tea Felix had ever used before. He wondered if they were cursed tea leaves, but that would be stupid. Why would a witch drink her own cursed tea?

Still, the stuff didn’t smell cursed. Perhaps the tea had benevolent properties, like granting the drinker extended life and youth. Felix cast a glance over his shoulder at the witch; if that was the case, she obviously hadn’t been drinking it enough lately. He poured in some milk and stirred in the sugar, and tentatively took the cup to the table. The witch thanked him and took a sip.

“Ooh, perfect.” She grinned. “Now sit yourself down, Felix, and let’s have a good natter.”

Felix perched awkwardly on the chair opposite her and stared at the wood grain of the table surface. The witch rapped on the table to get his attention and when he looked up into her eyes, his heart skipped a beat and his head reeled.

“You can call me…” She trailed off and looked confused. “Oh, blast, what did you say it was…?”

Felix raised his eyebrows, utterly perplexed, until she snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “Got it! Call me Grandma Gigi.”

“Grandma… Gigi…?”

“It’s lovely to see you, Felix.” She sipped her tea, her bell-hat bobbing jauntily on her head. “Now. Business.”

Grandma Gigi set down her cup and began rummaging about in her coat pocket again. She produced a pair of reading glasses which sat crookedly when she put them on. She also took out a crisp white envelope and a dark velvet bundle, which she lay carefully on the tabletop, as if it were made of glass.

“There is a young girl living in Brahm,” Grandma Gigi said. She rested one hand on the envelope and the other on the tiny bundle, protectively. “You know the place?”

Felix nodded mutely. Brahm was a town nearby, just a few hours ride away. There were many goats’ cheese enthusiasts in Brahm.

“This girl will be attacked, just a few nights from now.” The old woman adjusted her glasses with a deft flick of her finger. “Something will creep into her house and try to kill her. I need you to stop it.”

Unsure of what to say, Felix kept his mouth shut. How could he stop anything? The only weapon he was any use with was the shovel and he’d only ever used that on a wolf-man who tried to break into the goat shed.

“I know what you must be thinking, Felix.” Grandma Gigi looked at him seriously. “And I’m telling you now that you’ll do absolutely fine. I have every confidence in you.”

Felix wanted to tell her she was wrong, that she was obviously mad. She kept talking to him like they were old friends and it was starting to make him nervous. Still, there was one question still burning in his mind.

“Where did you come from?”

Grandma Gigi leaned back in her chair, and stretched her legs out beneath the table. After a moment she reached up and removed the pin from her hat and passed it to him.

“Here, take this. It’s a magic pin.”

Felix looked at it. It looked perfectly ordinary to him. Grandma Gigi stared at him insistently until he carefully pinned it to his shirt.

“I came from across the void,” she said finally, and grinned wickedly. “Wasn’t it obvious?”

“Where?” Felix asked again. “I mean, does anything even exist out there?”

“Not as such.” The witch sucked her teeth for a moment. “No, I wouldn’t say anything really exists there. Plenty of things wanting to exist, but mostly they just can’t.”

Felix sat there quietly for a few minutes, watching Grandma Gigi sipping her tea. She didn’t hold her teacup by the handle, but gripped the rim of it between her thumb and her middle finger, with her forefinger extended like a ballerina’s leg. He noticed that her eyes were a very pale shade of blue. It reminded him of the fog that often rolled in over the cliffs.

“I have practised magic for a long, long time, Felix,” she said. “For a witch of my level, very few things are impossible. I walked across the void as you might walk across a solid path, but I did not come from within the void itself.

“I travelled from a world beyond it.”

“What?” Felix couldn’t stop himself. “But the world past the cliff was destroyed. It all fell away.”

“Yes, it did, but that isn’t what I mean, child.” Grandma Gigi frowned and took a deep breath. “Think of a door. That door there, behind you.”

“That leads into the dairy,” Felix said, uncertainly.

“Right, so you open it and it leads into the dairy.” Grandma Gigi nodded. “You know that whenever you open that door, it will always lead into the dairy, right?”

“Uhh… right,” Felix answered slowly.

“Now, imagine if you opened that door and it didn’t lead into the dairy. Imagine it opened into another room entirely.”

“The bedroom?”

“Perhaps, or somewhere else. Somewhere not in your house, but further away. Imagine it opens into someone else’s house.”

“I don’t get it. That couldn’t ever happen.” Felix scratched his neck. Imagination wasn’t especially his strong point. Fair enough, when he was thinking, he could imagine different outcomes to a certain situation, but that made sense to him. The facts were all there, you just had to think of all the different ways they could be used. A door in his house that opened into a room a hundred miles away just didn’t make sense. He tried to explain this to Grandma Gigi.

“Poor child,” she said and patted his hand. “You’re smart enough, but you really should learn to think outside the goat pen.”

This remark made very little sense to Felix.

“Anyway, the void is like that door,” she continued.

“Only… it doesn’t open into the dairy?”

“No.”

“Or a room a hundred miles away.”

“Exactly.”

“So, where then?”

Grandma Gigi leaned forwards on her elbows and beckoned for Felix to move closer too. As he did, he could smell the magic tea on her breath, and that strange spicy smell from before too. The witch glanced carefully over each shoulder before ducking her head a bit lower and whispering into Felix’s ear.

“Another world.”

She drew back impressively. Felix leaned back too, slower and propped his face on his closed fist. Perhaps the woman really was mad. If he hadn’t seen her walking on air, he would have doubted she was even a witch. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why he was still sitting here talking to her. There were chores that needed doing and if his mother saw him sitting here, she would shout. Loudly. It seemed rude to just tell Grandma Gigi to leave, though.



Read Chapter Four!

[Chinaren]

What an awesome chapter!    First...

goat-related activities; milking, herding, grooming.

Above his face,

This phrase sounds a bit odd.

“I am a powerful witch,” she announced grandly.

Nice entrance there.

There were many goats’ cheese enthusiasts in Brahm.

  What a wondeful 'Prattchetian' line!


I enjoyed it very much!  I feel an award coming on...

[Rocket Rabbit]

4.   Gruuuulch?

She drew back impressively. Felix leaned back too, slower and propped his face on his closed fist. Perhaps the woman really was mad. If he hadn’t seen her walking on air, he would have doubted she was even a witch. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why he was still sitting here talking to her. There were chores that needed doing and if his mother saw him sitting here, she would shout. Loudly. It seemed rude to just tell Grandma Gigi to leave, though.

There was a crash from outside. Felix heard the sound of the goats screaming. His eyes widened and he stood up so fast his chair fell over. He ran around the table to the door.

The goats were all huddled in the corner of the field nearest the house. They pressed against the wooden fence, shoving and pushing against each other, all of them bleating in terror. Felix vaulted agilely over the fence and they all flooded towards him.

“What is it?” Grandma Gigi called. “What’s wrong with them?”

Felix didn’t know. “They’re scared. Something must’ve…” He stopped. One of the younger goats which was pressing against the back of his thigh had a smear of blood down its flank. Shoving the others aside, Felix knelt down to look at it. The goat almost tried to jump into his arms, it was so scared and desperate.

“A dog, maybe, or a wolf,” Felix said. The goat had a gash on its underbelly, and another on its neck. “Must have gotten into the field. They do that sometimes.”

“Felix!” It was his mother’s voice. He turned around to see her hanging out of the kitchen window. “What’s going on? Who’s that?”

“Something’s spooked the herd, mam.”

“Is it still there? Get the shovel!”

“I don’t know, mam,” he called back.

“Felix, what’s that?” Grandma Gigi pointed across the field. Felix could see a form lying on the grass. It looked like one of the herd. It gave him a bad feeling.

“Felix?” shouted his mother again.

“I’m getting the shovel, mam!” Felix climbed back over the fence and retrieved the heavy shovel from the shed. He tested the weight of it in his hands, found it satisfying and remembered the night he’d used it to fend off a wolf-man in his pyjamas.

Back in the field, Grandma Gigi was examining the injured goat, a worried expression on her face.

“Don’t worry,” Felix told her. He showed her the shovel. “I’ve dealt with this before. It’s best it you smack them in the mouth.”

“I’m not sure that…” She trailed off. “Be careful, Felix.”

He nodded and began walking across the field to where Grandma Gigi had pointed. His heart sank as he recognised the goat lying on the grass. It was Vera and she was obviously dead. Her glassy eyes bulged in her head and her tongue was hanging out the side of her mouth. Felix tried to ignore the smell of the blood as he rolled the body over with the end of the shovel, and gasped at what he saw.

Her stomach was completely ripped away, the bloody mess within glistening in the light, still twitched unpleasantly. Felix felt his stomach lurch at the sight of it.

"Felix?" His mother wailed again from across the field. He turned back to her and shook his head.

"Something's killed her!"

He heard his mother swear, but movement at his feet caught his eye.

Vera's innards were still twitching, but they were also flexing too, like she was still alive. As Felix watched, the organs still in her body stretched and quivered as if something were pushing them from the inside. As Felix watched, something pushed its way out of Vera's intestine. First a small hand appeared, like that of a baby, only smaller, mottled and grey. It looked like the appendage of a dead thing. This claw was followed by a twig-like arm and then a body. The creature looked starved and pitiful as it crawled out of the dead goat and flopped feebly onto the grass at Felix's feet.

"Mrraaawr," it croaked, looking up at him with coal chip eyes. It crawled towards the tip of his foot, leaving a smear of blood on the blades of grass. Bits of entrails were plastered about its mouth, and when Felix felt it touch on his shoe, he cried out and leapt back.

Could this really be the thing that had killed the goat? It was tiny, pathetic even. It parted its thin grey lips and made that horrible little noise again, but Felix could see that its mouth was filled with hundreds of tiny teeth like needles.

"Urgh!" he cried out again, as it made another reach for his ankle. He kicked out at it and it recoiled, hissing. "Get away."

As he kicked at it again, it lashed out at the sole of his foot. Its claws raked through the soft material and dug into his flesh. He screamed. The creature made a gurgling sound like a laugh and swiped at him again, almost playfully, like a kitten. A vile, disgusting kitten.

Felix staggered backward, clutching at his foot, which was bleeding quite heavily through his shoe. The creature curled around, serpentine, and looked like it would pounce again. Felix pulled himself up and reached for the dropped spade, just as the creature sprang forward. Alarmed, he batted it out of the air with his arm. It landed on the grass with a squelch and Felix raised the spade to strike it dead.

It hissed loudly, then screeched like a sick baby. Felix struck down with the spade, but the creature had disappeared, gone like a flash, a streak of grey that whipped through the grass and out of sight.

Felix gasped. His arm was bleeding too, through the tattered remains of his sleeve. He dropped the spade and clutched at his new wound.

"Felix?" Grandma Gigi was hurrying up the field towards him. The encounter with the creature had taken only a minute, though it felt longer to Felix.

"It bit me!" He showed her the wound.

"Oh no," she answered, her face turning grey. Actually, Felix realised it wasn't just her face that was grey. It seemed like everything - the glistening scarlet innards of the dead goat, the peacock blue of Grandma Gigi's skirt, the lush green of the grass - it was all paling into the same dull shade of grey.

"Wha's... urrgh!" He threw up.

"Felix!" Grandma Gigi's voice, but her lips didn't seem to be moving properly in time with it. He collapsed to his knees, a comfortable fall to the springy grass, still clutching his arm. Glancing down at it, he could see the flesh around the edges of the wound turning black, though it was hard to tell when all of the colour had gone from his world.




"What happened to him?" His mother's voice, much softer and more worried that he'd ever heard it.

"I'm not sure. The creature..." Grandma Gigi's voice, but it trailed off into the spitting, hissing sound that had suddenly filled his head.

"...venomous......if he'd......the bloods......"

Felix tried to open his eyes, but his brain told him that would be a painful and stupid thing to do. He felt like he was made of lead.

"What happened?" he tried to say, but it came out as "Gruuuuulch?" instead.

He felt someone fussing about his head, adjusting the pillow and tucking a blanket over him.

"Don't strain yourself, child." It was Grandma Gigi again. "You'll only be sick again."

He thought about this. It seemed likely. His stomach was restless and his head was filled with mulch.

"Gruuuuulch?" he said again.

Grandma Gigi chuckled. "Hush, boy. I'll fix it, don't worry."



Read Chapter Five!

[Rocket Rabbit]

There is quite a bit more of this written than is posted. I hope to continue writing it over the summer. Same with Nocturne.

Enjoy.

And remember - Gruuulch?

[Chinaren]

Excellent stuff Robbit!  I miss your writing!  Hope this one continues soon!

[Angel]

Good to see this one again. I likes your writing very muchly. That wee creature sounds like a bundle of laughs it does.

[Rocket Rabbit]

Heh heh. I plan on giving you another chapter next week. It's already written, so I just have to remember to post it. Until then...

Felix travelled most of the way on the back of a farmer's cart. It was carrying sheep, which he found were much like goats, except less interested in biting him. They smelt a little better too, of which he was glad.

[Chinaren]

Oooh!  A teaser!  Nice one! 

[Rocket Rabbit]

5. Away

Some time appeared to have passed, Felix noted. His stomach had settled a bit, though now his arm and foot felt like they were on fire. He opened his eyes without too much consequence, to find himself in his bed. The sky outside the window was dark, and through a crack in the door, he could see the kitchen firelight.

There was a ceramic bowl placed at the side of his bed, and he banged his injured foot on it when he tried to get out of bed. Nursing his foot, he wondered who had left that there. Then he realised why, when the contents of his stomach made a wholehearted attempt to escape his body through his nose.

When he'd finished, he lifted himself gingerly from his bed, taking care not to put too much weight on his injured foot. He found someone had dressed him in his pyjamas. He hobbled painfully to the door and pushed it open.

Grandma Gigi was sitting at the kitchen opposite his mother, who had her back to him. An unidentifiable smell drifted from the heavy black pot on the fire. Grandma Gigi smiled when she saw him enter, and gestured for him to sit beside her.

"Good to see you're feeling better," she said smiling. Felix nodded, still feeling queasy. He eased himself into the empty chair and looked from one woman to the other. His mother was quiet, her hands clasped together as if in prayer and her face stony.

"Mam?" he said gently, reaching out to touch her arm.

"Oh, my boy." She sighed. She patted the hand that he rested on her arm, and nodded. He could see tears in her eyes, and it scared him. He'd never known her to be this emotional.

"Right," said Grandma Gigi, in a matter-of-fact voice. "We three need to have a serious talk, yes we do."

"What happened to my boy?" Felix's mother asked quietly. He saw Grandma Gigi lower her head and look serious.

"This is partly my fault. I should have said something about it." She paused and sighed. "I honestly thought I had more time."

"Time?" Felix nursed his injured arm, which was slowly bleeding through his bandage. He saw the witch looking uncomfortable.

"How is your arm?" she said suddenly, rising to her feet. She moved over to him and checked his bandage. "Hmm..."

"What is it?"

"It’s just going to keep bleeding." Grandma Gigi poked the wound and Felix flinched. "Sorry. Hopefully, the antidote I'm making will help, but I can't be sure. I had to improvise with the ingredients."

Felix looked over at the pot on the fire. A magic potion? Grandma Gigi moved over to the fireplace and lifted the lid on the pot. She poked at the contents with a wooden spoon and gave it a tentative sniff.

"Needs more rosemary," she muttered, reaching for a jar above the fire. Felix thought it was strange how the witch had made herself completely at home in his house, and what's more, neither he nor his mother (who was notoriously bad with strangers) seemed bothered by this.

After a few more minutes of stirring and mumbling, the witch put the mixture through a tea strainer, pouring the liquid part into a beaker and giving to Felix.

"Drink it," she said firmly and turned back to the fire. Felix looked uncertainly down at the potion. It was a murky grey-green, and didn't look very appetising at all. He lifted it to his mouth and took the tiniest of sips. It tasted like cabbage water.

"Drink it," Grandma Gigi repeated. "It will help, I promise." She came back to the table with the mushy part of the mixture and a roll of clean bandage.

"What's in it?" he asked. Grandma Gigi shuffled her chair closer to his and lifted his injured foot into her own lap. He winced in pain. "Careful!"

"Oh hush, boy," she said. She began to unwrap the bandage and exposed the gash on his foot to kitchen air. The gash didn't seem to like this, and another wave of burning pain spread up Felix's leg. Sipping the potion again, he looked over at his foot and could see that it was swollen to twice its normal size. The flesh beneath the bandage was red and flaky and the gash itself was black and oozy.

"Grit your teeth, boy," the witch warned. She smeared a glob of the mushy potion onto the clean bandage and applied it to his foot. He didn't feel anything at first - in fact it was quite cooling and pleasant - but then he cried out as the pain returned, doubled. Grandma Gigi finished bandaging his foot and kindly let him finish his drink before she did it to his arm.

"What did the creature look like?" the witch asked, securing the bandage on his arm. "Grey? Like a dead thing? Sharp teeth?"

"Yes. You know it?" Felix cradled his arm.

"In a roundabout way." The witch eyed him levelly. "I've met it before, but it didn't look like that."

"No?"

"It was much, much bigger the last time I saw it."

Felix didn't like the sound of that. "It changes size?"

"It's small now, but it will grow. It's also weak. That's why it killed your goat. It needs to feed."

"Is it poisonous?" Felix asked, somehow knowing it was a stupid question.

"Unfortunately, yes," Grandma Gigi answered. She patted her stomach. "I'm actually pretty hungry, aren't you two?"

"I'll make some dinner," Winnifred said quietly. She rose from her seat and began washing her hands at the sink.

"Does it have a name?"

"What?"

"The creature?" Felix said. "What's it called?"

"Oh." Grandma Gigi looked thoughtful, her brow furrowed. "I can't remember. It begins with a 'D'."

There was a moment of silence broken only by his mother's feverish actions chopping potatoes for dinner. Suddenly Grandma Gigi snapped her fingers and pointed her fingers at the ceiling.

"Drakken. It's called a Drakken."

"Drakken." Felix tested the word in his mouth. It sounded funny, foreign and strange.

"Yes. It's not so dissimilar to a dragon. You know about dragons, right?"

Felix shrugged. The only dragons he's ever known were the ones in stories. He'd never seen a picture, but from the description, they didn't sound very much like the creature that had killed Vera.

"Well... the problem is that now it's here, the Drakken is only going to get stronger." The witch held her head in her hands. "It's going to get stronger and its going to kill people. Lots of people."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. It's drawn to... to certain things, certain people. I don't think the Drakken itself even understand why. It's more like a primal instinct than a conscious action."

"Uhh..." Felix didn't know what that meant.

"It just does things without really knowing why," Grandma Gigi explained.

"So what should we do?" Felix found himself saying. It must be the medicine messing with his brain, he thought. He certainly didn't want to leave his home to go hunting for this horrible creature, especially if it was only going to get bigger and meaner.

"You need to get to Brahm as soon as possible," said Grandma Gigi. "The girl I told you about, the Drakken will instinctively be drawn to her now."

"How do you know?"

"I was..." Grandma Gigi stopped herself. "I'm witch. I know things, okay?"

Felix thought about it. Why should he leave his home to save a girl he didn't even know? Obviously, he felt bad that she might be hurt by this creature, or even killed - he liked that thought even less - but his mother needed him here, especially if there was a possibility that the creature would come back.

"What about my mother?" he asked. Winnifred paused in her work. "She needs me here. I can't leave."

"Oh, I'll be alright, Felix," she said, turning to look at him over her shoulder. "You go do what you need to do."

"But I don't need to do anything," Felix said, much louder than he usually would have said anything. "Whatever is going to happen to this girl is none of my business."

Grandma Gigi looked sullen, and suddenly very worried. She folded her arms over her chest and began sucking loudly on her teeth, which Felix found very annoying. It must be the medicine again, he thought, because he wasn't normally this irritable.

"Please, Felix, listen to me," Grandma Gigi said, placing both her hands on the table. "She is young and innocent and she doesn't deserve to die at the hands of that foul creature."

"I know, but -"

The witch cut him off, her voice growing deeper and more impressive and it certainly sounded like there was some kind of magic in the words she was speaking. "If you do not help her, she will die. All alone and afraid, she will die. How can you just sit here and let that happen if you know you can help?"

Felix blushed. He was starting to feel bad. "I'm not brave. I can't do it. If it means so much why can't you do it?"

The witch's eyes went black as if they were suddenly flooded with ink and her eyebrows contorted into a v-shape. "How dare you ask an old woman like me to go off on such a dangerous journey?"

"I'm... sorry?" Felix quailed in his chair as the witch towered over him. Her hair disengaged itself from the neat bun on the back of her neck and began to curl about in snake-like tendrils around her head.

At the sound of his apology, her body relaxed. Her hair, which was standing on end, swished back down into its natural position, although it was no longer in the bun. As if exhausted, Grandma Gigi sat down heavily in her chair and flopped her head against her chest for a moment. When she looked up again, Felix watched the blackness disappear from her eyes and suddenly, the witch was gone. Back was the odd-looking, smiling old woman he'd met just that morning.

"I'll do it," Felix said, nodding. "I'll help you, I guess. But my mother-"

"I'll look after her, Felix," Grandma Gigi said. "As long as you are away helping the girl, I will stay here and look after your mother."

Felix thought about it. The real reason his mother needed all his help was because she couldn't leave the house. He'd never really been sure why, but it was almost like a physical affliction for his mother, who collapsed on her knees unable to breathe whenever she went more than a few steps from the front door. Would the witch be able to understand this? He looked over at his mother, who seemed to be thinking the same thing.

"Perhaps she can help," Winnifred said.

"Help with what?" Grandma Gigi said, looking around. Felix looked uncertainly at his mother again, but she seemed very calm as she sat back down at the one-legged table.

"I'm cursed," she said simply. "I'm cursed to stay in this hovel all day long and make goat's cheese."

Grandma Gigi glanced between Felix and his mother, looking like she might start laughing any minute. Finally she looked pityingly at Winnifred and took her hand.

"Oh, Winnifred." The witch stroked her hand. "There is no curse on you. I can see that, but I don't think you can."

"There has to be," his mother said, shaking her head. Her jade earring jangled wildly about. "There has to be. I can't go outside. I just can't."

"It's alright," Grandma Gigi said soothingly. "There is no curse, but that doesn't mean I can't help you."

"You can still use your magic?" Felix put in, hopefully.

"No, no. There is no need for magic here, but I will help."

They stayed up until late in the night, talking about what was going to happen. Grandma Gigi explained that she would live with Winnifred until Felix returned and while she stayed at the farm, she would take over all Felix's duties and help his mother deal with her problem. Felix didn't understand how she could do that with magic, but he would be very happy to see his mother able to go outside and enjoy the garden he kept for her.

As the hours wore on, Felix found himself very tired. His arm and his foot were aching, and he doubted he'd even be able to get any sleep even if he tried, but Grandma Gigi was strict.

"No, you go to bed, Felix," she said firmly after checking his bandages one last time. "We've got a busy day ahead of us. And really, you should enjoy your last nights in your bed as much as you can."

Felix didn't want to know what exactly that mean, but he nodded and obeyed. His bed was actually much more comfortable than he remembered, and he sank into it with relief. Even his injuries didn't seem to be bothering him, as a warm, pleasant feeling washed over him.


Read Chapter Six!

[BlackCat]

very nice story! When is the nannowrimo starting?

[Angel]

Very nicely written! I'm really enjoying this Rabbit

[Chinaren]

Ooh! Another chapter!  I'll read this later (at work  ) when I have more time.

[Chinaren]

Finally caught up, and excellent.  Very well written and enjoyable Robbit. 

[Rocket Rabbit]

  Thank you. Glad you enjoyed.

[Rocket Rabbit]

6. Away, away

He woke up to find Grandma Gigi shaking him.

"Come on, Felix. Time to get up."

He rolled over in confusion, crushing his damaged arm in the process and looked at the window. "But it’s not even light yet," he mumbled.

"Not important. Still time to get up," said the witch. "Hurry up, or I'll hex you."

As she left the room, Felix struggled into a sitting position. He had a feeling that the witch wouldn't waste her magic just to get him out of bed, but he wasn't sure he wanted to risk it. Sighing, he climbed out of bed and struggled into his clothes, which was difficult, because his injured arm and leg seemed to have seized up during the night.

In the kitchen, the fire was burning again, and the kettle was boiling. Grandma Gigi was sitting at the kitchen table with two objects in front of her. Felix recognised them as the envelope and the velvet bundle she'd taken out the previous day.
"What are they?" he asked, sitting down.

"This is a letter, for the girl, but don't let her read it," Grandma Gigi said, lifting the letter. Felix could just make out an address written in a heavy font on the front of it. “Do not let her read it. It’s very important, understand?”

"What? Why?" Felix couldn't see the point in delivering a letter to a person and then not letting them read it.

"It doesn't matter," Grandma Gigi said, in a cryptic voice that was starting to irritate Felix. "What's important is that she has it in her possession from the minute you meet her. Under no circumstances should you let her read it. Understood?"

“I think so.”

“And don’t let her lose it either.” Grandma Gigi shuddered. “That would also be bad.”

"Alright. And what's that?" He pointed to the velvet thing.

"When you meet her, she will be suspicious of you. It's nothing personal - it's just the way she is." Grandma Gigi carefully unwrapped the velvet and Felix could see a silvery glimmer inside it. "This belonged to my grandmother. It's very valuable to me."

She lifted it up and held it between her fingers so Felix could see it. It was a locket, on a thick silver chain. It was far from pretty, being rather heavy and tarnished, and to Felix's mind, it looked overdecorated. It was circular, with a ring of tiny pearls set around a round, milky white stone, which was cracked down the middle. Half the stone was missing, but then Felix saw that it lay in the folds of the velvet rag on the table.

“Take it with you, just in case you need some good luck.” Grandma Gigi smiled and tapped the envelope. “And this, you should give to her.”

She slid it across the table towards him and he examined it. It had an address printed neatly on it, and a name. G. Buckle. It was heavier than he expected and he realised there must be quite a few sheets inside.

“When she opens it, it should help explain things for you both.”

Felix nodded and they sat in silence for a little while.

"It's strange," Felix said softly. "I've never been any further than Middle, in all my life. Never further than that."

Grandma Gigi smiled at him. "The first few steps are always the most difficult."

"I'm actually kind of scared."

"It's natural. We all fear the unknown to some extent." Unexpectedly, she reached over and patted his hand reassuringly. "Once you get out there and throw yourself into the world, you'll be fine. I even think you'll enjoy it."




It was a little later. Felix sat on the fence bordering the goat field with his head on his fist, thinking. He'd done the chores for that morning. The last time he'd have to do them before he went out into the world for the first time.

Would things be different when he came home, he wondered. Would he feel the same way about his work, his home or his mother? Would the world out there change him into a completely different person? He wasn't sure if he wanted to be a different person. He quite liked himself the way he was now.

The herd seemed lost without Vera, he thought. He'd noticed it when he milked them. They were quieter and more reserved than they usually were. He wondered if goats understood death the same way humans did. Did they grieve?

He'd used the shovel to dig a grave in the garden for Vera. Even after all the trouble she'd given him, it seemed like the right thing to do. It had been difficult work, especially with his arm still in the state it was, but he'd felt better when he'd finished.

He climbed down off the fence and turned back towards the house. In the garden, he could see the dirt mound where he'd buried Vera, a thin bouquet of the daisies she'd so loved to eat resting on top of it. The grass still needed cutting, which he'd have to see to when he returned. It didn't seem right to expect Grandma Gigi to mow it for him; the mower was rusty and heavy, and if anyone other than Felix touched it, it tended to be very temperamental.

He could see his mother's face at the window, so he walked back up towards the house. She was standing at the kitchen sink with her white hair up underneath a faded black rag, and she was wearing her best dress. When she saw him, her eyes welled with tears.

"I'll mow the grass when I get back, mam," he said. He didn't like it when she shouted at him for the simplest of reasons, but he'd choose that over her being this emotional. He'd choose it any day of the week. She burst into tears and pulled him into a hug. He wasn't sure what to do. Hugging her back seemed out of the question, especially since she'd pinned his arms to his sides.

"Right then," said Grandma Gigi from the kitchen table. Winnifred broke away from the awkward hug and went back to the sink. Felix went to the table and sat down opposite the witch.

"I made you some more of the antidote to take with you," she said, indicating a small earthenware jar on the table. "Use it carefully. I doubt you'll be able to make any more."

"Yes, Grandma Gigi."

"Your mother also prepared you some food to take. That should last you a few days. She packed you some clean clothes too."
Felix nodded. It really was strange, he thought, that Grandma Gigi kept acting like he would be gone for a long time. Brahm was only a day's travel away, if that. All he had to do was find this girl and make sure the Drakken didn't kill her. Then he could come home.

"Here," the witch said. She passed him the letter and the necklace in its velvet package. "And this too." She carefully laid a sliver of silver on top of the velvet and Felix recognised it as the 'magic' hatpin she'd given him the day before. He didn't know how she had it again, since he'd left it pinned to his shirt, but he though it would be rude to ask why she would search through his clothes like that.

"Right then. You'd better go," Grandma Gigi said brightly. She clasped her hands together on the table in front of her, her bottom lip twitching. They both sat there for a moment until Felix said "Alright then," and stood up.

"Wait," she said, and stood up too. "You remember what you have to do, right?"

"Save her from the Drakken."

"Yes," the witch said, and sighed. "And for Pete's sake, get it right boy."

Grandma Gigi took another step towards him, her eyes fixed on his face. He stood there, frozen, as she reached up and put her hands on his face, smiling. He was shocked to see tears in her eyes. She seemed unable to speak for a moment, and then she said, "She'll be hostile at first."

"Alright."

"She'll be hostile at first," she repeated. "But she's young. Just give her time."




Felix found that walking up the path to the village was much more difficult this time than any of the hundreds of times he'd done it in the past. Perhaps it was the weight of the bag on his injured arm, or having to walk on his swollen foot. Perhaps it was the thought of leaving his mother alone for the first time in years, even if it was only for a few days. Or it might have been the feeling he had in his gut that Grandma Gigi knew more than she was saying about this... this what? Mission? Quest? Journey?

When he reached the top of the hill, he turned back. The void was as vast and unreadable was it always was, and the sky hanging above was unusually grey. The goats were grazing, though they were still sticking fairly close together. They were still scared, he thought.

There were no windows on this side of the house, so he couldn't see his mother, but the witch was standing at the garden gate, and she waved. He waved back, feeling a strange sensation in his chest. Fear, perhaps. He wondered when he would be back.

It was difficult to turn away, but after a few minutes of staring, he managed it.



Read Chapter 7!

Off-Topic:

There. A slightly shorter piece, but it seemed a good ending point. In terms of feedback, does anybody think that this part where Felix is leaving home is too drawn-out? 

[Chinaren]

   Excellent!  Lovely bit of writing.

Drawn out?  No, I thought it was exactly right.   

[NicTei]

I agree with our perverse, orange frie-er...acquaintance.  Yes.  That's a more appropriate word.  No 'punishment by association.'

Just right!

[Angel]

Ah that was a really good chapter. The length was fine, definitely not drawn out. You had the right amount of reflection type stuff in it so tis all goooood.

[Rocket Rabbit]

Off-Topic:

...



...

 


*poofs new chapter into existence*

7. Magic

Reaching Brahm was easier than he'd imagined. He knew quite a lot about the town, having done a lot of cheese business there and he travelled most of the way on the back of a farmer's cart. It was carrying sheep, which he found were much like goats, except less interested in biting him. They smelt a little better too, of which he was glad.

He jumped off the cart outside the town's only tavern, which he knew quite a bit about. Thanking the farmer for his help, Felix hoisted his bag up onto his shoulder, trying not to aggravate his injury too much. The pub was called The Brahm Frog and Arms, and the picture on the sign was... interesting.

Inside, it was quiet and he sidled nervously up to the bar. The patrons were staring at him.

"You're not old enough to drink," said the greasy-looking man behind the bar. "What do you want?"

Felix knew that the Frog and Arms offered boarding to guests. "I'm looking for a room."

It was starting to get dark outside. He didn't particularly fancy wandering around the town in the middle of the night looking for this girl. Even if he did find her, she probably wouldn't be too happy since it would be the middle of the night.

The barman looked him up and down. "Can you pay?"

Felix nodded. Despite their humble accommodation, his mother had quite a stash of money hidden away in a coffer underneath the floorboards. He found the pouch of money in his pack and paid out what the innkeeper was asking. The man nodded and showed him to a room on the third floor, up a narrow and dark staircase. The room didn't have a window, which didn't bother Felix. All he was worried about was the bed, which luckily seemed to be quite clean.

He paid for a meal downstairs, and sat in the bar while he ate. He could hear the group of patrons behind him - the ones who had stared at him when he came in - because they were talking very loudly about something.

"Chunks of it falling right outta the sky."

"What was it?"

"Hard to say, only looking at it from my garden, but it looked a bit like a new type of airship."

"Huh."

"What's wrong with airships?" said a third voice. "My pappy helped build the very first airship."

"Yeah, we know. You keep saying so."

"He said flying in one of them machines was like flying on a cloud, they were that quiet."

"Well this thing wasn't quiet. Made one hell of a racket when it came over."

Felix wondered what they were talking about. He knew about airships, though he'd never seen one. He swallowed the dry chicken on his plate and pricked his ears up again.

"Airships are so unreliable though. Half the time they don't take off, and when they do, most of them fall outta the sky anyway."

"Well, this thing seemed pretty stable. Maybe it's a new model?"

"Wait, stable? You said bits of it were falling off!"

Felix turned around so he could see the speakers. Two middle aged men and a young, dark haired man. The youngest one seemed to be the one who had seen the thing in the sky.

"If we had some better airships, things would be a lot simpler. We wouldn't have to worry about that damn cliff, that's for sure."

"How much longer do you think Middle has left?"

"I dunno. Five years maybe. It's gonna take a while for that hill to go, but once it does," the man paused, and stroked the stubbly growth on his chin.

Felix stared at his plate, his appetite suddenly gone. He'd never thought about what would happen to his home. The cliff crumbled away every day - there was nothing anyone could do to stop it - but he'd never stopped to think that his house would tumble into it sooner than he expected. Suddenly he wanted to go home to his mother, to make sure she was okay. The image of his house collapsing into the void flashed through his mind and his felt his skin go cold and clammy.

He went back up to his room and tried to sleep, but it was difficult. Over and over again he saw his home disappear over the cliff. Sometimes he could see his mother hanging out of the window, desperately reaching for him to help her. One time, he saw himself inside the house as it happened.


When he woke up the next morning, he didn't feel like he'd slept at all. His foot ached, his arm ached and his neck ached from sleeping in an unfamiliar bed. He felt genuinely miserable for the first time in his life, and he'd only been away from home for a day.

After breakfast, he set out looking for the girl. The address on the envelope lead him to a small house at the edge of the town. It was narrow, but tall, and much like his own house, it had developed an odd-looking slouch. The thatched roof looked like it might give one last wheeze and collapse in on itself any second. As Felix approached the front door, which was very dark and made of iron, he spotted a sloppily painted sign hanging on a nail nearby.

'G. Buckle, Practicing Magicionnaire'

He wondered what 'magicionnaire' meant as he knocked on the door. There was a shout and a loud clang from within, and he wondered for a minute if he was too late to save her. He tried the door, but it was locked, and there was no way he would be able to break it down. He was thinking about running around the side to look for another way in when the door opened a crack and a pair of suspicious eyes peeked out at him.

"What do you want?" snapped the eyes, which luckily were actually attached to a face, which was mostly hidden by the door.
Felix thought about it. How was he supposed to explain this situation to her?

"I... I..."

"Hurry up, I don't have all day."

There was another awkward moment as Felix found himself totally unable to speak. Finally, she threw the open completely and stood glaring at him.

"You've seen the sign?" She pointed, and Felix nodded. "Then you know that I'm a practicing Magicionnaire. I can hex your socks off."

"What's a 'magicionnaire'?"

She sighed impatiently, with her hands on her hips. "Magic, you stupid-head. I can perform magic."

"Oh." Felix frowned. The girl was a witch? He would have expected Grandma Gigi to say something about that before he left. Were witches a common thing? He didn't know.

"So what do you want?" the young witch was saying.

"Umm..."

"Are you here for my eleven o'clock de-hexing session?" she said, now pityingly. "You sound like you have a stupefying spell on you."

Felix frowned again. "No, I don't!"

"Fine, whatever." She looked bored. "If you're not my eleven o'clock, then what do you want?"

"I'm here to help you."

The girl stared at him. She was quite pretty, Felix noticed, and then wished he hadn't. Her hair sprang out from her head in hundreds of little curls, which were a shade of black with a hint of blue. Her eyes were narrowed, but he could still see that they were a clear, bright blue and there was a small mole just underneath her left eye. Felix blushed.

"You're here... to help me..." she repeated slowly, looking at him like he'd been hit in the head.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Something's coming after you. To hurt you," he added. She nodded, obviously unconvinced.

"I don't have time for this. Please go away." She disappeared back behind the door and was about to close it when Felix stuck his foot in the way. Unfortunately, it was his hurt foot, and he screamed when she tried to close the door on it.

"What do you want?" the witch said loudly, trying to close the door.

"What's your name?"Felix gasped. He felt like he might fall over.

"Go away!" she shouted. She pushed him back and slammed the door.


Read Chapter 8!

Off-Topic:

After that bit of magic, I'm tired. I'm going to write Elsewhere.

[Burningplain]

I like it. I am enjoying this.

[Chinaren]

Excellent little chapter Robbit!  I do like the pace and tone of this one.  It reminds me of a couple of books, the title of which I have forgotten, but the 'hero' was called Jonathan Bing, and he was a Cheesemaker.  I enjoyed those books, and I'm enjoying this one!

Oh, and liked your smiley story at the beginning as well!