The Aedyn Chronicles Read online

  Julia’s eyes opened very, very wide.

  “You mean the garden is haunted?”

  Peter guffawed into his water glass. His grandmother intervened quickly.

  “Now, dear, we don’t want the children getting too excited! I don’t want them lying awake at night looking for some ghostly figure in the garden, or worrying that something will creep in through the bedroom window!”

  “Of course, of course. You are quite right. Julia, it’s just a story. No need to worry! I’ve never seen any such monk! And—ahem!—neither has anyone else.”

  And with another ahem!, the professor returned to his potatoes.

  Julia was sent off to bed early that night. Her grandmother, still not convinced that she wasn’t feverish, tucked her in as if she were still a little girl, fluffing her pillows and listening to her prayers. She kissed her forehead and turned out the light, leaving Julia alone with her thoughts. These thoughts primarily concerned Peter, who was still awake playing with his chemistry set. He was experimenting with gunpowder as usual—the boy was positively obsessed with blowing things up. But Peter was forgotten as her mind once again turned to the garden.

  Even from this distance she could almost sense the silver glow. She lay awake, wondering, until the house was dark and silent but for the customary creaks of age. And then she went once more down the stairs and through the creaking door to her garden.

  Again she found herself drawn to the pool, guided by the same mysterious force she had felt earlier that evening. She knelt on the grass beside the water, bathed in a ghostly glow, not noticing how the mist from the fountain left a silver stain on her arm. She peered down into it, watching her own reflection. It felt like a gateway. It felt like a beginning.

  From deep within the shadows of the trees, a hooded figure watched her. Two children were needed to fulfill the prophecy—when would the other appear?

  Peter, reading in bed as usual, heard the hinges wheezing downstairs—Julia had returned from her midnight prowl, he supposed. He closed his Sherlock Holmes novel and laid it on the nightstand. The master detective was once again on the brink of triumph, but triumph would have to wait until tomorrow. Yawning, he got out of bed to close the window. He looked down at the garden below, feeling a bit entranced in a way that was not remotely scientific. So entranced, in fact, that he didn’t hear his sister behind him until she spoke.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?”

  He turned and looked at her without recognition until she smiled. He grinned too—the first Julia had seen him really smile in some time. “You’ve got silver stuff all over you,” he pointed out.

  “From the fountain,” Julia said. She moved over to the window. “You might almost imagine fairies living down there. It feels enchanted, doesn’t it?”

  “A bit,” he agreed, and then caught himself. Enchantment was for girls and children. He gave a harsh laugh. “You’ve been reading too much Alice in Wonderland, Julia,” he said. “All that nonsense about pretend worlds. A garden is just a garden. Why do you have to read books that imagine some kind of other world? There’s more than enough to explore in this one!”

  Julia glared at her brother. “But Peter, what if we were meant to dream dreams? Suppose we had been given the power to dream of other worlds so we could see our own world in a different way?”

  “Don’t be silly, Julia. We can enjoy gardens without having to believe that fairies live under the trees. Trees are trees, and stars are stars. They’re all made up of atoms. So are we, in fact. We’re nothing but lots and lots of atoms, and that’s all there is to it. There’s no enchantment.”

  Julia flopped on the bed, already frustrated with the familiar conversation. Peter the realist, Peter the scientist, had absolutely no imagination. “Surely there’s more to it than that, Peter? What if this world is only one of many? You know, like rooms in a building. We’re so used to living in only one of them that we don’t realize there are others. Better ones, maybe.”

  Peter yawned, slowly and deliberately. “All right, Julia. Don’t work yourself into a fit. I’m sure you’ll understand better when you’re older, and you won’t see fairies or elves or gardens that glow at night.”

  “You don’t see the glow?” Julia asked. “All that silver light—you don’t see it?”

  “It’s the moon, Julia,” said Peter, in the patronizing manner of an adult to a young child. Julia was annoyed.

  “There’s no moon tonight,” she announced. “Well, a bit, but just a sliver. Not enough to give that kind of light. Look—” She hopped up and pointed out the window at the dark sky.

  And there was nothing for Peter to say.

  “Do you see?” Julia asked. “Do you see that it’s enchanted?”

  “It…it must be…” Peter trailed off, confused. Julia giggled and grabbed his hand.

  “Come on, dimwit.”

  Together they went to the garden—taking care on the creaking stairs not to wake their grandparents—and Julia led him to the pond.

  “It’s strongest here,” she said. “I feel as if it’s pulling me.”

  “It’s pulling us,” said Peter. He shivered—and it was then that he heard his name. It was low, soft—so soft that it might have just been in his mind. But there was an otherworldliness about it that he couldn’t quite explain.

  He grabbed Julia sharply by the hand and started for the door.

  “Julia, we need to get back inside the house. Immediately!” he hissed. “I don’t think we’re safe here.”

  But Julia was not listening to Peter. She was staring at the water, and at her reflection within it. The image seemed deeper—stronger somehow. More real than her own face.

  “Julia…”

  That voice again, calling her name. Calling her name, lovingly and gently.

  Peter gripped her hand harder, yanking her back towards the doorway. “Come on, Julia. There’s something strange going on. We shouldn’t be here.” There was a note of panic in his voice.

  But Julia pulled her hand free. “It’s the door, Peter. It’s the rabbit hole down to Wonderland, don’t you see?”

  “Peter…”

  “There isn’t a Wonderland, there’s no enchantment! Come back inside!”

  “It’s the door, and I have to see what’s on the far side. You go back inside if you want to. Don’t worry about me.” Peter had never heard her sound like this—so adult and serene. Something was changing her…and changing him too. He seized hold of her hand again but made no attempt to drag her back towards the house and its safety. She lifted her head and smiled at him, and together they stepped into the dark waters.

  CHAPTER

  3

  The warm turquoise sea lapped gently against the deserted white beach, framed by trees swaying slowly and gracefully in the balmy wind. The only sounds to be heard were the quiet swishing and hissing of the water across the sand, and the soft rustling of the trees in the breeze. The sand led right up to a group of grassy dunes, soaking up the warmth of the late afternoon sun.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Julia said dreamily to nobody in particular.

  She sat up with a start and rubbed her eyes. She had been asleep and dreaming: it was time to wake up. Yet even as she lowered her hands from her face, she knew that all was not as she expected. The paradise was still there. The blue of the sea and sky were far clearer and brighter than any colors she had ever seen in nature. The only sound she could hear was that of gentle waves swishing over the sand. She was feverish, just as Grandmother had thought.

  Julia stood up, alarmed, and then felt the warm breeze tousle her hair. She took a few tentative steps towards the sea, feeling the heat of the sand beneath her feet. There was a curious, dreamlike quality to everything, as if voices had called to her from the world’s end over shoreless seas. She must be imagining things, she told herself. Yet it all seemed so real.

  She looked down at the sand beneath her toes and, all of a sudden, realized she was barefoot. She hurriedly checked to make sur
e she was decent. Her mother had always emphasized that proper young ladies should dress modestly. She was relieved to find that she was indeed dressed, but not in her familiar nightgown. She was now wrapped in a white cloth which draped smoothly about her.

  Everything seemed wrong. Maybe she had gone mad! Would she be sent to a mental hospital? Wasn’t that what had happened to one of her school friend’s uncles? He thought (her friend had told her, in the strictest confidence) that he had turned into a seagull, and had tried to fly out the window of his mansion in Kensington. He was now locked up in a special hospital which knew how to deal with people like that. Oh dear, Julia thought to herself. I may end up meeting him very soon. And I don’t think I’d like that very much.

  She took one last look at the bay. She couldn’t stay here all day. Somehow she would have to work out where she was and how she could get back home. Shading her eyes, she surveyed the sea stretching into the distance. There was no sign of any ship that might rescue her. She turned to the shore. Each end of the bay was enclosed by rocky promontories, stretching their fingers out into the sea. As she surveyed the scene, Julia noticed a path leading through the woods to her left. A moment later she was walking along it. It led over a small hill to another bay just like the one she had left.

  Julia hesitated, then began to walk towards the sand at the end of the path. She might as well have a look at this beach as well. And then she froze in astonishment, mingled with a little fear, because there were footsteps on this beach.

  All at once it came to her. The garden, the silver light, the pond…the pond. The waters had opened up before them and they had found themselves standing on the brink of a chasm, illuminated by a single point of light far, far beneath them. And then they had fallen…

  So where was Peter?

  The footsteps seemed to follow a path which wound along the promontory between the bays. She followed the path along the rocky outcrop, woods to her right and sea to her left. Suddenly the trees came to an end and she found herself in a clearing. She could see, hear, and smell the sea through the line of gnarled old trees that encircled the open space. And at the opposite end she saw a familiar figure, his back to her as he looked out over this unfamiliar world. She caught her breath and broke into a run.

  Hearing the approaching footsteps, Peter turned. He looked at his sister as she came running towards him and almost didn’t recognize her. Her eyes were bright, her face flushed with relief and delight, and he hugged her, something he would never have dreamed of doing back home. But the rules seemed different here.

  “Peter, it’s come true! We’ve gotten to Wonderland after all!”

  Peter pulled away with a grimace. “I don’t think we’re in Wonderland, Julia.”

  “Well then, let’s go exploring and find out what this place is.” She looked over Peter’s shoulder, past the edge of the clearing. “What were you looking at earlier? Did you see anything?”

  “I saw a silver patch just over there—no, there,” he said, pointing. “It looks just like the light from the garden back at home. I was about to go explore when you appeared.”

  “It seems as good a place to begin as any,” she agreed. “Shall we follow that trail, and see where it takes us?” She indicated a worn path down through the trees.

  It might not have been a path at all, as Peter was only too eager to point out. It was nothing more than a deer trail, really—a few patches of trampled grass that wove between the trees. But no other option presenting itself, the two started forward.

  And they walked into the woods, the sea receding behind them. The soft whishing of the waves on the shoreline quickly gave way to the rustling of the leafy canopy in the warm breeze. The salty tang of the beach was displaced by the fragrance of blossoms and pine resin. Peter and Julia looked around in wonder at plants which seemed to have come straight out of travelers’ tales. Green dappled light flickered on the path ahead of them, while creepers with blue, white, and orange flowers descended on all sides.

  “It’s magic!” thought Julia to herself.

  After ten minutes, the path—if indeed it could be called a path—came to a fork. Peter, in the lead, paused and turned to Julia.

  “Which way, do you think?” he asked, scuffing a toe in the ground. He didn’t look at his sister, loathe to admit he didn’t know the way. Julia, grateful that they had stopped, began ceremoniously tearing wide strips of cloth from the edges of her garment.

  “Absolutely no idea,” she muttered, teeth clenched as she tore the white cloth. “Wait one minute while I make some shoes. My feet are killing me.” She tore off two lengths of fabric and wrapped them carefully around her feet, tucking the ends in under the folds. Peter, seeing the wisdom in this, did likewise.

  “Now then,” said Julia, grinning at the sight of her brother’s freshly swaddled feet, “which path to take? Where’s that silver glow?”

  “The trees are blocking it,” said Peter. “We’ve gone downhill from the clearing, I’m afraid.” And so they had. There was nothing but forest in every direction, and the two lightly trampled paths leading away from each other.

  “Left,” said Julia promptly.

  “I think right,” said Peter.

  “Why?”

  Peter tried very, very hard to think of a reason, wishing he’d paid a great deal more attention during his Orienteering training as a Boy Scout. He could remember something about the North Star, but it was full daylight, and anyway who was to say that the North Star existed here, wherever they were?

  “Because I said so,” he concluded. Julia gave a sound somewhere between a snort and a scoff and headed to the left, and what choice had Peter but to follow?

  It was a half hour later—a very long half hour later—that the trees fell away to reveal another clearing. The ground sloped steeply down, leading to a level area enclosed by trees that might have been birches but for their silver leaves. On three of the clearing’s four sides rakes of seats had been cut into the ground. On the fourth there was a single stone throne. And in the center was a garden—a garden that shone in a silver light all its own.

  “Told you it was left,” said Julia. Peter noted that she was smirking—most unnecessarily, he thought. But then he forgot to be annoyed, because really it was the most extraordinary place.

  In some ways the garden looked just like the one they had left behind in Oxford. Yet this place was ruined and overgrown with weeds. Peter and Julia walked along an uneven stone pathway, overgrown with thorns and creepers, passing by a stone fountain at the center of the garden. It wasn’t working. Grass was growing in its basin and the water spouts seemed to be blocked with mud. The pond was full of weeds and debris. All the stonework had long since been overtaken by a mosaic of lichens and moss, and the trees seemed to have become home to a colony of bats. But in spite of all the ruin and neglect it still had that magical touch of silver about it.

  The children were silent for a long moment as they surveyed the desolate scene.

  “It’s been abandoned for ages,” Julia said finally. Peter nodded. He was watching the shadows of the trees lengthen. They were going to be like Hansel and Gretel, lost in a dark forest. There was some shelter to be found in the trees, perhaps, but they had no food, no water, no protection against whatever dangers might lurk in the night. His father would never forgive him if something happened to Julia.

  “That pond doesn’t feel like another portal, does it?” he asked. Julia shook her head. There was no pull here—no magical presence urging them forward as it had in Oxford.

  Peter shivered. The sun was setting, and it was getting cold. Maybe he ought to light a fire. Oh, if only he had paid closer attention in Wilderness Survival!

  Julia watched the daylight lose its battle with the encroaching night. Above her, tiny pinpricks of light began to appear in the heavens. She wanted the solemn stillness of this moment to linger forever. It seemed so—well, so significant.

  Peter’s voice broke into her reverie. “We ought to fin
d shelter,” he said.

  They found it in the trees. The silver branches of the birches were sturdy and yet pliable, and Peter constructed a sort of canopy under which they could sleep. They would look for water at first light, he decided. Water, and then a way home.

  Even without the comfort of a fire he was asleep before Julia. She lay back with her hands behind her head, watching through the branches as the stars winked into the sky. She smiled to herself as she watched them, and the smile stayed on her face as she fell asleep under the silent skies.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Peter woke from a dreamless sleep, his stomach gnawing with hunger. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and groaned. He had been expecting to wake up in the spare bedroom at his grandparents’ home in Oxford. Apparently it hadn’t been a dream.

  He pushed back the branches and stood, stretching his long limbs. The sun was still low in the sky, but already it had burnt away the chill of the night. It promised to be a hot day. There was one thought in Peter’s mind: water.

  He bent back under the branches and shook his sister’s shoulder. She squirmed under his touch and rolled over with a protesting sigh.

  “Julia, we need to find a stream, or some fruit trees or something,” he announced. She murmured her agreement and was silent. Peter groaned and shook her again, more forcefully this time. “Julia!”

  “Go on; let me sleep,” she mumbled. Peter stood and ran a hand through his already tousled hair. He supposed she would be fine there—she was hidden among the tangle of branches, and anyway he could move faster without her. He glanced once more at the sun; they really couldn’t wait much longer to find water. He bent down again.