“Once you have read a book you care about,

some part of it is always with you.”

- Louis L’Amour

Rafael’s heartbroken plea was scored across my soul as I returned to my body, my mind in a whirl, the sound of rushing water filling the Observatory. The tether between Rafael and myself was a curling, rippling blue stream of water. I could feel it filling my lungs with water, soaking my body but instead of drowning, I was elevated like a mermaid finally back in her beloved ocean after being cast upon a dry, hot shore.

“Water, the essence of life itself! Drink, my goddess, drink!”

Every tiny deposit of dew on every petal, every litre of the lake, every drop of the waterfall and every gallon of the oceans of Engaland poured into my body. Even the very water of the bodies of the humans and vampires, of the animals and even every drop that had yet to fall from the clouds was possessed within my body.

I twisted and writhed in the upward spiral of water and when it finally subsided, I could feel its rage surging deep inside of me.

Three elements now existed within me.

Earth, metal and now water.

Something was happening…

…the elements were beginning to coalesce.

I could feel them sparking against each other, in tension as well as in unity.

“Help…me…” I rasped.

“The only way back…is forward…” Jet announced, turning me towards Faelan who rested peacefully in the threshold of his door. “Dance, elf…dance…”

“Please…”

He tapped Faelan’s forehead and green light bloomed from his eyes and I could smell the scent of the forest, of autumn leaves and spring fruits, of summer hayrides and winter cider.

I gulped as night fell around me and I was drawn into Faelan’s memories.

The sound of leaves rustling overhead said nothing to ease my disturbed heart.

The sound of water running through the stream held no comfort either.

The stars in the sky, whose song I could hear if I stood still and inclined my ear towards their heavenly presence, were silent.

For these were all the methods of calm that my mother had taught me.

My mother who had died.

My mother whom I had mourned.

My mother…

I watched the humans from the shadows across the stream, far from their limited gaze. The bonfire burned brightly, turning the human bodies into silhouettes that danced and talked and danced even closer. I could see the outline of my mother, the woman who had helped calm the restlessness of my soul and whose ten year absence had caused me to roam the hills of Iffah and even beyond, attempting to find something to fill the void. There she was, alive and well…and in love with a human.

I burned with indignation as he approached her, a cup of cider in his hand. His gestures were familiar and his embrace caused my teeth to tightened and grind.

I had never known consternation like this before.

This was not a restless desperation.

It was anger, bitterness and offense.

Three things that were unworthy of an elf’s soul yet they gnawed on my heart and ate at my resolve.

I heard laughter and saw Bethany dancing with the human, Micael. It was like squeezing lemon juice into a wound, a malicious display of joyfulness as I resented the tears shed in mourning for a mother who was not dead.

All reason left my mind.

All logical thought ran away and I blamed them all for the sorrow in my soul.

She had slapped me after I had saved her life.

Part of me willed her to slap Micael for dancing with her.

Why had I been rejected and he, accepted?

I pressed my fingers against my cheek and knew exactly why.

When she had needed me to be her friend, I had turned aside and treated her as the contemptible human my father saw her as being.

I leaned against a tree and closed my eyes, unable to make sense of the warring emotions.

Surely, if I had been a good enough elf, perfect in all my ways, I would not be facing such turmoil.

“Faelan? Are you here?”

I had heard her almost silent step upon the grass, each blade bending as she had approached my position.

“I am here.” I said softly at the edge of the light, unwilling to enter.

“You could…join us.” And come further into the light and closer to the humans? “No one would tell your father.”

“How will I face him?” I demanded.

“You’ve never had problems with being at ‘House of Figs’ and then speaking with him. What’s the difference?”

“The difference is her and him.” I said, my tone brittle with hurt.

All my father’s teachings, the mandates of the elves of Iffah…none of it was helping calm my hurt. I was angry and unable to deal with the pain. Bethany argued with me, pleaded with me but I remained resolute, firm within my offense.

“…standing in the shadows, glaring at humans dancing…what are you hoping to accomplish?”

“I was watching over you!” I insisted.

“Faelan, I was perfectly safe over there.”

“You were dancing.” The words left me before I thought it through.

Bethany gaped at me, astonished by my vehemence.

“You’re angry at me…for dancing?”

“Not you, him!”

She defended him, defended herself and I knew, in my heart, that I was being irrational. I couldn’t quantify my reaction or understand my emotion. Something was buzzing on the inside of me, as though I was standing on ground humming with static electricity, unable to escape. It was causing my restraint to fall and my emotions to rise.

What was happening to me?

Why couldn’t I let it go?

“I would have said yes to you, if you’d asked me to dance.”

I looked away, my inadequacies mounting with every moment that passed. “I would never ask you to dance,” I cursed the hardness of my tone which hurt her and as she went to leave I blurted, “because I do not know how to dance.”

My fingers clenched and unclenched, over and over as she gazed at me.

“You don’t know how?”

“No. I would make an inadequate partner.”

“Weren’t you watching?” She edged closer again. “I didn’t know how. Micael had to show me.”

“You made many mistakes,” I admitted, “yet you seemed…happy.”

“I was. Are you seriously telling me you have never, ever danced?”

“Never.”

“Don’t elves have parties?”

The same old feasts, the same food, the same music…the same march towards the inevitability of oblivion of nothing new…

“We have feasts and celebrations…but we do not dance.”

The next I knew, she had taken my cold fingers in her warm grasp. “Come on, let me show you.”

I looked down at our intertwined fingers. I couldn’t fathom how much joy was felt just from the simple touch of hands. “I,” I drew back but did not pull my hand from her grasp, “do not…”

“Are you telling me you weren’t paying attention when I danced with Micael?” She reached out and took my other hand. There was nothing intimate or sensual about the touch…but oh how my body yearned for more…and I was terrified of the notion. I held fast as Bethany looked into my eyes. “You’re an elf, Faelan…you know the steps.”

“That is a far step from actually dancing.” My tongue was thick in my mouth, making it hard to speak.

“Not as far as you’re making out. Now we step in like this and around each other like that.”

We were clumsy and awkward and despite having studied the dancers from afar, I was combating, not only awkwardness but also, ignorance. I refused to give in, ignoring the alarms of warning in my mind, determined not to be beaten by a human dance. We almost seemed to be wrestling, unable to master a simple jig and I could feel my ire rising.

I should have taken the out that she gave me. She offered to move on from the wretched move yet I could not do so. I would not admit defeat. I would not yield until I had mastered it.

Bethany’s mirth confounded me. When I was growing angry, she was laughing. She held her stomach, doubled over and laughed mightily. I could not comprehend her merriment.

“You find this amusing?”

“It’s hysterical!” I doubted that. “We’re hysterical!” That I did not doubt and went to stalk away but she grabbed my hand. “Again!”

“Have you not had enough humiliation?” I demanded.

“Come on Faelan, are you really going to let a simple human dance beat the son of King Cadeyrn of Iffah?”

My eyes narrowed upon her face. “You are goading me on.”

She leaned towards me, her hands on her hips, her eyes sparkling. “And what are you going to do about it?”

“If I was wise, I would walk away.”

I knew I should.

I should run.

“Why aren’t you leaving?”

I took her hands and drew her close, feeling the heat between us increase. “I suppose I am not as wise as I thought I was.”

We tried the turn again and again, over and over, forgetting about the music in the background in our pursuit of getting the move right making the rest of the world disappear. And then, suddenly we got the hand positions right and then we turned, switching hands in perfect fluidic grace. Bethany’s eyes were cast upon her feet so she had no idea how close I was…how hard my heart was beating…how warm my gaze had become…until she looked up and her beautiful countenance filled with the rush of attraction.

Her eyes arrested me, our bodies drawing closer and closer as the turns grew slower and slower.

No longer did we watch our feet or fret about the positions of our hands.

We were locked together, our individual forms unified in perfect elegance.

When we stopped, I did not know.

I could not let go of her hands nor her gaze.

Her eyes were so close I could see her pupils lightly dilate, her breathing becoming sharp and shallow and ever so gently, instinctively, she licked her lips.

I let go of her hands only to cup her face and pressed my lips against those soft, beautiful, pink lips…

“…Bethany…can you hear me? I have hidden…memory…hope…remain strong…I…coming…hold…on…”

I retreated from Faelan’s memory, my skin blooming with colour, quite literally. The luminous green tether between myself and Faelan caused branches and flora to erupt out of me, blossoming along tendrils of vines, a tree, larger than the fig tree, surging upwards and outwards before retreating into my body. The petals and leaves fell to the ground, disappearing into sparkling particles of dust, the Observatory undamaged in any way.

“The tree of life! Yggdrasil reborn!” Jet shrieked with maniacal unhinged laughter.

“Jet…it hurts…” My vision was blurred from the streams of tears pouring down my face. “It’s…too much…I can’t contain it.”

“You must.” He turned to me, his hazel eyes grim and his mouth, firm.

“I’m not what you think I am!” I protested. “Please…I’m coming apart at the seams!”

“You are absorbing the elements to create a world…see?”

I could. I could see the colour wicking out of the autumn leaves, the dark green foliage becoming lank and empty and the great twin trees of the elves of Iffah greyed and splintered. The mountains emptied of colour as every drop of life in their world poured into me.

“Please…” I whimpered. “Please…”

“One. Last. Element.”

“I’m begging of you!” My eyes opened wide as he approached Eustace trapped in his threshold. “No, no! Please! Don’t!”

“I must…” Even as he tapped Eustace’s forehead, I heard grief in his voice. There was something there. Some element of kindness…but before I could try to reach him in that moment…I plunged headlong into the ocean of the dragon world.

The sound of rushing wind.

The feel of water, thrashed into waves and capped with white.

The taste of salt permeating everything.

The smell of sulphur, salt and water…the scent of freedom.

The sight of islands and ocean and everything beneath…all mine to be lord of, to be steward of.

I heard the sound of my son behind me, following my motions, his small body mimicking the way I moved and how I cut through the air.

He gave a joyful roar, his voice still developing its timbre.

He was so small that not even the furnace of his belly had yet to ignite but it would come.

It would come in time, my son.

We flew through the islands, the dragons of wind gathering around us, accompanying our flight. I could feel their presence but they were lesser. No…not lesser…they were respectful. They gathered, summoned by my presence and they respected my position. I was the alpha, the Lord of Dragons and the father of the first water dragon hatched in a millennia. No longer did they try to play dangerous games with my son. Now, they flew with him, their wings whipping the air around him and he cut through it, rippling and dancing through the sky, soaring and chirping, his voice joyful and free.

The dragons of earth grunted and grumbled as we took our flight down to the islands, soaring over their jewel encrusted bodies as they rooted the rock and broke up the ground.

The air intensified in heat as I took my son to the dragons of fire, twisting and dancing as their wings burned with ever lasting intensity. When we could stand the heat no more, we dove down, down, down…

…shattering the surface of the water, our bodies becoming one with the water, saturated, soaked…fulfilled.

Here, we were at our greatest, our most powerful…our most peaceful.

I found a ledge of rock surrounded by an expanse of coral. I reclined upon it and felt my son dance down my spine, back and forth before tugging at my ear. I grunted at him. No, we had played enough for one day. He growled and chirped then realised the futility of his actions as exhaustion began to sink in. He padded on my forearm, around and around before curling up within my grasp. He gave a little sigh, content and already asleep. I huffed softly, bubbles drifting from our nostrils, the world as it ought to be.

Quiet.

Serene.

Everlasting…

...what was that?

I opened one eye and glanced up towards the surface of the water. I had heard…something…an unfamiliar sound in my world.

I paused, bubbles ceasing to rise as I held my breath and listened.

There it was again.

It was a cry…for help.

The sound…it was so familiar.

What…who…?

I rumbled in my throat and my son lifted his head, awake almost instantly as I pushed my body upright then thrust from the shelf of rock, rippling through the water, breaking through into the sky, the air filled with clouds and the floating islands that drifted above. My son followed, chirping curiously. I huffed at him to be quiet, tilting my head…

…and then I heard it again.

There was no mistaking it.

The scream for help…from a voice that awoke a memory I had forgotten.

I knew it.

I knew her.

My body surged upwards and forwards, cutting through the air.

I’m coming!

Hold on!

I’m coming!

I flew close to the islands, scraping them with my claws as I skimmed their surface, flying faster and faster, heading towards an island with a strange rectangular slab in the little mountain upon its mesa…

…no…it was not strange. I knew this place. I knew it well.

I heard the scream again just as I reached the island, my body transforming instinctively, my hand reaching the handle, thrusting it forward, feeling the weight of someone pushed into the air beyond. I reached in further, grasping her hand, the salt water of the transformation catching up with us in a violent mist as I pulled her through the door. I could sense something malevolent beyond, some terrible thing that was greedy, eternally hungry and would devour my beautiful world. I threw Bethany behind me, onto the island, roaring at the darkness, the soulless nothingness retreating as I closed the door.

“It’s on me! It’s on me!”

She was hysterical, her hands battering at her legs even as they shrivelled as though consumed with an invisible flame.

Instinct again took over. I knew what to do.

“I’ve got you, Bethany…”

I sent out a pulse of water, enveloping Bethany so that she was completely submerged in salt water. She screamed, air escaping from her, leaving her lungs with nothing. I reached for her as she flailed about, holding her firmly, taking her head in mine and, for the second time in my life, I kissed her. My lips pressed to hers and I felt her tremble and resist but I would not let her go until I had breathed air into her lungs and her panic subsided. Her eyes met mine and just as I recognised her, she recognised me.

I put my finger to my lips and she nodded. I knelt and looked at the damage to her legs. I had never seen the like before. They were twisted and grey, devoid of moisture…decaying into nothing. I placed my hands on her legs, closing my eyes, the water beginning to hum and pulse as power that had once been locked away and forgotten was unleashed from my very being. Her body was restored, her life, saved.

Oh…how much we had been denied.

How much more we could be.

Mistakes would be made and we would have to learn from them…but at least now, we could.

We would.

Because of her.

Because of what she did.

Nothing remarkable.

Nothing extraordinary and yet, even though she had been afraid, she had defended the life of an unhatched dragon…and in doing so, I was transformed by compassion…and I was a father.

Bethany…I had forgotten…but no longer.

When you need me, I will come.

This I vow…as Lord of the Dragons.

“…Bethany, it’s Ah’Man…can you hear me? I have hidden a message within a memory of Gar’Dian. Do not give up hope and remain strong. I am coming. As he has done, so you can do to him. Hold on.”

Fire…it was all around me, licking my skin, dancing from my fingertips, filling the Observatory with such heat that I suddenly knew what it would be like to live inside a volcano. The air in my lungs was on fire and I could feel the burn, hot and desperate, within my belly.

But I was not afraid.

No…not anymore.

I had it now.

All the elements.

My body contained the five elements.

Earth, the substance of foundation, the rock…the core…

Metal, the cool touch of connection…the unyielding steel…the strength…

Water, the soaking…the drinking…the answer to unending thirst…

Wood, the growth of all things, the form upon which life could grow…

Fire, the energy…the life…the destruction…the power to give and the power to take away…

I opened my eyes, sparks of light dancing in my vision before the fire soaked into my body, streaming into my soul.

Jet stood back from me, his eyes wide and a little fear mixed in with his excitement. I knew he was holding his breath. Had he succeeded? Had he been able to manipulate all the elements to exist within a single being?

I knew that he had. Even now I could see the energy of fire being drawn from the dragon world, draining the volcanos, all the energy sapped from the dragons, the fire dragons cast down, their wings extinguished…

…all of it came to me, tethering me through Eustace.

Beloved Eustace, who was Lord of the Dragons…

Faelan, reserved elf of Iffah who yearned for life…

Rafael, the broken vampire restored to be human…

Rob, once a slave now existing as a person…

Bastian…heady, romantic, hopelessly charming Bastian who only wanted a future where werewolves would have a culture to call their own…

Tears fell down my face as five streams of elements poured into my body, draining their worlds dry.

“How can you weep at a time like this?” Jet demanded softly. “Don’t you know what you have become? Don’t you understand? You are a goddess! You hold the power to create a new world in your body!”

His words bounced off my mind, my eyes glazed over, feeling my soul slip into unconsciousness…unable to withstand the weight of what had been sown into me. Motion, something moving outside of the Observatory made me blink and try to focus. I felt like I was slipping into sleep yet I saw something move…something…someone walking towards us.

He wasn’t big. He was quite small.

Oh no…it was James…Eustace’s son.

Jet caught my gaze and turned but James ducked out of sight. Jet shook his head, muttering to himself, turning the incantation around and around me, glowing letters and numbers, symbols and pictograms rippling endlessly…

“So close…just a little more…I need just a little bit more…”

“Why…”

He looked up at my croak. I felt like I was brittle, my words cracking as I spoke.

“You couldn’t possibly understand…but you do not need to.” He said. “You now contain the elements required for you to give birth to a new world…you just need to be implanted with the seed of design…”

“You…you’re not…implanting…anything…in me.” I warned, power surging through my body, crushing my consciousness down yet I was unable to tear myself free from my prison of levitation.

“Do not pervert the meaning of my words.” Jet retorted sharply. “You humans…you see innuendo and hear sexual overtones where none exist. You have the nutrients to create a world and the recipe for it to form…and I will guide you. You will be this world’s mother.”

“What…about…you?” I forced out of my closing throat.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Me?” Jet huffed. “I…argh!”

He screamed and flung his arms around, wildly kicking and writhing, James in dragon form, latched onto his leg with his teeth buried deep into Jet’s calf. Jet howled and screeched, James ripping away as Jet’s hand came down to strike him, scurrying out of his reach. Jet moaned and clutched at his bloody leg.

“Wretched little viper!” He swore then turned to me. “Enough! Redemption is at hand! You will create this world according to my will!” He strode towards me and opened his arms wide, the circles of golden letters and numbers encompassing us both, the air filling with electricity. But just as he went to speak, I tore my right arm free, loosened from its imprisonment by Jet’s broken concentration after James’ attack and tapped Jet’s forehead…

…and flew headlong into his memories.

I finished my notes, painstakingly copying each letter from the dancing letters before me onto the scroll laid out on the desk. There could be no mistakes. Even the slightest error from the jot to the tittle of an i could change the outcome of the incantation. It was exact. It was exacting. It was…

“Perfect.” I declared and stood up, feeling my shoulders ache. “At last…that was not an easy task.”

Well, perhaps ‘easy’ was not the right word.

It was not difficult…but it was long and tedious.

I had made several mistakes and needed to start over.

Not that Ah’Man would mind. He would prefer quality over quantity.

I wriggled my shoulders and stepped back from my desk. The golden letters that danced around my head began to coalesce.

“Well, what do you think?” I asked the incantation, reaching out with my fingers, the letters sliding in and around as I drew them down to the parchment. There was a quiver as the spell recognised its physical existence and soaked into the parchment, the writing glowing for a brief moment before disappearing, the letters becoming the dull black of the colour of ink.

“Another happy relocation.” I wriggled my jaw. “That one took up some space…I’m glad it’s been catalogued…not that he’ll care.” I sighed and picked up the parchment, tucking it under my arm and headed for the door. My room enjoyed a pleasant view with the two moons of En’Daren drifting over the Sea of Glass. During the day, dragons could be seen floating across the sky, playing in between the levitating islands but at night, the moons were perfectly reflected in the surface of the water. My favourite moment of the evening was when they sank to the edge of the horizon and the four moons, the two in the heavens and the two reflections, merged together in seamless beauty.

I left my room and walked down the corridor, taking several flights of stairs until I reached what could only be described as the entrance to the cellar.

Why oh why did a man, who had been called a god, want to work in such a dismal and uninspiring location? I yearned for light, for life and for creativity.

Ah’Man seemed content to work as though he was pauper or a servant, hidden away…forgotten.

Perhaps that’s what he wanted to be.

Ah’Man had stood in the midst of a drought and summoned clouds to rain on the parched, desert landscape. The once barren plains were covered in seas of grass where wolves roamed and buffalo grazed.

Ah’Man had knelt at the base of the great oak of Ja’Fa, En’Daren’s largest and oldest tree, and had spoken secrets and wonders to its roots, compelling it to live once more, the life of the world marked within its grand body.

When a meteorite had threatened to wipe out life on the planet, covering the surface in dust for hundreds of years, Ah’Man had stood upon a precipice and diverted its descent, causing it to change direction and saving the world.

And when a terrible plague had infected the blood of the people, born from one foolish sorcerer’s attempt to create a ‘supreme being’, millions doomed to die, Ah’Man separated the infection from the blood, able to separate a tear drop from the rest of the ocean.

No wonder he had been hailed as the greatest sorcerer that had ever lived.

The King himself had called Ah’Man, a god amongst us.

It was not long after Ah’Man had retreated from the fame, the glory and the responsibility.

He just…vanished.

Though the world clamoured for his attention, offering the riches of the world, Ah’Man refused to appear.

Already an Ah’Man aficionado, I was familiar with his methods and pieced together how he might have used his incantations to create a bubble outside of the existence of the world while being able to observe it. I used the methods to track his whereabouts and, with no more than a single step from my place on the lower rungs of the sorcerer’s academy, I entered his home.

To say that he was surprised to see me was an understatement.

Part of him was irritated, that his solitude had been so rudely and unexpectedly interrupted.

Part of him was impressed that I had been able to find him when all others had failed.

And a small part, one he would deny, I believed was relieved.

Even Ah’Man, after being fed up with the suffocation of the love of the En’Darens, needed company.

At least, that’s what I thought.

“I have completed inscribing the last of your incantations.” I announced with the scroll in my hand. He didn’t look up, his head bowed as he continued to work. I sighed silently. “Ah’Man?”

“Hrm?” He looked up, his eyes struggling to focus on me. He blinked several times. “What is it now?” He demanded crankily.

“The incantation?” I held it out to him. “All your work is now documented.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “File it.”

I wanted to grind my teeth but I walked behind him, sensing him tense up as I did so. The scroll fit onto the shelf of scrolls of Ah’Man’s greatest works. It still amazed me that creativity could be contained so simply. My fingers drifted over all the incantations I had preserved from his mind.

The incantation to make it rain.

The incantation to reform an amputated limb.

The incantation to push back a tsunami.

They were all there, even his early work which I scribed from memory. Everyone at the academy knew Ah’Man’s basic incantations. They were taught in the first year. Every peer of mine had memorised them, each hoping to be worthy of Ah’Man’s attention and, then, possibly, of becoming his apprentice.

That’s what I thought I had done when I had found him in his bubble in nowhere.

But…I was little more than a scribe.

And at times, his carer.

I spied the half filled cup of two headed goat’s milk and the pheasant eggs, congealed and cold on the toast I had baked for him.

“Sir, you really need to eat.”

He grunted in response. I picked up the plate and walked past him again.

He was scribbling madly on his scroll, writing equations over and over, refining his diagrams, the tips of his fingers black with ink. When he had the incantation perfectly formed, he would activate it, lifting it off the page, turning it from something matte and two dimensional into something alive, pulsing and ready to be spoken before storing it in his mind. But, as was with all sorcerers, their minds had a limited capacity which was why I had been allowed to absorb Ah’Man’s most brilliant incantations with the sole purpose of sealing them into parchment, freeing up space in my master’s mind to work.

You’d think he’d be more grateful…

I noticed that he was making some very minute calculations, over and over.

“Sir, I can help you with that…”

He snarled like an animal and grabbed his pages, covering them with his body.

I sighed against and stepped back. “I only wanted to help.”

“I work alone.”

“Yes sir.” I decided I needed to go up to the tower and view the world of En’Daren. Down in this cellar, with a man that wouldn’t share his work despite my unwavering, perfect service…I was starting to wither.

What was the point of it all if I couldn’t help him?

I wanted to learn from Ah’Man…but I had memorised everything. Not just the basic incantations but because of the exacting standards of inscribing them onto parchment in their living form.

I had already proved that I was dedicated and, even more importantly, that I was compatible with Ah’Man. His incantations were able to exist in my mind.

It was nothing short of extraordinary and yet, he treated me like a servant.

I climbed the stairs to the tower where the doors existed to take me out of the bubble Ah’Man had created. I had to be around life. I stepped across the threshold into a tall tower of the city of Le’Vil and took the elevator down to the ground floor. I walked the streets of the grandest and the most beautiful city of En’Daren, surrounded by people yet utterly, utterly alone. I was consumed by my thoughts, walking with my hands in my pockets.

Why?

What for?

I found myself walking towards the sorcerer’s academy. It was not hidden away in secret but an illustrious building where the science of incantations existed alongside the magic of construction, of medicine, of art and all that made En’Daren beautiful.

I stared wistfully and partially resentfully at the building.

I had the most coveted position in all of the known world.

I was in Ah’Man’s presence…yet there were apprentices doing better, bigger and in greater public appeal than my dismal pathetic existence. I was sure I would be better than all of them…yet shame at my servant status chewed at my pride, gnawing at it, decaying my hope and reducing me to nothing…

“…dian?” I felt a hand grasp my arm and I jolted, turning to see one of my peers next to me. “Gar’Dian?”

“Pai’Per?” I said, stunned.

Her kindly smile immediately arrested my attention.

“Gar’Dian…I thought it was you. How are you?”

“I…well, thank you. And you?” I responded automatically.

“Surprised to see you, actually. After all your posturing about being able to find Ah’Man and then you suddenly disappeared…I didn’t think we’d see you again.”

“Why is that?”

“Well…either you failed and were too ashamed to show your face around the academy…or you succeeded and were apprenticed to Ah’Man.” Her freckles were just as diverting as they had ever been and her rusty brown hair was braided into many tiny plaits. “So…which is it?”

I swallowed. “Ah…well…I found Ah’Man…”

“Congratulations!” She crowed. “I thought if anyone has the one eyed determination to find our greatest living sorcerer, Gar’Dian does. Come have lunch with me and some of your old classmates. They’d love to hear your stories!”

I was so surprised by the offer and reeling from her congratulations that I was dragged to an eatery frequented by students of the sorcerer’s academy. I had eaten there many times, usually with my nose in a book or reading lines of a textbook on my e-reader. I hadn’t given people much thought, so engrossed was I in following Ah’Man’s footsteps.

I hadn’t exactly been social or overly pleasant.

I cringed.

I may have been distinctly rude and arrogant at times.

Pai’Per did not let my past faults stop her from involving me in the lunch at the eatery and, after a few awkward greetings of my peers, she announced that I had found Ah’Man. The questions flowed thick and fast.

Where was he?

What was he doing?

What was it like to be apprenticed to a man who had been called a god?

I dodged some of the questions…in fact most of them.

I could not betray Ah’Man’s secret location or he would never let me into his bubble again. I could not tell them what he was doing save it had something ground breaking and new but this was hardly news. Anything Ah’Man did was new. He never repeated the same incantation twice.

What was it liked to be apprenticed to him?

The question stuck in my throat and I had a hard time churning out an answer that didn’t sound bitter.

“It’s everything I dreamed it would be and more.”

My peers nodded, unable to see the blatant lie as they envisioned the possibility. They couldn’t fathom that a life spent learning from Ah’Man was, at best, being a scribe to his work.

I swallowed some lunch then excused myself, saying I had urgent business to attend to. Given my apprenticeship, no one questioned it.

Pai’Per walked me to the exit.

“It’s so wonderful to see you again. If you’re ever in Le’Vil again, please…” She held out her hand.

“Really? With me? Why?” I asked her.

“Because…I’d love to hear your stories. You were always the best of us, Gar’Dian.” She imparted her contact details and I stored them away in my head. “I know I’ll only ever be a middle of the road sorcerer…but you…you’re going to stun the world one day. I just know it.”

I walked away, feeling as though the weight of the world was on my shoulders.

I certainly felt like the expectations were there that, one day, I would raise the world up and behold, there would be something new inscribed with my distinct signature.

I went back to the tower and let the elevator take me back to the threshold of Ah’Man’s bubble. I stepped across and followed the stairs down, my heart growing heavier with every step. As I took the arched corridor, I could see Ah’Man huddled over his desk, writing frantically, muttering to himself.

All my hopes…my dreams…my ambitions…

Ruined because of him.

Days turned into weeks.

Weeks turned into months.

I worked on my own incantations with limited success.

I wanted to ask Ah’Man for his opinion but he was utterly preoccupied.

I was alone.

I didn’t dare contact Pai’Per for fear that I would have to conjure more lies about my work.

I felt I had dug a hole for myself and in it I would be buried along with everything I had wanted.

Frustration turned to anger.

Anger turned to bitterness.

Bitterness festered, debilitating and demoralising until I found I could not look at him without seething in hatred at his frail body and his selfish mind.

All I wanted was a kind word.

Praise for my illusion incantations or even constructive criticism.

All I got was silence or to be told to go away.

I found some solace in the beauty of En’Daren. In the mountains, the rivers, the forests, the oceans, the plains that went on forever, the deserts of sand that never stayed still, transforming overnight, the landscape never once the same.

I never went to populated places.

Instead, I visited the lonely places…the forgotten places.

The best places.

Upon returning to the tower, I headed downstairs, unable to go directly to my room without passing Ah’Man’s study. I could feel the anger I had let the tide sweep away only minutes earlier return with every step as I approached him.

To my astonishment, he was not sitting at his desk. He was up, hanging his cloak on a hook.

“Sir?” I asked, stunned at the change in his posture. “Are you well?”

“I am…” His shoulders bowed and he sighed. “I am old…”

“Do you require a healing incantation?”

“No.” He waved his hand at me, almost afraid to meet my eyes. “I am old…”

I didn’t understand. As I moved into the hovel of a study, I noticed that the parchments he had been working on…were blank.

“Sir…have you…completed the incantation?” I looked at his back, his shoulders bowed.

“It is…done.”

My heart burst with a thrill of excitement. A new incantation! A new, original work of art from the mind of Ah’Man!

“What does it do?”

“Nothing.”

I stared at him. “Nothing? An incantation cannot do nothing. It must do something.”

“Oh…it does…”

He was losing his mind, surely. His answers didn’t make sense.

“Sir, could I see it…” I reached out my hand, eager to access the spell in Ah’Man’s mind. He recoiled and slapped his hands over his head.

“No! You must not have it! You will not have it!”

I was stunned.

“But…all the work I have done…the incantations I have scribed perfectly, encasing them in parchment that your legacy will live on…surely that gives me some right to…”

“You will not, must not, have it! You have no right!” Ah’Man’s face was contorted with fury and a little fear. “It is mine and it shall remain in me!”

“As you wish, master.” I heard myself say in a submissive voice, bowing as I did so. I turned and walked up the stairs, climbing the home of Ah’Man to where my room was. I went inside, shut the door and stood in the middle of the room.

Rage began to build inside of me.

Indignation fanned into a flame that was searing my veins, pouring out of my fingertips, wicking from my skin until I felt that I would burst into a living bonfire.

“Selfish old man,” I seethed, “all I have done to protect you and prove my worth…and you keep the greatest incantation of them all from me. I would have served you forever had you deigned to be kind…to involve me in the smallest measure…instead you shut me out and make my efforts worth nothing!”

The walls were blackening and the floor was cracking under the heat of my veins. I had to stop. I had to draw back the flames but without a resolution, I knew I would continue to consume the home of Ah’Man and take him with me…

…no…not Ah’Man…just that incantation.

Just a peek.

A look…a glimmer…

The heat of my body receded and I breathed out, looking around my room. It was a charred mess. I had to concentrate to undo the damage but, with a plan in mind…I had the control to be able to fix the mess.

I was going steal the incantation.

Ah’Man might have been suspicious of me had I ranted and raved in his study. But because of my acquiesce to his selfishness, he thought nothing of it as I brought him his evening meal.

“Thank you, Gar’Dian.” He said, reclined in his chair, his brow pale and his eyes, glassy. Even without the potent drug in the goat’s milk, Ah’Man would probably have dropped off to sleep in his chair. But the removal of the incantation required careful concentration. Usually it needed both parties to be involved but Ah’Man would not let me in so I would need him to be completely…

…vulnerable…

The stein of milk dropped to the floor. I heard it as I sat upon the stair above the study. Without shoes on my feet I padded down the stairs and saw him slumped over his desk.

I took a moment to burn in the disgust I felt for him.

He was old.

He was frail.

He was unkind.

He would never know I was in his mind.

Having received his incantations in the past, reaching out to his mind was not difficult. I had never taken one before without permission and I was worried it would be resistant or even aggressive.

But the moment I touched Ah’Man’s mind, I felt it surge at me. Its eagerness was overwhelming and I had to urge it to be quiet, to not rouse its creator. I created a bridge between my mind and it and immediately I felt it leap in a grand, golden arc into my head with such force that I staggered backwards, kicking the cup.

Ah’Man moaned and tried to rise through his drugged stupor.

Frightened, I snatched the last of the incantation violently and suspected I had damaged Ah’Man’s mind in the process. A trickle of blood appeared from his nose. I turned and bolted along the archway, stumbling as the incantation writhed within my mind. I had to hold onto the steps, clambering up them, almost blinded by the golden light. I had never known an incantation with such…energy before! All of them had their own presence, their own nature but every single one that I had scribed in the past, had been benign and calm, content to wait for their time to come to be spoken.

Not this incantation.

It was eager, desperate even, to be heard, to be seen…to be spoken.

It wanted to live and to be unleashed!

Oh how I understood its desperate craving!

How I knew what it wanted and why it wanted it and the fury of things standing in its way.

We were kindred spirits, this incantation and I.

Both of us imprisoned by the narrow, selfish vision of an old foolish sorcerer who locked us up and locked us out.

I sealed the base of the tower, hiding the steps so that I could kneel on the floor.

“I hear you,” I whispered, “I know…I know…Show me! Show me what it is you can do!”

The air around me filled with fire, water, metal, earth and wood, the elements sometimes in tension and other times, in harmony until they formed a perfect pentagram.

“The elements of creation? But the creations of what?” I breathed and stepped out of the centre. “What will you make?”

The words and symbols swirled around in the centre, coalescing into a sphere. I gazed at it, awestruck.

“You…will make…a new world?” I breathed. “A new world built from the best of En’Daren? A new world to hang in the heavens…a new world that will last longer than any other incantation, any reputation…a name written across the stars, everlasting…”

Suddenly I knew I had to say the words.

I had to bring forth this incantation into fruition.

To deny it its purpose was cruel.

To deny me the access to such creativity was malicious.

Ah’Man would not let it live…so I would unlock its chains and speak the words that would unleash it from its bonds.

A new world would form.

A twin to En’Daren.

The world we knew would never be the same again.

“Show me your form…please…” I begged and the world disintegrated into words, hanging in front of me, each line I needed to say reforming when the line before had been said. I began to speak faster, the incantation to create a world being long yet there was a wonderful melody to it. The urgency of its voice, its need to be heard sent my pulse racing as I spoke faster and faster…

…so hard was I concentrating on the words in front of me…I missed the darkness developing behind me…

When the last word was spoken I heard a cry of pain from down below but before I could fathom what it meant…the darkness swirled around me…then burst forth from the tower, streaking out into the world of En’Daren…

…and all I could do was watch it wither, the very life sucked out of every man, woman and children, every leaf, dew drop, animal that ran across the ground, every bird in the sky and creature of the oceans…every dragon fell and every wolf stumbled.

…not a blade of grass survived.

The city of Le’Vil looked like a hollowed out ruin, a millennia old and not mere hours.

There was no life in the streets.

There was no life anywhere.

The oceans had dried up, leaving great cavities in the planet.

Not a creature, a single crab or smallest microbe managed to exist.

The forests were desolated. All leaves were gone and the trees that had not crumbled into nothing were just lifeless stumps, the headstones of a vast graveyard.

The floating islands had fallen from the sky, their remains broken upon the ground.

The waterfalls, the cities that had stretched across the lakes…it was all…gone.

I alone, survived.

Kneeling in the tower, I had watched my beloved world end…

…and the incantation had cruelly let me live…to see what my hubris had wrought.

…

“Are you sure you want it built to these specifications?”

“Yes, I am sure. You are the third builder I have hired. The last one I fired because he dared to alter my plans. It needs to be exact.”

“For the price you’re paying me, I’ll build it upside down if you want…but it’s a bit…odd…”

“I don’t care.”

“Fair enough.” The tradesman pulled out his tape measure. “So…what do you do?”

“What do you mean, what do I do?”

“I was just curious. It’s a nice house you have here. I mean, it’s tucked up at the end of a forgotten street but it’s a nice place.” He saw my expression and shrugged. “Sorry…I didn’t mean to pry. I like to ask questions. My job’s a bit lonely at times.”

I felt a pang of regret at my brusque manner. “I’m a writer.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Well…I’d like to be paid so well for sitting on my backside churning out words.” He laughed. “Fiction or faction?”

“Huh?”

“Do you write true stuff or make believe stuff?”

“Oh…it is make believe, I suppose…but based upon truth.” The truth it had once been…the vision from the tower across the threshold into En’Daren…the truth of my world before I had destroyed it…

“I’m not into reading myself. At the end of the day I just want a cold beer, a comfy chair and maybe a tumble with the wife if I’m not too tired.”

“Fascinating.” I rolled my eyes. The humans of this world were…coarse…and unrefined. I left the hefty tradesman inspecting the foundation for my tower. I turned and walked back to the house. If he didn’t do it right, I’d find myself another builder.

“It has to be perfect.” I muttered, entering the backdoor, heading to my desk. There was mail on the doorstep. I glared at the bills and tossed them in the bin. Money was irrelevant. They could have all of it. I cared nothing for myself.

Ever since I had arrived in this world, a basic and rough doorway fashioned out of desperation allowing me to escape my tower prison, I had recoiled from this concept of money. They always wanted more and more of it. Even the publishers of my book, ‘Synthetic Love’, had talked about my royalties and tried to insist that I write a sequel or prequel…

…didn’t they know that the cost of creation was far beyond any monetary value?

That every line, every sentence spoken and description had to be perfect?

I had to alter some of the characters, modelling them on the trends of the world I had found myself in. I stood a better chance of being published if I used current trends to tell a tale against the backdrop I needed. The characters and their lives were irrelevant. I didn’t need those. They were what the humans read about but it was the worlds they were in that was important.

I turned back to my current manuscript, writing about vampires of all things. Drinkers of blood. There was a popular dark trend forming in this world and a hefty dramatic thriller, drawing from the first vampire story published, would capture attention and put my words into published form. I drew from the blood plague that had threatened all of En’Daren before Ah’Man had cured it, likening the curse of a vampire to a terrible addiction that needed curing.

A female lead…a dangerous, predatory woman…

I considered my tradesman and his lurid remark about his wife…

Perhaps a little sex wouldn’t hurt.

Whatever got the book published…I would do as long as it didn’t compromise the integrity of the world I needed to create.

I gazed at my notes and then turned to the typewriter. The keys clacked up and down. I pressed them venomously, each one a target that I had to hit over and over again.

Learning the rules of this world had been a nightmare.

Trying to exist within it had nearly sent me mad.

The power that I had in En’Daren did not exist here, not in the same way. It was harder, more elusive and, apparently, mythological to the humans. They didn’t know about the science that came from the power of words, of speaking things into existence.

I glanced at the black notebook to my right. Though not overly thick, every line of every page was filled…with the blasted incantation that had driven me here.

After its devastating work had been done, it had returned to me, curling up inside my mind and I could almost hear it mocking me, its laugh echoing through the caverns of my destroyed soul.

But it couldn’t stay there.

Not without sending me completely mad.

I had written it out, sealing it in the book so that my mind could be free from it.

It alone knew my darkest secret.

I had killed millions.

Not just people.

Not just anything that breathed with lungs or walked on two legs.

My world was a hunk of rock, adrift in space…devoid of any life.

All because of me.

I couldn’t even turn to Ah’Man.

He had been taken in the devastation.

I was left with the darkness inside of me, laughing at my despair.

So I shut it in a book.

And as I had written it out…I had come to a starting conclusion.

Ah’Man had made a mistake.

He had assumed that all the elements together would form a new world. But all the incantation had done was consume every drop of the elements from En’Daren…however, it had done nothing with them. It had enjoyed the flavour…and given nothing in return.

If a new thing was to be born, then I realised that it needed a mother in order to do so. Someone whose body was designed to house life…who would nurture it to maturity so that it could be born and take its place.

Ah’Man, in his arrogance, had forgotten the role of a mother…

But I could not blame him for it.

After all, in my arrogance, I had mistaken his fear of the incantation’s gluttonous greed for selfish ambition…

“No…it’s all my fault.” I breathed. “I have to make amends.”

I picked up the letter from Aztec, the publishing company that had swallowed ‘Five Suns’ who had published my first book. They were interested in ‘The Bloody Tale of the Vampire Queen’.

“You will get it when I am ready.” I breathed. “I made the mistake of acting in haste before.” I pushed my hand through my hair, scraping my scalp. It was thinner than it used to be. Ten years, of the human world calendar, had passed. I had aged with it. I would live longer than humans but even I could not live forever. However, I would not rush my work. The lesson had been a hard one to learn. “I can wait. So can you.”

I stood on the pavement, my soul bristling as I watched a man remove the ‘For Sale’ sign in front of my home and my unfinished tower, walking in as if he owned the place…well…I suppose he did now.

I looked down at the letter in my hand, my body shaking in fury.

“Filed for bankruptcy…house and grounds possessed…all my work…stolen from me…”

The royalties from the books had not been enough to pay the bills. They were miniscule compared to the debt that was levied at me. I had become so preoccupied with my current work, ‘The History of the Highborn elves of Iffah’, attempting to reproduce the perfect forest backdrop, that I hadn’t seen the bank closing in on me.

This world…this insufferable world…how I despised it!

I turned and walked away, everything I had worked for now in someone else’s hands.

I had heard him talking about ‘improvements’ and ‘modernisations’.

I wanted to lash out, to scream…did no one understand my heartache?

I was all alone in this world and no one, not one person, understood the weight of my responsibility.

How could they?

How could I tell them that I, Gar’Dian, who had wanted to be remembered for something…would be known as the ‘bringer of death’…if there had been anyone alive to call me it.

As I walked, head down, counting the seconds I was losing with every step away from my work, I nearly bumped into a woman coming the opposite way.

“Heavens! I am so sorry…”

“Think nothing of it…think nothing of me…” I grunted angrily, intending to storm off.

A hand touched my arm. “Wait…please…” I turned to see a woman gazing at me with a kindly expression that made my heartache that much harder to bear. “I have something for you.”

I glowered at her, frustrated and angry. “What could you possibly have for me?” I demanded.

She reached over a picket fence and clipped a flower I believed was called a rose, from its green stemmed mooring and handed it to me.

“To make you smile.” She offered.

It was bright and yellow with touches of pink blended to orange…and I hated its very presence. I grasped it and pulled its petals apart.

“This wretched flower can do nothing for my damned soul!” I snarled and stormed away without a backward glance.

With no money and unable to utilise my powers to the same extent here as I had in En’Daren, I had to suffer the condescension of a charity, applying to a church where I was given a bed and a meal.

I had once known the finest En’Daren society had to offer.

Now I was practically a beggar…a nobody…lost and alone…

As I lay in my bed of linen that smelt of mothballs, I gazed at the curtains of the window, the lace in the pattern of climbing roses. I stared at them long after the lights had gone out, imagining the bruised and torn petals of the rose I had been offered scattered on the ground.

When I rose the next morning, I used whatever money I had left to purchase a plant in a pot.

I had nothing else to give, no other contribution to make…

I only had two more books to go, one already partially written and ‘Legendary’, the publishing company, was interested in printing it. However, the advance of royalties was minimal and hardly enough to get me back on my feet.

I had lost everything.

But my soul had yet to be completely seared and heartless.

I carried the pot up the familiar streets to the cul de sac I knew so well. It was strange. I knew the houses by sight because I had looked at them from my veranda…but I had never bothered to engage with the humans that lived in them.

I approached the white picket fence and unlatched the gate, swinging it inwards. I went up to the door and raised my hand…then dropped it. I sighed and put the plant on the doorstep and went to walk away…

“It needs more sunlight than that.”

I looked to my right and saw the woman who had offered me the rose, on her knees in the soil with a trowel in her hand, a bucket hat on her head and her waist, wrapped in a floral apron. She pushed glasses up her nose and smiled at me.

“I,” I faltered, “wanted to apologise…for yesterday. You were being kind…”

She stood up, pulling her gloves off. “You looked like someone who had lost everything…”

Tears pricked at my eyes. “I have…twice now…and what you gave to me…I threw aside…I’m sorry.”

She tilted her head. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

I shook my head. “I…don’t deserve your kindness.”

“Consider it payment.”

“For what?”

“The beautiful plant.” She nodded at it. “I could show you how to replant it…after our coffee.”

I swallowed. “I…”

“There’s nothing more enjoyable in life than getting your hands dirty while making something wonderful.”

I gazed at her, stunned. My raw soul had been soothed with the cooling balm of her words.

She was younger than I but she had a tenderness in her that I yearned for…

I didn’t deserve it…but oh, how I craved it.

I used a broom to sweep the leaves off the path to the house. I could feel my legs ache and my back, creak. I was weary to the bone. It wasn’t as bad as it had been. I’d known some kindness and comfort in my life even though it was hardly what I envisioned it to be when I was young. It was hard not to feel a sense of bitterness at the dilapidated state of my former home at the back of the cul de sac, its fence marked with a sign saying that it was under the control of the council after the former owners had finally declared it to be a heritage building. The Glenwilde council had forked out the money to buy it from the bank and, as councils were prone to never doing anything quickly, it had remained empty for some time.

It still hurt.

To know that my work was right there, beyond my reach.

Not even my wife knew of my other life…or even my other, other life.

I’d hidden all of it.

My life began when I was a homeless, bankrupt man who was given a flower.

“I’m boiling the kettle. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Yes please.”

I sighed and straightened, feeling everything ache. I rested the broom against the side of the house and pulled the two wrought iron chairs and table into the sunshine. As I did so, my wife emerged with two cups of tea.

“Let that warm your insides,” she smiled and I returned it out of habit, “it’s only going to get colder.”

We sat at the table, my hands around the cup and my wife, browsing through her phone.

“Megan’s sent more pictures of our grandson.” She held it out to me.

“Hardly mine.” I returned gently, sensing her attempt, yet again, to include me in her family.

“Don’t start that again.” She argued softly. “I know Megan isn’t that keen on you…but I am.”

I gazed at the top of her head, still baffled as to why this woman had agreed to marry me. Well…it had been her idea. After the initial coffee and apology for my brusque behaviour I didn’t think I’d see her again. I returned to the charity that looked after me, finishing my fourth novel on the computers at the library as I had no where else to work and the publishing company was demanding that I produce a book as they had already forwarded me the advance…which the bank had claimed.

But I couldn’t leave well enough alone and I drifted back to the cul de sac to gaze at my former home and my interrupted work. The man who had bought it had made some vague attempts to modernise it then sold it when he realised he’d greatly underestimated the cost. The couple who took it on afterwards had been far more successful in their renovations and brilliant in applying to the local council to have the, newly named, Observatory, listed as a heritage landmark. But even they had not understood the nature of the building…of its purpose.

My wife showed me some more pictures of my ‘grandson’. All I saw was a grotty faced toddler with sticky fingers and eyes too big for his face. I loved my wife dearly…but my love was held in stark contrast to how much I hated this world and, ultimately, hated how small and pathetic my life with her was.

It wasn’t that I was not grateful. She had invited me again and again and perhaps, in the beginning she felt sorry for me more than anything else. But then she began to fall in love with me and I…I yearned for closeness and connection…but sometimes the bitter pill of reality was hard to swallow.

Even now my eyes lifted to my former home once more and I grieved anew.

“I’m sorry, you know,” I heard my wife say, “that you feel hard done by…that I wouldn’t agree to applying to the council to purchase that house.” I looked at her, guilt riddling me. “I know you’ve had a fixation for it, for what reason I don’t know…I just can’t see why you would be happier there than you are here.”

I reached across and squeezed her hand. “Forgive an old man his stupid whims. I am happy here.”

“I wish I could believe that.” She said.

“I love you.” I said strongly.

“I know you do, well…I think most of you does…but there’s a part of you that is held in reserve…your past that hurts…and you keep it hidden…even from me.”

I sighed and closed my eyes. “My life before you was nothing. It was fraught with failure and mistakes and foolish ambition. I am content.”

She picked up her cup of tea. “I hope so, my love.” She lifted her head and gave a small gasp. “Well…what do you know?”

“Huh?” I looked up and saw a car pull up at the front of my old home. A man in a cheap suit, probably a council worker and a young woman got out. She had a head of dark brown hair plaited loosely, a pair of glasses framing her eyes which sparkled with anticipation. “Just an inspection…”

“I’m not so sure…”

An hour later the young woman emerged from the house, speaking animatedly with the councilman, shaking his hand and beaming. He indicated to his car but she shook her head. He drove away and the young woman stood on the footpath, gazing at the building, her hands on her hips. Then she turned and began to walk down the path, glancing back now and then. In one of her glances, she caught my curious expression. With a friendly countenance, she approached the fence.

“Hi, I’m Johanne West. I’ll be your new neighbour.”

“Ah…welcome…” I paused. “You’re buying that old place?” She nodded enthusiastically. “I hope you last longer than the previous owners…”

“What my husband means to say is, welcome to the cul de sac.” My wife chuckled as she approached. “It’ll be good to have that old place occupied. It needs some tender loving care.”

“I’ve got a little family money and a business plan.”

“A business?” I cringed, imagining what this foolish young woman was thinking of doing to my beloved home.

“A café,” she smiled, “a place where beautiful coffees are made, delicious food is served and the atmosphere is companionable. I want it to be a place where people come and feel like they’re at home.”

“What about the Folly?”

“Folly?”

“You would know it as the Observatory.” I explained.

“Oh!” Jo beamed. “I took one look at it and went…that is a safe and unusual place where books of all kinds, genres, authors and intent line the walls…it’s called the Observatory. We are so taken up with staring at the heavens…yet I find more pleasure in a single, well written book than star gazing.”

I gazed at her, astonished not only by her passion, but by her insight.

“I suppose you’ll be doing something about that big fig tree?”

“Hanging a swing from it is probably the extent of my intent.” Jo laughed. “It’s just so…it has so much potential,” she looked back at the building, “it’s like a tarnished antique…it only needs to be polished and returned to its original purpose and suddenly…it will all come together.”

For once I was not staring at my old home.

I was staring at the young woman who was bristling with hope and purpose…

…and my soul sang in perfect melody with hers.

“I believe,” I heard myself saying, “that you have a far greater chance of success than any others who have come before you.”

“Oh,” she blushed, “thank you.” She pulled her phone out. “Sorry, got to go. My sister is pregnant and it’s her baby shower tonight. I know it’s a little silly…but I feel something similar in me…” She glanced at the building again. “Like something new is about to begin…”

“Yes,” I breathed, “something is about to be born…”

She looked at me and beamed once more then apologised for having to dash off. “I’ll wave hello whenever I get the chance! Oh, did I introduce myself?”

“You did,” I chuckled, “but I didn’t…this is my wife, Debbie and I am Gary Ian Dunn. Welcome, Johanne West…you are very welcome indeed.”