Rainbow's End - Wizard (10 page)

He looked at the sun
shining through the low-hanging branches, then stood and said, ‘It’s almost time. Come, I have a surprise for you.’ He strode off with his long flowing steps and Thomas jogged after him, doing his best to keep up.

*****

The water level in the pool was higher than the previous day, and Annie and Frieda were amongst the children and other adults lining its bank. They both smiled when they saw Thomas, and Frieda gave him a wink. She had a red rose in her blonde hair and Thomas thought she looked very pretty.

There were between thirty and fifty children. It was difficult to be more exact
for they were standing or sitting in groups of two and more; very few by themselves. They all looked to be between about six and twelve years old; their numbers more or less equally divided between boys and girls.

One boy was noticeably older than the rest
, and different. Seventeen or eighteen, he stood off to one side - by himself, with a happy grin on his face and clapping his hands in childish glee. He wasn’t still for a moment and when he hopped up and down, Thomas noticed his limp.

Big John saw
him watching and said, ‘That’s Jason. I’ll tell you about him later.’

The rainbow
’s colours were very bright and the young man’s eyes, like everybody else’s, were staring up, to where its multi-coloured curve disappeared over the cliff - as if expecting something to fall from it. He was. They were…

It sounded like a very old airliner coming in to land… It thundered and screamed and creaked and groaned, and the air suddenly smelt of ozone.

I
t sounded like an ancient steam locomotive in the act of derailing… It whistled and screeched and boomed and roared, and…

It was huge and red and hit the pool with a reverberating “Whump!!
”; the resulting wave of displaced water crashing into and sweeping everybody off his or her feet. It was part of what they had been waiting for, what they were expecting: the whole of the pool’s shore was suddenly transformed into a wet mess of tangled arms and legs, and laughter and screams. Thomas was flat on his back and dazed and when he looked at Big John, the giant was staring back at his comically surprised face, and laughing so hard that Thomas felt sure he was going to rupture something. His normally neat beard was dribbling mud, and his pony-tail a loosely put-together mess, running yellow-brown.

In t
he middle of the pool stood a streaming-with-water, cherry red lorry. Or what had once been a lorry. Its nose had been flattened and its engine lay on the long steel bed behind the grotesquely elongated cab. Its steering wheel stuck out of one of its large, punctured rubber tires; the door facing Thomas had a starred-glass broken window, and a big headlight growing out of the centre of its panel. Hundreds of packages in different shapes and sizes were floating in the water surrounding the wreck.

A man’s voice
called out from the inside of the out of shape, stretched and twisted cab, and Big John got to his feet, wading out to it. He reached up, and with enormous strength wrenched and twisted the passenger door open. It came off completely, and he tossed it to one side as if it weighed nothing at all. The man was sitting on a seat inside, and after saying something to John, carefully handed him a small something, wrapped in what looked to be a jacket. John took it, almost reverently, and Thomas saw his massive body hunch over whatever it was protectively. He turned around carefully, and very slowly - as if afraid of falling, waded back to the bank. 

Frieda was waiting and when she saw what his big arms held,
went right to the water’s edge and gave a little cry and fell to her knees so he could pass it to her without leaving the water. She wrapped the small thing in her mud-smeared apron and her arms, and when she stood and turned towards Annie, Thomas could see the soft love in her eyes. He also saw what she held. It was a little girl with a bush of copper-red curls; sleeping and sucking her thumb.

And suddenly everybody was inside the water - laughing and shouting and scrambling for plastic-wrapped parcels; floating and pushing and dragging them to the side. They heaped them on the pool’s bank: a small mountain of them; and when there were none left in the water, everybody stood back and watched the whole stack, simply disappear.

7

It was chilly and the curtains drawn.
Thomas wore winter pyjamas and just the reading lamp was on. He’d just had a long, hot bath and was lying in the middle of his bed, on his stomach with his arms crossed on his pillow and his head resting on them; relishing the feel of the thick duvet under him, postponing the pleasure of crawling under it and giving himself to sleep. A small three-bar heater was glowing red in the half-dark and a favourite song of Grammy and his was playing on the portable radio. Thomas was thinking of her - how much she would have enjoyed Rainbow’s End! The very fact that it existed would have delighted her no end: its nature, its beauty, its people, the children, the sunshine… Rose had loved sunshine almost as much as she had loved snow.

There
was a soft knock on his bedroom door and Thomas rolled over, sat up, and called ‘Come in!’ Nothing happened for several seconds and then the knock was repeated. He swung his feet to the floor and wriggled them into his slippers, and going to the door, opened it to find Annie with her hand raised, just in time to stop her knocking again. She wore her robe and slippers, and said, ‘I thought you were sleeping,’ then stooped and lifted a silver tray off the floor.

She beamed at Thomas. ‘Hot chocolate
,’ she said, and when he stood to one side, bustled into the room and set the tray down on his desk. She turned to him and asked, ‘Were you busy? Am I interrupting?’ Thomas shook his head, and pointing at the rumpled bed, said shyly, ‘No, not busy at all. Just lying there, thinking…’ He looked at the steaming mugs. ‘And chocolate would be very nice. Thank you, Annie.’

She smiled at him. ‘Tell you what,’ she lifted one of the mugs, ‘you get into bed and I’ll hand you yours.
And if it’s all right with you - if you’re not too tired, can I sit and talk for a while?’

Thomas, still
confused and unsure of so many things, was only too glad to have someone to talk to, and going back to bed, lifted and then got under the covers; sitting up with his back against the headboard. Annie handed him his mug before returning to the desk for her own, stopping before the curtain covered window. She used one finger to move the fabric slightly to the side, and then shivered and said, ‘It’s snowing again… wherever we are.’ She looked at Thomas questioningly.

He was suddenly embarrassed and said, ‘Northumberland, Rockham - at least, that’s what I think. It’s where I stay. Stayed’ - he added lamely. Thomas’ voice was suddenly soft, and Annie thought, scared. He asked, in a whisper, ‘What is this place, Annie? What am I doing here?’

‘Oh, Thomas.’ Annie took her mug
off the tray and came to the bed, obviously intent on sitting next to the boy. Thomas wished the bed was bigger, and it was, instantly.

Annie stopped and beamed at him. ‘That was
good
. That was
very
good.’

‘I didn’t mean to…’ Thomas stared a
t the suddenly larger mattress.

Annie said
, ‘I know Thomas.’ She sat down next to him. ‘It just happens. To all of us.’ She smiled at him. ‘You’ll get used to it, and it
is
awful nice, isn’t it?’ She kicked off her slippers, then swung her legs onto the bed and after arranging her robe around her stretched-out legs settled back against the headboard. She said, ‘All settled in. And now,’ Annie took a sip of her hot chocolate, ‘now we can talk. But first - two things.’ Thomas waited.

‘Your question first - “What are you doing here?”’ Annie said, then answered as best she could. ‘Rainbow’s End is a place for children, Thomas. A place where children can really
be
children. Lonely children, unhappy children, destitute children, orphans, runaways, castaways…’ Annie’s look turned sombre for a second or two.

‘Ariana picks up signals f
rom some, and Orson finds more - mostly in old houses and buildings, even alleys; he brings them all back here.’ Her blue eyes turned pensive. ‘I think there might be one more reason in your case, but I will leave it up to Ariana to tell you. Big John said you’re seeing her tomorrow night.’

She saw the trepidation in
Thomas’ eyes and asked - surprised, ‘Are you worried about seeing Ariana?’

Thomas looked away and Annie gave a
soft little laugh. ‘You are!’ she said, and then, ‘Thomas, Ariana is the gentlest, most wonderful person I have ever met. Ever! You will love her!’ She used one hand to turn his face towards her, and looked into Thomas’ distressed eyes. ‘I promise,’ she said, and the boy suddenly felt a whole lot better about the next night.

They sipped their hot chocolate in companionable silence for a minute, and
then Annie spoke again. She said, ‘The second thing. Just now, when I knocked, did you call for me to come in?’

Thomas nodded.

‘I thought so,’ Annie said. She waved her hand at the chilly room. ‘Remember Thomas, when you are someplace else - Northumberland…?’ He nodded again and she continued, ‘When you are somewhere else and someone knocks on your door - or calls out to you - you can hear them, but they can’t hear you.’ She pointed at the bedroom door. ‘On the other side of that door is Rainbow’s End. On this side is wherever, whatever… you want. We - the rest of us, are in Rainbow’s End and you can hear us; but you are in Northumberland and we can’t hear you.

‘So I can knock and you will hear me, but you can shout until you are blue in
your face, and I won’t hear
you
.’ Annie saw his confusion and laughed. ‘I know, it
is
terribly confusing, isn’t it? I have been at Rainbow’s End for more almost seventy-five Earth years and I still don’t understand some of the things here.’

This incredible statement caused Thomas to gape at Annie and stammer, ‘But you’re
not - you can’t… ’

The look on his face caused Annie to laugh out loud with delight, and she gasped, ‘Oh
, Thomas, you are as easy to read as an open book.’ She laughed some more, and then said, ‘Unlike men, Thomas - men like Orson and John - woman keep track of their age. Very carefully.’

Annie looked no more than sixty years old and he
r smile was mischievous when she said, ‘On earth, I would have been a hundred years old last month. Exactly. And if I have to say so myself - a very well-preserved hundred year old.’

They were quiet for a minute; Thomas had both hands wrapped around his mug and was taking small sips when Annie pu
t her drink down on the bedside table, and picked up the photo album lying next to it.

‘
May I?’ she asked, and when Thomas nodded, opened its soft leather cover.

The first photo was an enlargement of an older woman, Annie’s own age; it filled a whole page. Still very beautiful: raven-black hair streaked with swathes of silver-grey; jaw square and strong; dark eyes alive and flashing, and Annie felt them reach out to her. Three tiny moles on one high cheekbone stirred ancient memories, and gave Annie goose-bumps.

‘Who is this?’ she asked
softly.

‘
That’s Grammy. Grammy Rose. It was taken just before I was born. She’s dead now,’ Thomas said, softly.

Annie turned the page. A
nother woman, this one much younger - in her late teens, maybe twenty. Sandy, light-brown hair, the same colour as Thomas’. She was smiling, her grey eyes alive and full of dreams. The photo below, the same girl; a year or two older and holding a baby. Still smiling, but not with her eyes: they were lacklustre - the dreams had flown.

Annie glanced at Thomas.
He was looking at the same photo as her. She asked softly, ‘Your mother?’

He nodded, ‘
Elaine,’ he said. ‘She gave birth to me, yes. But,’ his tone was adamant and Thomas pointed at a photo on the opposite page. Another picture of Rose: older and laughing, carrying a rucksack and walking stick, and wearing a floppy hat. ‘
That
was my mother,’ he said.

Annie’s voice was gentle and she said, ‘
Tell me.’

And Thomas did. His eyes went far away and he said, ‘Elaine - she was Grammy Rose’s daughter, fell pregnant with me when she was just nineteen. She didn’t want me, and Grammy said she was too young to be saddled with a baby in anyway. She - Grammy Rose - took me, and we moved here.’ He turned the page to a photo of a small white cottage with a Mini Cooper standing beside it. ‘It’s called Pine Cottage, and my room looks just like…this,’ He waved a hand at the room around them. Annie gave him an encouraging smile and a nod and he went on.