Rainbow's End - Wizard (34 page)

‘What
do you mean, your “Life-Force”?’ Bryan asked.

‘Later,’ said the demi-god. ‘I will explain it to you later.’ He turned in a slow circle, eyes searching;
and once or twice possibly found what he was searching for, for Bryan saw his thin lips twitch in a small smile, his eyebrows jump. ‘You asked about the children: the ones that don’t go back?’

Bryan nodded and Kraylle clapped his hands
, twice. It sounded like two shots, and suddenly there seemed to be movement everywhere.

Shadows; some furtive, some frozen and as still as to
seem like figments of the imagination, shadows hidden in more shadows, glimmers, flashes, flesh as pale as the hanging and standing pillars of mineral deposits, they all came to life, although - after an initial horrified look - Bryan wished they hadn’t. Gnomes, ogres, hobgoblins, or simply creatures from hell or one’s nightmares; they came shuffling and stumbling out of the dark and from behind the wide translucent pillars; they rose from the red swirling mist; a few even lowered themselves on hairy ropes from out of the cloying darkness above. They were truly horrendous and loathsome; the term “creatures from out of hell”, probably suited them best. All were deformed: their faces terrible and leprous; their limbs unnaturally short or elongated, twisted; their heads misshapen; knobbly protuberances on their faces and other exposed parts of their bodies. Dressed in odds and ends and sackcloth, they shuffled along on badly shortened and horribly deformed feet, some dragging lame legs and club feet behind them. Some were grunting and groaning, some moaning, some panting; all of them slobbering.

Kraylle raised his arms and stood with them wide
, in a cross-like pose, a look of demonic delight on his face. And the bizarrely misshapen and ugly creatures - all children - clustered around, jostling each other and touching his robes, his feet, even embracing his long legs; huffing and moaning. The demi-god was not repulsed in the least - the opposite seemed true; his demonic grin reminded Bryan of the gargoyle’s carved into the door upstairs. Only the fangs needed adding.

‘Meet Desolation’s children, Bryan Stone
,’ Kraylle said, and his demented laughter echoed and re-echoed around the massive cavern, down the fiery pit and into the hell of Desolation.

27

Annie was waiting when John and Edith Carter
came walking up the steep path to the cave; the woman carrying a clinging Maggie, who had her face buried in the hollow between her grandmother’s neck and shoulder.

‘You must be Edith,’ Annie said, and took the
large handbag that John wordlessly handed her. He cast a troubled look at Maggie’s grandmother, then turned, and with long strides, strode off the way they’d come.

Edith nodded
, said: ‘Edith Carter,’ and unconsciously tightened her grip on the child in her arms, adding, ‘I’m Maggie’s grandmother.’

Annie smiled. ‘
Of course you are,’ she said, and then, ‘Welcome to Rainbow’s End, Edith. I’m Annie.’ She faked a glowering look at John’s retreating back, and said in an overly gruff voice, which caused the other woman to give a tentative smile. ‘And that’s Big John - our gentle giant.’ She caught the worried look in Edith’s eyes. ‘Now don’t you worry,’ she reassured. ‘He isn’t normally so taciturn… so... disapproving. He’s just shocked. Everybody is. You are the first adult to land in Rainbow’s End in…’ Annie decided not to confuse her guest further for the moment, and simply said - ‘in years.’ And then further astonished Edith by, without thinking (it came so naturally), - drying her still-wet clothes with a single up and down look.

Edith stood in the centre of the amphitheatre like cave; slowly turning in a circle and gaping in astonishment. All around her was a wonderland: massive grey walls curved away to the sides and top - forming a huge circular room and a high domed roof; the floor the same grey rock but polished to a smoked-mirror sheen; thirty or forty doors were evenly spaced, except the three at the end of the room which were further apart; in between - crusted into the rock - starting on the floor and disappearing into the roof, were ribbons and ropes of blue, green and red: sapphires, emeralds and rubies; the whole lit and glittering by sunlight falling through a large round hole at the apex of the domed roof.

‘Are they real?’ she whispered.

‘The gems?’ Annie asked, and when Edith mutely nodded, smiled. ‘Very real,’ she said, and then, ‘Come on, you must want to freshen up.’ She led her guest to a door with “Annie” painted on it, and opened another world of wonders.

The room was large, comfortable and washed with sunlight. It had a close-up view of the Rainbow
Pool, which Edith knew was impossible; it was much further away - she had just walked from there. Hundreds of dolls sat, lay or stood in every bit of available space.

The bathroom was exquisite -
the most beautiful Edith had ever seen, and ‘Yes,’ Annie assured her: ‘The rainforest and pool on the other side of the glass covering the whole of one wall,
were
real.’

*

Later… Night had fallen outside, and with it Maggie had fallen asleep; much earlier than usual - her small physique mentally and physically overtaxed by the excitement of the day gone. She was awake one moment, happily babbling to Edith about all the wonders of Rainbow’s End, but especially Frieda; the next her pansy-blue eyes had closed and she was deeply breathing through her slightly open mouth.

‘Put her on my bed Edith,’ Annie had told the woman, and when she saw her reluctance, said softly
. ‘We need to talk, don’t you think?’

*

They walked slowly, stopping often to allow an amazed, at times simply astonished, Edith, to turn in slow circles and absorb what her eyes registered, impossible as it sometimes seemed.

It was a
typical Rainbow’s End night: the dark, softly silver and lit by the large low-hanging moon and billions of stars, giving the wide, twisting path before them a yellowish glow. Crickets played their rasping music in the grass along the sides, and from up and down the river come the songs of a thousand frogs. The flowers had gone to sleep, but their fragrance remained on the very slight breeze playing through both women’s hair.

Edith asked
, and Annie answered.

‘No, Rainbow’s End is not on
the Earth; no part of it…’

A
nd - ‘no … Thomas had not lied - he never does. Why should he? At Rainbow’s End, it was simply not necessary, not done…’

And
- ‘yes… There are fairies here, and dwarfs, and little people…’

And
- ‘
Of course
there was magic - how did Edith think her clothes got dry; or how the new dress from Annie’s cupboard shrunk to fit her smaller (only slightly) frame. And the shrinking and expanding dining room in which they’d had dinner…’

And
- ‘Edith
was
the first adult (Excepting Izzy and the occasional gypsy), to set foot at Rainbow’s End in centuries…’

And
- ‘Yes, Thomas
did
mean it when he said that you should be back home today. It has to do with curves in time and space. Don’t ask me how it works, but you could be here for months, and then get home just minutes, even a day,
before
you left…’

And
- ‘yes. (Amused), Rainbow’s End
is
looked after... protected by a water-nymph.’ Annie laughed softly, to herself. Ariana should enjoy
that
one…

And
-‘The cave, the gems, the Rainbow…? And who is Frieda? Maggie’s every second word seems to be about her…’

They halted again, and
Annie put her hands on Edith’s shoulders. They were almost the same height. ‘Give it time, Edith,’ she said. ‘When you go back, you will not remember any of it in anyway.’

‘
Why not?’ Edith frowned, bewildered, and Annie shrugged. ‘It’s just the way it works,’ she said.

They walked in silence for a while, and then Annie’s hand on her arm stopped the
other woman again. Before them - forty or fifty metres away, lay the Rainbow Pool, the huge hanging moon leaving it, and the waterfall dropping down the stepped cliff, dark and silvery-shining, mysterious. On the same rock that she had been sitting on that afternoon, the same young woman still sat.

Annie said softly: ‘That’s Frieda.’

*****

Orson choked, and John gave him a
hefty slap between the shoulder blades, causing him to spray red wine over the longhaired carpet and Tessie, who was watching an episode of Mr. Bean. He gasped for breath and then croaked, incredulously: ‘He what?’

‘You heard me,’ John said;
pulling Orson’s foot stool out of his reach, and sitting down on it. ‘He brought back Maggie’s grandmother.’

The Traveller groaned and lowered his grizzled head into cupped hands, blunt fingertips vigorously scrubbing at his unshaved cheeks. John heard
him mutter several expletives - some of which still made him blush; some never-heard-before ones only recognised by the vehement tone in which they were uttered.

Long seconds later Orson lifted his head, and stared at his twin with haunted eyes. ‘When?’ he sighed. ‘When did they get here?’

John shrugged. ‘Four, maybe five hours ago.’ They both looked out of the large window; at Orson’s bridge and the small stream, some small distance away. The sun was sinking behind the far away mountains, and John had to leave.

At the door he turned.
‘Orson?’

‘Mmmm…’ Lost in thought.

‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ the Traveller’s brother said. ‘Remember - the final decision
is
the Traveller’s, no one else’s.’

*****

‘I think you should go and talk to her,’ Annie said, and then, without another word, turned and started back to the cave by herself. Edith, after only the slightest hesitation, walked the rest of the way to the pool by herself, towards the rock on which Frieda sat.

The moon and stars provided more than enough light, and
after removing her shoes, Edith stepped onto the rock. Frieda still wore the same yellow dress of that afternoon, she saw; it was patterned with flowers - dark enough to see in the light of the moon. Her braided blonde hair was pinned to the sides of her head.

‘Frieda?’ The younger woman turned her head
, and watched Edith in silence, waiting.

‘Is it all right if I call you Frieda?’ Edith asked and Frieda nodded
. It was too dark to be sure, but Edith thought she had been crying. ‘I am Edith Carter,’ she said softly. ‘Maggie’s grandmother.’

‘I know
.’ Very soft; sad.

‘
May I sit?’

A nod, and Frieda said, ‘Of course you can,’ then,
‘I’m sorry. I forget my manners sometimes.’ A wan smile. ‘It happens when you’re with children all the time.’

Edith sat down a couple of
metres away; the bare rock under her was not nearly as hard as she had anticipated: almost yielding, or was it her imagination? They sat in silence then, and Edith took the time to look.

The rainbow
had gone of course; the huge white moon drifting in its place was the mirror image of its twin in the heavens above. There were many more stars than she had ever seen at one time, some of which she thought she recognised: the Southern Cross which she had seen while in Australia on holiday once; Orion’s Belt was upside down, and so were the scales in the constellation of Libra; the Milky Way lived up to its name - from here a long wide, white belt of billions upon billions of stars; dozens of meteorites traced long chalky lines across the indigo sky…

The soft breeze teased the tips of her short hair and an owl called from somewhere; a nightingale answered.

‘It is wonderful, this place,’ Edith breathed. ‘Really wonderful. Beautiful.’

Frieda
smiled at her for a second, then returned to staring at the living skies. The two of them sat in silence for a few magical minutes, and then Edith asked softly: ‘Do you love her very much, Frieda?’

She received another wan look, and then, in
an almost whisper, hopelessly, ‘As if she were my own.’ Impulsively then and without thinking - ‘much more than her own mother did!’ Frieda bit her bottom lip and looked away, embarrassed, remembering that she was referring to Edith’s own dead daughter. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

Edith reached over and squeezed the younger woman’s hand. ‘
You needn’t be, and it’s all right, Frieda,’ she said. ‘Because it’s true.’ She sat in silence for a while, and when she spoke again, her voice had also turned soft - reminiscing. ‘But it was not always like that…’

And she told Frieda about her beautiful little daughter
, so much like Maggie when she was small; and about her growing up and her father dying; and Edith just starting her first business and not giving enough love, enough attention… And then, first the wrong friends and later the wrong boyfriends; and the drinking and the smoking, and then the drugs… And getting pregnant and having Maggie, and then the rehab centres - four of them in three years… And Edith practically raising Maggie; and Amanda coming home the last time: so alive, so full of verve, so… changed. And the three of them
so
happy…