Maddigan's Fantasia (29 page)

They were under attack.
And they were being beaten. Garland propped herself against rocks, looking out desperately and seeing Goneril, Tane, Shell, Nye and Lattin lying there in front of her, flung around like broken dolls. Her bow was beside her but she had no arrows left and she knew – she just knew – that over there, beyond that wall of scrub and rock, the enemy was gathering itself, ready to charge again. This time there would be no stopping them. And where was Maddie? Wandering off with Yves no doubt, leaving the Fantasia to its doom. Garland picked up her diary which lay in the dust beside her and began scribbling once more.

But then another voice broke in. Someone was calling her name.

Garland woke up.

Dreams were astonishing. All in a moment the world could change. She was not lying on a battlefield surrounded by Fantasia dead, but was asleep in Goneril’s van which was jolting slowly along in the Fantasia train. Opposite her was another bunk closed in with wooden slats, more of a cage than a bunk
really, and there, under the cover, Garland could see Jewel, calmly sleeping. Goneril was nowhere in sight, but Timon was leaning in the doorway, turning his head towards her as if he knew she was waking up. And he had seen the book lying half under her pillow – not her own reliable diary. But the crumbling volume from the future.

‘Why were you reading my diary?’ asked Timon.

‘It’s my diary really,’ said Garland. ‘I was babysitting Jewel, and I saw it there and thought I would try and get some idea of the difference between – between the things that might happen and the things that
are
happening. And I tried to read it, but I just – well – I just sort of went to sleep. This
time
thing of yours is so – so weird.’

Timon sat down on the edge of her bunk.

‘It is strange,’ he agreed, ‘but I’m glad Eden and I came backwards. I’m glad to have ridden with the Fantasia.’ He looked at her. ‘I’m glad to have met you.’

Garland felt herself blushing.

‘I’m glad to have met you too,’ she said, meaning to sound offhand, but her words sounded much more shy and mumbling than she had meant them to. Being firm with herself, she cleared her throat and said, ‘If you’d arrived here at the right time … if you’d saved Ferdy … we might be back in Solis right now and everything would be happy ever after.’ The caravan gradually slowed and stopped. ‘We must be going to camp for the night,’ Garland said. It looks dark out there already.’

From somewhere outside they heard Maddie’s voice. ‘Everyone out,’ she was crying. ‘Everyone! Look at this.’

Timon and Garland did not move immediately, but sat there staring at each other. The door rattled and swung wider. ‘Hey!’ Maddie called. ‘Come and see. Now!’

Garland sprang up rather guiltily. Something was happening
… some Fantasia excitement … and she was just sitting there, staring at Timon as if he were some sort of boyfriend. It seemed disloyal.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Something’s happening.’ Squeezing past Timon she made for the door. As she jumped into the outside air, she heard him following her rather more slowly.

It was late evening. The Fantasia vans had all drawn up on top of a long rise, and were all pointing in the same direction. Miles of clear darkening space stretched ahead of them. Yves was out there dancing and gesturing as if he were taking credit for the whole evening, and pointing excitedly into the distance.

‘Solis!’ he shouted. ‘Ladies and gentlemen – I give you the lights of Solis!’

And there, from behind a line of distance hills Garland could see a glow rising up into the air.

‘The lights of Solis!’ Yves repeated, flinging up his arms, and a ragged cheer went up from the Fantasia people.

‘A week!’ cried Maddie. ‘Maybe sooner. Within a few days we’ll be home … we’ll have juggled and cartwheeled our way home again, and all errands will be done too. We’re not quite there yet, but … but … hey, what about a party?’

The whole Fantasia stamped and clapped and hugged each other.

‘Great!’ cried Garland, clapping and stamping too. She turned to Timon. ‘A party!’

‘Great!’ he agreed, and yet looking up into his face she was suddenly sure that he was not really pleased. The fire burned up and the band tuned up. Boomer marched in and out of the vans, beating the drum with his usual abandon. Eden danced by with Jewel in his arms. Tane swung by with Goneril though it was hard to tell just who was holding who. Lilith moved in on her father and Yves cheerfully twirled her around, but then, after a moment, he left Lilith, crossed the dancing space and
swept a deep bow to Maddie and they set off on their own together. Garland had wanted to enjoy the party, but the sight of Maddie and Yves dancing so cheerfully caused a sour smile to creep over her face.

‘Maddie’s having a good time,’ said a voice behind her. Timon! He took her hands and they danced as they talked.

‘Nothing I can do about it,’ Garland replied. ‘She’s allowed to.’

‘What if there was?’ he asked. ‘What if Eden and I could take another shot at it … at going back into the past. We might be able to warn your father? Save him?’

Garland came to a dead standstill.

‘But you said you didn’t have enough – enough energy in that slider thing. You said there wasn’t enough power to go forwards to your time and then backwards to mine again.’

‘We’ve got that converter now! I think I could work out a way to – I think I could use it to recharge our slider.’ He smiled. Looking at that shadowed smile Garland thought it was not a warm smile – not quite a comfortable one. ‘We might risk it. But I’ll have to talk it over with Eden.’

‘Now!’ cried Garland grabbing his arm. ‘Get him now!’

Timon looked over at his brother, dancing like a stick-boy, holding Jewel high for a moment, then hugging her. Timon’s strange smile did not disappear. It seemed to deepen.

‘Later,’ he said. ‘Later when things have quietened down and we can concentrate. In the meantime – let’s party.’

So they partied on, and then partied on again, while in the distance the glow of Solis seemed to creep higher and higher into the sky, swallowing the stars that had shone out briefly above the hills.

But even a celebrating Fantasia has to slow down and sleep. Goneril began yawning and, at last, took a sleeping Jewel from Eden. Tane, Byrna and Nye, Penrod, Shell and all the others
made for their vans. Yves picked up Lilith and smiled as her head flopped down onto his shoulder. Maddie called Garland. ‘Time for bed, love!’

‘Coming!’ called Garland but she did not come. Worn out as she was, she was still trembling with excitement – with possibility – as, sitting on the edge of the Fantasia, she listened to Eden and Timon arguing.

‘It feels wrong,’ Eden was saying.

‘It didn’t feel wrong when we jumped back the first time trying to save ourselves so why should it be wrong to jump back again and try helping Garland?’ asked Timon.

Eden was silent. ‘Can we do it from here?’ he asked at last. ‘I mean when we made our jump we had the Nennog’s energy unit to plug into and now …’

‘Wake up!’ said Timon rather impatiently. ‘We’ve got that converter now. I think there’s enough energy to do it. We coordinate with a time pulse, then plug the slider into the solar converter, and I think it will recharge enough to carry us back – not to our own time but to a time that’s just a bit earlier than the time we focused on last time we jumped. Then we can warn Ferdy, so that Ferdy survives, right? And if he survives and makes his mark in Solis that means the Nennog might not move into power the way he has done … which means a lot of people in our time will survive, maybe even our own parents among them.’

Eden was silent.

‘You mean you might – you might rescue your parents as well as Ferdy if you do this – this sort of time jiggle?’ Garland gasped. She looked at Eden as if she could hardly believe he was hesitating. ‘Why are you even thinking twice about it? I might get my father back, and then future time would be change and change and keep on changing, and somewhere on ahead you might get your parents back too. It would be all
happy endings.’ She hesitated. ‘But then you – you would probably have to go back and stay in your future time, wouldn’t you? It would be just as if I’d never met you.’ She looked at Timon. ‘It’s so complicated. I don’t understand it all.’ Then she took a breath. ‘But I want you to do it if it means saving my father.’

‘Tomorrow morning then,’ said Timon. ‘Very early. Everyone will sleep in after all this dancing, and I’ll be able to do a few calculations …’ He fell silent.

Garland drifted back to the van which was her home.

‘Where have you been?’ asked Maddie. ‘Partying with the boys?’

‘No! Just talking!’ said Garland indignantly, and Maddie laughed.

‘It’s great that you’ve got company,’ she said. ‘I mean there’s always Boomer, but it’s terrific to think you’ve got someone like that Timon … someone around your own age. Handsome too! Now get into bed and sleep. Because tomorrow – Solis, here we come!’

Garland quickly undressed and climbed into bed, but though she was weary she found it hard to sleep. Broken bits and pieces of thoughts and dreams kicked up their heels, took hands and danced around with her ideas … the memory of Timon’s blue eyes, eyes that could look so warm at times and so strange and somehow frightening at others linked into the possibilities of tomorrow’s journey on towards Solis. But stronger and stranger than anything else was the eerie thought of that other possible journey. Ferdy might somehow be born again. No! Not born again. Just not
dead
. She was longing to see him, and yet, to her horror, she found that she had somehow got used to the idea that he was dead. She wanted him back – of course she wanted him back – yet felt that she would never ever quite believe in him again. How could that be? Garland
thought of Yves and Maddie dancing together and clenched her teeth. At last, in spite of her swirling thoughts, she slept a little, woke, and then slept again. Waking for a second time she saw morning lightening the sky out beyond the van. It was time. It must be time.

Garland climbed out of bed very carefully, not wanting to disturb Maddie, dressed quietly and slid out into that new day. At first she could see nothing but the same old circle of vans and the smouldering ashes of last night’s fire. Then, looking between Goneril’s van and Penrod’s, she saw the boys, Eden with the baby Jewel slung against his chest. As she jogged across the circle towards them Timon looked up, and smiled with strange relief and beckoned to her urgently.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked in a low voice as she joined them. They had dug a hole and set up the instrument they called the slider. It was emitting the small but determined electronic cry, and the pulsing blue glow that she remembered from their terrifying encounter with Morag.

‘They left the converter in Yves’s van last night,’ Timon said. ‘But Yves was sleeping soundly. He had a few drinks at last night’s party. Anyhow I sneaked in and sure enough I found some possible connections. They worked well. Mind you it’s complicated. This converter takes in light, and as you know light travels fast … a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles in a second. That’s a lot of energy. Somehow – but I’m not sure how – I think this converter takes in the light and manages to convert its speed to accessible energy and save that energy in a whole series of little cells.

Anyhow I’ve powered the slider up from the converter – at least I hope I have – and I’ve set it up, and according to the dials there’s enough power to guide us back again – if we need to come back that is. We might not want to.’

‘We hope,’ said Eden rather darkly.

‘What does that mean?’ asked Garland apprehensively.

‘It means Eden should do something about his negativity,’ said Timon.

Eden looked across at her. ‘It depends on the convergence of time-lines,’ he said. ‘We need to connect with what we call a pulse and sort of ride the pulse to …’

‘Yeah, yeah we know,’ said Timon, impatiently. ‘I’ve told her all that.’ He was adjusting some tiny dial on the rod.

‘I just thought of something,’ said Garland. ‘What happens if we meet ourselves back there … I mean will there be two of me or what?’

‘Can’t happen!’ said Timon. ‘As soon as we appear, we just sort of melt into those other selves.’

‘Or there’s another theory which is that we can’t occupy the same space/time as ourselves, so we might explode all over the universe,’ Eden muttered.

‘I like Timon’s theory better,’ said Garland.

‘Well, we’re about to find out,’ said Timon. His hand moved on the slider. ‘It’s about to establish a power field …’

Garland could never
quite tell what happened next. She felt herself changing.
This is what sugar feels like dissolving in tea,
she thought wildly.
I’m coming to bits … more than bits, I’m coming to bits of bits. No! I’m changing to some other sort of stuff. But how can I still think?

What have I become?
She floated and seemed to spread out like a cloud blown apart by winds moving in from several directions.
I’m nothing,
she thought, then somehow felt herself being pulled together … rushing back into herself once more.

And then she found herself on her hands and knees in long wet grass. Somewhere a baby was crying,

She knew that cry. Out of the air in front of her a shape was forming. A log? No. It was Eden, lying face downward, but turning onto his back immediately so that he could gasp in a lungful of air. Jewel lay beside him, furious to find herself apparently lost among fallen leaves, needing to feel a strong arm around her. Or perhaps she needed to be fed.

‘We’re here,’ said a voice behind and above her. Timon!

Eden slowly sat up, feeling his own arms and knees. The Slider stood there between them, pulsing as if it was a living thing with a blue, beating heart.

Garland could not believe it. There, below her, lay the Fantasia, set out like a strange game on that little curving
plain that had reminded her of a cupped hand. Looking down on it, she knew that this was exactly how it had been that other time … the time she would never forget. As the brothers quickly disconnected the slider and packed it into one of Eden’s boxes she looked to the right, staring madly, expecting to see herself right there, writing on the first pages of her diary.

But the light was just different this time. There below her she could see Bannister … Bannister walking around, keeping guard, peering in the early morning light at an open book in his hand. It must have been hard to read, but he was trying. Somewhere ahead of him in time was Gabrielle’s library. But Gabrielle’s library was definitely in the past for Garland. No. This was another time. It must be in the future for her, too, even though she found herself remembering it.

‘Right!’ said Timon, patting Jewel in a reassuring way. ‘We’re back in the right place but a few hours ahead of ourselves. The Road Rats are probably asleep too. Let’s go!’

The two boys began to slip and slide down the slope and Garland followed them, but as she did so she felt a familiar strangeness.

‘Wait,’ she cried but they took no notice of her. ‘Wait!’ she cried again, and as she did so, saw the air rippling and there was the silver girl, gesturing and waving her arms forbidding her to go forward. In that other earlier time, Garland remembered, the silver girl had not taken shape. She had been nothing more than a strange ripple in the air.

‘I must!’ Garland shouted at her. ‘I want Ferdy back.’

And she ran onward … right up to the silver girl, right
through
her, immediately feeling an explosive shock running from her heart out to her fingertips. The whole world burst into silver sparks but Garland shut her eyes and stumbled on. When she opened her eyes again the silver girl had entirely
disappeared and the brothers, further down the slope, had turned and were staring at her.

‘What happened?’ asked Timon.

It was too complicated to tell him. ‘I don’t know,’ she cried. ‘Well, I’ll try to explain later. Just run on.’

So they ran on into the wide embrace of the Fantasia – and there before her – there was Ferdy, up early. Just for a moment she thought she saw herself, hoisting up a bucket of water for her horse Samala. The sight of that ghost of future time terrified her, but she closed her eyes, ran on, only to feel herself, with a sort of horror, somehow dissolving into that other early self and taking her over. It was a sickening sensation. It felt wrong. Nevertheless she struggled to ignore it. Instead she flung her arms around her father, leaning against him. ‘Dad!’ she cried, hugging him hard, over and over again.

‘Steady on,’ he said, sounding surprised and a little impatient with her. He shook himself a little free of her. ‘What’s brought this on? What’s wrong?’

But Garland could not tell him. ‘I just love you,’ she said, ‘that’s all.’ She hugged him again.

‘Butter me up all you like,’ said Ferdy, ‘you’re not getting out of taking water to your poor horse. And then it’s practice. You know that.’ It was exactly what he would have said, back then in those happy days. But those happy days were not back then. They were now.

Ferdy looked past Garland and she felt him stiffen – grow angular and strong within the circle of her hug. ‘Where did you two come from? Who are you?’

‘They’re friends …’ Garland began, just as Timon said:

‘We’ve come to warn you …’

‘Road Rats!’ cried Eden getting in first. ‘Road Rats are creeping in on you.’

Ferdy pushed Garland to one side. Suddenly he had become
quite a different man from the one he had been only a moment ago. He looked around, he listened.

‘How did you know?’ he asked.

‘My brother and I heard them,’ Timon said rapidly. ‘We saw them. They’re after your food and fuel.’

‘It’s true,’ Garland cried. ‘I heard them too. They’ve got motorbikes.’

Ferdy looked at the brothers, then back at Garland. She could feel him trying to work things out. The brothers were total strangers – could they be trusted? They might be telling the truth, but after all they could be Road Rats themselves and Garland might have been tricked. But the Fantasia did not take chances. Ferdy made up his mind.

‘OK you lot!’ he shouted, and the whole Fantasia, watching and working around him, stopped whatever it was doing to listen to him. ‘Attention! Attention! Listen up! Parley!’

Garland now saw the ripple of a different sort of movement spreading out through the Fantasia.

‘Get your bow!’ Ferdy told her. ‘You boys … have you got any sort of gun? Bows and arrows? No! Right! Well, you just keep your heads down, and heaven help you if you’re having us on.’ And then he was gone, racing over towards their van, shouting to Maddie, talking to her urgently, then giving her a hurried kiss. Garland watched, overcome with a sort of enchantment, while around her the Fantasia organized itself, as people somehow switched themselves from one activity to another … ran to arm themselves and pull the vans together. It was like watching one of the plays they put on in Solis.

Garland turned to Timon.

‘Thank you! Thank you!’ she cried under her breath. Yet as she said this she found she was not grateful in the way she had expected to be. There was the Fantasia: there was Ferdy, but …

‘Forget it,’ said Timon. ‘Just get ready! The Road Rats’ll be on their way.’

‘Wait and see what happens this time round,’ mumbled Eden, but he was talking to himself rather than Garland or Timon. ‘Where’s Goneril? I’d better ask her to hold Jewel for a bit. I think life’s going to get dangerous.’

And when, only a few moments later (or so it seemed), the sound of motorbikes suddenly filled the air and Road Rats roared into the Fantasia, the space in the circle of vans was completely empty. Their bikes reared back like noisy horses. This space was not what the riders had expected, and within moments they had all come to a standstill, their bikes snarling under them.

Looking out from the darkness under her family van Garland saw them, in a way she hadn’t before. There had not been time. Now she noticed the different shapes of the bikes and the men astride them. The bikes which had made them seem so powerful and threatening then, now seemed like noisy encumbrances. Some of the men wore their hair and beards so long they looked as if they must have had goats or bears for fathers. Not that they were all hairy. That huge man there didn’t have a hair on him. And he must be their king. She remembered him from the last time … he had a crown tattooed on his bald head … a bald head that shone as if he had just polished it.

Peering out from her hiding place, Garland could see not only bulging Road Rat shoulders and forearms, but a whole range of weapons too – the bikes were slung around with swords and clubs, clubs and sling-shots. However the shuddering motorbikes were rather hard to control and the Road Rat warriors were using all their energy to hold onto their precarious machines. But that tattooed chief had managed to draw out a club made of greenstone, and was waving it in the space around him. Garland knew this sort of club was ancient – a
treasure really – and wondered how the Road Rat King had come by it.

After those first arrested moments the King made a sort of beckoning movement with his club, and his followers moved again, but wheeling forward very carefully this time.

Suddenly, Ferdy leapt out in front of them. Then the whole Fantasia burst out of hiding and closed in around the Road Rats, knives in hand, arrows drawn, guns aimed, courage strong. Garland remembered how once they had been taken unawares. Now, she was thrilled with a Fantasia that was armed and ready.

Ferdy spoke.

‘You have one chance and one chance only. Drop your weapons! And get away while you can! Get away.’

The Road Rats looked around the circle … looked at the drawn arrows, the knives and the guns.

The King hesitated, swung himself off his motorbike, holding out his club as if he were about to surrender it, then swung it around and dived at Ferdy.

‘Attack! Attack!’ he yelled.

All at once everything was rattle and battle. And all at once everything was exploding too fast and fiercely for Garland to be sure of just what was happening. She saw blows falling, saw Bailey tumbling backwards. No escape for Bailey, even in this other time. But then she saw another man falling. The King of the Road Rats stopped abruptly, an arrow in his throat, and, as Garland stared, her mouth hanging open, another arrow came from somewhere to strike in beside the first. Those Road Rats that were close to the King spun around, screaming, but unable to do anything except to watch him tottering. They half-leapt to catch him, but then let him fall for they had to guard themselves. Those further away were fighting blindly on. Penrod struck his opponent to the ground, Byrna and Nye closed in on
either side of a wildly whirling Road Rat, and Nye half-lured him while Byrna smashed in on him. Old Shell suddenly flung up his hands and tumbled sideways. But now, in spite of themselves, most Road Rats were staring down at their leader, convulsing in his death throes.

‘Go! Get out!’ Ferdy was shouting. ‘Get out while you can. Get your miserable hides out of here. Go!’

As he yelled this, Nye and Byrna both fired arrows, both aiming at the same man, who fell sideways, his bike shooting away from under him. And indeed the Road Rats did not really need to be told again. They turned. Some Road Rats screamed away immediately. The men on their feet dashed for their bikes and kicked them into life once more. Engines roared. The Road Rats fled.

Garland could not restrain herself.

‘We did it. We did it! And you’re all right!’ she screamed, dancing madly in the sunlight and shadow of that Fantasia camp.

‘Well, it would take more than a few Road Rats to bring your old man down,’ said Ferdy, grinning. ‘Those motorbikes – they’re more trouble than they’re worth when it comes to hand-to-hand combat.’

He turned to Timon and Eden who were coming out of hiding. ‘You boys were right on the money. I won’t forget it.’

Over by the fallen body of Bailey, Goneril was shouting.

‘He’s in a bad way. Give me a hand over here.’

Ferdy, Maddie and Bannister rushed over. Garland hesitated, and then turned to Timon.

‘Bailey’s not supposed to die just yet!’ she exclaimed, hearing herself sounding indignant. ‘And old Shell – Shell’s dead this time round.’

‘But Ferdy’s alive,’ said Eden. ‘We managed to change what we wanted to change. But we can’t change everything.’

This time Bailey was dead almost immediately and would
have to be buried along with old Shell. Garland was having to go through Bailey’s funeral for a second time.

Standing among the Fantasia people, all familiar yet somehow oddly strange to her, Garland finally had time to think about what had happened, and found she was not as happy and grateful as she had imagined she would be. The people around her were real … they must be real. There they were and there was not one of them she did not know. Her father, Ferdy, was standing just over there saying the last words over Bailey, and he was exactly as she remembered him. But to her dismay she suddenly found she did not
believe
in him. She did not believe in any of them … she did not believe in this different time. She turned to Eden.

‘What now?’ she asked him. ‘Do we go back? I mean forwards.’ She shook her head. ‘You know what I mean?’

‘Do you know what you mean yourself?’ asked Eden, rather gloomily.

‘You’re such a downer,’ Timon said to Eden. He looked at Garland. ‘Hey, you’ve got what you wanted, haven’t you?’

Garland did not want to meet his blue gaze in case he read the doubt in her own eyes. She turned her head, and there – there riding openly in on them – were Ozul and Maska. Of course! Back then – that back then which had become right now – Maska and Ozul had been watching them. How were they going to fit into this changed, present time? Ferdy stepped forward to intercept them

‘What can we do for you?’ he asked. ‘Probably not much. This is a bad time for us. We’re burying one of our people.’

‘Deepest sympathies,’ said Ozul, using his friendly voice, and indeed he did manage to sound sympathetic. ‘I don’t want to intrude, but we absolutely must. You see you have our runaway rascals with you …’ He aimed a finger at Timon and Eden almost as if it were a loaded gun.

‘Those boys?’ Ferdy turned in bewilderment to look at them.

‘They’re runaways,’ said Ozul. ‘You know how it is with youngsters. A little family fight and they took off. Their mother, our poor sister, is in a terrible state over it all.’

‘He’s lying, Dad, he’s lying!’ cried Garland. ‘He wants to kill them.’

Ferdy turned and stared at her. ‘How on earth do you know?’ he asked her in a low voice, and Ozul interrupted.