The Magic Lands (5 page)

Eventually he began to walk
aimlessly toward a nearby stand of trees huddled close together as
if in deep conversation and as he went he rubbed at his forehead, a
dull headache beginning to throb against his temple. Was he still
in the garden? What was going on!?

He was about to call out when
something stirred in the grove ahead, causing him to gaze into the
shadowy interior of the close-knit trees. At first he couldn't see
anything at all, but then a figure became visible, a woman dressed
all in white. She was picking flowers.

Edging closer and clearing his
throat so as not to alarm the lady, Jack decided to ask if she knew
the way back to Tom's house.

"Excuse me," he began, now only
a few feet away from her.

The woman looked up at him and
smiled. "Hello," she said.

Tom was becoming frantic. If
Jack was lost he would need his Uncle's help to find him, but now
that it was too late, he realised how foolish they had been. It had
been all very well coming over the hedge but how was he going to
find his way back? Somehow he would have to negotiate his way
around it, but dense thickets of bushes and trees grew wild all
along this side of the hedge, making it difficult to keep it within
sight and already Tom had become disoriented, his sense of
direction failing him.

"Jack!" he shouted out. He
couldn't be that far away, Tom was sure. Surely he would be able to
hear his call. But Jack didn't answer. Reluctantly, leaving the
hedge even further behind, Tom made off along a worn path that led
toward some trees.

"I think I'm lost," Jack told
the woman

"Oh dear," she sympathised,
smiling kindly.

Jack smiled too, a little
embarrassed. This lady was certainly very beautiful and dressed as
she was, all in radiant white, she seemed almost magical to him.
Her clothes were made of what Jack thought to be fine silk and it
flowed about her, now and then caught by the subdued breeze.

"I was wondering if you knew
the way back to my friend's house?" He pointed vaguely over his
shoulder. "It belongs to the McKern’s and I'm staying with
them."

The woman continued to smile
reassuringly. "I'm not sure that I can help you. There's no house
around here that I know of." She paused as if giving the matter
some thought. "And where might your friend be?"

"I've lost him," replied Jack,
"he could be anywhere."

The woman in white shook her
head slowly. "Oh dear," she said once again, frowning, "I'm sure he
will turn up."

"Well, thanks anyway, but I
think I'd better keep looking for him," Jack resolved and was about
to turn and go when the woman leaned in closer to him. Her face so
close to his made him feel a little dizzy.

"Remember," she said softly,
"the road is long and little boys can fall foul of all manner of
things."

Jack looked up at her with wide
eyes, struggling to clear his head. He felt ill. What was the lady
saying? He tried to think. "What?" he mumbled, not
understanding.

Clutching a bunch of flowers in
one hand, she held out the other and pointed off into the distance.
"That's your path." Her long fingernail seemed to change and grow
and the ground began to spin. Jack became faint and feared he was
about to blackout. "Be on your way, while you can." Jack heard the
woman's voice but he could no longer see her. All he saw was an
emerald canopy closing in on every side. Was it sunstroke, Jack

wondered. If only he could just
rest for a minute. "Remember me," she breathed and then everything
became dark.

Jack lay in a field of daisies
with his eyes shut tight. He was wide awake but he knew that he
must be dreaming.

THE OLD WAYS

In this land of dreams

where we once played,

promises are seldom kept

but often made,

now we must learn

the ways of old,

when hearts were but meat

to be bought and sold,

the dream is for you

and the dream is for me,

until we free the truth

and find the key .

Poems and stories. They had
become a part of Tom's life. But what did they mean?

He had often wondered about
them, trying to discover the hidden meanings concealed behind the
veil of words, but he was more uncertain now than he had ever been
and as he walked slowly through long grass, searching for some sign
of Jack, this particular verse echoed in his mind like a distant
cry.

He felt a little afraid. Jack
had not answered his calls and he had to admit reluctantly that he
was now lost himself. What sort of a mess had they got themselves
into? He doubted that he could even find the high hedge again, let
alone Jack. He had no idea where he was and all around him there
was nothing but trees, fields and flowers, no landmarks, no points
of reference. At any other time he would have enjoyed the beauty of
his surroundings but now, separated from his friend, lost and not
knowing which way to go to get home, he almost hated the place.

"Jack!" he cried out in
desperation.

"Tom," came a reply from not
very far away.

He broke into a run and made
toward the voice. Looking out for Jack as he went, hoping to catch
a glimpse of him amongst the foliage, Tom came upon a big elm tree
that marked the edge of a small wood and saw something that made
him come to a dead stop. Hanging from a knurled branch of the old
tree was a swing and upon it sat a boy dressed in a neat black
suit. He looked to be about four or five and possessed an impish
quality that Tom found oddly disquieting.

"Hello Tom," said the boy.

"Eh, hello," returned Tom
without really thinking. The little boy smiled, enigmatic but not
unfriendly. "Wait a minute!" exclaimed Tom, "how did you know my
name?"

The boy pushed his feet against
the ground and began to swing to-and-fro. "It's common knowledge,"
he stated, sounding rather older than his appearance would
suggest.

"Who are you?" asked Tom as he
appraised the child, confused and just a little annoyed at his
off-handed manner.

The youngster regarded the
older boy, his head tilted slightly to one side, his striking green
eyes unnerving. "Tom, Tom," sang the boy on the swing, "I'm your
friend, you can trust me."

"What do you mean, I can trust
you, what are you talking about?" Tom was quickly losing patience
and had an agitated feeling growing inside him.

"Take it easy, Tom," chimed the
boy.

This was the final straw.
"Don't you tell me to take it easy," stormed Tom. "I'm lost and I
can't find my friend and you're just a little kid anyway!"

The boy stopped swinging. "I'm
sorry," he said quietly and Tom, immediately regretting his
outburst and realising that anger would get him nowhere, decided he
could at least ask the child for directions home. He would then be
able to get Uncle Ira to help search for Jack.

"I don't know how you know my
name," he began in as calm a voice as he could manage, "but as you
do, maybe you know my house too and you can tell me how to get back
there?"

The small boy gazed at him with
what Tom thought was a rather wistful smile. "You can't go home
now, Tom," he said matter-of-factly.

"What do you mean, I can’t go
home!?" Tom demanded, moving closer to the boy, facing him angrily,
his frustration rising once more despite his best efforts to keep
it at bay. "And who are you anyway?"

The boy began to swing again.
"Like I said Tom, I’m your friend."

"This is ridiculous!" Tom
growled.

"Have you noticed anything odd,
Tom, anything strange? Look at the sky, what do you see?"

Almost without thinking Tom
peered upward, a blue expanse marked by just a few swirls of wispy
cloud meeting his gaze. "I can't see anything," he said, although
an unsettling feeling of wrongness nagged at him.

"Look closer, Tom," urged the
boy on the swing, "look deep into the firmament."

Tom stared at the skies and
something indefinable began to happen to his vision, as if it were
widening, magnifying. He could see everything, his eyes crystals of
perception.

"There is no sun," he said
listlessly, the knowledge of its absence distressing him in a
vague, almost impalpable way.

"Affected light," the boy
called to him, "and shadows can be cast that are more real than you
can know. You've got a lot to learn."

Tom closed his eyes and shook
his head. "Something isn't right here," he muttered, attempting to
gain control of his senses.

"Nothing ever is in the
dream-time of the Beast," the boy said mildly.

Opening his eyes, Tom was
relieved to find his vision had returned to normal again. He glared
at the child who swung higher and higher. "Will you please stop
swinging and give me some straight answers!?" bellowed Tom, ready
to snap.

"All right," replied the boy,
abruptly becoming still. "What do you want to know?"

"Can you tell me how to get to
my house. It belongs to the McKern’s, have you heard of them?"

The boy gave him a sympathetic
look. "I've already told you, you can't go home."

"That's it," blazed Tom,
grabbing hold of the rope that supported the swing. "I've had
enough of your games!" The branch above creaked and groaned with
the exertion. "Now what did you mean..." Tom began, but looking
down, all he saw was an empty seat. He twisted quickly around,
fully expecting to see the little pest retreating into the
undergrowth. But all was silent and still, the boy having
apparently disappeared quite literally into thin air.

Releasing the rope with a sigh,
Tom sat down heavily onto the swing. Things were not happening the
way that they should. People couldn't just vanish. It was all
completely insane.

"I just wish someone would tell
me what's going on," he spoke aloud.

"Tell me what you want to
know," said a voice from behind him.

Tom whirled around like a
cornered animal. His nerves were afire, his heart beating fast in
his chest.

What he saw didn't make him
feel any better.

Just a few feet away, quite
still and regarding him with an interested air, was a badger.

Tom stared at it with wide
eyes, feeling somewhat bemused. He knew that they lived in the
countryside, woods and fields their natural habitat, but he had
never seen one, not in all his days in his Uncle's garden. He
remembered Ira coming across a badger track in the mud once years
before, the imprint fascinating to a young boy.

"When you see a badger, Tom,"
he had said, "it's a sign that a change is coming."

Tom hadn't known what his Uncle
had meant by this, but that was not at all unusual, for Ira often
said strange and apparently meaningless things. Yet Tom always took
notice, even when he was very small.

With this memory still running
through his mind, Tom looked into the animal's eyes. It was an
exceptionally large badger, judging by the pictures he had seen and
by what Ira had told him about the creatures, so large in fact that
it made him feel uneasy.

"No need to be afraid," the
badger said gently.

Tom blinked his eyes. He
thought, or he had dreamed, that the animal had spoken, but of
course this could not be.

"Yes, I can talk," voiced the
badger, as if reading Tom's mind.

"How...what?" he stammered.

"Calm yourself," the badger
said in an attempt to reassure him.

Straightening up, his
body suddenly very rigid, Tom was torn between the desire to run
and the fascination and awe he felt at actually hearing an animal
speak. It was incredible!
I'm dreaming
this
, he told himself firmly,
it can't be real.

"I won’t bite," the badger told
him with what Tom took to be smile, although it looked rather too
much like simply a baring of sharp teeth. "Stop hopping about and
let me introduce myself." Tom made no reply, watching very
carefully, wary of any sudden movement. "My name is Mo," the
creature said amiably.

"How can you talk?" whispered
Tom, afraid of his own voice, finding it impossible to believe he
was holding this conversation at all.

"It's not so strange in these
parts," Mo replied. "You will get used to it in time."

"Tom…my name’s Tom," the boy
offered tentatively, not sure of what to say.

"It's a pleasure to meet you
Tom," nodded the animal, coming a little closer. Almost
involuntarily, Tom began to back away. "You do know the difference
between a badger and a wolf, I suppose?" Mo asked.

Tom looked at him oddly.
"Wolf?" he repeated.

"Wolf, White Wolf," the badger
said quickly. "You do know about it don't you?"

"I'm not sure," answered Tom
truthfully. He knew there was something in what the animal was
saying but confusion clouded his senses.

"I can see that I’ll need to do
some explaining," Mo declared, continuing to advance.

Abruptly, as if struck by a
physical blow, Tom remembered Jack. "I've lost my friend," he
blurted out.

"I know," the badger said
briskly, “but don’t worry yourself, I know where he is. He’s safe
enough for now."

His anxiety over Jack's
whereabouts made Tom ignore the close proximity of the creature for
the moment. "Where is he?" he demanded and actually stepped
forward.

"Have patience," Mo told him,
"all is well, for the time being at least."

Tom sat down onto the swing and
kicked his feet with frustration, his thoughts jumbled, his mind in
turmoil.

"Tom," began the badger, "you
must learn that all things come to be when they are meant to
be."

For just a moment, it was as if
Uncle Ira was there, talking to him. All things come to be when
they are meant to be. His Uncle had often said those very words to
him, when he