The Magic Lands (6 page)

had become impatient or
disenchanted. It felt like an echo from another time. Tom looked at
the badger and sighed. "Tell me," he asked quietly, "why can't I go
home?"

Jack was still dreaming.

When had the dream began, when
would it end? He could not say.

He was inside a house made of
cheese. Yellow walls and ceilings held him captive. And outside, an
enormous cat was waiting for him. He wasn't entirely sure, but from
the glimpses he had caught of it through the windows, he thought
the cat’s fur was snow white.

Every now and then it
would call to him. "
Jack
.
Come on out Jack. I'm just a pussy-cat, I won't hurt you. Come and
stroke me, Jack," it would purr.

He put his hands over his ears
trying to shut out the sound, but somehow the creature’s voice
still reached him, penetrating his mind.

"I am dreaming," he told
himself. "This is only a dream and I can wake up."

"Jack, why don't you come out?
You know it’s for the best. You know that it’s what you really
want."

And just for a moment, he
believed the entreaty of the white cat. Maybe he should go outside.
He was tired of staying inside anyway. He should go out and try to
find Tom.

"No!" he screamed, recovering
his reason with a jolt, his body trembling.

Now the cat's voice became ugly
and mocking. Jack could feel its desire, its need to possess him.
"Now listen, boy, you had better come out to me because if you stay
inside, Tom will die. Do you hear me? In fact, Tom is dying right
now. But maybe you just don’t care. Maybe you want him to fall from
the tree. Maybe you might just give him…the tiniest push?"

"Leave me alone!" Jack shrieked
at the top of his voice, holding his hands even more tightly over
his ears.

"You can't hide forever, Jackie
boy," hissed the giant cat. "All things come to be when they are
meant to be." The cat laughed, a guttural sound that made Jack feel
as though his head was about to burst. "You cannot hide, Jack, you
can never escape. I am the law of the land. You will come over to
my way of thinking in the end."

"No! No! No!" yelled Jack,
almost in tears.

The cat began to pad up and
down outside of the building, its paws thudding, the house
vibrating violently.

"Do you know, Jack," it said as
if conversing with an intimate friend, "I can wait, there really is
no rush. In the end you will want to come to me. You might not
believe that now, but you will. Just wait and see, in the end you
will beg me to take you as my own."

Jack began to scream and then,
as if he were being hurled through the air, the scene jerked and
altered. After a few moments his mind slowly surfaced and he opened
his eyes. The day was bright and the sky was the palest blue.
Peering down at him was the face of a big black and white
animal.

"I think you have slept long
enough," the creature said and though there was a moment when Jack
realised that this was quite real and that the badger was speaking
to him, he accepted it without question. Somehow he knew that he
had now passed beyond the

world of reality and slipped
unknowingly into one where the only rules were dictated by the
logic of dreams.

"I thought I'd lost you for
good," said Tom, relieved to be reunited with his friend.

"I was dreaming," Jack replied
uncertainly.

"And what were you dreaming
about?" enquired Mo, his nostrils twitching as he stared down at
the boy on the ground.

Jack rubbed at his forehead.
His temples ached. "That's funny," he mumbled after a slight
hesitation, "I know I was dreaming about something, but for the
life of me I can't remember what it was."

Mo nodded his large head. "That
does not surprise me."

"I don't know about you, Jack,"
interrupted Tom, "but this whole thing is…well, very weird!" He
shook his head in disbelief and then gave a quick glance in the
direction of the badger who only regarded the two boys with patient
interest.

"It's all like a dream," Jack
mused, still feeling very odd, his mind hazy.

"Shall I explain?" the animal
queried, looking at each of them in turn.

Tom stared at the badger. "I
wish you would," he breathed, still amazed every time the creature
opened its mouth and spoke.

"Well," began Mo carefully,
"there is much that you should know." He shuffled his feet, as if
trying to make himself a little more comfortable. "There are things
for you to do here."

"And where is here exactly?"
questioned Tom.

"Here is here," said the badger
shortly. He stared absently for a moment into the distance, as if
pondering on some question. "But it is safe to say that here is not
where you have come from. That is somewhere else."

"Well, I'm glad you've made
that clear," Jack said wryly, recovering himself at last.

Mo glared at him and bared his
teeth a little. "Things are never clear," the animal retorted.
"Things are never what they seem to be unless they seem to be what
they are not."

Jack raised his eyes
skyward. "This really
is
weird!" he said under his breath.

Mo scratched the earth and
sniffed the air. "Shall we move on?" he asked in a casual way.

"On to where?" Tom wanted to
know.

"Another place…a safer
place."

Tom couldn't see any reason to
argue and Jack appeared to be ready to go where he was led. So
walking at an easy pace they followed the big black and white
animal across a field and through a hedge that bordered a blackened
wood, bark crumbling from the dead trees that formed the withered
grove.

"This is Bray Wood," announced
Mo. "We will be able to talk here." He came to a large tree, its
branches brittle and charred. "We can rest here a while."

Tom and Jack agreed, although
the lifeless trees did nothing to ease their worry and disquiet.
They settled themselves beneath the dark trunk, both boys with a
great many questions to ask.

Ira slept, a nightmare raging
hard inside his mind.

Tom was adrift upon an
indignant sea, perched in the bow of a tiny rowboat, the waves
crashing around him like giant serpents eager to lick at his
flesh.

The old man stood on a beach
and called the boys name. "Tom!"

But he did not hear. The waves
buffeted the small craft until it seemed it could stay afloat no
longer, the dark waters swelling ominously.

Ira's mind
screamed.
What can I do? I must do
something.

But it was no use. He was
helpless.

And then from beneath the
tenebrous sea, a thing arose, a thing so monstrous Ira felt
compelled to turn away and hide his face. It loomed up above the
little boat where Tom cowered like the child he was.

Ira closed his eyes, trying to
shut out the horror before him.

"Help me!" cried Tom, but the
sea stole away his words. The thing rose up further into the sky,
its body so immense that the heavens became black with its
mass.

"Please," begged Ira, "let him
live."

"And what would you give?"
asked a voice in reply.

Ira clenched his hands in
despair and a tear ran down his cheek. "What would you ask for?" he
whispered, knowing that he had nothing to offer.

The thing chuckled and Ira's
heart froze. "Give me your love," it said.

The old man knelt down in the
sand and wept. Relentlessly the sea roared and thrashed against the
rocks about him and somewhere far away it seemed, he heard Tom's
desperate screams.

"There's nothing I can do," he
sobbed, his pitiful cry swallowed by the wind.

"You are a fool," rasped
the thing writhing above the waves. "
And
the boy is mine
."

Ira awakened, his body covered
with sweat, his heart pounding too fast. He lay very still, trying
to calm himself, but Tom's plaintive cries rang loud inside his
head.

"I will help you," he vowed
rising from the bed.

The Wolf bounded through a
field of daisies, saliva dripping from its jaws. Its nose wrinkled
as it sniffed the air and for a moment the creature paused, perhaps
listening. Then it was off again, moving with the breeze, sensing
that a change was coming. The Wolf's eyes burned with anticipation
as it ran through the flowers, trampling them with deliberate care,
but then, in an instant, its form had changed.

And a lamb was running in its
place.

THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN
HAIR

"Do you have the map?" asked
the badger, eyeing Tom.

Both boys threw sharp glances
at each other.

"How did you know...?" began
Tom, but Mo interrupted him.

"How is not important. What is,
is that I know. And that’s not all I know."

"Has anyone ever told you that
you talk in riddles?" inquired Jack with a humourless chuckle.

"Many times, Jack," responded
the animal fixing him with a keen gaze. "Is it all right if I call
you Jack?"

The boy nodded a little
begrudgingly. “And what should I call you?” he muttered in an
incredulous tone.

“
Friends call me Mo,”
said the badger.

Jack’s expression said that all
of this was way beyond his ability to cope and he just nodded, a
frown passing like a dark cloud across his face.

"So what’s the map for?" Tom
asked eventually, turning to the badger.

“
Ah yes, what is the map
for?" The animal shifted his bulk on the ground and stretched out a
long claw.

"Well?" voiced Jack
impatiently. "What
is
it
for!?"

Narrowing his eyes, the badger
stared at the boy. "Jack, you have many things to learn and
patience should be among the first." He looked at them both for a
moment before he continued. "Now," stated Mo in a purposeful tone,
"I will begin at the beginning."

"And end at the end," finished
Tom.

"There is no end," the badger
said quietly, his eyes lowering for a moment, "at least not yet,
but our path lies north so that is where we must begin."

"How do you know which way is
north?" put in Tom before the creature could continue.

Jack gave a grunt of
exasperation. "Don't you know anything? You look at the sun, find
out which way its travelling across the sky and then its quite
simple to work out where north is!"

"But there is no sun," Tom
corrected.

Jack looked rather perplexed at
this. "What are you on about, Tom? Of course there's a sun! Where
do you think the light is coming from?" He looked closely at the
other boy to see if he had been joking.

Tom hesitated, confused
himself. "I don't know," he admitted, "but haven't you noticed that
there's something funny about the light here." He fumbled for a way
to describe what he meant. "It doesn't feel right," was all he
could manage.

Jack glanced first at Tom and
then at the badger.

The animal seemed to consider
the matter before speaking. "These are strange lands. And the White
Wolf's purpose is hidden. You shall come to realise that things do
not work in quite the same way here as in the world that you
know."

"What's all this about a wolf?"
Jack asked, trying to sound casual, although there was something in
the badger's tone that made him very uneasy.

“
The Wolf is the enemy.
That much is simple to understand. But your purpose here is far
more difficult to comprehend. But I’ll tell you what I can,” began
Mo. The boys listened,

a mixture of anticipation and
dread vying for supremacy. "There was once a woman, a very
beautiful woman according to men’s eyes," Mo recited, "and in her
possession she had a box, an arcane device created beyond the
realms of mortal kind. Within this box were kept terrible evils and
sorrows, remnants of another place, a realm of suffering and
terror. But then one night whilst she slept, her husband, fuelled
by jealousy and suspicion, opened it, setting loose those terrible
things which had been locked inside."

"Pandora's Box," whispered
Jack. Tom glanced at his friend with a raised eyebrow. "I think I
heard about it at school once but I can't really remember what it
was all about." The badger nodded his head grimly. "If you want to
find your way home, you must first find the box."

Tom and Jack just looked at
each other, not understanding. “What!?” was the best Jack could
manage.

“
The box is the key. But
The Wolf will stop at nothing to see you fail.”

“
What kind of Wolf are we
talking about here?” voiced Jack, a slight tremor in his
voice.

“
No ordinary wolf”
murmured Mo. “It goes by many names, but here it is the master of
these lands.”

"So what do we want to find the
box for? Isn’t it all a bit late now?" asked Tom after a few
moments of uneasy silence.

Mo turned toward the boy. “You
must find the box because when it was opened in that time long ago,
there was one thing that remained, trapped within. It is there
still." The badger wrinkled his nose and looked up through the dead
branches above them. The sky was clouding over now holding the
promise of rain.

"What was left inside?" asked
Tom quietly.

The animal met the boy's gaze.
"Hope," he said.

Ira stood at the foot of the
great oak and looked up.

Somehow he had found his way
there. The garden had tried to trick him, sending him the wrong way
many times, but his will had been stronger than its wiles. He would
reach Tom in time, he was determined of that. He would stand at the
boys side in his time of need.