The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath: From the Peculiar Adventures of John Lovehart, Esq., Volume 1 (Notebooks of John Loveheart, E) (5 page)

I
n the deepest
sleep I fall into the arms of Goliath. Deep like the bottom of the sea. A magical coma. I can’t wake myself up.

I am trapped in a dreamworld, locked up in the grandfather clock.

I am lying on a bed in a forest. Beside me, the grandfather clock ticks gently. His great eggy eyes roll from side to side. The trees in the forest are deep and dark, branches coiling, frogs croaking softly.

And I sleep and the clock ticks, singing to me its mechanical lullaby.

After some time a little boy with hair the colour of lemons approaches me. He is carrying some flowers.

“I picked these from the forest for you,” he says. He is small and shy. The flowers, tiny and blue and shaped like stars.

“Who are you?”

“My name is John Loveheart and I am lost in the forest with you.”

And he sits on the bed with me while I hold the flowers.

“They are very pretty. Thank you.”

Holding hands we walk into the trees, like Hansel and Gretel.

“Will you help me get out of here?” he says.

“Yes,” I reply. The grandfather clock watches us leave.

We walk into a clearing where a little house made of sweets and chocolate stands. It looks delicious. Through the window I can see a lemon drizzle cake sitting like a golden treasure.

“Don’t go in there,” says Loveheart. “Do not eat any of it. A witch lives in there. It is all poisoned.”

And so we continue, the smell of candyfloss under my nostrils, back into the darkness of the wood.

We come across Mr Rufus Hazard holding a rifle, pointing it into the trees. We approach him carefully, and when he sees us he smiles, big and beaming. “Well hello there.” He has a big sack next to his feet.

“What are you doing?” says Loveheart.

“I am hunting,” he grins. “Do you want to see what I have caught?”

We look into the bag. There is a dead girl in there.

“The other one has run away. But I shall find her.”

“Do you know how we can get out of the forest?” I ask him. Loveheart is frightened and stands behind me.

“Mmm, I can’t remember,” he says, stroking his moustache,”but there is a lady sitting in a tree over there who may be able to help you.” He points in a rough direction and then lifts his rifle again, and so we leave him and walk over a carpet of lavender and moss and come across a huge gnarled tree with white death masks all over it. Mrs Foxglove, in a long, blue dress, is sitting on a branch, drinking a cup of tea. She stares down at us.

“Lovely morning, isn’t it?” The death masks are chatting and she tuts at them, “Oh, do be quiet, children, we have visitors.” The death masks grumble.

“Would you like some tea?”

“No, thank you. Please can you tell us how to get out of this wood?”

Mrs Foxglove looks puzzled. “I don’t understand the question, dear.”

And so we leave her. And we walk for many hours, and eat berries and nuts, and drink from the stream. And we finally find a clearing where a traveling magician sits with a white rabbit in his top hat. It is Mr Fingers.

Loveheart says gently, “That man is not my father.”

Mr Fingers looks at me and says, “Would you like to stroke the rabbit, little girl?” The rabbit, I notice, has black eyes.

“No, I would not.”

“Would you like to play a game?” He tilts his head slightly.

“No. How do we get out of this wood?” I demand.

“Little girl, there are consequences for what you have done. You have manipulated time. You have turned back the clocks. You have broken cosmic laws. Such action does not go unpunished.”

“You are in no position to judge me, sir. You are a nasty little demon. And I have trapped you in time.”

“Not for much longer,” he sighs. “It is sad that we cannot be friends.” And he pulls a bunch of fake flowers from his sleeve, hands them to me and laughs.

“What is going to happen to her?” Loveheart pleads.

“You will have to wait and see. It’s a surprise.”

I
carry
her as far away as I can. Miles across England, under a sack of space. Nowhere becomes, finally, somewhere – the home of my old school friend, Icabod Tiddle, the celebrated writer of children’s fairy stories. I haven’t seen him for nearly twenty years and Mirror is slumped in my arms when I knock on the door of his cottage in the Kentish village of Otford. It is raining heavily, the drops pounding the earth. And thankfully, after all these years, he recognises me and lets me in.

Mirror is taken to the spare bedroom, still in this strange coma, and I kiss her on the cheek and go to sit by the fire with Icabod.

His cottage is covered in scribblings and ideas for his stories. On the walls are dark ink illustrations of wicked witches and a prince trapped in a great forest. A selection of fairy postcards line the kitchen cupboards, each fairy performing a different task: singing, dancing, playing a pipe, kissing a frog. A great oak bookshelf displays his numerous published works, in both alphabetical and colour coded order. He is a stickler for fine details. He has the unusual quality of possessing skills of both imagination and order.

I had read some of his stories to Mirror over the last year. They were accomplished, perfectly crafted pieces with colour and wit. Little whimsical fairy tales for children. Pale moons hung over enchanted, fairy-kissed forests. Giants carried hedgehogs over magic bridges to safety. His landscapes were colourful, but more importantly, safe.

Icabod is a small boned, bird-like man with strawberry blonde hair and an impish little face, full of imagination and kindness. His eyes are small and green, the colour of frogs. He hands me a very large glass of brandy and pokes the fire nimbly. I am exhausted and slump myself in a great patchwork-quilted chair and feel the wonderful heat of the flames warm me, my beard still dripping with raindrops.

“Thank you dear friend,” I say gulping down the brandy

“You are more than welcome. It is lovely surprise too see you after so many years. I don’t often get visitors, other than Mrs Spoons, who pops in for a bit of local gossip and brings me her homemade plum cake.”

“I am sorry it has been so long. You are the bestselling author on fairy tales in England and, according to
The Times
, a national treasure.”

Icabod looks kindly at me. “I have been extremely fortunate. I could have ended up a Vicar, as my father intended.”

“You never married?”

“I was engaged briefly but she broke it off. She hated my stories. Said they were twaddle,” and he laughs to himself, and then he looks at me, concerned. “Goliath, please tell me what has happened.”

The fire spits and flickers. The fire poker, I notice, has a little bee on the handle. And the fireplace has engravings of imps dancing and butterflies. It is a lovely fairy tale world he lives in. There are no little girls locked up in clocks, starving to death. There are no demons. His world is safe and soft. If I could I would put Mirror into his world. But I fear it would not be able to hold her.

“Goliath?” Icabod leans forward. I had got lost watching the flames.

“I’m sorry. I am so very tired. I will tell you of what has happened, but first let me forget for a while. Tell me about your stories. Distract me.”

“Of course. I am currently working on my ninth children’s story. It is entitled
Horace and the Magic Foot.”

“The title is dreadful.”

“Yes it is. But they will publish it, no doubt.”

“Tell me the plot.”

Icabod pours some more brandy. “Horace is an ordinary boy with a magical foot. His foot can grow extremely large, so he is able to kick in locked doors, stomp on wicked wizards and carry rescued maidens on it. One day, Horace grows tired of his magical foot because he simply can’t fit in the world and feels odd and unconnected. Anyway, he comes across a wizard who offers him a deal: he will remove his magical foot and replace it with a human one if he will help him kidnap a princess. Now Horace agrees to this and kidnaps the princess for the wizard but falls in love with her and, well... that’s really where I have got up to.”

“Any ideas on an ending?”

“It has to be a happy one, of course. It’s a fairy tale. What do you think?”

“I think I have missed you, Icabod. And the story is awful.”

Icabod laughs out loud. “It is, isn’t it? It’s bloody awful – they all are really. I always wanted to write crime detectives stories, like Sherlock Holmes,” and at this he lights his pipe. “Now are you ready to tell me your story, Goliath?”

“I fear my fairy story will not have a happy ending.”

“How can I help you write a better ending?”

“You are already doing a great deal to assist me, and for that I am eternally grateful. I could think of no other place we could go, or anyone else I could trust.”

And my eyes grow heavy and I feel myself drifting off into sleep.

I start to dream. I can see my father waving at me. In his hand is a little pot from the tomb of the princess. It has little green frogs painted on it. Inside the jar is a heart. He hands it to me.

“This belongs to you.”

I
wake in the armchair
. Icabod has put a blanket over me.

“Good morning,” he says sprightly. “She is still sleeping, but she seems fine.” He hands me a cup of coffee and brings in a large plate of buttered crumpets. “Tuck in.” And I do. I eat six and feel better. “Now,” he says, “tell me your story from beginning to end.”

And so I do, and for a long time Icabod says nothing, his eyes glazed over, deep in thought. The little clock chimes.

“What you tell me is extraordinary. You are not a man to make up such a story. I–” He pauses. “I believe you. But you must tell me, have you always been able to change into the form of animals?”

“No,” I said.

“Then how?”

“It is Mirror who has changed me. The day I rescued her from the clock, she held onto me so tight, so tight. Squeezed me. And I felt it then, something passed between us. Some form of magic She gave me this power so I could protect her.” And I took the last crumpet. Devoured it as though it were Mr Fingers’ head.

I
wake
up from my dream. Shout out for Goliath but no noise comes out. Only air.

Sitting on the end of my bed is a small boy with black hair with a silver pocket watch gently gripped between his fingers. He looks curiously at me. “You and I have a problem,” he says. His voice is as soft as marshmallows.

“Who are you?” I sit upright, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“I am the last page in the book. I am all the endings. I am the collector of the dead. I am the father of time.”

“What do you want with me?”

The boy spins the watch between his fingers. “You owe me.”

He stuffs the watch into my mouth

T
ime is fizzing
, bubbles in water. I am melting.

W
hen I wake up again
, he’s watching me carefully. His eyes are endless tunnels. “You have a great deal of power. I am not convinced you can use it wisely.”

“I don’t fully understand what I am.”

“You can alter time, bend it to your will. You can open doorways to other universes. Do you realise how dangerous that makes you?”

I don’t know what to say.

“Let me make something very clear to you. I can destroy you if I choose. You are not above the cosmic laws.”

And we stare at one another. The pocket watch in my stomach ticks gently.

“I suppose I should say thank you for not killing me,” I say.

“You’re welcome, Mirror. It was most interesting to meet you.”

I
go downstairs
, calling Goliath’s name. The mirror in the hall shows my reflection. I have aged. Lost years. I am no longer a girl, I have become a woman. He just gazes at me, mouth open like a goldfish. And then he squeezes me so tightly, with so much love. The only noise is the clock in the hallway ticking softly, and I can’t hear it.

I
n the house of Loveheart
, the guests begin to wake. Mr Fingers adjusts his spectacles and walks out into garden, the rain pounding the earth. The gods watching him from above.