The Garden |
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Chapter 1 |
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| segue… The watcher was carried across the Void and into the Unraveller’s world. It let itself drift for a moment, an eternity, finally settling in a garden… In the garden there was nothing, and there was everything. Within was a cacophony of greens. There was a lawn of grass, a curtain of vine, a scattering of weeds and a canopy of leaves. A building surrounded the garden, and in the garden there was a girl. 'Tell me again, Daddy,' she crooned. 'Tell me about the fairies.' 'Why do you want to hear about the fairies again?' A man's voice came from behind the veil of vines. He peered through the gap teasingly at the girl, who poked her tongue out. The two shared a chuckle. 'It's my favourite story, Dad.' 'But, Meggy, it's not a story.' The father moved to sit beside his daughter on the grass. 'Didn't I tell you? They're all here, see? Look, isn't that one over there by the fountain? Why, that must be the queen taking her court! See the way the leaves sway as her subjects flap their wings.' The girl giggled as he pointed out the trickling water in the fountain, describing it to be fairies dancing on the ripples. 'But why can't I see them, then?' The father's face turned serious. 'Because they're shy, the fairies.' 'That's what you always say!' She had said this before. This conversation had happened more than once. Once, strange men had come to the door of their house. They had asked the same question to the father, but in a different tone. He remembered this, remembered when he'd begged for them to understand, begged his own daughter to tell them how the fairies were real. He had seen the look in her eyes, the confusion and hurt swirling in such deep blue irises. He knew then that she didn't understand. She was beyond the capture of childhood fantasy. 'Daddy, when are we going home?' 'The hour's almost up,' he informed her. 'You'll be on your way in a few minutes.' 'No, when are you coming home? Nana says some day but I want it to be some day today.' The pleading in the girl's voice was enough to nearly break the father. He nearly told her why he was here, what the strange men at the door had really been there for that day. What they did at the clinic and the other people they visited every day. Those people truly were crazy, perhaps. He knew he wasn't. And his daughter, at least, believed he wasn't. That kept him from speaking. 'It will be some day soon, Meggy.' He couldn't meet her eyes. There was something about her, maybe woven into the fiery tendrils of her red hair, which was too innocent to be given the burden of his situation. 'Daddy? Clomp says that if you don't come home soon he'll be sad.' The girl withdrew something from the bag in her lap. The knitted animal's vacant eyes stared up at the father. 'Can Clomp see the fairies?' the father asked mischievously. 'Clomp sees everything.' The girl's tone was conspiratorial. She leaned closer. 'He said the fairies were planning to kidnap him!' 'Did he?' The father looked down at the unicorn in his daughter's hands. His eyes canvassed the worn yellow wool that was its stump of a horn; the giant mud-speckled hooves that were its namesake. The girl's brow furrowed delicately when he didn't take the bait. 'What should we do, Daddy? The fairies are going to kidnap Clomp!' 'Well, what did Clomp do?' he tried. 'He didn't do anything!' 'Then we’ll just have to protect him. Can you do that?’ ‘I don’t know…’ ‘How about I help you?’ ‘Will you!’ ‘You can be Protector Meggy of Sir Clomp, and I’ll be Protector Daddy of Sir Clomp.’ The girl grinned madly. ‘The fairies don’t stand a chance.’ ‘You never told me the fairies were bad, Dad.’ ‘I didn’t think they were,’ the father admitted. His eyes travelled over his daughter’s head at something a distance away. The floating glimmer of light disappeared as soon as he’d made eye contact with it. The trick was to keep it in your peripheral vision; if it didn’t think you’d seen it, it would remain. The girl turned to see what her father was watching. ‘Is it the fairies?’ she asked. A door opened somewhere nearby. Was the hour up already? The white light out of the corner of his eye turned into two blue lights, then two black points of wool. The unicorn’s eyes seemed to follow the father, even when the daughter had long turned away. What was it about the animal that transfixed her? What was it about the creature that sent a ripple of unease through him? ‘Is it the fairies?’ he asked himself. … the watcher pulled away from the arbitrary event that was so entwined with one occurring in the other world, as the web between them intensified. As delicately as a spider, the watcher travelled to the other side of this web to learn more. It segued… |
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