Ephemeral Boundary (T'Quel Magic 1) Read online

  Boudica was the family dog, seven years old and devoted to Kirsty’s mum, and Kirsty too when she was at home.

  Kirsty had been surprised at Boudica’s arrival, surprised, but pleased and very happy. She hadn’t suspected her mum even liked dogs, never mind the fact that she was contemplating getting one but Boudica had arrived, an adorable bulldog puppy, sitting in her basket (chewed) and snuggling into an old blanket (also chewed). During the weeks that followed, there had been a few puddles and accidents on the floor, but the devoted Kirsty had cleaned them up without too many complaints and then had proceeded to teach Boudica how to control both bladder and bowel. Control of the teeth had taken longer.

  Boudica no longer chewed baskets, blankets or even the odd rug or slipper. She was a very obedient, well-behaved member of the Douglas household. Fed, walked, and given a great deal of affection and attention, what more could a sensible dog ask?

  She slept at the foot of Marian Douglas’s bed at night, the better to guard against the occasional solitary spider incursion and barking madly if anyone had the temerity to pass by on the pavement outside the house.

  When Kirsty was at home, Boudica abandoned her mistress and took occupation of that part of the bed where Kirsty’s feet should be. Kirsty didn’t mind. There was something rather nice and comforting about her being there. Marian Douglas looked forward to the nights when she could stretch her legs out and get a good night’s sleep (Boudica also snored).

  Kirsty could hear Boudica barking as she approached the door, fumbling for her key.

  That Boudica was outside in the garden she deduced from the noise level of the barks but also from the fact that Boudica wasn’t going crazy behind the glass front door. Kirsty put the key in the lock, turned it, and frowned, perplexed. The door wasn’t locked. That was very unusual.

  Marian Douglas was very particular about keeping the front door locked. Kirsty pushed down the handle, opened the door and stepped inside the hall.

  “Mum?”

  There was no answer.

  Boudica’s barking grew louder.

  Kirsty dropped her rucksack and went into the kitchen.

  Her mother wasn’t there.

  Boudica’s barking was becoming frenzied and Kirsty felt the first stirrings of unease.

  The kitchen was empty and, more to the point, there was no evidence of any food preparation. She opened the back door and Boudica flew in growling, her tail in a rigid, upright position with her hackles like fir cones. Ignoring Kirsty, who was watching this display with wide-eyed astonishment, Boudica sped out of the kitchen and began to career round the house, her growls interspersed with some truly ferocious barking. Kirsty could hear her paws on the stairs as she scampered up them.

  Heart in mouth, Kirsty followed her, feeling sure that her mother must be unwell and lying ill in her bedroom but there was no sign of Marian Douglas in any of the rooms upstairs.

  Having realised this herself, Boudica was sitting in front of her young mistress, gazing up at her face. She had calmed down a bit, at least she’d stopped barking and growling, but she’d begun to whine.

  “Where’s Mum?” asked Kirsty, quite as if the dog could talk and answer the question. “Has she popped out to the shops?”

  Boudica whined some more then became silent, as if willing Kirsty to do something.

  “Where’s Mum?” Kirsty repeated.

  Boudica whined again.

  “Woof,” she answered. “Woof, grumph, grrr.”

  She wagged her tail and bounded over to the stool where an old blue teddy bear sat (discarded by Kirsty when she had reached the great age of ten and now nostalgically kept by her mother).

  “Woof. Woof woof!”

  She looked expectantly at Kirsty and as she did an old memory came to her. A memory of herself, aged around three or so, sitting on Uncle Bob’s shoulders and him jumping up and down while she screamed with glee. Uncle Bob had given Kirsty the bear on one of her birthdays.

  “Does Uncle Bob know where Mum is?” she asked aloud. “I suppose she’s gone over the road to see him. Mum wasn’t expecting me until later. Is that where she is?”

  Boudica wagged her tail and left the room. Kirsty followed. She felt unsettled, nervous, though her mind was telling her that this was the sensible answer. There was an eerie stillness about the house and also a hint of menace. Shivering, she tried to stay calm. She shivered again. Her mother had, for some reason, left the house and gone to Uncle Bob’s house across the road for a minute, probably to borrow something she had forgotten to buy during her weekly supermarket shop. On her way out of the house, Kirsty absent-mindedly picked up her rucksack.

  “Come,” she ordered Boudica.

  She didn’t bother to lock the door.

  * * * * *

  Kirsty’s mother wasn’t with Uncle Bob.

  She hammered at the door and Bob answered. Kirsty almost fell into the hallway. Paws clicking on the parquet floor, Boudica scrambled past them both.

  “Kirsty!” Bob exclaimed. “What’s wrong? You’re as white as a sheet.”

  He looked down at Boudica and what he saw on her furry face made his own grow pale.

  “Oh Uncle Bob,” cried Kirsty (she hadn’t called him uncle to his face since her sixteenth birthday), “Is Mum here?” She threw herself into his arms, all the nervous, scared feelings reasserting themselves.

  “No, she isn’t,” he replied, drawing her further into the house and shutting the door. He half-carried her into the back room (a room, if Kirsty had been in any condition to realise, she had never been in before), “but I’m sure she’s all right. Probably gone out to the shops. Something she’s forgotten. She’s so excited about having you home again.”

  Boudica followed the two of them into the room.

  The room was dim, the curtains drawn and it exuded a sense of calm.

  Bob placed Kirsty in the armchair; the only chair the room possessed and murmured some words, moving his arms, palms down, in a wide circle. The magical triggers that permeated his home had been in place a long time, set when he had moved in, by an elderly Magic Wielder, now unfortunately dead. The time Arovan had told him about was upon them, he was sure of it.

  “That should hold them,” he said enigmatically to Kirsty’s complete mystification, “if there’s anyone or anything out there needing to be held.”

  Boudica wagged her tail and relaxed. She lay down with her head between her front paws. Her ears however, remained erect, listening.

  “So?” enquired Bob in a conversational voice, kneeling in front of Kirsty and placing a long-fingered hand on her knee. “What’s happened? Tell me.”

  Kirsty raised her head.

  “Mum’s not at home. She should have been there. She knew I was coming.”

  “She told me you were coming off the seven-thirty train. It is,” he looked at his watch, “only half past three.”

  “I came early,” Kirsty explained. “The carrier came for my trunk yesterday evening instead of this morning so I could. I wanted to surprise her.”

  “I see,” he said, still in the conversational tone he had adopted, “and then?”

  “I got home. Mum wasn’t there. And the house, there’s something wrong about the house.”

  “Tell me,” he instructed. “What was wrong about it?”

  Kirsty thought for a moment, trying to put her finger on what had been wrong.

  “It was tidy like a show house.”

  “Tidy. What do you mean, tidy?”

  “Like a professional cleaner had been in. Not Mum at all.” Her voice was catching in her throat, unsteady. “Mum wouldn’t hire anyone to clean. You know she wouldn’t.”

  “Anything else you can tell me? Think Kirsty, it might be important.”

  Kirsty stared at the curtains, mentally recollecting what she had seen.

  “Her handbag! Her handbag was still there! That’s why I thought she might have come over here to see you. She wouldn’t need it here and I was early. Uncle Bob,
the whole house felt strange somehow. I am so very scared.”

  Bob sat back on his heels. This sounded serious. He glanced at Boudica. She looked worried.

  The concern was evident on his face and Kirsty saw it.

  She burst into a flood of tears, great gulping sobs and through them she managed to ask the question, “Has something happened to Mum? It has, hasn’t it? She’s, she’s not dead, is she?”

  Bob shook his head. “No, I don’t believe she is dead.”

  “Are you absolutely sure?”

  He nodded. “Now, my dear, I need you to stay calm and to tell me everything you saw in the house, not just a general impression about how tidy it was – no matter how trivial it might seem. Can you do that for me?”

  “I can try.”

  Kirsty talked and Bob listened, growing more and more full of foreboding with every word.

  “So Boudica was in the garden?”

  “Barking.”

  He looked down at Boudica again. Improbable as it might seem, Kirsty thought the dog was looking somewhat ashamed of herself if that was possible. Her ears had drooped and she was looking down at her paws. It was almost as if she couldn’t look Bob in the eye.

  “There was no message of any kind?”

  “Nope. Nothing. It’s as if she’s vanished into thin air.”

  “Did you sense anything – in the house? Anything at all?”

  “You’ll think me insane.”

  “Try me.”

  “The house felt cold and scary.”

  “You felt menace?”

  Kirsty’s head jerked up.

  “That’s it! Yes! Yes I did! It made me feel all kind of shivery and tingly!”

  “Did you see anything in any of the rooms that you thought shouldn’t be there? A new ornament perhaps?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Try to remember.”

  Kirsty racked her brains but couldn’t remember anything.

  “No.”

  “No strange lights?”

  “No. Why?”

  Bob looked into her tear-stained eyes and sighed.

  “How brave are you Kirsty?” he asked.

  “Not very. I don’t think I’m a brave sort of person. I’m afraid of heights and I don’t like the dark very much especially when I’m walking through the park and the trees rustle in the wind. I also hate caves. I think I’m more scared about being underground than anything else in the world.”

  “I need you to be brave, brave and, well – understanding. What I’m going to tell you will sound fantastic, unbelievable, but you must put all incredulity aside and listen. I told you that I don’t believe your mum is dead. That’s true. I think she has been taken,” he searched for the word, “kidnapped.”

  Kirsty gasped.

  “Kidnapped? But why would she be kidnapped? And we’re not rich. How would I find the ransom money?”

  “Be patient. Boudica? Keep an ear open will you?”

  “Woof.”

  Diverted by this interchange, Kirsty looked at Boudica and frowned. Again Kirsty got the distinct impression that Boudica had actually understood what Bob had said and had replied! Absolutely impossible in every way!

  With a long leg, Bob drew over the footstool and sat down. His eyes were fixed on Kirsty’s face.

  “Listen with an open mind,” he commanded, as his eyes grew distant.

  “You never knew your father,” he began, “he was, is a fine,” he paused to collect his thoughts, “man. He is my friend and is the reason I am here.”

  “ My father is dead,” protested Kirsty.

  “Did your mother tell you so?”

  “Well, no, not exactly, I just assumed I suppose. She always speaks of him in the past tense.”

  “Your father is very much alive. He loves your mother, and you, very much. When you were born, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a father so happy.”

  “He’s never contacted me.”

  “He was there at your birth and has been back three times since, once when you were a little girl, you’d have been too young to remember and the last time, must be about seven or so years ago now.”

  Anger rose within Kirsty.

  “You’re lying, I’ve never met him I tell you. I would have remembered.”

  “As I said, the first time you were very little, little more than a toddler. The next time he arrived when it was dark and left before morning. He left Boudica. The last time he came he left a gift for you.”

  “So that’s where she came from!” exclaimed Kirsty, her anger beginning to dissipate with her interest in the tale. “I’ve often wondered how and why Mum got a dog. She always said no when I asked if I could get one when I was little.”

  Bob smiled. “So now you know.”

  “And the last time?”

  “A flying visit, to see me and your mother too of course, but he went over to your house for an hour or so in the middle of the night. He wasn’t there long. I presume he looked in on you whilst you were asleep.”

  “What gift?” asked Kirsty. “What gift did he bring?”

  “A ring, a ruby ring.”

  “This one?” asked Kirsty, looking down at her finger. “That can’t be right. This was a twenty-first birthday present from Mum.”

  “It was given by your father to your mother to be gifted to you when you came of age.”

  “It’s a very beautiful ring,” mused Kirsty, moving her finger around as she examined it yet again, “almost mesmerising if you look at it too long.”

  Bob nodded.

  “It is elf-made, that is why,” he told her.

  Kirsty laughed. She simply couldn’t help it.

  “There’s no such thing as elves,” she giggled, with more than a hint of derision in her voice.

  Bob looked at her, a whimsical yet serious expression on his face.

  “What age are you Kirsty?” he asked.

  “You know what age I am,” she retorted, flushing a little as she sensed that Bob wasn’t laughing.

  “Twenty-two years young and you know that elves do not exist for certain? That’s very impressive.” It was a rhetorical question; he wasn’t expecting an answer.

  “Everyone knows, every sane person that is, that elves are characters in fairy stories, fables. You’ll be telling me next that dragons, gryphons and orcs exist too! I think the recent sunny weather has addled your brains Bob!”

  Bob shrugged and said in the most matter of fact way he could, “I know not where the original stories about orcs come from but I am telling you the absolute truth when I say that I have personally seen both dragons and gryphons although I have only spoken to the former and then only the once, and that when I was much younger.”

  “Next you’ll be telling me that you are an elf and a hundred years old!”

  “I am an elf but I do not lay claim to a hundred of your years. I have sixty-two of your years in which my heart has been beating.”

  Now, as Bob didn’t look a day over thirty or perhaps thirty-five, elf claims apart, Kirsty received this additional piece of information with the same scepticism that she had received the first. There were no such things as elves. Bob must be mad, she was thinking but, and it was a big but, she had always believed that Bob was one of the sanest, most truthful, most well-adjusted and sensible people she had ever met.

  “You’re an elf. Right? Prove it,” she countered.

  In reply Bob pulled his hair back from his ears, revealing them in their entirety.

  Kirsty stared at them open-mouthed, realising she had never seen his ears before. Bob always kept to a hairstyle that covered his ears and this had been the case for as long as she could remember.

  “More proof needed?” he enquired.

  Kirsty gulped and nodded.

  “I’m tall and thin.”

  “Lanky,” corrected Kirsty.

  “I have a pale face and am dark-eyed.”

  “So are a lot of people. I’m tall and thin myself. That doesn’t mak
e me an elf.”

  “Sure about that?”

  Kirsty’s eyes became wary. She was conscious of her breathing quickening. She blinked and as she did, touched her own left ear.

  “My ear’s a bit pointy too,” she admitted.”

  It was a statement of fact.

  “Yes,” agreed Bob, his eyes twinkling. “Worked it out yet?”

  “It’s not proof,” insisted Kirsty, but for the first time a sense of doubt was most definitely permeating her words. “I’m not an elf. Elves don’t exist.”

  “You’re half-elf,” said Bob. “Your father’s name is Arovan Cuthalion, Lord of Tanquelameir.”

  “Pull the other one,” said Kirsty shaking her head, her common sense re-asserting itself. “Maybe you believe all this but I certainly don’t. Anyway, this fairy story isn’t helping me find Mum.”

  Bob sighed and got up from the stool. He knew far more about what was happening than he could tell Kirsty. Her father, Lord Arovan had always insisted that ‘secrecy was the key to safety’. He hadn’t even told Bob the whole story and Bob was perhaps the elf closest to him in all Alfheimr. Bob walked over to a small side table and, from the drawer, extracted a piece of jewellery, an intricately decorated torc. In his other hand he was holding what looked like a very fancy dog’s collar. It was studied with shiny green jewels – sparkly, diamond-shaped knobs, like costume jewellery. Kirsty started when he turned towards her, holding out the torc. Her mother possessed one just like it. He handed it to her.

  She took it.

  “Put it on, round your neck.”

  “Why?” she asked in a suspicious voice.

  “Just do it. You wanted proof? Put it on and you’ll get the proof.”

  “It won’t fit,” she demurred.

  “I think you’ll find it will.”

  “All right.”

  She lifted it up to her neck and, as she did, it became warm to the touch but not uncomfortably so. It went round her neck easily. The warmth disappeared.

  She didn’t feel any different and wearing it wasn’t doing much to persuade her about the existence of elves either.

  Bob stared at her face with a deep intentness, looking for the telltale signs that the torc was doing what it was designed to do. He nodded and looked down at Boudica. “It is time,” he said to Kirsty’s complete mystification. He bent down and removed her collar. He replaced it with the one he had taken from the drawer. Kirsty’s eyes nearly bugged out as one of the green jewels decorating the collar sparkled before dulling down, and the torc round her neck quivered. Kirsty, not expecting it, jumped.