From the music shop to the pub – Jason

With a sigh, Julie put down her shopping bags. In all her years she couldn’t remember seeing weather like it. An old newspaper streaked past and whacked into the side of a rubbish bin, pinned against the dirty metal for a moment before being pulled down the street. Julie turned to the elderly woman stood next to her. With a nod to the wildness on the street she said, “Have you ever seen the like?”

The elderly woman looked up, a mix of fear and wonder in her rheumy eyes, “No love, never in all my days. Bloody peculiar, isn’t it?”

A couple of young men in overalls peered out from of the pub window, one of them was filming the scene on his phone while the other seemed to be commentating. The lamppost opposite the entrance to the arcade, where Julie and a handful of other shoppers had taken shelter, seemed to be vibrating in time with the raging storm. A cloud of fast-food wrappers, plastic bags, leaves and other debris followed the newspaper down the street to be tossed around like dead leaves on a spring tide. Yet when Julie looked across the way, past the old pub, down toward the bus station, those streets seemed untouched and almost peaceful. Through the swirling mass of dirty air Julie could see a line of onlookers staring in amazement right back at her.

A side door next to the abandoned coffee shop banged open and a stream of women poured out. Julie turned to see a tall curly haired woman barking orders at the rest while keeping a watchful eye on a young man who was pressing his forehead against a window. Julie wondered what was wrong with him, he was muttering to himself or his reflection, probably drunk or worse she thought, but what could that bossy woman want with him? As she turned back to the spectacle outside Julie felt a coldness latch onto her spine. Invisible fingers, like flexible icicles, pulled at her rib cage. She tried to speak, she wanted to call out but the coldness stopped her, as if invisible hands were pawing over face and covering her mouth but from the inside. The coldness moved quickly and relentlessly through her encircling her mind and cocooning it in ice. Julie wanted to resist, to fight back but the icy cage drained her of all her will and slowly she was pulled into a place of darkness deep within herself.

“Ayesha,” Aunty Carol barked. “Get everyone to the vans, now!”

“What about you?” the other Sirens gathered around Ayesha, fear and anger moved through the group.

“I’ll be there,” Aunty Carol smiled. She looked at Emyr’s form slumped against the window, then across to The Herald and The Collectoris. “Don’t worry about me, I have help!”

Ayesha looked like she was about to say something but then thought better of it, she nodded and marched down the arcade, away from the storm, trailing the other women in her wake. Aunty Carol looked at The Herald.

“We need to get him to the pub.”

“Yes,” The Herald’s face flashed concern. “The dragon storms have cleared street of the humans but The Many are still waiting for us.”

“Then we’d best not fuck around then, eh?” Aunty Carol offered The Herald a broad smile and turned round to face the entrance to the arcade and the maelstrom beyond.

“This will not be easy,” The Herald unfurled his wings and stretched

Aunty Carol flashed him a witheringly no shit Sherlock look. Before she could speak Peck appeared on The Herald’s shoulder, “I may be able to help.”

“You don’t know that Peck,” Jynn appeared on Aunty Carol’s shoulder. “The clock shop was one thing,” Jynn pointed to the small crowd of shoppers sheltering in the arcade, “There are too many humans here and you might not be so lucky this time!”

“It’s risky, I know,” Peck looked at her teacher’s concerned face. “But I may be able to give us enough time to get Emyr to the doorway, but I will need your help Mistress…”

With furrowed brows Jynn assessed her pupil, then nodded.

“Right then,” said Aunty Carol grabbing Emyr. “Stop talking to your reflection eh love! We need to get you to the pub.”

“What?” Emyr turned to look at the stormy street. “How?”

“Some clever people have a plan.”

Jynn brushed a cobweb aside, and stepped through the ornate ironwork above the arcade entrance. The metal had been forged and turned by human industry but had a strangely pleasing tone to it. Jynn looked to her pupil. Peck’s eyes darted along the street, looking for a spot in the road that Jynn couldn’t see or fully understand, a way into the twisted songs of the concrete and tarmac. Fear rippled through Jynn’s wings and down her spine.

“There,” Peck pointed to the road. By a line of white paint there was a deep crack in the tarmac. It was close to the pavement, the cement and concrete slabs but deep enough to maybe touch earth.

“Are you sure?” Jynn tried to keep the rippling fear out of her voice.

“No,” Peck offered a thin smile. “Not at all. But I am hopeful!”

Emyr stood at the entrance of the arcade, Aunty Carol had elbowed her way through the shoppers and was now stood just behind him, disguising another heated discussion with The Herald by muttering into her phone. The music of the spheres still rumbled in his chest, it moved through him and surrounded him. It reached out across the city, beyond the docks and the motorway and the railways, it curled up into the atmosphere and beyond. It threatened to crush him to a dot of infinite nothingness and then spread him out so far across the stars as to be invisible. The spheres were a never-ending series of amazing and hostile acts of creation, connection and composition and he had a sense that it would never leave him, not now that it had begun to know him. He wasn’t sure whether to fear it or invite it in.  

The exercises in the Haven had been overwhelming and exhausting, the thought of being exposed to the Universalis, to that much power, all the time was terrifying. Yet, at the same time, in the myriad of conflicting sounds, he had found his mother’s song. He had reached out gently to try and make sense of the swirling compositions around him. In finding his mother’s song he knew he could start to identify other individual songs. As he had explored this new realm, he had felt something that seemed wrong: a cold, disjointed series of a songs, old and lonely and desperate. He also realised there would be ways to conduct and control the maelstrom, given time.

On his left stood a woman with a set of heavy shopping bags at her feet, to his right an older woman with wet, rheumy eyes. Whilst everyone else stared dumbly at the freakish storm outside the arcade these two women stared blankly up at him with empty, almost hollow eyes. They did not notice the storm. They did not blink. They did not move or seem to breathe. There was a lifeless chill in their eyes, like a mist shrouded in darkness, that sent a shiver down Emyr’s spine. He looked back trying to get Aunty Carol’s attention.

The crack in the tarmac offered little shelter. The wind clawed relentlessly at Jynn and Peck, dust and leaves and rubbish buffeted them. Jynn dug her talons into the edges of the tarmac using her body to shelter Peck as best she could. Jynn looked on helpless as her pupil, brow furrowed in concentration, moved her delicate hands over the pocked, dirty surface. Jynn marvelled at Peck’s focus, her ability to navigate the disparate songs and melodies, as she searched for just the right rhythms and harmonies in the cacophony that swelled around them.

Peck had always stood out in class, but not always for the best reasons. She was small, pale and frail looking. She was always cold, shivering even in the height of summer. Some of the teachers, Jynn among them, and most of the other student’s in her year had dismissed Peck and thought she would not complete the first year of schooling. As Jynn looked at her apprentice bent over the hard concrete road, she recalled one of the phrases that her old mistress had offered up a thousand times, “If played in the right way, even the most delicate of reeds can make the strongest music.”

A stone bounced off the tarmac just above Jynn’s head making her dig her talons in a little deeper. Peck looked up into Jynn’s face, a strange energy danced behind Peck’s eyes, accompanied by an even stranger smile, “I’ve found them. Tell the others to be ready.”

Jynn nodded and blinked away. Peck pushed the palms of her hands into the tarmac and stone and drew a deep breath.

Ice bloomed in Emyr’s arms, sudden and painful, so cold it burned, he looked down and the two women had an arctic grip on his wrists. He tried to pull his arms away from them but the strength in these two old women shocked him, they would not let go. Cell by cell, with a steady rhythm, the cold inched its way up his arms.

“It is useless,” the rheumy eyed woman whispered as Emyr struggled to free himself from her grip. “You cannot not fight us this time, Emyr.”

“We have you and we shall take you to the Circle,” the shopping bag woman tightened her grip on Emyr’s arm sending sharp notes of cold through his shoulders and pouring chill mist into his lungs. The glacial cold took over, crystalising and creeping through every part of him, making everything else fade away. It was just like his childhood dreams, the dark place, the rising cold, the feelings of despair and isolation. The cacophony in the shadows, the sense of drowning. Again, Emyr’s world grew smaller, the storm still raged, just a few feet away, but it seemed to diminish and recede, to not hold quite so much importance. It was like the day on the bus into town, or that awful sports day or one of a hundred instances of where his childhood world had fallen away from him.  

“There are things you do not know,” the older woman’s eyes wept cold tears.

“There are things they dare not tell you,” a strange darkness blossomed under the shopping bag woman’s skin as she grinned.

The numbing darkness rose around Emyr like a glacial wall with a final breath he reached out, searching for the familial flash of autumn colour again. And there it was, moving swiftly towards him like a long-lost friend desperate to return home. Anwen’s song easily pierced the dissonant harmony emanating from the two possessed women. The notes settled in his vocal cords, flowing out into his chest like radiant honey. The soothing warmth took root and spread further, the frigid song pushed back, sending branches of ice deeper in Emyr’s heart but wherever the ice went it was met with a benign and gentle touch and the soft, insistent melodies pushed the ice back.

The rheumy eyed woman gasped and released Emyr from her grip, she staggered awkwardly back, knocking into Aunty Carol. The shopping bag woman seemed to hiss, clutching Emyr’s left hand with an unnatural strength, “We shall prevail, this time. Travel to the Circle if you dare! Innocent to the slaughter!” Aunty Carol pushed forward and grasped the shopping bag woman’s arm, then cried out as she instantly withdrew her hand from the woman’s bitingly cold limbs.

Emyr looked into the cold shrouded eyes staring up at him and saw one of The Many hiding inside the woman and beyond that the woman herself desperate to be free. He felt the song that The Many held, sought out the individual notes and felt their harmonies and with a flourish Emyr took the song of The Many into his mind.

Violation, The Many spluttered. Emyr smiled as he pulled the shadow creature from the shopping bag woman.

It would seem we have a lot to learn about each other’s songs, challenged Emyr as he threw The Many into the storm. I shall see you in the Circle.

Finally, Julie gasped and looked into Emyr’s eyes; tears streaked her face as she struggled to speak. Emyr drew the woman into a hug, looked at the rheumy eyed woman and held her hand. “It’s okay,” the older woman stammered. “It’s okay, this young man is our saviour!” Aunty Carol and the other people looked at each other and muttered, not fully understanding what the older lady was talking about.

“Come on dear, let’s see if we can get you a nice cup of strong tea,” the elderly woman said, picking up the various shopping bags. She smiled at Emyr and patted his arm, then she pulled Julie from his embrace, leading her slowly and steadily back through the arcade towards the other exit. Behind them all, unseen, The Herald closed his eyes and exhaled, one by one the other onlookers turned to stare at Aunty Carol, the Herald nodded.

“Right! Well, nothing to see here then,” Aunty Carol puffed up her chest and blustered. “Maybe we should all try the other exit, eh? Look for a good cuppa, or maybe something a bit stronger, eh?” The other onlookers looked at the strange curly haired woman and then at each other. One by one they nodded and smiled knowing, deep down, that a drink of some kind was in order and one by one they walked away. 

The Herald opened his eyes and moved to Emyr’s side, “I am sorry. I was, distracted,” The Herald glanced at Aunty Carol. “Are you okay?”

 “Yes, I think so,” Emyr nodded pushing the rising tide of his childhood dreams to one side. There would be time to talk about them another day. “The Many wanted to take me to The Circle, they were trying to force me. They did horrible things to those two women.”

“I think they will both be fine. Though I shall ask a friend to keep watch over them.”

 The sensation of The Many’s music hung about Emyr like cold mist rolling over deep water. There was something in the mix of notes and harmonies that felt, odd, as if something was missing or hidden. “They have other ways of getting to the Circle?”

“Yes,” said The Herald. “The Many move in ways we cannot. We need to get you over there.” The Herald pointed to the pub on the opposite side of the street.

“The Prince of Wales?”

“Yes,” Jynn appeared on The Herald’s wing. “Peck is in place; she has found the spot. Be ready!”

Emyr looked at the pub, the wind still buffeted the street. The Many stood in ranks blocking their way.

“So, we can’t prat about here anymore,” Aunty Carol stood behind Emyr, cradling her frost damaged hand close to her chest for warmth. She fixed The Herald with a look, whispered, “No more distractions. Get him to the doorway and make sure that you keep him safe. Even on the other side.”

The Herald bowed his head and touched Aunty Carol’s hand. There was a brief flash of warmth and her hand was healed.

“Bloody show off,” she winked at The Herald and, without looking back, she walked towards the other exit and the waiting Sirens.   

The Herald spread his wings.

Emyr rolled his shoulders back and stretched is spine. 

The wind howled.

Slowly The Many started to coalesce.

Jynn crouched next to Peck. One hand on the concrete and one resting on her pupil’s shoulder, Jynn marvelled at the power coursing through Peck’s thin frame. Peck held the songs of the earth, the stone, the gravel, asphalt, the concrete and metal in her mind and invited them to join together, to find a new purpose in a con-joined harmony. Jynn felt Peck guide the different melodies and rhythms, finding new patterns, new strength of expression and a new symphonic form. Jynn pushed her own fears aside, trying to focus only on this strange new music and gripped Peck’s shoulder. 

The new music reached out. It snaked across the road, curled around the bins and the bus shelters and grew like vines up the buildings. Wherever this new music encountered one of The Many it held on, it sent tendrils into each of the shadow figures and roots down into the material beneath it and it pulled. Anchoring each of The Many to the spot they stood in.

The Many vibrated and screamed.

Emyr stepped out into the wind-blown street. The Herald stretched his wings around Emyr, protecting him from the worst of the storm. Like children lost in a fairy tale forest, Emyr and The Herald stepped between the shadowy figures. Emyr could feel their fury pulse and vibrate, moving like cold flames flickering across their oily surface. He sensed that if they touched him again, in this agitated state, that it would not be easy to shake them off. Slowly, but steadily making their way across the street to the pub. Hot, angry notes and snatches of snarling songs were flung out of The Many as they were held in the vice like grip of Peck’s new symphony. Each of the twisted, infuriated harmonies was caught by the dragon born winds and blown down the street like the last sparks from a dying bonfire.

With his final step Emyr breathed a sigh of relief and opened the door to the Prince of Wales.