4: The Will Of The One
“And you’re sure you’re feeling okay, no pain anywhere?”
“I’ve told you, I’m fine,” Philip persisted, pulling his arm out of the reach of the nurse’s latex gloves.
It was true. Philip could see properly again, the pain had receded, all of the bones in his hand had mended, and there were no cuts upon his skin (yet there was a whitish mark on his wrist in the shape of a hand gripping him tightly). He had no idea how he’d got these injuries, yet when he’d got his father through the doorway of his house and into a bed late last night, all he’d had to do about himself was wash the mud off. That being said, he had been on the verge of fainting, feeling as if he had no energy left in him at all. He’d even felt quite a bit sick.
Right now Samuel was lying in a hospital bed, still out for the count. The doctors were saying that he’d received a nasty blow to the head and could be like that for several more days. All they could do was wait. The main thing Philip was concerned about was not having a vegetable for a father. But if he was taking it badly, his mother was distraught. Since she’d seen her husband all she’d done was try to make herself as small as possible, muttering psychotically that it was all her fault. But according to all the fancy machines, Samuel was stable, just trapped in a deep sleep.
On his laptop Philip had been able to access the day’s news along with live broadcasts, and he’d also bought every type of newspaper in the shop. Philip didn’t realise that there was nothing about a body being found outside St. Paul’s Cathedral. There was a mention of the ‘Cloak and Scythe’ though. The authorities were blaming the explosion at the restaurant on a gas leak. The memories of the night’s events were seeping away at that very moment, so he didn’t know if the information given by the news was in any way accurate.
At that moment two more nurses came sidling over to them.
“He ain’t gonna wake anytime soon,” the first informed them, her voice girly, like out of a kid’s fairy tale.
The second butted in, “That ain’t the message the boss told us to give ’em,” he bickered at her, surprisingly in an equally high voice. He turned to Philip and his mother, “Mrs Quint...”
“Beth,” she corrected him from within her sopping-wet sobs.
“Beth,” he continued, “We, that is, us nurses, feel it’s best if ya go home now, and we’ll call ya if anything changes in his condition.”
“I was getting to that part!” the first nurse complained.
“Well ya shoulda said it quicker, eh!”
Philip helped Beth to her quaking feet and started towards the door.
“Come on, before this gets ugly,” he whispered to her.
Behind them the two nurses were shouting at each other so loudly and using such language that people from many of the nearby rooms had come to investigate the commotion.
Finally out of the sickly-pink wards the mother and son slowed their pace. There was no need to hurry. The hospital’s car park was virtually empty on this bright Saturday morning. He had missed the start of the previous school day, sending Mrs Cage into a blind fury as she couldn’t give him his detention, because he had been on that cramped ambulance that had turned up at his house around seven o’clock on Friday, seeing as he’d been with his father at the ‘Cloak and Scythe’ and was thought to be injured. And while the siren had been droning into his skull, Philip had had time to think, mostly about what he speculated and what he did not know. He didn’t know of the effects on a person who travelled in transit while unconscious. He’d always presumed it didn’t make a difference whether you were awake or not, but yesterday he’d wondered if it might have prolonged Samuel’s stay in limbo. And the horrific thought had entered his head: maybe indefinitely. But these were the thoughts he’d had. Now they were all forgotten.
Once at Beth’s car Philip turned to her. Her grey eyes were still flooding with tears. He grabbed on to her shoulders firmly.
“Look, I’m not old enough to drive,” he insisted over Beth, who took a great, nasal sob and blew her nose on her ragged handkerchief, “and you can’t drive in this state.”
She looked upon her progeny with round puppy dog eyes, sniffling a little.
Philip shook her frantically, “Get a grip!”
Beth seemed to regain her senses slightly. What happened to the calm, benign, benevolent woman he’d grown up with?
“You’re...you’re right,” she stammered, wiping her eyes.
Satisfied, Philip got into the blue car and his mother joined him. Leaving Samuel in the care of the doctors, the small vehicle drove off home.
Too angry to phase Philip opened his door like a regular boy and marched over to his desk and the blackened seat.
“Come on then! Where are you?!”
Gryal didn’t appear. Thinking on his feet, Philip placed a chocolate bar on the desk in front of the chair. That’s what it had eaten before, wasn’t it? And then, after a few of the longest seconds in Philip’s life, something he hadn’t anticipated happened: nothing.
“What are you, lactose intolerant?!” he shouted at the ceiling, which strangely enough didn’t reply.
Unable to think of anything else to attract the Reaper (short of killing something, of course), Philip began walking out of the room. There was a faint crackling sound. Philip slowly turned on the spot, looking at the ground. Only after he’d turned about did he looked up. The tall figure of Gryal was once again occupying the seat that had been vacant just a second before.
Gryal picked up the chocolate bar, “What’s this meant to be?”
Philip pondered Gryal. He seemed different. The rim of his eye sockets were blacker, and his yellow eyes brighter. His teeth were also slightly more pointed than the last time he’d sat in that chair. But at that moment the reason he’d called the demon entered his line of thought. Philip scowled.
“What happened to my father? Will he be okay?” Philip said this more hesitantly than he’d meant to.
He picked up on Philip’s uncertain note, “You don’t clearly remember what happened, do you? That’ll be because I have been removing any memories that may cause you discomfort. I only want you to be happy.” He sighed, “Neither I, nor any of my fellow Lords, attacked you. It was a traitor, by the name of Chaos. He blew up the restaurant, not us. We’ve been trying to protect you from him. You’ve got to believe us.”
Philip was finding it a little hard to. Those were the words the man in black had used, and he hadn’t trusted him. How did he know that these people, if they were in fact people, weren’t working together in some conspiracy gone mad?
Gryal gave up waiting for a response and continued, “And to answer your second question, he’ll be fine and walking again in a week, don’t worry.”
Philip was still finding it harder than he had last time to trust this apparition. Gryal chucked the chocolate behind him onto the floor, and noticed Philip’s atlas lying open on the carpet. Philip followed his gaze and realised he hadn’t picked it up since his last encounter. It was still open on the page about Egypt.
“Look,” started Gryal, “I know you don’t exactly trust us, but we want you to stay safe. Don’t go to South America. There’s a chance you’re going to get hurt, if not killed. We want you to stay alive.”
“Why me?” Philip was now desperate to probe any information out of the strange man...thing.
“You’re different,” Gryal said only what Philip already knew. “Just don’t go.”
And his form ruptured in a flow of molten flame, Philip watching his disappearance. Philip had learned only two things from that shorter encounter: his father would be back in a week, and that Gryal was certainly not a figment of his imagination. But how had a page on Egypt reminded Gryal to warn him of South America. Gryal was clearly different. It would probably make sense in a psycho’s head, but not Philip’s.
“Phil, could I speak with you?”
With one last sweep of the room to check Gryal really had gone, he obeyed Beth and proceeded to the living room.
Whatever his mother wanted to talk about, Philip was positive that she didn’t want to talk about it; it was probably something to do with his father. Beth was sitting on the small sofa with her hands on her knees, waiting patiently. He was glad to see that she’d dried her eyes. Now she didn’t look like a dam that was going to burst any second.
The living room was spacious. Two lights were fixed to the far wall and four windows let golden summer sunlight in from the cheery outside world. A white fireplace was set into the peach wall below a golden mirror stretching most of the length of the room. In the corner sat a TV, probably the most high-tech thing in there and it looked slightly out of place. The green carpet was soft to the touch under his feet.
Philip stepped forth into the room and joined her on the leather sofa. Close up Philip saw that her eyes were still swimming slightly, but when she saw him looking she hastily wiped the growing tears away.
“This is silly. He’s going to be fine.” She looked into his brown eyes and made a quivering smile. “At...at the restaurant, did he ask you...sorry. Did he ask you...?”
Mercifully he finished the sentence for her, “Did he ask me about South America? Yes.”
“Good.” Her voice was quiet, a bit like she was reassuring herself, “and your answer was?”
Philip knew he’d said yes at the ‘Cloak and Scythe’, but he’d subsequently been attacked. On the other hand, Gryal wanted him not to go, and did he really trust it? A lively debate took place in his head.
They’re trying to attack me, don’t get hurt.
That’s exactly why I should go; I shouldn’t give in to those bullies.
They could do much worse than last time; mother could get hurt, if not killed.
You should still do the right thing and stand up to them.
That’ll make it worse.
He’d made up his mind.
Philip prepared himself, and after pushing the losing thoughts aside, he said, “Yes.”
He screwed up his eyes and hid his face. He could feel the flames flying everywhere and the ceiling collapsing...
“Are you okay?” Beth sounded anxious.
Philip opened his eyes. Wow his imagination was strong.
“Yes, I’m fine,” he reassured her.
“Good. We were thinking of going somewhere in the area of Auyantepui.”
He looked at her vacantly.
“Angel Falls is part of it, the highest waterfall in the world. It’s in Venezuela.”
Nothing changed in his expression, except he blinked.
“It’s north of Brazil.”
He made a noise of vague comprehension.
But at his mother’s look, he added, “Yes, I know where Venezuela is.”
“And you’re okay going there with us?” she checked, cautiously.
“Of course,” he didn’t see why not.
Beth cocked her head, “You do realise you’ll have to take daily medication and have a lot of vaccinations?”
“Yes,” he persevered.
“You’re okay with this?” Philip thought she must be making her final checks by now.
“I’m good,” Philip ended the conversation with this one statement.
Beth’s smile widened, “Now we just have to wait for your father to come...”
The words choked in her throat. Philip knew a fit of tears was coming, but he resisted his urge to get out of earshot and stayed to comfort her, even if he did regret it after the first few seconds.
The last week of term and the school year held no paranormal activities, no strange encounters, and no extra-terrestrial beings materialising anywhere in the vicinity of his life. Most of the teachers let them play games or watch films. In Science Dr Radcliffe let the class play games on the whiteboard, such as hangman. About half the class chose this option, where as others played on their phones or used the teacher’s laptop to watch videos online. Dr Radcliffe didn’t care; he just sat back and watched his protégés run amok.
“Oi! Miss Cole! Hangman is not an excuse to write rude words on the white board!”
And in English Mrs Deakin put on the latest film take on a Shakespearean play, released on DVD the previous week, which was good, but she could have chosen better.
“Now class, settle down. This is proper Shakespearean dialect,” boy was she wrong, “and this may help you next year. I have a feeling you’ll be studying this play and this will help you understand the plot.”
“Whatever, Daphne,” Philip heard one of the less educated boys mutter a little further down the line of desks.
Of course in lessons such as D.T. and art he had to finish his work, but in maths, Professor Oswalt (or Billy, as he allowed them to call him) set challenges and mind games for each pupil, some individual and some team events. The majority found this the best maths lesson ever, but when faced with failure, a couple of people got into trouble.
“Miss Brennan! If I ever see you make that hand gesture in this class again...”
Philip highly doubted that that would stop Paloma.
They were taught by one teacher for French, German and Spanish, so they worked at languages until their last Spanish lesson, fifth period on Thursday. The appropriately named Miss (Summer) Adams gave out sweets and crisps, while music (foreign unfortunately) burst forth loudly from the computer speakers, and party games were set out on the desks. It didn’t go well for everyone.
“Daniel Langer! I saw that, take it out of your pocket and put it back on the table.”
Latin was quiet (all the people who had been misbehaving had been sent out) in Mr A.J. Parkes’ last lesson. They sat there watching a documentary about Rome.
“And for those who didn’t pick up much this year, the English of what he just said is...”
History was different. Professor Crosbie (whose very name, Edith, Philip thought was historic) split the class into four teams and there was a history quiz on the topics they’d learned during the year. She was retiring at the end of the term and she knew how to go out with a bang. Philip’s team won, or by Philip’s point of view, Philip won, his team hadn’t done anything.
“Miss Cole! Is that gum?! Didn’t I send you to your head of house about that yesterday?! Well?!”
Their last fun lesson was Religious Studies. Sartaj Choudhury gave them a feast only made up of food accepted by all religions. In the background was a film, better than the one that Mrs Deakin had shown. All in all, it was a good last week, until Mrs Cage’s final lesson. Fat chance getting an enjoyable lesson from her. Of course his geography teacher hadn’t come back for their final lesson.
The line was moving into the classroom that, as always, gave off an odour of boredom, hatred, ignorance, and that old cheese on Mrs Cage’s desk that had been there for who knows how long. Mrs Cage tapped her foot impatiently as the class sat down in their respective places. Philip, and it seemed over half the class, knew that it was too optimistic to keep their books in their bags for their final lesson. Their worn-out textbooks and mismatched projects were placed on the ancient wooden desks; the class looked up drearily in unison, to see two people at the head of the class. Mrs Cage, standing proudly as usual, and Mr Sneak, the headmaster. ‘No way to escape Hell then’, thought Philip. His least favourite teachers were instructing his last lesson of geography. From the faces of his fellows, they were dreading the same. Quiet muttering rippled through the regular silence of the classroom. Mrs Cage looked confused; she’d never heard that sort of thing in her classes before. Mr Sneak interrupted.
“If you will quieten down,” it had the instant effect he wanted, “it has come to my attention that many of your tutors have slipped in their teaching duties. They have not been continuing the curriculum after your exams. Enjoyment has replaced learning. This is not the way of our school. Your parents pay for your outstanding education, not for you to laze about like you are at home. That is why a number of staff will be leaving on Friday, staff we have determined to not be strict enough when it comes to the control of their charges. And to top that,” he raised his voice to silence the shouts of outrage, “starting September, Mrs Cage will be supervising your study courses. And that is no way to behave in a classroom!”
Uproar and anarchy erupted from the students. One boy, Chris Murphy, began snatching up books from under unwary pupils’ noses and was pelting them at the headmaster (the next time Philip saw him his hands and eyes were bright crimson) while shouting threats and words whose use broke numerous school rules in the process. Now you may think what they were doing was a major over reaction, but then again, you’ve never had Mrs Cage as a teacher.
And the riot didn’t stop there. The headmaster was very busy for the rest of that day, sorting out detentions for all of the misbehaving children. But the thing was that some, if not most, had fled the room and run around the school, spreading the word of the school changes to all their friends as Doom Sayers. Philip didn’t think Mr Sneak had caught all of them. He’d never been very competent.
Philip was still smiling a couple of days later when the car ascended the winding slope to the hospital between the grassy verges. Through the open white gates it trundled and off it went in search of a parking space. Philip and Beth stepped out from the car and as they looked up, they saw a man waving at them, resting on one of the pearly pillars that held up the small balcony over the hospital entrance. Beth clapped her hands to her mouth and ran, rather clumsily in high-heeled shoes, to her husband. Philip followed, a bit more casually, having known his father would be well, but still got caught in the embrace between his parents. Samuel released them.
“Don’t be too rough now, you don’t want to knock me into another coma,” he laughed jokily.
Beth, on the other hand, evidently didn’t approve of that kind of attitude at this time, “Don’t joke about such things dear, you gave us such a shock.”
But they both beamed all the same. Philip was left slightly awkward, unsure if he should say anything to interrupt his parents’ unspoken love. After a few minutes however, Philip just decided to wing it.
“Shouldn’t we be going inside for our vaccinations now?”
The link between the wife and husband broke. They were still looking at each other, but there was no longer a mesmerising glint in their eyes.
Beth spoke first, “Yes dear, of course.”
So the three of them walked together into the hospital as a reunited family.
As the door swung shut behind them the three Quints were strolling up to the reception desk. The atmosphere in there was a lethargic one, with a slight smell of disinfectant and air fresheners. Philip looked at the other patients sitting in the grey waiting room, some reading newspapers, others deep in conversation with their neighbour, and a couple just sitting there in silence, looking at their dirty worn-out shoes or at the plain ceiling above their heads. But the major absence in the room was happiness, or even a minor good feeling. Everyone was in a doom and gloom state. Well, Philip couldn’t blame some of them. A group of patients over by the far wall had severe burns over their skin, like they’d been in the same fiery accident. A woman to Philip’s right was comforting a child of about eight, whose arm looked like it had been twisted round too far. And a man in the middle of the sea of chairs looked like death warmed up; he had hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. He was constantly sneezing. He finished his sweep of the room and looked back at reception. The woman at the counter looked up from her piles of paperwork.
“Mr Quint, back so soon? What happened this time?”
“It’s okay, me and my family are only here for vaccinations.”
The nurse typed something into the computer database, “Yes sir, if you’d like to go through there,” she pointed at a door in the left wall, “and one of our doctors will see to you as soon as possible.”
“Thanks,” mumbled Beth.
The three of them strode over to the door and went inside.
The room was minute with not much space to move. The family took the chairs by the wall and waited for someone to arrive. None of them spoke. Philip examined the posters opposite him about how to live a healthy lifestyle, about how important it is to visit your doctor, and on what you should and shouldn’t eat. Samuel was looking at the different machines; being a gadget collector he liked to examine a variety of electronic items. Shortly a doctor of average height entered the room and walked briskly up to his desk.
“Now,” his voice was stern and as brisk as his step, but a bit nasally also, “as I understand it, you are wishing to travel to Venezuela. Do you know what vaccinations you will need?”
Beth coughed, “Yes, we need vaccinations for Yellow Fever, Hepatitis A, Typhoid, Tetanus and Polio.”
“Correct,” he said, sharply. “All of your records show this is not your first time with vaccinations, so you should know that the procedure is quick and moderately painless. The records also state that you should not have adverse side effects, yet everybody does react differently. Shall we get on with it then, I have a busy schedule today that cannot be delayed.”
The doctor opened a cold cabinet and loaded onto a trolley three rows of five vaccinations (four liquids for injections, one tablet). Next to them on the trolley were their requisite needles. Beth just stared at the needles, and how long they were. She might have been regretting this visit.
“Whoever is first, please hold out your left arm with the sleeve rolled up. Oh, and you’ll need to bend over when I say so.”
Philip couldn’t watch. He only listened. Samuel didn’t scream in agony at his four injections, and neither did his mother, so when it came to his turn, he sat there, his eyes scrunched up as tight as they would go, his arm thrust out forwards, and waited for the first needle to penetrate his flesh.
The doctor had been right. It was quick. The moderately painless part Philip would like to disagree on very much, but it didn’t pay to insult the man controlling whether you died of a horrible disease or not.
Philip rubbed his arm on the way out, the patches where the needle had gone in still stinging like raw wounds. He wouldn’t be able to sit properly for a week (and nor did he feel he would get his dignity back). The Polio tablet hadn’t tasted that good either.
“Well that wasn’t so bad,” Beth acknowledged.
Philip didn’t know what injections she’d had, but his certainly came under the category of ‘bad’. He was glad to be leaving this hospital; and he thought that his father might have been too.
“Just so we’re clear, I don’t want to be going back in that place anytime within the next six months,” Samuel was telling Beth.
“Where are we going now, then?” Philip asked Beth as they drove down the motorway alongside the other moving vehicles.
“We need to go to the pharmacy to get our Malarone tablets. It isn’t far now.”
When Beth turned the car off the main road to the left onto a back road, Philip had to shield his eyes from the sun peeking out from the puffy clouds. He’d left his sunglasses at home, a mistake that in hindsight was rather idiotic, seeing as the weatherman had said that it would be this bright. A row of electricity pylons snaked alongside the car, following the contours of the landscape. Feral animals sat on the slopes, watching the giant beasts run by on the white-striped ground, waiting for a window of opportunity in which to cross back to their dens.
A little while later buildings began to crop up before the Quint’s car, not very big at first, but growing in size as their path continued into the village. It was not far from the town, and there had been no pharmacies in the immediate area of the hospital. At least, that’s what Philip’s parents had said. And in the distance coming ever nearer was a green cross jutting out from a building halfway up the street. Its neon lighting flashed and rippled so it was impossible for your eyes not to catch it. Beth parallel-parked in a space outside the pharmacist’s, not something just anyone could do with so little space and traffic coming up behind them. When the short block of traffic had passed, the Quints stepped out into the road and sauntered onto the pavement. They were the only people standing on the path, and it seemed the only ones in the nearby area. In Philip’s opinion, this was a ghost town. Yes, vehicles were passing through, but no one was stopping. The buildings around them, even from the outside, felt empty, dead. The windows were dark and some doors were swinging on rusty hinges. Wind rattled the window shutters and whistled over the chimneys.
The pharmacy itself wasn’t extensively bright. A light bulb was flickering ominously above shelf after shelf of glass bottles. At the back, just visible from where Philip was standing, a withered man stood resolutely at a counter with only a cash register for company. His head was lowered but Philip could clearly see from his hands lying on the counter that he had skin the colour of parchment, the same as his work station. From this far away glance, one could be forgiven for thinking of the man as part of the desk, like he’d fused with it, having not left its side for many years. A straggly mess of silvery hair fell as a veil across his bowed face. This was one man’s legacy, a maze of chemicals in neatly labelled bottles on dusty planks of wood, locked in seclusion. That is, of course, until Samuel pushed his way through, not just the misty glass door, but a shield of cobwebs as well.
As they entered, the man at the counter did not look up, but his hands convulsed mechanically. Samuel led the way up the wooden aisles, with Philip in the middle and Beth bringing up the rear. For some reason, their progress was slow, their footsteps heavy, like they were walking through a vat of treacle. Philip observed that the contents of several bottles hadn’t been used, as far as he knew, for over one hundred years. Their ingredients had either decomposed or evaporated. There were of course, the modern plastic bottles with printed shiny labels, but here and there were thick glass bottles with cork stoppers and sealed with crumbling wax, the labels on these were written in small, spidery writing. Before the door had properly closed, fresh air penetrated the walls, sending spirals of filth into the remaining stale air. It seemed that time hadn’t decided what era it was inside this shop.
Their feet took them towards the counter through inch-thick grime. Samuel rapped his knuckle on the counter.
“Yes?” the man croaked, looking up.
Even when he’d stopped talking, his jaw kept swinging, as if the only reason it didn’t fall off his head was the band of skin strapping the two pieces of skull together. The man looked at them in turn through his shroud of hair, his yellow eyes bulging demonically. Samuel took control.
“How much are the Malarone tablets. They’re for our holiday to Angel Falls.”
“I don’t sell them,” the man’s eyes bored into Samuel’s.
“But I saw some on the shelves back there,” Samuel pointed behind himself at the avenues.
The man’s nostrils flared, his jaw quivered, and his eyes flashed hazardously, “I said, I don’t sell them!”
Samuel just wasn’t getting the hint, “I’ll go get them from the shelf.”
He turned to get them, but froze at the man’s shriek, “Halt, mortal. Braknaghs, enter!”
A six foot mirror slid aside on the wall beside the counter and two people lumbered into the scene, hands bound in chains. The first performed an inept bow in the direction of its master.
“We sorry master, but it ain’t gonna budge. Nothin’ works, ya see.”
Its sister mimicked his pathetic grovelling, “Please master, it just won’t work. It ain’t possible to work, see.”
The newcomers were dressed in white, just like a nurse’s uniform.
“That doesn’t matter,” snarled the man, “Seize that man and his family.”
Solemnly, they hauled their heavy legs one in front of the other towards Philip and his parents. In unison the family ran for the door. But before they were even fifteen feet away, an aged bolt slid into place, locking the only exit firmly shut. They turned to face their captor.
“You cannot leave while the Hexagon flows,” the man leered. “The hour’s nigh, yet we are weaker. Do not go, help open the Postern.”
Philip had no idea what he was talking about, his natural curiosity wouldn’t let anything this important escape his notice, oh, plus his parents were in danger. The zombie-like nurses traipsed ever closer. He had to think of something fast, a distraction.
“Why is this so important to you Gryal?!”
The man’s features hardened. The illusion broken, Gryal stormed through his useless desk and headed straight for Philip. The nurses stopped, letting their master through. His parents stood back, petrified by the proceedings. Philip, the sticky sensation lifting slightly, freeing his movement, reached for bottle after bottle from the pharmacy shelves and hurled them at Gryal’s chest. There was a crunching sound as the projectiles met their marks.