Secret Collection

The garden hose was caught around Needle’s feet as he hurriedly leapt forward to contain its powerful spray … like a serpent spewing a hard and fast jet of high pressure water the wet nozzle had slipped his grasp and taken on a life of its own. 

The floor was made of malachite - a stone that Dwarves favoured for decorated patios and halls; and a combination of sprayed water with a grinding paste made from cumquat kernels and ground corundum kept the polish on it quite perfectly.

“It's a mystery and a delight just how nicely you keep this place,” said Tu admiringly. Eve was staring into a glass display case littered with dead insects pinned to a back-board. Some of them had rainbow wings and blue iridescent bodies. She thought she saw the leg move on one and heard a click-click from another. 

Eve still could not quite find her bearings having come down the invisible ladder into the house of a Dwarf whose name Puck said was ‘Pine-tara’ … but everyone else called ‘Needles’. "Must be because he sticks them through insects" she thought sourly. 

He also owned an extensive butterfly collection, which he liked to keep secretly upstairs. Many of the Fay eat insects and he was not going to take any chances with his special boxed sets.

The ladder had delivered them right into Needle’s own home. 

“Breakfast? Lunch? Supper anyone?” he asked obligingly. And then the bustling dwarf commenced to create a generous spread, just like he had for Eve all of those mornings when she had not seen him, or known of his affectionate dedication to serving her. 

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Jacob’s Ladder

Augustus Lunn

“All of us will have to take the ladder - it’s the only way open to us right now.”

Jacob’s Ladder was a thoroughfare, an older route for travelling into the Globe - usually avoided because the trip itself wasn’t at all speedy, and too often it could become very unreliable these days … the connection was still there between the heavenly spaces and the Earthly realm, however, the outcome could be random, and the landing a very bumpy one. Also it could only carry just a few at a time.

“We’ll just have to take our chances, it worked perfectly fine for me and Needles earlier” said Puck - and then: “Goober, how did you find it?”

“The ladder was more of a staircase with banisters of solid light forming a foaming water slide half way down, I didn’t mind it at all.” he replied thoughtfully.

It was really a marvel, with mother-of-pearl swirls of pooling pastel vapours that shone both sides - in the mortal landscape its end appears simply as a rainbow touching the ground.

“Stuff Hogwarts” said Eve out loud, a little surprised at herself after saying it. This came from her realising in an instant that real magic was way more impressive than anything she had ever read of in books. Real magic was powerfully beautiful. Her hopefulness had returned - and she felt so good, it was almost like being in love.

She was also relieved at the thought of leaving the subdued heavens, as the stench seemed to be getting thicker and the strange purple light had darkened to a muddy ominous puce. It looked like the horizon was bleeding.

Needles stood waiting behind her.

Jupiter faltered, leaving the others to go before him …

Looking up and back to Jupiter the group could see the scenery behind him was curdling into darkness. Tu gently tapped Eve on the shoulder, the goat nudged her forward and she quickly slipped and slid onto the pearly stairs with Needles following fast behind.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Familiar Angels

Souls were beginning to encircle the globe: if you looked up high enough and had the spiritual eyes to see, they were there at cloud level, hovering in the spaces above, moving in and throughout the azure ethers. 

The angels drifted up there also alongside them, and much like a congested highway, all of the beings, self-lit and ethereal, remained in the upper channel; as each death could no longer proceed forth, for they were compelled to follow the bandwidth of the earthen realm, forced to remain up there, unable to go further.

Fortunately most of the men, women and children were so preoccupied when first leaving their lives they had not a care as yet, being swept up with a feeling of release and infinite expression, whelmed by the beauty and light of the unveiled realm: and now content to be able to see their own familiar angels who had been alongside their days and their nights: those beings of light perhaps once thought to be their intuition; these gentle companions, with a calming presence that were ever protecting them, come what may.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

 

Good Samaritan

A passing fisherman found Tindle prostrate in a bed of froth and broken shells. Fragments had cut his cheek and his blood trickled onto the sand.

The sea was fast approaching and would soon fill the inlet in a rush and a flurry. The good samaritan hurriedly fetched his woven net to place over Tindle, and secured him tightly - then, with the aid of a makeshift pulley he dragged the lifeless body all the way to a higher sandbank.

The sunlight was dwindling, and the foxes were prowling the beach. Not another soul was to be found.

“Aye, you are quite the weight son, and I can haul thee no farther” he said, almost out of breath speaking to the unconscious man. The night airs were circling them both. He collected up the bits and pieces of driftwood and bracken and built a little fire. He hummed to himself, and covered Tindle’s body.

The two slept soundly until morning.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

By the Light

Goober struck a match seemingly from nowhere. A blue light filled the space around him and in the centre of that light, the small gathering could see a vision of a young woman asleep on a chair. It was as if they were looking into a faraway window, or into the story of the little match girl where scenes would be revealed with the appearance of the flame. He seemed relieved. He had finally found Sylvia and she was safe.

“Goober should we be frightened? If those evil people can cause all of this, and the good are now on the run - does this mean we are all done for?” Eve nervously sought answers - perhaps he could light another match that would show them some kind of future.

“Evil is kind of stupid” he replied - “it’s a selfish stupid, and a stupid nonetheless. It literally chases its own tail and eventually creates a hole, and falls right into it. That’s all I can say on the subject after witnessing eons and eons of stupid.” he said out loud. Goober’s pale blue eyes looked sad. He looked worn out.

Eve now felt concerned for the old Elf.

“I think I want to go back” said Eve. “I miss my home. I just need something familiar … and a hot drink, and something to eat, something that I like.”

And then she added thoughtfully “and a place that smells better than this.” A different kind of reality had come to her. So many things had happened that she could not explain, or understand.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Pack Your Things

Alex looked over to Puck, who, was once again emptying his boots of their contents - this time all over the mosaic tiling - he then gazed over to Mercedes, who was standing close to the lift, ready to take her chances as soon as the cleaners had finished mopping up.

“It was you” he said under his breath looking hard at her. And suddenly, very suddenly, his head hurt.

* * *

No sooner had the ‘apparition’ disappeared from the room, taking the small goat with it, Alex and Mercedes watched Romulus pacing again - they were both barely daring to breathe wondering what he would do next. They had witnessed unseemly magical events around him in the past - inexplicable and surprising manifestations - but this was something very different, for the man in the long coat was so real and unafraid, and the mess that he and the goat left behind was undeniably real. 

“Pack your things” Romulus shouted across the room addressing Alex who momentarily thought he was being told to leave. He had been waiting for this with mixed emotion but as it turned out Romulus meant for him to go with him.

“We leave on the 23.00 Silver Fox out of here.” Romulus liked to call his private get 'Silver Fox’ because the jet had been brought out of commercial retirement and repurposed.

Mercedes took her opportunity while the two were packing: when the lift doors opened and closed again she finally was inside it, making her way back down to earth, into the streets, never to return.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

The Eyes Have It

The magi and the magistrate became as one -
Silks and their weavers
merchants and their traders
all combined into one -
these made up the Lawyers robe,
pulled together with a single stitch,
embroidered with a common vernacular
to fill the bulging purse.

Aloft their station was the spectacle maker.
Fashioning ground glass, tooling the wire,
sight is a gift far beyond measure.
In the hierarchy of worldly wealth
the iridologist and his prescriptions
were well standing.

Again, the two became in twine -
hand in glove, lens with lens - tethered the two
more powerful than judiciary,
church, or governing mens.

Crusty cockles littered the sluice, the dark waters licked and slapped a tangle of seaweed and grit. Tindle paced the shore every morning half hoping the ‘messenger’ that came to him would appear again - however, he did not.

There was some movement in the half-light of the approaching dawn, but this was not at all whom he had been hoping for. It was his wife! As he came closer Tindle could see that she was naked, dancing around in circles, humming to herself as though she were a little child … unawares of any impropriety - completely without modesty or shame.

His wife had purchased a small shipload of whiskey from which she had tippled morning to night. The crates were all emptied now and their planks onsold to the carpenter, and the jugs were refurbished with vinegar.

“Put yer garments back on,” he shouted disapprovingly, rapidly approaching the rotund woman.

Although weathered by the rum, she still felt his disdain and yelled back “I have born ye babes, and I am worn. You would once tear my clothes from me, what offends thy eye these days old man?” she spat at him.

“I know not what you want from me wife. Do I not give you anything and everything you have asked for?” he replied, neglecting her question.

It was true. As the business had prospered her purse had always been full.

Tindle picked up a rock and threw it at her and it clipped the side of her cheek from behind. It went far harder than he had intended. She screamed in fright, and then with a rebound rage, took the jug she had been carrying and broke it onto a mound, then ran at him with the jagged porcelain.

Tindle lost his footing and fell sideways splitting his head on a rusted pike sticking out from the ribs of a wayward fisherman’s trawler.

She emptied his pockets before leaving him to the evening tides.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series