06
The evening sky was the colour of a bruised Apricot. Heavy white clouds tinged with a dark green hue floated like mould out of its horizons. Harry sat in the small concrete garden with his legs folded underneath him, palms facing skywards, and attempted to empty his mind. He might have succeeded if Aunty had not marched into the courtyard with all the pomp of Sgt Major on parade day, wrapped in a heavy purple blanket to protect her from the frosted tips of the evening air. “What is that distracting sound you are making Harry?”
“It is called a Mantra,” He sighed. “I am attempting to escape the heavy world of materialism that has our souls caught in its web.”
“Never mind that,” She insisted, budging him along the seat. “Sit up straight! Legs down and stop humming!”
She sat squarely next to Harry. The crystal amulets dangling from her neck clinked together like boats moored in choppy water, as she took a deep swill from a concealed pewter hip flask. Harry looked on in radical astonishment.
“It’s camomile!” She snapped, her sharp blue eyes piercing into him, easily accessing his thoughts. She always punished assumption. “Will you sit properly? Think of your circulation! I should not have to tell you twice!”
Harry obeyed, immediately suffering from severe pins and needle stabs, as his blood attempted to re-circulate in his system. “Aunty, are you going to tell me what fine mess you are getting me into?”
“I had a vision. Three visions, actually. And if they come in three’s they are prophecies. We need to help that young lady save this world.”
“Oh good. Then what? Write a New Testament perhaps?”
“You know I will not tolerate sarcasm Harry!” She scowled at him.
“But Aunty, you can’t just go interfering with people and their lives like this! How do we know she wants to save the world?”
“Tosh, I heard no objections from you when I interfered with your life!”
“That’s…different.” Harry knew he was beat.
“I see.” Smirked the old lady as her eyes drank in the beauty of the sky above her. “That’s the problem with your generation Harry, too busy thinking of how you’re going to escape rather than concentrating on the bigger picture.”
“I still think you ought to ask before you help!”
“Nonsense. People need saving from their antics all of the time, most have not a clue when it comes to playing their part in the celestial scheme of things. It’s always too late if you wait for permission.”
“She may not want to be saved.”
“What difference does that make? There are bigger things at stake here! Now, enough chatter and chop-chop! She will be awake in seven minutes and thirty four seconds – and she will not be happy.”
“You don’t need a crystal ball to suss that one out Aunty. We bloody kidnapped her! That’s bad karma! And trust me, I know about bad karma – I’ve stolen several library books on the subject!”
The lady would not be moved. “Chop-chop!”
“Yes Aunty.” Harry sulked and followed her wearily back into the cottage.
Six minutes and thirty four seconds later…
Hak opened her eyes. She had no idea where she was. The room was small, dark and over heated. The air was thick and dry and she struggled to breath.
She was mummified with duvets and blankets secured tightly under every edge and corner of the single bed she lay on. It was a struggle to get free, he efforts hindered by dizziness and a shooting pain that executed her head as she wrestled loose from the comfortable constraints, and tried to recollect the events that had lead her to this point. All she could recall was Hargreave’s face and she was sure that was out of context. She blundered around the room like a blind man in an unfamiliar district trying to find the light. Fumbling in the dark she patted down the wall surfaces knocking several pictures loose from their hangings, the glass frames shattering on the floor around her. The door opened.
“Hmmm, decided to rejoin the land of the living, have we?”
Aunty stood in a halo of light, her arms crossed across her modest bosom. In one hand she held a small brush, in the other a dustpan. She quickly got to work clearing the chaos in the most uncomfortably strange silence Hak could ever recall enduring. Then Aunty got up with a small groan.
“Sorry, I was looking for the light.” Hak shuffled her feet.
“Aren’t we all dear,” Aunty brushed herself down.
“Where am I?” Hak staggered towards the door, trying to step past Aunty, but her legs could not carry her, buckled, and she fell.
“Take care, my dear.” Said Aunty coming to her aid. “You have been unconscious for nearly three hours now. No point running around like a headless chicken, is there?”
“Three hours again?” She peeled herself from the floor. “How do chunks of time keep getting sucked out of my life? How did I get here?”
“It’s called a quickening dear.” Aunty paused, not for effect but necessity, helping Hak to the edge of the bed. She was a small woman, but by no means frail, with hair that looked like it had been cast out of pure silver and teeth that were set like piano keys in her mouth.
“Quickening?”
“Hmmm.” Said Aunty, “it takes a little while to adjust, but you will get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it! Lady, who are you? Where am I?”
Aunty shook her head in self-reproach. “This is the difficulty with 20-20 foresight, sometimes it can have a terrible effect on your manners. Forgive me. My name is Arcana Linear Lunn, known to most as the soothsayer, but you may call me Aunty. It’s nice to make your proper acquaintance Miss Sinclair.”
“Soothsayer?” Hak laughed, anticipating a punch line that did not come. “You are a fortune teller?”
Displeasure lit like a firework in the old ladies eyes. “No I most certainly am not! There is nothing of fortune worth telling, and if you must know I have an allergy to silver, so I won’t be happy if it crosses my palm or any other of my extremities!”
Hak shook her head. “Lady, I don’t mean to be rude, but what the fuck are you talking about and why am I here? I can’t remember how I got here. Where the fuck am I?”
“I will thank you for not using such profanity in my home! You are a guest here!”
“Guest where? Who are you?”
“Miss Sinclair, if you insist on only asking questions and not listening to the answers, I do believe this could take forever.”
“Or it could end now.” She tried to leave, but her vision split into three and the bedpost suddenly became the only thing that prevented her from hitting the floor again.
“Miss Sinclair,” explained Aunty, helping her to the bed once more. “There are very few futures that I can not see way in advance, unfortunately the future is a multiple choice so I felt the safest option for you was here. That is why you are here. Here is my home, and I have already formerly introduced myself.
“Now, if you wish to make any kind of sense of what is happening to you, I seriously recommend you stay for a while longer.”
Hak rubbed her weary head, crushed under the confusion. “This is the weirdest day of my life so far.”
“Oh I would not count your chickens my dear, you wait until tomorrow.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
Aunty sighed. “Follow me.”
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