“What was that black smoke that followed us in? I’ve never seen anything like it before,” she asked, taking in the rest of the house. At one time it had been a proper home with rich furnishings and a feminine decor. Even the tiles on the floor had, at one time, an elaborate pattern but was now missing more than a few tiles. Still, it was clean, which was more than could be said from the outside.
“Don’t know what it’s called. It’s something the fairies have done with the place. Makes it so people don’t want to come too close. Kind of freaks them out and they go back the way they came.”
“Fairies?” Elora raised an eyebrow.
They arrived at the kitchen door and Norgie was about to twist the brass knob when he paused.
“How much do you know? I mean, I take it those eyes of yours aren’t contacts, so I’m guessing you’re not Earth-born.”
Elora shook her head “Apparently I was born on Thea.”
“And you’ve only recently found that fact out. Talk about baptism by fire. Thought I might have let the cat out of the bag and gone blathering to an Earth-born, but...well, Bray wouldn’t have brought you here if he didn’t trust you.”
“So, you’re not from Thea either?”
“No, I’m from Yorkshire. Only got myself tangled up with all this stuff by accident. Now I live here, kind of a caretaker.”
“But fairies actually exist?”
Norgie nodded. “Come, let me introduce you to Gurple.”
He pushed the door open and ushered her into a cosy kitchen, the smell of freshly roasted lamb, mint and vegetables tickled her nostrils causing her belly to cramp up.
Thick gravy simmering in a saucepan sat atop a hob on an iron Aga; cabbage and chopped carrots boiled beside it, the steam drifting towards an open sash window above a Belfast sink. An oak table took up the left portion of the kitchen with seats enough for six but only two plates and two sets of cutlery were laid out.
“Gurple? I told you to keep stirring the gravy. It’ll stick to the bottom of the pan,” Norgie said to the empty kitchen. “Come on out, she won’t harm you.”
“I don’t see anybody,” Elora said as she glanced beneath the table: about the only place in the kitchen to hide.
“Gurple’s in here. It’s just that he gets a bit shy,” Norgie put his hands on his hips. “Come on out, Gurple.”
Elora heard the clattering of metal pans and trays from inside a cupboard. Then the door slowly crept open and swung towards her. A pair of feet, as small as a toddler’s, - but covered in dark brown fur, appeared beneath the door and childlike hands with the same pelt grasped the top, sharp black nails digging into the wood.
“That’s better Gurple. Now say hello to the young lady,” Norgie said, encouragingly.
Pointy ears slowly rose above the cupboard door, like that of a koala bear yet dark brown instead of grey. Then the top of a head appeared, followed by large brown eyes that stared at her, showing signs of fear. Slowly its eyes softened, and it shuffled from behind the door until it was fully revealed. It was roughly the size and shape of a four-year-old child, but there the similarities ended. Large brown eyes sat above a dark flat nose with a multitude of wrinkles curling about a large mouth. Elora thought it had a kind of a pug like quality: ugly but in a cute sort of way. Brown fur covered its entire body although she couldn’t see beneath the denim dungarees it wore. She couldn’t decide if it was a type of bear, dog or hobbit. Perhaps a strange mixture of the three yet she was even more astonished when it spoke.
“Herro,” it said, gruffly.
“Hi,” she replied awkwardly, not sure if it could understand her.
He stared at her a moment as if unsure, like a frightened puppy, huge brown eyes regarding her with trepidation. He sniffed the air and shuffled closer. She put out her open hand towards him, inviting him to take a sniff, showing that she meant him no harm. “It’s ok” she encouraged. “I won’t hurt you.”
He frowned causing the wrinkles on his face to furrow deeper, then opened his mouth wide in what Elora thought might be a smile and placed his small furry hand on hers.
“Erora,” he said and grinned, large canine teeth protruding either side of his mouth.
“Elora,” she corrected, pronouncing her name slowly.
Gurple nodded enthusiastically. “Erora.”
“Come on now Gurple, let’s finish off the dinner and lay the table for our extra guest,” said Norgie. “Might have to do with burnt gravy, though.”
Elora watched Gurple’s ears droop as he turned to look at the pan he should have been watching. “I like gravy with a bit of a burnt taste - adds flavour,” she remarked and smiled as Gurple’s ears pricked back up. Then to Norgie she said, “We’ll need two extra places making up, one for me, the other for Bray.”
Norgie shook his head. “He’ll be talking to Prince Dylap until the early hours most likely. We’ll plate him a dinner and he can have his later.”
Elora wondered who this Prince Dylap was and if she was ever going to meet him but didn’t ask any more questions. Her belly was cramping for food and she didn’t want to delay the dinner.
Bray left the dark cellar and locked the heavy door behind him. He felt weary as he climbed the stairs, but years of harsh training ensured that he still moved in silence. Instinctively his feet touched the parts of the steps that were less likely to creak while his mind worried over the grisly task ahead of him.
Prince Dylap had warned that there was an extreme unbalance between Thea, Earth and even a shift in the Shadowlands; the likes of which hadn’t been witnessed since the great rift which split the worlds. And he would have greater knowledge than any other, being the only creature who could freely move between them. Something had happened which had started a change, a catalyst of some kind, the starting of the end. Elora’s appearance couldn’t have been merely coincidental, things had been in balance since the time of the small gods, hundreds of thousands of years ago and he believed she was the catalyst. That might explain the reason how the bulworg had arrived. If the barrier that separated the worlds was becoming unstable then all kinds of nasties could be coming through. He also worried about the lack of communication with the Shadojak.
Diagus wasn’t the best at handling the technologies of this world and he may have broken his mobile phone again. The Shadojak was on the western coast of Ireland, investigating the strange sightings of a huge sea-beast that had apparently destroyed a North Sea oil tanker and pulled it beneath the waves. A handful of survivors had reportedly told the coast guard that a gigantic creature had wrapped octopus-like tentacles around the ship, crushing the hull and foredeck before pulling the vessel and crew into a watery grave. The descriptions they gave of the monster were uncannily like a leviathan of Thea. A fearsome creature of the deep oceans, created by older gods for their ability to sing under water. He had never seen one himself, but Diagus had. His master doubted that what the survivors witnessed was such a creature as the leviathan, yet it was his duty to find the truth of it. He’d left three days ago and Bray thought he would have been back by now.
The hallway was in darkness, the only light flickered through the bottom of the lounge door where somebody was watching the television. He guessed it to be Elora as he could hear the tuneless humming of Norgie coming from the kitchen.
His hand hovered above the door handle, his mind set at what he must do. Best to do it quick, no suffering, no pain. He resolved his mind to the task yet as he pushed the handle down the kitchen door suddenly swung open. Norgie’s tall body silhouetted against the light, dark features regarding him.
“Come grab your dinner before it gets cold, Bray. I can’t reheat it a second time.”
Bray’s hand dropped by his side, his resolve to do the task evaporating in an instant. If he was true to himself, he had realised that he was glad for the distraction. But he didn’t want to believe that, for if that was the fact then he was losing his grip on his emotions and that would stray him from his path to become the Shadojak.
Briefly, he glanced at the door handle, the silver plating long ago tarnished by wear and fracturing the reflection of light from the kitchen. Then drew his eyes away, it wouldn’t hurt any to delay the task while he had something to eat.
Stalking past Norgie into the kitchen, he took a glass from the sideboard and filled it with water before sitting at the table.
“Nice girl, that Elora,” Norgie offered as he closed the door and took a chair opposite him.
