Chosen Ones (3 page)

“You don’t see the glow?” Julia asked. “Al that silver light—you don’t see it?”

“It’s the moon, Julia,” said Peter, in the patronizing manner of an adult to a young child. Julia was annoyed.

“There’s no moon tonight,” she announced.

“Wel , a bit, but just a sliver. Not enough to give that kind of light. Look—” She hopped up and pointed out the window at the dark sky.

And there was nothing for Peter to say.

“Do you see?” Julia asked. “Do you see that it’s enchanted?”

“It…it must be…” Peter trailed off, confused.

Julia giggled and grabbed his hand.

“Come on, dimwit.”

Together they went to the garden—taking care on the creaking stairs not to wake their grandparents

—and Julia led him to the pond.

“It’s strongest here,” she said. “I feel as if it’s pul ing me.”

“It’s pul ing
us,”
said Peter. He shivered—and it was then that he heard his name. It was low, soft—so soft that it might have just been in his mind. But there was an otherworldliness about it that he couldn’t quite explain.

He grabbed Julia sharply by the hand and started for the door.

“Julia, we need to get back inside the house.

Immediately!” he hissed. “I don’t think we’re safe here.”

But Julia was not listening to Peter. She was staring at the water, and at her reflection within it.

The image seemed deeper—stronger somehow.

More real than her own face.

“Julia…”

That voice again, cal ing her name. Cal ing her name, lovingly and gently.

Peter gripped her hand harder, yanking her back towards the doorway. “Come on, Julia. There’s something strange going on. We shouldn’t be here.” There was a note of panic in his voice.

But Julia pul ed her hand free. “It’s the door, Peter. It’s the rabbit hole down to Wonderland, don’t you see?”

“Peter…”

“There isn’t a Wonderland, there’s no enchantment! Come back inside!”

“It’s the door, and I have to see what’s on the far side. You go back inside if you want to. Don’t worry about me.” Peter had never heard her sound like this

—so adult and serene. Something was changing her…and changing him too. He seized hold of her hand again but made no attempt to drag her back towards the house and its safety. She lifted her head and smiled at him, and together they stepped into the dark waters.

T
he warm turquoise sea lapped gently against the deserted white beach, framed by trees swaying slowly and graceful y in the balmy wind. The only sounds to be heard were the quiet swishing and hissing of the water across the sand, and the soft rustling of the trees in the breeze. The sand led right up to a group of grassy dunes, soaking up the warmth of the late afternoon sun.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Julia said dreamily to nobody in particular.

She sat up with a start and rubbed her eyes.

She had been asleep and dreaming: it was time to wake up. Yet even as she lowered her hands from her face, she knew that al was not as she expected.

The paradise was stil there. The blue of the sea and sky were far clearer and brighter than any colors she had ever seen in nature. The only sound she could hear was that of gentle waves swishing over the sand. She was feverish, just as Grandmother had thought.

Julia stood up, alarmed, and then felt the warm breeze tousle her hair. She took a few tentative steps towards the sea, feeling the heat of the sand beneath her feet. There was a curious, dreamlike quality to everything, as if voices had cal ed to her from the world’s end over shoreless seas. She must be imagining things, she told herself. Yet it al seemed so real.

She looked down at the sand beneath her toes and, al of a sudden, realized she was barefoot. She hurriedly checked to make sure she was decent. Her mother had always emphasized that proper young ladies should dress modestly. She was relieved to find that she was indeed dressed, but not in her familiar nightgown. She was now wrapped in a white cloth which draped smoothly about her.

Everything seemed wrong. Maybe she had gone mad! Would she be sent to a mental hospital?

Wasn’t that what had happened to one of her school friend’s uncles? He thought (her friend had told her, in the strictest confidence) that he had turned into a seagul , and had tried to fly out the window of his mansion in Kensington. He was now locked up in a special hospital which knew how to deal with people like that.
Oh dear,
Julia thought to herself.
I may end
up meeting him very soon. And I don’t think I’d like
that very much.

She took one last look at the bay. She couldn’t stay here al day. Somehow she would have to work out where she was and how she could get back home. Shading her eyes, she surveyed the sea stretching into the distance. There was no sign of any ship that might rescue her. She turned to the shore. Each end of the bay was enclosed by rocky promontories, stretching their fingers out into the sea. As she surveyed the scene, Julia noticed a path leading through the woods to her left. A moment later she was walking along it. It led over a smal hil to another bay just like the one she had left.

Julia hesitated, then began to walk towards the sand at the end of the path. She might as wel have a look at this beach as wel . And then she froze in astonishment, mingled with a little fear, because there were footsteps on this beach.

Al at once it came to her. The garden, the silver light, the pond…the pond. The waters had opened up before them and they had found themselves standing on the brink of a chasm, il uminated by a single point of light far, far beneath them. And then they had fal en…

So where was Peter?

The footsteps seemed to fol ow a path which wound along the promontory between the bays. She fol owed the path along the rocky outcrop, woods to her right and sea to her left. Suddenly the trees came to an end and she found herself in a clearing. She could see, hear, and smel the sea through the line of gnarled old trees that encircled the open space. And at the opposite end she saw a familiar figure, his back to her as he looked out over this unfamiliar world. She caught her breath and broke into a run.

Hearing the approaching footsteps, Peter turned. He looked at his sister as she came running towards him and almost didn’t recognize her. Her eyes were bright, her face flushed with relief and delight, and he hugged her, something he would never have dreamed of doing back home. But the rules seemed different here.

“Peter, it’s come true! We’ve gotten to Wonderland after al !”

Peter pul ed away with a grimace. “I don’t think we’re in Wonderland, Julia.”

“Wel then, let’s go exploring and find out what this place is.” She looked over Peter’s shoulder, past the edge of the clearing. “What were you looking at earlier? Did you see anything?”

“I saw a silver patch just over there—no, there,” he said, pointing. “It looks just like the light from the garden back at home. I was about to go explore when you appeared.”

“It seems as good a place to begin as any,” she agreed. “Shal we fol ow that trail, and see where it takes us?” She indicated a worn path down through the trees.

It might not have been a path at al , as Peter was only too eager to point out. It was nothing more than a deer trail, real y—a few patches of trampled grass that wove between the trees. But no other option presenting itself, the two started forward.

And they walked into the woods, the sea receding behind them. The soft whishing of the waves on the shoreline quickly gave way to the rustling of the leafy canopy in the warm breeze. The salty tang of the beach was displaced by the fragrance of blossoms and pine resin. Peter and Julia looked around in wonder at plants which seemed to have come straight out of travelers’ tales.

Green dappled light flickered on the path ahead of them, while creepers with blue, white, and orange flowers descended on al sides.

“It’s magic!” thought Julia to herself.

After ten minutes, the path—if indeed it could be cal ed a path—came to a fork. Peter, in the lead, paused and turned to Julia.

“Which way, do you think?” he asked, scuffing a toe in the ground. He didn’t look at his sister, loathe to admit he didn’t know the way. Julia, grateful that they had stopped, began ceremoniously tearing wide strips of cloth from the edges of her garment.

“Absolutely no idea,” she muttered, teeth clenched as she tore the white cloth. “Wait one minute while I make some shoes. My feet are kil ing me.” She tore off two lengths of fabric and wrapped them careful y around her feet, tucking the ends in under the folds. Peter, seeing the wisdom in this, did likewise.

“Now then,” said Julia, grinning at the sight of her brother’s freshly swaddled feet, “which path to take? Where’s that silver glow?”

“The trees are blocking it,” said Peter. “We’ve gone downhil from the clearing, I’m afraid.” And so they had. There was nothing but forest in every direction, and the two lightly trampled paths leading away from each other.

“Left,” said Julia promptly.

“I think right,” said Peter.

“Why?”

Peter tried very, very hard to think of a reason, wishing he’d paid a great deal more attention during his Orienteering training as a Boy Scout. He could remember something about the North Star, but it was ful daylight, and anyway who was to say that the North Star existed here, wherever they were?

“Because I said so,” he concluded. Julia gave a sound somewhere between a snort and a scoff and headed to the left, and what choice had Peter but to fol ow?

It was a half hour later—a very long half hour later—that the trees fel away to reveal another clearing. The ground sloped steeply down, leading to a level area enclosed by trees that might have been birches but for their silver leaves. On three of the clearing’s four sides rakes of seats had been cut into the ground. On the fourth there was a single stone throne. And in the center was a garden—a garden that shone in a silver light al its own.

“Told you it was left,” said Julia. Peter noted that she was smirking—most unnecessarily, he thought.

But then he forgot to be annoyed, because real y it was the most extraordinary place.

In some ways the garden looked just like the one they had left behind in Oxford. Yet this place was ruined and overgrown with weeds. Peter and Julia walked along an uneven stone pathway, overgrown with thorns and creepers, passing by a stone fountain at the center of the garden. It wasn’t working. Grass was growing in its basin and the water spouts seemed to be blocked with mud. The pond was ful of weeds and debris. Al the stonework had long since been overtaken by a mosaic of lichens and moss, and the trees seemed to have become home to a colony of bats. But in spite of al the ruin and neglect it stil had that magical touch of silver about it.