The Tapestry (7 page)

    ‘
I will always love you my little button’ he had whispered into her ear as he kissed her on the cheek. He had always said that no matter how shiny and pretty a button; there were none in the button drawer that could compare to his. It was corny but that’s what she loved about him.

    As she held the picture in her hands she thought she saw a flicker of something...something bright and yellow flicker to the left of her out of the corner of her eye. But as she turned to look, there was nothing. She stared at the tapestry on the wall. It was something her grandmot
her Isabel had left her in the will and along with it came a message.

   
My dearest Clara, you have a gift that has also become your curse, and only you and I can know why this is so.

For the last half of my life I have been the keeper of the dragonfire and now I am nearing the end of my life. I must pass
the responsibility onto you.

    The T
apestry I am giving you contains the dragonfire, of which you will become the keeper. It was given to me in payment for the services which we both now provide. He was a poor man and this was all he had. He had told me that he could no longer bear to hold the responsibility and that he was too old to carry such a burden.

    I never k
new at the time what he meant, as I know you don’t now, and I hope you never have to find out.

    It is a beautiful tapestry which I ask you now to hang on a prominent wall in your home. Look after it and it will look after you should the day come, which I hope it never does.

    I love you my dearest Clara... Grandma xxx

   
There it was again, that little flicker, what was it?
She looked towards the tapestry again. It was about four foot by six feet long. Woven into the design were the images of two Chinese dragons, they were in obvious battle. Their faces were full of hate, at the very centre of The Tapestry was a ball of flame which had smashed together between the two of them. It was the middle of that flame that now caught Clara’s attention. She supposed this was the dragonfire that her grandma had spoken of... there was something in the middle of that ball of flame. And it appeared to be glowing.

    Just as she noticed the glowing fire, she heard the sound too. It was a horrendous, unearthly sound. She
had heard it before, or something like it... it was a sound that she would have heard on the astral planes.... but she was on this side of the curtain.
How could this be?
The sound was like that of a cackling hyena, only this hyena sounded as if it was ripping the meat from its victim whilst it was laughing. Her body froze and it felt as if her blood had run cold. There were goose pimples now searching for the sky all over her body. There was a sense of impending doom in the air that was almost tangible and she had no idea why. The air all around her had changed. It seemed to be charged with an electric current. She looked back at the tapestry and the eyes of each dragon had turned a bright green.
This can’t be happening,
she thought. And as if in response to her thought, just to prove her wrong the dragons seemed to move their heads towards her...

  ‘Clara...guardian of the dragonfire. Now is the time for you to begin your journey. You must find the trident to defeat who is now your enemy. Or the earth will surely perish’

    The dragons had spoken to her,
but surely that can’t be true
she thought,
this is all wrong, was there something in her tea?
She felt as if she needed a good lie down. She shook her head and rubbed her eyes, before she looked back at the tapestry and everything seemed to be as it was before...
stupid old woman
she thought,
too many ghost stories you been readin’ my old gal.
She rose from the chair and walked towards the tapestry. The background was totally black with the two dragons weaved into the design in white cotton with slivers of green and red throughout, but the ball of flame in the middle which seemed to be an equal effort on each dragons part was of the brightest yellow, still seemed to be a lot brighter than before. Then she heard the sound again. It froze her to the spot and sent a shiver through her very bones as she watched the dragonfire before her burn brighter. As that is what it was doing. The flame in the tapestry actually began to burn, the flames licking at the glass it was encased in leaving scorch marks up the glass, as if they were trying to escape.

    She knew this was actually happening now, there was no question. She could hear noises from the other side
of the astral curtain that you were not meant to hear when on this side...
never,
and yet she still could. The sound was the most frightening experience of her life and now her tapestry had gone up in flames.

   
And it all stopped as quickly as it had started. She looked once again at the tapestry and the flames were no more. But inside the frame was a golden disk which had green emerald type jewels encrusted around the outside with the two dragons from the tapestry inside the jewels. And between them was the dragonfire just like on the tapestry. It was just sitting at the bottom of the frame. The thing had appeared from nowhere, and even stranger was that the tapestry was undamaged and the deafening sound had ceased..

    She didn't know whether to approach the frame or simply turn on her heels and run for the hills, or even sign herself into the nearest psychiatric hospital.

    I can’t run away though,
she thought. Her Grandma Isabel or Isa
(as she preferred to be called)
had passed this tapestry on to her, knowing that she could trust her with whatever secrets it held. She had the feeling that her Grandma had never really known what those secrets were and had been saddened to never know what it was she was guarding...
but that's just it.
She had protected it and kept it safe until the day came that its secrets would be revealed. Clara... as frightened of what might lay ahead as she was, wasn’t going to turn and run, she wasn’t going to let her grandma’s effort be in vain. She was going to walk over to that tapestry and... that's as far as her thoughts got before she even reached the tapestry. She walked into an invisible barrier which would neither let her move forward or backwards. She was facing the tapestry dead on and the whole thing seemed to be swelling up and down, in and out. To her it looked as if it was breathing, or more accurately... it seemed to be rippling in some strange flutter of wind. She could hear a noise, not like the cackling hyena laugh from before; this was like a gentle breeze chasing itself through the forest. It was a pleasant sound that she felt utterly at peace with at once. She imagined that she could feel it caressing her face, gently blowing her hair and lifting it. It was the kind of clean wind that came with the promise of spring on its tail. It uplifted her very senses. She took it all in with deep breaths, could feel it ruffle her blouse and kiss her skin. Her eyes closed and she found herself on a hill; she could see for miles around but to Clara... well, she felt like the only person on the planet right then. She had never felt so exhilarated. She looked up and the sky was a perfect blue, not a cloud in sight and the sun was in its heaven. The trees all around were the greenest and fullest she had ever seen. It was when she looked down at her feet that she realised she wasn’t standing on the grass but was floating high above a hill in a place that she didn't recognise. She was slowly turning in the air above the hills...

   
Ok, this has got to be a dream,
she thought. She tried to pinch herself or move or,
do something for crying out loud
. But it was impossible; she just couldn’t wake herself up.

    Her arms w
ere outstretched and she was telling herself
wake up, wake up
as if the very words said aloud would bring her back to normality, she even visualised being back in her comfy chair at home as the idea had struck her that she had been astral travelling and got slightly lost, but even that didn't seem to work. She was still spinning very slowly above the hill. It was as if she were just surveying the land before her for some unknown reason but although she wanted to leave... she also wanted to stay. There wasn’t a sound to be heard apart from the odd little birdsong or rabbit scuttling to its warren. She felt so at peace and in awe of Mother Nature but she also felt very vulnerable and weak and without good reason.
How could she feel so at ease and yet so vulnerable
? and besides, before she could think of anything else to wake herself up... the dragons arrived.

                                              
CHAPTER TWELVE

    ‘Where’s my numbaaa one?’ the man slurred as he walked through the door. Gavin felt icy hands against his chest and back stop him dead in his tracks when he heard that voice. He turned to look at the owner of the voice but knew who it was before he had clapped eyes on the monster that was his childhood tormentor, controller... stepdad. He could never speak his name since he had become a man and couldn’t even register saying it in his own head, as if he would be betraying himself for using the dirty word.

    Gavin's head
did
betray him and turned to look at what he knew was before him. He was back in the little house where his childhood had ended. He was in the house where the whole concept of being a child had become a curse...

    The man was in a tatty dressing gown that was too short for him if he were to bend over
and pick something up. The man had come rambling down the stairs and into the room. There was a little boy sat on the floor watching the television in the little room with his sister. He was sat with his knees bent so that his feet touched his bottom and his hands were placed on top of his knees. The palms had to be facing towards his chest; if the man was in a good mood then his palms were allowed to face outwards with his fingers pointing towards his chest. It was very uncomfortable and gave him cramps. But that was how the man said he had to sit, and the little brown haired boy would never defy the man or he would be punished, and the punishments were always severe. Sometimes the man would take off his belt and snap it before he dished out a good hiding, sometimes he would have to stand in front of the television and watch a quiz show, every answer he got wrong earned him a strap of the belt or a hiding from the slipper.

   
Gavin could remember the struggle that the boy was having in keeping his hands on top of his knees and at the same time keeping the back of his feet touching his bottom whilst his legs were shaking with the effort, for that little boy
was
Gavin. He remembered for the first time in many years what it was like to be that little boy. A life full of walking on egg shells and never knowing from one day to the next if he was going to be beaten for forgetting to do his chores, or whether the blame would be laid on his Mum for Gavin's mistakes.

    While Gavin was stood there watching it seemed as if the little boy and his sister were not able to see him as this was a m
emory of his own, replaying in the confines of his own mind and he recalled somehow that this day wasn’t a good day as the man had bought the boy a new pair of pumps. As he remembered this, the vision in front of him changed and he could see the little boy with the new pumps on sitting at his desk in school and he recalled how happy he was not to have to wear the wellie's that he usually had to wear to school no matter what the weather. The new pumps were black and they felt wonderful when he tried them on, they made him feel like he was one of the trendy kids because they weren’t just black, they had an orange stripe that ran around the bottom of them that gave them just that little bit extra. He had been told to take them to school and use them for P.E. class. He was meant to wear his wellie’s the rest of the day but six year old Gavin decided he didn't want to do that. He remembered wearing his new pumps proudly showing them off all day and hiding his wellie’s at the back of the classroom where all the coats had been hung. None of the other kids were wearing wellie's and winter was over, spring was here now and the wellie’s should have been resigned to the back of the closet until next year. But
the man
insisted he wear them. Probably because it was cheaper than buying new shoes for the spring, or more likely because he knew he would be ridiculed in school for wearing wellie’s and got a sick pleasure out of knowing the humiliation it caused Gavin.

    He watched with a sick sense of trepidation in the pit of his stomach for he knew what was coming. The memories that had been locked away behind this door were now springing to life all around him and he just wanted to turn around and walk out the door. Lock it all up and never return, but he knew he couldn’t. For some reason he knew that he had to watch, although he didn't know how it was going to help him to
become
. For that is what he felt was happening to him now, he felt as if he were
becoming
someone or something. What, he didn't know but this was an important part in his
becoming
. He somehow knew that so he looked again and it was now lunchtime and he saw that little Gavin couldn’t wait to run out on to the playground and have a kick around with his friends. He remembered how it was usually quite awkward trying to play football in his wellie's and it can be painful kicking a leather football around with no protection on your feet. So little Gavin would normally just sit and watch whilst reading a book. Usually a famous five novel, these were his favourites and sometimes he had wished that he had an Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin so that he could be sent away to Kirrin Cottage during the school holidays and have fantastical adventures like Julian, Dick and Anne. Only he knew he would never want to come back. He knew it was only a dream but it was something that he had kept alive inside him because his thoughts were something that
the man
could never touch. He sometimes read the stories just because he felt he was getting one over on him... his literary tastes had changed since he had grown up but he recalled that he was always at his happiest when reading. It was like he felt that just for that brief little time that he really was in the seaside town of Kirrin and nothing could harm him
, the man
couldn’t take that away from him. His happy thoughts were all he had left when he were that little boy. Gavin didn't know at the time but what was left of his childhood was about to be taken and crushed underfoot. The torn remains of his childhood left behind on the pavement to be washed away with the rain like yesterdays newspaper bearing the headline “BOY GONE MISSING”.