The Story of Penn
Chapter One
Penn was fourteen years old. He longed to be eighteen. So he could leave Welboron, and leave for good. He yearned for the places where the sun shone and the people were always happy, where homework was unheard of. He’d seen pictures in books and watched the films. So exotic, so far removed from Welboron. More than anything he dreamt of travelling to the Meerfel Waterfall and watching the ice crystals form as the water hit the lake of ice in a rainbow of colours. It was an event so rare that it occurred only every fifteen years and its time was due again next month. He would have done anything to go, and had done anything to go. All had gone well until today. And he bitterly knew this was the last straw and that his dreams of going were lay in tatters.
Penn and his parents, the ageless Felthrae and Merlina lived in the suburb of Welboron. Their house was a small well -tended home with a garden in a cul de sac with other similar detached homes. Home was happy. He had many good times. All was good. Even school. But lately things had changed. He was changing.
Penn had awoken that morning with an inexplicable sense of doom lowering over him. There was a sense of change, a sense that deep inside he had neglected something. He rose from bed tetchy, unsure, certain only that his world was about to be overwhelmed by events that it would change everything irrevocably.
Breakfast. This was his first bad move. Or rather the fact that breakfast was close to school time and much to his horror the realization he had forgotten to do his homework. He shook his head in disbelief and groaned. The exercise book lay open on the side but the words were not there. It had happened again. How could time have slipped by so easily, so silently, so quickly? Yet it had.
The row that ensued over the breakfast table was one of the worst ever, and to his surprise one, of the bitterest.
Why could they not understand? They always spoke how quickly time flew yet when it happened to him they were-cagey, uneasy. He shrank under their relentless barrage sending his head reeling. Tears would not flow, only anger coursed through his every corpuscle. The harsh words of their argument burned his soul with betrayal and he fled.
Penn ran. He ran faster than he had ever run before. His legs moved rapidly over the ground. He had to get away. His mind grated painfully as he recalled the face of his mother contorted unrecognizably in rage. His father’s voice rank with disapproval and disappointment droned on until Penn felt his head would explode.
He did not know where he was going or how long it would take only as far as it would take for him not to hear their angered voices ringing in his ears.
And then he ran some more.
“Call this a garden?” he muttered angrily as beads of cold sweat dripped from his brow and into his eyes. “It’s a wasteland.” He ran further into the long, deep wilderness that was the garden. His feet stumbled over rocks half buried beneath the rough clods of soil; he painfully clipped his toes on clumps of roughly hewn grass and felt molehills crumble beneath his feet. He did not hear the soft dry rustling of snakes rapidly slithering from his path into the anonymity of the tall dry ferns.
The problem with Penn was that he always felt like he was being squeezed into a pair of shoes two sizes too small. And as always they began to hurt if worn too long. Time for him ran at a different pace to everyone else. He was always playing catch up. He took too long to wake in the morning; he took too long to dress, to eat his breakfast, to leave to catch the bus for school. Time slipped away from him like sand in an hour glass and he was always caught out by it.
The only thing that made true sense to him was the garden. The garden he had helped his father to grow. They had planted the flowers, shrubs, the trees. He had watched them grow from tiny seeds and watched the garden expand into ponds and rivers with woodlands sprawling into the distance. A truly gigantic masterpiece of tamed nature. And yet, had Penn taken the time to think about, in so many ways impossible. It was here where Penn fled to when there was too much to take in, too much anger, too much angst.
Penn ran deeper into the garden. He crossed the meadow of tall sharp grasses that sliced his legs like razors. From here his feet slurped through the mossy, swampiness, disturbing clusters of angry gnats that rose into the air, surrounding him a shroud of bites and stings. He brushed them aside.
The anger still raged in his blood, driving him on and on.
Penn ran until he was suddenly forced to stop. Not by a person but the land had come to an abrupt end. Directly in front of him a steep crumbling bank dropped sharply into the arms of the restless river. He stopped suddenly, breathing hard.
This time, maybe this time, he would jump into the cold running water? Maybe this time he should. The sunlight glistened on the rippling waves, drawing him closer.
He bit his lip. Of course he wouldn’t. But all the same he’d hold that thought for another day. He held his side rubbing from it a stitch.
“It’s not fair!” he said bitterly. If he was waiting for a reply or merely an echo, none came. Not one single voice in his entire world took the trouble to enquire “why?” “It’s not fair.” He said this time shouting. This time his voice was lost in the sound of the tumbling water as it rumbled noisily over rocks. A bird squawked in surprise and took flight. Its wings flapping the rhythm of its fearfully beating heart. Penn looked up. The sun shone brightly through the treetops and through some places Penn could actually see the cool blue of the sky.
Penn scuffed the ground with his foot. It hit something solid. A large white stone half buried in the soil caught his eye. He hated it. He grinned. It was perfect. Too perfect. And it was big. Think of the splash that would make if he were to throw it in the water. He really wanted to make a splash on this place. He wanted to disturb the calmness of this wilderness, to bring havoc, to let this in this haven of peace know that it was created in a lie. Peaceful havens did not exist.
He bent down to pick it up. He wrapped his arms around it and lifted. It did not move. Like an iceberg there was more under the ground. He tried once more. He wrapped his arms around the rock and yet could not take hold. There was less to hold than before. He stepped back and wiped the sweat from his eyes and blinked.
He hadn’t been here for ages. He knew where he was yet there was something different, something new. As though someone had rearranged things. Not many things. Just enough to notice. The trees had grown with large branches hanging down shading the path he had just taken. In places the trees seemed stooped with age, and hung unkempt in resignation. Old met new, side by side, uncomfortably. A grey haze hung over the river and clung to the edges of the banks, lurking into the unhappy forest. The change was tangible.
Penn shrugged. The problem was not his. He picked up a handful of flat rounded stones and skimmed them across the water. He watched them jump and then sink.
“A friend of mine once managed twenty skims off one stone.” A gentle lilting voice said in a tone that sought conversation.
Penn started.
“Skimming is a popular pastime where I come from.”
Penn swung round. He saw no one. “Show yourself.” Penn offered feebly more afraid that the voice had no body but actually came from his mind.
“I’m right here.”
Penn scanned every branch, every moving blade of grass, and still saw nothing. “Are you a ghost?” he said really wanting it to be something so out of the ordinary that he would never look at things the same again. “I can’t see you.”
“You’re looking in the wrong place, you idiotic boy.” The tiny voice said irate. “Look lower. No. Lower still.”
Penn lowered his eyes from the trees to the flowers, to the ground. His jaw dropped open. “You’re-you’re-“ Penn walked round the stone, eyeing the small creature from all angles.
“Yes. I know what I am.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“About as impossible as it is for you to be here. So that makes us equal.” The little figure of a sprightly elderly gentleman wearing a green hat and sporting a mischievous grin was sitting crossed legged on the stone Penn had just tried to lift from the ground. Had Penn picked him up he would have fitted neatly in his hand with room to spare. “Me name is Billy MacGuire. Welcome to my home.”
For the briefest of moments the unlikeliest thing occurred. Penn was stuck for words. It did not last long but the ensuing silence rang across the universe and in a far off place in another world it was noticed.
“What do you mean your home?” Penn said. Finding himself returning. “This is my home. My garden. And while I’m on the subject what’s a leprechaun doing in my garden?”
“So you do know what I am. You’re smarter than you look.”
“What with the hat, beard that accent. There’s nothing else you could be. But you don’t exist. Not outside fairy tale books. What am I doing talking to you? You’re not real.” Without thinking he reached forward and gave Billy a sharp prod in the chest which sent him falling backwards from the stone into the tall grass.
Billy let out a scream as he fell backwards. He emerged grasping his chest crying wheezily. “What did you do that for?” He rolled on the ground in agony. “I can’t breathe. I’m dying.”
“You’re real! I felt you. You’re real.” Penn gasped. “You’re solid.”
“Of course I am. I’m as real as the next Aerengol. Don’t know what the problem is with you young today. Not happy to make use of your eyes. You have to prod some poor fellow in the chest. It’s why I’ve hidden meself away for all this time. It’s not safe from the like of you. Next thing you’re in a jar being watched. I knew it was a mistake.” He clutched his chest. “You’ve finished me off. I hope you’re satisfied. Let me lie here and breathe me last in peace.” He lay himself comfortably on the ground in a suitable pose, repairing to meet his end.
“Oh pull yourself together.” Penn said impatiently. “If I’d killed you, you wouldn’t be lying there moaning about it. Also I’m sure there’d be a lot more blood.” Penn towered over Billy. He was regaining some of his composure. “Now, Billy MacGuire, start talking. I want to know everything about you. Where you come from. How long you’ve been here and when you’re going back?”
Billy MacGuire smiled weakly.
©️ Lorraine Poulter 2015
Aerengorm Chronicles ©️Lorraine Poulter 2015
Aerengorm Chronicles ©️Lorraine Poulter 2015
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