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  ELLRING

  Peter Joison

  Copyright © 2014 Peter Joison

  All rights to this novel are reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the copyright holder. The characters and situations are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Peter Joison.

  www.peterjoison.com

  For Cassie.

  CHAPTER ONE

  SUPERNATURAL THINGS WEREN’T supposed to happen in a fruit and vegetable mart.

  Apart from the bored middle-aged woman behind the cash machine, lazily writing prices on squares of card, the only people in the large one room store were an old lady over at the fruits, and Turner Conlin. Turner looked around at the stands of colourfully ordered vegetables and fruit. If he was going to start eating better than the instant noodles and pizza he had been overdosing on lately, he was in the right place. He almost felt healthier just being here. So far he had four potatoes in his plastic basket, and gave himself a mental thumbs up.

  Swinging his basket, quietly whistling a tune, Turner strolled up the fruit lane, and passed the green and red rows of various apples: Granny Smith, Bramley, Cox, Spartan. So many varieties. Turner had no idea which were for cooking and which were for eating. Thankfully, he saw the familiar yellow fingers of bananas at the end of the aisle, and made a bee-line for those.

  He drew near the frail-looking old lady. Stooped over the melons, she warily prodded a cantaloupe as if it was about to bite her finger. Just for a moment Turner glanced at the citrus fruit on the other side of the aisle.

  When he looked again, there was a young woman where the old lady had been.

  Mouth open, his gaze locked on the young woman, his neck twisted around as he walked another few steps. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. He had a flash of long red hair, smooth neck and long arms before he bumped into the banana stand, whacking his knee painfully.

  When he turned to look back the young woman was gone. It was just the old lady.

  Turner blinked, unsure of what he had just witnessed. He felt almost dizzy, and became acutely aware of his surroundings, the odour of ripe fruit, the leaves of wilted lettuce on the linoleum tiled floor and the high, white ceiling with its rows of old fluorescent lighting.

  The old woman moved on down the fruit lane.

  What just happened? There was a girl. He was sure of it.

  He had no recollection of walking to the stand of leeks and spring onions. But now, he used their signs, which sat above the stands on thin wooden poles, to hide behind as he spied on the old lady. Her hair was grey and thin, her hands stick-like, she wore an off-white cardigan and a dress the colour of old moss. She carried a red cane basket in one hand and moved from fruit to fruit, poking, squeezing and smelling.

  Could he make the girl appear again? Turner squinted at the old woman, squeezed his hands into tight balls, and chanted to himself, ‘Pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl …’ He waited a moment. Nope, she was still an old lady. He turned his head and quickly looked back. Magic! he thought. But no change. The old woman stubbornly remained an old woman. He frowned at a leek. Maybe he had imagined it?

  He had seen the girl when he had walked past the old lady, so maybe if he got close enough it would work again. He left his base at the leeks and moved stealthily towards the old woman. Back around into the fruit aisle. Nice and slow. Just act casual. His heart quickened, and his hand felt damp on the wire handle of his basket.

  The old lady looked up, her eyes narrowing.

  Turner stopped and feigned interest in the grapes. He could feel perspiration break out on his forehead. After a moment, she went back to choosing oranges and he continued on his quest. One step. Another. Turner’s heart pounded in his chest as he approached the old woman’s slightly hunched back. He held his breath. Closer. Closer. And three feet away, without even a flicker, the old lady transformed into the young woman.

  Turner stopped. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. And although he had played hundreds of hours of computer games, he had never expected anything like this to happen. If a large blue police box had materialised at that moment, in the middle of the fruit and vegetables, he would not have been at all surprised.

  The girl had her back to him, busy with the oranges. She seemed to be about Turner’s age, somewhere in her early twenties. Her dark red hair fell in thick waves over a short black top and held promises of cherries, roses and wine. Turner’s gaze travelled down to slightly ripped black Levis, with a studded red leather belt and lipstick-red Doc Martens. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and tucked a stray strand of hair over one ear with her little finger. He liked her style. She was cool. Gracefully cool.

  The girl turned around.

  Two things immediately and acutely struck Turner. One, her eyes were a most wonderful orange, the colour of autumn leaves. And two, he had forgotten to move. He realised that he must seem like a stalker just standing there, so close, staring.

  ‘I,’ he began, but his tongue was thick, and his mind thicker.

  The girl looked not just surprised, but shocked. Her head turned left and right, as if checking for an escape route. Turner had no idea what to say.

  ‘Sorry,’ he finished lamely, and scurried back to the safety of the leeks. ‘Bugger, bugger, bugger!’

  Feeling embarrassed, he roughly grasped the timber of the vegetable stand, and stared down at his hands. He panted, full of nervous energy. It was definitely weird. Beyond weird, in fact. But the image of her face wouldn’t leave his mind. She was gorgeous. Weird, but gorgeous.

  He heard voices behind him and looked over his shoulder. It was the old woman, talking to the cashier. Turner quickly scanned the store. Nope, no girl. The girl was the old woman. The old woman who somehow transformed into a wonderful red-haired young woman whenever he got close. It was magic. Supernatural. And so, so cool.

  ‘Do you want these in a plastic bag Mrs Ashton, or back in your basket?’

  ‘Oh, back in the basket this time Margery, thank you.’

  Turner eavesdropped on the conversation while he turned a cucumber over in his hands. Mrs Ashton? That’s not something you would call a twenty-something girl is it?

  Without looking back, the old woman shuffled out of the mart. He watched her walk out of sight behind a tall stand of nuts and dried fruit near the doors. He wanted to follow her and see if she turned into a young woman again, or maybe a sword bearing elf, or even a vampire—Turner was prepared for anything at this point, but instead he stood there, immobile, his basket in hand, and his stomach clenched in knots. This was easily the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him. What if he followed her and she really was a blood sucking vampire? He breathed out in a puff. He thought of the girl again, those eyes, and made his decision. He hurried to the counter and gave the bored looking woman his plastic basket of potatoes.

  ‘That’ll be one pound five, love.’

  Turner opened his wallet. ‘Uh, can I pay by card?’

  The woman sighed as if this was the tenth time she’d heard that today. Perhaps it was. ‘Not for four tateys, love.’

  Turner glanced at the potatoes, and then towards the entrance. He frantically dug his hands into his jeans for change. He grasped a bunch of coins, but as he pulled them from his pocket they fell and scattered across the floor, rolling in all directions. The woman sighed and looked at him as if he was a cat which had just coughed up a hairball onto her slipper. Turner squatted and began picking up the money. He couldn’t reach the two pound coin which had
rolled under the cashier’s counter.

  He looked again in the direction of the doors. He gave up on the coins. He stood quickly. ‘Sorry. Look, I’ll come back later or something OK?’ He left his potatoes on the counter and hurried to the door, to the sound of another deep sigh from the bored looking woman at the counter.

  Out on the pavement, his eyes took a moment to adjust to the glare from the spring sun. Then, he looked up and down Wilby’s narrow High Street. Crammed with old buildings pressed up against the pavement, she could have easily ducked into another shop by now. He paced a few steps one way, turned and came back. What had she been wearing? White or green? Turner squinted, looked around again, but still no old lady and no girl. He punched his thigh. Damn!

  *

  Ember sat directly across the road from the Wilby Fruit & Veg Mart and watched the young man plod away up High Street, hands in pockets, head down. Although he had glanced at her sitting in the bus shelter, he hadn’t given her another look.

  This was because Ember now looked for all the world like an overweight, balding man in pale grey tracksuit trousers, and a dirty white t-shirt with the words ‘Ey up mi duck!’ emblazoned across the front.

  Ember was wearing a fell: a small bit of sorcery that allowed her to disguise herself as anybody else. She had changed from old woman to fat man at the exact moment she had stepped outside the door of the Fruit & Veg Mart. She had then quickly marched across the street and deposited her distinctive red basket out of sight behind the bus shelter. Unfortunately, it was external to her body and she could not disguise it with her fell. She had taken a seat next to a surly looking teenager with white ear buds in his ears, who was busy tapping away at his phone.

  The Fat Loser, as Ember thought of the fat man fell, was one of her favourites. She used it whenever she came to town and just wanted to do a bit of people watching. He made it easy for her to eat at a fast food place, or sit in the town square, next to the sixteenth century clock tower, and throw warm chips to the pigeons. Nobody bothered a middle-aged scruffy fat man.

  Ember had frowned and let out a small gasp when she had seen the young man from the Fruit & Veg Mart lunge out the door and look frantically up and down the street. Her fat man had curled his hands into fists, and she sat upright on the bus shelter’s aluminium seat.

  In the store Ember had been surprised when the young man had approached her, and had almost been willing to pass him off as some weird, shy guy. But seeing the way he looked for her after he had left the store, made Ember think twice about that.

  Because, why would a perfectly nice looking young man run out of a store and search for an old woman like that? Not unless …

  Ember had to get home. Her sisters would need to know about this.

  She rose from the bus shelter seat, grabbed her basket, and remembering to waddle like a fat man, walked up High Street. She passed the florist and the Cute Cuts Hairdresser, and turned down Westbury Road to where she had parked the Land Rover at Tesco’s, Wilby’s only supermarket. She had decided against completing her shopping trip; bigger things were afoot.

  She closed the door of the four-wheel drive and looked around to make sure no one was watching. Then, she closed her eyes and began to change fells again. She imagined she stood in front of a mirror and old Mrs Ashton stared back. One moment she was The Fat Loser, the next, old Mrs Ashton. Hello dearie.

  Ember grasped the steering wheel and took a deep breath. Things had been nice and quiet lately. But if that guy was what Ember thought he was, she and her sisters would have to come back into town, track him down—and kill him.

  *

  Still keeping an eye out for the old lady, Turner marched up High Street. If anyone would believe him about the transforming girl, it was his mad friend Derek.

  A small electronic duck quacked as Turner entered the Wilby Computer Fix. The shop was small, and tightly packed with shelves of computer accessories: speakers, mice, keyboards, and USB toys, but not many actual computers. Turner knew the main business of the shop was repairing people’s broken machines.

  A young man with long shaggy hair and a scruffy short beard looked up from behind the computer at the front desk. He wore a black t-shirt with the letters ‘WCF:WTF?’ printed in yellow across the chest.

  ‘Turner! Whatcha know mate?’

  Turner walked to the glass counter. He looked back at the door, and took a deep breath. ‘Derek, you are not going to believe what just happened to me.’

  A calculating look came over Derek’s face. ‘You found your mojo? It was in a sock.’

  ‘Ha ha. No, I …’

  ‘You discovered that your deep and secret yearning for ABBA music means you can now wear your showgirl outfit with pride?’

  ‘What? I mean, really. What?’

  Derek opened a box of USB drives with a small knife. ‘Wait, I got this. An alien.’

  ‘Derek.’

  ‘Yes mate?’

  ‘Stop. Listen OK? There was this girl in the Fruit & Veg Mart.’

  Derek raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh, did you … hang on, when you say girl, what do you mean, you pervert?’

  Turner ran his hand through his hair. ‘Oh my God, Derek. Really? She was twenty one, twenty two. Well, most of the time.’

  Derek had a handful of the USB drives in plastic packets. He placed them in a pile on the counter, and looked up. ‘What do you mean, most of the time?’

  Turner placed his hands behind his head. ‘I mean, there was this old lady.’

  ‘I thought you said girl?’

  ‘Yeah, but first, there was this old lady. When I walked past her she turned into the girl. A really pretty girl.’

  ‘Just, turned into?’

  Turner realised how this was sounding. God, he was sounding crazy to himself. ‘Yes. Like a switch being thrown. One second, old lady, next second pretty girl. She literally changed in front of my eyes.’

  Derek grabbed his small pile of USB drives, walked around the counter and began to hang the packets on a display stand. ‘Right. Right. Shape changing. OK, cool.’

  Turner followed his friend. ‘You don’t believe me.’

  ‘Look, Turner. I want to believe. I want to believe everything. Aliens, Hollow Earth, elves, ESP, friggin Tinker Gnomes of Dragonlance. I want to believe in them all. But which of those have I ever seen in my twenty seven times around the sun? Zilch. Big fat zero. So no, I don’t believe you. But I do want some of the weed you’re on. It sounds intense.’

  Turner let out a deep sigh. He thought if anyone would believe him it would be crazy Derek. ‘Haven’t smoked anything and I’m not on anything else either. I saw it.’

  Derek pointed to a row of clip on webcams. ‘Did you take a photo? Or, even better, a video?’

  ‘No, there wasn’t enough time.’

  ‘Show me when you do. Till then, you want to grab some noodles up the street? It’s my lunch time.’

  Turner wanted to scream in his friends face, tell him it had really happened. He knew what he’d seen. But he knew better than to push the point. Derek wouldn’t bend. End of story.

  Turner sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘OK, noodles it is.’

  *

  Ember sped through the tunnel of old oaks that lined the driveway to her home, Wickerwell Manor.

  She tapped the steering wheel with her fingernail, looked once in the rear-view mirror and dropped her fell.

  The manor house appeared from behind the trees: a gothic dollhouse, a hodgepodge of stone facades, decorated gables, turrets and intersecting, pointed roofs. Despite her current edginess, Ember smiled and thought, crazy old house; just the home for a group of misfit sorcerous sisters. The Land Rover parked beside a round, stone fountain. A marble, naked nymph stood in its centre, bearing a pitcher on her shoulder from which the water tumbled.

  Ember entered the large entrance hall. ‘Hello?’ Her voice echoed of the high ceiling and the timber staircase.

  ‘Hi Em! We’re in the Great Hall,’ came th
e voice of her sister Chloe.

  Ember turned into an arched doorway which led into large room, easily the largest in the manor. This was the room the five sisters spent the most time in. Lit with dusty beams of light from the many bay windows, it had worn wooden floors, a large fireplace and a motley collection of furniture covered in piles of old books and maps. One corner though had been set aside, looking all the world like the room of a small girl. It contained a bed with a fairy adorned duvet, colouring books, and a small TV, in front of which a young girl sat watching cartoons. Usually Ember would stop and say hello to her ‘little’ sister Skye, but today she gave her a quick wave as she strode into the room.

  Celeste, Ember’s eldest sister, put down the cup of tea she’d been sipping. ‘What is it, Ember? I can feel you’re upset.’ Ember’s other sisters, Brooke and Chloe also wore looks of concern.

  Ember stopped, took a deep breath and said, ‘I think I saw a Skorn.’

  Celeste stood. ‘What? Where?’

  Chloe pointed to an empty chair. ‘Sit Em. Tell us.’

  Ember collapsed into the ancient, upholstered armchair. ‘It was in the Fruit & Veg Mart. It looked like a guy.’

  Celeste sat down again. ‘And?’

  ‘And he was kind of watching me. Not me of course, Mrs Ashton.’

  Chloe frowned. ‘Is that it, Em? Kind of watching you? What did he look like?’

  Ember could see the doubt on her sister’s faces. She looked around at each of them. ‘In his early twenties I think. Shaggy hair. Unshaven. Jeans, t-shirt. I caught him standing just behind me as well. Really close.’

  Brooke laughed. ‘Some wanker gets his jollies from sniffing old ladies. So what?’

  ‘No,’ said Ember, ‘it was more than that.’

  Celeste picked up her tea and took a sip. ‘Doesn’t sound like much really, does it, Em? Although Skorn aren’t easy to spot, they usually give themselves away with twitching, sniffing and that kind of thing. He was probably just some sad sack.’

  Ember stood up. ‘Bloody hell! I tell you I saw a Skorn and you guys just brush it off! Thanks!’