Tag Archive: fantasy
In the Company of Angels, Episode 7.2 – The Attic (cont.)
“What do you two have to say for yourselves?” the Professor asked, opening the door to his study wider, and crossing his arms over his chest. He looked at both of them expectantly.
“Well, Sir, we’re…um…we’re students.” said Sam.
“Yes, that’s entirely possible,” said the Professor, “but is it common for American students to invade the homes of English professors without their leave?”
“Oh! So we’re in England!” Jill said.
“Where else might you think you were?” asked the Professor.
“Well, Sir, that might take some explaining,” said Sam.
“Well?! Well?! If it requires some explaining, then please proceed! But, Mrs. Mills, so that we do not begin to obtain a reputation for uncouth behavior toward foreign students, will you be so kind as to make us some tea? We’ll take it in my study.”
“Your study, Sir?” Mrs. Mills asked. “Well, I would have thought it more suitable to serve it in the childrens’ room, but as you wish….” The woman turned and tromped heavily down the stairs. A few moments later, Sam and Jill could hear the clanking of pots and pans in what must have been the kitchen, below. In the meantime, the Professor ushered them into his room.
The space was somewhat unkempt. There were books and bookshelves everywhere, and a second door across the room led into either a closet or another room. A desk was situated beneath a window that overlooked a well-tended yard and garden. Jill saw roses trained onto an archway in front of the house, and through this the walkway to the house appeared to pass. She noticed a cat slinking past the roses; it quickly disappeared into a hole in the hedge.
The colors and smells of an English summertime permeated even the mustiness of the Professor’s retreat, but Jill loved the bookish aromas and the scent of pipe smoke that surrounded them. These reminded her of her own library, and of her father: he had also loved books and had smoked a pipe. Involuntarily, she felt tears welling up in her eyes, but she immediately tried to stop them. “This is not the time or the place to be thinking of father!” she told herself.
The Professor closed his study door behind them both and gestured to chairs. “Please do make yourselves comfortable. The tea will be along shortly; or perhaps longly, given Mrs. Mills’ current mood.” He chuckled. Once they were both seated, he turned his desk chair around and sat facing them.
“Now, do please tell me who you are and where you’ve come from. And kindly don’t repeat whatever story you might have told Mrs. Mills, if indeed you offered her any explanation at all. I know you aren’t American students on holiday. So, who precisely are you?”
Sam and Jill looked at each other, and Jill gestured toward Sam. “You should tell him,” she said.
“Everything?” he asked.
Jill shut her eyes for a moment and tried to get a sense of just who this Professor might be; whether he was someone that could be trusted. All she could perceive about him through her newly-emerging empathic sense suggested that he was a bright light in a dark world…someone very unusual. She almost perceived him as having a sparkling halo — similar to what she felt whenever she was in telepathic contact with Polydora. She opened her eyes and gazed at him with a feeling of wonder.
“Who exactly are you?!” she asked.
The Professor smiled broadly. “Why, no one in particular, my dear. But you two…there’s something about you two that is quite different. I’m used to children coming here you know…since the War. But none were ever Americans. And even Americans don’t dress as you two are dressed. So, where exactly are you from? And what are you doing in my house?”
“He’s safe,” said Jill to Sam. Sam nodded.
“OK then, what I am about to tell you might make you think I’m kidding. I’m not. We’ve come from another place,” Sam said, “and maybe even from another time…. Gee, I wish Mr. Luke was here; he’d know what to tell you. But, let’s just say that we came here because we are trying to get some answers to some important questions and to retrieve something that was stolen from…from its rightful place. We didn’t mean to break into your house; we were, well, sort of led here….”
The Professor leaned back in his chair and studied Sam carefully. “What is your name?” he asked.
“Sam Deckard,” Sam answered.
“And yours, my dear?” the Professor asked, turning to Jill.
Jill suddenly had an intense urge to do something she had not tried before, except with Polly. She tried to answer by speaking to the Professor with her mind.
“My name is Jill Jonsson” she thought, as “loudly” as she knew how.
The Professor’s eyes opened wide. “Oh my!” he said aloud.
“What?” asked Sam.
The Professor looked slightly bewildered. “Jill Jonsson?” he asked Jill directly.
“Yes,” she thought back to him.
“Oh, this is marvelous!” said the Professor.
“What is?” asked Sam.
“I’ve been talking to the Professor the way Polly taught me,” said Jill.
Sam’s eyes went wide, but he held his tongue.
The Professor, now sitting forward in his chair, looked with wonder at Jill. “Are you of the spirit world, my dear, or human?” he asked.
Jill was perplexed. “I’m just a girl, Sir,” she said. “But I seem to be able to ‘hear’ some things that other people think, and I can sometimes talk with people without speaking. But this is all pretty new for me, so I’m not sure I’m that good at it.”
“Extraordinary!” said the Professor. “I’ve never encountered anything like it!”
“But, Sir,” said Sam,”we actually came here for a reason, and we really can’t stay long; we have friends waiting for us who need our help. I can’t tell you much more, because there’s a lot of danger involved with talking about such things. Mr. Luke warned me that we might be entering a time-tethered realm, and if that’s the case, the less you know about us, the better for us and for you.”
“I’m sure I haven’t understood half of what you just said, young man,” said the Professor, “but I do see that you are both part of something that I ought to take seriously., even without understanding it. Tell me what you can and what you need help with. I’ll promise nothing up front other than to listen, but I am not unfamiliar with…hmm…how should I say this? With magical things. So, I promise to help if I believe I can and should.”
“Well, Sir,” said Sam,”what we need help with, at least mainly, is a raven.”
“A raven?!”
“Yes, Sir. A raven. It’s one that spends some time in your attic, it seems.”
“Ah! That must be the one Mrs. Mills is constantly complaining about. She has tried to shew it out whenever she has found it there, but it always comes back. It even creates new holes in the eaves for itself whenever we close up the old ones. But I haven’t the heart to harm it; it strikes me as a very unusual and clever bird, and I’m fond of all manner of creatures. But, whatever do you two want with it?”
“Well, Sir, we think it’s got something: something that doesn’t belong to it. And we need to get that back so that we can prevent a lot of bad things from happening,” said Jill.
“Well, I wouldn’t put thievery past any raven. They love collecting things, you know, especially shiny ones. I remember finding one’s nest as a boy, and it was filled with bits of tinsel, ribbons, marbles, and even broken bits of glass and mirrors.
But, that’s neither here nor there. whatever is it that has this one has stolen?”
“A gem, Sir. A sapphire, we think, not unlike this one.” Sam pulled his own crystal pendant from beneath his shirt and held it out to the Professor.
The Professor went to reach for the sapphire, but then stopped. “That’s no ordinary gem,” he said.
“What do you mean, Sir?” asked Sam, nervously.
The Professor looked Sam directly in the eye. “I mean that it has some property beyond just being a pretty thing. There’s a…a power in it, it seems to me. Am I right?”
Jill nudged Sam. “I told you; he’s safe. You can tell him.”
“Well, Sir, yes, you are. This crystal, and others like it, allow a person who wears it to do things that might seem pretty strange to most folks.”
“You mean like travel to different worlds? Or to different times?”
“Uh, yes Sir. But, like I said, we really shouldn’t tell you too much because it might cause us all a lot of problems,” said Sam, “but could I ask you a question?”
“Certainly.”
“Can you tell us where we are, and what year it is?”
“Properly speaking, young man, you should ask me ‘would you tell us’, not ‘can you tell us’.”
The Professor shook his head and muttered under his breath,”Whatever do they teach them in American schools?” Then, in a louder voice, he said, “But, laying that aside, do you mean to say you don’t know where you are? How extraordinary! But, it has been a day of extraordinary things. So, to answer you, you are in Oxford, England,” said the Professor.
“And the year is?”
“The year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty six.”
“Oh no!” said Sam.
In the Company of Angels, Episode 7.1 – The Attic
Once Jill had waved to Polydora through the portal, the Ferrumari’s head disappeared back into the painting. The painting itself, still glowing brightly, depicted the very plaza that she, Sam, and Polly had been standing upon just a moment before. The scene looked nearly identical to the current state of the plaza, and seen now housed within a plain bronze frame, the painting appeared frighteningly apocalyptic — much more so than the one in Mr. Luke’s Gallery that had first brought them to Polly’s home world.
But Jill had little time to think about Orbaratus now. She turned around her and surveyed the space within which she and Sam were standing. It was a bit stuffy, and she loosened her cloak and pushed it back from around her shoulders. Then she noticed the smells: of old wood, of dust, and of something else, something quite sweet.
“Are those flowers?” she wondered. But just at that moment, very clearly in her head, she heard the word “Roses!” She turned and looked at Sam. He smiled at her and said, in a whisper, “I think I smell roses blooming! They must be outside. It must be summertime here!”
It was a disconcerting moment for Jill, because, for the first time ever, other than with Polydora, she realized that she had caught a whiff, if you will, of someone else’s thoughts. She didn’t know if she was going to like what struck her as eavesdropping on other people; she wondered then if being an empath would prove to be something she could turn on or off, like the volume control of a radio, or whether it would just be a new form of background noise that she would have to get accustomed to. She didn’t know what the answer would be, but thought perhaps she should ask Polly, or Mr. Luke, once they returned to Orbaratus. For now though, she had other business to attend to.
Sam gestured around them, and Jill could see that he was pointing out the many other paintings that were stacked haphazardly about within the crawlspace. These were scattered along with old pieces of furniture, lamps, wooden chests, and even the headboard and footboard of a bed frame in one corner. All of these were covered with varying layers of dust, but the paintings were stacked vertically so that, for many of them, you could still see the images clearly within their frames. These images were all glowing with that otherworldly light that Jill had come to recognize. She unclenched her hand and turned her ring around, and only then did the lights fade.
“I don’t see any sign of the raven,” she whispered.
“No, me neither,” said Sam, “but let’s look around and see if maybe it’s built a nest in one of the nooks and crannies of this place.”
“That’s going to be hard in all of this murk,” said Jill.
The crawl space was high enough to stand near one wall, but the beams of the roof, with wood slats nailed across them, tapered down from the top of the wall to the floor. In the very farthest corner of the angle made by the roof beams and the floor, there were cracks of light that came from the eaves, and these provided the only illumination with which to see in the cramped space. There were shadowy corners into which the raven could easily have flown and they would never have been the wiser.
But Sam grinned broadly and pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket. “Never worry! I was a Boy Scout once,” he whispered, “‘Be prepared’ shouldn’t just be their motto. We should adopt it for The Framerunners as well! Ever since I was able to find an LED flashlight that would run for days on one set of batteries, I’ve never been without one. You’d be amazed at how many dark places you find yourself in when you’re jumping from world to world!”
He switched on the flashlight and they were able to clearly see the crawlspace in all its musty, dust-filled glory. But Jill noticed that the dust on the floor was largely undisturbed; apparently the attic wasn’t very often used. That would be good for them, as it meant they would be less likely to be discovered.
They worked their way from the Orbaratus painting to one end of the long crawl space. There they found first one, then a second small doorway that they guessed must open onto rooms of the house at that end. Then they doubled back, passed their painting again, and continued to the other end of the attic. There they found an additional door. The crawl space appeared, then, to run the whole length of the house.
“I wonder if this is something like a row-house, with openings into different people’s homes?” whispered Jill.
“I don’t know,” said Sam, “and I hope we don’t have to find out. But can you see over there in the far corner? There’s a lot of light coming in near the floor: a bright spot. I’m betting there’s a hole there, and maybe that’s where the raven has gotten to.”
“But what if the raven just flew into a different painting? There have to be at least a half dozen we’ve seen that it could have gotten into. That is, if it’s still carrying one of the crystals.”
“Well, we don’t even know if it has a crystal, but I see what you’re saying, and that would be mighty bad news if you’re right,” said Sam. “On the other hand, there’s one thing we haven’t tried yet. Remember Mr. Luke said to let you have a go at finding the bird; that maybe you could sense where it was even if we couldn’t discover it outright. Want to give that a try?”
Jill nodded. “I’m new at this, but here goes….” She shut her eyes and did her best to sense what was around her. She knew Sam was there, but what about past him, past the confines of the crawlspace? She listened and tried to see if she could feel the presence of anyone other than Sam.
At first she could detect nothing at all. But then she began to have the growing sense that there was a person nearby. She imagined it must be a woman; she wasn’t sure why. But this woman, whoever she might be, appeared in her mind to be busy with something. Jill listened. She “heard” snippets that might have been coming from the woman’s head.
“All this dust…must get the tea on soon…wherever did I put the dustbin?…Professor will be having company later…” Jill experienced these as fleeting images more than as words, but they struck her as the sort of things someone would be muttering to herself while bustling around inside of a house.
“I think there must be a housekeeper, or someone like that, nearby. Maybe in the room on the other side of this door,” she whispered to Sam.
“OK. Anything else?” he asked.
Jill concentrated once more. There was another presence, she thought, but not as busy as this first person. Someone concentrating his attention inwardly. “So it’s a ‘he’ rather than a ‘she’,” Jill thought. But he was not close at hand. Rather, he seemed to be down toward the other end of the house.
But just then Jill’s attention was taken away from listening, for she detected, or thought she detected, something like rapid movement, and the feeling of being watched. She opened her eyes and gazed in the direction she had felt the movement come from.
“Sam, look over toward that bright spot you mentioned.”
Sam turned and they both watched the patch of light in the corner. After a moment, they saw movement, and something that made the light blink out, and then back on again. Sam turned his flashlight toward the patch of light, and it glinted off of the beady eyes of the raven, which had apparently just flown back into the crawlspace.
“There he is!” Sam exclaimed, forgetting to whisper. The raven froze in the light for a moment, but then turned around and dove back through the hole in the eaves.
“Oh, blast it all!” said Sam, and stamped his foot.
“Shush!!!” whispered Jill, but it was too late. She could hear footsteps just outside the door beside them, and then, a moment later, the handle turned and light streamed in from the room beyond. A middle-aged woman, slightly plump, was standing in the open doorway peering intently in at them.
“Oh!” she said. “You two gave me such a start! The Professor didn’t say anything about any children in the house. But where have you stowed your things? And what on earth are you doing in this musty old attic?!”
“Well, we, uh…” said Jill.
“Americans no less!” said the woman. “Well, come along out of there, dearies. I’ll need to be setting up places for you both to sleep, I suppose. The Professor is so busy with his own work; keeps me on my toes, he does, never letting on who is coming for supper or…. But, that’s not your problem, dearies. Come on out and I’ll check with the Professor to find where I should put you, though I expect it will be in the children’s room, I shouldn’t wonder. Do you know how long you’ll be staying with us?”
Sam and Jill had no option but to accompany the bustling woman from without the attic space and into the adjoining room. It was a large room, brightly lit. They followed the housekeeper (for so she appeared to be) into a hallway just outside, and then into another room past the head of the staircase that led to the ground floor below.
The woman knocked on the door. “Professor, I’m here with the two children. Shall I set them up in the children’s room, as usual?”
Sam and Jill heard nothing for a moment, but then the door to the room opened and a tall, middle-aged man with a receding hairline opened the door. Past him, they could both see that the room beyond must be a sort of a study and library.
“Mrs. Mills, do be so kind as to explain yourself. There are no children in the house to my knowledge. That all ended months ago.”
“Well then, how do you account for these ‘uns?” asked Mrs. Mills.
The Professor looked past Mrs. Mills at Jill and Sam, and was clearly startled. “My goodness! I’ve never seen them before in my life!
In the Company of Angels, Episode 6.2 – Parting Company (cont.)
“I can see that there are wooden beams that come down to the floor”, said Luke, “and they meet somewhere above the portal: atop a wall, probably, or perhaps at the peak of the roof. I can also see other shapes scattered about: maybe they’re odds and ends, like you’d find in a storage space…? Some of them do, in fact, appear to be covered with cloth, and everything has a thick layer of dust on it.”
Sam beamed at Jill and nudged her. “Mr. Luke can see stuff better than anybody. I think it comes from his being a Renderer. I remember one time my trying to draw a frog, and he was coaching me. He kept shaking his head and saying ‘You’re not looking properly, Samuel!’” Sam had altered his voice to mimic Mr. Luke’s.
Jill giggled. “You do that very well!” she said under her breath.
Sam grinned. “Yeah, but I never could get the frog to look right, Honestly, I couldn’t draw my way out of a paper bag! But I’ll bet if you showed Mr. Luke anything, he could draw it, and so life-like it’d scare the heck out of you!”
“So, is that the main thing Renderers can do? Draw?” asked Jill.
“It’s a lot more than that. They can sketch the simplest thing and framerun it…even better than I can, because they’re the ones that drew it! You’ll see for yourself if Mr. Luke goes to find Azarias. You would already have seen it if there’d been a surface for him to draw on down in the street; up here, it would be easy, ‘cause he could use any of these stones as a canvas.”
“Alright,” said Mr. Luke, “If you two will be so kind as to stop chattering, I think I have a plan. I can see nothing immediately dangerous through this portal, and I would definitely like to know what we can learn about that bird. It was a raven, by the way; did any of you notice?”
Sam winked at Jill but said nothing. Polly remained silent.
Luke looked around at everyone. “Here’s how I suspect we ought to proceed, but I’m open to suggestions. I believe that I ought to consult with Azarias, provided I can find him. So, I will attempt to framerun back to London. I’ll explain the situation to him and see if he can shed any light on what might be happening here. If he deems it necessary, I’ll bring him back to help us.
“Sam, if you and Jill are willing, I’d like for you both to explore this frame and learn what you can about what’s on the other side. Most importantly, I’d like you to see where the raven came from. There’s something very peculiar about a bird that can framerun! My suspicion is that the creature may have stolen the third crystal, but perhaps you’ll find that out once you’ve caught up with it.”
“How much exploring do you want us to do, Mr. Luke?” asked Sam. “I mean, yeah, we may find ourselves in an attic or a crawlspace or something, but if we see no signs of the raven, what then? Do you want us to snoop around a bit?”
“Only if it seems safe. We have no idea which of the Iconic Realms may be on the other side of that frame, so there may be dangers that we’re not expecting,” said Mr. Luke.
“You mean like wild boars in Narnai?” Sam was grinning.
“Ahem! That, Samuel, was not my fault. And, for our purposes here, it is ancient history! No, I mean that we don’t even know if what looks like an attic means that there will be human beings there that built it! Aside from that, remember that the portal could also lead you back to earth, but at a different time than our own. If that appears to be the case, you need to touch nothing and return immediately; we can’t risk meddling in a time-tethered realm.”
“A what?” asked Jill.
“Sam will explain it to you. But, Sam, remember: prudence first! And although she’s just learning to use her abilities, have Jill help you to find the bird; she may be able to track it down even if you can’t. For that matter, she may be able to alert you to the presence of people or dangerous creatures before you would even know they’re there.”
Sam nodded. “We’ll be careful.” Jill looked at Sam and swallowed.
“Polly,” said Mr. Luke. “If you don’t mind, I’d like for you to remain here so that you can keep an eye on this new frame and on the stone gateway and its crystals. I don’t know if you could get through the portal to help Sam and Jill if they needed it in any event, but you can watch their progress as long as they are within sight. And you can also help them sense what’s in the space before they jump in blindly…you may be able to tell them who or what is near the picture on the other side before they framerun it. Also, if anything happens to them or to the doorway, you should try to follow me back to London through the sketch I’m going to draw.”
Polly nodded. “I shall stay here. This is still my home, and I fear nothing on Orbaratus, even if some danger lurks behind the doorway.”
“So, does this plan suit everyone?”
“Works for me,” said Sam.
“Me too,” said Jill, “although I still think that portal’s kinda small….”
Polydora simply nodded.
“Good. Then it’s settled. I’ll be off first…” Mr. Luke walked toward one of the monoliths that littered the plaza, drew a piece of chalk from a pocket in his drover coat, and then quickly and expertly sketched a rectangular doorway through which could be seen a sofa and a window beyond it. It was a very simple sketch, and one that only took him a minute or two to draw onto the stone surface. But, once he was satisfied, he bowed to the others.
“I shall return as soon as possible. If anything goes seriously amiss, Polly, please come after me. And you two,” he said, turning to Sam and Jill, “remember: caution! No heroics! Jill, do your best to rein Sam in if he threatens to do anything rash!”
With that, Mr. Luke turned his ring around on his finger and stepped into his drawing.
Despite Sam’s comment about Renderers, Jill was still astonished and gasped when he disappeared. She had seen the bluish glow on the sketch even as it was being created, but this was the simplest of images: nothing like the painting that they had traveled through to reach Orbaratus, nor any of the pictures in her library that she now knew had been framerun by Mr. Luke and Sam…and Rusty.
“Wow!” she said. “That’s really amazing! So, can he do that to go anywhere? At any time?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” said Sam. “‘Course, he can’t Mazerun, so I guess that’s something I can do that he can’t. But who wouldn’t like to be able to step through their own drawing and go to the North Pole, or to Wonderland, or to Lothlorien?
“That said, I never got around to asking you,” said Sam. “Can you draw anything yourself? Ever taken any of Ms. Craig’s art classes at school?“
“Yes, once, and it was a total disaster,” said Jill. “I was lucky to get a ‘B’, which she gave me just because she felt sorry for me. It’s definitely not my thing. I doubt if I did any better than you did with your frog sketch for Mr. Luke. I mean, I can draw really simple things, like stick figures or smiley faces, but nothing like Mr. Luke.”
“Yeah, Mr. Luke’s pretty spectacular. I think Azarias can draw, too, but I’ve never seen him do it. But, enough talking: we have a job to do!”
“Yes, we do!” said Jill. “So just how should we proceed with this?”
“I should look first,” said Polly aloud. “I wish to make sure that all appears safe on the other side of the raven’s frame.”
From within her head, just after Polly had finished speaking aloud, Jill heard Polly speak to her separately. “Go slowly with Sam, little one. He doesn’t sense things well, nor the way we do. You should trust what your feelings tell you is happening, and slow him down if the need arises.”
“But how can I slow him down?” thought Jill back to Polly.
“Just tell him what you feel, and remind him that Mr. Luke told him to trust you. He will listen to you; perhaps even more so than to Mr. Luke.”
“Why would he listen to me?!” asked Jill.
In her head, she “heard” Polly laughing softly at the question. “He will listen. Trust me, little one,” came the response. Jill looked up at Polly questioningly, but the Ferrumari betrayed no emotion on her serene, metallic countenance. Instead, she stepped toward the raven’s frame. Grasping her crystal tightly in hand, she stooped and thrust her head into the dark portal. She stood there, as still as a statue, peering into the darkness.
Nearly a minute passed before Polly pulled her head back out of the frame. “I cannot tell for certain, but I believe that the world on the other side of this frame may be your planet, the Earth. I cannot say if it is your own time or some other. But, there are at least two people in the house, for that is what the structure appears to be. I think that this portal, in fact, leads into a crawlspace or side attic of the house. I can detect no sign of the raven, but perhaps he has simply flown from the attic space; that you will have to determine for yourselves.”
“Can you tell us any more about the people that are in the house?” asked Sam.
“Very little. They are both on the same floor as the attic space, and in fact appear to be quite near to the portal, just on the other side of a wall.”
“So this space is on an upper story of the house?”
“I believe so,” said Polly. “I cannot tell you much about the floor below, but there are living things surrounding it; plants, birds, trees. The attic is most likely on the first floor of the house, and the main part of the house is below.”
“You mean it’s on the second floor of the house then, not the first….”
Jill thought for a moment. “No, Sam, I think she means the first floor in the British sense. That is, the floor above ground level. Is that what you mean, Polly?”
Polly nodded.
“OK, then. We’re going into a crawlspace with folks around, So, let’s be as quiet as mice!” said Sam.
Jill had never experienced such a thing before, but she received the psychic equivalent of a nudge from Polly, and looking up at her, she saw that the Ferrumari was smiling. “Yes, be as quiet as can be,” Polly said to Sam.
The bottom of the frame was just about at waist height, or a little above. Grasping the sapphire on the pendant around his neck tightly, Sam bent down and squeezed through the opening.
Jill watched him disappear, gave Polly one last glance, and then followed him into the darkness.
Polydora watched them both enter the portal, and then bent down and looked through it to make sure that she could see them on the other side. She saw Jill stand upright, dust herself off, and then turn back and wave.
Polly waved back. Then she stood back up straight and looked around at her home — at Orbaratus. The wind was still whistling around the empty stone monuments. Otherwise, it was quiet; as quiet as she always remembered it. She was once again alone in her world; in a world filled with ghosts and even perhaps with dangers that she had never known before. But it was still her home.
Polly breathed deeply of the air of Cenurbus. It smelled as it always had: flinty. It was a smell that she only noticed consciously when she returned with Luke, Jill and Sam. When she had lived here for those many hundreds of earth years, it was just part of the background — she had had no other world with which to compare it. But now she recognized the smell of her home. She could detect nothing obviously amiss now, either in the smells or the sights of Cenurbus.
That was when the rumblings began again, and Polydora knew that another earthquake was coming. But there was something else, past the seismic sounds, that she sensed. For the first time ever, Polly thought she could detect the slightest presence of other living creatures: creatures that belonged to this world, just like her. And Polly sensed that these beings must be awakening somewhere deep, deep beneath her: under the very stones at her feet….
In the Company of Angels, Episode 6.1 – Parting Company
Polydora grabbed Jill by the hand and pulled her away from the doorway just as a large stone from the cliff face above it broke off and splintered onto the pavement. It landed where Jill had been standing. Luke took Jill’s other hand and the three of them followed Sam out onto the open plaza.
The earth heaved around them and they heard cracking sounds as planters and stone pillars splintered. Looking past the edges of the plaza, they saw dust and debris falling from the buildings below them and on either side. Then the motion of the earth, which was beginning to make Jill a bit dizzy, ceased. The rumbling continued for some time, punctuated with the sounds of additional objects falling and crashing below them. Then there was silence.
“Jill, are you alright?” asked Luke.
“Yes, I’m fine, but I wouldn’t have been without Polly….”
“Is everyone else OK? Sam?”
“Sure, I’m fine, said Sam. “But what happened? Polly, do you get a lot of earthquakes on Orbaratus?”
Polydora shook her head. “This is the first I have ever experienced here.”
“I can’t help but wonder if it has something to do with the missing stone,” said Luke. “It can’t be just a coincidence that it would be gone, Polly would sense someone or something else here, and then we’d have an earthquake, all at nearly the same time. There is more going on here than we know. Something isn’t right, and we may need help to figure out just what.”
“Help? What sort of help?” asked Jill.
“We need to get Azarias involved. Polly, do you know if he has ever come to Orbaratus?”
“Of course he has! He was among the first to visit my home,” said the Ferrumari. “In truth, he was the first human being I ever saw; nay, even the first living creature I ever encountered other than myself.”
“Then he is certain to know more about Orbaratus than we do; he may even know things you are unaware of, Polly. I’ll see if I can find him and at least talk with him. If need be, he may want to join us here.” Luke tugged at his beard for a moment.
“Mr. Luke, you said, just before the earthquake, that you thought we were in great danger. What made you say that?” asked Jill.
“If my understanding of the verses Polly translated is correct, then the three crystals that were placed around the stone doorway were put there for a reason: to prevent someone or something from escaping from whatever lies beyond the doorway. I don’t know why the crystals we use would be capable of such a thing, but perhaps these are not the same stones; perhaps they do something entirely different.
“Polly, you mentioned the Masters, and the fact that they have been gone for many thousands of years….”
“Yes,” said Polly, “the histories are not clear; they had become the stuff of legend by the time the wars broke out among my own people.”
“But do the histories say what happened to them or where they went? Was there a plague? Or a war?”
“Perhaps. The histories mention wars and madness, but it is not clear what was their cause. It seems that as the madness, whatever it might have been, spread, the Ferrumari began to fight against the Masters; not for independence, but to bring a halt to the bloodshed and the violence.”
“So, is it possible the Ferrumari may have had to imprison the Masters? Is that what you’re thinking, Mr. Luke?” asked Sam. “In that case, that doorway may lead into some sort of a dungeon, or maybe the Masters are cryogenically frozen, like Khan was in Star Trek!”
“Khan?” asked Jill, “You mean Genghis Khan was in Star Trek?!”
“No, no. A different Khan. And it was in the movie, not the TV show,” said Sam.
“Well, I never saw either. I told you I didn’t watch much in the way of space stories….”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Still — whatcha think, Mr. Luke?”
“About the Masters being locked behind that door? It’s a possibility; that’s why I want to ask Azarias. He may have spent some time in the archives here and may know better why the stones were placed there and what they were trying to protect against, if anything.”
Jill had been listening to Luke, but suddenly, she didn’t know why precisely, her attention was drawn away. She had had a sudden sense of movement, and of being watched. She glanced up to see what might have attracted her attention, and just then a black form flew right past her toward the stone doorway. It fluttered there for a moment, and then wheeled around and came back, flying right past all of them. Jill noticed that Polly, too, was watching this creature, and both of them instinctively tried to follow it.
“What’s happening?” asked Sam. “Where are you both going?”
“They’re chasing a bird, Sam,” said Luke, also turning to watch the creature.
The bird, for that is clearly what it was, emitted a harsh croak as it fled. It was large and black, and it flapped wildly toward to the plaza’s edge; then, suddenly, it was gone! Jill and Polly, who had been running just behind it, looked over the edge of the chasm to the street below, and then back at each other.
“It disappeared!” Jill shouted back at Sam and Luke.
“What do you mean, ‘disappeared’? You mean it flew down into the street?” Sam asked as he came panting up to the plaza’s edge.
“No, I mean it’s gone! Like, gone from this world, gone!” said Jill. “I…I can’t sense it anymore. Can you, Polly?”
“No, it is no longer on Orbaratus. It is not hiding, nor so far away that I would be unable to sense it” said Polly.
Luke smiled. “You’re right of course, both of you, but you weren’t paying close attention. It didn’t just vanish; it flew through a frame. Turn your rings back around again and you’ll see for yourselves.”
Jill turned her ring around and clenched her fist. Suddenly, right before her eyes, she could see a window open up in the air, ringed in a bluish light. It was a patch of darkness just in front of her, but much smaller than the portal they had used to come to Orbaratus.
“Huh!” said Sam as he came up to the frame. “Doggone bird must have had a crystal attached to it, or maybe it’s got one in its talons?”
“That, Samuel, is a very interesting observation,” said Luke. “What would a bird be doing with a sappire?”
“Maybe it picked it up. Maybe it stole the one from the doorway!” said Jill.
“We don’t yet know if the crystals on either side of the doorway are actually the same as the sapphires we use to framerun,” said Luke, “but if they are, and if, in fact, the bird has taken that stone, then we’d have answered at least one of our questions. But we still have too many remaining ones!” Luke sat down on a bench near them and rubbed his eyes for a few moments.
“Mr. Luke, we could always follow the bird and see where that portal leads us,” said Sam. “That might tell us more about what’s going on here.”
Jill looked at Sam, and then at the portal. It was perhaps a foot and a half wide, and nearly two feet tall. “It would be a tight squeeze!” she said.
“Naw, I’ve gotten through smaller,” said Sam, “But, let’s see what we can see without even going through….” Sam stepped toward the portal and moved back and forth, then up and down, trying to see what he could observe in the darkness beyond. Luke stood up and joined him.
“OK, it’s dark, so it’s tough to make out much, but it seems like maybe it’s a cave or an attic or a crawlspace of some sort? I can kind of make out wooden beams. What can you see, Mr. Luke?”
Luke repeated Sam’s motions, peering intently into the dark rectangle hanging in space. “Yes, I think you’re right, Sam. It definitely looks like it might be an attic, but where, exactly? And why in the world would someone, somewhere, have a painting or a sketch of the Plaza of the Masters that we know nothing about?!”
In the Company of Angels, Episode 3.1 – The Gallery
Jill walked down the sidewalk, noting the numbers on the buildings as she passed. It was the morning after Sam disappeared from her house. She had explained to her mother, quite truthfully, that Sam had left just after the howling had started outside. Her uncle Chris checked the yard, but by then the din had ceased and he could find no evidence of any intruders. So, the adults had all returned to the dining room and eaten dessert. About a half hour later, at Evie’s insistence, Jill had called Sam. He was back at home and was fine, but he did not offer any additional explanation other than to tell her the address of Mr. Luke’s studio.
That was where she was now headed.
When she reached the 200 block, she noticed that most of the buildings appeared to be industrial, with plenty of trucks pulling up to loading docks and lots of traffic coming and going. Number 220 was just ahead. It was a large three-story brick warehouse with a simple metal and mirrored-glass door in the front. A few windows, also mirrored, were visible on the second and third floors. The sign on the door matched Mr. Luke’s business card. It read:
Lucas Lester
Artist & Illustrator
Jill stepped up to the door and pressed the button on the intercom. For quite a while there was no answer, so she pressed it again. Then an odd but strangely sweet metallic voice finally spoke to her through the speaker.
“May I help you?”
“This is Jill Jonsson. I’m here to see Mr. Luke. Sam Deckard gave me this address.”
There was a long silence, and then she heard a loud buzz and a click as the lock on the door was released. “Come upstairs please,” said the metallic voice.
Jill opened the door and stepped inside. The entrance area was a small, unadorned room. A heavy plain metal door that apparently connected with the ground floor of the warehouse was just to the right, and a flight of stairs leading upward was to the left. Directly in front of her, the entire wall was mirrored, and she could see herself in the reflection. She climbed the two short flights of stairs to the upper floor and found herself standing before another mirrored-glass door, similar to the one on the street. She realized that this mirror must be the one-way type; through it she saw various splotches of light and some movement. She knocked, and a shadowy figure approached. The door swung wide and Luke Lester stood in the doorway, dressed now in coveralls that were spattered with every imaginable color of paint..
“Ah! Jane! It’s so good to of you to have come!”
“Uh…it’s Jill, Mr. Luke. Jill Jonsson.”
“Oh, yes, yes indeed. Silly me! I am so terrible with names! Please forgive me? May I take your coat?”
“Yes, thanks,” said Jill. She handed her coat to Mr. Luke, who took it and carefully hung it on a hanger, and then upon a very ornate cast iron coat rack by the door. Beside the coat rack was an umbrella stand fashioned of dark-glazed ceramic with golden dragons painted along the rim the floor was covered with some beautiful but faded oriental rugs. These were only by the door through which she had entered; the rest of the floor was hardwood, and, Jill noted, could definitely use a good sweeping.
But the room itself was less a room than an enormous platform, with carved wooden railings along three sides, and some sort of dark scaffolding barely visible beyond the rails, though what the scaffolding was, and what it held, Jill couldn’t see well enough to say. Whatever the structures were intended for, they appeared to reach not only to the floor below them, but all the way to the ceiling of what would have been the third floor of the warehouse.
Upon the platform itself, there were a few chairs and a large desk near the door, jumbles of standing suits of armor, weapons, racks of clothing, and dozens of easels set up randomly. Each of these held a painting, or in some cases several small paintings together. Many of the easels had coat racks next to them, on and around which were piled cloaks, or hats, or gloves, or boots, or other items that Jill didn’t recognized.
The wall behind her and parts of the platform were partitioned off by heavy purple curtains, and some of the spaces around the platform were surrounded by the curtains, Jill could see bright lights and easels with partially finished paintings within these enclosures. All of the windows that she had seen from the street below appeared to have been heavily curtained, and the only light in the warehouse came from flood lamps scattered throughout the platform. The effect of all of the jumble and clutter of the place reminded Jill, somehow, of a film studio filled with props for movie-making, and she could even imagine that the walls might be covered with thick velvet to absorb the outdoor sound.
For there was no sound within the warehouse; that is, other than the gentle humming of electric lighting. That wasn’t quite true though, Jill realized, because now and again she thought she heard fluttering coming from the dim spaces beyond the carved railings; she wondered whether birds had become lost within the building, or had perhaps found ways in and out of the warehouse and had made nests for themselves in the rafters.
All of these thoughts flooded through Jill’s mind as Mr. Luke fussed with her coat, but in reality only a few seconds had passed.
“There we are then. Welcome to my studio!” Mr. Luke said, sweeping his hand grandly toward the easels and artifacts before them. “What do you think of it?”
“Well…” said Jill. “I suppose I don’t really know what to think! I’ve never seen a place quite like this! But that’s not quite true, now that I think about it, because I did once see a live performance of a play at the Fox Theatre, and when we went backstage afterwards to meet some of the actors, I remember the prop rooms and makeup rooms and the storage areas. They reminded me of this, somehow.”
“Ah! Yes, I suppose there may well be some similarities. We do often find that we need props for the work we do here. But, what play was it that you saw? And who took you, your mother?”
“Well, it wasn’t a play really; it was an opera. It was Hansel and Gretel.” Jill paused for a moment and her voice became muted, “that was just before…before my father….”
“Oh, Jill! You’re here!” It was Sam. Jill had not heard him come in. She assumed that he must have been behind some of the curtains.
“Ah, Samuel! Yes, Jill has just arrived. Thank you for instructing her on how to find us!” said Mr. Luke.
Sam came up to Jill, grinning.
“Alright Sam, maybe now you can start to explain exactly what happened last night? And how you managed to get out of a bathroom that had no windows and no door other than the one I closed behind you?”
Sam looked up at Mr. Luke, who nodded.
“OK, look Jill, there’s a lot we’ll both need to explain to you, and it might be easier for all of us if we sat down and took it one step at a time. Before we start, would you like something to drink or to eat? Some tea maybe? This may take us a while….”
“Well, sure, that’s what I’m here for. And, yes, I’d love some tea.”
“Great, let’s sit here by the desk. Mr. Luke will look after the tea things.”
While Sam was talking, Mr. Luke had stepped toward the railings. Jill heard the fluttering again, but Mr. Luke returned a few moments later holding a tray with a tea kettle, cups, saucers, and a poppy seed cake. There were three small plates, napkins, a pitcher of cream, and a sugar bowl. In addition, there was a plate with what looked like slices of salmon, and steam was rising from the teapot. Jill recognized the combination; she had been to England with her mother just the previous year, and when they were there they had often dined on such fare at tea rooms in the Cotswalds.
“This is lovely!” she exclaimed. “I never would have expected such a nice welcome! Mr. Luke, this reminds me of an English tea. Have you ever been to England?”
Sam snickered involuntarily.
“Samuel! Be polite!” said Mr. Luke. “Jess here can’t possibly know about my upbringing! But, yes, Jess…”
“It’s Jill!”
“I’m sorry, yes Jill, I have spent quite a few years of my life in Europe, and in England in particular. I studied some years in Oxford, as well as in Rome. My mentor, Azarias, resides in London yet, and we are in constant contact. But, I’m so happy that you like the tea! Polly will be very pleased.”
“Polly?”
“She’s our…well…how would you describe Polly, Samuel?”
“Um, well, she’s not like anyone you’ve ever met; takes a bit of getting used to, that’s for sure…” said Sam.
“I meant her role in our…um…organization.”
“Oh, that! Yes, well, Jill, Polly is part housekeeper, part secretary, part computer, part filing system, and part hostess, all rolled up into one. We call her the Keeper; what she does most and best is to mind The Gallery.”
“The Gallery?” asked Jill. “Is that what you call your warehouse here, Mr. Luke?”
“Well, yes,” said Mr. Luke. “It is, partially, a warehouse, but it’s more a combination of studio, gallery, and library. We have several million paintings and sketches housed here, and these are maintained and organized in those shelves you can just see past the railings.”
“Several million?”
“Yes indeed! You’ll come to understand once we’ve explained. Samuel, would you bring out your sapphire?”
Sam stood up and drew from his pocket the very pendant and chain that Jill had found at her house the day before. He held it up to the light and Jill could see once more how beautiful the jewel was as it caught shards of light from the flood lamps around them.
“Samuel tells me that you found this when he left it at your house. Many thanks for returning it to him, by the way! You cannot know how dangerous it might have been if someone else had discovered it by mistake!”
“Dangerous?! What do you mean dangerous?! exclaimed Jill.
In the Company of Angels, Episode 2.2 – Rusty’s Big Adventure (cont.)
“What do you mean, ‘fell through the painting’?” asked Jill.
“Just what I said! Rusty found a piece of jewelry on the bookshelf and said he was going to keep it. I told him that was stealing, and he needed to put it back where he found it. Then I tried to take it from him so that it wouldn’t get lost, but he pushed me away. And that’s when it happened! He fell against the picture over there…” Kate pointed again at the picture, which was a large poster-sized fairy tale scene of a castle on an island surrounded by the sea. “And then he just…he just toppled backward, as if he was falling out of a window!!!”
The three stood silently, looking at the picture.
Sam bent toward Jill and whispered into her ear “Jill, you need to get Kate out of here for a minute or two. I’ll find Rusty.”
Jill looked hard at Sam. He nodded at her and pointed his thumb at the door.
“Kate, maybe something else happened…? Maybe Rusty is hiding or something. Let’s go see if he’s somewhere else in the house…you know, maybe he managed to slip out of sight somehow and is trying to play a trick on us. It would be just like him….”
“But, I know what I saw Jill! He couldn’t have left the room without my seeing him!”
“I believe you! But even so, we don’t want to get Aunt Cathy and Uncle Chris worried unless we’re sure, right?”
“I guess not,” conceded Kate.
The two girls left the room, and Jill gave Sam a questioning look as they left, but he just shook his head.
Jill and Kate looked in the closets for Rusty, and then in the living room and under the couch. Jill tried to take as much time as she could, hoping that Sam might know something about Rusty’s whereabouts that she did not. Finally, when the girls had exhausted all the possible hiding places downstairs (other than the dining room, since they didn’t want to alarm the adults just yet), Jill heard voices coming from the library, and the two returned there.
“Look, don’t you think maybe you just hit your head…?” they heard Sam saying as they walked in.
Rusty was shaking his head violently “Did not! Did not!”
“Well then, Rusty, why don’t you tell everyone what did happen?” Sam replied.
“But you were there! You came in and got me!” Rusty yelled. Sam said nothing.
“We were both right in there!!” Rusty yelled, pointing at the painting of the castle. “He just came in and pulled me back out again! We were on the beach! And there was water, and birds, and a castle, and everything!”
Sam shrugged. “OK, but if you really fell through the painting, maybe you can show us how it happened. Try it again.” He stepped out of Rusty’s way.
Rusty walked up to the painting, reached toward it, and then stopped, startled, when he felt the Plexiglass that protected it. “But…” he said, “but it wasn’t like that! I mean, just a minute ago!”
Jill had been watching Sam closely, and she saw him slip something into his pants pocket.
“Well, Rusty, whatever happened, you’re alright now,” Jill said.
“But Jill,” Kate said in a hushed voice, “I saw him fall through the painting, too!”
“Maybe you did,” said Sam, coming over to Kate, “but is it possible it was some kind of an illusion? I mean, there’s Plexiglas covering the painting, and maybe the light caught it just right and made you think you saw him fall through…?”
“Well, I don’t know…..” said Kate, looking up at Sam.
Sam lowered his voice. “Look, Kate, we need to try to calm Rusty down. He’s very worked up….”
They all three looked at Rusty, who was now punching at the painting with his fist.
Kate looked up dreamily into Sam’s eyes and smiled. “I see what you mean, Sam. I’ll see what I can do….”
“Rusty!” she said, “Stop punching that picture!! If you don’t calm down, I’m going to tell mom, and then you won’t get any cookies for dessert! And, we’ll have to go home early and then you’ll really be in big trouble!!!”
Rusty shot her a nasty glance, but it was clear that he was getting tired. He stopped pounding the painting and slunk away into the overstuffed chair. “…did so fall in! Nobody ever believes me….”
Jill and Kate looked at each other and giggled, and Sam relaxed a bit. Just then Jill’s mother called from the living room “Jill, honey, you want to come get cookies for everyone?”
“Come on,” she said to Kate, “let’s get dessert.”
The two girls left, and Sam went over to where Rusty was sitting alone. Rusty glared at him.
“You know what happened! You jumped in after me!”
Sam bent down so that his voice wouldn’t carry. “Of course I did, Rusty. But, sometimes that’s how magic works; one minute you fall through a painting, and the next minute you can’t. But we shouldn’t talk too much about this with the girls; they wouldn’t understand. You see what I mean?”
Rusty brightened up. “You mean it’s true then? I didn’t hit my head?”
“Well, magic is true, Rusty, but sometimes we have to keep quiet about it. Otherwise…” Sam looked around them confidentially. “…otherwise, people might start to think we’re both just weird in the head.” He pointed his finger at his temple and twirled it. “You know what I mean?”
Rusty nodded. “Yeah!”
“So, falling through the painting; that’ll be our little secret, OK? And maybe someday, when you’re a little bit older, you and I can try it again together. What do you think?”
“But why can’t we try it again now?!”
“Well, you did try it, didn’t you? And it didn’t work?”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Well, that’s the way magic is sometimes. I know it might be hard, but if you’re patient, I’m sure there will come other times when we can try it again and it will work, OK?”
Rusty looked at him suspiciously. “You’re not just making this up, are you? Just to shut me up? It really did happen, and I’m not crazy, right?”
“You’re not crazy, Rusty. But, I expect if you told too many other folks, they might think you were. So, mum’s the word, OK?”
“OK!” said Rusty, beaming.
The girls returned, and Jill was astonished at the change in Rusty, who suddenly, from her perspective, was no longer sulking. Rather, he came over to the table in the center of the room and enthusiastically helped himself to three cookies at once.
“You feeling better now, Rusty?” she asked.
“Sure….,” he said, stuffing another cookie in his mouth and winking at Sam.
Sam leaned toward Jill. “I’ll explain later,” he said, “Or, better yet, I’ll have Mr. Luke explain. You should come visit him at his studio as soon as you can.”
Before Jill could answer, however, all four of them were startled by an abrupt –- and very frightening — howling sound coming from just outside the library window!
Jill jumped up. “What on earth is that?!”
Sam stood up as well. “Something I thought might happen. But, don’t worry; I can make it go away.”
The sound got louder. It was a strange and eerie sound, like dozens of wolves howling from within some deep, metallic barrel. The voices of so many creatures coming, seemingly, from just outside the house chilled everyone to the marrow.
Sam looked around the library as if searching for something. “Quick, Jill, do you have a large mirror somewhere nearby? In a bathroom, or maybe in the living room somewhere?”
“Yes, in the bathroom in the hallway. There’s a full-length mirror just behind the door. Why?”
“Take me there. Just let me step inside for a bit; I won’t lock the door. But afterwards I’ll be gone.”
“Gone?!”
“Yes, gone. I’ll explain tomorrow. But, the howling will stop once I’ve left. No time to explain now….”
Jill grabbed Sam by the hand and they hurried down the hall together. Rusty and Kate remained frozen in fear in the library. Jill heard her mom, aunt and uncle stirring in the dining room; they, too, could not but help hearing the unearthly din, and they were coming out to investigate.
“Tomorrow!” Sam said. He entered the bathroom and shut the door. Almost instantly the howling ceased.
“Jill? Are you all OK?” It was Evie. She had just stepped into the hallway. “Where are the rest of you?”
“Rusty and Kate are in the library.”
“And where is Sam?”
Jill gently opened the door to the hall bathroom and peered inside. No one was there; Sam had disappeared!
At this point Jill didn’t know exactly what to do or what to say. Should she tell her mother about Sam disappearing? Should she tell her about Rusty, and his belief that he had fallen through the picture in the library? And what about her own experience putting her hand into the painting of the Piper? She knew she couldn’t lie to her mother, but what else could she do?
.
.
In the Company of Angels, Episode 2.1 – Rusty’s Big Adventure
Clasping the pendant in her hand, Jill once again stepped quietly down the hallway toward the library. As she approached the doorway, the sounds of the flute ceased. Jill hesitated, but then she took a deep breath, stepped forward, and once more peered inside the room.
Nobody was there.
The room was just as she, Mr. Luke, and Sam had left it. Sunlight continued to stream in through the window, like before, but something struck her as odd this time. There also appeared to be light coming from other sources. She stepped into the library, puzzled. What was different?
Then it dawned on her. All of her paintings — of the Shire, of the Narnian woods, of Beauty and the Beast and all the rest — they were all glowing gently. It was almost as if they were being lit from behind, and there was a slight bluish light around the edges of each one. She stepped up to her favorite picture, the one of the Piper. There was the little boy, still sitting on the ground with his flute. The ethereal figures still flitted around him. But the colors: they were so brilliant! The sky, the trees, the rocks and the water: they all appeared real enough to reach out and touch….
Without even thinking about it, Jill stretched her fingers out to the surface of the framed print. But instead of feeling the cool smooth hardness of the glass, her hand moved into the picture. She could see it right there, reaching past where the print should have been and into some space beyond the wall of the room. She was so startled that she gasped and pulled her hand back. Involuntarily, her hold on the pendant slipped, and the chain and gem clattered to the floor.
Jill stooped to picked up the jewel, and then she put it into her frock along with the business card that Mr. Luke had given her. She looked at the painting once more. The extraordinary light had faded away; now, when she reached out to it, she felt the glass of the frame just where she knew it must be.
Jill clenched her eyes shut and rubbed them. Then she looked at the painting again. No, it was just her painting, appearing as it always had.
At that moment, Hazel rubbed up against her legs; he had returned from under the living room couch, whence he had scrambled when Luke and Sam first came into the kitchen. Jill gasped and nearly jumped out of her skin, but then she caught her breath and waited a moment for her heart to stop racing.
“What do you think, Hazel? Am I going crazy?” She reached down and scratched the cat’s ears. Hazel purred loudly and flexed his front claws.
It was at this point that Jill’s mother, Evie, returned home, so Jill put away her thoughts about the paintings and the earlier events of the morning, focusing instead on helping her mother bring in the groceries and straighten up the house. They were having guests over that evening for supper: her aunt and uncle, Cathy and Chris, and their two children, Rusty and Kate. Jill rather liked Kate, but Rusty was several years younger than the two girls, and Jill couldn’t sometimes help but think of him as a bit of a pest.
Nevertheless, supper went fine, and afterward, while the adults were chatting around the dinner table, the two girls excused themselves to go to the library; Rusty soon followed.
The cousins had been in Jill’s library many times, and Kate had a special fondness for it. She and Jill settled down in an overstuffed chair and Jill began showing her a new illustrated storybook that she had gotten for Christmas; Kate wasn’t quite the lover of fairy tales that Jill was, but she always appreciated pretty things. Meanwhile, Rusty quietly started pulling books off of the book shelves and watching them drop to the floor.
“Stop that!” yelled Kate when she realized what her brother was doing.
“Stop what?” Rusty asked, nudging another book off of the shelf and watching as it bounced on the floor, landed on it’s spine, and opened at an illustration of a giant.
Just then the front doorbell rang. Jill jumped up and glared at Rusty. “I’m going to see who’s at the door. But you’d better have my books put back on the shelves when I get back!”
“He will,” assured Kate, “or I’ll tell mom and dad.”
Jill went down the hall. “I’ll get the door, mom!” she said loudly enough for her mother to hear her.
She opened the door. Sam was standing just outside.
“Hi,” he said.
“What are you doing here?!” Jill asked.
“I’m sorry to come by so late, but I think maybe I dropped something here before Mr. Luke and I left this morning…? Did you happen to notice anything we might have lost?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. Do you mean the chain and pendant with the blue gemstone?”
Sam looked relieved. “So, you did find it! Great! Can I get it back from you? I’m so sorry I didn’t phone you first, but I was so sure I’d dropped it walking back to the Gallery…I mean, to Mr. Luke’s painting studio; I never figured I might have left it here. I’ve been looking for it on the sidewalk all the way over!”
“I’m sorry, Sam, I was going to call Mr. Luke and let him know,” Jill ushered Sam into the house, “but I got so busy helping my mom. We’ve got my cousins over for supper.”
“Your cousins?! Oh no! Including Kate?”
“Yes. What’s wrong with Kate?”
Sam turned red. “Uh…nothing….”
Jill looked at Sam oddly. “Is there anything I should know about the two of you?”
“Not as far as I’m concerned!” said Sam. “Let’s just say Kate always seems to be looking for me in the hallway at school…”
“Oh ho!” said Jill. “That’s news to me. But, you’ll just have to brace yourself. She’s in the library with Rusty, and that’s just where I left your pendant.”
“Oh, great,” groaned Sam.
“Jill? Who is it, honey?” her mother called to her from the dining room.
“It’s Sam from school, mom!”
Evie came out into the hallway. “Oh, hello, Sam! Have you had your supper yet?”
“Oh, yes ma’am,” said Sam, “I just came by to pick up something I forgot earlier this morning.”
“You were here earlier?”
“Yes, mom, Sam came by with…with a friend. I forgot to tell you,” said Jill.
“Well, that’s alright. It’s good to see you, Sam! Why don’t you both run along to the library; we’ll have some chocolate chip cookies for all of you a little later — if you’d like to stay for some, Sam.”
“Thank you ma’am,” said Sam.
Jill and Sam walked down the hall and entered the library. Standing in the middle of the room was Kate, all alone. She was white and trembling.
“Kate…?” said Jill, “What’s wrong? Where’s Rusty?”
Kate looked at both of them wide eyed, then lifted her finger and pointed to one of the paintings on the opposite wall. “He…he….”
“He what, Kate?!”
“He fell…he fell through the painting!!!”
In the Company of Angels, Episode 1.2 – A Rumpus in the Library (cont.)
A half hour later Sam, Luke, and Jill were sitting in the kitchen sipping on tea and eating chocolate chip cookies. Jill had gotten some ice and wrapped it in a washcloth and Luke was holding it against his forehead. The knot was still noticeable, but the swelling was going down.
“I’m afraid I was a bit too dazed to take a closer look,” said Luke, “but I saw that you had some very nice pictures in your library. From fairy tales, I think?”
“Yes, most of them,” said Jill, “my mom thinks I’m too old for them, but I like reading them a lot better than what we read for school.”
“Well, it shows good taste on your part. But, I’m sure you don’t just read books. You have plenty of friends — other than Sam here, I mean — to spend time with, don’t you?”
“Well, a few. But most of my girlfriends are just interested in dressing up and shopping.”
“And you don’t like doing those things?”
“Well, they’re alright, but I’d rather…I’d rather be walking in the Shire! Or time traveling with Meg Murry, or riding to the edge of the world on Fledge!” Jill was suddenly animated. “I mean, these are places where things really happen…where things really matter!” She paused and sighed. “Not like around here.”
Sam beamed at Luke. “See, I told you she was my friend!”
“Well, strange things can happen right here, too, you know,” Luke said, ignoring Sam.
“Not to me they don’t.”
“Well, look here, that’s not strictly true, is it? After all, we showed up in your house this morning. That isn’t something that happens every day, is it?” Luke smiled.
“No, but you’re not even supposed to be here. My mom is going to have a fit if she comes home and finds me home alone with a stranger, even if he did come with you, Sam. And, by the way, who exactly was it you were both chasing, anyway?”
“Well, I’m afraid that’s a long story,” said Luke, ”And, since I’m feeling better, and since you’re quite right that I shouldn’t be here at all, at least not without your mother’s permission, perhaps we’d best save that tale for another time? We’ve finished our tea, plus the cookies; many thanks for both! Come along, Sam, we should be going.” Luke stood up.
“But, Jill, don’t be surprised if were to meet again. This…hmmm…person that we were after, he has a habit of showing up in the strangest places, and has thus far led us on many a wild goose chase. If he comes again…uh…into your back yard, don’t be too surprised to find us right behind him.”
“But, what does he even look like? You never told me.”
“Well,” said Luke as Jill walked them back to the front door, “he’s a boy of about your age, or maybe a bit younger. He has curly black hair and a mischievous smile. He’s all about mischief, I think.”
“That reminds me a bit of Sam,” said Jill with a grin.
“Well, that’s somewhat true…” Luke looked at Sam and smiled.
“No, I’m just kidding. Sam’s alright,” said Jill, “even if he has been getting more and more into odd things. You know, like Star Wars and Star Trek and Doctor Who….”
“Doctor Who? Aren’t you a bit young for Doctor Who?” asked Luke, looking at Sam.
Sam shrugged.
“But don’t you like such things?” Luke turned back toward Jill.
“I don’t know; I’ve never watched them. I don’t like space stories that much.”
“Well, they do have their own challenges, to be sure,” said Luke. “But, the person we’re after certainly isn’t Sam, and he’s not from outer space. One thing you’ll definitely notice about him, should you run across him, is that he is never without his pipe.”
“Wait, he’s a little boy, and he smokes a pipe?!”
“No, not that sort of a pipe. I mean like a flute, but not played sideways. You know, more like a recorder. Do you know the sort of thing I mean?”
Jill thought of the painting in her library. “Oh! I do! I have a picture of someone playing something just like that. would you like to see it?”
Luke hesitated for a moment. “Well, I suppose, but we don’t want to get you into trouble….”
“Come on!” said Sam, “We can at least have a quick look!”
Jill raced back down the hallway and Luke and Sam followed. Inside, she pointed triumphantly to the painting of the boy beneath the oak tree. Luke looked at it aghast, then smacked his head, forgetting for a moment about the knot.
“Ouch!”
“Are you alright?” asked Jill.
“Yes, I just forgot about my head. But, that’s the very fellow!”
“What, the one you’re after?”
“Sure is!” said Sam.
“But, this is just a painting; he’s not a real person!” said Jill.
Luke looked closely at the painting. “This isn’t a painting I’ve seen before. Wherever did you find it?”
“At an old antique shop with my mom. I’m sure it’s just a print, but it looks so bright and real….”
“Yes, it does.” Luke gazed at the picture.
“That also explains where he went after we came through,” Sam said under his breath. Luke nodded.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing; nothing, dear. But we should go speak to Azarias about all of this….” he said to Sam.
“Azarias? Who’s he?” asked Jill.
“Oh, a very good friend of mine; rather a mentor of sorts. A wise old fellow; you’d like him, wouldn’t she, Samuel? But, many thanks for showing us the picture. If you happen to see someone that looks….” Luke turned and looked hard at the picture once again, “…that looks exactly like this fellow, you’ll be sure to let us know, won’t you?”
“OK, but how do I do that?”
“Well, you can call Sam, for one thing. But also, you can reach me here.” Luke handed her a business card. On it was a painting of a man standing by the seashore and gazing at the ocean. It looked like this:
“You can email me from my website. You use email, don’t you?”
“Of course! Doesn’t everyone? But, what’s a ‘Framerunner’?”
“Oh, just a special type of artist. Some day you should visit my studio and I’ll explain it a bit more; I think you’ll like my paintings!” They walked back to the front door. “But by now you’ve had quite enough of us! Thanks again for the tea and cookies!” Luke bowed to her.
“You’re welcome. You know, I’ll have to tell my mom about your coming by.”
“Certainly! If she is at all concerned or wishes to speak with me, do have her ring me up. I’d be happy to meet her! And now, we’re off….” Luke stepped down to the sidewalk.
Sam looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet for a minute. “See ya,” he said, and followed Luke. They both walked briskly away.
Jill stood for a moment looking at the business card, and then she tucked it into the pocket of her frock. She closed the door and started back toward the kitchen, but then she noticed something on the floor by the stairs. She went over and picked it up; it was a piece of broken chain with a pendant. The pendant was of simple silver wire, and clasped within it was one of the prettiest jewels she’d ever seen; it was deep blue, and it reflected the light in the room in the most amazing way. Jill touched the stone; it felt almost slippery, and a tingle went through her fingertips, like electricity.
That’s when she heard it; a sound like a bird. No, it wasn’t; it was a flute! But coming from…from where? She turned around, still holding the gem in her hand. The music was coming from the library!
Jill stood completely still for just a moment. Her first thought was to run after Luke and Sam, but then it occurred to her that maybe she should grab the broom again and find out who else might have stolen into the house.
She hesitated for just a moment more, and then knew exactly what she’d do…..
In the Company of Angels, Episode 1.1 (Pilot) – A Rumpus in the Library
“Since the earliest of times, even from the dawn of man, when mystics first painted images on the walls of the caves at Lascaux and Altamira, there have been rumors: rumors that the worlds drawn in pigment and charcoal exist not only in the minds of the artists who created them, but in actual fact. And in every age, children are born who gaze with wonder at these worlds and ask ‘are they real?’ and ‘can I go there?’
“These journals are dedicated to those of us who never stopped asking those questions. They chronicle a story that began long before our own time, but that I take up in the present day. If you are reading my words or hearing my voice, then you are being entrusted with knowledge that very few have possessed over the long march of the centuries. My name is Azarias, and these are the tales of our Order: of those who have, in the past, been called the Fratrum Simulacrorum, but who are today known simply as The Framerunners.”
— Brother Azarias, Fratrum Simulacrorum Archives Manual
It all began on a chilly February morning in Chelsea Heights. Jill Jonsson was sitting at her kitchen table, watching the birds in the outdoor bird feeder, her blonde hair glowing golden in the morning sunlight. There were two cardinals, a male and a female, that flitted back and forth between the feeder and the bare fig tree in the front yard. They reminded Jill of the Christmas ornaments that she and her mother had put away just the week before.
Suddenly, Jill was startled by a loud thump and a crash. The noises came from the back of the house, and she immediately jumped up to see what Hazel, her mischievous tomcat, might have gotten into. But then she noticed Hazel sitting nonchalantly by his food dish, looking curiously toward the hallway.
Jill lived with her mother in the house at 1513 Vida Way. It was a small cottage, but nice; Jill had her very own tiny bedroom upstairs, and her mother had turned a spare room in the back of the downstairs into a library just for her.
Two full walls of the library sported bookcases, and these groaned under the weight of Jill’s favorites: the Narnia Chronicles, the Princess and the Goblin, The Hobbit, A Wrinkle in Time, The Wind in the Willows. These were just a few of the many in her collection, but she also loved mysteries and tales of other worlds than these, and longed for the time when she would be old enough to read books that, for now, her mother considered too difficult for her.
Jill also collected posters and prints of her favorite characters and scenes from her books, and these covered what little wall space was not already claimed by bookshelves: Fledge the Winged Horse flying through Narnia; Bilbo Baggins walking in the Shire; Mole and Rat poling down the river together. She even had a painting that she loved, but that didn’t seem to belong in any particular fairy tale: it was just a beautiful scene from a late summer’s day, with a gnarled oak tree and a little boy seated beneath it. He was playing a sort of a flute. Behind him stretched a river, and circling around him were wispy fairy-like figures that seemed to be dancing while he played.
But now Jill was startled and a little perplexed by the noises from library. Hazel had been known to knock over her bookcases; it had happened before, heaven knows! But now there sat Hazel, looking back and forth at her and at the hallway. So, something else must have happened, and there was nothing for it but to go see just what.
“Come on, Hazel, let’s see if anything is broken,” she said. Hazel ignored her, remaining firmly planted beside his food dish.
Jill stepped out of the kitchen, but then she halted. She heard more noises coming from the back of the house. Now she was a bit frightened. It occurred to her that a raccoon might have gotten inside, or perhaps even a burglar; and she was all alone in the house! She looked around and grabbed a broom from the pantry, then she slowly tiptoed down the hallway, trying her best not to make the slightest sound.
She crept toward the door to the library, but nothing seemed to be stirring. Jill was just starting to relax, when she heard a second crash, and a loud “Ouch!” coming from the library door. She tiptoed closer and peeped inside.
Sprawled upon the floor was a man with his back to the wall and his long legs stretched out; beside him stood a boy with curly black hair wearing a rumpled sweatshirt. The library desk, which was a heavy old fashioned rolled-top that had been made by Jill’s great uncle, was knocked halfway across the room. It appeared almost as if someone or something had come hurtling through space and struck the side of it, skidding it and leaving scratch marks on the hardwood floor. And of course, this is very nearly what had happened. The man on the floor was rubbing his forehead and wincing. The boy was looking up at the wall behind the man; on it was a large poster-sized painting of a centaur in a wood in Narnia.
Just then the man looked up and saw her. “Oh! I’m sorry! We didn’t know anyone was home!”
The boy turned around, and said “Jill!” at the exact same time that Jill said “Sam!”
The man looked at both of them. “Oh, do you two know each other?”
“I should say so!” said Sam. “Jill is in my class. She’s my friend.”
“Ah, well then, that’s good, then there’s nothing to worry about. I’ve just bumped my head, you see….” The man indicated to Jill the lump on his forehead, which looked quite red and swollen.
“Yes, but you almost crushed me on the way in,” said Sam, crossly. He rubbed his shoulder and flexed his arm to make sure it was still functioning properly.
“But who are you?” asked Jill, “and whatever are you both doing in my library?!”
“Ah, yes, that…” the man slowly pulled himself up from the floor, steadying himself against the wall. He was tall, looked to be in his early twenties, and had longish hair and a thin, closely-cropped beard. He brushed himself off. He was wearing a long duster coat that made Jill think of Sherlock Holmes.
“My name is Luke; Luke Lester.” He reached out his hand toward Jill, who didn’t move from her position by the door; in fact, she still held the broom in front of her to show them both that she was armed.
“Oh, come on Jill, be a good sport. We’re not here to hurt you!” said Sam.
“Then what are you here for?”
“Yes, well, I expect this is a bit of a surprise for her, Sam,” said Luke, “and I don’t blame you for being wary, my dear. Let me apologize for the mess.” Luke looked at the desk and, with Sam’s help, pushed it back into place. “We were, well, chasing someone, and we…uh…thought we saw him come into your library through a…um…through a window.”
“But the window’s locked,” said Jill, “and we have an alarm system.”
Luke looked at the window, still rubbing his forehead. “Yes, that does seem to be true. I suppose perhaps the alarm may have malfunctioned? But, this fellow was definitely in your house, you see, and he had something that…well…that we were afraid would cause him harm if we didn’t get it back; something that he seems to have gotten hold of…uh…by accident.“ He paused for a moment. “You haven’t, well, seen any strangers in your house today, have you?”
“You mean, other than you?!”
“Ah…yes…other than me, since you already know Sam…”
“Well, no, I haven’t. But I don’t think that matters. You both need to go. My mom will be home any minute and I think it would be better if you left.”
“Quite right! Quite right!” said Luke. “I’m sure we must have been mistaken, after all, Sam,” he said, turning to Sam and smiling. “Well, if you’ll just lead us to the front door, Jane, we’ll be off. I’m terribly sorry about all of this….” Luke suddenly put his hand against the wall and rubbed his eyes.
“Are you alright?” asked Jill.
“Yes, Mr. Luke, you don’t look too well…” said Sam.
“Yes, yes, I’ll be fine. Just a combination of taking an unexpected run and then bopping my head. I need a moment….” He shook his head again and muttered something under his breath. Sam put his hands on his hips and said something back to him, also under his breath, which sounded to Jill rather like “…well, you didn’t tell me there’d be wild boars in Narnia, of all places…”
“Well, you don’t look fine, either one of you! Would you like me to call someone for you?”
“No, no. But, that’s very kind of you.” Luke looked at her more closely. “Why, you have very nice manners for a little girl!”
“I am not a little girl!” said Jill. “I’ll be thirteen next week!”
“My mistake, I should have said ‘for a young lady’. I’m afraid I’m still a bit groggy. Will you accept my apology?” Luke again reached out his hand to Jill. This time she timidly accepted it.
Jill led them toward the front door, but when they reached it, Luke sat abruptly down on the lowest step of the stairway leading to the second floor. He gripped the handrail tightly.
“Would you like some water…or tea…or something?” Jill asked.
“Well, you know, I expect this will sound a bit strange, but…would you happen to have a bit of chocolate anywhere in the house?”
