Tag Archive: Hazel
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 1.1 (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?”
