Not decided

Ch1
No-one quite knows why. Magic just comes and goes. Like the birds, going to warmer places in winter. That’s what Grandad said. When he was little Kral (his name was really Krallen, but everyone called him Kral) had always wondered why magic would want to go somewhere warmer, until he realised the old man had just been trying to explain something he didn’t understand himself.

It was just a fact of life. Like having to breathe. Every 231 years and 2 months, magic went away. It stayed away for 231 years and 1 and a half months and then came back. Not suddenly, but over a day or two you could feel it in the air again. And all the old magic towers would suddenly have people in them again. At least that’s what all the old books said. Of course, no-one actually remembered having magic. It was too long ago. But they still taught about it in school. Not how to do it; because they couldn’t until it was there. But about it, about how there used to be people who were better at it than other people and they were always rich because people paid them to fix things they couldn’t fix themselves. But when the magic had gone south (as Kral thought of it, like the birds) the things just didn’t get fixed. Kral thought everyone just sort of hung about, waiting for it to come back again until they actually got on with living. He also thought that being a magic person sounded like rather a nice job. It couldn’t be that hard to do magic, could it? And you got a tower to live in and people were always respectful and polite.

It would be nice if people were polite to him, his thoughts added. On this particular morning that he was lying in bed thinking about magic, he had been carefully ignoring for the last 10 minutes his mother’s shouting up the stairs that the breakfast needed sorting. He turned over and put the pillow over his head. A minute later, he felt a freezing rush of air as the blanket was snatched away. Kral yelled and sat up to try and hit his little brother, Biten. Biten was dancing just out of reach, looking pleased with himself.

‘Mum says stop lying around get up now,’ sangsong Biten, and then as an addition of his own stuck his tongue out. He vanished before Kral could get him with the pillow.

Biten had taken the blanket with him. Kral sighed and got dressed. Then he went downstairs and started cooking breakfast. Biten sat at the table, kicking his heels and moaning about not having eaten breakfast and how he hated it when Kral made breakfast.

‘Tough,’ said Mum. ‘ I can’t get near enough the cooker’. This was because she was having a baby and had gone up about 100 clothes sizes. Kral wasn’t sure if he approved of a baby. As far as he could see it meant him doing all the things Mum usually did, like making breakfast. Still, once it actually appeared he supposed it wouldn’t be that bad. He vaguely remembered Biten as a baby screaming and throwing up everywhere at a birthday party. After that, Kral had insisted on having all his parties somewhere where Biten couldn’t go.

‘I’m hungry,’ whined Biten. Kral woke up to see the bacon just starting to char. He fished it out and dumped it in front of his family. Biten reached across with a fork and speared a whole slice.

‘Hey!’ Dad said. ‘What’d’u think you’re doing? Prayer’s first as you well know. In fact why don’t you start seeing as how you’re in such a hurry?’

Biten made a face and muttered ‘We pray that the magic return…’

Everyone else joined in. Kral as well, although he was rather suspicious of this praying. It was supposed to be to make sure that the magic returned. But as far as he could see, magic always had returned in the past so frankly why was it going to stop now? And he wasn’t sure at all that it listened or even cared what about what they said. Still, ‘let the magic make good again this land, and protect its people. Let the magic return’ He finished off with the others.

In fact he was pretty certain that magic wasn’t even technically alive. It only seemed to actually do anything when it went through people. So if it wasn’t alive, it definitely couldn’t be listening and definitely wouldn’t care what they prayed.

On the other hand though, all his teachers said that magic did do things all the time but that people just didn’t realise it. And this was why things always went wrong in the recessions when magic had gone away. But then when the magic had gone, people never did things properly and when they went wrong they just said, ‘Ah, well it’s the lack of magic, you see…’ Whereas when there was magic, they tried hard first before they went and got magic because magic cost a lot of money. Anyway, it definitely wasn’t as simple as it seemed.

‘Oi!! Kral! Wakey wakey!’

‘Huh? What, Dad?’ Kral said, looking up.

‘I said, you’re going to help me fix the chicken house. Aren’t you?’ Dad asked meaningfully.

Kral started to protest and then gave up. He nodded gloomily. The chicken house needed fixing at least once a month because it never got fixed properly. And everytime it fell down again, Kral would suggest rebuilding from scratch. And his dad would shake his head and say, ‘Can’t do that, Kral. Not without any magic. It’d all go wrong.’ And that would be that. So they’d sort of prop it up and then almost exactly a month later it would fall down again. And Kral would have to prop it up again. It wasn’t that he minded exactly, it just seemed so stupid.

But he knew exactly what his Dad would say if he suggested, you know, maybe getting some new wood and spending a bit longer on it so that next month it wouldn’t need doing again. As well as what he’d normally say, he’d be even more against it this time. This was because there were exactly (he looked at the clock for a minute, calculating) 15 hours, 58 minutes and 5 seconds left until the magic was supposed to come back. Would come back. Definitely.

So even more so today than any other day, nobody was going to actually do anything. They’d just sort of hang around waiting until magic came along to sort everything out. But you couldn’t be seen doing that because then everyone would know that you were waiting for it, instead of happening to look up and just see the magic returning at the same time, as, say, you happened to have a chicken house that needed repairing. And then when it just happened to turn up, you could go and get the money that your family happened to have been saving since the beginning of the recession, and get the magic people to sort things out. (No-one used money, except to give to the magic people. This was because normally they just sort of swapped things they needed, so 12 eggs were worth a bag of flour. Or less, if they were small eggs. But the magic people said they always ended up with lots of one thing and none of what they actually needed. So they invented money. But everyone else stuck to the old way of doing things.)

Kral went and got the hammer and nails to fix the chicken shed. The rest of the day passed in a boring blur. He paid attention (a bit) at lunch time, because his Mum was talking about that evening, when they were all going to the F’s to celebrate end of Recession. He and Biten were both going, but fortunately B was being sent to bed there at 8. So Kral wouldn’t have to keep an eye on him after that. The downside of going to the Fonsell’s was getting ready. Which meant baths, scrubbing brushes and uncomfortable clothes that stopped you breathing. He sighed.

At 6, his Mum started fussing about getting ready. She nagged him and Biten into the bath and then sat on the basin washing her hair with occasional checks to be sure they were washing properly. She inspected faces, fingernails and knees. When Kral tried to protest on the grounds that his knees wouldn’t be able to be seen under his trousers, she sent him back to the bath with extra soap and a specially large scrubbing brush. He sighed again.

Then he had to go and squeeze into the uncomfortable clothes and try and pretend that they weren’t too short around the ankles, and that he really could breathe in them. Just. He sorted out Biten’s tie, pulling it extra tight to pay him back for waking him up this morning. By the end of the hour, Biten would have lost it anyway.

They all lined up just inside the front door, while Mum looked them up and down. She wiped off imaginary dirt and made Dad do up his top button. He opened his mouth to complain and then shut it resignedly. There was no point arguing with Mum in this mood. Kral saw Dad secretly undo it again when they were out through the door.

The evening was pretty good actually, even Kral had to admit. There was loads of food and no one cared when he just took a whole plate of cakes and went and sat on the steps with them. He was avoiding Biten and Sora, the F’s girl who was the same age as Biten. They seemed to find it immensely funny to run up, poke him and then run away again, screaming. Fortunately some of the grown ups found the screaming as annoying as Kral found the poking and they got sent to bed early.

‘Kral! Where are you?’

It was Dad. He came out and then saw Kral on the steps. ‘ There you are. Come on. Countdown’s starting.’ Then he brought his hand out from behind his back and grinned conspiratorially. ‘Got a glass? Give it here.’ He tipped something out of the bottle he had in his hand into it. It was pale with bubbles in it. ‘Don’t tell your Mum, though,’ he warned. ‘But you can’t celebrate end of Recession with apple juice. Huh?’

Kral stuck his tongue in the glass. It tasted weird but was quite nice. He drank some. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘All right. Come on in, then.’ Dad led the way into the main room.

There was a big clock on the wall. It showed the time being 57minutes past 11. Kral found a corner and sat in it with his drink. It seemed to be getting nicer the further down he got.

‘Here we go, everyone,’ called Mrs Fonsell. ‘Ready… ten, nine, eight…’

Everyone in the room joined in with the countdown. When Kral looked up, he could see all the grown ups looked excited, a bit like they were about to get a new bike or something. He joined in from five.

‘Five…’

‘Four...’

‘Three…’

‘Two…’

‘One!!’

There was a pause. Everyone looked round as if they were expecting something.

‘Um, are we sure the clock’s right?’ called out someone.

‘It should be. I mean we checked it and everything. Maybe it could be a bit off or something,’ said Mr Fonsell. He sounded worried.

Kral finished his drink. He saw a half empty one that someone had put down on the table so he took it while no-one was looking. It tasted just as nice as the first one. This time when he looked around, everyone was staring fixedly at the clock. He looked at it too. It was a bit blurry and he wasn’t quite sure the numbers were in the right order, but it the big hand was definitely quite a bit past the top.

Mutterings started to break out round the room. ‘Can you feel anything?…It is the right day isn’t it…Maybe its just been delayed…How can magic be delayed?…Where is it?’. This last one was getting louder and louder. People were all turning to their neighbour and saying, ‘Where is it? It has to come!’

By half past 12, Kral had drunk another 2 glasses of the bubbly stuff and was feeling really ill. Halfway through the last glass, it suddenly stopped tasting nice at all and instead tasted horrible. Really horrible. He thought he might be sick. He got to his feet to look for Mum, to tell her he felt ill. He was amazed how difficult it was to stand up. Fortunately the table helped. But once he was standing he realised he couldn’t actually tell which blur was Mum. He started to stagger through the crowd.

Everyone was standing in little groups, talking urgently and looking panicky. One man said loudly, ‘Maybe it just comes gradually. So gradually, you know, that we can’t feel it first.’

Several people looked relieved at this point. But someone else said, ‘That’s not what all the old books said.’ And all the urgent talking started again.

That was as much as Kral remembered. He vaguely remembered lying on the floor and being sick. He was pretty sure that his Mum had been yelling at his Dad as well. But other than that, it was all a blank.

Ch2
Kral woke up the next morning feeling horrible. He could taste sick and there was some of it crusted onto the sheet. He crawled out of bed and went down the stairs, very slowly and carefully because his head hurt. Mum and Dad were in the kitchen. They looked up as he came in.

‘I don’t feel very well,’ he said. ‘Can I have a drink please?’

Mum pushed a glass towards him. She glared at Dad. He shifted uncomfortably.

‘Um, Kral?’ he said.

‘Mm.’ He got more water.

‘How much of that stuff did you drink last night? You know, the stuff I let you have…I mean, try, um, taste.’ Mum glared more.

Kral looked up guiltily. ‘A couple of glasses. Maybe three. Maybe four. No-one else was drinking it,’ he said defensively.

‘Yes, right, well. Um, you see the thing is, Kral, that stuff, you can only drink it in really small amounts, otherwise it makes you ill. Like you’re feeling now,’ said Dad wretchedly.

Mum sighed loudly. ‘Kral, you have a hangover. Understand?’

Kral thought. ‘So that’s what being drunk is like?’

‘Yes’

‘Oh. How long am I going to feel ill for?

‘It’ll go soon enough, Kral,’ intervened Dad, before Mum could open her mouth. ‘Main thing is, you know, you’re OK. No more drinking any of that stuff though, understand? Not for a lot of years.’

‘Oh.’ Kral wondered if he could go back to bed. ‘Wish I could get the magic to make me feel better,’ he muttered.

Mum exploded. She rose up like a bull getting ready to charge. Kral stood there with his mouth open. ‘There is no magic!’ she screamed. ‘It hasn’t come back! We have no magic! And if your idiotic father hadn’t got you so hopelessly drunk last night, you’d know that! There is no bloody magic!!’ She stormed out. Kral thought she might have been crying.

He sat down and finished the water. The shouting made his headache worse. Dad looked at him, started to say something then shrugged and stopped. He went out after Mum. Kral stopped him just as he was going through the door.

‘Dad?’

‘What, Kral?’

‘Has the magic really not gone back?’

‘Yes, the magic really has not come back. It’s not here.’ Dad sounded a bit like he was about to cry too. He left quickly.

Everyone seemed very upset about there not being any magic, Kral thought. He wasn’t really sure why. We’re all used to not having magic, aren’t we? So it’s not like we have to change anything. But then he remembered how every time things went wrong, someone always said ‘When we have magic, it won’t go wrong…’

When we have magic, everything will be all right…

Only now the magic wasn’t here and it didn’t look like it was coming. And suddenly there wasn’t anything for people to hold on to anymore. No promises of things being easier. Of better times to come. No hope. What were people without hope like?

Kral frowned. He needed another drink. He looked at the glass. It was full to the top. He frowned again. He was sure he’d finished it and he definitely didn’t remember filling it again. How…? Oh well. It was probably just the hangover. He went back to bed.

When he woke up several hours later, feeling slightly better, there were sounds of people downstairs. Worried people. Lots of worried people. He peered down from the top of the stairs and saw most of the village, all standing around and talking in the same urgent voices as last year. Mr Fonsell clapped his hands. ‘Okay, folks,’ he called. ‘ So that’s all settled. We’ll hold the ceremony in one hour.’ There were murmurs of assent.

Ceremony, wondered Kral.

He saw Mum looking for him. He shrank back against the wall. His head still didn’t feel up to any more shouting. She called his name up the stairs.

‘Kral, come on! We going to the Rithigy’s to sort things out for the ceremony. Kral!’

She sighed and came upstairs. Kral resigned himself to having to go and pull tables and things around for whatever this ceremony was. He wished he didn’t have to; that Mum somehow wouldn’t notice him. She came up the stairs.

To his surprise, she ignored him completely standing against the wall and went into his room. He heard her muttering, ‘Oh, where’s he gone now? Must be with the chickens or something. We’ll have to manage without him, bother it.’ Then she came out and stood right next to him. She still didn’t seem to see him.

Kral wondered if this was some kind of novel punishment for last night. He waved a hand in front of her face. She ignored him completely again. He looked at his hand and prodded the wall. It looked normal enough to him. It felt normal. Kral began to panic. Was this some later bit of the hangover that everyone had forgotten to tell him about because they were used to it? Did it make you invisible?

His Mum went back downstairs. He spent the next five minutes checking himself over, to see if there were any bits that were see through. Biten appeared just as he was starting to wonder again if Mum had just been pretending.

But Biten went  straight past him as well. He thumped down the stairs and got cornered by Mum to fill in Kral’s place and help move things around. Kral felt a slightly guilt thrill of pleasure. And then panicked again as he realised this meant Biten hadn’t seen him either as if he had Biten would have told Mum.

At that point Kral decided he might as well make use of the fact that no-one could see him and sort becoming see-able again later. He went down the stairs after Mum and Biten and followed them over to the Rithigy’s. He noticed that the dog seemed to be able to see him perfectly well enough but none of the people could. Maybe the dog smelt him or something. At the Rithigy’s, there were lots of chairs set up in a big circle with some sort of unlit bonfire in the middle. People were surrounding the bonfire-to-be with candles and stars drawn in the ground. And on each chair there was a piece of paper. He picked one up to read it. It was a copy of ‘A Prayer to Magic’.

We pray that the magic return
Its presence is needed and wanted
Let the magic make good again this land
And protect its people
Let the magic return

Kral wished he knew what was going on. He turned round and came face-to-face with Mrs Fonsell. He stepped automatically to the side so she would bump into an invisible person. To his surprise, she put out a hand and grabbed his arm.

‘Kral! Where did you come from?’

He muttered, ‘Just you know, around.’

‘Oh well never mind. Come on, its almost time to start. Go and sit on one of the chairs.’

Kral shuffled over and perched awkwardly on a chair. All the seats round the fire were filling up. Biten sat next to him.

‘Where have you been?’ he moaned. ‘Mum made me move all this stuff. It was boring.’

‘What’s going on, Biten?’

‘What have you been doing? The magic is gone. Do. You. Understand.’ He giggled, pleased with his wit.

‘Biten!’ and Kral grabbed hold of his brother.

‘All right, all right! Ow! It’s this big ceremony. All the fire and candles and stars and stuff is supposed to attract the magic. And then we all burn the bits of paper and it’s supposed to be to show the magic where to come.’

Kral thought about this. He guessed it made sense. Stars were definitely magical. He wasn’t sure about burning the prayers, because how could anyone understand them if they were all burnt. Still, he assumed someone knew what they were doing.

‘They found this picture and stuff in one of the old books, that said that’s stars and candles and burning the prayers should attract magic,’ said Biten, wriggling on his chair.

‘Oh’ He looked round absently. Someone had lit the bonfire. So no-one did know what they were doing, but they were desperate enough to try anything.

Mr Fonsell stood up and made a speech that seemed to be directed at magic. It was a bit like a prayer really. It was full of bits about how we needed magic and we promised to use it carefully and not tire it out or anything and well, um, you know, could you please come back?

Then everyone got up round the circle and walked forward solemnly and dropped paper in the fire. Then they all walked equally solemnly back and knelt down. Kral poked Biten to stop him giggling. Everyone said the prayer out loud.

Then there was a pause again, like the one there had been at midnight at the party. Like they were waiting for something. Not something. Magic. They were waiting, hoping, for magic.

Kral looked up at the sky. He wasn’t sure why he just thought it was the most likely place for magic to come from. There was nothing there. But when he looked down…

There was a sort of sparkling. In the air. Like glitter. He followed it with his eyes as the patch moved in front of him. It formed a shape, a shape made of sparkles. Kral looked round everyone else to see how they were reacting. None of them were looking at the sparkly patch. There was disappointment forming on their faces. He nudged Biten.

‘Hey, can you see anything? Biten looked all round. ’No, idiot, here. Right there…’

Biten squinted, closing one eye then the other. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Why, can you?’

Kral looked at the shape again. It was definitely there. A boy shape made of sparkles. But no-one else seemed to notice it. Then he remembered how Mum and Biten had walked straight past him on the stairs. And the glass that had been empty being full…

‘No. Just having you on. There’s nothing there.’ He ignored Biten’s squawk of protest and left. Everyone else was drifting away to, so he managed to avoid his Mum and dad in the crowd. He sneaked out to the chicken house, checking every so often to be sure the shape was following. It was. When he got there, he went round the back, on the side furthest from the house, so no-one could see him. He kicked some chicken feathers out the way and sat on the ground.

Opposite him, the sparkles did the same.

He waved a hand experimentally. The shape waved a vaguely hand shaped thing too.

Kral paused.

‘Um…’

…Um…

‘Who, um, what are you?

…What are you…

‘Are you…?’

…Are you…

Kral paused again. There was an echo to his words, but it didn’t sound right. He thought and then put his fingers in his ears.

‘Hello,’ he said.

…Hello…

He took his fingers out his ears. He’d heard the echo with them in his ears, so that meant it was going straight into his head. He could only think of one thing that the sparkly shape could be.

‘Are you magic?’ He tried not to sound too nervous.

…Magic…

He put a finger out towards the glittering figure. It did the same. Gradually their fingers moved closer and closer together, until….

They touched.

Zzing!!

He was lifted into the air like a feather. He could see the chicken house from above. Higher and he could see the house. Higher still, and he saw the whole farm. Higher and higher, until all the buildings were little dots. He hung there for one everlasting moment and then fell. Faster and faster. And faster. There was the chicken house… He just had time to notice himself still leaning on the back of it, before he thumped back into his own body.

‘Ow!’ He said it automatically and then realised that he wasn’t actually hurt at all.

Its all right. It wasn’t physically real. Just your mind.

Kral froze. The sparkly figure’s voice was in his head again. But this time it wasn’t just echoing his words. It was making its own.

‘Magic?’

Yes, that’s me. Actually Philomentosus Gurajouyband Rutherkigal Magic. You can call me Phil.

‘What?’ Kral was completely bewildered.

I’ll explain…

Ch3
Kral woke up the next morning with his head buzzing. He hadn’t got in until late because of all the things Phil had been telling him. He’d crept up the stairs despite Phil’s insistent voice in his head that he’d make sure Kral wasn’t found out.

Kral had wanted to tell everyone about Phil last night, but Phil himself said no, wait for the others. Kral didn’t really mind, he was quite happy to hang on to his secret a bit longer.

Magic…Not at all what the books said. It wasn’t one person, or one thing, since the books didn’t even realise magic was alive. Phil said magic was made of thousands and thousands of individual magic people, just like him. The magic people were alive, just not in the same way as human people. They didn’t need the same sort of food or water.

Kral had asked why the magic came and went. Phil said that it was because what they used for food, a kind of raw ingredient of magic, did the same thing. The magic people had to follow it because they needed it, so when the hulil (that’s what Phil called their food stuff) moved, they moved too. When Kral asked why the hulil moved, Phil just did a sort of mental shrug in his head. 

Phil also said that different magic people had different specialties and could do different sorts of magic. When Kral said, did that mean Phil’s specialty was filling empty glasses and making things invisible, Phil looked offended, and said no, that was the basics and everyone, even the magic children could do that. He said his specialty was fire but that he wasn’t bad at making trees and things grow either. Kral had nodded like he understood because he wanted Phil to stay and explain more.

Phil said that the reason Kral’s people had to have special people to use the magic was because not very many people had the right sort of mind to use magic. What Kral thought of as magic was sort of a by-product of the magic people eating hulil. A bit like going to the toilet, added Phil slyly. Like worms, thought Kral. They eat soil, and when it comes out the other end, its better than before. And then he had felt proud that he obviously had the right sort of mind to use magic.

More questions had formed in Kral’s head over the night.

‘Do all of our special people have a magic person in their head?’ he asked, praying that Phil hadn’t gone away.

I’m still here. And, no, they don’t all have a magic person in their head.

‘Then how do they…?’ started Kral.

They have lots of us in their head.

‘Why don’t I have lots of you in my head? Don’t you fit?’

Its nothing to do with fitting. They’re just not here. Not anywhere. I can’t find them.

Kral thought Phil sounded a bit panicky. ‘Where are they then?’ he enquired tactfully.

I don’t know! I’m the only one. The rest haven’t come. We left together, but I’m the only one that’s arrived.

This was all extremely complicated. Kral thought it through and decided that Phil probably wasn’t all that sure what was going on either.

‘Let’s go and tell Mum and Dad,’ he said. ‘They’ll know what to do. They can look it up in the book.’

No! You can’t!

‘Calm down, calm down,’ said Kral, hastily. ‘Look, they’ll be able to help. Come on, lets go and tell them.’ And he made to get up out of bed. He couldn’t move.

‘What are you doing? Stop it!’ He tried wriggling his arms and legs but he couldn’t move anything.

You can’t tell them anything!

‘Why not?’ Kral asked, still frantically trying to move.

They’ll kill me!

‘What!’ Kral was so surprised he stopped trying to get up. ‘No, they won’t! They’ll be happy to see you. Everyone’s really worried because the magic isn’t here. There’s all this stuff they need to do.’

Exactly. They’ll just want to use me for magic. To do the things that normally we all do. With lots of us. They’ll make me do it on my own. It’ll kill me!

‘Oh.’

Kral thought about it. ‘Look, can you let me go, please? I won’t go anywhere. Its just really difficult to concentrate on what you’re saying when I can’t move anything.’

He wriggled a finger tentatively. It moved. He stood up.

You said you wouldn’t go anywhere!

‘I’m just moving around. My legs have gone numb,’ explained Kral. ‘So basically, if we tell everyone else, they’ll overwork you doing all the things like fixing the chicken house and you’ll die?

Yes

‘So we can’t tell anyone. But we need the magic to sort things out. Everyone’s been waiting for ages. Why can’t you just tell the rest of the magic people to come?

I can’t talk to them. I’ve tried. I don’t know where they are. Actually, that’s sort of why I found you. I need someone to help me find them. To bring them back.

‘You want me to find them?’

Yes

‘Oh. Where did you last see them?’

We were just passing the fortress of Birughil. I was chasing a really fat hulil, and when I came back they were gone.

Phil sounded close to tears. Kral wondered what he would do if his everyone he knew had suddenly disappeared. He felt sorry for Phil.

‘I don’t know where that is.’

I do

‘So why do you need me?’

There was a pause. ‘Phil?’

I don’t want to go on my own.

Kral thought about it. His parents would probably be cross if he just wandered off. On the other hand, they were fairly cross that there wasn’t any magic. Kral made up his mind. He was tired of fixing the chicken house.

‘I’ll help you,’ he said.

Ch 4

Kral lay in bed trying hard to stay awake. Phil had wanted to set off immediately but Kral had refused. People would notice quickly if he just vanished, he said, whereas if they went at night they could get a few hours head start and hopefully no-one would catch up with them. Also, he needed to get some food and blankets and stuff. Unless Phil could just make them appear out of thin air, he had enquired hopefully.

Phil had replied that making things just appear, conjuring, he called it, was really difficult and you had to specialise in that to do it. Kral had sighed at that, thinking the ability to just make stuff appear would have made the whole trip a lot simpler.

So that was why they had been planning the trip for the last three days. And now it was finally the night they were going. Under his bed was a bag with all the food he’d carefully stolen and hoarded, one water bottle, two blankets, a jumper and…

The book. Even now, Kral still felt terrified when he thought of it. He’d taken the actual book. When he told Phil about the book, he’d said it might be useful, if it had lots of information about magic in it. And Kral had assumed Phil just wanted to look at it. But then Phil had asked how heavy it was and would he be able to carry it and Kral had realised he wanted to take it. So they’d taken it. Kral kept thinking of it as stealing, but reminded himself it was just borrowing; he had every intention of giving it back.

The book was never guarded; it was supposed to be available for everyone to look at. It stayed in the community hall normally in a small room just off to the side. Getting to it was easy but the problem had been leaving with it. Since the magic had failed to turn up people were poring over the book every minute of the day, looking for a clue to help. They were turned out and the hall locked at 9pm. Kral had spent most of the second day lurking around the hall, waiting for a time when there wasn’t anybody there, but the time never came.

So in the end, he’d sneaked out of the house just before his bedtime at half past nine and broken in. One of the windows near a tree had been left open. After that, it was easy. In fact the whole thing had been easy. No-one would know until the morning and by then he’d be gone.

Now three hours later, he was counting down the minutes until he left. He waited until one o’clock, to be sure his parents were asleep and then crept downstairs and into the kitchen. He left his pre-written note to his parents on the table (Dear Mum and Dad, Gone to find magic, Back soon, Kral), eased open the front door and left.

Kral walked through the village in bright moonlight, past the lightning struck trees making bizarre shadows on the ground and onto the village Road. It was the village Road not because it was the only road in the village but because it was the only road that went anywhere other than the village. Kral had always considered that this name made absolutely no sense.

The r(R)oad in fact led (unsurprisingly) to the nearest town, Derfing. Kral reckoned if he didn’t stop, he could get there for daybreak and from there he could go anywhere.

Not stopping proved a lot more difficult than it sounded. Within an hour, he was looking longingly at comfortable looking patches of grass, and by the end, uncomfortable looking rocks were attracting the same attention. It wasn’t exactly cold, but it wasn’t exactly warm, either. And there was definitely something lurking behind all the bushes. Just because it wasn’t there when he looked didn’t mean it might not be behind the next one. Kral would never admit to being scared of walking alone in the night, because he was much too old and besides, there was nothing to be scared of. Anyway he wasn’t scared. He was terrified.

If it wasn’t for Phil, Kral wouldn’t have given up and gone home in about half an hour. But Phil didn’t mind it being dark. He said that even when magic people were in someone else’s head, they saw the world differently. He said that it probably looked to him like broad daylight looked to Kral. So Phil was perfectly cheerful, even more so because they’d finally left. He’d been worrying non-stop for the last three days about where all the other magic people were. Then it had been Kral encouraging him. Now it was Phil encouraging Kral. To help pass the time, he explained more about magic. Kral wanted to know why Phil had picked him to go inside of.

Phil sounded rather embarrassed. I didn’t exactly choose, he said. It just sort of happened. I was probably panicking a bit because I couldn’t find anyone. And then there was this noise. It pulled. Like magnets or something, I don’t know. Anyway, I just followed this pull. It ended up at that big fire with all those people round it. So I stood in the middle right next to fire and yelled and waved but no-one took any notice.

He hesitated.

I got a bit annoyed then, actually. I went round everyone and stood right in front of them. I even tried kicking some of them, but it just went through. They were useless. And then I stood in front of you. And you saw me. So I didn’t exactly pick you, you see. It was more that you were the only option. Sorry.

Great, thought Kral  He was just the last resort. Well, nothing new there. Still, it looked like the fire with all the prayers and things had worked. It seemed to have brought Phil. Even if everyone else hadn’t been able to see him.

Actually, it’s probably just as well they couldn’t hear me, at least. I got more than a bit annoyed.

He paused.

I wasn’t very polite.

They walked in silence for a while after that.

‘So do you have to go to school to learn how to do making fire and stuff?’ asked Kral eventually.

No. It just happens. Remember I told you magic was a by-product of eating hulil? Every magic person produces a different sort of magic when they eat hulil. So the magic I make does fire. The magic my sister makes does moving things. She can move whole trees. They never stand up straight afterwards though.

‘Your sister? Do you have families, then?’ said Kral, entranced.

Of course. How else do you think we get born? Phil laughed. I’ve got one sister and three brothers. I’m the youngest. Lulan, that’s my sister, she’s the oldest. She’s 754.

‘Seven hundred and…how old are you?’

Nearly 324. It’s my birthday in two months.

‘How long do you live for?’

About two and a half thousand years. You look funny. What’s wrong?

‘Nothing. It’s just, you know that’s quite a long time.’ He swallowed. ‘I’m fourteen.’

There was a stunned silence from Phil.

Fourteen? But that’s like a baby. You know, still being carried and everything. Are you sure you’re fourteen?

‘Completely. We stop being babies after a couple of years. We die when we’re eighty or so.’

Eighty. That’s a really short life. Oh, sorry. I’m sure only living eigtyt years has um, its good points…Phil’s voice trailed off.

Still, he added brightly, that explains why you always seem to be vanishing. We thought you just moved. But you die. Well, that’s something cleared up at least.

Fortunately, before Kral could lose his temper as completely as he wanted to, they got to Derfing. The sun was almost rising as they wandered through the main street.

What now?

‘We need to find a lift. You said we need to get across the sea, right? So we’ll just hop on a cart or something and then get on a boat,’ said Kral, much more confidently than he felt.

OK

They wandered through some more of the street. There was a complete absence of carts. In fact, there was close to a complete absence of people. Exhausted, Kral sat down on a step. He was asleep within minutes.

Ch. 5

Kral! KRAL!

‘Unggh…’ Kral tried to roll over in bed to get more comfortable. He fell off the step.

‘ What…where…oh’ He stared. ‘Where did all these people come from?’

Don’t know. I was looking for some hulil, and when I came back it was like this.

There were people everywhere. The previously dark buildings down the side of the street had their doors open and bright stalls set up outside. There were horses and carts rattling up and down. There were children, running around and screaming. The sun was shining brightly. Or it probably was, even if you couldn’t see it through the clouds.
Shall we go and find a cart, then?

‘Right. Yeah. There seem to be quite a lot. I wonder which ones go to the sea.’

Kral got up and fought his way down the street a few metres. After a while, he gave up and went back the other way with the general flow of people. They ended up in a large square. There were carts all the way round the outside, some loaded up with apples or strange shaped parcels, others empty.

This looks good.

‘There isn’t some way you could find out magically which one to get one, is there? Kral asked, hoping Phil could point him in the right direction.

Maybe. But I think it would be quicker if you just asked.

After what felt like the hundredth no, the millionth blank stare and a reasonable number of unfriendly shoves, Kral refused to ask anyone else. All the drivers were scary looking men, either smoking something horrible or drinking something equally horrible. All of them had looked at him as if he was dirt on their shoes and if they had answered, it had generally been in the form of a grunt.

You can’t stop. We’ll never find one.

‘You ask,’ snarled Kral. His feet ached, and all the noise was giving him a headache.

Come on, just one more…Look, that one. The old man.

‘They’re all old men,’ said Kral, sulkily.

All right, the even older man. With a beard. He looks different.

When Kral dragged himself up to look, he had to agree. The old man did look nice. His cart, on the other hand, looked as though it was about to fall apart. It was held together with bits of old rope that were themselves nearly rotted through. The horse looked bored out of his mind. It flicked a disdainful eye towards Kral and went back to investigating the contents of the cart that had unwisely parked in front of it. Kral could see at least several dozen apples that had a mouthful taken out of them.

Go on…

‘Fine. But this is the last one. After this, its your turn to find someone.’ He walked over to the bored horse and the old man.

‘Excuse me…’

The old man turned any eye towards Kral. He didn’t say anything but the general expression on his face seemed to indicate that Kral could at least carry on talking.

‘Um, I just wanted to ask, um…Do you go to the sea?’ Kral blurted out.

‘Which one?’

‘Um, sorry?’

‘Which sea are we talking about?’ repeated the old man patiently.

Kral opened his mouth. And shut it. He had no idea there was more than one sea. And he definitely had no idea which one they wanted to go to.

‘Phil!’ he hissed.

Don’t know either. We want to go south.

Kral looked at the old man again, who had taken no notice of Kral apparently talking to nothing.

‘The South?’ he hazarded. This seemed to suffice.

‘Yep, I go there.’ And the old man seemed to lose all interest in the conversation, although he did stare intently at Kral’s left ear.

‘Um…’ said Kral again, trying not to turn to the left to see his own ear. ‘Could we, I mean, I come with you?’

The old man glanced at him for a second then carried on staring at Kral’s left ear. He screwed up his eyes and turned his head sideways, like he was trying to see something in front of a bright light. He muttered something, shook his head, and looked at Kral again. At his eyes, this time.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Hop on the back. We’re leaving now.’

An hour later, they had left the city and were passing in between fields. Kral was slumped in the back of the cart, resting on a curiously soft but heavy parcel. He was finding it hard to stay awake, after the night before. He couldn’t talk to Phil, in case the old man heard him talking to no-one again. Because, of course, he wouldn’t be able to see Phil. And the old man himself, didn’t seem to want to talk. Kral had ventured a few comments about the things in the back of the cart, and how far away was the sea, exactly, but he’d not got any answer. He dozed off.

Kral was woken by the absence of motion. The cart had stopped. The old man was nowhere to be seen. As Kral sat up hastily in a panic, he appeared from behind a tree.

‘Call of nature,’ he said. ‘Might as well have some food while we’re stopped.’

Kral scrambled off the cart. ‘I’ve got some food,’ he began.

‘No need,’ and the old man waved a hand at the basket in front of him. ‘Plenty in there.’

They ate quickly, and got back on the cart, Kral on the front seat, this time. The old man shook the reins and the horse set off.

‘See you’ve moved again, then,’ he said, conversationally.

‘Sorry?’ said Kral, startled.

‘Not talking to you, am I? Talking to him.’

‘Or her,’ he added. ‘Phil could be short for anything, I s’pose.’

Kral stared at him in consternation. Was the old man mad? Or did he really know about Phil? How could he?

‘I would say that we might’ve met before, only I don’t remember any Phils. ‘Course, there was a lot of you. How come there’s only one of you in him? Spreading yourselves out, are you?’ the old man inquired. He turned and looked at Kral properly. ‘Tell him to come out. I know he can. It’s all right. I just want to talk. Been a while, see.’

Kral felt a kind of fizzing in his whole body. He looked down at himself. Sparkles seemed to be coming out of him and forming a shape in between him and the old man. It was Phil.

‘Good. Mind, you better duck back quick if we meet anyone.’ The old man didn’t look at all surprised to see person shaped sparkles.

Hello. I’m Phil. How did you know?

‘Know how to see you, don’t I? Not done it for a good twenty years, though. That was when your lot moved off again. Off after the hulil. Never can see you inside someone except by the left ear.’

‘So that’s why you were staring at…’ started Kral.

The old man chuckled. ‘You must have though I was crazy. Some say I am but…Lokrin’s my name. Call me Loke.’

‘I’m Kral’

And I’m Phil.

‘Know that already, don’t I? What you two doing then? Going to the south. Thought you lot always stayed where the hulil were most.’ He peered at Phil. ‘You’re only a young ‘un, aren’t you? Where’s your family, then?’

I…don’t know. Phil paused.

Kral intervened, because he could tell Phil was getting upset. He told Loke everything. What had happened, where they were going. He even told him about taking the book. Phil was silent the whole way through. 

‘Got a few problems, you two have. Phil’s probably right to go though. Couldn’t do it on his own, and there’s no-one but you he could take. Even ones like me, who’ve done it before when the magic people were round our area, we’re too old now. They can’t get in our heads.’ Loke had believed everything Kral told him, asking few questions.

Kral’s heart sank and rose in equal degrees. He had been half hoping, half worrying that Loke would take over and sort things out. But if Phil couldn’t go in Loke’s head, then Kral was still needed.

‘Never heard of anything that stopped magic people moving. Must be some sort of trap. Deliberate or not, I don’t know.’ Loke was still thinking. ‘Can’t come with you two, either. Got things to do. Best I tell you what I know about magic on the way to the sea.’

And that turned out to be quite a lot. It took nearly a week to reach the sea, and in the time, Loke told them a hundred times more than was in the book. After the first hour Kral gave up trying to remember it all and scribbled in the back pages of the book.

It turned out that hulil were sort of the magical equivalent of birds. Except that Loke said they had less brain but were better for food as you could eat all of them. No bones, he said. They migrated like birds. When Kral asked what they migrated to, Loke started a long explanation about balance and things moving where there weren’t other things. Kral suspected Loke didn’t know why the hulil moved any more than Phil did.

Loke did explain more about why magic people went into normal people’s heads. Apparently magic was poisonous to magic people. They ate the hulil and produced all this magic but they couldn’t get rid of it. And if it built up it was really bad for them. They could use up a little bit of it but not enough. So they needed people to use all the magic to get rid of it for them. Getting rid of magic was a special skill, one that not everyone had. The magic people could go inside anyone but they couldn’t stay unless that person could use the magic. If they couldn’t they left and found someone else.

There was silence for a while after Loke said this. Both Phil and Kral were thinking.

‘Um…’ they both said together. And stopped.

‘What is it, then?’ demanded Loke.

‘Do you think it was Phil or me that made the glass fill up and Mum not see me?’ asked Kral.

‘Must have been Phil. You can’t do magic without realising it.’ Loke answered.

So I need to be in someone that can use the magic I make otherwise I, what, die? whispered Phil.

‘Yeah. Seen it happen, once. Not pretty.’

‘So if Phil’s in me, I have to use his magic?’ ventured Kral after another pause.

Loke just nodded. Kral took a deep breath, feeling sick. ‘Loke,’ he said, ‘what if I can’t?’

There was no answer. They went on in silence.



ALL SO FAR