The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

for what it is—the scraping of the handle on the outside door.
    Someone is trying to get in.
    Slowly and without making a noise, Simon folds back the blanket and eases aside the curtain that shields his bed from the room where his parents sleep. Again it takes a while for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. But eventually he sees the shapes his mother and father make in their bed, along with the darker shadows of the herb pots and harvesting tools. In all that time, the silence remains steady and he is just wondering if in fact he has dreamt it all when the door is rattled again, this time more firmly.
    Without pausing to think, Simon springs to his feet and heads towards his parents’ bed. He is about to draw breath to call out to them, warn them that someone is trying to get in, perhaps to rob them, when he is seized from behind and pulled backwards against the wall.
    Opening his mouth to cry out, he finds a calloused hand is placed over his lips and one word is whispered close to his ear.
    “Hush.”
    The voice is his father’s. Simon can smell stale beer on his breath, mixed with the familiar scent of corn. At the same time, his mother’s words— be strong —drift through his head before vanishing.
    Still imprisoned in his father’s grip, he glances at the bed again and understands that the shapes there are not his parents at all, but simply hay, pummelled together to look like a man and woman sleeping.
    Simon nods, but doesn’t fully know which instruction he is responding to. At once, his father lets him go, but one hand remains on his shoulder, holding him still.
    The door is pushed once more and the three of them glance towards it. There’s a terrible silence. In that silence, his mother’s fingers touch his brow and he senses the sudden pulse of energy between them.
    When they come, she says, you must…
    But already it’s too late. The door is slammed open, the lock smashed, and the night air comes flooding in. It brings—in the glimpse Simon has of their shadowed outlines—four soldiers and one tall man. A civilian. He doesn’t recognise him. The stranger is holding something long and glittering in his right hand.
    “Get them,” he orders.
    The first soldier strides towards the bed, carrying a flaming torch to light his way, and the second following close behind. A few moments’ confusion and then the discovery is made.
    “They’re not here, sir.”
    In the pause between the tall man’s command and the soldier’s response, Simon’s parents get to their feet as quietly as cats and slip him behind them. Something bright is hovering around them and Simon can hear the hum of concentration in his mother’s thoughts. He doesn’t understand why nobody hears or sees them, except that everyone else is looking at the empty bed.
    They manage four or five sideways steps to freedom before the stranger turns around. The moon picks up the frown he wears. He raises his cane—for such it is—and the brightness surrounding Simon’s parents explodes.
    His mother gasps and jerks upwards as if someone has punched her, but she doesn’t fall. One of the soldiers at the door curses, and Simon hears the muttered cry of ‘witchcraft’. By the light of the flaming torch the soldier carries, he watches him blink and stare as if he has only just seen them. Though he still can’t understand how that can be true.
    Only two paces and the man the soldier called ‘sir’ is standing in front of his mother. With his cane, he lifts her chin and laughs softly.
    “Witchcraft indeed,” he whispers. “Or so my sources tell me.”
    Simon’s father steps forward into the light. “Let her go, sir. Please.”
    The stranger doesn’t take his eyes from Simon’s mother.
    “So then, this is your husband, is it?” he says. “I wonder how much he knows, or doesn’t know, about your life. I wonder, should I ask him?”
    “My husband knows only what is right for him to know.” Simon’s mother speaks at last, and he senses how hard it is for her to form the words with the cane pressed so closely to her throat. “You have no need to question him. He can tell you nothing.”
    “Really? What about your son? What about if I question him? ”
    As his mother shakes her head and gives no answer, Simon realises for the first time that the stranger cannot see him. Glancing down, he notices that the bright light that had surrounded them earlier and that he thought had been destroyed is still flickering around his body.