Chosen Ones (2 page)

“Look at that garden!” Scamp pressed a paw up against the cold pane and purred again.

“Wouldn’t you like to explore it! But you can’t, because you’re an inside cat. Aren’t you?” Scamp was not al owed outside the house in case he returned with fleas or freshly-kil ed birds or mice. Julia’s grandmother was horrified at the thought of any of these creatures, living or dead, getting inside her nice clean house. She also did not want Scamp mixing with any of the rough, common cats that lived outside. He might learn some bad habits.

Julia gave a wry smile. Poor Scamp, always trapped inside! Suddenly, something moved in the garden below. Some birds were fluttering around the fountain. Scamp instantly became alert, his muscles tensed, staring down into the garden at the birds.

Julia noticed his interest in what lay below. “You’d like to get out there and have an adventure, wouldn’t you? Wel , I’m sorry, but you aren’t al owed out. You’l just have to stay here.”

Julia dumped the old cat on her bed and watched him curl up into a bal and fal asleep.

Making sure that Scamp did not fol ow her, she slid her feet into her blue slippers and descended the wooden staircase leading into the paneled hal . She wasn’t tired—she was going to explore.

The house was stil and quiet, apart from the slow ticking of an old grandfather clock. It was the first time that Julia had ever been alone in the old house. She began to investigate, peeping into rooms that she was sure she was not meant to enter.

She peeked into her grandfather’s study. What a mess! Papers were lying al over the floor and books were stacked high on his desk. There seemed to be a model of a sailing ship on every shelf in the room.

She shut the door quietly behind her and moved on to the drawing room. After half an hour she had explored every room in the house. What now? Stil wide awake, she loathed the idea of returning to the stuffy spare room.

She was back in the hal . She ran her fingers along its ancient wooden panels. To her left was the front door leading towards the col ege. She had come through that door earlier when she had arrived.

But there was another door to her right, half-hidden by a heavy green curtain. She walked towards it and pushed the curtain aside. Did it lead down to a cel ar? Or out onto the street? Making sure that Scamp was nowhere close, Julia slowly unlocked the door and began to open it. The heavy oak door creaked and groaned with the complaints of long disuse, and Julia froze. What if someone heard and came to investigate? Julia held her breath for a long moment, but there was only silence.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the door completely to reveal a wal ed garden. It must be the same garden that she could see from her bedroom.

Juli a hesitated. Should she go in? She looked around quickly. Nobody was there! She entered the garden, closing the door as softly as she could behind her.

It was a glorious evening in the month of May.

Silver light flashed off the streams of water from the fountain in its center. The soft burbling of the fountain echoed off the wal s, enfolding the garden in its gentle music. At the side of the fountain was a smal pond fed by its own stream of water. The wal s were covered by trees and climbing plants. Apple trees, wisteria, and magnolia were al in bloom, the night air heavy with their fragrance. It was the most beautiful garden Julia had ever seen.

And then she heard a voice whisper her name, softly and slowly. A shiver shot down Julia’s spine as she whipped around, looking for the source of the voice, but there was no one there. “Stop being stupid,” she told herself, and gave a determined shake of her head before hurrying back inside the house. It must have been the wind, or birds, or someone talking in the street beyond the garden wal s.

Julia closed the door softly behind her and returned to her room upstairs. Scamp was stil curled up on the bed, and he stretched and flexed his claws as she turned back the covers and climbed in. It was an odd garden, she thought. Something wasn’t right there. And yet it looked so beautiful outside her window now, glowing softly. Silvery trees, silvery paths, silvery water. The fountain and pool were shimmering in an eerie yet beautiful light. There was something odd about it, she thought to herself. But she couldn’t quite work out what it was.

Julia snuggled down beneath the covers, resolving to visit the garden again the next day. It was just as she final y fel asleep that she realized what was so strange about the garden. There had not been any moon that night.

She woke the next morning to a pressure on her shoulder and opened her eyes to see Scamp kneading his paws against her. Julia grinned sleepily and tickled his ears. The tabby leapt off the bed and meowed at the door.

“Ready for breakfast?” Julia asked her insistent companion. “I wouldn’t mind a bit myself.” Her grandmother was already at the table downstairs, sipping a cup of tea as she perused the morning mail. She smiled as Julia appeared and gestured at the seat next to her. “Good morning, my dear,” she murmured. “And where is that rascal brother of yours this morning?”

Her question was answered by a grunt. Peter loped into the room, stil in yesterday’s clothes, and plunked himself into a seat. It was, Julia decided, going to be a very long holiday.

Breakfast was a tense affair. The children’s grandmother tried to get Peter and Julia to talk about their schools and their hobbies but, exhausting her arsenal of questions, she left the table and retreated into her quiet world of books and crochet. Peter asked permission to leave the house and explore Oxford, and Julia, delighted to be left in peace, took a book out to the garden that she had already begun to consider hers.

T
he days fel into an easy routine. Peter would wake late in the mornings and head out to town in time for lunch with the professor. They spent their afternoons discussing

Nelson’s

naval

tactics

and

the

development of gunpowder—“Boys’ talk,” according to Julia. She spent her time in the garden, reading or drawing or lying on her back doing absolutely nothing at al .

It was in such a mood one evening that she saw the glowing begin. She had, truth be told, almost entirely forgotten the silvery light that first evening in the garden, but now, watching the sun set over the garden wal s, the strangeness of it could not be missed. There was a shimmer in the breeze and a sound like bel s, but perhaps it was only in her mind.

Julia sat up and looked around and gasped.

Every tree, every rock, every blade of grass seemed encased in a silver light al its own. The glow was stronger than it had been that other night, Julia thought—everything was sharper, clearer. She stood and moved around the garden, watching, drinking in the splendid light. She came to the edge of the pond and stopped, feeling a pul she could not quite define. Something was propel ing her forward

—something strong. Something powerful.

Another ringing—louder this time—brought her sharply out of the moment. Grandmother’s dinner bel summoned her back to reality, and she ran back to the house.

Dinners at the old house were of a formal nature, hearkening back to the days of the professor’s youth.

Children were not expected to be ‘seen and not heard’—not exactly—but the food was rich and the courses were numerous, and the conversation was general y limited to the weather and col ege affairs.

The professor was, this particular evening, discussing his views on the leaking library roof, and aside from Peter’s muttered instructions to “blow the whole thing sky-high,” it was understood that the children would be al but silent.

Which is why it was so unusual for Julia to break into the conversation. Between the soup and the main course she could no longer contain her curiosity, and asked: “Grandmother, is there any particular reason why the garden outside should glow at night?”

Her grandmother looked at her in astonishment, a fork ful of roast beef halfway to her mouth.

“Glow? My dear, your eyes must have been playing tricks on you. Maybe you’re feverish!

Sometimes people see things when they have a fever.” She hurriedly placed a hand on Julia’s forehead. “No, no sign of a fever. Dear?” She looked over at her husband. “Is anything wrong with the garden?”

“What’s this, my dear?”

The professor was deeply engrossed in his mashed potatoes.

“Julia was wondering why our garden glows at night, dear.”

“I have no idea. Does it glow at night? I’d never noticed that. Aha!” He stabbed triumphantly at a pea that had been eluding him.

Julia was not entirely satisfied by her grandfather’s reply. “Then could you tel me something about the garden? I mean, how long has it been here?”

“Wel , it’s al lost in the mists of history, my dear.

The garden is one of the oldest parts of Oxford. It was built centuries ago by a—a monk, I believe. In fact, Julia,”—the professor paused to swal ow his peas—“there’s an old story about that monk. They say he was murdered in that garden, and he’l never be able to leave it.”

Julia’s eyes opened very, very wide.

“You mean the garden is haunted?”

Peter guffawed into his water glass. His grandmother intervened quickly.

“Now, dear, we don’t want the children getting too excited! I don’t want them lying awake at night looking for some ghostly figure in the garden, or worrying that something wil creep in through the bedroom window!”

“Of course, of course. You are quite right. Julia, it’s just a story. No need to worry! I’ve never seen any such monk! And—ahem!—neither has anyone else.” And with another
ahem!,
the professor returned to his potatoes.

Julia was sent off to bed early that night. Her grandmother, stil not convinced that she wasn’t feverish, tucked her in as if she were stil a little girl, fluffing her pil ows and listening to her prayers. She kissed her forehead and turned out the light, leaving Julia alone with her thoughts. These thoughts primarily concerned Peter, who was stil awake playing with his chemistry set. He was experimenting with gunpowder as usual—the boy was positively obsessed with blowing things up. But Peter was forgotten as her mind once again turned to the garden.

Even from this distance she could almost sense the silver glow. She lay awake, wondering, until the house was dark and silent but for the customary creaks of age. And then she went once more down the stairs and through the creaking door to her garden.

Again she found herself drawn to the pool, guided by the same mysterious force she had felt earlier that evening. She knelt on the grass beside the water, bathed in a ghostly glow, not noticing how the mist from the fountain left a silver stain on her arm. She peered down into it, watching her own reflection. It felt like a gateway. It felt like a beginning.

From deep within the shadows of the trees, a hooded figure watched her. Two children were needed to fulfil the prophecy—when would the other appear?

Peter, reading in bed as usual, heard the hinges wheezing downstairs—Julia had returned from her midnight prowl, he supposed. He closed his Sherlock Holmes novel and laid it on the nightstand.

The master detective was once again on the brink of triumph, but triumph would have to wait until tomorrow. Yawning, he got out of bed to close the window. He looked down at the garden below, feeling a bit entranced in a way that was not remotely scientific. So entranced, in fact, that he didn’t hear his sister behind him until she spoke.

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

He turned and looked at her without recognition until she smiled. He grinned too—the first Julia had seen him real y smile in some time. “You’ve got silver stuff al over you,” he pointed out.

“From the fountain,” Julia said. She moved over to the window. “You might almost imagine fairies living down there. It feels enchanted, doesn’t it?”

“A bit,” he agreed, and then caught himself.

Enchantment was for girls and children. He gave a harsh laugh. “You’ve been reading too much
Alice in
Wonderland,
Julia,” he said. “Al that nonsense about pretend worlds. A garden is just a garden.

Why do you have to read books that imagine some kind of other world? There’s more than enough to explore in this one!”

Julia glared at her brother. “But Peter, what if we were meant to dream dreams? Suppose we had been given the power to dream of other worlds so we could see our own world in a different way?”

“Don’t be sil y, Julia. We can enjoy gardens without having to believe that fairies live under the trees. Trees are trees, and stars are stars. They’re al made up of atoms. So are we, in fact. We’re nothing but lots and lots of atoms, and that’s al there is to it. There’s no enchantment.”

Julia flopped on the bed, already frustrated with the familiar conversation. Peter the realist, Peter the scientist, had absolutely
no
imagination. “Surely there’s more to it than that, Peter? What if this world is only one of many? You know, like rooms in a building. We’re so used to living in only one of them that we don’t realize there are others. Better ones, maybe.”

Peter yawned, slowly and deliberately. “Al right, Julia. Don’t work yourself into a fit. I’m sure you’l understand better when you’re older, and you won’t see fairies or elves or gardens that glow at night.”