Red Solstice (Alfheim Book 1)

Acknowledgements

To Grace for prodding me every time I faltered.    To David for believing that I could.  And to Rayn and Bobo for enduring my lack of attention and late meals.  To Keith Duke for reviving some music ideas and being an unconscious signpost to others.

Special thanks to Grace L.A. Archell-Thompson for her cover design.

RED SOLSTICE

CHAPTER 1            
 
            
 
Enigma Wednesday

CHAPTER 2                            Fading into Thursday

CHAPTER 3                            Friday Sixteenth

CHAPTER 4                            Dreaming Saturday Seventeenth

CHAPTER 5                            Sunday Eighteenth

CHAPTER 6                            Monday Nineteenth

CHAPTER 7                            Walking the Spiral

CHAPTER 8                            Tuesday Twentieth

CHAPTER 9                            Solstice

CHAPTER 10              Aftermath and Leave Taking

CHAPTER 11              Weddings and Celebrations

CHAPTER 12              Paying a visit

CHAPTER 13              Lord Caranthir's Keep

CHAPTER 14              Taking Leave Again

CHAPTER 15              The Hunter Returns

CHAPTER 16              Autumn Equinox

CHAPTER 17              Two High Lords Visit

CHAPTER 18              A History Lesson and a Revelation

CHAPTER 19              Supplicant

Red Solstice

Enigma Wednesday

I am 18, the possibly orphaned daughter of what once was a happy family group.  My elder brother is in charge of us now.  He, myself and my younger brother live in a sprawling shanty style house set back into what I call the wilderness.  Many of our people moved away when the economy went pear shaped so that quite a few of the older houses have crumbled from neglect.  Ours has wooden planks where holes appeared so it is a mismatch of bricks and wood held together by sticky tape.  That last being my younger brothers humour rather than mine.  It once stood proudly against park and woodland which has encroached in an attempt to swallow it whole.  Luckily for us this has not totally occurred but created a hideout of sorts against the eyes of the world.  The Street runs straight for about a mile with more ramshackled homes springing out of the undergrowth and a few others standing imposing and well kept.  It ends at the town square where some traders make a living of sorts from our needs, and we also get the travelling markets coming  through  with produce from the cities and farm lands out beyond the town.  Don't get me wrong it is not really that bad here.  We actually have a  decent school system and a library as well as a thriving brewing industry, so  it is not so bad but at times rather dull.

John, my elder brother,  is a bit of the dark brooding type that you get in a Jane Austin novel.  I swear he should have been born to the nobility from the way he strikes a pose.  I would not say it to his face though.  He lives for music but lacks the sheer genius of Ben.  What he has got is stage presence and a wicked way with an electric guitar.  He is very responsible and takes most things seriously.  On the other hand he can surprise me even now with some of his ideas.

Benjamin favours me but his hair is more golden than my red.  We are closer in age and have been known to get ourselves into all sorts of scrapes, dragging poor old Truthy along with us.  He is a little shy around people until he is certain of them.  His skills with musical instruments are phenomenal.  My mother used to say that he even played his rattle in tune as a baby. 

I sing with my brothers band.  They are a sort of blues punk retro style group of mostly young musicians, apart from Harve the drummer who claims to be someone called Methuselah, when he has had a few beers, and we have a regular three nights residency at the local club house, known as  “The Docks”.

When I am not writing lyrics and hanging upside down, which I do to help with ideas, I am still attending college but soon to graduate.

To be honest I am not really certain who I am but I am certain what I am not. Like I spend most of the time in a male dominated group and they tend to treat me as one of them.  I do not mix with the wide eyed girlies that hang around the band and make shrill noises of appreciation or bat sheep eyes at my big headed brother.   In fact I have only one female friend if you can call Truthy that.  It is not her real name but one she has earned because she lives on a different planet to most of us and is obsessed with fantasies.  It makes for interesting listening even if it edges on the screw ball.  Also I do not tend to wear dresses, preferring jeans or when the weather turns to Summer stickiness, long baggy shorts.  My T shirts are a different matter and I have a collection of which I am very proud.  Some are old enough to classify as antiques and they celebrate long gone bands and singers both male and female.  One of the regular traders keeps an eye out for them on his travels because he knows I will always buy.  I also like to add my own touch to some of them with bits of lace and glittery fabric sewn on rather like a quilted collage of art and artifice.  No, I am not one of the girlies and I wear my red hair short apart from the one narrow plait at the back which I interweave with whatever takes my fancy, today's being small bells  and a tiny jewelled butterfly.

We do the Wednesday night  middle set.  From five to seven they have amateur contestants on display and then we take over until nine thirty, after which the amateurs who have been short-listed come back on and the winner gets free tickets or something similar, to the weekend gigs.  So I finish on a real belter of “Mustang Sally” just to make sure the crowd is really revved up.  There is a strange young man out in the crowd.  Strange because no one seems to know him and also because he has long hair in a wave like fringe at the front dyed a deep ruby red, in contrast to short white hair at the back.  It matches his jacket and also the T shirt he seems to perpetually wear underneath it.  I am not saying that it is dirty but rather he must have a lot of them in that colour, because it always looks clean, and I have not noticed anyone backing away from him so he can't smell that bad.  The band has nicknamed him Red.  I wouldn't say he is one of our groupies, either, although we do have a few male ones, and he does not seem to be there on every occasion, just enough for us to create a jokey history for him.  I have seen him outside the college but again never on the inside and not regularly enough to say he goes there but maybe he is meeting a friend , who knows.  He stands in the shade so I could not swear to it but one night I thought his eyes shone as red as that hair.  Kept that one to myself in case my brother thought I had been taking drugs.  He has a thing about my younger brother and I going off the rails.

Anyway it is Wednesday night and still light outside as we approach the Summer Solstice.    My mind is spinning lyrics still and the thought of sitting at the bar for the talent finale is definitely not that appealing.  I decide to go walk about.  I have a cape with me against the rain so I grab that and head off out.  The Docks has a long veranda of wood which is painted a pale blue although this is now  a little worn in places.  I pause here and look out just breathing in the night smells.  The road runs down hill from here straight ahead into a real run down area that we tend to avoid, probably because there is nothing of any interest apart from the river and that is too brackish to fish in.  The Docks is at a T junction with the market square to the right of it .  The Street intersects to the left.  There are other roads off the right hand of the square, but tonight I feel like being an explorer.  So, I head off down the slope.

It is raining fitfully.  I like words, the sound of them mostly; how they roll of the tongue; like poetry.  Yeah obviously words are part of poetry but its more than that, deeper in some way, so they take on a life of their own that is more than their meaning and to be honest you have to experience fitful rain to really understand the word.  Raining as if someone was throwing an on off switch out of tempo and the fineness of the rain seeping into unguarded nooks and crannies and sifting down my back just enough to make me uncomfortable.  I draw my rain cloak closer to me and grin to myself.  I should have worn a hat.  Just like me to be half ready.

I walk out along the pavement next to the road which becomes a river and as it deepens the landscape is full of run down warehouses and small block like buildings that seem to stretch on for ever. Someone once told me it was a slipway and that boats used to be pushed down it to get out into the river bit. I want to see what is at the end of this apocalyptic scape and now in some places have to dodge my steps around broken slabs and fallen masonry.  My boots crunch on broken glass and small pieces of fractured mortar.  The river widens until I can see it is now part of an estuary and that there is life out there in the distance.  A boat is slowly crossing the water so far out I can only guess on the size of it.  I am standing there pondering why we do not use this place ourselves to transport the local brew to far flung places when I become aware of a slight scuffling sound behind me.  A shudder runs the length of my back bone and suddenly I feel very vulnerable. I take a deep breathe and turn but there is no one visible, or maybe a shadow had moved in a doorway on the other side of the slipway.  It takes an effort not to start off at a run as I turn back.  Trying to act casual whilst peering out of the corner of my eyes makes me feel so ridiculous that I give an involuntary giggle.  The tension in me eases slightly but than I hear the sound of a footstep on the rubble to my left, yet again.  I speed up, my boots beating a staccato on the pavement, and praying I do not need to break into a sprint.  Then just ahead I hear voices coming in my direction and into view come three people I recognise.  The eldest , who we call the witch with her possible daughter or sidekick and my best friend Truthy.

There are lots of things I don't know and its often easier to give people names rather than find out their real ones, like who has the time at my age to run around socialising with everyone, and anyway I don't mix too well with oldies so I call her the witch because she looks like she might be, and yes I could ask but at the moment I am too delighted to see them to start off with the niceties.  Anyway I can hardly say “How do you do, its a pleasure to meet you Mrs …(possibly witch person) and by the way I think I am being followed.”  It rather takes from the drama of the whole thing.