A Change In The Weather

Chapter 42: The carpet

26 February, 2008 – 2:33 pm

Outside, Hillary unfurled the carpet hurriedly in one swift move.

It billowed and flapped to the snowy ground in a cloud of its own dust before becoming totally still. Scarlet stared at the sorry specimen for a moment - it looked incredibly old with its threadbare weave and ragged frayed edges. It was worn and stained, but to Scarlet the carpet’s patterns were a work of art.

She looked away from it momentarily just in time to see Hillary take something from his trouser pocket, but because of its small size she couldn’t be sure what it was.

‘Foak. Shwai, shwai…’ muttered Hillary softly, keeping the object clenched tightly in his fist.

Scarlet smiled in mild puzzlement at the strange foreign-sounding words. They most definitely were not English, more like the language that he spoke to the Djinn in.

As she watched him, she heard a collective gasp from Thomas and Tobias and she turned around quickly just in time to see the carpet rise gracefully into the air - completely by itself. She stared in disbelief at it floated there just inches from the ground. She and Thomas bent down to look underneath, but it seemed that there was nothing holding it up but the air itself. They both smiled at one another.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ she asked, standing back up.

Hillary smiled. ‘I don’t know. What do you think it is?’ he replied.

‘You know very well Hillary…’ she said, frowning at him.

Wendle chuckled and padded onto the middle of the carpet and curled his newly mended tail around himself and tried to go to sleep. ‘I don’t know about you lot,’ muttered Wendle, ‘but it’s bloody cold… hurry up!’

Scarlet noticed that curiously the carpet didn’t seem to lower itself under his weight at all.

Hillary indicated towards the middle of the carpet.

‘Come now people, we don’t have much time. Please sit down. I find that sitting cross-legged is the best position for these things.’ He paused and then looked at everyone in turn with a broad grin almost as if he was enjoying himself. ‘It’s all so very Persian don’t you think?’

Thomas and Tobias stepped on cautiously, and sat down as Hillary directed. Scarlet gingerly raised a foot and tried the carpet out. It was soft, but took her weight at the same time, and she shuffled in between Thomas and Tobias.

‘Foak! Hunak! Roah!’ Hillary commanded, indicating a direction with his arms.

‘Pardon?’ said Scarlet.

‘What? Oh, they’re Arabic. You see, the carpet doesn’t understand English I’m afraid…’ replied Hillary with a wry smile.

Tobias raised an eyebrow and chewed on the end of his pipe nervously. Scarlet nodded. She understood. It made perfect sense of sorts. The carpet was from Arabia after all.

Thomas sat himself down as soon as the carpet began to move, but Scarlet was too mesmerized by the prospect of taking a ride on a magic carpet that she didn’t seem to be in the slightest bit bothered by the possibility of actually falling off one. Instead, she stood where she was and refused to budge, occasionally tinkering with her ring, just in case she might have need of it.

As the carpet ascended into the air, affording a panoramic view of the Vale, it soon became apparent that the snowstorm was centered firmly on Blakeby – Winterton Hall in particular - but expanding outward by the second. Scarlet couldn’t quite believe her eyes. Below her, even though it was meant to be spring, the entire country was being blanketed in deep snow. The bitter wind whipped the snow into a fury, like an icy sand blast that lashed everyone without mercy. Scarlet pulled her coat tighter and squinted through the blizzard.

She watched Hillary closely as the carpet rose - from what she could see he seemed to be controlling it by using the object that he held tightly in his hand. She was sure of it. Every time the carpet made even a slight alteration in its flight she looked up to see him waving his hand in the very same direction. She wanted to know more about whatever it was he was holding, but decided now probably wasn’t the right time.

The carpet flew low over the rooftop of Ketton church in an ascending arc and over its steeple until - at last - they were soon engulfed in a thick layer of cloud. Tobias tried to gaze down through it and then, when he finally realised they were at least a thousand feet in the air. He crawled back slowly towards the centre of the carpet, closed his eyes and sat there in total silence shaking his head.

‘If we can’t run away then where are we going?’ Thomas asked, fighting to be heard above the roaring sound of the wind. ‘It doesn’t make sense…’

Hillary pointed to a vast flock of birds heading away from the storm. It seemed to contain hundreds of different species. Geese, Blackbirds, Starlings, even birds of prey were flying together. It was a most unusual sight.

‘We’re going where they’re going.’ said Hillary.

Thomas stared back at the swarm of birds. There were thousands, maybe even a million birds flying in unison with one over-riding purpose. He looked back to the earth, and noticed hundreds of red and white lines of traffic by now thoroughly stranded in the ever-growing snowdrifts below.

‘Where are they going?’

‘South. They’re heading away. They know what’s coming you see. Which is more than can be said for the pitiful people below…’

And then from above, a massive airliner heaved into view, landing gear down, no doubt preparing for an emergency landing. As quickly as it appeared, it disappeared from view into the blizzardly mist, leaving behind a trail of vortices in its wake.

So much for technology, he thought.

Looking behind, the storm-front was now much bigger than before, the eye was definitely centred around Winterton. She squinted, trying to get a clear view of it through the snow, and then she gasped as she saw it.

A huge crack, or split spreading out from the estate, was expanding like a three dimensional splinter, creating other fractures running along the path of least resistance.
Scarlet frowned and looked away in dismay. To her it looked like a thorn stuck in the side of the world; an ugly flower sprouting from the death of magic.

And there it was finally.

Scarlet noticed that Hillary had put something shiny down on the carpet, before standing up to talk to Tobias. This was her chance then. She edged over from where she was sitting and waited until he was looking away and quickly grabbed the instrument and sat back where she was before.

When she was sure that no one was looking, she opened her hands and looked at the artifact: It was like an old Victorian pocket watch, except that the face was engraved with markings similar to the ones on the wooden box she found in the attic. It was a compass, pointing in the same direction that the carpet was traveling.

Curious, she turned it around 180 degrees, and sure enough the hand swung round to where it was pointing before, retaining its position. She played with it a few times, holding it in different positions, before holding it up to her ear to see if she could listen to it working.

And then a hand quickly snatched it away from her.

‘I’ll take that, thank you very much…’ said Hillary, with a voice that sounded urgent and serious.

She looked up to see an expression of relief on his face.

‘What is it?’ she said almost whispering.

Hillary held it up to his ear and then tapped it lightly before answering.

He sighed. ‘If you’d dropped it and it had sunk to the bottom of the sea, we’d have been lost. We’d have froze to death.’

‘Where are we going Hillary?’

‘We’re going to Talistay. But the way is getting hard to see…’

She looked over the edge of the carpet. They were above sea now flying fast, passing several flocks of birds that wheeled and dispersed as the carpet came thundering past.

‘But I wouldn’t have let it fall into the sea…’ she said, craning her neck to see if there was any land in the distance.

And then she slipped.

One moment she was on the carpet, and the next – unimaginably - she found herself falling through the air, tumbling over and over, flailing her arms around helplessly. The deafening roar of the wind howled around her and her heart leapt as she noticed that the carpet – already a spec in the sky above her - was getting smaller and smaller by the second. In desperation she screamed and screamed until all the air was gone in her lungs and she fought for breath.

And then she remembered the ring, and tried to desperately wind it with her numb frost-bitten fingers.

The sea was getting uncomfortably close, but at last she felt her whole body stop accelerating and slow down and eventually she hung in the air waiting, relieved that she wasn’t actually going to die a horrible death in the freezing ocean below.

She looked around in desperation, trying to spot the carpet, but the cloud cover was worsening, and she couldn’t be sure if she’d seen anything or not. She looked at the ring on her finger. It had been about a minute so far and it showed no sign of winding down, but she had no idea how long she’d got left. She guessed that only a matter of seconds remained.

She tried to fight back the feeling of nausea. She looked down at the ocean. It wasn’t inviting and it wasn’t that far away.

And then, sure enough, she saw the carpet in the distance heading towards her below. But as it neared she felt her weightlessness start to waver, and she began to fall into the cold black sea below.

She screwed her eyes up tightly, expecting the instant cold of the sea to engulf her completely.

But she never felt it.

Instead, when she opened her eyes, she saw the faces of Thomas and Tobias staring back at her, smiling. She’d landed in the centre of the carpet so softly that she’d been unaware of herself actually hitting it.

Eventually, she sat up, and hugged Thomas.

‘Please don’t do that ever again,’ he whispered to her, wiping the tears from his eyes.

Hillary turned back briefly, from piloting the carpet. ‘All in one piece?’ he said, with a wink.

‘No.’ she said, with a stubborn expression.

* * * *

The early morning wore on.

Scarlet was feeling sleepy. They’d been traveling for about six hours on a non-stop flight from England. As such she had no idea where they were or even how fast they were going as she had no point of reference except for the dark mass of the sea below. She’d noticed the change of weather the further south they’d traveled. It was becoming warmer and warmer - a welcome change from the bleak cold of Blakeby - and she at least felt comfortable enough to get some rest.

Hillary flipped open the compass and fiddled with something. As soon as he’d finished, he snapped the lid shut again and slid it back into his pocket. Scarlet frowned and turned back to look ahead into the distance with heavy sleepy eyes.

There, in the distance, across the sea something shimmered in the air - like a veil being parted. Slowly and surely, a vast blurry shape came sharply into view. It soon became apparent that this was an island, complete with its own mountains, beaches, forests and rivers…

‘Where the hell did that come from?’ said Tobias, scratching his head. ‘I could’ve swore it wasn’t there before…’

Instead, Hillary smiled and knelt down to speak some more orders to the carpet.

‘Lef Yasaar. Tahat. Besoraa…’

And instantly, the carpet banked left and started descending, accelerating downwards towards the mysterious island…

Posted in A Change In The Weather |