Red Solstice (Alfheim Book 1)

  Red Solstice

  Copyright (c) 2014 Pauline Archell-Thompson

  All rights reserved.

  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.

  As it happens they seem to know which saves my breathe at least.

  “We saw him follow you”, she says.

  I let out a sigh of gratitude for the nosiness of the older generation. “Who is it”, I ask.

  Truthy, her eyes alight with excitement, blurts out “That Red “.

  They look at me expectantly as if I should know why I have attracted his attention, or rather the girls do but witchy has the look of one that knows something and is keeping quiet. I am completely puzzled by why he, of all people, would be following me, after all it is not as if he has shown any interest in me before, but maybe he is an opportunist and it isn't me he is after but any silly girl that takes a walk at night in a lonely place. That does not fit comfortably as I am used to doing as I please on my own turf, and the thought of people leaping out at me from the shadows is frightening to say the least.

  We are making our way back when we actually see Red. For some weird reason he has stripped to the waist in the door way of one of the blocks and he has a strange faraway look to him like a picture I once saw of an eagle eyeing its prey. His arms are accentuating this by being slightly spread, almost wing like. He is slim and I can see he has a design tattooed on his chest which is hard to make out in the failing light. We have to get passed him and the witch tried to drags us over the slipway at a trot but he reaches out to make a grab with his right hand whilst scooping his clothes up in his left, so he is low to the ground and able to make contact with my arm, as he straightens up. I feel the contact on my arm like a sudden flash of heat but then the others grab my other arm and suddenly it is like being between ice and fire as I am pulled away by them and we continue in a higgledy piggledy fashion running out into alleyways and around buildings. There is no sound of pursuit. Dodging around the next block and somehow having lost him, we slow our pace. It is only then that I acknowledge the fact that I, for some unfathomable reason have his jacket in my hand. I repeat this to myself a few times before I mention the fact to the others, “ But I have the jacket, his jacket”, finally surfaces.

  He had reached for me, or rather had he reached for my wrist or perhaps the bracelet that hung there. I felt the icy sensation along my spine again and shuddered. I suddenly do not feel so good.

  The bracelet is silver, triple links worked like one of those endless Celtic loops in an interlocked series, not large and probably not worth much. I have had offers from the traders from time to time but it has memories for me of my mother and was the one thing that she gave to me that day she took off into the unknown and never returned. There was another similar one for Benjamin but she seemed certain that John did need such a gift, so all he got was access to the family banking accounts. I say unknown as we really don't know where she set off to. Just my father had been missing for a month and she grew more and more restless before demanding John kept us safe in her absence. The only outstanding point my bracelet has is the large green stone set half way round the circle. It is much lighter than it looks which surprises people that have held it and it is a sort of oval shape. I did think that is might be a secret container at one point but no amount of poking and prodding have ever managed to open it and there are no apparent seams to justify my flight of fantasy. I was almost ten back then but it was a perfect fit. The really odd thing is and my encounter with Red has brought this forward as a thought worth interacting with, it still fits perfectly. I may not be a large girl but that damn bracelet should have been outgrown years back.

  I looked at the jacket, it felt alien, too masculine somehow and then I brought the leather up to my nose and sniffed deeply. The leather had a strange scent almost honey but mixed with something exotic that I cannot put a finger on. I feel suddenly hot again, like when mum would catch me out eating her fresh baked biscuits, but although I know my face is flushed there is a strangely warm sensation in the pit of my stomach which feels like a betrayal. My body is telling me he is hot but my mind chooses to reject the information. I repeat under my breath “not my type, not my type, not my type” using it like a mantra, my body running first hot then cold like I am running a fever. The witch eyes me speculatively. “It's a trap of sorts”, she says, her voice deep and throaty on the night air brings my focus back.

  “I ain't gonna become some creepy guys sex slave”, I tell myself. Trouble is part of me is not listening. I've worked the club house too long to get goofy over some hotty but ....

  The witch is talking again mostly to her daughter/sidekick, I should ask but maybe it would be better if I asked Truthy instead. I start to giggle and try and disguise it as a fit of hiccups. I feel drunk, or something like it, and the world is swimming about before my eyes. She turns back to me and says I had better stay at hers for the night and although I would prefer my own space that chill hits me again and I agree it would feel a whole lot safer.

  Fading into Thursday

  As we drew level with the Docks I went as to leave the jacket on the veranda and witchy shakes her head and says, ” I would like to look at that a little closer if you don't mind, but somewhere that I feel we will not be interrupted”.

  I nod my head as if I understood what she was on about. Tonight is definitely one for the diary if ever I decided to keep one.

  We pass through the square and off in the opposite direction to the Street. Abalone Road has a network of smaller roads off of it and we take a first left and then a right before turning into Meadow Lane. Her house is about two thirds down this lane and looks more normal than I had expected. We pass through a sturdy fresh painted gate and up some steps to a porch area. The windows have very clean floral curtains. It is so normal it makes me feel uneasy in a way like I am suddenly under dressed and too clumsy to be entering this neat little house. I think of home and the faded curtains. It must have been six months since we washed the windows an
d I cannot remember John ever painting the front gate. Guess I have not been much help to him either, although I do try with the cooking and the kitchen is as neat as a pin. Well, normally it is, if they have not been having a boys night in.

  An open fireplace holds the remains of a log fire which soon cheers up under the weight of another two logs. I am suddenly aware how cold I have been feeling, mostly due to that rain, now long gone. Truthy sighs and flops into an overstuffed armchair. I conscientiously take off my cape, the bells in my plait tinkling as I shake my head to clear it. I look at her expectantly and she grins back like a huge puppy. “Okay”, I say, “What is going on and are you going to introduce your friends?”

  She laughs, “Oops”, she says, “Please meet Mrs Hilda Claybourne and her niece , Aylsa”.

  Hilda shakes her head as if she is used to dealing with youngsters and her niece shyly puts out her hand to me, which I shake. “I do like your group,” she says in a voice that tells me she would like an invitation to meet my brother on a more one to one basis. I smile and say, “and I am Lily, in case you had not figured that out already”.

  “Yes,” says Hilda half way out of the living room and possibly heading for the kitchen. A brief pause and she adds “ I know your mother,” I am hopeful of a warm drink after the exertions of the last hour or so but then it dawns on me that she said know and not knew. I shake my head slightly puzzled but well, it is late and maybe I have heard that wrong. John always said that I hear what I want to and not what is being said so maybe this is one of those times after all the weirdness of this evening.